Atheists are no better than religious nuts

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Ritual is peripheral ( not the central message of religion) to religion.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denotation
Ritual is denotative not connotative. * It is a signifier rather than a signified.
I am an agnostic atheist. So according to you,if I kneel under a cross I instantly become a Christian?
* If like ISIS one thinks that ritual is connotative, one is committing idolatry. In other words if a Christian worships a cross and not what it signifies, they are committing idolatry.
Unfortunately, many with poor philosophical thinking skills confuse denotation with connotation. That is why fundamentalists ( Christian, Muslim, Jewish...) do not understand their own religion.

Religious moderates are defined precisely as people who follow their religion less.

I do not want to get into a debate about semantics. However, it depends on what you mean by "moderate " and "following their religion less." For example a true Christian (that follows the Bible) believes in Matthew 7: 1-3
I was a Quaker once. They take their religion very seriously but are not concerned with non-spiritual things such as dogma and ritual.

First you judge that ISIS isn't Islamic because they don't follow every verse to the letter, then claim that true spirituality is all about not following verses to the letter, or just paying attention to the ones that are so secular and non-threatening that even an atheist can follow them. My point is that religion has a dark side, and the biography of Mohammed proves it.

Every place that institutes Islamic law is horror. The Quran itself is a nightmare of ignorance, misogyny, and superstition. If I could go back in time, I would kill Moses for starting this whole thing.

Added benefit: no Hitler.

I can pray to my own God 5 times a day towards Mecca and that doesn't make Yahweh, Yeshua, and Pneuma (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) the same as Allah. Two different monotheistic gods. Now let's say I called him Allah and prayed to him towards Mecca 5 times a day. But then I said that there is no such thing as a penuvma, and that the principle of abrogation must be ignored (which is what ISIS does, and that makes them not Wahabbi). That's not at all the revelation from Allah, according to Mohammed, so I can't be worshiping Allah. And if I said this to a Muslim I wouldn't be speaking a foreign language to them, they would understand it especially when it comes to abrogation.

The same thing can be observed in Christianity. In the NT it says that many will come to Jesus crying "Lord, lord" and Jesus will reply that he doesn't know them.

You still do not understand the difference between what is central to a religion and what is peripheral. If I believe that God commands rape etc, I am not a Christian because my values oppose Christian values. However, if I celebrate mass on Saturday rather than Sunday I can still be a Christian.
I made the opposite claim, I never said that Quakers are so secular that even an atheist can be a Quaker.
The people in the Bible (even prophets, king Solomon etc) and Koran were human. The Bible does not suggest that their bad behaviour is good behaviour. It shows them warts and all and far from the glory of God.

Nice way to prove the thread title absolutely 100% accurate everyone. The replies in this thread have been absolutely furious.

God does command rape in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14)
As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

"When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion."


The Bible does suggest that rape of virgins are just one of the spoils of war. It's just like Islam.

No, what makes then the same is that Islam was explicitly based on the same monotheistic God of Abraham. They differ in name only, since Arabs didn't speak the same language.

As I said, there is no Pope of Islam, ISIS members interpret both the text and the context differently. They believe their true form of Islam is under attack both from the West and from other Muslims (who are not true Muslims). In the same way, Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, but many Christians don't. Just like Christians believe that later revelations from Jesus supersede Jewish law, Muslims believe that the later revelations of Mohammed supersede previous interpretations. There is no "true" religion. The most popular form of a religion isn't the "truest" one.

What do you mean?

No, you're right. The truest form of a religion is one that actually resembles the original. Mormons aren't Christian because they deny the Godhood of Christ, which is the pillar of 1st century Christianity.

Um, no they don't.

And originalists are also called fundamentalists. ISIS is nothing but Islamic fundamentalists.