"In fact, many Muslims are simply unaware of the Qur'an's near absence of verses that preach universal non-violence. This is because their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others. In the West, it is typical for Muslims to come to believe that their religion must be like Christianity - preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love, and tolerance - because Muslims are taught that Islam is supposed to be superior in every way. They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to learn that the evidence of the Qur'an and the bloody history of Islam are very much in contradiction to this."
I thought that this would have made it clear that there are Muslims that either do not know or do know but do not follow the Koran (I suspect that most if not all Americans fall in this category). They are not part of the problem. The problem lays with those that take the Koran as truth.
Agreed
I'm not sure if this is true for all religions (i.e. Buddhism, Jainism, Ubuntu, etc.). And if no one should follow any religious text literally, then why have religion at all?
That's not really for me to answer as a non-religious person, but I can throw some ideas out there. It could be a means of cultural identification. It could be a way of keeping family history alive. It could be because you're a philosophical dualist who enjoys the community that your religious group provides even if you don't believe in all tenets of said religion. We could even be good old-fashioned Marxists about it and say that they hold onto their religion partially as an opiate to comfort themselves in the light of this cruel world. This could all be speculation though; I really have no idea:embarrass.
I may be able to say that about Muslims in the US, but I wouldn't be able to say that with any degree of confidence about the adherents in Islamic countries. I'm not sure why a more modern approach to old religions would be better. If you're going to go as far as saying that part of their holy text is false and that they should take a more lenient interpretation, you might as well replace it with humanism or something similar to humanism. By the way, statistics show that more secular societies are healthier.
To answer the last sentence first, I agree 110%. A secular society is a happier, healthier society. That being said, it's important to look at the future of religion and secularism realistically. Secularism as a broad category is indeed growing. If we measured all people in the world who belonged to no organized religion as one religious group, they would be the third largest group after Christianity and Islam (and just ahead of Hinduism). This is both impressive and encouraging to me, but it doesn't necessarily mark the beginning of the end of religion.
Islam specifically is actually growing now and it may become the new largest religion within the next twenty years. Other religions also aren't necessarily going to disappear either. Christianity may be shrinking in the first world, but it's growing in Africa and Latin America. Hinduism, the fourth largest group and third largest religion, is pretty well expected to remain stable world-wide. When we consider that there will be a significant religious population in the world in the foreseeable future, we must acknowledge that we have to co-exist with them and with the fact that their ideas will inevitably shape their social, political, and economic decisions depending upon their degree of religiosity. With this being the reality of our future, it is vitally important to encourage moderate/modernist strains of thought within religious communities and maintain a friendly dialogue so that we can have the types of societies where we can all co-exist peaceably.
I pulled most of the stats from Adherents.com
The point about bringing up whether Buddhist texts support violence is to determine whether Buddhism's teachings are the cause of the violence. If a religion cannot be the cause of a violent action, then that religion is not inherently violent. If they are not, then Buddhism is not inherently violent and the Buddhist's violence has a different root cause. To say that all religions have their violent incidents is to disregard the root cause of their reasons for said action.
The same could not be said about Islam: "The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. These verses are mostly open-ended, meaning that the historical context is not embedded within the surrounding text (as are nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran."
I don't think adherents to any religion are inherently violent, nor do I think that Buddhism, to the extent that I know the religion, encourages violence in any way. Believe me, if I came off as trying to say Islam>Buddhism, that's not what I intended at all. But it's not impossible to imagine any religion's teachings being misconstrued by someone and turned into violence, even Buddhism. Abrahamic religions do have...many explicitly violent passages in their holy books, and that is a serious problem. We
can examine the historical context under which proclamations where made by Muhammad though, even if many un-educated adherents cannot. We as historical materialists can stand back, look at what is said in the Qur'an, and say "this is Muhammad saying what
he thought would be appropriate to tell his followers. This is him vacillating, becoming enraged, speaking in the voice of tolerance in one moment and the voice of crushing violence in the next, all based upon what he thought would be best for the survival of his group of followers...and to serve his personal agenda."
I...really don't know that I have a lot more to say on this specifically without running around in a circle, because I feel that you understand what my argument is.
This is from your first source. "First of all, Zen Buddhism is not orthodox Buddhism. It has no Jainist influences or provisions for karmic retribution. Zen, a combination of Buddhism and Daoism, has traditionally held itself "outside" most Buddhist scriptures" It shows that the term Buddhism has expanded in meaning since its original teachings, which is something that should be considered. When a belief is held outside of the original teachings, I'm not sure what right it would have to keep the name of the original religion. Basically, its a fallacy of equivocation.
While it may be "outside of the norm ", it's not a complete anomaly for such an adaptive religion. I think we can consider it in a similar vein to Mormonism in Christianity, or Sufism in Islam. That doesn't make Zen Buddhism non-Buddhist any more than Mormonism is non-Christian or Sufism is non-Muslim. Large religions are
never homogenous, they always have breakaway sects and even groups that challenge essential tenets established as the basis of the religion. They are a part of the parent religious group because of historical ties and the adherents' identification.
You'll notice that I gave you links that illustrated the
political nature of Buddhist violence. This was not done unintentionally
...
(Not really about violence, but it is funny!)
), I'd really like to thank you for engaging my ideas so thoroughly and thoughtfully. Usually when I try to get my thoughts out on religion, people just overlook me or flame the snot out of me ("LOL the gayest thing I've ever read"), so it's been nice to have someone to talk to about this who doesn't just write me off 
