Naomi - // AH, //The notion that the Koran is the direct word of Allah has no more basis in fact that anything in the bible//
You know that, and I know that. However, we are not Muslims. For them even touching a copy of the Koran without having first washed your hands is a sin... it just cannot be done .... and don't even mention menstruating women!! Imagining that a rational western mindset applies universally is a huge mistake. It doesn't... by a long way. //
You are using extreme examples of religious instruction with the inference that all Muslims take such instruction equally seriously, and you and I know very well that they don't.
Count the number of Muslim-run shops selling bacon and alcohol, they are the vast majority, but they are not newsworthy because they don't adapt their religious texts to their psychopathic mindset and use one to excuse the other.
// Imagining that a rational western mindset applies universally is a huge mistake. It doesn't... by a long way. //
I don't, but equally inferring that an extreme eastern mindset applies universally is an equally huge mistake - it doesn't either, by a similarly long way.
I don't think you can argue that, to paraphrase - Islam is another country, they do things differently there.
Your inference is that we as Westerners are balanced, normal and civilised, and Islam is none of those things.
I regard that as an invalid generalisation which rather dismantles your argument.