Consider the three Abrahamic religions. What do they have in common?

First, they tell you how the universe / world began, using a story that was clearly the best thing that some primitive desert nomads or shepherds could come up with. Most “sophisticated” believers, these days, don’t take those stories literally, and accept evolution, an old earth, heliocentrism, a huge universe, a round earth, and so on. Only American fundies and Muslims seem to take those stories literally, no matter the opposing evidence; they probably believe their god put that evidence there as “a test of their faith”.

Then, the religions give believers some rules:

1- the first kind are rules that, while not terribly original, are, in general, a good idea. Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill someone just because you feel like it, and so on.

2- then come the laws that can be annoying to follow, but it’s not the end of the world. Don’t eat that type of food, don’t wear this, wear that, do this on that day of the year, and so on. As I said, these can be annoying (for instance, what if you’re forbidden to eat your favorite food?), but most believers can live with them and obey them.

3- finally, there are the “harder” rules. Kill people who do this. Kill people who do that. Stone to death those who don’t do this. Or those who do that on a particular day of the week. Fight tooth and nail against the “enemies of God / the faith”. In fact, giving your life for that is the greatest thing you can do, and with the greatest reward.

Now, it should be obvious that a “moderate”, as usually described, is someone who follows just 1 and 2, while an “extremist” follows 3 as well.

But… how can the latter be called an “extremist”? Doesn’t the term imply that he is distorting his religion, or using it as an excuse for something unrelated, or adding something to it? To me, it does. But that’s not the case at all…

… it’s the moderates who are distorting religion, by removing things from it! Either because they don’t want to end up in prison or dead, or because their morality has evolved beyond those of the holy books’ writers, and so they recognize the immorality of those parts of their religion, but are nonetheless incapable of applying that judgment to the rest.

Are Bin Laden, or the 9/11 hijackers, or American abortion clinic bombers, “extremists”? Not at all, in my opinion — unless you call call a man who pays his taxes in full “an extremist taxpayer”. They’re simply not ignoring the unpleasant parts of their faith. They’re the only devout believers out there.

Which really paints a nice picture of their religions…

Meanwhile a group of hardline Pakistani Muslim clerics bestowed a religious title on Osama bin Laden as a tit-for-tat revenge for the slight. The Pakistan Ulema Council has given bin Laden the title “Saifullah”, or sword of Allah.

“If a blasphemer can be given the title ‘Sir’ by the West despite the fact he’s hurt the feelings of Muslims, then a mujahid who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah,” Tahir Ashrafi, the council’s chairman, was quoted by a foreign news agency, as saying.

Riiight. Comparing a writer and the “crime” of “blasphemy” (or “hurt feelings”) to a terrorist mass murderer responsible for the deaths of thousands¹. Great going, guys. Very mature of you. Wonderful sense of perspective.

1. not to mention Bush’s re-election, itself responsible for thousands more, both in Iraq and as a result of the lack of stem cell research

From the article:

‘If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet, then it is justified,’ Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul-Haq told the national assembly.

and:

‘If someone blows himself up he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West?’ he said.

and, of course:

Dozens of students from hardline Islamic schools in the central Pakistani city of Multan chanted ‘Death to Rushdie, death to Britain’ and set a British flag on fire, witnesses said.

EDIT: PZ Myers comments on this as well.