"But what about the moderates?"

[xpastor]

Would you call someone who followed their employee handbook as accurately as possible a radical or extremist? I'd call them a good employee.

That's a catchy analogy, but I think it breaks down at a couple of points. One problem is that the handbook is contradictory at a number of points. Imagine an employee handbook which said on the one hand, "Give all the time they want to any potential client" and on the other hand "Don't waste time on people who don't seem likely to sign a big contract."

With religion it's even more complicated than that. One of the imams on the show always spoke of Islam rather than the Quran. Of course he insisted that Islam is a religion of peace and the Prophet was a man of peace, which left me wondering if he was ignorant, self-deceived or a liar. He did speak about the need for "interpretations" of the Quran, which may suggest he was self-deceived.

BTW, did anyone listen to the 5 minutes of audio?

It was interesting and disturbing that the caller said he left Islam because there was too much radicalization in every mosque he attended. He added that there were two messages, a peaceful one when there was someone they did not recognize and a much more violent one among themselves.

He posed a few questions to the imams, but unfortunately there was just a minute left in the show, not enough time to answer unless they wanted to admit the worst.

The caller asked if it would be safe for him to go to a Muslim country and admit to being an apostate. I think we all know the answer to that. In fact, he said, even in Canada he keeps a low profile about his beliefs.

In his last comments he really nailed the heart of the problem. He said that unless the imams would acknowledge that there is a problem with the text itself of the hadith with their violent interpretations of the Quran, nothing would be accomplished by continuing to pretend the problem was with radical Muslims who had mental problems or drug problems.

FYI, the hadith are supposedly authoritative summaries of the teaching of Mohammed which clarify passages in the Quaran.