A Simple Rule

[Mister Agenda]

It does stop with ideology. To use your Nazi example, I'm not a bigot if I oppose Nazism.

But you are a bigot if you oppose Germans because some of them were/are Nazis. Being a Muslim is more akin to being a German than to Nazi ideology. The vast majority of Muslims are people who just happened to be born to Muslim parents. They didn't choose to be Muslim, they were indoctrinated. For many, the idea of leaving Islam is nearly unthinkable.

Is Islam that dangerous? I don't know. I'd like to have that frank discussion without it being preemptively silenced.

When you say you can't have that discussion without being silenced, you're being disengenuous. It seems to be some kind of code for 'I can't make over-broad generalizations without being called on them and no way am I going to be more specific'.

Why does Salmon Rushdie have to hide? Why does Ayaan Hirsi Ali need bodyguards? Why was Theo Van Gogh murdered?

Islamic extremism.

Why is it that if you criticize Islam, you're taking your life into your own hands?

That's hardly always the case. People openly criticize Islam all the time without serious consequence. Your list is infinitesimal compared to the list of people who have openly criticized Islam without having to go into hiding or receiving a single threat.

Have you ever been to a majority Muslim country? I have. Indonesia is a supposedly "moderate" Muslim country. And you watch what you say when you're in public unless you have a death wish.

Indonesia is more an example of 'less extreme than Saudi Arabia' than of 'moderate', IMHO.

Atheists who live in small towns in America hide their non-belief as well but not out of fear of their lives but rather out of fear of social consequences.

Atheists who live in small towns in third world Christian countries might ought to look out for their lives as well. I wonder if the correlation between the danger you're in for not conforming to the majority ideology or religion has more to do with whether your country is an undeveloped mess than exactly which ideology or religion is on top?

Perhaps they'd lose their livelihood or they might lose their friends. I've even heard of stories of harassment that atheists have received in small town America. I've not heard of any in fear of their lives.

There are two or three who should have been, but alcohol was probably a bigger factor in the outcome being fatal.

Now 500 years ago, atheists would have been killed for being atheists.

When the whole world was an undeveloped mess.

Christianity has managed to more-or-less peacefully integrate with civilization.

It wasn't peaceful.

Can Islam be reformed in a similar way? I don't know but I'd like to have that discussion without being silenced.

If you make their scriptures the problem, reform is impossible.

What I don't buy, which is what this thread is about, is the flippant "oh, that's just the radicals" excuse.

It's not an excuse. It's a literal fact that the Muslims who are terrorists are radicals. You're the one who seems to have a problem with that fact.

The radicals in any religion ARE the religion.

Nonsense. If any group in a religion IS the religion, it's the majority.

Show me the radicals and I'll show you the religion in its purest form.

You seem to be using 'radical' and 'fundamentalist' interchangeably. They are not synonyms. There are plenty of Islamic fundamentalists who are not radicals, and plenty of Muslim radicals who are not fundamentalists.

rad·i·cal/ˈradək(ə)l/
adjective
1.(especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.
2.advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social reform; representing or supporting an extreme section of a political party.
3.of or relating to the root of something, in particular.
4.very good; excellent.

noun
1.a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims.
2.a group of atoms behaving as a unit in a number of compounds.
3.the root or base form of a word.
4.a quantity forming or expressed as the root of another.

At least that's my conclusion so far. Maybe I'm wrong. Show me.

Maybe if you got on with the conversation instead of getting stuck on the notion that we're not letting you have it? When people disagree with you, they are going to criticize what you say. You can get hung up on that if you want to, but it's not preventing you from moving to Step 2. Step 3 is, of course, profit (!).