It’s history and current events flatly say "no."
Islam’s religious intolerance starts from it’s inception, and continues to this day, not because of fanatics who pervert its teachings, but because its foundational teachings are violent, racist, and produce a culture of oppression and control through fear, not of God, but of mortal violence from other "believers."
The existence of moderate, peace loving Muslims is not a testimony to Islam, but to the general ignorance of Islam’s teachings among casual adherents, and to the natural tendency of healthy people to shy away from Islam’s harsh and inhuman teachings.
Islam is currently spreading it’s cancerous ideas throughout the free west, especially in Europe’s agnostic and atheistic spiritual vacuum, because it can hide behind the extreme liberal idea of "tolerance," which attacks anyone who is trying to exercise discernment, attempting to expose the misanthropic goals and ideas inherent in Islam.
While efforts to reform Islam may help us fight off Islam’s violent tendencies, ultimately, I do not think that Islam can be fixed by liberalization or modernization because, unlike Christianity, whose Reformation included a return to first principles, the first principles of Islam will always lead back to what we currently call "radical Islam." Google for something like "radical Christianity", by comparison, and you’ll find clarion calls, not to jihad, but to service, mercy, healing, and doing what Jesus did. (and please don’t bring up The Crusades until you’ve read The Real History of the Crusades)
Doing what Muhammed did? Jihad. No amount of pruning Islam to make it look like a benign tree will make it so – it is rotten at the root, that is, in it’s foundational teachings. Sure, there are some nice gentle truths in the Koran. But let’s not decieve ourselves by taking the exceptions as the rule, rather than taking the teachings as a whole. The reason Islam is producing bad fruit is not because of a few bad apples, but because it is a bad tree.
Just like the mistaken idea that the values of a culture are sacrosanct and should not be challenged, tolerists (to coin a word) think it unfair to attack the foundational teachings of Islam merely because they are religious and belong to a group other than ourselves.
While we should be open-minded and kind to other people, their ideas are fair game for intellectual and moral challenge. To allow Islam to continue unchallenged in the public arena with the excuse that "it’s just fanatics who are twisting Islam’s teachings" is foolhardy, if not cowardly. Read Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld’s address to the UN in frontpagemag.com’s Islam’s Religious Intolerance and think twice before excusing Islam.
Unless those – still the majority of the world – who do not adhere to such dogma, take action to stop this aggression, our future is in jeopardy.
