Emmanuel;

I agree, people are irrational, religion is, at its base, an irrational faith in unproven and (in this life, anyway) unprovable ideas. The Quran is, indeed, inconsistent on this topic; conversion and treatment of infidels however, the Quran’s inconsistencies have rhyme and reason.

Islam started out as a financial scam. Muhammad lived in Mecca, the Middle East’s center for religious tourism. Mecca threw a religious festival for one god or another every day, 365 religious festivals a year. It’s how people in Mecca made a living. Muhammad wanted in on the scam, so he hijacked a minor god, Allah, and became his spokesman.

Muhammad didn’t initially claim Allah was the only god. He tried to insert Allah into Mecca’s hierarchy of gods and himself into Mecca’s hierarchy of priests. So, the early Quran is tolerant of other gods and religions.

However, after his wife’s death, Muhammad went off the rails and claimed Allah was the only god and those who worshiped others were doomed. This would have put a dent in Mecca’s religious industry and it’s priests’ incomes. The Meccans threw him out.

Muhammad and his little band of followers were in desperate straits, trekking through the desert, until they got to Medina (which wasn’t yet called Medina) home to some animists and Jewish tribes, who decided to let Muhammad and his followers live among them, as long as they didn’t inflict Islam on non-Muslims. Muhammad agreed.

Soon after, the Quran became less tolerant, and Muhammad and his band commenced wreaking revenge upon travelers to and from Mecca, and after winning a pitched battle against a group of Meccans, Muhammad was feeling his oats, and the Quran became downright intolerant. It condemned to slavery or death all who didn’t worship Allah (Muhammad). He and his band beheaded 600 of the Jews who’d taken him in just a few years earlier and soon after killed his enemies and returned to Mecca — all justified by the newly intolerant Quran.

His scribes commented to Muhammad about the inconsistencies in the Quran, so Muhammad came up with the principle of Abrogation — all earlier verses that weren’t in agreement with later verses were abrogated — nullified by the later verses. Allah had revealed his truths at a pace designed to allow humans time to understand them. The earlier verses preaching tolerance were abrogated by the later verses preaching intolerance.

This is official Muslim dogma, as preached in the mosques. However, the scribes pointed out to Muhammad that the transition from milquetoast Islam to militant Islam was obvious, and would give people the impression Allah’s truths were whatever suited Muhammad’s military situation at the time. To avoid this, Muhammad and his scribes scrambled the Quran’s verses to obscure this fact.

They’re no longer in chronological order, so infidels who read the Quran and Muslims who choose to obfuscate find conflicting verses, some urging tolerance, others urging murder. This is by design. It’s called taqiiya — strategic lying. However, Imams know which verses are which, they know which verses have been abrogated by which, they know the verses urging tolerance are no longer in effect, the verses urging murder are the final and lasting dogma from Muhammad.

Thus, to Muslims the Quran and Islam are consistent. It’s only to infidels who are ignorant of Islamic dogma that the Quran appears inconsistent.

Thanks for your thoughts. Be careful with them, as there is no guarantee we won’t end up being subject to Sharia, in which case we’re both condemned to death. If you’re interested, read my post “The Scheme to Hide Jihad.”