Bosnia and Albania were part of communist states which actively sought to suppress religion. That had its effects which still linger.
So? Political and social conditions have a tendency to affect religious belief and practice. Who cares why you're wrong about Muslims being incapable of having a moderate, secular society? The Azeris and other Central Asian former USSR republics are good examples as well. It should also be noted that the USSR and Yugoslavia did not go nearly as far in suppressing religion as Albania did.
This was a man who managed to convince numberless western liberals that he was a "moderate"!
That's because he governed as a moderate.
So would you attribute their breaking of Allah's eternal commandments to ignorance of the Koran or willful disobedience?
Again, who gives a fuck? I mean, I can understand why YOU give a fuck, as examples of moderate, secular Muslim societies challenge your bigoted notions, causing much cognitive dissonance, thus desperately seeking explanations for them. Maybe it's as you say, because they come from Communist societies which influenced the practice of Islam there. If so, maybe you'd like to become a Communist? I kinda doubt it, though. I find it funny that the same people who bitched about Communism are the same people bitching about radical Islam today, even though the former was the only thing that kept radical Islam in check (and in some cases, which I listed above, permanently stunted its development) for many decades.
What does "culturally identify as Muslim" mean exactly?
Exactly what it sounds like. Someone who lives a secular lifestyle in a secular community but still self-identifies as Muslim, as do most of the people in their community.
True in the case of Christians. However, to repeat, Christians' basic religious text - The New Testament - does not predispose them to violence and legalism to anything like the extent that the Koran so predisposes those who take that book as the word of Allah.
Stop pretending that Christians don't put any stock in the OT-- it's still part of their holy book. I don't know where the fuck you live, but here in America, there are plenty of Protestants that are quite fond of using the OT to justify violence, religious intolerance and discrimination against homosexuals. The largest Protestant church here, the Southern Baptist Convention, came about just prior to the Civil War because while their Northern Baptist bretheren thought the NT made slavery unjustified, the Southern Baptists thought the OT said it was cool.
So you can bring up the example of the Amish and other pacifist sects all you like, but the fact is, in my country at least, they are the minority, and there are a whole lot of Christians here who place a great deal of emphasis on the violent and bigoted nastiness you can find in the OT (and there's even some in the NT-- quit pretending like that section of the Bible is all roses and puppies and rainbows).
That is why such a disproportionate amount of religious violence etc in the west is emanating from Islam.
Yes, it is a reason, perhaps even the primary one, but the fact that you willfully ignore any other reasons is cause enough to believe you have your head up your ass.
Saying we shouldn't judge Islam by the minority who have planned and executed terrorist attacks is like saying we shouldn't judge Nazism by the MINORITY of party members who took part in Kristalnacht!
Stop being a tard.
Which does nothing to undermine my argument that a non-religious Jew can still validly call themselves a "Jew" but an "atheist" Muslim is as much a contradiction in terms as an "atheist" Christian.
No, just puts it in the proper context-- you are using the argument to demonstrate that Islam is the worst of all religions (or something close to that), but it's a dumb argument because since Jewish identity is not necessarily predicated on belief and practice (unlike most other religions), the fact you can be an "atheist Jew" only highlights the unique nature of Jewish identity, but makes no relative qualitative judgments on Islam or any other religion.
Because
a) there are sound reasons to believe that so-called "moderate" Muslims seeking converts are not as "moderate" as they make out and their ultimate aim is to impose sharia lock, stock and barrel on the west and thereby destroy the freedoms you claim to support.
b) where (a) may not be the case the conversion of non-Muslims to so-called "moderate" Islam will facilitate the aims of so-called "political" Islam as well as increase the pool of potential recruits to jihadism.
For a second I'll suppose your paranoid "all Muslims are out to get us and the moderate ones are lying" nonsense is actually valid-- such a consequentialist (and highly speculative) argument cannot negate fundamental, natural rights in a free society. Otherwise speculative future consequences could be used as justification for state repression of just about any religious belief or practice, or any secular political speech, belief, or free association.
I can just imagine how that would play out in my own society-- let's ban this moderate tax protest group because it's a potential breeding ground for violent right-wing extremists and could produce more Tim McVeighs, or the government should shut down the Democratic Socialists of America because that increases the pool of potential recruits to some sort of Stalinist organization that would take away the very freedoms you claim to support.
Topic: Clarifying the Council's position: Against Political Islam not Muslims