Qur'an (2:191-193) - "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah."
Consider a hypothetical situation in which I am a Muslim living in basically a refugee camp in Israel. In what way should I interpret this verse, which I consider to be the absolute truth from the word of Allah, to guide my actions?
A passage promoting violence in one situation doesn't necessarily condone violence in others. Of course, some people might take it that way, but that's a flaw with the reader. A lot of religions had to fight against persecution, and Islam is no exception. Militant Muslims just seem to have the idea that murdering non-combatants is somehow fighting for their freedom.
Additionally, I don't think that most people know what the penalty God declared for violation of any of the Ten Commandments. The penalty is death.
Uh... duh.
Pretty sure that is common knowledge, at least among Christians. It's actually pretty central, as it's the only way the crucifixion makes sense because "the wage of sin is death". The whole point is that the entire human race is corrupt and wicked (You didn't need a book to tell you that, did you?) and no matter how good you think you are, your righteousness is like filthy rags. The understanding in the text is that they're referring to used menstrual rags, which are the single filthiest thing imaginable to a Jewish man in the first century AD. So basically, you deserve to die and so do I, and so did Moses, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Teresa. From a Biblical perspective, the only person who ever lived who didn't deserve to die was Jesus Christ because he never had sin in his life, which ironically got him killed.
And we haven't even considered the Great Flood, which is, shall we say, less than credible. But drowning everyone, even all children?
There's archaeological evidence supporting the great flood, and what's wrong with God drowning some people? (see below)
Right. I hold the opinion that, even though not all Arabs would promote it, violence and terrorism have become accepted. This is because there is a very radical "fringe" of Muslims, and the religious moderates, who are not necessarily willing to kill or die for Islam, are very quiet. Deathly quiet.
If you were a Muslim and you knew people (possibly your relatives) who were cutting the heads off of people who spoke out against militant radical Islam, would you be so eager to speak out against it yourself?
(side note: Most Arabs are Muslims, but not all Muslims are Arabs. The terms are not interchangeable.)
The clergy abuse of children (their minds as well) is currently being uncovered. Actually, 200 deaf children were apparently molested by a priest less than a half-hour from my city. I'm not particularly charmed right now by the Church's acts of "piety".
What does that have to do with the Bible, though? In fact, I'm pretty sure that'd condemned in many ways. Then again, Catholicism has never particularly cared what the Bible says.
What if the homosexuals declared it to be part of their religion and considered doing "that" with their partner to be part of their faith? In America, the religious Right considers religious freedom to be even higher up there than the Second Amendment (and that's saying something).
Well, considering a great many of the people who came over here in the first place were fleeing religious persecution in Europe, religious freedom is basically our purpose as a nation.
Anyways, I never really understood why two consenting adults can't do what they want in the privacy of their home (it's not directly harming anyone); I feel that it's their own business. I mean, at least with abortion they at least have a case that they are advocating for another human being.
That's basically how I feel. Laws exist to
protect people, so if the action isn't harming anyone, then who are they protecting by prohibiting it? My opinion is that the government should do what it has to do ensure the well-being of its citizens, and GTFO of our business in all other cases. We have laws against murder, rape, theft, fraud, etc., because those are acts that hurt people. Some sexual laws are meant to protect people, like age of consent, but the prohibition of same-sex marriage is not one of them.
Also John, things are being accomplished, but the Right is very powerful as soon as they declare their policies to be God's will.
Well of course it's going to happen eventually. Politics in this country lean more and more to the left over time, and AFAIK everywhere in Europe and most of the industrialized world has legalized it, so it's only a matter of time before the US caves in.
Probably the quickest way you can get them to stop thinking IMHO. 
You might be interested to read up on the Elaboration Likelihood Model.
What exactly are you trying to say, that we should look at the social context to determine whether the acts are moral? This is akin to populism, or maybe saying slavery was "OK" 200 years ago, because "everyone was doing it".
Context does affect morality. That's why killing people in self-defense is not considered murder by the vast majority of people. I think if you're in a world where nations and tribes live under the constant threat of invasion, rape, murder, and pillaging and your only method of survival is to kill them before they kill you, it's a very different moral landscape.
And not all of these bad acts were complete works of man, either. Sometimes, God commanded the Israelites to slaughter various nations. Jericho is a good example: is it that much different than Hitler's Lebensraum? Just 'cause you want it doesn't automatically make it yours.
There's a difference between God slaughtering a nation, and a mortal dictator rounding up a group of people and killing them. In God's case, it's because the nation is a blight upon the world and deserves to be destroyed, and in the mortal case, it's because the dictator
thinks they're a blight upon the world and deserve to be destroyed. The difference here is that God is qualified to make that judgment because, in the Biblical context, God knows everything and always makes the right call. In the case of incidents like Jericho, the Israelites were just a method of extermination, just like the fire and brimstone that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah were a method.
