Islam is currently more dangerous to world peace and free thought than any other religion

-------------------------------- My opponent has contended that Stalinism is not a religion. He then claims that I should abide by a definition he posted in the comments section. I never agreed to such a definition as "An institution which unifies its members under a shared belief in the existence of at least one divine or supernatural power". Such a definition is not dominant or or preferable over the current because the current definition is sourced and was proposed earlier. There is no reason to change a definition. ---------------------- My opponent has dropped my argument that Stalinism fits the current definition of religion. ---------------------- My opponent concedes that Stalinism is a greater threat to global tranquility and free speech than Islam. -------------------- My opponent wishes to amend "free thought" to "free speech". I'll accept this definition for practical purposes (1984-brand thought crime). ------------------------- Free speech means: -the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion . http://dictionary.reference.com... ----------------------- With this definition, Islam does not affect free speech to the same degree as Stalinism does. In Stalinism, speech is censored by the government. In Islam, the government does not censor free speech or interfere with free speech. My opponent contends that Islam violates rights to free speech because one may be less likely to voice their opinions in the face of verbal retaliation. However, verbal retaliation is an important part of democratic society and not a violation of free speech. Intimidation as well is not a threat to free speech when compared to Stalinism, which actually imprisons and kills opposition. Threats such as the threats to publish a cartoon containing Muhammad are justified. Muhammad is a religious symbol for which Islam considers to be unpublishable. Muslims were right to pressure the magazine not to publish that cartoon and because it was not the government that did this, by definition, free speech was not violated. ------------------------- My opponent highlights the life of one individual who was exposed to "female genital cutting" . http://en.wikipedia.org... . This is a practice of African descent. Wikipedia says that this practice "according to McAuliffe, is not commanded by the Qur'an, and according to Obermeyer, is not practiced by the majority of Muslims. " From this we can conclude that such oppression of women is not an Islamic practice. ------------------------------- My opponent incorrectly takes tiny factions of Islam and uses them to argue that the whole of Islam is bad. He argues that -9/11 was endorsed by Islamic beliefs -other terrorist attacks are based on the Qu'ran The followers of Radical Islam are but a brainwashed minority who believe they are following the Qu'ran. Their acts are not based in Islam. ------------------------------------------ I again insist that women are not denigrated in the Qu'ran. My opponent claims that the Qu'ran "denigrates" women, but provides no evidence. --------------------------------------- My opponent claims that Islam is more dangerous to global tranquility and free speech because there are 1.7 billion muslims. However, most of these do not oppress women and are not radical extremists. -------------------------------------- I conclude by saying that all the potential for the suppression of free speech and global tranquility in Islam is meager when compared to the potential of such things from Stalinism. It seems this debate will only come down to whether or not Stalinism is a religion. I await a rebuttal.