Nick Gisburne’s Video About Quran Teachings

According to Slashdot some of his other content regarding Christianity was taken down by Google.

I’ve been looking at the Quran to see if the quotes are accurate …

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/

That site has three translations in parallel. I’ve looked at only a few of the quotes. Some seem accurate (but of the sort you’d find in many religions — believe or you’ll be sorry … that sort of thing). Some are inaccurate. 2:96 is completely distorted. His version: Jews are the greediest of all humankind. They’d like to live 1000 years. But they are going to hell. The closest translation:

And thou wilt find them greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters. (Each) one of them would like to be allowed to live a thousand years. And to live (a thousand years) would be no means remove him from the doom. Allah is Seer of what they do.

It may be that this passage refers to Jews (I didn’t read back enough to be SURE from the context), but my understanding of the passage is: “you can run but you can’t hide from God … you can live 1000 years, but God is patient and if you have done wrong, you will be punished.”

The guy seems to be pulling partial quotes in a deliberate attempt to put Islam in a bad light. One could do the same with any religion (that promises doom for the unbelievers).

Is there any religion that holds a belief in some sort of hell and doesn’t hold the belief that disbelievers will go there? I fail to see how Islam is any different than, say, Christianity in this respect.

The question is: why can’t Islam be (wrongly or righfully) criticized in 2006?

Allah has replied to this controversy on the Blog of the Gods, pointing out that if He hadn’t made His religion so militant, it might never have spread so quickly. He’s angry at YouTube for removing a video He believes may scare some more people into believing in him. He promises an awful lot of burning if they don’t.