Chicken or the egg?

Many people nowadays who worry about the war on terrorism are trying to convince themselves that fundamental Islam is the problem, and moderate Islam is the solution. Daniel Pipes, a man I respect for his encyclopedic knowledge on this issue has expressed this point of view. He is right in theory, too. My problem with this is that moderate Islam can only exist in the way that moderate Christianity exists. Christians stopped persecuting Jews, they stopped killing people for adultery (which is ANY man-and-woman engaging in sex without being married), sodomy, witchcraft, etc a long time ago. The rules of Christianity have not changed, but people essentially distanced themselves from the more rigid ones. A polite way of saying would be that the Bible (especially the OT) is now interpreted differently.
Proof of this is the fact that all over the world, some Christian factions can still be found where members look upon homosexuals the way Leviticus tells them to, and would apply appropriate punishment were they allowed to. The rules have not changed. Just peoples attitude towards them.

The same goes for Islam to an even larger degree. If you abide by the Koran, literally, Bin Laden is right. The Taliban had it right. And as Pipes says, the current movement is towards more "extremism" (I would call it literalism), and away from "moderation" (=liberal interpretation). Which is indeed a reason for worries.

But this whole discussion is completely irrelevant at the moment.

What we should really be concerned about is this: What is the attraction in Islam? Anyone can write a set of silly rules, that are obviously designed to make the whole world a living hell. But who would be nuts enough to be willing to adhere to them, and to subsequently try and force the rest of the world to do the same?
Well, you'd have to be pretty miserable to want to do that. In fact, you'd have to be convinced that the hell Islam has in store for you would actually be an improvement somehow.

Religion in general has always drawn its masses from people who sought an escape from life as it is into a better one, offered by faith. And it seems billions all over the planet are in such straits today. If you are born in a family of believers, you already have little chance of ever really escaping. And if life is shit as well, your faith (which in the case of Islam paints an attractive image of them-against-us as well) is really all you have. Now were you born a Buddhist, no one will ever suffer as a result. Were you born a Christian, you may bother someone with the Watchtower at worst (but you may also become active in the Red Cross, or any number of Christian charities world wide).
But are you born a Muslim? Well then not only does the Book say you have a sacred duty to make the whole world believe what you believe, your whole family and society say so as well. And you have nothing much else to live for.

So my point is this: You can blame Islam for most of the shit that goes in the world today (If I'm lucky. Probably you blame the Jews). But Islam is nothing. It's a book, a set of rules. It is everyone's individual choice to follow them, or not, and to what degree. And if a quarter of the world population chooses to subject themselves to those rules, who should be blamed? The chicken or the egg?