I used my rationality to come to terms that the Quran is indeed the truth, I however do not purport that Islam and the Quran is something rational. God himself proclaims that he knows what we do not. If you, for the mere sake of my religiousity, immediately shake off any rationale in me, it is not that honest of you to attack me for criticizing that which you hold highest: your reason.

Then throw it at us! I never said you were unreasonable. If you found truth in your religion through rationality, then it is reasonable. There's no "your rationality" different from "my rationality" just there's no "your English" versus "my English". We communicate through the web because we share that same language. And reason is exactly that, a language of thought. One you can connect to without having to subdue to any dogmatic principle or tyrannical law. Reason is simply reasoning solely based on the one thing we all have in common, being human.

So throw it at us! Be transparent, tell how and why you adhere to Islam in a language I can understand, because I'm no less human than you are. Just like I justify myself when I choose to take a stand on one side of a political question. I myself am rather left-wing, but I can get in a dialogue with some right-wing people and understand their arguments, even if I don't adhere to it. Why? Because they are based on reason.

The problem here is that religious people take for granted that everybody around them will automatically understand why they chose to serve a certain religion or deity. We don't. Luckily, there is that thing called tolerance. But when people following the same path are committing atrocities, when you get to know that a huge chunk of a religious population in your city is hateful of gays and jews, any tolerance that does not stand on understanding is crushed by a sense of threat. Who wouldn't be suspicious of people with motives they can understand? Only people who naively assume everybody around them is good and has good intentions. Not many people are like this and it's not a healthy belief to hold.

I'm not saying you're a pure being of reason, I say you expect people to be with your condescending talk about "uninformed" bigots. To you the only moral man would be the one that knows everything there is to know, from the working of every flower to every computer program. You can't expect people to have or obtain imam-like knowledge about your religion to finally reach you. In a multicultural democracy, it is your choice to follow a religion and your responsibility to be transparent about it.

Speaking of imams, I once drank some wine with a gay imam, whose view of Islam I found very worthy and respectful. But it was a spiritual kind of Islam, more refined than "do not eat pork or drink wine otherwise Allah will make you pay in afterlife". This is not the Islam I see Muslims hold around me. As I said, statistics prove that they feel disgusted by people like my gay brother. This does not help.

If your religion is one of peace and never condoning any violence, it is far from obvious. One would have to become expert in a religion they don't follow to know it. Meanwhile, people busy with other things are exposed to quotes such as this one [Quran (3:56) - "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."] or this one [Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"], and repeatedly told that Muslims believe this to be the literal word of Allah. How do you want people to react to that? Sheepishly say "Bah, I'm sure that it somehow doesn't mean that they really want to harm me in the grand scheme of things"? While people are using those verse to blow themselves off?

I do not treat you as devoid of rationality or malicious, it would be foolish considering that I don't know you. But I am astounded by your inability to put yourself into the shoes of the lambda non-believer and understand why they have very good reasons to feel anxious. You rather prefer to mock them as if they have done something bad.

As to your questions, being Belgian and being Muslim are not competing identities, Belgium is home to much more than half a million Muslim Belgians that have equal responsibilities than their non-Muslim counterparts. I am not condoning M-E actions, but those jets have nothing to do with it. We have an armament standard that NATO is starting to push for us to hold. I never said something the likes of "adapt or I'll kick you out", I'm saying get your rationality out on the field so that we can understand each other and make our shared-living survive through a climate of fear where ignorant tolerance won't be enough. And never did I blame the Iraqi, they have all reasons to feel destabilized. The Muslims I do struggle to understand are the ones around me, European Muslims that mostly get opportunities and a living standard better than the great majority of the world could offer, but with a lot of them still holding on to hate people like my brother or jews, or treating women unfairly.