Islam is a totalitarian system that encourages violence, that demands to dominate every second of life, posing as a religion. The difference between Islamic sects are juridical, not religious. Thus its adherents will not accept criticism, satire or attacks without violence and bloodshed in return. But other faiths closer to the Western conception of a religion(unlike Islam) -- have no such problems. This is why you likely never heard of this cartoon by The Onion desecrating figures of four major faiths, till I posted it. But when someone does something similar with Islam you often hear about explosions of violence, pogroms, and many murders -- even if you avoid the media.
While there is not a lot I could disagree with in this rather generalized statement,
One could also argue that the Vinaya "demands to dominate every second of life"
and that Buddhism, which holds no belief in a God, is also "posing as a religion".
I am not defending islam here, and I am not saying that one should be tolerant of intolerance.
I just wanted to point out that (to use your word) "aherents" to any group entity can reflect a wide range of people.
All Ku Klux Klan members are Christians, and The Aum Shinrikyo cult was widely reported to be a Buddhist group when it put poison gas into a Tokyo subway.
When we see a crowd of thousands of angry Muslims rioting on TV, shouting "Death to America" we think that this is representative of all Muslims. But when we see thousands of Occupy Wall Street
protesters on TV, and sometimes some of them commit destructive actions, do we assume that all Americans hate capitalism? No.
We could read through the Lotus Sutra and conclude that what the Buddha taught was that it is okay to lie to people as long you believe that your motives for doing so are good. We could also accept the Chinese Government's official description of Tibetan Buddhism, as a slave-based theocracy practicing cannibalism, sexual depravity and human sacrifice.
I am not disagreeing with you that there is plenty of material in the Bible/Koran/Torah to justify the claim that Islam or for that matter Christianity or Judaism promote all of the things you describe. if the The Spanish Inquisition wasn't bad enough, adherents of all three religions to this day still mutilate the genitals of their male children (circumcision)!
But I think it is more accurate to see that religion is being used as part of a power struggle, and that this power struggle exists partly because of the rapid changes happening in the Arab/Muslim world, and part of that has to do with how the West (United States, mainly) is viewed --correctly or incorrectly-- as a meddler in Middle Eastern affairs, especially since WW2.
So many of these terrorists and their leaders promote themselves as modern-day Davids taking on Goliath, and this gets a lot of support from people, and a lot of them wave the Koran around, and say 'this is the book that will lead us in a glorious war' or whatever, and this gets them support and financing, sometimes from people you wouldn't expect. The United States supported Osama Bin Laden in his 'glorious war' against the Soviet Union, even importing drugs into America in order to do so.
So, when some stupid video or cartoon comes out, of course this alone is nothing. But it becomes just another thing for people to shout about because in their minds it represents all of the hostility they feel.
It's sort of like when somebody has a lot of suppressed anger or resentment or whatever, and you do some little thing that isn't related to anything at all, and it triggers something and it all comes out and that little thing becomes a big deal even though it is by itself very trivial. And cartoons and videos are so quickly shared on the web, they are the perfect thing to use as a focal point to whip up a crowd, and if the person who whips up the crowd tells the crowd to go burn down a village, maybe that crowd will do it. But why? You can't blame it all on a religion. People are responsible for their own actions. So, you see, modern technology and the internet also has as much to do with what is going on as some old book. The Dharma teaches that everything is interconnected. Maybe Korans and computers don't mix. I don't know.
So it is not enough to simply write off an entire culture as inherently evil, even if you have a list of reasons why that may be true, because anybody can come up with a list.
Aside from that, yes, I think Islam has a lot of screwed up ideas. But a lot of Muslims also feel that way, and just as there have been reformations in Christianity, and also in Judaism, there will be in Islam. There has
to be, because people do not want to live oppressed.
And I hope, changes -where needed- will also keep Buddhism up to date. But the problem that all religions face is that on their own, there is no need to ever change. That's why theocratic countries such as Tibet and Afghanistan could go on for centuries looking and operating exactly as they always did, with very little change.
So, my point is that yes, while somebody might say Islam is totally screwed up,
even if that is a fact, that fact is beside the point.
Samsara is what is screwed up. Religion is just another manifestation of samsara.