Syria unrest: Protests in Deraa, Damascus and Hama

[aelf]

it's not quite the same.

I do believe that is contradictory. Either it doesn't prove anything about a religion, or it gives us a compelling reason to believe something about it.
While religion is somewhat liquidy subject, something can be said about it, something can be proved about it, even if one should make some reservations about it.

Um, I'm not sure how I can get my argument across to you. The language barrier might get the better of the debate once again. Essentially, my point is that the empirical doesn't really prove much if anything about a faith. It can give us empirically-minded people compelling reasons to believe (or disbelieve) theological claims about it, but that's about all. But we should believe claims about the fundamental goodness of a major religion for reasons to do with the need for peaceful coexistence.

I do not think we have to go as far as to define "truth". We all instinctively know what it means. If I had to define it, I'd say truth is a state of fitting the reality and corresponding to it.

If you cannot come up with a robust conception of truth, then you cannot really argue that it trumps any other important consideration. There would be no conceivable reason to believe that. Believing it anyway would be akin to having faith, something you don't seem to subscribe to.

As for your provisional broad definition, you now have to tell me what you mean by 'reality' and how something 'corresponds' to it.

Oh, of course, pursuit of truth is not necessarily more important than a pursuit of a good life. But I do not believe that in this case, lack of pursuit of truth will give us good life.

What you are trying to do, what Karen Armstrong is trying to do, is to present islam (and religion overall) such as we'd like to see it. To paint it in such good light - in accordance with current moral values - that it'd be hard for muslims (or adherents of some other religion) to go against such picture, that such picture would be very appealing. But Karen Armstrong's interpretations simply go against historical sources and obvious interpretation of certain suras, hadiths etc.
No, Al-Qur'an and Old Testament, and even some bits of New Testament, are not in pair with modern morality. It indeed would benefit us if everyone believed they were. But they are not in such an obvious manner that the truth will always come out. It is not true, and such interpretations are aprioric. One should ask himself "what's the interpretation of this verse that can get along with modern world", but I believe one should ask "what's the interpretation of this verse" without any preconditions as well.
By spreading ultrapositive image of Muhammad, Karen Armstrong etc may contribute to spreading islam and religion overall. By spreading islam and religion overall, one spreads potential danger of literal interpretation of such and such suras or verses of some other holy book. So her work has both positive aspect and negative, from utilitarian point of view, even if you don't care for truth.

The argument that promoting or simply espousing a positive view of a religion would spread it (with its associated dangers) is quite nonsensical. It's kind of like the conservative argument that legalising gay marriage or having a positive view of gay relationships would cause more kids to become gay. Sure, if you stop stigmatising something, people would fear it less as a choice, but it's hardly going to convince them that it's the better choice. The implied effect on 'conversion rates' is far exaggerated.

Also, what the heck does "ultrapositive" mean?