People pick and choose their beliefs to reconcile it with a reasonable world view. Your equivalence of Judaism and Islam on this issue without considering the vast spectrum of beliefs in both religions shows your ignorance, or perhaps your desire to distort the issue to fit your particular world view. Religions are more than their holy books.

That's a fair point. I've met many people that are ostensibly muslim or jewish and are perfectly reasonable and intelligent.

But, I've never really gotten a good answer on which parts of the said holy books followers are free to disregard.

Can I ignore anything I disagree with and still be considered an X? If so, what meaning does X really have and why should I consider myself an X? If not, then who gets to decide which parts of the holy book I can ignore, and by what authority?

The 'party line' that I usually receive is that every word of the holy books is true, but we must interpret it properly. However, there are huge portions of the the old testament and quaran that unambiguously advocate violence and intolerance (I can dig up example if you like). They really don't leave much room for interpretation.

To the best of my knowledge, religions/philosophies have a core set of beliefs that define them. I understand that there is some latitude, but once you stray a certain distance from a religion's core, I'd argue you are no longer a member of that religion. And, based on my readings of the quaran and old testament, I'd say that violence and intolerance are part of the core of islam and judaism.

By way of analogy, libertarians hold a very wide spectrum of beliefs. For example, two libertarians could disagree on whether or not elementary schools should be publicly funded. But, when one of them contends that all private profit should be taken and redistributed, I'd posit that he's no longer a libertarian because he has strayed too far from the core principles.

>I understand that there is some latitude, but once you stray a certain distance from a religion's core, I'd argue you are no longer a member of that religion

I agree. Once you sufficiently liberalize a religion, say, by being a Christian that believes there are ways to paradise without ever having a personal relationship with your Lord, Jesus Christ, I fail to see the point. But, there are very many people that arbitrarily pick and choose beliefs. So even if it seems improper to us to pick and choose beliefs, that is just how it is.

>And, based on my readings of the quaran and old testament, I'd say that violence and intolerance are the core of islam and judaism.

I won't speak for your interpretation of Islam, but your interpretation of Judaism is wrong. You can't read a religion's book and claim to know everything about that religion. The ancient Hebrews existed at a time when tribal violence was a way of life. They genocided/smited their enemies with the help of God and wrote about it. They have mellowed considerably since then, depending on how you feel about Israel.

There are thousands of years of interpretation since the books were originally written. In Judaism, interpretation of the Bible is sometimes considered as valid as the Bible itself. So Judaism was reformed over time by people interpreting the Bible and publishing their interpretations. The Talmud is probably the most important of these Jewish Biblical interpretations, but there have been many since. If you want to gain an understanding of Judaism, you can't just read the Old Testament and call it a broken religion that advocates violence and intolerance.

My point is that these various religious books are full of misogyny, intolerance, and violence (which you have agreed with).

At that point any reasonable person would say something along the lines of: "You know what, this book isn't very good. It may have been decent x years ago, and it does have some good ideas, but on balance it isn't that good. Let's keep the good stuff, throw out the bad, and come up with a new canon based on the best thinking of today."

But that isn't what happened. Islam and Judaism have chosen to keep their deeply flawed books at the center of their religions (and yes, they are the center). And we still have wackos using the text in these books to justify their violence and bigotry.

So, until Jews and Muslims openly disavow huge potions of the torah and quaran, I have very little respect for them.

Religion as practiced by the common man has always been more about tribal identity and rituals than books or theology. The preexisting cultural traditions are adapted as needed to satisfy the dictates of the ruling elite. Most of Christianity is a thin coat on pagan traditions. Your typical white Christian can't articulate much more than some parables, but knows the pagan celestial feasts of Christmas and Easter are central to his culture.

Constantine, King David, Shinto Imperialists, or whatever, come along and write books as part of a social control program, and people shrug and do what they were doing. See how Catholicism in South America is rife with rituals of native origin, different from the European pagan ones.

But Islam is a bit different. Islam was fairly clearly articulated by well documented real people (I personally don't think Jesus even existed) who spread their beliefs through military conquest. Islam is unambiguously defined by the koran, both theologically and in practice, in a way not true of most other faiths. The historical experience of the Caliphate and the enforcement of Islamic law is quite different. The historical actions of Islamic states have corresponded well to the precepts of the koran.