Is the Islamic Allah a social memory complex?

[Billy]

Has anyone here actually read the Koran?  All I really know about the Koran are those verses that people use to add validity to their own perspective and bias.  Those who see Islam as a religion of peace, they cite those verses that are peaceful, and those who think of it as a religion of violence, cite the violent verses.  As a whole though, I don't know what kind of 'feeling' the book has.  It seems that few people have actually read it all the way through and put in the effort to uncover its origins and all the context surrounding it.  Not surprising, considering how difficult such an undertaking would be. 

This topic is without a doubt one of the most sensitive and important of our time, and with so much being said about it, it is hard not to get bogged down in mountains of information.  How much of it is true or even relevant though?  I don't know why we are seeing, what I perceive to be at least, such violence coming from and in the Muslim world.  Is it a retaliation to imperialism and the horrors of foreign politics, is it religion, is it circumstance like war and poverty, or is it a mix of all of these factors?  I truly do not know, and finer minds than mine don't seem to really know either.  People have their opinions though, but the problem is that many of these opinions are influenced by prejudice, which always gets in the way of truth.  I know I have my prejudices and I do my best to not let them influence me or at least realize when they are.  We have to acknowledge that there is a problem though.  Without doing so, how we improve?