“When the Muslims used to disagree, they had different schools of thought,” said Sayed el-Qemni, another reform-minded writer who lives in a small city outside of Cairo. “No one would point to the other and say, ‘This is not Islam.’ But when one school of thought says, ‘I am the correct school of thought and everyone else deserves death,’ then you are starting a new religion.”

"MR. BANNA says one of the fundamental problems with religious leaders in Egypt is that they look to the interpretations of their ancestors and not to the Koran itself. To look directly at the book, and not at the words as interpreted by men living in a different time, would have a liberating effect, he says."

(NY Times)

And I think this is an anathema that is quite common in any religion, reading their scripture and relying too much on the elders that lived hundreds of years ago. Read the holy book directly - it is available to be understood.

This is I think because there's an innate assumption that religious people in history is better people and hence more suitable to interpret holy books better. Bleh. If you read the history of the world, past times are actually terrible.

We lived in a better world that they did - as it should be - because we expect progress with time.