Shucks man... I go off for ICT for a week, and this thread greets me when I step into sgforums after a hiatus?

To the threadstarter: It would do you a whole lot of good if you had posted nicely. You say that you seek clarification on what you've read about the Quran, but when you put the thread title as 'Islam? Violent and Hateful? I'm afraid, yes' it goes to show that you're not seeking clarification at all but supporters of your own stand.
As I've said before in The Islam Forum (which I happen to moderate), you may post whatever you want, but post nicely. Objectivity works both ways; if you expect people to come up with objective arguments, then you are expected to be objective as well.
I won't try to counter much against what you said in your initial posting, for I'll just be repeating whatever Gauze and the others have been saying. All I want to say is that those verses that you have selected are either non-existent, taken out of context, or truncated prematurely. In verse 9:5 for example, you had quoted the verse as:
'Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.....'But in the process, you had truncated the verse and totally left out the next part of the very same verse:
'.....but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.'With the way you had presented that verse in such a narrow and truncated, it's like saying
'You smell' while leaving out the words
'.....wonderful today, my darling.' that follow it.

'Nuff said. I'm flogging a dead horse and feeding pet food to a troll by tossing in my two cents' worth. I'm already tired enough as it is.