Islamic scholars ponder the death-for-apostasy issue

So there's a conference in the United Arab Emirates this week to discuss whether Muslim apostates (those who leave the religion) should face the death penalty. In some Muslim countries --like "moderate" Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan-- apostasy is worthy of a death. sentence, while Iran is presently considering such a law.

Those arguing against death-for-apostasy are appealing to Koranic texts, specifically citing the injunction that “there is no compulsion in religion".

Unfortunately, the folks who want to kill people for leaving Islam are appealing to scripture as well -- and their quote is just a tad more salient: “Any [Muslim] person who has changed his religion, kill him.”

While it's encouraging that these discussions are taking place in the Muslim world, it's going to be very difficult for so-called "moderates" to make any significant progress by mining the Koran and Hadith for quotes that justify their more secular ideologies. Somehow someone needs to demonstrate to the misguided that the world is much bigger than what Mohammed and the writers of those books said it was. But how can that happen when children are indoctrinated from birth and the tenants of the religion won't allow for new ideas?