"You've decided to blame the sound guidance itself. That's your perogative, but it's not the fault of the guidance. It's the fault of the individual or the (bad) teacher."
What do you mean by "nuclear" here? It's a little confusing in this context, I suspect it may just be the wrong word, but I can't tell exactly what it was intended to be.
In any event, that is a possible argument. However: I would argue that whether the guidance can be called "sound" depends an awful lot on the number of its followers who fail to follow it correctly, and if that proportion of followers reaches some threshold. For example, if say over 40-60% of a religion's followers departed from the sound guidance, there would be a very strong argument for saying that the guidance therefore is not sound at all. Yes, that may be because of a faulty 'family' in this context - but then, how did the faulty family come about? The same issue applies there: the guidance itself must surely be unsound, or the 'extended family' unwilling in large amounts to follow the guidance.
It's still plausible to say that even if say 90% of the family departs from the guidance, that the guidance is correct and the family is wrong - but that path is a dangerous one in logical terms. The same path is what allows a person with a crazy interpretation of the guidance to claim that 90% of normal believers are wrong. It is my view that, given the sheer number of Muslims (and other religious believers) who depart significantly from their religious guidance, that the guidance itself is difficult to defend as sound.
"Nobody argued that there was "no responsibility"; it's just that the responsibility is not as global as many want to make it out to be."
This is reasonable, yes. I admit that it is not as simple as just "well all members of this religion are to blame" - it is of course much more complex than that, and even some people in senior religious positions could be said to still have comparatively low levels of 'influence' over the religion as a whole.
One thing I would say, though, is that religion is more democratic than it might seem. While of course, religious people can't e.g. change their holy text by vote, much of the 'accepted interpretation' of the text is very much decided in a democratic fashion. This is most clearly seen in the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church, but applies to Islam too (after all, there are many interpretations of the Quran and Islamic law, and as such the views of Muslims plays a big part in which interpretations prevail). This implies a degree of complicitness, but nonetheless it is not a simple one, as you say.
"It's not the text, it's the teacher."
Similar to the above arguments, I'd argue that if the teachers are consistently teaching a subject wrong for centuries, it may be time to consider if the subject's text itself is at fault.
"Fair enough, but note that within the religion, that's a ***HUGE*** distinction. Changing the law is heresy; choosing a different option under the law can be an example of wisdom."
That is very true. I would nonetheless say that if there are choices in how to interpret a law (e.g. in what sentences can be passed), this choice means that those making the interpretation are to some degree responsible for which one they choose.
"I'm not sure that theists have an issue with anyone who points out that within the religion there are adherents (ostensibly) that have deviant beliefs and/or deviant practices. Some people of course feel the need to circle the wagons when criticism comes from outside, but most readily admit that there are bad actors inside of any faith. (It's kind of obvious, eh?)"
I am not so sure of that. While theists generally accept that e.g. extremists within their religion exist, they tend from what I have seen to be much less accepting when discussing those who hold strict religious beliefs that they push to be part of the law of countries (e.g. on subjects such as sexuality, morality, etc). While one could argue that democracy allows this, it's difficult to call a democratic country a democracy if its voters all vote because they believe their religion allows them no choice - it can be argued that is just a religious dictatorship in disguise where those policies are concerned. Still, that's a complex and difficult discussion.
"Fair enough. It was certainly the word 'complicit' that caught my attention."
Yeah. I wanted to point out that the responsibility is there - on Islam's followers collectively but not 'every individual Muslim' - without implying that individual Muslims should be shunned for that, but 'complicit' on its own was simply too vague. The aim is to state that religious believers should consider this issue more - but certainly not to ostracize them or similar.
