At one point in the atheist discussion group that I attend once a month, someone distributed a list of various verses from the Qur'an which this person had collected so as to set its observations about women, unbelief, and life in, he readily acknowledged, a decidedly disparagingly light.
     Granted, this person is not a fan of religion; he rejects the Qur'an, along with the Bible, as Bronze Age mythology.  Unfortunately, he ignores that the bulk of both documents were written many centuries into the Iron Age.  Moreover, the Qur'an, in particular, appeared on the cusp of the remarkable Arab Renaissance, whose scholarship influenced and, in some cases, impelled the rise of the Scientific Revolution in Western Europe.  While we may disagree with the Qur'an's contents, we should not dismiss it as the product of a primitive culture.
     Ironically, I therefore found myself in the rather unusual position of being a Christian who was defending Islam at a meeting of atheists!  While I do not agree with everything the Qur'an says, I do believe it is supremely vital to understand what it says in the fairest light possible.  This person relied entirely on English translations to convey his views of the Qur'an, when any scholar of religion knows that the Qur'an can only be properly understood by examining the Arabic in which it was originally written--and as any devout Muslim knows--is still used today.  Moreover, he read the Qur'an solely to criticize it, hardly the most impartial way to approach a document which over 1.6 billion people around the world consider to be sacred.
     We may not agree with everything religion--any religion--says, but we should at least make our best effort to understand it.  Religious people are as human as the rest of us. They deserve a fair hearing.  So does, for that matter, God.