Islam

GoingByzantine said:

How cynical some of our atheist friends are, for not all religion is the same. I had a Anthropology textbook this past year, and it was very critical of religion.

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I'm an atheist, and if you read several of my more recent posts, it's a point that I've been trying to make a for a while.

Mainstream Atheists like Sam Harris are starting to make that very same point as well.

People can try to compare Christianity to Islam all day long...People can make their arguments that compare abortion clinic bombings to Jihad (even though the magnitude and frequency of these 2 things aren't on the same playing field)....people can make arguments that "the Old Testament has texts that are just as violent"...

However, the one thing that can't be denied are the vast differences between the men they hold reverence for.

Muhammad and Jesus...

Even if could match violent texts between the two holy books 1 for 1, you still can't deny that Muhammad and Jesus are two very different people according to how their books describe them.

According to the books, Muhammad had personally ordered the deaths of people for various offenses such as being a spy, opposing him with poetry, interrupting his prayer, being affiliated with his opposition, being the sibling of someone who has opposed him, slander, adultery, ...and also claiming to be a prophet. All said an done, there were around 50 instances on record.

I'm unaware of any hits ordered by Jesus...

The argument by many is that "the violence just comes from a few radicals, everyone else is moderates"...I think that's a point that needs to be discussed in more depth...but if that's the approach that we want to take, then we at least have to acknowledge, then, that it would mean that of that minority of radicals the two religions create, Islam creates worse radicals than Christianity in modern day society.

This idea of even-handedness is a self-imposed constraint that many progressives have imposed upon themselves. If you're not allowed to criticize the bad ideas of one ideology out of fear of being considered a bigot, you have to do the next best thing which is attempt to make it look like all of the other competing ideologies are just as bad...that way you're viewed as "fair".

Hi, Lovely Muslimah. Jesus makes clear it is better to be hot or cold than lukewarm. So, I respect your fidelity to Islam. And to your Islamic men.

I think you are right, I should not have dismissed in that post the prospects of sincerely motivated conversions. I knew and know they do exist. They existed among millions of Amerindians in Mexico via some persuasion by the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And such conversions of heart to Jesus existed among a many blacks on Southern slave plantations. Likewise, I'm sure many Spaniards had sincere conversions to Islam.

Another aspect of belief is family rearing and community rearing as well. Most Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, and Hindus are such because they were raised from the cradle as such. Same thing with Democrats and Republicans. Almost every American takes the political beliefs (which are really religious beliefs) of their parents, of the beliefs they were indoctrinate with in their home.

But humans have a need to fit in. The vast majority of humans. And that was more or less what I was originally trying to get at. There are more benefits being accepted than to being rejected as "the other" or outsider.

I'm convinced that whatever a person believes it therefore is their religion. If Democrats believe guns should be more restricted then that is their religious beliefs. If Iowa Republicans oppose a casino being built in Kenosha, Wisconsin then that is their religious belief.

For me... Jesus established Himself as the truth. Not a religion. The word "religion" was created to be applied to Obama's Protestantism the same way the word "black" was created to be applied to Obama's "race." But Obama is in truth not black and in truth whatever he believes therefore is his religion.

The Democrats and Republicans are as much a religion as Islam. And I view Islam as no different than the Democratic Party, Republican Party, or atheism. In a number of respects Islam is superior to all of them as evidenced by your Mary Magadelene-like fidelity to both Islam and Islamic men. And as evidenced by the superior civilization of the UAE relative to the barbaric, secular, American society I live in.

Now, as for "science" and "knowledge," when I spoke of Oriental Christianity I was not really speaking about the traditions of Greek thought. That was there too, but the Syriac texts and men (Oriental Orthodox) Islamic scholars at times drew from were systems of thought composed by non-Europeans. They also drew from Coptic learned men as well. And of course, Hindus from India.

That is not to say Islamic scholars themselves never contributed personally to the advancements of new ideas, new skills and so forth. I think what I was trying to point out is that people throughout the world learn from one another. And that at certain points in history some civilizations are ahead of others in terms of the sum of their body of knowledge and technological or scientific abilities.

It may well be--some archeological evidence (not a lot though)--suggests that one of the earliest if not earliest advanced civilizations was in black West Africa and that those black people migrated East as far as to the region that would one day become Egypt. But as empires rise and fall, and as the winds of time can submerge things, let alone warfare crumbling buildings, evidence and testimony of the past can become hidden if not altogether forgotten and no longer known.

Today it is popular to act as if early Catholics knew nothing. Even though a whole, massive city, called Venice, Italy, a engineering miracle, provides evidence against this. It is right for Americans to be proud of the engineering marvel of the City of New Orleans built on a drained swamp. But Venice is no less an engineering marvel.

Yes, Moorish Spain had its administrative and infrastructural achievements. But so did the Catholic Republic of Venice. And contrary to secular Western norms of thought... the Oriental Orthodox world (Eastern Orthodox too in Constantinople) had some rather impressive achievements too. The Oriental world is especially underwritten about and under-studied. These people had civilizations in the East that had medical doctors utilizing knowledge from Greeks, Syrians, and ancient Assyrians (I think?). They were a multicultural crossroads and had relatively peaceful civilizations that promoted learning.

I called myself a Muslim for about 15 years. From 9th grade until I was about 30 or so when I went into a phase of going back and forth between Christianity and Islam quoting the Bible and the Quran. I was studying the Quran with a Muslim brother and it came to the part where it was going to explain in what situations you may hit your wife. At that moment I thought "I don't think God would tell us it was okay to hit your wife." It just didn't sit right with me also because there was no situation where a wife could strike her husband. So I started studying and asking the question to people more knowledgeable about the Quran than me. I found certain situations where it was okay to kill somebody. You can't just kill people it does not say that but even still I thought it didn't sit right to know as a human with our passions, and our lack of self coutrol and our self doubt that God would leave the decision to kill or not up to us humans to decide. An all knowing God I beieve would leave that decision for himself when it comes to who dies when. That is when it struck me that Jesus never said it was okay to kill anybody at any time. THere is the one verse where he says some of you will need swords But still "Blessed are the peacemakers" was what sounded most God like to me. Islam was awesome for teaching me how to pray 5 times a day and bow down to the floor in front of my creator but the doctrine has to be "Blessed are the peacemakers"

jared1236 said:

What are your views on Islam?

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There is a school of thought which says that without strict prohibitions against apostacy Islam would have died out long ago.

I have a lot of sympathy for that point of view.

I have no idea why in our attempt to show tolerance towards other faiths we tolerate that particular notion even for a moment. Freedom of religion for everyone except Moslems, who have no choice in the matter? I don't think so.

rturner76 said:

Islam was awesome for teaching me how to pray 5 times a day and bow down to the floor in front of my creator but the doctrine has to be "Blessed are the peacemakers"

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I like the faithfulness of a devout Moslem too; that is certainly commendable.

The 5 times a day comes from the Psalms, via Christianity.

http://biblehub.com/psalms/119-164.htm

The psalmist promises to pray seven times a day. Monastic prayer conflated the first and last two, making five, and Islam borrowed this five, not realising that it stands for seven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_hours

rturner76 said:

I called myself a Muslim for about 15 years. From 9th grade until I was about 30 or so when I went into a phase of going back and forth between Christianity and Islam quoting the Bible and the Quran. I was studying the Quran with a Muslim brother and it came to the part where it was going to explain in what situations you may hit your wife. At that moment I thought "I don't think God would tell us it was okay to hit your wife." It just didn't sit right with me also because there was no situation where a wife could strike her husband. So I started studying and asking the question to people more knowledgeable about the Quran than me. I found certain situations where it was okay to kill somebody. You can't just kill people it does not say that but even still I thought it didn't sit right to know as a human with our passions, and our lack of self coutrol and our self doubt that God would leave the decision to kill or not up to us humans to decide. An all knowing God I beieve would leave that decision for himself when it comes to who dies when. That is when it struck me that Jesus never said it was okay to kill anybody at any time. THere is the one verse where he says some of you will need swords But still "Blessed are the peacemakers" was what sounded most God like to me. Islam was awesome for teaching me how to pray 5 times a day and bow down to the floor in front of my creator but the doctrine has to be "Blessed are the peacemakers"

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So you reject that Jesus (peace be upon him) was the one who revealed the OT? Who do you think wrote it?

Do you think it feasible that if someone starts randomly beating up your family member in front of you that you won't act in a physical manner to stop the person hitting them? Would it be a sin to try to stop such a person using physical means and the only thing that would be allowed would be to issue verbal commands?

I think some of the issues raised here comparing the teachings of Jesus with some of the revelations in Qur'an can be best understood if you accept the teachings of Jesus as for personal morality and the situation that His teachings addressed... A heavy occupation of Judea by Rome did not call for armed resistance but rather non-violent resistance... carrying a burden the extra mile...turning the cheek if slapped and so on...

The situation of Prophet Muhammad was different. He bore six or seven years of persecution and attempted assassination in Mecca... After the Hijra.. He and His followers found refuge in Medina and a "community" of the tribes there formed a Treaty to defend themselves from attack by the stronger pagan armies...The revelations of this period concerned a "state" and so dealt with issues of dealing with prisoners and defending the community. So it was a different environment and context than in the dispensation of Christ.

what do i think of islam? it doesn't really matter what i think, but what does the Bible have to say? God's word, the Bible, says islam and all other false religions are antichrist.

I John 2: 22-24

22Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. 24Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.

in islam, it is the unforgiveable sin of shirk, punishable by death, to attribute deity to Jesus Christ.

allah has no son, says islam, and i say they are welcome to believe whatever they want, but the Bible teaches that God does have a Son, and His name is Jesus Christ.

despite islam teachings that allah is the same god as the God of the Bible, allah is not the true living God of the Bible.

the God of the Bible loves Jews and Christians--allah hates them.

the God of the Bible has a Son, Jesus, who is Himself, God--'allah' has no sons.

they teach that islam is an Abrahamic 'religion' but islam could not be further away from Judaism or Christianity. islam serves another god, as do all false 'religions.' only Judaism and Christianity serve the true living God of the Bible. this is not a criticism of islam and every other religion, it's simply stating fact. yet, some find this offensive. there can only be one truth. islam has what they believe to be the truth, Christians have what we believe to be the truth, just as hindus have what they believe to be the truth, just as pagans feel they have embraced the truth, as do satanists, etc. but they can't all be true, can they? there is only one God according to the Bible, and that's what i go by, because I'm a Christian.

[QUOTE="rider99, post: 67977953, member: 241605"While there are many peaceful and loving Muslims, Islam is a violent, misogynist religion that calls for the death or enslavement of those who do not submit to it.[/QUOTE]

That is simply false.

SuperCloud said:

That was colonization. The only reason North African colonization of Spain is glorified is due to anti-Catholic sentiments.

Okay, I'm half black, look at black Africa today under self rule. One could glorify the white colonial rule of Africa especially sense they built pretty buildings.

If everyone--or the majority--of white Spaniards loved Muslim rule so much then I doubt Muslim rule would ever have been overthrown. Look at all the pretty buildings and high culture France had. That still did not stop the French Revolution. I'm thinking plenty of white Spaniards were as satisfied with the rule of their Muslim masters as the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam were satisfied with the rule of their white masters: in the wealthiest most advanced nation on earth in the 1950s and 1970s. Plenty of pretty buildings in the USA and a lot more real science in the USA than ever was in Moorish Spain. Ah! but the pretty fountains and female harems of the elite 1% of the Moorish aristocrats therefore says anti-Catholic propaganda must paradise on earth have existed. Not.

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You presume the Muslims weren't white. Some were black, of course, but most were light-skinned Berbers. Most of the soldiers of the Reconquista were not Spaniards at all, they were Normans, Vikings who had themselves converted to Christianity only a century or so previously.

Oafman said:

You have to be kidding. Those are both repressive and exploitative theocracies, and they're both vile.

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You realize those 'theocracies' were established by the British?

Michael said:

Apparently these days they can't even live in peace with one another, let alone anyone else.

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Gee, just like Northern Ireland used to be.

LoveBeingAMuslimah said:

Many ethnic Spaniards converted to Islaam and they were persecuted along with the Muslims with mainly North African ancestry after Ferdinand and Isabella happened. Muslim children were stolen and raised as Christians. At one point, 80% of Spain's population was comprised of Muslims (Berbers + converts from the indigenous population).

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I asked Felipe Fernández-Armesto who has a specialty in this area whether the majority of Spaniards were Muslim or Christian during this period. He said he believed they were mostly Christian but it was very difficult to say because Christianity and Islam had become so intertwined. Often a peasant would appear in court and be asked their religion and they really didn't seem to know.

mindlight said:

No a response to God does not need to be political. Gods Kingdom is not of this world even if it will displace all the principalities and powers of this world.

Of course Islam is intensely political in practice and indeed probably would not have survived as long as it has without the tyranny of a scary minority over the rest.

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Muslim rule was certainly no more scary that Christian rulers were from Constantine onward.

I like that they acknowledge the One God , Creator, Sovereign Lord and Judge. I admire their zeal for God but because of their views on Jesus and the apparent lack of assurance and intimacy in their faith i wonder if they truly know God.

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No intimacy? Have you never heard of Sufism?

SuperCloud said:

The Muslims acquired a lot of their "knowledge" from the Eastern and Oriental Christians. Particularly the Oriental Christians. And a lot of their "knowledge" from the Hindu Indians. That learning they translated into Arabic and then brought to the Christian West.

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Yes, and no. The Islamic world inherited the bulk of the Hellenistic tradition, particularly Greek philosophy, but it was the philosophy that the Byzantine Christians had cast aside. The Emperor Justinian had closed down the School of Athens as pagan and many of these philosophers fled to the Sassanian Empire where they were welcomed due to their expertise in medicine, mathematics and astronomy. The Abbasid Caliphs subsequently inherited these philosophers and set them to work translating the entirety of Greek philosophical texts into Arabic. It was really the first large body of prose literature to be written in Arabic and helped shape very structure of Arabic prose. The Arab "mind" is really the Greek philosophical mind. Of course, they did adopt their number system from India, the most important element of this was the use of the zero. This was later passed on to the West as Arabic numbers. And if you don't think that was a great contribution to European civilization try balancing your checkbook with Roman numerals. Without the zero the invention of Algebra (Al-Jabr meaning "the calculations) would have been impossible.

By the way... the "Golden Age" of the USA was arguably right after WWII during the 1950s to the late 1960s. Why would Black-Americans rebel during a "Golden Age" and one of material prosperity and scientific advancements that greatly surpassed the Golden Age of Moorish Spain?

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Again, you assume that the Reconquista was fought mostly by Spaniards. Not true. It was largely waged by mercenaries from the north.

NightHawkeye said:

Free time and a television driven political agenda.

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That's your assessment of the Civil Rights Movement?

suzeequeue said:

what do i think of islam? it doesn't really matter what i think, but what does the Bible have to say? God's word, the Bible, says islam and all other false religions are antichrist.

I John 2: 22-24

22Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?

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But Islam doesn't deny Jesus is the Christ, in fact it affirms it.

in islam, it is the unforgiveable sin of shirk, punishable by death, to attribute deity to Jesus Christ.

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No, it is not punishable by death. But John said nothing about deity.

the God of the Bible loves Jews and Christians--allah hates them.

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Not true:

Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans – whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right – surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.[Quran 2:62]

Lo! those who believe, and those who are Jews, and Sabaeans, and Christians – Whosoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right – there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.[Quran 5:69]

Michael said:

Hmm. I think most of the religious oriented violence that took place in Yugoslavia was between Christians and Muslims. Ethnic divisions tend to erupt between Christians of course, and there is the example of Northern Ireland where the violence was between religious factions. You're correct that no religion is immune from such stupidity.

I don't recall any conflicts however between Christian sects that went across national borders. ISIL lining up Shias in trenches in Iraq, like the Nazi's perpetrated on the Jews, seems to be taking sectarian violence to it's most pathetically violent expression.
T
The scary part to me is that if Sunni's and Shia's can't live in peace in the Middle East, what hope is there for them living in peace with any other religious beliefs?

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ISIL is an apocalyptic cult run amok. Let me give you a little background on it. It started with a small group in Jordan seeking to overthrow King Hussein. Then, after the US invaded Iraq, they moved to Iraq to fight against the Americans, where they were joined by the Sunni remnants of Sadam Hussein army. Their leader, al-Zarqawi then joined up with al-Qaeda, but he eventually split with Bin Laden over two issues, the first was the targeting of Shi'ites and the second was the targeting of Christians. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda opposed both those things. After al-Zarqawi is killed in a US drone attack, al-Baghdadi assumes the leadership and that's when things get really crazy. When the Syrian Civil War breaks out he sends people to form a branch of his organization there. Then in 2014 he declares the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, with himself as Caliph. Mind you to declare himself Caliph in this day and age is the equivalent of claiming to be the Mahdi (Muslim Messiah.) These guys are out to fight the apocalyptic battle of Armageddon.

suzeequeue said:

what do i think of islam? it doesn't really matter what i think, but what does the Bible have to say? God's word, the Bible, says islam and all other false religions are antichrist.

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You wrote: ‘Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.’

Muslims do not deny that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) is the Christ. They do, of course, deny that he is in any way divine. If one applies the label ‘antichrist’ to the Muslims for believing thus, then one must apply it also to the Jews (sorry LoAmmi); since they also deny his divinity.

You wrote: ‘Despite islam teachings that allah is the same god as the God of the Bible, allah is not the true living God of the Bible.’

Millions of Arab and non-Arab Christians (for example, thirty million Javanese and Sundanese Christians in Indonesia) worship God as ‘Allah’ - and believe Him to be the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In spite of the apparent differences in how God is understood according to Biblical and Qur’anic content, Arabic-speaking Jews, Christians and Muslims together have been addressing God as ‘Allah’ for the last fourteen centuries (and Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians for far longer than this).

You wrote: ‘the God of the Bible loves Jews and Christians--allah hates them.’

From the Qur'an:

‘The (Muslim) believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians - all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do good - will have their rewards with their Lord. No fear for them, nor will they grieve.’

(Al-Baqara: 62). Does this sound like hatred of Jews and Christians?

You wrote: ‘only Judaism and Christianity serve the true living God of the Bible. this is not a criticism of islam and every other religion, it's simply stating fact.’

This is not a fact. It is an opinion. I hope that it is based on ignorance rather than prejudice. Only you can answer that.

smaneck said:

ISIL is an apocalyptic cult run amok. Let me give you a little background on it. It started with a small group in Jordan seeking to overthrow King Hussein. Then, after the US invaded Iraq, they moved to Iraq to fight against the Americans, where they were joined by the Sunni remnants of Sadam Hussein army. Their leader, al-Zarqawi then joined up with al-Qaeda, but he eventually split with Bin Laden over two issues, the first was the targeting of Shi'ites and the second was the targeting of Christians. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda opposed both those things. After al-Zarqawi is killed in a US drone attack, al-Baghdadi assumes the leadership and that's when things get really crazy. When the Syrian Civil War breaks out he sends people to form a branch of his organization there. Then in 2014 he declares the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, with himself as Caliph. Mind you to declare himself Caliph in this day and age is the equivalent of claiming to be the Mahdi (Muslim Messiah.) These guys are out to fight the apocalyptic battle of Armageddon.

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Hi Susan,

What you say is correct in every detail.