Ask me about Islaam

2 King said:

A while ago, a Muslim who i've known to be a good friend of mine for 3 years came up to me, saying to me, "Why do you believe on your God Jesus? Why not worship the One True God Allah?" I replied to him saying, "My God loved me so much that He died for me, just so that I could live. You expect me to give that up for one who hasn't done that?", he then, to my suprise, answered saying, "No. I do not expect you to give that up, if I had that, I wouldn't even give it up."

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I guess what Georges Sada talks about was all false.

Bushmaster78FS said:

Is there any proof that pagans of Arabia prayed for intercessions of Abraham? I hardly doubt it. If these pagans were indeed Abrahamic, then their acceptance and influence of Islam is inevitable. Talk about shooting one's self in the foot.

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Yes there religion was Abrahamic but they twisted it and corrupted it long time ago, they too believed that there is only 1 God.

When Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon him) entered the Kaba he found pictures of some angels and pictures of Abraham and Ismael he was angry of them and commanded that these pictures should be removed.

Bushmaster78FS said:

How are you 100% sure that Allah hears you when you do your daily 5 time rituals, going through the motions?

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you are comparing Mary with god, are you suggesting that she is a goddess?

Bushmaster78FS said:

Why? Do you usually define Allah with math in Quran? Is math divine? Is it from God? Did God invent math?

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yes I define Allah as one, God taught us how to write and read and tough us every science we have including math.

Bushmaster78FS said:

Mathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. So where does it say in this verse that God taught math to man before he knew math? Since when Greeks worshipped Allah?

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Allah taught us math not Greeks, he taught Greeks what they never new and since when they are the inventors of math?

the verse says: Taught man that which he knew not

Man(humans) is not necessarily a Muslim.

Oops, people got off topic.

What about Islam?.... this is the OP's question.

ابرهم is the defective spelling (Abrhm) which is found in 15 passages of the Koran in the 1923 Cairo edition. The correct spelling is ابرهيم (Abraham). Does this not signify that the original Koran was not in Arabic? How did this error get overlooked?

Was Muhammad a peaceful man?

Bushmaster78FS said:

We don't have time for empty talk and irrelevant claims. Names, times, locations, talk some substance. Catholic Church always believed and taught God as Trinity, there is not one instance in Christian history that Church didn't do so. Such heretic could never be canonized as a saint.

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Aretas (martyr) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SolomonVII said:

Sa what about it?!!
Catholics no more worship Mary than Moslems worship Mohammed.
Esteem does not equate to worship.

We fully recognize that Mary is not divinity, just as Moslems recognize that Mohammed is human, like her even.

Now maybe Moslems are of the type not to afford their most saintly the highest respect, esteem and honor, as Catholics do to Mary. Maybe they are of the type that believe that there are no people in heaven and that all are dead, and there is therefore a complete disconnect between the earthbound and those in heaven. Maybe they are of the type that they find it sacrilege to ask someone else to pray for them to God, but as Catholics we are not so inclined.
We pray for others, and want others to pray for us all the time. We especially want the most saintly, those most close to God in their words and their deeds, to pray for us.
So if that is worship, then we worship many, many, many, many others, and not just Mary.
We ask people to pray for us. That is what we do. If Moslems and others are not so inclined, then that is their perogative too. As long as they don't carry on implying that we who ask others to pray for us are therefore worshipping them as we worship God, then all the power to them in declining the prayers of the most saintly among us.

We do not worship Mary as a Moslem may worship God. We do not worship Mary in the normal sense of the word 'worship', but only by the special Islamic definition of the word, as you are now defining it.

Please always be clear then that Islam now defines 'worship' something other than the normal usage, so that you do not continue to mislead and deceive others about what it is that Catholics actually do.

We ask Mary—and everybody else that might want to— to pray for us yes.
But we do not therefore believe that Mary, (and everybody else too), is therefore a Goddess on that account.

Honest Muslims really ought to make themselves clear on that point, when they state without qualifications that Catholics and EO worship Mary. It is dishonest to use the word 'worship' to make it appear as if Christians worship Mary as a goddess.


And we do not differentiate from the saints that have passed on, and the saints that walk the earth now with us. For Jesus himself answers the Saducees that the God of Abraham and Isaac is a God of the living and not the dead.

Abraham and Mary are as alive as you and I, more so even, the stain of sin removed from the souls of the eternally saved!
That is the good news of the Christian gospel. Life in God carries on, erases the stain of sin and the sting of death.

We understand God to be a God of the living and not of the dead, that the saint are alive in Heaven and very close to God indeed—though still human of course— and that we can beseech saints to pray for us on our behalf.

If such veneration and connectedness to good people of all ages is outside of the scope of Islam, that is all well and fine.
But if the implication of Koranic passages is that we equate Mary the same divinity as we do Jesus, then the Koran is clearly in error.
Mainstream orthodox teaching of the universal catholic church has never taught that Mary is anything but a humble girl who gave birth to the Lord our God, Christ Jesus of Nazareth.

So it now becomes a lie for Moslems to imply and to carry on saying that we worship both Mary and Jesus without differentiation.

We do not.

We worship Jesus, who is the one True God, creator of the heavens and the earth, of all things seen and unseen,

and we pray to Mary.

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we don't ask prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to pray to us we don't believe that he is all-hearing or any other human.

Muhammad is dead and everyone else before him(but Jesus ofc and the Antichrist) but that won't make Jesus or the antichrist all-hearing.

Abu Bakr said when Prophet Muhammad died: (who ever worshipped Muhammad, Muhammad is dead. And who ever worshipped Allah, Allah is alive and he never dies.)

Prophet Muhammad fought the acts of the pagans, they did the same thing, they claim they only worship 1 God and these idols are nothing but to pray to God for them.

SolomonVII said:

1+1+1=3
but
1*1*1 is still equal to 1.

Indeed 1 to the exponent infinity is still one even.



But this is all semantics and all rather silly.



Christians have never defined Trinity as three gods. Only people otuside of the faith carry on this way, defiing what we believe into some kind of strawman as it suits their own arguments for their contrary cause.

Ultimately Catholics define God as Mystery, someone who is beyond our ability to comprehend fully. Trinity is an expression of God that aids in our comprehension of how the Divine touches us and relates to us. Trinity serves as an analogy that helps us make sense of how a fully transcendent God, on the outside of his creation as any creator must be, manifests himself and makes himself available for us, his created, as God Incarnate, and as Spirit who fills us,and animates us as the very breath of life, and creates us into the hands and heart of God on earth.

It has never, never carried any implication other than that God is One.

Jesus himself tells us that the Father and the Son are One, and that whosoever has seen the Son has seen the Father.

1+1+1 is indeed simple math, simplistic math even, not outside of the capability of pre-schoolers or even primates.
God on the other hand is profound and anything but simple. Reducing God to such simplicity is in the end a reductio ad absurdem of the Divine.

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First of all this 1*1*1 can't apply to your definition of God because you say father=/= son and 1=1, anyway what I meant is:


Son = God

Father = God

Holy spirit = God

that means father = son = holy spirit

formy said:

First of all this 1*1*1 can't apply to your definition of God because you say father=/= son and 1=1, anyway what I meant is:


Son = God

Father = God

Holy spirit = God

that means father = son = holy spirit

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Let's see how good your reasoning is, formy.

1 = a number
2 = a number
3 = a number

Therefore, 1 = 2 = 3 according to your logic, but reasoning along with rationality tells us that there must be some missing elements that have not been factored into the use of logic since is should be obvious that the conclusion is neither rational or reasonable. Logic is a set of rules that define thoughts; reasoning is the usage of these laws to reach a conclusion; and rationality is the proper use of reason.

Do you see how logic and reasoning must be checked for soundness or cogency? Your Islamic methods will not help you to be rational in many cases since Islam uses a different set of axioms to define Christian terms; thus, the many errors of Islam arise.

If you can see how your argument fails in this case, you should be worried about some of your other arguments against other religions as well as your own religion when it tries to redefine terms of other religions. I do hope that this serves as a wakeup call for you and other Muslims. I had not better hold my breath though.

formy said:

yes I define Allah as one, God taught us how to write and read and tough us every science we have including math.

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Now, let me get this straight: you think GOD is responsible for things like the written word and mathematics?

My, my, if you cannot even credit mankind with THAT much, where do you draw the line? Did Allah have to teach our ancestors how to find and eat food in order to survive? That the hunger pangs in their belly were a sign of malnourishment?


Honestly, it just goes to show how deeply steeped in superstition the thoughts of many theists tend to be. Abstract thought (and the abilities derived therefrom, such as the use of symbols and so forth) stems naturally from our increased mental abilities, courtesy of our enlarged brain (or rather: enlarged *regions* of the brain, as size alone does not matter in this regard).
To attribute it to a personal deity basically stepping down and saying "see here, little man, this is the letter "a"" strikes me as downright ridiculous.

peaceful soul said:

Let's see how good your reasoning is, formy.

1 = a number
2 = a number
3 = a number

Therefore, 1 = 2 = 3 according to your logic, but reasoning along with rationality tells us that there must be some missing elements that have not been factored into the use of logic since is should be obvious that the conclusion is neither rational or reasonable. Logic is a set of rules that define thoughts; reasoning is the usage of these laws to reach a conclusion; and rationality is the proper use of reason.

Do you see how logic and reasoning must be checked for soundness or cogency? Your Islamic methods will not help you to be rational in many cases since Islam uses a different set of axioms to define Christian terms; thus, the many errors of Islam arise.

If you can see how your argument fails in this case, you should be worried about some of your other arguments against other religions as well as your own religion when it tries to redefine terms of other religions. I do hope that this serves as a wakeup call for you and other Muslims. I had not better hold my breath though.

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Trinity contradict simple math, unless father is part of God and not god himself, same to son and holy spirit.

Hi,

As I have read only some Swedish translation of the Al-Quran, I'll try to avoid going into details about exactly what word is written here or there. But I'd like to ask you about the big picture.

If I'd try to summarize my understanding of the core beliefs of Islam, it would go like this:

God wasn't very happy with how things had turned out. The Jews and Christians were still fighting about who Jesus were and what he had said, and there were still a lot of pagan religions all around. So he decided to make it right, once and for all. This time there should be no misunderstanding, this time he would write the book himself, letter for letter. He sent Gabriel the archangel to deliver it to Muhammed, who was selected to spread it to all of mankind.

Now, this is indeed quite awesome. God himself writes a book to clear things up, and gives it to us to put all things right! So I started to read the book. And I started with "Al-Alaq" which I think is the first sura Muhammed received. So what was it about? God verbally attacks some guy that I suppose was some kind of enemy of Muhammed's. And it ends with God saying that if this liar doesn't change, they should grip his lying hair of a sinner where he can try to shout for his friends. But then also we (God and Muhammed?) should call out for the horrible guardians of hell. So that guy is in trouble indeed.

Next chapter, "Al-Muddassir" continues about the same way. God tells Muhammed to preach, and then there is this other guy God is clearly mad at. And yes, he will also be tossed into the burning fire of hell. Then comes a note about hell and Christians/Jews that I do not understand. God says that "we" (I don't understand whom he refers to) have put 19 angels to guard the hell. Then he says that this number was chosen as a test for the unbelievers, so Christians/Jews could be convinced of the truth in the Al-Quran.

A riddle? 19 angels? I don't get it. The 12 christian apostles + the seven candles in a Jewish candellier? Nah, there are nine candles right? Perhaps I should google it.

But here comes the real question. Is this really what we should expect of the Allmighty Creator of Heaven and Earth? I would expect him to share his divine enlightenment. Just reading the first few chapters ought to make me tremble in awe, falling on my knees and utter "God is Great". And there ought to be no more misunderstanding about what this or that prophet means by whatever he says. Instead God starts off by picking at some rather unimportant guys and gives me a riddle so I shall be convinced about the truth. Somehow I am not convinced. I am utterly disappointed. And if the Christians/Jews flunk this math test as I did, and hence not believe in the Al-Quran, God and his horrible guardians of hell will toss us into the burning fires of hell. For all eternity. A bit harsh, wouldn't you say? I'm afraid we are all deeply in trouble is this is the true nature of God.

Anyway, I kept on reading the entire book, and a lot was already familiar to me as I had read the Bible. From the rest I think a lot of it was about "If you don't do as Muhammed tells you, you're gonna burn in hell" and "If you do as Muhammed tells you, you will go to paradise". And at several places it seemed to say that the beauty of the book was evidence by itself that it must be true.

So let's say that it actually is. Then what did God accomplish with it? Did the Earth become a much better place after the Al-Quran? Did he make everything right, and straighten out all unanswered questions left after the Bible? Doesn't quite look like it, does it now? If God wanted the Christians and Jews to change, and embrace this new teaching, I don't think it would have been too hard for him to make it so. If he truly wanted to give us proof that this new book was his own writings, I have no doubt he could have shared a few of his divine thoughts that would have all of us immediately convinced. So God failed? Or let's assume that there is no hope for us Christians/Jews, as we are way too stupid and ignorant. Let's assume that we would not listen to God whatever he tried to tell us because we are forever lost in darkness. Then the paradise on Earth would only shine amongst the Muslim believers, and the rest of us have to blame ourselves, right?

But should we objectively try to find the most peaceful happy places on Earth today, we wouldn't exactly be looking at the Muslim countries, would we? They are fighting the Jews in Israel, the Hindus in Kashmir, and the Christians at a lot of different places. They even almost succeeded to pick a fight with the pacifist Buddhists while shooting down their ancient statues a few years ago. We have a lot of refugees in my country, and I believe the vast majority has fled from Muslim areas for one reason or the other.

But for the sake of the argument, let's assume that Islam has nothing to do with it, and the fault is entirely upon their enemies. Tthey are still fighting each other. Sunni moslems keep killing Shia moslems, and there is fighting about whether they should listen to Ali or Aysha or whoever. Honestly, God indeed seems to have totally failed his intentions with the Al-Quran as the ultimate scripture to us. Unless he wanted this chaos, which I believe not.

So what do I think about the Al-Quran? To me it makes much more sense to believe that Muhammed made it all up for his own reasons. He rises to power, assembles an army and conquer the nearby cities. He gets a lot of help from the book, as he can tell his followers that God demand them to do as he tells them unless they want to end up in hell. But if they die they will get the maidens in paradise. It is a very handy book for going to war and expand your territory. It also looks very suspicious that God grants Muhammed his own laws, for instance that he is allowed to take more wives than anyone else. But very convenient for Muhammed of course.

So, do you honestly believe the Al-Quran was written by the Allmighty God himself as his final ultimate guidance to mankind?
　

formy said:

Trinity contradict simple math, unless father is part of God and not god himself, same to son and holy spirit.

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Then Allah is one in the finite sense, like the number...Allah is limited.

JM said:

Then Allah is one in the finite sense, like the number...Allah is limited.

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JM, can God lie?

JM said:

Then Allah is one in the finite sense, like the number...Allah is limited.

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Exactly. By categorizing God, you belittle "Him". You squeeze Him into narrow boxes, project your own feelings, motivations, and desires upon Him, define Him in terms that fit nicely into your particular perspective - and then claim in the same breath that God is unfathomable, and cannot possibly be judged or understood by fallible creatures such as ourselves.

This is probably why the Qur'an has never struck me as a particularly enlightened document, whereas the Bible contains numerous touches of genuine inspiration (in my opinion). The Qur'an seems altogether pedestrian, narrow-minded and earth-bound to me, never quite leaving the ground. And its all-too-literal depictions of things like the afterlife only elaborate on what I consider the weakest parts of the Bible (at least if you read these parts literally): more ancient superstitions than transcendent insights.

JM said:

Then Allah is one in the finite sense, like the number...Allah is limited.

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Yeah Allah is one but he is not finite or limited

formy said:

Yeah Allah is one but he is not finite or limited

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But Christians say that God is not three--but one, but He is not finite or limited. How is what we say any less logical than what you say? We both say that God is one, but in different ways. If I asked you to tell us how Allah is one, you would be in the same predicament that you would accuse us of. How exactly could you explain oneness without going outside of your ability to comprehend Allah? Do you see that?

Here are some logical propositions and conclusions that I pose to you. Do you agree with them in principle? If you don't, then you need to reconsider what you say about Trinity.

Allah is one.
One is a number
Numbers are limited.
Therefore Allah is limited.

How about this one.

Allah is 1.
1 is a number and is finite.
Numbers are finite
Therefore Allah is finite.

Or these:

Allah is gracious.
Humans are part of Allah's creation.
Humans are gracious.
Therefore, Allah is part if his creation.

1x1x1=1
Allah is 1
Numbers are finite and limited.
Therefore, Allah is limited and finite.

Allah is nothing like his creation.
Man is part of Allah's creation.
Man is gracious.
Therefore, Allah is not gracious.

Not all of these are related to the subject of oneness, but they should get you thinking how easy it is to misinterpret logical statements that leave out critical information that form their premises.