Question about Islam

[Guest_Joe Vancil]

Skander,

I still see it as a way of interpretation. In many of the quotes Joe provided (thanks, BTW) he's referring to the father, or my father, the phrase "I and my father are one" could have a deity-believer relationship or connotation.

First of all, you're welcome.

My response to your point here is that even stating boldly, "I am God" could be interpreted in the same manner as a deity/believer relationship.  Even with such a bold statement, there is no way to meet the standard which you set.  The only question is how people took what he was saying - and it was pretty obvious what the religious leaders of the time understood - that he WAS declaring himself as God's son, WAS declaring himself God, WAS declaring his own power over all things.  They were PRETTY CLEAR on their understanding of that fact.

And look at the converse.  At NO time did Jesus ever DENY being God.  Never.  Not even once.

He stated that he and his Father were one, and never stated that they were different.

I admit, it takes faith to accept that.  But he claims to be the Christ, the Son of God, the one who brought God's salvation to the world, to be one with the Father, and that no man can come unto the Father but by him.  It gets back to what WayOut was saying earlier:  either he is telling the truth, or he's lying, or he's crazy.

I believe he was telling the truth.
 

[rickortreat]

...I've never lived before. I'll never live again. This is the reason I was created - to choose whether or not to follow God and allow him to rule my life. I'll make my choice - and I'll live with the consequences. That's what the Bible teaches...and it's what I believe.

How do you know you've never lived before?  You may believe it, but you don't know it for a fact, do you?

Also, what do you mean by God ruling your life?  You rule your life - he gave you that responsibility and that burden.


Who in their right mind would choose to not follow God?  No-one!

I simply cannot believe this.  God didn't put us into sin, he created us as beings and as we start out we are ignorant.  That I see from observation.  Salvation!?  We don't need salvation, we need understanding, we need to see the truth.  

Prayer does nothing for a man in an observable way.  Using his mind to understand the world is the way we alleviate suffering here, finding better ways to feed and cloth ourselves, better ways to provide shelter for ourselves.  AKA, God helps those who help themselves.

The only problem with being ignorant is that you suffer from the errors you make, not realizing that they were mistakes when you made them.

The only solution is to end ignorance.

From the Hindu/Bhuddist tradition, we are all immortal, but unaware of this truth.  We suffer from live to death to life to death until we realize that this is what we are doing. Once your mind becomes liberated from not knowing, you see the truth.  That is how you free yourself from what the Bhuddists call samsara (false, illusory) existance.

Animals are lower forms, unable to see this, they need to develop to the point where they can conceptualize such things.

That would be a wonderful explanation - assuming, of course, that it were true. God's word - in the Bible - explains to us that the scenario you just proposed isn't so. We were created as human beings, with souls, by God's design. It is who we are; who we were meant to be - and who we've chosen by our own free will to become. Our life is another one of God's wonderful gifts. And, at our appointed hour, our life on earth will end - and our souls will face the judgement - whether immediately or at a future time is reasonably irrelevant...I doubt we'd know the difference. But we are what God created - humans...not plants or animals or other people that have lived many, many lives...

You can choose to believe this way, or you can choose to belief the Hindu/Bhuddist view as it is described in their "Bible"  Frankly, I have no way of knowing which one is true, do you?

A man cannot be judged on what he doesn't know, it isn't fair. And when it comes to one's immortal soul it better be fair.  You can only be judged by what you do, the choices you make, how you act.

Either way, we will die and then according to Jesus we will know.

 

[Skandery]

The only question is how people took what he was saying - and it was pretty obvious what the religious leaders of the time understood - that he WAS declaring himself as God's son, WAS declaring himself God, WAS declaring his own power over all things. They were PRETTY CLEAR on their understanding of that fact.

Yeah, Christians are PRETTY CLEAR on that understanding.  A Muslim or Jew would tell you its pretty clear that was not his meaning or intention.  It doesn't surprise me if its true that he never denied being God.  After all, it was his lot in life to bring down God's word (as a holy prophet) and far be it for him to deny anything that helps him realize that mission considering the suspicious, unbelieving nature of humanity.  

[WayOutWest]

Interesting!  I didn't know Christianity had a form of indoctrinated pilgramage -- besides Sunday church (or Mass) of course.

I didn't mean it that way, what I meant is that like Christianity, Islam has borrowed things from other older belief systems, the pilgramage being an example.

I still see it as a way of interpretation.  In many of the quotes Joe provided (thanks, BTW) he's referring to the father, or my father, the phrase "I and my father are one" could have a deity-believer relationship or connotation.

There's little room for interpretation here, Jesus calls himself the Son of God.  I should rephrase my question a little better and ask whether Jesus referred to himself as God, or the manifestation of God that we are allowed to see.  Because the term Son of God once again may be interpreted as Leader-Follower relationship.

I'll try and dig up a few quotes myself.

That's one way of looking at it.  I look at it as though humanity wasn't ready for the entirety of the message so they recieved it in pieces or chapters.  Before Moses, the way of Abraham was correct, before Christ, Judaism was the rightful path, before Mohammed, Christianity was the closest path.

I would think you are not in the majority.

On a sidenote -- Were it actually true that Jesus Christ bore a child and had a lineage throughout history.  Would that fact and his divinty be mutually exclusive or it wouldn't matter one way or the other.

I don't think they need to be mutually exclusive but Jesus does talk about not everyone being up to the task of being exclusive to God.  Forgoing family (mother, father, wife & children) to be one with your maker like Jesus.  Jesus bacially gives us a "pass" if we can't handle being completely devoted to God.  So IMO it needs to be mutually exclusive because of his teachings and words.

[JoMal]

Has anyone else ever wondered, if heavan and paradise are so wonderful, why don't we just start out there and never leave? What is the point of living out lives so we can be "rewarded" by going to a better place? Can't we just skip this part?

Are we just here so the Gods can play us off each other for their amusement? Does any of this really matter? It seems that if all we are here for is to live out our lives under a strict adherance to a preordained code, we have much more serious issues to deal with in the afterlife then we thought.

[rickortreat]

Excellent, Jomal!

No one here, really has any concept of what Heaven is, or the "requirements" for entrance.

There isn't a soul that doesn't want to enter paradise, at least among those that are aware of it.  

The key aspect of any religion is that it provides the path, and an expanation for why you're not there already.

One thing that is apparent is that whether you belong to a religion or not, it doesn't give you a pass, or diminish your responsibility to yourself or others.  Many use the shroud of religion to satiate their ego's emotional desire to feel "holier than thou".

I submit that religion matters not, since there are many who proclaim to be religious but act in manners inconsistent with the tenents of their religion.  From the Catholic priests who become pedophiles to the muslim extremists who blow up innocents along with themselves to take a short-cut to paradise, to the Jews who exclude others from the truth- not one of them will take a step into heaven until they understand that such behavior is unnaceptable, and condemns them to continued existence on a lesser plane.

At least from where we are, Heaven is a very exclusive club.

The nerve of some people, the arrogance to think that they know the way!  Step right up here folks, anyone can join the Church of the presumptuous assumption!

Just do as we say, belive as we suggest, and don't ask too many questions!  Don't worry about the inconsistencies in our texts or the apparent contradictions with science or logic, this is the word of God, you infidels!  :hail:  

[Derek Bodner]

Has anyone else ever wondered, if heavan and paradise are so wonderful, why don't we just start out there and never leave? What is the point of living out lives so we can be "rewarded" by going to a better place? Can't we just skip this part?

I actually agree with your position, but I believe Judaism (and I could be wrong, I'm an agnostic Christian myself) don't believe in an afterlife, and believe that God punishes and rewards doing your terrestrial life.

[Skandery]

Many use the shroud of religion to satiate their ego's emotional desire to feel "holier than thou".

You know, Rick, I've seen and heard many devout Atheists (isn't that funny -- devout) who had that aura of "holier than thou" just as bad if not worst than the most devout of religious people I've seen (no matter the religion).  I guess its the sense that they feel they've somehow transcended beyond the restricitions and codes unfairly socialized into society at large from that bad, manipulative, inconsistent mistress that is religion.  

I don't have a problem with anyone believing or NOT believing anything they want to or where they choose to place their faith, I do have a problem with people who think they're "above it all" ignorantly generalizing and stereo-typing an entire segment of a population based on little more than anecdotes and unrationalized fears.  

[JoMal]

Many use the shroud of religion to satiate their ego's emotional desire to feel "holier than thou".

I don't have a problem with anyone believing or NOT believing anything they want to or where they choose to place their faith, I do have a problem with people who think they're "above it all" ignorantly generalizing and stereo-typing an entire segment of a population based on little more than anecdotes and unrationalized fears.

A 55 word description just to call Rick hypercritical.

Don't you just love the way religion brings people together?  

[rickortreat]

Skandery, those Athiests you refer to are simply just another form of the same disease.

They have no evidence that God does not exist, anymore than the religious have evidence that he does.  Instead of religion they shroud themselves in the belief of their intellectual superiority, but still fail to acknowledge that with whatever it is they posses, they do not see the truth.

A true intellect admits that he doesn't know, and is therefore humble when confronting issues beyond his understanding.  Such a person is somewhat better than a believer who relies on faith, since at least he is now actually using his mind, but should never allow that to go to their head.

Logic is a tool for understanding, but it is only as good as it's assumptions, no matter how rigourously the rules of logic are applied.  

Here is a simple logical truth:  There are things that we know for a fact. There are things that we know that we don't know, and there are things that we don't even realize that we don't know.  The universe and our existance are highly complex and beyond man's full understanding.

It is important to understand, however, that the employment of logic and the scientific method has added greatly to our understanding of our physical world, and to a certain degree mastery over it.

The problem I have with the religious is their inferference with the process or conclusions of science.  It is clear that understanding of the physical laws of the universe and our biology can be beneficial, and the effort can also teach us about ourselves.  The truths we learn from science are allways good, but it's the choices we make with the understanding that detemine their real value.

Whether athiest, agnostic, or religious, we still need some type of regualtion so that we can life together in a society.  Tolerance and respect for others, their lives, their aspirations, their property and their freedom to choose are still essential.  The Ten commandments are still a good place to start. If people followed them, they'd be pretty decent people in my book.  

[Guest]

The Ten commandments are still a good place to start. If people followed them, they'd be pretty decent people in my book.

Actually, this pretty much summarizes Thomas Jefferson's ideal as one of the founders of our country.  He was a deist (one who believed that there was a God of some sort) but he believed that in order for a country to work and be a great country, a country had to have a foundation of moral beliefs and practices.  
Has our country has evolved beyond this belief?

A true intellect admits that he doesn't know, and is therefore humble when confronting issues beyond his understanding.

Hmm, so your responses have been a diatribe based upon this premise?

The problem I have with the religious is their inferference with the process or conclusions of science. It is clear that understanding of the physical laws of the universe and our biology can be beneficial, and the effort can also teach us about ourselves. The truths we learn from science are allways good, but it's the choices we make with the understanding that detemine their real value.

I would actually contend that most people in this world see life from some point of view -- and that point of view keeps them from being totally "objective" when it comes to the truth.  Those who are religious, see the world and even science through the viewpoint of their beliefs.  Scientists who don't believe there is a God, also don't approach things from a truly "objective" point of view.  Too many times, there is a desire to prove that God doesn't exist rather than just striving to discover the world of science and the laws and principles that have existed thoughout time and space.  

[Guest_Randy]

If there was any question, the above post was mine.

[WayOutWest]

Scientists who don't believe there is a God, also don't approach things from a truly "objective" point of view.  Too many times, there is a desire to prove that God doesn't exist rather than just striving to discover the world of science and the laws and principles that have existed thoughout time and space.

I couldn't disagree more, we had this discussion before and I remember the circular logic involved so I just gave up.

[rickortreat]

What diatribe Randy?

I call it the way I see it based on observation and fact.

You may argue with my conclusions, but the facts are what they are.

Skandery has a certain "ownership" towards the muslim faith, so it's natural for him to want to defend it.

I already said I didn't think that muslims were inherently violent, but it is a FACT that everywhere a muslim country borders a non-muslim country there is or has been violence.  

And, apart from Turkey and to a lesser extent Pakistan, Muslim countries are run by monarchs or mullahs, and none of them are modern societies advancing man's human endeavors.  Once upon a time, the muslim world was the most advanced culture on the planet.  Our whole system of mathematics, including the concept of Zero and algebra come from the muslims.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions!

[WayOutWest]

Our whole system of mathematics, including the concept of Zero and algebra come from the muslims.

I disagree, much like I disagree with the Discovery of America.  America was already here, just like zero, before any "round eye" set his stinking-white-rat infested-gold crazy foot on dry land.