Religion of Peace

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
tmoney1 wrote:
lixy wrote:
tmoney1 wrote:
Why is it you never see Bible and Torah spelled wrong? Same number of letters and syllables as Quran, and easy to say, yet non-English speaking people always spell it right. Why is it that Quran is spelled wrong?

Might have something to do with the English speaking world is mainly Judeo-Christian. Might also be because the other books have been around a few thousand years more than the Quran.

Who are you to say how people should spell it? The academy of English language? Try to focus on substance please.

Why would it matter if the other books have been around a few thousand years more than the Quran? That doesn’t give anyone the right to misspell it. Timeframes have nothing to do with spelling.

I still don’t understand how it is a misspelling. It is an English representation of an Arabic word using English lettering instead of Arabic.

Just because Qu’ran is the current trendy spelling does not make it correct.

It seems you just want to find a way to be offended.[/quote]

I’m not trying to find a way to be offended. What do you mean by trendy spelling? That is the correct way to spell it, and it has been the correct way for 1400 years. How is that trendy? If anything, Koran is the trendy word.

82

[quote]tmoney1 wrote:
derek wrote:
http://www.answering-islam.de/Main/Christians/index.html

I’m going to do some digging here and see what’s up. Are there any more sites we can read about (as Christians) to see what mainstream Muslims are all about? Or maybe the above site is not such a great way to learn?

I’m very open to learning about this stuff.

very helpful and beneficial.

If you’d like, I can gather some brochures about Islam and mail them to you. Like I said before, I am Muslim, so feel free to ask me any questions regarding Islam.[/quote]

Ya know, this is really what I wish millions of others were doing more of.

Discussing what IS and what IS NOT Islam. (with actual Muslims).

To me, the type of religion is not important, but believing there is “someone” bigger than ourselves is.

Let’s face it. If we took every passage written in our respective scripture literally, I’d have to kill most of my friends, family and find out how I can kill myself.

I am actually a very “religious” person. I was raised Protestant but do not subscribe to any one faith now. I also don’t like to discuss it with others unless they ask me. It’a a very private issue to me.

83

[quote]tmoney1 wrote:
Like I said before, I am Muslim, so feel free to ask me any questions regarding Islam.[/quote]

I saw a television program (cannot remember what the heck it was called) that said all our religions had originated in the same land, at the same time, with the same people.

If that’s true, and I’d like to think it is, why is it now so very different? Or is it that different?

And what can we do about those that feel our Gods are calling us to kill for him?

84

[quote]derek wrote:
tmoney1 wrote:
Like I said before, I am Muslim, so feel free to ask me any questions regarding Islam.

I saw a television program (cannoty remember what the heck it was called) that said all our religions had originated in the same land, at the same time, with the same people.

If that’s true, and I’d like to think it is, why is it now so very different? Or is it that different?

And what can we do about those that feel our Gods are calling us to kill for him?
[/quote]

According to Islam, this is true.

In the middle east, Abraham was the first person to believe in the Oneness of God, rather than worshipping statues and other figures, such as his father did.

When he tried to tell his father about the Oneness of God, his father did not believe him and became very angry with him, saying that he is speaking vainly.

God had guided Abraham to his belief, and he was the original man to believe in one God.

I agree that people view it differently, but I don’t know why. With no disrespect on any other religious book, the Quran is one book, passed down from God through Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). There are no other variations of the Quran. Other books are written by man, and are stories passed down. As you know, stories can change from time to time, so it might not be accurate. I am not discounting any other religious book, but the word of God cannot be changed.

I wouldn’t say God is calling us to kill for him, he is putting us through tests, to see how humans would react.

God gave Abraham an order to kill his own son. Abraham had set his son out and brought a knife, when God told him that he was testing his faith in God, and to slaughter a goat instead.

People have to stay strong to their faith and live and practice in peace.

85

No, christians, jews, and muslims do not worship the same god. According to Christians Christ was God. Part of the Trinity God-head, if you will. Don’t forget the Holy Spirit factor either.

To muslims he was was a prophet. That isn’t believing in the same god. They may share many of the same religious figures, but their respective God is vastly different. It’s like me throwing turkey between two slices of bread and insisting it’s a ham sandwich. Hey I still used bread, after all.

86

[quote]derek wrote:
Shoebolt wrote:
That means that the fault does not lie withing the religion, but within certain people. If terrible things have been commited in the name of Chrstianity, yet it is a peaceful religion, then that means the fault did not lie within the religion, but the people who were practicing it.

Stop being so short-sighted.

From the Koran:

O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. God does not guide an unjust people. - 5:54

Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods, and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed. - 9:111 (check out the number!)

When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds, then set them free, either by grace or ransom, until the war lays down its burdens. - 47:4

If you should die or be killed in the cause of Allah, His mercy and forgiveness would surely be better than all they riches they amass. If you should die or be killed, before Him you shall all be gathered. - 3:157-8

It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land. - 8:67

When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. - 9:5

I’m sure there are Bible references that seem scarey but I don’t see evidence of thousands of Christians killing in Jesus’s name. Like I said, we’re talking about OUR lifetimes. Now not centuries in the past.

[/quote]

When evaluating a RELIGION, TIME PERIOD matters SHIT.

The religion is timeless. It hasn’t changed. Christianity is just as disgusting as it was in the middle ages, the people who practice it are just less violent now.

87

[quote]Sloth wrote:
No, christians, jews, and muslims do not worship the same god. According to Christians Christ was God. Part of the Trinity God-head, if you will. Don’t forget the Holy Spirit factor either.

To muslims he was was a prophet. That isn’t believing in the same god. They may share many of the same religious figures, but their respective God is vastly different. It’s like me throwing turkey between two slices of bread and insisting it’s a ham sandwich. Hey I still used bread, after all.[/quote]

Actually, The Koran and Bible crossover at many points, and most Muslim and Christian theologists consider them to be the same God.

And not all Christians believe in the trinity. They believe in the divinity of Jesus, but that doesn’t make Jesus God Himself. The Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God. They just disagree with how the worshiping should be done.

88

[quote]Beowolf wrote:

And not all Christians believe in the trinity. They believe in the DIVINITY of Jesus, but that doesn’t make Jesus God Himself. The Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God. They just disagree with how the worshiping should be done.
[/quote]

Reread what you just wrote. Divinity…The jews and muslims do not see Christ as DIVINE. That is not a small difference. I repeat, Jews and Muslims do not see Christ as being DIVINE. They do no see him as god, or as part of a Triune God. It’s not even remotely the same.

89

[quote]Beowolf wrote:

Actually, The Koran and Bible crossover at many points, and most Muslim and Christian theologists consider them to be the same God.

[/quote]

By the way, I’d like to see where you’re getting this from. Not that Muslim/Christian/Jewish faiths share religious figures and have historical connections, but that they are Worshiping the same defined God. There is no way your claim is true. The Christian idea of what/who god is vastly different from the other two, etc. But please, if you could share the source of this factoid.

90

[quote]Sloth wrote:
No, christians, jews, and muslims do not worship the same god. According to Christians Christ was God. Part of the Trinity God-head, if you will. Don’t forget the Holy Spirit factor either.

To muslims he was was a prophet. That isn’t believing in the same god. They may share many of the same religious figures, but their respective God is vastly different. It’s like me throwing turkey between two slices of bread and insisting it’s a ham sandwich. Hey I still used bread, after all.[/quote]

Yes to Muslims, Jesus is a prophet, not God or son of God. You cannot worship a human being. Muslims and Jews worship the same GOD, Christians believe Jesus Christ is the savior. In Islam, all prophets are equal, no one prophet is better than the other. Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, all of them are equal.

91

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
And not all Christians believe in the trinity. They believe in the divinity of Jesus, but that doesn’t make Jesus God Himself. The Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God. They just disagree with how the worshiping should be done.[/quote]

Most Christians I talk to are always quite ambivalent towards the trinity dogma to say the least. One passage that opened my eyes to the universality of the three messages was this one (of course, you lose all the rhetorical impact, musicality and peotry in the translation).

“O Jesus, son of Mary! Remember My favour unto you and unto your mother; how I strengthened you with the holy Spirit, so that you spoke unto mankind in the cradle as in maturity; and how I taught you the Scripture and Wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel; and how you did shape of clay as it were the likeness of a bird by My permission, and did blow upon it and it was a bird by My permission, and you did heal him who was born blind and the leper by My permission” (Qur?an 5:109-110)

I just found it amazing that the same scripture which denied the divinity of Jesus managed to relate miracles from anterior books, add new miracles which don’t appear in the bible and conserve the message’s integrity. I mean, if I tried to deny the divinity of Jesus, I wouldn’t have emphasized his known miracles, let alone bring new ones to light.

Calling Jesus “Son of Mary” (as opposed to son of God) and sneaking in the Holy Spirit ambiguity is just delightful. There is actually a sort of ranking of prophets in some Islamic school of thoughts with Abraham and Mohammed leading the way, but Jesus transcendes that. His place is too special to be compared to any other because of that Holy Spirit.

92

[quote]Sloth wrote:
By the way, I’d like to see where you’re getting this from. Not that Muslim/Christian/Jewish faiths share religious figures and have historical connections, but that they are Worshiping the same defined God. There is no way your claim is true. The Christian idea of what/who god is vastly different from the other two, etc. But please, if you could share the source of this factoid.[/quote]

That’s a no-brainer; All messages claim that there is a single God. All messages acknowledge the other messages in a sequential timeframe. Therefore, they’re all from the same god.

A bit of trivia that might reinforce the assertion: The word Allah is used in Arabic translations of Tanakh and the Gospels, as well as in Indonesian and old Turkish translations of the Bible. Arabic speakers of all faiths use the word “Allah” to mean “God”.

93

[quote]lixy wrote:
Sloth wrote:
By the way, I’d like to see where you’re getting this from. Not that Muslim/Christian/Jewish faiths share religious figures and have historical connections, but that they are Worshiping the same defined God. There is no way your claim is true. The Christian idea of what/who god is vastly different from the other two, etc. But please, if you could share the source of this factoid.

That’s a no-brainer; All messages claim that there is a single God. All messages acknowledge the other messages in a sequential timeframe. Therefore, they’re all from the same god.

A bit of trivia that might reinforce the assertion: The word Allah is used in Arabic translations of Tanakh and the Gospels, as well as in Indonesian and old Turkish translations of the Bible. Arabic speakers of all faiths use the word “Allah” to mean “God”.[/quote]

Monotheism doesn’t equal believing in the SAME diety. And, yes, Allah means god. I’m not sure why that’s relevant though. Is there a language that has no word for God? I’d doubt that, but I suppose it’s possible.

94

Ask a muslim if christ is Divine, a god, a diety? Did he just say no? Ok, case closed.

95

[quote]derek wrote:
I saw a television program (cannot remember what the heck it was called) that said all our religions had originated in the same land, at the same time, with the same people.

If that’s true, and I’d like to think it is, why is it now so very different? Or is it that different?[/quote]

Actually, that wouldn’t be so nice for the simple reason that it would destroy the unicity of the message defended in the Bible and the Quran. I’ll explain; If God had chose to give different messages to different people living at the same time on the same land, that would imply that the messages are different.

My humble take on it if anybody’s interested; God bestowed His message on the Jews. Some time passed and the message started being distorted so He saw the need for a revival. Enters Jesus. Invariably, after a few centuries, the message got farther and farther from its essence so, in his infinite grace, God renew the message thru Mohammed. Trouble is that Mohammed was told that he was the last messenger. Now, here’s the catch: we have the assurance that the Quran was not corrupted thru a historically verified chain of custody and by verses in the Quran itself (Ok, the last argument isn’t particularly strong but it’s worth noting). The Quran started being used as a pretext for violent actions against non-Muslims and Muslims alike (Al-Qaeda, the Sunni-Shia’a fracture…).

Fight them the way God would want us to; The pen is after all, mightier than the sword.

I don’t mean to quibble but it might be as important to fight those who feel our leaders are calling us to kill for them. And God knows they are numerous around here…

96

[quote]Beowolf wrote:

When evaluating a RELIGION, TIME PERIOD matters SHIT.

The religion is timeless. It hasn’t changed. Christianity is just as disgusting as it was in the middle ages, the people who practice it are just less violent now.[/quote]

no, it does matter. historical and contemporary philosophical contexts matter very much when evaluating a religion, or at least Christianity. weren’t you the one that just tried to compare the actions of adherents based on their age then you turn around and say time doesn’t matter.

97

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Monotheism doesn’t equal believing in the SAME diety. And, yes, Allah means god. I’m not sure why that’s relevant though. Is there a language that has no word for God? I’d doubt that, but I suppose it’s possible.[/quote]

I see the confusion.

I was referring to the original message of Jesus and you’re thinking of its widespread modern form. The trinity doctrine was formulated in 325 AD. Also, aren’t Jehova’s witnesses Christians? How about Unitarians?

Allah in Arabic doesn’t mean god. Rather, it means God. That’s a rather important distinction in this context.

98

I think it would be helpful to have guys that are obviously hostile to the United States like lixy begin this discussion with an unequivocal denunciation of terrorist acts by islamic terrorists against civilians.

Before you try to parse our government from our people, please remember that the majority of our voting public voted at some time for many of the people and policies that you find so offensive.

Therefore, you are insulting us directly and we take it as such.

Let me define a terrorist act so that you cannot weasle your way around. Terrorist acts are defined as targeting civilians without any military presence anywhere nearby.

We are talking about blowing up civilians in the market, at weddings, etc…

Unless there is a clear and unambiguous denunciation of these tactics, the conversation between an American and lixy should end immediately.

lixy, if you cannot clearly dissociate yourself from these tactics, then you are condoning them.

JeffR

99

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Just because Qu’ran is the current trendy spelling does not make it correct.

It seems you just want to find a way to be offended.[/quote]

Agreed. That’s exactly how I perceive it.

There’s actually a heavy debate in France about the proper spelling of the prophet Mohammed’s name (PBUH). The most common one in French is Mahomet and happens to be derived from the derogatory term that the Jews used to refer to him. Mohammed in Arabic means “the blessed one.” Mahomet on the other hand, means “the non-blessed one” in Hebrew. That fact, along with the people who were selling pork under a hallal label, the wars, the 9/11 Mossad theories contribute to a conspiracy paranoia that take over some Muslims’ rational side.

I, for one, have seen worse. Dog meat was sold in the streets of Casablanca and passed as hallal beef. I also like the non-restrictive nature of the English language (as compared to Spanish or French) and would defend it any day.

100

[quote]JeffR wrote:
I think it would be helpful to have guys that are obviously hostile to the United States like lixy begin this discussion with an unequivocal denunciation of terrorist acts by islamic terrorists against civilians.[/quote]

Thanks for drawing my attention to that fact. It’s just that it seemed trivial that anyone would be appalled by such demonstration of hatred and incitation to violence. I highly condemn such actions and actively fight them

This is a no-brainer, I denounce (and fight if necessary) anyone who harms another human being calls for harming one or even thinks of doing one or the other, regardless of nationality, race, religion or gender. I especially abhor such demonstrations of distilled hatred that condone terrorist actions, give Muslims a bad name and would definitely ashame the prophet Mohammed.

Hoping it’s unequivocal enough for you.

I take it as an honor to be the subject of a Fatwa decreed by JeffR.