ISLAM

Islam Is The Best Religion I Think.

I disagree, especially looking at the extremists your religion produces.

Ahh, the abrasive professor iris himself! (I don't expect anyone to get that reference). I wondered when you'd get involved in this one.

Personally, I believe:

-No one should speak religion unless spoken to about it or asked a question.
-Judging other people for doing things one deems "sinful" is totally unacceptable, because I sin, too, and we all get judged in the end.
-Hating others for not being of your religion is one of the greatest hate crimes there is.
-Telling other people what to and what not to believe is totally inappropriate, because no one person is always right.
-Analyzing what someone else believes is not acceptable, because there is no real way to know the truth about anything - even if we can get really close to it, we can be very wrong (IE The sea sponge is NOT at the bottom of the so called "tree of life*", or that we once thought we could have sound in space, which we can't, OR that earth was once thought of as flat)

So, I would say that no, Islam is not the best religion.

*Source: http://amazingdata.com/science-we-were-wrong-and-we-cant-explain-this/

The notion that only those 'invited' should speak about religion is rather patronising and certainly will be ignored.l
Hating others of diffwrent religions is a Christian and a Muslim speciality - they have been practising for 2 millennia.
The Westboro Baptist Church is following a long tradition of hate and bigotry:
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/WBC/publicity.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=3&item=WBC

Which is why I don't define myself as "Christian"...

I think this is a good definition of Islam, allowing both for an interpretation as surrendering to God or Peace:

[quote="ocalhoun"]

observe why we are different from animals ?
Why few of us who are born handicap.
what are the difference between humans and animals ? its education, humanity and human learning capability ..
Why A person is dependent to other when he is born and during his old age ?

Word God is a creation of human (meant, that everyone has a different god they worship, it can be a person if one consider anyone as a god. for examle: hindus makes stones idols in different shapes like Half monkey half human, Half Elephant, sometimes a complete living cow because a concept upon their religious stories, or elegator etc) ... but Allah Almighty is not just a god or creation of stories .. he is a creator of whole universe and and he doesn't wants us to create his image or stone idol he just want our faith .. he has given us a challenge to understand him here in our life not just because our parent told us to belive this faith.. living between his pre-defined borders mankind can earn not just a good here in life but after life there is a jannah (heaven) waiting for us ..
basically all religions are target to spread peace but there are loop-holes somewhere in their concepts
but Islam which name's meaning is peace is a true and complete Path to serve humanity .. its not just a 1500 year old religon its from the beginning (the big bang theory is derived from Quran 1500 years ago a person in Arab village was thought by Allah and we are hearing it today by a storyteller) .. all the messengers/ Prophets {Ibrahim, Yosuf(Joseph), Mosa, Eisa(crist) and Muhammad} who were sent to our ancestors were told to teach Islam but ppl denied them or make those prophets idols or son of God because of their fine character but ppl didnt hear them correctly.. [/b]

Its not just my Idea Its My Observation and studies..

No, it isn't observation and study. It is simply unsupported assertion. Islam is just a mish-mash of earlier Judeo-Christian religion with the addition of 'This Is True...Honest' written repeatedly.
The idea that the Quran or hadith predicted the Big Bang theory is fanciful nonsense - this issue has been dealt with comprehensively in other postings.

People shouldn't hate every person who is into Islam or any sort of religion. We should look at every intention of every person. Would you hate a good person because he grow up in a Muslim community and didn't have any reason to defy his own religion? Well, not all people have studied every aspect of human life to conclude that their religion is wrong. Sometimes, their religion is everything that they can cling to in terms of moral standards.

I had a neighbor who is a Muslim, but I have no reason to hate him because for all I know he was a good person.

Who said anything about hate? I don't hate people because of their religion. I dislike some people, but that is because of what they do, not what they say they believe.

Its the most spreading Faith or religion even after the 9/11 conspiracy. Islam is not an unsupported assertion or a modern history like The new american or international Bible .. you even cant say or prove your two sentence against the Quran .. and as i told that all the Prophets were sent by Single God Allah... so the massage was same but changed by book holders or the ruler of that time after they were called back .. you cant deny Existence of Universe ! or the pattern god use to create this Galaxy.

How can one religion be better than another? You can't prove any of them. 99% of people just follow the one they are brainwashed to believe when they are children. I like the idea of re-incarnation. Doesn't mean the religions who believe that are actually right.
Surely logic dictates that those religions that go back the furthest are more likely to be right, so therefore shouldn't we all believe in things like the rainbow serpent?

Popularity isn't any kind of reason to say one is right or better.

This galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy with about 300 billion suns. Does this mean that God is a barred spiral-shape with 300 billion 'bits' ?

By that logic god is anything you want it to be and it is therefore ridiculous to pretend that any religion can be correct, since all religions are in a minority and there are always far more people who DON'T believe a religion than those who do. Since nobody can know anything about a magic sky-fairy that can be a galaxy or a bush, then religion is completely futile, since it attempts the impossible.

Anyway, back on the subject of Islam, Hitchens gives us a reasonable history and critique.

I think there needs to be a distinction made between Islam and those who follow it, muslims.
also when mentioned Christianity and christians.
The importance of this I believe, is that this enables an impersonal critique of the ideologies on a textual basis and ignores the human aberations which may distort the actual teachings in the real world.

No follower of either religion would, I think, claim to be a perfect example of their religion so it is not really valid to judge the religions by their followers actions but on the actions which the ideology actually imparts and requires of it's followers, although I believe that if a religion has no positive influence on it's followers it has dubious value.

The key difference I see between Islam and christianity is that islam encourages it's followers to forcefully impose their religion on others whereas Christ, for example said go and preach the gospel.

Before anyone critisises this comment, yes I have read both the Bible and Al Quran.

One other thing, the teachings of Christ are the basis of Christianity, not the old testament as his teachings supersede the old "law" based Judaeism of the old testament. It is simply a hstorical background to christianity's birth. Technicaly christians are really just jews anyway as Jesus never renounced his judaism, he just brough a new way of worshipping and obeying the same God.

I won't quote Al Qurans incitements to violence as you can read them for yourselves.

Also I am not a believer in any religion.

On the existance of God, I am undecided.

Sorry, I disagree with your saying. saying 'this religion is good, this is bad' is itself is bad. We should not tell anyone that this religion is good and that is bad. Everyone has their own faith. Every religion has its good and bad aspects and everyone has calculated that. I too used to calculate the bad and good aspects of my religion. I tried to reduce bad aspects from my side how much I can. I have calculated others' religion too but I never directly told them that your religion is bad, they have good aspects too. We should follow good and leave the bad aspects.

Bikerman, as I thought I had pointed out, the old testament is the teachings of Judaism, the new testament is the teachings of Christ, therefore christianity.

Can you give any examples of Christ's teachings which you feel might incite intolerance or violence.

I believe most other mainstream religions are also basicly tolerant but I will stay away from that as I have not studied them and they have no bearingon wether Islam is inherently intolerant or not.

Also Bikerman, even if you could prove that chritianity encourages intolerance and violence it would in no way imply that Islam does not.

LOL...you can 'point out' all you like but your theology is on very dodgy foundations. Jesus is on record as saying the Hebrew 'Law' (ie Deuteronomy and Leviticus) applies to all and will always do so. If you try to ditch the OT then the entire basis for Jesus divinity is shot. Jesus IS Yaweh - remember the trinity? Without the OT then you have no trinity and the entire basis of modern Christianity collapses. Some in the early church wanted to make a clean break and ditch the OT, but they lost out and now you are stuck with it.

Certainly I can give examples of Jesus preaching intolerance. Read Matthew 15.
In fact Matthew is full of intolerance.

Bikerman

Jesus did not say that the law applies to all forever he said that the law will always be there. He also said in the same chapter, Luke 16, that the law and the prophets were proclaimed untill John, since then the gospel of the Kingdom is being preached.

John 17 the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Acts 13:38 Luke says Christians are justified by Christ from the things they could not be justified from by the law.

In Romans Paul talks a lot about following the law but, I believe, makes it very clear that it is the heart of a man that counts and the spirit rather than a legalistic obedience.
For example Romans 4 talks about Abraham being justified by faith, and this was before the law of Moses.

Galatians 3 also talks about this. 3:23 before faith came we were held prisoners by the law. the law was put in place to lead us to christ. Now that faith has come we are no longer under the law.

This is the predominant theme of the new testament and therefore christianity in the minds of most christians I believe.

Whether it is true I do not pretend to offer an opinion, that is for you to judge. But it is the text I am analysing not it's manifestation.

You quote Matthew 10:24, Jesus saying that he brought a sword and not peace and yet he told his disciples to put away their swords in the garden of Gethsemane and that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword, it seems pretty obvious that he was using a metaphor in 10:24 as he not once mentioned 'Killing" people. Ephesians 6 talks of the sword of the spirit and Hebrews talks about the truth being sharper than a sword so I think you would be hard pressed to say that early christianity encouraged any sort of violence in it's defence or propagation.

As you mentioned though many parents, brothers, sisters etc can become very upset with a family member who gives up his prior beliefs to become a christian. they may even become violent but a christian should not.
Mohammad said he who forsakes his islamic religion should be killed, Jesus did not set any such rules on christians.

These things are there for all to read.

mahirh

Ridiculous argument.
Wiki contains citations for the contries and they have not '404-ed'.

Not only do these countries have the death penalty, they are entirely dishonest about how they go about delivering justice. What happens in Iran is that people are charged and then 'released' pending further hearings. In the meantime the Revolutionary Guard pay a visit, kidnap the apostate and kill them.

You are quite wrong.
Using an anecdotal example to disprove a case is always a bad idea. If, for example, I say that there is a correlation between poverty and theft then some bright spark will immediately jump up and say 'we were poor but we never stole'.
SO WHAT?
There is a correlation regardless.

With regard to poverty and terrorism - I take issue with Indi on this one. I believe it isn't so much poverty that is the causal factor (though it is, indirectly, for reasons I'll explain later) - the main correlation is with freedom. The less political freedom a country has, the more it is likely to 'breed' terrorism - regardless of economic conditions.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/11.04/05-terror.html

Now, it just so happens that most of the politically repressive regimes in the world are also poor - and also Muslim. Repression and poverty are also apparently linked, though there is no principled reason why they should be, as far as I can see - I can imagine a repressive regime that is also pretty 'well off'. In fact Singapore is an example that springs to mind.

So are poverty and Islam causally linked? Undoubtedly, in my view. Islam is antipathetical to progress and material 'betterment' of society. It is an iron-age religion in an information age world. It has nothing useful to say on economic matters and plenty of things to say which are positively harmful to any economic progress. Islam peaked, in terms of social achievement, nearly a millenium ago. Since then it has been a dead-hand, stiffling progress and innovation.

Now, you might say that Christianity has done the same, and I would largely agree. The point is that Christianity is no longer the force it once was for most 'Chrstian' countries, whereas Islam is as powerful in many countries as it ever was.

Islam is wonderfully polite, soft and scientific religion. it is the religion which fulfills the demands of present modern age. it has the universality in it. one can find the solution of every problem in Islam relating to any matter of life. it is the only religion which gives the scientific and logical proof of every happening very clearly.

Well we certainly agree on that one Bikerman. Smile

Islam is the best religion of the world. it is the only religion. it is real scientific has the complete code of life.it is truely useful in each and every moment of life.

Islam is not scientific and to claim otherwise is laughable.
People cherry-pick a few verses which are not demonstrably wrong (ignoring all the ones that ARE demonstrably wrong) and assert that this is some scientific prediction. Nonsense. It is simply statistics in action. In any random sample of phrases, we would expect a certain number to have some truth value. Even then, the truth value of the much quoted 'predictions' is pretty meagre. Normally we have to rely on some very particular and very favourable interpretation of the given passage to get any useful information from it at all.

Ahh...an article written by a male, who is writting for an organisation which has the stated intent of defending the prophet against any dissent, a conservative organisation based in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia - a country which bans women from driving, voting, standing for office, and which, according to the World Economic Forum ranks 130th out of 134 countries for gender parity.....
or perhaps I do him wrong because it isn't clear if the article was written for the website you cite or for the Middle-Eastern times which appears as an apparently prior attribution at the end....

Either way he appears to be calling for gender equality, but his case relies on a very selective reading of the quran. The idea that one interpretation is faulty and another correct is one which sounds nice, but isn't reality. Sunni muslims don't grant anyone the absolute right to interpret the quran definitively in any case.

Certainly, the human rights abuses are caused by people, not by the koran itself. Certainly, there is a huge variety of interpretations. I cannot argue with that.

And I am not familiar enough to argue with you about the details of the Koran, what exactly it says.

But I have heard many people say that the koran says that women are the weaker sex, and this and that, and using that as an excuse for some behaviour.

I am going to concede you the argument, because I don't know the Koran well enough to argue it.

But if Islam is the 'great protector' of human rights, why is there so much gross human rights violations in existance in Muslim theocracies? The Koran must have enough leeway to be able to be interpretted in these ways.

The comment just seemed too conflicting with reality to let pass.

And does not the Koran condemn gay people, just as the Bible? Does that not lead to, or lend itself to, human rights abuses, just as it does in Christianity?

And what do you mean, the Koran is 'above approach'? Are you yourself saying it is 'above approach' or are you saying this is what the Muslim women you have spoken to say?

It was interesting to read the article and in particular how Islam improved women's rights from the way they were at the time of writing it and the way they are now.

Maybe I am completely wrong, as the article states, which would be great, about the way women and men are equal in the Koran, I hope so as it gives many women a better chance to achieve equality. But why is it so widely interpretted as women being second class?

What if you don't want to be a 'pearl'? What if you just want to be a strong independant woman? What if you just want to have control of your own destiny? Rather than your decisions being made by your father or husband?

Is this the definition of equality that the author is suggesting? Or then again, it could just be the interpretation by this women who made the testimonial and her fiance.

Isn't Sheikh Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan (UAE) gay? I seem to vaguely remember some trial in Switzerland a few years ago in which he was accused of hitting a man who rebuffed his sexual advances.....

....checking.......

Ah yes:
http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/news/news%20164.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/31/davidpallister

"jihad". In Muslim thought and practice, the term denotes both "the lesser jihad" (war) and the greater jihad" (self-control: the struggle to contain lust, anger, and other forms of indulgence). Militiant Muslims, believed that a "just cause" made warfare acceptable in the eyes of Allah. Of course, Christian soldiers anticipated heavenly rewards if they died fighting for Christ, while Muslims think they will receive Paradise if they die serving Allah. But if you've ever read anything about Islam, there success in becoming a world faith was there political, religious and military goals were ALLIED and had rules that were easy to understand and follow. I dont think it sounds really peaceful. All religion has its downfall with politics though.

I only read the first page.

I wonder, inetglobalsolutions, what you mean by universality.

Christianity too has a desire to convert the entire world to be Christian, every nation. I don't see how that is a positive of either religion.

Islam is the most authentic and true religion of the world. itis only religion towards which more and more people are turning.

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