yukio_michael said:
It's pretty convenient, when someone has pointed out something that you have
previously said verbatim, to claim that they simply do not understand Islam. You state "God created us mainly to worship him.", someone points this out, you say, "God did not put us here only for one purpose--- you must not understand Islam then. Which is it filthydani, you can't have it both ways. You can't evade every counterpoint with a blanket statement that the infidel just doesn't understand Islam.
It's the truth, most people (none belivers) don't understand Islam, "God created us mainly to worship him.", but that doesn't mean he limits us to live this life for only one single purpose like praying to him all the time and forget helping the society for example or to accomplish a dream you would like to do in this life, when I said god created us mainly to worship him, it doesn't mean you are not allowed to do any other things but to worship Allah, there are a lot of ways of worshipping, its not praying only..
yukio_michael said:
So basically, rather than choosing to be good, choosing to act in the way that Allah would say you should live, Islam forces you to do so-called good things. Even when we act out of fear of punishment, we are not said to be using any sort of free-will, something inherently necissary when one chooses to worship this or that. So you can say, that you didn't really choose Islam, if you were fearfull of Allah's retribution against you, should you not follow his commands. It's a very important part of modern theological thought to include free will,
What's the problem in it? Actually you are being good when you act the way that Allah wants and not you, this is called faith, god asks us to help people as much as we can, its not about zakkah only, you can help by zakkah and by other ways too, Islam forces us to do the good things, but I don't see what's wrong with that? You might say, then why cant human beings just be good without being asked to be good? Well, what is the problem if its being asked by the religion? What's the harm in that I do not understand? We should act out of fear of punishment, because god can do whatever he wants to us, and
there is no way to escape him
yukio_michael said:
Even when we act out of fear of punishment, we are not said to be using any sort of free-will in the equasion
We do act of free will, god wants us to do the so called good things, but we can also do bad things if we want, that is "free-will", you get things mixed up, you thing if god wants us to do the good things only, then there is nothing called "free-will", I don't think god would want you to do something that will
harm people..
yukio_michael said:
but it seems as if Islam (please correct me if I am wrong), is not at all interested in modern interpretation of Allah's word, but a strong sense of orthodoxical process that removes all thought from action, and resolves all actions as being in the benefit of Islam & Allah. Am I correct in saying this?
Basiclly it's a mix, there are things you should do without having any
thoughts if it is asked directly from Allah, because if you have a very strong faith, you would know, whatever he wants, would be good for you, for example god said in quran, girls or women aren't supposed to have "boyfriends", or its forbidden to drink alcohol and eat pork, you might ask me why did god create pork in the first place? God made good looking animals, and made bad looking animals as well, he wants to show you that he is very creative in every thing in a good way and bad way as well.
There are things you need to have some thoughts before doing the action, there are things that aren't known if they are forbidden or allowed in Islam, like for example: masturbating and others things I don't remember at the moment, he wants us to seek knowledge as much as we can, the first word that was written in Quran was "iqraa" means "read"
Islam can adapt to any society easily, weather its rich or poor, for example like Indonesia, they are mostly Muslims and have strong economics, its very flexible, and it doesn't make people live in the stone age by its rules, actually it makes it
better and more protective
yukio_michael said:
Let's try a thought excersise. Imagine for a moment that there is no god. No Allah. There is no Islam. Imagine what would you do? To make it easier, let's pretend that you NEVER KNEW about Allah & Islam... how would you act? Please don't answer in how you THINK you would re-act... in despondance or whathaveyou. I'm interested in your actions towards other people. Without Islam to tell you what to do, without ANY religion to tell you what to do, how would you act? Would you be kind to others. Would you help your fellow man, regardless of where he comes from and to what tribe he belongs? Would you hold yourself, and soely yourself accountable for all of your actions?
I would hope that in a modern society, a society free from the necessity of a complicated orthodoxy instated to control often downtrodden and starving masses that we would choose to act in a method that seems (and I say seems because there is a very specific argument with the reasons one say, does what is refered to as 'good' vs. 'evil'...) to be good.
Regardless of our own spirituality, which I think is necissary even when it manifests itself in a personal non-theological way, I think we as people need to act with some form of autonomy, by default. However we choose to act, it should be in the best interest of our fellow man. Not soley in the best interest of our personal groups, be they race or religion. I think this should be natural to us... but institutions set us apart from each other, and have us making statements about "the one true religion"... and how all those outside of that religion or institution, are obviously wrong.
The soul in its original status, should be doing the good things only, so if Islam didn't exist, I would follow what my soul tells me, but some times the soul changes because of the environments, a guy who is raised from a religions family isn't the same as a guy who is raised from an atheist family, but the soul, in its originally status, the soul should be doing the good and not that bad, I wonder if you even believe in something called soul in the first place? Because if you didn't, it will be extremely hard for me to convince you in any thing, let's talk about love for example, how could you tell that you hate that person or love him? (talking about the opposite sex), I mean you do believe in love, but you can never see love or hear if, you can only feel it, where do you think that feelings is coming
from?
You have to know that humans aren't alone in this world, devils exist, we don't see them, but they see us, and they actually have a great effect of how or what people do, you don't except people would actually care about others, they will only think about their selves, and do bad things, so don't expect things will be perfect if all the people didn't believe in religion, because simply we are not aloneﾂ…
I know you want me to prove that the devil exist, but as I said, you can know from your soul, sometimes the devil can actually get inside your soul, he WONT force you to do bad things, BUT he will give you BAD thoughts, it is impossible for me to prove this physically too you, you can only feel it, if I could prove it, then everyone would be Muslim, and everyone would believe in heaven and hell, and everyone would go to heaven very easily, I don't think god wants things to be simple as that, god doesn't want human to prove his existence
physically so people don't believe him "in the easy way"
Life is not easy.
Mycernius said:
So now you are saying that your God is a bully and a tyrant. In your last post you said "because god himself created human beings mainly to worship him" That is vanity. To create or to make something to worship you.
Why cant you say that Allah likes us? But he wants to test us so we can live in heaven for
eternity, eternity means you can not go there easily, you have to work really hard for it, you might say, why did he create us from the first place? Why did he even create Adam, eve, and Satan? What's the point? He is god right?
Why don't you look at it from a different angel? Like heaven for example, if he didn't create adam and Satan, there would be no heaven for us human, right? Going to heaven is better than not to exist, that's how I see itﾂ….
Mycernius said:
What you essentially said was that if we didn't, we feel worthless. I do not feel worthless and a great many atheists do not feel worthless
Its easy to lie to yourself, I know how exactly who you feel..
Just tell me what things you really do in this life that makes you not to feel worthless?
Mycernius said:
Now you are saying he tells us to worship it. God actually demands! our worship. You are doing something that is fairly recent development in the worship of God (Last 200 to 300 years) and that is going back to the idea of attributing human frailities to a diety. Islam never picked this up because when Muhammad formulatted the faith he was influenced by the large Jewish and Eastern Christians that lived in the area At this time God was seen as unknowable and because we are humans we cannot put our human emotions onto what is beyond our knowledge. Modern perceptions to give God love, hate, envy, etc, stem from the start of the reformation and the renaissence, when people begain to question God and discover more about the true nature of the universe. As a reaction against sciencetific discoveries people started readin scripture as true, not as allergories. This led to giving God human frailities again. Something you will find in older mythological religions and early modern religions.
As I said, from your soul you can tell, I want to ask you something, do you even believe in something called soul? Because Its important for me to know that..
If you understand Arabic, there is absolutely no way any man could write the Quran the way god did, its extremely unimaginable how did god write it, this proves that the Quran is a miracle, you might not notice that because you don't know Arabic, but just ask any non-Muslim who knows Arabic if he could create just one sentence like in the Quran, no one will even be able to do it, because god himself said that in Quranﾂ…
By your soul, and by the
obvious evidence, there is no way that Mohammed have actually wrote this by himself or if it's a hoax, there are 1.6 million Muslim around the worldﾂ…
All the
scientific evidences prove what is written in Quran is trueﾂ…
Islam Guide: The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran
Scientists On The Qur'an
Mycernius said:
To me it sounds like a version of hell. Plus it is a very Quakerish view of the world. The more you suffer the better your afterlife will be. I sure that is really comforting to someone whoses children die because of malnutrition, war, disease. You make your God sound like a real nasty piece of work and I do not wish to worship such a deity.
You don't expect going to a place like heaven will be easy, because you will live there for eternity, you will never ever suffer there, so going there will need you to do a lot of
hard work, it is not supposed to be easy to go there, you know the prophet Muhammad said the success rate for going to heave in only .0001%, that means one from 1000 would actually go to heaven
Mycernius said:
Do you know that during the height of Islamic culture your view would have been held as primitive and verging on the heretical? Not that they would have done anything. During that time Islam was one of the most tolerant religions around
Why would you assume it to be primitive and verging? Muhammad (pbuh)
himself said that he said going to heaven wont be easy, I didn't get it from my mind, he said most who people suffered in this world are the prophets that are at the top of heavenﾂ…
Mycernius said:
Only the dead really know that answer and they are keeping that sercret to themselves
Yes, and that's the way its supposed to be, because if they could tell that little secret, everyone
would be Muslim by now, and no one would work hard to know the real truth as the way god wantsﾂ…
Mycernius said:
are you saying that atheists are all bad people? That our 'souls' are bad because we don't worship God? You don't know me. For all you know I might give most of my money to the needy, do community work and help the sick. You are judging me on the fact I'm an atheist. That is narrowminded and verging on the bigotted
I didn't say that you are bad people at all, there are Muslim people who are much worse than atheists, I didn't mean atheists only, like you can change the word atheists for gangsters? Do you think a guy who is raised between gangsters will be a good guy or a bad guy? 99% he will be
bad..
And as I said the soul in its original status is supposed to do the good things weather you are atheist or Jewish or Christianﾂ…..
But you have to realize you don't expect god will make something like what happened in (Noah) story to happen every 100 years so people actually believe in him, there is supposed to be only one religion from the first place.
Mycernius said:
No, when you worship Allah it is what it does to you. Don't speak for other people and how they feel when they worship God. Their ideas on how they feel are based on their own feeling and thoughts. Don't assume that everyone is like you or you are guilty of vanity yourself
I don't think that you
know more than me, because I have done it and you haven't, I have seen people who weren't religious and how their life changed after being religious
Mycernius said:
That is not a fact, that is doctrine. Don't be arrogant
It is a fact, and I don't think you can prove
it isn't. if you can prove it isn't, you can then call me an arrogant.
Mycernius said:
My cats and dog worship an human created, abstract idea. Somehow I think not. How exactly do animals, plants and inamimate objects worship a deity?
What proves to you that human made god? Do you have any prove that god
doesn't actually exist? No you don't, and you will never ever be able to
prove it, no one really knows how (animals) exactly worship Allah, but that's what is
written in Quran, and that's what we have to believe in.
Mycernius said:
These suicide bombers are deeply religious. They really believe in what they are doing is what Allah wants them to do. You saying they are hypocrites would offend them and their extremist teachers. It is very simple to them, they are right and everything else is wrong.
They are not religious, they understood things the wrong way, as I said, it is prohibited to KILL ARMY MEN unless you are at the
battlefield, so killing civilians is extremely unacceptable in any way, this type of suicide is completely different to the one I am talking about that happens in Japan/European country, so you cant compare them to each otherﾂ…
The suicide bombers do not represent Islam, so they should be out of the discussion.
Mycernius said:
I know quite a few Chrstians, Sikhs, Buddhist, Hindus that would argue very strongly on that point.
You will never feel it unless you were a
Muslim, so I except to hear something like that from you
Mycernius said:
Jesus, Moses, Isiah, and others would have called themselves Jews, not Muslims. The name and title was created by Mohammad. Don't call them Islamic prophets as if the are Islams property. They belong just as much to the Jews and Christians and by calling them 'Islamic' can be seen as very degrading to followers of the other monotheistic faiths. Just refer to them as the prophets.
I don't think it really matters? Islam is the only religion that says worship one god, and all the prophets that came into this world, their aim was just to tell people to worship one god only.
Mycernius said:
In other words it is open to your own ideas and expectations. Your own interpretation of how it is reads. The style and language it is written have changed over the past 1500 years.
It is this reason why Muslims will strap bombs on themselves, kill people and hate. You'll find the same problem within Judaism and Christianity
Yes, some people might understand it the way they want, and not the way god really wants (like what extremist do right now by killing their selves in the name of Islam) but you cant blame Islam here, the ones who should be blamed is the extremist for their stupidity , you have to use your brains, don't expect god will write things very clearly for you, there are things that is easily understandable in Quran, but there are things in Quran people might explain it in different ways than others, and that's a good thing not bad, that doesn't mean what was written in Quran is changed, it never changed, because god himself said, the Quran, and only Quran, is protected by god himself, no one will ever be able to edit it or change its words, you might ask me why god didn't do the same with the other 2 religions like Christianity and Jewish, I really don't know exactly, but I think its some kind of test to human beings, god doesn't want things to be simple for human beings, like making one religion only for the whole humanity, I think he did that because he doesn't want anyone to go to heaven "easily" (because heaven is way to good , it deserve you to suffer for it) , I know you wont be convinced about this, I know its hard to believe it, but this is a fact, and there is nothing we human beings can do about it, god wants things to go the way he wants, and no one can change it, maybe when going to heaven we will realize that life is supposed to be that hard, because heaven is worth every second you suffer in this life..
I know you live a life with
a lot of problems, and everyone
dose.
Mycernius said:
I live for knowledge and just for the hell of living
Knowledge? So what after knowledge? What if you couldn't seek knowledge? Like being sick, or poor? Or don't even feel like seeking knowledge? You don't seek knowledge all day and night, this is not a reason to live your life for because not everyone can do it, but if we are talking about praying to allah, everyone can do it, even the disabled ones can do it, but in a different easy ways, when you say "just the hell of living", it seems you just
don't know what you are living for or you do not care to have a reason, this will lead you to depression sometimeﾂ…
Mycernius said:
The universe is a vast place and to say it was put here for just pathetic little humans is arrogance on the whole human race.
You really
don't know, maybe god made it so big just to show his unlimited abilities to create things human beings aren't even able too simply imagine, it was put for the pathetic little humans, you think there are aliens living somewhere else? That's why the universe is too big? You cant tell me that I am an arrogant by not proving what you are saying, there Is nothing that proves the exist of aliens, it never have been
mentioned in the quran, god made it so big mainly to give us human beings a massage that we should fear him and not even dare not to obey him.
Mycernius said:
If a large asteroid was to wipe us from the face of the planet the universe would not cry or shed a tear for us. Your God wouldn't shed a tear, because without us your God would cease to exist. I know we are smaller than a piece of dust on a piece of dust compared to the vast size and age of the universe. It might sound very nilistic, but that is my view.
So you are basically saying that human made god, but let me tell you something,
if god didn't exist, we would have never existed as wellﾂ…
Never though how human were created from the first place? No one really knows, there are no theories unless one, and it is that god made us, that's it.
Mycernius said:
You love your life? why? i am pretty sure
you suffer in your life, how could love a place you suffer in it
constantly? why wouldnt you love heaven istead? where you will
never suffer
Mycernius said:
to breathe and look upon nature, but to me it is natural with no guiding force behind it.
what proves that there is no guiding force behind it? That's what you want to wish, it seems you just don't like to be controlled by god, that's why you deny his existence,
you don't like to be controlled.
Mycernius said:
The universe is limitless and beyond anything you or I will ever know. I revel in it, but you like a comfort zone and need a God to exist for yourself and to explain life and the universe. You need God and your God needs you.
I need god, god doesn't need me, I revel in it too, but
with knowing who made it and why it was made for, but you don't know who made it, you think it was made by itself, didn't you thought of
how nature exist from the first place?
Mycernius said:
I might not agree with your views on religion and worship, but if they make you happy, then continue, but your circumstances do not apply to everyone else in the world.
It is a fact,
it should be applied to everyone else, as a Muslim, I have to make people see the world the way I see it, that's what god asked me to do.
Mycernius said:
In my view if a God existed wouldn't it just be happy for a place for its creations to be happy in. Your happiness would be all it needed. Isn't that what a parent really wants for its children?
Yes, but not in this life, what's the point of creating humanity if all of them will go to heaven? He made it to test us, if we succeed we will go to heaven, if we failed, we will go to hell, plain and simple, you don't expect him to create us so all of us would go to heaven, I KNOW, no one, had, the choice to live this life, but there is nothing we can do about it, we exist to follow what god says, so we go to heaven, if we didn't exist, we would not go to heaven. Going to heaven is better than not
to exist at all, even if it took us some great
effort to do it. Heaven is
worth it.
Remember, that if all the things I said are true, in judgment day it will be too
late for you to be forgiven by god. Nonbelievers will suffer
much more than Jewish and Christian people.
Its better to be wrong before death, than being wrong after death, if what I said isn't true and you believed in it, you would not lose anything, but if you didn't believe in it, you will lose everything, you only live this life for once, there is
no other chance.
ﾂ"Wouldn't you rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be wrong?ﾂ"
nice gaijin said:
filthydani, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I never mentioned Islam in my post, and neither did eemaan. Please don't make assumptions about how much I know or don't know about Islam. I saw an interesting philosophical question and decided to respond to it.
You generally meant religion, I know you didn't mean Islam specifically but I just wanted to show you that Islam doesn't
limit individual creativity or limit the person for one purpose only. Yes, you mainly live to worship allah, but in different ways, like praying, fasting, helping people..etc
nice gaijin said:
As another interesting point about zakkah, which I would call the pillar of charity. While I like that Islam integrates direct charity (which I believe is not specifically money) into its system of faith, to say that it "forces" its followers to give money away sounds like charity is not a virtue of a good muslim, but a duty foisted upon followers. Perhaps this was just a poor choice of words?
zakkah is
essential, just like praying and fasting, praying doesn't mean a virtue of a good Muslim, you are forced to pray, as well as doing zakkah.
Ma Cherie said:
I'm going to try to be as polite as possible, but your insight into why Japan's suicide is high isn't very.........well insightful. Your reasoning,
"people in Japan might get extremely bored because they don't have a worthy reason to live their life for, that why they have high suicide rates."
How did you even come to this conclusion? It clearly shows you haven't taken several things into consideration. Did you know that in Japan, suicide isn't really seen in a horrible light. But you may not understand this because you come from a culture that condems suicide.
Its pretty obvious, all religious people never get bored or desperate or feel worthless,
no one would kill himself unless he felt desperate and worthless, you might not see it like that, simply because you
are not religious, so how would you know if my
conclusion is wrong or right?
I know samurais kill themselves if they lost or for some other reasons I don't really know, but no one
has the right to kill himself, because this body that you kill isn't yours even if its your own body, its for god.
Ma Cherie said:
Another thing, you said that if you weren't a Muslim you would have had suicidal thoughts? Now, can I assume that you may feel this way about other issues (like stealing, lying, cheating) if you weren't a Muslim do you think you would have gone out and committed those acts?
No I wouldn't, the soul in its original form isn't supposed to do bad things like stealing, lying or cheating, I would have suicidal thoughts if I didn't see any worthy reason to live this life for,
I mean why would I accept to suffer constantly in this life for nothing? (you have to admit, that
everyone in this life is suffering, and no one is living a world with no problems)
For what would I do that? Nothing? I would rather kill my self than feeling pain for nothing, I would feel worthless, if you would live to make money for example, and then you become rich, what would I live for after that? If I want to be famous, then after being famous, what's after that? I am rich and famous, so what? I am still bored! All my goals in this life would be pointless, I would feel worthless and I would kill my self at the end.
Ma Cherie said:
Forget the fact that you're an individual that has a mind and a conscious, just have your religion tell you what's right and wrong.
And I'm under the impression that if Japan follows Islam, everything will be just peachy, right? You think Islam is the answer to social problems?
Yes Islam is the answer; you see the rape rate in Arabian countries is extremely low comparing to Japan or USA or European countries, suicidal rate is low, depression rate is low as well, women in Arabian countries don't wear mini skirts like in japan/usa, they wear "hijab", hijab is meant to protect people and the society, you see the AIDS rate in Muslim countries is extremely low, that is what I am talking about, I am taking about protection, in Arab countries men don't have sex unless they get married, this is protection.
This is what Islam wants. Islam wants your safety and protection.