You don't understand the question because you grew up in the West and you accept that religion is a personal thing. Like being gay is a personal thing. However, many people in muslim-dominated countries do not think this way, they don't accept that religion is a personal thing. Or that being gay is a personal thing. (And it was like that in the West 500 years ago, too.)
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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To be fair, it's where a good chunk of America is heading as well. Christian Nationalism is something people are running on and winning with. Scary shit.
"O believers! Whoever among you abandons their faith, Allah will replace them with others who love Him and are loved by Him. They will be humble with the believers but firm towards the disbelievers, struggling in the Way of Allah; fearing no blame from anyone. This is the favour of Allah. He grants it to whoever He wills. And Allah is All-Bountiful, All-Knowing."
Roane i'm not quite clear on how this Surah 5:54 illuminates what muslims should do about apostates. Perhaps something is lost in translation or i'm not reading it correctly. This is just from Quran.com. The main I gather from it is that apostates will replaced by people who are humble towards believers and firm towards disbelievers. I don't really feel it tells us anymore than that on this topic unless I'm missing something?
You are right. For me as a non-Muslim, the differences between interpretations are completely meaningless. Studying the Quran is like studying a "Nigerian letter". Because the whole situation is very simple: Muhammand's "mission" was a scam. Perhaps the greatest scam ever. He established himself as king, prophet, judge, warlord. The wet dream of every autocrat. Hitler and Stalin tried to have that absolute power, but they never were able to, they never claimed they have been talking to god.
I think this is the reason why we see Americans who try to portray Trump as something akin to a prophet sent from God to clear this land from the filth. This is the next step of his scam. Trump has been building a **** for a long time, and he has many disciples. The "divine right" is the best possible way to control his followers. For us, who haven't fallen down the rabbit hole, Trump is a con artist. For his followers, he is the savior, sent by god. That's how scams, cults, and religions work. And I am afraid that the Trump **** will also produce many "extremists" in the future.
Well, I wasn’t arguing that they’re meaningless, just that we can’t take a position on them in order to determine whether or not someone or something can be considered “Islamic.” That’s not our call. However I’d say that understanding the different ways Islam has manifested in place and time is absolutely vital if we want to understand the ways it has shaped the lives of a considerable portion of humanity.
Whatever you want to believe about what exactly happened in the early 7th century Middle East (and there are lots of interesting theories that have been produced by genuinely sincere and empathetic scholarship), the phenomenon given to us at that particular moment has birthed civilizations, shaped cultures, given meaning to the lives of diverse peoples of all ethnicities and languages for fifteen centuries or so. To reduce it all to a “scam” I think is to turn your back on a significant part of what it has meant to be human in history.
It’s a nonsensical question. Have you been to a Muslim dominated country? Or even one with a sizeable Muslim population?
Tarring 1.5bn people worldwide with the same brush is an idiotic way to make any real assertions about anything. Muslims aren't one homogenous group that all behave and think the same.
There’s cultural Muslims, atheists in Muslim countries, secular Muslims, etc etc. I've met Muslims in Mauritius that partake in Hindu festivals, and the Hindu counterparts partake in Muslim traditions.
Does Sweden count?
Count as what? A Muslim dominant country, or one with a sizeable population? I wouldn't say so but I have no idea what % they make of Sweden's total population.
He's trying to be funny, you know funny in the kind of way where everyone else rolls their eyes and sighs. Some idiots think that us pure true white proper Swedes along with our culture and traditions are being replaced by Muslims in the same way white idiots in the US think they're being replaced by brown people.
I guess i was kind of joking, but i know Sweden has had some problems with immigration, especially from muslim countries.
I have no connection to Sweden apart from visiting once roughly every 5th year to buy cheap snus and alcohol just over the border.
It's just things i've read and seen online, Rinkeby to mention one thing.
Got you...the 'joke' went over my head.
Forgot to say in my previous post that that's not what i meant.
The part about Swedes being replaced etc.
I have really no clue about what's going on in Sweden, just that i have seen many complaints online.
Which question? This question?
What should a good Muslim do when someone (like me) is an open, 100 percent atheist who says that all religions are lies and scams?
This is a question about Islam, the religion. The religion is one, even if it has a lot of branches and different interpretations. I wasn't asking what a particular muslim will do. I was asking what the "archetypal", "good Muslim" should do, according to their holy writings and the core teachings of Islam.
It is like asking: should a "good Muslim" drink alcohol? According to Islam, he should not. In real life many do, but that's not what Islam is teaching.
Here is a link to the original question for those who missed it:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/religion-whats-the-point.215250/page-340#post-29325648
What in the feck have you ingested?
We can’t give you what you want. You see Islam as software used to program humans. You are asking for a command /if/atheist/nearby. It doesn’t work like that. Atheist don’t practice religion and tend to be very abstract. Islam is about living a conscious life. About context and direction. Your question is childish.
I read it in Arabic so it's the same in all Qur'ans.
This is the thing that the case of the Jewish tribe who were sentenced to death that is very much misunderstood by many.
The Jewish tribes were saying that they wouldn't get justice if a Muslim was the judge. They were asked to pick a judge and chose a guy from their own tribe who used the Jewish punishment of death for them. Now the guy they chose was a Muslim at this time having converted. But he was well versed in Jewish law. So they were tried according to their own scriptures and judged by those too.
The general rule is there is no compulsion in faith. A person is free to believe what they want. Punishment kicks in if they start causing harm or mischief.
Even homosexuality is not something which is punishable if it isn't public and open. Now that sounds like it's discrimination towards homosexuals however the rulings are the same for heterosexuals and married couples etc.
If a person accuses somebody of homosexuality and hasn't got the witnesses to prove say intercourse the accuser gets punished. Which interestingly is why Oscar Wilde was imprisoned. It wasn't his sexuality but his accusation towards that bloke whose name I forget.
I believe they didn't reference Ibn Ishaq where the rest of the story is. Kenana al-Rabi is Safiya's husband. Now ask yourself how Safiya would have felt after Muhammed tortured and murdered her husband as the below hadith dipicts. Do you think as a 17 year old girl she willingly married his murderer who was 60? Or do you think she was fearful for her future as Muhammed's slave? We know the Quran states you can rape women you own anyway. I think we can certainly state most sane women would not want to have a marriage with a man who tortured and murdered their husband who most reasonable women are supposed to have some loyalty towards.
See the evidence below:
Ibn Ishaq writes about Kenana ibn al-Rabi:
In addition to Ibn Ishaq's narration Al-Tabari writes:
All surahs from the Qur'an have what is called tafsir. This is the detail of when it was revealed, what was happening at the time, if it was specific to that time or event or general etc.
As I understand it it basically, in my words, says if they leave the religion leave them to it as Allah will replace them with even better Muslims. Or to that effect.
The problem as I see with translations is that the people who translated them, Ali, pickthall etc were educated people who used bigger, longer words when the actual words can be understood by someone illiterate (but speaks Arabic).
Also there is the issue of words that have general meanings but also have specific meanings that are only that in terms of the religion.
So for example bidah means innovation. However in terms of Qur'an it means innovation in the Deen specifically. So where we pray 4 fardh as ordered you can't pray 5 as that takes it outside Islam. Or Ismailis who reduced the prayer and Qur'an, automatically become non muslim.
Yet generally the word is used in the context of innovation in terms of a new idea etc. So you get people who say if bidah is wrong why do you fly or use a computer as they didn't exist in the Prophets time. They use to justify their innovation in the faith.
If that makes sense?
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That's exactly how it works, as admitted by every religious person in the world. You decide to read a 1000 year old book and do every single thing that it says, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not.
e.g. If anyone was born and left to observe this world by themselves with zero external influence, there's no reason whatsoever that anyone would ever come up with nonsensical concepts like the afterlife, heaven, hell and whatever else is written in these books. But because this got written into a book by some guy whose sole motive was to come up with every possible notion that would instil fear in people reading it (like going to hell) they now have no issues in living their lives according to something completely made up - you know - like a machine executes a code...
She was 17 when she married her second husband kenana. She had been married and divorced before.
Kenana also was the reason she had a scar on her face where he had hit her before the war.
The killing of her people was done by Saad ibn Muad, who they had themselves chosen as the judge to judge them according to Jewish law.
Saffiyah was offered her freedom and marriage and she accepted. However she said no to consumption of the marriage until later. When asked why she said she feared for Muhammad as the Jews were near the place.
It's worth noting that Muslim and non Muslim literature from that time period paints a very different picture from what we know now.
So for example it was common practise for two warring tribes to take the women of the chiefs etc of the losers. This was so common that the women would literally "doll themselves up" so if their tribe lost they would look appealing to the top men of the winning tribe. I'm not talking Islam here. Just some of the practices before and during the early years.
Don't get this. At some point someone was born and left to observe the world by themselves but chose religion/s.
If as atheists/non believers you believe these are man made/written then surely man left alone observed and thought we need to worship an entity and have rules etc?
Okay the Quran states that they made earth a bed and spread it out. Spreading implies something flat. It certainly sounds the opposite of how you would create a sphere.
The Quran states Allah used mountains as pegs or spikes into the earth. (Quran 74:6/7) We know this is factually wrong. The mountains were not added after the earth was 'spread'
The Quran states the Earth was made by Allah and then he created the 7 heavens above earth. Which is what the Sumerians believed. It also states there is 7 earths. Bukhari claims on the day of judgement the 7 earths are below us and we will sink down to them on the day of judgement. This is flat world talk.
The Quran states 'we adorned the nearest heaven with stars as protection' (The Quran 41/12)
The Quran states 'we created the earth and life in 4 days. Allah created the heavens in 2 days'. (The Quran 41/9-12) So we're supposed to believe that earth and life on earth was created before stars that are millions of years older? And we're supposed to believe it took 4 days to create the earth yet it took 2 days to create the rest of the vastness of the universe.
For me the last point is obviously shows the Quran is of human creation and completely wrong
Furthermore the Quran talks about stars being able to fall upon us (67:5, 81:2)
Allah stops the sky from falling on the earth (22:65)
Quran says before the earth was created everything was water (11:7) and (Bukhari 4:54:414)
Fixed.
Do you believe religion was the institution that first came up with rules, morals, etc.?
Fine let's take your fixed version. However it goes to show that the initial point I was responding to is strange. Man left to his own devices created religions as in plural (your fixed point) so why would he not do it again if left alone?
No, in a word. However that wasn't the point I was making
Certainly looked like it was in that second sentence.
Do you have any daleel for any of your claims?
Either way, Muhammed is meant to be the seal of the prophets and perfect man and ideal model for Muslims. How can you claim that and be at peace with him extorting and murdering a man for his possessions? And then not have an issue with him subjegating a grieving widow, after he killed her husband, to essentially be his sex slave with no choice to be a free woman who isn't raped by Muhammed. There isn't this choice of being free unless she subjegates herself to be Muhammed's wife, where he essentially owns her as a sex slave. Imagine how she must feel having to be intimate with a man who killed her husband. It's revolting and disgusting.
If I told you your brother was tortored for his wealth and murdered and then he had his wife taken from him by his murderer, how would you feel about this murderer? Would you consider him the ideal human?
That's an interesting take but not really accurate from what I've read in the Qur'an.
For one the days you speak of isn't days as in Monday to Friday. It isn't in the Bible either incidentally.
The explanation is more eras than days. So 1 day could be a thousand/million years as we know them.
Secondly the verses in the Qur'an are twofold. One verse describes the earth as spread out or flat for those walking it and the every n xr describes it as egg shaped or spherical. Even early scholars argued against the Roman held.view of a flat earth. The word yukawirru is linguistically related to the word ball. Likes of ibn hazim always argued this.
The mountains issue is not about a flat earth rather the role of the mountains and stability and them being long below the surface not just want you see above. The rest then is often describing the day of judgement specifically not what mountains are or do generally. Context needs to be applied here.
You quoted Surah 67:5. Which is Surah Mulk. That particular verse was in response to the claims of the soothsayers of the time and it's more about meteorites than stars.
Surah 41:12 is Surah fussilat and tbh it would take too long to respond to that point as it needs to be understood in context of at least 8 other Surah verses.
I highlighted what I was responding to.
It is just your opinion, man. You see it very rational I see it as extremely judgemental and derogatory.
I can’t prove that God exists and you can’t prove the opposite. So, it’s matter of choice. Why atheists are so aggressive and think all other people are dumb? May be because they are atheists?
But isn't the burden of proof on those who claim God exists?
Not just daleel but also see the works of likes of Montgomery watt et al
As I said the issue of that particular war, the battle of the trench is quite specific. The punishment was not Muhammad's. There was a treaty. Kenana went through what he went through as agreed. Including the treasure issue. He had hidden what was to be given. He refused to accept he hid it and agreed to a punishment if he was found to be lying. He was lying when half was found where a witness had s en him bury it. He continued to lie about the rest.
Maslamah killing him in the end was because kenana had killed his brother.
This was under Jewish eye for an eye law. As judged by a man from his own tribe in Saad.
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Not really
As the Qur'an says you believe what you believe I believe what I believe, you won't believe what I believe and I won't believe what you believe, to you your way to me mine
You have lot of patience, bro. Mashalla
I’m not selling anything to you bro. It is your choice. I made my choice.