Islam Discussion Thread

[Zaharawi]

Actually, I forgive you being Muslim because you are human. I have no reasonable excuse for demanding that other people be better than myself. I abstained from voting

Rhetorics aside, I find that for most religions, I like the practitioners a great deal more than I like their ideas. Probably because I like people more than Big Ideas.

You can not believe in one and not believe in the other. It is impossible. It is true that human nature is weak, by strengthen it through religion and spiritualist, we gain a sense of compassion. To believe in the good nature of human being is not subjective, but to understand how religion help shape that person is the key.

[Coccygia]

Islam is pretty awful. Jihad, abuse of women, contempt for unbelievers, etc. It is not all bad (for one thing, there's Sufism), and not all Muslims are bad, certainly, but it's got some horrible ideas, and way too many people who believe them. It beats even Xtianity for worst major religion.

[Sulamalik]

Islam is pretty awful. Jihad, abuse of women, contempt for unbelievers, etc. It is not all bad (for one thing, there's Sufism), and not all Muslims are bad, certainly, but it's got some horrible ideas, and way too many people who believe them. It beats even Xtianity for worst major religion.

Just wonderin', could you tell me what jihad means to you?

[Czechanada]

Islam is pretty awful. Jihad, abuse of women, contempt for unbelievers, etc. It is not all bad (for one thing, there's Sufism), and not all Muslims are bad, certainly, but it's got some horrible ideas, and way too many people who believe them. It beats even Xtianity for worst major religion.

Just wonderin', could you tell me what jihad means to you?

Arabic for struggle. There are the concepts of higher jihad and lower jihad. It's basically doing something to help further Islam, or protect Islam.

[Norsklow]

Actually, I forgive you being Muslim because you are human. I have no reasonable excuse for demanding that other people be better than myself. I abstained from voting

Rhetorics aside, I find that for most religions, I like the practitioners a great deal more than I like their ideas. Probably because I like people more than Big Ideas.

You can not believe in one and not believe in the other. It is impossible. It is true that human nature is weak, by strengthen it through religion and spiritualist, we gain a sense of compassion. To believe in the good nature of human being is not subjective, but to understand how religion help shape that person is the key.

Sorry, why not? People are not one, or two, or even three ideas.
I don't believe in the fundamental good nature of human beings, but I think that is beside the point. I believe that you are a person with neither lesser nor greater value than myself.

[New Tollan]

Is Islam bad? Yes. Really bad. Just reading the Surahs, without even going onto the Hadith or Sira, or any of the divisions' texts, it's not great. Taking in the biography of Muhammed, it just seems like the religion of an 6th Century Arabian Joseph Smith.

[Sulamalik]

Is Islam bad? Yes. Really bad. Just reading the Surahs, without even going onto the Hadith or Sira, or any of the divisions' texts, it's not great. Taking in the biography of Muhammed, it just seems like the religion of an 6th Century Arabian Joseph Smith.

Muhammed wasn't Jesus Christ or a Sacred Cow or Joseph Smith. Muhammed with a paedophile, warrior-monk, conqueror, punk rawker. Muslims aren't instructed to be Muhammed-like, they're instructed to learn from what he said, and the actions he took, to find their Islam through the Qur'an and the Hadiths, and other Muslims, but most importantly from themselves.

Islam is a tool to further understand the mystery of God, and the Qur'an is just a very small piece of that huge puzzle.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

In parts of Africa yes, but the reverse is the case in the rest of the world. Depends which religion is dominant, where Christianity is dominant it can be quite dangerous to follow another faith; Buddhism and Islam are quite dangerous to those that follow other religions where they are dominant too.

As far as I know, Buddhism is a peaceful religion. I have never heard of violent Buddhists.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/ ... 6A20120615

[New Tollan]

Is Islam bad? Yes. Really bad. Just reading the Surahs, without even going onto the Hadith or Sira, or any of the divisions' texts, it's not great. Taking in the biography of Muhammed, it just seems like the religion of an 6th Century Arabian Joseph Smith.

Muhammed wasn't Jesus Christ or a Sacred Cow or Joseph Smith. Muhammed with a paedophile, warrior-monk, conqueror, punk rawker. Muslims aren't instructed to be Muhammed-like, they're instructed to learn from what he said, and the actions he took, to find their Islam through the Qur'an and the Hadiths, and other Muslims, but most importantly from themselves.

Islam is a tool to further understand the mystery of God, and the Qur'an is just a very small piece of that huge puzzle.

Great. I'm glad that some Muslims don't take Muhammed as a monolithic figure to be worshipped. It doesn't change the fact that the Qu'ran solely is rather scary, more horrifying than the Pentateuch.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

Islam is pretty awful. Jihad, abuse of women, contempt for unbelievers, etc. It is not all bad (for one thing, there's Sufism), and not all Muslims are bad, certainly, but it's got some horrible ideas, and way too many people who believe them. It beats even Xtianity for worst major religion.

Just wonderin', could you tell me what jihad means to you?

A struggle of any sort. A holy war, Gandhi's independence movement, trying not to masturbate in the morning, so on.

[Sulamalik]

Muhammed wasn't Jesus Christ or a Sacred Cow or Joseph Smith. Muhammed with a paedophile, warrior-monk, conqueror, punk rawker. Muslims aren't instructed to be Muhammed-like, they're instructed to learn from what he said, and the actions he took, to find their Islam through the Qur'an and the Hadiths, and other Muslims, but most importantly from themselves.

Islam is a tool to further understand the mystery of God, and the Qur'an is just a very small piece of that huge puzzle.

Great. I'm glad that some Muslims don't take Muhammed as a monolithic figure to be worshipped. It doesn't change the fact that the Qu'ran solely is rather scary, more horrifying than the Pentateuch.

I'm pretty sure no Muslims worship Muhammed like a deity, that would kinda run contrary to the whole reason why Muhammed isn't depicted in portraits. So people don't try to raise his importance above that of a man like my mainbro JC.

The thing 'bout the Qur'an is, it's really a blank slate open to your interpretation. If you read it looking for it to be a terrorists go-to-guide it's gonna read like a terrorists go-to-guide. If you read it as a book of peace, well, it'll read like a peaceful book. What's important to know is that a person's Islam is shaped by their underlying personality, not the other way around.

[Norsklow]

Hear hear!

One question: what about the prophet being displayed/enacted on TV?

[Sulamalik]

Hear hear!

One question: what about the prophet being displayed/enacted on TV?

Heh, I remember an Arab movie a while back that depicted the life of Muhammed. The way that got past that particular problem was filming the entire movie from his Point of View.

Islam has some pretty strict rulings against Icons, of course it's impossible to actually stick by the letter 100% of the time (see: crescent moons, calligraphy, etc). When violence erupts from depictions of the prophet it's almost always a classic case of people doing it wrong. By bullying a cartoon artist into retracting his freedom of expression, all it does is wrongly promote Muhammed as some sort of holy Jesus-like being while delegitimizing Islam's status as a religion of peace.

[Norsklow]

I saw a film on TV in Arabic which I presume depicted Muhammad. Someone being very wise, and polite, and peaceful, and living in the 7th century CE and all that, Urdu subtitles.
The people who were avidly watching it had lots of green - call it hachimotos,strips of cloth - around their heads.

I have no opinion of the nature of their particular interpretation of Islam, but I did notice that none of them had anything like a Castro beard.

But you did get me wondering about that, having him enacted and all.

[Sulamalik]

I saw a film on TV in Arabic which I presume depicted Muhammad. Someone being very wise, and polite, and peaceful, and living in the 7th century CE and all that, Urdu subtitles.
The people who were avidly watching it had lots of green - call it hachimotos,strips of cloth - around their heads.

I have no opinion of the nature of their particular interpretation of Islam, but I did notice that none of them had anything like a Castro beard.

But you did get me wondering about that, having him enacted and all.

Very interesting. Due to the nature of most Islamic film studios, a realistic/non-biased account of such an important figure like the Prophet is hard to get past the idea stage. And what with the current political climate, western film producers won't touch the subject with a sixty foot pole.

Even books are heavily censored, whether through pressure from the Islamic community or self censorship from within. This "off-limits" attitude by Muslims and non-Muslims alike is entirely self-destructive and doesn't help anyone. Islam as a culture needs criticism, honest criticism, to grow and prosper.

[New Rogernomics]

Just wonderin', could you tell me what jihad means to you?

A struggle of any sort. A holy war, Gandhi's independence movement, trying not to masturbate in the morning, so on.

I don't like Gandhi's economic policies, they were disastrous for India; the whole 'industrialization is evil' position set back India for many years, and kept people in poverty.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

A struggle of any sort. A holy war, Gandhi's independence movement, trying not to masturbate in the morning, so on.

I don't like Gandhi's economic policies, they were disastrous for India; the whole 'industrialization is evil' position set back India for many years, and kept people in poverty.

I don't particularly like those positions either. He was pretty racist to black people in his youth as well. Nobody said he was a perfect saint, just a nice guy.

[Sulamalik]

A struggle of any sort. A holy war, Gandhi's independence movement, trying not to masturbate in the morning, so on.

I don't like Gandhi's economic policies, they were disastrous for India; the whole 'industrialization is evil' position set back India for many years, and kept people in poverty.

That's fair, but this thread is about discussing Islam, not economics.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

One issue I have with Islam is the ban on interreligious marriage and homosexuality, which generally does not sit well with me. I also have an issue with the laws on blasphemy laws in many Islamic states, but I don't recall the Koran in particular speaking about blasphemy. Then again, I read it a long, long time ago.

[Bordurian]

I like Islam. Their Muhammad teaches the same basic principles as Jesus. They follow the same God. I find no reason to dislike them.

[Gaveo]

Ah I keep getting muslim dating site ads!!!
*ahem* Anyways, I view Islam as a meh religion only because it doesn't treat women well and other social issues other than that Islam is just like any other religion a good religion.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

Ah I keep getting muslim dating site ads!!!
*ahem* Anyways, I view Islam as a meh religion only because it doesn't treat women well and other social issues other than that Islam is just like any other religion a good religion.

Islam was quite progressive at its founding. Many Islamic countries have regressed on those issues since a thousand years ago.

Mind you, I still have a lot of problems with it.

[Gaveo]

Just wonderin', could you tell me what jihad means to you?

A struggle of any sort. A holy war, Gandhi's independence movement, trying not to masturbate in the morning, so on.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

A struggle of any sort. A holy war, Gandhi's independence movement, trying not to masturbate in the morning, so on.

That is a serious jihad, let me tell you.

[Gaveo]

Ah I keep getting muslim dating site ads!!!
*ahem* Anyways, I view Islam as a meh religion only because it doesn't treat women well and other social issues other than that Islam is just like any other religion a good religion.

Islam was quite progressive at its founding. Many Islamic countries have regressed on those issues since a thousand years ago.

Mind you, I still have a lot of problems with it.

Yep I think my heritage was Islamic because my family origin was from Lebanon... But to get back to the point (i think...) what do you mean that Islam is quite progressive... (Yes I know that they won't kill or jail a man for stealing bread when the victim had tons of bread)