How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

Society Religion & Philosophy
41

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

More and more I read your posts I find you full of preconceived ideas that:

1- Islam and other religions are same and so what if someone is Mushrik.

2- Whatever mullah says is wrong.

3- Allah is unjust but you later tried to deny by saying La howla wala Quwata…
You brought the idea of Allah being unjust or not, just a reminder.

On all counts you may be wrong as well.

**Now, as far as I am concerned, I already gave my answer to main question posed that I do not know the answer to the question. **

That is based on my acknowledgement of having a preconceived ideas based on my current understandings.

Hence, while I admit having a preconceived ideas, you are trying to show that you do not have these ideas but ACTUALLY do have your biased ideas.

1- Did you miss my examples of criminal versus law abiding people, ugly versus good looking people, poor versus rich, good genes versus bad genes etc.

Will you accuse Allah of being unjust based on these people born in different families or situations?

2- Did you bother to ask the same questions to a Hindu, Christian or a Jew etc. if they feel any person from a different religion is destined for heaven or Hell?

And if they believe they are the best are they saying their God is unjust?

3- I think you have a biased mind and are unable to think out of box of being critical of anything which comes close to being Islamic.

4- As to your biased idea that even learning about other religion for Muslims being haram, that is based on misconception. A correct Mullah will tell people to seek religious knowledge of nit only Islam but other religions as well. You just have to work on finding those Mullahs and get out of your seclusion!!

By the way, you again criticized Muslims but did not say that even Non Muslims think learning about any other religion is not required and/or their religion is the best.

5- There are many shades of religious faith.

These are based on agreeing with one’s own family based religion… to actually going out and seeking further knowledge in terms of comparing other religions and then making the decision. Latter is the best method.

6- If you did not have the preconceived idea that somehow you as a human being with limited brain capacity should be allowed to question Allah’s intention, you wouldn’t be bringing the idea of Allah being unjust.

7- And so what even if he is unjust or not as per your idea?

He is almighty and we are human. Who are we to judge him? :slight_smile:

42

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

you know what diwana jee..this is a bit unfair…you are using classical tactics…

in so many words calling me an infidel and telling me to be afraid of god’s wrath because i am saying allah is unjust…in today’s religiously charged environment, you will always of course do really well!

but please do not put words in my mouth…i never ever said Allah is unfair..we are having a philosophical debate and this is a classical way any philosophical debate is constructed…you define few assumptions, lay down few realities and then try to deduce conclusions…

here is what i said

if we believe that islam is indeed the only truest religion and people who are born in other religions especially those who are born in mushrak families will suffer in afterlife, then we must ask question that why allah decided to produce 5 billion of those souls in mushrak or non-muslim families? ..so the reference to unjust was in this particular context purely from discussion standpoint not as an absolute reality…

but then i said that we also believe that Allah is not unjust , which is my belief…then the only logical progression of this thought process would be that religion is not that important for Allah…everyone will be treated based on his/her religious beliefs….

“how you treat his people” will be the ultimate test regardless of your religion…because this way Allah can treat everyone equally with no inherent advantage to someone just because he was born in a certain religion…

so please help me understand where did i say that Allah is unjust?

43

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

on 1) ugly vs good looking and what not…that is irrelevant to this discussion… we are having a discussion in a religious context.

on 2) again irrelevant…if hindus christians think their religion is truest one (and i am sure they do), they are wrong as well based on my theory above…

44

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

What classic tactics?

I only interpreted your own posts. Read below please.

Please show me where I called you infidel or warn you of God’s wrath. I am perplexed here.

What are my ASSUMPTIONS?

I posted based on your post. And you made assumptions about me first that whatever I said was based on what a mullah would tell me.

Why did you drag an unknown or even non existent mullah in to the discussion when you could easily talked to me what I wrote and had problem with?

**Isn’t that an obvious and interesting… that you or many others on this forum just love to drag an unseen Mullah… and ALL Mullahs are evil creation of Allah who are there to misguide Muslims?
**

So you do agree that you have this question on judgement of Allah being unjust because he is the one who made 5 Billions born in to Mushrik and Non Muslims families.

Then why blame me in interpreting your thoughts as being one sided and biased?

According to you, Allah made 5 billion born in to Mushrik/Non Muslim families and hence CAN be considered unjust EVEN for the sake of philosophical discussion. Fine.

But how about the scenario being reversed?

**Answer me honestly!

Do you think the same logic (of being unjust) should be applied to Hindus. Christians and Jews and the God(s) they worship to?
**

Contradiction here.

If religion was not important to Allah then how come everyone would be treated based on his/her (different) belief?

Please explain.

Sure, Allah can treat anyone the way he wants or wishes. But that is not what is asked here.

**He is free to do whatever he wishes to and he can even backtrack what he has said to mankind through his messengers or scriptures.

**
But, the thread was NEVER about what ALLAH would do, rather what we as human would do.

You brought the concept of him being unjust. Read your own posts above. :slight_smile:

45

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

whatever makes you happy…all i am saying that if someone thinks about his religion, into which he was born by god without his choice, in a certain superior way and considers it be the only and rightist code of conduct, then he is unintentionally putting his respective God in a tough spot and hence that is not the right way to think about the religion…the contrary view that i presented seems more logical, **as I see it. **

Thanks for your viewpoint…much appreciated…you gave me some good points to think about and I hope i did the same. we have laid out our cases in detail…any further discussion at this point would mean that at least one of us is either intellectually bankrupt or intellectually dishonest…so lets just stop here.

46

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

:hat:Good discussing with you.

Except that I would not be intellectually bankrupt or dishonest even if the discussion goes further.

47

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

My first answer in this thread …

If I were born to a family of a different faith … I would just become Muslim. To demonstrate why I believe this to be the case … is to cite the example of many reverts to Islam … All of them were each born to a family of a different faith and were then caused through inspiration and enlightenment to accept Islam.

On the other hand there are Muslims that would say otherwise … that the reason why they are Muslim is purely because they were born that way and this is because they have not chosen Islam and are somewhat living in its shadow reluctantly.

The type of person you are will categorically determine what you are likely to do if had you been in a different situation.

Otherwise … one can say no matter what there will be some trends:

A religious Muslim who is like that because of his culture may be just as religious as a Hindu if he was born in to Hinduism, but if a religious Muslim had to make effort and consciously move to that mindset then the complete opposite is likely if he was born in a Hindu family. Some people are disenchanted with their faith - so they adopt a humanistic approach to life … this is remnant amongst people who are seeking something like gender equality and didn’t find it in Islam or freedom to do certain things. Certain values are more important to some people than to conform and some ideas of conformance are hideous to people who value their own judgements.

This plethora of types of people can be grouped into several categories - may be a maximum of 10 … and based on the people who are living today we can see what type of people end up which way … There will be a trend but there will be exceptions to that trend also …

I can say for sure that had I been born in a non-Muslim family I may have underwent many more sins … but then again I may have ended up the type of person who has a lot more discipline in my Islamic faith too.

48

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

i dont like other religions

49

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

^ LOL

50

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

People born in even same faith are different, we have pro-religious and anti-religious people from same faith. Therefore, being born in Muslim family does not guaranty Jannah IMHO. It is your readiness to accept religious belief that brings you close to religion. If an anti-religious Muslim had born in other faith chances were, he would have become an atheist. If a pro-religious Muslim had born in other faith chances were good he would have converted (reverted) to Islam.

51

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

This is such an interesting debate. In the west where religion and state is separate (probably except in the Vatican) religion hardly plays a role in people’s daily lives. In Islam the concept of religion is different that is why some say Islam is a Deen (the complete way of life) not just a religion that you follow as a ritual. When one is born in a family that practices a certain faith you choose that faith but somewhere down the line… you grow up you discover ‘your’ own faith values and live on with those faith values. If we do a deep analysis of religion, we will see a common thread among majority of religions. But what happens is that we mostly seem to focus on the differences because of the blindfolds that are put over our eyes by our religious leaders… Once we take the blindfold off, we will see a whole new enlightened world. I think if I was born in any other religion than the one that I follow, which is indeed Islam. I would not be different as a person, but I would have followed a different faith… Human values would have remained the same. They are based on two concepts, one: do not do anything that will hurt yourself. Two: Do not do anything that will hurt others with your actions, your words and your thoughts etc. This is what Islam also teaches along with other major religions. Practice the two simple concepts together and you will see a difference in your entire existence.

Abdul Quddus
DET-United States Central Command
(http://www.centcom.mil/ur)

52

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

Well said.

53

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

Peace Abdul Quddus (Slave of The Most Holy)

If you were born into another religion … you would not be the “Slave of the Most Holy” by name at least - but you still feel you would not be a different person? If you are an accidental Muslim then I must agree with you … but if you have confirmed your faith then I would think that being born into another religion and maintaining your human values would eventually make you ask yourself some serious questions … would you not WANT to be a “Slave of the Most Holy” by choice?

Religion defines us … human values are a subset of religion … to say or imply that any religion will do - as long as I am the same person (in those two green aspects above) is tantamount to saying that human values are more important than Tawheed …

My opinion is also that being a member of Central Command compromises those two human values that you hold …

54

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

If i were born into another (non-Islamic) religion I don’t think it would make a difference as I turned agnostic a few years ago and it feels GREAT accepting the truth: that we’re just human beings and we have NO IDEA what will happen after we die, what God’s qualities are, etc.

I seriously believe everyone who says they believe in a particular organized religion is lying to themselves to make themselves feel better. Deep down inside we all know that we don’t know. If some random guy came up to us and said he/she is the only true prophet RIGHT now without any valid proof, i doubt anyone would believe him/her.

If God wants to send us a message, God could have sent it to us directly—not like unko koi UFONE BILL dena parna tha. Infact I do believe God sends us messages every single day in the form of the lessons we learn from our experiences, our mistakes etc. Anyway, if there really is a God, to ALLAH behtar jaanay :slight_smile: And if we really respect God, the most important thing is to show that respect by respecting all of God’s creations— no matter of what religion, gender, specie etc…yay!

55

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

^In first paragraph, you state, “it feels GREAT accepting the truth”

In second paragraph, you state, “Deep down inside we all know that we don’t know”

Contradictory???

56

Re: How would you be different if you were born in different faith?

Doesn’t it all boil down to atleast a portion of muslims saying theirs is the true god and everyone else is something to be ‘tolerated’ (or in case of extremists, not even tolerated)?

Such groups exist in many other religions as well but no other religion to my knowledge calls for punishment of non believers. Atleast in modern days after the crusade!

BUT in all religions including Islam a vast vast majority of followers do want to tolerate other religions, do abhor violence and do want to just live in peace. It is amazing how much broil a small aggressive minority can cause and wreak havoc on the lives of the people.

This is exactly why I think many wisemen have said that the silence of the virtuous is as bad as the voice of evil. Good people have to speak up