I think this is where religions are turned by human beings into dangerous cults. When you ask a person not to use his/her senses to understand something or to differentiate between good and bad, rather just submit to an authority to decide for him/her what is allowed and what is not. For example, I know killing is wrong, and I will never kill. But if I were a part of some cult which would demand that I kill human beings in order to please god, if I used your logic, I would never come out of that cult. But if I used my own mental faculties, I would be able to understand the inappropriateness of the act.
I am sorry, but replying to each point of such a long post would not be possible for me, so please accept my apology for that.
I may have failed to demonstrate that the above also applies … But it takes a secondary rank after the authority of the text and the wealth of combined interpretation … The way to remain sure and right is to seek out the opinion of many Islamic groups … Get their official opinion and you will find a middle ground … And that will never be aligned with any of the cults. We have a mind so we should use it … But we also have a heart and we should use that too … And we also have desires that are selfish and we should rise above them too. Then we should treat the subject matter with impartiality and no bias and use the outcomes to strengthen our resolve and continually check ourselves against the majority and never be content in our states … Always trying to improve and always trying to seek out the authentic meaning upon our reliance that the original message is one of purity as our intellects tell us should be the case if such a message has come from God.
Mango Bhai,
I think there are 2 things to it. Subject matter is complicated and expand over whole human life.
Not many people have dedication to spend so much time to learn what is made possible, for us to learn in religion.
So what is the easy answer. I think. Most of the time God gave his prophets Miracles to get attention and prove they were actually the ones with authority from God.
What non believer start doing(in the threads) they shift subject to grand design. Start purposing “better” ideas for religious principle.
None of human visited God and have coffee with him while he explained human what ever single thing meant.
In today Quran is living miracle. I am pretty sure. If you unplug your self, and read it.. you may get some answers.
Under defence mechanism if any one start doing “explain to me God’s face or his toe nail”, well that is never going to happen.
A blind man need see if there is enough meat in principle to follow.
I know Quran is from some stunning super duper being… that being love people and lay out design for me to treat people not nice, BUT with GRATE care. Want me to be honest. Truth full. Kind. etc etc…
Well then I don’t have problem following that being. No matter how far the human discussion about his toe nail has reached.
PS: With honesty, and little dedication, from quran you can see there is a God. No rocket science.
Ps2: Actual rocket science is that How people ignore fact after … and dance around whole spectrum of arguments to avoid the truth.
ps3:On the Judgement day, not a single person would complain about God’s justice.
MashaAllah … I’ve seen many changes in @Monk over the past years … He really is living up to his name …
@Southie and @MangoMan
Here is a 28 min video made by a friend of mine and he is a public personality now and gradually gaining an audience. I know him through another forum before I joined GS … Please listen to why he decided to become a Muslim because in his video he consults the rational and logic basis that we have been speaking about.
Has religion been revealed only to modern humans? That would be to say that God specifically wants to be worshiped by only one of his many creations. Adam and Eve and their story…Should we consider that the beginning of time? Meanwhile Neanderthals walked the earth? This is not to dilute the credibility of any one religion, might I add. I am more interested in the configuration of religion in the human mind and whether we require any logic for its explanation. How far does one take the idea of “faith” or perhaps “blind faith based on books”
Have you ever read the piece of fiction called “Flatland”. Its a story of two dimensional world and its being which were (obviously) two dimensional figures. The story touched upon the fact that for the two dimensional beings, the idea of 3rd dimension was unimaginable.
Why cant we ‘open minded’ people try to think for a moment that maybe religion is possible, but just like we cant imagine 4th dimension (does not mean that it does not exists), we cant imagine a creator or a super being.
I have mentioned the sudden jump of intelligence in human beings in last two centuries as something that evolution could not explain. Concept of love and hate is something that science cannot explain. Should we start calling them loopholes in science? Just because we cannot rationalize something does not mean that it does not or cannot exist. 500-600 years ago, every single theory, test and observation was in agreement that everything revolves around the earth. Is it anymore true? Similarly, the concept of grand design and need of a designer for this universe may have not been proven yet, but who is to say that the universe does not have a creator.
^ fully agree that anything is possible. Taking this position to its logical conclusion, the possibilities are infniite. With existence of God having probability of one in infinity.
I think our resident mathematician had developed a new theory of infinity. And may want to splain further.
The conversation between Arjun and Krishna is one of my favourite parts of the Mahabarta … The battle scene is the Baghwad Gita and it is truly profound … It is because of these wisdoms that I feel there might be some real connection to a Divine Being. However, my beliefs regarding Him confine my understanding of Krishna to be possibly a prophet, but not the incarnation of God.
Here he is talking about jihad … And he is also talking about happiness in having no expectation, he is also talking about duty without a desire for gain or fear of loss … Tadbeer with Allah (SWT) has similar echoes here … Even Krishna feels the need that at some point a duty to fight becomes manifest.
But that seems to contradict the signature line you have of Bella88’s quote … I don’t think Krishna would agree with you two on that one.
Oh, when you get a chance please do comment on the video I posted too.
“*Where do I submit conversion application. And what is exchange rate.”
*If you are … then we are done with our discussion … To clarify the video I posted is not a religious sermon, but a simple explanation of how my friend studied Islam and the rational tools he used to do it.
