yawn...

Submitted by That Other Guy (United Kingdom), Oct 20, 2007 at 15:17

"I don't know about muslims prefering people to convert of their own free will. The basic doctorine is that if you convert people then you will be equal to the martyrs in how many virgins you get to keep as company in heaven - or something along those lines. The point is that it is seen as a good thing in many quarters regardless of how it is achieved."

True. But in order to receive the reward and status you speak of the conversion must be a valid one! That means you cannot FORCE someone to become a Muslim, as that would be 'cheating the system' so to speak. Why is that so hard for you to grasp???

"In UK the khilafah group distributes funds to young muslim boys to help them date and marry sikh, christian and hindu girls. The idea is that they convert as a precondition to marriage and this is done in open air demonstrations. This group often target societies most vulnerable with leaflets and advice sessions on "how to date a fat girl" etc etc"

That is absurd. I have heard of the stories of such, but neither were they some conspiracy by any such group nor were they planned. It was low level, and just stupid kids being stupid kids. Nothing here to talk about, and certainly nothing to represent or base a religious ideology on. The work of winning new converts through just and fair means is going quite well in the UK thank you very much. We have no need to resort to underhand tactics, as some missionaries are known to have done so.

"In Afghanistan, non muslims pay higher taxes and enjoy less priveledges than muslims and there is a constant pressure to convert. There are many stories like this all round the world."

As an Afghan, let me correct you. Non-believers do pay a tax for the safety and security provided by the Islamic State, but to think they are constantly harassed, is ignorant.

"The whole concept of khaffir (non-believers) being lower than muslims and acceptable cannon fodder and the whole doctorine of conversion make the Islamic faith a potentialy abrasive one. Millions of Hindus were converted at sword point, the Sikh prophets were martyred and even now, the process has not gone away, it has just become more sophisticated."

You cite India as an interesting example. Through the Islamic rule, if what you say were true, it would 100% Islamic, yet Muslims only make up ~ 12% of India's pop.

"The whole idea of religion, in my opinion, is to collect money for the priests and exercise control over the people. Democracy and capitalism have taken that away from the Christian church so people now seem to by-pass the church and worship the money directly whilst putting all of their faith in democratic government. All faiths are showing an element of this, but the shift of christianlity in Europe from middle class and working class white to African immigrant black congregations is a startling illustration of people becoming lovers of money and not so visibly lovers of god."

Firstyly, Islam doesn't have any sort of system of hierachal fugures (priest, bishop, pope etc) nor is money collected for any such purpose. So don't paint over Islam by setting Christianity as the benchmark of world religions.

"Which brings us back to Islam. Money will be the test of faith for Islam. My theory is that as Islamic followers become more affluent and partake in democratic capitalist economies - the religion will go from extreme fanatic, to tolerant moderate to basic non-entity in quick succession."

You have no idea do you?

"Soon we will see the effects of spreading the wealth and it will have the same effect that spreading the knowledge had on Brahmin hindus, it will blunt the extremist sword and eventually erode the elitist power held by the priests and other heads of the faith. People just want to be happy and a physical and spiritual balance is often best found when there is no conflict and this is what I suspect the Islamic people will seek before long."

Thats nice and rosy. But pray tell, what importance does worldy materialistic gains have to the so-called 'extremists' of our time? You seriously have no idea what you talk about, you just simply display the same boring diatripe that Sikhs/Hindus love to spit out when it comes to Islam...

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