'Islam' is just a word, a combination of letters representing a sound which activates some idea in the reader/hearer

Submitted by the Grand Infidel of Kaffiristan (Australia), Oct 29, 2008 at 21:06

Keith Williams writes:
"Yes you got part of it right but you have to continue that submission is what gives you peace. Inner peace inside you which eminates the outer peace that you display. Islam is peace."

The word 'Islam' is NOT peace. It is just a written word - which is a representation of a sound.
Peace is peace, full stop. It has nothing to do with rites and rituals or facing Mecca or doing the Hajj or believing in fairy stories.

A Zen practioner in Japan can experience truth and peace equally as validly as a Sufi because of a fundamental principle - that all human beings are hardwired to experience truth, beauty and peace. Our real selves get off on these principles. Peace is at the core of our being.

Peace has nothing to do with a person's religion although religious beliefs and practices can enhance the experience. Peace is not the property of any religion - especially one which makes spurious and unsubstantiated claims to being the supreme and final revelation of truth - yet being couched in 7th century arabian fables. How utterly absurd.

Buddhist monks are some of the most peaceful people you could ever meet. Similarly some Indian yogis - in fact the mystics of any tradition will exhibit this.

"....Islam pays much attention to the individual."

And wouldn't you say that the Islamic Sharia laws plays a little too much undue attention to people's lives? When was the last time you heard a Western government snactioning stoning someone to death for having an affair?

"It is the individuals who make the society. "

well, ...... yes.

" In order to have peace and harmony in the society and in the world at large, it is necessary that the individuals be developed in such a way that they fulfill this objective."

which paraphrases Ghandi's 'in order for the forest to be green, each of the trees has to be green'

so, extrapolating your present islamic beliefs , you're saying it is necessary ((OK, 'necessary' would be making you seem fanatical, let's make it 'desirable')) that people become Islamic? This is what the Koran wants , everything else is a distortion isn't it?

"Islam teaches that the inner peace and harmony come through faith in God."

Mystics of all religions say that true peace comes from direct experience of God, not by blind belief.

But then the definition of 'God' becomes problematic but only for those who don't actually experience it . i.e. those who don't know what they are talking about and want to impose their imagination of what 'God' is upon everyone else.

Is it the bliss and energetic, supreme intelligence behind creation that Hindu saints say it is - or the blissful realm of nirvana that Buddhists say? Or an awesome yet though joyful unfathomable reality that Christian mystics report? What do the Sufi's say? Why are they castigated by the rest of Islam?

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