its too large when seen from this close

Submitted by bayezid (Bangladesh), Dec 31, 2008 at 14:07

>>

you're not 'wrangling' me - but I'm fascinated with how good at self-deception you seem to have become.

thats what they say when they are being wrangled .

>>

and I say - neither did the early arabs or any other variety of muslim prior to its discovery (by Infidels ) in the 20th Century CE.

i agree they did not fully know what ALLAH meant by the suns orbit. but the point here is the infidels may have discovered this fact recently. but ALLAH already declared it 1400 years ago. the focus here is al quran, not arabs.

>>

'We' kidding? About what? Me being calm? Does the fact that I am calm make you angry - because you have a fixed belief that only Muslims can be calm? I guess it would stick in your craw wouldn't it? I can take the point that if non-Muslims can actually experience inner peace then that would be a threat to your claim of Islamic religious hegemony.

you're calm ? ok.

>>

1) you can obligate people to obey, taking away their rights and free will, and 2) you can show them by example with loving kinness how much better life can be"

1)people that love god are not obligated to obey his commands. only the half hearted ones are. free will secures its worth when it leads man to god. its not good for anything else really. 2) ALLAH wants us to show others life can be good and so can the after-life.

>>yes - you are free to - and no places are out of bounds - unlike Mecca etc in Saudi for us Infidels"

unlike all places, mecca isnt a tourist spot . its a pilgrimage site.

>> You are attributing attributes to yourself which you do not possess.
Nothing you have ever said has 'hit me in the face' as you put it but I am surprised at your credulity in some things. And you have not responded to every point I have made - you conveniently leave many in the 'too hard' basket.You need to strike a balance - have an open mind - but not so open that your brains fall out as the saying goes - and also things have to make empirical sense.

one can only wonder if you are talking to a mirror or not. because i countered all your baseless claims about islam. if you are not still convinced of your misunderstanding, our previous comments do exist on daniel pipes. feel free to scroll thru.

>> Saying anything wrong is NOT restricted to the Koran or anything else. I was not talking about the Koran. I am not spewing politics. I have just requoted what the head of the ISLAMIC Republic of Iran said about another state - and its people - when he said he would wipe them off the map.

I consider that genocide - and if you consider genocide 'wrong' then it is wrong. Agree?

unless temporary chronic amnesia is the case, one would not quote or requote something different from said topic. it is unclear what point you were trying to make here .if we were talking about the quran based on which you made a ludicrous llegation, then logic behooves you stick to that topic.

or perhaps you simply have an axe to grind.

>> I know - it would win him votes in the next election in the ISLAMIC Republic of Iran - and kudos around the Muslim world."

hey at least he was talking bout attacking israel. a land forcibly taken from its original inhabitats. maybe they have it coming. so i guess the guy wasnt all wrong. was he ?

>> Let's see - the Jews have been there for several thousand years and have always had it as their homeland - and lived under Romans - then alongside Christians until the mid 700's when marauding Muslim militias from the newly started Islamic religion arrived from what is now Sauddi Arabia. They claimed the Jewish Temple Mount and the surrounding area and built a mosque on it - stating that this was the 'furthest mosque' mentioned that Mohammed had flown to in one night from Arabia on the back of a winged donkey with the face of a woman. They then went on to slaughter hundreds of thosands of people in North Africa or force therm to convert from Coptic Christianity to Islam.

So, whose place was it again?

the jews have been there under the will of GOD. it was a covenant. their land and nationality was conditional upon them following god's law. they failed because they transgressed. book of lamentations and the deuteronomy states this. the talmud talks about this in detail. so if they lived in this land based on god's covenant, it must also mean they can be kicked out by god if they failed to uphold the covenant, right?

and how many times did they break the covenant? 3 times? 4 tiimes ? 10 times ?

their right on this land was based on god's contract with them. there was breach of contract. so there is no more claim over this land. other than this, there is no reason for the jewish claim over israel.

this land may belong to whoever that lives there, but certainly not the jews.

>>

So let's turn it around. If I told you someone had flown to your place 1400 years ago on the back of a large flying mammal and claimed it was a holy shrine of that person - what would you think? Would you just agree and let me take over your place?

but the problem is, youre the one telling me this. ALLAH did not confirm it in the quran. since HE did not, i suggest you try profesions other than land law.

>>

I think you should have said that ' you do not reason without considerable argument'.
And your arguments are based on faulty premises."

and it is the nature of the kafir to deem what is appropriate and what is faulty without considering hs own fallacy.

and what makes my premise faulty? that i believe in ALLAH and HIS revelation? that i believe in the unseen? obviousy being a kafir you lack humility for which you fail to see that for the INFINITE, everything is possible.

>> I did not mention the many and various beliefs of people neither was I talking about evolution. A logical argument is often described as "rational" if it is logically valid. The basis of the argument needs to be an initial fact - not an initial belief or wish that something was something it is not.

if i told a man that did not see rainbows in his life, that huge bows existed that stretch from one end to the other and had several colors, would he consider it logical to not believe or would he consider that it logical to believe me ?

what more so if he were a color blind man?

if i went to a man that never saw deep sea life and told him that a fish exists which glows like a styreetlight and uses bait to eat other fish, would he find me logical?

100 years ago people would think i was illogical if i mentioned soundwaves and light wavesto them. so what is logic?

it definitely isnt a fixed thing as many skeptics believe. logic is determined by the familiarity of different laws or dynamics. with every new thing we discover or learn, we add another law to our logic.

what is logic to you? and what makes you think that other things must abide by your logic or else it simply isnt logical?

>>

but why can't you extend that concept to 'he does' ? Why the dogma that yours is the ultimate revelation? You cannot see the absurdity of that can you?

we would. only if HE said it was possible. according to ALLAH , muhammad peace be upon him is the seal of the prophets. the last and final messenger. so with islam, the chain of revelation has ended. we have all we need. this is HIS choice that the great prophet is the last prophet. we simply obey.

>>

No - no smokescreen at all - although it did inadvertently bring out the raging division amongst Muslims.
Rephrase what I wrote - say a Sunni Imam in Banglasdesh says a fatwa to kill me because I do not believe at all that Mohammed was a prophet and another Sunni - in Egypt say - says no fatwa - I don't have to be killed.
Who is right? (I'll go with the Egyptian) .Both cannot be.
But both think they know what 'Allah' wants. So it is a totally arbitrary system. The blind leading the blind.

such is hardly the case . youll receive a fatwa to be killed only if you do something tht deserves a killing accordin to law of ALLAH. otherwise imams do not have the authority to make up laws arbitrarily based on local norms or personal likings. if some imams do make up fatwas without support of quran and sunnah, that imam is not islamic at all. so before they make up a fatwa, there has to be permission for it in the sources (quran and sunnah).

if fatwas are not in compliance with quran and sunnah, the imam is to be blamed. not islam.

>>

so you are neither a Sunni nor a Shia. I have heard of the 73 sects of Islam - whch are you if you care to tell?

in essence, you can call me sunni. sunnis follow the tradition of the prophet. we do this since ALLAH says in the quran that one should obey ALLAH and HIS prophet. the shias dont adhere to the sunnah or traditions of the prophet and so can be called deviants.

but the thing is muslims have no subdivisions. so a sunni muslim is just a muslim. i use sunni to identify myself to you and others to clear the confusion.

>> that's fine for a mono-cultural, mono-religious society. But what if there was a Buddhist equivalent of the sharia - would you live under that?
Government needs to be secular because otherwise the various religious self-interest groups would be vying for supremacy.

ah the slippery notion of secularism. government feels it has to be secular since it holds all religion in equal status. but the study into the religions themselvs show their places. not all books claim that it is the last and final book meant for all humanity. they in fact clealrly suggest to wait for further instructions from god. if i fnally have the ultimate book, the previous ones become obsolete. so there and then ends the debate of which religion to follow. only in the quran does ALLAH say that the deen has been completed and is now meant for all people, instead of specific tribes or groups. no other book claims that.

islamic state takes into account these facts which a secular society turns a blind eye over.

lets say now that i want to establish gospel laws or talmudic laws to buikld a society (altho thre are no shariah type of laws for them im just saying) , then if i fully and painstakingly follow every law from those books i will automaticcally become muslim. why? because ALLAH talks about muhammad and quran in those books too. and orders us to acceptthm when they come. see my point ?

and on a diferent note, buddhism is not a religion. its more of a philosophy. it does not center around GOD. rathr on personal experiences. and as the rule is, true peace nirvana or bliss can never be acieved if to ALLAH one does not submit.

so it never was a case of many religions. religion always has been one.

>> That is not hypocritical . It ALLOWS its members to hold various religions and does not seek the dominance of any.

this is a very slippery yet interesting topic. dont you see that a religion is not given its due if it is not allowed to dominate? what is religion? set of guidelines from ALLAH. yes? ok. look at the key word here :ALLAH. if what HE says does not dominate, harry truman certainly does not. see my reasoning ?

now the question is if indeed religion is to dominate, then from seemingly all the thousans of them we have, which one ??

this requires us to study religion itself and see . i have explained it above.

>> It has arisen because of practicality. Imagine if the West was ruled by Christian fundamentalists - there'd be zero mosques in our cities.

absolutely right you are. but fact is, the christians have no laws like the sharias.like that of the muslims from quran. the message of christ was never final and thus it never had a fully functional administrative machinery included in it.

allow me to add, that according to sharia, different religious groups in it are allowed to build their places of worship.

>> and with all due respect - we DO have an innate ability to recognise truth.

yes we do. i did mention something about a universal awareness actually, in my last post. but it is not always apparent. we are confused with lesser forms of awareness that cloud our judgenment. serial killers may know it is bad to kill people, but they do still. pedophiles molest children. in doing so, most find gratification. so even if they are aware of this perverse state of being, they program themselves or are programmed to interpret thoe feelings as somehow good.

>> Awareness IS NOT information.
Most people are not aware that they are aware. If I asked you for a second to stop whatever it is you are doing, drop everything - and be aware of your awareness
, you might have a momentary insight into the fact that you are aware. But as soon as you drop it - you're back into your mind's thoughts and everything going on in your life and you mistake that for awareness. We do not need BUNJIL to tell it to us in a book. That source is within us. We need to recognise that there are far deeper parts to ourselves that are totally in harmony and that expanded harmonious awareness ('the Kingdom of Heaven' which Mohammed doesn't speak about) is within us.

i dint say awareness was information. i said awareness is accentuated and made clearer with information. a sailor might develop a sixth sense for feeling land. but if he never came across an iceberg hed be mistakenly drawn to it and thus meet his end. or lets say other like hazards at sea. or lets say, i meet a woman that looks like florence nightingale and she gives me all the vibes of a caring person. little do i really know that she has developed this venus fly trap attitude to ensnare idiots like myself to do ALLAH knows what with me.

what i am basically trying to say here is that all is always not what it seems.

so despite having all these distractions , where we feel it may be one thing but it becomes another, we cannot say we dont need guidance from ALLAH. yes universl awareness shows us the truth but it is a weak beacon. we need reassurance. with cold facts. id personally feel much better if i have them.that where the quran comes in from ALLAH.

>> "animals live moment to moment. "
not relevant
but it is very relevant. to live moment to moment would mean to abide by different circumstances adopting entirely different ways every time. as a man, this seems highly degrading since it denies the sophisticated natures of man. man has a plan. he goes by a plan. he does things for purpose. nd so tempers his life accoring to it.

the purpose that animals have is to survive.

>> wouldn't say struggle though initially the mind tries to wrestle control. It is a matter of focus - focus on illusion - that becomes true for you. Focus on truth the illusion (and struggle) dissolves.

ok let me make it simple. why would anyone bother ? if they did not know that it is a process of elevation?

and truth would come after illusion dissolves? so illusion has a place as much as the truth as you say? then tht truth is not ultimate truth since it is clouded by yt another constatnt. illusion.

so truth is something that has illsions in it. and it has them for a purpose. the illusion is as much as the truth as what u think is true for you. im not concerned here is what is true for me or you or any other guy. im referring to the ultimate truth. GOD. the only way to be at peace with him is to know him. day to day.minute by minute . second by second.

and HU knows the best course of action for us to take. in islam, you just dnt search for truth, TRUTH comes to you too with more eagerness. thats what was revealed to Muhammad. there is interaction. by following HU's commands we interact with HIM . thats the way HU, the TRUTH set for us. we dont have a choice.

>>Therefore the closer you are to 'Allah' the less likely you are to harm others - because for one, you realise there is no 'outside' so what you are doing to the apparent 'outside'

the TRUTH is infinitely more complex than that. ok the truth has to be infinite. thats why it is the ULTIMATE. the ULTIMATE, by the way is another attribute of ALLAH. in arabic it is AL AAKHIR. being at peace with god dosent mean necesarily that i live in blissful ignorance or cowish ignorance like a farm animal. bliss from truth also has to better you. improve you. make u do things you never did or thought you could do. it gives you reasons and tells you what to do.

part of enjoing this bliss is gloryfying the truth that brought you bliss in the first place. the gloryfying can take different forms. it can mean raising a family, or planting trees, or building hospitals, or destroying harmful things. so if a person takes it upon himself to be bad and do bad, there is purpose in getting rid of him as well.

>> you are actually doing directly to yourself. And secondly - you have no motivation to harm others because you see how we are all connected.
so you wont hve any motivation to harm a man that might harm your family? truth has set it as such that in order to restore balance, one must be ready to harm the deserving individuals as well. fact. truth allows you to accept basic law easily.

and as for the connection, ur right. i agree. according to Muhammad the greatest jihad is the jihad against the own self. jihad means struggle.

>> Thirdly - you have a conscious recognition of the beauty of life and the uniqueness of everyone you meet.
yes. cannibals are unique too, if u learn to accept their reasoning. everything is beautiful, mate. but not every beauty is good for you. swinging is a beautiful thing too but its not good. if i appreciated all kinds of beauty in life, id be in chaos. man is creature of order.

>> Fourthly - you live consciously , moment to moment, with the insight that no dogma or beliefs that your mind clings to are 'right' for anyone else.

if dogmas were concerned with the individual alone, then they wouldnt be dogmas. dogmas point to THE GOD. so it is for HU i follow dogma. it is purposeful. like i said, animals live moment to moment. not joining the dots. not reading between the lines.

>>

"as Muhammad peace be upon him has said that in knowing oneself, one knows ALLAH."
That is good if he did say that - but he should have just stuck to saying that and improved upon that message rather than (aside from his errant personal behaviour) being the source of a book that has ended up perpetuating illusion and promoting hatred of Jews , categorising people into lowly Infidels and the rather more 'special ' Muslims and everything else it does .

BTW which 'ayahs' did he say that in?"

the hadith of the prophet : whoever knows himself, knows GOD.

and this is what ALLAH says about the self in the quran :It is WE WHO created man, and WE know what dark suggestion his soul makes to him: for WE are nearer to him than his jugular vein.

>>

Could be inside all , eh?

ALLAH is neither inside nor outside. HE is beyond these trappings.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".