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Submitted by the Grand Infidel of Kaffiristan (Australia), Jan 6, 2009 at 00:20

Bayezid writes:

"....we certainly do not think of you as the best of the contenders to teach us tolerance. ALLAH is enough for us. and HE commands olerance from us.unlike the lip service you provide but retain personal grudges against those ideas that conflict with your worldly view."

'We' don't have a grudge against islam if that is what you mean. The tenets of tolerance etc are good - but also found in every other religion. 'We' just don't buy all the paraphernalia that goes along with it. I certainly don't believe it is God's final revelation to man.

>>Breaking your world up into Muslim and kafir, us and them, the good and the bad. Creating duality where you say only unity really exists. I have not lost patience nor am I 'spewing cliches'. You have a concept about how people who do not share your worldview think and are. The concedpt and the reality do not coincide. You then try to belittle or criticise your own imagnation of these people. You are not criticising the reality. You are dirtying your own mental/emotional nest . That is an analogy, whether it is a cliche is not relevant."

"..... you dont need religion to find this god, we all know him from our very first moments."

I agree with that. But Islam IS a religion no matter how you have redefinded it. It is full of myth and superstition - has central players, imams, djinns, buraks, infidels, kaffirs, ummah, sharia blah blah blah etc etc etc. No matter how you call it it IS a religion. The real religion is an internal and trance-ending experience.

".....if your world view does not allow you to pursue knowledge regarding what god wants from you then it cuts you off from your very basic instinct. to look for meaning."

My world view allows me to search for meaning anywhere. Looking for meaning does not limit that search to an arabian religion.

" again, history is testament to what muslims contributed to the world. you may follow those that shamelessly deny this. one very small example is the arabic numerals mathmeticians use worldwide to write numbers in. and math is considered the language of the universe. it is the arabic number that helps you calculate everything from trajectories of planetary bodies, to measuring oceans to planning hte budget of your economy."

Incorrect again. Rome had a numbering system and as clumsy as it may have been , people were able to conduct commerce using that system. Representing a concept (a number) in a particular character set was not the breakthrough. The breakthrough was ZERO. Which Indian scientists of their time derived much to their great credit. The Indians were able to calculate enormous numbers well prior to their contact with the rabas and islam. islam merely adopted this new technology.

"....without the arabic astrolabe you really wouldnt have any idea to chart the heavens or map th seas accurately. "

This is entirely incorrect. Have you ever heard of the Antikythera mechanism from 100BC? A mechanical device accurately plotting the movement of the sun and planets - made by the ancient Greeks?

http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/

"........hospitals are a muslim contribution. a place where god is glorified and free treatemnt gien by learned scholars to the ill and the injured and the dying appeared in societies after islam arrived."

Entirely incorrect again. Ancient Egypt , Rome and India had what we would call hospitals. Islam may have had hospitals in its own realsm but they certainly were not invented by Muslims.

".....the muslim contribution to cartography and travel sceince is also undeniable. there may have been travellers in the past but their accounts and maps are sketchy t best. oly after ibn batuta and the like who were well travelled muslims did we have a standard on map making. a standard in map making w all follow to this day."

being a seafaring, trading 'nation' the Phoenicians (genrally regarded as being based in what is now Lebanon) relied on navigation by maps and stars. The fact is that Islam was assumed by these people at some stage . Their seafaring knowldge predates their adoption of Islam.

There are many standards used in mapmaking - which system were you talking about? The most common one is mercator's projection - invented by a Dutch or Belgian guy

"universities found their universality after the muslims worked on them."

.... Muslim universities found their universality after the muslims worked on them . Others did the same in ther own countries and regions.

sure there were places of learning in the past bt neve to the degree or never similar to the methods incorporated by muslim minds. the tutoring of the various subjects by degrees, elaorately developing a system of rewards and sholarships and even the architecture to suit the places of learning were embodied in the university of the muslims.

equally as much as they were develped in non-Muslim learning centres!

Proving what?

"......obviously it was the quranic influence which turned everyone it touched into glob trotting, god fearing, scholarly warrior people. such was the case of the arabs and every other people in the islamic world."

The arabs were traders who plied the mediterranean because it had what they needed - the goods and ideas of other civilisations - slaves etc,

so the fact that you can sit there and brag about what is your and ours, couldnt have happened if the muslims hadnt contributed essential things in the critical moments of history.

Not really bragging - just pointing out the lack of contribution Muslims have made in general. But having been to India before - Alexander the Great etc - I'm sure we could have got there again. The zero was introduced to Europe VIA Muslim traders in North Africa . The zero concept and numeral - the only really great contribution made to Europe from Islamic cultures came from India - it was NOT invented by islamic arabs as you know. Very shortly after its introduction we had Liebnitz inventing binary arithmetic and plans for a mechanical computer. So there was no lack of creativity. The yoke was the Roman numeral system - a leftover from totalitarianism.

>>Of course we live in infinity. Who can dispute that? People who understood and were completely merged with their original true nature and universal consciousness made statements from a point of view of 100% clarity. I do not believe, based on what is written in the Koran and the Surah's and hadiths about Mohammed's life - that he was onbe of those persons. I am free to hold that belief. And you should not feel the need to get offended if I - or anyone else do not believe what you believe. You could learn to trust 'Allah' that everything is Ok and we are all where we need to be."

"...... i have nothing to gain from your faith. lol. only you do."

Of course - we are all in this together - alone.Having faith and having experience are 2 different things.

".........i only asked you, that if indeed you know that we are in infinity, then why do you have a problem believing thatTHE INFINITE, THE REALITY HIMSELF communicates with us, and in our case, through propehts and scriptures ... thats all. nothing personal. if HE IS INFINITE, then HE certainly also reserves for HIMSELF the power to be personal to HIS infinitesmally minute creations."

Essentially I don't have a problem with it. I do have a problem with your specific implementation of it.

All the stuff you believe in is pretty much superfluous to the realisation of truth. And I don't agree Mohammed WAS a prophet. Myth has its place but nothing trumps reality.

>>

"......then you are getting the wrong information from your search for results. because you are looking for islam in the wrong places. islam is in the quran and sunnah. now if it is indeed not a tactic of yours to hide from the truith, then you will ultimately go to the sources to learn aboutthe deen."

Some truth may be contained in the Koran and sunnah but more is found in other writings. Truth is wherever you find it - and ultimately at the centre of your being. That's the first place you should head to find it - as everything is a reflection of your inner state.

"......if you go by hearsay, then im not interested in wasting time here on the internet exlaining something to someone who thinks that the media is the yardstick of trust."

Any printed or electronic material is media - do you distrust EVERYTHING you read?

>>GI wrote

Russians have a proverb - '........know the breed, know the dog'. Some people and races and cultures are good at some things - others at other things."

".....men and dogs. different species of creatures. ones standard of measure isnt the same for the other,"

The anology is the same. Some things are genetic. The best runners in the world are African. Is it because they studied the right books?

".......i think you should be glad that the russians are wrong . then the western world would be recognized as liars nd lying and deceiving is the best thing that they do.

What does xenophobic mean again?

>>GI wrote

well, if that is their self-image and that's the concept they want to go with - then good luck to them.But don't expect much improvement to come from inside the Muslim world."

".........self image is a hobby .its a holiday habit."

Self image is not a hobby - it is self-concept.

"......

" .....knowing that one is slave to the ABSOLUTE is fact. because regardless of our opinions, we belong to HIM. whether we choose to or not. if we are the creative expressions of BUNJIL who is the REALITY itself , then the logical thing that cn be surmised from this is that our task is to express HIS glory."

You are not a 'slave' - you are free within certain constraints. You can't hold your breth for 20 minbutes but you are feee to act as you wish. Of course there are consequences - good and bad - but you are free. You are not a slave. If God is free then you should reflect that.

>>

No, again, no temper. You must understand if you met me , you'd find it's extremely hard to get me angry.You'd have to do something very bad to get that sort of reaction from me. I had not swerved away from the point - the point was that I said Muslims are fatalistic in general whilst non-Muslms are not.

"....what does your last statement actually try to say? muslims simply admit that no matter what, ALLAH know it best. and whatever HE stores for us comes to be. its a knowledge. but the meaning of this isnt that we cannot strive for things. muhammad .... explained, no matter what is in store for you, you must keep trying to do as much good as possible."

Well Muslims should follow that idea then instead of complaining about everything or that they are being persecuted when they are not.

"....and ALLAH HIMSELF sys in quran how HE does not change the condition of a peopleuntil they change what is in their hearts."

Yes and Buddhists have the same idea and so do Christians. It is not unique to the Arabic religion.

"....i was not talking bout persia or rome. you said we spoke in english too, altho the language is hardly deserving th blame of its speakers, i pointed out that we did not need to. we were doing fine in our own languages when europe was still learning how to take a shower. no pun intended."

Actually the Romans had wonderful systems of water reticulation, public baths and sewareage systems - well before Islam and indeed BanglaDesh came into being.

and no the indians did NOT teach us how to use zero. they simply thought it up as did other cultures . the arabs developed the zero and fully defined its usage.

The arabic system of numbers and the use of zero was taken from India. Tha arabs did not invent it or define its use. The Indians did. That big fat nothing was the key to the explosion in mathematics and the Indians ability to do complex astronomy and other calculations WAY before the Arabs did.

"The arabic numerals (often capitalized) are the ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), which—along with the system by which a sequence (e.g. "406") was read as a number—were originally defined by Indian mathematicians, later modified and transferred to North African Arab mathematicians and transmitted to Europe in the Middle Ages, whence they spread around the world through European colonialism. Today they are the most common symbolic representation of numbers in the world."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_mathematics

and no, I did not write that page

"...I believe the arabic name for zero was the sifr. you may know it as the cipher."

Yes - the Italians used the word taken from the Arab traders in North Africa who were usin the Indian derived system of numbering the rabas were using there.

GI wrote:

"It is not unaccepeable at all What I said is - IF they had kept accurate records i.e. diagrams -not relying on the human eye they would have been able to dect that slight shift over 1000 years. The fact that they did not is neither here nor there - but if they had - they would have been able to detect the shift."

".....it is highly unlikely that a bunch of anceints banded up for 220 million years or so to observe the sky . the study of strs stretch only a few thousand years back. besides, detecting shifts would be highy ulikely by eyes not possessing the magnification ability by million degrees."

They wouldn't have needed to band together for 220 million years. There are slight yearly shifts in the location constellations appear at. After 400 - 1000 years rthese slight variations would have been noticeable had they had very accurate start maps.

even if shifts were noticed, they wouldnt know what caused the shift. since the idea of the solar system wasnt at all developed back then. the earliest people that theorised the model of orbiting planets was the reeks in the 6th century bc, ut heir models had problems. they beleved that the earth was static and some amongthem believed that the sun was static. and that they were the center of the universe.

the solar system was fully discovered in the sixteenth century. and the previous models of the universe changed with its discovery.

>> And surely, they don't know about the Sun's spherical path now. And again - another alarm bell should go off - the Earth is NOT egg shaped. It is spherical - but with a slight flattening at the poles.` It is more spherical than ovoid.

".....the earh is not perfectly spherical. it is flattened as you also say. that mens its bulged at te sides. very much like an egg."

NO - not very much like an egg at all. You are wrong- the true shape of the earth is MUCH closer to a sphere than an ovoid

"......ALLAH uses simple terms to describe complex never before seen phenomena. so egg shaped would be the best way to talk about the actual shape of the earth in simple laymens terms."

Why didn't 'Allah' just say a ball - which would have been far more accurate?

the arabic words for egg shaped means like an egg or similar to an egg or having peculiarities of n egg. agin, arabic language, a very complex yet insightful language.

In English as you well know, or should know - a shape of an egg is described as 'ovoid' (from the Latin for 'egg'). It is a 3 dimensional ellipsoid. A three dimensional shape derived from a circle is a sphere.

".......consult a book or somthing. an ellipse is a circle viewed from the inside the circle. it is the same thing. one thing is for certain, the sun mocves along a fixed circumference. so thats the focus of the ayah. spherical is saying in laymens terms that the sun moves round this or that. like the erth moves round the sun."

You are wrong again. An ellipse is the way a circle might APPEAR to be if viewed form inside a circle. But an ellipse and a circle are two entirely different things

>>

The Greeks DID know the earth was round. They deduced this from the shapes of the Sun and Moon - and the shape of the shadow the earth made on the Moon in a solar eclipse. Early mariners were well aware of the curvature of the earth because tghe shape of the horizon it is so apparent out at sea."

yeah? well then you must also be aware that the greeks believed that the sun was static. and that they were in thecenter of the univers. their model of universe was faulty at best. besdies, they had no conception of gravitational and electromagnetic forces that bound the earth and moon to the sun.

>>

.....He created the heavens and the earth with true (wisdom)
He rolls the night over the days and rolls the day over the
night, He has subdued the sun and the moon. All running
for an appointed time. Is He not the Mighty, the Forgiver. (39/5)"

Similar things were written 1500 years before the koran in the Old testanent. It wasn't exactly some new and profound insight.

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