and still more to come, ALLAH willing

Submitted by bayezid (Bangladesh), Jan 8, 2009 at 04:44

>>
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."

unfortunately, thats just your personal definition of religion. what you talk about is a blissful state attianed after knowing ALLAH in a personal way. thats the basis for every believer and the thing that goes on without saying in religion. and unfortuntely for you, it seems to end there.

but one who is aware of god can never stop there. the relationship with god thats established demands duties on our part. yes we know god, now what? logical questions that follow are so what is our purpose? what does god want of us? thats when religion comes in. every bit as important as discovering god. religion, by giving you duties, weakens your ego and makes you feel at one with THE ONE . and it is a day to day process. so essentially, religion does fulfill that purpose of making one more blissful gradually.

so as you may now understand, youre confusing folk tales and legends with religion.

>>

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

as does everyones personal worldview. by nature we seek. it is from ALLAH. so i agree.

however, islam isnt arabian since its intended for the world. the religion does not promote the local cultures of any particular society or group to be enforced upon other people. islam is not arabism.

>> All the stuff you believe in is pretty much superfluous to the realisation of truth. "

the fct that you find the passages of religion ,and in this case islam, superfluous is entirely your personal view. if a person seeks god it must mean he loves god. if he loves god then it must mean he obeys god. love cannot be love without obedience. now religion is nothing but those duties from god that test ones obedience and binds people in obedience. no one that sought truth honestly and knowingly will ever shun from that. TRUTH has a relationship with its manifestations . its a two way traffic.

>> Myth has its place but nothing trumps reality."

aah, going back to labelling reality again. your opinion, i presume. that must mean you know of all the possibilities in reality. or are you talking about your personal construct of a 'reality?' where certain things are possible(for you) and certain things you dont understand are not(for you)?

reality would not be reality if the finite mind were able to contain it. there are no degrees to reality , but it makes the degrees which it can also unmake.

but this is a rather impersonal and unsatisactory of addressing reality since HU is infinitely greater than our best suppositions. the REALITY is personal. people know REALITY as ALLAH. for ALLAH, all things are possible.

>>

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."

reading this has convinced me of your idea of religion perfectly.

see ths is the way it goes : one reads the quran and the sunnah after TRUTH is realized. not before. after. quran and sunnah address the masses, and not just the individual. so the function of the quran and sunnah are to let the people know what TRUTH asks of them . the same TRUTH people realized, is the same TRUTH the people want to obey.

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

just the ones infected by islamophobia, or the ones in close proximity to the vector of that disease.

>>

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?"

your application of the analogy here was strange indeed. genes have nothing to do with religion. religion programs you to transcend the programming of your genome.

>>

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

self image can change over due time. one can never totally deny he is naturally subservient to ALLAH, no matter how rebellious he may become. it is important to see the self for what it truly is. so what muslims believe in is more than self concept, it is self realization. once someone realizes the self, he will not be inclined to think that self concept is a personal zen image, but a tool to realize ALLAH.

>> 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."

to ALLAH one is infinitesmally inferior. and based on this fact, we realise we will always be abased to HIM. no matter how high we get or how 'good' we become. to the INFINITE ALLAH, we will always be
what we originally are.

this is realizing the truth, not uncle tom's cabin. we creations of ALLAH love it that way naturally, so one of the best ways to express our love for HIM is to lower ourself in realizing HIM. if TRUTH is known, it logically shows the non existence of the so called independent, individual self. since we are because of HIM, HE is the OWNER and LORD of us all. no shame in being slaves to HIM.

>>

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

we should, youre right, regardless of how difficult certain non muslims make it for us.

>>

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

it is unique. here its coming from ALLAH. whereas those other words were mens. besides it was a reply to you from me showing you that muslims are not fatalistic the way you think them to be.

>>

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

the earth is not spherical. the earth has bulges towards its hemispheres and it is accurately known as geo spherical. much like an ostrich's egg.

The Arabic word Dahaha means egg shaped. It also means an expanse. Dahaha is derived from Duhiya which specifically refers to the egg of an ostrich which is geo-spherical in shape, exactly like the shape of the earth.

so appaently, you havent seen an ostrich egg before.

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

thats simply because the earth is not ball shaped, which is spherical. its geo spherical, much like n ostrich egg.

>>

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. "

so now you can let oxford know that they forgot to include the description of the ostrich egg in their dictionary when it came to defining the shape of an egg.

>>

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"

basic fact : its a ring like path. thats the gist here. circles and spheres and ellipses and spirals have an outher edge that resemble a rings edge . substituting one word for the other hardly serves any other purpose than give different names for the same kind of path for the sun.

>>

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

now is the time you provide proof of your claim. show me the verses from any other scipture or book that talks about things that ALLAH talks about in the quran.

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