do you really know what you think you know?

Submitted by Abdul Rahman Reijerink (Australia), Jun 6, 2006 at 07:55

Why is it insulting to say that people distort the message of God? what do you think you are doing when you go on about muslims and you supposed facts about Islam?

Muslims distort the word of God.

We are created and subject to time and therfore change and therefore imperfect God is not. Hence distortions have been introduced into the sacred texts. We can see this when we examine them. I do not say this in a Muslim supremacist way but with respect and reference to Christian scholarship (I study Christian theology at university). Ex: We have descriptions of what Jesus did and said when there were no witnesses. The scholars argue that this is irelevant as it is the spiritual message that counts. An argument I accept. The fact is it still amounts to distortion. The Catholic church says that we do not read scripture for affirmation about scientific fact, that it is wrong about much of that and that it was never meant to be correct but a vehicle for teaching humanity at the level they were at in their understanding. It says that for all matters of spiritual guidance it is correct. Admitted proof of human intervention, afterall the jewish and christian scriptures do not claim to be the direct word of god except for some {in my view accurate for the most part} quotes of Jesus (AS). So where is your problem with the factual statement that scripture has been altered, a modern example from my faith we see is in much of the translations that go around translating Kaffir as disbeliever, it means one who covers up the truth, not just anyone who does not believe, as a more thorough reading of the Qur'an than that practised by biggots (muslim and non-muslim) arrives at.

The Quran does not call jews and christians apes and swine, interpreters have. It actually calls people who disregard allahs law apes and swine (ie in neglecting the holy days, like the sabbath, therfor pious jews and christians are not included in this, just as disobedient muslims would be), read the verse and surrounding text don't just misquote it. remember too that bracketed stuff is almost always insertion of something not explicitly in the text.

Yes i was born into a practising Christian family, but i "got smart" as you say and became an athiest... which led me to Islam. I count priests and ex-priests, ex nuns and many practising christians amongst my friends or warm aquaintances.

What "facts" do you present about our prophet (saws) since he is removed from us by over 1400 years?

His sex drive? quote it for me then... I know that he is reported to have never had a wet dream he was that free of sexual desire.

His love of power? when he was preaching in Makkah he was offered his choice of women, money and power if only he would renounce Islam and stop preaching it, a time that he and his followers were violently abused even suffering genocidal policies of famine. He like Jesus rejected such illusions.

you repeat a lot of gossip and call it fact, after claiming Muhammad did that!!! religious scholarship is not what you or I are capable of with our learning so why don't you read some current scholarship on the issues you raise, maybe even stuff written by muslim women? The area of interpreting and accepting ahadith is very complex and not something that I understand, but I do know that most misogynist narrations are down to just singular transmissions from one man. A man who had it in for Aiysha(RA).

Why don't you try reading a good translation of the Qur'an,not just quoting verses out of context that someone else has probably told you to go and look up (in a rotten translation like the "official" Saudi one), you will see a message not just of tolerance (in my opinion a position that is immature) but of outright acceptance of difference. say verse 2:62. look it up. Elsewhere in the hadith literature, it says clearly that all that is needed is to believe in God and do good deeds.... what do christians say about non-christians so far as soteriology (doctrine of salvation) is concerned? A huge number believe that all non-christians except jews from before Jesus are the dwellers in hell.

you spout hatred and intolrance disguised as something more palatable. Yes muslims subscribe to the views you say represent the message of Islam, but we are not a homgenous monolthic mass. condemn intolerance and haterd as the vile irreligious garbage that it is, do not participate in it under the guise of opposing it.

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