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Official Islamic Thread
- Thread starter AmMortal
- Start date
Im not being sacastic, and if you beleive in the Hadiths, then that story is indeed true.
Do i beleive in that story? I cannot tell, and i dont really know. But its not really about praying 5x a day versus 50 x a day. Its about the purpose of prayer.
Jews,christians and Muslims all pray to God, but they pray in different ways, but in the end arent they praying and worshipping the same God?
What if you have to work 40 to 80 hours a week to make a living and you have absolutley no time for prayer? If your employer allows you to pray then thats fantastic, but for most cases they will NOT allow you to pray because then they have to make special accomodations to people of other religions. I am trying to apply real life situations here, and this is a real life situation. Ofcourse if you lived in the middle east, praying 5 times a day would be easy, but since we live in america that is not really the case.
That is why i truly believe that God is not dismissive in the way you pray. It is whether or not you pray to him. The second thing is what do you pray for? I hate wishful prayers such as "Dear God, i wish for peace and prosperity in the world, and guide everyone to the right path" If that were the case wouldnt this occur in an instant if God was truly willing to do so, allmighty and powerful? Instead the prayer should be something more like this God, give me the strength, the energy and wisdom to follow your path. To help serve you and others to follow your way"
*edit*
to sum it up: You should pray for things that will enable you to act and do things that will help serve him, and pray for things which are out of your hands
How about another example?
"Dear God, please make George Bush realize that he is a dumbass"
Um may happen...
"Dear God, please give me the strength and courage to make George Bush realize that he is a dumbass"
Can happen if you put your mind to it.
There are already people doing this, but its not working
So in this case both prayers are valid.
i think he just needs to get punched in the face and balls
Oh man...i think i need to shut up now.
Do i beleive in that story? I cannot tell, and i dont really know. But its not really about praying 5x a day versus 50 x a day. Its about the purpose of prayer.
Jews,christians and Muslims all pray to God, but they pray in different ways, but in the end arent they praying and worshipping the same God?
What if you have to work 40 to 80 hours a week to make a living and you have absolutley no time for prayer? If your employer allows you to pray then thats fantastic, but for most cases they will NOT allow you to pray because then they have to make special accomodations to people of other religions. I am trying to apply real life situations here, and this is a real life situation. Ofcourse if you lived in the middle east, praying 5 times a day would be easy, but since we live in america that is not really the case.
That is why i truly believe that God is not dismissive in the way you pray. It is whether or not you pray to him. The second thing is what do you pray for? I hate wishful prayers such as "Dear God, i wish for peace and prosperity in the world, and guide everyone to the right path" If that were the case wouldnt this occur in an instant if God was truly willing to do so, allmighty and powerful? Instead the prayer should be something more like this God, give me the strength, the energy and wisdom to follow your path. To help serve you and others to follow your way"
*edit*
to sum it up: You should pray for things that will enable you to act and do things that will help serve him, and pray for things which are out of your hands
How about another example?
"Dear God, please make George Bush realize that he is a dumbass"
Um may happen...
"Dear God, please give me the strength and courage to make George Bush realize that he is a dumbass"
Can happen if you put your mind to it.
There are already people doing this, but its not working
So in this case both prayers are valid.
i think he just needs to get punched in the face and balls
Oh man...i think i need to shut up now.
MeowMeow said:
I find it hard to accept your meaning of the hadeeth. You don't even know the hadeeth itself since you got the facts wrong.
Jews,christians and Muslims all pray to God, but they pray in different ways, but in the end arent they praying and worshipping the same God?
What if you have to work 40 to 80 hours a week to make a living and you have absolutley no time for prayer? If your employer allows you to pray then thats fantastic, but for most cases they will NOT allow you to pray because then they have to make special accomodations to people of other religions. I am trying to apply real life situations here, and this is a real life situation. Ofcourse if you lived in the middle east, praying 5 times a day would be easy, but since we live in america that is not really the case.
That is why i truly believe that God is not dismissive in the way you pray. It is whether or not you pray to him. The second thing is what do you pray for? I hate wishful prayers such as "Dear God, i wish for peace and prosperity in the world, and guide everyone to the right path" If that were the case wouldnt this occur in an instant if God was truly willing to do so, allmighty and powerful? Instead the prayer should be something more like this God, give me the strength, the energy and wisdom to follow your path. To help serve you and others to follow your way"
*edit*
to sum it up: You should pray for things that will enable you to act and do things that will help serve him, and pray for things which are out of your hands
How about another example?
"Dear God, please make George Bush realize that he is a dumbass"
Um may happen...
"Dear God, please give me the strength and courage to make George Bush realize that he is a dumbass"
Can happen if you put your mind to it.
There are already people doing this, but its not working
So in this case both prayers are valid.
i think he just needs to get punched in the face and balls
...
Oh man...i think i need to shut up now.
Thanks.
Oh, and Karakand's Arabic is better than yours.
Its "nasara" but I can see why you thought it was "nasaray"
meowmeow, Jews and Christians are not Muslims no matter which way you slice it. Islam requires a Muslim to accept the prophet as the messenger of god, and the Quran as the final revelation, both of which the Jews and Christians don't accept. They're still people of the book, but not Muslims.
Thats true they do not beleive in the last messanger, but again God NEVER reffered to them as jews and christian, he refers to them as children of isreal or people of the book, the only reason why he refers to them as jews and christians is because that is the self proclaimed title that they gave themselves.
Remember the verses that i was quoting in regards to Abraham? And how we stated that all prophets are muslims? All prophets are were and are muslims not because they acknowledged prophet muhammads existence at the time they were alive, they were muslims because they beleived in one God, his angels, heaven and hell.. thats the universal definition of a muslim that is what im am trying to get at.
I'm curious how GAF's resident muslims/the people discussing Islam in this thread feel about this text:
Muhammad, it will be recalled, was not only a prophet and a teacher, like the founders of many other religions; he was also the head of a polity and of a community, a ruler and a soldier. Hence his struggle involved a state and its armed forces. If the fighters in the war for Islam, the holy war "in the path of God" are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting against God. And since God is in principle the sovereign, the supreme head of the Islamic state - and the Prophet and, after the Prophet, the caliphs and his vice-regents - then God as a sovereign commands the army. The army is God's army and the enemy is God's enemy. The duty of God's soldiers to dispatch God's enemies as quickly as possible to the place where God will chastice them - that is to say, the afterlife.
Muhammad, it will be recalled, was not only a prophet and a teacher, like the founders of many other religions; he was also the head of a polity and of a community, a ruler and a soldier. Hence his struggle involved a state and its armed forces. If the fighters in the war for Islam, the holy war "in the path of God" are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting against God. And since God is in principle the sovereign, the supreme head of the Islamic state - and the Prophet and, after the Prophet, the caliphs and his vice-regents - then God as a sovereign commands the army. The army is God's army and the enemy is God's enemy. The duty of God's soldiers to dispatch God's enemies as quickly as possible to the place where God will chastice them - that is to say, the afterlife.
Rei_Toei said:
1st: War isn't holy. The term "holy war" was created by the europeans during the crusades. It has no significance in Islam.
War in Islam can only be started:
in self defence, in retaliation to an attack.
Or if a peace treaty is broken between the muslims and the non muslims and as a result, the muslim community is threatened.
In both cases, the non-muslims that are fighting are the only ones that muslims are allowed to kill. You can't harm children, women, elderly, animals, or destroy structures.
Being a martyr is an amazing honor in Islam, but that doesn't give you the right to blow up yourself on buses, crash airplanes into buildings, and killing innocent people as a result.
I can assure you that suicide bombers are not going to heaven.
What the U.S, Israel and other European countries are doing right now is justification for muslims to declare war on them, because muslims in this case have the right to defend themselves and protect Islam. But unfortunately the only people that are doing that are deluded suicide bombers, the rest of muslims and arabs are oppressed by their leaders and too busy in their daily lives.
--------------------------
Also, it is possible for christians and jews to enter heaven. I am talking about christians and jews after Islam was revealed. I remember reading either in a hadith or in the Quran that God will make some exceptions for Jews and Chrisitians who lived a moral life and avoided sin. But these exceptions will apply to few people. For example, I heard that there are christians that don't believe that Jesus was crucified, but they still consider themselves christians.
( Christians, Jews and other people who followed the teachings of the prophets before the revelation of Islam to Mohammad should go to heaven. I am not sure about christians who followed the teachings that Jesus was crucified. I think God will forgive many of them, since they didn't know that it wasn't Jesus who was killed and many of them didn't know that the Bible was changed by men.
( Christians, Jews and other people who followed the teachings of the prophets before the revelation of Islam to Mohammad should go to heaven. I am not sure about christians who followed the teachings that Jesus was crucified. I think God will forgive many of them, since they didn't know that it wasn't Jesus who was killed and many of them didn't know that the Bible was changed by men.
Rei what you posted is a completely ridiculous statement made by someone who has crafted a long train of logic based on half truths, misunderstandings and baseless assumptions and then claimed them to be the belief of muslims with no justifcation whatsoever.
What the hell is the 'war for Islam'? Where is he getting that term from?
What Islamic state? And man not even the Al-Sauds claim that God is the sovereign of Saudi Arabia. Neither do the Ayatollahs of Iran. Where the hell is that statement coming from?
And this is a leap of logic that is flat out insane and has no basis in anything resembling reality.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
as a non-deluded suicide bomber, how do you suggest Muslims should wage this war?
castle007 said:
So my post was spot on. It makes more sense that Christians are judged by their intentions and actions, and this is largely what determines whether they go to hell or heaven. If they didn't believe in the crucifixion of Jesus and the son of God business they wouldn't be Christians, would they? So you're suggesting that they have to abandon parts of their religion to go to heaven? That doesn't fly.
~Devil Trigger~ said:
1) Warn any invading forces in Iraq, and tell them to withdraw. Attempt to make peace treaty with them that would result in them withdrawing from Iraq.
2)If that fails, then war is permitted against them. How?? right now that is impossible with all these arabic leaders that are oppressing their people. If they were somehow gone, then it would be possible for countries to organize a big army and drive out any invading forces from Iraq and any other muslim country in the world that is being oppressed.
same thing with Israel. ask them to withdraw their forces peacefully. If they don't listen, organize a muslim army and fight the militants, that includes Israeli soldiers and hamas. Jewish people that live there don't have to leave but they do have to share the land with the palestinians. If some of themrefuse and decide to fight, then so be it. Jews who want to make peace with the muslims will be protected and given shelter and will not be harmed. children, women, elderly, etc won't be harmed.
CHYME said:
It makes sense to me. They don't believe that Jesus is the son of God, but they follow many of his teachings. I have met many good christians, and the only bad part of their good character is that they pray to jesus and they consider him their saviour. So, imagine the same people, but without the belief that Jesus was crucified, son of god, etc.. I am sure that there are people like that. These people are very close to being muslim. Maybe God will forgive them and they will go to heaven.
I was just merely giving an example of modern christians that might go to heaven. Who knows, maybe God will forgive some christians because they were exceptionally good. But the problem is that they associate someone else with God. In the end, it is all up to God.
Azih said:
If it is ridiculous, start worrying, since it was a quote from Bernard Lewis, one of the leading (Western) historians on Islam and a professor at Princeton. More about Lewis here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis .
If anyone is interested in a Good Online Quran here's the best I could find with translations.
http://www.quranexplorer.com/quran/
I can't stop listening
http://www.quranexplorer.com/quran/
I can't stop listening
Azih said:
I am sure that 95% of christians believe in the trinity and that Jesus is God. But what if there is a 5% that doesn't but they still follow some of Jesus's teachings?
I guess they wouldn't be called "christians" by the today's definition. I was merely suggesting one of the possibilities that modern christians go to heaven.
Azih: Reason I posted it was because I was reading stuff up on the Just War doctrine and this came up. Point Lewis is making (to my understanding) is that 'the war for Islam' is either a) fighting for religious belief, spreading it so to say, or b) people who believe that their fight against non-believers is a 'war for Islam'. I was just curious what you guys would think of his explanation.
Regarding 'what Islamic state?' I think he doesn't mean any Islamic state in particular - so it shouldn't be read to literally. In my interpretation he means to say any Islamic state, or the concept of an Islamic state if all states were unified. Or something. I'm quite positively sure he doesn't mean a literal, single state in the Middle East.
I said 'start worrying' since I would start worrying if this guys views are so distorted (as you claim) while he is viewed as an authority and a professor at a pretty good University. I mean, if this dude can't get it right, who in the West can? It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, don't take it too seriously.
Castle007: is all you can come up with when I provide you with information on a person the negative stuff? Isn't that the exact thing people are doing with Islam/Quran/etc that pisses you off? Selective reading? Nobody is perfect, hell, Einstein said some crazy stuff and the list goes on. Does not change the fact that this dude is an authority, wether you like it or not, and what little I've read kinda made sense to me. So, back to you: all you can come up with?
Regarding 'what Islamic state?' I think he doesn't mean any Islamic state in particular - so it shouldn't be read to literally. In my interpretation he means to say any Islamic state, or the concept of an Islamic state if all states were unified. Or something. I'm quite positively sure he doesn't mean a literal, single state in the Middle East.
I said 'start worrying' since I would start worrying if this guys views are so distorted (as you claim) while he is viewed as an authority and a professor at a pretty good University. I mean, if this dude can't get it right, who in the West can? It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, don't take it too seriously.
Castle007: is all you can come up with when I provide you with information on a person the negative stuff? Isn't that the exact thing people are doing with Islam/Quran/etc that pisses you off? Selective reading? Nobody is perfect, hell, Einstein said some crazy stuff and the list goes on. Does not change the fact that this dude is an authority, wether you like it or not, and what little I've read kinda made sense to me. So, back to you: all you can come up with?
Rei_Toei said:
There is no war being waged to spread Islam and nowhere is the motivation for terrorist attacks to compel people to convert. So point a) is really a non starter and the same for b) in that you cannot point to anybody who is in some general 'fight against non-believers'. There's always some much more specific target.
And then I'm not certain what his point is at all. He seems to be advancing some conception of 'Why Muslims Fight' and does so by appealing to a theoretical construct of an 'Islamic state' which doesn't exist in reality and completely ignores the instructions in the Quran of how and when to fight in any case.
I'm sure Bernard Lewis has all of his facts and scholarship in order, but he's not a objective source of information by any means. He's very much a Chomsky like activist intellectual seeking to influence public policy by his theories (he's right wing where Chomsky is left wing). That his theories support the concept of 'democratisation' as was tried in Iraq is an indication to me that his policies and theories are misguided to say the least.
Hell Lewis denies the Armenian genocide, as far as I can tell because he likes Turkey.
As I said before, it is all up to God. He is the one who decides who goes to hell and who doesn't. I usually try to avoid these kins of discussions, I don't like to tell people that YOU are going to hell and YOU ARE NOT, it is not up to me. I am not even the one who brought up the discussion about whether jews and christians are considered muslims therefore go to heaven.
I even hesitated when I wrote that suicide bombers don't go to heaven, even though that is the most likely scenario.
I thought about it again and here is what I think. Your best guarantee to go to heaven is to become a muslim and do all the things that the Quran tell you to do, and to follow the five pillars of islam. that is your best guarantee.
I have to go now I will finish this post later, I am not done yet
I even hesitated when I wrote that suicide bombers don't go to heaven, even though that is the most likely scenario.
I thought about it again and here is what I think. Your best guarantee to go to heaven is to become a muslim and do all the things that the Quran tell you to do, and to follow the five pillars of islam. that is your best guarantee.
I have to go now I will finish this post later, I am not done yet
Hadji said:
Actually we tend to sit back in wonderment how people can believe the things they believe in without any logic to back any of it up, since most atheists don't feel the need to force themselves on others. Not that I disrespect your views I find them both incredible and slightly amusing. I don't mean to be rude by that. Each to his own.
Remember how we established the fact that God is knower of all things, and he is the best judge out of all the judges? How everyone will be treated fairly and equally and nothing will be wronged, and any atoms worth of Good deed will be wiegh as well as bad acts and sin REGARDLESS OF WHO YOU ARE? So to say well jews and christians are not gonna go to heaven because of this and that, or bhuddists and hindus or polythiests are not gonna go to heaven because of x and y is not a very good argument.
Lets create some scenerio.
Person X is muslim. Follows all the five pillars of Islam. Knows the Quran well, but only puts on a show to decieve others. He is a deciever, a backstaber. Lies to get his ways. Has killed innocent people seceretly. However he does believe in God, and prophet muhammad being the last messanger.
Person Y is a Christian. Beleives that Jesus is the son of God, and is the saviour. Follows the ways as prescribed in the Bible. Does good deeds, helps the poor and needy, is non judgemental, honest, kind and trust worthy. He doesnt beleive muhammad is a prophet, but respects the religion of islam, and gets along fine with muslims. Acknowledges that they believe in the same God.
Person Z is a Hindu. Does the same acts of Good as person Y, but does so according to her religion. Respects other religions, but she beleives strongly in her faith and will not change.
Who is most likely going to hell?
Person X
Person Y
Person Z
This will be interesting to hear your responses...