Originally posted by Phillip Tanaka
Just clear something up for me, if you would. They persuade nonbelievers by killing innocent people? Is that their way of converting people to Islam?
No. They persuade nonbelievers by
persuading them. Islam forbids conversion by force. Force can only be used defensively - to liberate the oppressed, or to prevent them from becoming oppressed. Islam also forbids violence against civilians.
Originally posted by Nomad Terror
I don't see why a doctrine of love and compassion and acceptance makes such blasphemous remarks against other religions that theoretically worship the same god.
The Koran tends to be quite hard on the Christians and the Jews precisely because they too, are followers of God. Therefore, for them to stray (as the Koran argues they did) is condemnable, because they should know better. At the same time, I know of no passages that would claim that Christians and Jews must be hated or fought against. According to the Koran, this is a matter between them and God - who, being described as the most merciful, is almost certain to forgive them for straying.
To sum things up, the Koran isn't making blasphemous remarks about them. Quite the contrary, it argues that Christians and Jews are the ones being (somewhat) blasphemous.
Originally posted by Preacher
No, I'm calling a spade a spade. If the promise is vague/nonspecific, it doesn't satisfy the test. The quote you repeated speaks of "a" reward. My question is, How 'bout telling us "which" reward?...
You're becoming more bizarre and illogical with every post. What other reward could there possibly be in a religion which repeatedly instructs its believers not to get too caught up with earthly possessions and relations? Heaven is the only reward worth struggling for according to Islam. Ergo, God is not about to promise his faithful a shitload of money on Earth.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as a purgatory in Islam (although I recall you mentioning elsewhere that even in Christianity, it's a very questionable concept). You either go to heaven or you face eternal damnation in hell. Now, given that the lifestyle that gets you to hell is clearly defined elsewhere, what else could the reward for faith and good deeds refer to, if not heaven?
As to your point about the Koran vs. the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, you are mistaken, Padawan. To *each* group (not just the Muslims, dude) their Scriptures are the word of God; true, eternal, and holy.
No. The Bible includes sections written by Jesus' disciples that recount stories of Jesus' life. All of these stories illustrate particular points which are related to how God wishes people to live, but they are not the word
of God, not in the same way that the Koran is.
(1) The Christian or Jewish God "lies", speaks with half-truths or deceives, unless it's your way of saying that you are a Muslim yourself, and therefore you must (of necessity) believe the NT & OT are lies, since they are incompatible with the Koran,
I am saying neither. I am not a Muslim... but if I was, I'd accept most of the NT and OT, because the Koran says that, with the exception of a few significant details (like Christ's divine nature), these are also holy writings (though somewhat corrupted), and it is possible to live by them and go to heaven. I was also not implying that the Christian or Jewish God lies or deceives anyone. I was merely rejecting your implication that the Muslim God lies or deceives. Indeed, defending the Muslim God and accusing the Christian or Jewish God of such things would be a most ridiculous argument to make, since the Koran says that it's all the same God.
(2) The Koran is "directly" from God. Last time I checked, all 3 sets of Scriptures (OT/NT/Koran) were spoken/revealed by God/Allah to one or more men, who then wrote down said revelations into readable text. That makes the Koran no MORE reliable or reputable than the other 2, and I'll make the point that the writings of 1 man are more open to bias than the writings of several authors whose work together forms a cohesive narrative.
One of the more important tenets of Islam is that after all of the Koran had been passed down, God sent Gabriel down again to verify if they got all the words and even the order of the chapters correctly. As far as the Muslims are concerned, there can be no doubt whatsoever about the Koran's divine origin. Bias is therefore not an issue.
For the record, the Koran I'm using was translated by someone named M.H. Shakir [...]. It don't seem like such a source of the Koran can be accused of Western bias in the translation.
I never said it was a matter of Western bias - simply that Arabic words can be translated in many different ways. Such translations will always be open to question. Ultimately, I would argue, in intepreting the Koran, one must assume the role of the believer - the only way to make sense of the Koran is if you believe that it is the word of God. That being the case... well, why would God promise you sex outside of marriage, if He also says that sex outside of marriage is immoral?
In English (my minor in undergrad), uniting one person TO another is a different animal than unting them WITH another. Uniting TO implies sexual union, while uniting WITH is more typically used of the equal partnership that is marriage.
In English, there are many phrases that
can carry sexual connotations. Just yesterday, I watched an episode of the tv series Angel, where the phrase "Do you want to stake me?" was used as a joke, precisely because of its double meaning as either killing the vampire in question or having sex with her.
Such connotations, however, come purely from the mind of the audience. There is nothing inherently sexual about the phrase "united to", unless
you decide there is.
Granted, but the original word is an umbrella term that has a quite broad meaning.
That's right. Jihad, according to the Koran, can mean war or merely struggle. It can mean violence or speech. It is a very broad term. That's what makes the recent narrowing of its definition particularly irrelevant.
Yet the passage sez that fighting is preferable to being hindered (by nonbelievers) from "Allah's way", and that "persecution is graver than slaughter". This would appear to nullify your statement about this passage. The net message I'm reading here is that a Muslim should rather "kill or be killed" than be hindered from completing his religious obligations during Ramadan. How does that "frown on" violence? Is there some other possible way to "interpret" that passage?...
Yes, there is. My point here is not that God permits them to use violence if necessary, but that the usage of violence is considered a questionable enough issue that its permissibility in these circumstances would need to be explained.
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