A little something I heard
- Thread starter Phillip Tanaka
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Phillip Tanaka
Swabbie
Banned
Look, waddaya want me to say? My sister's having a baby, I'm not thinking right at the moment.
Phillip Tanaka
Swabbie
Banned
First in nine years actually.
Just on a diffirent topic, there was a news report on how Chris Roberts was attacked by a crocodile! No joke, the story goes that a woman named Chris Roberts was attacked by a crocodile when she was on the river in Queensland. She escaped with only superficial injuries to her hand, and the croc was later captured and put in one of the farms they have up there.
Just on a diffirent topic, there was a news report on how Chris Roberts was attacked by a crocodile! No joke, the story goes that a woman named Chris Roberts was attacked by a crocodile when she was on the river in Queensland. She escaped with only superficial injuries to her hand, and the croc was later captured and put in one of the farms they have up there.
Phillip Tanaka
Swabbie
Banned
Anyway, my point is that the road map to peace has been all but destroyed, by fundamentalists who, Bush's words sum it up as good as any other, do not want peace. The Israelis and the Palestinians will not rest until one of them is wiped out. Extinct. Not only that, made as if they never did exist in the first place.
Preacher
Swabbie
Banned
Sorry, but I must point you to 4:102; 8:12-18; 8:39; 9:5; and 9:29 & 123, to name a few. All these are verses that point out the importance of killing, maiming, and otherwise oppressing infidels and unbelievers (even their neighbors), of which Christians and Jews most certainly are two groups. The forgiveness of which you speak comes from Allah to such as these only if & when they repent, and turn to Islam. If you cannot convert them at the edge of a sword, you simply off them.
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?That has been already pointed that out. To whit, the obtaining of those things forbidden on earth once one enters Paradise. For Christians, the focus in heaven is to be on the joy of being with God forever, on praising and enjoying him eternally. We care not one fig for being able to eat & drink all the delicious food we can, nor to have sex eternally with anyone, even our husbands/wives. In fact, we are told that there will be no marriage in heaven
Wrong.
The Gospels, while biographical, are still viewed as being directly from God, in the same way & to the same degree that the rest of the Bible is: The Spirit of God inspired each author to record stuff on paper in the first place, and likewise directed that guy as to what to write. This, in turn, is the same way that Mohammed was allegedly given the words to put down on paper.
The fact that each author already had the raw material to work with (2 of them were direct witnesses to/participants in Jesus' ministry on earth) in no way negates the fact that the writing down of such accounts was by the hand (more specifically, the Spirit) of God. Many of the Bible's authors were direct witnesses/participants in the events that they wrote about: Moses, Paul, the various prophets, etc. .Thus, being a player in the events written about does not impeach the authority of the document as being "from God" in the least.
Ah, I see; the old "All men are created equal - but some are more equal than others" approach, eh?...
I am not of the opinion that Allah lies or deceives. If you read that into what I wrote, then let me just say it here clearly. What I AM saying is that the "Muslim god" is a fallacy; he doesn't exist in the first place, therefore, he isn't lying. As such, I am also not of the opinion that he is in any way equal with the JudeoChristian God, since a fallacy cannot be identical with the Truth.
What I meant to convey is that, more or less, if you can't trust an educated Arabic & English speaking Muslim to translate Arabic into English, who CAN you trust?...
As to your question, I point you back to your own theory that perhaps in Paradise, things that *were* immoral down here are NOT so up there.
Wrong. As I pointed out originally, the semantic/syntactical construction of the English (and prolly, most other) language(s) is such that using a word in a certain way has ONE meaning, while using it in another way/context gives it a whole 'nother meaning. This ain't something the "audience" decides, it's the way the language itself has been structured over the centuries.
Yeah, but since the context was the month of Ramadan ("these circumstances"), that still leaves the other 11 mos. of the year as a deadly, whoopass free-for-all.
Of course the audience can decide what a sentence means. Once some friends of mine decided to use automotive terms as sexual innuendo. So people around us wouldn't know what we were talking about. All involved in the conversation knew what was meant. Those accidentally over hearing us thought we were talking about cars. We didn't even have to structure it over centuries. We thought it up in a couple seconds.
The audience decided what was meant. Easy. This is even more true for the printed word. Given a random phrase without knowing the exact context a phrase can mean many things. To pick a simple example "baby sitter". To a person who doesn't know what a baby sitter is, they may think there are people who sit on babies.
So, how do YOU know how words were used when they wrote the Koran? You DON'T.
Phillip Tanaka
Swabbie
Banned
*shrugs* Find some Muslim cleric to explain it to you.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
It's funny how people who wish to prove that Muslims are supposed to kill/convert by force all Christians and Jews always seem to develop a severe case of selective reading. This is also the case here. You point to 9:29, but you don't even seem to have read it.
"Fight against those who [...] and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the people of the Scripture [Jews and Christians] until they pay the Jiyzah, with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."
In other words, Christians and Jews are to be left in peace as long as they pay the tax - and it is said elsewhere that this tax must be no higher than the Zakat, which is an obligation for all Muslims.
Of course, you're going to tell me that this doesn't change the fact that Muslims are ordered to fight Christians and Jews at least until they pay the tax. As I have already said, though, Muslims are only allowed to use force defensively, and so this particular order is limited to such circumstances.
Also, whenever the Koran refers to disbelievers, unfaithful, et cetera (which it does in most of those verses you pointed to), it is referring to polytheists and such. That Christians and Jews do not fall into this category is self-evident from the fact that they are named so many times within the Koran.
Bah, whatever. I don't actually care, since I'm not trying to prove that there's something wrong with the Bible or the Torah - just that your argument against the reliability of the Koran is worthless. For Muslims, the Koran is the word of God. And for non-Muslims, the issue is of course a moot point, since if we believed the Koran was the word of God, we'd actually be Muslims
.Not in the least. In all three religions, God's revelation to mankind is a process, not an event (i.e., a series of prophets rather than just one). For Muslims, the fact that God felt the need to pass the Koran down to Mohammed is considered proof that mankind had strayed from the previous revelations. And, since God is infallible, the logical answer is that humans wrote the previous revelations down incorrectly.Ah, I see; the old "All men are created equal - but some are more equal than others" approach, eh?...
That's about as irrelevant to this discussion as you can get. Since we're dealing with Muslims beliefs, it doesn't matter one iota what you believe.
A good question. But as I've already pointed out, even though the various translations use different words, their meaning is the same. I'm starting to feel like a broken record here, but hey, if you hear sexual innuendo where there isn't any, that's not the Koran's fault, or the translators' fault.
Good that you reminded me, because all this "is it sex" talk is indeed irrelevant. Whether it's sex or marriage, it really doesn't matter - whatever it is, it must be acceptable and moral if God is promising it.
During which the usual rules about fighting only for defensive purposes apply.
Preacher
Swabbie
Banned
Oh I read it, alright. But the point here is that, while a few may turn apostate, the majority of faithful Chrisitans & Jews will *not* allow themselves to be compelled to pay a tax to a god they do not believe in. Such is tantamount to renouncing their faith. As such, this leaves Muslims in a perpetual fight against the majority of folks in each group. And speaking of being selective, the other cited passages are even more explicit in their exhortations to fight against infidels, without even mentioning anything about a tax. Moreover, they are more vicious in their instructions as to what to do to such "infidels". And, it doesn't sound as if such struggles are defensive per se, unless you view it in terms of "defending" the Muslim faith. Even if you do, decapitation and limb amputation do not constitute "defending oneself", or one's faith. Consult any cop/judge/lawyer/medical examiner/shrink/average Joe on the street if you dispute this fact...
Not so. Because Christians believe in the Trinity, they are viewed (at least in some of the passages I've read) as being POLYtheists.
Really? Your previous post on this topic most pointedly DID attempt to poke holes in the reliability of the Bible ("All of these stories illustrate particular points..., but they are not the word of God, not in the same way that the Koran is."). As for my argument against the reliability of the Koran, I just re-read the post where I refuted your attempts at discrediting the Gospels, and there was no such point made by me
. Irrelevant?... Hardly.
You accused me of implying that Allah lies. Since I never said or implied that, it was necessary to clarify what my position was.
As someone said elsewhere, go ask a Muslim cleric. Better yet, survey a number of them and see what the concensus is.
As if... (See above).
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Damn it, I just accidentally closed the window while halfway through writing the reply. All right, let's try this again.
First up, Jesus actually commanded Christians to pay such taxes. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and all that - in other words, faith is not an excuse to shirk your civic duties regardless of what religion your government practices. Because, make no mistake - these taxes go to the government, not to God.
Second, your claims are not borne out by actual history. Look up the crusades. Christians capture Jerusalem, and slaughter everyone - not just the Muslims, but the Jews and... the Armenian Christians. Now, Christian intolerance is not the issue here, so we'll forget the crusaders. What is significant here is the fact that the Armenian Christians were there, in Jerusalem. If Muslims are so violent towards Christians, and if Christians are so unwilling to submit to Muslim government, how is it that the world's oldest communities of Christians are in the Middle East? And how is it that the period after the Muslims' near-instantaneous conquest of Palestine is not punctuated by any rebellions from the local Christians and Jews? You'd think they'd be pretty sore, given that they had until that point lived under the Christian government of the Eastern Roman Empire. But they weren't - because the change of government brought an improvement.
And how about the Jews? Well, it's a funny thing, but there is a hell of a lot of second or third-generation Jews in Israel who are Middle Eastern in origin. From Marocco all the way to Iraq and Iran, there were large populations of Jews, who got along well with the Muslims. Indeed, when King John of England kicked out all the Jews, they fled to Muslim Spain. And today, there is a Jewish community in Iran, of all places, where they have the freedom to practice their religion, and even guaranteed representation in the parliament.
This is not, of course, to say that relations between Muslims and their Christian & Jewish subjects have always been good. Far from it. But they certainly were remarkably good during that first century after Mohammed, when Islam was arguably the closest to being properly practiced, and they remained quite good most of the time afterwards.
This isn't just bullshit. This is purified bullshit, distilled several times to remove all traces of non-bullshit particles.
First up, Jesus actually commanded Christians to pay such taxes. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and all that - in other words, faith is not an excuse to shirk your civic duties regardless of what religion your government practices. Because, make no mistake - these taxes go to the government, not to God.
Second, your claims are not borne out by actual history. Look up the crusades. Christians capture Jerusalem, and slaughter everyone - not just the Muslims, but the Jews and... the Armenian Christians. Now, Christian intolerance is not the issue here, so we'll forget the crusaders. What is significant here is the fact that the Armenian Christians were there, in Jerusalem. If Muslims are so violent towards Christians, and if Christians are so unwilling to submit to Muslim government, how is it that the world's oldest communities of Christians are in the Middle East? And how is it that the period after the Muslims' near-instantaneous conquest of Palestine is not punctuated by any rebellions from the local Christians and Jews? You'd think they'd be pretty sore, given that they had until that point lived under the Christian government of the Eastern Roman Empire. But they weren't - because the change of government brought an improvement.
And how about the Jews? Well, it's a funny thing, but there is a hell of a lot of second or third-generation Jews in Israel who are Middle Eastern in origin. From Marocco all the way to Iraq and Iran, there were large populations of Jews, who got along well with the Muslims. Indeed, when King John of England kicked out all the Jews, they fled to Muslim Spain. And today, there is a Jewish community in Iran, of all places, where they have the freedom to practice their religion, and even guaranteed representation in the parliament.
This is not, of course, to say that relations between Muslims and their Christian & Jewish subjects have always been good. Far from it. But they certainly were remarkably good during that first century after Mohammed, when Islam was arguably the closest to being properly practiced, and they remained quite good most of the time afterwards.
The fact that one passage explicitly deals with the circumstances in which Christians and Jews can be fought against, and the limits to such fighting, while other passages deal with the circumstances where polytheists can be fought against, but without mentioning the limitations imposed on fighting against Christians and Jews means, logically, that the other passages are not dealing with Christians and Jews.
So, if I get attacked by armed thugs, and somehow to manage to either chop their heads off or cut their limbs off, I'm not defending myself?
Irrelevant. I've never denied that many Muslims believe in many of these things you and others have said here. It is an unfortunate fact that there is a vast chasm between written Islam and practiced Islam.
Phillip Tanaka
Swabbie
Banned
Irrelevent? I don't know about others, but if action, written word and spoken word is not good enough, then you really are beyond help.
Phillip Tanaka
Swabbie
Banned
To me, you're sort of saying things along the lines of you saw the gun fire, you heard the gun fire, it is written down and docuemented that the gun had been fired, but you deny the gun is fired. Basically, some Muslim actions have been, according to them, because of what is written in the Koran. Something which, judging from your talks with Preacher, you fail to aknowledge. Specific writings quoted from the Koran are scoffed at as something you don't care about, and anything that we can be reliably told straight from the horse's mouth is irrelevent. So, from what I understand you saying, actions do not matter, written word does not matter, spoken word does not matter...tell me, what other way is there to debate this?
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
You have a most remarkable ability to ignore what I've said.
I know "Muslim" terrorists use the Koran as justification. And I really don't care. My explanation of the Koran, which comes from what normal, moderate Muslims have told me, makes much better sense. After all, any argument that an infinitely wise and infinitely merciful and infinitely loving God has ordered you to engage in terrorism is, by definition, utterly stupid, no matter how many Koranic passages they misinterpret in order to justify it.
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