Any questions on Islam?

[ideologue08]

I see what you mean now, I misunderstood your question. It is not an obligation for those who have not received the Qur'an to believe in it. This is in the Qur'an itself. However, do not confuse this with belief in God or his Prophets. It is very likely, if not an absolute certainty that the ancestors of the papa new guineans or native americans had some Prophet come to them at some point to teach them about God. But as for the Qur'an itself, then God doesn't punish those who have not heard the message (this includes people in Europe or elsewhere who may not have had access to the Qur'an)

So either god thinks the quran isn't that important, or the people outside of those who the quran was revealed to aren't that important?

Like I said, those who did not hear the Qur'an are not obligated to accept it, God accepts ignorance as an excuse. God does not punish somebody if they didn't hear the revelation. They are not at a disadvantage.

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You got bad people of all fatihs, and evil atheists too. So a news report on one bad fellow is not really a condemnation of all of them.

There is a segment of Jews here in Israel that we refer to as the "Jewish Taliban". The women wear burkas, rocks are thrown at cars where a woman is driving, and heaven forbid if you own a TV set. They have also been harrassing young girls (below age 10) for not being "suitibly dressed".

Freaks, all of them. And rarely will you hear any rabbinical leadership condemn them. It just isn't done to condemn your own before outsiders.

And I know of certain Christian sects like that. I am not sure if there are radical athiests, though.

Why do you find it weird if Jews convert to Islam, I'm intrigued because I read a post of yours on another thread.

[paulpablo]

So either god thinks the quran isn't that important, or the people outside of those who the quran was revealed to aren't that important?

Like I said, those who did not hear the Qur'an are not obligated to accept it, God accepts ignorance as an excuse. God does not punish somebody if they didn't hear the revelation. They are not at a disadvantage.

My point is that although I'm always debating against Islam because I'm an atheist it's mainly because of the logic that gods best way of delivering a message is through an arabic prophet 1400 years ago, then relying on the word of man to spread the word of a religion which has many sects and many beliefs within each sect, for example you will find one sunni muslim who believes in beating women and that terrorism is a good thing and one sunni muslim who believes the opposite.
But i agree the quran still has some good advice within it, and I'm sure muslims believe everything in the quran is good advice for example not drinking alcohol or eating pork and women covering up their bodies, in hot countries some people believe rising testosterone accounts for higher crime rate which would be hindered slightly by women covering up more. But that being the case why would god not give this good advice to the world?
And ok if the quran is a test like you claim then why is most of the world going to remain untested before death? The majority of the world might have heard of the quran now, maybe or maybe not. But before the recent invention of the internet and global travel and communications the quran would have only been revealed to an extreme minority. Why is god relying on man to spread a message?

[ideologue08]

Like I said, those who did not hear the Qur'an are not obligated to accept it, God accepts ignorance as an excuse. God does not punish somebody if they didn't hear the revelation. They are not at a disadvantage.

My point is that although I'm always debating against Islam because I'm an atheist it's mainly because of the logic that gods best way of delivering a message is through an arabic prophet 1400 years ago, then relying on the word of man to spread the word of a religion which has many sects and many beliefs within each sect, for example you will find one sunni muslim who believes in beating women and that terrorism is a good thing and one sunni muslim who believes the opposite.
But i agree the quran still has some good advice within it, and I'm sure muslims believe everything in the quran is good advice for example not drinking alcohol or eating pork and women covering up their bodies, in hot countries some people believe rising testosterone accounts for higher crime rate which would be hindered slightly by women covering up more. But that being the case why would god not give this good advice to the world?
And ok if the quran is a test like you claim then why is most of the world going to remain untested before death? The majority of the world might have heard of the quran now, maybe or maybe not. But before the recent invention of the internet and global travel and communications the quran would have only been revealed to an extreme minority. Why is god relying on man to spread a message?

You ask good questions. But just think of this for one second: God wants to send down his speech to us as humans. How is He going to do that? Just think about that question for a bit. And now answer this; what do you think is the wisdom behind God sending a human Prophet to do the job? God could have easily sent an Angel to us rather than a human, why isn't an angel delivering the Qur'an directly, why do we need a human Prophet? Can you think of what would happen if God sent an angel to all of mankind instead?

You asked a lot of good questions such as why an Arab Prophet not a French one or something else? Why is there a lot of different interpretations in the revelation? Why does God wish to spread the message through humans? these 3 are all good questions but I'm going to answer them one at a time so you can think of alternative scenarios yourself.

[KichigaiNeko]

You still haven't answered his question

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And now suddenly you can't write in english??

What gives?

[EGross]

For all religions, the idea is that yours is the right one, and therefore the others are wrong. If yours believes in a heaven, then non-belivers don't go there, just your crowd.

And of course the big quandry - if religion "X" is completely incompatible with religion "Y", then which one does God think is the right one, since both claim that He selected "X" OR "Y", not AND.

So there is, of course, the desire to get everyone to join "X" because it would be a shame if peple were in "Y" and didn't get to go to heaven (or wherever). So there obviously, in the religion business, only one correct religion, because incompatible ones cannot both be right (using "2" as an example. Obviously there are more).

Doesn't it strike the believer as being odd that all of the other religions believes that his is the NOT right one, and that obviously God just wants one and all the rest are screwed? Because if you didn't choose your parents, you didn't choose the religion thrust upon you, and you believe out of trust and social encouragments, and when you die will you end up saying "Hey, if you wanted me to be a Muslim, you should have made me one, Goddamit!"

So either God is a twisted bastard enjoying the pain and destruction of religious divisions without giving a hint, or man made all of this stuff up and He doesn't care, or my choice...

...man made all of this stuff up and there never was a God, no matter what name you assign to a super-Ego.

[ideologue08]

For all religions, the idea is that yours is the right one, and therefore the others are wrong. If yours believes in a heaven, then non-belivers don't go there, just your crowd.

And of course the big quandry - if religion "X" is completely incompatible with religion "Y", then which one does God think is the right one, since both claim that He selected "X" OR "Y", not AND.

So there is, of course, the desire to get everyone to join "X" because it would be a shame if peple were in "Y" and didn't get to go to heaven (or wherever). So there obviously, in the religion business, only one correct religion, because incompatible ones cannot both be right (using "2" as an example. Obviously there are more).

Doesn't it strike the believer as being odd that all of the other religions believes that his is the NOT right one, and that obviously God just wants one and all the rest are screwed? Because if you didn't choose your parents, you didn't choose the religion thrust upon you, and you believe out of trust and social encouragments, and when you die will you end up saying "Hey, if you wanted me to be a Muslim, you should have made me one, Goddamit!"

So either God is a twisted bastard enjoying the pain and destruction of religious divisions without giving a hint, or man made all of this stuff up and He doesn't care, or my choice...

...man made all of this stuff up and there never was a God, no matter what name you assign to a super-Ego.

Ok. Now the myth of "the only reason why you are Muslim is because your parents are one" is conditional upon a person's rejection of Islam. The statement is flat out incorrect according to the Qur'an.

It is true, if God wanted somebody to be Muslim then he could have converted them immediately. So how does God decide who gets to see the light and who doesn't? Simple. whoever is sincerely looking for the truth, then God will reward that sincerity with guidance. But if people are bent upon staying in the condition that they are in, then God will make sure they stay in the path they are on.

[EGross]

And then when they die God says "Ok, I helped you stay on the wrong path, so you can now go to hell!" ?

Sounds creepy.

[paulpablo]

God wouldn't have to reveal the quran to every single person via an angel as proof of it being from god, that is one way of doing it though.
From debating with muslims I've been given various attempts of proof that the quran was revealed by god that don't add up.

The quran is beautiful. - I've read the quran it wasn't beautiful to me, beauty is subjective anyway.

The scientific miracles within. - The majority of them i can think of have been debunked so severely it makes them laughable.

People naturally feel guilty when they commit crimes against god proving god has placed this within us. - Some people love murdering and committing crimes against god.

Not all muslims come up with the same arguments and some don't make any arguments but my point is even if all these things were true it wouldn't make the quran a divine piece of writing.

Some examples I'll give of what I would accept as proof.

If god had revealed the quran independently to even just one other group of people, say for example if we found a tribe who prayed the same, ate the same and did the same rituals as muslims.

If god had given a definite sign, an indestructible book. A carving on the moon. An indestructible statue of Muhammad on each continent of the earth.

If once a year god had an angel fly over the earth and telepathically tell the world to keep believing in islam.

Now when I've mentioned this in muslim forums in the past I've received comments like "Paul has unrealistic expectations as proof".
But in what way are these things unrealistic? around 2000 or 3000 years ago god was supposedly helping out in wars, turning sticks into snakes, making snakes that talk, parting the seas, making floods that reached the height of mountains, burning bushes, killing Egyptians, helping Muhammad fly on a horse and split the moon into two parts, and telepathically talking to him. sending prophet after prophet from Adam to Muhammad.
2000 years ago god was like an over excited magician, but now we have better scientific knowledge and more global communication he's become shy all of a sudden.

[Aractus]

Yes. How can you possibly believe that silly, contradictory, misogynistic crap?

How can you talk without a brain? Some things, no one can answer.

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Well, there is a simple response as to why Jews and Muslims have different beliefs. Jews reject Jesus Christ and Muhammad outright. That's two messengers and prophets they reject, not just one, which isn't acceptable at all. The story of Abraham differs between both the Jews and Muslims but this is simply a by-product of the Jewish rejection of the latter messengers.

Actually, you believe that the entire Bible is scripture - AND - yet you reject it as authentic!

Here's my question to you.

When will you present the world with tangible evidence that the books in the Bible have been significantly altered?

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Here's another question - why is Israel the ONLY State in the Middle East that isn't living in the stone age?

[EGross]

Well, given that there are bibles older than Islam, it would be easy to compare and see which one got modified, if at all. That's the problem with conspiracies, ("The Jews took out every mention of Mohammed from their holy books", for example), when the physical exvidence is contradictory (this is not to validate the older stories, just to invalidate the later ones!)

I had a similar interaction with Mike Brown (we were supposed to have a public debate at one point, but due to scheduling problems he lucked out with Shmuely Boteach), who said that while he was an assimilated Jew, he was really into drugs and then he found Jesus and was saved. I asked him if the same brain that thought drugs were cool was the same bring that thought Jesus was great, isn't that a red flag that your rational thought about spirituality or expanding consciousness is not to be trusted?

This is the same answer I would pose here, where God supposedly gave us reason, and yet (for the sake of argument) he choose not to have me born into Islam. Therefore he will help me remain outside of Islam and at the end when he asks why I was not Islam, I would answer "Hey, it was you who gave me a brain and the ability to reason and supposed free choice. I used the best resources you gave me and did the best I could since you directed me to the path I took."

And if he doesn't like that, screw Allah. That is not a rational God, but a sadistic one.

And that is where the argument that all religions are the same (they cannot be from the dogmatic point of view, but they are from the athiest point of view), or that the right religion will come along so you can worship god the right way. But since you are the one doing the choosing, and God only wants one and He isn't saying (he's been mute for 2000 years, supposedly), then it's a fools choice that Islam is giving here.