1) A lot. You must have heard that the prophet Mohammad was at war with Arabs who wanted to maintain the old ways. And there are many verses that are focusing on these issues.
2) These are very large issues that are beyond my amount of knowledge. But
a) Of course they have convictions but they won’t for instance a non-believers republic with a morality police beating and killing women who decide to wear the Hijab for instance
b) I think there are no reformed religion. The protestant churches in America who have worked to abolish the Woe-Rade law were also “reformed” Christian as you would put it. So the return to the original message has to be an individual action. Not a collective action undertaken by a group or society in general. I only said that the ideas of Luther were correct. I didn’t say I’m a Lutheran
- There is a phenomenon called invented religions. Hinduism is in many ways a polytheistic religion but is has roots that go back to 3000 BC (or perhaps even more) and a whole set of sages, Yogis, schools of Hinduism with serious amounts of religious material that have to be taken seriously by any theologians.
You cannot create a new religion with a mail-group, a website and a few Hippy-like dressed people who say they decided to become Pagans. But sorry for this. I know that there are real neo-Pagans in Europe, Australis and North-America. But this is my vision of things. Vercingetorix (The Gaulish King) was a true Pagan. Today we don’t really know a lot about their deities and how people perceived these deities and what were their day to day religious beliefs and how they saw the world in general. But this is my opinion. (Anyone willing to go to Stonehenge to celebrate the shamhain festival – or whatever – has my blessing to do so, but I simply don’t thing of it as the same thing that – for instance – the ancient Athenians believed in. I think there is difference between the two )
c) All I am saying is that we live in a different age. So if we have a certain belief system (which I do) I think it can only make sense if it is in line with the reality of our time. This principle was valid for the first Muslims as well. In fact their beliefs were truly revolutionary and more adapted to the reality of their times than the already existing idolatry religions of the Arabian Peninsula at that time. (Or at least this is how I see things)
2) These are very large issues that are beyond my amount of knowledge. But
a) Of course they have convictions but they won’t for instance a non-believers republic with a morality police beating and killing women who decide to wear the Hijab for instance
b) I think there are no reformed religion. The protestant churches in America who have worked to abolish the Woe-Rade law were also “reformed” Christian as you would put it. So the return to the original message has to be an individual action. Not a collective action undertaken by a group or society in general. I only said that the ideas of Luther were correct. I didn’t say I’m a Lutheran
- There is a phenomenon called invented religions. Hinduism is in many ways a polytheistic religion but is has roots that go back to 3000 BC (or perhaps even more) and a whole set of sages, Yogis, schools of Hinduism with serious amounts of religious material that have to be taken seriously by any theologians.
You cannot create a new religion with a mail-group, a website and a few Hippy-like dressed people who say they decided to become Pagans. But sorry for this. I know that there are real neo-Pagans in Europe, Australis and North-America. But this is my vision of things. Vercingetorix (The Gaulish King) was a true Pagan. Today we don’t really know a lot about their deities and how people perceived these deities and what were their day to day religious beliefs and how they saw the world in general. But this is my opinion. (Anyone willing to go to Stonehenge to celebrate the shamhain festival – or whatever – has my blessing to do so, but I simply don’t thing of it as the same thing that – for instance – the ancient Athenians believed in. I think there is difference between the two
)c) All I am saying is that we live in a different age. So if we have a certain belief system (which I do) I think it can only make sense if it is in line with the reality of our time. This principle was valid for the first Muslims as well. In fact their beliefs were truly revolutionary and more adapted to the reality of their times than the already existing idolatry religions of the Arabian Peninsula at that time. (Or at least this is how I see things)
