Does the Quran support Theocracy?

[Leonardo17]

Think about how what you just said ties back into your opq.  You're a theist, you're ready for a totalitarian dictatorship run by a god-king.  You would trade this for that.  

Do you think that your islamic upbringing might have had some effect in shaping that part of you that openly desires a theocracy?  This is one of the reasons that an an anti-theist.  I don't think that it's possible for a person to genuinely believe in theistic gods without inevitably affirming dictatorships, as theism envisions the entire cosmos as a dictatorship with gods at the head.  This is the right and proper organization of the word as per that genuine belief.

You are distorting what I am saying. I am saying that Ancient Egypt was a state of law. Their version of “theocracy” was actually very similar to our modern society. That’s what I wanted to say.

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Brian37:

 
“This was long winded and convoluted.
 
The God/s of Abraham, the big three, are written as an immovable figure. A being you cannot remove from it's position, or vote out of it's position. It doesn't need our permission to rule over us. It can do anything to us at any time without our consent. The God of Abraham is an authoritarian and 100% antithetical to western democracy and pluralism. The God of Abraham is more akin to the likes of Kim Jong Un.”
 
…and if you thing that best-selling religious in the world is portraying a man who is being tortured to death you can start asking questions about how sincere right-wing people can possibly be about violence in the movies for instance
 

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- That’s not my way of seeing things. I am almost 100% that there is no God as a cosmic persona (and no such devil either).
 
Yet there is a deeper meaning in that too. That deeper meaning does not just come to you through some book or religious indoctrination. It’s a reality that can be understood intellectually (on some level). But it can only be known by direct experience. That direct experience is what I call genuine spirituality. That’s my way of understanding it.
 

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1-3: See “Exodus, Gods and Kings” (2014). This story also conveys a struggle between absolute earthly power and Religious / spiritual power. Or even better: 1976 Movie called “The message”.
 
This later is better. Because our prophet did not display some “miracles” like the prophets before him. My conviction is that the Universe simply realigns itself and most of the time it does so through real people (like you and me) and in this way his will is done no matter what.
Because of that the Etymology of Islam is not to put bombs everywhere and murder whoever you can murder but to surrender meaning that His will is going to be done no matter what.
 
4) There are different ways of understanding these lines. Unfortunately many “religious” people seem to understand it the same way as you. “Let’s convert everyone to our way of seeing things so in the end we will be the ones inheriting the world”.
 
My way of understanding is this. The thinking of the World is the exact opposite of the thinking of God. If you choose the Ego’s path, than you will be following the Ego’s path and live according to that. But if you bring in real spirituality (in this case God) in to your life. Than you will be on a whole different path. And that’s just how things are made. And there is no threat of Hell or whatsoever. From a spiritual perspective, “Hell” is our current situation in this world Being unaware of the true potential which is present within every one of us.
 
(So I’M not calling you a liar and/or sinner or anything like that I’M just explaining the spiritual approach here).
 
5) I think he is talking about:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
 
Again: the thinking of the world is 180 degree the opposite of God.
 
Then he says:
“40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”
 
This echoes the Hadith of the Prophet who said “If you take one step toward God he will take 10 steps toward you / If you start walking toward God, he will come to you running”
So that’s the spiritual path. In a way it’s the opposite of Western Capitalism. But before anyone asks: We do not just give up everything. It’s more like we start prioritizing those “spiritual issues” more than how we used to prioritize earthly issues in the past.
 
And again: there are deeper meanings. You don’t just “do” these things, there needs to be a gradual understanding of these things (that will appear as a result of sustained effort in the spiritual path).
 
7) As far as I know the Jews murdered Jesus because they decided that he was not the Messiah they have been waiting for. Just like today with their attitude of extreme Zionism, back in the days they expected a different more earthly “Messiah”. So when Jesus came with his teachings of love, and compassion, and forgiveness, and “Kingdom of heaven” they just hated him
 
Again: This is my interpretation as a person who knows a bit about how the human ego works. It’s not a theological statement
 
8) That’s another deep issue that is being debated for centuries’ by people who have faith.
 
My understanding is this: That’s something I know since I read about the Kyoto Protocol back in the 90’s when I was a teenager. The world as it is not sustainable. That’s because humanity is not in its right mindset. We are literally insane (destroying our own planet, corrupting our own food chain, building nuclear bombs in a way that can destroy the earth many times over etc. etc.)
 
So many religion have this concept of “The end of days / the end of time” Spiritual people says that this is a massive change of attitude that can happen before we annihilate ourselves. Or that can happens after a great event that will leave most of us dead so the remaining one will try to it differently after we have failed so enormously before them.
 
Other Comments:
1) Absolutely. Look at the stuff I am talking about here. Do I look like a Lin Laden to you?
2)
“That is something subjective. Some people reason that the universe is 6000 y old. Some reason that islam should evolve and some rules set by their god need to go to the trash.
Besides, the Koran author can’t say “Use your reason and figure out that the notion of gods is bullshit.”
If the Koran author said “Don’t use your own reasoning”, he is basically calling you an idiot and he also would have to make a much thicker book to cover all circumstances.”
 
Again: the thinking of this world is 180 degrees the opposite of the thinking of spiritual approaches. Saying that the earth is 6000 years old is the same thing as political Islamists claiming that (for instance) that men and women should all look in one way and not in any other way. These are deeply superficial and materialistic approaches.
 
21st century spirituality is not about superficial appearances or even ideologies. It’s about energies. Some schools of Yoga call this the Dwapara Yuga. (or the era after the dark age or iron age). It’s a dark age in terms spiritual understanding.
 
The Bible states that some prophets live 500 years the other 400 year, so they add all the prophet and they obtain a number like 586 (or something like that). That’s not how I read the scriptures. Scriptures are there to explain subtle spiritual realities. Determining the age of the planet is the area of Geology.
 
I know it’s not entirely the case right now. But religious people need to understand this the sooner the better


 
“Wait. What did I say? Which realities of the 21 st century are a problem for christianity or islam?
 
2. I’m not sure what your comment about Emperor Constantine and 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is about.
Are you saying that rule was set by Emperor Constantine and he injected those lines into the Corinthians book?”
 
 
Last phrase. I don’t know about that. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in his deathbed. And before dying that was his legacy “One God / One Emperor”. So this was the origin of the unification of Church and state (in the Western world)
 
“What is a god for you? Does a god have a brain or some kind of data processor? Does he think? Can he communicate with human languages?”
 
Hindus believe in one God “Brahma” (He wo is not). All the other Gods are actually “aspects” of that Singular Reality. The Religion of Akhenaten (1350 BC) was also that. The Sun disc was the origin of all the other Gods. In other “pagan” cosmologies. There is always this “All-father” (the God who created all the other Gods).
 
So I see that as “The Ultimate reality”. I think people simply switched to monotheism because of this. Polytheism made everything more complicated (that’s my theory).
 
“Why was that an important rule before? Why was that rule eliminated?I don’t know every rule in Islam. Has the rule about eating pork been eliminated? Has the rule about praying 5 times a day been eliminated?”
 
I tried to explain these stuff to Grandnudger before you: People (meaning the Ego) likes to travesties everything it perceives as a threat. True religion is the ultimate threat to the existence of the Ego. So the Older a religious teaching, the more artificial stuff will be added and the more real stuff will be extracted from it. Many spiritual paths require us to meditate or pay at least 2 times a day (in the morning and in the evening). Praying 5 times a day is another option. It help us to refocus our Ego-based perception back toward our True-Self (this in turn does help us in our day to day issues) Again: Deeper issue.
 
What I said is that the Sharia Law started as a great invention in that time. But in todays world it cannot answer to the needs of our post-modern era. It’s as simple as that
 

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Final Comment:
 
Kurt Russel really looks cool in that movie. And I remember falling in love with Mili Avital too.
 
But I will tell you what I told Grandnudger before: Being an atheist is perfectly fine. Why?
 
- True spirituality wants us to present an empty bowl to God. We have to “know that we don’t know” so most of the time it’s a process of unlearning than a process of learning. (Another deeper subject)
 
An Atheist is someone who has given up all mythology. And that’s (actually) better than most religious people who are involved in all sorts of Dogma and misunderstanding and fear / guilt based interpretation who are (according to several important spiritual teachers) completely false and misleading.
 
So I am not here to “spread the word”. I am mostly here to demonstrate that nobody has a monopoly on spiritual teachings and that my way is different from the greater part of monotheistic believer and that it is still very real too.