RE: Can there be New Ways of Understanding and Practicing Ancient Religious Teachings?
May 23, 2024 at 11:42 am
(This post was last modified: May 23, 2024 at 11:44 am by Leonardo17.)
Ahriman:
“Islam isn't the most progressive ideology, but I still think it would be interesting if there were some kind of "update" for it, although I would not want it to go the same way as mainstream Christianity.”
- That’s what I am trying to explain here indeed. Just as there are some very modern / scientific minded Christians in this world, there are some of us who value reason and factual reality above ordinary dogmatism among us too.
And when you do that, the religious doctrine or dogma (the set of rules and rituals that are to be followed blindly without any question) can become an area of spiritual freedom and philosophical possibilities that provide positive results like a new sense of self-definition and methods of self-growth or self-discipline that can be very valuable on an individual level.
And this last phenomenon is also the bait that are used to recruit people into some spiritual sects and/or distorted / outdated forms of religious. Many of them will end up feeling superior because they have access to these “spiritual” issues and others do not.
My answer to that is: “All of God’s children are special. None of God’s children are special” (This is rom A Course in Miracles).
Belaqua:
On Muslim Writers who understand these issues:
Amazon
Amazon
The problem is that from his 30+ books written on secularism and Islam only these two have been translated into western languages (German and English).
So you might just check out his Wikipedia page (it’s shorter). Otherwise, you always have me
Wikipedia
On the modernization of Religion:
This has always happened in history. Sometimes you had a Moses who came and turned everything upside down. Other times you had things like Sufism. Here is another resource for Mr. Bellaqua: You may (at some time) check the writings of the Sufi Poet Rumi. The whole movement of tasavvuf (in Turkish) of Sufism (that goes back to the 10th century AD) is actually a movement of renewal and reinterpretation of various religious texts and practices that had simply become too mechanical / too dogmatic / too mental illness like as you described.
And in Christianity: Did you check-out Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson? I recently downloaded some of his works and I am about to read it.
Also: I just saw the images of these female Israeli hostages that were taken by Hamas. I am never going to watch the video I can tell you that.
Let’s leave everything I said aside. Let’s talk about old-school religion of any kind: Doing this amounts to reincarnating as a bug according to some or knowing that the universe will rebalance itself at some point according to others.
Islam does have an ideology of self - defense in some ways. Cowardly acts of violence are not included in that. Even for a non-believer. There are do and don’t does in war. That’s all I am saying
“Islam isn't the most progressive ideology, but I still think it would be interesting if there were some kind of "update" for it, although I would not want it to go the same way as mainstream Christianity.”
- That’s what I am trying to explain here indeed. Just as there are some very modern / scientific minded Christians in this world, there are some of us who value reason and factual reality above ordinary dogmatism among us too.
And when you do that, the religious doctrine or dogma (the set of rules and rituals that are to be followed blindly without any question) can become an area of spiritual freedom and philosophical possibilities that provide positive results like a new sense of self-definition and methods of self-growth or self-discipline that can be very valuable on an individual level.
And this last phenomenon is also the bait that are used to recruit people into some spiritual sects and/or distorted / outdated forms of religious. Many of them will end up feeling superior because they have access to these “spiritual” issues and others do not.
My answer to that is: “All of God’s children are special. None of God’s children are special” (This is rom A Course in Miracles).
Belaqua:
On Muslim Writers who understand these issues:
Amazon
Amazon
The problem is that from his 30+ books written on secularism and Islam only these two have been translated into western languages (German and English).
So you might just check out his Wikipedia page (it’s shorter). Otherwise, you always have me
Wikipedia
On the modernization of Religion:
This has always happened in history. Sometimes you had a Moses who came and turned everything upside down. Other times you had things like Sufism. Here is another resource for Mr. Bellaqua: You may (at some time) check the writings of the Sufi Poet Rumi. The whole movement of tasavvuf (in Turkish) of Sufism (that goes back to the 10th century AD) is actually a movement of renewal and reinterpretation of various religious texts and practices that had simply become too mechanical / too dogmatic / too mental illness like as you described.
And in Christianity: Did you check-out Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson? I recently downloaded some of his works and I am about to read it.
Also: I just saw the images of these female Israeli hostages that were taken by Hamas. I am never going to watch the video I can tell you that.
Let’s leave everything I said aside. Let’s talk about old-school religion of any kind: Doing this amounts to reincarnating as a bug according to some or knowing that the universe will rebalance itself at some point according to others.
Islam does have an ideology of self - defense in some ways. Cowardly acts of violence are not included in that. Even for a non-believer. There are do and don’t does in war. That’s all I am saying
![[Image: 7151bc275de2d3d422106a4008215efe.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/51/bc/7151bc275de2d3d422106a4008215efe.jpg)
