Is Islam the religion of peace?

[Jor-el]

If mankind lived by the law of love then there would be no need for religion.

Then for a moment, just one moments I want you to entertain a thought if you would. What if Muhammad was a rogue Jewish Rabbi? That took his own personal spin on the faith and created Islam by declaring himself a prophet?

The date that Judaism was founded is as of yet unknown, Christianity came in around 33 CE, and Islam about 622 CE. So in terms of age you have Judaism, Christianity, and the at the end Islam which is a younger religion. So it came from somewhere and that doesn't always equate to some divine prophet.

The problem and it is the only problem I can find is that his life is documented, including family ties and none of them lead back to Judaism.

[XenoFish]

Then he was just a man who heard voices, there's medication for that now you know. There is nothing divine, holy, or sacred at all. It only becomes such because people believe it to be so. Even if it's wrong on a deeper level.

[Jor-el]

Then he was just a man who heard voices, there's medication for that now you know. There is nothing divine, holy, or sacred at all. It only becomes such because people believe it to be so. Even if it's wrong on a deeper level.

That will get you killed in many places in the world, many of them not in the Middle East.

[XenoFish]

I could honestly careless. Right now I'd welcome death.

Edited August 26, 2014 by XenoFish

[Jor-el]

I could honestly careless. Right now I'd welcome death.

All our times will come, let's not rush to meet the unknown.

[XenoFish]

So who's hands will it be? My own or someone condemning me for being an infidel? Right now I can see no love in the world. No compassion, no heart, all I see is hate, and madness. All is madness.

[Jor-el]

So who's hands will it be? My own or someone condemning me for being an infidel? Right now I can see no love in the world. No compassion, no heart, all I see is hate, and madness. All is madness.

Be a light unto goodness, preserve justice and equality. Those things cannot be taken from a man, ever.

[Alan McDougall]

I could honestly careless. Right now I'd welcome death.

Why are you not well?

Be a light unto goodness, preserve justice and equality. Those things cannot be taken from a man, ever.

Yes they can!

[Alan McDougall]

Have a look at this those that live in the US?

http://www.ruthfully...robert-spencer/

The Grim Reaper does not make appointments.

We all suffer from a disease that has a 100% fatality rate, it is called life.

Death can be the next caller.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Alan McDougall

[Jor-el]

Yes they can!

They cannot be taken from within you. Your life can be taken but no-one can take from within you what you choose to preserve within yourself.

[dest]

The problem is much wider than that I'm afraid although most people will tend to fight that conclusion. I have posted a number of news articles, testimonies and even statements that demonstrate that extremism or Islamism as others call it are actually spreading. When a local Imam fighting for womens rights is threatened with a Fatwa (death sentence) if he does not change his tune, That non-Muslim women in a neighborhood are threatened with rape and other things if they don't start wearing veils, that local non-Muslim girls are constantly harassed for sex.

Tell me how is it that these extremists, who are so few as to be a minority that does not represent true Islam, can be so active in so many places? Doing so many different things that coerce local non-Muslim populations in so many different European countries, all of whom have a significant Islamic minority.

What it means for those out there who haven't got it yet.... that it is not a minority that we are talking about, it is a significant portion of the Islamic population doing these things and believing these things. The attitudes of disrespect to us and our nations is clear, we are kaffirs after all.

Jor-el, there are always positive and negative sides of everything and I take back the thing about Islam being peaceful though not fully. Also I still want to know what can be done about these kinds of things and this is not only a question for you but everyone discussing this topic and the reason I am asking for this is because these statements and proofs are kind of the ones Anders Breivik made in his manifesto which I studied in psychology and I really want to know if violence is the only option people find.

[Jor-el]

Jor-el, there are always positive and negative sides of everything and I take back the thing about Islam being peaceful though not fully. Also I still want to know what can be done about these kinds of things and this is not only a question for you but everyone discussing this topic and the reason I am asking for this is because these statements and proofs are kind of the ones Anders Breivik made in his manifesto which I studied in psychology and I really want to know if violence is the only option people find.

Islam as a simple religion is peaceful, the problem is the line that takes one to extremism, that line can easily be recognized: the willingness of the person to introduce Sharia Law to the legal system and state of wherever they live.

So that is what countries should be on the lookout for, and if these people are immigrants then the answer is to send them back to wherever they came from. The problem is more complicated when the person doing the campaigning for Sharia law is a citizen of ones own country. Personally Jail time would work as a deterrent up to a point, but after that one needs to consider that not all responses can be peaceful.

Breiviks hate speech against Islam is an excuse, he killed dozens of people most of whom were not even immigrants, nor Muslims. His manifesto speaks out against a lot of things, not only against Islam. but his actions are not coherent with his wording. If he was anti-Islam, why kill mainly those who weren't?

Also the problem is not the Muslim who is a believer but understands that Sharia Law cannot be implemented, that there must be a separation of State and Religion. It is the one who believes that the implementation of Sharia is the will of God, and State and Religion are one and the same thing.

He could have targeted specifically those who he ranted on about, but he choose widespread murder of innocents, most of whom had absolutely nothing to do with the politics he defended in any way.

So no, this is an excuse.

[Alan McDougall]

They cannot be taken from within you. Your life can be taken but no-one can take from within you what you choose to preserve within yourself.

Thinking about it more, you are right!

[Alan McDougall]

http://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/islamic-state-s-convert-or-die-demands-unchallenged-by-global-society.html

Islamic State terrorists continue to gain power and influence across Iraq. The Muslim extremists have pushed hundred of thousands of Christians out of their homes and many have been killed as a part of their “religious cleansing” efforts. As the terrorists wreak havoc on a formerly largely Christian region, many believe that it is the responsibility of Christians around the globe to unite and defeat the militants.

In a commentary published on Express, Douglas Murray wrote of the horrors that Iraqi Christians are facing.

“Known Christians were visited at their houses - sometimes by IS, sometimes by ordinary Muslims who used to be their neighbours - and given the options that were given to people conquered in the early years of Islam: convert to Islam, live as a second-class citizen or be killed. IS took away the second option, making the choice "convert or die.”

Christianity Today reports that the Islamic State is now giving know Christians one week to decide between converting to Islam or dying for their Christian faith.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said that the level of Christian persecution in Iraq is now “off the scale.” "The international community must document the human rights abuses in northern Iraq so that the perpetrators can later be prosecuted,” he said.

Murray has called on Christians to step up and stand with Iraqi brothers and sisters in crisis. He wrote, “If we are not willing to stop IS then we must let in the Christian refugees who are fleeing. If we do neither then the Christians of Iraq look likely to be martyred in their entirety. This is a crime we cannot allow to continue. IS must not be allowed to win.

[XenoFish]

Alan you haven't read my OP in the Broken Soul thread I posted.

I consider religion and all it's laws to be an personal things. Consisting of self-responsibility. Just because you might live by a strict code of conduct and religious observances, doesn't give you the right to force people to follow your way of living. You are always responsible for yourself and only yourself in the spiritual sense. What happens between you and god is your business. If god every decided to deal with the unbeliever then it's between them and god. Did any of that make sense?

Edited August 27, 2014 by XenoFish

[Jor-el]

Alan you haven't read my OP in the Broken Soul thread I posted.

I consider religion and all it's laws to be an personal things. Consisting of self-responsibility. Just because you might live by a strict code of conduct and religious observances, doesn't give you the right to force people to follow your way of living. To press your faith onto them. You are always responsible for yourself and only yourself in the spiritual sense. What happens between you and god is your business.

I would add to that that it wholly permissible to proselytize, as long as the person is willing to hear you, what is wrong is to force and coerce others into acceptance.

[XenoFish]

Even if someone is willing to hear you, one should not become angry at them for not agreeing.

[Jor-el]

Even if someone is willing to hear you, one should not become angry at them for not agreeing.

Agreed.

The basic principle to uphold and should even be quoted to the person... "Your freedom ends where mine begins".

[XenoFish]

There is another thing to keep in mind. That whatever you give hate to, it has power over you. Makes you apart of it. I do not hate religion, I dislike what it does to some people. Certain individuals can not handle it, to them it's like giving a gun to a psychopath. They go power mad and it destroy's what soul they had. This goes for all religions, not just one.

Yet religion is not the only source of this. Race, nationality, location, political affiliation, etc. All of these can do the same thing.

[psyche101]

What my problem is that Judaism and Islam are so very similar yet most can't see it. Both are based on the same thing yet different approach. Which Christianity it's easy to see the relation between all various sects. I just wished that good ideas wouldn't go so bad.

http://www.diffen.co...slam_vs_Judaism

Judaism is older while islam is younger.

You might be surprised how many have seen it. I know a few people, including my wife who saw God in a very different light after 911, when they realised they had been praying to the same one, their outlook on religion became jaded.

I look forward to a day when the term "Atheist" is redundant. We do not have Aleprechaunists or Afariyists anymore.

[XenoFish]

People want to blame God for all the problems of the world and this is not so (yes I'm as guilty of this as well). This world is fully in our hands. Every evil that exist in it, belongs to someones actions. Every kindness does as well. Sometimes things do happen that seem like miracles. Heck might even be minor miracles, but there personal. When people say "Why did God let this happen?" I ask myself. Why did YOU let it happen. Do not simply pray for miracles, make them happen. As I've mentioned before if you want a peaceful world, become a person of peace. Quit praying for it and DO it. Prayer can only do so much. It's just like the difference between thought and action. Thoughts can only do so much, it's when they become actions, that's when change occurs.

[Alan McDougall]

Alan you haven't read my OP in the Broken Soul thread I posted.

I consider religion and all it's laws to be an personal things. Consisting of self-responsibility. Just because you might live by a strict code of conduct and religious observances, doesn't give you the right to force people to follow your way of living. You are always responsible for yourself and only yourself in the spiritual sense. What happens between you and god is your business. If god every decided to deal with the unbeliever then it's between them and god. Did any of that make sense?

I agree absolutely and will look at your Broken Soul Post!

Here is my personal take on religion based on present day Christianity and not Islam.

Alan McDougall Writes on Religion

This is my present position on religion and god

“If there is a God, these leaders of the religious leaders and members of the church will face him, as will I, to justify the deceit and the wrongdoings committed in his name during our lifetimes. I expect however to face a benevolent God, who will see my misdeeds in the context of my life and my ability to comprehend and interpret, as will he those billions of people less fortunate than me. He will disregard the religion they pursued, evaluating only their life and deeds.”

The above is how I personally perceive God interacts with humans his creation. God had to allow for a Duality of existence to give us all a free will and not force us to be always just good and to be perfect robots he controls all the time”. This Duality is obvious in our reality, some of these attributes are, good and evil, black and white, life and death, night and day, positive and negative, war and peace, light and dark, right and wrong. Etc.

It is my opinion the reason we are put into this mortal life, which is attend the School of Life" to learn from it and evolve into higher dimensions "Heaven" of reality, after we pass over, or descend lower "hell" if we choose to do wrong and depravity. Somehow we must all account to a higher power, for our actions or lack of actions during our very brief moment we exist on planet earth, in the vastness infinite eternity. Otherwise our lives are meaningless and futile.

My position on religion as young boy was atheistic and my philosophy was live for today, because tomorrow you might die. Death to me was simply extinction of my consciousness, into eternal nothingness. This did not frighten me, because of course I was young and thought I still had an eternity before me to live and I was going to squeeze every drop of fun out of life before that day. I used to tell my friends I will live this way until the moment just before I die, and then only then make amends with God, if he exists.

As a youth I had absolutely no interest in religion and I was put off to the extreme by the silly excusive cult that had held both my parents into a fear of going to hell. This cult was so exclusive that unless one joined them and stuck completely to the beliefs, one would end up in what they said was “A lost Eternity”, which was really a nice way of saying burn in hell forever.

If their teaching were true, then God’s workmanship, when he created humanity, was very inept indeed, it means that out of the 7 billion people he made presently living on planet earth, nearly all are rejects to be sent to the scrap heap of hell. However, according to these exclusive cults, god does not take the blame for his own mistakes he so obviously did when he made man out of the dust of the earth, he apportions all the blame for his shabby work on every human he has created, except of course, the few exclusive cult members.

If God exists he must be infinitely intelligent and the scenario just mentioned would not take such an illogical step with his own creation. Of course I admit that God is most likely infinite in all aspect of his being and would be sovereign and able to anything he wanted to do with his creation, without asking anyone's permission!

According to every exclusive fundamentalist religious organization they all going go to end up heaven and watch us less favored ones from up there.. While the remaining huge majority of humankind some 99.99999% are sent to hell by a supposedly kind merciful benevolent God, to burn there, forever and forever. (How does that strike you as logic) .And to make this even more ridiculous, what about all the humans that have lived since time began, estimated by some as many as 60 million souls?

Infinite punishment in hell, for finite transgressions, who can call this just and fair?

In the 1970’s I thought I had found the absolute truth as far as God and religion were concerned and accepted and embraced this fundamental belief system in an absolute, extreme, fanatical and radical way, bordering on obsession and fixation. I began to think I was some sort of a latter day prophet and gave out some amazing predictions, which were more psychic that God sourced prophesies.

I then found out to my horror and profound distress that many of the evangelist and preachers that I had also trusted implicitly, as men of God and of impeccable honor and those supposedly who I thought knew the absolute truth .When in reality most of them proved themselves as nothing more than lying, deceitful, hypocritical, charlatans, frauds and thieves, living lives of luxury at the expense of church their church members.

Some of these screaming preachers and TV evangelists were hypnotizing and persuaded by using mortal fear by preaching hell and brimstone and death, and shouting at these very gullible people that if they gave an amount of money be it be credit card, cheque or cash to the church , God would in turn reimburse them later a hundred fold or more back later, which of course opinion never happened and was a blatant lie.

Using God as some sort of a slot machine, put in a penny, and get back a pound?" (A thousand Dollars would become a hundred thousand, who could resist such a return on their money much better than any bank?)

Jimmy Swagggard.

To illustrate my dissolution with exclusive religion, a case in point was a hell and brimstone evangelist, who screamed and shouted from the pulpit against all sins, especially sexual sins and depravity for decades and then this hypocrite was caught red handed at a brothel trying to secure the favors of a prostitute for the night. One thing Jesus despised was a hypocrite and it is these that got the sharp end of his tongue.

A few days later in front of his congregation , he wept and wept asking say over and over again “ I have sinned I have sinned” He pleaded with his God and his congregation to forgive him, and I think many of them did forgive him for the relatively terrible sin he had done.

However, this sad story did not end there. Less than a week after his desperate plea for forgiveness, a police officer pulled over a car for a suspected traffic violation," who do you suppose he found inside the car?" No less than this very same evangelist again caught red-handed in his car, with a prostitute in a very in indecent and compromising situation. He got off with a warning from the law, but this hypocrite did not learn from his mistakes or from the very words he had preached and screamed about for over 30 years.

Thus twice this hypocrite was caught doing the same act of depravity which finally meant most of his congregation leaving his church, extremely disillusioned.

However, unbelievably, some of his congregation overlooked all his discretion and remained his followers. This was a person who I had admired as a man of God, who preached ethics and morality and now I found out he was nothing but a secret sexual pervert.

After that I could never listen, his preaching or any other Christian Evangelist for that matter and felt his Christian calling was removed from him by God. Off course he was/is not the only hypocrite preacher out there. Many of them are puffed up with pride at their supposed wisdom, became extremely wealthy, residing in huge mansions their own airplanes and traveled the world first class to sprout their nonsense to the world at large, but are found out to be thieving sexual perverts by the media etc..

I will no longer attend any church, or embrace any religious belief that I consider irrational or exclusive, but I accept that Jesus was/is who he said he was and that there is indeed a God in which I can put my trust.

I am no longer obsessed about anything and quietly say my prayers, at night, like I did as a little boy, go to sleep and trust “if I die before I wake I trust the Lord my Soul to take

Why this long post, by reading it it should be obvious one of the reasons why so many young men, have left Christianity and embraces Islam

• 
  

My quote, "The truth is the truth remains the truth no matter what we believe or do not believe even in total ignorance the truth is the truth! What is absolute Truth? What is the source of absolute truth What is the source of life

Let the unknown become known.

We must know what we do not know (And admit it)

Regards Alan

Edited August 28, 2014 by Alan McDougall

[XenoFish]

Eventually people will leave all religions as something better comes along. Most likely after some type of religious war occurs. That people will want something better. As some go to another religions, others are leaving the one's their in. I'm officials spiritually agnostic, holding no religion as true.

[Alan McDougall]

Eventually people will leave all religions as something better comes along. Most likely after some type of religious war occurs. That people will want something better. As some go to another religions, others are leaving the one's their in. I'm officials spiritually agnostic, holding no religion as true.

That in my opinion is due to the free will that God has given , without reservations.

[XenoFish]

It has never been said that you have to have religion to have God in your life. Eventually I feel that reason and spirituality can walk side by side. Let's face it religion creates a template that people fit themselves into, crush in some ways their individuality. Spirituality allows the individual to apply reason and understand to life without strict dogma.

Edited August 28, 2014 by XenoFish