Allah, And Why I Am Not A Muslim, just wondering. Options

[Breeze]

This is why i don't like going on the internet. The dude finds an article on the internet and believes in it and completely falls word for word, for a out of context website about Islam.

Islam is a misunderstood religion. It was since it first came out.

I'll debate when i got the time. This is ridiculous.

Nazia - ignore any further trolls.

[Philip]

first off, let me say that if i've posted this in the wrong section then i apologize and wouldn't mind it at all if this were deleted or moved.

my question is how a muslim would respond to the following article:

http://godomnipotent.wordpress.com/2010/11...m-not-a-muslim/

while i agree with the article, i simply want to know whether or not it holds up to scrutiny.

A few points, when Muslims say they are abd of Allah, its does not carry the same meaning as what the author is presenting. For example, " To be a slave is to be dehumanized", but 17:70 "we have ennobled the sons of Adem(a.s.)" gives the opposite meaning.

going further

While we know that the highest form of love is that of a child for their parent, Allah is content with something much less enchanting.

Actually there is a hadith where a mother lost her child in the desert and she finally finds her kid again and naturally she is overcome with joy, love and all those good things, Muhammed s.a.w.s points this event out to his companions and he s.a.ws. told them that Allah would be more mercyful to his creation on the day of judgement than that mother.

Also another hadith says that only 1/100 of Allah's love has descended into this world(dunya).

And we have the 99 names of Allah, they include the mercyful, the compassionate, the loving...ect

If God is the greatest good

Islamically God(Allah) is not the greatest good but he is the source of Good and by implication the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

then it must follow that we ought to love this good in the most exemplary manner and that can only be found within the confines of a family relationship

This is antromorphism plain and simple.

To not do so in fact belittles God because we give to him something that is incredibly sub-standard to his person.

To compare him to his creation belittles him and denies true monothiesm.

As per the hadith, from a Christian perspective its a bit rich to talk about being sexist. Want me to quote what Paul said about women? yeah didn't think so.

Anyways those are your(the author)'s interpretations, my interpretation is that women have a nature that is different from men in some areas and you should work with that difference without trying to make men and women the same.

As for more women in hell, well there is another hadith that says more women are in heaven as well.

Following on is that large paragraph on original sin and being born with a deformity. The problems with the author is he ignores half the point. Yes Allah punishes people, but he also tests people. And people who suffer have their sins wiped out.

Next is the attack on surah 98. In the Yusef Ali translation of the meaning it says "those who reject truth, amongst the people of the Book and the polytheists, will be in Hell fire, to dwell therein for ever. They are the worst of creatures.

So no it is not calling non Muslims generally the worst of creatures but rather those that reject the Truth. (the ayat is actually called Al Bayyinah-the clear evidence meaning that it talks about those who reject clear proofs)

And again this "god only loves those who love him" is false since Allah swt sustains those rejectors like the Phaoroh of Egypt even while they fight the people of tawheed.

As for the torah and Injeel, modern science and biblical scholars actually back the Quranic charge of alteration.

Anyways I'll end it here since I am getting bored doing this point by point(pretty long batil that the author has come up with).

Just one last observation, nowhere were any scholars cited for their interpretations on hadith or ayat which is interesting, since if Muslim really believed what he said we do, then citing scholars would be no problem. But alas that is the issue with falsehood that it doesn't stack up.

peace.

[muslimkid]

first off, let me say that if i've posted this in the wrong section then i apologize and wouldn't mind it at all if this were deleted or moved.

my question is how a muslim would respond to the following article:

http://godomnipotent.wordpress.com/2010/11...m-not-a-muslim/

while i agree with the article, i simply want to know whether or not it holds up to scrutiny.

Erm personally I believe who ever attempted to summarise what the Quran says has failed miserably for misinterpreting by a MILE what the Quran actually commands.

Firstly I would like to point out that Allah is all Merciful and all Kind. (Surah Fatiha Chapter 1 Second Verse).

You may ask how will I prove this? simply just take five minutes of your time to focus on what I am about to say

Satan was not always satan. There was time before mankind that Jinns used to live on this earth. They used to eat, drink, work, sleep etc like us. However the Jinns were corrupted and disobeyed Allah's rules and was therefore commanded his Angels to destroy the Jinns living in this world. However there was one Jinn who was sincere and worshipped Allah as he should be worshipped and his name was Azazil/ Ajajil. The angels went back to Allah and asked Allah we destroyed every single Jinn except for one. Allah raised Azazil/Ajajil to the heavens and raised his status. Azazil/Ajajil began to worship him even more so again Allah raised his status even more higher. It had come to a point where Azazil/Ajajil had become to the head of the Angels through his constant worship. However when the creation of Adam had been completed. Allah commanded the Angels to give a respectable prostate to Adam . However due to the ignorancy and jelousy from Satan due to Satan being created from Fire and Adam was created from clay. Satan felt he was inferior to Adam and refused to prostrate. Allah commanded Satan to leave heaven however Satan requested 3 things before he went

1) long life

2) Being invisible to the human race

3) that he will lead the ummah astray

Now, Allah could have thrown him into the fire without any hesitation. But due to the Allah being Ar Rahman (the most merciful) he gave Satan his three wishes. Now the Quran is created for a simple purpose; We should follow only Allah's commands and follow the prophets sunnah

why? because we need to prove Satan wrong...we cannot let him lead the ummah astray... he is cunning and manipulative however if you have the will power and strong faith you can overcome satan and his dark magic but only if you can confine in Allah and indeed Allah mentions in the Quran 'Call upon me, I will answer you'.

So the Quran is created for us to be civilised muslims and together with the muslim ummah we WILL defeat Satan

sorry I could not mention the surah:ayat

[djohnson]

Wow!!! well said. I'm a Christian and you articulated your point very well. No one's really logically addressing your points. They're dancing around the issues. Sorry folks, how do you justify stoning a woman for being raped, are you kidding me!!! After Jesus' death there were several branches of Christianity that spit forth. One of those branches was called Gnostics. They rejected the God of the old testament as angry and vengeful. At the time Rome was in power and most people were polytheistic. So several branches of early Christianity had polytheistic belief structures. This is why Peter was crucified upside down. People were trying to formulate their church after him. Paul was also popular because he was willing to proselytize to the gentiles. The branch that won out was the Roman Catholic Church. over 300 years after Christ death, Rome was vulnerable to civil war. So the emperor united the country by becoming Christian himself. At this point he had a committee canonize the bible, throwing out many of the written texts. Some potentially written by Paul. This is where you can view art work where many of the clothing and rituals were derived from the pagan/Greek Mythology religion. As we celebrate Easter to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. Easter a Pagan god. This why I don't believe the bible is 100% word of mouth from God. People believe it HAS TO Be because God would have to create a way. This is absurd to me. Prior to the past 400 years over 90% of the human population was illiterate. Priests were straight up extorting Christians, selling indulgences; and yes the written inspired word did help us get back on track. I'm sorry though, Christians and I say this as a Christian, were relentless to Muslims. Plundering and raping their women. Boiling alive, setting on fire those that would not believe. You mean to tell me God's going to meet one of these Muslims in heaven, shake his head and say, "I'm sorry that guy that was going to boil you alive, told you of me. You didn't believe him, so I gotta throw you in the fire pit." In Hebrews it says God will write his commandments in our heart. Through our relationship in Christ we know the things of God; but then again I am also Seik, so I believe there are many paths; and I'm not beholden to the fears "man" has in controlling the masses, instead of letting God present himself and let the individual "with God" choose their own path......

Hi Sol Invictus. Interesting article. I think the thing is, I and anyone on here could easily ask you the same thing about how you could stand being a Christian.

The way I am a Muslim is probably the same way you were a Christian. There are some things that bother me, say for example the ability to own slaves, etc. But I realize the time periods this comes from and I accept that it was a different time and move on.

I think Christians have a very different image of the "Christian God" than is the reality. In that article, God (in a Muslim perspective) is like a sexist, unrelenting slave drive. And then God (from the Christian perspective) is an all loving, all accepting God. And that is the basis for the article. I'm sorry but I deeply disagree with this portrayal of the God of the Bible. In fact I'd say the God of the Bible is far more sexist and slave driving.

I'm going to point out a few things from the Bible. Now, they are from the old testament. Immediately most Christians will say "hey hold on, we don't follow the Old Testament, Jesus died for our sins!" Yes that is true according to Christian ideology, but it is the same God who enforced these regulations, etc. at one time.

Let's take Deuteronomy 22
28-29
"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife."
If a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her.

23-24
"If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city."
If a woman is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, the men of the city must stone her to death.

Of course similarly, any man and woman who sleep together who aren't married should be stoned to death as well. Actually here is a nice flow chart I found that represents Deuteronomy 22
http://i.imgur.com/BIBnD.jpg


More sexism in the Bible:
(from the New Testament, from Paul)
1 Corinthians 14:34-36
"As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church"

Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit to your husbands as the Lord."


I'd like to bring up another point from your article
7. “In the end, I will select a choice group even from those who believed and applied my final guidance to their lives and they whom I have favoured will enjoy paradise”:

I believe the article is painting this as though Muslims have it bad. But I on the other hand think this is a huge plus in Islam. In Christianity, you can accept Jesus into your heart, and you have paradise. The bushman living in Africa, the Jew living in Israel, etc. They have 0 chance of getting into heaven. Only those who accept Jesus. Even then, that Christian can go around, do whatever he wants in life, do any number of bad things, but he has accepted JEsus so he is saved. We more or less believe in Islam (at least how I have been taught) is that we can't tell who is going to heaven. We can't pass such judgements and only God knows. Even on non-Muslims, I can't say. What I am saying is, if you take person A who is born to a Muslim family and person B who is born to a Hindu family, I don't think there's any greater chance person A will find paradise. I think it comes down more to how the person lived their life. Just because Muslim A was raised a Muslim if he did bad things in life , I don't think he'll find paradise

GOD IS A SLAVE DRIVER

(sorry all caps I"m trying to separate this post up so it's not all that long)
The Bible and the Qur'an both have instances of God destroying cities and killing people because they did this or that thing bad. Both say God is forgiving as well. in fact in the Qur'an, you pretty much can't go a single page or even half a page without coming across the phrase "For God is all forgiving and merciful." So I guess I don't see what your point is there. What difference do you think you are talking about? I am assuming again you are referring to Jesus. But you can't simply ignore everything that happened in the Old Testament and forget about it. It's like you're saying "I could never be a Muslim because their God is mean! My God was mean in the same of course but... he changed and so... I'm cool with that... past is past..." lol I just don't think it works that way!

________________________________
Anyway... I did not say any of this to discredit your religion or say "mine is better than yours!" I did it to point out that I really don't believe Christianity and Islam are all that different in terms of the negative things you bring up. The point of the article was to say "I'm not a Muslim because Muslim's believe in a sexist, slave driving God but the Christian God is nice and full of butterfly's and ponies and women are equals to men!" But I disagree. It's all the same. I imagine, like most Christians, you probably have not read your own Bible. I would suggest you do that to see just how vindictive and spiteful God of the Bible really is.

So how do you deal with being a Christian and knowing all of this? Probably the same way I deal with being a Muslim. I say... ****... there's things i don't understand about the universe, I know i don't want to go to hell, I know this came in a different time.

[djohnson]

Wow!!! well said. I'm a Christian and you articulated your point very well. No one's really logically addressing your points. They're dancing around the issues. Sorry folks, how do you justify stoning a woman for being raped, are you kidding me!!! After Jesus' death there were several branches of Christianity that spit forth. One of those branches was called Gnostics. They rejected the God of the old testament as angry and vengeful. At the time Rome was in power and most people were polytheistic. So several branches of early Christianity had polytheistic belief structures. This is why Peter was crucified upside down. People were trying to formulate their church after him. Paul was also popular because he was willing to proselytize to the gentiles. The branch that won out was the Roman Catholic Church. over 300 years after Christ death, Rome was vulnerable to civil war. So the emperor united the country by becoming Christian himself. At this point he had a committee canonize the bible, throwing out many of the written texts. Some potentially written by Paul. This is where you can view art work where many of the clothing and rituals were derived from the pagan/Greek Mythology religion. As we celebrate Easter to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. Easter a Pagan god. This why I don't believe the bible is 100% word of mouth from God. People believe it HAS TO Be because God would have to create a way. This is absurd to me. Prior to the past 400 years over 90% of the human population was illiterate. Priests were straight up extorting Christians, selling indulgences; and yes the written inspired word did help us get back on track. I'm sorry though, Christians and I say this as a Christian, were relentless to Muslims. Plundering and raping their women. Boiling alive, setting on fire those that would not believe. You mean to tell me God's going to meet one of these Muslims in heaven, shake his head and say, "I'm sorry that guy that was going to boil you alive, told you of me. You didn't believe him, so I gotta throw you in the fire pit." In Hebrews it says God will write his commandments in our heart. Through our relationship in Christ we know the things of God; but then again I am also Seik, so I believe there are many paths; and I'm not beholden to the fears "man" has in controlling the masses, instead of letting God present himself and let the individual "with God" choose their own path......

Hi Sol Invictus. Interesting article. I think the thing is, I and anyone on here could easily ask you the same thing about how you could stand being a Christian.

The way I am a Muslim is probably the same way you were a Christian. There are some things that bother me, say for example the ability to own slaves, etc. But I realize the time periods this comes from and I accept that it was a different time and move on.

I think Christians have a very different image of the "Christian God" than is the reality. In that article, God (in a Muslim perspective) is like a sexist, unrelenting slave drive. And then God (from the Christian perspective) is an all loving, all accepting God. And that is the basis for the article. I'm sorry but I deeply disagree with this portrayal of the God of the Bible. In fact I'd say the God of the Bible is far more sexist and slave driving.

I'm going to point out a few things from the Bible. Now, they are from the old testament. Immediately most Christians will say "hey hold on, we don't follow the Old Testament, Jesus died for our sins!" Yes that is true according to Christian ideology, but it is the same God who enforced these regulations, etc. at one time.

Let's take Deuteronomy 22
28-29
"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife."
If a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her.

23-24
"If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city."
If a woman is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, the men of the city must stone her to death.

Of course similarly, any man and woman who sleep together who aren't married should be stoned to death as well. Actually here is a nice flow chart I found that represents Deuteronomy 22
http://i.imgur.com/BIBnD.jpg


More sexism in the Bible:
(from the New Testament, from Paul)
1 Corinthians 14:34-36
"As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church"

Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit to your husbands as the Lord."


I'd like to bring up another point from your article
7. “In the end, I will select a choice group even from those who believed and applied my final guidance to their lives and they whom I have favoured will enjoy paradise”:

I believe the article is painting this as though Muslims have it bad. But I on the other hand think this is a huge plus in Islam. In Christianity, you can accept Jesus into your heart, and you have paradise. The bushman living in Africa, the Jew living in Israel, etc. They have 0 chance of getting into heaven. Only those who accept Jesus. Even then, that Christian can go around, do whatever he wants in life, do any number of bad things, but he has accepted JEsus so he is saved. We more or less believe in Islam (at least how I have been taught) is that we can't tell who is going to heaven. We can't pass such judgements and only God knows. Even on non-Muslims, I can't say. What I am saying is, if you take person A who is born to a Muslim family and person B who is born to a Hindu family, I don't think there's any greater chance person A will find paradise. I think it comes down more to how the person lived their life. Just because Muslim A was raised a Muslim if he did bad things in life , I don't think he'll find paradise

GOD IS A SLAVE DRIVER

(sorry all caps I"m trying to separate this post up so it's not all that long)
The Bible and the Qur'an both have instances of God destroying cities and killing people because they did this or that thing bad. Both say God is forgiving as well. in fact in the Qur'an, you pretty much can't go a single page or even half a page without coming across the phrase "For God is all forgiving and merciful." So I guess I don't see what your point is there. What difference do you think you are talking about? I am assuming again you are referring to Jesus. But you can't simply ignore everything that happened in the Old Testament and forget about it. It's like you're saying "I could never be a Muslim because their God is mean! My God was mean in the same of course but... he changed and so... I'm cool with that... past is past..." lol I just don't think it works that way!

________________________________
Anyway... I did not say any of this to discredit your religion or say "mine is better than yours!" I did it to point out that I really don't believe Christianity and Islam are all that different in terms of the negative things you bring up. The point of the article was to say "I'm not a Muslim because Muslim's believe in a sexist, slave driving God but the Christian God is nice and full of butterfly's and ponies and women are equals to men!" But I disagree. It's all the same. I imagine, like most Christians, you probably have not read your own Bible. I would suggest you do that to see just how vindictive and spiteful God of the Bible really is.

So how do you deal with being a Christian and knowing all of this? Probably the same way I deal with being a Muslim. I say... ****... there's things i don't understand about the universe, I know i don't want to go to hell, I know this came in a different time.