9-11? That's what I thought. I have been interested in Islam since the 1950s. I have lived in Arabia, Kuwait and Libya.. with many visits to Palestine, Beirut, Tehran and Baghdad. And, I return to Arabia as often as possible.
What some people claim is the first reference of Muhammed in recorded history, actually comes from Christian sources 60 years after the fact. An Arab, "The Mahood" is mentioned in a raid. However " Mahood", ( The chosen one), is a title, and not a proper name, a title for Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the 5th Calief "Malick". In the docs. there is nothing about Muslims, Muhammed, Qur'an or Islam, just "The Godless Pagans">
Sounds interesting, I wish I could do that, I would like to go to Mecca, unfortunately I would have to be muslim to enter. As I pointed out before, there is a huge difference between muslims, and Islam.
A very real problem in Islam is what is written, These writings were fine for 1000 years as Islam marched through Europe and India robbing and killing all they met. , but now we are in the 21st century, and this is completely unacceptable in a civilized world. Radicle clerics like Sadr of Iraq, can preach straight from the books, and if you disagree, you can be branded an apostate. When something happens, many muslims will denounce it to the west, but quietly agree to the muslim influence doing it. Groups like ISIS, follow the teachings and deeds of muhammed to the letter. These groups have always been around, the names change, the people change, but the story is the same. They go straight from the books, and nobody questions them. What the world needs is a condemnation of the books, but anyone suggesting this will lose his head.
Looks like it took them 300 years longer than it took those Christian sources to refer to Jesus. Guess they got that going for them.
Christianity as we know it is from 360 AD with Constantine, and Catholicism, then Martin Luther around 1500 and the Reformation opened the flood gates for uncountable variations. While there were earlier christions, the Ebonites as an example, Christ was not the son of God. He got that status with the council of Niecha, by vote. Most Christians are totally unaware of this.
I totally agree that Islam needs its own reformation and the first damn thing is sectarian reconciliation and implementation of Islam's true teachings of equality amongst all men and women. Aisha would be kicking butt and taking names if she was returned from paradise! There's a lot of pagan tribal cultural baggage in all that bullshit that was created long after ol' mo kicked it. I also agree that these crazy arsed fanatics are akin to a bad case of global psoriasis. Flare ups are nasty, but the itching never goes away. Let it also be said that not all that denunciation of the "west" is unjustified. Its not like the "west" hasn't seriously screwed them over a time or two. And there's also hundreds of millions of muslims that are like hundreds of millions of christians and millions of jews - cultural lip service and a few holidays a year, while they get on with their lives.
I fully agree with that last post. However we have that nagging problem, the written doctrine, and the people who abuse it. Radical Christians are annoying. Radical Muslims kill people.
This is where a problem comes up. We have uncountable sects, claiming they have the true teachings. The reason they are killing each other. A problem that seems unique with Islam.
Yeah, delayed reformation. Christians were doing the exact same thing for 1400 years until theirs. Given Islam came along 700 years later, its just about time for Islam to get their collective fingers out.
Radical Christians are more than annoying in lots of places and they also kill people and some are even terrorists. Granted there's way more Islamist whackos with guns killing people these days.
I don't know about that, I read a lot, but I do play on the internet quite a bit since I retired a few years ago.
When I think of Radical Christians, what comes to mind is two abortion clinics bombed years ago, and over 33,000 acts of muslim terror since 9/11.
And BTW, the invention of the internet is a great source of information, if you know how to use it. Controversial subjects like religion must be looked at from all angles. This is actually a way to bust Islam in phony presentations. If you type in any event from Islam, and use their most popular site, Al Islam, you will get a well written story. However you will notice there are no footnotes where the information came from. A fabrication. Even the anti Islam sites will provide the book and verse. You'll find the original version is different than the one presented by the Islamic site. They have a lot to hide, but cannot erase the written docs.
Of course they have a lot to hide. EVERY religion does. You think Christians and Jews and Hindis don't have tons of bullshit to hide? Religious apologetics is a feature of ALL religions. Hiding stuff and providing spin for some of the most outrageous bullshit (Ezekiel 23 for instance) is SOP.
All this stuff was acceptable 2000 years ago, but not anymore. Ezekiel describes a UFO and encounter, however the Hindu have volumes written on the subject, in a more advanced language of the time. The issue is that, nobody understood it until we entered the space age. Just 100 years ago people had to interpret it the way they wanted.
Read this and tell me what it is, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. "Bobby, flying a swift and powerful vimana hurled a single projectile charged with the power of the Universe . An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendor. It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the adams and the eves. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause,and the birds turned white. After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected... to escape from this fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment."
The “good figs” are the ones in Babylonian captivity, the “bad figs” are the ones that remained in Israel. The ones in Babylonian captivity are promised a return from exile (Ezekiel 14:22-23).
I happen to agree that the scriptures of all religions are the product of the human imagination applied to a compendium contemporary human wisdom in the metaphoric/allegoric fashion that they are all written in. I used to think of myself as an agnostic atheist, but I now consider myself an ignostic.
When faced with things they don't understand, technological advances beyond what they have words for, we get a confusing report that has to be interpreted into the new words they learn.
That book "the Chariots of Ezekiel" was pretty cool. BTW the bible doesn't care for "advanced language" or "progressive thought" and the like. In some ways it's against such mentality.
Often wonder how the Jews are returning to their homelands after 2,000 in exile? It's as amazing as a group of people resurrecting the ancient Babylonian language and retaking the city of Babylon back from the Iraqis and creating a new nation. Well, the "imagination" about the loss and return of the Jews was mentioned quite often in the bible. Just read the story of the 1948 and 1967 wars.
Yep. its that "imagination" that has caused so many problems and conflicts throughout history. Comes in just about every flavor.
That's got nothing to do with what I am saying. These guys didn't actually 'imagine' these things though. The probability of them happening by chance is staggering And the possibility they actually 'saw' these events is something the modern mind can't grasp. Despite their large numbers back then, and the hatred of the world against them, they would be a 'blessing' to all the world through their achievements. And when the 'gentiles time is fulfilled' they would leave the countries that are their 'graves' and return to rebuild their ancient homeland. A tiny but powerful country. Sounds like something out of Hollywood doesn't it. In the 1800's when the idea of a Jewish homeland, culture and language were first raised the whole world mocked.