Do You Know the Real Islam?

Honestly, how many people actually genuinely believe in "God", a god, the god, (Muslim, Jewish, Christian which I think is the same god followed in a different way by different religons)
It seems to me that people call themselves Christian, Muslim etc, and follow the social practices as their upbringing and surroundings dictate, as twisted and cherry picked by those seeking to control the populous in that area. They are taught what has been written by men about "god" to keep people fearing something unseen t adhere to their particular moral code or face some eternal hardship, playing soley on the very rational fear of death. But how many of these people actually believe in god, if pressed to actually confirm their belief. I think in the UK most people if picking from a list would call themselves Christian, but I expect a majority of these do not believe in an all powerful creator, heaven, hell and all that supernatural stuff, potentially even a proportion of those who practice religon, who like the moral and social aspects of their church life without really being into the whole thing.

That leaves the extremists on both sides who do believe, who do bomb, who do picket funerals, who do preach intolerance, who do predict the rapture.

I would be very interested to see some genuine polls of belief in god, rather than census forms saying which religon you are.

If you propose a question that how many people believe in God, then it very much depends, how do you define it. It is not about believing in some mythical person in the sky or elsewhere, but it is about the whole context. God is often defined as 'soul', 'conscience', our 'heart' that unites us all. So as you can see, synonyms can be found for the word 'god' and in this case it doesn't seem so strange at all.

If you propose a question that how many people believe in God, then it very much depends, how do you define it. It is not about believing in some mythical person in the sky or elsewhere, but it is about the whole context. God is often described as 'soul', 'conscience', our 'heart' that unites us all. So as can be seen, synonyms can be found for the word 'god' and in this case the word itself doesn't seem so strange and out of the world.

I think the concepts of someone in heaven and someone in hell burning people are vastly outdated and shouldn't really be seriously discussed, when talking about religion. We should look much more at real life evidence to find the basis of religions.

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When I was living in India (now talking about a different religion than what we have been discussing in this topic), people were telling me that god created the world and they found it strange, how in the 'West' people don't believe in god, because people without religion sounded to them like people without 'conscience'.

And to be frank, couldn't argue against this statement of world creation. What could have initially possibly prompted all those ingredients to come together to really lay the foundations of life? Well, you guess... So they are right to believe in whatever they want from that point of view.

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Originally Posted by jens

If you propose a question that how many people believe in God, then it very much depends, how do you define it. It is not about believing in some mythical person in the sky or elsewhere, but it is about the whole context. God is often described as 'soul', 'conscience', our 'heart' that unites us all. So as can be seen, synonyms can be found for the word 'god' and in this case the word itself doesn't seem so strange and out of the world.

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You need to go no further in search of a definition that reading the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, still used by the biggest Christian Churches.

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Originally Posted by jens

I think the concepts of someone in heaven and someone in hell burning people are vastly outdated and shouldn't really be seriously discussed, when talking about religion. We should look much more at real life evidence to find the basis of religions.

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See, here's the fundamental problem of the rationalist critique of the faith in God. You cannot rationally understand the faith unless you observe it from within, i.e. you believe in God. But if you truly believe, your faith supercedes your rationalizing. Hence the gap between faith and rationalist thinking that no one has convincingly bridged so far. You have to be on one side or the other.

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Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz

See, here's the fundamental problem of the rationalist critique of the faith in God. You cannot rationally understand the faith unless you observe it from within, i.e. you believe in God. But if you truly believe, your faith supercedes your rationalizing. Hence the gap between faith and rationalist thinking that no one has convincingly bridged so far. You have to be on one side or the other.

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As we know, human has two brain sides for different functions. Left brain is for rational and logical thinking, right one for imagination, beliefs and feelings. Why should we mix them up? In the same way - why should we try to rationally understand faith and, well, god? I think this is the absurd, which people reach during those discussions. I think religious people think and define it in the same way - religion shall not be about rational thinking, it is about soul and heart and that's how it should be. Also imagination, fantasizing and stories are part of it. It is not important whether all the stories in the Bible are proven scientifically correct, but it is important that those stories create a good feeling in us and we can learn something from them.

I was strictly referring to the religous god, the creator, not the thing that someone might feel inside themselves. The very thing that religon has to be founded on is a god. But those whose belief structure is believing in an all powerfui deity come accross as completley irrational IMO, but without that faith religon is little more than a few guidelines and somewhere to meet up, something we are capable of doing perfectly well without being threatened with eternal damnation. IMO the teachings of any religon are completley at odds with the modern world and massivley insulting to a persons intelligence. They are a collection of nice stories and there is a useful moral side to many, but were written in a different time by people with now very outdated views of the way the world should be. I personally don't belive there is anything more than man's words in the bible, koran etc, certainly nothing from "god", and when stripped back to this it makes the whole thing seem massivley futile. However to think like that, especially after a lifetime of belief would make people think they have rather wasted their time pushing religon, and for many its easier to belong to something that makes them feel safe rather than questioning the world around them.

Just my opinion, and of course i would defend anyones rights to believe, as long as it is their belief and not one they are forcing on others

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Originally Posted by Robinho

IMO the teachings of any religon are completley at odds with the modern world and massivley insulting to a persons intelligence. They are a collection of nice stories and there is a useful moral side to many, but were written in a different time by people with now very outdated views of the way the world should be.

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I have been thinking that some kind of a deep culture (doesn't mean to be religious) could be useful for the modern world. Many people are stressed, overworked, obsessed with materialistic values - traditional/fundamental values have been forgotten and genuine happiness has also gone missing with it.

Everyone believes in something, it's just the matter of what. Instead of god many people may believe in conspiracy theories, bad human nature, bleak future, whatever.

These words strike a chord with me:

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If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.

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Swami Vivekananda

The Church of Kopimism

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Originally Posted by henners88

Are you familiar with the troubles in Northern Ireland Bob?

The IRA and other christian terror groups responsible for planting bombs in pubs, streets, and shopping centres across the UK and Northern Ireland? How many deaths have occured at the hands of catholic and Protestant terrorist organisations? A friend of my uncle lost his daughter in the Birmingham pub bombings and she had absolutely nothing to do with the cause they were fighting for. Deaths at the hands of these groups goes into the thousands. Along with all the planned assassinations, the UK has experienced bombings of innocent people in Birmingham, Manchester, Coventry, London pubs, Canary Wharf, Omagh to name a few. We can also look at Spain and their terrorist group ETA. Italy also has known groups who have collaborated with the IRA due to similar religious aims. I think its time to realise that not all terrorists are Islamic.

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OK, here we have denomination against denomination; to make this even basically similar to the Muslims, you are saying this was being done in the name of Rome and whatever Pope was in power at the time?


A main reason for Muslim murdering others is taking the name of Mohammed in vain or something similar. (The Shiites and Sunnis are separated by who the proper inheritor of Mohammed's crown is)
That was going on in Ireland and the British Isles?

For there to be an analogy the reasons have to be at least basically similar, are they?
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Brown, Jon Brow

If I lived in America then the Christian right would worry me more than the Muslim extremists.

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Really now, give me the list that shows more people were killed by Christians, for religious reasons, than people were killed by Muslims, for religious reasons, in the U.S., in the past five, three. one year?
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"I don't see any desperation about referring to the Crusades - deluded Christians forcing their religion down peoples' throats and slitting them if they refused to listen."

What goes around, comes around.
The Muslims had invaded, by force, non-muslim land.

Paybacks are a bitch.

Regardless of how badly the rule of the Crusaders may have crapped on a lot of what Jesus said, to point fingers at them and ignore the fact that Muslims had killed the native peoples to take Christian lands is silly.