Holy texts should be respected by scholars
- Thread starter Lawdog
- Start date
samcdkey said:
What's your point, are you trying to distance humans from animals or show their similarities? To what effect?
No, I didn't say all religious people are full of hate and fear, etc, but their belief in God(s) is irrational. In the same way people that fear Friday 13th have an irrational fear of that day.
samcdkey said:
Their belief in God(s) is irrational. They might be perfectly rational in others ways, in fact I'm sure most of them are. If you truely believe in God, be you Christian, Muslim, Jew, whatever, then what difference does it make to you if there are millions who believe as you do, or just you on your own?
Religious thinking is, in one sense, a rational response to our fear of death - a way of cheating our inevitable demise. But it's irrational in that there's no evidence to support the belief system that this fear has produced.samcdkey said:
So, yes, I'd say that most people are fearful and irrational.
samcdkey said:
Powerful words from a Muslim. Allah should have struck you dead by now for such utterences. Perhaps you're a wannabee Muslim? Nonetheless...
You are a confused little theist. From the link you never read:
"Faith in the existence of god was useful to the primitive man. It satisfied his curiosity. He thought that all things and events were god's creations and dispensations. Surrender to god satisfied his slave mind. As the concept of god was fashioned after human form, god was attributed the human qualities of righteousness, love and mercy. Obedience to a righteous god, however imaginary, served him at that stage to establish moral conduct in social groups. Faith in a god of love and mercy kept up hope amid troubles. Further, worship of god with song, dance and ritual satisfied man's aesthetic cravings. Thus the concept of god answered the several needs of the primitive man in a primitive way. And man stuck to god with intense faith.
Along with god, man fancied the existence of soul as a detachable part of the body. Dreams were supposed to be soul's rambles in strange lands during man's sleep and death as its permanent escape from the body. Imagination of the existence of other-worlds, like heaven and hell, and of rebirth, followed the need to provide disembodied souls with a habitation. Faith in the existence of soul and ancestral worship dispelled man's fear of death.
Belief in the existence of god and of soul and the influence of the belief on man's conduct constituted religion. And the essence of religion was man's surrender to god. Therefore, in terms of god (theos), which was the first one to which man surrendered, the attitude of surrender has come to be known as 'theism'.
Religion was the early phase of the attitude of surrender. Surrender absolved man of the sense of responsibility and afforded him the security and tranquility of a caged bird. Within the quietude of religious belief, theists started thinking and grew rational. So the analogical method of understanding yielded place to the advanced ways of causal logic and epistemological inquiry. Consequently, the concept of god gradually changed from the primitive fetish to a metaphysical notion of 'being and becoming.' The noisy ritual, blood sacrifices and ancestral worship of early religious belief were replaced by the silent meditation of later religion."
samcdkey said:
Yes, what are we to do about those 17,000 children who die of starvation each day? That's quite the challenge he's sent us. Will he keep increasing the count until we fix it or will he just stop one day and start feeding them himself?
O ye of misplaced faith!
And to honor that wonderful gesture, I shall not pray for you.
(Q) said:
In Islam, if you have, you MUST give. All muslims give 2% of their discretionary income ( over and above that which they need for their personal needs and business) in charity. If you are eating and someone passes by or visits, you MUST offer them a meal. If you know someone in your neighborhood who is poor and has financial difficulties, you MUST help them. It does not matter what religion they belong to.
The example is given of Abraham; after he became a monotheist, he used to share every meal with someone. One day he could not find anyone, so he went out to look for someone to share the meal with. He came upon an old man in the desert and invited him. As they were walking, Abraham asked him, "do you believe in God?" The man said "No, I am an atheist". Abraham turned away in disgust. He had only walked two steps when God called to him, "O Abraham! We tolerated him for seventy years and you could not tolerate him for seven minutes?" Abraham realized his error and went back to the man.
You have probably never visited a Muslim country. It is commonplace to help people in need. If you go to any mosque, you will find well-to-do people distributing food and clothes regularly. In Ramadan, when all are fasting, huge parties are organized for breaking the fast for the poor people in the community. All Muslims and non-Muslims join in. There is no division due to religion. This is ( or should be ) true in all Muslim countries. It is certainly true in Saudi Arabia as well.
In addition, when you have a happy occasion at home like a birth or a wedding and even for funerals, you must feed as many poor people as you can afford to.
samcdkey said:
Then, clearly there shouldn't be a single starving Muslim child, or any child living in an Islamic state? Are they fed with propaganda too?
How very incorrect of you.
It is commonplace without religion too.
All very nice, but hardly anything we'd have to learn through religion.
Getting back to the starving children, many of them Muslim, I might add, does Allah watch each one die an agonizing death? How does that make us stronger, as a challenge?