trollcatman wrote:
The main difference between Christianity and Islam is that the bible is written by men and only inspired by god, but the koran is dictated by god and written down by the prophet. So to argue that the wording is messed up might work for the bible, but when you say that for the koran you imply that either god or the prophet f**** it up.
I was under the impression that the Bible and the Koran were both written by humans, with no god whatsoever taking part in the process of putting the scripture together. The morality and rules in both of them do not even come close to appearing as though they are the perfect words of a being that created the universe, but instead subjective morality and rules of a bunch of different people, some decent people, some corrupt people, and some absolutely insane, all mixed together.
It also makes no sense that a being that created the universe would rely on only one or a few prophets and some religious scripture just to give humans a message. I would expect a being that created the universe to tell all people at once what they needed to know so there could be absolutely no confusion. Everyone could confirm that a god told them all the same things.
A supernatural being that would rely on
only one prophet or a small number of prophets and some religious scripture to give humans messages that appear to be a whole lot of nonsense that contradict each other and contain morality that could easily have been nothing more than subjective human morality of lots of different people might not actually be a god. It could instead be a different type of being posing as a god and no human would know the difference. There are also the possibilities that the creator of the universe is a total idiot that does not know how to run its own universe or the creator of the universe is just using humans as play things for its own entertainment.
You really have no proof that the Koran was dictated by a god and that the Bible was only
inspired by this same god. Couldn't the Bible just as easily be dictated by this god while the Koran is not? Could they both be
only inspired by a god? Is it possible that maybe none of them were either dictated or inspired by a god? Any of those possibilities are possible, but there isn't any evidence available that either were inspired or dictated by a god.
Sweetleaf wrote:
Tequila wrote:
thomas81 wrote:
To me that shows that it is not necessarily impossible that strides forward can be made within Islam, but all institutionalised religions, have the capacity to liberalise and review their own teachings.
There doesn't seem to be that reformist tendency within Islam. Christianity and Judaism has a strong tendency towards reformism, as can be seen with our own Enlightenment. Islam has still to make that leap, and a large part of that is because they are so beholden to their teachings. There is a massive emphasis on the literal meanings of the teachings in Islam, which is why liberals tend to either ignore the teachings or find dishonest explanations for whatever is in there.
What is a liberal anyways?
Also wouldn't it be a good thing if Islam made that leap? or is it best they stick to the strict doctrines and outdated crap about homosexuality carrying a penalty of death. I mean if Christianity stayed the same as it started there would be a lot of people being killed for all kinds of minor offenses.
If anything you seem to be painting these liberals in more of a positive light than negative, yet it seems you're trying to imply the opposite that they shouldn't be trying to alter the religion any to make it more human friendly.
I think with religions like Christianity and Islam, it is possible for believers to become more accepting of certain behaviors, like homosexuality for example, if they manage to liberalize their beliefs enough. In my opinion, a liberal Christian or Muslim is really just using a lot of wishful thinking and ignoring certain things contained within their own scriptures or claiming that the scriptures mean something else other than what they say in order to keep their religion without accepting the obvious nonsense claimed within their religious texts.
If becoming a liberal Christian or Muslim works for the believers who become liberal, but it seems like it would make more sense to completely give up on the religions once problems are found within the religious texts. I guess people who believe are not that willing to just give up on their beliefs and I can understand why, since a person's religion can often make their life easier to cope with and it gives them hope for an afterlife.
23 Apr 2013, 2:56 pm
