Have We Been Too Harsh with the Muslims Here?

[MartinJordan]

Well, that’s quite a false accusation. I’m a student of comparitive religion; I love learning about different faiths. I rented a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from my local library… do you really picture me rubbing my hands together, reading that book and giggling to myself “Wonderful! now I know how to corrupt the hindus! I’ll just take this and use it against them!”. If so, I kinda feel sorry for you, because, believe it or not, I believe there’s more to life than petty quarrels. Besides, the entire concept of “converting someone” is stupid; I can’t make someone convert any more than I can raise the dead.

If you still aren’t convinced, you can take a look at my posting history. I haven’t been here long, but I have posted in threads outside the ‘non-catholic religions’ section. I think catholics and myself can come to a lot of agreements regarding the evils of homosexuality and abortion, so I look forward to participating in threads like that in the future.

Drac, I take your word for it. And Yes I believe you:thumbsup:

MJ

 

[Ontheway]

Well, that’s quite a false accusation. I’m a student of comparitive religion; I love learning about different faiths. I rented a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from my local library… do you really picture me rubbing my hands together, reading that book and giggling to myself “Wonderful! now I know how to corrupt the hindus! I’ll just take this and use it against them!”. If so, I kinda feel sorry for you, because, believe it or not, I believe there’s more to life than petty quarrels. Besides, the entire concept of “converting someone” is stupid; I can’t make someone convert any more than I can raise the dead.

If you still aren’t convinced, you can take a look at my posting history. I haven’t been here long, but I have posted in threads outside the ‘non-catholic religions’ section. I think catholics and myself can come to a lot of agreements regarding the evils of homosexuality and abortion, so I look forward to participating in threads like that in the future.

Hi Drac,

I am afraid I have not read your posts before, so I can’t approve or criticize. And obviously, my post can not be referring to anything you have written.
I am very excited to read your words. We should all be able to rise above petty quarrels and establish a solid foundation for open communication. If you read my post carefully, you will see that this is exactly what I am advocating.

But, there is the problem of “truth”. Our Christian religion is the truth. Salvation can be attained by loving God. Christ died for our sins and he is the redeemer, the Messiah. As I stated previously, Christ is the way, the truth and the life. This is the baseline from which we begin our dialogue.

Welcome to Catholic Answers.

 

[Jenny35]

Oh Jenny,

You went to the trouble of reading the Koran and you find something there you don’t like? This is simply because the book has not been interpreted for you in a proper manner. Islamic scholars will help you with this. Without them you will remain in darkness.

There is a recent convert to Islam who has similar misgivings about the book. An imam on the Islamic forum explained to her that she should stop thinking and just repeat verses from the Koran. Of course, the verses are in Arabic and she knows no Arabic. This is how it is supposed to work. Just listen to the melody of the verse and keep repeating.

This is authentic. I could not make up a story like this.

I didn’t just read the Koran and decide for myself. I have listened to hours and hours of debates by Muslim scholar David Wood (a practicing Christian) and he will debate any Muslim that will actually show up. I’ve listened to hours of Usama Dakdok’s Blogtalk radio show as he interprets the Koran and debates Muslims. Usama’s native language is Arabic.

Over 20,000 Islamic terror attacks have been carried out world wide since September 11,2001. thereligionofpeace.com/

Not all Muslims are bad and I will defend individuals who do not support any type of Jihad, be it financial, educational or jihad of the hand. But I will not defend Islam.

 

[Ontheway]

Well, that’s quite a false accusation. I’m a student of comparitive religion; I love learning about different faiths. I rented a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from my local library… do you really picture me rubbing my hands together, reading that book and giggling to myself “Wonderful! now I know how to corrupt the hindus! I’ll just take this and use it against them!”. If so, I kinda feel sorry for you, because, believe it or not, I believe there’s more to life than petty quarrels. Besides, the entire concept of “converting someone” is stupid; I can’t make someone convert any more than I can raise the dead.

If you still aren’t convinced, you can take a look at my posting history. I haven’t been here long, but I have posted in threads outside the ‘non-catholic religions’ section. I think catholics and myself can come to a lot of agreements regarding the evils of homosexuality and abortion, so I look forward to participating in threads like that in the future.

And, BTW. The accusation, although not directed at you personally, is very true. Sorry.

 

[Jenny35]

Do you read the Koran in Arabic?
If so, are you able to understand all of it, or do you need to refer to scholarly explanations?

Ontheway - I apologize if you clarified elsewhere and I missed it, but did you read the Koran in Arabic? And really, from a common sense perspective, what kind of god would make the “truth” so inaccessible as for the message to be available only to people who speak a certain language? And natively at that. Because unless I have misunderstood, it is claimed by Muslims that someone who learns Arabic as a second language also can not accurately understand the Koran.

 

[Ontheway]

I didn’t just read the Koran and decide for myself. I have listened to hours and hours of debates by Muslim scholar David Wood (a practicing Christian) and he will debate any Muslim that will actually show up. I’ve listened to hours of Usama Dakdok’s Blogtalk radio show as he interprets the Koran and debates Muslims. Usama’s native language is Arabic.

Over 20,000 Islamic terror attacks have been carried out world wide since September 11,2001. thereligionofpeace.com/

Not all Muslims are bad and I will defend individuals who do not support any type of Jihad, be it financial, educational or jihad of the hand. But I will not defend Islam.

Jenny,

I think most of us here agree with your last statement. We all know Muslims who are very fine people and I will be the first to say so. But, there are too many Muslims who know us only from television screens and their imams.

 

[Ontheway]

Ontheway - I apologize if you clarified elsewhere and I missed it, but did you read the Koran in Arabic? And really, from a common sense perspective, what kind of god would make the “truth” so inaccessible as for the message to be available only to people who speak a certain language? And natively at that. Because unless I have misunderstood, it is claimed by Muslims that someone who learns Arabic as a second language also can not accurately understand the Koran.

I actually posed this question to one of our Muslim friends. I don’t know Arabic, so what I know of Islam comes from translations or discussion.
I frankly don’t know how anyone can understand an Arabic text written in the 8th century. I have grappled with Old English and Church Slavonic texts, both from the middle ages and found them exceedingly difficult. Without extensive linguistic and historic studies it would be impossible to even decipher the script, much less follow what it says.

 

[drac16]

Hi Drac,

I am afraid I have not read your posts before, **so I can’t approve or criticize. And obviously, my post can not be referring to anything you have written.**I am very excited to read your words. We should all be able to rise above petty quarrels and establish a solid foundation for open communication. If you read my post carefully, you will see that this is exactly what I am advocating.

But, there is the problem of “truth”. Our Christian religion is the truth. Salvation can be attained by loving God. Christ died for our sins and he is the redeemer, the Messiah. As I stated previously, Christ is the way, the truth and the life. This is the baseline from which we begin our dialogue.

Welcome to Catholic Answers.

Well, it’s a little too late for that, isn’t it? if you’re going to accuse muslims on this forum of something, that includes me. Besides, even if I wasn’t a muslim, those accusations would still be utter bologna. You said that the muslims here “come not learn about Christianity, but to explain to us that we are wrong. They cite the Koran extensively in an effort to prove that we are Kufur, ie infidels” and “They seem to be ill mannered guests who insist on forcing their views on us”.

Sure, we can peacefully dialogue, but if that’s your interest, please do not bear a false witness against me and my brothers/sisters in the future.

 

[drac16]

And, BTW. The accusation, although not directed at you personally, is very true. Sorry.

sigh

You just had to get the last word in. Have it, then; I don’t care. I have nothing further to say to you.

 

[Ontheway]

Well, it’s a little too late for that, isn’t it? if you’re going to accuse muslims on this forum of something, that includes me. Besides, even if I wasn’t a muslim, those accusations would still be utter bologna. You said that the muslims here “come not learn about Christianity, but to explain to us that we are wrong. They cite the Koran extensively in an effort to prove that we are Kufur, ie infidels” and “They seem to be ill mannered guests who insist on forcing their views on us”.

Sure, we can peacefully dialogue, but if that’s your interest, please do not bear a false witness against me and my brothers/sisters in the future.

This sounds a little emotional and, dare I say typical. When you hear something you don’t like, you accuse me of lying? Sounds a little defensive.
If you stick around long enough, you will see those posts yourself, if you can recognize them.

 

[Augustine3]

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of Hamas’ top founder and leader now a Christian convert said the modern Muslims who do not believe in violence are either deceivers or have been deceived.

Muslims what is your opinion of this?

 

[Jenny35]

I actually posed this question to one of our Muslim friends. I don’t know Arabic, so what I know of Islam comes from translations or discussion.

I realize the question was not directed at me, but your answers are defending the absurd idea that the Koran can only be properly interpreted if one knows Arabic.

 

[Ontheway]

I realize the question was not directed at me, but your answers are defending the absurd idea that the Koran can only be properly interpreted if one knows Arabic.

Sorry about the confusion Jenny. I was being a little sarcastic in my original message. It was intended to show how some Muslim leaders insist on interpreting things for their faithful.

 

[F_Ferdous]

Do you read the Koran in Arabic?
If so, are you able to understand all of it, or do you need to refer to scholarly explanations?

No, I use translations and I have a few volumes on the Seerah of the Prophet (peace be upon him) detailing his entire life and the revelations. Using them, one can decipher when which Ayah of the Qur’an was revealed and why. If confusion still persists, I’ll go through Tafsirs.

 

[F_Ferdous]

I didn’t just read the Koran and decide for myself. I have listened to hours and hours of debates by Muslim scholar David Wood (a practicing Christian) and he will debate any Muslim that will actually show up. I’ve listened to hours of Usama Dakdok’s Blogtalk radio show as he interprets the Koran and debates Muslims. Usama’s native language is Arabic.

Why don’t I suggest to you a few more debates then?

youtube.com/watch?v=wSrVjXQktDw

youtube.com/watch?v=dqvRF_qYbjU

youtube.com/watch?v=ZKfRsd2qcek

youtube.com/watch?v=sc8MCSDBauY

youtube.com/watch?v=AIqihqoS12A

youtube.com/watch?v=6kEkxG4fgs0

youtube.com/watch?v=hAT8NrpeMWo

 

[F_Ferdous]

Our Christian religion is the truth. Salvation can be attained by loving God. Christ died for our sins and he is the redeemer, the Messiah. As I stated previously, Christ is the way, the truth and the life. This is the baseline from which we begin our dialogue.

Well then, that’s not really much of a dialogue. That’s like me saying, “Muhammad is the Final Prophet and Jesus was just a man. That is the baseline from which we begin our dialogue.”

 

[F_Ferdous]

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of Hamas’ top founder and leader now a Christian convert said the modern Muslims who do not believe in violence are either deceivers or have been deceived.

Muslims what is your opinion of this?

He is the one who has been lied to and deceived by terrorist ideologies.

 

[Ontheway]

Well then, that’s not really much of a dialogue. That’s like me saying, “Muhammad is the Final Prophet and Jesus was just a man. That is the baseline from which we begin our dialogue.”

Hi Ferdous,

Don’t forget to breathe.

This kinda brings us back to the question of why we are all here. You with your Muslim convictions and me with my Christian and Catholic convictions.

In your statement above you declare yourself Muslim. I wouldn’t expect anything else from you. When I say that Christ is the truth and the life, I declare myself Catholic. Nothing more and nothing less.

If for the sake of this dialogue you expect me to abandon my faith, to somehow change my position or accommodate your view, you know what my answer would be.

If I were to do that, then you will be conducting a dialog with someone who is not a Christian. And I suppose you wouldn’t want that.

 

[Kaninchen]

Hm

I think it’s necessary to accept that dialogue between very different religious beliefs is necessarily limited in scope if major antagonisms are to be avoided.

How far is it possible to go beyond explanatory ‘this is what we believe’ discourses?

 

[manualman]

The problem we often have is keeping things separate that we seem to innately want to mix together. These three things:

1. The PEOPLE of a religion
2. The TEACHINGS of a religion
3. The FAITH of people within a religion

are all actually separate things. Let’s look closer to home first. Take the retired Anglican bishop John Spong. The doctrine and teachings he espouses are utterly non-christian. His behavior and moral clarity are a mixed bag at best (enabling and encouraging people to do things that are objectively wrong). But his personal faith and desire to know God is quite sincere. It’s very bewildering! I think he’s an example of someone who genuinely seeks God, but because of wounds in his own self, he suffers invincible ignorance about God’s nature and character. Even though he gets so much of the religious principles dead wrong, he still finds some nuggets of moral truth because he really is looking for them.

What has this got to do with Islam and muslims? There too there are three categories that shouldn’t be mixed together. Just like with Rev. Spong, it is entirely possible to be sincere and earnest about one’s devotion to God, but believe in utterly false ideas and even engage in immoral behavior. This is how the muslim next door can be such an otherwise decent fellow even though he denies the divinity of Christ and is a polygamist.

We fail to comprehend this and we tend to make one of two mistakes:

1. We look at the magnitude of the jihadi problem and conclude that muslims aren’t to be trusted because any of them could turn out like that.
2. We note the existence of decent muslims and default to the modern cultural platitude that all religions are about equal in value and that no fault for jihadism should lay at the feet of Muhammed.

The truth is much more complex. People are more than the outcome of their stated religious beliefs. We are good, but fallen. The fallenness doesn’t obliterate the good. Even those who embrace some false, even evil ideas are still fundamentally drawn to the goodness of God.

So in conclusion, you can be respectful of muslims, you can treat them fairly and decently in every day life, but you can at the same time hold the opinion that the teachings of Islam contain some poisonously evil ideas. Disrespecting ideas doesn’t have to mean disrespecting people.