Walter_Mitty

Why should we not believe them? Perhaps you should start a seperate thread and conduct a chapter by chapter rebuttal of that book?

By the way, what is the "real Islam"?

<a href="http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/primsourcisl.html" target="_blank">Here</a>

<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/koran.htm" target="_blank">Here</a>
Ansar, we could trade experts all day and I suspect that even *if* I find someone relatively neutral--if his opinion doesn't jive with yours you'll accuse that expert of poor scholarship.

Regardless of my poor sources and despite your vast knowledge of the "real Islam", this does not change the FACT that many Muslims are having a hard time interpreting the "allegory according to Ansar." It would appear that the "real Islam" is not getting out. Funny considering Allah the all-powerfull is guiding this whole crap shoot! Curious, these "non-real" Muslims treat women as second class citizens, resist education, and sanction violence. Quite frankly, that aspect of Islam disgusts me despite the good Muslims that do exist.

Regardless, your "allegories" do not hold water and neither does your opinion--especially if you have not seriously evaluated other religion's holy texts.

You need to use the same standard of scholarship that you apply to Islam in regards to those other religions, before you can be sure your religion is of God.

Good Day

ansarthemystic

I will be suspending my posts on this thread until the return of bibliophile, unless someone has questions for me.

In the meantime, I suggest for reading THE OXFORD HISTORY OF ISLAM (John Esposito, 1999, and check out the site:
answering-christianity.com

ansarthemystic

Sorry to reply so late!..kinda busy..

But anyway, I want to ask why you ask this question? Di you have it in mind that somehow death is an evil thing?

Well, to answer your question anyway, yes, Allah did create death. It says so in the Qur'an.

peace and blessings

Walter_Mitty

Summation

Ansar: The Koran--if interpreted correctly--does not promote violence.

Bibliophile: Whether or not that is true tends to be a moot point in light of the fact that millions of Muslims seem to be having trouble figuring out this allegegory.

Of course, I went on a tangent because I do not think the Koran is of God in the first place; but, I suppose this is the topic of another thread.

Still, considering that I do not think the book is from God also tends to make the discussion of interpretation pointless.

Anyhow, I'm supposed to be on vacation so I do not see any point in continuing this discussion.

Cheers!

ManM

ansarthemystic,
Why did Allah create death?

I ask simply because I want to know the details of Allah's will. What is His goal?

[ July 27, 2002: Message edited by: ManM ]</p>

Mad Kally

Ask your god. The Judeo/Christian/Islamic god of Abraham.

ManM

Mad Kally,
The God I worship did not create death or hell. He is not so petty. I am simply curious about the Islamic view of Allah and what His divine will might be.

ansarthemystic

I'm curious, who is this god you worship?, who created death? Hell is mental state that can even be begun in this life?so who creates this state?

peace and blessings

ManM

I worship the God of Orthodox Christianity. Death is not something created, but is the natural result of turning away from God, who is life. Hell is our reaction to the conditions of the next life. Who will do evil once we know what truly is evil? But those who love evil will be torn between what they know is right and what they desire. Such is hell.

Now, why did Allah create death? What is his plan?

ansarthemystic

Well, if you believed the Qur'an to be the word of god you might be a muslim.

However your other comments seem dangerous to me. You seem to be suggesting that we ignore the misconceptions of islam and muslims and take wholeheartedly what their followers do in the name of Allah(SWT)as the judging factor of what islam is. You also seem to be suggesting that all attempts at proper translation and interpretation are useless. This is unconscionable in my opinion because it allows ignorance to remain.

Check out this scenario with this one question in mind: are human beings inherently EVIL?

*An alien race from another world has been observing Earth and humans for some time. These beings are almost identical to humans physicaly, mentally,psychologically,emotionally,and "spritually".The difference being that they have been sentient beings for far longer than Earth humans so consequently they are more advanced technologically and are far wiser because their collective experiences span more time and involve countless more species than ours, the Earth humans.

What do they observe? These beings, we shall call them "anunaki" which means "children of anu" or simply "children of god".They observe humans killing each other indiscrimantly AND indiscriminantly. Humans lie, cheat, murder children, take slaves, hate their own kind(racism), treat women worse than trash, are overly greedy, hateful, corrupt, blame others(god,christans, muslims, atheists, etc..) for the world's ills,destruction, and sufferings. These humans treat non-sentient beings(animals)unfairly(hunt them,eat them, sacrifice them to gods), and the worst offenses in their eyes are the irrresponsible maltreatment of the environment and the creation of weapons that could either wipe out life, or the planet itself.

These beings, being so much like humans see it as their duty to rid the universe of ALL corruption and ALL Evil. There is no chance for prime directive star-trek interpretation here. What should the Annunaki do? Try to understand humanity? Or based on the misleading evidence, rid the universe of these parasitic murderers, the Earth humans?*

Albeit a shameless plug of my first science-fiction novel, I think this regretably wordy synopsis illustrates my point well!