River

-Sarpedon

The only reason you appear to disagree with my claims is that you are set with the "discrete" religion model or the claim that all religions are separate entities and any correlation is due to collective human recollection or subconscious. However, I believe that "authentic" religions i.e Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Sabianism and Islam were revealed in continuum...and any dissimilarities in the continuum model is due to "bidaa" or man-made innovation. How can you prove your claim? you can , using archaelogy...but isnt' archaelogy limited...i mean 90% of all areas in Biblical lands cant be excavated due to laws and sensitivity issues...Can I prove my claim ...of course I can..Using the Quran , which I knowingly believe is the literal Uncreated speech of G-d ( The arabic template, that is)..However, you are not obliged to believe in my claim....and I dont want to go into some lengthy extrapolation debate proving the Quran's Divinity ( It is easy to do but very time consuming) . Thus the Quran is very much in favor of the contiinuum model.

can Prophets be G-d s and vice versa.....all across the world .Sure , Why not? the character known as Khidr is an Islamic Prophet.....however, he is the angel..known as Metatron/Melchizekek in Jewish Qabbalah....He is also known to be saint in some branches of Christianity....Satan is an angel in Christianity...yet he is Djinn in Islam....However, the claim that a Prophet can be a god a far land away...is perfectly reasonable considering the fact that each new 'authenctic" Religion is a restoration of all the Preceding religions rather than the Unsubstantiative claim that it is a shared human collective unconscius that accounts for similarities.


It cant be supported in entirety that Osiris or even Hermes are based on Enoch but it is a logical deduction...(to some extent)....Indeed, The Egyptian Culture is far older than the Hebrew culture....and far more predisposed to be corrupted due to age alone....and it might very well be that those "Egyptian gods" were just great men/Prophets sent to Egypt that were deified after their death..and then the Hebrew culture "restored" (not borrowed.....authentic religions dont "borrow") the true character of these mythos.

Paul2

Look, all that you're saying means NOTHING, unless you can prove the Quran's divinity. You say it's easy, so do it. Until then, your mearly asserting your opinion without any base. Also, mind touching on Hinduwoman's points? Even so, just because some stories are shared between religions it can be dismissed as culture sharing. I hardly see how that reaffirms your belief in islam. but whatever.

River

I will explore Quran's Divinity in a much later thread. I am currently busy with medical school....

Sarpedon

Now I see. He is going by the "eternally created" religion model. That Islam is and ever was the only true religion, and that all other religions were merely corruptions, and Muhammed purified the religion again through his destroying of the idols. This is a very orthodox view in islam. In fact, it is the view that that fellow in pakistan was condemned to death for contradicting, this was last year or so, II had a feature on it. Also, he rejects borrowing, and dismisses hinduism as not an "authentic" religion. All is corruption if it differs from islam, and he must engage in these acrobatics to prove that the religious figures of one religion are somehow the corruption of "legitamate" islamic characters.

I challenge you, River. Tell me how the gods and heros of native american religions are derived from islamic persons. When would this have occurred? Since you are armed with the Ultimate Truth, in the form of that rambling and schizophrenic tome called the Qu'ran, this should not be a challenge to you. Who is Quetzalcoatl really? How do you explain "Blood-clot boy?" Is Tohil a prophet or a demon? I find that religious people ignore anything that can't be fit into the context of their ancient book of myths. Therefore, any religion that does not resemble islam is "not authentic" and any religion that islam was formulated from becomes "corrupted by bidaa, but authentic". Anything completely outside the scope of your understanding simply doesn't exist.

And no, I don't believe in that Jungian nonsense about human collective subconcious. Cultures originated their differing religions in isolation, and as they grew to interact with one another, borrowing, recombination, and fusion occurred. That is the naturalistic explaination. It is the most simple explaination. We have seen it happen in recorded history. There are a myriad of examples of religious groups borrowing from one another, yet you claim that authentic religions "never borrow." How do you explain Sufism? It is a form of islam, no? but it borrowed from Hindu mysticism. Sikhism is a fusion of islam and hinduism. Islam is a fusion of Zoroastrianism and judaism. Christianity is a fusion of judaism and mithraism. and so forth and so forth. There is no such thing as an "authentic" religion, they all are plagiarized.

I repeat Paul2's challenge: Prove that the Qu'ran is divine. Otherwise, you are wasting our time.

River

-Sarpedon

You are right on my belief in an "eternally created" religion model...but you are wrong on my outlook. I believe myself to be inspired by Sufi Islam. Sufi Islam is believed by Sufis to originate from the time of Muhammd ( some say Ibrahim, who in many ways lived a parallel life to Muhammad). Sufi Islam is the heart of Islam. It is focused on Ihsan "or doing what is beautiful" . The 3 dimensions of Islam are ihsan, imaan and islam. They are somewhat syncretic in practice because they believe in the "eternally created " religion model. They also concentrate on Dhikr "remembrance" a factor of the Quran. Sufi Islam does not come from Hindu mysticism.....When they traveled to India they noticed that many of the gods had names like "Creator, Sustainer, Destroyer...and so on. The Quran gives Allah atleast 99 names or Absolute Attributes....so the Sufis of India felt that the names of the Hindu gods were really just that ...names...and felt that they were reflections of god ( and the actuall idol was not worshipped). In modern times New-Age Sufis ( Pseudo-Sufis) seem somewhat divorced from their Islamic roots. And many westerners try their best to separate Sufism from Islam ...and that is because they don't want Islam to be associated with Beauty.

Sikhs have a Scipture called "Holy Guru Granth Sahib". It is not a Revelation in the sense that it was not "revealed". Any Sikh scholar will confirm this . The Scripture is a compilation of writings from Islamic Sufis and Hindu Sages. Guru Nanak was himself a Muslim and was troubled by the fighting between Muslims/Hindus and presented his reconciling philosophy. He never imagined that a "4rth Religion" would come out of his philosophy. But after he died his followers tried their best to distinguish themselves and ended up adopting many separate rituals. Sikhs are Post-Islamic Muslims similar to Ahmadiyya and Bahaais.

It would be an oversimplification to say that Islam is the product of Judaism/Zoroastrianism......the Quran has characters like Mary, Zacharia, John the Baptist and Jesus......it also has some characters like Dhul-Qurnain, Luqman, Salih, and Dhul'kifl. And it would be an oversimplification to say that Christianity is the product of Mithraism and Judaism...for there were many Christianitys...The Tibetan Text called Aramaic Matthew/ Gospel of Holy Twelve reveals that Christ was a traveler and went to many lands during his teenage years..He traveled to Persia, Syria, India and Tibet. When he traveled to India he was repelled by the idol worship and traveled back to Jerusalem. In Kashmir there is a legend of a character called Issa Assaf ( Jesus of Joseph) so there is a variant of Hindu Christianity. Christian Gnosticism incorporates many eastern philosophies comparable to Buddhism...and Christ is believed by some to practice a Zen/Vegetarian life style. He also met many Magis/ Zoroastrianists in his lifetime who might have incorporated their creed with his. Thus there were many Chrisitianities....the Composite faith of Jesus and James is Islam. The composite faith of Jesus and Paul is "modern Christianity".

As for the Native American Heros...Anthropologists now believe that the Native Americans came to America in many waves [A,B,C]...and their skeletons vary...some have Asiatic features others had Caucasoid features. They practiced monotheism for the most part and thus, christians had a hard time converting them. Their Algonkian language family is believed to be derived from Arabic....and there are numerous Arabic words employed such as Mohawk/ Taalahasee. The words Medina/Mecca are found in many places in American road maps. About 20% of Native Americans were Muslim before they were forcibly converted...The first thing Columbus saw on American soil was a Mosque and he thought they were "mohammadens". Just last year 300 Mayan evangelical Christians converted to Islam because they recognized it as their ancestral religion. And Hopi prophecy states that Islam will become the Predominant religion. Also a few years back 1,000 Australian Aborigines converted to Islam... Well anyways if Native American heros preceded Muhammad than they were Prophets ...if they came after him they were Saints. Tohil is a Muslim name...Quetzalcoatl is based on the Prehistoric creatures known as Quetzalcoatlus/Pterandon...There has been some sightings of Prehistoric "birds" in western U.S and some parts of Arabia. And many cave paintings by Native Americans clearly show "extinct" creatures....well anyways that another field called Cryptozoology..

P.S: You got me on "blood clot boy" I do not know him.

avalanche:ix

could you possibly be more annoyingly gullible river?

ju'iblex

its my sincere opinion, that *any* point emphasised by that amount of exclamation marks *must* be true.

Bill Snedden

BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA HAHHAHHAHHAHHAHAHAH!!!

I spit coca-cola all over my computer!!!

Man, you need your own special on Comedy Central. That's just about the most hilarious load of crap that I've ever read! You are truly gifted!

Either that, or...well...

Babylon Sister

I've studied archeology and anthropology for more than 30 years. I even have an MS in the field and I have never, I repeat never, heard of such a bunch of bushwah in my life. Where do you people get this stuff?

Lay off the hard stuff boy, people are beginning to stare.

-RRH-

River, you seem to be quite willing to believe that religions constantly borrow from one another. You even critiqued the tendency to view religions as clearly-delineated groups. I've personally met Christians who believe in reincarnation, Catholics who don't trust the pope, Muslims who are also practicing Wiccans, and people who have managed to combine Buddhism with Satanism, so I can see that categorizing everyone would not be an easy job.

But to acknowledge the complexity of that, and then do an about-face and try to boil the whole mess down to "all religions are modifications of Islam" doesn't look to me like a trustworthy approach.

How can you be so certain, that with every religion mixing it up with every other religion, that Islam has somehow remained pure and untouched, and that Islam has never borrowed anything from other religions?

Now, I've noticed you arguing that newer religions are less corrupted by virtue of having less time to change. That approach seems to assume a very discrete religious model, which I thought you yourself had dismissed.

Take Mormonism for example. Should we assume that it is closer to the truth than Christianity, because Mormonism is newer, and thus less corrupt? Or do we accept that since Christianity was already established where Mormonism arose, that Mormonism borrowed from Christianity? And do we consider Mormonism a sub-set of Christianity, or a religion in it's own right? (Even old religions aren't always easy to categorize. Some argue over whether or not Buddhism can be seen as a sub-set of Hinduism.)


Likewise, Hindu "prophecies" about Muhammad are pretty likely post-Muhammad additions. Besides, they seem to describe Muslims rather unflatteringly. Wouldn't you rather that it is Hindu anti-Muslim propaganda than an accurate prophecy?