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Islam; Who's in charge? (Read 30924 times)
mozzaok
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #15 - Jun 1st, 2008 at 11:56pm
 
Misguided attempts at tolerance and political correctness do not overly impress me FD and Helian.
If you are saying we should try and respect individuals, and their beliefs, I would agree, up to the point where their desired freedoms encroach on mine.
I have never disguised my disgust and revulsion for all religious belief systems. I do not like them, simple.
I do not care if others like them, except where that impinges on my rights.
Like teaching Religion in state schools, that sucks, as the kids of atheists like myself, who would never allow their kids to be exposed to the propaganda of christian absurdity from the age of 4 years old.

The result, the kids who do not go to religious classes are made to feel ostracised,  with talk of going to hell, etc.
So many who are agnostic, or ambivalent are happier to just go with the flow, and let their kids be taught this rubbish.

Now to your silly, and erroneous point that christianity does not have a strict hierarchy.
Catholicism, the biggest and oldest? I don't need to expand, you know, but in your pathetic attempt to appear even handed you choose to ignore it.
C of E? Similiar hierarchy to the catholics, but with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the big poobah.

Now your wacky evangelical lot, well personally I rate them as loony as the muslims, except their aim is to strip the money from the pockets of their deluded followers.
So, mainstream christianity has a strong and visible hierarchy, what equivalent to that is their in Islam?
None,so quit you bulltish, I am not attacking muslims, but I will not be coerced into pretending Islam is anything but an outdated medieval system of control, which is creating huge negative impact in our modern world.
They need an upgrade.
You remember the Vatican councils? They dragged the church kicking and screaming into a semblance of modernity, who is going to do that for Islam?
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #16 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:24am
 
mozzaok wrote on Jun 1st, 2008 at 11:56pm:
Misguided attempts at tolerance and political correctness do not overly impress me FD and Helian.
If you are saying we should try and respect individuals, and their beliefs, I would agree, up to the point where their desired freedoms encroach on mine.
I have never disguised my disgust and revulsion for all religious belief systems. I do not like them, simple.
I do not care if others like them, except where that impinges on my rights.
Like teaching Religion in state schools, that sucks, as the kids of atheists like myself, who would never allow their kids to be exposed to the propaganda of christian absurdity from the age of 4 years old.

The result, the kids who do not go to religious classes are made to feel ostracised,  with talk of going to hell, etc.
So many who are agnostic, or ambivalent are happier to just go with the flow, and let their kids be taught this rubbish.

Now to your silly, and erroneous point that christianity does not have a strict hierarchy.
Catholicism, the biggest and oldest? I don't need to expand, you know, but in your pathetic attempt to appear even handed you choose to ignore it.
C of E? Similiar hierarchy to the catholics, but with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the big poobah.

Now your wacky evangelical lot, well personally I rate them as loony as the muslims, except their aim is to strip the money from the pockets of their deluded followers.
So, mainstream christianity has a strong and visible hierarchy, what equivalent to that is their in Islam?
None,so quit you bulltish, I am not attacking muslims, but I will not be coerced into pretending Islam is anything but an outdated medieval system of control, which is creating huge negative impact in our modern world.
They need an upgrade.
You remember the Vatican councils? They dragged the church kicking and screaming into a semblance of modernity, who is going to do that for Islam?


Your question was ‘who is in charge of Islam’ Islam in NOT monolithic. That is a naďve understanding of the religion. Each branch of Islam has its leaders (but I will let Muslims speak for Islam).

I do know that there is a move to restore the Caliphate but you wouldn’t like that because that is the aim of Islamist groups including al Qaeda.

Christianity does not speak with one voice, so no one is 'in charge' of Christianity.

Of the three main branches (Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism) only Catholicism has a singular voice. The modern varieties of Christian denominations (the Pentecostals etc) all have their own leaders. They all greatly differ on the practice of Christianity and historically this has led to ugly protracted wars. Today there is no agreement even on the legitimacy of some leaders. Many modern Christian movements see the Pope as the anti-Christ. The Catholic Church recognises only the Pope as the voice of Christendom.

The second Vatican Council dragged the Catholic Church into a semblance of modernity not Christianity. It was in part the result of Pope John XXIII’s horror at the Nazi atrocities against the Jews. He correctly realised that the Catholic Church had encouraged anti-semitism and so was in part responsible. The first Vatican council declared the Pope infallible on matters of faith (which in effect meant there was no need for another council).


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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #17 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:36am
 
mozzaok wrote on Jun 1st, 2008 at 7:58pm:
Thanks again Malik.
Your posts regarding the stoning of men was interesting, and I had not seen them reported.
The fact is that in both cases it was couples, whose crime was to fall in love, and to try and escape from a barbaric and primitive, medieval system which sought to torture them to death for this crime, which would be accepted as mundane, if unfortunate, in any other culture but that of Islam.
To see that they are killed in such a brutal way, for what is not really a crime in the mind of any, but the most extreme religious fanatics, only goes to highlight the cultural divide that lays between Islam, and the rest of the world.

Mozzaok,

Thank you for your reply. I understand that you may not have seen these before. But as mentioned, the law applies equally to both men and women.

The death penalty applied to adultery is NOT for two people falling in love as you say and it really is quite ignorant to portray it like that. It is for not only breaking the sanctity of marriage of which there could be no worse crime, but also for having the audacity of outwardly doing it in public where at least four witnesses could witness it. It is for arrogantly spreading fitnah (tribulation) to the extent of selfishly imposing their perversion onto society instead of keeping their sins to themselves.

I must stress here that in Islam it is not forbidden to get a divorce if you are not happy in your marriage at all, but such a huge betrayal like cheating on the person you are married to is perhaps the worst crime one can commit, breaking a person's heart like that and destroying ones family is considered so serious that not only does it carry the death penalty if proven with the testimony of 4 witnesses, but it carries a punishment of death by stoning because of the harm it does to their spouse, family and society in general. In Islam we consider the family unit as perhaps the most important thing worth protecting and hold family values as incredibly important.

mozzaok wrote on Jun 1st, 2008 at 7:58pm:
The parenthisised qualifications you used to try and make the Islamic practice of wife beating seem less barbaric and backward than it is does not really bear any resemblance to the realities of what actually occurs.
I hardly think an enraged husband, who thinks of his wife as his inferior, and his possession, is going to ask her to pass the feather while he gives her a sound thrashing with it.
What you are offering up is in fact merely apologetic, and inaccurate justification of something which, either you know in your heart to be wrong, or you know to be so abhorrent to the general population that you seek to disguise your true beliefs.


You see that is the problem, you actually fail to understand the intention and context behind such a 'beating' and instead look to the examples that you see from your experiences. Although it is hard to blame you for that I must stress that in Islam it is certainly forbidden to beat women in a way that you are trying to portray.

In Islam, we believe that one should not act on emotion and when they are enraged as you have mentioned, in fact the prophet Muhammad pbuh said that if you are angry and standing, sit down and contemplate, if you are sitting and still angry, lie down and sleep so you can clear your mind. This is profoundly important in Islam as we are taught that to act on our emotions is a sign of weakness and that patience and clear thinking is the key to success in this life and the next.

I must also remind you that in Islam we do not hold women as inferior to men, in fact many examples can be seen where we hold women to be far more important to men. One such example can be seen when a man approached the prophet Muhammad pbuh and asked the prophet who, after God and His messenger, who he should listen to and obey the most and the prophet pbuh replied "Your mother" then man then asked again, who after his mother and the prophet pbuh replied "Your mother again" and the man asked a third time, who should he then listen to and the prophet again replied "Your mother again". The man then asked, after that who he should listen to and obey and the prophet pbuh then replied, "after that then you can listen to and obey your father".

In addition to that the prophet Muhammad pbuh is also known to have said "Paradise lies at the foot of one's mother" and to bring the point home to you further he also stated that the best of men is those who are the best to their wives and treat them with love and kindness and he exclaimed that your spouse is the second half of your faith in God.

I am not apologizing for or watering down my religion to make it seem more acceptable to you, I have the utmost faith in Islam and chose it willingly at an age where I could reason. I do not fear being completely honest and believe that I have indeed been honest to you and have not provided you with any inaccurate pieces of information.

In addition to that I must also stress that out of all of who convert to Islam in the USA every year, about 80% of those are women. They are not forced to convert and do so out of their own free will, if Islam was as bad as you portray, women would be below 50% of the converts, not at 80%.

I must also remind you that statistically one out of every 5 women in Australia suffers domestic violence, so perhaps people in glass houses should not throw stones?
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #18 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 1:02am
 
To the original question, or rather the point of it, who is going to drag Islam into the reality of a modern world.
What we see is a barbaric, medieval religion, transposed into the 21st century, with no frame of refernce.

They use the internet as the new town square, to display their beheadings and spread their messages of hate, but there is no big poobah to say, settle down boys, we are working from a book written nearly 1400 years ago, things may have changed a little, maybe we should try and get with the times?
1400 years ago, it was a world where daily violence was pretty much a fact of life, as reflected by mohammed's attitudes.
As far as I know they did not have women's lib back then either, and just about everyone beat their wives.

The trouble is the rest of us have moved on, evolved if you like, but Islam is stuck back in the first millenium.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #19 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 7:35am
 
mozzaok wrote on Jun 2nd, 2008 at 1:02am:
To the original question, or rather the point of it, who is going to drag Islam into the reality of a modern world.
What we see is a barbaric, medieval religion, transposed into the 21st century, with no frame of refernce.

They use the internet as the new town square, to display their beheadings and spread their messages of hate, but there is no big poobah to say, settle down boys, we are working from a book written nearly 1400 years ago, things may have changed a little, maybe we should try and get with the times?
1400 years ago, it was a world where daily violence was pretty much a fact of life, as reflected by mohammed's attitudes.
As far as I know they did not have women's lib back then either, and just about everyone beat their wives.

The trouble is the rest of us have moved on, evolved if you like, but Islam is stuck back in the first millenium.


As far as you know? Obviously you don't know anything really then don't you mate?

As I have already mentioned, Islam was a movement which brought rights to women who had a status of basically being objects and slaves. Islam WAS and still is the perfect form of women's liberation.

In Pre Islamic Arabia Female infanticide was prominent and fathers would bury their daughters alive in fear that if they should grow up, they perhaps may be captured in an inter tribal war and "disgrace" the tribe.

Women could not inherit wealth, vote, divorce, choose their husbands, they had no right to education, no right to be free from molestation from men on the street, no right to have a political voice etc, to be treated like equals with dignity and respect. A dowry was paid to the brides father which in a sense was payment for the bride.

Islam changed all of that, female infanticide was forbidden, women gained the right to inherit wealth, the right to vote, to divorce, to choose their husbands, the prophet Muhammad pbuh encouraged women to be educated, even if it meant that men could not be educated as preference was given to women. Women were to be treated with dignity and respect with no molestation from men, they were given equal rights and also gained a political voice. They were granted the inalienable right to be protected, provided for and loved. The dowry was then also given to the women, and not their fathers for the women to keep as a gift, not a payment to her father.

In Islam we even go as far as to say, that even if a woman has a job which pays 10 times more than her husbands does, the husband still cannot ask for or touch her wealth but instead has to provide a living for her and sustain her and her wealth is her own and she is granted the right to spend her money as she pleases. Compare that with the Christian West where up until recently, all of a woman's wealth was transferred to her husband's ownership when they got married.

Islam was the women's rights movement to come to the Arabs and women were given rights of which some were not equalled by the Christian West until the 20th century.

Women in the Christian West did not start getting educated until the 19th century and certainly not given the preference for education like in the Muslim world even until now, now it is only an equal right to have an education. Women were not given the right to vote until the 20th century, women had to pay a dowry to their husbands. There certainly was NO law against beating one's wife in the Christian West until the 20th century either, it was not looked down upon and it was a man's own business if he severely battered his wife and not anyone else could tell him how to run his household.

Beating one's wife like that was forbidden more than 1400 years ago for Muslims yet still was not criminalized in the Christian West up until only within the last 100 years. I will also add that it still continues today with statistics in the Christian West showing that in the Christian West, an average of about 22% of women go through domestic violence.

So please don't come and tell me about the status of women in Islam as being bad when history can attest that in reality, the Christian West is the one that has been incredibly barbaric and primitive in it's reluctance to give women equal rights and treat them with fairness, dignity and respect. You have taken far longer (up to 1300 years in fact) to evolve to a level that is anywhere near your Muslim counterparts in regards to women's rights being granted.

This explains clearly why 4 out of 5 of every person who converts to Islam in the US is a woman.



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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #20 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 10:52am
 
malik - that is not what the quotes i gave from the koran say.

they say beat the woman if she is disobedient and a woman is worth 1/2 a man.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #21 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 11:14am
 
The result, the kids who do not go to religious classes are made to feel ostracised,  with talk of going to hell, etc.

That does not infringe on your rights.

Now to your silly, and erroneous point that christianity does not have a strict hierarchy.

It doesn't have any heirachy at all. Just like Islam.

Catholicism, the biggest and oldest?

So what? Catholicism is not Christianity.

C of E? Similiar hierarchy to the catholics, but with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the big poobah.

Every religious group has a leader if you break it down into small enough factions. The position of pope and of Archbishop of Canterbury have no biblical mandate. People are just as free under Christianity as they are under Islam to set up their own little group and preach whatever they want. There is no rigorous method to denouce such factions, just as there aren't in Islam. The pope has been denouncing the church of england for centuries. It achieved nothing, exactly because he has no biblical mandate to support such a denouncment. People could make the exact same argument about Christianity and point to the leaders of the factions of Islam, and pretend, through ignorance that the Catholic church, COE, Russian orthodox etc do not exist. That is what you are doing to Islam.

So, mainstream christianity has a strong and visible hierarchy

No it doesn't. It has a fractured leadership, as you just pointed out. Try counting the number of Christian groups that don't belong to the Catholic church or the COE, then get back to us.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #22 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 11:49am
 
freediver wrote on Jun 2nd, 2008 at 11:14am:
C of E? Similiar hierarchy to the catholics, but with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the big poobah.

Every religious group has a leader if you break it down into small enough factions. The position of pope and of Archbishop of Canterbury have no biblical mandate. People are just as free under Christianity as they are under Islam to set up their own little group and preach whatever they want. There is no rigorous method to denouce such factions, just as there aren't in Islam. The pope has been denouncing the church of england for centuries. It achieved nothing, exactly because he has no biblical mandate to support such a denouncment. People could make the exact same argument about Christianity and point to the leaders of the factions of Islam, and pretend, through ignorance that the Catholic church, COE, Russian orthodox etc do not exist. That is what you are doing to Islam.


Just one slight correction to the above. The Catholic Church does in fact claim that the Pope (as the Bishop of Rome) has primacy over all of Christendom as the successor to Peter and the church cites two passages from the new testament in support of that claim.

Matthew 16:17-19

Quote:
17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

19And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

and John 21:15-17

Quote:
15So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

16He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

17He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #23 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 11:56am
 
Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my sheep? I don't see anything in there about the pope. I don't see anything about selecting a single person to rule the church. Maybe Peter could claim a special connection, but that's about it.

In fact, in terms of having a leader, Islam does a far better job than Christianity, in that Mohammed had a political eladership role. This is ahrdly a good thing. It is naive to expect a spiritual elader to achieve the change you want. They are just as likely to do the opposite.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #24 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:04pm
 
Hi helian - that quote is interesting. I have always seen it another way.


"Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Matthew 16: 16 - 18


My thinking was the rock jesus was referring to was the knowledge the Jesus is Christ, the son of the living God.
His church was not built on Peter.
It has nothing to do with Peter, it has to do with that knowledge.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #25 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:19pm
 
Sprintcyclist wrote on Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:04pm:
Hi helian - that quote is interesting. I have always seen it another way.


"Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Matthew 16: 16 - 18


My thinking was the rock jesus was referring to was the knowledge the Jesus is Christ, the son of the living God.
His church was not built on Peter.
It has nothing to do with Peter, it has to do with that knowledge.


You are forgetting that Peter (as Simon was renamed) is Petrus (Latin for Rock) so it is most definitely Simon (henceforth known as the Rock) to whom Jesus is referring.

In verse 19 (And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.) Jesus goes further and gives 'The Rock' power to bind and loose on earth and declares that Peter's decrees will be honoured in Heaven.




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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #26 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:28pm
 
So what does this have to do with the Archbishop of Cantebury?
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #27 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:48pm
 
freediver wrote on Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:28pm:
So what does this have to do with the Archbishop of Cantebury?


Nothing. The Archbishop of Canterbury was once the Catholic Primate of England. His Primacy in the UK is not recognised by the Catholic Church.

Also it is not universally accepted that Peter had primacy over the other apostles. The Orthodox Churches have always disputed the claim that the bishop of Rome has a primal role, even if they accept that he was first among equals. That is one of the great disputes that prevents the Schism of Orthodoxy from Catholicism from being resolved.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #28 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 1:02pm
 
It's a bit of a stretch to go from Peter to the Pope. It hardly gives greater legitimacy to a universal Christian leader than to an Islamic one.
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Re: Islam; Who's in charge?
Reply #29 - Jun 2nd, 2008 at 1:10pm
 
Hi Helian, yes I was aware peter meant rock.

Thanks for repeating the rest of that verse, I should have included it. It is significant. very interesting.
A few verses later on he also says
"Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

hey, what has this got to do with islam ?????
Who cares.
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