pouët.net

Sim, the basic question of all who belive in God. What do God expect from us, what are the rules?. I couldnt tell you, but i can tell you what i think God expects. But it will get you no closer to "the real" answer than you allready are i reckon.

Interresting...6th generation civilication.

Dead sea srolls arent all that, but they sure put christianity as we know it in a tight spot at some places. That be...if theyr real?! i mean...as old as claimed to be. :)

Psonice...excaclty how i feel about it too...thought provoking. And that is good thing :)

Well, my thoughts on the 6th civilisation thing...

Long ago, there were few people, countries were generally small, travel was hard. People knew little about earthquakes, volcanoes, disease... So it was easy for cities or even countries to be destroyed. There was also war, civilisations collapsed etc.

If you consider that most of the technologies, ideas etc. came from small parts of the world, how many of them came from places where there was a disaster or war or whatever, and the knowledge was lost, then it makes sense that a lot of stuff has been lost in the ancient past. There are tons of examples, like all the myths of atlantis, sunken cities off the coast of india, what happened ot pompei etc.

So it seems that civilisation generally moves forwards, and sometimes takes a big step backwards. Perhaps the 6 previous civilisations are just where we were up to before a backwards step.

iblis: yeah, the Qur'an is indeed a very interesting book. (shame to psonice he didn't know qur'an was meant by iblis..!! :-)
I discussed with a muslim for about half a year almost every lunchtime about that all.. :-)
He told me lot of things, the word "day" appearing 365 times in the Qur'an, etc.. they have very good scientists. And the transmission of the Qur'an seems to be very good (iblis: could you give us some facts.. I heard from my friend that there exists a first or second copy of it..)
I have no doubt in the fact, that the qur'an wasn't written by a man, I mean there certainly must be a supernatural being that told mohammed all this things.
But (ok, I am christian, I don't let it be at that point.. :-)), there are lot of books also written today that seem to come from supernatural sources (I didn't read books on that, I discuss with my father, he read "Gespräche mit Gott", etc..), the question is, if it is really from God or not..

Ok, I know it is proviking (I don't mean to attack anyone.. eeh.. iblis): satan knew as well, that there was a big bang if there were one.. I mean all the truths we are just about to explore now (hopefully), these are all known facts for the supernatural beings... the big question is the source of these manuscripts.

psonice: oh.. interesting thoughts..! the civilsations taking forward or backward steps.. by what can someone judge that? I often wonder if we nowadays take a forward or a backward steps. I mostly end up with the backward one. I mean, today, science means a LOT, for me it's like the whole world looks on science, we here discuss a lot about science.

Did someone read or hear why the greek "age of science" ended about 2000 years ago? I mean why didn't the people spend lot of time and energy in science in the midages? It seems like the science had a hole for about 1500 years? (dunno if this was bad or not?)
I doubt if it is in combination of war, since war often boosts science (make good weapons) and the greeks weren't really a peaceful nation, at least not under alexander the great..

Phred: If i remember right, the greeks had a system where slaves did all teh work, and the men sat around doing science or art or planning wars. Well, the slaves weren't too happy about that, and neither were their neighbours (it was the athenians if i remember right, while the neighbouring spartans concentrated purely on war, and had laws on compulsory homosexuality). I think they had too many wars and revolts in the end and the system crashed.

And forward/backwards steps... well, there are too many small elements to give an overall judgement. Also, many things depend on your point of view. Eg. moral freedom... we have more freedom now about what we do in our lives (like sex, relationships, taking drugs etc). Is that good or bad?

Now that's quite an interesting discussion. We don't use to have such discussions in Pouet. More times I had found discussions about religion or politics in pcmaster (a greek computer magazine) forum for example even if these were sometimes immature. But this here is,.. well I actually can't grab it, yesterday I read the threads at home and wanted to reply to some but today I see that I have to read much more,. but it surelly is very interesting to me :)

optimus: you have to try harder to keep up. I can see this thread being the longest ever ;)

Phred. absolutely no offend taken :)
I struggle with the same question every day. The...who could have known ??!..;)

But I find it hard to belive that Satan "misguide" people to Turn to God and praise God and NOBODY but God....I mean, doesnt that pretty much defy the purpose he have here on earth?.
I cant belive Satan would lead me into a path that is :
1.Good for my body (healthy lifestyle)
2.Good for my mind (5 times meditation a day, if you look at it, that way)
3.Good for my suroundings (i will die to protect those near me, at all times, nomatter their faith)
4.Makes me want to do good.
5.Makes me want to care for others. (well actually directly orders me to the 4 and 5)
And finally remove my fear of death...in fact...i cant wait.
Theres a lot more, but i simply dont understand why satan, would lead me on a path like this. when i know for a fact, that in all relegions he represent the opposite behaviour.

You see to us, it is not important if you belive God is a red saussage or that Moses(saw) was a red heaired dwarf from greyhawk. As long as you respect them both...(mind you, i think no such thing) ...it will be your actions, rather than your belief, that will get you to hell or heaven.

About the 1st copy of the Quraan. it was written down on leather, bones, shells, whatever they could find to write on. All verses came with a number in the context it was supposed to fit in. So i can surely promise you that it does not exist anymore. But there is however some pretty early ones. There is one in egypt, and one in turkey, that is known as the "oldest" avaible. But if they are number 1 2 3 or 500 i dont know for sure. :)

And yes the science in the Quraan is even by todays standards, pretty amazing. But were told that it is not the important proof. The important proof is The Quraan itself, and the lifestyle of Mohammad(Saw) that were the living proof that man CAN live without commiting serious sins. We dont need anyone to atone them for us...we make the errors, we correct the errors. Fair and square. In the end God is the one that has to forgive us anyway, innit? :)

Does killing people (even by proxy) count as commiting serious sins? Didn't the prophet wage war while he lived?

Wasn't a jewish tribe (Banu Qurayza?) slaughtered by muhammad's forces?

(Honest, those aren't rhetorical questions. I'm not versed enough in those matters to judge the respective reliability of each source)

Yes indeed he did :)
But unlike Christians were not told to turn the other cheek ;)

We WILL defend ourselfes, and we will persue our enemies all the way back into their country, cities, houses. And if they cant join us in and by peace, we will kill them! Just remember...we are NEVER the agressors, but we react fiercely against them. And so did Mohammad (saws)

I thought muslims respected the bible, and thus the ten commandments..

We do respect everybodys "books" But we only agree to that of the old testament and the gospel.

here is two quotes from the bible to put this in perspective.

" When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer
it terms of peace. And it shall come about, if it agrees to
make peace with you and opens to you, then it shall be that
all the people who are found in it shall become your forced
labour and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace
with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege
it. When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall
strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the
women and the children and the animals and all that is in the
city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and
you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your
God has given you. ...Deut. 20:10-14 "

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill
every woman who has known man intimately, but all the girls
who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.
...Numbers 31:17-18 "

Belive it or not, but were nicer than this. We dont force enemys that join us in peace to be our slaves. (slaves arent legal to muslims). And we're not told to rape the virgins of our enemy's, or take them as our wifes.

It is a generel misconception that islam is a warmonger relegion. It is very little different from Chrtistianity as the Bible teaches it. But then again. Christianity is A LOT different from what the bible teaches. It is like the Old testament is no longer valid to a lot of christians.

So yes....were not allowed to kill, but were not allowed to be killed either, not if we have the choice of selfdefence. And if people continue to be agressive towareds, we will kill them to protect ourselfes. Again...mind you, that we prefer peace and living together rather than fighting and making enemies.

When you wage a war of expansion it's easy to find people who are going to be aggressive towards you.

Muslims expanded when aggressed upon. As i said, we will hunt them back to their land and give them a choice of peace or death. Some choose the latter. That is how Islam expanded. we were attacked, kicked ass, and if they chose death, we took over the land (we might aswell, innit?).
You see, a muslim dont go to war to expand, as the land is not ours but Gods. Some "muslims" have done so, but that instantly remove the "muslim" title from them, because a muslim is someone who is 100% submitted to God, And you arent that, if you disobay direct orders, like..."the land is Gods, do not fight over it or you will pay a cruel penalty."

So what excactly you mean by what you said, stands a mystery to me.

It seems obvious to me that if islam wasnt' expansionist, you would be
quayishi and/or would live in medina.

Didn't the prophet himself actively seek expansion out of his own
tribe? Didn't he use persuasion, and when it didn't work, force to
achieve this goal? Of course, the standard reply is that islam was very
small and menaced by "aggressors" .. But "too small" is another
synonim for "not big enough".

Didn't islam expand by force both on the west on the west (north of
maghreb, spain) and on the east? (india)

OK Here is why god not exist in a world like our world.

I was small and younger than now and I humpelled a wall. When I was humpelling so smart I found the wall was ending soon so I become slowler! Be for I stopped I was on a long fall down and between the midst of falling I was praying and crying and wanted helo but nobody come to me to help from falling. I landed on the floor next some grass cache. My leg was blooding and i crying alot and no GOD is there to help from blooding in the whole grass. Some of me skin has sticked to the wall. This is why god not exist.

oh you mean when the inquesation and the crusades attacked "those bad muslims" on 2 accounts and had their ass handed to them? yes indeed. What i said stands. If anything, the relegion has been carried by the word of mouth, and that is how i got in contact with it. To be precise, it took 1400 years of travel to reach my ears. Not excactly an exploding expansion rate is it?
At the time of the prophet, they could easily have taken over most of the world due to superiourness of their society, and their tehcnology (historical fact, and this is what put Mohammad(saws) on the list of the 100 most important people in history). But they didnt. because it was against the basic idea behind it all.

I will be happy to go into a history debate with you, but then start by getting you shit straight. anything else would be concidered rude, and a waste of time. It is not good enough that you have read a few headlines, but not the actual story behind.

Heres a hint...You cannot force people to believe, but you can scare them enough to tell you they do. But if that was the case, like you insinuate, Islam would have died back then with the prophet.

hiroyoshi...so you expect God to be a nanny that protects you from yourself?

God is a crash helmet ;)

Btw, whats 'humpelling a wall'?

LOL ...yeah among other things apperently wanted by the crowd.

Iblis, I don't think the inquisition had *anything* to do with that
whole affair. As for crusades:

1. The first crusade happened around 1095

2. The emir Abd al-Rahman, leading the spanish muslims had to be
defeated by charles martel in france in 732. The moors invaded spain
earlier in 711 by force (from morocco).

You conveniently ignored the push on the east. Crusades didn't have
anything to do with islams' push in india through conquer.

And, while 'true' conversion doesn't occur by force, any intelligent
(believing or not) parent under a powerful rule, will try to make their
offspring succeed by giving them the appropriate education. It is a long
process, and I suspect was especially true during the medieval period,
as Islam had a more enlightened view on science and arts.

This will be my last post on that topic. If you want to deny that
military victories, invasion weren't critical in the success of islam,
you're free to do so. It just doesn't stand the bits of knowledge I
have.

Such is not necessarly specific to this religion.. I am
feeling very uneasy with the aggressivity of most brutally expansionist
religions ... It's always believers against non-believers. If the truth
of the dogma a religion was all that clear and universal, why would
there be a need for convincing? My cynical mind can't help but think
that prophets often fight more to adapt reality to their prophecies,
than the contrary. (Again, that's just a feeling)

we have fought both. Refer to saladin, and abrachman.
And as i have said allready. DO not mix muslims with people who call themself muslims, yet disobey God. That is what makes the whole difference to me.

I do not hold the crusades against the christians, because they all know, that what they did, was not very christian at all. SO the crusades werent relegion, but greed driven. And relegion is always a nice hat to put on you wars to make them "the good cause" But the leaders back then were no different from the ones we have today, and were all basically about getting more than you had.

but to get back to the point.. Muslim invaders began entering India in the early 8th (712 to be precise)century, on the orders of Hajjaj, the governor of what is now Iraq, due to the fact that India had send out hitmen to try and prye hajjaj of his power. Iraq was back then a flourishing society, that excelled in science and art, as you said. The retaliation was to be one of the most brutal in the history of Islam. But the nature of india's attack let it be no other way. It wasnt a decleration of war, it was a sneaky, snake like approach from india.

you can read about the other side of the story in :"The sword of the prophet by Dr. Serge Trifkovic. It is not supported by many historians, but it is interresting never the less..

2. Yes but they were forced out from their rightious homes in spain first. And need i remind you that they had a strong diplomatic bond with the christians in the country and that half this "islamic invading force" was infact christians?! This hat shit to do with relegion, and was all about land possession, and everybody, jews, muslims, christians and others, wanted a pice of the pie. The funny thing is why it was islam that took over as belief, because everybody had different beliefs to begin with, but the same rights.

blame the people, not the relegion!

Ponyice It is like fence jumping but doing it directely above a wall in the straigt ahead direction.

Iblis I learn in school God is always their when anything happens. He may not be a nanny, but a friend or a parent of a kind.

hiroyoshi:

You dont belive in God because God didnt come out of the blue and catch you in the fall? hmm.,... =/