And that is not considered following the same logic. Look at the time discrepancy between Jesus' death and when the New Testament was compiled and Muhammad's death and the complete compilation of the Qur'an. For the New Testament you have over four centuries. For the Qur'an you have a little over a decade before an authenticated version. And you also don't have someone named Paul adding onto it.
What I am curious about is why people believe that someone was actually talking to God or his messenger over 1300 years ago? What makes that person more credible than someone today saying the same things? It can't be because people started following them because that happens in a myriad of other cases where folks say they are prophets or talking to God. I just wonder whether it is actually driven by a need to believe in something more so than an actual belief? DD
I can't speak for Islam...but Christianity isn't predicated on "someone spoke to God and God revealed a message to him." I do see that in Islam and with Joseph Smith....but that's not the Gospel. The Gospels basically tell a narrative....different accounts of similar circumstances. There are all sorts of Christians...all different flavors that put more credence in some things other than others. But at the heart of Christianity isn't, "I went in a cave and God revealed truth to me..." It's more like, "holy crap, we experienced this or I talked to people who experienced this and now we're writing it out so you can hear the story...and we really don't understand what it all means..." If it's all a lie, then it's just that..a lie. Otherwise, the New Testament is an account of events....followed by one book describing how the early believers acted in the years following it...and then some commentary from Paul and Peter as to what they thought it all meant.
When the NT was compiled isn't signficant, in my view...it's how close were the accounts written to the events. And the evidence of oral tradition regarding how early Christians viewed these events that shows up in early accounts. At the heart of your post, I think, lies one difference between Christians and Muslims....how we view our respective holy books. The NT is written like narrative followed by commentary....it doesn't read well as a rule book. It's instructive but primarily in seeking to pass on "news." No author of any Gospel is claiming that he went alone and had truth revealed to him and him alone. Mohammed's purpose was to write a book.....there was serious effort to authenticate this very important, unique message QUICKLY....because it was to be recognized as the source of truth...like God speaking through pen. This was not the purpose of those around early Christianity....so it's a bit of apples and oranges.
I understand that Max, but what about the Old testement? Isn't that part of the same bible? And I don't think anything would be a lie, or meant to deceive, but if all the message in the bible or Quran are not consistent, and in some cases contradict each other, isn't it just a matter of people picking and choosing what they want to believe? DD
1. yeah, the OT is part of the same bible....but the NT is the heart of what a Christian believes. the OT gives context for the narrative in the NT...but Christianity hinges on the stories in the Gospel...the resurrection being primary, frankly. if all that's a lie, then we're just wasting our time. 2. the bible wasn't written to be a rule book...or an instruction manual. it's a narrative written by men. this is a key distinction between Christianity and Islam. i'm unaware of any contradictions in the Koran....but to the extent there are any, i could definitely see that being problematic for someone who believes it is literal word of God whispered into the ear of a prophet.
There are major contradictions in both. An eye for an eye or Turn the other cheek And yes, I understand that the heart of Christianity today is in the new testament, but isn't that an editorial choice made in the last few centuries? As for Islam, from what little I know, it is contradictory, it's story changes as Mohammed gains in stature, and rambles from topic to topic. Again, it seems people make an editorial choice on what to believe, and for me, I personally struggle with believing that these historic figures (Jesus and Mohammed) were anything more than just men, great men, with a powerful message, but men, nonetheless. Which is why I wonder that people can simply BELIEVE without any shred of proof.... Faith....yes...but why? To me, it seems like it is more born out of man NEEDING to believe in something more than it is about truth. DD
Turn the other cheek doesn't mean what you think it means. The context is completely lost. Having said that....if you believe the OT is a collection of men's writings trying to capture God's thoughts...and that then God in flesh lives among us and expounds on things we thought we understood about God....then you go with the latter. Put succinctly, I say all the time that I understand God through the lenses of what I understand of Jesus. I don't know if it's an editorial choice or just trying to figure it out....not every Christian agrees with my take on all this, DaDa. I will never pretend that God is small enough for me to fit it in a box of descriptive words and understand it all. But from the earliest points, the early Christians were arguing over whether the OT still applies...whether it should be included in a compilation...whether it's worth telling people who aren't Jews all the context that sets up their understanding of him. Nothing new about that or any sort of editorial....honestly, I find it fairly compelling because it seems honest...in that there's real struggle to make sense of it. I'm more comfortable with that, objectively, than neat, clean alternatives. As for proof....I have my own proof, but it's not proof in the way you're talking about. Anyone who tries to prove up God to you like he'd prove up math is a fool.
See that is just it, proof is more an individual belief, than actual proof. To me, that seems that religion in general comes more out of people's desire or need to believe. I believe in God, I just don't believe in religion - to me, it is all made up by ancient man to explain the unexplainable. "What happens after death" is a huge issue for us as humans, we want to believe life goes on, that there is life after death, and in almost all cases, it is better than life on earth, because when these religions were started, pretty much most of them were started by poverty stricken or downtrodden folks. "Give me your belief and you will live better in the after life".......seems to be a universal theme in religion. I personally believe (yep, there is that word again) that those people that started those religions were just men with a message that caught on....due to people's need to believe in something. I mean monotheism is fairly recent......in the history of man......but so many people are convinced that it is the truth, when the reality is, we just don't know. And to fight and kill over whom is "more right" when there is no proof that either side is anywhere close is staggering to me. DD
Ok..if you believe in God...do you think that need for him/it then comes from him/it?? Not universal. Not every faith tradition believes in an afterlife. I can tell you..for me...it has next to nothing to do with my faith. Absolutely agreed. Beyond that, because of what I believe about God...and the idea that he created everyone in his image....and then what I believe about Jesus, the way he treated people and the way he died....it creates a value on human life and human dignity that makes that sort of violence and lack of humility an affront to God...not a service to him, but something deeply wrong.
If they bring a set of rules that are as convincing as the Quran alone, personally, I would consider it. Ofcourse, it would have to discredit the Quran somehow (in my specific case).
You've said this before. I'd love for you to show me these contradictions, I would be very interested.
My question to you is, without religion or a book or a message from a Prophet/Messenger, how would you believe in God? I mean, if a religion was never sent down or if God never spoke to humans (through an intermediary, of course) how could we have known that a God existed? Without Holy Books how could the existence of God from the time of Adam and Eve have existed until today? Honestly, without a prophet or a message or a book it probably would have been much more difficult to believe in a God.
Btw, according to Islam, Jesus PBUH will return to yet again confirm who's beliefs are corrupted or not. So in reality, Muhammad PBUH is not the last "corrector". He is the seal of prophets, as in, God won't add any more law by prophecy or message. However, there is no guarantee that people's beliefs won't get corrupted again. Also, if you believe God said it, then really there is no such thing as arrogance. Arrogance is an attitude that refers to an inflated self-image when compared to the real self. Since God's "real self", by definition, can't be inflated, arrogance is a quality that doesn't apply to the Muslim concept of God.
Actually, we don't listen to the best believable record but rather the most authentic one. Which is Bukhari and Sahih Muslim etc. That is why I mentioned there are strong and weak hadith (based on chain of narrations). And we are told to only follow the strong hadith and not the weak ones. I can't properly explain it all because I'm no scholar, but this is how I see it. Also, the beard example you gave, it is actually Sunnah to grow a beard because the Prophet had one (action), but that's not all. He also said to trim your mustaches. I can almost guarantee to you that you will not find any mushrik these days who will have a fist length beard with a trimmed mustache. But that's all semantics. I don't really understand the bolded paragraph. If God said follow the messenger of Islam then that is exactly what we are doing. Muhammed happened to be the messenger of Islam and we are following his example, which is all over the ahadith. And I have one question for you, if someone were to reject the hadith and not follow them then how does one pray or even do wudu? There is not a single place in the Quran where it teaches you how to do either. And there are a few different hadith that tell you how the Prophet prayed at different times. Are you going to say those are contradictory and they must be rejected?
I had not heard of him and watching his interviews right now, thanks for mentioning! Based on the little I've seen, I agree with his ideas but I would find it impossible for someone who follows the Hadith to meet European values as they currently stand perfectly. I'm not absolutely certain of that. I'm not sure what he thinks of Hadith exactly. Nor am I of the opinion that European values are perfect and hence should not fit the needs of its people, as it has done historically. I'll get back when I've watched more! I'm particularly enjoying his debates with Sarkozy!
Muhammad was a political leader in addition to a religious figure. He also has the benefit of being untouchable in Islamic tradition.
- The authentic are the best available record, it is one and the same. The best available records are the six major hadith collections, at the head of which are Bukhari (considered number 1) and Muslim (a close 2nd). As an example, the famous Bukhari book is the Collection of Bukhari's Authentic. That is the number one Hadith book. The reason it is number one is because it gives a mountain of information regarding the chain of narrators, the identity/qualification of the narrators, and the details of how each hadith was collected. Still, with all this, how can you assert that we have to follow the most authentic book 100% when following something 100% equates it with perfection? The Sahih Bukhari is bound to contain mistakes because it is compiled by humans. No human can produce a 100% accurate book, that is a fact in Islam. So, if it is 99.9% correct, then we are following a 0.1% error. Right? - This is key. If God said to follow the Prophet exactly, and following the Prophet means that everything he said to do is a command equivalent to the divine command of God... then it has to hold true forever, like any divine command from God. Because, if it is NOT a divine command, then following it with the same reverence as a divine command is shirk (the greatest sin in Islam) - because you are a mushrik if you equate a command from the Prophet with a command from God. The divine law is compatible with all times, all races, all people, all circumstances. So applying the "can it always apply" test to any divinely-inspired rule should give us the answer about how divine it is... and if one day satanists start growing their beards and trimming their mustaches, then the law ceases to apply because the full text of the hadith is "grow your beards in order to differentiate yourself from the mushrikeen". So if one day, growing your beard does not differentiate you from the mushrikeen, the rule/law ceases to be applicable and hence fails the test of divine requirement. Another test you can do to understand this is check the Quran, and see if there is any rule/law/command in there which can ever cease to apply. I assure you, you'll find none. But give it a shot. - God said follow the example of Mohammed PBUH. You may think this means "if he scratched his head during prayer, then you scratch your head during prayer." But to me it is very clear this command means follow his example - as in, copy his methodology in that he took Quranic rules and applied them to the circumstances in front of him. So it is entirely possible that, given a different circumstance today, the Prophet would do something different despite sticking to his way of thinking. It is possible that if the Prophet PBUH found that the mushrikeen were trimming the mustache and growing their beards, he would tell us to stop. Because the thing that we have to follow is his METHODOLOGY. Because imitating his every move is indicating that he never made a mistake, and while he did not err as a Messenger, he certainly erred as a person because he is human. Here is one situation where he made a mistake unrelated to delivering the message: As for prayer and wudhu, they are in the Quran. I take it you haven't read the Quran fully. Prayer is very easy to find, so I'll just post the wudhu part: Surely, the Prophet can not edit God's law. He can add steps for more cleanliness, but ultimately, this is the requirement. What the Prophet PBUH did was to take more steps to be more clean. So what do we take from that story? Not that we should imitate the Prophet like an idol. No... the lesson is that a person who believes in something very much will go above and beyond to satisfy it. It's like if I love my parents very much and they ask me for $100, I give them $200 instead. That doesn't change the fact that their requirements are $100. Right?
- The prophet was programmed to be a messenger, not a regular human like us. His whole life was meant to be a message to the Ummah. Everything he did and said. He did not make a mistake in delivering the message (Quran) and neither did he make other mistakes unless for a reason (like the verse you posted, which was used [the mistake] by God to reveal the verses that followed it). So, basically even though the Prophet may have made mistakes, they were always corrected either through a revelation or by his own realization. Also, most of the sahih hadith are cross referenced in the six major books, if not all of them. And there was also a process of how the hadith were compiled over the many years. One more thing, in the hadith when one of the narrators could not remember something correctly, they would admit it and the hadith would clearly mention it. These hadith would be considered weak and not followed unless the gist of the hadith was clear. The Prophet, being human, was a special kind of a human. I'm sure you've heard of the story of how the angels removed the "black spot" from his heart at two different points in his life? Which is basically why he had no evil in him. In a similar way, he had no room to make a mistake and it go uncorrected. Take these verses for example: And there are a few more in this link (http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/42216/prophets mistake) with explanations if needed. - Well, let's put it this way. At the time of the Prophet, and the people who were always around the Prophet and even after he died, imitated the actions and sayings of the Prophet. These are the people who witnessed first hand everything the Prophet did. We can say that they were following the Sunnah of the Propeht in real time. These people (the Sahaba) were following the Prophet in every aspect of their lives. Now, if that was considered to be shirk since everything he did and said apart from the revelations was not divine, then wouldn't he have said something about it to his Sahabas? Like, "Hey, don't follow me so meticulously, you are commiting shirk since everything I do and say is not a divine command from Allah." Here is a link you could read up on that has detailed information on major and minor shirks http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/34817/shirk One more thing on that, most of the legit fatwas in the modern times are/were using the Quran AND the hadith as a basis of knowledge. I doubt they could come up with rulings on modern times and certain places without being derived partially at least from the hadith. Islam is a way of life. The Quran is the guidelines to that way of life. And the hadith are a subset of guidelines which will further help you in following those sets of guidelines and rules. I URGE you to click on this link and read it, it's not too long, but please, before you continue reading the rest of this post, click on this link and read it. Especially the fourth part: http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/77243/Sunnah - As far as the verse you quoted about wudu, sorry, but all that verse says is that you gotta wash this and that. It does not give you the guidelines on the order of what you must wash first and last (hands, mouth, nose, face, arms till elbows, hair, ear, and feet till ankles). Neither does it tell you how many times they must be washed (I know, one is enough but three times has more hasanaat). Also, if you could point me to the verse that tells us how to pray, the actions of it, and what to recite and when to recite it, I would appreciate it. One more thing, does the Quran mention how to give the Adhan and the Aqamah?
