This is where the second purpose of using the intellect comes in to play. Muhammad brought the revelations from the Qur'an, but he is not the "founder" of the message to believe in one God. This is the same message that many other prophets preached, including Jesus, Moses, Adam, Noah, etc. Also, your characterization of Muhammad just being a regular guy who said to follow what God told him is a gross oversimplication of the matter. I suggest you do some reading regarding the life of Muhammad to see what a kind of a man he was and in what circumstances he lived. If you are really interested, a book on Muhammad's life written by Karen Armstrong is an excellent source to read. Or, you can look at wikipedia or something , just know that it's not as simple a matter as you make it out to be. That's interesting, but raises serious problems for me. God has done everything to show that he exists EXCEPT for physically appearing before all of mankind. But if he did do that, then wouldn't be it kind of pointless to test people's belief in him? Why hold us responsible to believe something that we CANNOT deny, even though I think any thinking man can just take a look at the world around him and realize he does indeed exist and is one.
I concur that is why I said none of the religious founders have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were acting on God's behalf. IMHO, they were preaching their rendition of what they believed God to be, and it caught on, so many religions have come and gone, and most have roots going back to pagan worship, including all those whose roots go back to Abraham. I do believe that Muhammed was a great man, who accomplished incredible things, just as I believe the same about Jesus, Ghandi, and Budha. I think they are hardly ordinary, but more like extrodinary, but again, they are still flesh and blood in the end - Great Acheivers - Yes......but carrying God's word? - I question that. Heck at one point emperors were considered Gods, and to me that is pretty much the same thing, isn't it? I think there is a God, but I have serious doubts as to whether God cares about being worshiped, for it is man that has suggested we worship God, in all religions, mostly to curry favor from God. Let me ask you an honest question, if a superior alien race created Earth and all the creatures on it, including Man, just to study us, would they be God to us? We could be nothing more than a pitre dish experiment. I believe in God, but I have a really hard time believing in religion, as the main message of religion seems to be one of sustaining itself and controlling people's lives while making money. I just have a hard time believing that mankind understand the essence of God, when we can't even fathom infinity or that the universe has no end, because everything to man is finite. Religions have proven to be finite too, at least up to now.....and which ones were right? Why are the current ones more right than the Roman or Greek gods? Or for that matter the Egyptians? Where does Science come into play? Hasn't science proven that Pork is a clean meat, yet in Judaism and Islam it is forbidden because it is unclean....shouldn't the religion adapt to the truth of the matter? What about Hindhus and not eating the sacred cows? See, all of this to me seems cultural more than religious and it has just been canonized to fit the text. Just my .02 DD PS. I will try my darndest to not post inflamatorily about religion, as it gets me in trouble.
No, god hasn't done anything to prove his existence. A physical appearence would be the most convincing and irrefutable proof -- it wouldn't be hard for him to do that if he existed. Is he shy or something?
I have a problem with reincarnation. Buddhism seems to be the most practical religion in this day and age.
