“Peace, prosperity and justice - we can have them all if we work together. There is no 'us' or 'them'. God is not a Christian but neither is S(he) an adherent of any other religion because no religion has monopoly on God. All major religions have love and compassion at their core, they promote tolerance not violence and hate, and most have their own version of the Golden Rule - treat others as you wish to be treated. They all recognise that human happiness ultimately comes from our relationship with each other.
In truth there are no outsiders, no enemies - unless we put them there in our minds. Black and white, rich and poor, man and woman, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, Hutu and Tutsi, Pakistani and Indian, - all belong. When we start to live as brothers and sisters and to recognise our interdependence, we become fully human.
Our diversity is beautiful - it would be so terribly boring if we were all the same! Conformity is stoked by fear of not being loved, and an expression of a need to belong. Let's love each other - warts and all. Let's dare to be beautiful in our own truth - and still belong. Unselfish self-assurance, compassion, an inner knowing that our humanity is caught up in one another's, that we are inexorably diminished when others are humiliated, oppressed or treated as if they were of less worth than us - these are some of the inner qualities that will save us as a human race.”
I just read book written by priest. Book tells about humour in the Bible. As it is written by priest it is not insulting at all.
What make me sad when read it is any muslim couldn´t write similar about Quran.
We seems to take things too seriously too many times.
I think there bounds to be differences in how people of different faiths treat their holy books.
Christians do not think and do not believe that bible is all word of God, while muslims believe that Qur'an is 100%, pure, words of God (swt).
And verily for everything that a slave loses there is a substitute, but the one who loses Allah will never find anything to replace Him.” [Related by Ibn al-Qayyim in ad-Dâ' wad-Dawâ Fasl 49]
It would be inappropriate and even foolish for one to say that God 'follows' a religion because by definition 'a' religion is a 'means' to God.
That's the very thing Desmond Tutu is addressing.
Some people like to make God 'their own' and try to fit him into their own religious box.
God is beyond any of our religious understanding. Our religious concepts merely try to fathom him.
God is God is GOD.
Bigger and greater and more awesome than we can possibly comprehend!
I think Desmond Tutu is challenging those people to try to make out that God is a Christian/Muslim/Hindu etc (or a God who belongs to Christianity/Islam/Hinduism etc) ... with the political aim of turning everybody else into an enemy.
God is not my God or your God or anybody else's God.
We do not own him and the best we can do is hope and pray that He considers us to belong to Him.
Allah made everyone different thats what makes them special,so no matter what ppl say just remember you're SPECIAL!! "You are with the one you love"
Nem0
Glo, this is basically my point. He promotes and an extremely far-fetched neutral view that is highly unlikely to be achieved. Not because I speak in favour of Islam, but basically he is asking for people to give up what they believe in (to some extent at least) just for the sake of getting along with one another.
As I mentioned before, only the one who is conscious of God and is fearful of a time where one will be questioned of his or her actions, will one truly learn to appreciate higher morals and principles.
Last edited by 'Abd-al Latif; 10-05-2012 at 03:00 PM.
And verily for everything that a slave loses there is a substitute, but the one who loses Allah will never find anything to replace Him.” [Related by Ibn al-Qayyim in ad-Dâ' wad-Dawâ Fasl 49]
Some people like to make God 'their own' and try to fit him into their own religious box.
God is beyond any of our religious understanding. Our religious concepts merely try to fathom him.
God is God is GOD.
Bigger and greater and more awesome than we can possibly comprehend!
I think Desmond Tutu is challenging those people to try to make out that God is a Christian/Muslim/Hindu etc (or a God who belongs to Christianity/Islam/Hinduism etc) ... with the political aim of turning everybody else into an enemy.
God is not my God or your God or anybody else's God.
We do not own him and the best we can do is hope and pray that He considers us to belong to Him.
I appreciate what you are trying to say here.
You are right to an extent and Desmond Tutu is correct is some of what he says but not everything.
There are certain things that we as Muslims have to take a stance on.
As far as Muslims are concerned there is only one God who is The Creator, The Provider, The Sustainer of All of The Creation (as well as having many other perfect names and attributes)
However different groups of people each have their own understanding of him.
Some people use their type understanding to cause oppression against others.
As Muslims our duty is not to turn people to enemies or use religion to create enemies.
Our duty is to convey the message of Islam as The Final Prophet Muhammad did. We only say what Muhammad (peace be upon him) said and what Allaah has said in the Qur'aan, The Final Source of Divine Guidance To Mankind.
The Message of The Qur'aan is for all mankind, not just Muslims and Muhammad (peace be upon him) was sent as a Messenger to all of mankind, not just Muslims.
But the message of Islam does not say that any and everything goes as some people would like to think.
We believe that the original message of Monotheism was corrupted over time by Satan and his followers amongst the Jinn and Mankind. It is these corrupt beliefs that has caused a lot of animosity and oppression amongst mankind over time.
We dislike the "Kufr" or the disbelief or false beliefs that people have in them towards the message of Islam however we do not dislike any person in and of themselves regardless of their faith of background.
The message of Islam was sent to clarify the lies and mis-information that certain groups of people invented and injected into the original pure message of Monotheism or Tawheed that all the Prophets were sent with.
Islam was sent to re-affirm the original message of Monotheism that The first Prophet, Prophet Adam was following and taught.
There is no compulsion in Islam. The acceptance of Islam is only accepted by Allaah if a person does it out of their own free will with a conscious understanding of it's requirements.
Those involved in the spreading of the Message of Islam simply present the message to their people and then hope that Allaah guides them.
What Glo/Desmond Tutu is saying is that though we are different we all have similar teachings in our core, and that it shouldn't cause us to see each others as enemies. Not saying that all religions are the same, or equal (correct me if im wrong).
I disagree with the statement that "we have our own truths".. I also get that when morality equals to whatever the majority feels is right then it is not true morality.
That said I think what glo was simply trying to share is that it's not impossible for us to live peacefully with one another.
Glo, this is basically my point. He promotes and an extremely far-fetched neutral view that is highly unlikely to be achieved.
Is it wrong to aim for values even if we know we cannot humanly achieve them?
After all, we know that as human beings we are flawed and imperfect ... but should that mean that we should not aim for perfection?
(Enjoying this discussion, btw. Always good to be stretched and challenged. )
Oh ok apparently sis bluebell was referring to a pop song lol.
Hahahaha
It's not really a joke, basically my friend was talking about how because some people say that we share the same Prophet Ibrahim(pbuh) in Islam, Christianity and Judaism we should all hold our hands together and sing the "Father Abraham" song. It's just a funny image in my mind. I thought sis bluebell was saying that but I did a search and the song she meant was something else lol
I just read book written by priest. Book tells about humour in the Bible. As it is written by priest it is not insulting at all.
What make me sad when read it is any muslim couldn´t write similar about Quran.
We seems to take things too seriously too many times.
format_quote Originally Posted by sister harb
Salam alaykum
without laugh faith makes we too fanaticts.
There are some humour too, in collection of hadiths. (remember also that bible is like inauthentic ahadeeth).
For example:
one day an old woman came to prophet Muhammad (saw) and she asked prophet (saw) if an old woman like her can go to paradise, and Rasulullah (saw) said no, and old woman like her will not be in paradise, so she started to cry and cry. Upon this, prophet (saw) started to (laugh?, not sure the details) and told her that old wrinkly person will not be in paradise because they will all turn young and beautiful, and there is no "old, bad, evil, etc etc" in paradise. So the woman turned all smiles and happy.
This shows Rasulullah (saw) used humour too, without lying and still with showing the greatness of Allah SWT.
Also sister Harb, of course we can use humour to do da'wah. In Indonesia, many many da'i (preachers) normally incorporate humour in da'wah so it will be easier for people to put down their defenses and oftentimes this method is more effective. Brother Ardianto can tell you more about all those popular da'i. Even the most serious and respected da'is in Indonesia use humour in their lectures, otherwise people lose their attention. Indonesians love to laugh at humour and jokes.
Although I still don't understand what you meant by we need to write humour about Qur'an.
Sorry if this insult someones here but I think that God is not muslim. He is just God.
Yes you're right sister. Islam doesn't teach us that God is muslim because a muslim is someone who submits to God, and submission is always to a higher authority. Therefore God is not muslim. He submits to no one and is Self Sufficient.
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