Confusing Religions

[alcurad]

that makes the statement factually true, even if it is inaccurate in terms of stating overall Christian theology.

the verse was describing the christians and the jews at the time of the prophet, most probably those nearest to him. I don't think it has nothing to do with inaccuracy.

 

[Woodrow]

I find this to be a very interesting thread and a very useful one.

I doubt very much we will answer any questions, probably we will raise even more. But, I do see this as a very good starting point for dialog, understanding and peaceful coexistence among us.

The one point I hope we all can see, is that in spite of our insurmountable differences, we all worship for the same reason. Love of God(swt)


Why do we try so hard to hate and persecute our neighbors who love God(swt) just as strongly as we do?

I wonder if perhaps one of our trials we face is in the manner we lead others to truth. Do we strive to be leaders, or do we desire to be conquerers?

 

[Hawa]

Not very, in this instance. I wasn't attempting to present a position in the free will v. determinism debate, only point out that religious beliefs are usually far more dependent on the factors you describe than on any deliberate choice.

All things considered, at some point in one's adult life, one does make a deliberate choice to prescribe to certain beliefs or non at all, doesn't that count for something?
I know it isn't really saying much considering that choice would be influenced by all the factors mentioned, still, actively following a religion (or simply professing a belief) requires a lot from an individual, much more than one who is merely following the crowd would be willing to partake in surely?

 

[جوري]

All things considered, at some point in one's adult life, one does make a deliberate choice to prescribe to certain beliefs or non at all, doesn't that count for something?
I know it isn't really saying much considering that choice would be influenced by all the factors mentioned, still, actively following a religion (or simply professing a belief) requires a lot from an individual, much more than one who is merely following the crowd would be willing to partake in surely?

exactly,
especially in a religion that asks for rituals that require daily efforts-- and Allah swt has mentioned in the Quran that just keeping with 'prayers' is a great feat..
you can always secretly not pray, or fast, or give to charity or make pilgrimage.. no one is watching 24/7 ...

It is an effort in which as a reasoning, rational adult will have to make a conscious attempt to make and maintain..

Jazaki Allah khyran

 

[Trumble]

Possibly, Hawa. I think 'actively following' rather than belief, maybe; I don't think we can ever choose what we believe. Our religious choices depend on our beliefs, not the other way around.

I'm straying from the point I was originally trying, and probably failing, to make in relation to alcurad's post. If you assume one religion (Islam, presumably, in his case) to be 'true' and other religions to be 'false' it is surely much easier to make the 'right' choice if you are born into and brought up in the 'right' religion? Doesn't that seem a tad unfair if you happen to believe we are 'judged' according to such a choice?

 

[Hawa]

Possibly, Hawa. I think 'actively following' rather than belief, maybe; I don't think we can ever choose what we believe. Our religious choices depend on our beliefs, not the other way around.

I'm straying from the point I was originally trying, and probably failing, to make in relation to alcurad's post. If you assume one religion (Islam, presumably, in his case) to be 'true' and other religions to be 'false' it is surely much easier to make the 'right' choice if you are born into and brought up in the 'right' religion? Doesn't that seem a tad unfair if you happen to believe we are 'judged' according to such a choice?

Your argument sadly stands true for a lot of people who profess to follow a religion, but it's rather tenuous to assume that most if not all who do so have no choice in the matter. Likewise one can't simply assume those who follow the religion of their parents haven't arrived at that choice independently.
Religion doesn't turn human beings into sheeps...If one believes that they are to be judged on this decision (which religion to follow), then they owe it to themselves to question what they're told. With judgment looming over a persons head they wouldn't simply go with what's easier on the off chance that they might be in the right. So far from being unfair, it acts as a catalyst for personal inquiry and deduction I would say...

 

[August]

Religion doesn't turn human beings into sheeps...If one believes that they are to be judged on this decision (which religion to follow), then they owe it to themselves to question what they're told. With judgment looming over a persons head they wouldn't simply go with what's easier on the off chance that they might be in the right. So far from being unfair, it acts as a catalyst for personal inquiry and deduction I would say...

Sometimes true, sometimes not. If you're raised to believe that choosing a different religion leads to an eternity of suffering, you might not be willing to open-mindedly examine other faiths.

 

[Grace Seeker]

Possibly, Hawa. I think 'actively following' rather than belief, maybe; I don't think we can ever choose what we believe. Our religious choices depend on our beliefs, not the other way around.

I'm straying from the point I was originally trying, and probably failing, to make in relation to alcurad's post. If you assume one religion (Islam, presumably, in his case) to be 'true' and other religions to be 'false' it is surely much easier to make the 'right' choice if you are born into and brought up in the 'right' religion? Doesn't that seem a tad unfair if you happen to believe we are 'judged' according to such a choice?

Or it might be actually harder for those brought up in a particular religious environment to actually choose it rather than just sort of fall into it without thinking. Since I'm not Muslim allow me to draw a parallel from my own Christian experience.

I was raised in a Christian home. My dad made sure we went to church every Sunday. And of course the culture around me accepted such behavior as normative. So, I never really had to think about my faith, I just did it. That is until one day in high school when I was challenged to take it more seriously. That was a genuine point of decision for me. I considered as best I could with at my limited 16-year-old understanding what I knew about other faiths, and realized that I did indeed truly believe in the faith in which I had been raised. Even still the true test did not come until a couple of years later when I was in the Navy. In that new circumstance, away from home, surrounded by people who slept in every Sunday morning, rooming with people who had other faiths or no faith whatsoever, and while the military was not antagonistic toward me practicing my Christian faith, they also did nothing to make it easier for me. I would have to "actively follow" now. No longer could I just nominally follow as I had done my whole life up till that point. And in having to make that choice of actually choosing to practice my faith, rather than people just assume that I was a Christian because everyone around me was, I found that my faith become much more real to me than ever before. So, paradoxically it wasn't the Christian environment that really helped me grow as a Christian as much as the a-religious environment that did.

 

[suffiyan007]

God had sent many prophets approx. 25,000 prophets to bring the deen of God.
which is call Tauheed.pray to one God,one true God....when year by year....the prophets have been killed by their people or died.To Acclaim that people so love to the prophet to their deen...like buddha,thai buddha, hindu, sikh, christian and etc, has been shiRk to God....they created the statue or a sculpture of prophets or dolls of many God to pray and worship...and lotsa polytheism around the world not like Islam, and old nassara(old christian) that jesus, mohammad and jews that moses,noah and etc brings...! i becauSe the people has change the concepts of Jesus bringing christian and moses and all the prophets bringing their religion to pray to one True God(Laa ilaha ilallah)...that why people are confusing to choose the Religions...if the statue that u crafted is that really help you or the statue have broken is that your God has died....nonsense....no way....God is unseen and his unseen creation is around us...like syaitan,angel and jinn....are around us....whether we follow the syaitan or angel..is in your hands...salam!

 

[AntiKarateKid]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

847

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."


This is the Catholic view, some other Christians do believe that only Christians can be saved, no matter what.

Interesting, this wasnt the view of the church before.


The fate of non-Catholics, as stated prior to Vatican II: Before Vatican II, the Church consistently taught that only Roman Catholics had a chance to be saved and attain Heaven. Followers of other Christian denominations and of other religions would be automatically routed to Hell for all eternity:


Pope Innocent III (circa 1160 - 1216 CE) is considered "one of the greatest popes of the Middle Ages..." 1 At the Fourth Lateran Council (a.k.a. the General Council of Lateran, and the Great Council) he wrote: "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved."


Pope Boniface VIII (1235-1303 CE) promulgated a Papal Bull in 1302 CE titled Unam Sanctam (One Holy). He wrote, in part: "Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins...In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Ephesians 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed....Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff." 2


Why the swing in opinion? Obviously the church had taught for quote a while that only CHristians go to heaven.

Graceseeker: Can you see why my statement was NOT in error now?

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you AntiKarateKid;

There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved

Despite what eminent people might say, they are not God, scriptures say that we will be judged in the way that we judge others. So if a Pope is saying that non Catholics will not achieve salvation, will God turn this judgement back at him?

But I wonder what things die with us when we die, and I wonder what qualities or things continue after our death?

I can imagine qualities like justice, fairness, love, mercy and forgiveness will still have meaning after death. But what happens to beliefs like Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, will any of these belief systems still have a meaning in part or in full?

I can imagine after death that we each shall not have to go around trying to convert others to our beliefs.

We are all going to answer to the same God who exceeds the sum of all the religions of the world put together. After death is God going to separate us all into groups of Christians, Muslims, Hindu, atheists and judge us each within our respective groups?

Is God really going to judge each of us because we have diverse beliefs, I do not pretend to know the answer, we can only pray?

In the spirit of praying for salvation for all people, despite our differences

Eric

 

[August]

Why the swing in opinion? Obviously the church had taught for quote a while that only CHristians go to heaven.

It's more a change in how we understand salvation. What the RCC says now is basically that you can belong to the church without knowing it, if you would have been a Christian had you had the chance.

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you August;

It's more a change in how we understand salvation. What the RCC says now is basically that you can belong to the church without knowing it, if you would have been a Christian had you had the chance

I am a Catholic and struggle with the notion that the church can change its stance, and its interpretation. Will we change again in another 5oo years time.

I wonder if God changes in the same way as we change our intrerpretations of him?

Mankind seems to gain in knowledge of many things, I wonder if we can ever understand and obey God?

In the spirit of praying to a just and merciful God.

Eric

 

[czgibson]

Greetings,

Eric's given us an interesting thread to think about.

It's always struck me as strange that one god would have placed the holiest sites of major world religions so close to each other. The best of planners? It sounds more like a recipe for disaster to me.

This quote given by AntiKarateKid seems almost to touch on this point:

We have appointed a law and a practice for every one of you. Had Allah willed, He would have made you a single community, but He wanted to test you regarding what has come to you. So compete with each other in doing good. Every one of you will return to Allah and He will inform you regarding the things about which you differed. Judge between them by what Allah has sent down and do not follow their whims and desires. And beware of them lest they lure you away from some of what Allah has sent down to you (The Qur’an)

Does Allah like to keep us ignorant and divided?

Peace

 

[Woodrow]

Back in the stone age when i was taking Sociology 101 I recall hearing that the closer beliefs were to each other, the stronger the disagreements became. The worse wars have been fought among people that were similar than among those with totaly different views.

This seems to be true with religion. The Abrahamic Faiths are so similar that to an outsider they would appear to be one religion.

Perhaps this has to do with human arrrogance and an inner view that those who are similar are corrupting what we believe. There seems to be fear that when something is similar but has differences, it is an attempt to corrupt what we believe. In some ways that is true. We see that happen with Evangelicals, Fanatics, Zealots, Zionists, etc. As a Muslim I tend to feel that Jews and Christians had lost and/or corrupted the True Teachings. I also feel that a Christian feels the same about Muslims and Jews, A Jew probably feels the same about Christians and Muslims. Naturally the 3 of us feel that the Hindus, Buddhists etc are so far off base that they can not corrupt our thinking.

It takes a Human to have the ability to twist Love of God(swt) into a war. It is like siblings fighting over which one loves his parents the most and kicking the tail of each other because they do not love their parents.

Human arrogance is a great trial we all need to overcome. Talk about the Greater Jihad, that is a Jihad we all fight in. Sadly, it seems that too many of us are loosing the battle and think we have won it.

 

[AntiKarateKid]

Greetings,

Eric's given us an interesting thread to think about.

It's always struck me as strange that one god would have placed the holiest sites of major world religions so close to each other. The best of planners? It sounds more like a recipe for disaster to me.

This quote given by AntiKarateKid seems almost to touch on this point:



Does Allah like to keep us ignorant and divided?

Peace

CZ,

I respect you as a debater but please don't take that verse out of context like that. You sound like one of those "answering Islam" fools. I believe there are some threads on this site and many good articles on the internet addressing this deep topic.


From my limited knowledge, that verse means that God could has let humans have free will. HE could have made us all believe but instead he choose to give us the ability to reject it or accept it, and the believers would test the unbelievers and vica versa.

 

[MSalman]

What sort of real 'choice' do you believe there to be? Sure, there are many exceptions but still for the vast majority religious beliefs are determined and conditioned by culture and upbringing, not some 'free choice' from a selection of equally weighted alternatives which are presented to them.

here we go again; you do realize that when it comes to religion there're no such thing as equally weighted! but let's suppose your hypothesis is 100% correct. Now, there're two possibilities:
1 - you were raised as Buddhist
2 - you choose to be Buddhist

1 - you were raised as Buddhist

So you were raised as one but now that you're sound minded and know about other religions and maybe even learned about them. So, who's making you not to embrace another belief? God? your parents? or yourself?

2 - you choose to be Buddhist

I don't have to say much for this

just to remind you that Islamic position in regard to someone, who never heard about Islaam, is that the person will be questioned on the day of Judgement and upon his answers the final judgment will be passed. So, he's not in trouble really.

 

[Grace Seeker]

Interesting, this wasnt the view of the church before.


The fate of non-Catholics, as stated prior to Vatican II: Before Vatican II, the Church consistently taught that only Roman Catholics had a chance to be saved and attain Heaven. Followers of other Christian denominations and of other religions would be automatically routed to Hell for all eternity:


Pope Innocent III (circa 1160 - 1216 CE) is considered "one of the greatest popes of the Middle Ages..." 1 At the Fourth Lateran Council (a.k.a. the General Council of Lateran, and the Great Council) he wrote: "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved."


Pope Boniface VIII (1235-1303 CE) promulgated a Papal Bull in 1302 CE titled Unam Sanctam (One Holy). He wrote, in part: "Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins...In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Ephesians 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed....Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff." 2


Why the swing in opinion? Obviously the church had taught for quote a while that only CHristians go to heaven.

Graceseeker: Can you see why my statement was NOT in error now?

I can see why you think it was not in error, but it is important to understand just how egotistical the Roman See is, and then you will see in this statement more arrogance than condemnation. In saying "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved." what I understand the Catholic church to have been saying is that they see themselves as instrumental in anyone's salvation who is saved. They are not saying, as many have inferred, that people such as the Greek Orthodox cannot be saved since they are not Catholic, they are saying that if they are saved it is because the Catholic church exists. The same would apply to protestants that they see as being outside of the one true church, yet still saved by the work of Christ and the continued presence of the Catholic church. The same would hold for anyone else as well.

But more importantly, do you see that as regards the Quranic verse you provided eariler:

“And they say, ‘None shall enter Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian.’ These are their own desires. Say (O Muhammad), ‘Produce your proof if you are truthful.’” Qur’an 2:111

Whether one accepts your interpretation of Catholic theology (wherein only Catholics are saved) or accepts my interpretation of Catholic theology (wheren in any and all who might be saved is up to God, but is possible only because of the Catholic church's existence), that in neither context would they say what the Quran claims would be said.

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you Woodrow;thanks for that young brother Woodrow, you come up with some profound stuff for one so young.

Back in the stone age when i was taking Sociology 101 I recall hearing that the closer beliefs were to each other, the stronger the disagreements became. The worse wars have been fought among people that were similar than among those with totaly different views.

Just to highlight your point, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is said to be on the site of the tomb of Christ, should be the most sacred Christian site shared by Christians of all denominations.
This causes huge problems for us, the various denominations argued so much between themselves, and we have not trusted any Christian group to hold the keys. It seems the key holder can control or appear to own the church. Rather than be fair and gracious towards each other they have given the role of key holder to a non- Christian faith group to stop the squabbling.

As a Catholic I have a great sadness that St. Peter seems to be the head of the Catholic Church in Rome. Jesus must be the centre for Christianity, and I feel sad that Christians have their main churches in Rome or Canterbury and not Jerusalem.

It seems we are to blind and foolish, and what kind of a burden must we be to God with all this arguing and fighting. We must appear just like foolish children fighting our brothers and sisters; and causing pain to the parents at the same time.

In the spirit of praying for a greater interfaith tolerance and friendship

Eric

 

[Woodrow]

Very good emphasis Eric. It also just reminded me of something else I once heard.

"You can not hate somebody you do not love."

Very paradoxical does not seem to be true, but it is and it is the reason hate causes so much pain.