Suggestion Do you want the Comparative Religion section Open?

Do you want the Comparative Religion section Open?

  • Total voters
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I voted NO before and I still answer NO. Reasons are same I wrote before plus I agree with br ibn-Adam and sis Muslim Woman.
 
Greetings and peace be with you ardianto;
How if the section name changed into "Interfaith Understanding", with purpose to make people from different faiths can understand each other and coexist better?.

The term "Comparative Religion" can accidentally motivate people compare one religion with other religions with purpose to declare that "My religion is better than yours!"
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I think this is the best solution, the name needs to change to something along the lines of 'Interfaith Understanding' as you suggest. We now have some new eagle eyed mods, so I cannot see anything getting past them.

And just a thought for my Muslim brothers and sisters here, with all the trouble in the world, it is as much in your interests to build interfaith understanding. It cannot be Muslims against the rest of the world.

I find the 'Introduce yourself section' troubling at times, newcomers launch into confrontational issues like Islam and terrorism. I find this worrying, especially if they declare they are Christian.

In the spirit of praying to 'One God'

Eric
 
farhan said:
:sl: everyone :). :jz: for all your votes.

However though... the votes have left me stuck in a square box. I thought it would be either mostly YES or mostly NO, currently now it's exactly even at 11 votes each :O.

Let's review this so far:

Advantages of opening
- Forum will attract experienced senior Muslims and beneficial posters. Currently there are few people waiting for the opening of this section, the section being closed is what prevents them from joining IB.
- Any Islamic articles/posts that take a look at other religions can be posted there.
- ALL threads and posts can be moderated to prevent problems. Problematic members can be banned.
- An opportunity for Dawah. Opportunity for non Muslims to ask questions about their faith. "Direct dialogue with other faiths" as mentioned in [MENTION=16149]anatolian[/MENTION] 's post.
"Invite to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Quran) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided." - An-Nahl : 125
- Forum will be more clean. There are already many threads, even recently that have ongoing discussions which are best suited for comparative religion section.
- People will learn about Aqeedah and misconceptions in other religions clarified.

Disadvantages of opening
- Non Muslims can use it to get publicity for their faith.
- Can create heated arguments/debates/bashing.
- Younger members may not have sufficient knowledge to respond to the points.
- The internal Jihad. We need to understand ourselves first. As mentioned in [MENTION=37518]najimuddin[/MENTION] 's post.
- More moderation needed.

Read the points above everyone, and send your final comments before decision is made :).
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:sl:

As a reminder brother, the decision should not be influenced by members comments or votes but rather it should be based upon the Islamic principle. The comparative religions section may bring some benefit but the harm is more. And in Islam, the removal of harm takes precedence over the attainment of good. Based upon this principle, and the very foundations upon which IB was created, the section should not be reopened.

May Allah guide us all. Aameen.
 
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Greetings,

I voted yes, because I think free debate is always a good thing.

ibn-Adam said:
I've noticed alot of bros/sisters feel lower in emaan because of the huge number of atheists and anti islamic people, who are much older than the average muslim teens who join. Since people like Ansar and kadafi aren't here as much, we rarely have anyone knowledgable to refute them. Since these sections have repetitive articles, and arguments - maybe we can shut them down and make the forum abit peaceful for a while?
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I miss Ansar's contributions to the forum very much. The standard of debate dropped considerably after he left.

It's because the non muslims who do attack usually do it at a full scale, some helpful muslims try to come forward to defend - but aren't able to respond, no-one else responds, which then makes them question whether there really is an answer to what's been mentioned - like waswasa. And it also makes them sad that there aren't muslims there who know any response to the situation.

The reason why these young members get confused is because they go in there trying to refute some of the stuff said about islaam and the muslims but when the non-muslims lash back with a more advanced refutation which is beyond some of the muslim members capability suddenly confusion arises and they get frustrated at the fact that no-one comes forward to clear this.
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The two paragraphs above say essentially the same thing. Does anybody know why there aren't Muslim members who are able to respond in these discussions?

Well basically, comparative religion implies comparing a religion vs another one, in this case Islam vs any other religion; we shouldn't be comparing we should be understanding.
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If understanding is the goal, then why are you so frightened of a critical examination of your beliefs? Surely if "truth stands out clear from error" (Qur'an 2:256), then Islam should be able to stand upright in the forum of ideas, with no need for the kind of artificial protection that is being suggested here by keeping the section closed.

Surely keeping the section closed is a frank admission of weakness?

Peace
 
czgibson said:
Greetings,

I voted yes, because I think free debate is always a good thing.
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Greeting, czgibson.

We should avoid debate, and change it with peaceful friendly conversation. So we can understand each other better.

:)
 
czgibson said:
If understanding is the goal, then why are you so frightened of a critical examination of your beliefs? Surely if "truth stands out clear from error" (Qur'an 2:256), then Islam should be able to stand upright in the forum of ideas, with no need for the kind of artificial protection that is being suggested here by keeping the section closed.

Peace
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Peace gibson. Because most of the muslims tend to answer those questions from what they hear from other sources than Quran. If they stand Quran as their base surely truth would stand out clear from error...
 
ardianto said:
Greeting, czgibson.

We should avoid debate, and change it with peaceful friendly conversation. So we can understand each other better.

:)
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Salam brother. We can make peaceful friendly conversations always. This is another dimension. However, we must be able to debate too without hate.
 
czgibson said:
The two paragraphs above say essentially the same thing.
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Because each of those paragraphs were reflections by different moderators. Both of them who wrote that said the same thing.

czgibson said:
Does anybody know why there aren't Muslim members who are able to respond in these discussions?
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Most scholars and knowledgeable people have busy offline lives. They have far important things to do than engage in online debates and discussions.

czgibson said:
If understanding is the goal, then why are you so frightened of a critical examination of your beliefs? Surely if "truth stands out clear from error" (Qur'an 2:256), then Islam should be able to stand upright in the forum of ideas, with no need for the kind of artificial protection that is being suggested here by keeping the section closed.
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We have a dedicated section on understanding Islam and clarifying misconceptions.


czgibson said:
Surely keeping the section closed is a frank admission of weakness?
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Keeping a diamond in a safe and not comparing it with other stones does not indicate its weakness when its clarity has already been established.
 
I voted yes we should reopen it. It has been and could once again be a venue for understanding.

On the plus side it is an attraction for Non-Muslims, it is a visible sign that we do seek peaceful co-existence, it does expose our young Muslims to other religions and gives them experience on how to counter attempts at leading them astray.

On the negative side it easily slips into attacks, it is sometimes used as an attempt tp proselytize Non-Islamic beliefs, it easily breaks down into personal attacks.


But I think that over all it can have more good than negative.

It will take someone with strong eeman and at the same time a desire to find good in non-Muslim members and can treat what looks like anti-Islam comments as misinformation spread by the media. Will need a person who is not insultd easily and looks for reasons not feelings."
 
anatolian said:
Salam brother. We can make peaceful friendly conversations always. This is another dimension. However, we must be able to debate too without hate.
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Salam, brother.

We can debate about the best restaurant in town without make us hate or offend each other. But faith is very sensitive issue. Debate about faith always make people who involved feel offended, and very possible will reply with offensive words.
 
ardianto said:
Salam, brother.

We can debate about the best restaurant in town without make us hate or offend each other. But faith is very sensitive issue. Debate about faith always make people who involved feel offended, and very possible will reply with offensive words.
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And those people can be infracted and banned.

Very poor reason in my opinion.
 
It's good as long as it's strictly moderated and there's no exchange of 'insults' and things that may offend people
 
Basically what hamza bro said, the section has its pros and cons, me personally I'm not too sure but if we do have this section we'll need to have mods active and make sure we don't get trolls posting disrespecting Islam etc.
 
lonewolf007 said:
Basically what hamza bro said, the section has its pros and cons, me personally I'm not too sure but if we do have this section we'll need to have mods active and make sure we don't get trolls posting disrespecting Islam etc.
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Mods are active 24/7 :)
 
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ardianto said:
Salam, brother.

We can debate about the best restaurant in town without make us hate or offend each other. But faith is very sensitive issue. Debate about faith always make people who involved feel offended, and very possible will reply with offensive words.
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Salam ardianto. Offensive people shall react offensive. Peaceful people will react peacefully :)
 
lonewolf007 said:
yeah I know I'm glad mods are active, as members we can report posts that seem dodgy etc like ppl disrespecting Islam or mouthing off a bit too much etc.
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Salam sis. Your avatar is the symbol of turkish nationalist movement lol
 

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