Hate for the Pagan

Thucydides1987 said:
.....No pagan theology (at least in the West) claims such a thing. Do you know what you're talking about, by the way?

And are you telling me that it's psychologically and morally more correct to believe that ONE being somewhere up in the sky (is he a man or a woman, anyway?) fathered you?
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Asalaamu Alaikum(peace be with you),

Allah(swt) is neither a He or a She, basically Allah(swt) is nothing like his Creation, He is far greater. The reason we refer to him as "He" is explained here -

When Allah uses the term "HE" in Quran it is similar to the above answer. The word "He" is used when referring to Allah out of respect, dignity and high status. It would be totally inappropriate to use the word "it" and would not convey the proper understanding of Allah being who Allah is; Alive, Compassionate, Forgiving, Patient, Loving, etc. It is not correct to associate the word "He" with gender, as this would be comparing Allah to the creation, something totally against the teaching of Quran.
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"Say, 'He is Allah, the One;
Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begets not, and neither is He begotten;
And there is nothing that can be compared to Him."
[112:1-4]

I mean if you think a man or a woman could've created the Heavens and the Earths... Then I'd have to disagree with you, not just as a Muslim but logically speaking it doesn't make sense.

If there was more then One God, then there would be chaos in the Creation. The Quran actually refutes the claim of Multiple Gods;

"Allah has not taken any son, nor has there ever been with Him any deity. [If there had been], then each deity would have taken what it created, and some of them would have sought to overcome others. Exalted is Allah above what they describe [concerning Him]." [23.091]
"Had there been within the heavens and earth gods besides Allah, they both would have been ruined. So exalted is Allah, Lord of the Throne, above what they describe" [21.022]

If people want to worship more then One God then that's their choice, I just would say as an opinion it's not very well thought out.
 
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@ thucydides
"This sounds good theoretically, but is completely wrong historically."

I was actually speaking "theoretically". My understanding might be wrong, but during pre-Islamic times, the Kaaba was filled with idols of many gods of the various surrounding towns and tribes. Each town/tribe was loyal to their diety. Each was possesive of their diety. At the Kaaba, all these "dieties" were gathered together so that during the pilgrimage each could pray to "his own". Such a limited and erroneous concept of The Divine does not serve the best interests of humanity. God is Unlimited creator of ALL. Tawheed attempts to correct the error so that we can transcend our pettiness and differences and join TOGETHER in worship of the ONE God. Why is this necessary?.....because God's will is that right belief inspires right intentions that promote right actions that create a benefit for all of God's creations....in order for "Right Belief" to flower, we need to transcend our limiting egoic desires and find Unity.----Unity of purpose for the greater good of all of God's creation. All humanity is his creation and when we acknowledge worship of him alone, we also acknowledge our Unity.
 
"But the idols are not "God"; they are deities of particular pagan cults and have no association to your abrahamic god. An idol of Zeus or Isis are not attempted images of Allah... "

Any time a monotheists says "My God" is different from "Your God"---he has fallen into polytheism----for there is only ONE God in existence.

----It is this aspect that disturbs me about Christianity........
 
@ siam: "Any time a monotheists says "My God" is different from "Your God"---he has fallen into polytheism----for there is only ONE God in existence.

----It is this aspect that disturbs me about Christianity........"

I agree with you, but Islam isn't innocent in this matter either. In fact Christians don't necessarily say that the Muslim or Jewish God is different from their God, they claim that their God is the true one -- or at least that they worship him in the correct way. Islam makes the same claims about itself, and hence is prone to the same kind of intolerance as Christianity or Judaism.
 
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Perseveranze said:
Asalaamu Alaikum(peace be with you),

Allah(swt) is neither a He or a She, basically Allah(swt) is nothing like his Creation, He is far greater. The reason we refer to him as "He" is explained here -
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Lol, thanks for your response. I was just trying to point out the absurdity of naidamar's statement by showing him that it is equally absurd to say that one supreme asexual being fathered him as when one says that many deities fathered him. Our parents 'fathered' us, no deity or deities were ever involved in the process, I'm quite sure of that :P
 
Thucydides1987 said:
Lol, thanks for your response. I was just trying to point out the absurdity of naidamar's statement by showing him that it is equally absurd to say that one supreme asexual being fathered him as when one says that many deities fathered him. Our parents 'fathered' us, no deity or deities were ever involved in the process, I'm quite sure of that :P
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Surely even an atheist can tell the difference between procreation and creation ex nihilo?
 
Thucydides1987 said:
I don't understand, why is it psychologically and morally dangerous to believe in more than one god? How could you have the right to say that polytheism is not as sincere enough a devotion as monotheism when you yourself are a monotheist??? That's exceedingly biased and ignorant of you.
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I don't know the official name of your fallacy (if there is one) but I think of it as the "those who can, do" fallacy. You hear it a lot when artists have no better response to a critic than the fact that they themselves aren't artists and therefore somehow are magically incapable of recognizing good art when they see it. You know, "This guy has never picked up a guitar in his life, what gives him the nerve to criticize my guitar-playing?!" If no one who couldn't play guitar was capable of doing that then hardly anyone would recognize the talent of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. Firsthand knowledge isn't the only kind of knowledge and it isn't always even the best: indeed, often people are more likely to be irrationally biased about a group if they themselves are a member. And besides, I could just as well say you have no right to ever criticize theism because you're an atheist. Doesn't work that way, does it?
 
Yahya Sulaiman said:
I don't know the official name of your fallacy (if there is one) but I think of it as the "those who can, do" fallacy. You hear it a lot when artists have no better response to a critic than the fact that they themselves aren't artists and therefore somehow are magically incapable of recognizing good art when they see it. You know, "This guy has never picked up a guitar in his life, what gives him the nerve to criticize my guitar-playing?!" If no one who couldn't play guitar was capable of doing that then hardly anyone would recognize the talent of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. Firsthand knowledge isn't the only kind of knowledge and it isn't always even the best: indeed, often people are more likely to be irrationally biased about a group if they themselves are a member. And besides, I could just as well say you have no right to ever criticize theism because you're an atheist. Doesn't work that way, does it?
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FYI What you're describing is a clear cut Poisoning the Well fallacy since the attack is being made on the person's supposed lack of knowledge or expertise instead of the argument he has put forward. This might help Thucydides in seeing his mistake.

To the general discussion in the thread:
I've always understood the animosity towards paganism to be isolated towards the particular paganism that existed in Pre-Islamic arabia. As far as I understand the alleged history the Pagans knew about Allah because of Abraham's son and they corrupted the message by adding 'partner's to Allah. This is different from paganism in the form of the ancient Greek pantheon (for example) where there is no concept or understanding of Allah.
 
Lynx said:
FYI What you're describing is a clear cut Poisoning the Well fallacy since the attack is being made on the person's supposed lack of knowledge or expertise instead of the argument he has put forward. This might help Thucydides in seeing his mistake.

To the general discussion in the thread:
I've always understood the animosity towards paganism to be isolated towards the particular paganism that existed in Pre-Islamic arabia. As far as I understand the alleged history the Pagans knew about Allah because of Abraham's son and they corrupted the message by adding 'partner's to Allah. This is different from paganism in the form of the ancient Greek pantheon (for example) where there is no concept or understanding of Allah.
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Muslims believe that God has sent a prophet to every nation - so "paganism" or poytheism of any kind is a corruption of the messege of one God. How do you know the Greeks never had an idea of one God?
 
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Lynx said:
FYI What you're describing is a clear cut Poisoning the Well fallacy since the attack is being made on the person's supposed lack of knowledge or expertise instead of the argument he has put forward. This might help Thucydides in seeing his mistake.
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Well, whenever a claim is made as the one he did -- about polytheism being "psychologically and morally more dangerous" than monotheism --, I have no choice but to put into question his knowledge about polytheism. Perhaps you can excuse my suspicion, but without any explanation, that point just sounds ludicrous to me.
 
Thucydides1987 said:
The Greeks did indeed, but it was only among the educated class. And the God they believed in was very much like the god in Deism, not like the abrahamic one.
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thats intresting - your refering to aristotle right?
 
naidamar said:
Or the alternative: atheists lack capacity for abstract thinking and are too dense to understand simple analogy.
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Or the original case: that it truly was a terrible analogy. Not to mention that it showed how little you know of pagan cosmogony and creation myths.
 
Zafran said:
thats intresting - your refering to aristotle right?
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Yea, and I think Plato also believed in one Supreme Being too (not sure about Socrates). There were other philosophers and scientists during the Hellenistic and Roman period as well (323 BC onwards) who espoused this cosmological view because they were adherents to Plato's Academy or Aristotle's Lyceum, but unfortunately I don't have sufficient knowledge about them.
 
Thucydides1987 said:
Or the original case: that it truly was a terrible analogy. Not to mention that it showed how little you know of pagan cosmogony and creation myths.
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I underestimated you. Apparently the word "dense" was too forgiving for you.
I apologize.

:)
 
@ Thucydides

Intolerance in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
All 3 claim to worship the ONE God (of Prophet Abraham(pbuh))---Yet, we are egoic and we need to feel different/superior---So the Jews claim they are the "chosen people", the Christians claim that they are special because they are the "saved" ones (on account of believing God sent his son....etc) and we Muslims believe such ideas are false because we are all creations of a compassionate and merciful God who is the final/ultimate Judge---which makes Islam the perfect religion....As the Quran explains---we are focusing on the differences ("schisms")---not on Unity. In order to focus on Unity, we all have to give up our pride, arrogance and ego and approach the Divine with humility.......not at all an easy task because ego is linked with self-identity......

So you might ask---has monotheism failed?----my answer would be no. It is true that our egoic desires are still very strong, yet if we have sight of right belief (Tawheed) we will eventually get to our destination---(Unity). But why can't we get to this destination through polytheism?----because though historically polytheism has been tolerant---it is a system of belief rooted in egoism (division/difference) not on Unity and because of that cannot ever reach that destination.

There is also another system of beliefs---the Shamanistic beliefs of Shintoism and the Native Americans.....it is rooted in a respect for nature and a belief/recognition in a Creative force in nature called Kami or Great Spirit. There is much to admire in this belief system---however, this also falls short of Tawheed, for here, the believers have mistaken the "signs" pointng to God/Divine as the Divine Creative force itself (nature) and worshipped the "signs" instead of worshipping the ONE God the Creator of these "signs".
 
Polytheists may learn to accept each other for who they are and tolerate each others different views, whereas the monotheists are far more likely to force their view, the only "acceptable" view, on everybody else.

As soon people go from "to each his own" towards "my way is the only way" I think a lot of new trouble comes. This applies to going from "to each his god" to "my god is the only god, and to worship others is blasphemy".
 
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"... I think a lot of new trouble comes."

It is possible that "trouble" will always be there because God has created human beings with different intellectual and spiritual capacities. If we were all the same---there would be no neccesity for tolerance, compassion and mercy---it is our differences and trancending these differences to find our common humanity that requires these noble virtues......
 

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