You call people extremists just because they disagree with you.
This isn't true. I don't call hizbollahis extremist because they simply disagree with me, I call them extremist because their ideas are on the extreme radical end of the spectrum, such that they believe that their version of Islam allows them to have a theocratic dictatorship and can be legitimized to torture, rape, and kill prisoners. They're not extremists because they disagree with me, they're extremist because of their ideas.
Similarly, the Anti-Islamists are extremists as well. They haven Glenn Beck-like arguments to try to prove that Islam is an evil religion that's only based on killing and raping and such and that it can't be changed or reformed whatsoever. They try to show that Islam=IRI or Islam=Taliban and that's all that it is, forgetting that Islam=Rumi or Islam=Ibn Sina or Islam=Muhammad Ali the boxer or Islam=Hafez. They believe that Islam now MUST equal to Islam 1000 years ago, similar to what hizbollahis and talibans think as well.
Neocons also are extremists, but not because I disagree with them. Even many Republicans have disassociated themselves from the neocons because of their extreme and radical points of view.
You don't have a better answer than saying 1400 years it was OK to kill over religion, and even in a crule way.
No, that's not what I said, in fact I said that it's wrong to have killed or stoned or cut off limbs or such now or back then. But what I said is that that was the culture and manner of thinking back then, such that killing gays was acceptable just because they were gay, and stoning and killing rapists and such was part and parcel of what existed back then.
Similarly, today, in my opinion, the death penalty is wrong, as is the prison system here in America. Yet imagine if somebody with the same inflexible attitudes of those who claim Muhammad is the same as Hitler in 1000 years said the President Obama is the same as Saddam because he supported the death penalty and allowed for prisoners in US prisons to be raped, thus, making him a killer and rapist. That's basically the mentality you're conveying.
Someone said 1400 years that he was a Prophet (by the way not all who claimed to be a Prophet spoke through a fairy with God). He made the claim and then you guys continue to make that claim. There are about 1.5 billion Muslims (though many of them cannot even read and write) that accepted Mohammad as a Prophet, but a larger number today do not recognize him as a Prophet. Therefore, the numbers do not matter.
Well, the ideas he propogated back then were seen as progressive in the region which had a malaise of corruption, not just in the Arabian peninsula but in the Persian Empire as well. I don't believe Persians of the time were forced to accept Islam and wouldn't have been able to put it aside the same way in which after several centuries they put speaking Arabic aside and went back to speaking Persian. So the Islamic movement was able to persuade many to accept the religion back then. And today, I think that a better measurement isn't with regard to sheer numbers but in percentages, such that 1.5 out of 6-7 billion isn't so bad, and though I don't have the exact statistics of 1500 years ago, could even be better than the “Golden” age of Islam when it was at the height of its empire.
Besides, I don't think this is a competition as to who has more followers, but that religion and spirituality is simply a way forward for people to find themselves. Being Muslim, for me, doesn't mean I reject the teachings or paths of other religions or that I couldn't find my own ways outside of Islamic teachings. In fact, I think an updated Islam should accept other paths as being no less righteous than Islam.
You are making an extreme claim that Mohammad had contact with God. I am simply saying that I do not believe that, based on some facts in Muslim history books and Quran (and not from Christian, neocons, etc.) Just because many people have come to accept an extreme idea upon birth, it does not mean that those who do not accept it are extremists. It's the reverse. You are the extremist for trying to explain the universeand creation in a certain way without any proof, and not those who question the verasity of your claims. If I claimed to be a Prophet, that would be an extreme position to take. All I am saying is that I do not accept your Prophet. That should be considered the norm. If you have an outrageous claim that someone is or was a Prophet, prove it.
Yes, I believe that Muhammad was able to get revelations from God, yet I can't comprehend how this was done. Similarly, I believe various figures throughout history, including Zoroaster, the Persian poet Rumi among many other Persian poets and mystics, as well as Buddha, or even the Native America tribes during their meditations have a manner of speaking and listening to God, although it's not like you and me responding to one another's posts.
Religion or faith isn't something to prove unless somebody has reached that point of attainment themeselves, and even then he or she can't prove their understanding to others.
I have nothing against you claiming to be a prophet or not to be a prophet, in fact I say it's possible for you to be such if you truly want to be. I might not accept your claim, and then, on the other hand, I might accept you as well. It depends on what and how you teach.
As for you not accepting Muhammad as being a prophet, I have no problem with that. It was never about whether you accept or reject Muhammad, God, or religion, but about the extremist and biased manner in which you tried to show an elephant as being a snake. It's not extremist to say that you don't accept a religion or faith. One of my favorite shows is Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, and he's extremely explicit about not believing in God. Yet I still love his political and social commentary and would love to attend his show one day. But disagreeing doesn't mean extremism, yet the manner in which you and Ostad Pooya had a hizbollahi-like black/white portrayel of Islam and Muhammad wasn't and isn't just saying you don't accept Islam or Muhammad but instead is a manner of trying to show that Khomeini=Muhammad=Islam=Evil, similar to how I already said the Somalian lady at the Neocon think tank has been trying to show that Female Circumcission = Islam = Evil. This is simply not true.
As for God, again, we all should have a ver open mind. You say nobody can prove 100% and beyound doubt, etc. I say that we are far from 100% or beyond doubt such that you can take a leap of faith for that 0.0001%. You act as if it has been scientifically shown almost 100%. That's not the case.
We also have maybe 0.0001% evidence that aliens exist, and yet many people, including myself, believe they do.
We also have the same degree of understanding about new technologies, like light travel, with some saying it's impossible and can't ever happen, while others say it does exist but we haven't reached that point yet.
I don't believe we've reached the point, and maybe won't, for thousands of years, whereby we can prove the existence of the soul and what this means. And even though I don't pretend that this idea of a soul existing, that will last beyond the physical body, is seemingly ridiculous based on what we currently know from science, at the same time, if we took the current technologies and scientific understandings we have to 10,000 years ago, they wouldn't understand a thing and would only believe it to be magic and superstitions. Thus, I don't base my belief and faith only on Muhammad, Zoroaster, Cyrus the Great who was Zoroastrian or Jesus, but also on the teachings of Buddha, the Native Americans in North and South America along with their spiritual beliefs and their medicine men, and last but not least on Rumi, Hafez, Khayyam, Ferdowsi, and other great Persian poets over the years, many of whom have been Sufis and talk about their experiences and their understanding of faith and God through their poems.
What also said that you been fed information since you were a kid, and now you are afraid to think completely outside of that box (whatever the source of that fear is), you say that you have studied, and Soroush this and that. What I really wonder is if you would have the same view of Islam if you were born in Sweden and raised in a different family. You opened your eyes as a Muslim and you studied to came to the same conclusion that it is the best.
That's definitely not true, and you're assuming a lot about me you don't know. I grew up in the United States from the time I was a baby, and my parents never forced me to learn Islam but answered my questions regarding religion as I grew up. My parents weren't hizbollahi or strict followers in any sense, and we didn't even go to the mosque in the city where we lived. They've even drank and had many non-Muslim friends and colleagues, and talked highly of other religions, plus gave me an open-minded environment in which I could explore these issues for myself.
In fact, I think it is you who refuses to think outside of the box, since all you see is hizbollahi Islam or no Islam. You don't see the many shades of color besides black or white, and you refuse to acknowledge that the unknown may not be scientifically proven yet be worth examining.
I think you should read some of the Persian poets and see what they're saying, which is so full of love and not the hate which you and hizbollahis believe Islam to be about. Of course, your view is that Islam is based on cutting off limbs and raping and Khomeini, thus it's evil, so you refuse to see the parts that Rumi saw. Hizbollahis view or Taliban's view is that Islam is about righteousness, the exact word of the Quran, and living just like millenium ago. In between these two, a whole world of possibility exists that you refuse to acknowledge.
Also, I do not believe that Thinkpad and majority of Muslims agree with you that Quran can be revised over time.
I know that Thinkpad, in his replies to my posts, agrees with the base of what I say and also doesn't accept hizbollahi views, yet he might read the Quran more literally than me. As for majority of Muslims, well, as they say, you don't build Rome in one day. It will take maybe 100 years for these ideas to be accepted by the majority, but I'd estimate most young people in Iran who aren't hizbollahi accept some variety of this, and that these ideas are only spreading more and will end up becoming a majority view, similar to how during the Reformation during Christianity the ideas may have been heretical at first but are now accepted widely and even forced Catholicism to change and be modernized. With Islam I feel, and this is just my feeling, that Muslims outside of the Arab countries will accept this view sooner and more readily, but then eventually those in Arab countries, beginning with the more progressive cultures like Jordan and Lebanon but then even spreading into Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab states will accept this.
Schopenhauer described a new movement in such a manner:
- first it is ridiculed
- then it's strongly fought
- finally it's accepted as self-evident
Right now I think reformation of Islam is somewhere between steps 1 and 2, and step 3 will probably be reached by 50-100 years from now. Something that helps this is Sufi Islam which has always been more progressive and adapting to changing times and settings than mainstream Islam, since it will show a way that's positive and has been around for hundreds of years, thus historically valid as well.
Also, Quran says that there are Jinns (and Mohammad had said many other things about Jinns). How do you revise things like that? Back then there were Jinns and now there aren't? Again, Quran is wors of God, and not Mohammad. Didn't God know that there are no Jinns. Oh, I forgot, you have to have faith to believe in Jinns. There is no evidence, but Quran says, so it must be true, because you believe.
The Jinns as you describe them aren't necessarily the superstitious beliefs that our great-grandmothers had such that they thought that others “cheshm zadan” or such, but in my view, they're about energy, or karma. Have you ever heard the saying “what goes around comes around” ? This is my view on jins, that is you show positive intentions and positive energy to others, that same energy may help you find a new solution to a personal problem in your own life, or it can open up opportunities because others may become more open to you as a result of this attitude. It's the energy, the intention within. But at the same time if you show a negative intention or have negative energy towards others, such that you simply wish for their failure, this could end up harming your own life and create problems for ones self later one by closing opportunities and potential relationships.
Have you ever loved a woman, and she could just feel your love for her without you having to say “i love you” ? This energy that's between lovers, the opposite of this can also be among enemies. Some call this “jin” others call it energy and some say it's just intuition. Personally I believe all three could be true, but this energy between lovers and haters does exist and is felt without having to touch or say it necessarily. In fact, animals, like pets, can sense this even better than people sometimes.
Crying outloud at this intelligent and progressive humanity. Just when people use a belief system instead of their brains, you can make them believe anything that the system includes. Unless you come up with your own version that ignores the bad and keeps the good. Then I tell you that you are not a Muslim as 99% of the Muslims define Islam.
Martin Luther wasn't a Christian either, yet now Lutherans are a huge denomination of Christianity. And I'm not sure where you get your 99% from, personally I'd say maybe 75-80% of Muslims may be against my or Soroush's ideas to be more exact. When you talk to Malaysian or Indonesian Muslims, many are more open to these ideas than Saudi Arabians, for example. When you talk to Iranians from big cities in Iran, more are open to these ideas than those from Qom and small towns. And I never said “ignore the bad” rather that Islam needs to update and change to put aside the negatives that have held it back. Like I said, Islam today is like using an abacus to surf the internet. It needs to be overhauled and changed but will take decades to be done.
Nonetheless, I'm proud as an Iranian that Persians, whether as Sufis or now with Dr.Soroush, are leading the way in this. It's speaks very highly of Iranians.
