...However I appreciate this is a thread about Christianity, so I'll refrain from derailing the thread any further.
PNE Online
Welcome to PNE-Online.
Why not register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
You can also join up as a forum Patron to help support in the running costs of the forum.
Religion, specifically christianity.
- Thread starter raefil
- Start date
It is, because it is very personal and that’s how it should stay. But in my opinion it’s necessary.
You are entitled to mock whoever you want. That's the beauty of free speech!
I have little time for anyone who tries to restrict that right through censorship, whether through trying to force changes in the law, or through threats of violence.
That said, as with the Alice Roberts tweet above, one important aspect of free speech is that it lets me make my own mind up about a person and their views.
Religion is one of my favourite subjects. It fascinates me no end. I enjoy having discussions with people about it, please carry on.
Something that will hopefully change over time. Women's rights in Islam is a very complicated subject!
I actually wanted to train to become an imam and open my own Islamic centre that was fully open to women and people of all Islamic thought, but although I did get some encouragement, I was met mostly with death threats and mockery. You probably don't need any clues as to which gender reacted which way.
Knock yourself out..... Always interesting to read other views.
Ghost wrote a book about women's rights in the Middle East a few years ago and it was a eye-opening subject. Much more complex than people think - it's become part of the battle for democracy there and a lot of powerful people use the oppression of women simply as another means to control the population.
Not just men - a lot of rich, well-connected women subverted feminism because they feared young, well-educated women threatening the status quo.
Hope you manage to succeed in your aim - it's the only way it is going to change.
Isn't that how most religions have started throughout the ages? And to varying degrees some still do.
Wow, really?
The modernisers have a hell of a battle on their hands. Why do you think that is? The relinquishing of religion to free thought and the potential that Islam could go the same way as Christianity? Or similar to what Sepp mentioned, a much more base reason like lack of control and power?
Sometimes - no doubt about that.
Others, I suspect, are genuine attempts at exploring the universe through spirituality and the mind. Others start as a rebellion against oppression and the established order.
Doesn't stop them later morphing into ways of controlling people, of course, although you can say the same about most ideologies.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2004
- Messages
- 13,066
Yes thanks, that wasn't the point of my post.
Someone openly said online that they hoped that God would snap my neck, that's the sort of people I was dealing with. Islam is a tool like any other religion, you can either use that tool obnoxiously, destroying everything in sight, or you can use that tool, thoughtful of those around you, in a way that builds things rather than breaks them.
Traditionalists see reformists as trying to re-word and change the Qur'an to suit contemporary society, whereas reformists are only looking at the translations and how the Arabic words are interpreted.
As Muslims we can't change the word of God, but we can translate the Arabic words in different ways, because Semitic languages are made of words that have roots,so the word 'Salam', it's root is S-L-M, which forms the meaning of both peace and submission (Islam, Muslim, Assalam alaikum, all S-L-M derived words).
There might be a fear of losing power, but it's not at the forefront of a person's mind I don't think, because scholars really only hold so much power and influence, I couldn't even tell you the name of my local imam, that's the influence he has over me.
There's nothing unorthodox about women being allowed to pray in the same room as men, Muhammad allowed it, then Abu Bakr (the first caliph) changed it so that women were allowed but did so behind a roped off area, and then it was Umar a few years later who separated the genders off all together.
I suspect it was later caliphates/empires like the Mughals of India who didn't allow women in at all, but I could be wrong.
Interesting, thanks. The language part will be right up @Sepp Blatter street.
You mentioned that you also tried to bring together various sects within Islam together under one roof. Do you mean Sunni/Shia/Ahmaddiyya etc? The latter are frowned upon as reformist in some circles are they not?
Also, have you seen a change in Islamic practice over the last few years due to the rise and availability of Saudi money in Sunni mosques?
Apologies for all the questions, just genuinely interested.
The Ahmadiyya are definitely reformist, Shi'ites have some bits to their teachings I guess, the Mutazila movement of the 10th century is quite close to my views, as is Qur'anism. However, yes, that would have been my aim.
While all mosques say they welcome everyone, and they do to an extent, their particular ideology mean that some will not feel welcome.
So regarding the Sauds, they have a printing complex in Medina called the King Fahd Complex. It's responsible for printing and distributing most of the Qur'ans and hadith books that are in most mosques. These books can cost £25-50 each, yet the Sauds send them for free. At the time I found it astonishing before I converted that mosques gave people like me a free Qur'an, but now it's not so astonishing after all!
The translation they usually send out is the Hilali-Khan translation, one which is controversial because it advocates the beating of women when they don't behave. The word they translate to mean hit, it does mean hit, but it also means 'to set forth an example' and 'divide oneself from'. It also encourages Muslims not to be friends with Christians and Jews, which has indirectly led to many issues today. Again, the word can mean 'friend', but it also means 'ally', the context actually being about not taking other religions as allies in war due to conflicting interests, risk of turncoating etc.
They have ruined a lot of Islam as it is today.
Again, interesting thank you. That enforces similar things I have heard elsewhere but never in as much detail as that.
May I ask what led to your conversion?
Well, I wasn't religious for most of my life and come from an atheist family, but religion played an important part in my life when I was going through a tough time.
I ended up praying for some relief at Westminster Cathedral and life got better, so I started going to Catholic church. After a while though, I saw issues with their practices and the trinitarian thing just troubled me. Anyway, for me converting to Islam was about being truer to God who for me had got me through a bad time, and not Jesus. I had looked into Judaism, but it was the mosque's doors that were open and not the synagogue's.
I don't always feel my prayers get answered anymore, I feel like I was like those first-time customers that get all of the perks, now after seven years of being a loyal customer, the perks seem not to come so much.
I just live in some sort of hope everything will be okay and am thankful for what I've got.
I know, right?Glad to see that God wasn't listening........
It is right up my street, thanks!
One of the problems I have with literal readings of scripture is that it all ends up as semantics, context, and interpretation. It's a it like the debate over a written constitution - people interpret it in different ways, so you then need additional text to clarify- then additions to the additions - and expensive constitutional lawyers.
You can read it any way you want. Although, that is perhaps the key to religious texts - in their original language, they are many-layered and textured, and understanding that is all part of the personal journey. Coptic Christians, Sufis, Kabbalist Jews and many others know this perfectly well. We can read the same book and all draw different conclusions from it - religious texts are no different, IMO.
Reminds me of the debates I used to have with fundamentalist Christians a while back. They used to take a literal interpretation of the Bible. I asked them how they could do that if they had no knowledge of New Testament Greek, and the argument was that they used a computer program.
You can't do that with Ancient Greek, which is a rich, complex language that depends on context and also assumptions based on a specific time and place. I assume it is the same for Arabic, Hebrew, and Sanskrit, for example.