GY: I'd be interested in having an Imam or scholar write an article about how Islam might reform from within. I'd also be interested in a Rabbi explaining the same thing about Judaism, but from the perspective of how it did reform from inside.

The Grand Mufti would be great & invite Ifithar, steelie, poirot, & the others as well. Now that's a conversation I'd just love to see. ;-) WOW!

Dear LEGO,

«OK, then all you have to do is to renounce those passages in the Koran and the Hadiths that instruct Muslims to kill, maim, and humiliate non Muslims.»

You are running a risk here:

Najla claims that she is not an expert on Islam. Could it be that she is not even aware of those passages? Could it be that you would be the first to inform her about them?

Seems strange? I talked with people in Singapore who claimed to be Buddhists but had no clue who Buddha was!

More likely, the majority of Muslims are good people and therefore use whatever psychological mechanisms they have in their disposal to not-know, refuse-to-know, refuse-to-believe-that-these-are-for-real, block-away-the-information, allow-such-information-to-enter-through-one-ear-then-exit-through-the-other or simply forget that those passages exist, that apart from those who indeed never heard those verses: whatever defence they use, why would you want to remove it and expose them to something they have shielded themselves from in one way or another because they don't want to live accordingly?

Also, for those who would like to but are unable to deny the existence of those violent passages and therefore require theological justification to ignore them, there are plenty of Muslim scholars, Imams and Sheikhs, especially Sufis and Ahmadiyyans, who rather than formally renouncing those passages, provide alternative and non-violent interpretations for the same.

Those who are violent by nature and want to hurt others, can always find a pretext: they don't need Muhammad for that. Similarly, those who are peaceful by nature will also find one excuse or another to abstain from violence.

.

Dear Runner,

.

You wrote :

« ' I prefer the scientific method to blind faith.' You have to be joking Banjo. Your ignorance or deceit is incredible. Scientific method for what? health benefits of sodomy?, order from chaos?, laws with no LawGiver, unborn not human. By all means have your secular dogmas but don't pretend that they are rational or based on science »
.

I’m sorry I upset you, Runner. I did not wish to offend you.
However, it was the scientific method applied to my body that allowed medical experts to save my life on several occasions - not blind faith in a hypothetical god. Without their science I should have died a long time ago.

My brother had the same problem (it is congenital) but, unfortunately, lived in the bush in our old family home in Queensland and did not have access to the same expert medical treatment as I did here in Paris where I live. He died four years ago.

This is fact, not theory. Nor is it some sort of “secular dogma” as you suggest.

I sincerely respect your beliefs, Runner, as I indicated in my previous post and hope that, despite the fact that my beliefs are diametrically opposed to yours, you will accept to respect mine just as I respect yours – without getting upset.

Please be assured that I am attentive to your concerns and take them quite seriously.

I do not come to this forum for people to rub my back but to exchange ideas with people who see things in a different light in the hope that I may learn something.

If others can learn something from me, that’s fine, but I have no axe to grind and no desire to moralise or proselytise anybody.

Nevertheless, though I personally place a high value on individual freedom, I understand that in the present atmosphere of universal existentialist angst, many are tempted to place their trust in a widely acclaimed supreme, superhuman power, ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority.

I find that eminently comprehensible.

.

Foxy,

"No I have not read the Koran, nor the Bible, the Torah,
or any other holy book because I don't take any of
them literally."

Be happy in your ignorance, there are people who take them literally and they are the problems; particularly Muslims, the Torah, by the way, is part of the Bible, being the first five books of Moses.

Will any Muslim kindly point out to us all which parts of the Koran are not to be taken literally?

Dearest Foxy,

You could try this web-site:

http://www.searchtruth.com/quran_topics_index.php

It's possible that the first versions of the Koran were written in Syriac, the common language of Syria, the Levant and Palestine, at the time. But it was written without those little marks above and below letters, [diacritica], i.e. the vowels. So when it was transcribed into Arabic, with the diacritica, many Syriac words would have been mis-understood and mis-transcribed: 'raisins' for 'virgins' for example. So much of the Koran may seem like gibberish, perhaps for that reason.

Syriac is still spoken by millions of Christians in the Middle East, by the way, mainly in Lebanon.

This is also a useful site:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/

Best wishes and lots of love,

Joe

Dear Is Mise,

Have you read the Koran?

Which parts do you object to and take literally?