F.H. ... err point of order mate...

Look at a map, and see where militant Islam progressed to from the beginning of Mohameds time... k.... ummm are u trying to tell me that all those other countries, 'invited' the Muslims to come and slaughter their armies ? :) I think I better send you off for some 'reality' counselling.

What is your 'spin' on how the Muslims ended up in Spain (Then france), China and India ?

Perhaps your view is this:

Islamic armies took territory, then, because of the 'kindly and just rule' all the people spontaneously embraced Islam' er..yeah... sounds right (cough)

Prelude to Battle of Tours
<<According to one unidentified Arab, The slaughter of Christians at the River Garonne was evidently horrific; Isidorus Pacensis commented that 'God alone knows the number of the slain'>>

To answer your question about 'How come Christians are still in places like Egypt etc"

that article provided by Dawood clearly stated that it was in the 'economic intersts' of the state for dhimmis to remain so becAUSE of the higher taxation (no matter what spin you may wish to put onto that, don't argue with me, argue with the author of Dawoods source)

Ok.. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume you were were off your medication when you wrote that stuff :)... how 'did' Islam end up in China and India and Spain ? This will be good..

While you are at it, please provide a definitive statement on the following:

"Jews and Christians" who do not recognize Mohamed as a prophet nor the Qur'an as Gods holy book, ... will they goto heaven or not ?
I would appreciate a 'yes no' answer, and don't worry in the slightest about me being 'offended' if its a "no". I'm just curious about the Islamic position on this. Pending that answer, I'll have more to say (what a surprise :).

Happy blogging.

Boaz,

My response to your claim that “Islam spread by war and Christianity spread peacefully”. You can’t dodge that one: Islam spread to Asia by Trade but its highest growth was since the 1800s. How did it move from 1:8 to 1:5 (while Arab Muslims went from 82% to 15.8% today).

Also apples to apples: Islamic colonialism left people of the book in peace provided they pay a defence tax (for not enlisting in the army). What choices did everybody have in your world?

"Jews and Christians" who do not recognize Mohamed as a prophet nor the Qur'an as Gods holy book, ... will they goto heaven or not ?

- In many parts of the Quran (2:61-67) God states there are good believers among the people of the Book and they have no fear on judgement day.
- Al Imran (3: last part) it talks about a dialogue between Jesus and God (as you may have read), Jesus was asking forgiveness to his people and it says that God will accept some.

According to the Bible; believers in Jesus (Muslims) will go to heaven.
Chill Boaz, you take religion too seriously.

Philo,

My last posting was to get you to practice what you preach: ‘logical processing of religion”. You sound like you did very little of it in your religion but happy to go with a magnifying glass on anyone else. This is called prejudice or worse…

None of my notes were in 'defence of Islam' but rather explaining how we view our faith. Jesus in the Bible is clear on god is one, the commandments and the Mosaic law (which what Islam teaches exactly). Jesus humanity revealed itself everywhere in the bible (he did not know about judgement day, he also felt ‘forsaken by God’ and asked forgiveness for his people.Jesus being a great miracle of God and prophet is what we believe. You made a God out of him that’s your choice but you have no ‘logical evidence’ to come up with a breach of the first commandment. That is my personal view anyway.

Philo, BD etc

I wonder what part of “working together to find solutions to terrorism” was so difficult to understand?

Um, I am running out of ideas fast.

Well, boys, my only other suggestion is to offer you my tape measure and perhaps you may settle your ..er.. differences that way.

(Nice try F-H).

To all - have a wonderful weekend - stop to smell some flowers, pat animals and generally be excellent to one another.

:-)

[[["Jews and Christians" who do not recognize Mohamed as a prophet nor the Qur'an as Gods holy book, ... will they goto heaven or not ?
I would appreciate a 'yes no' answer, and don't worry in the slightest about me being 'offended' if its a "no". I'm just curious about the Islamic position on this. Pending that answer, I'll have more to say (what a surprise :).]]]

This is why i like al-Ghazali, regardless of F_H's opinion of him on his blog. In his book "the criterion for distinguishing Islam from masked infidelity", he explained non-Mulsims were in 3 categories and included some caveats afterwards too:

1) Those who did not hear of Islam - they will be given supreme Mercy.
2) Those who heard of Islam, but a distorted version - they will also be given Mercy (as rhetorically why would anyone want to follow if it was distorted and unclear?)
3) Those who know the truth of Islam and still reject it - they will be given Justice (ie. whatever they deserve, as no one will be wronged).

He also made a great point that it is well known from hadith that God's "Mercy precedes His Wrath" (another version states it is greater than the wrath), so how can any human - scholar or otherwise - attempt to limit the boundless Mercy of the Creator? This is kind of why i don't like theology much, it is speculative in that regard.

Of course, this is from a slightly elitist and centrist position that Islam is quite clearly "the Truth", but I personally think that point 2 is the major one. For a convert like me, it answers a lot of questions (and creates others too!), compared to the extremists who reject this nuanced explanation.

But why a yes or no answer? Theology is not as simple, regardless of religious tradition.

Yabby

80% of the cure of an evolutionary flaw (sometime called sychosemantics) is the correct identification of the problem and the willingness to front up to it.

You may not realise it, but you are a perfect candidate for conversion. You have an over developed backal lobe producing an exaggerated hyperactivity association in your dreaming/believing functions.

Your pouring it all out is the best thing you could have done.

I am sure that if you examine your reply to my last post (2nd last post) you will see what I saw

I thought that I may have missed something, but “days of our lives”, continues on just to give the blanks more illusions to delude themselves with.

Goldbrick, great that you have accepted that evolutionary flaws need to be fronted up to, “80% of the cure of an evolutionary flaw (sometime called sychosemantics) is the correct identification of the problem and the willingness to front up to it.” I hope that you can front up to the greatest evolutionary flaw known to man and rid yourself of it. But I doubt it, where there is no sense there is no reason. Psycho semantics, is the use of psychology in words, nothing to do with evolution, but we expect that from the evolutionary flawed.

Religion is the biggest evolutionary flaw we have, this can be seen by the continuing repeats on this thread. People with intelligence learn early in life the trap that repetitively stifles growth and understanding, until all you see is what you are repeating. I love it when all you can do is recite flawed, rehashed words that have no meaning, except for deluding those that can't see reality.

Anyone that believes against all the factual evidence, that their religious belief is peace loving and beneficial to the planet, surely lacks evolutionary intelligence.

Having said that, I have answered my own question, that the religious are not evolved intelligently, but are evolved aggressively. Tell me who destroyed the indigenous peoples of the southern hemisphere, which Islamics countries don't have the death penalty.

All despotic religions use the death penalty, either within their laws or as a justification for their war like acts. Bali, is Hindu, not Buddhist nor islamic but like other peaceful peoples they are under threat by a despotic religion