TR,
If you feel that “scientific naturalism combined with philosophy and humanism is far more beneficial to” you “than religious faith”, good on you. But please accept that for some other people religious faith combined with science, philosophy and humanism is far more beneficial to them than short-sighted scientific naturalism. Indeed, for both kinds of individuals, “there's a lot to be said for the liberating experience of discovering (what they are convinced is) truth”. Therefore a good psychotherapist (even a good priest) will not force on you his understanding of truth and/or ridicule the alternative. He/she will only encourage you to discover it for yourself.

coach,
aggressive language used against a fellow human (pun intended) of a different religion he tries to proclaim peacefully is not only unpolite, unchristian, but also counterproductive. Theologians/scholars of both these great religions will eventually settle on what they can agree upon, and on what we have to agree to disagree. However, we, ordinary Christians should not make the dialogue harder by emotionally (and unscholarly) pitting our beliefs against those of the Muslims. And vice versa.

Felow_Human,
“just like you believe God is incapable of forgiving and had to re-incarnate a son for blood sacrifice”
I can understand that you got upset by coach because he spoke disrespectfully of your religion, confusing it with the actions of some fanatics of whom there are still too many in any religion. Nevertheless, I am disappointed to see you react in a similar way. I hope you agree that mutual respect for the foundation elements, persons, facts, symbols, myths, etc. of the others’ religion is one of the basic preconditions for a peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims in a country where both are in fact a minority. For this I respect you and through you also your religion. You will remember that e.g. the official representative of Vatican was among the most outspoken non-Muslim critics of the Mohamed caricatures offense. Of the many so-called Western values, the “right to offend” is not one that Christians identify with. And, I am sure, neither do Muslims.

George,

You are right. Coach aggression is no justification of the way I commented. I tried to fix it in my second comment.

Also accept my apologies and remember that I started interacting on this forum 10/6/2005. I have coped with a lot from a mob (Coach, Boaz) who claim to follow your faith. Disrespect was the 'least honourable' quality I have seen and I did my best not to mirror their behaviour. I persisted and stayed when every other muslim almost just gave up and walked away with whatever impressions of Australian culture or your faith.

You are one of few I respect on this forum and it upsets me to offend you. Please forgive me.

Sincerely, FH

Coach,

Hope you learn from George and you might become a real christian one day.

TR,

I quoted a number of philosophers (see my post to Danielle).
I am not 'recommending' one or the other I am just saying these are schools of thought.

Dr Hanahfi have a 'competitive' approach as its his personal view that Christian reform should be used as a benchmark. He was one of few top scholars to question our understanding of Islam, re-interpret hadith for modern time and question historical understanding of the Quran.
See his comments on free-minds.org

Peace,

Quote Oliver:
Stickman,

"Don't hold your breath, if you are expecting BOAZ to answer. Well, at least that is my experience."

I should have listened to you mate, I am now a nice shade of deep blue... ;) I hope that put an end to the unwanted proselytism!

Quote FH:
“Islam seems to give more comfort to those who would give violent expression to their opinions, than other religions”

Replace “Islam” with “Arabic culture” and the above statement will be correct."

Yes but in what way are Arabic culture and Islam separable? They are so deeply intertwined that any attempt to make such a differentiation seems a little disingenuous to me.

And thanks, the exams went well!

Quote FH:
"We believe simply because we want to believe."

FH, thank you for the very refreshing honesty. I think this goes to the root of what I believe to be the psychological origins of religious belief, but that is a whole other topic.

Quote George:
stickman,
“as an atheist, what am I missing out on by having no "faith" in anything?”
Faith, very roughly speaking. is belief plus trust. You do not have “no "faith" in anything”: you trust for instance, your parents, and you believe that the material world that science studies “is there and was there” before anybody studied it."

Thanks George for the interesting perspective. I must respectfully disagree though, I trust my parents (many don't for good reason) because, empirically, I know they are worthy of it. I believe that the material world was there before I was, because scientists carbon-date it to x-billions of years etc.

Thanks for the book tip, I might chase it up (anything that steers clear of the odious fraud known as intelligent design sounds good). I tend to prefer my science straight though, a la Dawkins - call it a reaction to 15 years of Catholic indoctrination! Your story is interesting, did you grow up in the GDR?

I am indeed studying medicine - halfway through the course this month :)

Stickman,

:-)

George,

I will keep a look out for the book. I know of the Templeton Foundation. I have about six yet to be read books stacked-up. That said, I am interested in acquiring a book you recommend. Thanks.

Hi Stickman,

"in what way are Arabic culture and Islam separable? They are so deeply intertwined that any attempt to make such a differentiation seems a little disingenuous to me"

Actually Arabic culture and Islam has been on a separation course for the last 2 centuries. Arabic culture was the sole influencer over the Islamic faith when Muslims were manily arabs (Arabs used to be 80% of Muslims).
Arabs today represent as little as 16% of the total Muslims population and most forecats shows they will settle at 8-9% in the next few decades.
With the decline of the Arab cultural influence, there is rising influences you can see today mainly Asian and European. I think Islamic culture in 20-30 years will look vastly different than today.

Peace,

Fellow_Human,
thank you for your warm words. My feelings towards you are similar, hence my irritation. However, rest assured I was not offended. Worse things are being said by atheists all the time, and Christians in the West would have to live in a state of permanent offense had they not grown immune to that. Sometimes I think Muslims should try to develop a similar thick skin: think about legitimate criticism and simply ignore insults. These insults bear testimony to nothing related to your faith only to the offender's arrogance and ignorance.

What I wanted to emphasise in my post was that - to put it simply - if somebody steps on my toe (these things happen), it is decent of him to apologise, and it is decent of me to accept his apology. What is not decent is to claim that he has “the right” to step on my toe.