Moderate Muslims and Catholics-Nice But Dumb?

[WelshMackem]

[ QUOTE ]
You are right I should have said that Atheism is illogical and irrational.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not so, if any of the popularly supported religion's views of "their" god were to hold true, why would we believe that such an all loving, all singing, all dancing big fella would value the soul of a mass murderer who happens to claim a belief in Him above that of an honest, hard working, considerate person who doesn't? THAT is illogical and irrational.

[ QUOTE ]
If I believe in ANY religion that advocates eternal life I have a better chance mathmatically of living forever in "heaven" than someone who doesn't believe in anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ignoring Pascal's wager, this argument is still flawed. Following this "logic", you should immediately rule out Judaism as a potential religion to feign belief in, since (as far as I'm aware) Judaism has no requirement to follow its tenets or affirm its belief system in order to secure one's eternal salvation, therefore expressing a belief in Judaism simply reuces your chances of being saved.

Further than any of this, to suggest that following (or in your case pretending to follow) a religion is in any way logical, is possibly the least logical comment on this thread - to paraphrase - I don't believe there is a God, but just in case I'm wrong I'm going to try to pull the wool over the eyes of one possible manifestation of him/her/it, because if there is a god he's probably either too stupid or too busy to see through my paper thin ruse.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the Bible was written some time after the supposed miraculous events of Jesus's life/death and then "revised" on numerous occasions when "new interpretations/evidence" came to light. What on earth would make anyone think that following the doctrine of a book re-written several times through the ages to support the then political position of the Vatican (or in the case of protestantism, the wish of the English monarch to get divorced and sleep around a bit more without being damned for eternity) would gain any favour in the eyes of the big guy?

[NMcNasty]

I think part of the original question that David is trying to get at is what about the people who don't in their heart actually believe in God, but due to pressures from society or problems like Pascal's Wager, they go through the motions. They obey all of God's laws and perform the rituals that would show their faith even if its not sincere. They make their best attempt to believe. Would those individuals go to hell or not?

[George Rice]

[ QUOTE ]
Since both books explicitly command my death, I don't think either one can be 'far' worse than the other.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand your plight. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

But if you look at the Christian part of the Bible, the New Testament, the old ways are more or less modified. I didn't see that happen in the Koran. And I think most of the stuff in the bible was directed at their own people breaking certain laws. I don't remember seeing anything about killing "pagans."

Also, extreme followers of the Koran are more a threat to people now than extreme Jews or Christians.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
Nothing wrong with that but they should admit it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends on the situation. If they were official church spokespersons then probably not, it would be a dreadful PR move.

If they are acting as individuals then maybe, depending on what they want to get out of the situation.

[benjdm]

[ QUOTE ]
I understand your plight. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

But if you look at the Christian part of the Bible, the New Testament, the old ways are more or less modified.

[/ QUOTE ]
The people who believe do not see it that way. Witness all the clamor for the Ten Commandments - found in the Old Testament. The Inquisition went on for centuries, based on the commands of Deuteronomy, long after the New Testament. Christians still hold the whole bible as an authority and make me uneasy.

[ QUOTE ]
And I think most of the stuff in the bible was directed at their own people breaking certain laws. I don't remember seeing anything about killing "pagans."

[/ QUOTE ]
Read Deuteronomy 13 and 17.

"If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you to live in, anyone saying that some worthless men have gone out from among you and have seduced the inhabitants of their city, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods' (whom you have not known), then you shall investigate and search out and inquire thoroughly. If it is true and the matter established that this abomination has been done among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it and all that is in it and its cattle with the edge of the sword. Then you shall gather all its booty into the middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with fire as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God; and it shall be a ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt." - Deuteronomy 13:12 - 16 (Previous to this was the bit about gathering the whole town to kill your husband / wife / friend whomever if they proselytize for another God. Since you specified 'own people' earlier I left it out.)

[ QUOTE ]
Also, extreme followers of the Koran are more a threat to people now than extreme Jews or Christians.

[/ QUOTE ]
Only because there are more. The only thing that has made Judaism or Christianity more moderate is a reduction of the Bible as an authority. Which, I think, is kind of the point of the thread. Fundamentalists can claim 'The Bible says God's will is X. Obedience to God's word is good.' Moderates have a tough time responding to this because they wish to retain some authority being given to the bible - it's awful tough to be a follower of Jesus based on a Josephus passage - but only to select parts. They are also unwilling to actually revise the damn thing.

[George Rice]

[ QUOTE ]
Only because there are more.

[/ QUOTE ]

More likely to be terrorists. And this sort of thing is more tolerated by their moderates.

[Willd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In the early days of Islam the religion was spread by holy war, Mohammed leading the first of these. The later suras in the Qur'an have phrases such as "fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them" and "fight those who do not believe in Allah". These contradict the earlier phrase "let there be no compulsion in religion". Liberalists may use that earlier phrase as justification as Islam being a peaceful religion, however in cases where there is contradiction in Qur'an Islamic teaching instructs Muslims to obey the later command. From what I personally understand of Islam and the teachings of the Qur'an I don't see how it could be construed as a peaceful religion.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the sort of thing I was talking about. You are "quoting" from the Koran without citing the verses, which most people do automatically with the Bible. Even if I was citing something from a poker book, I would give a page number.

Doing an online search of the Koran, I can't find these passages. That doesn't mean they aren't there, as diffenent translations use different words to interpret the same passage. But I hope you see the problem. If you are going to cite a passage in the Koran, that most would agree shines a negative light on it, then cite the place where it is written. It also wouldn't hurt to mention which translation you're citing. But at least give us the chapter and verse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry I should have put the references in with the original post. The parts a quoted are respectively Qur'an 9:5, Qur'an 9:29 and 2:256. The translations are probably a little different but as any Muslim will tell you; any translation is not really the Qur'an, since the only true version is in Arabic (I just thought I'd say this because it's another strange thing about Islam, they basically believe that Allah only speaks Arabic, which for an all knowing God is slightly contradictory).

[jah7_fsu1]

[ QUOTE ]
And this sort of thing is more tolerated by their moderates.

[/ QUOTE ]

Doubtful, how many moderate Muslims do you know that tolerate the actions of terrorism. All of my friends who are Muslim denounce the action of the extremists just as Christians denounce the extremist action of most Christians

Timothy McVeigh was Catholic, and Fred Phelps is a psycho Christian something or other, not to mention David Corish (spelling?).

[the_scalp]

David,

I'm a Lutheran pastor with rather Catholic proclivities.

Regarding Catholicism's teaching re: Hell -- the best place to get a decent dogmatic study of the issue is in Hans urs VonBalthazar's "Dare we Hope that all Men be Saved? (with a short Discourse on Hell)".

Here's the thesis: The Catholic Church has NEVER authoritively said of a particular individual "this person is in Hell". It teaches and has always believed in a 'final hope' for all humanity. That said, classical Catholicism certainly seems to insist that at least some people are excluded from the Unity with God all were created for.

I certainly hope and pray that all people will one day live out the true purpose for which they were made (in God's presence). I suspect the sadder reality is that many will, by God's unsearchable wisdom or by their own pushing away of God, instead exist in a Hell, which is best defined as the absence of God's presence.

Interestingly, however, Scripture never makes a dogmatic assertion of the theological premise a person must believe to 'be saved'. Modern Christians read passages like Christ's "noone can come to the Father except through me" as if they really say something like "no one can come to the Father unless they _believe_ in me."

No serious Catholic would refute the former -- any salvation worhty of the name -- be it for Christians, Buddhists, or even (slightly quirky, lapsed) Jews could happen apart from Christ. No one can come to the Father except 'through' Christ for Catholics. But when we start assuming that Scripture means more by 'through' than it seems to state, we're interpreting our own beliefs into Scripture.

I certainly believe the Bible is the word of God -- but passages in Galations which make it seems as if Christ's work on the cross benefited all humanity in savlation do seem to contradict the words of Jesus in Matthew (goats and sheep, etc.). Trusting the wisdom and long teaching of the Church on these matters, and not assuming that literary tracts and letters were written to be theological books of dogma would go a long way toward making this impasse between 'liberal' catholics and evangelical Christians less of a struggle.

Finally, it should be noticed that one of the late-modern heroes of evangelical Christianity, C. S. Lewis, seems to believe that some non-believers go to heaven (read "The Great Divorce" or "God in the Dock"). He also seems to think that some outwardly pious 'beleivers' go straight to a Hell of their own making.

I suppose I've written a lot. I'm not up for proof-texting, but would be glad to come up with citations for the quotations I've mentioned.

[apaugust]

A lot of people talk about not believing in God, but having a fake belief. Does anyone feel like I do, that there is something else beyond us, but I nor anyone else has any way of knowing what it is, therefor taking a stance is irrational. Also I see religion as only a means of control.