Religion & Spirituality - 10 February 2007

what did they eat? Everything was destoryed, did noah give them a lunchbox to take until everything grew back?

2007-02-10 07:32:53 · 16 answers · asked by Jason Bourne 5

Why are we created?
Those who believe in the Creator can answer the questions: where from? And where to? They know that they have come into existence by being created by the Creator and they also know that there is an eternal life after death. But what about the answer to the third question, that is: why have we been created? If we had been created by the Creator, shouldn’t we expect that He would tell us the purpose of our creation? Shouldn’t He tell us on what basis He is going to judge us on the Day of Judgment?

What is the Islamic view?
Muslims say they know the answers because they have the Quran. But people of other religions also have their own scriptures, so what is so special about the Quran? The Quran is basically a book of divine guidance in areas that cannot be covered by the human senses or intellect, such as faith, acts of worship, a moral code and a code that governs the transactions between people. These are the four basic foundations of religion, an area in which man always needs divine guidance. Muslims contend that the Quran is the last revealed scripture by Allah (Allah is the proper name of God and is not used to denote any other being. Therefore, I shall use the name Allah in preference to the word God). The Quran is the recorded words of Allah Himself dictated verbatim to the Prophet Muhammad in installments, verse by verse or a group of verses, through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years between 610 and 633 AD. It is divided into 114 units, each called a surah. Muhammad received revelation of the Quranic surahs as and when Allah chose to bestow on him new revelation. At times several surahs, particularly the longer ones, were being revealed to him concurrently. Muhammad used to have a group of scribes entrusted with committing immediately whatever was revealed to him to writing. Those scribes used parchment, pottery, date palm leaves, flat stones, tree bark, wood, dried animal skins and even the shoulder blades of sheep or camels to write on; and the revealed verses were memorized by heart as the mere recitation of the Quran is in itself an act of worship, and as Muslims used these verses in their judgments and in their daily five prayers. In this manner, the verses of the Quran were preserved in the hearts of Muslims, as well as written down, during the lifetime of the Prophet. Muhammad was instructed by angel Gabriel where to place every new passage in the surahs. The surahs were named by divine decree, and Muhammad recited the whole of the Quran in front of Gabriel more than once in the last year of his life. Similarly, the arrangement of the surahs in a specific order was given by the Prophet Muhammad who indicated it mostly by reading the surahs, particularly in prayer, in a specific order. No revealed book has ever enjoyed the authenticity of the Quran or had the cherishing, reverence, surveillance and care of its followers as the Quran. The whole Quran has been memorized by a large number of Muslims in the lifetime of Muhammad .

After Muhammad’s departure, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, asked one of the original scribes, Zaid ibn Thabit, to be in charge of collecting the original writings of the Quranic revelations and writing down the whole Quran. Zaid produced a whole copy of the Quran written on pages of leather. It was arranged in the order we have today. This was done in the first two years after the Prophet’s death, since Abu Bakr ruled for less than two years. This copy was then entrusted with the second Caliph, Omar, and finally with the third Caliph, Othman. During the reign of Othman, the Arabs came to know the paper industry from China and Othman called on Zaid to head a committee of four Quranic scholars who would take on the task of making seven copies. Those seven copies (written 14 years after Muhammad’s death) were distributed to the various centers of the Muslim state to be the reference copy in each center. At least three of those original copies of the Quran are still intact, one in Tashkent, one in Istanbul, and one in Cairo. They do not differ in one letter from the millions of copies of the Quran that are in the hands of people today. This authentication of the last revelation is in itself miraculous. The Quran is the oldest book within the hands of humanity that has been kept intact in exactly the same language of revelation word for word and letter for letter. That is why the Quran is unique, because it is the word of the Creator in its purest divinity.

Muslims believe in the authentic original revelations given to Prophets Moses, David and Jesus, but none of these original revelations is found intact, and none is found in the original language of revelation, and here the Quran stands unique in its divine purity. Again the Quran is different from any human writings because it is neither prose nor poetry. It came to the Arabs when they were at their peak in eloquence and challenged them to produce one single chapter of it, or similar to it, or to produce ten similar chapters or even a book like it. This challenge still exists today and no challenger is forthcoming. The early scholars of the Quran thought that its miraculous nature was due mainly to its style and beautiful expression. The beauty of expression is really unique and cannot be paralleled by human writings. That is why the early commentators of the Quran concentrated on its eloquence and style. Yet being the word of the Creator, any area that has been covered in the Quran must be unique. If you look at jurisprudence the Quran is unique, in the area of worship, the Quran instructs people how to worship Allah. The concepts of Divinity, prophet hood, and morality are all unique in the Quran. If we look at the narration of history of previous nations, one after the other, and how they received the divine message, their reaction towards it and what their reward or punishment was, at a time when there was no form of regular documentation whatsoever. The Quran talks about these successive nations without a single mistake, and modern archaeological discoveries are a testimony to this.

2007-02-10 07:31:13 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous

Why did People turn away from God?
The situation now in the world is different because there are now a very large number of people who do not believe in a Creator or in life after death - for example two surveys in the Czech Republic in 2000 found in one only 13% believe in life after death and in the other only 17% believe in God. A major reason for this in the last century was the so-called theory of evolution by Darwin (other reasons include the impact of totalitarian communism rule on people’s faith.) The theory of evolution says that man evolved from the ape, rather than being created by a Creator. Although this theory has no academic or scientific substance, it gained favor with so many people because it appealed to the doubts they had about the God that they were told to believe in. This is not surprising. If you give an educated person a description of a Creator that is illogical and unreasonable and then ask that person to believe in Him as his God, he would refuse. This unfortunately is the situation right now, especially in the west. The Christian Doctrines advocate the trinity, that God manifests Himself in three distinct and equal persons, and that God came down to earth in the form of a man (that is Jesus) and that He was crucified and died as a vicarious sacrifice for the so-called sin of man. So the Christians believe that Jesus was God in human form, God-incarnate. But how can the Creator die?

Some of the most important doctrines of Christianity - the doctrines of the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus, the Divine-Sonship of Jesus, the Original Sin and the Atonement are neither rational nor in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. These dogmas took shape long after Jesus, as a result of old pagan influence. For example we find in Hinduism, the “Triad” (the trinity): there is Brahma, the creator god, Vishnu, the preserver god, and Shiva, the god of destruction. Modern Hindus take Krishna the son of Divachi, the virgin, as Vishnu incarnate. Krishna is the savior who as a sacrifice for their sin, had to suffer. He was crucified, died and then was raised from death. In Buddhism we find the Buddhist gods: Guatama (the holy spirit), Maya (the virgin mother) and Buddha, the son (who was conceived when Maya was filled by the holy spirit) and who is the savior who died and was raised from death. It may be interesting to mention that the 25th of December is not the birthday of Jesus. It is the birthday of Krishna in Hinduism, and of Nimrod, the divine son (a Babylonian god), and of Mithra, the god of light (one of the gods of the Greeks and the Romans)!

The religion revealed to the prophets of various nations was the same, but in the course of time it had been misinterpreted and become mixed up with superstitions and degenerated into magical practices and meaningless rituals. The concept of God, the very core of religion, had become debased by (a) the anthropomorphic tendency of making God into a being with a human shape, needs and human deficiencies, (b) the association of other persons with the one and only God in His Godhead (as in Hinduism and Christianity), (c) by the deification of the angels (e.g., the Devas in Hinduism, the Yazatas in Zoroastrianism and, perhaps also, the Holy Spirit in Christianity), (d) by making the Prophets into Avatars or incarnations of God (e.g., Jesus Christ in Christianity, the Buddha in Mahayana Buddhism, and Krishna and Rama in Hinduism), and (e) by the personification of the attributes of God into separate Divine Persons (e.g., the Christian Trinity of the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost, the Hindu Timurtri of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and the Amesha Spentas of Zoroastrianism).

Due to major religions distorting the oneness and essence of God, pupils in the West are now being taught in schools to accept, as fact, Darwin’s theory of evo1ution. As a result, more and more students of school and university age are now Atheists. They even ridicule those who believe in God saying: “they are either stupid or lack confidence and so need something to give them security!”

I was recently attending a lecture in a Western country given by a Muslim to a group of retired men and women - more than 65 years of age. The lecturer in the beginning asked the group: which of you believe in God? They all raised their hands except two men. Then the lecturer asked: which of you do not believe in God? The remaining two elderly men then raised their hands. However, one of them paused and immediately interrupted the lecturer. He said: “Tell me what do you mean by God so that I can answer you!” After the session, I said to the lecturer: this man is intelligent because at first he said he did not believe in God, most probably because of the Christian concept of God, but then he was willing to have an open mind and rethink his position based on the concept of God that could be presented by the Muslim.

2007-02-10 07:29:26 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous

(Not my question - I've read it elsewhere and am pasting it here.)

OK kids, which one is false?
A) Refraining from baseball is a hobby
B) Transparent is a color
C) Unemployment is a job
D) Atheism is a religious belief
E) All of the above

2007-02-10 07:29:15 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous

And why do atheists think it's okay to associate Christians with Hitler, but do not even take a closer look at their own history? Don't give these, "It was done in the name of atheism" line. These people hated religion just like most of you do.

2007-02-10 07:29:13 · 17 answers · asked by Anonymous

I've spent time in both the politics and religion sections here on YA. I'm a Liberal Democrat and an Atheist. While both are fun, I think I enjoy political debates more. The religion section is like shooting fish in a barrel. Theist arguments are so easily refuted. However, defeating conservatives is tougher. It's more of a challenge. What's your personal preference ? Or do you have fun arguing something else ? And don't tell me you don't at least like to argue occasionally.

2007-02-10 07:28:55 · 7 answers · asked by Count Acumen 5

Getting hung up on whether one of mans books is perfect, is a childs game.

2007-02-10 07:27:45 · 8 answers · asked by THE NEXT LEVEL 5

before anyone says none checkout http://skepticsannotatedbible.com

2007-02-10 07:27:41 · 15 answers · asked by Jason Bourne 5

sell your soul to the devil?!?!?! you can get any thing you want
ppl like snoop dogg and jay-z did it

2007-02-10 07:27:12 · 4 answers · asked by Jesus follower 1

What exactly is the last trump?

2007-02-10 07:24:51 · 4 answers · asked by skater 2

2007-02-10 07:23:48 · 17 answers · asked by sexymom_33 1

E.g. Catholics, Quakers, Anglican...

Some Christians are even ignorant of the fact that Catholicism IS part of Christianity.

Evangelicals/Fundamentalists seem to hate every sect of Christianity that isn't their own. How Christian is that?

No wonder they can't 'allow' themselves to care about anyone who isn't a Christian...

2007-02-10 07:23:18 · 16 answers · asked by serf m 2

That is what I am supposed to believe! Come on!!!! That would be one really evil God if that was true. Which is why it is not true.

There are many paths to God. He does not care which path you take, or if you take no path.

2007-02-10 07:21:56 · 18 answers · asked by Gorgeoustxwoman2013 7

In which they practice disbelief in God.

Many people consider athiesm as a religion.

2007-02-10 07:19:57 · 1 answers · asked by Kimo 4

2007-02-10 07:18:36 · 13 answers · asked by THE NEXT LEVEL 5

I'm not playing dumb here, I really want to know what everyone thinks.

By the way, when I say 'God', I mean the Judeo-Christian deity from the Bible.

P.S. I'm not trying to argue Pascal's Wager. That's not my intent.

2007-02-10 07:16:33 · 39 answers · asked by ZER0 C00L ••AM••VT•• 7

2007-02-10 07:16:27 · 17 answers · asked by J A/M 2

--would this incline you to disagree with their answer or give them a thumbs down?

If so, why?

2007-02-10 07:15:03 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-02-10 07:13:56 · 18 answers · asked by THE NEXT LEVEL 5

Shouldnt they be living their life, they claim to only have one life then they die. So why waste it on a stupid website?

2007-02-10 07:12:47 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous

You tell me. What is the precentage of humans alive on this planet right now at this moment that are 'saved'?

The world is 33% Christian. Now remember, the fanatics do not consider catholics to be 'saved'. So how many are saved? Subtract that from 100% to see how many are supposedly going to hell.

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html - to see stats

2007-02-10 07:12:29 · 9 answers · asked by Gorgeoustxwoman2013 7

Athiesm has grown to over 7% of the population of the USA now, and my AP US history professer tells us that 70% of europeans are actually athiests. True?

2007-02-10 07:12:03 · 17 answers · asked by Alexanderthegreat 2

Do you ever think that maybe after death there's nothing else. Meaning like no heaven or hell. Just ends!

2007-02-10 07:11:43 · 23 answers · asked by Firas 2

2007-02-10 07:10:33 · 2 answers · asked by Lessa 1

2007-02-10 07:10:08 · 23 answers · asked by a b 1

there are lot of things to share with the people of God who knows the word and who are living in the word of God according the the command giving in 1 joshua 8 but i could't find the website for this people of God.

2007-02-10 07:08:23 · 7 answers · asked by REBECA D 1

My boyfriend, whom I love endlessly, isn't a Christian (anymore). What do I do? Obviously it hurts, but I don't want to lose him...

2007-02-10 07:07:44 · 29 answers · asked by theogoth 2

would it take a bunch of bible verses that offend thier sensibilities? Or would it take death itself to get them to see the error of thier chirstian ways? is there any way of convincing someone with an ego that they are wrong?

2007-02-10 07:04:11 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-02-10 07:02:50 · 7 answers · asked by CHEESUS GROYST 5

They cry and rant because we attack them even though they
will admit they attack us.
To all the nice,respectful Christians I am not talking about you
I'm talking about the arrogant,bull headed Fundamentalist
Extremists who don't even understand the verse "Do unto others
as you'd have done to you."

2007-02-10 07:02:30 · 22 answers · asked by ? 3