Islam - is anyone interested in it? No preaching, just asking...

[PasseBlanc]

Just wondering if anyone here is or has ever been interested in coming to Islam, despite all the bad press/media hype etc?

I'm not here to quote and preach, I just want to maybe answer a few questions from my own perspective as a convert/revert muslim and give a bit of evidence.

Your thoughts/opinions/questions welcome

I don't know what your dad means. Every atheist I know would say "I don't believe in God" rather than "There is no God, I'm sure."

I'm afraid I know a lot of people who would say they're sure. Your position is infinitely more reasonable in my view.

Jinsei it's usually the evangelical christians who tend to say that atheism takes more faith than to be a christian because usualy they are looking for a convert or to ridicule the science facts that easily contradict the bible and show how false a lot of it is.

We are saying the same thing.

Atheists say "We don't buy your God story. You have no evidence and it just doesn't make sense" to all of them. Because none of them have any evidence and none of their stories makes any sense.

It is a position of non-belief, but not "just because". Not "because this is what I feel" or "because I have faith" or any other meaningless 'explanation'.

It is a position of non-belief because the belief stories are just not convincing, they have no evidence, and they just don't make sense when you stop to think about them rationally.

Possibly, novack, but I have witnessed this sort of evangelical atheism at first hand. Indeed, i grew up with it. For some people, undoubtedly, atheism is a faith, and one that they care about quite passionately.

I have no particular axe to grind. I have seen no convincing evidence of a god, and but equally, I have seen no compelling evidence that there isn't one. On balance, I consider it unlikely, but I find the most honest answer is to say that I simply don't know.

Jinsei Surely the complete lack of evidence of a god does not require faith to conclude that there is no god. It's the complete lack of evidence of a god that leads atheist to conclude that there is no god and that takes no faith.

I have seen no evidence of a god personally, no. But there are many people who do claim to have personal experiences of god. They could be lying, they could be deluded, or they could be mentally ill. Or they could indeed be right. I find the latter possibility unlikely, but I can't rule it out.

In particular, I find it interesting that many eminent scientists are able to retain a belief in god. This doesn't prove anything, of course, but I find it curious that people who have based their lives' work on empirical enquiry into the world around them should cling onto a view that appears to have no basis in empirical evidence at all. Many of them believe that science cannot explain all aspects of "creation" and the natural world. They may or may not be right.

I am not arguing for the existence of a god, by the way. Merely that I'm not sure I agree entirely that there is no evidence that might point to a god. I think there are many things that remain unexplained.

And I believe that some atheists have closed their minds to all possible "evidence" of a god, should that evidence ever be presented. I recall seeing a TV report years ago about a study on prayer, which appeared to show a positive effect on patients who were prayed for, even when the patients didn't know that they were being prayed for. I don't know what the merits of that particular study were, and the methodology may have been deeply flawed. I found it an interesting subject, but my father proclaimed it to be nonsense and switched to the other channel - he had made up his mind before even listening to the report, because it contradicted his deeply held belief in the notion that prayer could not be effective.

To some extent, I think that religious people and committed atheists can filter out the "evidence" that doesn't suit their viewpoints.

Oh good grief. I am not an atheist. I am not a believer either.
When will people realise that faith and religion are two different things and that organised religion is just bollocks!?!

jinsei exactly. I'm probably closest to agnostic.
How can anyone know?
Also, given that most religious texts and stories just embroider and recycle history, how can one accept any of them as gospel and evidence of a higher truth?

You follow a version of spirituality that suits you and others will.follow a version that suits them. What is the difference between you saying organised religion is bollocks and an atheist saying any spirituality is bollocks?

Nailak- I don't think there is a difference. I am unprepared at this point to completely go definitely over to the "I don't believe in god/ i believe there is no god"point. I think that is the case but prepared to keep a (semi) open mind.
What I still DO think without a doubt is that organised religion is bollocks.

ds is currenetly going through an 'evangelical athiest' phase. Its very wearing. He just will not 'live and let live'

kal and cote the point about rape definitions is not that Mohamed was a bad person for not having the same moral code as we do now....the point is where were God's morals in this?

God chose to reveal to Mohamed. A man, who if alive today, we would consider a child rapist. So either:

A) We are wrong now and it is actually morally acceptable to have sex with any child as long as they have menstruated. God finds this morally acceptable and hence it makes perfect sense that Mohamed was chosen for this honour.

B) We are right now and it not morally acceptable. In which case it is perfectly understandable that Mohamed still did what he did (product of his times etc.), but totally incomprehensible that God did not have a problem with it.

There must have been some man (or maybe even woman) somewhere in the world that God could have made his revelation to that had the independence of mind to treat woman as real people not property and not enter into a forced marriage with a 6 year old. What sort of God is this supposed to be? How can human morals exceed God's morals?

Because Humans wrote and interpreted the Holy books based on revelation I reckon.
The older ones most of all. HUmans decide what goes into the Torah, Bible and Quran out of what all the Prophets said (a third of the Quran are stories from what earlier Prophets said)
Mind you, if God appeared, wrote 'be fucking nice to each other' and then vanished, cos we still have free will, within months people would be killing and hurting same as usual. I have never understood why out of all animals humans are so vile.

I don't understand. Are you saying that the facts have been misrepresented, that Mohamed did indeed possess in impeccable moral record and that commentators have changed his behaviour to match with cultural norms?

Does the bible contain similar activities on the part of Jesus? (genuine question - I did a lot of sunday school and don't remember anything like that but it doesn't mean it isn't in there)

age of Aisha
here

entropy girl you obviously are not aware that Joseph was around 90 years old and Mary was only about 12 to 14. The first council of Nicosea only decided that jesus was god a good few hundred years after his supposed life and that if you read the bible about the resurrection it is so full of holes and nonsense that if that is the cornerstone of the faith then the church is built on decidedly swampy ground.

entropy is right. The laws in the Quran and hadith, the Shariah, from Mohammed pbuh is for all nations for ALL TIME.

They dont change.

According to Islamic law it is allowed for a 12 year old girl to get married.

Personally I know women who have been married at /13/14/15 as in their culture it is the norm, and now they are in their 40s and still married, and fine.
By fine I mean there have been no long lasting psychological trauma from being married young, they had a choice in who they married etc.

I will add that if the culture doesnt go against Islam then it is allowed to follow the culture. So culturally in the UK we dont get married unless over 18 so it is fine to do that (obviously I am ignoring the legal bits and just talking in principle)

"Joseph was around 90 years old and Mary was only about 12 to 14"

Is that why everyone was so sure about Mary's virgin birth?

didnt the whole virgin birth thing appear as doctrine around 300 CE? A mistranlation of maiden and also to fit Jesus in with Jewish messiah prophecies?

I was brought up in the christian church and as part of an RE project looking into other religions started to question christianity, esp the role of Jesus as being the son of God and the crucification.

I looked into most of the world religions, and when i read about islam it was like putting the last piece of a jigsaw in place. It was rather shocking for me, as I "knew" (from the media) what muslims were like; or so I thought. When I was 14 and asked my mum to buy me tampons to try the first thing she said was "if you were a muslim you wouldn't be considered a virgin!" and I was like WTHeck? Where did that come from?

Anyway, after much inner conflict and self studying i converted when I was 15 and I have never looked back. I was particularly drawn to the logic of islam, womens rights ad the role of the family. People nearly always assume I was coerced by my husband (who I married 2 years after my conversion) and only remain i the faith because of him, which is rather annoying.