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Beautiful! It's indeed refreshing to read somthing like this once in a while. This is a pointer towards real tawheed. Beautiful!

No, we are playing with words. We use the term believe with a variety of meanings and then finally everybody is happy he is right, just have in your head that particular meaning of "believe".

If you know of course you believe, it would be idiotic not believing something you do know.

The belief that the Qur'an speaks about is not the "faith" without proof that some people take for believing. The believing of the Qur'an is the one based on conviction. The belief that comes from having gone through several stages of questionning and enquiring and digesting and checking that allows you to be convinced of something. That I think is what the faith in Qur'an means, al yaqin.

Salaam

I definately agree that it mostly becomes a play with words, a semantic game, and then misunderstandings arise, either willfully and by mistake. Politics, and I guess much of human communication, is like this. I guess it stems from that we all in fact live in our own worlds, with our own unique perspectives, and sometimes the overlap is very large and sometimes it is not so large.

When I say 'believe', I mean anything which you do not have direct experience of. Which means alot of things.
Conviction can be based on different degrees of honesty and reason.
The one with blind religious faith has conviction, but so do you when you have e.g. observed something for a long time, pondered on it, heard different view points about it and then drawn a sensible conclusion about it.

People can have faith, believe or be convinced, yet without actually knowing. Real knowing is rare. But I think the most important point is not whether you know or not, but rather whether you admit that you don't actually know something for sure, regardless of your convictions, beliefs or faith.

Admitting you don't know keeps doors open. But people are afraid of that. What if something they are convinced of suddenly becomes less convincing? Scary! People are actually afraid of letting go of certain beliefs. Fear.



But then again... it's all about words.

Isn't the whole marriage and monogamy business all about 1) social stability, and 2) personal stability (practical, financial, psychological, physical...)
Not sure same sex unions is rejected here. What would be the point to reject it?
Just pondring. Not taking any particular side.

Reminds me of Sweden. They have clubs for that.

Clubs for what??

I agree with Jafar that not knowing isn?t the worst of things actually it?s maybe even humbling but I also think not knowing makes one feel deficient.

Hey all,

People feel deficient and lost when in a state of not knowing. That's why people 'believe' stuff. A belief is comforting and soothing... something you can hook your mind and identity on. A crutch.
But people often claim to know when they actually only believe. You 'believe' when you actually 'don't know'. But it's hard to admit.

I haven't yet felt like watching it... maybe some other time.
But the over-sexualisation in society is evident to me anyway.
For example, virtually all music is about sex, at least the main stream music.

It is actually exactly like drug abuse, but even more tricky.

It's like drugs because is causes physical pleasure.
Physical pleasure always turns into mental pleasure (because they are two sides of the same coin).
Mental pleasure can easily turn into habits and then addiction.

The tricky thing is that sex is a natural biological drive which is something good. So, cocaine is not something natural, normal and good, but sex is. Because it is natural and good, it is harder to see when it is going too far.

But sex is just one aspect of human life which can go wrong. It seems the human being can make just about any aspect go wrong. In some cultures where sex is taboo and repressed, violence is often glorified and takes the role of the perversion of the society. Small children running around with toys looking like real weapons pretending to kill each other. Innocent? Well, there are degrees to everything.

In some places sex is perverted, in others violence is perverted. They are all basic human emotions or drives.

One society looks down upon the sexual one and its vulgarity and perversion, whil the other society looks down upon the violent one and its vulgarity and perversion. Just different aspects of the same set of human weaknesses. Holier-than-you is a stupid way to go.

The whole point is that we are very un-spiritual. We are very carnal... indulging in sex and violence... and other stuff like greed, pride and arrogance. We are slaves to our basic, carnal emotions and drives... the beast. We are so close to the beast, and so far from the spirit.

As individual pieces of life (yet parts of a whole), spirits, we have been injected into this physical realm for some time. Spirit is impregnated into the dust and clay, and after a few years, we, the spirit, are released and the dust and clay is returned to this planets physical realm. But while in this robe of clay, we turn blind to our spiritual identity, and instead start identifying with our highly temporary vehicle of this body and Earth. We identify with our body, gender, race, looks, and even the mental constructions like ethnicity, religion, creed, ideology, memories, experiences. Yes, all these make us unique, but this is still not the real us. We are pieces of life, deep inside a marvelous physical-mental matrix of clay and dust. But regardless of how fantastic this physical realm is, there is more to it, but we miss it because we don't know how to sense it. This is the challenge of life, to stop being a blind slave to it in terms of real awareness.

I think it is equally crucial not to seriously associate anything with ourselves, just like we are told not to associate anything with God... and for pretty much the same reason.

Peace Zulf.
What do you make of Qoran?

Does it not answer this:Who says we know about 'one true God' now?

There is nothing here under the sun that has not been taught by someone or something.

GOD bless you.
Peace.

The Quran? I don't know. But I'm biased in favor of divine inspiration... but I find interpretations disturbing.
So, if I find something disturbing, it can be for different reasons.
I will always be biased and subjective, but the question is to what extent and in what questions.
I can be biased and at the same time right or wrong.
Perhaps I find stuff disturbing simply because the text interpretations are wrong, against common sense and reason... but common sense and reason are at the same time very subjective.
But I think it is best if we cross reference everything against everything else, if you know what I mean. Insight can come from anywhere, or be triggered by anything.

From experience it seems like this:
Nobody is right about everything. You can find people who are really enlightened or insightful about something, and then they have very odd ideas about something else.
So, nobody is perfect in knowledge and understanding. When you realize this you can avoid disappointment. Some people are not comfortable with such disappointment and instead prefer perfect people with perfect knowledge, and so they get stuck in sects and what not.

I actually think that the brain/mind/intellect is a sharp double edged sword.
It is a curse upon us, a burden and challenge, while at the same time we can fine tune it and use it to understand it's dangers and thereby avoid being trapped in blindness by it.
The intellect can enslave you, but also be used to make your way forward and design thinking habits which prevent you from being intellectually enslaved/blinded.
"I don't know" is much better that a false and factually incorrect idea.

Would someone know he/she is commiting idolatry if that person lived away from multi-cultural civilizations and before the Internet? In other words, happen you did not know about "one true God", would you "shirk"?

Who says we know about 'one true God' now?
All we know is what we are taught and what we get from our interpretations of old texts.
Multi-cultural settings are nothing but several mono-cultures side by side. Shifting from one to another COULD be like staying within only one. From one, to another one.

My point is only that things might not be as clear and straight forward as many religious people may claim.
Cheers

I wonder exactly how people make partners equal to God.
What are some examples?
I've never seen any cases where people have an all-mighty God, and then they keep another entity beside God who is of equal powers. Not even Hinduism seems to be doing this.
Perhaps in cases where some group might argue that the creator is not all-mighty and then have other powers filling those gaps... but are there any examples of that in the world?

All the best

Greetings all,

Just some questions...

What is Allah?
How do you believe in Allah?
   Experience, cultural blind faith or philosophical assumption?
   I cannot see any differences between so called believers and non-believers except for rituals and claims of faith. No differences in
   attitude or behavior.

How do you follow the guidance of Allah?
   What is this guidance? Books? What about all interpretations which in turn end up pretty much subjective?
   Is there some other guidance?

How do you set up partners with Allah?
   Can Allah even have partners? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

What does 'partner' mean anyway?
   Aren't we all agents of the Creator in various odd ways?

When we get a grip on this, perhaps we can approach what shirk might mean...