Is Islam a universal religion.

[LuisDantas]

I would love for you to explain how an atheist can believe in god and still be an atheist.

He can't, obviously. But that is not the matter being discussed here.

Hinduism has a branch of culture, ethics and philosophy which can include atheists. But as a whole Religion is defined as an organized belief in god so how are you fitting non-theists into the picture?

By refusing such a definition of religion as unworkable.

 

[Sha'irullah]

By refusing such a definition of religion as unworkable.

This has been the question I asked you earlier. What is your definition of religion? According to every dictionary on earth it is a belief in god that emanates from a authoritative understanding.
One cannot create a universal religion by changing the definition of religion.

 

[Nehustan]

This has been the question I asked you earlier. What is your definition of religion? According to every dictionary on earth it is a belief in god that emanates from a authoritative understanding.
One cannot create a universal religion by changing the definition of religion.

So by that definition Buddhism isn't a religion.

 

[Titanic]

No it is not. No religion is. BUT it is still a great religion.

 

[Sha'irullah]

So by that definition Buddhism isn't a religion.

It is a religion as I mentioned in an earlier post since it accepts the existence of spirituality or god and it also accepts authoritative principles (reincarnation and enlightenment).

 

[dawny0826]

Can I ask why? thanks..

Because religion is predominately determined by people. People are flawed. There are universal truths that are without flaw, such as love and the goodness that selfless love yields.

I believe there is ultimately one God or higher power and a plethora of perceptions of this higher power and subsequent paths that we have identified to connect with this higher power. I cannot claim that my perception is more correct than that of any one else's.

The best attestment of my own faith is to walk within that faith and to live according to my own convictions. Without decency, kindness, compassion, understanding, love and a desire to be fair to others, I think that any religion is void of genuine meaning.

These are my own opinions of course and I do not elevate them above any else's.

 

[Nehustan]

It is a religion as I mentioned in an earlier post since it accepts the existence of spirituality or god and it also accepts authoritative principles (reincarnation and enlightenment).

Funny that (and my nickname as a teenager was Zen) as in all my years of reading about Buddhism (apart from some peculiar syncretic Tibetan mandalas) I have never come across any reference to God, gods or spirit. Dharma/Buddha nature does not correspond to an otherworldly force but is very mundane, i.e. of the world(s).

 

[Sha'irullah]

Funny that (and my nickname as a teenager was Zen) as in all my years of reading about Buddhism (apart from some peculiar syncretic Tibetan mandalas) I have never come across any reference to God, gods or spirit. Dharma/Buddha nature does not correspond to an otherworldly force but is very mundane, i.e. of the world(s).

So you are denying the concept of samsara? The soul and human spirit which is exactly consciousnesses. If you are denying these things then I can assure you that you have not studied Buddhism, not even I have gone that far into it I admit. But these things are just essential tenets for all Buddhist as far as I know of at least.

 

[Nehustan]

Funny that (and my nickname as a teenager was Zen) as in all my years of reading about Buddhism (apart from some peculiar syncretic Tibetan mandalas) I have never come across any reference to God, gods or spirit. Dharma/Buddha nature does not correspond to an otherworldly force but is very mundane, i.e. of the world(s).

So you are denying the concept of samsara? The soul and human spirit which is exactly consciousnesses. If you are denying these things then I can assure you that you have not studied Buddhism, not even I have gone that far into it I admit. But these things are just essential tenets for all Buddhist as far as I know of at least.

See my bold.

 

[Sha'irullah]

See my bold.

...and? I read the bold before

 

[Nehustan]

...and? I read the bold before

It supposes movement between/around the realms. Not something I believe in strictly...but I accept the idea of different realms that one traverses...as I am taught Muslims don't believe in reincarnation...

I wouldn't say that belief in the afterlife (or reincarnation) is a spiritual belief. I believe that belief in the Spirit is spiritual, QED. Dharma/Buddha nature is not the Spirit.

 

[Sha'irullah]

It supposes movement between/around the realms. Not something I believe in strictly...but I accept the idea of different realms that one traverses...as I am taught Muslims don't believe in reincarnation...

I wouldn't say that belief in the afterlife (or reincarnation) is a spiritual belief. I believe that belief in the Spirit is spiritual, QED. Dharma/Buddha nature is not the Spirit.

The spirit according to me is an individuals consciousnesses. I look upon all things in the Deistic view so I do not separate spirit from natural science. Now I know many do.
Buddhism according to most Deists is a "Natural Religion" as it does not separate perceived knowledge (science and investigation) from spirituality (the unknown). So Pantheism, Deism and Buddhism are all viewed as Natural Religion.
Science and Spirituality/God are equivalent. Both can be understood as such.
According to Islam by the way the movement between Jannah and earth is entitled as death and rebirth into another world. Reincarnation is indeed in Islam to a limited extent. Heaven and Hell are highly physical in Islam so to a certain fashion you can label it as reincarnation. But not int he extent that that Dharmic theologies believe. There is only 1 rebirth in Islam. Also unlike in Dharmic theologies in Islam the rebirth into Hell or Heaven also means that the laws of physics of this world cease. This can be extracted from the description of Hell.

 

[Vouthon]

Heaven and Hell are highly physical in Islam so to a certain fashion you can label it as reincarnation. But not int he extent that that Dharmic theologies believe. There is only 1 rebirth in Islam. Also unlike in Dharmic theologies in Islam the rebirth into Hell or Heaven also means that the laws of physics of this world cease. This can be extracted from the description of Hell.

Dear Sterling

It was my understanding that in Sufism, the Qur'anic descriptions of paradise and hell were often interpreted as metaphors of an experience beyond the senses?

This was Cardinal Cusa's understanding when he read the Qur'an in Latin over 600 years ago (he was the most powerful man after the pope in Europe at that time):

"...All temporal things die away, only the intellectual do not. Eating, drinking, luxuriating and more of the same, if they please at one time, displease at another and are unstable. However, to know and to understand and to see the truth with the eyes of the mind are always pleasant. And the older the man becomes, the more this pleases him and the more he obtains of it, the stronger becomes his appetite to possess it... If therefore the desire shall be perpetual and the nourishment perpetual, the nourishment will be neither temporal nor sensible, but rather only intellectual life. Hence, although the promise of a paradise, where there are streams of wine and honey and a multitude of virgins, is found in the law of the Koran, there are nonetheless many men in this world who [oppose] this. How will the latter then be happy, if they attain that there, which they do not wish to have here? It's said in the Koran, that one will find wonderfully beautiful, dark-skinned maidens, with eyes which have large, bright white eyeballs. No German would desire such a maiden in this world, even if he had surrendered to the lusts of the flesh. One must therefore understand those promises as similitudes.


At another point the Koran prohibits copulation and all other pleasures of the flesh in churches or synagogues or mosques. However, one cannot believe that the mosques are holier than paradise. How shall that be prohibited in the mosque, which is promised yonder in paradise?


In other locations the Koran says that everything is found there that we desire here, since the fulfillment of all must take place there. Thereby it reveals sufficiently what it wants to say, when it says that such things are found there. For since these things are so much desired in this world, presupposing that an equal desire exists in the other world, then they will be found exquisitely and abundantly there. For it could not express that that life is the completion of all desires other than by this similitude. Nor did it wish to express to uneducated people other, more hidden things, but rather only that which appears felicitous according to the senses, so that the people, who do not have an appetite for things of the spirit, would not despise the promises.


The whole concern of him who wrote that law [Muhammad], therefore, appears to have been primarily to avert the people from idolatry. And to this end he made these kinds of promises and wrote down everything. However, he did not condemn the Gospel, but rather praised it, and thereby intimated that the felicity which is promised in the Gospel would not be less than that corporeal felicity. And the intelligent and the wise men among them know, that this is true. Avicenna prefers the intellectual felicity of the vision or fruition of God and the truth incomparably to the felicity described in the law of the Arabs. Nevertheless he adhered to that law. Likewise did the other wise men..."


- Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1453), De Pace Fidei (Catholic mystic & prelate)

Cusa argues that Muhammad was simply trying to teach the Arabs, through earthly imagery, that every desire would be satisfied in Paradise - yet not literally.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Dear Sterling

It was my understanding that in Sufism, the Qur'anic descriptions of paradise and hell were often interpreted as metaphors of an experience beyond the senses?

This was Cardinal Cusa's understanding when he read the Qur'an in Latin over 600 years ago (he was the most powerful man after the pope in Europe at that time):





Cusa argues that Muhammad was simply trying to teach the Arabs, through earthly imagery, that every desire would be satisfied in Paradise - yet not literally.

In my years of dealing with Sufis I can say that they do believe in hell. This concept of Sufis being these sort of hippies is non existent mostly. I know there are some who do believe in a metaphorical hell of some sort but as a whole Sufis do believe in hell.
Sufis are Muslims and they abide by Islamic standards and that includes the Qur'an. They apply certain translation methods such as Ta'wil which is the lesser esoteric understanding of the Qur'an.
The Sufis that do not accept Jahannam are often deemed heretics and are not Muslims to the standing majority.

 

[Vouthon]

In my years of dealing with Sufis I can say that they do believe in hell. This concept of Sufis being these sort of hippies is non existent mostly. I know there are some who do believe in a metaphorical hell of some sort but as a whole Sufis do believe in hell.
Sufis are Muslims and they abide by Islamic standards and that includes the Qur'an. They apply certain translation methods such as Ta'wil which is the lesser esoteric understanding of the Qur'an.
The Sufis that do not accept Jahannam are often deemed heretics and are not Muslims to the standing majority.

Dear Sterling,

I am of course aware that Sufis are not new age hippies :angel2: Neither was I asking if or implying that they denied hell. I was simply of the mind that not all orthodox Muslims would understand the Qur'anic ayats regarding hell as literal descriptions of an embodied, physical state and physical pleasures. Have no Muslims ever viewed these descriptions as images of a more spiritual reality?

 

[Sha'irullah]

Dear Sterling,

I am of course aware that Sufis are not new age hippies :angel2: Neither was I asking if or implying that they denied hell. I was simply of the mind that not all orthodox Muslims would understand the Qur'anic ayats regarding hell as literal descriptions of an embodied, physical state and physical pleasures. Have no Muslims ever viewed these descriptions as images of a more spiritual reality?

No Muslims I have known has tried such an attempt with the Qur'an even I have and it failed. I have known Qadiriyya, Bektashi, Hanafi, Maliki and Qurani'yun Muslims. The first 2 being Sufi and the only ones that can lessen the viewpoint of Hell is the Qurani'yun and Ahmadis. Both oh in which believe hell is a temporary state of punishment and try confirming this with scripture. The issue is the Qur'an often contradicts itself in later surah giving a new and newer interpretation of hell and its inhabitants.

 

[LuisDantas]

This has been the question I asked you earlier. What is your definition of religion? According to every dictionary on earth it is a belief in god that emanates from a authoritative understanding.

I answered that in post #199:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/3332154-post199.html

As for the dictionary thing, you are exagerating in a way that is not advisable or clarifying.

God, in fact, is a marginal, accidental, and often enough inadvisable concept from a religious standpoint. There is a reason why tje Jains care little about the gods despite believing in them, or Confucionism does not even use the concept.

One cannot create a universal religion by changing the definition of religion.

Which is why no Monotheism will ever qualify as an universal religion.

 

[LuisDantas]

It is a religion as I mentioned in an earlier post since it accepts the existence of spirituality or god and it also accepts authoritative principles (reincarnation and enlightenment).

Not really. Reincarnation isn't even a Buddhist concept, although rebirth is. And if you think that "belief in god" is at all important for the typical Buddhist, you really ought to reconsider your notions about the faith.

 

[LuisDantas]

So you are denying the concept of samsara? The soul and human spirit which is exactly consciousnesses. If you are denying these things then I can assure you that you have not studied Buddhism, not even I have gone that far into it I admit. But these things are just essential tenets for all Buddhist as far as I know of at least.

There _is_ no soul by Buddhist doctrine. "Anatta" is the word we use for that idea.

 

[Sha'irullah]

I answered that in post #199:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/3332154-post199.html

As for the dictionary thing, you are exagerating in a way that is not advisable or clarifying.

God, in fact, is a marginal, accidental, and often enough inadvisable concept from a religious standpoint.

So essentially you wish to change the definition of religion? .
This is like cheating. If you change what religion then anything can be religion. What will Catholicism be? How about Christianity and Islam? What will make them differ from liberal theists and deist. If all things are religion then that means being irreligious is religious.
This removes the entire concept of religion.
This is straight up blasphemy :run:

Which is why no Monotheism will ever qualify as an universal religion.

Inclusive monotheism or monism. It essentially is the concept that all gods are one so it will work . The attributes we assign to god are our own imagination.