Qur'an Vs Bible Vs Bhagavad Gita Vs None

[Trailblazer]

it contains prophecy which no man has the ability to know.

Then why do Christians and others 'believe' they know what the prophecies mean?

on that point i agree! And this is why the bible needs to be understood with the help of Gods holy spirit. It is not an intellectuals book by any means. And it is Gods book therefore if God gives you understanding, you will understand and if he doesnt, you can believe anything you want and read anything into the text you want which is what most people do.

This is very problematic and here is why....
All Christians say that the Holy Spirit gives them understanding so they know what the Bible means, yet Christians understand the Bible differently, which is why Christians do not agree on many things. Why would God give people 'different understandings' that contradict each other?

 

[Bree]

Then why do Christians and others 'believe' they know what the prophecies mean?

This is very problematic and here is why....
All Christians say that the Holy Spirit gives them understanding so they know what the Bible means, yet Christians understand the Bible differently, which is why Christians do not agree on many things. Why would God give people 'different understandings' that contradict each other?

the real problem is that christianity is tainted by false doctrines and full of false teachers who do not teach Gods Word the bible. They choose to teach pagan doctrines and they work those doctrines into the bible and look for passages that they can 'apply' to those pagan doctrines.

Then they say it comes down to 'interpretation' but that is also a falsehood. If the bible says the 'soul dies' there is no way you can interepet that to say the soul lives eternally. If the bible says humans were created from dust, there is no way you can interpret that to mean that humans lived for eternity.

The bible is Gods Word. The bible is the authority and the bible teaches us the truth. Not many churches use it correctly or follow its direction.

 

[KWED]

I voted None because I believe they are all holy books, so neither one is better than the other.
However, I believe that the Qur'an is much more authentic than the other two because it was dictated by Muhammad to scribes who either memorized what they heard or wrote it down, later to be compiled in the Qur'an.

By contrast that Bhagavad Gita and the Bible came to us by way of oral tradition, they were not revealed by a Messenger of God or Prophet. Allegedly the Bhagavad Gita was composed by an ancient sage named Vyasa, but the authorship of the Bible is unknown, making it even more precarious.

They were all transmitted by oral tradition - which you actually described, basically saying "The Quran was transmitted by oral tradition, but the others were transmitted by oral tradition".

 

[KWED]

And rape happens for many secular reason too. Should we take out secular philosophy?

There is never any justification for or defence of rape. Any literature that attempts to do that in any way should be censured, regardless of its ideological position.

 

[KWED]

Rape appears to happen because people are horny and some of them lack self control. But how did you decide upon that as a "secular" reason.

Are you regarding any reason not specifically driven by religion as being motivated by secularism? I'm not sure that it makes sense to do so.

In my opinion.

Rape is more often to do with power, control, punishment, etc rather than sexual arousal.

 

[KWED]

There is no option to select ‘all’. In the Baha’i Faith we believe in all these Holy Books. We read from all 3 in our Houses of Worship throughout the world in all our services. We do not consider one superior to another.

So our position of equality of each religion is not represented above.

Do you accept all of every holy scripture, or do you cherry-pick to avoid the contradictory, wrong, or just plain nasty?

 

[KWED]

It seemed to me, right from your first response to me, that your problem was that I was critical of the Quran. You more or less said I must have little knowledge, which happened to be true, but I hadn't really said anything that would indicate that to you. So, it was a problem you saw in my criticism. For all you know I could have been a remarkable scholar on the subject. Admittedly not very likely, but that isn't the point.

Here's the thing. People tend to be pretty extreme in either their praise or criticism of the Quran. Yes, I've seen far more of the latter online in my time. I tend to associate more with atheists online, very rarely Christians and I hardly ever come across Muslims or people of any other religion. That's probably because my own personal interest is in the Bible. So my knowledge of other religions and their sacred texts are pretty limited. It's just not my thing.

In that limited sense, I have noticed that when people praise the Quran I haven't seen much reason for doing so. What I do get is there seems to be a great deal of ideological attachment. A religious fervor. And when people are critical it seems the opposite. They do have good reason, though they also sometimes, not always, have an ideological or irreligious fervor.

I consider fairness extremely important. Important in accessing knowledge, as well as in dealing with people. I have to have the same degree of respect for the beliefs of others if I expect to receive the same, but that doesn't invalidate criticism I'm on either end of. I try to be honest, straightforward, but respectful of the unspoiled teachings of other religions but the result of that is that I have very little respect for organized religion. In other words I think it a shame the teachings are distorted, sometimes beyond recognition through massive appeal. Organized religion.

So I fully understand criticism of the Bible. Christianity and Islam have a pretty ugly history. That reflects on their teachings as well, even though those have deviated from the original. I gave the Quran a fair examination. For my own personal evaluation, and it was pretty much what I expressed earlier. I'm also critical of the Bible, although not to that extent because I happen to think it a much better text. Am I wrong? It certainly is possible.

So, tell me, if you will, how I'm wrong. How is the Qur'an much more sophisticated than I have been led to believe?

ETA: I didn't express myself very well when I used Islam as a word I would have thought to edit. Actually meant to say that it was a word I would have included in a footnote.

@firedragon's stock response to anything that sounds remotely like criticism of Islam is to question the person's qualifications, knowledge of Arabic, etc, rather than to engage with the actual points raised.

 

[KWED]

The secular Red Army raped it’s way across Germany in 1945, exactly in the manner of all armies throughout history, including those most explicitly aligned to religions. The common thread here is not belief, but the violence of the victor toward the vanquished.

I'd hesitate to call anything in Stalin's Russia "secular" in the context we understand it today. All of society was permeated by a deeply ideological, exclusionary, personality cult. In practical terms, it was little different to a fundamentalist religion in the way it dehumanised out-groups, thus enabling all kinds of otherwise unconscionable behaviour. Same with Hitler's Nazis. These were religions in all but name.

 

[KWED]

How much knowledge do I need to possess in order to dislike a literary text?

For @firedragon, when it comes to the Quran it is k+1, where k is the amount of knowledge you possess at a given moment.

 

[KWED]

Tell me. Since you are also a great scholar of the arabic language and the Qur'an, what does Yamin mean?

@Semmelweis Reflex - just as I predicted?

 

[KWED]

Yeah. But you make cases as if you are. That's pretence.

Google "defer to expertise".
There are plenty of authoritative Islamic scholars who concede that slavery is permitted and that females slaves and captives can be used for sex.
You may as well say "are you a lawyer" when someone tells you you can't steal someone's wallet.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I'd hesitate to call anything in Stalin's Russia "secular" in the context we understand it today. All of society was permeated by a deeply ideological, exclusionary, personality cult. In practical terms, it was little different to a fundamentalist religion in the way it dehumanised out-groups, thus enabling all kinds of otherwise unconscionable behaviour. Same with Hitler's Nazis. These were religions in all but name.

With reasoning like that, you'd have flourished as a state-sanctioned historian in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The common thread here is not belief, but the violence of the victor toward the vanquished.

Mahabharata war was totally bereft of any animosity. After all most people belonged to or were related to the same family. After sun-down, they would lay-down their arms and meet each other freely if they so desired. The Kaurava camp had the great-grandpa of Pandavas, Bhishma, who led the Kaurava army for the 12 days out of 18, and their step-bother, Karna. After the war, Pandavas performed the last rights of Kauravas and took care of the Kaurava women, their sisters-in-laws. Violence towards the defeated has never been a part of Hindu war convention. It was socially and religiously considered a crime.

 

[KWED]

Not truth about God.

Do The Iliad and Odyssey, or the Norse Sagas contain truth about gods?

 

[KWED]

With reasoning like that, you'd have flourished as a state-sanctioned historian in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia.

Ooh, you'll have to explain that one, because I have no idea what point you think you are making there.

 

[KWED]

When one starts reading the Quran, and it is not a voluminous book, please read it three times:

1. In the first reading go on reading from cover to cover to get familiarize with it.
2. In the second reading make notes or question, if any
3. In the third reading see if those questions are solved by the Quran in the context verses or elsewhere, strike down those that stand solved and discuss other one's here, please.

Right?

Regards

After sever readings, one question is always there - Why does it read exactly as you'd expect it to read if it was written by 7th century Arabs, for 7th century Arabs?

 

[KWED]

Christian Scientists

Oxymoron right there!

 

[KWED]

God does speak to man directly.

1. How would you know?
2. What is stopping him?

 

[KWED]

This is very problematic and here is why....
All Christians say that the Holy Spirit gives them understanding so they know what the Bible means, yet Christians understand the Bible differently, which is why Christians do not agree on many things. Why would God give people 'different understandings' that contradict each other?

So you are saying that if any faith contains people with different views or understandings of scripture, message etc, it is not from god?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Ooh, you'll have to explain that one, because I have no idea what point you think you are making there.

The way you twisted European history to fit your ideological agenda, was positively Orwellian.