A New Perspective.

Well.... This is very interesting. I'm intrigued. And I've learned some things in the last couple of days that make me say "Wow". I'm looking at Islam with new eyes, eyes that aren't clouded up with all the convoluted and confusing cultural things that people mistake for true Islam. And I like what I see. Who knows what the future holds? God does. All my faith in Him! : )

Jesus and God in Islam and Christianity.

I know, I've posted about some of this before. This was in large part in response to Banana Queen, who said that you don't have to believe anything in particular about Jesus to be a Muslim -- you just have to believe the shahada, in response to my comment that I could be Muslim if it weren't for what I call "the Jesus debate". BQ, please forgive me if I don't do your very interesting comments justice! (I'm so pleased that the quiz link I posted is generating discussion! YAY!)

The belief about Jesus is most often the biggest dividing point between Islam and Christianity. As much as I love 2:136 in the Qur'an - it's a gorgeous verse, and definitely a favorite - it does place Jesus firmly in the Prophet category. While that is dandy with Christians - Jesus as prophet, agreed - in Islam the Christian view of Jesus as the Son of God (as taught by my church) or God in human form is totally off. "Worship the Creator, not the creation", etc. There are other differences, too, but Jesus' role is the biggie.

In what I think to be an interesting contradiction of...something... I do believe in the Christian faith with Jesus as the sacrifice for sin, but I also believe that God is generous in ways we can't begin to fathom, and being God, He has no limitations on what He can do, including forgiving us for our wrongdoings out of love for us, with no need for a sacrificial Lamb in order to do so. Doesn't requiring Jesus to be sacrificed in order for God to be able to forgive us for sin and allow us into Heaven impose a limitation on God -- that He can't forgive and reward whom He pleases, as He pleases, through His Own power? It seems so to me.

Regarding "Son of God" or "God as man", I've gotten the "you're going to Hell" look from people several times - especially the evangelist Pentecostal types - before when discussing religion and how my church taught that Jesus was the Son of God, not God Himself. : P

The Church of Christ isn't so much "traditional", I suppose, as it is literal. At least the one I was raised in was. That means all the scary stuff in Revelations, as well as all the other stuff sometimes taught as metaphorical in other denominations, was, is, and will be real. That there will be multi-headed dragons, etc, in a very physical sense.

Well, this was fun, but I need to be off to bed. I meant to go to sleep an hour ago, but you smart ladies lure me back to the debate. : D Continue on!

Jesus: The Great Divide

Okay. I've been having some random religious-based thoughts here lately, and it kinda goes right along with what Jesus said about not bringing peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). This is generally understood to be a figurative sword (namely, his teachings) that would divide families. Mothers from their children, men from their wives, siblings from one another, etcetera, so on and so forth.

That division has carried on down to Islam. Christ is, to my way of thinking, the sword that divides Christianity and Islam. Not that he isn't present in both - there's no denying that - but that his role in each is so different. For me, it all hinges on Jesus. How does he really fit into God's big picture? I know what each religion says about him. Christianity: Son of God, Savior. Islam: Great Prophet and Teacher.

My problem is figuring out which of these is the honest-to-goodness truth.

It's more than a little difficult not to be biased in one direction as a result of a lifetime of religious teachings, and therein lies my trouble. Just contemplating conversion (or reversion) is extremely difficult because I'm one of those people who holds fast to what my parents taught me. It's familiar. It's safe. And I have a major tendency to guilt trip over anything that goes against that.

*sigh* Living in my head is such a minefield sometimes...

Link, and quizzy thing from Caraboska and LK.

I have a hard copy of this pamphlet. I wanted to know what you ladies thought of it, as you are all so bright and knowledgable. I learn something new almost every time we get into a religious discussion. Anyway... Read it here: http://www.beautifulislam.com/tellmemore/true_religion_p.html

Now, on to Caraboska and LK's survey-quizzy-thingy. : )

Books I've read recently...

1. The Holy Koran (ISBN: 978-0-976187-00-4)- currently reading

2. Pride and Prejudice - currently reading

3. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening by L.J. Smith - currently reading

4. Seeking the Treasures of the Qur'an

5. Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman - currently reading


Songs or albums I listen to all the time...

1. All of Josh Groban's work.

2. Darren Hayes "This Delicate Thing We've Made"

3. Scissor Sisters "Night Work"

4. Tinted Windows "Tinted Windows"

5. Hanson "Underneath"

6. Lady GaGa "The Fame Monster"


I love...

1. God

2. Family

3. Friends

4. My kittens

5. Books

6. Good food


Things I've learned this year...

1. That good friends are priceless and hard to find.

2. Life is so full of surprises.

3. That religion is hard and confusing, but God is easy.

4. To appreciate my family, especially my mother.

5. Not to take quiet time at home with my kittens for granted.


New recipes I want to try and make...

1. None. I don't cook! The drive-thru at Taco Bell is my best friend. ; P


Favorite online hangouts...

1. Blogs

2. E-mail

3. Facebook

4. Amazon


Projects I need to work on...

1. Reading the books I've brought with me and culling out the ones I won't read again. Everything else will have to wait until I get out (again), get an apartment, and get my stuff out of storage. : )

Tasked out to: whoever wants to do it!

9/11 Koran burning

Granted, this hasn't happened yet. I hope it won't. Such ignorance reflects poorly upon us all, especially when it feeds right into the mass belief in the Middle East that all Americans hate Islam and Muslims. How can a "Christian" (and I say that loosely, since that type of person isn't someone I really want to be associated with) leader advocate such mindless hate and intolerance? Hmmm... Sounds like the same bigotry that those "leaders" accuse Muslims of harboring for Christians and Jews. How lame. I mean, really, really lame.

What is even harder to believe is how the guy said on tv that it would be "tragic if someone were to die" as a result of his actions. Yeah. Okay. Let's see how tragic you'd think it is if you were the one facing injury or death overseas because of the actions of a stateside pastor you'd never heard of, much less met.

*sigh* People can be such morons. Sorry, I'm not too articulate tonight. Really peeved off about this whole situation. It's so senseless. I mean, some 60 Muslims died in the WTC attacks 9 years ago. Innocent people who worked in the towers, or were EMTs, or firefighters... Americans aren't all lily-white Christians. We're all different religions, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, we speak different languages.... and we're free to be and do so. That's what makes America so beautiful.

Also propagates the "ignorant redneck" issue that Florida (really, the South as a whole) can't seem to overcome. Thanks. Really appreciate that, guy.

Renewing the search

Hi, all! I'm doing well. How are all of you? I just got a lil' Toshiba netbook computer, so I can get online more often now! : D I'm very excited about it.

But now I have a problem. A big, unsatisfying, frustrating problem. One I thought was resolved. Namely: I'm back in the intellectual and emotional debate between Islam and Christianity. I started reading the Bible - from the beginning - and have also been reading the S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali translation of the Koran. Found a couple of interesting books about the Bible, too - "Jesus, Interrupted" and "Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years".

Now, I am not one of those folks who believes the Bible is perfect and has never been changed by so much as a word. People have been involved with the Bible from the get-go, and we all know that people tend to screw things up (intentionally or not). After all, we aren't perfect. We make mistakes. So... I'm cool with people talking about the Bible having been changed. The two books mentioned previously are all about the influence of humans on Christianity and it's source and teachings.

But it's leading me to another spiritual crisis. I'm reading both the Koran and the Bible, and I'm realizing... as much as the uninformed person claims that Islam is a religion of violence, Christianity also has a violent history, full of mysogyny and war and all those other horrid things. The Spanish Inquisition, anyone? The way I look at it, in terms of violence, the actions of extremists in the Middle East are on par with those of the Catholic Church centuries ago and, later - to an extent, with prejudice, etc - the Protestant church. Hmmm, I didn't say that quite right, so please don't take offense. I'm trying to organize my thoughts on this topic, but I'm a bit out of practice on religious intellectual discussion.

To my way of thinking, the issues right now are what the Christian world was going through 2 or 3 or 4 centuries back. So are we really that different, after all? All I see is a difference in time, and maybe not even so much that, considering the 600 years between the foundation of Christianity and that of Islam - Christianity was suffering many of the same problems at the age that Islam is now.

I'm so confused... But I'll keep reading and praying and, with God's help, may finally rest 100% certain in the validity and rightness of my faith. Whatever that might end up being.

I wonder how my deployment will affect my questioning soul.

Biggest fear: Picking a religion, but then finding out after I die that it was the wrong one and that I'll go to hell for it.

My thoughts about Islam so far.

Okay, here's a basic run-down of what I think, comparing Islam and Christianity, at this juncture. Of course, I have not finished reading the Qur'an or re-reading the Bible, so I will reserve my final opinion for that. If you find anything that I relate as negative, please be assured that it is not my opinion of Muslim people. I like you all very much. : )

Disclaimer aside, now...

Thus far, despite the claims of my Muslim friends here and at the masjid, and the constant refrain of "compassionate and merciful" that prefaces any Muslim book/article, I have not seen the Islamic Allah to be like the kind, loving, and truly merciful God I have always been taught about. He seems more like a God who can hardly wait to mete out punishment to the "unbelievers". In the second sura, my understanding at one point was that Allah had already decided who would and would not be a Muslim, and therefore was going to punish the non-Muslims for not being Muslim, although he'd made the choice of their religion! (Mind you, this is me paraphrasing, since I can't remember word for word.)

Another thing I'm having trouble with are the constant commands to "fear and obey Allah". To me it seems that the worship of Allah is based upon fear, and that the relationship is a master/slave one. I have yet to see anything that is to be done out of LOVE of Allah, rather than "fear and obey".

Also, when Gabriel supposedly revealed the Qur'an to Muhammad, why did he command him to "Read!" over and over again, despite the fact that the guy was scared out of his wits, not to mention illiterate? Now, I totally believe that God can make great leaders/prophets/whatever out of the blind/deaf/dumb/illiterate - He did so in the Bible. But when Gabriel appeared to others (Mary, and other folks I know I'm currently forgetting), he told them "Do not be afraid" and then delivered his message. Why didn't he do so with Muhammad?

In my search for information to determine whether or not the Qur'an is, as constantly claimed by Muslims, the perfect, unchanged and utterly correct "Last Revelation of Allah", the Qur'an has been shown to conflict with what we know from modern science on some points. Also, the Qur'an was not written all in Arabic - the language was too limited (no Arabic words for some things), so Farsi and a handful of other languages were dipped into, to cover the deficiency.

Muhammad's attitude towards women bothered me, too. I don't remember if I've written this before, so I'll go ahead and (possibly) repeat myself. Yes, okay, he was progressive when it came to women inheriting property, payment of dowries, etc. Got that. But his personal attitude left something to be desired. He said that women were deficient in intelligence and deficient in religion. In regards to religion, it was because women couldn't fast during their periods, which is a natural biological function created by God. I don't remember what the "deficient in intelligence" story was, but that was a reason given by Muhammad for women not getting an equal inheritance as men, and he repeated the comment more than once.

Now, the following are things I picked up from Dr. Gabriel's book:

Muhammad really was not a peaceful guy, and he didn't live a peaceful life. After he'd covered Arabia and subdued or converted the few rebel groups left, he SOUGHT OUT other countries (Sudan was one of them, I recall). He sent them letters, demanding that they submit to Islam and acknowledge Allah and Muhammad as Allah's Prophet, or he would wage war upon them. These were countries that, at the time, were minding their own business, and he was jonesing for a fight, so he went after them.

Jesus, on the other hand, told his followers that "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword" (when one of his apostles cut off the Roman guy's ear in the garden, trying to stop them from taking Jesus to Pilate). Yes, I know, Jesus also said that he did not come to bring peace, but that parents, children, friends and all would take up swords against each other. This was because He knew that His message would divide families and friends between those who believed what He taught, and those who didn't. Dr. Gabriel's own experience (his father immediately pulled a gun and fired five shots at him after learning his son had converted to Christianity), and the thousands of other stories we hear like it have illustrated that point. Unlike Muhammad, though, Jesus preached His message and moved on if no one would listen. He didn't try to force anyone to accept Him or His message, which is in pretty stark contrast to what I've read of Muhammad.

Dr. Gabriel invites anyone and everyone to check his information - which has been historically documented, not a pro-Christian/anti-Islam fabrication from one person.

One thing he wrote really stood out in my mind. He questioned a teacher at Al-Azhar (a guy who later was found to have masterminded the '93 WTC bombings) about why he never spoke about the Qur'an's messages on peace and loving others. His (now former) teacher replied, "'There is an entire sura devoted to "The Spoils of War". There is no sura called "Peace".'"

Although most of the Muslims I've met have been nothing but kind and generous (may they be blessed for putting up with all of my questions!), I find the roots of the religion are disturbing to me, although some points within it (like the lovely hijab) are certainly worth adopting.

Likewise, I've met many "cultural Christians" - people who are Christian only by association with the culture in which they were raised, not true believers - or people who claim to be Christian and attend church, etc, but they are not God-like in their behavior, though the roots of Christianity (Jesus' message) are those of peace, love, and forgiveness.

Recommended reading.

I've found a very good book called "Daughters of Another Path" by Carol Anway. (You can get it from $0.01 on Amazon) It's about American women who embrace Islam, and their reasons for doing so. I'd recommend it to anyone who has recently converted, or is considering converting, and think/know that their families will have trouble with it. Very eye-opening.

One of my favorite websites to buy hijab and niqab on is www.hijabgirl.com. I especially love the two-piece 100% cotton al-Amira hijabs. They're very soft and comfy, and you can mix and match them. They wash well in the machine, too, although I wouldn't recommend tossing them in the dryer, unless you want them to shrink! They often a few niqabs, but not many. They only have 3 types of abayas, and I think they're kinda expensive. I stick to eBay for purchasing abayas.