Answering Islam 3818

Hunter1

The web sites has many, many sections and if you do take the time to explore it you would find out that it does answer your comments. If you are in a hurry to 'shoot' your comments at me, without even trying to understand, then there is nobody who will ever have the 'right' answer but you:-)

One thing that I always encourage people to do is to ignore all other people who would be reading your post. You and me are not in a contest. We are not even debating. We are only discussing. So if you truly want a meaningful dialogue, you need to open your heart, your mind, and your door to a stranger like who has to step in to rebutture you that I am no threat to anything that you cherish.... I am speaking symbolically here and I have no intention of visiting you at your house:-)

I could have been you and you could have been me.

Well, Muslims take a lot of pride in claiming that unlike other scriptures, theirs hasn't changed in more than 1400 years. If you do take the time to read and study, especially from the Islamic Awareness web site, you will find out that except for minor diacritical marks--which have been meticulously noted in many exegesis, Quran hasn't changed at all. I do no always agree with everything that Islamic Awareness web site has to offer, but as far as establishing the authenticity of Quran they have done a yeoman's job.

One of the problems that most Americans and Europeans have is that they have unrealistically high expectations from religious people. For them, an evil act committed by a religious person automatically discredits his or her religion, whereas a crime committed by a non-religious person does not implicates his social or political philosophy. And because of this strong bias or hypocrisy, many people do not even approach religion with an open mind.

One of the problems is that Christianity evolved over many centuries; what the Church thought and did became part of the religion. Hence, people like you could easily point out the obvious conundrum--how can any Church decide for God?

Islam, fortunately, never had that problem, for it was stated that "Truth stands clear from error;" God speaks for Himself in the Quran. Muslims do not represent Islam; it represents itself. Although there are many scholars and teachers of Islam, none can claim to speak for it, and that is why many Muslims are bemused when Christians and Jews suggest that Islam has been "hijacked by extremists". If for many Westerners Islam looks like a telephone that anybody can pick up to dial 911 (no pun intended), the problem is their ignorance of what Islam is and not what they are hearing from others.

So my suggestion to you is that you should do a proper study of Islam yourself and consult knowledgeable Muslims when you have a question.

If you are going to have an alias like Hunter, you better start hunting for truth, not start shooting from the hip:- )