The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
— Thomas Paine
As a man with belief (Islam), I fully agree on that statement. God has bestowed us with a superior brain, therefore we should really try to fully utilize it. This is one way to say “thank you” for the gift.
A bit about a belief system, like Islam – there are parts of it that can be made into (you can probably describe as) dogma. Therefore, you just believe, no need to ask questions. This can save a lot of hassle of thinking about so many things. You just do. However, of course, this makes us susceptible to liars & soothsayers.
Islam, although can be viewed as a literal “Human’s Guide to Life”, it prefers us to use our brain. The first phrase ever revealed was “iqra” – meaning: “read”. And there are also numerous commands in Quran telling us to think about things – “afala ta’qilun”.
Yet, not many are doing this. Many of our current problems may very well caused by us being led ashtray by our “leaders”. They took advantage of our inability to think critically, and lied to us for their own gain.
This has caused many to defect from Islam.
I have friends who became agnostic, because she/he really hates how our Muslim “leaders” have prohibited us from thinking. Some have become atheists. Some have changed religion. My own experience have been written partially here. Many have suffered from the dogmas.
Naturally, I’d assume that they, these intelligent defectors, will be more able to think more intellectually. Most are. But some are actually actively misleading others. This is worse – they act as the superior intelectual beings, but in reality they’re acting like those they hate most. These are the Islamophobics.
Their intelligence has been consumed by their hate. Still pretending to be rational, but most of the time it’s their ego talking. It is really sad to see these people, consumed alive by the fire within themselves. But more dangerous is that they’re trying to bring down others with them as well.
The level of misinformation on that single-post is truly astounding.
They’re easy to debunk if we care to spend a bit of time and think. Let’s see what we can find :
1. Islam means peace
As any translator can tell you, translating is not always an exact science for many reasons. For example, I was not able to find an equivalent of “pseudoscience” in Indonesian.
A rich language such as Arabic will have words which may have no parallels in other languages. In this case, sometimes we’ll have to settle with words which are closer to its actual meaning.
And in the case of “islam”, it is indeed can be translated as “peace”. Permutations of the word can also be translated as different meanings.
So indeed Islam means peace, and saying not so is either ignorance or a lie in itself.
2. Christ is a prophet of Islam
Jesus Christ, or known as Isa, is indeed a prophet in Islam. The author complained about why we don’t care about his teachings then ? Well, the problem is that his original teachings has been altered. This is quite well documented & researched. Also try searching for “council of nicea” for a bit more details on the subject. However, the original alterations were already made by Paul even before that, so if you’re interested on this subject, then you need to focus your research on the person.
Anyway, all prophets are teaching about monotheism, a single God. In this case, both Isa & Muhammad are exactly the same.
3. Allah means God
I really don’t understand why he’s complaining that the word Allah was originated from Aramaic language. It even strengthens our link with other Abrahamic faith, effectively annuling his #2 complain even.
4. Islam allows free thinking
This is a fact, even encouraged in Islam. There are numerous advantages to those who would think. It is even declared that those who also think are siginificantly better off in God’s view than those who just pray.
5. Islam is Universal
Indeed it is. It’s being taught and practiced all over the world.
It’s even already practiced out of this Earth 🙂
Recently one of the shuttle’s astronaut is a Muslim, and he continued to be able to practice Islam on the space.
6. Islam is pro-equality
SirArthur claimed that : “Islam is based and supports many kinds of hierarchies with high levels of discrimination and enslavement.”
No idea why, how, where did he got such ideas. If he’s willing to spend even a bit of time looking at the original sources, he would have a different ideas.
For example; he complained about “hierarchies”. I was confused, what hierarchies? Even Muhammad himself was not happy if he arrived and people stood up to respect him. He declared that everyone is equal in front of God. He didn’t even prescribed any power/control system for us (democracy, monarchy, etc) until his death, leaving that up to us.
7. Islam isn’t racist
SirArthur said that “he (Muhammad) compared the black people’s head with raisins” as the base of his argument that Islam is racist.
When I looked for the source, here’s what I found :
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Allah’s Apostle said, “You should listen to and obey, your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian (black) slave whose head looks like a raisin.” (Sahih Bukhari Volume 9, Book 89, Number 256)
Well, it suddenly become totally different isn’t it. You thought an agnostic would know better than quoting something out of context / cherry-picking verses like this… anyway, SirArthur could be an agnostic in disguise.
The source even strengthen our #6 argument that Islam indeed is pro-equality. Where else a black slave could become ruler for others ? This is completely unthinkable in even America up to the 60’s, and it still never happened that a black man become a president there. While Islam has preached about this since 14 centuries ago.
8. You can try Islam and if you don’t like you can quit
SirArthur claimed that “The penalty for leaving Islam is death.”
In Quran itself it’s claimed that “there is no compulsion in religion”. Muhammad himself has pardoned apostate, not execute him. And there’s is simply no historical record that indicates Muhammad or any of his companions ever sentenced anyone to death for apostasy.
A more detailed discussion on the subject can be read here.
9. Islam allows Christians and Jews to live free within Muslim controlled countries
It is. At one point of time, some Christians even preferred to live under the rule of Muslims, since they will receive better treatment.
SirArthur complained that “They do under a tax and several cut off of citizenship rights“. I was laughing reading it, as if he’s not paying any tax ? 🙂 Come on.
Anyway, the so-called “evil” jizyah is to be paid by non-muslim, because they’re exempt from Zakat. So, muslim pay Zakat, and non-Muslim pay Jizyah. Equality again here. So what’s the problem?
The mind boggles.
And lack of certain “citizenship rights”, I was suffering under the same term when I lived in UK. It is very well expected that non-citizens are not to have the full rights of a citizen. For example, I paid the full tax, but I didn’t get any benefit (example: children welfare support, etc).
In reverse, there was no such discrimination in Islam. Non-muslims who are on good terms with Muslims are expected to be treated equally. Even at war, muslims will prefer to die protecting them, rather than letting them be slaughtered by the attacking army.
10. Taxes may be lower with Islam
SirArthur claimed that “tax is addressed to religion, not to the public benefice or infrastructures“.
Um… no. Tax (Zakat) is supposed to be first addressed to the poor ones. More details here.
Other uses of Zakat follows after that one.
11. Islam is about charity
SirArthur claimed “but Muslim charity can only be addressed to other Muslims. In order to a Muslim to aid a non-Muslim this last one has to convert first (or die starve)“. This is simply a lie.
Muhammad was very well known for his generosity to all living being. Including non-muslim.
In one case, there was once a blind Jewish beggar who kept cursing Muhammad in Medina and say bad things about him. What he did in return was he make sure the beggar is well fed, he will even fed the beggar himself. All without revealing his identity at all to him.
When Muhammad died, Abu Bakr decided to try to continue his habits, including feeding this beggar. The beggar however instantly noticed, he screamed that Abu Bakr is not the usual person, that the previous one was treating him with more care & gentleness.
This made Abu Bakr to cry, and he revealed that it was Muhammad who was giving the charity to him. It’s easy to predict that the beggar was deeply touched by all this, and at the end he converted to Islam.
These are what Muhammad has been teaching to all of us. Compassion to others. Excellent manners.
It’s a pity that many Muslims missed it, and therefore causing others to hate us. We need to sort out our act, and the sooner the better indeed.
Re: Misinformation against Islam — there are so many others out there. It’s so easy to create a lie, there’d be no way I’d be able to counter all of them.
But the point of this post is to implore you, dear readers, to not blindly belief everything. God has given us brain for us to use. Not to be disused. To those who doesn’t belief in God, then please examine the quote from Thomas Paine which I’ve mentioned at the beginning in this post.
It will help ensure our, your, own well-being.
Hope you have found this post useful.
I found this post very informative. The only real glimpse of Islam we get here in the UK is terrorist bombers on the front page and other negative depictions. Although I think everything you say is probably true, I don’t think that the vast majority of Muslims live by those principles.
Komentar untuk point no 8: Al Qur’an memang menyebut bahwa tidak ada paksaan untuk memeluk Islam. Tapi ini tidak berarti seseorang boleh masuk ke dalam Islam dan keluar dari Islam seenaknya sendiri. Ayat tersebut ditujukan bagi non muslim. Sebelum masuk Islam seseorang boleh memilih dan mempertimbangkan masak2 apakah ia akan masuk ke dalam Islam atau tidak. Islam sendiri melarang kita melakukan sesuatu (termasuk memeluk Islam) tanpa disertai pemahaman yg utuh. Tetapi begitu dia masuk ke dalam Islam dia harus patuh pada ketentuan2 yg berlaku dalam Islam, termasuk diantaranya hukum murtad. Ada 5 tujuan (maqaashid) Allah menurunkan syariat dan tujuan yang pertama adalah penjagaan terhadap dien (Islam). Membunuh adalah sesuatu yang dilarang dalam dalam Islam, tetapi menjadi diperbolehkan untuk mempertahankan agama (Islam). Hukuman mati bagi pelaku murtad juga merupakan bentuk penjagaan terhadap kehormatan agama (Islam), inilah mengapa mayoritas ulama berpendapat bahwa pelaku murtad dijatuhi hukuman mati, namun yang berhak melakukannya adalah negara, bukan perorangan. Pelaksanaanya pun tidak serta merta, melainkan diberi kesempatan bagi pelaku murtad untuk berpikir kembali selama 3 hari. Jika ia bertobat, maka dimaafkan, jika tidak maka ia dibunuh.
Referensi:
http://www.yussamir.com/2007/02/murtad-dan-perbincangan-ilmiah.html
I almost cry reading the story of the Prophet and the blind Jewish. If only they know how noble this man was…
Pak, sudah baca Bilal-nya HAL Craig? Saya rekomendasikan buku ini ke semua orang 😀
@Uhler – That’s the sad part about it – they actually breaks Islamic laws. And they call themselves Muslim.
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Indeed, many of us are helping others to smear Islam, unfortunately.
@cahyo – trims untuk infonya.
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Tapi postingnya agak aneh, di tengah dia mengaku bahwa memang kasus-kasus pembunuhan murtadin adalah karena ada tambahan kesalahan besar / yang memang bisa dihukum mati (seperti: pengkhianatan) — namun kemudian tiba-tiba artikel tersebut membenarkan membunuh murtadin begitu saja (yang tidak ada kesalahan lainnya).
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Ada konteks yang tidak disampaikan / terputus di artikel tersebut.
@rani – he is indeed a very noble man, beyond reason & logic. The kindness & excellence he shows to us are simple out of this earth.
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Unfortunately nowadays there are a lot of people working hard to smear him, to change the history. I can’t do much, my writing in his blog is all I can do for now.
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Bilal – thanks for the recommendation, unfortunately it seems to be out of print at the moment. Hopefully one day I’ll manage to get my hands on a copy of it.
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Thank you.
oh,oh.
Heavy stuff. But once again good stuff. Very good stuff actually. I really love your introduction. I can, as you might expect, sympathize with what you wrote there. And as for your extensive argument in relation to Sir Arthur, I do admire the class of your reasoning. Although I have to admit, being an agnostic myself, religions to me are primarily moral systems.
I take it you don’t take me ill if I yet present two, no three, questions:
1. You said: “Therefore, you just believe, no need to ask questions. This can save a lot of hassle of thinking about so many things. You just do.”
But isn’t that the point? Isn’t the quintessence of any of the three monotheistic religions revelation (the divine truth revealed to someone else who died long ago – be it Mozes, Jesus or the Prophet). By definition there is no proof of the revelation, but yet one has to accept it as an absolute truth? Isn’t this a 100% ‘contradictio in terminis’?
2. You also said in connection to “9. Islam allows Christians and Jews to live free within Muslim controlled countries”:
(a) “It is. At one point of time, some Christians even preferred to live under the rule of Muslims, since they will receive better treatment. ”
and
(b) “And lack of certain “citizenship rightsâ€, I was suffering under the same term when I lived in UK. It is very well expected that non-citizens are not to have the full rights of a citizen. For example, I paid the full tax, but I didn’t get any benefit (example: children welfare support, etc).
In reverse, there was no such discrimination in Islam.”
ad (a): I have to give you that. There have been examples of that – tolerant Muslim rulers giving refuge to Christians persecuted by fellow Christians. But on the other hand nowadays the Saudi’s don’t allow the building of Churches or a Christian lifestyle, just to mention a few details, on their territory. Quite the opposite of tolerance shown in Italy, isn’t it?
ad (b): I hardly can believe you actually mean to state the difference you refer to is a kind of religious based discrimination? No equal citizens rights in the UK for Muslims?
To my knowledge UK citizens are treated equal under the law, whether they are black, brown of white. And legal aliens, whether they are Anglican, Catholics, Jews, Hindi or Muslim are, to my best knowledge also are treated equal.
This is unlike the circumstances of Christians – let alone Agnostics, not to mention homosexual Agnostics- living in Pakistan or even Iran. Countries that claim to be ruled on the basis of one religion. Don’t you agree?
Although I will readily and hastily add that this does not incriminate the faith, but the followers and the rulers only.
@colson – wow that was fast pak 🙂
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OK I’ll try to answer the questions as best as possible. But please bear in mind that currently I’m under medication (fever, asthma), do please forgive if you find anything incoherent in my reply.
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First things first though – this post was not meant to cause ridicule to Christians / Agnostics / etc. My focus with this post was to clear some misunderstanding caused by misinformation campaign done by some people on the Internet. Their methods are similar, so once you’ve cut through one of them, it should be easier to dissect the others. That’s the aim of this post.
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I have some atheists / christians / agnostics / etc friends that I truly respect. Their excellent manners can be a good example to some of our muslim friends.
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With that now cleared, let’s start the reply.
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But isn’t that the point? Isn’t the quintessence of any of the three monotheistic religions revelation (the divine truth revealed to someone else who died long ago – be it Mozes, Jesus or the Prophet). By definition there is no proof of the revelation, but yet one has to accept it as an absolute truth? Isn’t this a 100% ‘contradictio in terminis’?
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Sorry I was rather ambiguous there.
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I was thinking about the Fiqh, islamic law & rules of conduct. Not the Aqidah, the basic beliefs on Islam.
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You’re correct that with Aqidah we just need to accept. Without accepting the basic concepts (Tauhid), you can’t be called as a Muslim.
But, Aqidah is a small part on Islam.
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A bigger part is on everything else. Now there are a lot of room for thinking there.
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For example, on Muamalah – how to interact with others. For those who don’t have the capability to think, they can just accept the set of rules already defined by the scholars.
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This makes Islam scalable – from countrymen up to scholastic geniuses can be included in Islam.
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An excellent example to make this clearer: Once a Bedouin asked Muhammad what he needs to do as a Muslim. Muhammad then replied with the 5 pillars of Islam – syahadah (declaration), obligatory prayers (5 times a day), fasting on the month of Ramadhan, Zakat and Hajj (both for those able to afford it).
The Bedouin then declared that he will only do those and nothing more. Muhammad replied that it shall suffice him.
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But, for those who are given higher intelligence / capabilities, they will have more responsibilities. Kinda like what Ben Parker said – “With great power comes great responsibility“.
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The intellectuals will be more responsible on making Islam a success & a blessing to this world, to guide other muslims to implement Islam more correctly, and so on.
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But on the other hand nowadays the Saudi’s don’t allow the building of Churches or a Christian lifestyle, just to mention a few details, on their territory. Quite the opposite of tolerance shown in Italy, isn’t it?
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That is so true. Except when there’s a set rules, for example, on Mecca & Medina, there should be no cases of this xenophobia.
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Even on Medina I’m not too sure, since it was clear that Chritians & Jews did live there along with Muhammad & other muslims back then.
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The Saudi rulers were corrupt for years. They erect strict rules & punishments for peasants (killing, beating, etc), but it doesn’t apply to them. A few just rulers were subsided, one of them actually assassinated by US gov’t proxy (Faisal).
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I have hopes with the current ruler. However, I understand that changing the status quo which has been for decades indeed is no easy task. For all our sake, let’s hope he do succeed.
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I hardly can believe you actually mean to state the difference you refer to is a kind of religious based discrimination? No equal citizens rights in the UK for Muslims?
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Sorry I was taking analogy of the religious tolerance to the citizenship problems in UK, and wasn’t being clear about it.
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Yes, there’s equal citizen rights in the UK for Muslim. A bit overkill at times too – for example there’s hesitation to take down the forced marriage problems in certain communities. This is bad for everyone, because it’s no longer about what’s correct, but about what’s POLITICALLY correct.
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Back to the citizenship issue in UK – if you’re an alien in UK, you will face hardships. I think it has among the harshest immigration rules compared to other Western countries.
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And those who already gained the citizenship, sometimes it means almost nothing. They can be kidnapped by foreign gov’t, and UK gov’t will do almost nothing about it. Very bad.
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Hope it clears some things. Gotta go get some rest now.
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Thanks!
@sufehmi: Right, convincing. Thanks. And, as always: it was/is a pleasure to read your posts (well, the English ones).
Hope you will recover soon!
@sufehmi: Right, convincing. Thanks. And it was, is and probably always will be a pleasure to read your posts.
Hope you will recover soon!
Great post! I really enjoy it. Very informative, compact, short, and easy to understand… just love it!
Regarding point 9… yes, I’ve read somewhere that our Prophet SAW allowed the Jews and Christians to live in Madinah and Makkah. But nowadays those two cities are not reachable by Christians, let alone Jews. Only Moslems are allowed to enter the “Haram area”… that’s what they call it. I’ve been wondering for years why the government is doing this. it seems that they regard non moslems as sinful therefore they mustn’t enter the area… hmm
btw… this link that you provided: http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_apos3.htm is blocked by the Saudi gov here. I can’t access it. Looking at the domain, religioustolerance.org… is perhaps a website to promote tolerance and understanding among different believers right??? but oh my… they’re blocking it.
Great post! I really enjoy it. Very informative, compact, short, and easy to understand… just love it!
Regarding point 9… yes, I’ve read somewhere that our Prophet SAW allowed Jews and Christians to live in Madinah and Makkah. But nowadays those two cities are not reachable by Christians, let alone Jews. Only Moslems are allowed to enter the “Haram area”… that’s what they call it. I’ve been wondering for years why the government is doing this. it seems that they regard non moslems as sinful therefore they mustn’t enter the area… hmm
btw… this link that you provided: http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_apos3.htm is blocked by the Saudi gov here. I can’t access it. Looking at the domain, religioustolerance.org… is perhaps a website to promote tolerance and understanding among different believers right??? but oh my… they block it. What is that supposed to mean???? I’m so not happy.
Misinformation is an effective tool to degrade your enemy. That why it call Psychological Warfare. Islam is considered as ideological way of life. To weakened it you can write many hoax about Islam and spread it. After that, if anyone challange your opinion, you can only reply: Sorry, I’m wrong. And this statements will not reach as far as the hoax.
People who doesn’t know islam will have perception that islam is terrible religion. So anything about islam is terrible and wrong.
That’s why when they hear about islam, people tends to think about Osama cs. and they were the perpetrator of 9/11, let alone that the FBI told there were no prove to connect the 9/11 to Osama cs.
@amalia
AFAIK It doesn’t because sin, it because to enter the Haram Area you have need to clean (suci) from big hadast (sorry i can’t find the exact word in english)
@amalia – hey, thanks for dropping by 🙂 I always enjoy your stories from Saudi, whenever you have time do please share them with us. Thank you.
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Re: religioustolerance.org — perhaps you can try it via the Coral CDN : http://www.religioustolerance.org.nyud.net/isl_apos3.htm
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If that still doesn’t work, try my tunnel server.
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It’s a pretty good site. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time there.
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Thanks.
Assalamu ‘alaikum,
Guyz, last week spam mail enter my office mail and mentioning about 1 website called http://www.indonesia.faithfreedom.org
When I visit this website, I’m so surprised to see that Islam is being insulted and judged by a group of people that proudly pronounce themselves as kafirin and murtadin.
We need to do whatever we can to shut down that website and stop those people from insulting Islam.
If any of you knows somebody who can do this, please help do this.
May the bless of Allah be with us.
Wassalam,
Tio
@tio: With all due respect, but is there ever any justification for denying other people voicing their conviction only because you think that it is an insult to your conviction?
I guess you and I, on certain issues, may strongly disagree. Yet I consider banning, forbidding, oppressing of opinions which are at odds or even insulting to my convictions, totally off limits. Moderate, sensible exchange of views with persons we percieve as having a different opinion, who are interesting opponents or who are even our all out foes, is the only right way, in my opinion.
In real life we should not be over-sensitive. An open mind and resilience is what we need if we want to act in an adult way and really want to live in peace.
Dear Colson,
If the discussions are conducted in honorable manner, where all minds are open to whatever information flow into the dialogs, I’m totally agree with you to let it continues.
However, if the forum has gotten out of line – happens when you start to insult the beliefs of other people and make fun of it, this is where I draw the line.
For example, I make fun of your parents, or insult you in such a way – even if the things that I said may be true or just plain hoax – you will still feel hurt inside, right?
When people start to hurt other people, that is where I draw the line to stay as bystander only to watch or step in to do some actions to neutralize the situation.
@tio
I do appreciate you answered my slightly critical comment. And I do agree with you that honorable people should and could have honorable, moderate, decent discussions.
I even think that as long as they keep within the boundaries of the law, those people in my country (The Netherlands) who call the likes of me (agnostics) pigs for instance, have the right to do so. It’s insulting, but it is not a personal insult. It’s only my spiritual conviction they despise.
Of course they should not be allowed to treat me as a pig physically. But insulting thoughts and words only should not be surpressed. If only out of sheer selfishness: it offers me the opportunity to try to enter into a discussion, maybe a debate. And who knows, perhaps we all end up like friends respecting our mutual differences ( at times I’m an optimistic guy).
(PS: I checked on the site of the forum. Alas I’m handicapped: I don’t understand Bahassa Indonesia. But to me the word ‘liberal’ sounds rather reassuring.)
Assalamu’alaikum wr.wb
Dear bang Harry, just stop by and accidentally find this marvelous article, i want to ask a permission from you to quote this article into my blog, thank you 🙂
By the way, where do you get the source before writing this article? I mean which book have you read as a reference? I am really interested to read the book you’ve read. Or any reference, please tell me. Thanks again.
*just dabbling –> it’s a bit awkward to speak in English with my relative, hehe.
Wassalamua’alaikum wr.wb
@colson – ( at times I’m an optimistic guy)
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We have to, otherwise many of us will end up deranged. This is a pretty crazy world we’re living in 🙂
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Re: Faithfreedom guys – they’re similar to many JIL guys unfortunately. They claim to be liberals, but most of them are liberals at messing up with the truth. They will mislead you with cherry-picked facts, half-truths, messed up logics, etc.
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There are some who are rationals and doesn’t play such unhonourable games. But last time I checked, they tend to be the minority. Here’s hoping that the situation will become much better soon.
@yonna – you’re most welcome. Please feel free to republish this on your blog. Thank you.
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The source ? It’s from many places really, can’t point to any particular book. It’s mostly from my own experiences dabbling with atheists.
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Yeah, I was curious to find out the mindset of our atheists friends, so I decided to hangout in one of its popular forum. Some people will call it suicide. And I did got harassed pretty badly there.
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But it greatly opened my eyes. I found out that not all atheists are equal. Some are truly great men, I learned quite a lot from them. Especially in logics & common sense. I learned critical thinking. I found new perspectives. And many other lessons, which I doubt I can obtain from my current environment.
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Some, unfortunately, are bullies which enjoy degrading others together with their pack. I used to be bothered greatly by them (so I can understand Tio’s comment up there), but thankfully not so much now.
These people are not worth your time, since most of the stuff they’re spewing are pure crap.
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Oh, and a bit of Google-fu. All hail Google.
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btw; yonna don’t tell me you know mulia too. Dang, this world we’re living in is indeed too small. 🙂
Please give my regards to your husband.
“The source ? It’s from many places really, can’t point to any particular book. It’s mostly from my own experiences dabbling with atheists.”
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Oh Ok, too bad i can’t read your experience in details, it’s saved on your brain-case, so i think i should have my own 🙂
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“Yeah, I was curious to find out the mindset of our atheists friends, so I decided to hangout in one of its popular forum. Some people will call it suicide. And I did got harassed pretty badly there.”
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Ya Allah, i don’t think it was a suicide, that’s brilliant and brave actually. I understand if we want to know more, we shall enter their cage and find out their “secret belongings”. Did i overread your story bang? It seems like i was too much reading detective and spy agent on comic books, hehe.
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“But it greatly opened my eyes. I found out that not all atheists are equal. Some are truly great men, I learned quite a lot from them. Especially in logics & common sense. I learned critical thinking. I found new perspectives. And many other lessons, which I doubt I can obtain from my current environment.”
Yes I agree. Different friends enrich our knowledge and most atheists and agnostics are critical thinking. We still can get some positive things from them.
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“Some, unfortunately, are bullies which enjoy degrading others together with their pack. I used to be bothered greatly by them (so I can understand Tio’s comment up there), but thankfully not so much now.
These people are not worth your time, since most of the stuff they’re spewing are pure crap.”
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Yes, jerks are everywhere. They always try to insult us and lure our anger out. Sometimes i just don’t get these kind of people. If they want to be accepted because of their different notion, why don’t they do the same thing? Selfish, sure! Yes they’re just jerk. Hehehe, sabar bu!
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OK, hail google too. LOL.
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Yes, i was wandering around on Mulia’s blog. But too bad, at the moment she changes the privacy access setting on her blog so i can’t peek to her blog again. Hehehe, true, the world is too small.
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Thanks a lot, and i’ll deliver your regards soon 🙂
Nice write up there mas harry 😉
In my opinion , while the ideals of religion are for the greater good , it’s the imperfections of it’s leaders that sometimes makes in unpalatable.
Not only in Islam but in all religions there will always be unscrupulous people who will twist the teachings for their own purposes.
I’m Catholic , been raised catholic for all my life but thanks to all the blunders and the irrational edicts released by our Spiritual Leadership I find myself distancing from organized religion. Now I much prefer practicing my faith as a more private and personal nature.
This is one of the unfortunate effects Islamic Extremists caused , thanks to their selfish and destructive actions people are now afraid and suspicious towards the Islamic religion.
This is a sad thing because I have a lot of Muslim friends and they are good and decent people , their religion is about peace and understanding not the hate filed preachings of these extremists.
@bingo addict
What is Islamic extremist? Who is Islamic extremist? You have to make clear statement, not just copy-paste…
@tazlucu – hi, no need to feel a bit offended 🙂
There are indeed so-called muslims who are interpreting Islam very differently from the Prophet and his companions.
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The prophet have warned us repeatedly about extremism in religion. He even cursed one kind of it – the Khawarij.
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The way of the Prophet is the one in the middle. Not the one to the extreme right, nor the one to the extreme left.
@dino – I strongly believe that we don’t need others to be able to successfully practice our religion. We only need ourselves, and at the end, we’ll be accountable for ourselves.
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In Islam there’s also a concept of centralized organization called “khilafah”. But it is possible for individual muslims to survive without it. Indeed even the Prophet himself have foretold the time where the khilafah no longer exist, and told us how to progress on such times.
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My best wishes on your journey of this lifetime.
@sufehmi – sir no sir, i have no “hard feelings”. I just wanted to know whether he really understand or doesn’t what he’s said…..
@sufehmi,
Re: Faithfreedom guys – they’re similar to many JIL guys unfortunately. They claim to be liberals, but most of them are liberals at messing up with the truth. They will mislead you with cherry-picked facts, half-truths, messed up logics, etc.
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What is the truth?.
Who can judge or say that other people are wrong? You said that some JIL messing up with the truth. Perhaps that those people, you are accusing, will also say that you are messing up the truth.
So what is the truth?
So what is the truth?
You can use logic to find it.
It’s not an instantaneous process. You need to train and practice – a lot.
However, logic can be swayed by emotion. So be careful with it.
Another great post, thank you
Thanks for informations about islam , but there is many mistake with trasnlate.
Ä°f you do please checked by anyone for another languages.
Thanks
Nice,,
Çok güzel thank you
post email plaseeee
This was a bit overcourse for me. The world is growing stranger by the minute. Very scary things are happening now with the oilspill and Iran and so forth. Peace
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