sensible - i like their idea of the three-fold journey. the whole animalistic self, the accusing self, & the restful self. just how islam breaks it down just makes so much more sense more to me than any other kind of religion. & how the idea of the 'original sin' was forgiven by God, & that he didn't doom us all to hell & bring pain & suffering into the world. islam seems to be the only religion i've read up on that doesn't paint a portrait of God to be this unforgiving tyrant.

open minded - islam's ALSO the only religion that seems to acknowledge ALL the prophets of God, & not deny any of them. who gives the right to say that Jesus wasn't a prophet? or that Muhammed wasn't a prophet? who's to even say that there isn't a prophet amongst us these days? the reason i find islam so open-minded, is that its willingly accepting that its a continuation of judaism & xtianity. its just that judaism is still living in the past, & xtianity is broken down into so many astrayed sects that nobody knows what it really is anymore. islam is the only one that seems to keep moving forward, until the end. what's true thousands of years ago may not be the truth anymore.

beautiful - some of the most beautiful things i've ever seen/heard are from the muslim world. whether it be their architecture, or their poetry [look up Rumi, if you don't already know], it just seems like everything was a step ahead of what the people of that time were capable of. i just find it all so fascinating &, yes, beautiful how its all put together. & how the qu'ran reads as a mesmerizing poem, instead of a japanese radio instruction manual. it draws you in, makes you want to read it more.



& to the chick who wrote the essay; i like it. especially this part:
i never thought of it that way, & it's pretty eerie how the similarities collide between jesus & hercules.

but in the end, i definitely meant when i said i'm not part of any religion &, despite your forensic analysis of my username, ashlee simpson still gets more credit for it than a'lla.



(i'll respond to the above post once i read it all; you posted it right when i was writing mine)

Did you read the parts of the Koran that say kill the infidel? There is a lot of beauty to the Muslim world but you are making it sound like it's all flowers and roses. It's not. Are you just skipping over the bad stuff?
There might be a lot of beauty in the Koran but they certainly don't accept all people...look at the Sunni's in Iraq killing the Shiites?
How can you claim this?
A lot of what you said was beautiful about the Koran, the idea of hell as not being eternal damnation etc. comes directly from Judaism. Check out sites like http://www.chabad.org, inner.org, etc.
You say Islam aknowledges all prophets!!
No....Islam does not believe Jesus is G0d!
Islam is monotheistic.
Islam believes that idoloters should be killed and worshipping a man as G0d is idolotry under Islam...ask any Muslim!!!!
You say Judaism is dated...Yeah, it's old. It's older than Christianity and Islam. It's older than the Greeks. It's the source.
I would rather go to the source than read mistranslations from rebel "prophets".

How do you know they are mistranslations? Look up the Bible Codes. The bible codes, equidistant letter sequences have only been found to the highest degree in the Jewish bible, the Torah by top Mathematicians. The future is predicted in our books. And also (look up the Esther Prophecy) and it has come true!

And I don't think we as humans should aknowledge all prophets as being sent from G0d if it's not true, if they are telling things that aren't true. That's like saying you should aknowledge liars.

I am arguing these points from an intellectual persepctive. I am not trying to attack you personally or anything.

While I do not believe in Islam or Christianity, I still respect people for being created by the creator.
I mean, just because you don't believe what I believe, doesn't mean you are any less valuable in the eyes of G-d from my perspective. We each have a role to play. It's not about being inferior or superior. No one is perfect. No one has the absolute perspective and because of this we need each other to understand G-d's creation.
You are G-d's creation and there should be respect between people even if we don't believe what they believe.

lol about your username but you do admit, that is kind of funny that your user name re-arranges to spell a word characteristic to the religion that you are promoting???

i said there was a lot of beauty in it, yes, but i didn't say it was perfect either. i'll reply more to this one below** the sunni & shi'ite feud is ancient, & is simply a war over petty power. these men didn't care about their faith or their people, they plain & simply wanted to control over the people. that's not islams. God never told them to fight to the death & the victor would be the worthy caliphate. he specifically condemns feeding into the basic instincts of war, greed, & violence.

the sunni & the shi'ites are just as twisted as the catholics & the baptists, or the jews & the zionists. looks like the pots kind of calling the kettle black, here..
& i never said islam completely came up with that ideal. i said islam picked up where judaism & xtianity left off. i wouldn't be suprised if it did in fact come from judaism. judaism really does have a lot of accurate facts & history. but the problem is, that's all it really has; texts, scriptures, & history.

i said acknowledged, not worshipped. & it does acknowledge all the prophets. it recognizes jesus as a prophet, just as much as it recognizes abraham & moses as well. it also says that the last prophet will come soon, toward the end.

even jewish scriptures claim that there were prophets prior to muhammed who were rejected by jewish tribes, but were actually genuine. so you'll excuse me if i don't take their judgement to be all that accurate.

that is speaking in only one truth.

islam scholars divide the qu'ran into two parts; the verses which were revealed in mecca, & those that were revealed in medina.

the meccan verses talk of pacifism & accomodation & whatnot. general peace amongst the people. but the medinite verses focus on self defense against the meccans who had injured & slain Muhammad's followers. they basically tell the people to fight against unbelieving opressors (which i'm sure is what you coined as "idolators"), & promise paradise to those who fall in jihad (which i'm sure you'll have a response to). & if they do in fact war, they are to war in a formal way. no women, children, livestock, farms, or even plant life should be harmed. they must not declare war, but they will defend their lives, livestock, & property. which i don't see the inhumanity in that at all.

Only argue with the People of the Book in the kindest way - except in the case of those of them who do wrong - saying, 'We have Faith in what has been sent down to us and what was sent down to you. Our God and your God are one and we submit to Him.**

ouch. rebel is kind of a harsh word.

judaism IS dated. & it may have been the source at one time, but over the thousands of years the "source" has been around, its been tainted & misconstrued. nobody knows what the source is anymore. whereas the qu'ran has remained the same the moment it was written. it exhalts the truths that are in the bible & in the jewish scriptures, but rejects the lies. judaism, xtianity, & islam all have the same source, but judaism & xtianity's source has been corrupted & divided into whole new interpertations. & then those interpertations become interperatated & soon you don't know whats true & whats false.

the qu'ran is the only one to have maintained in its original form throughout it all.

& that all may be true. islam acknowledges esther as a prophet & any prophecies she may have gotten. it never claims that any of the previous prophets were fakes or rebels; that's judaism.
you're absolutely right on this. & there will be prophets that are liars. the qu'ran states that there will be nearly 30 of them, with the last one being the antichrist (da'jal). that's when the final true prophet will rise & bring the middle east together. (i'm not sure on this, but i believe there's something along the lines of this in judaism as well?).

so of course its good to be skeptical on someone who claims themselves to be a messenger of God. but islam teaches that their fitrah should lead them down the right path, not to completely shut everyone else out, as judaism teaches.
no offense taken, i'm actually enjoying this. i just wish more people would be get involved as well.

xactly. couldn't have said it better myself. nobody knows the xact truth, & nobody ever will know. but if there's one thing true in all religion, it's that everything happens for a reason, whether big or small. i'm sure that's one thing everyone can agree on.

i'll give you that one, it was pretty good. it even took me a few minutes to figure out, & usually i'm on point with that kind of thing, haha.

You made some interesting points.
However, when you say Judaism is 'dated' basically what you are saying is that G-d makes mistakes. We believe the Torah is a divine document. 600,000 Jews stood at Sinai and heard the word of G-d and lived. No other relgiion claims this. If G-d wanted to add something...'why would he do this anyway?'...why wouldn't he arrange for another huge mass revelation of 600,000 people instead of just having a revelation to one man? Why is Judaism the only religion that can make a claim of 600,000 witnesses? No other religion could do this? Why? Because in order to say a whole nation heard something, you would have to have mass consensus but if you have one or two witnesses, you don't need mass consensus. Anyone can start a religion with 1 or 2 witnesses which is what you see with Christianity and Islam. Judaism is the only religion that claims so many witnesses.

Buddhism and a lot of eastern religions believe G-d is outside of Time. If G-d is outside of time, it would make no sense to send another prophet to correct mistakes. G-d does not make mistakes. People do.

I believe the Torah, the Tanach is a divine document. The other books, interpreted by Rabbi's, I don't believe it is divine, however they contain much wisdom. Likely there were mistakes made by the Rabbi's. They are human. This happens. But I don't believe there are any errors in the actual Torah, both from a mathematical perspective and from a theological perspective.

Assuming that a Rabbi were to make a mistake with commentary, if G-d is outside of time and divine, he might oust the individual Rabbi's who made the mistakes. But for G-d to say that 'all the laws he prescribes' such as the Shabbat which is written in the Bible and in the Christian Bible that the Christians don't even really follow is mute and void is wierd. Because G-d is outside of time. G-d doesn't make mistakes. The whole story about jc 'dying for our sins' doesn't make any sense. It's Greek Legend mixed with Paganism and Judaism. A creation of a man to market Judaism to the non-monotheistic masses.

The Torah can be seen as a divine document because it is written in a high language, Hebrew which has Gematria, numerical values to it's letters. It can be analyzed mathematically on many different levels! And people's names from the 19th century and throughout history are hidden in it. There is many secrets encoded in the Torah. Shakespeare, one of the worlds greatest authors can be analyzed on maybe 10 different levels but the Torah can be analyzed on over 70!

Christianity translated the Torah into many different languages and it lost it's meaning and so did Islam.

If you believe in prophets coming to rectify the Torah and change laws, you are saying 'G-d made a mistake'...G-d is perfect. G-d doesn't make mistakes.
G-d is not on our human level. Sometimes we don't understand the reasons for things like Kosher laws...but if you look at all the sicknesses that come about from eating non-kosher animals than you can understand this on a human level... (ie such as poisoning from shellfish, and diseases that come about from eating pig)

If you look at Christianity and Islam, you see their main figures as being these larger than life figures that don't make mistakes. If I wanted to start a religion, that's exactly how I would portray it...have a superhuman character who doesn't make mistakes. That 'perfect' character in the stories of Islam and Christianity is a reflection of a human creation.

In the Jewish bible, you see the Jews screwing up time and again, from the Golden Calf and onwards. People aren't perfect. When you want to sell a lie, you create these people who are perfect such as in the case of Islam and Christianity. What that does is raise a false human, to worship.

Moses, the Jewish people's greatest leader, stuttered and he made a mistake. He wasn't allowed to enter into Israel however G-d loved him and his descendants were. But G-d showed us by Moses making a mistake that people are human.

Any religion that raises people to be super-human is trying to create a false ideal and it's not a fact because these people, Jesus, Mohammed, died. They were people.

The Torah, not the Rabbinical writings does not vary. It's the same down to the very letter and has been for generations. Some letters are written bigger than others and it has been later discovered the meanings for this when events take place.

The Qu'aran likely has much beautiful language in it but
your claim that the Qu'aran hasn't been changed is false.
http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/debate/part1.htm#B4
http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/quran.htm#I

I find it puzzling when women support the oppression of women through forcing them to wear Burquas. Modesty is important but there's going to far. However, there are a lot of moderate muslims who just wear the hijab. Modesty is important but I am totally opposed to Burquas. And that form of estremism. Do people really feel that G-d wants a women to wear a Burqua and get osteoporosis?

Your term 'dated' is a reflection of the times that you are living in where consumerism has taken over and people constantly want new things. It shouldn't be about that. It should be about truth.

Mark Twain wrote:
"The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded..;the Greek and the Roman followed...and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time,... but they now have vanished. The Jew...beat them all....What is the secret of his immortality?"

The secret is G-d.
G-d also blessed Ishmael (the father of Islam) and made the descendants of Ishmael a great nation but it is the covenant that was made with the descendants of Yitzhac and it has allowed Jews to survive from severe persecution.

In every religion there are power hungry people that seek to split off and start new sects.

It doesn't make their new sects 'true'.

Anything started from one person's quest for power, I would be weary of. I mean when you have a leader who was rejected by the majority...It wasn't the case with Moses and it wasn't the case with Avraham.

What has spread Christianity and Islam around the world? War and forced conversions.
As Jews, we turn away converts three times before they convert? Why? Because we want to make sure they are converting for the right reasons and not just marriage. Our strength is not in our numbers but in truth.

But Judaism isn't faultless. There are faults in Judaism as in every religion but not in the Torah itself. The Torah is true, it's just people are human so even in Judaism, you have some people acting unethically on occasion. We don't claim to be perfect.

You are right that the Sunni's and Shiites, fueds exist within every relgion....even in Judaism.

But the problem I have with Islam is that the feuds are written directly into their book, I think the western world knows what an infidel is now... where does the word infidel come from? The Koran. Take all that stuff about the Infidel out of Islam, give women more rights...and you might have a religion that is almost exactly like Judaism, though has a different flavor.

Islam and Judaism have more in common than Islam and Christianity. Both are monotheistic.

However, when I currently look at the world, Islam vs. Christianity, the Christian countries look a lot better to live in!
There is actually freedom. The superficiality of the Western World isn't a great thing but atleast there is freedom.

People from whatever religion should be allowed to practice their religion freely proving there is no things like murder, rape, etc. involved.

I don't see this in Islamic countries. Islam was once more tolerant of other religions. But I don't see this today. Do you?

We each have different perspectives for a religion and I believe that one should be able to learn from everybody.
So there is knowledge that I can learn from you and hopefull there is some knowledge that you can learn from me.
This doesn't mean that we will say, 'you're completely right', it just means that we are open to listening.

Not everyone is meant for the same purpose. We all have different outlooks on this world and different perspectives. I am against people forcibly converting other people to their religion. I believe that people should care for other people to respect that what is right for you is not necessarily right for them.

We as humans have an arrogance about us. So many people feel that what they are doing is right. I believe what is best is for us to let go of that arrogance and realize that everyone is valuable to the creator and what is the right path for someone might be the wrong path for someone else.

If Jews, Christians, and Muslims could all live under one G-d and put aside the differences that separate us, unite with our common interest of serving G-d and doing what's right, and to not judge other people for thinking differently than the world would be a better place.

But this is idealistic? In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, even the members of the same religion can't even get along!!!!!!!
How crazy is that?

What we need to do is realize that there is one G-d and bond with that realization and not seek to exterminate each other for thinking differently.

In a Jewish prayer we say "Hear all Israel, G-d is our King, G-d is One." When we hear something, we internalize it more.
The sight is a deceptive tool. It's through sight that people judge other people by their appearance and not by their heart.
And it's sight that separates us from each other.

Since G-d is one, we all are important. It's not about inferior or superior. Those are human terms. G-d is above that. G-d is one. I believe each one of us has a unique relationship with our creator.

This is such an interesting debate. I have no religion at all, and not much knowledge of them either, but I am sort of fascinated. I need an idiot's guide to Judaism because I really know nothing about it. I'd like to learn, though. Much of this discussion is frustrating for me, because I don't know stories or beliefs or aims, but that's a good sign. I wish I could be more intellectually involved. Oh well! Keep writing...

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