No, there aren’t any Christian theocracies anymore. What is your point? What difference does it make when they existed? The point is that theocracy is bad, regardless of the religion in question. Islamic theocracy is not a failing of the religion, but a failing of the governments.
Vatican City. But they’ve been reasonably mellow these last few decades, the pedophile scandal ( obviously not directly of their making ) notwithstanding.
Re:Mark Steyn - I have a hard time taking anyone who pushes that “Eurabia” nonsense seriously. He seems far more a polemicist than anything else ( I don’t tend to favour polemicists of any ideological orientation ). Fair enough I guess, if a potential convert wants a glimpse of every sort of argument, including the slightly frothing ones.
blinkthrice - If you are really serious about converting to a faith, I would expect you would have spent the time getting a fairly thorough grounding in it. If so, some strangers spouting off on the internet shouldn’t have much impact on your decision. I’m assuming this is mostly a lark to stir up discussion rather than a serious call for attempts to change your mind? ( By the way we have had and I believe still do have at least a few other Muslim posters around )
At any rate I have no advice. Similar to a couple of earlier posters, I’m a stone atheist, but far be it from me to try to talk someone out of their religious faith.
I’ll give you a dollar if you don’t.
My bro’s wife is a Muslim. Most of my best friends are Muslim. I’ve had many debates with them about Islam, they accept that it doesn’t make sense, but they can’t give it up cos they were born into it. Converting out would cause problems.
Islam doesn’t accept the theory of evolution. Adam & Eve is a fairytale is it not?
Islam doesn’t respect non-believers, apart from “people of the book”. Witness it’s treatment of Hindus and Buddhists.
Islam “works” if you don’t look too deeply into it. If you analyse it from a rational perspective, it falls apart.
You don’t need religion to be nice to people. You don’t need religion to act like a bastard. Just live your life without religion, it’s just a set of rules…
As somebody of Hindu heritage, have you read about how Islam entered northern India? Afghanistan? Iran? It wasn’t peaceful by the way…
If you’re wondering why Islam spread so fast, well the Roman and Persian empire were exhausted and fucked up financially. Both armies were very weak at the time of Muhammad. The middle east and north Africa were ripe for conquest.
Any other time and Muhammad would have some been some unheard of religious leader who would have been swiftly executed by the Persians or their Arab allies.
Many people forget that after Persia, the Arabs & their Muslim allies lost their battles in India. They were stuck west of the Indus for a few hundred years.
I knew a guy back in UK who’s father was forced to convert to Islam cos he fell in love with a Saudi woman. He would have been killed if he didn’t convert- he used to be a Hindu.
What’s the point of trading one extremely ritualistic religion (Hinduism) for another (Islam)? If you want monotheism, convert to Christianity and be done with it. Spend your life trying to live like Jesus rather than bowing 5 times a day, endlessly debating what is mahram, whether or not the wimmins ought to be covered up in tents and endlessly intoning inshallah after every other word. Or Alhamdullilah. Seriously, of all the converts, Muslims are the most annoying because they are obsessed with getting every single ritualistic detail right (this is a general failing among converts, however). It would be different if you were a born Muslim but I have yet to meet a Muslim convert used to the culture and without the baggage of formerly being a kaffir or a shirk or whatever obnoxious term they use to refer Hindus. Most “reverts” are positively maniacal and always end up along the most fundamentalist track, as if they have to defensively prove they’re committed.
Besides, I gotta ask, what kind of omnipotent deity is going to hand down specific details on usury and talk about spreading the faith through the sword?
I seriously suspect you’re going through a phase and possibly trying to irritate your parents, however. I see Hinduism --> some liberal branch of Christianity as a more normal path. Do you seriously want to convert to a religion where you will go to a mosque and hear your religious leaders shittalk the rest of your family as going to hell and expendable in any ensuing holy war? Your choice. Good luck.
You are stating that Muhammad talked directly to God? How do you know it was God who spoke to him and not just his own innerself? In other words you believe that Muhammad was telling the truth but any others were not? So your belief is not in God but in Muhammad.
Monavis
There is no evidence for creation either, just existence.
Monavis
What religion gives food, money, and flowers to statues and idols? They may lay things before it, but it is just a symbolic jesture, just as people lay flowers at a person’s grave or death site.
Monavis
Your belief system helps you and that is fine, but your argument is no different then a Muslim’s , You believe the humans wrote and taught about God and Jesus , Muslims believe in what Muhammad wrote and taught about the Koran and God.
To each his own as long as it brings no harm to any other being.
Monavis
Did the place where God resides also have no beginning? Or was god nowhere?
Monavis
Please please please please please don’t convert to Islam. Pretty please. I’ll be your best friend.
There are many gods:
Even the Lord says even men are gods:
There are many gods, it’s who you worship, which can be God, Satan, other demons or men. God allows us to go our own ways and worship whatever god we chose. He will not force us to worship Him, He just offers the true Love and acceptance that we were made for.
No God wrote and taught about Jesus, sometimes using men, but it was God through them.
Agreed, that’s why I’m stating what I am.
Once again, I grow interested as to Kanicbird’s denomination, as he says things that would have gotten him pressed to death a few hundred years back.
I’m starting to think he’s Hindu.
Though I attend various church worship services across denominations, I don’t label myself with a denomination and consider myself a follower of Jesus. And who said that my beliefs can’t get me the death sentence today, I have already been confined against my will for the gospel and if it were not for direct intervention by the Lord Jesus I would have either had to give up my faith to be released or die there.
It is always a mistake to talk about religion in a serious way on this board. Too many people think it’s open license to insult and berate you for making a decision they cannot understand.
It is a mistake because too many religious nuts think atheists were born in a vacuum and suddenly exist with no knowledge or background in religion.
No it’s a mistake because the atheists are generally immature pedants who think they have a holy obligation to be assholes so that people will be too embarassed to be religious.
I speak to lots of atheists who are polite and make their points cogently. Just not on the SDMB.
It’s not our fault what you believe has no basis beyond tradition and wishful thinking.