I have not finished the Quran, and like one of my first posts I admit that things can change. I also said that if someone took the Bible and started it is very likely that they would find stuff like blind obedience and killings to be OK.
For the Bible it took a complete reading and then some till the Bible linked together for me as one interconnected work.
So yes I do realize it can change.
What I am realizing and is very telling however is how our feelings and input is diminished greatly in the Quran in the eyes of Allah, compared to the biblical parallel versions. The changes seem intentional to negate our input.
I also find it very interesting that I am studying submission at this time, which is the effects of fear + trust, and Islam means submission. And through that someone will lose their identity, accept the identity that their captor gives them, give up aspects of life (for relief of some of the fear), and accept that they are not entitled to the stuff (such as love) that they see other get.
What you seem to be doing is comparing a book you have been indoctrinated to follow with a book you have been indoctrinated to think is inferior. If this thread is about reading the Qur’an, then put your Bible back on the shelf, read the Qur’an and not just the individual verses out of context, then discuss individual verses. Your only other honest choice would be to ask the moderators to change the title of this thread to “Comparing the Qur’an to the Bible”.
What if the Quran you are reading is the version god changed? Since he also clouded men’s minds so they would be unaware the changes had occurred, you would never know. For that matter, perhaps your bible isn’t the bible you grew up on, and god is constantly changing it.
What a chaotic world you have imagined, where nothing is as it seems, and an unseen power revises scripture at will.
I think you don’t know me. In short in my own christian indoctrination I have been lead to study their ‘bible’ and I have found that they do no understand it (or outright lie to preserve their power). What I have learned from my readings of the Bible is God is love, and if it’s not Love it’s not God.
The Bible also gives plenty of examples of false gods giving instructions as if they were God Almighty.
So I don’t think you can lump me in that, because as I read it I ask Is this Love, if not it’s not God - and dismiss it with reason given - this is identical for the Bible and the Quran (and for that matter for any inspired human work)
Likewise I also read the Quran and ask the exact same question - am I hearing from a loving parent. If not to me that is not a God worthy of worship, and even logically can be dismissed because unless you are a child of a loving God, you will eventually lose and in a eternal sense, that means you lose already.
So IMHO we get to chose to worship the God we want, for me that means that the God must love me as His/Her child
Going back to my above post, all your posting is worthless the only thing is the God who exist considered us their very much loved child. Without that there is no hope for us, nor is their any reason to worship any god.
People, who are children of God, and are gods in themselves, have the ability to create their own reality, though we are all one family, so there is a connection between our realities.
If you chose to believe that things (such as I posted) do not change, you have created your own reality, and God will honor that and your education. God Himself will give you the new knowledge relevant to your education to make you think that nothing has changed, yet keep you in sync with the ever changing, ever expanding world God has created for us.
So your education is not lost as God augments it to meet the changing times He creates, but yes in many ways it is depressing for those who do not know God and therefor God needs to do this for you - I am so sorry.
The human race is advancing, people who chose to create their own reality without God need to advance, so God allows this, so a net positive, and actually something to celebrate, that God is advancing human knowledge even when we are stubborn.
If that’s what you have learned, you are discarding most of the bible and retaining only what you want it to be. The god of the bible is unimaginatively cruel to his “own children,” and not exactly loving to others, slaughtering them by the thousands and boasting about it. He’s a petulant tyrant with the mind of a spoiled child.
A strange definition of love, that. But you should love the Koran, which has even more rants and promised punishment for nonbelievers. That’s you, Son. You are the target.
If this is your take on the bible and the ‘god’ of the bible, you have chosen your interpenetration - instead of looking deeper. I did not disregard most, it is because I include most that I can come to this conclusion. Here is the quick summary:
-God is Love - always
-God gives us the gift of determining what is of God and what is deception (using the above ‘God is Love’ can help one determine what is of God and what is not of God)
-Satan speaks as if he is God and Speaks of God as Satan
The cruel god you mention above is Satan trying to seem like God. Since scriptures can not be broken, and since God is Love, All the loving acts in the Bible is God, all the non-loving acts is Satan. Satan tries to trick us into worshiping those evil acts you mention, or alternatively, as you have done, accredit those evil acts to God. Either way you have one group worshiping Satan and another group turning away from God.
That is the general, short version, of what I learned from my biblical studies, and also realized that rule applies to everything in life, & every work - even the Koran. Once I found that out I left Christianity and set out into the world. The Bible remains a cornerstone work due to by degree of study.
So the rule I am using in my study of the Quran is look for Love as that is God and the message of God.
In the Quran, I see a very sad story unfolding. A story of a very loving God but also a story of many of His/Her children that have become enslaved to the point where they are not entitled to know they are God’s very own children, their identity has been denied.
God will one day set them free, but it appears with rare exception that their reward will be after death.
If you try hard enough, it’s possible to convince yourself that bad is good, dark is light, and ending is better than mending. You seem to have done a pretty good job using Newspeak.
[QUOTE=21:87-88]
And (remember) Dhan-Nun (Jonah), when he went off in anger, and imagined that We shall not punish him (i.e. the calamites which had befallen him)! But he cried through the darkness (saying): La ilaha illa Anta [none has the right to be worshipped but You (O Allah)], Glorified (and Exalted) are You [above all that (evil) they associate with You]. Truly, I have been of the wrong-doers."
**
So We answered his call**, and delivered him from the distress. And thus We do deliver the believers (who believe in the Oneness of Allah, abstain from evil and work righteousness).
[/QUOTE]
Bold mine, Allah does answer the cry of people. What is interesting is here Jonah is stated to have done wrong, yet is accepted and delivered. Something like repentance.
Referenced verses to the above:
[QUOTE=68:48-49]
So wait with patience for the Decision of your Lord, and be not like the Companion of the Fish, when he cried out (to Us) while he was in deep sorrow. (See the Quran, Verse 21:87)
(49)
Had not a Grace from his Lord reached him, he would indeed have been (left in the stomach of the fish, but We forgave him), so he was cast off on the naked shore, while he was to be blamed.
[/QUOTE]
This later verse (68:49) brings to mind the biblical verse of
[QUOTE=1 Corinthians 3:15]
If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
[/QUOTE]
The different is the Quran is a decision of Allah, the biblical verse is a promise of salvation.
As I read it: God 1, Satan all the rest (People of the earth dieing for the sin of Satan to forestall Satan’s punishment (sin transfer), which is death)
God allows Jesus to be killed, and Satan will be killed , by Satan’s own actions.
Killing is a tool for this time, a weapon if you wish, it depends on how one uses it.
The only God that is worthy of worship is the God of Love. Therefore it only makes sense that that is the only God to seek.
I do believe people who worship the ‘cruel’ God that is mentioned here of the bible are deceived by Satan, into worshiping and justifying Satan, because they think it is God, they are deceived.
And people who think the God of the Bible is cruel have correctly identified cruelty but misplaced that trait onto God, instead of Satan to where it belongs, so are also deceived by Satan into turning away from God, not looking towards God because they believe him to be evil.
Either case furthers Satan’s power by having God’s children either worship Satan or not seek God, and think God is cruel.
So yes in a way what we were taught is light, had been exposed as darkness to me and what was described as darkness was really light. It is very opposite, or how I put it ‘the world is upside down’
The Bible is an inspired work of God, so is the Quarn and so is the movie Avatar, along with every other created thing. As such is has a divine purpose, in my case a teaching tool. For the Bible it seems to have been used to teach Love, for the Quran it seems to have been used to teach submission - as God willed it for my life. The Movie Avatar also was instructive but that is getting way too far off topic.
The thing I have found about the Bible, is regardless of who it says did it (God/Satan) there is a overriding God of total Love that will save all God’s children (regardless of knowing about Jesus son of Mary- though that may help some realize that they are also God’s children). Eternal life is because you are a child of God, the child’s job is to acknowledge that they are.
Above there was postings about death, and how many deaths are attributed to God and how many to Satan. To that, and to better answer your question, I do put forth this verse that many take as a unfulfilled prophecy of Jesus:
[QUOTE=Luke 9:27]
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
[/QUOTE]
Though it was fulfilled, and happens many times for each child of God.
BTW if this prophecy was not fulfilled you would be right to dismiss all of the Bible, or certainly the words of Jesus (though that is one of the most obvious loving parts so it would be to your loss). But if we take a totally loving God we have it fulfilled as seen in Acts 7:
In a totally loving God this type of event (delivery from death) would be available to anyone who is God’s child, and therefor every child of God can expect this, because God is Love.
It is clear that Stephan saw the coming of the Kingdom with power over death. Yet those who did not know God, the Sanhedrin, saw a different reality, they saw themselves killing Stephan. Yet God’s children don’t die and receive great mercy from potential pain - something pretty clear here.
I believe this happens often, as a child of God is ready to die, they are exempted from death by the coming of God’s kingdom with power to save them. This has happened since the creation of mankind. Though others may see a different view where they person suffers and dies.
So in short God is Love always, and that Love extends to all His children, and they are exempt to death though other people may actually see them die.
My point stands, those who think that God is cruel are deceived by Satan in attributing Satan’s works to God.
It’s nice to hear an endorsement of Aphrodite in this day and age. A God of Love has lots of advantages. The sacrifices, for instance, tend to be no sacrifice at all.