Obviously all religions have rules for how their followers should live their lives, but I’m wondering if they all have a neatly packaged set of ‘biggies’?
Christians and Jews obviously share the Ten Commandments (with slight variations in how they are divided up/worded in various denominations.)
How about Islam? I vaguely remember reading that Moslem’s consider Christians and Jews different from other non-believers, something about ‘People of the Book’ – does that mean Bible, and if so, do Moslems feel bound by the ten commandments?
How about Mormons? They have their own Bible, but do they also give credence to the Christian bible?
And then there are all the non-related religions…
I think it would be interesting to compare what different religions consider to be the most basic laws of good behavior.
That being said, Mormons are christians, and as such, obey the ten commandments, save for the parts they don’t.
Islam is an Abrahamic religion, and as such, is bound by the laws of the ten, as well as all of Mahomet’s commands. All the other religions may or may not have similar lists of commands, but that is because putting down things in lists is a good idea, nothing to do with these rules, or inspired by them in any way.
I believe “the book” should be understood as “scriptures inspired by god”. That would be the old/new testament but the zoroastrian scriptures might be included too, for instance. I don’t clearly understand how they fit into this, so it’s more a complementary question than a response to your OP. On one hand, I understand that zoroastrianism has been uprooted by the muslims, and not accepted as Judaism and christianism were (there are evidences of the hostility towards this religion even in arabian tales), on the other hand, I’ve seen zoroastrians being included amongst the “people of the book” so I’m not sure.
In any case, the bible is assumed by muslims to have been corrupted beyond repair, hence is not reliable. Since the Koran is the perfect uncorrupted word of God, there’s no reason for muslims to pay attention to the content of the bible. Whatever is included in it that a muslim would need to know can be found in the Koran in a perfect form.
I never meant to imply that other religions were inspired by the Christian/Jewish ten commandments – I just wanted to know IF they had a codified set of rules, and if so, where I can get a copy of them.
Thanks for the info on Islam, but do they use the New Testament as well as the Old?
Islam is built on the foundation of the five pillars
Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad;
Establishment of the daily prayers;
Concern for and almsgiving to the needy;
Self-purification through fasting; and
The pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able.
Actually in the case of Islam, I oversimplified. The 5 pillars concept is Sunni and the Shi’a don’t cleave to it. There are also minority schools which emphasize jihad as a sixth pillar, but this is contraversial.
No. Not right at all. Islam is an Abrahamic religion, but the Hebrew scriptures are not considered holy by Muslims. What clairobscur says about their being “corrupted” (according to Islam) is true; I suspect - but am not certain - that this means they do believe that the Torah was originally dictated by God. The rest of the Hebrew Bible is not held by Jews to be dictated by God - at least judging by the complexity of the process that established the canon (though I imagine it’s considered divinely inspired. If DocCathode or Zev Steinhardt pops in I hope they’ll tell me.)
Anyway, no part of the Hebrew Bible is used scripturally by Muslims; the commandments of God are considered to be contained in the Qur’an, which doesn’t contain an analogous list - there are lists of laws, but nothing considered supreme to all the other law, except if you consider the Five Pillars of Faith (listed in previous posts) as analogous to the Ten Commandments. The Qur’an was believed to be dictated to Muhammad by God; Muhammad’s “commands” as you put it are known as the hadith. They are not direct revelation and in fact different Muslim sects consider different hadiths authoritative, and authoritative to different degrees.
Muslims don’t adhere to any part of the Hebrew Bible, much less to the Christian scriptures; the Qur’an superceded the revelation present in the scriptures, which is considered corrupted by humanity anyway.
Furthermore, his name is “Muhammad.” The spelling you use is archaic in the extreme; I don’t think I’ve seen it in anything written since the beginning of the twentieth century. Try to get at least the elementary details correct.
They don’t use either. Don’t take anything Scott Plaid says about religion as authoritative. I won’t say further here except to note that his posts in this thread are nonsense.
I’ve never heard the term “people of the book” used in reference to Zoroastrians, but it may have been, at least in some times and places. Zoroastrianism comes from a very separate origin; it’s native to Persia and evolved from the Indo-Iranian religion (as did Hinduism, though the two are extremely different nowadays.) The supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, was one of the “ahuras”, which were probably members of an Indo-Iranian pantheon (the Sanskrit cognate is “asura”) before the revelation of Zarathushtra. I don’t know much about that, except to say that Zoroastrianism worships a completely different God than the Semitic God worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. There’s no historical connection between those religions; if they were awarded special status by Muslims it’s probably more an issue of convenience after Persia came under Muslim rule.
What is your problem with me? My threads are hardly nonsense. Take this thread, for example, where I made an odd sounding claim (in the ears of DrDeth, at least) about the torah, and a three out of four jews agreed I was right. Same here , and that included Zev’s agreeing with me. Take it to the pit, if you want to, but don’t be surprised if I know more then you on the subject.
Besides, using an archaic spelling is hardly “wrong.”
What’s with your title? There’s no “defining” Torah. It’s the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, held by Jews to be divinely dictated to Moses. There’s no such thing as differing definitions of it.
I don’t care what you said in other threads, whether it was right, wrong, or the dictated word of God. Do not try to start an argument about yourself, because how you may have behaved in the past is not at issue. What I said was that your post in this thread was nonsense (even if I accidentally used the plural), because you claimed something untrue - namely, that Muslims adhere to the Ten Commandments. That is false. I don’t know if you were deliberately lying or just talking about things you don’t understand - either way, that was a false statement.
Muslims do not hold the Hebrew Bible - that is, the Tanakh (to Jews) or the Old Testament (to Christians) - to be authoritative, much less the New Testament. The Decalogue is not present in the Qur’an, and therefore they are not binding upon Muslims.
When I googled “Mahomet” to try to figure out if there was some bit of background I was missing, the first reference to it alluded to the fact that some Muslims consider the use of the spelling insulting (which is probably connected to the fact that often times, ignorant people who rant about Muslims (or “Mahometans”, occasionally) use such spellings for whatever reason.) At any rate, it’s not considered the proper spelling of the word in English, as the systematic Arabic transcription, “Muhammad”, is now used. Your use of it indicates that you are not relying upon modern sources of information, or at least not ones with a modicum of attention to fact-finding, which may be why your statement was false. (Incidentally, you can “hold to it” all you like. That doesn’t make it true. Funny how that works.)
I’m sorry I omitted your name; thank you for clarifying. I was pretty sure, but I didn’t want to offer something as fact that I was not certain of.
Yes, as I said in one of the threads in my last post. You, however, need to read your own words.
You see? There is no “rest of the hebrew bible” Your posting otherwise is what I meant by “you seem to def the torah in an odd way”
I have heard from a muslim what they believe god told them to do. The list exactly matched with the list of things commanded by the Ten Commandments. That, plus the fact that my review of the koran found the following: “And We ordained laws for him in the tablets in all matters, both commanding and explaining all things, (and said): ‘Take and hold these with firmness, and enjoin thy people to hold fast by the best in the precepts’…” 007.145 On further review, it seems that Arsalan Iftikhar, legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations agrees with me.
So, in review, it seems like they are bound by the koran to the torah, and are ordered to follow the same rules. However, it seems like the words “Muslims do not hold the torah to be authoritative” is some kinda modern Muslim meme, not supported by their holy text, kinda like how christians have come up with this “New Covenant” thing. Since my study of religion was to read the holy books, that leads to me assuming that words mean what they mean. This makes my words in my first post this thread incorrect, Till I change “is bound by” for “follows” Frankly, I forgot I didn’t. Oh well. Really, every time you post in the same thread as me, we disagree. Post a pitting already, if you hate me so much.
The three goals of the “pravritti,” those who are in the world, are:
[ul]
[li]dharma: righteousness in their religious life. This is the most important of the three. [/li][li] artha: success in their economic life; material prosperity. [/li][li] kama: gratification of the senses; pleasure; sensual, sexual, and mental enjoyment. [/li] [/ul]
The main goal for the “nivritti,” those who renounce the world. is:
-moksa: Liberation from “samsara.” This is considered the supreme goal of mankind. (**Anaamika’s ** note: Think of *moksha * as nirvana, freedom from the sins of this world and unification with the Universe).
(continued)
Hinduism has a deserved reputation of being highly tolerant of other religions. Hindus have a saying: “Ekam Sataha Vipraha Bahudha Vadanti,” which may be translated: “The truth is One, but different Sages call it by Different Names.”
As I said, the Torah is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. There are more than five books. There are also the Nevi’im and the Ketuvim. The term “Torah” is occasionally used to refer to the Hebrew Bible as a whole, or the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, but context should be enough for you to figure out that I was using it in the specific, literal sense, as was cmkeller in his reply. Either way, my description of “the first five books of the Hebrew Bible”, which you indicate (with the words “as I said”) requires the understanding that there are more books, since the Hebrew Bible contains 24 books (in the Jewish enumeration; Christians count and divide slightly differently). Surely you are aware of that?
The general content of the Ten Commandments is found with the Qur’an. However, there is no similar comparable list of items; the specific fifteen or so commandments in the Ten Commandments are not compiled in some central list that is considered particularly important. Further, things like charity, prayer five times daily, and the Hajj are key elements of Muslim teaching that are not seen in the Ten Commandments. Your reference to “a muslim” who told you these things is a non-cite, since it’s not provable. Likewise, I can’t prove it false, but I don’t believe your statement, either, since there is simply nothing in Islam that makes those particular commands central to the faith.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove. I never suggested at all that the content of the Ten Commandments is not to be found in Islamic law. Of course you can cite Islamic law that prohibits murder, theft, idolatry, and so forth. However, there is nothing like the Decalogue - there is no specific listing of laws that contains the Ten Commandments. I specifically referred to it as the Decalogue in reference to it as a single work, which is what the OP was asking about. As I explained earlier, these are not the most core tenets of Muslim belief; Islam more than most religions contains a very complex body of law because its law extends further into the social and public realm than that of most religions. Thus, there are many, many laws to be found and naturally it prohibits things like murder - but that is not some central, essential feature of Islam.
Note also that the man you quoted is not a theologian or scholar. He is a lawyer, and works for a council to improve relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States. That’s hardly an authoritative source on a religious question.
You have posted nothing whatsoever to support this notion. It’s true that Muslims consider God’s law to be universal, and they do believe that Jews and Christians were commanded to follow it. However, Muslims consider the Jewish and Christian scriptures to be altered and corrupted by people, which is why Muhammad had the Qur’an revealed to him.
You might want to find at least some vague sort of proof of that. Muslims do not adhere to the Torah. There is a recognition within Islam that Muslims, Jews, and Christians worship the same god, which historically at least generally led to tolerance on the part of Muslims for the other groups (a tolerance that medieval Christians did not usually return.) That does not in any way indicate that Muslims consider the Torah to be holy. Indeed, the Qur’an contains some of the same content as the Torah, but often times with differing details. For instance, the Qur’an holds that Abraham was called by God to sacrifice his son Ishmael, not Isaac. The Qur’an and the Torah are contradictory; this is merely a particularly famous example.
I wish you wouldn’t try to argue this, Scott Plaid. This is the theological equivalent of having to teach someone the times tables - if you consider yourself an authority (as you seem to) on religion, these things are very fundamental, very simple matters. Your argument on them is rather like a child arguing that six times six is something other than thirty-six.
I don’t appreciate your attempt to pick a fight with me. I am here to discuss the factual question asked by the OP. My feelings about you are entirely irrelevant to that discussion, and I will kindly ask you to drop that matter entirely.
Anaamika, how much do you know about Hinduism from a theological perspective? I understand you’re Hindu, but I’m not sure how much you’ve studied it (Don’t take that as an insult! I simply mean whether you’re essentially a layperson (to whatever extent that term is even applicable to Hindus) or if you’ve had particular scholarship in it.) I have some questions about Hinduism and particularly as to different forms and belief systems within it.
The laws governing the acts of Wiccans are much lengthier and more complex than the usual quoted Wiccan Rede. (An harm ye done, do what you will.) That’s actually only the last two lines, which were fairly obviously lifted from Alistair Crowley’s famous (well, famous to some people anyway!) quote: “Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
Well, Wiccans decided it wasn’t the whole, and here the whole is. A few do’s and don’ts and a whole lot of crappy verse.
Incidently, a good way to tell a “real” Wiccan is to ask him/her the Wiccan Rede. 98% of them will just know the least two lines, and will argue you 'till they’re blue in the face that that’s all there is. Poseurs.
Sorta. They are considered holy in derivation, just not authoritative due to their corruption. Similarily with the Christian New Testament. In a rough sense Muslims would agree with them except where contradicted by the Qur’an. They aren’t used as everyday scripture in any sense, but Muslim theologians will reference them from time to time to buttress their arguments. Just as flavor:
The Qur’an is a continuation and completion of the earlier scriptures like the Torah and the Gospel; and the mission of Muhammad was a reconciliation between the harsh Law of Moses and the non-violent Gospel of Jesus. Consider this Muslim idea in the light of Islam’s acceptance of Moses and Jesus as prophets of God and their books as God-given scriptures. Muhammad never claimed that he was preaching a new religion: he said that his mission can be compared to a brick; the last brick needed to complete the construction of a building. All the prophets—indeed thousands of them—had preached the Religion of God before, and every prophet had a mission to fulfill. And when the time was ripe the Last Prophet came and completed the Religion of God.
Originally the ‘People of the Book’ included Muslims ( by inference ), Christians, Jews and Sabians ( of which there are still a few around ). Zoroastrianism was added to that list very early on by the second Caliph and are pretty much universally lumped into that category these days.
That is a very debateable point. There are numerous points of congruence that some scholars point to as evidence of cross-cultural pollination between Judaism and Zoroastrianism, as well as Zoroastrianism and Christianity ( the common Christian concept of the antagonism between God and his fallen and lesser opposite Satan, is not very different from the Zoroastrian view, which as much as it has been described as ‘dualistic’, really isn’t when you get down to brass tax ).
This is certainly true. Ultimately the term ‘People of the Book’ has in its broadest form ( obviously not a universal position ) been essentially taken to include all monotheists, hence Hindus were often included as well ( and frequently not of course ), both for theological reasons and practical considerations. It simply depends how narrowly you define montheist - obviously Hinduism could be considered more henotheistic, but then so, really, could Christianity.
I’ve studied a hell of a lot about Hinduism and there is still so much more I’m blank on. I’d love to answer/discuss, though. We don’t have to totally hijack the thread, my e-mail’s in my profile so feel free to e-mail me anytime.