Mithras,
I thank you for all your messages. My understanding of the Truth has increased with each question you have asked. Not because you have shown me
'your' Truth, but rather because you make me explain 'my' Truth.
As I said, "God is. Love God." is enough. All else is explaining "Why?" it is enough.
Through teaching you, I have become a student. For this I am thankful.
This is very philosophical so I'm uncertain that I fully understand you.
Perhaps this analogy will help you understand what I am saying.
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Muslims (the way I understand it) believe that Allah doesn't use one label to define who has a chance of going to Heaven, instead one label
(true monotheism) and a whole set of actions. While today's Muslims believe in Muhammad's message; before Muhammad there were (we believe) Muslims
who believed in, say, Moses' message. Them olden Muslims didn't need to believe in Muhammad or the Qur'an. Instead all that mattered was one label
(belief in no god but God) and a way of life of submission to Him - same as now. I continue this theme:-
God does not need labels to know all He can know.
God does not need labels to show all He can show.
God does not need labels to love all He can love.
Man does not need labels to know all he can know.
Man does not need labels to show all he can show.
Man does not need labels to love all he can love.
Labels allow these things to be explained. It is not the label that is important. What is important is what the label is describing.
Psalms 91:4
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Tripping over the words of this passage, one might be lead to believe Jews and Christians believe God is a bird.
But the labels here are an analogy to aid in understanding. As it is with all labels.
Websters dictionary defines analogy as:
2 a : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : SIMILARITY b : comparison based on such resemblance
Can we try to look at it from two perspectives? :-
Muslim doctrine:
MAN is essentially good, but can be tempted to do evil.
PEACE WITH ALLAH: One label (one god belief) + sin in life (actions) = salvation.
PEACE WITH MEN: Worldly life is improved by following a given fixed complete Islamic set of ethics (no drinking, no stealing etc.).
Christian doctrine:
MAN is inherently evil and needs cleansing of evil.
PEACE WITH GOD: One label (accept trinity) = salvation.
PEACE WITH MEN: Worldly life is improved by the Holy Spirit, which slowly improves sense of ethics. Initially vague ethics are given in
commandments.
(I hope this is understood correct, please correct if wrong and I start again no problems)
There are many lessons here concerning what I was taught Christianity teaches.
Concerning good, evil and sin, I will tell you what I have been taught with an analogy, as with all analogies it is not perfect.
The sun shines its light onto the earth.
Things which block this light create shadows.
God would be the sun.
What God wants us to do would be the light.
A sin is that which creates the shadow.
Evil is the shadow.
Man's free will (a choice to do what God wants us to do) would be what moves a thing to block the sun.
Concerning being born into sin:
This is like a baby who has not yet opened his eyes. He moves his hand and creates a shadow in the light. But he does not know he has done so. He has
not yet seen the light and the shadow which he created.
So too is this true with God.
A man (young or old) who has not 'seen' God (that is to say: been taught "God is. Love God.") does not know what he has done when free will causes
a shadow for he does not see the Truth.
Concerning the beliefs of a Christian:
To best summarize this beliefs as is taught to all Christians I turn to the Bible.
Mark 28-31
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first
commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
This clearly defines "What God wants us to do." (the light)
Things we do with free will (moving things to block the light) which are not these two "commandments" are sins (things that block the light). The
result of not following these two rules are evil (the shadow).
By comparing the actions of man to these two things we are left with 3 things: Obeying God; Sinning against God; Sinning against Man (which is also
sinning against God for it is His will that we do not do this.)
In essence: God is. Love God.
The Qur'an may list "sins against God" and "sins against man" but it the same Truth. For a proof of this Truth (in a mathematical sense) simply
go through any list of sins the Qur'an teachs and ask "Is this a sin against God, a sin against man, or something else?"
If we are both people of the Book, you should never answer "something else".
Now,
Check your quote: you said "how can I be so sure. This is the same as... " ; bear with me, now:-
I meant how can I (me, as a Muslim) be sure about your (as a Christian) salvation because I don't know how Allah would view your own
personal concept of the Trinity.
I would ask you how you could be sure about any man's salvation when Judgement is for God alone.
The only passage from the Qur'an which I know which talks of the Trinity goes something like:
They blaspheme who say Allah is one of three. This is not so. Allah is the one true God.
Please forgive my ignorance if I did not get the words correct. I believe the meaning behind the words is clearly there.
I saw Truth in what I read from the Qur'an (not just what I remember it saying).
Indeed Allah is not ONE of three.
To place this in my "hand analogy" it would say: "Those who say hand is one of three lie. Hand is not part of what is hand. I am the whole hand the
one true hand."
The concept of the trilology would be easier to explain with simpler labels. The Qur'an uses labels such as "spirit of God" to explain the same
concept without adding extra labels that may add to the confusion when trying to understand.
I believe this basic concept is the same with different labels.
From Muslim view, your life's equation is:
PEACE WITH ALLAH: (trinity, maybe (*)) + (are your "actions" sinful according to Allah) = Heaven or Hell? Unsure
(*)The "actions" should work with Allah, as you say humility and ten commandments are part of Christianity so that's pretty nice. But the question
for me is the first part of the sum, will Allah mind you calling Jesus a God.(Trinity). Maybe if you visualise a truly single entity, He will let you
off about the smaller misunderstanding that He was sort of probing himself onto Earth as Jesus, maybe. Understand me there?
From Muslim view, my life's equation is:
PEACE WITH ALLAH: (one god belief, fine) + (are your actions sinful according to Allah) = Heaven or Hell? Unsure
So a Muslim is not sure of his own salvation or yours.
___________________________________________________
Of course you are sure of your own salvation, and you are sure of mine. This is just down to our different beliefs about how God sees us,
correct?:-
From Christian view, my life's equation is:
PEACE WITH GOD: (no acceptance of Christ as God, failed) = Hell
and your life's equation is:
PEACE WITH GOD: (accept Christ as God, passed) = Heaven
It's our basic belief of God that is the root of the matter. It is what I mean about I need proof as to which is the correct belief, before I take a
path.
Hope that better explained.
God promises us Salvation through humility.
A humble man can not be certain of anything which is not his to understand. A humble man loves God, and loves his fellow man (which is also loving God
for it is his will we do so).
When I go to the home of a Christian, I ask "Will you go to Heaven when you die?"
If the answer is Yes. I begin talking of humility. I show (explain to) them what I have been taught so they may learn from it. As Jesus taught, so do
I.
Because, some of the ideas of the Ten Commandments stood firm, the message of humility Jesus gave (and which Muhammad gave) stood firm. Much of
the basic teachings of behaviour to fellow man stood through. But the grand belief is quite different, original sin etc.
When I teach that which I was taught, that which is also taught in the Bible. I teach how to understand that which is being taught. When I teach, I do
not try to teach words. I try to teach meaning and understanding. The meaning of the words (that is to say what they describe or label) are closer to
the Truth than the words themselves.
This, if I understand you, is indeed agreed.
If you agree, then you understand. For the Truth is seen by all who believe.
I mean is you have to pick a belief about God first, to determine which is the True belief. There is no point in just saying "I choose Islam"
for no reason. I believe you said you want to base your choice on: "which has the most humility." Okay, but you need to study the other religions
first to decide. For me, that humility has a "inside feeling" role in deciding, but there is more than that. I want to see the texts from the
Prophets themselves and not from Nicea - see my view?
If I go someplace that has not yet been made aware of that which is God, and the only thing they learn is: "God is. Love God." is enough, and can
then explain why it is so to their children. That is enough. Indeed, what I was taught goes beyond the labels "Jew, Christian, and Muslim".
I call myself a Christian because that label was given to those who believe the Truth that is in the Bible.
The simplest Truth is "God is. Love God."
If they believe there is only one true God that which created all, that is "half the ticket".
If they believe they should love God with all there being and do so, that is "the other half of the ticket"
I do not believe it matters if a person learned this from the Torah, the Bible, or the Qur'an. I do not believe it matters if they learned it from a
book or was taught to understand by spoken words. I do not believe it matters if they learned it from looking at a Tree, looking into the eyes of a
child, or from dreams.
This I say to you:
If all men were
perfect Muslims, that is to say without sin, all women would wear veils. For the Qur'an says women must do this.
If all men were
perfect Christians, living a life in perfect humility, that is also without sin, all women would not need to wear clothes. For
a man would never look upon a woman with any thoughts which were not what God wanted.
But of course this is not so, and cannot be so. To think otherwise is not humble.
I only use this as an example to demostrate a point. There are different approaches to reach the same goal.
The Qur'an is seen, by Muslims, as a gift from God. I mean the gift is detailed in that it says how to conduct your life on earth for peace with Him
and other men. Even telling us how to fight is part of the gift, because fighting is inevitable, it happens. It has detail in terms of belief; it, for
example, says there are Angels created from light, Jinn (another of his free-will creations) created from heat, it describes creation to some extent,
things we slowly find out by science, and so on
The true gift from God is God's love. This is freely given to
all men. That is to say God loves all his creations sinners, saints, believers,
and unbelievers.
For Salvation God asks only that you love him the same as He love you with all you are.
Hmm, aren't you believing blindly about "original sin." How can you suggest your interpretation of the Bible is correct and mine is
not?
Original sin is nothing more than "coming into the world with your eyes closed". That is to say without knowledge of God.
As I see it (check the long posts I've had with KSoze): Everything is about blind faith. Belief in gravity as a force (some people
think it's because matter is expanding), belief in evolution as creation. You have to research yourself and pick the right belief, the most likely,
the one with least contradiction of logic.
There is no right belief or wrong belief in this regard.
There is only one belief: "God is. Love God."
How you get there, is up to you.
I only put forward my belief in what the Qur'an is, which is what I'm asked. It's fruitless to think that before you accept Islam (I
agree!), but if you've accepted Islam, you will accept that. If this may have sounded arrogant, sorry, but your beliefs in original sin might sound
the same to me. The Qur'an is a gift of knowledge to us. As I have said, you have to tear all your beliefs away (about original sin) before you can
try understand Islam. I've tried (still do), to do the same for Christianity in trying to understand it.
If you say to me Islam teaches "God is. Love God." then I say to you. It
is all you
need.
But I also say this, once you understand "God is. Love God", and can teach it to your children you do not
need Islam.
All you
need is to love the one true God with
all that you are.
Indeed! This is exactly what I'm saying. I've done this putting aside before and come to a decision, but as I understand you, you haven't done it
with Islam. Of course I should look at Hinduism and Bhuddism properly, too.
If you can understand my view here or not, please let me know.
The only thing I do not understand is how you can have an open mind and an opinion at the same time.
Hmm, surely it is your place to make your own judgement?
From whence does this right come to make your own judgement concerning God and his Truth?
I say to you this is not the way of humility. Look and reason then the Truth will be evident without judgement.
This is the only message I have been trying to relay through all of these many posts.
When you seek to understand and not judge, only then will your mind be open. An open mind does not judge, it only seeks to understand.
A child has an open mind. I have never seen a child look at a sky and say "This cannot be so!". In fact, the question "Why?" flows often from
their mouths. It is not until they become older that their mind closes. Why is this? Because they use what they have learned to judge for themselves
whether or not something is true. An open mind will accept the information as given, formulate an understanding of that information, and only then
does it begin to decide what is right and wrong. At this point the mind closes.
I try to approach all things in humility, as it was how I was taught to be.
I had an open mind in deciding a religion. It is closed to Islam for now. If (scientific) evidence that it is wrong appears, I will re-open my
mind. Also I will re-open my mind for discussion if you wish to compare the religious doctrines for which is better for the world.
An open mind does not seek to judge or carry that judgement with them.
Next is the explanation of the Trinity, I agree we've got to tackle it another way because it's down to that basic belief thing (not
humility).
I say to you, humility
is part of the basic belief. For it is through humility that we can love God with all that we are. Indeed it is through
humility that one can see the Truth for what it is.
When I look at the Qur'an in humility I see Truth. When I look at the teachings of some (read this as "very few" for I admit ignorance) Muslims in
humility it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, indeed my heart cries out against the words I read.
If you wish me to look for verses, or Sunnah, I will: but any good website ( islamonline.net ) will have those basics explained. This post is pretty
long already and I do ramble, sorry. Thanks for your patient manner in explaining.
Patience is the way of humilty. For without patience, are you not saying "This has taken too long! He will never understand!"?
I say to you, all men will understand the Truth when they approach it in humility.
Again, I give you my thanks.
.
