Deity?

[bell-the-cat]

Originally Posted by khaledx76

Hello...Been a bit busy the last few months...checked the forum lately...Cool stuff on the message editor...

Just a little follow up:

1- The issue of depicting any prophet, peace be upon them, isn't welcomed in Islam for few understandable reasons:

A- So as not to be taken as objects of worship or to excessively glorify them, which would turn them into idols.

B- Their teaching and messages should be studied rather than their figures.

C- Islam didn't come up with this, it's mentioned in the 10 commandments for any engraved image or any personal portrait to be glorified.

D- The paintings depicting the prophet, peace be upon him, previously in this forum aren't originated in Mecca and aren't a direct representative of islamic arts. You can see that the faces in the painting have a Central Asian\Persian look as it would reflect where those paintings would come from. Besides, people of Mecca (Arabs at the time of the prophet) didn't look or dress like anything close to that, so the painter of those images didn't do much of traveling (seems didn't go to Mecca) and was limited to the type of faces he's familiar with.

E- The Islamic art is mainly built around geometrical shapes and gives great emphasis to the architectural part. This is started mainly to avoid portraying living beings in general according to the prophetic recommendations.

Spare us from your Arab Wahhabist perversions. Your Saudi masters are the experts in desecration and blasphemy. They are the ones who demolished the house of Muhammed's birth, and turned the ground into a stable for camels. Not happy with that, they now have plans to turn the empty space into a car park. In 1998 the grave monument of Muhammed's mother was bulldozed, and the ground saturated in petrol and set on fire. In 1989 redevelopnent (by the Bin Ladin construction company ) in Mecca led to the uncovering of the foundations of the house in which Muhammed had lived, and in which his children had been born. The house itself, after being a pilgrimage site for centuries, was demolished by Wahhabi fanatics in the 1920s. What was the current batch of Wahhabi's response? They filled the site in, and erected public urinals over it.

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Originally Posted by DistantCelt

We have to start seeing ourselves as part of the collective

Like the Borg.

What a dismal view of human beings - no more than bacteria on a petri dish. The face of 'rationality', folks.

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Originally Posted by khaledx76

"Some newspapers which published the cartoons claimed that they were testing the boundaries of free speech in the Muslim and how tolerant Muslims are," he said.

"The Islamic culture needs no lessons in tolerance from the West

In the West, any Muslim can practice their religion free from State persecution. The same cannot be said about Christianity, or any non-Islamic religion, in most Muslim countries. So, yes, I think we will give out lessons in tolerance to Islamic culture, if it's all the same to you, Prof?

Honestly. Spare us from self-loathing white liberals.

[DistantCelt]

Originally Posted by Gypsum_Fantastic

Like the Borg.

What a dismal view of human beings - no more than bacteria on a petri dish. The face of 'rationality', folks.

Well we ARE no more than bacterias in a petri dish in the grand scheme of things. One species, barely in control of an insignificant rock circling an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy in an insignificant corner of the universe.

So do tone down your high and mighty ego and start acting a bit more responsibly.

Being part of the collective implies knowing where to draw the line on individuality and where to draw the line on collectivism.

Thou must be very scared of death for thou to cling to thy life and comforts so dearly, at the expense of anything and everything.
Tis a pity indeed.

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Originally Posted by DistantCelt

Well we ARE no more than bacterias in a petri dish in the grand scheme of things. One species, barely in control of an insignificant rock circling an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy in an insignificant corner of the universe.

So do tone down your high and mighty ego and start acting a bit more responsibly.

I've always found such atheistic grumblings to be dehumanising showing, as they do, a complete failure to understand human beings and human nature.

How do such people sleep at night? What is their last thought at night and their first thought in the morning? I'm an insignificant person on an insignificant rock in an insignificant corner of the universe?

Presumably this is why atheism was so popular with such legendary humanists as Pol Pot, Mao-Tse Tung, Hitler and Stalin.

[DistantCelt]

Originally Posted by Gypsum_Fantastic

I've always found such atheistic grumblings to be dehumanising showing, as they do, a complete failure to understand human beings and human nature.

Presumably this is why atheism is so popular with such legendary figures as Pol Pot, Mao-Tse Tung, Hitler and Stalin.

1. Hitler was a proclaimed Christian. Get your facts straight.

2. There is nothing de-humanising about stating facts and deriving the logical conclusion from that. I've found religious people to be always extremely insecure and requiring the comfort blanket of a 'big daddy' to soothe their fragile egos and perhaps that is why they hold such an overbloated sense of ego, building themselves up far higher than they actually are, giving birth to incredulous legends such as Jesus and his accomplishments and last but not the least, perhaps that is why they are so loathe to be wrong and argue their laughably inaccurate viewpoint(s) despite the burden of evidence pointing the other way. There is a much shorter and simpler word to describe the abovementioned phenomenon : insane.

PS: Before you go labelling me, take your time to realise what you are labelling. Ofcourse one needs the ability to learn to determine that, something you lack utterly. For i am an agnostic, not an atheist.

PPS: I sleep very well, thank you. As Einstien once said, all the knowledge mankind posesses when compared to all the knowledge that is out there, is like a teaspoon of water in front of an ocean. I realise that, i realise how insignificant we are compared to the cosmos and how much more there is to learn and I try my best to learn more about this incredible universe we live in.
I wonder how you sleep. Actually no, i dont. I KNOW how you sleep - for i used to be religious once and i know precisely how laughably shortsighted that mindset is.

[ANDY-J3]

All of the world's great faiths are based on the idea of humanity as a collective. Christians and Muslims sacrifice their individuality in pursuit of spiritual oneness with a deity while Buddhists seek oneness with an unseen universal consciousness. Why then is religion so popular?