The more you try and look at religion logically, the more, logically it can not exist. The only way you can prove to yourself it does exist is intuition. I, Hadj and many others here on the board have tried to provide the logic you need to believe. We’ve quoted the Koran constantly attempting to turn you around.
I learned a while back on these boards that what Allah has sent down to earth still reigns true today.
I have felt religion around me. If you can not feel it, you can not believe it. If you do not understand it, then you can’t understand it. It is found in human intuition, and when we know it, we can not question it.
Those who convert will do it themselves, when they are ready.
By “feeling religion” your just mainly reffering to spirtuality. And spirtuality can be reached and felt no matter what religion one is a part of. Whether one is a Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jadest, pagan, ect. One may exprience this feeling you get from Islam in other religions. Even those that do not believe in one omnipotent god. So what does that prove…
While self-fulfilment can be felt with those religions, what you get from Judaism, Christianity and Islam etc. Is an understanding of yourself and your creator.
FYI We all believe in the same god. We worship differently, but we believe Jesus and Moses’ words as you do.
No, that is not what I’m saying. The one god who has been given a dozen names is the same god. But many, if not most, don’t see it this way. Many believe that only “my religion” (my god) is the true religion and the only path to enlightenment, nirvana, salvation, heaven or whatever. This is what is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. As I said, “all roads lead to Rome”, meaning all religion can (but not necessarily will) lead one to spiritual growth. And when I say “all roads”, I even include atheism in that. What many hard core bible thumpers fail to see is that atheist actually have a great spiritual advantage over “believers” in at least one respect. Now I know I’m going to have to explain that! Atheism gives one the free reign to do whatever he wants without either fear of consequence or hope for reward in the afterlife. So when an atheist does something kind for someone else, it is a “pure” good. It is done solely out of an awareness on some level that we are all one and what is good for my brother is good for me. It is a spiritual awareness that comes from within instead of from without. The fact that the atheist does not recognize it as spiritual does not change it or diminish it. On the other hand, when a believer does something kind for someone else it is done only in part out of goodness and in part out of a belief that “god is always watching” and will be pleased with me for my act of kindness (and rewarded).
So all roads lead to Rome, so to speak. Scripture of whatever religion is merely a guide, it has no importance beyond that. In the words of Alan Watts, “You can’t get wet from the word water”.
I challenge you to back this claim of yours up. How can you believe in Moses words when the only record of them is the Torah, which Islam claims is corrupted. What words of Moses then can you possibly believe in if you don’t know them?
Side note: Is a fool still a fool if he knows himseld to be a fool?
What the believer fails to recoganize is that he himself is god in the sense that it is that voice inside himself that tells him “this is a good deed, for this you earn reward”. That voice that congradulates him for being good is himself though he may attribute it to god, Jesus or whatever diety he believes in.
How do you get into this state of intuitive knowing? Here is my theory ( somewhat simplified and heavily biased by the experience of being a former Christian):
When you accept a religion, you take on board set of beliefs which gives you an framework to interpret what is going on around you, make evaluative judgments, and take decisons. You also interact closely with a community of believers and you learn how to do all this, bit like behaviour training. After sometime you become so good at doing this that it goes to your sub-consious (or gone below your consious mind, to those of you who dont believe in the sub-consious). The belief then has become intuitive.
Of course there are the few who have “Road to Damuscus” type experiene, who claim to get it all in a flash, who will bugger up the above theory. But even these people I think learn lot of behaviour subsequently thorugh being part of a community.