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TAPS
Ready for more, are you? Insatiable...
posted by
Nautikos
on December 22, 2007 at 1:41 PM
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Nautikos
Well, I'm caught up now and ready for more.
posted by
TAPS.
on December 22, 2007 at 12:24 PM
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Nautikos
I'm trying to find out where I left off on your religious series. I've had a little too much on my mind to study on serious writing. I think I need to go back about three posts before I read this one.
posted by
TAPS.
on December 21, 2007 at 12:37 PM
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lindo
I don't quite understand your argument. You say "Most muslim theologists are not certain what many verses mean, they pretend they know which brings us back to square one: the Koran has to be fully understood before it can be judged." If they are not certain what the verses mean, they don't understand the Koran. But how can you fully understand it if you don't understand the parts? If Muslim scholars don't understand the Koran, how could anyone?
You're definitely correct that the Koran is a book of many layers. But it is certainly possible to understand it without believing in it. As a matter of fact, it is my position, which I have explained to the Christians here on Blogit (and which they appear to understand and to have accepted) that an objective understanding is ultimately possible only if you do not believe in the text. To believe in something means to accept it, and accept it uncritically...
In any case, bear with me, I'm not done yet, there are more parts to come...
posted by
Nautikos
on December 21, 2007 at 11:07 AM
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Naut
I don't know who is the scholar you quoted, there are all manners of people who claim to be authorities on the subject, but it seems that you can hardly be objective on the subject of Qoran, you either believe in it or you don't. I am still of the view that this a book of many layers. if you read a translation then you are not getting the jest of the text. Most muslim theologists are not certain what many verses mean, they pretend they know which brings us back to square one: the Koran has to be fully understood before it can be judged.
posted by
lindo
on December 21, 2007 at 8:54 AM
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Hi lindo
Nice to see you! I can see we’re going to have interesting debates. We may come to agree on some things, and will probably have to agree to disagree on others.
For today, I would like to bracket the issue of the Shiite-Sunni conflict, because it really gets too complicated. Let me just say that religion certainly plays a major, though not the only role there.
As to the other issues, let me explain briefly what is meant here when I say a religion is ‘tribal’. To begin with, all religions are tribal in the sense that they can be understood only in terms of the culture that spawned them, the culture in which they were constructed. There is no universal, ‘objective’ construction of gods or the One God. But they are tribal in another sense, namely in the sense that they prescribe their people’s way of life! One can put it differently and say that a people’s way of life becomes sanctified by being prescribed by their gods or God. And when I say ‘way of lie’ that could include all kinds of quotidian matters, such as diet, dress, etc. etc.
And it doesn’t matter whether a God may be regarded as ‘universal’ by his followers, or whether he is ‘labelled’ by the followers as ‘theirs’. Because the God of the OT prescribes a way of life to Jews, he is a tribal God.
Islam’s God is also very much a tribal God, for the same reason, even if Muslims think he is ‘universal’. (As I said, there really is no universal God.) However, looking at the three versions of God, the Judaic, the Christian, and the Muslim version, it is quite obvious that Christianity’s God is the least tribal, which is one of the reasons for Christianity’s success. (As I have pointed out in previous posts.)
As to the ‘building blocks’ of Islam, virtually everything was borrowed from the Judaic-Christian religion. (The notion of ‘plagiarism doesn’t apply here.) I concluded that a long time ago myself, but let me quote an Arabic scholar, who died in Iran in the jails of Khomeini.
“[The Koran] contains nothing in the sense of ideas not already expressed by others. All the moral precepts of the Koran are self-evident and generally acknowledged. The stories in it are taken in identical or slightly modified form s from the lore of the Jews and the Christians, whose rabbis and monks Muhammad had met and consulted on his journeys to Syria, and from memories conserved by the descendants of the peoples of “Ad and Thamud’...In the filed of moral teachings, however, the Koran cannot be considered miraculous. Muhammad reiterated principles which mankind had already conceived in earlier centuries and many places. Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Moses and Jesus had said similar things...Many of the duties and rites of Islam are continuations of practices which the pagan Arabs had adopted from the Jews.” (Ibn Warraq, p.5)
I rest my case, at least for tonight, lol!
posted by
Nautikos
on December 20, 2007 at 6:01 PM
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Hi Naut
I will have to start disagreeing right from the beginning. first to comment on the previous post, the bloody struggle between sunnis and shiites in Iraq is a not a reflection of the diverse points of view of these two sects but it is a political difference. Arabs and Kurds do not get along well even though they are both Sunnis and the two sects that are both arab are not united by their ethnicity or race. there is more at stake here and I will explain the root of the shiite-sunni feud ( a historical and political power struggle that manifested itself in a sectarian division and not the other way around).
The other point is regarding the creation of the myth of Islam, if you are going to assume that Islam was fabricated then it is easy to attribute the similarities to Christianity and Judaism to an act of plagiarism, however as Muslims we believe that Islam is a continuation of the traditions of the older religions. And one more point, Allah or God in Islam is not a tribal deity, the jews do not worship a jewish god even though there are many specific commandments that have become the "trademark" of the Jewish faith. There is a reason Islam is fastest growing religion today, it is not merely because Muslims reproduce at a faster rate than others, somehow, Islam can strike a chord with all sorts of people, even those who are not from the Arab or Eastern culture, it is not merely about embracing a culture it is truly a universal faith despite the its obvious association with Arabs.
posted by
lindo
on December 20, 2007 at 11:19 AM
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Re: Another one you could look at in this way is Joseph Smith,
Ciel, I do hope those voices don't turn out to be
angelic ones...
posted by
Nautikos
on December 20, 2007 at 10:04 AM
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Re: I always thought history is always a progress of ideas?
Sorry, Straightforward, history is not always a progress of ideas, where by 'progress' I assume you mean 'better'. The whole notion of 'progress' is useless when dealing with ideas, and especially with history. It's little more than a pious illusion, involving a lot of nonsense...
But I will admit that the notion of progress is deeply imbedded in Western thought, particularly through Marx's re-interpretation of Hegel's historical idealism into his own historical materialism, which has sort of 'seeped' into Western thinking. Of course, believing in a progress of ideas is not Marx, but straight Hegel. And many people have no idea where their way of thinking comes from...
posted by
Nautikos
on December 20, 2007 at 8:49 AM
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I always thought history is always a progress of ideas?
posted by
Straightforward
on December 20, 2007 at 6:42 AM
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Another one you could look at in this way is Joseph Smith,
whose emergence as prophet and religious founder is quite similar.
Okay, now you've done it: got me going again... I must blog... The voices in my head must be heard...
posted by
Ciel
on December 19, 2007 at 2:30 PM
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