to be honest i would rather go to dubai (a city in u.a.e) or saudi arabia than iran not just for religious reasons.
You see religion is like a hammer that hammer could be used to construct beautiful things or break things or kill people it depends how the person uses the hammer good or evil.

@RvW
-Hijab is just the headscarf.
-Women do get believed if they come forward, not whatever the western view is has to be correct you know.

@Ironheart
why would you rather go to Saudi arabia than Iran? Im curious.

"
You say Jews are hated all across the world right? Not true. Muslims hate Zionists. Zionists are different from Jews.
"

Yeah, right. That's why this one guy shot little kids and their teacher in France recently. Because they truly were evil zionistic French Jewish children and their teacher.

Pointing out fringe cases doesn't mean anything - Zionism and the outsized per capita wealth and influence in the Jewish population are the two main factors that keep anti-semitism alive. For most history since the advent of Islam, it's actually been Christians that are on the forefront of suppressing the Jewish religion and culture - Islamic law accomodates the 3 other major monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism) in specific terms, allowing them to pay a tax in lieu of participating in Islam-specific community services. There's always persecution of religion minorities in every time and every nation, but until Israel was carved out of tribally held lands the Muslims were not especially rabid anti-semites.

Oh, and I'd far rather go to relatively cosmopolitan and easy-going Iran than fundamentalist Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, any day. Maybe someday my government and Iran's will get along and I really will get to go - if I had to pick one travel destination out of all available, Iran would be right up there at the top of my list just because I find it personally fascinating more for the thousands of years of Persian history than the modern-day political spat between Iran and the US.

@x

About Leviticus and the Old Testament. There is a spiritual meaning behind all that is written there which comes to light through the New Testament. One should not dismiss this so easily and people give up to the defense of these words unnecessarily. All of these are actually like boni easy to be defended when you just know the right move. ;)

Lets take that word that people are not allowed to wear clothes made from different fabric. In the New Testament there is Jesus who clothes you in the fabric of justifiedness or in the fabric of God's own justness, so that you lose the shame of being naked, which means of being sinful. Thats an act of love and this fabric of God's own justice is the real fabric which covers your real shame which is your unjustness. You shall not mix that fabric with any other thread, for example with a justice deriving out of good deeds, it would spoil the garment. Or you should not mix your justice you get from Jesus with a justice you get from professing leftist views like feminism, ecologism and political correct stuff which tends to be used nowadays as a near-religious justness of sorts.

By the way it is a character trait of God to give cloth to human shame. He gave the first cloth to Adam and Eve and in Jesus he gives you this clothing of God's own justness to cover any shame whatsoever for eternity. It's nice and they are good cloth and I will not try to put any other thread of human justness in there. It would desparately be spoiling the febric. The Lord's own justness given to me by grace fits me well enough and this word from Leviticus is valid in its spiritual meaning.

Such would apply to any word in the Old Testament: Dig for the spiritual meaning of it. There is one. And if you dont see it, you just dont see it. The limit is yours.

|> Women do get believed if they come forward, not whatever the western view is has to be correct you know.

That's why I put it as a *possible* reason and asked you to confirm (or deny) it.

|> any Islamic country (except Saudi Arabia, they are stupid , hope I don’t offend anyone there).

I've seen better attempts at not offending people... Just out of curiosity, what's wrong with Saudi Arabia?

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|> If I found out my brother is gay… hmmm. Well I would probably try to bring him back to the right path. Because one of the pillars of islam in shiism is to advice people not to do bad things.

To me, that's exactly the problem; tolerance is a great first step, but not considering it a bad thing would be far better.

You might disagree with me here, but I don't think people can choose their sexual preference. Do you think you could ever choose to be gay? Then why expect gay people to choose to be straight?

Did you read my post about the first gay imam? I wonder how you feel about that...?

|> Information given by devilnis was also wrong on many decrees. But I don’t have time to say what was wrong and will do it as soon as possible

No rush, but yes, please do come back when you have time; I'm curious what you have to say about his post.

That's one of my problems with religion - the imposition of guilt on people who are guilty of nothing. All women have breasts just like all women have elbows. Why is it a shameful sin to show one and a non-issue to show the other? Sure men have elbows too, but then all men and women have bottoms - why is it shameful to have them uncovered? Men have adam's apples where women don't, just like women have breasts where men don't - why can a man show his adam's apple but a woman must keep her breasts covered? What does this do for society at all, considering the fact that many cultures in isolation have pretty much no opinion at all about breasts, and the men wouldn't bat an eye at a woman with a bared breast, nor would incite uncontrollable desires to rape that woman.

I've been to burningman 7 times and many people walk around naked there. People who have never gone are so curious like "wow you mean you can just look and there are breasts just out there?! But what about the fat ones? THEY SHOW THEIRS TOO OMG OMG?!? AND MEN OMG MEN WITH SCHLONGS DANGLING IN THE BREEZE OMG EWW OMG!" ... Take it from me, a few days into burningman and you just don't notice it anymore, people are just people whether thay're wearing clothes or not. If religion would focus more on actually relevant moral issues like thou shalt not kill, and less on this supercilious fluff, it'd be easier for me to take it seriously.

This thread kind of depressed me.

Realizing that people have strong convictions are opposing one another. It make me feel like we have no shot of making it. Christians opposing Christians, Muslims opposing Muslims, Jews opposing Jews.
Billions of people believe in reincarnation, billions of people don't. There is Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Budah. Every follower believe only his is the rightfull heir of Gods truth. We even have atheists believing for certain that they are all wrong. Can't we all se how sad this is?

Whatever is the truth our personal opinions shouldn't matter, we should be able to understand this world purpose and be ok with it together, learning the real facts.

This is my religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbanda

The main spiritual leader that ever lived in Brazil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Xavier
He is probably the most notorius Medium in human history, and there were no scheme, all his life's effort was charity and helping human kind.


As you may see I am demonized by Christians and probably other fundamentalists by my spiritual choice.

I believe that everyone that believes in a God in any form truly believes that God is perfect, being said that, we believe that God is what our point of view can understand as perfection.

I believe that God/Allah/Jave or any other supreme entity is the same being, with different.

I believe in reincarnation, because its seem more rational according to natures laws, and as i try to see Gods perfection, reincarnation seems perfection. Data on reincarnation is also a lot more explanatory, is not just "because my book said it doesn't happen". It is my way of seen perfection that God make us immortals, with the lengh of our life being almost infinite.

I believe we can communicate with spirits. These spirits being Angels (Mohammed, Jesus and John all talked to Angels right?), entities or people that passed away. I don't believe in communication with the DEAD, that is absurd. If there is life after death the communications are with the Alive.

My Religion don't believe to have all the answers, we believe we are humans, and we are learning. And all will be revealed as long as we are capable of understanding. Being Humble is one of the things that I admire the most in my religion. I don't have compromises of being right because of my vanity, God can actually show the truth to me. Because there is many things left for me to learn, and if I think I know it all, there is nothing left for God to teach me.

I believe that religion is a cultural choice, otherwise we would not see countries with 90% of the population in the same religion, whatever that religion is.
So, I believe that God understand our ignorance and make us believe all in different things so we can all make the necessary steps in our individual evolution.
So I believe that Christianitym, Judhaism, Budhism, Hindhuism, Taoism, Judaism are all expressions of Gods communication with his people, making the necessary adjustment, because only He is able to see what lies in peoples heart, and what is necessary for their salvation.

I don't believe in hell, because i believe this world is one of the worst that can exist. Torture, assassination, rape, thefts, abuse, war, genocide. Hell cannot be that much worse. I don't believe that God would condemn anyone to Hell, because we are all ignorant and we CANNOT do better. If God condemn people to an eternity of suffering I shall give him my Soul so He can destroy it, I am not his follower and i have no interest in living. But if he loves me till the end, I shall fight for Him until my Death and thorugh all eternity.

I believe that God makes people have convictions in opposing things because its absolute necessity. Believing in reincarnation makes you less angry and more passive, not believing it makes you more of a Warrior and more active. Gods uses our beliefs so He can make the proper corrections in this world, even if he make us believe in the wrong teachings.

And lastly, if two persons had giving their lives to serving God and they can't agree in whatever is Gods truth, is because Vanity is winning the war against Faith.

|> I've been to burningman 7 times and many people walk around naked there. (..) Take it from me, a few days into burningman and you just don't notice it anymore, people are just people whether thay're wearing clothes or not.

Never been to Burning Man (first time I heard of it was on Malcolm in the Middle... then it took a few years to learn it's a real thing), but did visit some friends in Finland. Their saunas are the same thing: everyone's naked and you get completely used to it surprisingly quickly.

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|> This thread kind of depressed me.

Why...? It's a thread about religion; the "best" reason to go around killing strangers you've never met before and know nothing about (except for them having "wrong" beliefs) in human history... and we're keeping it mostly civilised, on a place called *War*Light no less.

|> I believe we can communicate with spirits. These spirits being Angels (..), entities or people that passed away. I don't believe in communication with the DEAD, that is absurd.

It strikes me as odd you would believe in communication with spirits, yet dismiss the idea of communication with the dead as absurd!? Especially since you consider spirits "entities or people that passed away" (that sounds like the dead to me).

|> I don't believe in hell, because i believe this world is one of the worst that can exist. Torture, assassination, rape, thefts, abuse, war, genocide. Hell cannot be that much worse.

Isn't that an overly depressing way of looking at the world? Sure, there's still a lot of ugly things going on, but don let that blind you from seeing all the beauty! The world is rapidly becoming a much better place. Many countries have abolished the death penalty. Medical science is progressing with leaps so big Armstrong would be proud. Two continents (North America and Australia) have not really had a war in half a century, two other continents (Europe and South America) are not quite free of wars yet, but are rapidly getting there. Even if we're not yet making much progress in cleaning up all the horrible pollution we've caused since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, at least we're now aware of how badly we messed up; that's the first step to repairing the damage (well, as much as possible at least).

Reasons for killing: money, land, power, politics, vengeance, jelousy, hate, anger, honor, fear, protection AND religion. No reason is better than any other.

About communication with the dead.
That was a answer because many say that God forbid communication with the dead, what i meant is that i dont see them as Dead, and using this word is incorrect. Death do not apply to the soul, therefore do not apply to the being. So there is communication with the Alive, that are no longer living in a matterial body.


and...
yes, it may be and overly depressing view of the world, and yes we are progressing in much ways. I think religion was an essencial part in progress so we could start acting better. Stop being violent and hostile, to try to leave in a good community system.

But I do know that the uglyness is a reality. At least for a great number of living people at this moment. Whatever kind of evil you can think of, there is a good number of people suffering it at this exact same moment. And i think that still people living a bad condition is majority. (maybe about 60-70%, much different that the 95-99% of the past).
The reality is that your singular most traumatic event in your past is of more importance to the formation of your personality and your reactions than years of education for example.
While we are being able to stop wars, there is still children getting abused. And even if there is only 1, is 1 too many.
I insist in this of seeing the life because that is the reality for many, and they are the ones that need our help the most, and need to find God the most, and need Gods comfort to get over their awfull experiences and being able to grow and not to become the agressor themselfs.


For the record, i didnt liked very much how many of the things I wrote came out, I am very tired. Hope some of the intent remained.

|> About communication with the dead.

So, communication with an (eternal, and therefore alive) spirit, even if the body it used to live in has died? Ah, that makes a lot more sense. :)

|> For the record, i didnt liked very much how many of the things I wrote came out, I am very tired. Hope some of the intent remained.

Don't worry about it; I'm used to communicating through the imperfect medium of plain, expressionless text without intonation. Adding a little tiredness into the equation only makes things even more interesting. ;) Nothing you wrote offended me, if you were worried about that.

@devilnis
------The Qur'an itself doesn't say much about how women are supposed to be treated
That’s wrong. The quraan clearly mentions multiple times about how women should dress. One clear verse is in the surat about women. Surat Al-Nisa.

------One of his daughters (the mother of his only surviving male progeny, Ali) even led a revolution against various power factions after Muhammad's death - those on her side were called the Partisans (Shi'a) of Ali, which is basically where the schism between Shi'a and Sunni began.
WRONG! Sorry but, I have to clear this place up. Ali was the nephew of Prophet Muhammad and was under his care since his father died. He was the first male muslim and he married the Prophet’s daughter Fatimah. (Peace be upon them all). The separation of the muslim community comes because of one act. The prophet had entitled that Imam Ali would be managing the people after him. After he died Abu Bakr, Omar and other people denounced it and took power themselves by force while Imam Ali was grieving the prophets death. This meant that they had secured their place in power while he couldn’t. Some people sided with him and urged him to take power. He could have taken it, everybody agrees, but he didn’t because bloodshed would occur and many muslims would die, so he decided not to. This led to some part of the society following Ali even when the other Caliphs were in place. But Ali didn’t try anything and even helped the Caliphs in their endeavors if they asked for it.
What the Shia’s main evidence is that in the last pilgrimage of the Prophet he announced to everyone that Imam Ali should be their ruler after him. But what the Sunni’s have problem with this is: One of the words that the prophet said to tell the people that Ali should their ruler ALSO means friend. The Sunni’s say that Ali should be their friend, not ruler. But the word friend does not make sense in the context.
(that probably didn’t make sense, sorry im tired)

------Shi'a have a more hierarchial system with generally the Grand Ayatollah on top, much like the pope of the Catholic church or the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch.
Not really. Each Shia is given the choice on who they want to follow. Each marjah (person who is really advanced in the quran and that their fatwas have large followings) has a different set of rules for whoever follows them. Its not a big difference, its just that they have a bit of difference on minor details. I would say a majority of Iranian shia’s choosing NOW would choose the grand ayatollah. When the last Grand ayatollah was alive a much bigger majority (i would say around 85%) would follow him. Now there are people who follow Shirazi or Sistani or other ones. But in other countries its different. In Kuwait I know for a fact that 90% of the shias follow Sistani while in Bahrain mostly follow the grand ayatollah. I wouldn’t compare it to the catholic church either.

------By and large, the Shi'a lost this struggle but managed to maintain themselves as a sect of Islam.
They didn’t. It is widely known that Imam Ali told the Shia’s not to struggle as it would not be beneficiary.

------ 3rd Caliph and the line of Muhammad
We say 3rd Imam :D

------the two major branches of Islam continues to this day in much fiercer
Well Shia’s and Sunni’s don’t have problems with each other. You can see this in Iran where we have 2-3 counties which have a sunni majority. There isn’t a problem there. What the problem is are the Wahabbis. These are extremists that all shias say are not muslims and most Sunni’s say are not true muslims.

------defeated and killed the leaders of the Shi'a sect in the battle of Karbala as part of the "second fitna" (a fitna being a religious civil war)
Seems you don’t really know the story of Ashura. Ashura means tenth in a sense. It marked the tenth day that the 3rd Imam was besieged as he was going to Iraq. He was invited by people in Iraq to come there. As he was being harassed in Madina he started going there with all his family and household. He had 72 warriors which were his friends. The Umayyad heard about this, paid the Iraqis not to rally behind him. And made the people who were supporting the 3rd Imam not to reach him. The Umayyads gathered a 3000 manned army and besieged the whole household, imam etc. This meant no water for the people in the third Imam’s camp. This also included a 1 month old baby and lots of children. The 1 month old baby was shot via an arrow from the Umayyad while on the Imam’s lap. They didn’t shoot at the Imam but at the child. Then on Ashura the 72 warriors fought the 3000 army and they died. The tents of the women and children were put on fire and the head of the Imam severed and taken back to Damascus. The women and children were arrested and taken too.
That’s just a brief summary of it :\

- I didn't say that there was NOTHING in the Qur'an about women, just that there were many details that had to be filled in later through the Sunnah and fatwas.

- What you said about Ashura is pretty much what I said, just with more details filled in.

- Sorry, yes, 3rd Imam.

- By struggle I don't necessarily mean fighting, though the first and second Fitnas did indeed include plenty of it. I mean a struggle or competition through whatever means to secure power. Even if the first Imam essentially abdicated his worldly power, the rift was still there and continues to this day.

- It's a far better comparison between Shi'a and the Catholic church than between the far more theologically fragmented Sunni and the rigidly hierarchial Catholics. I wasn't trying to say that Shi'a and Catholicism are direct mirrors to each other, just that there are similarities :) The grand Ayatollah and yes, Sistani too are the closest Muslim parallel to the Catholic pope that I can think of, unless you want to bring the Ba'hai into it, and he's more of a Messianic figure (he claimed to be the Occluded Imam, the term for that is Madhi right?) than a worldly leader of the faithful.

- Wahhabis are just as muslim as anyone else from an American perspective, even if their viewpoints aren't held by a wide majority of the followers of Islam. They believe themselves to be Muslim, they derive their viewpoints from one of the 4 great schools of Islamic jurisprudence, their holy book is the Qur'an, they follow the Sunnah in accordance with their reading of it. Trying to say that they aren't "true" muslims is a value judgement, not an empirical fact.

- Beyond all that, thanks for the clarifications - I do pretty well on the Islamic knowledge front considering that I'm an American Agnostic, but it's a vast subject that's easier learned by living it rather than reading about it :)

@rvw i would rather go saudi arabia than iran because iran is sanctioned by most countries nuclear scientist there are getting assassinated and civilians could be killed while trying to eliminate the scientist.And i bet i could get good holiday deals in suadi arabia maybe even more than iran.E.t.c

i am a good church going roman catholic i recently made my confirmation i believe that al religions that describe a god or a heaven are describing the same being in different ways nobody religion is perfect but i dont think that there are any (unless your a satanist) that are wrong god is with all of us we just have to find him in our own way

Hey, Il Duce! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation

Also, I wouldn't mention that you were just confirmed. In most Christian relgions, this happens around 10-14, yes? In a discussion such as this, try to avoid mentioning that you are a kid, it might make people (such as myself) take you less seriously.

Just look at RvW. He is (if I remember correctly) quite young as well, yet see how well he/she expresses him/herself.

mussolini666,
satanism is a form of christianity... for how can you believe in the christian devil *satan* if you don't believe in christianity..?


Being a satanist requires acknowledging God, just, depending on the individual view, perhaps not believing he is as benevolent as the main faith would have one believe.

Actually I dont think that the main point with getting cloth is strictly nakedness, but it is shame. And shame is a very human trait with various content. Some social surroundings define that differently, but lets say it is about covering your vulnerable parts whatever that might be. In a world under the rule of sin, which is anti-divinelove, such as covering those personal things which makes you feel ashamed of, or what might be the target of other people most hurtful attacks that might strike your inner being, is vital and is unquestionable necessary. Someone famous said once that the loss of shame is a sure sign of mental illness.

This thread is bound to get somebody in trouble...