Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!yale!husc6!m2c!wpi!gwydion@tavi.rice.edu From: gwydion@tavi.rice.edu (Basalat Ali Raja) Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam Subject: Re: Muhamad's prophethood Message-ID: <9064@wpi.wpi.edu> Date: 24 Feb 90 16:13:43 GMT References: <16037@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <111543@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> <5213@brazos.Rice.edu> Sender: shari@wpi.wpi.edu Reply-To: gwydion@tavi.rice.edu (Basalat Ali Raja) Followup-To: soc.religion.islam Lines: 55 Approved: shari@wpi.edu In article reddy@uts.amdahl.com (T.S. Reddy) writes: > Clever! On a purely subjective topic such as religion, there are no right >or wrong ways (despite the protestations of the net bigots). How can you >make the claim that a person is totally mistaken to follow a particular >religion? I am afraid that I disagree with your above assertion. I will furthermore assume that you are not playing games and implying that anyone who protests your assertion above is a net bigot. For the time being, I will assume that you have more dignity and a facility for rational thought than that. Anyways, look at it from my subjective point of view. For me, the Quran is a *fact*. It is a truth. Think of the Quran as a collection of statements, as a subset of a universe of statements. Using the basic rules of logic, we can arrive at a closure of this subset; this will be all the statements that can be logically derived from the Quran. Given this classification, the universe of statements can be divided into three sets; statements which are in the Quran, statements which are opposed to the Quran, and statements which have no relevance to the Quran. Statements which are in the Quranic subset, I feel to be the truth. Statements which are not in the Quranic subset, I consider to be incorrect. Statements which are not in either of the two, I decide on the basis of other factors, usually personal preferences etc. >people (non-bigots, at least) discuss religion, they do it with >the understanding that everyone has their own path towards spiritual >satisfaction and do not feel that the other person is wrong in his views. Another person can uphold another classification. When I say that I respect a person's point of view; that is not exactly correct. What I say is that I respect that person's right to make his own decisions (assuming such decisions do not entail personal attacks on other people etc. of course). In many cases, I can even see how he has reached the conclusions that he has. This however, in no manner constrains me to accept that he is correct. If you feel that it is necessary that I accept that you are not mistaken in your religious beliefs before I can be classified as a non-bigot, then so be it. >For example, the very fact that you're in this country following the >religion of your choice is consciously due to the fact that the founding >fathers of this country realized that religion was a personal matter. >So your assertion that all religious discussions are based on the premise >that the other person is mistaken is quite passe. I stand corrected. It is not necessary that ALL religious discussions be based on such a premise. But many are. You see, Islam is a rather stern religion. To follow it, one is making a very serious commitment about oneself and one's beliefs. Muslims are very intent on following their religion, leading a pious life, doing good works, etc. This requires a great deal of commitment, which I believe cannot be inherently present when one is being wishy-washy about one's religious beliefs.