1. Of course everyone has faith he/she believes that his/her religion are the true one. Whatever they say that in words or not. But inside of themselves they believe that.

2. By the way the "religion" term was not used in the old ages but faith or believe were used.

3. Usually I don't argue about religion because I feel that it is personal matter. But I participated in discussion in this Forum because it is arguments by words with non known to me personally and to correct something said about religion in general or Christianity in Particular.

4. I was educated in Egyptian public school and worked there and in Algeria . I have of course many Muslim friends and we respect each other belief.

5. Also I studied the
Qur'an in the school and I lived in Islamic atmosphere where the
Qur'an in radio , TV and everywhere loudly from Mosques.

6. I know Juadism through our studying of the old testiment in the Bible.

7. So I know these three heavenly religions well. I posted in this this forum that Islam, Juadism and Christaianity are believing in the same God, God of Abraham i.e Ibrahim in Arabic[ http://www.trap17.com/forums/we-believe-sa...god-t31377.html ]. The difference is mainlly about Jesus. I am not try to convert any of these religion members but sometimes I explain to my Jews and Muslim their religion.

8. Nobody can reject that Christianity is the religion of peace where Jesus asked to loves the enemies and don't fight any but accept humiliation.

9. But in the past, nobody argue or taught us in the schools that Islam is religion of peace. But they proud and teach the history of conquer of the world. They tell us about the Jihad war and how they opened Egypt, Libeya, Tunis, Moroco and Algeria. How they take over the Persian Empire [Iran] and they became Muslims until the wall of China. How the places countries in the former soviet union became Muslims. How they reched the countries Kazkhanstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajakstan, Turkmenstan, Uzbekstan, Azerbijan. Chichnia, etc... How they crossed the Mideterian to Spain and were there 400 years. How Islam reached Turkey and how Constantinople became Astana and Agia Agia Church became Mosque. How was the old Balkan war and that why there are Muslims in Albania, Bosnia and Kosova. How they killed the king of the Serb in battle in Kosova.

10. When Arab conquer Egypt they give us three option: either convert to Islam or pay a big amount of money or to be killed. We survived because our ansestor could paid. The same happened in the region.

11. Moses wrote the four books [The Torah ] in the bible as Osman wrote the Quraan. Moses wrote the first 4 books and put what God told him and what God ordered and what be judge the public.Moreover he put the history until his death. Osman also wrote the Guarani from the memory and collection of people.

12. Also there are many theories and books about how Qur'an received I will not discuss it here.

13. Qur'an ordered to respect Jews and Christian because they are "people of book" . But Insisting that "the Bible has been changed by human" is the tool used by the extremists to attack the Christian or Churches in Egypt or elsewhere against the order of Qur'an"

14. I believe any difference in Bible version are due to translation but without changing the core or the events.

15. The Qur'an is not allowed to be translated. And it is funny that people in non-Arabic countries read and repeat it without knowing the means. When I was in Russia for 5 years, peoples from the Islamic regions were asking me to explain to them and I did. Peoples in Indonesia read
Qur'an without understanding it. Now day in the Internet age, some different group put a translation in the interenet . They said it is not translation but explanation [I don't know what the difference?] You will find some difference between one translation and another. That why I said the difference in the translation. In another occasion I will address this in deep.

16. Also there are some difference in Shiti Qur'an and Sunni Qur'an. Also some group after Ali believed that prophency was on Ali not the Prophet Mohamed.

17. The violence were among the extremists before Usama Ben Ladin. Muslims Brothers and Jihad Groups were before Ben Ladin. The Jehad Group who taught Usama Bin Laden. He was by his money.

18. There were Bombs in America many years before 11 September .

19. The killing in Algeria were before the Al Queeda. I worked in Algeria 4 years before 1986 and it was very very peaceful country.

20. The bombing in London, Madrid .were by local Muslims The same bombing in Bali in Indonesia.

21. Everyday in Iraq about 100 Iraqis are killed by other group of Muslims, I wonder that the killing in Iraq or Algeria also occurring in the holly month of Ramadan.

22. You can find equality, loves in any religion the problem is how far people abide with Nobel ideas.

23. If there are free election in Egypt or Algeria then the extremist will take the authority as it happened in the case of Hamas in Palestine or Hizb Alah in Lebanon.
That because the majority believes in these fundamental and the extremist means.

24. 23. Also I has doubt about the equality in Islam. How about Women right?. How it is forbiden in leading and teaching. Even though in country as Saudi Arabia is not allowed to drive car?
Does Islam allow women to marry 4 men as the men allowed to marray 4 women?

A true Religion in this whole world is the Religion Of Humanity. None other religion is greater than this. When their is love and mutual understanding among peoples of different cast and states than only the human and thus their religion can exist. If all the peoples fight for their own religion than nobody exist in this world.

Nope just saying that I am not uninformed on the subject.



Yep.



Yep. Facts could be biased either way (try asking a devout follower and a strict unbeliever). Easy solution: Ask more than one professor seeing that they have different backgrounds, etc. But someone that is well educated in English literature will not dispute the claim that the Bible has stories in it that have existed before in other religions and remember that Christianity is not the only religion that includes stories from other religions... of course, what do you expect - humans wrote it.

Well i read through some of the replys but not all of them. I will say this,It is a fact that the holy bible that I grew up following was revised by King James and that is how it got the name King James version and it is a translation of the original language.I know nothing about the original language but i do know that cornerstone has dvds for sell at 40$ and they have one of the nicest buildings i have ever seen for a church convention center and that is wrong when people are starving and sick but yet their are preachers driving the nicest cars and got the nicest houses.So i believe that the best way for religion is to know whats right and follow what you feel within.Because supporting something that makes a dvd to spread the word and makes a huge profit and lives in a country side house like that is wrong because money is the root of all evil.I was in jail once for driving under DUI suspension and in jail they have special dictionary concordance and i read through some genesis and it was not what i read in the King James version I have never read anything from the holy Qur'an though.Sort of have trouble understanding the language!

I see no one’s taken the bait here, so I’ll follow up on OpaQue’s astute implication. That is, Islam is actually a very young religion – if not the world’s youngest, and was founded by the “prophet” Muhammad a mere 1300 years ago. But to address his question directly, Dravidianism, the precursor to modern Hinduism, is said to be the world’s oldest religion, predating even Sumerian to approximately 6000 BC. Is it any wonder this most ancient of the world’s cultures embraces vegetarianism? This tradition has passed through many ages, imparting the wisdom necessary to hold all life –not just human- sacred - something I’ve always admired about Hindu culture.

I would concur that forms of Paganism (Wicca, Goddess worship, whatever you want to call it) probably predate anything spoken of here, but Hinduism is considered the oldest where large, organized religions are concerned.

I already know about this; seen and read plenty of stuff on it—and, if memory serves me right, it was all from those who (seem to) wish that there was no such thing as religion; although some did only strike Christianity the most out of all religions, if not only Christianity. However, such statements do not change much. Let me inform you of a pagan religion known as "Gnosticism." The way they worked was they went around involving themselves in other religions, taking the basics of that religion (sometimes even further detail) and applied it to their own religion. They would make up their own stories based on the information retrieved from these religions, forming contradictions to these other religions all for the sake of gaining "wisdom." Gnosticism, if i'm not mistaken, has been around before Judaism.

There's another thing i would like to point out: If one sees two things which they can place together to form a logical statement, people will believe it. For example: We have two stories and two religions. One religion is older than the other. The two stories are about the same, just certain differences. One can claim, since one religion is older, that the older religion was the one that made/wrote the story first, however without knowing who actually did write it first, and since the statement is logical enough to believe, people will believe it. However, the older religion could have lasted long enough to come across this story in the other religion and could have modified it after this newer religion has written it. To put it short: What is logical does not mean it is true.

I assume you heard this after the Gospel of Judas resurfaced which many gnostics see as something that really isn't a big deal. But it taught the lesson that anyone can receive gnosis (knowledge/wisdom) - even your enemies can find their way. The point of the gospel wasn't to try to show that the church was hiding anything or whatever (DaVinci Code) - as several television shows tried to make gnostics out to be the bad people - that they are rebels or something. I know much about gnosticism and have friends who were born and raised gnostics.

What I was talking about when I said the Bible took stuff - is how there are stories in the Egyptian religion that was made way before Christianity and Judaism that describe and tell stories of someone that resembles the same person that we call Jesus Christ. And also the story of "Noah and the ark" that is really a rewrite of an old story that is basically the same thing... I can't remember the name of the story but I read it junior year in high school while I was taking sophomore college english... It's driving me nuts! I read it at the same time I read the epic of Gilgamesh and that one story with the lake of fire... My professor was a real religious Christian (duh - I live in Texas) who made us read many many stories that had religious elements and stuff that she said the Bible took from and then some that the Bible inspired. She is definitely not what right wings call 'one of those liberal nuts.' She might of been the one doing the name calling! But then I had another english professor that was the head of the department who was liberal and she agreed with everything the other said about the stories the Bible took from and stuff... Good teachers the two were as they would give us different views of different subjects. I need to call one of them so they can re explain this stuff to me... But it is unlikely.

And the whole point of saying the Bible took stories was to say that all religions take stories and that they all hold truths and fairy tales. And your second paragraph doesn't make too much sense - it's just something that runs into circles upon circles. Most of the gospels in the Bible were not written down in original form and were just spoken for many many years and so were the stories of old but if we can find something that was written we can find out how old it was and prove it's age using carbon but this only shows how old it was when it was written, not when it was spoken.

ANYWAYS, I agree with OpaQue.

This post has been edited by Smack: Apr 29 2007, 10:17 PM

[1]No, i did my own research—i've read plenty of Gnostic texts; the Gospel of Judas being one of them, of course—it claims more than one god: contradiction to a monotheistic religion. There are other Gnostic texts that take Names that are known to be attributed to God (Jehovah, YahWeh, etc) and claim that each name is a different god—all created gods, however, because in these stories they (all those gods) just "came to be," basically, through some background force.

I do realise many Gnostics can be good people and have good morals; but the texts still exist.

[2:1]I know exactly what you're talking about; you're basically repeating everything i heard and seen in videos and read.
[2:2]You mean "shepard"? "One who gathers 'sheep' or 'lambs'"? I know what you're talking, but that doesn't change anything. I don't recall, however, this "shepard" being the first of all creation of whom all things were made through and being the ultimate atonement for sin.
[2:3]It's not "basically the same thing," the other one is a bit illogical. They both also happened for different reasons. The event is still possible; however, only one can be accurate in the telling of the event.
[2:4]Define: "religious."

All the events could have happened, it's just the one that holds the most facts and the one that is logical and coincides with the facts that is the accurate one in the telling of the event.

[3]I know.

[4]What part doesn't make sense? I see no circles in my statement that could cause confusion. Please be more specific and i will try to explain it better, if possible.

[5]Define: "original form."
[5:2]Didn't we find "something that was written"? Would we be able to claim that they are the Gospels if we didn't?

[6]I only agree with him somewhat. Some religions preach personal peace through self-indulgence, whether or not it is at the expense of others—this is not the proper way to promote personal "peace." Another thing, however, is if the religion makes statements claiming them to be true but don't coincide with reality and certain known facts (i.e. facts that don't have a possibility of a logical contradiction that coincide with other facts), you'll lose believers or have "followers" that are not devout, therefore any personal peace may not be attained (properly {and may make things worse for the human population}).

1. yes i know these things
2. okay
3. no i'm talking about a sect that once occurred during the times of the pharoahs, the 'light skinned' god prince dude.. but I can't back this up with anything because I cannot remember the name
4. the old story of the great flood when he traveled far and wide to meet an oracle that told him to build an arc and he would be saved from the great flood (..that sounds almost little bit right of the story) seems to be the same to me
5. religious - going to church every sunday monday wednesday and friday nights. running several christian organizations throughout the school and etc.
6. original form meaning what was said the first time. remember that activity in grade school where the sentence was told at one end of the line and by the time it got to the other it was different. thats how story telling works, each person adds their own style to it.
7. yes because a gospel is just 'good word' which can be anything
8. yes not all religions are perfect social institutions.

Interesting. Ive got no religion and Im kinda happy with that, only because if you've got no religion you dont debate which is the 'True' religion. and you will accept and listen to other religions. I know this happens with Buddaism {Is that how its spelt} but you get the picture. Ill check to site out becuase Ive alway been interested in learning other religions.
Thanks for the Post