Posted by Stella from ? (140.192.201.79) on Friday, May 24, 2002 at 1:12PM :
In Reply to: Re: Julia posted by Julia from dhcp100056.res-hall.northwestern.edu (199.74.100.56) on Friday, May 24, 2002 at 12:26PM :
: >>I am glad you asked these questions. My understanding of Islam is VERY much shaped by the many muslim friends I had in highschool. My best friend in highschool was muslim. And we had so many conversations of God et al, Allah et al. I love them to death and i still do, and I know they love me and would do practically anything for me. We crammed for bio tests at each other's houses, I ate their samosas and they ate my beryani, we went to nerdy science fairs and we did practically everything together....but ANYWAY... we had lots of discussions about religion in the third floor of Northeastern University's library, our second home. We talked about Mohammed. We talked about jesus. We eventually understood each other's positions and decided that the other's view on God is their view, but we believed ours to be the "correct" one. We certainly didn't want to say that Jesus and Mohammed were equivalent, because they said different things and were different people. But we were very content with educating each other and debating it, and at the end of the day getting nachos from seven eleven and not hating each other.
***Thank you for sharing that great story. It would be great for the world to have understanding people like you and your friends running it. However, that's not the case. There are alot of people out there who want to change people by imposing their own beliefs on them.
: I guess not everyone's exchange across religious divides ends up the way it did with myself and my friends. But my point in sharingthis little story is that people can hold their absolute faith in God and still respect and love people. It happens and continues to happen. I dont' believe i have to give up my absolute faith for god in order to remove me from a slippery slope of prejudice and bigotry. I am fine with my absolute belief in God and i know my muslim friends feel the exact same way. Though i disagree with their version of truth, I ultimately love them and respect them because God commanded me to do so.
:
: : *** Prejudice and bigotry are forms of violence. Inaction towards this prejudice and bigotry go on is also form of violence. These all add to the continuation of those doing the actual killing.
: -----------------------------------------
: : YOu're always going to get someone who doesn't believe in the absolute. With belief in anything absolute, you'll always get an opposition. Also with belief in anything absolute, there automatically is created a heirarchy in the mind of the believer of the absolute. The believer is basically on the top of that heirarchy because he has recognized the "truth."
: >>>I follow your logic, but ultimately GOd says that all humans are sinners, all humans are imperfect before a perfect God. I am first united with all of man, which in my mind precludes me from organizing myself in this hierarchy of judgment. I'm the same as the others I am surrounded by. As a christian i want to share what I believe it's true, but not at the expense of hurting people or doing things to them.
*****THat's great to understand that God created us all equally. You get that. I get that, but do you honestly think the rest of the Christian world gets it? Just look at the AINA forum...
You know, when you throw in something like salvation only through Christ, that creates inequality for the reasons in my previous post.
: -------------------------------------------
: The others who don't believe in the absolute are looked down upon or pitied directly or indirectly. This is a judgement, indirect or not. This judgement leads to the subtle violence I mentioned above.
: >>>> This may be true in the cases where people manipulate religion in their interests...but all i know is, when my muslim friends tell me about Allah, or when my baha'i friend tells me about Baha'ullah, I don't feel denigrated, pitied, or anything like that. It's actually the opposite - i feel loved, i feel like they care about me to the point they want to share with me something that is good, and something that they think will make my life better. I think i do the same for them.
****We agree! :>
-- Stella
-- signature .