Are the public ignorant of islam?

[R1Geezer]

http://tinyurl.com/3833rff
Not surprising that this study done by the religion of peace thinks so but is it the truth or do the public have an uncannlily accurate view?

[steg]

i can see the next world war being caused by the atheists, wanting to wipe out all religions

[jno]

Stalin had a go, steg. Tough cookies, these atheists. No fear of hell, you see.

[boxtops]

I must take issue with birdie, on two counts. Firsly Islam (in the Koran) does not preach hatred of other religions, rather it encourages tolerance of the People of the Book i.e. the other Abrahamic faiths Judaism and Christianity. Islam recognises all the prophets in both Bible and Torah and many of the stories are common to all three holy books. It is only the extremist Muslims who are intolerant to excess - I know many Muslim people and they have been with me to weddings and funerals with other faiths - once again everyone is being tarred with the populist extremists brush, which just is not true for the majority of followers of Islam.
Secondly I do not dispute that the prophet Muhammad was illiterate when he first started to receive messages, but the Koran was dictated to him (according to belief) by the Angel Gabriel (not directly by God) over a period of 23 years (not by any means all in one go) and Mohammed immediately recited it all back to others who wrote it down - he never claimed to have direct communication from God, but via the Archangel. Unlike the Bible, the Koran is believed to be an almost immediate record of the received words from Gabriel, whereas the Gospels were written by some people who never even met Jesus, so didn't hear his words personally.

[modeller]

If heaven is as boring as described by the theists I think hell would be a more interesting place .
On second thoughts hell will be so full by clerics maybe athestic oblivion is probably the best option.

[modeller]

boxtops The haddith ( the second most holy book ) was written during Mohammads life it's a bit like a diary and describes how Mohammad practiced the faith on a daily basis.
The Koran unlike the Bible is not chronological it is set out with the smallest verses first and the longest last. Like the Bible it contains contradictions. In one part it describes Christians as good people and in another part it says Christains and friends of Christians should be destroyed.
On the other hand Jesus is a Islamic prophet although not seen as as the son of God.
In that respect Islam is closer to Judaism.

[naomi24]

Boxtops, //Firsly Islam (in the Koran) does not preach hatred of other religions, rather it encourages tolerance of the People of the Book i.e. the other Abrahamic faiths Judaism and Christianity.//

Are you sure about that? Read on.

Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.

Those who reject our Signs, We shall soon cast into the Fire: as often as their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the penalty: for Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.

I could go on, but perhaps you should read the book for yourself..

Steg and jno, fortunately for the rest of the world we ordinary atheists don't have a creed like that I've illustrated above.

Modeller, Islam was directly filched from Judaism, with scientific information from other older civilisations added - along with the errors they made.

[naomi24]

.....And since for some unaccountable reason very few people have bothered to comment on Tamborine's excellent post in News at 11.59 today, entitled 'OMG - Stick in a Hornet's Nest - for the benefit of the religious apologists here, here is a quote from the Muslim author of the article concerned which I think says it all.

//Liberals tolerate the intolerable because they don't have to live with the consequences.//

[birdie1971]

Boxtops -

I also must take issue with your comment, “... once again everyone is being tarred with the populist extremists brush, which just is not true for the majority of followers of Islam.”

I have stated very clearly in a great many posts that I do not think that individual Muslims are a problem – Islam is. I have no dispute with pious individuals who wish to follow any God. However, I do have a problem with an institutionalised religion that does preach intolerance.

To suggest that Islam is tolerant of other faiths is demonstrably false. Whilst the Koran does encourage tolerance for the other Abrahamic based faiths on a few occasions, it overtly contradicts itself on a great many other occasions, calling for the wholesale slaughter of non-Islamic peoples. You cannot honestly claim that a book containing literally hundreds of passages that calls the the killing, torture, enslavement, punishment, etc. of anyone who doesn't follow Mohammed's path is a good and morally correct book because it occasionally says a couple of nice things about Christians and Jews. That's totally illogical and is at odds with the Koran's ultimate message.

[birdie1971]

Continued...

Boxtops - “... he never claimed to have direct communication from God, but via the Archangel...”

Okay, I think it's fair to say that we're splitting hairs here. Mohammed didn't speak directly to God - he spoke to Gabriel instead. But what's the difference? Assuming this exchange occurred at all, it would be fair to say that Gabriel was merely a conduit through which God's words were repeated. Rather like a Presidential spokesman, Gabriel relays God's actual words to Mohammed. The literal difference is inconsequential. Ergo, Mohammed claims to have spoken to God directly albeit through an intermediary.

As for the claim that, “...Mohammed immediately recited it all back to others who wrote it down...”, where's the documentary evidence to back up that claim? In the Hadiths perhaps?

[naomi24]

The Koran is reputed to have been written initially on stones and leaves. Mohammed's new religion attempted to provide something that everyone would accept. He basically hijacked Judaism along with all its prophets going right back to Adam, added Jesus (born of a virgin, but not the son of God) to attract the Christians, and then of course we have to consider the now defunct Satanic Verses, which were designed to attract those who worshipped multiple deities, but were subsequently claimed to be a trick of the Devil. In fact, it is now maintained that the verses are a lie fabricated by the infidel, and never existed at all. To all that Mohammed added scientific information, much of it subsequently proven to be completely inaccurate, gleaned from earlier civilisations, most notably the Greeks. All this goes some way to explaining the glaring inconsistencies within Islamic literature. Muslims like to tell us that Mohammed was a simple, uneducated and illiterate man - but he was none of those things. He was clever and he was crafty.