The Capture of Christianity

We know that four different men, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each wrote their gospels containing their accounts death and resurrection of Jesus decades after the event.
By the modern rules of what constitutes sound evidence concerning testimony of witnesses, had all four of these Gospels recorded the events exactly alike, it would be strongly suspected that their accounts are not the result of separate eye witnesses, but rather, a collusion from a commonly accepted source. If four people observed the same accident, you would expect their testimony in court months later, or even on the day of the event, to differ one from another as to what they saw, with certain elements of their testimony in common. The differences give credibility to their statements. By taking all four statements into account, a fairly accurate account can be ascertained as to what actually what happened on that day Jesus rose from the grave.

Here is the chronology of the events on the day Jesus resurrected from the grave as based upon all four gospels:

1. Mary Magdalene, another Mary, and other women go to the Tomb just at sunrise to anoint Jesus body and wondering who might remove the Stone that seals the tomb.

2. Before they get there, There was a violent shaking of the ground around the tomb, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

3. Mark 16:1-7
"Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.

3. The angel in white, having the form of a young man, says to the women:

"Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: `He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."

4. Mary Magdalene does not enter the tomb, but runs to the disciples to tell them the news. Mary Magdalene eventually runs into Peter and John. They race to the tomb.

5. The other women entered the tomb and did not see the body of Jesus, and were perplexed about it when suddenly in dazzling light appeared what seemed to be two men. They did not get a good look at these two because they were terrified and bowed their heads. However the two who
appeared as men in dazzling light spoke to the bowed women: "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. "

They saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, "He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.'" NASU


6. The women leave the tomb and go to look for the disciples to tell them what they saw and heard.

7. John is first to arrive at the tomb but does not enter. Peter arrives and he enters the tomb and John follows. They observe the empty tombs and the wrappings and face cloth that had shrouded Jesus when he was dead and buried. They head home.

Part 2 The evidence for Jesus resurrection:

First of all let me mention four crucial books, namely Luke, John, Acts, and 1 Corinthians, which purport to be written by eyewitnesses and/or contemporaries. Luke was an educated contemporary of Christ who said: "That just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word (namely the apostles), so too it seemed fitting for me as one having a perfect understanding of all things from the very first to write you an orderly account." John the apostle claimed to be an eyewitness in chapter 21; Paul affirmed that he was a contemporary of Christ and a witness of his resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), noting that there were over 500 witnesses most of whom were still alive when he wrote.

Second the claim of being written by contemporaries is supported by the freshness, vividness, and accuracy of the accounts (giving specific geographical, topological, and cultural details that are known to fit the time period of which they speak). Although the Gospel writers offer different perspectives, they all present the same basic facts about the death and resurrection of Christ. Further, all mention of real historical places of the times (such as Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem) all utilize the names of actual places of people such as Pharisees, Sadduccees, Herodians. In addition, names of real historical persons of the period are mentioned (like king Herod, Pontius Pilate, and Caesar Augustus).

Third, the science of archaeology has confirmed the basic historical accuracy of the Gospel record. To take but one example, there are the writings of Sir William Ramsay, whose conversion from a skeptical view of the New Testament was supported by a lifetime of research in the near-eastern world. He wrote, "I began with a mind unfavorable to it. More recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for topography, antiquites, and society of Asia minor. It was gradually born in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth." As a result, Ramsay discovered that Luke was a first-rate historian. In Luke's references to 32 countries, to 44 cities, and 9 islands, there were no errors. This being the case, Luke's prior narration of Christ's death and resurrection (which are integral parts of his Gospel) should be accepted as authentic as well. And since it is in accord with that of the other Gospels on the basic facts about the death and resurrection of Christ we have here an archaeological confirmation of the basic historicity of these documents on these essential facts.

Fourth, the manuscript evidence points to a first century date for the basic Gospel material. The John Rylands papyri, being an early second century copy of portions of John found in Egypt, points to a first century origin of John in Asia. Likewise the Bodmer papyri from the end of the second century and the Chester Beatty papyri from only a half century later form crucial links in a manuscript chain that takes us right back to the threshold of the first century when the books were written.

Fifth, the writers of the New Testament books on the resurrection like Luke, John, and Paul were known to be honest men. They not only expounded a high moral standard of honesty and integrity, but they lived by it and died for it. While some people have been known to die for what they believed to be right but was wrong, few people have been willing to die for what they know to be wrong. What is more, the other Gospels (like Matthew and Mark) with no direct claim of authorship give the same basic message about Christ's death and resurrection.

Sixth, the testimony of the early second century writers directly link the Gospels with the eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the events. The Oracles of Papias (125-140) for example, make the significant affirmation that the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew, that Mark the associate of Peter wrote the Gospel of Mark shortly after the middle of the first century.

Seventh, the immediate successors of the apostles beginning in the late first and early second century cite Gospels and epistles as authentic including sections on the death and resurrection of Christ. In A.D. 95 Clement of Rome cited the Gospels. Around A.D. 110 Ignatius quoted Luke 24:39 (a crucial text on the resurrection of Christ). Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle cites the synoptic gospels as authentic. The Epistle of Barnabas (135) quotes Matthew. Papias (125 and following) speaks of Matthew, Mark, and John writing Gospels saying three times that Mark made no errors.

Eighth, highly reputable contemporary scholars date the New Testament books within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the events. Archaeologist Nelson Gleuck wrote: "We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after A.D. 80." The renown paleographer William F. Albright declared that every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the 40s and 80s of the first century and very probably between 50 and 75. More recently, even the radical "death of God" theologian Bishop Robinson of Honest to God fame declared that the New Testament was written by contemporaries beginning only seven years or so after the events and were circulated among other eyewitnesses and/or contemporaries of the events.

Ninth, the known time lapse between the actual events and the time of composition of the first document is too short for mythological development. One expert, Julius Meuller, declared that it takes at least two generations for a myth to develop. Whereas there is only 20 years or so in the case of the New Testament. He also notes that myths do not develop when there are still contemporaries of the events to debunk them (such as there were at the time of the basic New Testament documents). Furthermore, the New Testament record shows no sign of mythological development (such as are present, say in the 2nd and 3rd century apocryphal gospels).

Tenth, and last, even radical critics of the New Testament acknowledge that the apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians about A.D. 56. But this is only 22 years after Jesus was crucified in A.D. 33. and well within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. Further, Paul indicates that his material is based on an even earlier creed which he received (1 Corinthians 15:1) that comes from within a few years of the events themselves. In this text, Paul affirmed that the majority of 500 witnesses were still alive when he wrote (implying that his readers could confirm for themselves if they wished).

In brief, there is nothing like this kind of evidence for any other historical event from the ancient world. Now, if the New Testament documents are reliable, it remains only to show that they affirm that Jesus died and rose from the dead a few days later.

A brief review of the New Testament evidence will suffice to support these two truths.

First of all, Jesus announced many times during His ministry that He was going to die. Typical is Matthew 17 where He said the son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill Him and the third day he will be raised.

Second, the nature and extent of Jesus' injuries indicate that He must have died: he had no sleep the night before He was crucified, he was beaten several times and whipped, he collapsed on the way to His crucifixion carrying His cross. This in itself, to say nothing of the crucifixion to follow, was totally exhausting and life-draining.

Third, the nature of the crucifixion assures death. Jesus was on the cross from 9 a.m. until just before sunset, he bled from wounded hands and feet as well as from thorns that pierced his head. There would be a tremendous loss of blood from doing this for more than six hours. What is more, crucifixion demands that the victim constantly pull himself up in order to breathe (thus inflicting excruciating pain from the nails). Doing this all day would kill anyone even if they were in good health.

Fourth, the piercing of Jesus' side with a spear from which came blood and water is proof of His death. For if he had not already died, this fatal spear wound to the heart by trained executioners would have certainly finished the job.

Fifth, Jesus affirmed the very moment of His death on the cross when He declared, "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit." And having said this He breathed His last (John renders this: "He gave up His spirit"). Indeed Jesus' death cry was heard by those who stood by.

Sixth, the Roman soldiers accustomed to crucifixion and death pronounced Jesus dead. It was a common practice to break the legs of victims so they could no longer lift themselves and breathe. But since these professional executioners were so convinced that Jesus was actually dead, they even deemed this unnecessary in Jesus' case.

Seventh, Pilate double-checked to make sure Jesus was dead before he gave the corpse to Joseph.

Eighth, Jesus was wrapped in 75 pounds of cloth and spices and placed in a sealed tomb for three days. If he was not dead by then (which He clearly was) He would have died from lack of food, water, and medical treatment from three days in the tomb.

Ninth, medical authorities who have examined the circumstance and nature of Christ's death have concluded that He actually died on the cross. In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Society, March 1986 concludes: "Clearly the weight of historical and medical evidence indicated that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear thrust between his right rib probably perforated not only the right lung but also his pericardium and heart and thereby insured his death. The interpretations based upon the assumptions that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.

But, not only is this an established fact that Jesus died, it is also a fact that He rose from the dead, which he offered as confirming of His unique claim to be the son of God. Let's look briefly at the evidence.

That Jesus rose from the dead even leaving behind an empty tomb and grave clothes is verified by all four Gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians.

These historically reliable documents record 12 different appearances of Christ beginning three days after his death to over 500 people over a 40 day period of time during which Jesus was seen, heard with the natural senses. His tomb was visited, found empty, indeed no one ever found his dead body. Jesus dined with His disciples four times eating physical food himself. He was touched and offered Himself to be touched four times (including His challenge to Thomas to put his finger in his hand and to see the crucifixion wounds).

To save time, the following is from Christian apolgist, Dr. Norman Geisler. In the first part he provides evidence for the credibility and reliability of the Christian Scriptures.

The argument for the historical reliability of the New Testament accounts has two parts.

First, the existing manuscripts of the New Testament are accurate copies of the original ones -- in particular those relating to the death and resurrection of Christ. Second, the writers of these documents (specifically the Gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians) were either eyewitnesses or contemporaries of the eyewitnesses providing an accurate account of the fact that Jesus died and rose again.

The documentary evidence for the reliability of the New Testament is greater than that for any other book from the ancient world. Hence, employing the same criteria used on other ancient documents, the New Testament is an accurate representation of the first century original. Three lines of evidence combine to demonstrate this conclusion. First, the New Testament has more manuscripts. It is not uncommon for great classics to survive on only a handful of manuscripts. According to the noted Manchester scholar, F.F. Bruce, we have about nine or ten good copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars, twenty copies of Livy's Roman History, two copies of Tacitus' Annals, eight copies of Thucydides' History. The most documented secular work from the ancient world is Homer's Illiad -- surviving on 643 manuscript copies. By contrast, there are over 5,366 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, most of which include the Gospels. The New Testament is the most highly documented book from the ancient world.

Second, the New Testament has earlier manuscripts. One of the marks of a good manuscript is its age -- generally, the older the better, since the closer to the time of the original composition the less likely it is that the text has been corrupted. Most books from the ancient world survive only in a handful of manuscripts that were written about 1,000 years after the end of the first century. And one portion of the Gospel of John survives from within about a generation of the time it was composed. No other book from the ancient world has as small a time gap between composition and the earliest manuscript copies as the New Testament has.

Third, the New Testament is more accurately copied. The New Testament is one of the most -- if not the most -- accurately copied books from the ancient world. The great Greek scholar A.T. Robertson said that the real concern is only with a thousandth part of the entire text. This would make the New Testament 99.9% free of significant variants. The noted historian Philip Schaff calculated that of the variants known in his day, only 50 were of real significance, and not even one affected an article of faith or a precept of duty. By comparison with the New Testament, most other books from the ancient world are not nearly so well authenticated. Professor Bruce Metzger, of Princeton, estimated that the Mahabharata of Hinduism is copied with only about 90% accuracy and Homer's Illiad with 95%. By comparison, he calculated that the New Testament is about 99.5% accurate. So even by conservative standards, the New Testament survives in a 99+% reconstructed text with all the essential truths about the death and resurrection of Christ not being affected.

In summation, the evidence, the British scholar Sir Frederick Kenyon declared, that the number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the church is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in someone or another of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other book from the ancient world. In addition to abundant and accurate manuscripts, there is also equally good evidence that what these texts affirm about the death and resurrection of Christ is historically reliable. It should be noted that it is not necessary to this argument that they are inspired or inerrant, but only that like other good works of antiquity they are accurate. Again, the evidence for this is greater than that of any work from that period.

I am exhausted now. I confess that I am brain damaged, I have had 2 strokes recently, it has affected my memory, especially short term. it leaves me tired at unusual times. I also have a double herniated disk in my neck which doctors tell me that attempts to fix the herniated disks could leave me crippled. So I also live with a steady oain in my neck and shoulders, a pain which is tolerable, except when it slides down into my left arm, then it is very painful. I've also lost one third the strength on the left side of my body. But I am ok and have nothing to complain about. Just that I'm tired right now.

I'll write my comments on Jesus ressurection perhaps tomorrow when I could think more clearly.

I agree with muradbaig that Jesus, during his lifetime, preached only to His fellow Jews. Jesus referred to the gentiles as 'dogs' and 'unworthy of the bread given to His children - the Jews'. If Jesus had preached to the gentiles, He would, in effect, be abolishing the Mosaic Law. Jesus came 'not to ablolish the Law of Moses, but to fulfill tha Law of Moses.' His sermon on the mount and other speeches were addressed only to Jews.

He convicted them publically of their sins and failure to keep the Mosaic Law. Like nearly all of us humans, the Jewish leadership self-justified themselves before God, arguing that their good works outweight their sinful works. The Mosaic Covenant does not work that way, the contract called upon them to keep the entire Law, every joy and title of it. Something no human (except Jesus) could do. To make clear their failings, Jesus revealed the full intent of the Law when He said things like, If you lust in heart on a married woman, you are guilty of commiting adultery, if you hate someone in your heart then you have committed murder', etc. etc.

Re: # 176

Ok, I'm back.

Greetings Tahir, pleased to meet you.

I would not call this website a 'sinkhole'. I see it as an oppurtunity for all of us to communicate and to seek to understand one another, and more so, to love one another.

That is one of the new Laws under the New Covenant of Jesus, that we love one another and that we love God with our whole being. It is called the royal Law of Love in James. And it includes the Law of the Prophets, that we do unto others as we would like others to do unto us. That mercy triumphs over judgement, and that by what measure we measure unto others, so shall we be measured by our own standard and conduct. As God has forgiven us, so shall we forgive others, even our very enemies. These things and many others Jesus taught.

The Second Law of the New Covenant is the Law of Liberty. For Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic Law on our behalf. And in keeping that whole law, rather than receive the Blessing promised for keeping the Mosaic Law, Being the only human who ever did keep all of it, He took upon himself the curses of violator of that law which He suffered on our behalf. He took upon Himself the stripes and punishment we so deserved for our ungodly unrighteous behaviour. Thus Jesus redeemed us from the Law of Sin and Death. For we are now children of God. And we been set free and placed in a wide place, free to make many different choices.

The 3rd Law of the New Covenant is the 'law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus'.

Romans 8 1-7

1. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
NASU

These three laws work together well. The Law of Liberty gives us much freedom to make many choices. The Royal Law of Love keeps us from hurting one another with our words or deeds, or if we do, it will leads to make amends with those we hurt. And the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the receipt of the indwelling Holy Spirit in those who accept Jesus finished work on the cross, 'God in me.'

And it is very wonderful what God does in me day by day.

From 1 John 1 - 10

1. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life — and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us — what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. NASU

So our scripture tells us Christians that we will never be sinless in this world, it is not our goal to become sinless, a rock is sinless, howeve holiness is the presence of God in our life, and not the absence of sin. but if we confess our sins, that God is not only faithfull to forgive us, but in the New Covenant with Him through Jesus, it now becomes God's work in us to make us righteous, that is not our job. And He does this through His indwelling Holy Spirit who transforms over time our very inner nature so that it will be natural for us to do the good that God created us to do. This is God's gift to us.

When Jesus died on the cross an was ressurected, This enabled God to cancel the Mosaic Covenant.

Zech 11:7-14

"So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock. Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me. Then I said, "I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one another's flesh."

"I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples. So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD. I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them." So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD. Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel." NASU

When Jesus died, The veil in the Temple that separated God from man was torn asunder. Thus our fellowship that we lost in the garden of Eden was restored to us. For Jesus says whoever abides in Him He will abide in them. And we have the Holy Spirit in us, God in me, and I have fellowship with Him. and it is this daily walk I take with Him by which He transform me to do the good He desires that I do. I'm not sinless by any means, but I am one who loves God and I love His presence in my life.

Christian brother Artur, welcome to the sink-hole called ChowQ.

We will see how much of Jesus do you follow.

:)

Reply to Baig sahib,Post 173.

Yes I realize I'm mainly writing to an Islam audience who sees it all quite differently. But at least your witnessing the best case that can be put forward for Christianity. Perhaps you can explain to me about how a Muslim obtains eternal life under Islam.

I shall take a break now and write my third comment later. I'm sorry my posts are so long. But on the other hand, in my summer between 5th and 6th grade (10 yers old) I read William Faulkner's 'Light in August', a book of over 500 pages with no pictures, in just under two days.

Best Wishes Always,

Artur

I would like to share a rather different view on the importance of the Mosaic Law.

Yes, some of the Ten Commandments overlap Hammurabi's Code that preceded Moses. It does not take any special insight for humankind to realize that shaming ones parents, stealing, the taking of an innocent life, coveting, etc., are causes of pain, hurt and suffering. I happen to believe that from Noah, that early civilizations consisted of rather moral people and that the growth of unethical conduct (sin) has been on the increase, more or less, ever since, which I showed in part in my prior comment.

Even if people credit the Hammurabi code as containing many statutes found in the later written Mosaic Law, these laws, of themselves, are useless in regards with respect to making people righteous.

It is my view that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments et. al. (there were many more than just 10 commandments) for Moses to give to the people of the exodus, because the people were hard hearted. God wanted them to trust not their own understanding, but to walk with Him by faith and not by sight. They did not know how to walk and live by faith; they wanted a visible clear contract so they would know exactly what God required of them in order for them to receive all of His blessings. Indeed, the people of the exodus received this Law most enthusiastically, declaring at least twice "All that the LORD has spoken we will do!" and entering into this covenant (i.e. contract) with God based on their pledge of full adherence to the Mosaic Law and the sprinkling of the blood of sacrificed young bulls upon them.

Ex 19:7-9

7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do!" And Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD. The LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever." Then Moses told the words of the people to the LORD.
NASU

Ex 24:3-8

3 Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice and said, " All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do!" Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, " All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!" So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." NASU

The Mosaic Law proved itself to be weak and useless in that it perfected no one, but rather, it proved to be a source of curses for those under the Mosaic Covenant. Rather than decrease sin, the Law increased sin among the people. Every person under the Mosaic Covenant proved himself to be unrighteous, except for one person - Jesus.

To understand more completely God's plan for offering and providing salvation and blessings to All peoples on the earth, it is important to note that there is a limited value of the Mosaic covenant between God and His chosen people Israel.


"Oh that they had such a Heart in them...�

Thus God knew from the beginning, at the very giving of the Mosaic Law, that they were incapable of keeping the Mosaic Law.

Deut 5:28-30

28 "The LORD heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me, 'I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken. Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!" NASU

Indeed, even after they committed themselves to keeping all the commandments of God, they repeatedly showed what little faith they had in God. All the men over twenty years of age would perish over the next 38 years, not being allowed into the promised land due to their disobedience to God's commands and their lack of faith in God.

Once again, after 40 years in the wilderness, Moses addressed all the people of the Mosaic Covenant who were going into the Promised Land and reiterated the importance of keeping the Torah, the Law, and advised them that the reward for keeping this covenant would be great blessings, and he told them specifically what these blessings would be. Deut. 28: 1-14.

Moses also informed Israel of the punishment (the curses which would befall them) for breaking the covenant between them and God, and he told them specifically what these curses would be. Deut. 28:15-68.

Though the curses included banishment from the land which God gave them and great suffering and persecution in foreign lands, restoration was also promised to Israel at the conclusion of this time of punishment, per Deuteronomy 30.

Then Moses instructed the people about the Covenant that bears his name,

"See, I have set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity. ... I call heaven and earth as a witness against you today that I set before you life and death, blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants." Deut. 30: 15 & 19.

In hindsight, we can see that Israel had chosen death and adversity. But this was no surprise to God, for He knew even as Moses was reiterating the Covenant, that His people were incapable of keeping it and would be, in effect, choosing death and adversity.

"Then YHWH said to Moses, "Behold, the time for you to die is near, call Yeshua, and present yourselves at the tent of meeting so that I may commission him". ... And YHWH said to Moses, "Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake me and break My covenant that I have made with them". Deut. 31:14 & 16.

So if the Mosaic Covenant is inadequate to provide Life to God's chosen, and so to the other peoples of the world, then what is God's plan to bless Israel and the peoples of the earth with life. (Remember, when G-d cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, He sent a cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life so that man may not eat of it and live forever).

The answer is given by Moses in Deut. 18:15-19

"YHWH your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. "This is according to all that you asked of YHWH your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of YHWH my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.' "YHWH said to me, 'They have spoken well. 'I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words that He shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him. NASU (Caps mine).

This prophecy, along with many others to follow, focuses on that male descendant, the seed of Eve, who will crush the skull of the serpent, who will be a great blessing to Israel and the peoples of the world, the redeemer, the Saviour, the Messiah.

Who is this Prophet? That has been the big search throughout history. It is clear that ever since Moses, Israel has sought and been awaiting this Prophet. In Yeshua's (Jesus’s) day they asked him, 'Are you the Prophet whose coming is foretold?'

Yet, even in Moses day, God let it be known what the name of that Prophet is via a shadow of what was to come.

Deut 1:37-38
Not even you shall enter there. “Yeshua (i.e. Joshua) the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there; encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it.�
NASU

On a larger scale, I take the promise land to be a metaphor for eternal life in heaven.

The above underscores that salvation, redemption, life itself, can not been achieved through ourwilful observance and adherence to the Mosaic covenant, and seems it was not intended to be, but somehow is directly related to this expected Messiah.

Gal 3:19-29

19 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one. Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith of Jesus the Messiah might be given to those who believe."

But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith, which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.
NASU

We, who are Christians, are no longer under the Mosaic Covenant. We can still agree, as people in Hammurabi's day did also, that things like shaming ones parents, stealing, the taking of an innocent life, coveting, etc., are causes of pain, hurt and suffering. But the keeping of them is not the basis of our redemption, salvation, and righteousness. As it is written in Hebrews, Yeshua is a High Priest, not of the order of Aaron, but of Melchizedek, Where there is a change of Priesthood, there is also a change of Law. Whereas the Mosaic law was a long list of commandments and statutes that we were required to keep, The laws of Christ keep us and accounts to us righteousness.

Heb 7:11-22

Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also. For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life. For it is attested of Him,

"YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER
ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK."

For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. And inasmuch as it was not without an oath (for they indeed became priests without an oath, but He with an oath through the One who said to Him,

"THE LORD HAS SWORN AND WILL NOT CHANGE HIS MIND, 'YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER'");

so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. NASU

Even among my fellow Christians, few fail to understand that the Mosaic Law has been replaced by a far superior Laws by which we may obtain everlasting life and true fellowship with God. The Catholics in particular still seem to married to the Mosaic Law.

The Mosaic Law is a set of Laws that man must keep and do all the works thereof in order to redeem Himself in God eyes so as to obtain eternal life, and none will be saved by that path. However, through the new laws of Jesus Christ, God keeps us, forever.

Baig sahib,

Tread the path of believers who were guided aright, and not of those who went astray long ago.

Regards.

Greetings and good will to all. Most pleased to meet you. I hope what I write english transfers well, for I am very precise in my choice of words. FYI, I am a Christian.

My purpose for signing up on chowk was to have verbal intercourse with people who think differently than I. My original intent was to defend the statement: "In the beginning, God Created the Heavens and the Earth" As being the most accurate scientific statement ever made. For modern science knows nothing about the materialistic Theories of Evolution (i.e. 'The General Theory of Evolution' that says all creatures extinct and extant share a common ancestry; and 'Darwin's Theory of Evolution's mechanism' that says the mechanism of evolution is natural selection and survival of the fittest).

But since that thread topic discussions have come to an end some time ago, I have come across this thread and I wish to share my views of Jesus as related to the topic at hand, ressurection. Please be advised that i am not very well informed on Islam and wish to make no comments related thereto. It is understood that our beliefs are different and no comments from any of you will I take offense, and I hope that you will not take any offense to my expressed beliefs.

I will begin my comments starting from the beginning.

Let me begin with a bit about the book of Genesis:

"In the beginning..."

The book of Genesis does not contain any mention of Moses. Yet it does give a record of events, people, places, conversations, and exact circumstances which all occurred before Moses was born. Nor is there any mention of Moses receiving a revelation from G-d about what the book contains.

But there is plenty of evidence that Genesis is an edited compilation of approximately 11 books. Each `book' was most likely written on clay tablets, and though long periods of time may have intervened between the writing of one book to the next, the history `toledot' is a continuous one as the books are connected to each other by colophons, a colophon being an a connecting link between clay tablets. The books and possible authors are as follows:

Book 1. Genesis 1:1 to 2:4. Adam? (Perhaps as revealed to him by G-d, before the fall, or perhaps by direct revelation to Moses)

Book 2. Genesis 2:5 to 5:1 Written by Adam
Book 3. Genesis 5:1 to 6:9 Written by Noah
Book 4. Genesis 6:9 to 10:1 Written by Sons of Noah
Book 5. Genesis 10:1 to 11:10 Written by Shem
Book 6. Genesis 11:10 to 11:27 Written by Terah
Book 7 & 8. Genesis 11:27 though Genesis 25:19
Written by Abraham, Isaac, & Ishmael
Books 9, 10, & 11. Genesis 25:19 to 37:2
Written by Isaac, Esau, Jacob.

The remainder of Genesis deals with Joseph and was probably written in Egypt on Papyrus instead of clay tablets. The minute details in these later chapters indicate the author was either Joseph or someone who received this history directly from Joseph, such as one of his sons.

The history recorded in the book of Genesis was most likely written over a few thousand years. Names of places change over time. This is one indication that Moses did indeed edit the above `books'. He gives the (then) modern names to ancient sites; e.g. Gen, 14:2,3,7,8,15,17 Gen. 16:14, Gen. 23:2,19, 35:19. Plus, Moses writes of cities that had
cease to exist long before his time (e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah) giving their exact locations, and this he knew because he had possession of these ancient books which had been passed on to him.

Since this history contains the revealing of G-d's plan of restoration and salvation for all hunmankind, undoubtedly the writing and preservation of this history over time was from G-d.

From the above, it can be seen that Noah's record of the great flood was the most ancient and the most reliable record of this flood. The retelling of the events such as the Creation or Great Flood became distorted and corrupted over time as it was retold and passed down by developing and changing civilizations which began to worship the
creation rather than the creator.

For example, the Ebla tablets (dated to about 2,300 BC) attributes creation to one great being, but also mentions other `gods'.

The Babylonian records of the creation and the flood (i.e Epic Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh), written hundreds of years after the Ebla Tablets, though they still contain some similarities with the much older Bible texts, show further deterioration of the original event with elimination of one Creator, the `gods' reflect much human weakness having been made by man in man's image, and they contain superstitions, magic, and grotesque absurdities. The Biblical record is clearly superior and historically acceptable.

Other translated Creation and/or flood tablets include the Sumerian list of Kings (which declares that ancestors had extraordinarily long lifespans), and the Babylon tablets of the Epic of Atrahasis and the Epic of Emmerkur. The Epic of Emmerkur is interesting in that it describes an Eden-like land which translated reads "a clean and bright place where the lion kills not, and the wolf snatch not the lamb." The
Ebla tablets also make reference to Dilmun as part of a list of known places.

A record of the Creation and Flood are also to be found preserved in the ancient chinese written language (Pictographs). For instance:

The Chinese characters for `to Create' consist of the pictographs for; `dust', `mouth' (mouth means person or speech), `movement of life', and `able to walk'.

The Chinese characters for `boat' consist of the Chinese
pictographs for: `Vessel', `eight', and `mouth'. The Chinese word for `to continue' or `to hand down' is `eight persons' with three wavy lines underneath (making it appear as if the `eight people' are on water).

Mankind + one + Mouth(speech) = united
Secret + man + garden + alive = devil
devil + trees + cover = tempter
eight + united + earth = total
total + water = flood
eight + Person = common to all

Note the strong similarity to the Biblical story of the tower of Babel:
United + Grass = Undertake
Undertake + Clay= Tower
Thus Tower = Mankind + one + mouth (speech) + Grass + Clay
Grass and clay were used to make the bricks for the Tower of babel.

There are many others. Please note that the origin of the chinese pictographs (their written language) precedes the later Chinese tales of Creation, which are quite different than the Genesis account. It seems that while they were fabricating their creation story, little did they
know that their ancestors had preserved the Genesis account within their `alphabet'!

On a more personal level, I believe that from Adam's time, humankind has been separated from God by sin emanating from a sinful nature inherent in us. That God put into effect a plan to make reparation for our sins(crime requires punishment for there to be justice), to make an end to sin, to transform our sin nature into His Holy nature, and to restore us to fellowship with Him as well as to one another in true love.
The Bible tells of this plan, from the tree of Knowledge of good and evil of which Eve and Adam ate of in the garden and was cast out and cursed to live by the sweat of his brow until death, to the tree the Messiah who 'is sent to die' in order to redeem us from death, and to pay the penalty of our sins in our place, and then to the tree of life that all who believed God and received His mercy shall partake of at the end of the age.

My next comment has to do with the purpose of the Mosaic Law, it will surprise many to hear it. My third comment will address the historicity of the ressurrection.

Friends, I have enjoyed reading both your comments. I will respond in a couple of days. Thank you for your patience.

Re: # 165
Kalchakra. You are either dishonest, delibertely insulting or you do not read my articles carefully. May I ask what is `denegrating' about what I wrote about Shankara in my article on the persection of Buddhists and Jains (May 2008)?


Quote:
There is no evidence that Shankaracharya directed such persecution but what is likely is that grasping local rulers may have used his great name to lend legitimacy to their own destruction and looting. Many local hill rajas now invited Brahmins to their domains to get themselves elevated to the rank of Kshatriyas. And many were encouraged to attack Buddhist monasteries.

Several Nepalese accounts state that the followers of Buddha were ruthlessly persecuted, slain, exiled and forcibly converted. Though many converted rather than face death, humiliation or exile. The attackers tested their faith by making them perform ‘Hinsa’, or the sacrifice of live animals, that was abhorrent to Buddhists and Jains. Many bhikshunis, or nuns, were forcibly married and the learned Grihasthas were forced to cut off the distinguishing knot of hair on top of their heads. 84,000 Buddhist works were searched for and destroyed.

It is believed that Shankara introduced pilgrimages to these holy places in the Himalayas for the first time to prevent their relapse into Buddhist or animist ways. As sufficient local Brahmins could not be found who were willing to preach in such remote places he imported Nambudri Brahmin priests from Kerala who, to this day, officiate at Badrinath, and Kedarnath

Come on you other interactors. Is this fair???

But why are you talking about me? The article is about the facts or myths about Jesus.

And forgive my ignorance but what is Mirzaism??

Kaal bhai,

I realize I misunderstood your “based on little logic� comment. My apologies. However, the point about unnecessarily maligning others, with duplicity and deception, stands.

Speaking of your animus tendency, here are some thoughts to round out the discussion, at least for now:

+++

You seem to have an ideological, illogical, and even a fanatic association with being Indian. And you seem willing to go to lengths to fulfill your perceived role as a dutiful, loyal, honor-bound Indian … even engaging, at least seemingly, in duplicity and lowly and subtle propaganda as a recourse against any element you suspect of diluting the Indian ways.

As a side comment: This is how a wide-eyed jihadi approaches Islam - your loyalty to the Indian land/culture is very similar to the allegiance a jihadi feels towards Allah/Islam.

Moving on …

I’d venture your dilemma against Mirzaees is a deeper, more complex one than you let on: You are comfortable in your opposition to mainstream Islam since the bulk of its adherents follow a predictable pattern: they can be easily identified, labeled, provoked, and manipulated. You know your enemy well ... as you have spent quite a bit of time and effort analyzing it and studying its mindset and behavior.

However, Mirzaees are engaging with different rules … and you are unable to handle them. You’ve been caught off guard and are starting to feel uneasy. Your desire to twist facts against Ahmadis comes off more as borne out of fear and anxiety.

Your issue has little to do with character of Mirzaees, Mirza’s sexual conduct, purity of faith, philosophical arguments, or Islam. These are irrelevant issues, designed to mask a deeper, sinking feeling: You are feeling threatened like you have not felt in ages. And you no longer have the tools to fight this battle. And that’s the crux of your dilemma.

+++

All this is only a guess. May be I am wrong … time will tell.

Some of the phrases I have used here … (rules of engagement, feeling threatened, fighting battles, etc.) … are a too dramatic for my taste. However, they do communicate the message in the language and context of group identity and survival dynamics – something you seem to instinctively relate to; hence my choice of words ...

We’ll pick this up later … have a good one …

Sattar bhai

There is something in what you say.

Give me a bit of time. I am leaving town for a few days and need to put chowk totally out of my mind during this period. When I return, I will try to capture my thoughts on this subject.

Again, I might not agree with everything you wrote, but agree with parts of it - particularly with unfair characterization of Mirza ji. It was deliberate, unecessary and avoidable. It reflected a basic animus beyond reasonable.

Best.

Kaal bahi, I was hoping you would take the time to clear things up. Yes, perhaps murad bhai is being intellectually dishonest; this should be looked into. However, we should not associate such behavior with you … esp. after seeing how this dishonesty and duplicity upsets you.

I am sure you can explain the issues I have raised …

Kaal bhahi (#152), you tried, but you still have not addressed the issue.

I understand your apprehension of Mirzaism: They are a cult bent on destroying Islam and Hinduism, etc.; but then you admit to having firm belief based on little logic in drawing your conclusions!

All along you have distorted/made up facts and taken cheap shots at Ahmadis, which border on lowly propaganda: Taunting the “Punjabi� prophet, associating sexual misconduct with him, raising suspicions about his character and the character of the adherents, etc. This is where I want to draw your attention.

Having philosophical differences is one thing (which again, is based on a very narrow interpretation of Islam, admittedly based on firm belief and little logic). But why distort facts and raise undue suspicions?

Can you tackle the issue on facts? Or have you been nursing a hidden agenda, couched in pretentious terms, resorting to propaganda when you fail to make your case?

pinku bhai, sometimes there is nothing more one can add, especially after Pinku has said everything there is to be said. :)

----------

"I will not denigrate Muhammad, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity or any other religion or sect or their founders."

That is strange. You had no compunction denigrating Adi Shankara - the singlemost important actual religious figure to most Hindus today, and that too, on charges that were despicable because they were patently false. Not once did you take your opinions back despite repeated requests. In fact, you never have any problems questioning the validity of most things Hindu.

Murad ji, here is a friendly, construtive suggestion.

You probably don't see it, but you have accumulated a very impressive resume of blatantly anti-Hindu writings, and now, some questioning the myths of Christians.

Now, if you can't bring yourself up to question the core myths of Islam and Muslims, at least write the next article explaining your views as a deist or a believer in a cosmic spirit. Most importantly, explain to us all how that is different from the view propounded by Islam. (real Islam, not what mortal human beings understand or interpret of it.)

We, I, need something to convince ourselves that you are not a total fraud merely exploiting the hospitality of your Indian/Hindu friends.

You seem like a good man. We would all like to believe so. Give us a reason to confirm that hope. Thanks a lot. I will sign off on this debate, and leave this subject, for now, in your capable hands.

Kaal,
by the way you took two "thank you" from me and never replied on that "applonius" stuff that i copied?

It seems you can write a book on "understanding muslim/islamic reason", perhaps after a little bit of more exercise here..

Kaal chakra,

In #155 Murad took the trophy of "secularist" while we were offering "pseudo secularist" or "indian secularist". What are you managing man??

Murad said:
[[
I can and will go no further than the limits of my knowledge or beliefs.
]]

So there lies his committment, he can drop his quest for knowledge or truth if it seems to affect his Islamic commitment as a non practising muslim??

This also suggests that a practising muslim doesn't even need to have any such quest for any knowledge or truth.

And it seems you were right, things/world may be quite different if you are a muslim:-) And reasoning can be completely optional thing (like use when needed for Islam) in that case.

Re: # 155

I can and will go no further than the limits of my knowledge or beliefs.

I will not denigrate Muhammad, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity or any other religion or sect or their founders and cannot describe them as gobbeldygook just to please you.

It is a long exploration and I will go at my own pace. I don't mind a prod orconstructive suggestion from you or anyone else but I will neither blindly praise or condemn any of them. If this makes me a secularist so be it though I call myself a deist or a believer in a cosmic spirit not an agnostic who believes in no religion. I do not believe that death is the final full stop and that all life is a miracle that goes on and on.

Kaal,

Nice work in exposing Murad'ji. I was initially thinking he is not breaking the "islamic myths" because it is not wise to do so.

Anyways, it is not just him, there is a class of 'Indian secularists' who when it comes to breaking Islamic myths, wear purdah and hide under the bed. :-)

Absolutely not, but it is the truth to its believers. Sattar bhai is absolutely, genuinely, profoundly convinced of the "truth" as is tahmedji or masadi bhai, and may be laddu dada too (though I am less certain about laddu because I don't know what he believes in).

But what you said makes sense to me in one important sense. There was nothing 'divinely creative' about Islam at all either. Almost all its elements were already available and understood at the time and in the region. The great human creativity - which cannot be denied - was to put everything together, to bring apparently diverse elements at one place. But that is what creativity is all about, most of the times.

Re: # 158; Kaal

true ... only to a point though.

cults can be self-sustaining ... the political ideology was consolidated by the immediate followers (the Salaaf) and developed into an art form ... with political dominance comes control over personal lives, guilt, hellfires and promises of carnal abandon in the hereafter can be hard to resist for the mere mortals when there is no information technology around!

as for ideas spreading/more converts etc ... I'd like to bring you back to your favourite topic ... Mirza Ghulam Ahmed sahib had a lot of converts too ... and figures show his flock is expanding by the minute with unsuspecting East Africans, some europeans and americans coming into the fold! ... such is the power of cults ... do we accept it as "the truth"?

cheema bhai, that is the view of an unbeliever. As such Murad bhai might want to develop that in one of his articles and books, should he choose to break Islamic idols.

But even there, at least two major questions remain. Cults are a dime a dozen. Few of them grow so fast. Even after accounting for the fact that unique conditions prevailed at one time, one is confronted with the fact that even today, numbers of its adherents is growing, not only internally but also because of differential entry-exit advantage (more converts in than converts out).

So there is a set of unique factors that have and today enable its growth.

Second issue has to do with stability in time. (Other) cults come and go. Islam has been stable as a rock. There have always been people like you cheema ji (sorry :)) but the core, in relative terms, has never changed. It's basics are the same today as they were 1400 years ago. So there are a set of factors that have to explain that.

I, as an unbeliever, do not believe there is anything divine in all this at all. All of this can be explained in very simple structural, organizational, ideological terms. But breaking Islamic idols is not my interest. It is enough for me to say that I don't believe any of this, and respect those who do - because some of those believers are very intelligent, sincere men and women.

(United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said on Tuesday that the world body should ban defamation of all religions and disagreed that such a move would impinge upon freedom of speech.

“Yes, I believe that defamation of religion should be banned,� he said in response to a question at a press conference to highlight the interfaith conference at the UN headquarters. No one should try to defame Islam or any other religion, he said, adding: “We should respect all religions.�

Mr D’Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister who himself is a priest, said that religion was a very divisive subject and that’s why the meeting would concentrate on common ethical values to make a common front against hunger, ignorance and disease.

“People talk about bailing out the Wall Street when, in fact, humanity needs to be bailed out,� he added.)

Can there by anything more ground breaking from UN president? Religions are divisive so respect them, submit yourself to their dictat and hegemony and don't argue with them.

I'm registering a new personal religion. Do the same. An excellent way of getting your way through when you don't have an argument.

Re: # 141; KaalChakra
[[ IMO both have some pwerful and seemingly unique properties ]]

that phenomenon my dear friend is known as "Cultism" .... it is nothing but a Cult around a personality and his alter-ego ... if you read the more recent stories of religious cults in america for instance (David Koresh being one such example) ... people would do absolutely anything to uphold that cult (including women allowing their children being sexually abused by the cult heirarchy; not forgetting people prepared to kill, themselves and others, to uphold their "principles") ... same principles apply here ... it just got out of hand because of contemporal circumstances in the then world order

hope it clarifies

Just to help you along, again, I suggest you might use akcheema's points (if you agree with them) to build your case for Islamic idol-breaking in your next articles and books:

1 - Mohammed was very much the prophet of the (non-existent) allah

2 - Koran was the best gobbledigook he could come up with

3 - Islam is as original a source as the "arabian nights" is for the 'guidance' for mankind

------------------

Now those are statements that no believing Muslim will agree with, and by articles articles and books establishing them, you would have most certainly broken Islamic idols just as you constantly break everyone else's idols.

And Murad ji, I have humbly suggested that you have been most dishonest about this. You have said nothing that a true believer in Islam like tahmed ji would not say, and if you have even remotely implied anything, you have never stood up for it. (for instance, you once implied that Muslims read the false Quran these days, original one having been lost, but when questioned, you never took a stand.)

So,

We all know how Islam has been 'hijacked.'

We all know that hadith are evil, and the 'original' Islam (whatever it was) has to be restored.

We all know that Muhammad was an ordinary human being (not a Son of God, since God sent 'messengers' not sons), and that he brought a 'message' from the True God.

Murad ji, what have you done but confirm all of Islam as everyone, including Tahmedji, knows it?

Please, let's see some actual slaying some Islamic myths. You can do it if you put your mind to it. :)

Re: # 139
AKCheema. I think this extract from my old chowk article on the hijacking of Islam (oct 2006) should answer your questions.

Most Muslims believe that the Quran is the infallible, eternal and unchangeable words of Allah but very few know how much the teachings of The Prophet had been revised over the past fourteen centuries. The Quran only began to be compiled fourteen years after Muhammad’s death in 632 AD when Khalif Abu Bakr gave Zaid Ibn Thabit, one of The Prophet’s companions, the task of writing it. The third Khalif Othman then announced the definitive Madina version in 665 AD. Several other versions were gathered up and burned.

But the Suras, or verses, of the Quran did not answer all the questions of a changing society so Muslim clerics sought further scriptural authorities for interpreting Islamic law. Two hundred years later the celebrated Al-Bukhari added examples from the life of The Prophet as the Hadith. He traveled the entire Muslim world to compile most of it. But he, appalled by the credulity of people, on his own authority rejected 99.6 % of the 600,000 pious contributions offered to him.

I believe that Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Nanak and others were great mortal human beings who were later called prophets. Re Muhammad I dont think he ever called himself a prophet but a messenger and a warner. The Arabs had a complex that the Jews and Christiabs had their prophets so they called Muhammad a prophet too after his sudden and unexpected death.

Sattar bhai, I apologize. I indeed didn't address the mirazi issue.

My firm belief is that Mirzaism, like some forms of sufism, takes elements of Hinduism and imposes them on Islam. As such it blurs the boundaries, besides of course distorting and destroying the spirit of Islam and hurting non-Muslims who might be taken in by Mirzai falsehoods.

In my view, the only people who gain from Mirzaism are Mirzais, not Muslims, not non-Muslims. Besides I expect it to be a true cultist phenomenon (being based on little logic), and as such it offends my sense of what kinds of religions should be left unopposed.

Now, please feel free to oppose Hinduism or any other religion that hurts your sensibilities. That is ok. Even Murad bhai is at liberty to oppose anything he likes. We are objecting only to his role as a secularist.

Kaal bhai,

I don’t think you addressed the issue:

You are full of praises for (mainstream) Islam, even as you openly malign Mirzaees. Why stoke the fires of religious divide, unless you have something to gain from it. Is it because Mirzaees started the ruckus in your own backyard (Qadian) … or because their patient, calm approach makes it difficult for you to rile the crowds against them?

I’ll explain further: You took a position, very quickly and seemingly without full understanding, on the last prophet issue. You have gone to ridicule mirzaees and their chief, often making comments that bordered on lowly propaganda. I am inclined to think that these were not innocent mistakes, rather calculated responses, perhaps designed to raise undue suspicions in the minds of people.

This is why I am questioning your own honesty about your motives.

Of course, sattar bhai! You just have to ask.

I believe that Islam and Hinduism are two fundamentally different religions. Any attempts to create false similarities between these two have ended up (1) hurting Hindus (2) creating huge amounts of ill will and bloodshed.

We need people to clearly see the differences between these two. This will help Hindus (that is where my rightwing goals come in) and it will help poor Muslims who get slaughtered in riots as well (secondary but important goal.)

If my theory is right, then Murad bhai is playing to hurt Hinduism and Hindus. That is why I oppose him. Once he truly dissociates himself from Islam, there would be no reason to oppose him.

Hope it does not seem that there is any hidden agenda here, anymore. Thanks, sattar bhai.

Kaal bhai, if you are a religious rightwinger, what should one make of your apparently earnest inquiries in nature and meaning of faith? Is it merely a polite front that masks deeper animosity?

Perhaps you missed the point: You are full of praises for (mainstream) Islam, even as you openly malign Mirzaees. Why stoke the fires of religious divide, unless you have something to gain from it. Is it because Mirzaees started the ruckus in your own backyard (Qadian) … or because their patient, calm approach makes it difficult for you to rile the crowds against them?

Nothing wrong with pitting group against the other … but perhaps you should be forthright about your own motives ... before you go chasing Murad Sahib. No?

Sattar bhai, nobody would be indignant if Murad ji called himself a religious rightwinger, as I do. Or even if he simply presented himself as a believing Muslim.

After all, Muslims have been defining religion for Hindus from the day they set foot on Indian land.

So as a proud believing Muslim, Murad bhai can happily be the slayer of unIslamic myths, but not as a secularist.

sattar2:

Nirvana is not escape, whoever used that term, unless it means escape from the cycle of life and death and the need to come back to this world. But I think that you get the basic good.

Muradbhai, sorry for this digression from the topic.

DM, I was basing it on earlier comments … just diluting the concepts to terms I could relate to …

�one is escape and the other is ultimate merger.
so nirvana would be running-away whereas mokhsha is full immersion imo" …… !!!
(grin).

Kaal bhai, the duplicity you associate with murad bhai is similar to what you yourself conveniently employ when airing grief against Mirzaees. Not that there is anything wrong with any of it … but you should consider giving up this moral indignation business. Unless of course, if you are joking …

#143 Posted by KaalChakra on
thank you, thank you.. if you don't already know it, it may give you an idea about which Jesus is more plausible..

#137 Posted by KaalChakra on
Murad is very sincere in his attempt to balm hurt ego of Islam. He picks one topic each time and tries to balm some part of this ego. So in some article he will say even Hinduism killed many, then he will say all prophets were nice but people hijacked their thoughts, now he is saying that even Christianity was copied from Budhdhism (he won't say Hinduism) so don't say if Islam was copied from Christianity, he will add a rider that all religions influenced each other. Again if you ask him about Prophet Muhammad having done many not so good deeds, he will striaght away give you example of Abraham and Sarah, to dilute it (like he did in #127).

So a committed ego balmer. What he doesn't know is that such ego-balmers are part of Islam since ever. This is what Islamist propagandists do, you ask them anything in Islam, they will talk at length about other religions, assuming that muslims won't even check what arguments they are giving and they can safely ignore all serious arguments from non-muslims.

The only reason muslims seem so far away from truth and are able to ignore degree of difference while comparing things/ideas (can compare anything to anything) is becaue they had such ego-balmers who did a good job to keep teaching suh an art of reasoning to them.

Pinku, you have put me on the spot! I have not been carefully following the philosphical aspects on this thread! At this point in time, on Murad Bhai's board, that would seem to be an unproductive enterprize (if it is productive anywhere else!).

But I will go through it and gladly offer my take. Best.

#128 Posted by KaalChakra on

Bhai Kaal, Badde-badde logon ke beech badi badi chhodni padti hai, too much or too little who will read?, I mean who is serious in any case. I wrote a shorter version long time back against Murad's earlier article. This is second time and perhaps a few more will get to read it.

But what do you think about it, did you know it already?

Cheema, I actually think of Islam and the Quran quite differently. IMO both have some pwerful and seemingly unique properties (that is what makes Islam so successful in this world, in terms of its sheer power to move people). But anyways, you and I are not writing books upon books or article after article trying prove or establish anything. :)

sattar:

No, you didn't get it right. You probably read BJ's last comment [I think that he was mixing moksha with mukti [just to 'simplify' things;) ]. Read earlier discussion by sadna, kaal, jang, etc.

Re: # 137; Kaal

I accept that only Murad can answer those questions to your satisfaction ... without knowing the background here, it'd be wrong of me to venture out in terrains unknown ... however,for your benefit, I'd like to 'hazard a guess' to the answersto your questions:

1 - Mohammed was very much the prophet of the (non-existent) allah

2 - Koran was the best gobbledigook he could come up with

3 - Islam is as original a source as the "arabian nights" is for the 'guidance' for mankind

now let us allow Kaalchakra and Muradbeg speak

Muradbhai:

Congratulations on your appearance on the Jim Lehrer News Hour on the PBS. [although I do not agree with your stance that Indians must replicate the havoc brought about by the car-obsessed America].

akcheema

One can have no problem with that, if by gobbledygook one means things that one mostly can't prove, that don't always make sense to everyone, and things that are often contradictory! Yaar, most of us reject that Indic gobbledygook anyways. :)

But Murad bhai is not in that business at all. He, as a Muslim, appraoches Islamic gobbledygook (if he believes it to be) very differently than he approaches unIslamic gobbledygook.

And it is not fear of Islam that drives him. Because he is obsessed with proving unIslamic gobbledygook to be 'gobbledygook.' :)

That's actually funny, because of most of non-Muslims accept that anyway. So his work is intellectually trivial but politically powerful and relevant.

--------------------

To help Murad bhai, here again are the three basic myths (for non-Muslims) that all Muslims hold. Murad bhai can pick all three or any two or any one to base some of his work on, so we know he is not just an ordinary old obsessed with defining other people's religions (nothing wrong with that, if that is what he wants to be).:

Any of the three 'myths' Murad bhai can choose to slay/slaughter/disprove for us:

(1) Muhammad was a Prophet of Allah.
(2) Qruan is not a book devised by men like any other book, or that it contains any divine message any more than any other book.
(2) Islam itself, the original, uncorrupted, as meant to be, is not a man-made religion any more than any old shaka-laka man-made religion.

Re: # 135; Kaal

I have no idea about Murad sahib (if only I could read minds!) ... but you do have a ceratain tendency to 'categorise' people ... don't you?

now ... in order to 'accept' my 'Indian' heritage, do I have to accept the gobbledigook Indic traditions? when I class 'my own' as the same!

... I openly say that both Islam and the so called "Indic" traditions are gobbledigook ... what say you?

treetop, I actually don't. I respect Muslims who claim to be Muslims and believe in their myths. We all have our myths and choose to believe them or reject them.

But Murad bhai has built himself up as a destroyer of religious myths, as the establisher of 'facts' in religion. The neat trick always is that ALL his research has been about other people's religions - not his own religion.

He just can't leave other people's shit alone, because fingering shit, he claims, is his life's work (not because he is an Islamist fanatic.)

If that is so, we need to all see him fingering some real Islamic shit (if that is shit).

-------

Cheema,

Two things. I never claim anything that many Muslims, religious Muslims, never claim. That would be unfair, and that is what Murad bhai does.

Two, my interest in Islam is precisely in counter to people like Murad Bhai, who has turned defining Hinduism into a Jihad. Hindus need to be able to undertand and communicate with people like Murad bhai - because there are so many of them in India.

Anyways, let's hope Murad bhai will easily show us that he is not what I suspect he is - a simple Islamist fanatic.

Re: # 132; Kaal

but of course he (mohammed) was a prophet of the (non-existent) allah ... are you saying you don't believe in that (the above)?

but you WILL insist on categorising people nevertheless, won't you? ... just because they call your 'beliefs' gobbledigook? .... even though they'd OPENLY call their own by a NO DIFFERENT label?!

Re: # 132
kaal, why does someone born in a muslim faimly or with a muslim name has to defend his believes?
there are piles of shit everywhere and you residing in one
why are you poking your finger in the other one?

Murad bhai, why don't you simply write a few articles establishing that Islam - the real, original, by itself, not how it is understood or practised - is a man-made religion, as you say, no more or less divine than Hinduism or any form of animism or any shaka-laka religion? May be, call them Islam Unwarnsished.

That will very much convince the skeptics that you believe what you say you believe (contrary to your work). Right now, Murad bhai, you will agree that all your work is indistinuishable from what any Muslim will write, and rightfully so. The difference is that Muslims claim to be believers, and you do not.

Seriously, write a few articles, or at least one, establishing, for instance, that Prophet Muhammad was no Prophet of Allah, or that Quran is a book written by some humans, or that Islam - the original, true form of it - is a man-made religion. It's a serious request, given that all your work is about questioning religious myths.

Re: # 130

... it is because of that 'sin' you can't be the one exposing the 'gobbledigook' for what it is!!

Re: # 129; murad sahib

the fact that your name 'sounds like' a 'muslim' one is sufficient for you to be 'classed' as such ... tell me something I don't know!

Re: # 128

I completely fail to understand anything remotely islamist about my work, life or thoughts.

I was never brought up as a muslim and do not like any religion. I believe in an undefinable cosmis creator and consider all religions as man made institutions that stand between man and god.

Yaar, Pinku, you provide too much inforamtion. It's hard to keep up with you. :)

----------

Murad Bhai, your general beliefs, as stated in #127, do not reflect your life's work (and vice versa). Your life's work is unabashedly Islamist, your claims secularist. It's like the work of those great sufis who spent their lives singing the praises of Prophet Muhammad, warning everyone about the problems in unislamic religions, and claimed to love and respect all people and all religions.

Re: # 117

Dear Sattar2.

I am very glad that the discussion is getting back to the subject of the article.

Neither I or anyone can do more than tease tiny bits of evidence from a 2000 year old `cold case'. I do not want to be an iconoclast but am personally very interested in the process of how mythology took command of the facts of history to make an inquiry into the possible facts of history heresy or even blasphemy.

All religious and spiritual ideas influence all the others and the influence of Buddhism on Jesus cannot be denied as a real possibility... but it is short of being a provable fact. He was even mocked and called a sophist who Alexander's Mcedonians described as the detatched believers in the Great Sophie from whom the word Sufi was also probably derived. There are no final words to history and many interesting possibilities.

I do not personally attribute blind respects for any prophet. What made a prophet sacred? Who decided that the dreams or experiences of any mortal human were divine? If the Old Testament is to be believed many prophets like Abraham had many human failings like passing off his beautiful wife Sarah as his sister and benefitting getting her married to the Pharaoe.

I believe that everyone has the right to explore this terrain and resist the efforts of the orthodox, of all schools of belief, who want us to blindly believe myths like the ressurrection, virgin birth, The Prophets night ride to Jerusalem, etc., as a matters of faith that cannot be examined.

Your faithful troll will give you some more info to think about, compare it against what you got from other stores..…

google Philostratus and Applonious and read about them from philosophical or historical resources (as per your taste and understanding of reliability), check how important or well known they are….


check following link and find reference to Brahminns and India, sample is given below
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/aot/laot/laot04.htm

CHAPTER XVIII
AFTER this he formed the scheme of an extensive voyage, and had in mind the Indian race and the sages there, who are called Brahmans and Hyrcanians;

Now troll speak..
While none of these things are guaranteed to be true, but not all of them are equally absurd.

Christians hate name of Philostratus as well as name of Applonious cause it hurts them by making Jesus less than divine and more close to Hinduism than they can believe, but both of them are historical people (much more than Jesus). Christians have tried to destroy books written by Philostratus and have tried hard to discredit him by writing materials on him and applonious and by creating lot of confusion (religious style logic, refute something, use the same thing that you refuted to prove something else:-)).


As you will see he was an important person during that time in Greece. He was born in 170CE, so close to Christ, never mentions anything like Christ and he belongs to the famous Pythagorean school of philosophy. It is almost impossible to assume that if Christ lived and was anywhere close to as important a person as is being told, in 100-200AD than this guy would not have known it. That is what gives credence to the story that Christ was based on life of Appolonious and Christianity is based on what Applonious said.

Here is a link from wikipdeia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana

Some copy paste from that link…
[[
[edit] Journey to India
Philostratus devoted two and a half of the eight books of his Life of Apollonius (1.19-3.58) to the description of a journey of his hero to India. According to Philostratus' Life, en route to the Far East, Apollonius reached Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij) in Syria (not Nineveh, as some scholars believed), where he met Damis, a native of that city who became his lifelong companion. Pythagoras, whom the Neo-Pythagoreans regarded as an exemplary sage, was believed to have travelled to India. Hence such a feat made Apollonius look like a good Pythagorean who spared no pains in his efforts to discover the sources of oriental piety and wisdom. As some details in Philostratus’ account of the Indian adventure seem incompatible with known facts, modern scholars are inclined to dismiss the whole story as a fanciful fabrication, but not all of them rule out the possibility that the Tyanean actually did visit India.[15]

On the other hand, there seemed to be independent evidence showing that Apollonius was known in India. In two Sanskrit texts quoted by Sanskritist Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya in 1943[16] he appears as "Apalūnya", in one of them together with Damis (called "Damīśa"). There it is claimed that Apollonius and Damis were Western yogis who held wrong Buddhist views, but later on were converted to the correct Advaita philosophy.[17]
]]

DM,

... I glanced through it; will check back later. This is how I sum it up … moksha is the feeling right before %*^$#... ; nirvana, right after. Does this fly?

And don’t feel bad about inadequate knowledge of Abrahmic faith; I can’t make head and tail of Hinduism either. Btw, kaal bhai seems perpetually upset; it's always something or the other. What gives (scratching-head icon) ???

sattar:

I opened a thread on this topic on UP under "Hindus, please". You might find it interesting.

DM, may be so … but I try to avoid over-interpreting such terms (reincarnation and nirvana).

It is tricky figuring out what Buddha meant if/when he alluded to “reincarnation� and “nirvana�, how these terms were interpreted, and what meaning and connotation they have assumed over time. Instead of assigning precise, literal meaning to these terms, I’d much rather leave room for interpretation in an effort to better appreciate the underlying message.

sattar#120:

Thanks for that elaboration. Obviously, my knowledge of Abrahmic faiths is still quite inadequate. But I think that anyone who makes claim about the reincarnation of Buddha does not know the meaning of Nirvana.

Sattar bhai, there is a great deal of similarity between Buddhism and Christianity (of the New Testament). How and why, we don't know. But the rest of your post sounds perfectly silly. But you are a believer, and believers are at liberty to believe whatever they fancy. So there is no problem there.

----------

We should be more concerned about the Islamist rationalist and idol breaker brother Murad ji's efforts.

Murad ji, has your lifelong research shed any light on a couple of simple questions?:

(1) Was Muhammad really a prophet of any kind? Does your research prove or disprove that prophethood? If you have proven that prophethood, were you able to confirm that he was the last Prophet of Allah? If you disproved that prophethood, what sort of a man do you think he was for making such claims? Would it not be politically better for people to reject Islam and Muslim identity altogether, both being based on basic falsehoods?

(2) Was Mirza bhai of our Punjab really a reincarnation of Mr Jesus? What does your reasearch reveal about the basic charater of Mr. Mirza bhai of Punjab? About about the character of people who consider this individual their prophet?

There is so much more one could ask about the individual life histories of both, but your rationalist and idol-breaking opinions on these two simple issues would be most helpful to your admiring Indian audience.

DM (#118),

I left out the details to simplify things … following may explain more …


- Jesus claimed to be the awaited prophet for the Jews, but was vehemently opposed by the Jewish clergy. According to earlier Biblical accounts, execution of a person proves that he is an imposter and lacks divine support. This partly explains why the Jewish clergy was adamant in having Jesus crucified, since the painful and humiliating death would prove him false.

Jesus’ survival from crucifixion against all odds, supports his claim of prophethood. His Messianic claims would be further strengthened by accounts, if any, of him being accepted and held in esteem by other Tribes, people. All this would suggest that adherents of Jewish faith likely rejected the true Messiah … as they await his appearance to this day.


- Mainstream Muslims believe that as the hour of crucifixion drew near, Allah bodily lifted Jesus to the heavens. Ahadith about “return of Jesus� are hence interpreted to suggest physical descent of the same Jesus from the skies. This interpretation further supports the “last prophet� belief: Allah will resend an old prophet that He lifted and saved for latter days, since no new prophets can appear.

Accounts of Jesus NOT ascending to heavens pose a dilemma. If Jesus did not ascend and is dead and buried, how can he descend from skies in flesh and blood? Furthermore, could the ahadith about “return of Jesus� suggest Allah raising a new prophet who will bear spiritual resemblance to Jesus?


- Similarities, somewhat striking, are found between the teachings and accounts of Jesus (Gospels) and Buddha (Bashara?). One explanation is that Jesus in Kashmir was accepted as spiritual reappearance of Gautama Buddha, and later, as the followers recorded Buddhist teachings, biographical details of Gautama Buddha and Jesus inadvertently got mixed up.

This interpretation is in harmony with the findings of Nicholas Notovich and Holger Kirstin (European researchers who think that Jesus traveled to Kashmir). Furthermore, googling “Jesus and Buddha� brings up some interesting links. Each web-site has a different take on this issue. But if there is some truth to the content, it makes for an interesting viewpoint.

I don’t know about the temple paintings … but admittedly, there are points and counterpoints to every interpretation.

One can only say, "Jesus Christ!!" reading some of this stuff here.

And this is what Murad Bhai, our Islamic rationalist and self-appointed idol-breaker believes!!

Does Murad bhai exemplify the nature of "Islamic rationality" and "idol-breaking" in general, or only radiate his own uniquely Islamist issues?

I suspect it is the latter. I KNOW Muslims who are believers and infinitely more rational.

Sattar#117:

I have problems accepting your analysis even though I do not belong to any of the three (four if you count Ahmadis separately) religions.

First, how does Jesus surviving his crucifixion challenge Jewish claims of his being a false Messiah? Second, how does his dying a natural death invalidate the possibility of his descending from the Heavens sometimes in the future?

Thirdly, Buddha attained Nirvana which means that he freed himself from "avagavan", the cycle of life and death, so he could not reincarnate. Yes, the Buddhist temples do show paintings of his previous incarnations (Boddhisatta) but not any after he attained Nirvana.

Murad (#78),

Your questions here rock too many boats. Account of Jesus surviving crucifixion attempts and eventually dying a natural death would send shock waves among the adherents of Jewish, Christian, and mainstream Muslim faith; each for a different set of reasons.

Back then, Jewish clergy in the court of Pointus Pilate (Roman judge who presided over Jesus’ trial) painted Jesus as an imposter and worthy of execution due to his Messianic claims. His survival would raise fundamental questions about validity of age-old Jewish claims and hence, the faith itself, as understood today. Similarly, Jesus’ survival would raise serious questions about the notions of Resurrection, his being Son of God, and his expected arrival – the crux of Christian beliefs of this day.

Jesus’ natural death would pose serious challenges to mainstream Muslims who too await his return. Since no new prophets can appear according to mainstream Islam, Jesus’ return is understood as the bodily descent of the same Jesus who lived 2000 years ago. The account of Jesus’ survival and natural death plays squarely in the hands of Ahmadi-Muslims, who have maintained this view ever since.

For these reasons, there has been much reluctance in uncovering details of Jesus’ life and death, from every quarter. However, with the passage of time, research and historical accounts are starting to converge and connect the dots. Evidence in favor of Jesus’ survival and natural death continues to become more compelling. In another hundred years, this particular interpretation may very well gain the status of what actually transpired.

As for Jesus being a Buddhist - that is somewhat of a different issue. There is evidence that when Jesus reached Kashmir, he was accepted as reincarnation of Buddha, who had passed away 500 years earlier, and foretold his reappearance 500 years after his death, in the form of bagwa materya (sp?) … which roughly translates as “light-skinned Messiah�.

#115 Posted by laddu on
It is just so different:-), A few Iranians that I know never talk about religion, while pakistanis are so much interested in religion but don't know what to say:-)

Raj Kareaga Khalsa aaki rahe no koi
khoaar hoae sabh milainge bachay sharan jo hoae

(I used to think it is" baki rahe na koi" and "paar huae to milenge":-))

Waheguu Ji Ka Khalsa
Sri Waheguru Ji Ki Fatah
ek omkar

Seems sikhism was a solid martial sect to give equal footing against Islamic warriors but still keeping it close to Hindu softness/openness when it comes to God....

Actually, lot is ok till you don't let God speak for himself.... Kuran could be dangerous only because of that and Gita would have been very dangerous if it was stupid.... Hindus should feel fortunate that Gita was written by an intellectual pehalvan of sorts... and plus it came along with Mahabharta.....but making God speak is always dangerous.... or it always has potential to go wrong, but it adds to drama and you can use "verily" "O! .." "Lo ...." "behold" and all other possible exclaimations...... think how good you will feel if you start speaking on behalf of God:-)

Think if God speaks like this:
O! Jang, Behold thine tongue?
Verily! I am the one who knows all reason
I gave you the 5 Ks and the turban
Verily! You come to me, when you've question

And then you are ever bound to binding of that book, because whole psychology is crippled (God is all powerful, all knowing and he said so)?

Non speaking God, makes life easier...

Re: # 113

"now, if you find some "alternative" stuff about great sikh gurus during your quest for truth in religions, you will see serious action imo."

Now you are talking like a khalsa........

Raj Karega Khalsa (on these Arabian Bedoiun)!!

Sat Sri Akaal ! (even if Allah were to send his murderers to kill us).

#113 Posted by jang on

right in that case, action may be good, but they will easily handle anything (in fact more hindus than Sikhs will do the "act")... but not everybody is handling the same ego with same intention. The religious ego in case of Islam gets hurt more deeply because even when you don't say what you have to say against Islam, muslims are already hurt by "that" all the time.. while in case of Hindus/Sikhs they can do some strong action "here", will feel they "won" (and not lose) and will forget that they are Hindus/Sikhs the moment they step out; even significant majority of Christians are of this type in USA. They get to know they are Christians only while in some particular state of mind at rare occasions. But majority of muslims seem to remember that they are muslim in all that they do and along with that they remember part of the "hurt" of being muslim:-)

There is not much "good" that you can feel if you have to remember all the time that you belong to a religion.


Till now Hindu ego doesn't have a group purpose and any group action emnating from it (everything mostly at individual level so far), but as you see from Malegaon etc, they may soon have a group ego that wants to protect itself from Islam (and fight with it). And when this large a group will think or act like this, it will be a lethal thing. If it so happens, you won't need nukes for destruction of south asia.

Write something on malegoan stuff so i can troll a bit there.

murad yar, there are christians but this is neither interesting not controversial..it has been chewed to death and resurrection.

now, if you find some "alternative" stuff about great sikh gurus during your quest for truth in religions, you will see serious action imo.

Don't be silly, Murad bhai. How would Hindus and Muslim move away from the mainly Hindu-Muslim perspective?

There probably are not many Christian chowkies, and some of chowkie christians simply may not find much in this article.

After all neither the argument that Paul made up his own Christianity, nor that Christ did not die on the Cross (or even that he went to Kashmir) is new to many Christians.

I do wish all of you could move forward from mainly Hindu- Muslim perspectives and let some Christian comments come through.

I cannot believe that there are no Christian viewers on Chawk.

Masanamuthu, you are absolutely right.

Somehow I very much wanted to see Murad bhai as an exception to a much broader rule - as someone who is actually interested in learning or genuinely discussing anything about either India or Hindus.

Take that unrealistic expectation away and we can actually benefit from Murad's bhai's Herculean efforts in two important ways: (1) We can consider Murad bhai's questions, and second, more interesting for me, (2) we can better understand how an Islamist's mind works.

all of Murad bhai's questions are valid. And he would be serving a great purpose if he chose to seriously and genuinely engage in discussions. That will help everyone.


Kaalchakra:

My point is 'why should the initiator of any discussion be unbiased and should genuinely engaged in discussions?'. It is not a one to one discussion. He can start the issue by raising some valid questions and let others discuss.

To clarify further, I have learnt a lot of stuff just by listening into other people's discussions. Laddu-ji openly claims to be a idolator and an anti-Islam guy. That doesn't make his questions any more irrelevant than the questions of closet Islamist Murad-ji.

IMHO, We need to figure out what makes sense out of these discussions.

#107 Posted by HP on
Ha ha:-)

I am a little confused.. for what should i give you more arguments? I reached siberia, caucas, 40,000 years old lands, birth place of white people and what not to get some arguments for you. How can you be so argument hungry?

Did I not ask you very straight forward questions? Upanishads, Bhagvad Githa, all linguistics of sanskrit, old or new sanskrit of rig-veda or Panini, that ancient mathematics all were written by desi Hindus, not Videshi Hindus (Aryans of Siberia Or caucas mountain). They didn't bring it in 1500Bc and showed it to world in 900BC or 500BC or whatever. Is that not sufficient for you to see how it differes from Islam and that "alien" stuff?

And you didn’t tell what you wanted to say with your copy pasted stuff?

Wait I will get some more, you just hint me where to keep them.

simpleton troll on trolly ready to roll

#104 Posted by pinku
"Kaal chakra, that was a plain stupid statement. Even if Aryans brought three page story of Indra and his boy friend from siberia or some cold mountain, Hindus don't show proud on that two page story??"

Anyone can have an opinion, but are yours informed? Prove it with substantiating arguments instead of your incessant trolling,gasbaggery. *crickets*.

#105 Posted by dost_mittar on
DM,

[[
I have never heard anyone question Jesus being a Jew. He was born a Jew and died a Jew, just as Gautam Buddha was born a Hindu and died a Hindu. Over period of time, the Christian sect became a religion, just as Budh Panth became became a separate "Dhamma" in due course.
]]


Only 500-IQ people can ask such questions and only they know what their intention is in asking such ultra high IQ questions. Further if you answer them, their ultra high IQ mind detects some impedance and go in ultra high silence (no current period), they basically start checking with God to know if your answer is correct and you know how long God takes to answer such intelligent questions?

murad:

"• Is there substance that the religion of Jesus has been captured by Paul?"

From what I have read and seen, this is true. One of the most important innovations of Paul was removing the requirement of circumcision to make Christianity more palatable to gentiles. In those days, circumcision was a painful thing and occasionally resulted in death as well and therefore a deterrent to more pagans converting to Christianity. Until Paul, Christianity was mainly a sect of Judaism. You could compare it to the initiation of 5Ks by Guru Gobind Singh; until then, Sikhs were considered only a sect of Hindus.


"Was Jesus really a Jew and why has Christianity become a Gentile faith?"

I have never heard anyone question Jesus being a Jew. He was born a Jew and died a Jew, just as Gautam Buddha was born a Hindu and died a Hindu. Over period of time, the Christian sect became a religion, just as Budh Panth became became a separate "Dhamma" in due course.

#93 Posted by KaalChakra on November 7, 2008
[[
Ok, here we go. This is where we got sucked into that discussion:

"Vedic religions are as alien to India as Abrahamic religions"
]]

Kaal chakra, that was a plain stupid statement. Even if Aryans brought three page story of Indra and his boy friend from siberia or some cold mountain, Hindus don't show proud on that two page story??


Hindus show proud on what they didin India, they created those Vedas, Upanishads, Mahabhrat, Ramayana (two page story?) and created an excellent language (Sanskrit), the Sanskrit that Panini wrote was written in India. There is no sanskrit old or new known outside of India, not even a monkey sanskrit is known outside of India.


What percentage of Hinduism/Hindu scriptures that 2 page story can be? All religions got that flood story from somewhere, let's imagine they got it from outer space, so we will start calling that all religions are same and we got them from outer space, doesn't matter if it is just one para-story? what percentage is that commonality in religion???


For Islam, first it was copied from Christianity/Judaism in Arabia itself, secondly what percentage was added in India, after bringing it to India, create a language likeSanskrit and start writing and make sure it is as good as Sanskrit and the Hindu text and do it in India or Pakistan to make it equally alien????

Does it not show, how big is the diference in degree of alination for Islam and Hinduism. How can you make perfectly stupid comment that Hinduism is alien as Islam. Doesn't matter what Hindus know before they come to India, Hinduism is what they created, developed, lived in India. You have to be able to deceive your own mind to say such things.

masanamuthu, all of Murad bhai's questions are valid. And he would be serving a great purpose if he chose to seriously and genuinely engage in discussions. That will help everyone.

That's true of almost all his stands. Take the important one of eating beef. Now, it is VERY helpful to tell people that eating beef was not ALWAYS as big a deal for Hindus as it became at some point in time. It will help open up people's minds. I say that as someone who is a vegetarian and comes from a family of vegetarians.

But we all go from truth to tragedy when Murad bhai begins to imply that Hindus prohibited cow-slaughter and eating beef owing to some ill-will and as means of oppression against Muslims.

Chances are, actual historical situation was just the opposite. But whatever that was can be easily sorted out by some discussions, if knowing the truth was our primary concern.

But we ought to still keep an open mind, and if and when Murad bhai chooses to answer simple questions, we should be willing to modify our opinions.

Sure, we should have an open mind. On the other hand, one can be a closet Islamist and ask valid questions. We can accuse him of hypocrisy, but that doesn't make the questions invalid.

For example, some one could believe that virgin birth to be true, but ridicule the claim that Muhammad went to heaven to meet Allah on a buraq and vice versa.

I think people who are religious don't see the hypocrisies of their positions by themselves.

Re: # 100

"When studying religions, IMHO, the point is not which is 'true' (because none are, except in the eyes the believers themselves), but what kind of impact these religions have on human spirit, what kind of societies these religions invariably create, and what they do the soul of human being living by and large in those societies once such religions become the dominant and active concerns of masses."

Kaal ji,

That is a very impressive statement indeed.

It sounds something like "Pragmatism" philosophically ( I am reading Richar Roty's 'Consequences of Pragmatism' presently) - when you just look for consequences of a belief over the human living and not getting bogged down by the "truth-claim" of that belief.

It is like Jainism's Syad-Vada in which every representation of an elephant is truely perceived by the blind humans as per their own point of view.

I agree- Islam and Abrahmic religions are too much worried about "truth-claims" of all religions and are less worried if that were to lead to greater intolerance and violence by the proponents of such absolute "truth-claims" or not.

Masanamuthu, glad you feel so. But we ought to still keep an open mind, and if and when Murad bhai chooses to answer simple questions, we should be willing to modify our opinions. At this point, I just don't think his obsessions and patterns of behavior are driven by fear of Islam, and any interest in actually learning about anything other than Islam. His basic concern is: "Why didn't christians/Hindus/Jews tear to pieces what I wrote?"

-----------------

Laddu bhai, even as a proud idolator and practising Hindu you do realize that a lot of stuff in religions - ALL religions -

(1) is very old and undocumented, at least not reliably - so one can always reject anything they want by asking for 'conclusive proof.'

(2) is simply a matter of faith - which looks totally silly to anyone from the outside.

So it takes absolutely NO genius or intelligence to question other people's beliefs and show them to be ludicrous.

When studying religions, IMHO, the point is not which is 'true' (because none are, except in the eyes the believers themselves), but what kind of impact these religions have on human spirit, what kind of societies these religions invariably create, and what they do the soul of human being living by and large in those societies once such religions become the dominant and active concerns of masses.

Vedic dharma extended as far as Persia.
Even till today you would find the chaturbhuj vishnu idols on the side of top domws of the masshad masjid.
Zoroaster was certainly a vedic person.
Un fortunately everything was destroyed by Arabianism that swept across.
Even Kurdish language has similarities with sanskrit and it appears some vedic artifacts were discovered in Kurdish land during archeological excavations.

Re: # 95

Kaal,

I am really impressed at your insights you have provided here regarding an Islamist in the guise of a "historian" trying to map (rather caricaturize) other faiths.

Murad is doing exactly what his "love" for a 'formless God' has taught him to do - to hate idolatory, paganism ,animism and every other faith that would dare to find the almighty in the smallest of things of this material world.

Re: # 78

"
• How idolatory has crept back into the Christian idea?..."

Muradji,

Would you care to tell us what you Islamist understand by the term "idolatory"??

Kaalchakra,

I see your point now of Murad'ji being a closet Islamist while claiming to be a "historian". :-)

Murad bhai, there is nothing to tear to shreds in this article. This is pretty old stuff that "army of Baptists, Seventh day adventists, Mormons and other Christians" is quite familiar with, and has dealt with before.

Now, between you and I, they have dealt with it by simply closing their eyes to it or by coming up with absurd interpretations of their own.

But again, that is precisely what people of faith do.

Re: # 85

Great stuff but what happened to christianity that is the main concern of this article.

I'm surprised that an army of Baptists, Seventh day adventists, Mormons and other Christians have not pounced upon this piece and tried to tear it shreads.

Ok, here we go. This is where we got sucked into that discussion:

"Vedic religions are as alien to India as Abrahamic religions"

This is an irrelevant point, both directly (about whether Paul manufactured his own Christianity) or indirectly (Paul or no Paul, Murad bhai is certainly scoring cheap points for Islam using hackneyed old materials about other religions).

Let's bring the discussion back on track. Either Islamists can high five one another about how they brilliantly found another set of earth-shaking 'new' (to them?) material about Chrisianity (and convince themselves of the truth of their own versions of Islam), or understand the politically Islamist nature of ALL of Murad Bhai's work.

Does anyone know why we got into studying Indo-Iranian languages here?!

Murad bhai, as far as I recall, has never claimed to be Persian or Central Asian or Turkish (many others do, and as Muslims, they have a full right to claim what they wish).

Murad bhai's focus has been exclusively religious - about Hindus, and now about Christianity.

Murad Bhai, your being a crypto Islamist is extremely relevant. And, the fact that you make statements - in fact one after another - without ever bothering to defend them when questioned on them, convinces me, at least (and should others) that you have no interest in knowing or understanding things as they were or are.

Essentially, Murad bhai, you are a sad case of an Islamic propagandist.

Again, I (and hopefully many others) would change our opinions if you volunteered to answer some basic questions put to you. For someone who makes bold claims to knowing the truth and learning etc, that is the least people expect.

Re: # 82
HP...
Mr. Beduine-clone, it is not taught in the history book. It is natural way of thinking and drawing conclusion. Govt. sponsored books are full of distortions....

Now, coming to old cliche/bluff of asura, proto-indo-european etc...
Sanskrit Language varies with region and some of the western Sanskrit is closer to contemporary Iranian language, called avestan. That does not make Iranian language as the base of Sanskrit....

Who teaches these things and in which university that Avesta is older than Rig Veda or language of Avesta is older than Sanskrit??

#83 Posted by HP on November 6

what do you find so new about the folowing details you gave?
Do you think that linguists and philo-logist use Indo-European and Indo-Iranian for no reason, you think those who say Sanskrit is oldest attested language still known to us (for example Sumerian would have been older but we do not know it) know less number of common words than you supplied?


Do you know of any kind of Sanskrit outside of India?? What is avesta is avesta language irrespective of affinity, Latin is Latin and German is german, all of them have affinity to sanskrit but sanskrit is much older than them???

Despite being old Sanskrit is much better structured than all of them, because people worked on it, those Hindus worked on it to make it better.


====

Proto-Indo-Iranian Old Iranian (OP, Av) Vedic Sanskrit
*açva ("horse") Av, OP aspa aśva
*bhag- OP baj- (bÄ?ji; "tribute") bhag- (bhaga)
*bhrÄ?tr- ("brother") OP brÄ?tar bhrÄ?tá¹›
*bhūmī ("earth", "land") OP būmi bhūmī
*martya ("mortal, "man") OP martya martya
*mÄ?sa ("moon") OP mÄ?ha mÄ?sa
*vÄ?sara ("early") OP vÄ?hara ("spring") vÄ?sara ("morning")
*arta ("truth") Av aša, OP arta ṛta
*draugh- ("falsehood") Av druj, OP draug- druh-
*sauma "pressed (juice)" Av haoma soma

Misssed lot many statements, will see if i can retrieve it..


This is bad, I should be able to use "back" button and retrieve it, how does chowk-site eat that stuff??

#85 Posted by HP on

HP,

First you should understand that no matter what you say, you won't be able to skip the history of Pakistan/Afganistan/India where Hindu/Budhdhist civilization developed.

Second if you have understood what you copy pasted, can you write in simple statements what you mean. What do you want to say? Be courageous and state it. Do you want to state that Avesta is older than Veda and language of Avesta is older than Sanskrit? Give whom you are referring to, whichever first, second or third class scholars they are.

Indians don't read about history and dates of Vedas in Indian schools, it is taught by those westerners. You may be happy to find any third rated references, similar to like a muslim claiming to be a sanskrit scholar and then telling what is written in Gita, you may have found a zorastrian claiming something in similar way. But irrespective of that make some small and strong statements and with the best scholar or whatever you have for it. So that we can see what you are saying.

Caucasus mountains). This ultra white color of race doesn't get created even in 10,000 years. It needs long long time, much before even Sumerian civilization these white people were born somewhere. You can not convert a black to white(without cross breeding) and white to black even in 10,000 years. The white race originated at least 40,000 years ago. And the oldest dicussed civilization of sumer is only 7000 year old.


So it is possible that Aryans or their forefathers from Caucasus mountains or Siberia or some other cold place migrated south ward and spread in central Asia, Europe, India and Middle east. It is certainly possible that they took some similar stories, one of them being the idea of great flood, with them. But all this is very old. All white people originated at one place and spread south wards, when they travelled from Africa to that cold place is so mysterious that we can't even think how it was possible (some ice age, when they were not white, were not perhapas modern man by then?).

The very first name that occurs to the student in this connection is that of the Supreme Lord Himself-Ahura-which in the Sanskrit from Asura signifies 'a demon'. The name originally signifies 'the Lord of Life' (from Av. ahu, Skt. asu, life), or the One Life from Whom all proceed. The Sanskrit Asura also signified originally the One Eternal Life, and in the Rig-Veda (in its oldest portions) it is not used in its later degraded signification. In classical Sanskrit the name Purva-devah (earlier Gods) is also used for the Asuras; and the legend has grown up in India that it was these Asuras who had once ruled the Earth, till in later ages they were ousted from their positions by the comparatively more modern Devas (Gods). In the earlier Vedas the epithet Asura is used especially for Varuna, the Ruler of the endless Heavenly Sphere, refulgent by day and shining with innumerable stars at night. Varuna is also the All-pervading Life which ensouls the Creation. He is the Ruler of the Universe, the Lord of Righteousness, the One Being Who has laid down the Law and Order of Nature, and is the Father of All. The one important point to note in this conception of the Vedic Varuna is the great emphasis laid therein on the moral and ethical aspect of this God. Varuna is pre-eminently the Lord of Righteousness. This grand concept of Asura Varuna agrees closely with that of Ahura-Mazda of the earlier Avesta; and very probably the legends in the Brahmanas and in the Epics of the Hindus about conflicts between 'the Gods and the Demons' are but echoes of some religious and national strifes between the two branches of the Aryans in the prehistoric days.

The Avestic Daeva is the natural complement of Ahura. Originally 'the Shining One', this word retain its pristine purity practically throughout the history of Indian languages. But in the Avesta the word is never used in its old signification of 'Deity', even in the earliest portions, and in the later Avesta it invariably means 'Demon'. In the Veda however, we find the word used a couple of times as an epithet of the demons.

Of individual deities there are but few that have suffered this inversion. The most notable of these is Indra, one of the greatest Deities in the Vedic Pantheon. In the Avesta he is the chief helpmate of the Evil One. It is very remarkable that of two of the most important Gods of the Vedas-Varuna and Indra-one should have become in Iran the supreme Being, Ahura, while the other became the most important lieutenant of the Evil One.

But what is still more remarkable is that one of Indra's epithets-Vrtrahan (Bahram, the Slayer of the Demon-foe)- an epithet which is pre-eminently his-should have continued all through the history of Iranian Religion to be the name of one of the greatest of the Deities, Verethraghna (later Bahram). The Bahram Yasht (Yasht, xiv) where his deeds are recorded is a fine epic, and some of the achievements therein recorded remind us of the deeds of Indra mentioned in the Veda.

Vayu (the Wind, a name which is identically the same in both the languages) is another of the ancient Aryan deities. Haug says that 'he is the only Vedic Deity who is mentioned by name in the Gathas', a rare distinction indeed, if Haug's interpretation be true; but modern scholars like Bartholomae have cast a doubt upon Haug's rendering of that passage.

Nairyosangha is the Messenger of the Supreme Ahuramazda to mankind. He appears before the Great Saviours when the time has arrived for their manifestation in the world. One of his special tasks is 'the guarding of the seed of Zarathushtra' from which the future Redeemers of mankind are to be born. He is also said to have helped at the creation of the first human pair, the Mashyo-Mashyoi. These last two functions of his seem to have come into prominence during the Pahlavi period, but in the Avesta he represents some kind of Divine Fire, and in the Veda, under the name Narashamsa (he who is praised of mankind) he also represents the Sacred Fire.

Armaiti is the Spirit of the Earth, and also of Divine Wisdom and Grace, both in the Avesta and in the Veda. She has the rank of an Amesha-Spenta (a Holy Immortal, corresponding to an Archangel in Christianity) in the Zoroastrian Hierarchy. In the Avesta she also represents the Spirit of Obedience to the Eternal Law of God and also in a few passages in the Rig-Veda she represents the same idea. But on the whole her position in the Veda is much humbler than in the Avesta, for in the latter she is represented as the Guardian of the Faith of Zarathushtra.

Baga (corresponding to the Vedic Bhaga) is an epithet of the Supreme Being Ahuramazda in the Achaemenian inscriptions at Persepolis and elsewhere. In the Veda he is a special Deity who is later identified with the Sun.

Airyaman is also one of the ancient Aryan Deities, and in the Veda his name is mainly associated with those of the great Twin-Brethren Mithra and Varuna. To both the nations the name implies 'friend' or 'comrade' and so he is specially the God presiding over marriage. A similar position is accorded to him in the Veda where he is invoked during the marriage ceremony, and among the Parsis to-day a short hymn dedicated to him, and called the Airyema-ishyo, is still used as an essential part of the wedding service.

But the most important of the ancient Indo-Iranian Deities in many ways is mithra, who represents the Sun. In the Veda He is very intimately associated with Asura Varuna. In the Avesta, however, He is associated more with the two Guardian-Judges of departed souls than with Ahuramazda. He awaits the Souls on the other side of death and sits in Judgment over them by the side of Sraosha and Rashnu. He dwells on the top of the Hara-Bareza (Alborz) Mountain. In the Avesta He is the Great Being who is the Wise Ruler, the Loving Guardian and the Impartial Judge of humanity, a conception which is essentially ethical. In the Veda too His position is similar. In later days the cult of Mithra attained great importance esoteric school of occultism, which in its turn profoundly influenced the later Roman thought as well as earlier Christianity.

Haoma is another Indo-Iranian Deity, being the Vedic Soma. In the Avesta He is not a mere personification of the Soma-plant, but a great Teacher who appeared in the very early days to lead forward our infant humanity; and He is represented in the Avesta as being adored by the great Teachers of ancient Iran themselves. In Yasna, ix, He is represented as appearing before Zarathushtra and telling Him in broad outline the history of the Sacred Teaching in Iran in the ages gone by. Some scholars believe that it was He who introduced the Haoma-(soma-) Cult among the Aryans and thus gave His own name to the plant and its juice which formed an important item of the Indo-Iranian ritual. The Hindu and Zoroastrian rituals turn entirely upon the offering of the juice of this plant; and two priests called the Zaota (Hota) and the Rathwi (corresponding to the Hindu Adhvaryu) officiate at that ceremony.

A great deal of the ceremonial of both the branches of the Aryan race goes back to a very remote antiquity, as also some of the social and other customs. The religious ceremonies depended upon the yearly change of seasons. Hence the yearly Gahambars, six in number, which the Iranians celebrated in the ancient days and which are even to-day observed by the Parsis. These corresponded pretty closely to the annual sacrificial cycle observed in the Veda. The chief objects of popular worship among these two nations were the Elements-Fire, Water, Earth and Air-and the Lights of Heaven-the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. These were invoked as Heavenly Beings, but above and beyond them all was the idea of the Supreme God, which is seen in the Vedas and which was far more strongly emphasised by Zarathushtra. This emphasis which He laid upon the Supremacy of Ahura has coloured the whole of the subsequent development of Iranian religious thought.

The Hindu caste system and the Avesta caste system

Society in the Avesta shows the division into the three classes: the Athravan or Priests, the Rathaeshtar or warrior, and the Vastryosh or Husbandman, corresponding to the first three 'castes' of India, in other words 'the Twice-born' classes. To these three was added at a much later period (just as was the case in India) a fourth class the Hutokhsha or Manual-worker. The king belonged to the warrior or the Ruler class, and held supreme power in the land; but the Religious Teacher was his equal in every way 'verily by reason of his Righteousness'. The name of the Priestly class, Athravan, indicates the cult of Fire, which the Great Teacher had definitely established in Iran.

The worship 'Ancestors' (the Pitris) was another very marked feature of the ancient Aryan Faith, which both the branches inherited in common. The ritual pertaining to this worship consists of the 'cake-offering' (the darun among the Parsis and the Purodasha among the Hindus) and the libation of 'a product of the cow', which latter was milk in Iran and ghi (clarified butter) in India. But in Iran ancestor-worship developed into the deeper and the more philosophical idea of the Fravashi, which is lacking in the Indian branch. The Fravashi is the Eternal principle in man which persists through all time and seemingly progresses throughout the ages. As a writer (himself a Zoroastrian) has well put it: 'The Fravashis of men are archetypal souls clothed in ethereal forms, after whose model each human being is formed on earth....The body of each man with its peculiar physical, mental, moral and spiritual capacities, is shaped and formed after the model which each particular Fravashi presents'. Each being, right up to Ahura Himself, possesses a Fravashi which exists through all eternity.

Another interesting Indo-Iranian ceremonial was the sacrament of Initiation-the Zoroastrian Navjot (literally, 'New-birth') which corresponds to the Upanayana ceremony of the Hindus. Like the Hindus of the Vedic period all children among the Zoroastrians, both boys and girls, get this 'new-birth'. After this ceremony they are regarded as fully responsible members of the Zoroastrian fold. And as outward signs they put on the Sacred Shirt (the Sudreh) the Sacred Girdle (the Kusti) and they should also have a covering to their heads (at least during prayers), generally a small skull-cap. These three outward symbols correspond very closely to the Hindu Yajnopavita (the Sacred Thread), the Mekhala (the Girdle) and the Shikha (the tuft of hair on the top of the head) respectively. The first of these among the Hindus was originally a full upper garment as can be seen from ancient statues and from the dress of the Buddhist priests even to-day. The second, the Girdle, was originally the most important part of the dress of 'the twice-born'. In the Avesta it was Haoma for whom Ahuramazda first brought the 'sacred girdle, star-begemmed, woven by the two Spirits'. The cap was intended to protect the vital parts of the head, and the tonsure of the Roman Catholic priests seems to have had a similar significance.

Such are some of the ancient Aryan traditions and ceremonials which these two great peoples, the Iranian and the Indian, had inherited. In Iran, however, the dominating influence of their Teacher, Zarathushtra, has completely overshadowed all later development. His philosophy and His solution of the riddle of life has been at the root of all Iranian, and particularly Zoroastrian, thought ever since. He made use of these traditions, but He laid the greatest emphasis upon the moral concept of Ahura and of the grand Indo-Iranian idea of Asha (Vedic Rita), and made the latter the keystone of His World-Religion.

Jahil!

http://www.farvardyn.com/avesta1.php
"It was the advance in the study of Sanskrit that finally won the victory for the advocates of the authenticity of the Sacred Books. About 1825, more than fifty years after the appearance of du Perron's translation, the Avesta texts themselves began to be studied by Sanskrit scholars. The close affinity between the two languages had already been noticed by different scholars; but in 1826, the more exact relation between the Sanskrit and the Avesta was shown by the Danish philologian, Rask, who had travelled in Persia and Iran, and who had brought back with him to the Copenhagen library many valuable MSS. of the Avesta and of the Pahlavi books. Rask, in a little work on the age and authenticity of the Zend-Language (1826), proved the antiquity of the language, showed it to be distinct from Sanskrit, though closely allied to it, and made some investigation into the alphabet of the texts. About the same time the Avesta was taken up by the French Sanskrit scholar, Eugï?¥ne Burnouf. Knowing the relation between Sanskrit and Avestan, and taking up the reading of the texts scientifically, he at once found, through his knowledge of Sanskrit, philological inaccuracies in Anquetil's translation. Anquetil, he saw, must often have misinterpreted his teachers; the tradition itself must often necessarily have been defective. Instead of this untrustworthy French rendering, Burnouf turned to an older Skt. translation of a part of the Avesta. This was made in the 15th century by the Parsi Naryosangh, and was based on the pahlavi version. By means of this Skt. rendering, and by applying his philological learning, he was able to restore sense to many passages where Anquetil had often made nonsense, and he was thus able to throw a flood of light upon manyan obscure point. The employment of Skt., instead of depending upon the priestly traditions and interpretations, was a new step; it introduced a new method. The new discovery and gain of vantage ground practically settled the discussion as to authenticity. The testimony, moreover, of the ancient Persian inscriptions deciphered about this time by Grotefend (1802), Burnouf, Lassen, and by Sir Henry Rawlinson, showed still more, by their contents and language so closely allied to the Avesta, that this work must be genuine. The question was settled. The foundation laid by Burnouf was built upon by such scholars as Bopp, Haug, Windischmann, Westergaard, Roth, Spiegel, Bartholomae, Darmesteter, de Harlez, Huebschmann, Justi, Mills, especially Geldner, including some hardly less known names, Parsis among them. These scholars, using partly the Sanskrit key for the interpretation and meaning of words, and partly the Parsi tradition contained in the Pahlavi translation, have now been able to give us a clear idea of the Avesta and its contents as far as the books have come down to us, and we are enabled to see the true importance of these ancient scriptures. Upon minor points of interpretation, of course, there are and there always will be individual differences of opinion. We are now prepared to take up the general division and contents of the Avesta."

Now go and read some more. Jahil!

Proto-Indo-Iranian Old Iranian (OP, Av) Vedic Sanskrit
*açva ("horse") Av, OP aspa aśva
*bhag- OP baj- (bÄ?ji; "tribute") bhag- (bhaga)
*bhrÄ?tr- ("brother") OP brÄ?tar bhrÄ?tá¹›
*bhūmī ("earth", "land") OP būmi bhūmī
*martya ("mortal, "man") OP martya martya
*mÄ?sa ("moon") OP mÄ?ha mÄ?sa
*vÄ?sara ("early") OP vÄ?hara ("spring") vÄ?sara ("morning")
*arta ("truth") Av aša, OP arta ṛta
*draugh- ("falsehood") Av druj, OP draug- druh-
*sauma "pressed (juice)" Av haoma soma

#80 Posted by nkg
"a) vedic text never mentions anything outside india.
b) vedic text is only available in india.
c) vedic language is spoken only in india"


Boy, you really do know History…Is this what they teach you in schools. Get some help psycho!
Britannica.com.
The Old Indo-Aryan period is represented by Sanskrit. Middle Indo-Aryan (c. 600 BC – AD 1000) consists principally of the Prakrit dialects, including Pali. Modern Indo-Aryan speech is largely a single dialect continuum spread over an undivided geographical space, so demarcations between languages and dialects are somewhat artificial. Complicating the situation are competing distinctions between languages with an old literary tradition, local language identification by native speakers (as in censuses), supraregional languages such as Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu, and labels introduced by linguists, particularly those of George Abraham Grierson. In the centre of the Indo-Aryan speech area (the "Hindi zone"), covering northern India and extending south as far as Madhya Pradesh, the most common language of administration and education is Modern Standard Hindi. Important regional languages in the northern Indian plain are Haryanvi, Kauravi, Braj, Awadhi, Chhattisgarhi, Bhojpuri, Magahi, and Maithili. Regional languages in Rajasthan include Marwari, Dhundhari, Harauti, and Malvi. In the Himalayan foothills of Himachal Pradesh are Grierson's Pahari languages. Surrounding the Hindi zone, the most significant languages are, moving clockwise, Nepali (East Pahari), Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati, Sindhi, the speech of southern, northwestern, and northern Punjab province in Pakistan (called West Punjabi or Lahnda by Grierson), Punjabi, and Dogri. In Jammu and Kashmir and the far north of Pakistan are the Dardic languages; the most important are Kashmiri, Kohistani, Shina, and Khowar. The Nuristani languages of northwestern Afghanistan are sometimes considered a separate branch of Indo-Iranian. Sinhalese (spoken in Sri Lanka), Divehi (spoken in the Maldive Islands), and Romany are also Indo-Aryan languages.

Proto-Indo-Iranian was a Satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda. It is the ancestor of the Indo-Aryan languages, the Iranian languages, the Dardic languages and the Nuristani languages. The main phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o, *a into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law). Grassmann's law, Bartholomae's law, and the Ruki sound law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian.

Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilant *z, among those to Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates.

Mitra

An ancient Indo-Iranian god, corresponding originally to the Vedic (see Vedic entries) Mitra (see Mitra), Mithra was repudiated along with other ancient gods by the prophet Zarathustra (see Zoroaster) in favor of the one Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda (see Ahura Mazda). In this context, he was demoted to a position as judge of the dead. But the cult of Mithra remained strong and gained popularity in the first centuries CE in the Roman world as well as in Iran. Historically, Mithra is a rival to Ahura Mazda for the central place in pre-Islamic Iranian religion. His name is derived from the concept of proper arrangements or contracts. He represents loyalty, true friendship, and truth. Mithra is also a war god, a promulgator of the faith and of the Iranian “nation.� He is also a solar god. Many extraordinary myths are associated with Mithra in both his Iranian and assimilated Roman form: the magical cave in which the sun god lives when he is not driving his chariot pulled by white horses across the sky, his birth from a rock (see Virgin Birth, Hero Quest), and his ritual slaying of the primal bull, the symbol of disorder. This slaying reminds us more of the Vedic Indra (see Indra), the slayer of the primal demon Vṛtra (see Vṛtra, Indra and Vṛtra), than it does of the Vedic Mitra (see Mithraism).

#80 Posted by nkg on
I have given them enough reason to understand that they can not kiss IVT till they kiss ass of Bihari civilization (which was actually Punjabi civilization or reverse Punjabis/Kashmiries are direct descendants of those Vedic people).

This is the best thing about being a muslim, you have to hate and abuse your own forefathers in all possible ways:-)


I mean whether you like it or not, you can not say that I was not fathered by my father (whom I dislike) but my grandfather, that is what muslims have to do?? Or else you don't talk about ancestors. They want to go to a certain period and then jump, very long jump even for World-record standards, to fore-fore fathers or fore-fore civilizations. All that at will:-) In one shot they can pick and chose anything and call it by any name or association. And that is why they feel that even Islamic world also has lot of freedom, it has lot of freedom to create false psychologies, false arguments, ignoring arguments??

Re: # 69
HP...
"Historically unprovable theories to some religion being the original religion of every one in India are just ridiculous. Vedic religions are as alien to India as Abrahamic religions...."

mr. bedine-clone, that you people have to say repeatedly, but somehow it does not hold good and people do not accept it for the following reasons...

a) vedic text never mentions anything outside india.
b) vedic text is only available in india.
c) vedic language is spoken only in india
....

Re: # 55
masan anna,
who has asked you take this article seriously?
these are full of bluffs...

Re: # 61

This is much more to the point.

Why should any of you care if I am a crypto islamist or closet commie or not. I know what I am so I am not insulted if you choose to call me a giraffe or anything else.

I felt that this article had several much more important issues to examine like:

• Does the available evidence give a clear story of what actually happened at the crucifixion?

• Is there a real possibility that Jesus was not dead when he was removed from the cross?

• Do the witnesses to the resurrection or ascension seem reliable?

• Is the idea of Jesus being an Essne, Nazarene or Buddhist seem credible?

• There are old tombs of Jesus, Moses and Mary in or near Kashmir but why have they not been researched more with DNA and dating of the corpses. Etc.?

• Should the words of St Paul who never heard Jesus in person be taken seriously?

• Is there substance that the religion of Jesus has been captured by Paul?

• Was Jesus really a Jew and why has Christianity become a Gentile faith?

• How idolatory has crept back into the Christian idea?

Surely these or similar topics are more relevant.

Regards

Murad

Jangi, I would love to discuss Indus civilization with DM too but he usually does not have much to say on the subject....Well, the RSS sites don't have much to say on that either. Except for the usual BS of Arab and looking to arabs.. What is wrong with that anyway?

These bihari civilization people are trying to hook up with a superior civilization....It ain't gonna work!

pinku should be awarded the troll of the year award on chowk?

what do you say?

let me create an ilog out of it, people are not at all paying attention to what I am writing..

#74 Posted by jang on
last 3000 years kar lo yaar? ek do page hi extra ho jayenege article main??

Ok na teri na meri, baniye ki, 2500 kar lete hain??

DM Saheb, if you have already started then make it 4000 years, let's include some of IVT as well.. after all, all of us are great historians with "truth" as our sole motivation. I am trying to do a PHD in history, just not able to find a suitable college, where i won't need to read history books. After my PHD I will write only on Islam, muslims and Pakistan, including history of Sindh/Punjab/Balochistan/Kashmir:-)

HP yar, why dont you pen an article about religious and cultural history of sindh (maybe for last 2000 years). it will be an interesting topic.

(if you dont, watch out..DM might LOL)

Oh Gosh, why did we get distracted into all those directions?

There is only one issue here - Murad bhai's lifelong commitment to goring unIslamic cows, be they Hindu, Christian or Jewish.

My own guess is that he isn't obsessed with killing unIslamic cows because he is very afraid of Islam, or because he actually believes in any 'Islamic religious gobbledygook' like virgin birth or messengers of god stuff, any more than he believes in Hindu or Christian religious gobbledygook.

This is not a theological enterprize for him. It is purely identity-related, political commitment. That's why there is total overlap between his and Islamist political agendas with respect to Hinduism and Christianity.

Now, a lot of us openly play the game of identity politics. We just dont' claim to be rationalists, universalists, so on and so forth.

Only Hindu 'secularists' among us would let him get away with all that spin, and he generously exploits their hospitality. In fact, Murad bhai and Hindu secularists are made for each other - constituting a perfect predator-prey relationship.

(if Murad actually is scared of Islam, or really believes in virgin births and messengers of God, he may please clarify, so we may modify our view of him and his lifelong efforts.)

[[

The problem is with your convoluted intentions and attitude. I don't care.

]]

and that is what i accused you of! Not just you, this is a problem with most Pakistanis and muslims.

No connection is needed between the two, you can not arbitrarily own one set of ancestors/civilizations and reject others. that too when the Hindus came later than IVT people. Even though your other idea of no connection is premature, i don't need to care about it.

That is what I meant. You don't have enough knowledge to discuss this. Indus civilization was before Aryans brought Veda to India. It is true that Vedic religion prospered in the same geographical areas but Indus civilization was dead before Aryans came to India. So there really is no connection between the vedic religion and Indus civilization.

The problem is with your convoluted intentions and attitude. I don't care.

#69 Posted by HP on

I am not talking about guiding lights. I am talking about what you tried in your earlier post, i created an ilog for that. Can americans say that Europeans are not their ancestors? I am not saying that no Pakistani has any percentage of genes from Arabs. Though for your information despite so much of mix up you can still detect if a population has Indian/Arab genes or not (more than that).

[[
There have been so many invaders, visitors, conquerors and migrations from all parts of central asia, the ME and from the Mediterranean now in to what is Pakistan, that assuming someone origins is just ridiculous.
]]

It is simple, you don't have to do anything with IVT civilization if you don't have anything to do with Vedic civilization that flourished in that area. It is not just religion, what is civilization??? It is Vedic/Hindu civilization. You think that all those Hindus/Budhdhist who lived their for millenia had no civilization right??? Do you want to say that it was not Punjab and your Pakistani area and northern India where Panini and his brothers or their ancestors wrote those Sanskrit texts, including Vedas?

[[
I don't think Baloch or Pathans are of Indian origin neither are Punjabi or Sindhi- at least not all. So there is no reason for them to accept Hinduism or Buddhism as the guiding lights.

]]

And what makes you think so, and did you check if your thinking is right? I said above that that is the place Hinduism or Vedic civilization originated.

And what is a civilization??

So for this reason, because some Pakistanis may have a low chance of having Arab parentage, all Pakistani should be assumed to be of Arab descent, even if majority of them are Punjabis and Sindhies who got converted from Hinduism/Budhdhism?

I am not pressing against you claiming that you are not Arab, you can be, nor that an Arab can not live in Pakistan or India. The problem is intention and attitude.

[[
Historically unprovable theories to some religion being the original religion of every one in India are just ridiculous. Vedic religions are as alien to India as Abrahamic religions.
]]


This is what is ridiculous, and this shows intention, you want to arbitrarily own and disown things. Just to prove that Indians are not Hindu you are willing to go back to Big bang to say that at that time India had no person. Doesn't matter how long they are there and doesn't matter that the other thing that they come from "x" place hardly matters. At some point of time whole life was alien to earth, or at least humanity was alient to earth?? At some point all life came from Africa. At some point all white people came from some very cold place which simply can't be middle east, probably Siberia, or northern central asia. Why do we need to be so absurd to ignore what is obvious and truth??


Do you want to say on behalf of all Pakistanis that majority of them never had any ancestor who was practicing Hinduism or Budhdhism and how truthful you will about it?

A Civilization is people and their ideas and their lives, not land. If you want to ignore all that is part of people, you are not talking about civilization then.

#68
I would not prefer to discuss this with you because of your obvious gripe for unknown reasons but let me simply ask:

Are Catholics in North and South America are not Americans just because they seek religious guidance from the Pope and Vatican stuck in the middle of Italy? Do they have to invent their own pope or Vatican somewhere in central America?

This is just ridiculous argument that I have to accept Hinduism before I can even say Indus civilization. What Indus civilization has to do with Hinduism, a religion?

There have been so many invaders, visitors, conquerors and migrations from all parts of central asia, the ME and from the Mediterranean now in to what is Pakistan, that assuming someone origins is just ridiculous.

I don't think Baloch or Pathans are of Indian origin neither are Punjabi or Sindhi- at least not all. So there is no reason for them to accept Hinduism or Buddhism as the guiding lights.

Historically unprovable theories to some religion being the original religion of every one in India are just ridiculous. Vedic religions are as alien to India as Abrahamic religions.

And remember, you can not claim your ancestors to be Greeks or Romans deceptively, till you don't claim Hindus to be your ancestors. I said it earlier, in that Indus valley civilization as well, you can not skip and claim that Indus Valley civilization is yours while the Hindu/Budhdhist period that flourished on that land was not yours. You can not simply pick your ancestors arbitrarily as per your ISlamic ego, that is already done, you have to realize that.

Till muslims in south asia comes to term with Hinduism and Budhdhism and stop looking for their identity in big-bang or lost land, there is no scope for ultra polite discussions!!

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Politeness doesn't mean that I can't say things that offend you and though you can say things that can offend me.

#63 Posted by HP on

HP your idea of politeness may not be a certified idea of politeness. Politeness doesn't mean that I can't say things that do not offend you and though you can things that can offend me. When people are so offended with each other's ideas than they should stick to ideas that are being said and not the offense that was offered. You can not hide in this "politeness" excuse.

[[
(Historically, the entire expanse of land and sea between the Gates of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) and the River Indus (excluding the Arabian Peninsula) were at one point in time or another subordinated to the authority of the Greeks and Rome. Wiki)
]]

What do you want to say here. Which Greek or Roman was ruling India in the times before Alexandar or in the time of Budhdha. Why don't you complte what you want to say? Your link is not working.

Say whatever you say against Hinduism but stick to it and defend what you say.

[[
Now go ahead and do some research on these names: Mithra and Krishna, Dionysus, Horus,Attis, Chrishna, Buddha Sakia, Zulis or Zhule, odin, Crite, Zoroaster, Ball and Taut, Indra, Bali of afghanistan, Thammuz, Atys, Mohammed.
]]


Does it suggest that Muhammad and Budhdha are as mythical as Krishna. Or do you want to suggest all are similarly mythical or similarly historical, which one?

There are lots of things common; they are all religious figures, important gods or messengers like Jesus and Mohammad. You will find many fascinating similarities there...It seems that one story was created and used with little difference all over the world. Mostly poor, Father died or dead before they were born. Some reincarnated,others were reincarnations, and expected to be reincarnated!

Let me restate this:
There are lots of things common; they are all religious figures, important gods or messengers like Jesus and Mohammad. You will find many fascinating similarities there...It seems that one story was created and used with some variations all over the world. Mostly poor, Fathers died in early childhood or dead before they were born. Some reincarnated,others were reincarnations, and some are expected to be reincarnated!(Krishna was supposed to be a Prince from a large family and some in the family wanted to kill them all for whatever reasons they had. He too suffered in his early life...(Father is not accounted after the deadly attack from the relatives.)

I don't think there is anything sensitive in it. If you love a cow or cows, that is your love affair, not mine!

And this is just ridiculous:
#57 Posted by KaalChakra
"they are fearful of what other Muslims might do to them. HP has said so. Even hamimdm says that all the time."

I can't speak for Hamidm but I never said it! I have never had any problems in Pakistan about expressing what I thought. People did not like it on some occasion. Now after X numbers of years, I think what I said was in poor taste too. But no one ever threatened me with any consequences. I have never lived in any other Muslim country so I don't know how things are there. But the circles I moved in and the people I grew up with in Pakistan, had no problem whatsoever with speaking out against religion. Are things different now? I don't know! But the people I visit in Pakistan are still the same they are still liberal and don't care about religion and none of them got killed (Some deserve it though, but not because of their opinions about religions.

Now go ahead and do some research on these names: Mithra and Krishna, Dionysus, Horus,Attis, Chrishna, Buddha Sakia, Zulis or Zhule, odin, Crite, Zoroaster, Ball and Taut, Indra, Bali of afghanistan, Thammuz, Atys, Mohammed.

There are lots of things common; they are all religious figures, important gods or messengers like Jesus and Mohammad. You will find many fascinating similarities there...It seems that one story was created and used with little difference all over the world. Mostly poor, Father died or dead before they were born. Some reincarnated,others were reincarnations, and expected to be reincarnated!

Go read the story of Krishna the Blue guy from Mahabharata (It is not impossible, people can be blue. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22536241/)

Just think about this similarity in names:
Krishna is a combination of two words Krish-na and now think about the Greco-roman word for Jesus was kristo. Krish= Kristo=Christ. (Historically, the entire expanse of land and sea between the Gates of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) and the River Indus (excluding the Arabian Peninsula) were at one point in time or another subordinated to the authority of the Greeks and Rome. Wiki)

I think there is no harm in discussing religion in a polite way. The problem with Indians is that they have not learned to discuss religion in a polite and civil manner. They only were taught abusing other religions.

Murad. A fabulous article!

dm ji

We can't expect Murad bhai, a rationalist and myth-breaker, to believe in such 'nonsense' as virgin birth and messenger of God stuff. His strong commitment to Islam seems merely identity-related, rather than tied to blind faith in any 'theological fancies.'

Still, we can clear that up by directly asking if he fully rejects Christ's virgin birth stories and anyone's claims of his being any messenger of god.

Murad bhai, this is a very simple and straightforward one for you. Thanks in anticipation.

Murad,

This issue is a sensitive issue and attempts to decipher its obscure details, without due care and acknowledgement, may come across as offensive. Admittedly, keeping one’s faith completely disentangled when interpreting history is difficult, so my views too should be taken with a grain of cynicism.

Bulk of your interpretation of events surrounding Jesus (as well as Paul) is almost identical to that of Ahmadi-Muslims. It seems some historians are coming to similar conclusions. BTW, Holger Kersten’s book is out of publication with no reprinting plans. I wonder about the basis of your interpretation as you did not include any references in your article.

Based on Biblical accounts, it seems Jesus was on the cross for only a few hours: From late Friday afternoon to Friday sunset, an interval not enough to bring about death. Two thieves were crucified at the same time and place as Jesus, and their bones were broken to finally kill them. It seems that while on the cross, Jesus slipped into unconsciousness and was, perhaps somewhat conveniently, presumed dead by the Romans who were ambivalent about crucifying him in the first place [on a separate note … this interpretation is seemingly consistent with Qruanic accounts].

There is evidence suggesting that Jesus survived crucifixion, recovered some, met with his disciples in secrecy, and left the area in search of remaining tribes of Israel. He migrated eastwards, preached along the way, and finally died in Kashmir at 120 years of age.

From what I know, only 2 out of a total of 12 Tribes of Israel lived in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus; rest, owing to wars and persecution, had migrated eastwards, some as far as Kashmir. It seems that Kashmiri names, customs etc. even today, resemble those mentioned in the Bible to an unusually high degree, suggesting a historical link with the Israelites.

FaisalK:

"So what bout the part in the Quran where he is proclaimed as the messenger of god??? Hazrat Essa....any thought to that?"

Murad Bhai has neither disputed Hazrat Essa being a messenger of God nor his virgin birth, they are both part of the Muslim faith. He has only disputed Resurrection, which is not consistent with Islamic faith. You can say that Murad saheb's article is a vindication of the Quran.

So what bout the part in the Quran where he is proclaimed as the messenger of god??? Hazrat Essa....any thought to that?

aplogies to the author re the actual topic, but most of the material although interesting and "fascinating", is relatively well known who want to know. for the faithful, its not that important. whats more, this cow has been gored for a while.

Masanamuthu, there are many Muslims who reject Islam, and/or openly recongize that they cannot say what they wish to say in public because they are fearful of what other Muslims might do to them. HP has said so. Even hamimdm says that all the time.

One can even accept that Murad bhai is too scared of Islam to even express that fear publicly. What is not explained are his interests and drives that match perfectly with those of any hard-boiled Islamists -

(1) obsession with goring unIslamic cows and slaying of unIslamic myths
(2) selective views of history that typically (and according to many, falsely) try to create absurd historical equivalences.
(3) his otherwise inexplicable hatred toward Hinduism - probably the only religion whose 'founders' (don't ask me who they are!) and religious teachers he does not 'love.'

IMHO, fear of Islam itself would not create the above.

#53 paradox

You're nowhere near the truth.
If husband, Joseph, was the father, why would she need to invent virgin birth.

I've read Muradji's articles. I can't come to any conclusion on his ulterior motives. You can't openly attack Islam and plan to lead a fearless peaceful life anywhere in India.

Even the Hindutvadis don't directly attack Muhammad, the prophet of the cult.

We as anonymous (though not really, anyone can be tracked) commenters have the privilege of ridiculing Muhammad / Islam and continue our lives as usual.

So expecting Muradji to give out his address and then attack Muhammad like attacking Adi sankara / Jesus is a bit too much.

The whole of Jesus' persona - from his birth to his looks to his life story to his death and finally to his so-called resurrection - seems to be a myth, suitably colored and enhanced to strengthen the Christian faith. But isn't that how religions work?

---------------

Humsab ji,

One did think that Murad bhai is simply scared of Islam. For instance he would sneakily imply here and there that Muslims read from the false Quran (and hence worship the false Allah), or that they should be worshipping 'saints', or that "ALL" religions do this or that, but never really make a stand on any specific Islamic subject.

But having read now quite a few of his articles, I am convinced it is not at all the fear of Islam that keeps him so motivated and focused on unIslamic topics but simply religious fanaticism against non-Muslims.

We have to understand that EVERY Muslim (and it DOES NOT matter what label he or she wears (or can wear) for himself or herself has his or her own interpretation of Islam.

Murad bhai is no different, and has set about goring the cows of actual non-Muslims as his life's mission.

Forget about Jesus's resurrection. His birth was the biggest fraud offerd to the believers.He was the son of Joseph not God Almighty.

one of things i have always wondered about is what exactly did jesus look like......it is hard to believe that someone from that region, during those days, could be blond-haired and blue-eyed........if a clear picture of jesus was available, the world would have been a different place......perhaps, he looked more like a slave than a slave owner.....

following is an interesting description:

"The result is shown in the left portrait above: a person with abroad peasant's face, dark olive skin, short curly hair and a prominent nose. His height would have been on the order of 5' 1"; he would have weighed about 110 pounds. Alison Galloway, professor of anthropology at the University of California in Santa Cruz , said that: "This [portrait] is probably a lot closer to the truth than the work of many great masters." (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcfa.htm)

'Just as it wouldn't be if I made if my life's mission to show the ridiculousness of Islam.'

KC ji
Neki ka kaam hai. Der ayad durust ayad.
And it is possible that Murad Sahib ji actually believes in what he claims but is just too scared to touch Islamic myths as he does not want fatwa of the kind which says, 'Off with his Head'.
You remember the way Mr. M F Hussain gets all his creative juices flowing only seeing Sita, Saraswati etc and not an accomplished historical woman known as Madam Aisha.
Regards

Perhaps I can put it this way - for a Muslim, being dedicated to goring unIslamic cows is not search for rationality, nor a mark of any bravery.

Just as it wouldn't be if I made if my life's mission to show the ridiculousness of Islam. Above everything else, it would be religio-political work, and recongizably, self-confessedly, so.

If that is indeed your objective, then that's how you should state your entire work.

Murad ji, writing a book will not absolve you of the basic charge that that you are a dedicated Islamic political activist (which is not a bad thing, but totally contrary to your claims)

Your primary mode of Islamist politicking is to

(1) make insincere universal claims ("I love all religious founders/teachers") while pushing the agenda of Islam,

(2) make tendentious and illogical Islamist allegations against non-Muslims that you do not back up ("Hindus began to respect/worship the cow because they wanted to hurt Muslims who have a duty or absolute need to eat the cow)

(3) offer standard Islamist fare about Islam, which is no different from that of any other Muslim does (about how Islam is misunderstood and all the rest).

(4) not address any issue when non-Muslims call you on it, but merely to repeat your claims of universal sincerity and how you love everybody and all religious figures, when you obviously don't.

Murad ji, the problem is of total lack of credibility based on what you write.

Perhaps you should write a book on "Islam Unwarnished" so the reader knows he or she is not reading merely a hack working away on behalf of his own Islam. Yes, many Muslims consider you a non-Muslim (as they should) but that is true of any Muslim - covering the full range from Osama Bin Laden to Mr Jinnah, all political activists.

Many interactors are questioning my motives in writing as I do. I would like to say that I have many very diverse interests I am a sincere and deeply interested student of history and comparitive religion and have been constantly amazed at how mythology has clouded and confused both history and religious ideas among all faiths.

I am planning to do a book on this subject at some time and find that many of the numerous interacts are very useful in showing some of the weaknesses in the conjectures while many interacts have added valuable ideas and information. So there is no need to question my motives and I am delighted with the knowledge and wisdom that many of you have offered.

Concerning this article I had done some serious study but seem to have mainly atttracted responses with a Hindu or Islamic focus. While these are interesting I am more interested to have Christian reactions. After 2000 years the facts are hazy and the witnesses unreliable so please agree or disagree with me on the substance of the facts and conjectures.

#45 Posted by rashid_s

[[
“The priests and scriptures of all religions foster myths of great miracles to impress their less educated followers�.

The above truly sums it all.
]]

It does, but the sum till now is zero, this is not sufficient to prove to "faithfuls" that their religions are doing anything bad, you will know actual sum when you check for what they are impressing people, what they want them to do (and how good or bad it is)?


But overall that is the starting point (zero or 1), so the first thing is always to communicate that no scriptures are word of God or no book is word of God. Then people will start summing things using their mind.

#44 Posted by laddu on
laddu, why you went after Guru Nanak??

I replied to Jang, he can tell me who needs respect now and how much. Then we can distribute it after having some discussion here.

“The priests and scriptures of all religions foster myths of great miracles to impress their less educated followers�.
The above truly sums it all.
The Churches (Der-o-Haram) exist— a generic term for the institutions of the profession of priests, mullahs, pundits, rabbis and all-- because the gullible need a tangible place of worship and a hand-hold for their spiritual salvation.
How ever it is not fair to say the “less educated� only need this prop. I remember seeing a doco on the Kumb melaa where a Physics professor after admitting that the river ‘was the sewer of India’ , yet took a dip in it for his “Faith�!
Such examples abound in “all Religions� of the world without exception. Myths are essentials for the ‘existence of the body-church’. Imagine the unemployment statistics round the world without this industry of intellectual bhang!

"..should not expect any reverence or admiration for these ridiculous figures. "

Sure, no one should also expect reverence for equally 'ridiculous' figures like Nanak or Gobind Singh from others.

#42 Posted by pinku on
I created a chowkidar (ilog) as well from that comment to attract some crowd at one place as trolling is more painful..

#40 Posted by jang on
Jang I don't insist on such "Sai babas". Though they are following many thousand year old Hindu tradition/freedom of using your own skills to create your sect. You can consider initial two Gurus of Budhdha to be similar type of Baba and Budhdha himself to be a guru/baba. Even Nanak and other Sikh gurus followed the same tradition of Hinduism. How truthful and intellectual a baba/guru is depends on that Baba/Guru, but overall they represented the same Upanishadic traditions.

If I will insist for someone he should be good enough to make people run out of their quota of intelligence based on "truth" alone (so less effort on my part)if they wish to go against that insistence, be it max muller or whoever(other's in the list like Gere are hardly countable:-))..

So I won't Praise Budhdha as much as the people of Upanishads. You can read Schopenhauer to know what he saya about them (He talks in terms of Vedas mostly, because Upanishads are part of Vedas for Hindus).


Budhdhism is simple, there is not much that philosophers could have got from it and if these Upanishadic thoughts before Budhdha didn't exist. Budddha and his Brahmin desciples wouldn't have been able to say even the simple things they said. Because all their simplicity is against the granduer of idea that already existed in Hinduism. The tough meditation neededto realize God was what Budhdha tried to simplify and in that attempt he found that whole religion is "tough" so carried just some principles. The credit of creating grand ideas or philosophical ideas goes to Brahmins sages of Upanishads.




Brahmins were the people who while playing with the idea of religion in the form of nature (world), righteousness, god, prayer, turned those ideas into one with philosophical values after a while (because there were so many competing Brahmins working on those ideas for so long). They are the first such people who thought wisely about world and God. So Hinduism is what started the basic philosophy


Schopenhauer/Voltaire and many German philosophers had the same idea. But you don't need anybody's idea to understand this truth.
Parallel to Hinduism is Judaism, but compared to Hinduism they were never able to create philosophy out of religion. The Greeks borrowed ideas from Hinduism.


========
For Hindus Upanishads hardly exists separately, they are part of Vedas as such, as a Brahmin whose surname is Shukla, is supposed to know Shukla part of Yajurveda very well and that will include all Upanishads counted in Shukla part of YajurVeda, you have vedi-bedi, dwi-vedi, tri-vedi and chatur-vedi and other similar sects of Brahmins who were supposed to carry some part through their generations.



So while Hindus donot have a single prophet, they have had tons of prophets, since ever to till todate. All Upanishadic sages were prophet, Yagyavalkaya, Vashishtha and others were prophets. Pioneers of different schools of thoughts of Hinduism are like prophets. --Except that they were not faking prophecies and blaming it to some Gabriel, they needed to base it on their own intellect or so called realization.

Budhdha was prophet, he realized something. His Gurus were prophets, they told him that they are teaching him what they have already realized. Even Rajnish and Sai baba were prophets. Prophets are of all types, Hindus were initially fortunate that they got some intelligent ones!

and swami v. nanda? gimme a break.. is only famous in indian text books for going to chicago..noone else knows about him at all. he is a hindutva poster-boy ... all his poster are in the same pose too and hang right next to tacky "gurv se kaho .." stickers.

he is (offcourse, arthaat) ridiculous.

in general, its easier to "admire" indian religious figures which are admired by at least max-muller sahib or maybe richard gere. mr G. Buddha fits the bill, maybe Nagarjuna..anyone who is actually admired by living indians is most likely to be a fraud. i dont think d. saraswati, RK etc really fit the bill..next pinkusab might insist that madrasi S.S. Baba should be revered...we know that most if not all indian religious babas are fraudulent. you know how even the beatles got cheated. currently some guy doing yoga on TV is a hit..claims to eat only fruit and veggies and peddles his drugs.

anyways, overall, hindoos should not expect any reverence or admiration for these ridiculous figures. cynicism if not wariness for fraud is best they should expect.

Re: # 38

"Hopefully murad bhai will share his love for Hindu 'founders' and Great Religious Teachers with us so we can better appreciate where he is coming from."

I agree completely.

laddu, you and I might be too dismissive of murad bhai in reconizing him as a dishonest Islamist fanatic dedicated to goring unIslamic cows.

He really deserves a chance to clarify, to tell us which of the Great Religious Teachers of Hinduism he so dearly loves as he obviously loves Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ -

If not adi shankara, ramanuja, vallabhacharya etc etc, it must be Swani Dayananda Saraswati - the Great founder of Arya Samaj and a rationalist to boot. Or may be, he is a lifelong admirer of the other great modern religious teacher of Hinduism - Swami Vivekananda.

Hopefully murad bhai will share his love for Hindu 'founders' and Great Religious Teachers with us so we can better appreciate where he is coming from.

pinku,

jang bhai ki batein jyon navak ke tir
dekhan mei chhoti lagein, ghav karein gambhir

-----------------

Vaise killing cows, feeding on pigs or slaying dragons all have their uses, in themselves. If Harimau would excuse us (and skip the rest of this post), here is our evergreen (and Harimau's favorite) Karunanidhi himself (someone for whom I have genuine good feelings) :)

Karuna does it again, flays Hindus for sporting tilaks
Posted: Nov 05, 2008 at 1640 hrs IST

Chennai, November 5: Flaying the Hindu practice of smearing ash or saffron or sporting a 'tilak' on the forehead for yet another time, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi questioned the need for ‘such things in a country which preached equality of all religions’.

Karunanidhi also questioned the rationale behind Brahmins wearing sacred thread.

"What is the need for these things in a country that has accepted all religions and preached equality of the same," he asked in a poem penned by him in the wake of caste-related violence in Madurai on Tuesday in which one person was killed in police firing.

He had on earlier occasions also ridiculed the practice of smearing ash or saffron on the forehead.

The DMK chief had made similar remarks on certain other Hindu customs earlier and described Hindus as ‘robbers’.

But later he clarified that he meant Hindus were robbers ‘who stole hearts’.

In the height of the Sethusamudram controversy, he had described Lord Ram as a ‘drunkard’ and wondered whether he was a qualified engineer to have built the Ramasethu.

In the poem, Karunanidhi described truth as God, adding that all people were equal before God and described as ‘ignorance’ those who were not aware of it.

"Caste differences are the offshoot of the branches called differences based on religion. Let’s chop off not only the branches but also uproot the tree to witness the emergence of a beautiful concept called equality," he said.

He also described as useless the face-off between believers and non-believers on the concept of God and said there was no point fighting over which faith was supreme.

"...He does not love the one person most important to many strands within Hinduism - Adi Shanakara..."
I agree.

Actually I am yet to see this person claim that he "Loves" all the Rishis and Acharyas of Hinduism.

Does he love Ramanujacharya??

For him Ramanuja-charya ji would be a "priest" and NOT a "Founder" of Sri-Vaishnaivism!!

For him "Acharya Shri Vallabha-charya" would be another "Priest" and NOT a "Founder" of his vasihnava sect.

That is a convenient characterization and caricaturisation of other non-Abrahmic faiths (that he conveniently calls as pagan) to push his Islamist and Abrahmic Agenda of ONE DOG religion that intends to violently gobble up and decimate every other faith.

#33 Posted by jang on
okie, if this is a stand alone hindu bashing where Islam is not deceptively trying to gain any point then it is perfect.

Vegetarianism may overall be better for extra long life (if one needs), reverence of cow/bull is meaningless in today's time, but reverence of life of all sorts in general is a good idea.

Ref dost_mittar #16

[Baig saheb, you are truly a destroyer of all myths. What myth are you destroying next - the one about someone producing custom-made revelations from God, what he needed and when he needed them?]

Would you be referring to a certain Mohammad who produced a certificate from Allah that it was okay for him to marry 20 women but ordinary Mozzies have to rest content with just four?

Or, could you be referring to another polygamous sect, this time located in the United States, whose Prophet had a revelation that polygamy was no longer acceptable when the United States refused to accept Utah as a state because of the polygamous practice of the residents of that territory?

pinku yar, this has nothing to do with muslim as such... the reference of goring the holy cow was purely to indicate political nature of the action. its about showing the hindu how stupid, irrational, insane their deeply held beliefs are in view of pure facts.

fact: hindus do eat mutton
fact: hindu literature seem to have references to mutton eating.

this is absolutely ridiculous considering the illogical reverence they (incl of pure caste hindoos, bhakti sects, jains, buddhist, sikhhs, jains etc) seem to hold for vegetarianism. jains are the most consistent but i am sure some illogic can be found if one puts his mind to it.

so, he is a slayer of myths, butcher of the holy cows, nothing to do with islam.

#15 Posted by KaalChakra on

[[
That is perfectly fine, but you have devoted all your life to attacking other religions, while still being known, by many Indians, as a secularist and liberal.
]]


There are so many people in India who think they are secular? "truthful" is proper word? What is secular??... ..that we will ignore problems in religion at our will, ..or.. that we will pretend that all religions are equally bad?

Religions are huge things, huge egos, these small "pseudo" secular people should remember that religious ego is not so "ignorable", if it was, then they wouldn't be talking about sh*ts of religions each day??? They should also remember that their "pseudo secular" existence which ignores and entertain issues arbitrarily, doesn't help anybody.




-certified troll

#30 Posted by jang on

what do you want to say here or is it what Murad said???

Are they not vegetarian for long or what?? Or they started becoming vegetarian just a few days back??

For muslims: They can consider anything happening before Muhammad (was born), as happened at the time of Big bang or creation of Universe. In that case as majority of Hindus (mainly Brahmin, Baniya + Jain, Budhdhist) are vegetarian since "X" hundred BC, they are vegetarian since universe got created?? That should be a long long duration for Islam by any standards?? They don't even like to remember such ancient history??

ref #27 this was in ref to murads posting showing that indian literature has some references to meat-eating during religious ceremonies. this offcourse makes practice of vegetarianism and holding vegetarianism as a virtue as held by overwhelming number of indians as a long tradition completely ridiculous, and that is very important.

Too many idiotic (if not hilarious) mistakes to mention. Please ask questions about exactly what confuses you and kaka will try to answer them on unplugged.

For starters, read the wikipedia entry. Someone must have written something meaningful there.

jang, that was a very good one :)

This is a very curious mindset, indeed. It is not driven by strict religious beliefs per se, but by identity-driven deep hatred of immediate others, possibly. Or by an inherent need to play group politics and to undermine other groups, as you, perhaps quite rightly, suggest.

kaal, murad sirji is certainly not a devout islamist, he is a slayer of the holy cow. here is a repeat

#138 Posted by jang on November 4, 2008 1:49:56 pm
murad, just like holy cow would be gored in chandani chowk as a political statement (so much so that bahadur sha had to intervene and make sure that it did not happen during the tumultuous times of his reign) JNU walas love to gore the proverbial holy cow much to Laddus pain. Laddu and many hindus (and other indics) vegetarianism as deeply holy and important, and have done so for generations. JNU walas rationalist offcourse have the dawa of finding selective references from vast ancient indian writings. this is a noble political act of goring the holy cow.

if hindoos like Laddu, accept the dawa and hang their head in shame in face of this evidence and become further emasculated, well and good. if they become rabid and foaming at mouth, even better.

its a win-win situation.

There is something weird and frankly quite authoritarian about this obsession with the one great guy and exactly what he said and did and so on and on and on. Both Islam and christianity share these characteristics, and frankly, in spite of their many strengths, this is one of their most repellent aspects.

At many different times, there have been peacemakers and principled people, people who have protested against injustice and helped those who suffer in many ways. Many such people are alive today and we recognize many historical figures like Gandhi, MLK, christian teachers, buddhist monks, sufi teachers, principled atheists and pacifists and so on.

Let us focus on recognizing these people and supporting them in our lives today. Lets recognize people from the past but obsessing about them ("only son of god", "final prophet", whatever) is fundamentally something very bizarre and unhealthy.

One hell of an interesting article, all these details are already available on the net. At the end of the post, I have provided some links to read more. Good Job Murad!

Basically all religions started as stories, myths and fables. Curiosity, the power of the spoken and later written words made people create myths. Over the centuries smarter human figured out many ways to control plebs. Religion is just one of the old tricks, possibly the first one too.

Some Myths later on developed by more rational people as sciences. For the half bred, conspiracy theories are still the new myths and fables. No one in the world is immune from venturing in to conspiracy theories. The myths emerged because people attempt to cover up history or put a favorable spin on it.

For the Arabs or the people of Syria where Nasrani religion actually prospered, the Christianity is the Nasrani religion which perhaps was more like a Hebrew name. The Hebrew name for Christians has always been Notzrim.

“In A.D.1607 a committed of 47 men took two years and nine months to re-write the Bible, which is now called the King James Bible. It removed seven books from the Catholic version. King James chose Sir Francis Bacon to edit the manuscripts. It should be noted that the earlier Greek versions were not written until around the Fourth Century, and before that, the writings were in Hebrew and Aramaic.

The god that the Christians collectively worship today was originally four gods. Ashtoreth was openly worshiped by the Israelites until the 6th century BC. She was the wife of El, the supreme male deity, and they were together the Divine Couple. Their daughter was Anath, Queen of the Heavens, and their son, the King of the Heavens, was called He. As time progressed, the separate characters of El and he were merged to become Jehova. Ashtoreth (Ashera) and Anath were then similarly joined to become Jehova's female consort, known as the Shekinah or Matronit."

"The overriding theme of the Bible storyline is the theme of cultural conquest. Conquest by the Hebrews over their enemy neighbors, culturally by the Jews over the Israelites (used here to mean members of the ten "lost" tribes), the Christians over the Jews, the Catholics over the Gnostics, Marcionites, and other pre-Catholic factions, and on and on. In some cases, the conquest is recorded as a historical, often military event. In others, it merely is recorded as a change in content and context, an alteration of the storyline and outlook and worldview.�

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html
http://www.jewishen cyclopedia.com/index.jsp
http://www.occultopedia.com/occult.htm

khaki, IMHO, there is no real pressing need to criticize any of the 'founders'. But when one "loves" the 'founder' of one's religion, one is being a myth believer, when one loves such a founder publicly, one is being religiously political, and when one actually loves all founders of all religions, one is being insane.

Let me add quickly, that does not apply to Murad ji. He does not love the one person most important to many strands within Hinduism - Adi Shanakara.

(Probably also not Dayananda Saraswati - in fact, it will useful to know which if any religious figures among Hindus Murad Bhai does love.)

Re: # 22
Thanks, pinku. For far too long I've soft-pedalled a view on Christianity's bloody past, preferring to consign it to a 'that was then, but things have changed' category. Maybe it's about time I thought about taking the gloves off.

#21 Posted by khakiflash on
khaki,
the kind of killings "one god" people of Christianity and Islam did is just amazing, South Asians could have thought of killing people such cruel way by humans (even animals don't do like that).

People were given slow painful death in public to let others understand what will happen if they do not become people of "one god", Throats were slit to let bleeding and pain continue for a painful death (the way they did in Iraq, reciting Kuran). Christians in America burned Mayans alive (in groups) the way you roast chiecken or beef??


World will not be able to see more degenerated people than what these two faiths created. You can be mad, but you become satan for a God??? Which God?? All this because first Christians copy pasted some stuff from Hinduism and then Islam copy pasted from Christianity and were protecting that bad copy-paste??

Just a comment or two on the physical aspects about Jesus' crucifixion. Being educated by Marist priests it was in their 'interests' as propogators of the 'one true faith (!)' to teach that the treatment of Jesus was uniquely horrible. For example it was only later when I found out that nailing to the cross was standard procedure - as a child I took it that this was a particularly cruel fate meted out to Jesus alone. (Even today I can't recall off the top of my head any classical artists who depicted the legendary two thieves crucified on either side as being likewise nailed to their crosses. Usually they are shown as having their hands and feet roped or lashed to the wood. - Please someone correct me if I am wrong.) Likewise I believe that criminals were traditionally crucified completely naked - but it's unsurprising that this is refined into loincloth-wearing victims. Apart from the 'indecency' of a pictorial representation of such there would be the revealing of Jesus as a circumcised Jew - something to which, perhaps, the Church would, although acknowledging, rather not draw undue attention.
When still an infant we were told that when Jesus said on the cross "I thirst" and a vinegar-soaked sponge was raised to his mouth I never knew whether that was an act of cruelty or kindness - and even now I'm still not entirely sure. Then Jesus cries "It is consummated." (A very big word for the little boy I was then who was being told this story) I assumed that it was some reference to the vinegar - perhaps it was its bitterness he was complaining about. No attempt was made to explain this very 'obscure' word - and I was too frightened to ask!
But the article is certainly very interesting and food for thought. (I knew that the title 'Jesus of Nazareth' was a misnomer, something the Church has always seemed reluctant to accept.)
But thanks for the post.

Is there a red flag Santa Claus here, helping Murad, the moment i posted my comment it became red-flagged???? Who is doing this voluntary job??

#16 Posted by dost_mittar on

Ha ha:-) custom made revelations:-) and their time-chart:-)

more like vaccintaion schedule to fool people:-)

..............

Murad does bring good information along with his articles, but there is one thing that Murad doesn't seem to understand. Once he brings in a subject he can not decide the boundaries in which it will be discussed as per his own wish. HE normally decides what he want to say to keep himself and his ideas safe and wish others will not go out of this boundary.


The idea of saying all prophets were good, is just to save Muhammad, because others anyway didn't show as much stupidity.


All these attempts are to ignore the trouble that is right in front of your eyes (and that you obviously know) and look elsewhere, till it hits you.

Murad ji
Even though I always felt that you are a rationalist but the way you are going out of your way to run down other beliefs, I realise that perhaps Kaalchakra ji is right and you have an agenda.
May be next time you write an Article on Myth of Gabriel bringing down exclusive message of Allah to Mr. Muhammad or myth of Mr. Muhammad going on supersonic joy ride on a horse to meet Allah and have a tour of Heaven. Actually there are many similar incidents/myths in The Holy Book containing Allah's last message which can be taken up for this purpose.
Regards

If Murad bhai is not an Islamist, then it is hard to see why he doesn't understand the utter triteness of his 'message.'

So many people aleady KNOW that religious myths are just myths - not facts. Perhaps chaltahai can educate him on that.

This obsession with attacking the core myths of all other religions while proclaiming love for 'founders of all religions' and that Islam is misunderstood is absolutely weird, for a supposed breaker of all myths and rationalist.

Baig saheb, you are truly a destroyer of all myths. What myth are you destroying next - the one about someone producing custom-made revelations from God, what he needed and when he needed them?

Murad bhai, I have thoroughly read those articles, and have understood them. It's also not a matter of shooting the messenger, but examining what your basic message is.

Agreed, many Muslims will definitely argue that you do not follow Islam. But that is true of or for any Muslim.

------------------

May be you do not realize it but your approach is ideally suited to push the Islamist agenda. It is designed to protect Islam while you actively seek to pull down the bases of other religions.

Here is how it works. Islam has a myriad means of protecting itself fully. Some of them are -

1. Separating itself fully from (any negative actions and consequences in) the real world or from (any negative actions of and consequences for) its practioners. We have never seen you question Islam itself.

2. Propagating a 'love' for its founder, Prophet Muhammad, and hence inevitably, for his 'message' (whatever one may assume it to be, but it is invariably Islam).

That immediately knocks out Christianity, because Christianity not only relies on 'love' for its founder but also on assigning certain divinity to Jesus Christ.

And it immediately takes Hinduism our of reckoning since Hinduism has no 'founder.'

In essence, your views are no different at all from that of any traditional or non-traditional Muslim who believes that Islam has been 'hijacked,' and that 'original' Islam was very different than what it is today or what it has always been (except in the time of the Prophet).

That is perfectly fine, but you have devoted all your life to attacking other religions, while still being known, by many Indians, as a secularist and liberal.

That is kind of sad.

Re: # 12

"I love the founders of all faiths.."

what the hell you mean by that??

And who are you to think that what you know about these founders is correct and what the 'priests' know is false?

How can you disparage the traditional understanding within religious traditions and claim them to be 'false' and claim your own understanding as superior?

You arrogantly think that those who recounted about christ in the new Testament "created religions to enslave the masses" without any basis . You are thousands of years removed from those so called "founders" , yet you arrogantly think you know what they preached correctly.??

Lahol!! You do not even deserve the jahannum.

May I also request all of you to please stick to the subject. We are trying to examine a very old and rather cold trail about Jesus and the evolution of Christianity that has very little to do with Islam or Hinduism. So lets examine whatever we know about Christianity without any prejudices.

Please also do not try that old ploy of trying to shoot the messenge. Do please be objective and comment on the message without religious or other prejudices.

Re: # 2

Pl read my article on the hijacking of Islam on Chowk before making a statement like that. You will see from the several interacts that there were many who would completely disown me as any form of Islamiat.

And, if you read my article on `faith and religion' on Chowk I think you will be in no doubt that I am neither an islamist or believer in any religion.

I love the founders of all faiths but loathe the professional priests who created religions to enslave the masses.

Pl do me a favour and read these before calling me names.

"shedding tears during that horrible recounting of the tale of hate........"

Could you please clarify? What do you mean?

"Early Christianity, in the Jewish tradition, had also been bitterly opposed to pagan gods and their idols or `graven images’ but quickly succumbed to the appeal of idols so Catholics today worship the idols and portraits of over ten thousand saints."

Again a nonsense propaganda that first tries to create a negative image of pagans and then trying to prove that Christians follow "idolatory" in creating icons and images of Lord Jesus.

What is this nonsense propaganda bout the "appeal of idols" by the way, Mr. Murda??

Re: # 6

I know from my Shia friends how this Islamist does a true randi rona act of shedding tears during that horrible recounting of the tale of hate........

How can these Islamists come up with nonsense about Christ who was a true prophet and a saint.

It is time these Islamists stop abusing other faiths.

Re: # 6
Kal...
who misunderstood islam? Mo, the 7th century trader-cum-raider? If you follow his activities, there is no scope of misunderstanding; 24 carat barbarism....murad beg etc. , who live in civilised env. has to bluff to look islam decent. anyhow it does not work. go to the caves of pak-afg border...they have no confusion and no interpretation problem of what mo had preached and what shoul they do when you take food on arabic month of ramadan (before sunset)....

Laddu...
I have also seen this kind of story in BBC programs....
Buddha was atheist and never believed in miracle/magic,god, heaven etc? may be his kshatriya background helped him a lot to avoid dealing with god etc....he was firm believer of re-incarnation. Lot of people think that way, to explain some events. Ramkrishna's gospels were also like that (you take repeated births in different form until you die without keeping anything in mind).
...but then, how come it(christianity) turned into stupidity and fanaticism? much depends upon place and people...ancient brahmins never exposed vedas to the non-brahmins to avoid distortion....buddha should have kept some pre-conditions for preaching buddhism...
if you try to preach spirituality and knowledge to the beduines, it will simply fail. Mo, was perceft to deal with stupid people. but he had used it to commit gang crime....

No, laddu, Murad does not say Mashallah at any of that.

He simply says that Islam has been 'misunderstood' and 'hijacked.'

And that others (non-Muslims) have stupid religions.

Re: # 2

I agree, Murad is turning into a deceptive Islamist who aims at calling other's matters of faith as superstitions- while at the same time saying Mashallah at stories about the coming of Mahndi to kill all the non-muslim unbelievers and crying at Moharram on listening to horrible randi-ronas as some sort of "spiritually elevating practice".

Re: # 3

I agree- for an Islamist some one else's faith is "superstition" and "gobble dock stories" but his own hallucinating prophet on whose chest wings are pressed by some Abrahmic angel and who comes up with fantastic revelations about loots, slaughters, murders and other perversity is just amazing.

An Islamist understanding of Jesus is contrary to a practicing christian's understanding. The two are NOT the same. Even Allah is not same as the GOD of Jesus.

When an Islamist speaks nonsense about christ he is just trying to tell christians that they are under the mistaken identity about christ - especially the fact about resurrection.

However, for a momeen splitting of moon by Mohammad or his travels on Buraq to 10 heavens is a true miracle - but the fact about resurrection of christ is a falsity!!

There has also been no myth


I bet murad baig wouldn't have called it a myth if he was discussing mohammed...

"Jesus was elevated from a mortal human..."

Unfortunately, we don't have enough Christians here to disccus that with you..

Murad, Jesus was no more or no less a mortal human than Prophet Muhammad, working under some psychic conditions, put together the Quran using some very well-established ideas of the place and the time, with nothing divine about the book.

These are matters of faith.

Murad, it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish you from a dishonest Islamist fanatic. At least be open about it.

So let's bring in Hinduism here.....


The two first teachers of Budhdha were Hindus ascetic Allara and Udaka. These were the people who taught Budhdha initial Gyan Yoga, or Meditation etc. These were in the same tradition as so many Unknown Gurus/sages who wrote Upanishads. And then later the desciples of Budhdha were again Brahmins who compiled initial texts.

So unfortunately, a naturally evolving religion Hinduism which created Buddhism was evolving naturally till it went to middle east in half hearted way, then it created Christianity, either through Theravada or through appolonious and then from this Christianity Islam was created.


Buddha knowing well what Hindu ascetism is (meditation, god realization, Tapasya, Sadhna), wanted to dilute it for common man as he didn't want people to do the hardwork he did; so he asked people to adopt middle path. His middle path was thoughtful, simplified version of Hinduism (infact initially too simplified version which later got complicated when Budhdhism started taking shape of organized religion).

In case of Christianiy what came to Christianity was half baked, there was no Budhdha who was simplifying things deliberately in proper manner. And then when Islam got things from Christianiy, there was another half baked, half knwoledge transfer.


====
Somebody said so well, "little knwoledge is a dangerous thing":-)

But all knowledge is little if you stop learning???, and that is what aggravated problem for Islam and Christianity; they were first based on little knwoledge and then they didn't let themselves evolve.


What Budhdha proved was that there was no need of religion (middlepath was basically to say so, neither you need to worry about God, nor hard-core ascetism, nor extreme knowledge/intellect, nor extreme material wealth, almost noting, except truthful life).