Welcome to Gaia! ::

...in Islam. I was interested in seeing how many of us here know that?

killing yourself is a major sin. but then killing innocent people with a bomb as well? It is incredibly strange to me that supposedly devout Muslims can commit such evil sins. o.o

I've read the first 50so pages of the Qu'ran and parts of it I thought, "Oh, I guess I can see why Islamic Fundamentalists use this as an excuse," and other parts made me think, "WTF?! This is the opposite of what they're saying!!"

So basically it's the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, and Holocaust all over again, but with the Qu'ran instead of the Bible.

Indeed. And it is also important to keep in mind that much is lost (or twisted) in translation. Whenever you read something that is not in the initial language it was created in there will always be some shifts. Even if you read things in the same language they were originally created in, there are shifts. Subtle meanings of words become lost in translation and even in just a generation using the same language. That's why it is important to keep in mind the era something was written so that changing meanings of words can be tracked with more precision.

I, for one, am bucking to start my own crusade based on the writings of Christopher Moore.

According to the Prophet Moore, we shall march on the lair of the vampire and encase it in a permanent confining statue made of bronze electroplating - I have interpreted this to mean people must send me shiny objects to placate the wrath of the hunter within.

Get on it, people! Or you're next! domokun

I was watching a program on... oh darn... a muslim country, and they were talking about how it used to be communist, and they showed pictures of what it was like back then, with women holding jobs and wearing skirts and pants and such.
When the U.S. was fighting its war against communism, it supported a capitalist dictatorship.
Now the people don't even remember what it was like, and it is all down on women again.
Anyway, they were talking to a young man who was talking about how women aught to be treated, and I guess most people do not or cannot read the koran, so they listen to what leaders tell them it says, which is often complete bull(Which was the case here).
It displeases me that the people are being manipulated through faith. But it has happened before and will happen again. It has definitely happened in Christianity, and Hinduism, and Judaism, any religion that has been established for a significant amount of time.

It isn't the faith. It is the faithless who manipulate those with faith.

I heard a story about the Jews once; I don't remember the whole story because it's been a long time, so forgive me if I'm wrong. The Jews were being attacked and they couldn't escape, so instead of being murdered by their attackers, they killed each other. They couldn't kill themselves because it was against their religion, but the slaughtered each other until there was only one man left, and he got away. When the their enemies finally broke into where the Jews had been hiding, all they found was a hundred bodies.

I don't understand it either. I don't see how killing yourself could be a greater sin than killing another. In that story, they killed each other rather that kill themselves. And, in the end, they pretty much did kill themselves. In my mind, letting yourself be murdered by your family is the same as doing it yourself. Don't most relgions teach to be kind to others and to treat others as you would want to be treated? If you hurt yourself, you don't physically hurt anyone else. If you want to leave this world, then you should have the right to leave it. It's your life, after all, even if you don't appreciate the fact that you're alive.

you did choose you wouldn't be here had you not wanted to be. everyone whos here wanted to come to learn that which he who created everything has designed for you to learn in the best way possible. how you learn these lessons is up to you.