Any Muslims here?

Well, are there?

Yes?

I'm a Muslim. Why are you asking?

I´m also muslim.

I want to know something. Just pure interest.

There are several fractions of Christianity, so i assume there are several fractions of Muslims aswell?

Some Christians consider Science to be Devils work and believe NOTHING science tells us, while others do. Some believe only the Bible is right while others say Maybe God might have pushed into the directions science tells us.

My question is, what do muslims believe? Do you believe in sciennce and if so, how do the contradictions to the Quran make you feel? And if not, how do you explain the things science has proven to be right?

Yeah, there are several (may say even a lot of) fractions (directions) in Islam as well.
We believe in one God (Allah) and all his prophets (Muhammad (s.a.a.w.) and all prophets before him and that all of them were human being as we are).
We believe in all Holly books (Quran an all books which were before it). We also believe in science, our religion tells us, to learn as much as possible.
But to learn not only science, but everything you can (which isn't sin of course), Islam says that religion is science and science is a religion as well.
About things which are proven by science, there are a lot of thing which were mentioned long time ago in Quran, are proved by science nowadays.
For example:





This was taken from:
Miracle of The Quran on Seas and Rivers
As you can see, there is no much dispute between Islam and science.

Yes, there are different factions of the Islamic religion. The two biggest denominations of Islam are Shia Islam and Sunni Islam, although there are a few minor ones and of course there are some non-denominational Muslims out there that I don't know much about. There varying degrees of Muslims, just like all other religions, too; i.e. there are both radical Muslims and moderate Muslims. As far as I know, all of the Muslims on this forum are moderate. (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Also as just a note (in reply to your assertion that science and religion contradict each other), it's always been my understanding that science and religion don't conflict as much as people think they do. On the contrary, science is simply a shared understanding of what humanity truly knows about the universe and religion is the grounded understanding that we have all decided for ourselves that allows us to fill in the real mysteries of the universe. The former (science) is therefore built on the latter (religion). It is also my understanding that (macro) evolution is not fact, since it doesn't have enough evidence to back itself up to be considered such. As it is, it's just the adopted belief of most modern scientists today.

For the record, I myself *do* believe in evolution to a certain point. There's no denying things like natural selection and micro evolution, in fact we have a lot of evidence and centuries of research that support those two things. They don't conflict with any creationist belief, so most Christians are actually happy to understand and believe these things. However, right now we don't have enough evidence for macro evolution to be considered fact. The little evidence we have uncovered so far can really go both ways depending upon your own base understanding, so in it's current state macro evolution doesn't prove any creation-based religion right or wrong.

Actually, and this is a tangent, but the supporters of evolution today still don't have much information as to how a creature could actually gain DNA information over time. The most popular idea so far is that the DNA of a creature will change when subjected to certain kinds of radiation, but we've never witnessed this in the real world and all of our studies so far have concluded that mutation of a creature's DNA will only result in lost information.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Yes, there are multiple factions of Islam, just like Christianity.

(I had some reservations about posting this. I really don't want to start any off-topic arguments, I don't have time for that. But if anyone wants to say anything to me that does NOT regard Islam, feel free to do so in another thread.)

Just curious. I always wondered how much Christian and Muslim belief differ, e.g. what's your highest commandments?

Here you go bro:
The Ten Commandments

Where do you place them? In the bible the 10 commandments are in the old testament, while Jesus sais in the new one that there are two more important ones: love your next and love god.

Those two "new" commandments are actually in the Old Testament, too:

Deut. 6:5
"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Lev. 19:18
"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."

yeah, but they're not placed above the 10 commandments there afaik.

Rather than commandments there are The "Five Pillars of Islam" and "The 6 Articles of Faith"

The Five Pillars are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Pillars_of_Islam

The Six Articles of Faith are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_(concept)
1st one is same as one of the Pillars, accepting that there is only one God.
2nd faith in Angels
3nd faith in 4 holy books
4th faith in his messengers
5th faith in the judgement day and afterlife
6th faith in fate (fate is a very interesting and broad concept in Islam)

Denying one of this articles means your faith is not complete. i.e. Believeing in all articles but denying Jesus, or any part of the Quran means your faith is not complete.

A lot of events in the Quran are similiar to some events in other books to some degree.

In core, since they are all coming from the same God as muslims believe, all religions are same. Before being modified/altered by man, the Bible was God's word. Main difference between Islam and Christianity today, is the understanding and attributes of the God* and Jesus.


*:(Allah is the arabic word for God)

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Also about science/religion conflict:
Islam encourages studying the universe in all aspects. In fact it is considered as a prayer to study science under certain circumtances.

This science/religion can't be together thing comes from the days when the Church did not want to lose their power. They tried to keep people away from science, leaving them uneducated and easier to control.

What is the oldest thing recorded by the Koran? E.g. whom/when are the commandments given?

What I find interesting is that from what you said/what I read from your links (which is very little, mind you), love doesn't seem to be a central aspect?
Example:
you shall not kill - except in the course of justice (Koran).
vs
you shall not kill (Bible).
I know that the old testament is extremely brutal in some parts. The thing is, though, that to my understanding, the two commandments given by Jesus are the central aspect of Christianity. Is there such an equivalence of the two "central" commandments I mentioned?

But to get those you first need to talk to Thor in Nordia Village. He'll give you the quest to gather 6 Golden Calfs by slaying Elder Pigs and rewards you with the repair hammer. Bring the hammer to Poseidon in Atlantis City, and he'll fix the five broken pillars for you. As for the Articles of Faith; find Flying-with-birds south of Bison Plains if you reach lvl 20, help him defeat the firedragon sieges and his reward will be the Articles of Faith.

Actually, justice is also a large theme in the Bible. The reason God had to sacrifice Jesus Christ rather than just forgiving and forgetting man's trespasses right away was because despite His infinite love, God also had to be infinitely just. The price for sin had to be paid, so He took it wholeheartedly for us, so that love and justice could prevail.

love is part of faith, though you can be emo and accept there is only one god but not love him??? Note that i am no expert in islam and nor in english language.

As i said earlier understanding of God and attributes of God are different in Islam. God is both to be feared and loved, just like your mother/father. God is most merciful and the most just. There is a essential concept of love for god, but it's not really easy to explain before explaning alot of other stuff. If you read Quran from start to finish,(i.e. from German translation, preferably one with additional explanation, though since this explanations written by other people, they are not Quran itself, they are interpretions. They help to understand though.)

Also the main misconceptions about islam:
http://islam.about.com/od/commonmisconceptions/tp/myths.htm

About price for people's sin, and Jesus paying for them is not valid in Quran. If the story of Jesus was a movie without any sound/narration, they would look almost same in Bible and Quran version, but they are different in a lot of parts. People betraying him, his death, him being with god now, and that he will return parts are same.


Everyone's sin is for themselves. Also children do not get born with sin, they are pure and without any sin.

The definition of justice is very broad. Justice a few hundred years ago can't be interpreted as the justice we have today.

We live in a world where every country has its own way of defining justice, which you are to follow, where you can't / are not allowed to take justice in your own hands.
Doing so is forbidden in islam since you would break the rules in the system you promised to follow, since we have abliged to live under those rules which have been set.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong

On the contrary, we are instructed that if we truly love God for his sacrifice, we will render utmost respect, love, and obedience toward him, in accordance with the principles given in both the New Testament and Old Testament. As it is written in James 2:18:
"But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."
And James 2:20:
"But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?"
Good works should be a natural consequence of our faith. Nonetheless, they are not the reason for our salvation: our salvation through Christ is not earned or bought through good works, but made in faith and expounded through works.

EDIT: When I made this post, I hadn't seen the last two, so I'm making a response to this statement:


Indeed, the sins of the father do not pass to the son, but the consequences of the father's sin may inflict the son. For example: if God destroys a man for his sin, his family is not to blame for the sin, but they will still suffer his loss. An entire family might perish because of the sin of one man in the family. In the same way, when Adam betrays God in Genesis, man as an entire race is burdened with the weight of death. The weight of sin is inescapable to all men simply because they are the offspring of the first man, Adam. Consequently, man is bound to sin until he accepts God's forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice.

So what would you describe as the largest difference?

I think, biggest difference is, that Islam is the only religion, where we have one God.

Judaism and Christianity also have this one God, not several ones. People of different faith often misunderstand the Trinity in Christianity (Holy Spirit, father, son). Those are not several gods!

Um, nope.

The Holy Trinity may confuse some people and make them think that Chirstians serve three gods, or maybe one sometimes, or something silly like that. But it works like this: Jesus, The Holy Spirit, and God the Father (Body, Spirit, and Mind) are all one piece of a greater whole. Think of each piece as a body part: the arm isn't a leg, and the leg isn't a head; they are all indeed separate and distinct parts, but together they make up a complete body that is one.

In Christianity you are saying that Jesus is a God having become human.
And in Christianity you pray to Jesus, as if he is a God. Or, am I wrong?
Christianity Wiki
As I live in Christianity country, I ask people about this a lot of times.
They say that there are two Gods, one on Earth (Jesus), second one in Heaven.
Edit: Yeah Redeemer, you may be right, I'm not going to argue.
But could someone tell me, why God needs a son?
In life, we need son to continue our family (genus).
Does God need to continue his genus like this? I'm just curious.

No, God gave his own son (and therefore himself) and sacrificed him for mankind (and therefore himself). This has several implications:

1. No more immolation by the people as in the old testament
2. God gives everything (= himself) for us
3. We are free of sin through this sacrifice
You can think of more things, probably.

I think it is quite logical (not natural, though) that God would come to earth in a mortal body. There is simply no higher sign or gift he could have sent us. Although at that time crucifixion were quite common and I guess people might have suffered more in other circumstances (which I don't want to think about) the idea is unsurpassable: God dying so that we can be near to him again.

All the duality in the scripture might seem weird (stuff like: noone comes to God than through me - Jesus) is consistent if you think of it in the way Reedemer has mentioned. Obviously it makes sense if God and Jesus are the same entity. Also, this means that through him we already have been forgiven all sin and nothing we can do on our end could have achieved that same thing.
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Do Muslims pray to Mohammed?

In Islam we pray only to Allah. We do not pray for prophets, as they are human being as we are.

What he is trying to say is, in Islam the God and the Jesus are two separate entities. Jesus was only human but gifted and blessed by God and was His prophet.

Although in English we refer God as "He", in Islam God and angels does not have a gender.

Also God is not Jesus' father, Jesus was a blessing to the virgin Miriam(Maria). Miriam gave birth to Jesus without any father. This is counted as one of the many miracles of Jesus.

Thank you Quadraxas, I know that my English is sucks

That is the core difference between Islam and Christianity. Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnated, and that he should therefore be worshiped as God. Muslims believe that Jesus was only a prophet who foretold the coming of Muhammad. According to Islam, Jesus is not God at all, but a completely different person entirely.

So you believe that Jesus was a prophet? That is similar to what Jews believe, isn't it?

I don't really know much about what Jews believe in. I know that they rejected Muhammad (s.a.a.w) as a Prophet only cause his nation was Arabic. In they Holly book, was mentioned that there will be one more Prophet (Muhammad (s.a.a.w)), but after Prophet came, they rejected him and rewrote that part in they Holly book. In Islam we believe in all Prophets (Jesus as well) before Muhammad (s.a.a.w) and he is the last Prophet.

This is a good article that explains Judaism's view of Jesus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism%27s_view_of_Jesus

The Jews have only parts of the old testament. The "one more prophet" who is mentioned there is Johannes (correct me if I'm wrong here), although there were many prophets before him - I don't know how far Jews accept them.
The point is that Jews think the Messiah is still to come.
Do Muslims also wait for a Messiah? (Not necessarily by the same name, but the same idea)?

As I've already said, Muhammad (s.a.a.w.) is the last Prophet.
But when the end of the world will come, Jesus (Issa) will appear.

So he will rise up from the dead?
How do you imagine afterlife?

It won't be like a zombie out-of-grave thing.

Also in Quran says that they definately could not kill Jesus, instead God raised Him to His side. Jesus is named as "Son of Miriam(Maria) Isa(Jesus) Messiah" in a verse in Quran. And as 3run said he will appear before the Judgement day.

There are different guesses about that, like some say not everyone may know that He has returned.

read up the ascension and second coming parts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam

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Afterlife:
When someone dies they do not directly go to Heaven or Hell, there is a phase between this world and afterlife.
At the judgement day, Israfil(Archangel Raphael) will blow a horn (Sur), a blast of truth, that will signal the begining of the judgement day. On a second blow every soul from the begining of the time will be gathered and questioned about their deeds they did on their life. Hell and Heaven have different levels. Wikipedia is accurate and mostly relies on Quran, you can read up details there or directly from Quran.

Just, note that some sects of Islam like Ismailism (Hashashiyyin - Assassins) are considered aberrant.

Thanks a lot, this was most enlightening =). I'll come back if I have more questions.

Quran admits that Jesus made miracles,that he was generated by a virgin etc while Mohammed who is supposed to be the main prophet was a just normal person
Does it make sense ?

What are you trying to say by that?

I guess he wants to know why the "main focus" lies on Mohammed and not on Jesus although Jesus was way cooler.

He was just a normal person, but he also made miracles. And what is so bad at being a normal person? Why does everything have to be magic?

@ Sid: Because Mohammed was the last prophet who admited the "new" religion.

I could tell alot of things, but my english isn´t that well.

Its probably a psychological thing, someone who is special needs special abilities.

It wasn't my question btw, I just rephrased the question from AlbertoT.

Yes, sorry ^^

As alibaba said, main focus lies on Muhammad (s.a.a.w), cause he was the last Prophet who gave us a new religion. Islam doesn't separate Prophets via religions and there are no "cooler" Prophets for us, they all Messengers of Allah, and they all same for us, with only one difference, that Muhammad (s.a.a.w.) gave us our religion. And he also had special abilities, he gave us Quran, the book which couldn't be written by human being. To see that, you just need to read it.

I read a huge part of the Quran (just like I read the bible) and I have to say that I don't see why it couldn't be written by a human being (although I must admit that its much cleaner written than the bible).

Please remark that this is just my opinion and I don't want to offend anyone with it, I have no deeper relation to any religion (although they are all extremely fascinating) and I really don't want to discuss these things because religion is such a subjective topic that its almost impossible to discuss it objectively.

I have never heard of miracles made by Mohammed
Can you mention one or two ?
Did I say it is something bad ?

Simply,in opinion it makes little sense to assume that the main prophet was more or less a normal person while a minor prophet was a sort of, as you said yourself,magician

Hoewever if you think that I am trying to prove the superiority of Jesus over Mohammed
Dont worry, the direct opposite

I am not a religiuos guy
In my opinion the explanation is the following

Middle east was at the top of civilization at the time
It was probably hard to make people believe in magic
Much easier in the wild Europe
In an advanced society religion must get rid of such stuff and to focus on the spiritual aspects,for example forbiding all the God's human like rappresentation

That number-thingy I don't get neither. Archimedes calculated more difficult things thousands of years before the Quran was written.

Sid, as an example for what I said (that it couldn't be written by human being), you can take the growth of the fetus in the womb, which is described in Quran a long time ago, before it was studied by science. I also want to separate difference between Messengers and Prophets. Messengers, gave us new Holly books and religions, example Jesus, Muhammad (s.a.a.w), but Prophets are just blessed by God people, example Salаmon. There were a lot of Prophets sent to us, but only few Messengers.

@AlbertoT
Don´t worry, it deosn´t feel offended i also didn´t want to offend you

One miracle for example is where he cuts the moon into 2 parts.

Anothere is where mohammed moves a tree.

But sadly all people who sweared that time to be a muslim, when he makes a miracle, thought that he was a magician.

Nowadays islam looks bad because of american policies in Afghanistan where she destroyed a whole civilised nation amd drag them to stone age for wining the cold war with soviet union and to achieve that she created islamist extrimists (later called terorists) and praised them as heroes at the time as you can see in Rambo3 movie. And after destroying the soviet union by the hands of Afghans she dumped them and left the country in ruins and civil war. Alqaeda and taliban all emerged from there.

Also as already noted, the miracles were not doing of Jesus himself, it was with god's permission. Mohammed also has miracles such as His ascension.

Also all prophets generally have abilities that are popular at their times. David could render iron with his hands, Jesus had magic.

I found this a very interesting and enlightening thread - thanks for posting and the civil discussion.