Nice colours.

There's a mistake in the religeon flow chart at the "get an idea" stage. Muslims believe true religeon is based on Divine revelation rather than speculation on the Divine.

Nice chart to base your beliefs on...

Faith on that chart is not always the same thing as Islam.

A lot of people have struggled with science and other religions. When they see another religion fall short, they make the false conclusion that all religions are incompatible.

/Can't believe I gave a serious reply...

You look at the message, the history. Make a judgement call.

If you see truth in it, maybe it is true.

Allah (swt) gave us a mind, intellect. We have not been told to ignore this valuable tool, but to use it.

A lot of people these days have what I call "default answers" to questions on religion and faith - they have heard some cool sounding quote and use it as their answer without really giving it much thought.

That pic also ignores "fact". 1 + 1 = 2. No amount of scientific refining will change that. that is part of the "keep idea forever" stage. Is that faith?

Salaam

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How does an individual take an old collection of ideas and justify revering them above all overs?

This was answered by You

But as for this:

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...Divine revelation which occurred many years ago in unknowable circumstances.

In Islam we have rigourous sciences of transmission and histories of the transmitters to verify the texts/doctrines/rulings we inherit. The letter of the law is traced back to the to the jurist and the spirit is traced back to the Messenger of God SAW.

I'd just like to add that for Muslims, intellect may be the basis or beginnings of faith. However, absolute trust in the truthfulness and timeless perfection of the Messenger of God SAW is the reality of Islamic faith and the basis of our faith being accepted by God SWT.

My coming to Islam has been more like the diagram on the left than the right. I feel that doubt (self-doubt, doubt in what someone is telling me etc) is always important. All evidence that I have come across has, if anything, stregnthened my belief that Islam is the Truth.

But now that I believe that the Qur'an is the word of Allah (swt), should I stop challenging myself? I disagree with this strongly. Of course there are some questions to which there is no satisactory answer available (e.g. WHY create the dinosaurs only to wipe them out?) but as long as these do not conflict with my belief in Islam then they don't really strengthen or weaken my faith.

If something DOES come up that I feel proves Islam false, I guess I have no option but to leave Islam. I mean, what would be the point following a way of life that you know is based on a falsehood?

Muslims believe there have also been such "revolutions" in religion - A new messenger was sent which gave an updated message.

Before the arrival of the final prophet (saw), every community has been sent a messenger.

PS about that math question, 1 + 1 = 2. It does and always will, not matter what someone else says. 1.00001 + 0.99999999 may equal something else, but 1 + 1 = 2.

First equation:
0.6+0.7=1.3

Second equation
1.3+1.4+2.7

If you are using something that is very inaccurate to measure the numbers, you may not read decimal places and 'round' the numbers to their nearest integers. Therefore they would read:

First equation:
1+1=1

Second equation
1+1=3

I WIN!!

Ya'qub, the reason that doesn't work is that if you rounded down the decimals in the sum, they would amount to 2 either way. If you were being scientific you would also mention that you had rounded down the decimals for an approximate answer.

Faith can be inherited, ie taught, and it can also result from personal experience that isn't testable and scientific. I might observe that I have always been in a communion with a part of myself that I don't understand, and that I don't understand the nature and substance of my perceptions even if it can be shown how they result from brain activity. My precise thoughts are by nature apparent only to myself, and external observations of me could not recreate them. I might also conclude, by way of a personal choice, that rather than let all that crazy inner dialogue go to waste, I will consider that it is a reflection of the process of divine judgement, and I would acknowledge an underlying agnosticism that can only be healthy if I have any commitment to truth.

Faith and science then are quite different things. Science is a process of theorising, testing and creating, whereas faith is a matter of choice to presume a spiritual element in both the known and the unknown. Only a cynic would insist that because scholars have laboured under the improper and inaccurate contentions of the past, eg the world is a flat body at the centre of the universe, those contentions are enshrined in faith, and only a fool would take literally and permanently every statement of fact and every instruction in the holy books. There are religious dogmatists who might appear stupid, just as there are dogmatic atheists who could not prove their assumptions either, and either sort would make a useful straw man.

Not in my case, but I'm not Muslim, I'm Jewish. In Jewish tradition, including Orthodox tradition, there have always been both rigid and liberal schools of thought. Generally liberal Hillel vs. strict Shamai, Maimonedes vs. Nachmanides etc. The stricter rabbis have often sought a monopoly, and they have had it within their own following, and excommunicated or otherwise shunned liberal "radical" scholars, but philosophical interpretation is also integral regardless.

I take my cue on religion and science from Norman Lamm, who in turn cites many scholars. His take is that religion and science occupy distinct realms, and do not strive for the same type of truth. One is a matter of spiritual fulfilment while the other deals with empirically demonstrable tests, apparent facts. So I can contextualise. In Islam many Sufis and possibly other schools have also sought a broader understanding of the world and a spiritual connection distinct from rigid and widely understood fact. So you can go ahead and discredit whatever aspects of Torah you like, and I will incorporate that into my understanding of things, but to seriously rock my boat you would have to demonstrate that the sages were liars and people of ill-intent, not that their ideas were either inaccurate or only temporarily applicable.

You seem to be fairly smug about things. Whereas I doubt there is a single logical or scientific idea you might have that I would wish to contest, I can certainly theorise as to the existence of a parallel and Godly realm of which you know nothing. Why shouldn't I? It is no more relevant to science than my favourite colour, or my preferred code of standards and ethics, roughly equivalent to the golden rule. Do you have a code of ethics? Why not be a nihilist? Why value life at all, if you have no sense of existence for a greater cause?

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Now this is very interesting. What would it take to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a religion is false? With a scientific idea it's quite easy to test/retest etc, but religion is very different.

The principal of Falsification (i.e. Popper's Philosophy of Science) is laid-down in the Qur'an.

If we find one verse which contradicts either another part of the Qur'an or something that is proven by Science, then we discredit the whole thing.

Chapter 4 Verse 82: "Will they not, then, try to understand this Qur’an? Had it issued from any but God, they would surely have found in it many a contradiction!"

If there is JUST ONE mistake, then it proves that NONE of it is from God.

Christians and Jews don't have this problem (is it a problem?), because they do not believe that the Bible or Torah is free from corruption (or so I think); but it is a fundamental belief in Islam that the Quran has not been changed since it came down to Muhammad (pbuh).

"Ya'qub" wrote:

Christians and Jews don't have this problem (is it a problem?), because they do not believe that the Bible or Torah is free from corruption (or so I think)

Very wrong Ya'qub.

But historians have pretty much proved that they have been changed! But even non-Muslim historians accept that, even if the Qur'an is not the unchanged Word of God, it is unquestionably the unchanged word of Muhammad (pbuh).

I think they agree with errors due to translation, but not in actual spirit. As with all translations there is a little of the translators interpretation that will come though, which may not be the best interpretation.

But followers of such faiths will have to confirm - that is my understanding.

The Torah was written in Hebrew and the Jewish consensus has always been it remains unchanged. Translations are obviously not the same thing. Stop fantasising. If you want me to find scholars who dispute the authenticity of the Qur'an I'm sure that's also quite possible. As for my own opinions, I keep them to myself, but I had to correct you on the Jewish understanding.

May be possible, but they would not be considered Muslim by the mainstream community.

I was not aware of that about the Torah. I had assumed it was written in some other language, as the New Testament is purported to have been and then translated into its current form.

Sorry if I offended you. It is just all my Jewish friends have told me this.

Maybe I misunderstood, and they meant transmission/translation errors instead.

There aren't any 3000 year old Torahs available so its impossible to check.

lol

No way dude (and I'm not offended). If they're [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/subdivisions/reform_1.sh... (Reform and Liberal) Jews[/url] - to which I don't object - they're observing a relatively recent and heavily assimilated brand of Judaism that any Orthodox scholar will find highly objectionable. They don't observe laws to the same level of stringency and the movement was founded just 200 years ago. If you have any Orthodox Jewish friends ask them what any Orthodox rabbi worth his salt will say. I don't deride Progressive Judaism, and I even entertain my sympathies (bear in mind that I have sympathies also for agnosticism and atheism, that's just me), but it is no exaggeration to say it is a type of observance that to an Orthodox observer looks like no observance at all.

The 2,000 year old Orthodox belief, from which Reform Judaism sought "to emancipate itself", is that every letter, highly decorated, in the Torah was transcribed numerous times within each lifetime, every drop of ink drawn out perfectly, and that the Torah is totally unabrogated. An imperfectly rendered Torah is not Kosher and either it has to be buried or if possible an incorrect rendering must be scratched out and corrected.

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Yaqub, maybe this is totally off the point. But can you briefly tell us your "story"?
And even some non-Muslims believe that Islam is a fairly scientific religion, it confirms or is confirmed by a lot of the established science, such as the Earth being an ostrich egg shape. No established science contradicts Islam.

"Courage" wrote:

Yaqub, maybe this is totally off the point. But can you briefly tell us your "story"?

It can be found [url=http://therevival.eu/node/3056]here[/url] (about two thirds of the way down).

I know, but if I didn't want to know just a little bit more, I wouldn't've asked would I?

OK, there is a different version [url=http://www.steps2allah.org/public/pmwiki.php/Main/Stories#Yaqub]here[/url].

Plus many of my friends' stories.

Thanks, mate, that's very enlightening. It seems strange that many people who're born Muslim seem to take it for granted.