For starters:
A given belief or cultural paradigm could become universally accepted.
The notion of a dominant or supreme group could be universally rejected.
Violent conflict could become universally rejected.
Enough influential people could at least be willing participants to a project for global reconciliation.
Is that a good thing? What does God have to say?
An aside: What is fairness? What is equality? What is peace? How do these aspirations relate to one another? Does a commitment to peace entail relinquishing all defence? What do we want?
Could this become a popular discussion or are our loyalties too strong, our worlds too narrow and isolated, our cultures too shallow?
Please make generous use of this thread for posting any thoughts regarding the future of humanity, problems we face and the value and nature of this discussion itself, with one caveat: be willing to come back and defend or discuss what you write.
Ya Ali Madaad
I think that was all wishful thinking.
No belief system can would ever be universally accepted.
There will always be a dominant groups or nation. The current one is the United Satans of America.
There will always be violence in name of spreading "freedom" and decmocracy.
There will always be influential people with unjust intenetions (Jewish lobby in Washington, and other neo-cons).
God knows everything. He promised victory to His believers over all Kaafirs. That is the end of the matter.
If you reject Allah, you will fail in this life and in the next life. On the day of judgement you will be thrown in the burning hot fire of hell.
Those who want to find in this life peace and harmony do so through fairness and justice. They have same standard for their opwn families as they do for others. Thats because God loves those who are just.
Ayatollah rightly named America as "Great Satan".
www.presstv.ir
Salaam
That creaking sound you heard was the opening of one massive can of worms.
The following scene comes to mind:
In Terminator 2 John Connor asks: "We're not gonna make it, the human race I mean."
The Terminator replies: "Its in your nature to destroy yourselves."
Important question then:
"Can we ever be one big happy family?"
I personally don't think athiests can ever have one big happy global family, thats not to say they can't have the intentions and determination...
Explain? Well if you're really interested:
We have good qualities in our character and bad ones too. Greed, lust, hubris are just some of the bad ones. The exercising of the positive qualities can make one big happy family, the exercising of the negative ones cannot.
It seems simple, just one [b]law[/b]: be good and don't be bad.
In my opinion, the problem is that for the big happy family to be realised at least one law is required (the one mentioned above). The problem is law (more specifically, obediance to it).
[u][size=18]The common situation[/size][/u]
People are fine with laws when they are in their favour and correlate with their desire but when there is conflict, there is the possibility that one may break the law. Even if one intends to obey the law, there are negative characteristics within people that will fight such intentions.
In my opinion intention is the command that the luitenant relays to the troops regarding what action to carry out; but desire is the basis for action. Desire dictates the instructions, that the genral will give to his luitenants.
What is desire? In my opinion desire is a sickness with promise of a cure, it is realising that one is lacking some happiness with the promise of gainning that happiness which is lacking. It is a union that has taken place in concept but not in reality.
Thus where ever the faculty of conceptualisiation is in man, there has been a joining of his-self with a seperate entity, without having joined in reality. (don't get me on "what is self/I ?")
Okay so thats desire, and despite the best of intentions you cannot fully control your power of conceptualisation ergo you cannot fully control your desires. Your desire to obey the law is going to come under fire from other desires, thats how life works.
Now when one is in the heat of conflicting desire one will eventually say "Why should I obey the law (I think one of the specialities of human beings is that 3-letter word: 'why')?" What is the value of it? The pay-off? The essence?
[u][size=18]The distinction[/size][/u]
At this stage there is a distinction between Theist and Atheist. I'm not saying every Theist is perfect, but there is a distinction. For the Atheist, ultimate law copmes from his-self. For the Theist, ultimate law is from God SWT.
For the athiest, The law then (its value, pay-off, essence etc)is characterised by his own combination of perfection and imperfection, his internal make up of virtue and vice. For the Theist, The law is characterised of the pure Perfection of God SWT, of Absolute Goodness of God SWT. This in my opinion gives the Theist the edge in his desires, an edge that the Atheist will lack.
On top of this, Theism is often accompanied by Divine guidance, thus if the general is not swayed by lowly desire he will give positive instructions to his luitenants and even those instructions will characterised by the Absolute Perfection of God SWT.
In conclusion, the Theist eventually becomes a conduit for God's Perfection. The troops establish a relationship with the Divine qualities. The Atheist (in my opinion) is a conduit for that Perfection of God SWT which he cannot control (his positive urgings) and is not a conduit for that Perfection of God SWT which reqwuires voluntarily cooperation (belief in God SWT is required). So the troops get a mix of pure and impure, and so do not have the [u]complete[/u] goodness of the Divine qualities.
If we can have a relationship with the Divine qualities and so become imbued with Angelic rather than demonic tendencies, we can all be one big happy global family, if we don't have that relationship (athiest and imperfect Theist alike) then it is unlikely (or impossible) that we can be one big happy, global, family.
As James Madison said: If men were angels, we would not need government. [the blessings of civility and beneficial law would already be realised in us]
Gentleness and kindness were never a part of anything except that it made it beautiful, and harshness was never a part of anything except that it made it ugly.
Through cheating, stealing, and lying, one may get required results but finally one becomes
Don't we all believe that Isa (as) will return to Earth to restore harmony, at which point there will be a Golden Age and everyone shall be Muslim?
Christians believe this to with a few differences (such as, err...maybe, the Crusifixes being smashed).
Jews believe this to be true (except the Saviour is not Isa (as) as well as other differences).
Don't most/all religions have this similar belief of a Messiah coming to Earth to finally achieve peace and harmony (presumably because most/all religions originally started out as pure Islam)?
Don't just do something! Stand there.
Dont we believe the crucifix is smashed also? and what is the jewish belief?
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane, by those who couldn't hear the music...
i meant that Christians DON'T believe the crucifixes will be smashed, seeing as its a metaphor for the crucifixion being false and all that...
I'm sure Joey will fill you in with the Jewish belief, but I thought it was basically the Messiah will come (although not named as Isa (as)) and reclaim the Holy Land for the Muslims...
err...I mean Jews.
Don't just do something! Stand there.
@ original post: won't/can't happen.
Lets assume that everyone become equal in faith, race etc etc.
There is still love and money. People have historically killed for both.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
Inshallah it will, yee have little faith.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane, by those who couldn't hear the music...
The idea is nice Joie....but far too idealistic.
Having read all the posts, what Dawud said pretty much makes sense as to why it cant happen
although it would be nice...
The Lover is ever drunk with love;
He is free, he is mad,
He dances with ecstasy and delight.
Caught by our own thoughts,
We worry about every little thing,
But once we get drunk on that love,
Whatever will be, will be.
ɐɥɐɥ
No, people will never be entirely straight thinking, but monumental grudges can be dropped, and that's as close to world peace as we can get. Come on, you know I'm no hippy, but here for instance we have an example where disputes don't spill over into outright animosity. Something like that is the model. What stands in the way?
btw Ya'qub, Jews don't believe in innate superiority. If a Jew doesn't keep to the commitments, he has no share in any prophesied legacy, and there is in Judaism a well-known and undisputed classification of non-Jews who are righteous. The prophesies speak of a great battle of good and evil, much as in Christianity and Islam, but I'm not interested in presuming that is imminent. [url=http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define%3Atikkun+olam&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&... Olam[/url] is the priority, and the point of this discussion.
Dawud rightly referred to a can of worms. But only when the Bnei Yisrael failed to collect exactly their portion of manna from heaven and no more, did it turn to worms.
so whats your guys belief in jesus?
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane, by those who couldn't hear the music...
We don't believe he was a prophet.
why not?
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane, by those who couldn't hear the music...
Heh. Short answer is the rabbis at the time were not convinced and declared him a heretic. Following the Roman conquest and the destruction of the temple Judea and Samaria were in some disarray and quite possibly Jesus was one of many rabbis trying to help. But I'm off out for the evening and that's a big subject. Meanwhile ask a Christian why he doesn't follow Mohammed or a Muslim why he doesn't follow Baha'ullah, or if you want to discuss it more fully please put this question on an Interfaith thread and I'll reply when I get a chance.
Maybe because he went against there beliefs therefor he was a threat which had to be eliminated?
Just a theory please do not take offence.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane, by those who couldn't hear the music...
It is a little offensive - first asking what we believe about him and then moving on to why he was killed, on this particular thread. Put these questions on an Interfaith thread. Back tomorrow.
Joey,
I was under the impression that Jews were awaiting a Messiah who would perform the 'cleansing' or 'purification' of the World (i.e. roughly what you mentioned in the original post), much in a similar way to how Christians and Muslims both are awaiting Prophet Isa (as) (Jesus), except in your version he is not named - Just that he will be descended from Prophet Dawud (as) (David).
Am I wrong in this understanding.
Don't just do something! Stand there.
Ya'qub - not on this thread please.
huh? My question is nothing to do with Fanzo, I was talking about the original topic!
suit yourself...
Don't just do something! Stand there.
Please if your going to use my name spell it right lol funzo
@Joey: im sorry for offending you.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane, by those who couldn't hear the music...
It isn't the same topic Ya'qub. On the one hand we're exploring questions of war and peace, and on the other we're looking at divergent beliefs and prophesies. I'm not saying this thread can't be comprehensive, but it would be a shame to lose sight of the subject, and those questions deserve an appropriate topic of their own. But you can challenge me on this point.
Irfan, no worries, I didn't take it as offensive because I know you weren't trying to do that.
It wasn't a challenge! It just that MY answer to what you originally asked ('Can you imagine world peace etc') is that Islam teaches me that when Isa (as) returns to Earth then he will defeat all the evil people and everyone shall live in harmony. And I was asking (not challenging!) that surely you believe something similar.
No matter. I will discuss this in another thread inshAllah.
Don't just do something! Stand there.
And I wasn't suggesting it was! Only saying that the exact point of view I had expressed could be challenged, which you just did quite effectively. The answer to that is that, yes, there are Jewish beliefs both in a day of judgement for each soul and in a messianic age for the world. It is imperative that we set ourselves to a purpose of bettering ourselves and the world, and that is especially the case if we have an eye on the end times.
Also, I adamantly oppose superstition regarding prophesies, and that is how I was taught, and it bothers me when I come across people of any religion, including rabbis and other religious leaders, who do not take this view that attesting to prophecies is stupid and destructive. I am studying at a very slow pace at the moment but I am reminded by this discussion to research the source for my understanding of how we treat prophecies. Certainly those prophecies made after Moses are not designed for us to rehash blandly in support of some political hunch or another.
Rather, we should be impelled to action and none of us, of any faith and none, intriguing except to bring light to the world and make it holy. Even atheists.
Something totally offtopic that I have pondered at some points - if something is prophecised, does that make it "right"? Or is it merely a statement of what will happen, without judgement of it being good or bad?
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
the latter
on world peace. if everyone adopted a humanitarian approach. we are humans we should act as such and help one another. to me this is above and beyond everything. until then we are as wild animals, and as animals we will live and die to what significance.