Welcome to Gaia! ::

Already know that.

I apologize if it seemed like I was harassing your beliefs.
When I was speaking about idolatry specifically though I was referring to the Jews, and not the Christians. And when I referred to the Jews I was thinking along the lines of when Moses left them and the created a golden cow. All I said about the Chrisitans was that they think God has a Son.



And when I used the term "forcing viewpoint" I was referring to the general Christian viewpoint and not yours (Catholics) specifically. The only reason I made that point is that whatever you were stating she was thinking (aka that man was not sinless, etc.) is actually apart of Christian theology and not Muslim theology.

You said:



Here even if you were not forcing your beliefs....you made a very bad generalization or conclusion that Muslims don't even believe in. And you made it sound like we DO believe in these concepts when it is not us but Chrisitans that believe this.



Again I apologize. But I have failed to understand what exactly in my post turned you off (eg. how I was harassing your beliefs). I did not even say that Christians were idolaters, I said that Jews practiced this in the past.

And when you point to my Muslim perspective........again you are making a generalization. I am not a Sunni or Shia........I am a part of a minority sect that is persecuted by the majority. The majority does not even count my sect as being Muslim. So PLEASE don't generalize my views with theirs. My views are very different from theirs (eg. last Prophet, Jinn, death of Jesus, Promised Messiah already came, that Muslim majority is corrupted, etc.)



And that is good.



Ummmm....no. Since I'm a minority when people actually find out I'm Ahamdi (they do not believe we are Muslim) the people that are "like me" don't attach that much weight to my responses either.



You are not flawed. And again I did not say Christians are idolaters. I was speaking about the Jews.



I did not flaunt your beliefs........you analyzed incorrectly.

I actually know how to debate religion....and I don't need to flaunt your religion to do so because the Bible supports Islam and the Prophet (saw).


The only reason I turned to them is because you started saying the OP had a "belief in them". But, you yourself confused the fact
And I am aware of the concept of the one God you have so you didn't have to explain it to me.

...If man is the reflecton of God, and woman is the reflection of man, shouldn't they have the same rules about whether to wear things on their heads? ._.;

Ain't it annoying to reply on soo big posts?

Actually, I got tired from reading, I should be online like 24/7 so I can read everything.

Anyways, I'm glad that something came clear. But Pheonixia I didn't read your posts very carefully, I'm sorry but there's too much. Anyways, I gave my personal reference as a true and living proof, that I'm really happy and saticfied with who I am right now. And I gave you the reason, so men don't look at us, and we should cover ourselves for that, you may not understand, Allah knows better Ratri.

And I really can't understand, why there are really too many branches in Christianity? And why don't Catholics take Bible as a reference? Isn't it written by Jesus? If not, then who wrote it? If so, why don't you follow it then?

We believe that God inspired the writers of the Bible. Meaning we take extra time to translate them to the best of our ability. We don't interpret literally, but based on the time it was written, the language it was written in at the time, where and who wrote it...ect.
We use the Bible and Catholic Catechism (which I think is similar to your hadiths) to establish our beliefs.

We're not Jewish. This is Jewish law. We acknowledge that they had this in ancient times. But we don't see the virtue in following this. Remember, Christianity broke off of Judaism. We do not adhere to Jewish law. Same reason why you don't follow all Christian and Jewish beliefs.

Most Catholics have the same interpretation. We have a hierarchy of priests, bishops, scholars, cardinals ect. that designate the general Catholic interpretation of the bible. It's also stated in our Catechism as well.

I suppose the easiest way to explain what Ratri means (because, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think a few of you may be a little confused) is that Catholics don't believe many of the stories actually happened, but that they take the moral of the story.

In Adam and Eve, there are many morals that can be taken.
That you're not supposed to go against God.
That you should not give in to temptations.
That you should not take what you have for granted.
And, of course, that you should never eat apples. wink Just kidding, obviously.

But to believe in these simpler ideas, you don't have to believe that the story happened exactly as it is written. The idea is that the stories are made up just to give us examples.

Think of it as... This is a bad comparison. But think of it as fairytales.

In the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she stops to talk to the wolf, and tells him where she is going, why she is going there, etc.

Then the wolf follows her and eats her whole.
(The tree-cutter saves her by cutting her out of the wolf's stomach, but that's beside the point.)

The moral of that story could be taken as "Don't talk to strangers."
But people know it didn't actually happen.

So that's sort of how it works, if I understand correctly.

Aha, so from what I understand from both of you, that you're afraid that it might have another meaning. Well, that's what we do with Quran ( Forgive me for bringing this into the subject ). Quran uses lots of meanings that even I ( I'm Arabian ) can't understand. But it doesn't mean that I should just forget about it. The best thing in my life that we actually learn Quran, and the teacher explains the very little details about it. What does a word mean? And how do we pronounce it, and what did it mean in the past and what does it mean now. You probably don't know it but Arabic language is pretty hard. Because a single word contains at max 5 meanings.

From what I understand, that you get the orders from what you can understand from those stories. But, what I can't understand, that, orders, I mean, orders from God, do this, don't do that. I know that you should go to church on Sunday, and have some lectures. But certain worshipping actions. Like prayers, where did you get it? and I know you fast but in your own way, how did you know that there's something like that? If you don't take your Bible litterly. Well, I can't see from where you get those orders.