Understanding Islam - What Almost No Critic Understands About Jihad

[Raymondo]

There are stories about how cruel Mohammad was but there are also stories about how animals would try to protect him and his rules about gods relation to animals or a living being 

https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/3493/prophet-muhammad-kindness-to-animals/

There is something mystical about all this but I won't be surprised if 95% Muslims didn't realize that he was an enlightened person

The same could go for Jesus or any other prophet

Edited April 4, 2018 by Raymondo

[Knn]

This video is very valuable. Thank you Leo. 

I see it is being sacrificed for politics/history.

You are missing very important things.

 

and even those concepts are actively being discussed in ISIS circles. Pain will bring peace.

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Knn

[Akim]

12 hours ago, Girzo said:

Those two sentences describe the same thing, really. 

May be if you are high level mystic, don't know, but not from the perspective of Abrahamic religions. In Christianity:
Greed, envy, ... - not God, far from him.
Love - attribute of God.
Average person - not God.
Jesus - God.
The word God is not everything and tells you how the world works and what you should be moving towards.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Akim

[Neph]

Leo,would it be possible for you to remove the enlightenment live video from Youtube?

[Leo Gura]

@Akim God is not a concept. God is an Absolute direct consciousness of the nature of reality.

After your cognize God, you will know what the word means. Until then, you do not know. Not even close. All ideas of God are wrong.

I am not speaking hypotheticals here. I am speaking of things I've experienced.

99.99999% of Christians have no clue what God is. This cannot be resolved with discussion. You must realize that you are God.

[Ether]

@Leo Gura Do you mean God as in we are infinite beings?

[Akim]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Akim God is not a concept. God is an Absolute direct consciousness of the nature of reality.

After your cognize God, you will know what the word means. Until then, you do not know. Not even close. All ideas of God are wrong.

I am not speaking hypotheticals here. I am speaking of things I've experienced.

99.99999% of Christians have no clue what God is. This cannot be resolved with discussion. You must realize that you are God.

Why not use discussion to help Christians understand what God is? Sure you have to go to their territory, they value Bible and Church Fathers more than science or personal opinions. But many of them have the discipline and commitment to pray, stand listening to chants, read sacred text and contemplate the meaning of it for hours.

May be it is not possible to resolve it with discussion. But it does not mean discussions are not useful to move in the direction of more consciousness. You use words to express ideas about consciousness. You are having a whole channel to communicate information verbally to people to increase their consciousness. It looks like people can interact with each other and grow in the process. One might say meditation is all you need to do, talking is pointless. But what is meditation? It is a technique mostly communicated verbally as far as I know. People teach each other to meditate and discuss different techniques. Buddha wandered for years having discussions with other schools and clarifying things for his disciples. His discussions were highly valued and transmitted. One could argue that because of them millions of people increased their consciousness. Jesus was wandering and discussing things. His talks with disciples and other people were passed down through generations. People were inspired by them. Again one could argue they raised the consciousness of millions of people, monks, hermits, lay people, etc.

What other way to build bridges between cultures?

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Akim

[Girzo]

@Akim You need a certain level of open-mindedness for discussion to work. Talking with highly dogmatic people about any topic other than becoming more open-minded is pointless. All your words will fall on deaf ears.

[Akim]

52 minutes ago, Girzo said:

You need a certain level of open-mindedness for discussion to work. Talking with highly dogmatic people about any topic other than becoming more open-minded is pointless. All your words will fall on deaf ears.

You can discuss open mindedness with at least some Christians.

In Catholicism, for example, there is a virtue Prudence which has a component Docility.

"Docility is open-mindedness, and so it requires a recognition of ones own limitations and ready acceptance of those limits.  Proud people who hope excessively in their own excellence will tend to make imprudent decisions because they fail to rely on others by virtue of their inordinate and unrealistic self-estimation." https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/education/catholic-contributions/the-virtue-of-prudence.html

Later they even say that it is important to hear opinions different from yours:  "A person with false docility seeks the advice of others, but only those deemed most likely to be in agreement with him, or of those of similar depravity and who are thus unlikely to challenge the overall orientation of his life."

They just have different rules and you need to be able to quote from sources respected by them.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Akim

[Girzo]

@Akim They. I am a Catholic. The problem with all those noble ideas is that almost no-one in the Church practices them. People get lost in the world of concepts thinking about, instead of embodying them.

But even that would be good. I can assure you that most Catholics won't even tell you all the virtues, not to say their components. They don't care. "Bible is right. Pope is right. But I don't even know what they talk about."

[Akim]

@Girzo Yes, this is sad. But some people are doing the work, preserve and develop the good in traditions and put it online. I am grateful for that. Like in medieval times I imagine some monks would work a lot to copy by hand a book of some Church Father. People went to church to listen to Bible, because there was only one in the village and they couldn't read themselves. Now one can use wikipedia and google to find so much wisdom but most people just don't care.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Akim

[Angelo John Gage]

I'm surprised a religion such as Islam is even being discussed in this forum when we all know its man-made nonsense. If anything we should be moving mankind away from these 'revealed' myths and forward to true spirituality. 

Muhammad was a war-mongering, genocidal, pedophile, this is irrefutable and not even debatable. Several Muslims argue me on this and they cannot even refute this point, why because it is literally written in the Quran that his wife was 9 when he had sex with her and he PERSONALLY went on Jihads killing people. Furthermore, Jihad is Good! And the "little Jihad" Leo speaks of, well, only cost about 200 millions lives and Islam has been at war with itself and the rest of the planet for 1400 years.

Christianity is not innocent either. I'm an Ex Roman Catholic and realized my religion was also a death cult. Jesus, if he even existed, was simply a man who went around trying to save jews from their backward religion, until he pissed him off so bad they executed him. There is no evidence that he had any powers or was God, other than the claims written in the book which is in question and cannot be used to prove itself true. However, Christ's own words didn't come true and he said false things himself, so we know he was full of shit. Thomas Paine does a wonderful job refuting the Bible in Age of Reason, using the Bible itself.

Judaism, well I doubt anyone of you actually read the horrific, anti-Gentile, racist, vitriol  hate for the non-Jews in the Talmud, because then you would be called an anti-semite. Every Jewish holiday is actually a celebration of a military victory over their enemies; from Hanukkah, Passover and Purim. Far from peaceful. Also, lets not forget the 'chosen one' status which these people claim over all humanity. Moses, also was another warmongering genocidal maniac. There is no misinterpretation about needing stone your belligerent teenagers or Moses telling his Jewish clan to exterminate entire tribes; including their animals, taking the virgin women as their own. Much of this is also found in Islam.

The attempts here to make these religions seem nice and misunderstood is typical nitpicking, while rejecting the very clear commands from the so-called "god" of Abraham, who is no doubt, in my mind, a demon. Since none of use wrote these scriptures, it is always up for debate, yet there are clear things that are not vague at all and need no debate, such as stoning gay people where you find them, or killing a non-believers until all of them believe in Allah. Or when the True Messiah returns, every Jew will have 2800 gentiles slaves.

On cannot possibly consider these religions peaceful in any sense; even Christ said " I came not to bring peace, but the sword."  just because there are some peaceful things spoken in these cosmic comic books, doesn't mean any of it is true. There's plenty of morality in Spider Man comics too.

"But Angelo, that is not what is meant, evil men corrupted them over time" is more bullshit. How do you know what was corrupted, which scriptures are true or false? Is Adam and Eve just an allegory that wasn't true; Did Jonah get swallowed by a whale and live in there for three days? Was the horrific book of Job just a tale? Did Muhammad really split the moon in half (obviously not)? Furthermore, the Bible was actually democratically voted on in the Council of Nicea. In other words, men chose which was the word of God or not. Of course those of use smart enough realize that these are just comic books that were written to teach the population at the time, some kind of twisted morality, but many people will claim these books are infallible (with all of their contradictions) and the word from God himself and go out literally killing people over it. None stories had the disclaimer: "The following is fiction" and others "The following is true and not fiction". None of them. That is why we have to reject the entirety of these things; especially when these stories are full of the most horrific and disturbing shit you could ever read.  If we are truly trying to advance mankind and personal development, exposing the truth about these so-called 'religions' (death cults) is our obligation.  The Hadiths ENSURE that Muhammad's scriptures are clear. Of course, the main pushers of Islam are allowed to practice Taqqiya, which it is OK to lie to non-believers to advance Islam. Judaism allows Jews to swindle gentiles with usury; even kill them as it is not even considered a sin lol. Now you see why Israel treats the Palestinians as they do, because they think they are subhuman cattle.

I can see Leo's intentions with trying to make sense or opening people's minds, but again, its just his way of looking at a pile of shit and telling us its actually OK, like the other infinite false interpretations which does no good in the end because he does not explain all the sexism, racism, slavery, pedophilia, genocide, guilt, supremacism, bigotry, etc that are found in ALL of these across the board. The personal Jihad is true, but that is the 'little Jihad" one personal level; while the BIG Jihad, which is the enslavement or forced conversion all non-believers to Islam, which has been in progress for 1400 years, is obviously something that cannot be explained away with subjective opinions on this subject.

Something based on a lie needs to be fully exposed and obliterated no matter who gets offended.

These religions are a cancer upon mankind; there is no 'saving them' or modernizing them since they are all bullshit and it would be best if they were completely removed from this Earth.

[firoz]

Good ,Bad ,ugly  

Islam is the only topic i know about ... But i think he is  talking about sufizm ??? otherwise it ill 

confused ??

maybe this video ill help any Muslim  to think more and open minded (especially the idea of allah) dunno  ... maybe it ill help any materialistic  person  ...     

 

 

 

 

 

[Empty]

1 hour ago, Angelo John Gage said:

it is literally written in the Quran that his wife was 9 when he had sex with her

That's wrong. It is not written in the Quran that the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him married Aisha at 9. 

 

[Akim]

@Angelo John Gage

You can say religions are mind viruses. But can you call a virus something that made their hosts more competitive? They evolved and won out in fierce battles in people minds and in bloody wars.

Here are two communities pictured in completely materialistic and rational terms:

 

One community do not have centralized set of values, they do as they please, they do not trust each other, you never know what your neighbor has on his mind. Some do one set of rituals, others different. Some believe in magic, other think it is silly, and some believe witches are responsible for crop failures and burn them. Some people work hard and some rob and steal. There is no central authority who can tell who of them is right apart from the most powerful warlord.

 

Another community has centralized somewhat coherent story about how the world works, what should be done. There is God, he created everything including humans and gave humans free will. Because of some errors of distant fathers humans are now corrupted but they can repair and improve themselves if they work on it, combat sins and do wholesome deeds. And they have to work hard. Some of them become monks, pray, contemplate, study, pass knowledge. Some of them become priests and teach the values of the communities to people, answer questions and perform centralized rituals which bonds community together. Community guiding principles are written in huge, long books in ancient languages and people have to work a lot to study and understand them. In this books are stories that were passed down through generations and out-competed all other stories.
They value marital vows, work ethic, mutual help and frown upon greedy, lazy, promiscuous people. They believe if they do good they will go to heaven after death, if they not they will suffer a lot. If something bad happens there is a reason for it, they were not good enough or it is just a test and if they persevere they will be rewarded. If there is an external threat they unite against it.

Which community do you think is going to out-compete another?

Then suppose I watch Leo channel and now think rationality and materialism are not completely true. What do I do? How do I decide who is right? How about if a system of believes produced somewhat decent life for many generations it should at least be taken seriously and studied.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Akim

[Angelo John Gage]

@Empty Also, there are many well known Muslim scholars such as Dr. Nadik Zakir who confirm this by claiming that Allah made her reach puberty earlier and also stating some nonsense that people closer to the equator reach puberty faster. 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Angelo John Gage

[Empty]

@Angelo John Gage Yes, I don't deny that. That's not the Quran, though. It is the hadith. It may seem funny to you, but Islam at that time gave women rights. Arabs were known by buring their daughters alive. When the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him came, he stopped this evil practice. Rape was also like a norm, and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him  stopped it. 

[Angelo John Gage]

@Akim You can argue that religions had a purpose, perhaps to progress our species forward into civilization, and I argue now that we know these things are lies that were basically created to do just that, that we don't need them anymore and can move forward with logic and reason.

The Roman empire had its Pagan gods, so did the Greeks, but even all of these were man-made, yet they had morals in which they came about with reason and philosophy. But a lie is a lie, even if it does good...eventually it will collapse upon itself and cause chaos.

Many Christian apologists like John Lennox (whom I like by the way and has a great debate with Dawkins) will point out that Christianity helped science move forward, as many scientists were believers in God trying to learn his laws.  But we don't need to be Christian or Muslim or anything to do science, nor do we need ancient texts to teach us morals. We also don't need just science, as the only thing that can help us create morality is Philosophy + Science combined.

For example, if science proved that all animals KNOW that they are being tested on and are aware and feel pain just like us, that would be a great deal of evidence to come to the moral conclusion, philosophically, that animal testing is wrong. But if science proved, somehow, that all animals did not feel any pain at all, and it only seemed that way, what would your take on animal testing be?

If from day one these religions were honest about their stories and said they were just myths to teach morality, like Dr. Seuss books, then I wouldn't have an issue, but the contrary is true and billions of people probably died over this crap.

I've seen too many people die over these lies.

[Angelo John Gage]

You need to realize I'm literally attacking Muhammad. Rejecting anything here is a direct rejction of his word and thus rejecting Islam in totality. You cannot nitpick. 

[Spinoza]

8 hours ago, Empty said:

@Angelo John Gage Yes, I don't deny that. That's not the Quran, though. It is the hadith. It may seem funny to you, but Islam at that time gave women rights. Arabs were known by buring their daughters alive. When the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him came, he stopped this evil practice. Rape was also like a norm, and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him  stopped it. 

Islam brings some good things to the Arab at that time, but this doesn't mean it's a true religion, In Mekka, women were also leaders, and Mohammed before islam married Khadidja she was a rich business woman at that time (she was 24 years older than Muhammad and some source say that she was christian)

Here is an information that many people don't know about islam, ALLAH is not a muslim concept, in Mekka, years before islam people believed in one god (invisible god) and they used to call god ALLAH, you can find many famous persons in Arab history before islam theirs name was Abdu'allah which mean the servant of god, and it was the name of the father of Muhammad who he never met. 

Mekka: is the holly town of muslim where muhammed started his mission, now people from around the world go there for pilgrimage.