Lam : You are free to interpret the Qur'an as a bunch of nice poems if you want to. You can interpret it as meaningless or sentimental or anything else. But the question that matters is this : How do Muslims think about the Qur'an ? Answer : For them it is a book of law, not to be questioned, and which must be obeyed at all times. And there is no compromise possible. Do ALL Muslims think this way ? No. Only 90 %. This is the reality we must deal with., like it or not. Billy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 12/16/2009 7:44:01 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 1:21 PM, David R. Block <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > wrote: I personally don't think that it helps the cause of Islam to have all of those passages in the Koran that could basically be called "death to the infidels" passages. These passages are relatively frequent and are not toned down by later passages. It is my understanding that they become more frequent instead of less as one goes on. The Old Testament has some of those, too, but they are generally directed towards nations at a given time and not permanent in nature. The New Testament comes along and modifies the Old and those passages usually aren't referenced therein. I understood Qu'ran more as a historical biography than codes of law. It talks a lot about the culture at that time, both directly and indirectly, like a current and social affair column than anything else (maybe not too far from a court minutes but definitely not like a Constitution). Understood in that way, the offensive passages seem less offensive than when they are read and interpreted verse by verse as it is (literally). I also find the notes and commentaries written by translator helpful in understanding the context of verse, though I must suspect that the translator (being apologetic towards Islam) might tend to explain the book more positive than necessary. One interesting observation is that I realize a few 'disputably straight' offensive verses were not commented, which led me to wonder if the translator purposely left them untouched. He probably knew of the happening during when Mohammad recited the Qu'ran and felt those verses were obsolete, according to today's context, and didn't bother explaining them. But we'll never know. Whatever religion it can be, I think taking a book as binding law is a spiritual downfall. This just bound to misguide some clueless into more madness. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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