Religion Stay Home!

i believe individuals who happen to be muslim share the innate desires for peace, love and harmony, but,

HELP!!!!

i've been asking this question over and over (apologies to those who've seen it) on various threads, but still no answer:

are there verses you can quote from the koran (that were not later superseded by the ugly medina verses) and hadith that promote tolerance, fairness, equality, freedom of religion, self-determination etc...?
please, i would really like to know.

I hear people say they've "found God" when what they mean is they've "found Being Nice". I can Be Nice without all the ridiculous accretions that are inherent in whatever form of the word "God".

Hey Rev Sue:

Your blog stirs my thinking on the deep divide between God and religion. I believe it was Thomas Merton who suggested that as soon as man begins to act like God, he behaves like the devil. It never ceases to amaze me of the over-the-top and bizarre things that happen in the name of "religion." The Taliban expansion seems to be an example of "do right" dogma. They are merely replacing one "thing" with their "ain't nobody right but us thing." It is unfortunate that some would appoint themselves as vice-gods assigned to clean up things by tearing them down. This movement is scary!

Perhaps Howard Thurman was correct when responding to a person critical of Christianity. Thurman observed that some expressions of Christianity are "about Jesus" while he sought to be "of Jesus." I believe that as humans we will always "get it wrong" whenever we begin to insist that we are always right through violence and intimidation. Thanks for a thought-provoking article.

Ozzie Smith

Theocracy is a reality that is diametrically opposed to democracy. What you call and describe as "religion" in government in this article is a theocratic understanding of society and unfortunately that is the same understanding one fings in the sacred texts not only of Islam but also of Judaism and early Christianity.

As a believer, I left the following of religion long ago to follow a spiritual path. It's unfortunate that religion and spirituality don't necessarily coexist.

In past days they had a division of power, which was the Church and the Rulers.

In the United States we have the three branches of government to balance the power. We have a separation of Church and State and religious freedom to worship the god or gods of your choosing or none at all.

This prevents government from being beholden to one line of religious thinking over another and thus no one religion can cut the power of men in government to represent the people and not a certain religion.

If this were not the case and the religion gained more power over the people then the church or religion could label any particular endeavor of government as good and/or evil.

In doing so then the church would rule the land and give the human rights to their god rather than giving it back to the people.

So is this what happens when government becomes a religion?

Religions that are supposed to have been founded on the premise of creating and maintaining a moral code have too often been obsessed with sustaining the human code: believe what we believe, or be disgraced because you don't. That is not what God says, but it is what the "religious folk" believe. It's sad that religions have moved so far away from Him. Above all the human hatred and human judgment, is the love of God. A God who loves ALL of his children. A God who is transcendent above petty human squabbles for power. He asks simply for everyone to love thy neighbor as He loves us. He doesn't love any sinner on this earth less because they have sinned. And EVERYBODY on this earth has sinned. He doesn't love any person less because they don't live by the human code of believing in the Muslim God or the Christian God, because He is the God of ALL people. Any nation, government, religion, or people who try to force their religion on a society in His name is not living by His word. God is not an oppressive God and He does not justify killing in His name. I wish that the Islamic extremists would just take a step back for a minute and think about what their purpose is and is not. War only begets more wars, He only wants peace for all of his children.

Religions that are supposed to have been founded on the premise of creating and maintaining a moral code have too often been obsessed with sustaining the human code: believe what we believe, or be disgraced because you don't. That is not what God says, but it is what the "religious folk" believe. It's sad that religions have moved so far away from Him. Above all the human hatred and human judgment, is the love of God. A God who loves ALL of his children. A God who is transcendent above petty human squabbles for power. He asks simply for everyone to love thy neighbor as He loves us. He doesn't love any sinner on this earth less because they have sinned. And EVERYBODY on this earth has sinned. He doesn't love any person less because they don't live by the human code of believing in the Muslim God or the Christian God, because He is the God of ALL people. Any nation, government, religion, or people who try to force their religion on a society in His name is not living by His word. God is not an oppressive God and He does not justify killing in His name. I wish that the Islamic extremists would just take a step back for a minute and think about what their purpose is and is not. War only begets more wars, He only wants peace for all of his children.

The World's great religions embody grand, noble, lofty ideals. Religious followers on the other hand, are not so inspiring.

Religion has been raising human consciousness for centuries. Whatever man is now, whatever little consciousness he has, the whole credit goes to religion. Politics with out religion has been a curse, a calamity; and whatever is ugly in humanity, politics is responsible for.
The fact is that Politics interfere with the religion and for material gains vilify religion.
Writes John Esposito:
"For more than four decades governments formulated policy in the midst of a superpower rivalry that defined the globe and the future in terms of the visible ideological and military threat posed by the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the cold war, the fall of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of communism have created a "threat vacuum" that has given rise to a search for new enemies. For some Americans the enemy is the economic challenge the Japanese or the European Community represent. For others it is an Islamic world whose 1 billion Muslims form a majority in more than 48 countries and a rapidly growing minority in Europe and America. Some view Islam as the only ideological alternative to the West that can cut across national boundaries, and perceiving it as politically and culturally at odds with Western society, fear it; others consider it more a basic demographic threat...........
The causes of the resurgence are many and differ from country to country, but common catalysts and concerns are identifiable. Secular nationalism (whether in the form of liberal nationalism, Arab nationalism, or socialism) has not provided a sense of national identity or produced strong and prosperous societies. The governments in Muslim countries-- mostly nonelected, authoritarian, and dependent on security forces--have been unable to establish their political legitimacy. They have been blamed for the failure to achieve economic self-sufficiency, to stem the widening gap between rich and poor, to halt widespread corruption, to liberate Palestine, to resist Western political and cultural hegemony. Both the political and the religious establishments have come under criticism, the former as a westernized, secular elite overly concerned with power and privilege, and the latter (in Sunni Muslim nations) as leaders of the faithful who have been co-opted by governments that often control mosques and religious universities and other institutions".

Extemist religious party latestly has won in Israel???