Spiritual retardation

Various aspects of Islam continue to embarass Muslims of various hues. Over the centuries many Muslims have realised that the hadiths or sayings about Mohammad and Sunnah or sayings by Mohammad have uncivilized aspects to it, what with its call to put to death apostates, support of female genital mutilation etc. So much so that Muslims have called for a "Quran only" Islam. However, the vast majority of Muslims continue to hold on to the hadiths as much as the Quran. Horrendous as the hadiths and sunna may be, though, Islam would continue to inherit spiritual retardation through the Quran even after the hadiths have been cleansed off Islam. This is because Islam would still believe the following, held sacred in the Quran:

1. That Islam is the only true religion (and fail to understand that truth can be expressed in various ways).

2. That Islam makes it mandatory its believers say by rote that they have witnessed there is only one God and Mohammad is His final prophet though no one has witnessed anything of that sort. Moreover, one-God-concept makes God a countable object, as opposed to the oneness-of-existence-concept which makes existence beyond any objectifying and hence any limitation)

3. That Quran says Allah created life. If so, during the period when there was no life, Allah would not have existed. This is ridiculous. Quran misses that all existence is life and is forever.

4. Quran says the goal of human life is to be perfect slaves of Allah. This would eventually be seen to be embarassing when seen in the light of the wisdom of the Vedas that the goal of human life is to realise its divinity.

The perfect world

The world is already perfect. For those who believe in God, it ought to be a maxim that the world is perfect. Otherwise we would be accusing God of imperfection, for did he not create the world? Did he not create the world perfectly? From perfection, only perfection can come. Understanding that we and our circumstances have been, is and ever will be perfect is the true teaching of religion and living in such a state of perfection is what spirituality is all about.

There is nothing stopping anyone from living happily except his own imaginary sense of lack. Worse, our mind becomes fragmented because of this sense of lack - when we try to fulfill this sense of lack by a variety of material ways. We and our circumstances are perfect - this is the teaching we must first come upon.

Education towards Universal Mind

So many religions are simply so many ways to God or to realizing the ultimate potential of man. Many think it would be wonderful if there was only one religion (let that religion be my religion!) for all mankind. But I think rather than strive for a single universal religion (maybe by smothering all who disagree) we should, through our educational system, seek to create Man with a universal mind - a mind which would accept and celebrate all the varieties of man's ingenuity. In other words, we should stress on a liberal education.

Thoughts

A bad thought not acted upon is an arrow that has not left the bow. You can always decide not to act and put the arrow back in the quiver. But if you act upon your thought, it is like an arrow that has left the bow. Now you can neither change its direction nor the speed. It is too late to do anything about it.

Again, if you act upon your thought, what is important is your motive. If your motive was noble, your actions will be a blessing upon you. But if your motive was selfish, your actions would return to haunt you. Therefore it is important that we have noble thoughts. It is said, let noble thoughts come to us from all sides.

Blackstone part of ritual of Islamic worship?

Muslims, obviously, do not think the black stone is a mere stone. Just as idol worshippers do not think their idols are mere stones.

Originally Posted by 'Abd-al Latif
You can't compare the black stone to idol worship. The worship of idols is directed towards the false dieties whereas the black stone is part of a ritual towards Allah and not towards the stone.Note the difference, the black stone is not worshipped like an idol wheres the idols are worsipped as gods.

You say, "the black stone is part of a ritual towards Allah." Is the ritual centering on the balck stone part of worship of Allah, at least during Hajj in Mecca?

Dr. Zakir Naik misleads on Hinduism.

Originally Posted by Troubled Soul
Dr Zakir Naik is brilliant at comparative religion but he is clearly IGNORANT when it comes to in depth Islam.

He misleads while talking about Hinduism. All he wants is to prove that the Vedas also say there is only one God. The Vedas teach of the oneness of all existence and record the manifold expressions of this vision in its verses.

Vedas speak of the oneness of existence, not that there is only one God.

...only thing I do not like or watch is when he [Dr. Zakir Naik] debates with other religions and embarasses them by showing them bits from their books.

That's true, he quotes only 'bits' from, say, the Vedas, and claims that the Vedas say there is only one God when the whole of the Vedas speak of the oneness of existence, not that there is only one God.

Not only one God, but also only one way of worship.

Islam not only says there is only one God, it also says there is only one way of worship. No wonder ideas like destroying others' places of worship crop up in the Muslim mind.