islam (Creator, homosexuality, mission, prophet, pray)

[not4me]

Ayani, what I know is that relationships and work don't define one's faith but faith defines my relationship with everything and everyone around me.

Anyway, sister, May Allah guide us all to the straight path. I wish you all the best in your life.

[not4me]

Originally Posted by K.Venugopal

Love, to be truly love, has to be unconditional. But when Allah says: My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, He is saying I shall not love you unless you follow Islam. This idea is reinforced in the Quran where Allah says, And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers (3:85).

I am very sorry for the delay but I am very busy these days.
So, I am going to post a link that includes an answer to your point: Is God's Love Unconditional? - Reading Islam.com - Ask About Islam

From this link I want to quote wonderful words by Ibn Al-Qayyim; how to gain God's love?
- Giving precedence to what He loves over what you love when you are overtaken by your desires.
- Remembering Allah under all circumstances, with your tongue, heart, and actions.
- Pondering the beauty of His creation and the wisdom in the universe.
- Observing Allah's kindness, goodness, and bounties.
- Having a soft, subdued, and meek heart before Allah.
- Being alone with Allah during the last portion of the night while reading His Book, then repenting and asking for forgiveness.
- Accompanying the good and sincere people and benefiting from their knowledge.
- Keeping away from any evil that comes between the heart and Allah.
- Performing voluntary deeds after completing obligatory deeds as is explained in the hadith qudsi: "My slave continues getting closer to Me by performing voluntary deeds until I love him." .

I end the post with this hadeeth:
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "When Allah loves a slave, He calls Jibreel (Gabriel) and says: 'I love so-and-so; so love him.' And then Jibreel loves him. Then Jibreel announces in the heavens saying: 'Allah loves so-and-so; so love him'; then the inhabitants of the heavens (the angels) also love him; and then people on earth love him"

[ayani]

not4me, thank you. for your kindness and benediction. may God guide you in mercy and assurance, and faith. i wish for you also the best, and a life lived purposefully, for the sake of the One God. salam aleykum wa rahmatullah wa barakaatuhu.

[nawab]

Yes the only religion accepted by Allah now is Islam, if you dont beleive up to you but this promise as in the quran it says they will be the losers, will be the losers of course i hope that Allah gives guidiance to the whole of mankind.

[nawab]

1st sucide bombers dont speak for all muslims, How do you know they pray 5 times a day the myth about suicide bombers to me as as same as how much information i know about you, no where does it says killing non-beleivers is a gurantee to heaven, no where in the quran it said that.

yes we beleive in converting others, thats why the chapter 109 is revealed to us, we preach but when they dont accept then tell the contents of chapter 109, i am sure you can read it yourself

yes but when people dont call him Allah, or Yahweh, creator or whatever then it is intolerant to us, what can we do about it forget all religions and follow the way of life how it is in America like savages work the whole week, weekends go to discos find girls, take them home, the whole week talk about it and wait for weekends again. I am sorry i am intolerant to these ideas.

God is not like your mother he has created you, feeds you, protects you, provided us all with luxery we have to submit to him as a slave he deserves to be worshipped, we dont use God for our own benifits.

Originally Posted by gnostic

I don't see it any better with believing in him and blowing up innocent people any better. Suicide bombers believed themselves to be devout followers of Islam. These same murderers prayed 5 times a day, just like any Muslim. They believe that killing non-believers to be a guarantee to heaven.

Will they have a place in Allah's paradise on belief alone?

Sorry, but I think belief can be misguided. Belief in Allah can lead to violence and death, and that's a fact. Islam is no better than Christianity. And Christianity is no better than Islam. They all have believers who think we should follow them OR ELSE.

There is something about God, whatever you wants to call him - Allah or Yahweh or Creator or Father - that make people intolerant of any other belief or non-belief.

Abrahamic religions have nothing to do with love and compassion. Surrender means abject slavery and intolerance.

[gnostic]

Originally Posted by nawab

God is not like your mother he has created you, feeds you, protects you, provided us all with luxery we have to submit to him as a slave he deserves to be worshipped, we dont use God for our own benifits.

What you are saying is nothing more than a lie.

Protect me? I don't think so. Feed me and cloth me? Provide for me? I don't have a life of luxury, and I never have. I haven't single thing that weren't provided by my parents, or that I have earned through works, but not one moment was God ever involved.

Not once in my life have he reveal himself. I only know that he exist in books and people that believe in these books and go to religious meetings, and so forth, but there are no proof of any manifestation of him in my life.

Do I trust in the words of prophets? No. I have not seen single miracle in my life, and what people claimed to be miracles, are not miracles of God, but of nature and man's ingenuity, and these can explained. The miracles of divine kind are nothing more than the magic found in myths, fables and fairytales.

You can believe what you want, but if you are trying to convince me he is involved in my life, then I would say that you are sadly delusional and lying to me when you say the things you do about protecting me and providing for me. It was my parents who feed me and cloth me, and gave me home to live when I was growing up, through sheer hard work, and we have both ups and downs, it was not some miracles of God.

[K.Venugopal]

Originally Posted by not4me

From this link I want to quote wonderful words by Ibn Al-Qayyim; how to gain God's love?
- Giving precedence to what He loves over what you love when you are overtaken by your desires.
- Remembering Allah under all circumstances, with your tongue, heart, and actions.
- Pondering the beauty of His creation and the wisdom in the universe.
- Observing Allah's kindness, goodness, and bounties.
- Having a soft, subdued, and meek heart before Allah.
- Being alone with Allah during the last portion of the night while reading His Book, then repenting and asking for forgiveness.
- Accompanying the good and sincere people and benefiting from their knowledge.
- Keeping away from any evil that comes between the heart and Allah.
- Performing voluntary deeds after completing obligatory deeds as is explained in the hadith qudsi: "My slave continues getting closer to Me by performing voluntary deeds until I love him." .

I end the post with this hadeeth:
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "When Allah loves a slave, He calls Jibreel (Gabriel) and says: 'I love so-and-so; so love him.' And then Jibreel loves him. Then Jibreel announces in the heavens saying: 'Allah loves so-and-so; so love him'; then the inhabitants of the heavens (the angels) also love him; and then people on earth love him"

How does Allah’s forgiveness reconcile with eternal burning in hell?

[ayani]

Originally Posted by nawab

Yes the only religion accepted by Allah now is Islam, if you dont beleive up to you but this promise as in the quran it says they will be the losers, will be the losers of course i hope that Allah gives guidiance to the whole of mankind.

and yet look at those verses in the Quran that claim Jews, Christians, and Sabians can follow and surrender to God legitimately. i can not believe in the kind of triumphalism you describe...

i am also finding that in following the path of Al-Masih Isa ibn Maryam, in prayer, surrender, and seeking the will of God i am finding peace. the Quran says wonderful things about Isa, and about his disciples. it has trouble with the trinity, to the point of heaping God's condemnation upon those who believe in it. for me, there is a lot that is not adding up, when one compares the words and life of Isa to the commandments and ideas in the Quran, which claims to verify and complete the messages given by Isa.

i believe God desires us to surrender (islam) to Him, and to walk with Him. we long to be close to Him, and He longs to be intimately involved in our lives. i was not finding that sure, peaceful intimacy in Islam, and though the Quran describes it in words, i wasn't feeling it in spitit.

[ayani]

this is also something that convinced me : this video i saw over a year ago.

now, i do not put this hear to try to say "muslims are angry and violent, and this is what turned me to Christianity", because that's not true, nor is it true that the images in this video represent the Muslims i know, or the Islam i came to study and claim as my own. what struck me here in this video was the testimony of the woman named Esther, and her little hymn that she sings.

"greetings, we come in peace in the name of Jesus. we've given our lives and everything we have for Him."

YouTube - Muslims Target Christians in Pakistan

now, the big deal for me about Christianity was the trinity, and the necessity of Jesus. surely the trinity is wrong, and so Islam makes more sense. and clearly God is above the need of his human messengers, so why does one need to acknowledge or follow Jesus to know something of God? i had asked my close friend "could i just be a unitarian Christian?", as the issue at the time was the trinity. yet i am seeing now that there is, for me at least, a big difference between being a unitarian Christian and being a Muslim who follows the Quran. both paths are non-trinitarian, yet what Jesus says about himself and what he teaches, and the really amazing mystery and sign of life, death, and resurrection speak to me more deeply that what is said about him in the Quran.

i'll write more on this later. but basically, i asked myself why i couldn't also sing her hymn, and follow Jesus teachings and example, if not worship him as God?