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/lit/ - Literature

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3487780 No.3487780 [Reply] [Original]

The Bible seems to be widely respected here, but how many of you are actually pronounced and practicing Christians? What is your denomination?

>> No.3487806

>>3487780
I'm a former Baha'i, thinking of converting to Islam.

>> No.3487819

>>3487806

Dear lord why

>> No.3487823

>>3487819
Because Christianity is silly. Islam is the purest form of monotheism and I don't believe in demi-gods or human sacrifices.

Although I respect the Bible for its influence on literature and society.

>> No.3487832

Sunni Muslim. Don't practice like I should.

I'm interested in (and have respect for) most world religions. Theology and mysticism are fascinating. Parts of the King James Bible also show how absolutely wonderful the English language can be.

>>3487819

Why not?

>> No.3487843

There was an OT scholar doing work on the Dead Sea Scrolls that posted a few times. Practicing Christian, I think.

>> No.3487845

>>3487832
Random Muslim question, how infallible are the hadiths? Does one have to consider both Muslim and Bukhari 100% infallible to be a true Muslim?

>> No.3487854

>>3487780
Most 4chan folk are in the non-religion camp. Then you've got your panentheistic semi-practicing Baptists like myself.

This isn't /lit/.

>> No.3487861

I guess you could count me in the Christian camp. Formerly, I was part of an evangelical church and studied theology for a few years. No thoughtful person remains evangelical, however, and so I don't know how best to label myself, if label one must.

>> No.3487862

The Bible is really quite an amazing thing to read.

I'm not a christian, but I do believe in some sort of higher power. I lean more towards deism than anything else.

>plznoedgy

I did read the bible though during a 6 month stint in the county jail, and it was really quite amazing.

>> No.3487872

I am the only member of my own church. I am Barely Christian. God is definitely there, but Jesus never asked to me worshiped, he made it quite clear that we were meant to worship The One Above, and that was just the Son of the God sent here to teach us wisdom.

>Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone. (Luke 18:19)

>> No.3487885

>>3487823

No, not at all. Islam is essentially codifying basic Jewish tenants into rules of law. I understand it was supposed to be shedding the perceived excesses of the Christians at the time, but little over a hundred years later they embraced those excesses as a brother. If you want the purist form of monotheism, find some Orthodox Jews or at the very least mainstream Protestantism.

Though, in further thought, it doesn't really matter. They are all just different branches of the same tree.

>>3487832

It depends on where you live. If you live in most places in the Islamic world, go ahead, you will have to out of necessity. But as it is Islam has some serious issues that it is incapable of addressing right now. I don't blame them, of course. Look how long it took to recover from the Great Schism in the West, or the Protestant-Catholic split.

>> No.3487890

>>3487885
Muslims didn't become radical until very recently and this has more to do with history. Muslims in medieval times talked about sex freely and Muslims at the beginning of European Imperialism were very secular.

>> No.3487930

>>3487845
>Random Muslim question, how infallible are the hadiths? Does one have to consider both Muslim and Bukhari 100% infallible to be a true Muslim?

The short answer is no. But some individual hadiths practically are. Each hadith is assessed by scholars for authenticity based on the strength and plausibility of its chain of narrators (isnad.) Even authoritative collections like those of Bukhari and Muslim contain some hadiths that are generally viewed as weak. At the same time, some hadiths are universally held to be authentic, and acknowledgment of them is absolutely necessary: these are the ones that contain basic information like the specifics of prayer and the articles of faith.

The Sunni schools of jurisprudence all acknowledge hadith as a source of law but differ slightly concerning how reliable they have to be to serve as the basis of rulings, which specific hadiths are considered authentic, etc. Two hadiths can say different things about the same subject and both be authentic: that's why each of the Sunni schools uses slightly different prayer positions, but all are considered valid prayer, for instance. Sorry if that was long-winded.

>> No.3487938

>>3487890

In the early years of conquest, they were very radical.

Muslims were better in medieval times, absolutely. They preserved Western works of art and literature - plus, through interpretations of scripture that science was essentially Gods work, they made so many technological advances.

But by the time Al-Ghazali came around, the Islamic world essentially became intellectually bankrupt.

>> No.3487953

>>3487930
>Even authoritative collections like those of Bukhari and Muslim contain some hadiths that are generally viewed as weak. At the same time, some hadiths are universally held to be authentic, and acknowledgment of them is absolutely necessary: these are the ones that contain basic information like the specifics of prayer and the articles of faith.

Wow, that specific part was very helpful. I never thought of it that way and for some reason always expected that one compilation of hadiths from a scholar was equally valid altogether. I've been asking many Muslims this question and haven't gotten a satisfactory answer until now. I keep trying to make time to talk to a sheikh/imam.

I have another question, give me a second.

>>3487938
They weren't that radical in the early years. Women could talk freely in public, they chose their caliphs democratically, and they never forced people to convert.

>> No.3487970

>>3487930
I also have kind of an obscure question. It has to do with dualism vs nondualism. Being that dualism came from the West and specifically Plato, doesn't it make more sense for Islam being a non-Western religion to be nondualistic? ie mystic in a similar way as Buddhism is. Wouldn't Sufism make more sense theologically as the whole idea of there being two worlds wouldn't probably be in Muhammad's mind when he was doing his thing? I feel like mysticism was kind of implied until Muslims were influenced by Greeks and Christians.

If that makes any sense, I don't even know how to put it completely into words.

>> No.3487979

>>3487885
>But as it is Islam has some serious issues that it is incapable of addressing right now.

Which issues? In what sense can 'Islam'--a very multiform religion in which clerical authority is highly decentralized--be said to have addressed something?

>>3487938
>But by the time Al-Ghazali came around, the Islamic world essentially became intellectually bankrupt.

The monocausal view that attributes the 'decline of Islamic thought' to the influence of Imam Al-Ghazali is strange to me. There's really no evidence for this, and anybody familiar with his works knows that he was rather genius and did not flatly condemn all philosophical and scientific thought. In any case, advancements on both of those fronts continued well into the Ottoman period.

>> No.3487984

>>3487780
I am a Christian. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

>> No.3488002

I'm not religious at all. I have not read the Bible, but I respect it as an important piece of literature.

>> No.3488014
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3488014

>The Bible seems to be widely respected here

>> No.3488026

>letting a man in rome or mecca tell you how to live your life and giving him money to tell you what you want to hear

I thought better of you /lit/

>> No.3488027

>>3487953
>They weren't that radical in the early years.
Conquering minority warrior elites rarely have to be. Usually the small elite that controls taxation isn't very interested in antagonizing the population which massively outnumbers them for the sake of converting heathens or imposing strict moral regulations.

>Women could talk freely in public
So?

>they chose their caliphs democratically,
Not a single caliphal shura in Islamic history that I can think of offhand was democratic. It's just an acclamation ritual, usually of an absolutist autocrat, and a holdover from pre-Islamic times. It's like saying the acclamation of the Pope after 1059 was democratic.

>and they never forced people to convert.
They never really cared to. This isn't an ideological thing. The Sasanians, Assyrians, Romans, Yuan Mongols, and Eighteenth Dynasty never forced conquered peoples to convert, either.

>>3487845
By the Classical era, hadith literature had been formalized into massive collections (Bukhari already mentioned for example), with different scholars and sects differing in their trust in different isnad. My professor once said that there is only a handful of verses in the Qu'ran, and certainly only a handful of hadith, that "everyone" agrees on. I can't remember if it was Bukhari, but my prof quoted one of the major hadith scholars as saying that he is "absolutely sure about" fewer than ten, with the rest being on gradations of reliability.

>> No.3488031

>>3487780
Apostolic christian here. Think, "Black Church".

>> No.3488030

>>3487953

Even the most earnest believers aren't always good at explaining their religion to outsiders... language barriers make it even more difficult.

>>3487970

This is more difficult to answer. I couldn't call it either dualistic or non-dualistic without any reservations...

I accept the Sufi doctrine of the Unity of Being, but I don't think it can be properly described as monism (or panentheism, or especially pantheism.) God/the Absolute is existence and things only exist insofar as they're connected to the Absolute, but even when we attain a state of annihilation 'in God' we are apparently still conscious of our state and do not 'become God' (as belief in this would place one outside of Islam.) Sufism can be very complex and I'm afraid it's probably impossible to understand these things other than through arriving there ourselves. If you want, I can name some English books on Sufi metaphysics.

Incidentally, it saddens me that many Sunnis today are either uninterested in or opposed to Sufism. So long as it remains within the bounds of the law, I consider it an absolutely indispensable part of Islamic practice and belief.

>> No.3488032

>>3487979
Not him, but I blame the Mongols more than Al-Ghazali

The Muslim world was never the same sacking of Baghdad, it's said that the Tigris ran red from the blood of scholors and black from the ink from books that were destroyed

How do you recover from something like that?

>> No.3488043

>>3488026

But Islam has no living central authority and I only give money to poor people...

Catholic charities have also been excellent in my experience. When I worked with one, they did not push or really even mention their religion at all.

>> No.3488047

>>3488043
>But Islam has no living central authority

THE GLORIOUS ISMA'ILI IMAM, PROOF OF GOD ON EARTH, WOULD BEG TO DIFFER

I believe he is a billionaire playboy with twenty Lear jets

>> No.3488050

>>3488030
Yes please list some books on Sufi metaphysics. I'm going to delve into the Islamic and Middle Eastern classics soon enough and that would help.

Also its not really language, I know many American born Muslims. I think its more that the majority of all people are not too well read or informed.

And yes, I've heard a lot of dissension against Sufism, some claiming it as strictly Shia. Although the few scholars I've heard have usually been more tolerant to Sufism while criticizing excesses like the ones you mentioned.

So would you think that Muhammad had something in between dualism and nondualism in mind?

>> No.3488053

>>3488047
Implying he is in Mecca. Implying he is the leader of most of Islam. Implying atheists along with everybody else don't do the same thing.

>> No.3488055

>>3488032

Yeah, they were an enormous setback, especially for the eastern Islamic world. The population movements and climate of uncertainty they created really caused mysticism and some of the arts to flourish, though. We can thank the Mongols for putting Rumi in the right place at the right time.

>> No.3488060

>>3488047

True lol, but he isn't very widely recognized. The Shi'ah are more into hierarchies.

If I'm thinking of the right guy (the Aga Khan?), he's funded a lot of really cool programs in universities and stuff

>> No.3488071

>>3488026
>Implying Catholics let the Pope tell them what to do
>Implying the King of Saud has any kind of religious authority outside of his silly kingdom

>> No.3488073

>>3487872
I'm with you. I believe the exact same thing, mainly because it's in the bible. I guess the bible is too complicated for some people so they invent the holy trinity.

>> No.3488085

I still claim to be one despite not really believing any of the bullshit, mostly because I'd be shunned by my society if I came out and said that I didn't believe it. I'm a theist, I just don't buy a lot of crap force fed to me by traditionalist Christians.

>> No.3488091

Non-practicing nothing. I'm barely culturally Catholic, but I am willing to bet I'm more familiar with the Old and New Testaments than my cousins who went to private Catholic schools.

I read a lot of it when I was an edgy-as-fuck teenager so I could complain about how backward I thought it was.

I actually like a few of the stories. What I found really confusing is how one part will have a message that's pretty easy to extract, but the next story had been translated so many times that it's just lost all cohesive meaning.

>> No.3488093

>>3487872
What translation do you read?

>> No.3488119

>>3488050

Chittick wrote some good expositions of Ibn 'Arabi's metaphysics, "The Sufi Path of Knowledge" and "The Self-Disclosure of God"

Imam Al-Ghazali's "The Niche of Lights", translated by David Buchman, is slightly more abstruse but very concise and a classic text of Sufism.

A great deal of Seyyed Hossein Nasr's books discuss Sufism. Try "The Garden of Truth", maybe "Sufi Essays", and the chapter on Tariqah from "Ideals and Realities of Islam" (great introduction to the religion in general.)

If you're prepared to go off the metaphysical deep end, Frithjof Schuon's "Sufism: Veil and Quintessence" and Abu Bakr Siraj ad-Din's "The Book of Certainty" contain brilliant insights on various aspects of Sufism. Certain things they say are also heterodox and not exactly representative of traditional Sufism, so they might not be the best books to read first.

Schimmel's "Mystical Dimensions of Islam" and Lings' "What Is Sufism?" are solid, though not perfect, introductions to Sufism in general. Lings is the same person as Siraj ad-Din above.

I'll post more if they come to mind

>> No.3488132

>>3488119
Thanks so much. God willing, I'll read every book on this list and more. You've been a lot of help.

>> No.3488137

>>3488119

Oh, Chittick also did an excellent job of translating and explaining Rumi's poetry and discourses in "The Sufi Path of Love". Rumi isn't one for direct metaphysical exposition, but between his verse and Chittick's explanatory snippets it's actually one of the best overviews of traditional Sufi doctrines. Plus, you get to read of the Persian language's greatest poets, albeit in translation.

>> No.3488141

>>3488132

Happy to help. Sufism is an academic and spiritual passion of mine. Best of luck man

>> No.3488160
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3488160

daily reminder that the koran and the talmud are both among the most anti-humanist mainstream gospels out there.

>> No.3488237

Not a Christian, but I hold think their imagery more beautiful than any other religion.

>> No.3488265

i am a christian

>> No.3488286

test

>> No.3488302

>>3488237
This, I am contemplating going to a greek orthodox church just for the experience

>> No.3488519

Secular Buddhist.
It was very hard for me to respect The Bible last time I read all the way through it, but I've picked up a King James version and it's easier to appreciate it for it's aesthetic value. It gives you a better frame of reference.