Exploring the question about the night Muhammad 620 when he recieved the first revelation of the quran- core mystical moment of islam
What did not happen? Nothing that would make it easy to cry foul
He said that what had happened could not have been real- possesion?
Wanted to escape the terror
Overwhelmed with doubt
Not everything can be explained- rational or mystic
He did experience the event on the mountain hallucination?
Fear was the sane response
Demanded perfection eliminates the acceptation of human imperfection
Doubt is essential to faith
Doubt is the heart
Absolute confidence in truth leads to pride, dogmatism- the arrogance of fundamentalists (no questions just answers- no struggle- looked down upon)
Infidelity- faithless is the foundation of their believes
Religions are being defined by the actions of the extremists (cult) that may not be considered of that religion due to the lack of doubt- fanaticism
Real faith has no easy answers- ongoing struggle and questioning
This leads to conscious defiance that allows agnostics to have faith
Have faith in things that are easy to give up on
What drives us is that in spite of doubt, we have faith in eachother and the impossibe
This is human nature
Is religion good or bad? This is a trick question-
Negative and positive sides of religion are ancient- long debates
Preposterous- No such thing as religion
Definition of religion- Natural (dictionary) belief in god or spiritual beings
Rabbi said he didn’t belief in god, he believed in being jewish
Its possible to be a rabbi without believing in god- judaism is not a religion
You belong to the atheist brach of the hindu religion
Dalai Llama does not believe in God
Religion consists of a list of paradigm religions and their subparts
Christians found other religions and fought with them about the validity of their beliefs
What have they got instead of Christianity
Deal between science and religion-
1800’s everything is framed in religion and the creationist story
Changed when science grew by end of 1800’s
Washing souls, pour drinks on the ground to give it to ancestors, ceremonies
Lives of these people consist of actions through the consciousness of ancestors, no separation between religion and life/science/nature- explanations come from religion
Namibia- modern people- still enveloped in religious explanations
The untold stories of the heroes fighting fundamentalism
Political is always personal
A stranger at the door of a professor known for his stand against extremism
“Black Tuesdays”- 1993 Algerian intellectuals killed
Metal door protected him
This terror inspired work to support those who defy fundamentalists
Third world body count- impersonal way huge numbers of civilians are killed and recounted as a passing statistic
Family is haunted by the death of the daughter and resists through an elaborate ramadan dinner and celebration
Telling stories makes a difference
Exposing the difference between Islamism and the true Islam is important
Creativity and defiance is inspiring and will lead to a safer future
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