Is liberalism good and fundamentalism bad? Many in the proclaimed civilized world say, yes! But many in this world say, no. Their religion demands this fundamentalism. How one can be liberal about commands from the God? Do commands from God need modification and changing? Does God need to be civilized? Certainly there isn’t any answer to such questions. If religions are practiced according to their fundamentals, they will engulf world in chaos leaving no room for peace and harmony. The God’s command maybe or perhaps is, “Ask them to change their religions if they don’t accept you have authority to rule over them by force and take them under your subjugation”. What is right and what wrong? Might and diplomacy will decide and certainly the God is almighty and the only supreme. Peaceful co-existence and mutual respect is certainly liberalism but what about commands from God and claims of superiorities over others.


Civilized world has framed some human rights, which their concerned religions clergies had been denying them. It seems that they have made good progress. The question is; does the God’s principal change or can his commands be modernized? If so I shall not have such a God and perhaps many others like me. Most people do not think deeply about the God and are merely followers of their inherited religion and maybe hardliners and those who do not take religion seriously are also called liberals. I believe the God whose commands; principals were/are and will never be changed. Man made human rights can be modified for betterment but rights granted to humans by the God are forever supreme and freedom of thought is one of them.


My friends, if you allow me, I want to define liberalism in my own words. No doubt liberalism is freedom of thought. I hope you will not mind and let me say that who so ever claims to be a follower of his respective religion without this freedom of thought is a fanatic, so called believer of the God and those who deny and want to deny this freedom to others are anti-God. Actual liberalism demands from humans to let others say what they want to say and listen passively to all thoughts and views, ponder on them cool-mindedly and then say yes or no. Obstinacy is greatest ignorance and the God hates it. You may be right but don’t reject others out rightly. This is obstinacy and fundamentalism. Be prepared to accept more truth if you come across any. If you shut doors of your mind and heart, it means you are not confident and you fear to loose something. Better to loose then to have something false. Wisdom is most essential part of a true belief and wise persons are never proud of anything including knowledge and keep in quest till death. Liberalism means, others maybe on the right, so think about and if you are not willing to think, you are so called believer or not at all.


Liberalism is to see one self in day light; he/she may be good, may be not as good or may not be good. Fundamentalists don’t dare to come in light and keep on insisting that they are good rather best with out any exposure to light and conceal the reality, how good it may be.
Liberals say, “We may be wrong”. Fundamentalists need not to say such words; otherwise they will also be liberals because fundamentalists have to be always right.
Free the humanity to choose their own way, only then they may be real believers or not, but don’t try to keep them away from day light; neither believers nor non believers.

I wish for all tolerance, forbearance, and freedom of thought in its real sense to each and every because there can’t be any belief without it. The unwise can never find the God and any formal or religious education isn’t necessary for wisdom. The God bless you all.

I'm having some trouble understanding your point(s), so I'm afraid this is going to be a long post. I think I agree with your point(s), but I have read this post several times and I think I see many troubling contradictions here. So, please let me try to unpack this a little. Perhaps I am just dense this morning. You say:


Here I read that you are simply framing the many questions, and you are making no assertions. In other words, who are we, as simply human, to determine 'right' and 'wrong'? Your assertion, and perhaps most religionists would likely agree that this can only be answered by God. But you ask "Do commands from God need modification and changing?" Some religionists, even fundamentalist religionsists would answer that this, of course, is up to God.

It may be that God predetermined that there are to be different commands or laws for different ages, for example. Old Testament laws were abrogated by New Testament laws, for example. God could simply be revealing more (or abrogating old) as we are better able to receive and cope with new revelations, and it may be that at times old laws from previous revelations are determined, by God, to be no longer necesary and need to be abrogated.

But again I will assume that you are making no statement here, only positing that there are two views, i.e., that liberalism allows everyone to make up his/her own mind about it, and simply some are right, some are wrong. But a liberal, by definition, would not restrict anyone's thoughts or practices. Fundamentalists (of many different stripes) would (or could) disagree, again by definition, believing that their own fundamentalist view of God's requirements are fixed, unchanging, and inviolable. And that such fundamentalists should not be forced to 'liberalize' such a view (i.e., accept others can supercede God's so-called fundamental laws as these 'fundamentalists' view them to be.

You say:

Now here comes some problems. You say:

Who are you saying has made good progress? Civilized world or concerned religons clergies? I'm not clear which. Is it your assertion that civilized man is imposing so called 'human rights' on the world, and in your opinion, in contradiction to those given by God (as determined by some particular fundamentalists who think they alone get it right? This of course means that other fundamentalist readings must be wrong. Are you suggesting that 'man' is imposing changes that are in direct conflict with those dictated and restricted by God? That man himself (liberal man) is wrongly trying to 'modernized' God's structure?

Further, you say that you (and many others like you) reject such change, because you don't believe God would impose such modern revelations/abrogations and anyone who believes that such changes are God given, are simply wrong? Further, are you asserting that a liberal should feel it is OK for a fundamentalist to reject such assertions. Taking that to an extreme (as it has been in some areas of the world), a majority 'fundamentalist' view could legally ban (perhaps under penalty of death) any alternative liberal religionists who might believe differently, and that a true liberal should accept that?

The rest of the paragraph is what you believe to be so. I guess since i believe you have the right to believe what you want to believe, regardless of what I believe, that would make me a liberal (by your definition). I'll accept that, and therefore not challenge at all what you say you belive. That is between you and God.

The next three paragraphs I think I would essentially agree with (as a 'liberal'). You close by saying:

So, in the end, I would agree with you. So, I think I must be misunderstanding what you begin with and ask you to please help me understand. Thanks. --Steve--

__________________
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 255)

Dear Friend,
I am glad you participated. I would not depart till you or other friends do not fully understand my point that is "The God is the God of universe, the God of mankind; not of religions, communities or groups."
The God's command for humans never changed and would never change. They are and would be same regardless of regions and times; and so the human values. It is the religions that make separate manners and ethics to satisfy their selfish requirements.
Yes, I do not believe such a God or gods that changes these things from time to time, religion to religion or region to region.

Thanks for trying to clarify for me. But I don't think I'm quite yet clear on what you are saying. Forgive me if I am being dense.

I believe you and I share a number of beliefs here (one God. Omniscient, Omnipresent, eternal, etc). We also both believe that God does not (if you will forgive my anthroporphism), ever scratch his head and say, hmmm, well, that didn't work. Let's now try this. No, of course not. I think you and I also agree that God would not, and does not, contradict Himself. But you say:


I would like to flush that out a little. I readily acknowledge I am quite ignorant about Islam generally, and the Qur'an, but I continue to try to learn. As I understand it, Muslims believe that the Bible was, in its original form, the revealed Word of God, as is the Qur'an. But since no autographical written records exist, Muslims generally believe that existing translations and interpretations are in error, and therefore the 'people of the Book' (Christians and Jews) are in error in certain areas of their understanding of God's 'command for humans.'

Muslims believe the Qur'an, however, is perfect, the is the literal Word of God. And since God cannot contradict Himself, and since the Qur'an has not been corrupted, it has no contradictions.

But, and here we may disagree (or not?), God does not contradict Himself, but He does, I believe, abrogate old laws and introduce new laws as we mature, and are better prepared to understand (i.e., progressive revelation). Animal sacrifice, dietary laws, location of Qiblah, etc., would be some examples in which God has made such changes. But these are clearly not contradictions.

As I understand it, Muslims generally believe that there are some seeming contradictions in the Qur'an, (just as there are in the Bible), but that these are not really contradictions at all. Rather, it is my understanding that Muslims explain these seeming contradictions by either claiming our inability to truly understand the Qur'anic verses themselves, or that they fall under the 'law of abrogation.' That is, that the later Qur'anic verses (the verse that is the abrogator (Al-Nasekh) replaces or abrogates the earlier verse (Al-Mansoukh). This belief is taken from two verses in the Qur'an itself:


And:

As I understand it, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Baha'is, generally agree that God has at times determined that some old rules (if you will) had served His intended purpose, had run its intended course (if you will), and God determined that it was no longer needed, or relevant. God then revealed a new rule, verse, ayeh or Sura which then abrogated the prior (or earlier) one.

Hadith is a different issue, as I understand it, as it is accepted that there are a number of contradictions in Hadith, but it is generally asserted that Hadith is not the perfect Word of God, rather, they are interpretations by Islamic scholars ranked according to how closely they are connected to Muhammad Himself.

I agree with you where you say:


And I would agree that:

So maybe the question comes down to beliefs regarding 'progressive revelation' and abrogation.

Am I getting close to understanding your point? --Steve--

__________________
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 255)

Much happy to learn that you are very close to me or I close to you in faith. I hope for a true friend. I never quoted authoratative references from religious holy books and I would never like to do so. I restate that I do not believe such a God which reserves superior laws or religion for a group and keep depriving others or changes inferior by superior. Would it not be unjustified or inequality? How the God can commit it?

Akbar wrote:

We agree on this. I agree that there are no superior or inferior laws created by God, nor are any God-created divine (pardon the redundancy) laws, somehow reserved for one group and not another, one nation and not another, one religion and not another. And I would say that we agree that God's laws are not for us to judge as fair or unfair, equal or unequal.

I think we would also agree that God has an unchanging plan. We may or may not agree about the concept of 'progressive revelation', the principal of abrogation, or even that God may have choosen to phase in His plan as conditions warrant (e.g., as we have developed the capacity to better understand the plan, etc).

With that, I think we have brought this thread to an end (unless you have more to add). You and I have come quite a long way together, my friend. And I agree with you that there is not much difference between us. Peace to you and yours.
--Steve--

__________________
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 255)