Yeah, that's one of the countless possibilities we can speculate on. Mankind's relocation from Mars to Earth. It is a valid theory until proven wrong, or a sci-fi fantasy until proven to be correct. Some relate it with Noah, who according to Tanakh Bible and Quran, lived 950 years. We don't know what kind of calendar this 950 years is based on, but it hints us that it might be a different planet, or even a different dimension... I find it quite interesting that his children lived almost half as many years. The new environment might have lacked certain nutrients, or the calendar system might have changed. Another mystery...

I would like to call us Conscious Robots since we do not really do tasks according to our programming. I've met many people who lack consciousness. Perhaps the idea behind our programming is simply "Do Whatever You See Fit", a generously randomized task that allows every individual to follow a different path, while the behavior of each individual would be monitored, and the ones that think and act more like the Creator would be cherry picked. In that case, we could definitely be Robots by definition.

I would question the idea of "corruption of the program due to a virus" because it leads to the Christian way of thinking that every child is born as a sinner. Since we are basing our theories on sacred history, we should make sure all our statements go inline with it.

Quran 643 He created the heavens and the earth with the truth, and He designed you and perfected your design, and to Him is the final destiny.

I still think Satan, the corrupter is like a built in Trojan in our O/S. You just need to double click and run it's program to corrupt the mind. We are born with the potential of corruption, not corrupted. Those unfortunate ones who born with physical and mental disabilities pop a question mark here. There is an imperfection there, and I honestly don't know how to deal with how it clashes with verse 643. Anything I would come up would sound apologetic.

I had the same dilemma about this concept of God, knowing all, and still testing humans and rewarding / punishing accordingly. It's like playing a game in God Mode. You know what's gonna happen, yet you still play. Well, I can only hope that it isn't the case here.

To avoid deviation from the subject, I opened a new topic

http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9608077.0

Since many of us understands human nature, we can clearly see how the "second coming" bled from Christianity to Islam. Many cultures affected others in the Arabian Peninsula as they do in any populated area of the world.

Here are my two cents on creation of Imam Mahdi

According to the tradition, it was Jesus who was coming before the end of the history, not Muhammad.

(a) Even though Quran did not give any details in 381 about who is coming, muslims knew someone would be coming. Christians were already standing by the roadside with hand written signs in their hands "Jesus is coming soon". This was disappointing for the traditionalist muslims hypno. They had to have a say in this, and they came up with the idea of Imam Mahdi !. Of course Mahdi could not be your average Joe, he had to be from Muhammad's bloodline.

(b) Christians who were forced to convert elektro found another way to continue their traditions under the caliphate's shariah law. Since they had more idol worshiping expertise than the newbie mulsims, they played smart, and injected the coming of Mesiah into islam through an idol called Imam Mahdi. Muslims accepted Mahdi in tears when they heard he would be coming from Muhammad's long lost bloodline.

In short, Mahdi is cold comfort for pure speculation.

Ahmet,

Well, it is no secret without any scripture that the body will entice you to things. In addition, Quran has passages which clearly speaks against desirous drive. Satan is your instinctive drive and it will enslave you if you are not wary.

It is better to be spiritual and not let the body determine your actions and then I do not merely speak of sex drive but everything in human interaction.

Be safe
Amenuel

Again, I agree.

It would be an interesting world if everyone had a spiritual mind. We are confined in this hormone driven body, and hormones almost always have the upper hand. Excessive testosterone production is the reason the word "empire" exists. I think we have to be blessed with a properly functioning body to be able to make use of our minds for the greater good.

Reminds me of a quote from a man who spent his life fighting against tyranny voodoo, traditionalist idol worshipers hail , and ignorance hypno. He ended up being an idol against his will. brickwall

A healthy mind in a healthy body.

No. It does not exist in the state called "Heaven" since you do not have to drag along with a Body. Sex drive is an instinct, of the animal you are within.

Be safe
Amenuel

Although I kind of agree with your comment on astral bodies not having a sexual desire in the Hereafter, I would restrain myself from making a statement about it.

We can only talk about concepts and possibilities since we don't possess knowledge on the facts of afterlife.

This kind of mindset got Islam to where it is today. We have to accept our limitations, and search for more knowledge.

1736 Do not uphold what you have no knowledge of. For the hearing, eyesight, and mind, all these are held responsible for that.

Nothing is taken out of context. There are several verses in the Quran that have been falsely interpreted to advocating violence despite the fact that it is meant to be a guide that brings you closer to your Creator.

"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds and beat them; but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means For Allah is Most High, Great."(434)

Beating a woman is fighting oppression?

This exact verse was one of the major reasons I lost interest in Quran a few years ago. No matter how I looked at it, it didn't make sense with the overall concept of Islam. It wasn't my only problem with the book, or I should rather say the translations. 434 was the first one in my list though. Talking to the spouse, and then separating beds are rational, however beating is not, it is weakness, opposite of peaceful. Somehow I knew this verse was fishy, just like any other verse about women. After a couple of months of break, I started searching for an answer, a proper translation, and found quite a few.

Here's one

434 The men are to support the women by what God has gifted them over one another and for what they spend of their money. The reformed women are devotees and protectors of privacy what God has protected. As for those women from whom you fear disloyalty, then you shall advise them, abandon them in the bedchamber, and separate them; if they obey you, then do not seek a way over them; God is High, Great.

Here is the foot note from the authors regarding "iDRiBuhunna", which have been translated as "beat" in many traditional translations

The second key word that is commonly mistranslated is iDRiBuhunna. In almost all translations, you will see it translated as "scourge," or "beat" or "beat (lightly)". The verb DaRaBa is a multiple-meaning verb akin to English ?strike? or ?get.? The Quran uses the same verb with various meanings, such as, to travel, to get out (3156; 4101; 3844; 7320; 2273), to strike (260; 7160; 812; 2077; 2431; 2663; 3793; 474), to beat (850), to beat or regret (4727), to set up (4358; 5713), to give (examples) (1424; 1675; 1832; 2435; 3028; 3678; 3927; 4317; 5921; 6610), to take away, to ignore (435), to condemn (261), to seal, to draw over (1811), to cover (2431), and to explain (1317). It is again interesting that the scholars pick the meaning BEAT, among the many other alternatives, when the relationship between man and woman is involved, a relationship that is defined by the Quran with mutual love and care (3021).

Now DaRaBa is a word with 10+ meanings in in Arabic. Of course you (not you ) would pick "beat" if you wanted to enslave women, and bury them alive in black cloth to keep them on leash, and marry a new one every 10 years to be able to feed your lust for younger meat. As Quran states, I understand that beating is one of the meanings of the verse, and I understand that it is not a meaning meant for me, and I denied all translations of the book until I found some people who chose not to betray their intelligence.

Here's my 2 cents on Quran. If you read something, and it doesn't make sense to you, it is probably messed up by a sectarian scholar. Try harder, and you'll find that there is a proper meaning to it. If you can't decide, skip it until the day it reveals itself in a proper way. Do not make a decision on that particular verse.

About the book making bad people worse, I still disagree. It's not the book, it's men submitting other men. Those people you mentioned, they do not read Quran to understand it anyways, they follow clergymen who tells them what the book means. I wouldn't blame any book.

Welcome to the forum.

With regard to 434 I recommend
http//www.quran434.com/wife-beating-islam.html

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, that's a similar translation with the ones I've found, and through these translations, I started studying Quran, and I think I am getting closer to the most rational understanding of the scripture. It seems to be a journey for life, and hopefully beyond...

Here's Edip-Layth (Quran A Reformist Translation) version, which is almost exactly the same with The Monotheist Group's translation. Same people anyways...

434 The men are to support the women by what God has gifted them over one another and for what they spend of their money. The reformed women are devotees and protectors of privacy what God has protected. As for those women from whom you fear disloyalty, then you shall advise them, abandon them in the bedchamber, and separate them; if they obey you, then do not seek a way over them; God is High, Great.

Here is the foot note regarding "iDRiBuhunna", which have been translated as "beat" in many traditional translations

The second key word that is commonly mistranslated is iDRiBuhunna. In almost all translations, you will see it translated as "scourge," or "beat" or "beat (lightly)". The verb DaRaBa is a multiple-meaning verb akin to English ?strike? or ?get.? The Quran uses the same verb with various meanings, such as, to travel, to get out (3156; 4101; 3844; 7320; 2273), to strike (260; 7160; 812; 2077; 2431; 2663; 3793; 474), to beat (850), to beat or regret (4727), to set up (4358; 5713), to give (examples) (1424; 1675; 1832; 2435; 3028; 3678; 3927; 4317; 5921; 6610), to take away, to ignore (435), to condemn (261), to seal, to draw over (1811), to cover (2431), and to explain (1317). It is again interesting that the scholars pick the meaning BEAT, among the many other alternatives, when the relationship between man and woman is involved, a relationship that is defined by the Quran with mutual love and care (3021).

You are better off without a holy book than one with false interpretations."Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all things."(2244). This verse seems to advocate for violence but it isn't rocket science to figure out that it has been interpreted by Muslims to support their violent and oppressive behaviour.

This is a favorite verse for people who (a) want to use religion for their sick agendas, (b) want to disgrace islam. It is a part of a two verse message, and the first part is almost always dropped, so that it remains with no context. Here is how it goes

2243 Did you not see those who left their homes in groups, all the while they were fearful of death; so God said to them "Die," then He resurrected them. God has bestowed a great grace over the people, but most of the people are not thankful.

2244 And fight in the cause of God and know that God is the Hearer, the Knowledgeable.

It is a verse taken out of the context of the whole book, and the whole idea of islam. What I understand from this, fighting for God means fighting against oppression. It never says attack like wild dogs, it always says fight against oppression to me. The book could be interpreted in many ways, which Quran also mentions. Those who don't have disease in their hearts will think, and find the best meaning among them, however they will accept all the meanings are sent from God. So I guess you pick the meaning you want, and live with it. If a person has agendas, he will find a way to do it, with or without the book. I don't think a book can make a person good or evil.

I will continue later on, I've got to run now

Even with Quran at hand, people have been misguided to a point where they revere the book for reasons they don't really understand, and base their understanding of islam in the exactly opposite direction. Of course the majority of people are lazy, ignorant, and they just go with the flow. What would happen without a book? We don't know since the book exists, it can't be undone.

Quran is for those who choose knowledge to beliefs. It is a great source to fall back to. Thanks to this book, we are able to get rid of 1400 years of accumulated ignorance simply by using our brains, and studying it with an objective mindset.

So, yes, we need "the book" to understand the concept of Abraham's Monotheism, and acknowledge the Oneness God, however we don't need books to believe in "gods".

The message is for every one of us, but the majority in a grand scale will not try to understand it.

Thanks!

This topic actually a reply to a tread, however I wanted to post it as a separate subject.

Let's talk about destiny. If God knows everything, but still tells us to use the brain, think ,think, and think, then the destiny might be a bit different than how it's commonly known and explained.

In my understanding, God knows all the choices that would be available to humans, and all the results for those endless combination of choices we do during our lifetime. Because God has control on our universe...

What we ALWAYS forget is the concept of time. Time is relative and it is a part of our Universe. It does not necessarily apply for the Creator. We always think God knows "the future". What if there's no concept of time for God? God said BE, and it became to existence. It only took some 13.82 billion years in our lifetime, but that time only applies to us.

I like the example of the computer programmer, and the application. It's something we can relate with. Let's call these applications Adam and Eve. They ran on an Operating System (OS). called Eden. Adam v1.0 and Eve v3.1 are two similar applications designed to communicate with each other with the information they gather. Women's software is more complicated and advanced than men's, that's why I called it a v3.1... hypno

If we managed to write a proper artificial intelligence (AI) software, we would create something that is consciously very close to ourselves. This could as well be the story of creation of mankind, who knows? Asking the programmer why s/he wrote such a challenging software would be exactly the same as asking God why we were created. Answer could be as simple as "for the heck of it".

The computer would be the universe the AI software would be living in, and we could tell the program to keep away from a certain folder (knowledge tree from Genesis in Tanakh Bible). However, there is a Trojan in the system, and it is called "Satan". Satan acts like a trojan program, looking harmless and all, but while causing massive harm to the file system. The OS is not equipped with a protection system, however Adam and Eve apps do have their own intelligence to potentially protect themselves from corruption.

In the original story, Adam and Eve fail to detect the Trojan (Satan), and they access the Knowledge Folder after accepting Satan's statements. According to Satan, Adam and Eve has the potential to dethrone God, and God is afraid of this. That's why God told them to keep away from the Knowledge Folder. We all know Trojans are programmed software, and obviously it was created by THE Programmer. Therefore God knew they would potentially get there. It was a test for their AI. Would it think for itself and follow the Creator's lead, or the Trojan's? They had two choices, yes or no, and God know the results of both.

As a result of getting all that knowledge, they became aware of their bodies. At this point, God wanted to test this further by uploading Adam and Eve to a massive amount of hosts in another realm, The Universe. Different hosts in different servers used a variety of versions of this application. The simplest ones would be animals, which came with basic functions and pre installed information. As an example, cats born with the information to look for dirt for their toilet needs, and they try to cover it up. That's a pre-installed information. Due to the low capacity of their operating system, they gain a limited amount of experience, and they teach it to their children, however they do not progress any further than a cat from hundreds of years ago.

Although I think there are many others like us in different worlds, we, the "Mankind" is equipped with an AI, and we progress in a different level. I still call it an AI, because it is artificial to its Creator. However, no matter how advanced the newer generation is, the consciousness can not be taught by previous generations, it could only exist by using the maximum capacity to think and evaluate the data.

I would like to think that God is not interested in how advanced mankind becomes. The key is the consciousness. We will not be tested for making the fastest space ship, but our consciousness for existence, for the environment, and our Creator.

The same application causes different effects on the host, and God promises to download the app back to Eden server if the app passes the test of consciousness.

We are living in interesting times, where we can get instant access to information through our mobile devices. It totally makes sense how our good deeds and bad decisions could be uploaded to the main server to be evaluated at the end of days. We call it "The Cloud". We could be connected to an astral cloud system.

Just another idea among many... It would be cool to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Peace...

Hi everyone. My name is the same with my nickname, and it's the Turkish version of Ahmad.

I opened my eyes into a sublime sunni environment in 1977, and enjoyed all the benefits of a secular state until recently. My parents never bugged me with their religious ideas, and I will always respect them for keeping their abstract ideas to themselves. I started playing with the idea of migration since August 14th, 2001, the day a very fierce and ignorant man took over the reins of my country.

I won the Diversity Visa Lottery in my first attempt in 2011 and relocated to the US the next year. I opened a couple of mall kiosks with my savings, and all that foot traffic exposed me to a variety of people who had stories ranging from a week ago to two millennium ago. Among these people were missionaries, and I even became friends with one, yet we can not agree on anything apart from cars and economy. These people are 100% invested into their crazy stories, and I can see a broken, lost soul following them in hope for salvation.

People expressing their religious beliefs openly, and trying to get others into their temples to pray for their idols... This was new to me. They would be cursed away, or may be beaten up by others in a moderately religious environment in Turkey. I would like to thank to a certain Chinese-American missionary who helped me get where I am now. His truly crazy story helped me understand how religions block brain cells. After understanding how religions work, I quickly shed my sublime Sunni muslim skin and became a perfectly healthy agnostic.

At this point, I want to mention that I tried to read Tanakh Bible and Quran multiple times. I stopped reading really early in both books. In Tanakh Bible, I couldn't get past the part in Genesis where god says he will notice the monotheists from their circumcised penises. In Quran, I couldn't get past verse 434 where the woman ends up with a slap in the face, or beaten up, or beaten up (lightly) in brackets. Whenever I laid my hands on a different translation of Quran, I opened that verse to see if she's still having a hard time or not. She ended up the same in all translations including the English versions I came by. It didn't make sense since the verse escalated in a rational way, and then the husband lost it.

Well, I gave up for a few months, and then I was on fire again, looking for an explanation to this. I already knew Quran had very interesting scientific facts that were surfaced within the last century, and it made sense in a lot of ways, but then it didn't make sense in many other areas, especially when it was about women. I understood what hadith and sunnah was, and I deliberately stayed away from them since highschool years. Finally I came by a translation by Yasar Nuri Ozturk, and then Edip Yuksel, and then more in English where the woman in 434 didn't get beaten up.

Although I do not necessarily agree with some of their ideas, I would like to thank to Yasar and Edip for their great work. Rahsad is long gone, so thanking him wouldn't make sense, but he was a major player in getting people out of mud. They helped me understand that why Quran or Islam did not make sense all this time. Those people in verse 27 had the control on everything !!!

The most important message, Oneness of God is not an easy concept to deal with, and it takes continuous questioning and critical thinking to keep one's mind on track.

When I found out who the mushriks are, and that I was guided to the right path, I actually shed those tears of joy mentioned in Quran. It was so simple and easy, yet I was too far away from understanding it.

jedi May the Force be with you!