If God = Deity
Then I'm an Atheist..

I don't believe any Deity exist, a human like being living outside from this universe within his/her/their own 'heavenly realm'. Just like what Paganists views of "God"/"Deity".

Although "Sentient beings living on another planet/universes" is pretty much possible.

To me, Atheism exist due to the 'wrong perception of God'...

What does "Atheism" got to do with human sexual behavior and/or your sexual urge?

Again what does "Atheism" got to do with human sexual behavior and/or your sexual urge and/or porn?

Science is a methodology it is incompatible with religion/myth.
Within religion/dogmatism, asking certain questions is forbidden, let alone criticizing certain ideas coming from certain religious authority.
Within science, questioning things is recommended, criticizing old theory is acceptable if you have new evidence and facts.

Again science got nothing to do with Atheism.
And Atheism is not the opposite of Religion.

When Atheism (or other -ism such as Christianism, Sunniism, Judaism etc..) is being enforced and thought in 'dogmatic' manner (no criticism or questioning allowed) then Atheism shall become a religion by itself.

A good case of "Atheism become a religion" is by observing what happened during the heyday of USSR (Soviet Union). Where other religion besides Atheism was systematically oppressed. (Orthodoxism, Sunniism, Judaism etc..)
And in case you're wondering, pornographic materials was being suppressed by the Atheists regime during USSR times..

Salam / Peace

Salaam Jafar,

The Quran says in Surah Al-Ikhlas that there is nothing that is like or can be compared to Allah. If God is not like anything then how can He be human-like? So the Quran refutes that God is human-like. Your proposed idea of God sounds like a space-alien to me. I don't believe God is a space-alien but whether or not God is a space-alien is irrelevant to the issues here.

My posts here discuss atheism from a particular point of view they discuss atheism from the point-of-view of a struggling muslim who is trying to overcome his desire for things which are haram. If atheism is the truth, then, as Dostoevsky pointed out, nothing is haram. That would totally overturn the foundations I stand upon. So it is necessary for the sustaining of the foundations of my belief and actions that I resist atheism. You may not see how the dots are connected; and the larger issue here is not fornication. Fornication is only cited as an example of the larger issue.

I don't understand what exactly it is you believe in but if you do believe that nothing is haram, then we are fundamentally separated with no bridge connecting us and I am uninterested in debating you.

Peace NotSure,

It seems that you have some deep problems with yourself. But an important question is Do you believe 100% that there is a God or have you not drawn any final conclusion about that yet?

Something you might need to learn is some stubbornness, you may want to say to yourself "I want to believe!". And you should really ponder upon creation and if you are blessed with logic you shall realize the world needs to have a Creator or creation would have an extremely little probability to look like it does. I have written posts about my path to absolute certainty in many threads on this forum. You might want to look for them.

And if you are aware that there is a Creator you have a strong fundament to rely on. This is the very first step you shall take. And after that you must seek His Nearness. Please read my thread "Nearness and Guidance -> Wisdom and Knowledge -> Peace and Prosperity" and you will understand what I am talking about.

I personally come from a quite rocky past with a rogue-like living, much drugs, alcohol and smashing things in the streets and committing some petty crimes. Despite that I am where I am today. I have repented for my past sins and I sought His forgiveness for years and I prayed for Nearness and Guidance that I would get away from my ways. It worked as you may be able to see. Under all my life chaos I found the Truth (probably under influence of some sedative or something) when reflecting upon creation and God. In the beginning I was a pretty pathetic Believer, believing in God while still drinking and taking pills and being out on wild nights with cars and clubs. Gradually I started to heed God and change my habits. I had to say goodbye to at least one best friend I had at the time to be able to. This guy took cocaine and was knocking on my backyard door at 4am in the mornings in the weekends and I could not find peace with him in my life. It was difficult but eventually he gave up. These days he is running around at MC-clubs and I have no real clue what he is doing while I am a family father with a wife and son.

So conclusion is, do not believe your past or present sins necessarily will prevent you from being forgiven and becoming guided. But reform and seek help from God to change your habits. But first you must become certain that God is really real. Please reflect upon creation, maybe read some of my posts when I rambled about how unlikely this world is created on its own and I will pray for your Guidance. Seek his Nearness.

God bless you

Salaam Man of Faith,

Sometimes the voice that you think is God's voice is actually the voice of the devil. And I had had the two mixed up and was doing insane self-destructive things to myself that were impacting my mental and physical health while thinking it would bring me closer to God. And yesterday I realized that and it was such a shock to me that I became somewhat terrified. Kinda like when I first realized I didn't believe in the hadith. But anyways, I'm much better now.

I believe in God and I believe in the Quran. And thank you for sharing some of your story. My background was similar and I relate to it- especially the part about how when you first became a muslim you still continued to use intoxicants. I used to smoke weed with other muslims after I first discovered the Quran. I even found ways to justify it with the Quran! (or so I thought)

I understand exactly where you are coming from, NotSure.

Used to have this worry for myself. It is a truly valid worry and I would heavily question the sincerity or honesty of someone who is lacking! To be certain of bullshit, is to be a loser.

An "atheist" who is atheist because they reject un-reason, injustice, etc is higher in rank than a person who claims themselves to submit to God by name yet does not question or use their minds.

Remember above all else this - God is the most sane reality that can be. The sane reality being, self-consistent. Everything has justice, a rhyme and a reason. Free from defilement and perversion. True peace, where all questions are answered. ALL questions, ALL of them.

I am not saying that X or Y concept under the name "God" is the most sane reality. No, I am saying the reverse. FIND the most sane sensible reality where goodness works, where thirst leads to the knowing of water and water leads to the knowing of thirst. Then, THAT sane reality, which you have found with logic, reason, elimination, emotion, experience, THAT sane reality, THAT one is God. You do not start off with your idea of God, or the name God, or the book describing God. No, you find the SANE REALITY, the REAL reality and give it a name. The name you shall give it, is "God". Then all things shall fit into place and you will understand the nature of everything and cease doubting. Who doubts sanity, sensibility, goodness, wholeness, perfection, logical explanation that makes perfect sense? None but the unjust!

Let me present some unjust scenarios so you can see what I mean

• A man rapes a thousand women from childbirth to their death. Keeping them locked away under wraps, his slaves for life. Then they all die. There is nothing after the death. Life goes on, in the universe. This is the free-for-all judgement/retribution free universe that real Goodness-opposers dearly desire, because it suits their fancies.

Sum total A thousand life long experiences of intense torturous pain and shame and guilt and unpeace. A single experience of pure hedonism but yet there is no satisfaction, no quenching, only a ravenous belly that wishes to eat forever and destroy all in its path

• A man kills a single fly accidentally or on purpose. He dies. For this crime he is punished in Hell for eternity. Literally eternity, not figuratively eternity, not "to abide therein for a long time" eternity... ETERNITY.
  Sum total A life destroyed once, another life experiences malice or accidental termination of another => judgement => the other life is resurrected and carries on eternally in Paradise, while the man experiences eternal pain; the total experience = infinite suffering because 1 life in eternal suffering is enough to make the entirety of Life (Al-Haqq/Al-Hayy) an eternal suffering. So long as even a single grain of dust of my Self, my eternal Being is suffering, even at my own discretion, my entire Being is suffering, my entire Self is suffering. I am unust to my Self yet I have inscribed mercy upon my Self. Paradise does not really exist...

So you see? These are two divergent opposites. Do you know what they have in common? They are both batshit insane and far removed from God, God is Light. Light is not unjust but both these realities are unjust beyond measure. There is nothing sane about them.

To understand Justice, look at the sum total of all experiences. You are a single Being, adding up. 1 unit of pleasure here, 1 unit of pain there, add it ALL up, add up the afterlife into the mix. What is the result? Suffering is inherently unjust, Peace is always just.

Yet... guess what!

One side of it is what Goodness-rejectors/al-kafirun absolutely believe in out of their perverse and ravenous desire for satiation of greed; and the other side is what you will recognise most religious people believe in - exposing their hypocrisy and the very same desire to experience Satiation at the expense of Suffering.

Peace can never be attained via exchanging Happiness for Sadness. This is what is known as Samsara, where karma is constantly swapped, a being is either in heaven or hell but always the heaven is transient making the hell intrinsically eternal.

That which is not the eternal Peace is not Peace, for if it can be disturbed or altered, it is not Peace.

So you have two sides of human beings, who pretend to have opposing beliefs but the reality is that they deep down desire this Reality of perversion, the Reality that cannot exist, they desire falsehood. They are one and the same and they all belong in Hell together. Hell is the very reality they seek to weave, they desire to alter the Eternal to create Hell! To create Eternal Hell! Incredible isn't it!

In all these cases they will exchange suffering of "others" with happiness for "Me" - all of them have taken their desires for ilah/judge/ruler/God. But there are no "others", there is only You, the omnipresent witness that sees through all eyes and hears through all ears. Hence La ilaha, ilallah! See?

So how can I have a single soul suffering, in the end? If my hand earns one slap because it slapped another face, I pay it one slap back. If I say "I'm going to set you on fire for eternity" then I am being truly unjust and I deserve in Hell! And as you see, if one part of the body is injured or in pain, even deservedly, the entire consciousness can only see the pain, it is enveloped by it. Pain is a rift in the Reality.

Now, the man who raped a thousand women for life... all he has to do is pay back all thousand lifetimes of rapes! Nothing MORE! It stops there. Anything beyond that is unjust! Yes, it's a VERY LONG TIME. But it is not eternity. You can see how the perverse have altered the word... Paradise on the other hand, must be eternal. Because again, if Peace can be interrupted it cannot be Peace. And to have Hell existent eternally "alongside" Paradise is to create unPeace, this cannot be! One part of Paradise is total freedom. If one grain of dust of that place is cordoned off from the rest and designated as "Hell" eternally, then Paradise does not exist, it is not truly free.

If you start with a particular concept or set of attributes and name that God, then test it against Reality, you will for one find flaws no matter what. And for two you shall have to compare infinite such "Gods" against each other. Now do you have time to sit there and say "let God = this concept, is it sensible? let God = that concept, is it sensible?" - ? NO! You will die soon, you do not have time! Even this alone should be a sufficient sign that you only need to look for one thing, the true Self who you already are! It's pointing in the direction of one. So look for the one entity which fits the definition - look for sensibility, purity, wholeness and then Godself shall be there waiting with open arms.

You are looking for the one right fact, out of an infinite set of options. Now, do you compare all the options to each other and arrive via deduction? It's much easier for a mortal to look for the right fact itself and forget all the options, just look for the fact. 3 options, 2 ways to be wrong. 1000000000 options, 999999999 ways to be wrong! N options, (N-1) ways to be wrong! The odds are not favourable to say the least.

Now my friend, knowing this information, consider the steps you lead your feet through. God cannot be questioned, for God's nature is perfection and perfection is unquestionable of its own nature.

But here on this plane you are free to question. Why... because YOU ARE LOOKING FOR GOD. How shall you eliminate false Gods if you cannot be an atheist in some Gods?

I am an atheist in infinite Gods, except a single God, the God. La ilaha ilallah. Simple! And you may see why...

It is possible to be free of doubt entirely. This is a stage of meditative understanding where you see your true Nature. Once you know your true Nature, the Self that encompasses all things, you have no room for darkness, there is only infinite Light.

peace

Salaam IAMOP,

This is one of the main reasons I don't want to lose my faith. Without God, reality would be terrible and there would be no justice. And there would be no higher source of meaning than our own opinions and desires and we'd be stuck in the terrifying world depicted by postmodernism and Nietzsche and such. I would end up just becoming a hedonist.

If you're an atheist, where will you find comfort when life becomes extremely difficult?? If you have faith, that faith will act as your life-jacket and keep you from drowning when life becomes extremely hard- so long as you continue to hold on to your life-jacket of course. If you don't have faith, you won't have a life-jacket and you will drown easily. I have seen the truth of this with my own eyes.

I'm lucky in that my family doesn't really have religious beliefs. They think my beliefs are kinda odd but they don't try to influence me and they're not hostile alhamdulillah.

Salam es

I've just been thinking lime this because I've been distressed. I had an anxiety attack at work today. Plus I haven't been getting sleep. So I've been having my faith tested and have been worried I will lapse into my old behavior from when I was ignorant and in darkness.

As for that lady-friend, there won't be any news in that department for a few weeks probably. I thought I was about to ask her out but right now is not a good time. I have too much going on and plus I'm not in a good mental state. So I'll wait a few weeks. If it's meant to happen, it'll happen. If not, Allah knows best. For now I'mma focus on myself and not on another person. Not out of selfish-ness but out of necessity.

I am not going to focus too much on her religion. As long as she's a monotheist that's good enough for me. Most Christians don't feel strongly about the Trinity issue anyways. I don't think Christians where I live would even know what the difference is between a Unitarian and trinitarian, much less have picked a side.

You can't possibly cover every single eventuality pre-relationship, so there's no point in thinking about things too much. If you've decided you're going to do it, then just grab the bull.

Just remember NO HANKY PANKY!

May Allah bless you with what is best for you.

All the best, and do update us!

Peace.

Sajda.

This is true. It's not good to think too much about it. I'mma just trust Allah. And yes- no hanky panky. Gotta keep it halal.

Peace NotSure,

If you are a practising Muslim, then I wouldn't have thought you would need to unless you want to reassure her. If it is something to do with your own choices and not about the designs of Allah swt per se, then you might not need to say insha'Allah. And why is she your girlfriend and not your wife?

To make things a little more clear here, I am interested in a particular girl. I haven't asked her out yet but I've known her for several months and I am consistently receiving from her what I perceive to be indications that she's into me (only Allah knows what the future holds). And I happen to be into her. So I ask this for the sake of future reference in case we start dating. The first part that I underlined gets it right. I want to be able to say things like that purely to reassure her. But she's a Christian and so saying insha'allah (once I explain what the term means to her) with such a statement might make her not feel very reassured. You follow me?

And also, I don't intend to have sex before marriage. But I live in the US where dating precedes marriage. So a more traditional Islamic approach would be very very difficult. Plus I feel very strongly about this girl and unless I am deluded these feelings are mutual. This may be part of a larger plan of Allah. Maybe we are meant to be together- and if not I'd at least like to get to know her so I can be reassured that we are not right for each other and wait for the next possible candidate and be wholehearted in such a future relationship and not feel anxious that perhaps I missed a better opportunity.

Hypothetical.

peace

to me, this is to be said to those who are putting pressure on us so that we go back to our old religion, or want us to change into their religion, and that we clearly know that they are not worshipers of the one and only God and believe in all His prophets and make no difference between any of them. And, in a way, yes, we are telling them "that our path as muslims and their path as nonbelievers are totally irreconcilable", for we are following the path that leads to God, and they are following the path that leads to hell. However, this does not mean that we have to be hostile towards them, because maybe many of them will become believers in the future and will love god maybe even more than us (only God knows). "Nor will you ever worship what I worship. as log as they stay in the path they are in, this is true. Also, A muslim must not be hostile towards any creature of God, no mater if the creature in question is an unbeliever. Keep in mind that I am talking about people of other religions which are not being hostile towards us. This does not mean that we can befriend them, or ally with them, for this is forbidden to the believers. For the ones oppressing us and being hostile towards us there are other verses of how to deal with them.

may God bless us with wisdom.

Peace, wrkmmn

This was also my view of the Surah.

Peace NotSure,

The wonderful sura no. 109. It can be understood as the culmination of growth by
the believer when the God submitter recognizes that there is no longer any point in
debating the existence or authority of God. Some of us can remember when we
argued about God's attributes, or the veracity of the Quran, or will there
be a judgement day, sura 109 reveals that we have our way and the non-believers have
their way. There is no need to be hostile because God simply has not guided them to
this. There is no compulsion in religion. This is not an aloofness but a concession.
Maybe one day if they are fortunate God will guide those who previously were not
on the path to the path. God willing

God Bless

peace

Peace Hawk99,

In my head it was not as well-articulated as in your post, but what you said was how I thought and felt about the surah. That it was a wonderful surah and that it contained an important lesson for me in my growth as a believer and that I need to digest this lesson to continue to make progress on the steep path I am on. Frequently, I find myself frustrated by others who don't follow the same path as me. For example, I sometimes have been aggravated by seeing my family members spending too much time watching TV/playing video games/listening to mind-numbing radio and quietly become angry and think "why are you polluting your brain with this garbage??! you should be reading! or praying!" and become frustrated with them when I have no right to be judging them or becoming frustrated with them. Or, for example, I have a gay co-worker- I keep my distance from him- I don't know if that's necessarily "right" but I figure it's at least "permissible" but every time I see him I feel an intense wave of revulsion in my mind and my stomach. That revulsion is a clear sign that I have not yet mastered what this surah aims to teach me.

Thank you, wrkmmn and Hawk99. The tafsir I read threatened to make this surah into something ugly and tarnish the beauty of God's surah in my mind. But I feel a little more confident now that I was not deluded in my interpretation.

Peace,

The sura indicates that these phrases are meant to be used against those who do not follow God's religion. Qul = say, probably God who told Muhammad originally to say this, but today it is probably something to say for whoever finds these phrases useful. Maybe if you are prosecuted and they want to force you to accept their religion you can tell this series of verses. Or they mock you or try to entice you to change.

It does not make sense to recite the sura as a prayer since it would seem strange in front of the Lord.

Focus on verses in Quran which start say "oh Lord" or similarly, these are the prayer verses, or the first sura of the Quran. I stopped reciting ayat which make no sense. It is ignorant people who keep reciting them as prayers in my opinion.

And no, the surah does not indicate that you should be hostile towards disbelievers. Only an ignorant person would extract that meaning from it.

God bless you

Peace Man of Faith,

The Surah itself emphasizes the futility of debating with disbelievers; yet the purpose of this surah is to give us words for when we debate disbelievers? I intend to memorize this surah and use it in prayer because, as I have explained in my response to Hawk99, I feel that this surah contains an important lesson that I must internalize as part of my growth as a muslim.

Emil, I am not interested in debating you. I think you have decided what the Quran says before you read the Quran.

God has prohibited homosexuality. God has designed us and He knows what is best for us; He cares about us and wants us to act in our own best interest but Satan wants to make us feel like His rules are against our own interest. Remember what he told Adam and Eve about the forbidden tree? The same is going on here. Satan wants us to think God's rules are outdated and against our interest and that God made those rules without caring about us. He wants us to think "see! God's rules teach hate!"

But it is not The Bible nor the Quran that teach hate. That's men that teach that. And the reality is this- God knows what's right for us and what's not right for us.

And there's quite a bit about homosexuality that the media does not talk about. God does not prohibit homosexuality for no reason. He knows what we do not know.

Like, for example, why is it that homosexuals are such a tiny percentage of the overall population and such a disproportionately large percentage of the child molesters?

Gay activists might say it's because gay people's sexuality is messed up because they're discriminated against. But gay people can go to gay bars and gay men are just as promiscuous as straight men- so it's not hard to find willing gay partners. So what is the explanation for my question?

Mainstream discourse which is controlled by the media will not address my question and such discourse would prefer that this not be examined. If this issue is examined, the truths it would bring to light would not be pleasant for the activists promoting their agenda.

As to those who say think that sexuality is fixed at birth and does not change and people are either born gay or born straight, I have some statistics that might be a little awkward for your cause........

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_and_sexual_orientation#History_of_sexual_abuse

Now, according to the American Psychiatric Association, there is no link. Yet this is in blatant contradiction of the empirical data. So you can trust the American Psychiatric Association or you can trust the facts.

The reality is that a lot of these gay men were not born gay- they had something happen to them when they were very young that warped their sexuality. I am only stating what is blatantly obvious from statistics such as this "Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation."

Student of Allah, I don't think you are correct in your reasoning. Aamer is not making an argument from ignorance. And he's not 100% relying on the Quran. He's just using the Quran to establish that the jinn exist in the first place. The other stuff he talks about is based on personal experience. You can accept his personal experience or reject it. Maybe he's experienced what he's talking about or maybe he's making up stories for attention. It's silly to talk about "proof" regarding his honesty- there is no logical fallacy in believing in what you have personally experienced and no way for us to prove either way whether or not that he is honest. To grasp this from the viewpoint of logic, the problem is that you are trying to tackle this with deductive reasoning whereas inductive reasoning is the only reasonable approach we can take based on the evidence. (if you haven't studied logic, to put it in a nutshell deductive reasoning states that which is certain and, in the absence of certain evidence with which deductive reasoning can be applied, inductive reasoning must be used to ascertain that which is probable)

Anyways, to give my particular perspective on this matter, I believe Aamer and I think he is telling the truth. I personally have had encounters with the jinn and so have other people who I have met. I pretty much had a scientific-reductionist materialist view of the universe before I started to have experiences with dark things. Talk to people who have played with a ouija board and see what they tell you. Plus, there's a whole gigantic sub-culture of people who are obsessed with black magic. Those people are totally misguided but they don't go all through all the effort they go to for no reason. Like Aamer said, it's not all that hard to contact the jinn. There's a lot of weird freaky stuff going on in this world that most people don't know about. Do some research on Aleister Crowley.

As for that Randi thing...... there's plenty of people who have experiences with God and angels and jinn and various things that are usually beyond the veil. Imagine if you were one of the greatest muslims in the world for 20 years- you memorized the entire Quran and established regular prayer and did everything the Quran says to do and God gave you an unshakeable iman. And then for being a good Muslim, God decided to bless you so that an angel paid a personal visit to you every Thursday when you went inside that cave right outside your village. So you come to this cave every Thursday and at the same time every Thursday this angel shows up a little while after you arrive and start to pray and then the angel tells you amazing stuff about what life is like in heaven.

Well imagine you finally got greedy one Thursday- you think "wait a minute! if I bring a video camera to the cave with me and film my encounter with the angel, I can become rich and famous!"

If you tried to bring your video camera to the cave, do you really think the angel would still show up? Why do you think it is that people usually experience these sort of entities when they are in solitude? God has designed the world so that most people do not believe in the unseen. If someone actually made a video tape of their encounter with an angel or were able to produce some other indisputable proof of the unseen and it was such incontrovertible proof that it won that million dollars from James Randi- wouldn't that disrupt the way God has designed things?

So that Randi thing is kinda silly. It's called the Unseen for a reason. It wouldn't be very Unseen if we could just put it on YouTube.

We should treat alcoholics with love and kindness. But that doesn't mean should buy them a beer. Our brothers and sisters who engage in homosexual acts deserve to be treated with love and kindness- we are all sinners. But that doesn't mean we should encourage or seek to legitimize their acts which are sinful.

Look up verses 780 and 781. What is unambiguous about those verses? And so what if France is secular. God's word on matters pertaining to morals is what counts. The verses I have cited speak clearly on this issue. Are we to take conjecture over the word if God?

The "gay-marriage" activists have successfully dumbed-down society's debate over this issue. They have dumbed the discussion down in their favor by making two separate issues appear as one

the first issue Is it permissible to commit injustice against gay people? (I.E bully, harass, engage in violence against them, etc.)

the second issue is homosexuality condoned by Scripture

There is straightforward verses in both the Quran and the Bible that are obviously making it clear that homosexual acts are sinful. As for the first issue- yes of course it's wrong to be cruel towards gays. But- to give an example- someone from this thread cited a statistic that gays are four times more likely to commit suicide that straight people. Is that sad? Yes. Do I feel pity for those people? Yes. Is it relevant to how we should interpret what is clearly stated in scripture? No. Cruelty is wrong period but cruelty towards gays is besides the point in this issue.

Rather than try to make themselves conform to God's desires, to many people are trying to make Fod conform to their desires.

This post is very long. But please give it a chance. I believe the information it contains may be helpful.

Allah knows better than we do, right? And Allah has quite clearly prohibited homosexuality- both in the Quran and in Leviticus. If you want to do some sort of mental gymnastics to twist scripture into conformity with your pre-conceived opinions then go ahead.

What you may fail to realize is that your interpretation of scripture is based- not on an impartial reading of scripture but on an elaborate public relations campaign (i.e. propaganda) scripted by powerful members of society. At this point, you're probably shaking your head in disbelief at how nutty I am. But my extraordinary claim has the back of proportionately extraordinary evidence take a look at this http//www.amazon.com/After-Ball-America-Conquer-Hatred/dp/0452264987

The aforementioned public relations campaign is outlined in After the Ball. Because it is very difficult to obtain a copy, here's a PDF. Read it yourself. http//www.endcensorship.com/uploads/After_the_Ball_-_outline_by_Richard_Cohen.pdf

And here is an article from one of the authors, called The Overhauling of Straight America http//library.gayhomeland.org/0018/EN/EN_Overhauling_Straight.htm

Anyways, what I've posted here gives the outlines of the strategy behind how public opinion has been shaped in conformity with what certain powerful forces have desired. To be honest, examining the evidence so far raises more questions than answers. Obviously, these men devised certain strategies- but they on their own could not have executed what is described in After the Ball. To execute those strategies would have required the cooperation of a larger network of powerful groups and persons. Yet After the Ball takes for the granted the existence of said network and takes for granted its cooperation- the book is subtitled "How America Will Conquer its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90's"- not how America "might;" if you look at the rest of the book the language conveys the same impression. The book is of the same kind as The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski http//www.amazon.com/dp/0465027261/ref=rdr_ext_tmb; in the words of an amazon review of The Grand Chessboard, "he is not predicting the future, he is planning the future. Coldly. Methodically." Same with After the Ball. Someone might say "why exactly would powerful people want to make society gayer?" I've heard one theory that answers this question but the theory I heard doesn't quite satisfy me. I have some vague theory of my own but I still have to put together that part of the puzzle. Anyways, I think I've said enough about this subject. If anyone wants to know more about this or would like to investigate it further, I encourage you to PM me.

At this point I would like to quote another post I made that got ignored. It was the very last post on a page and it immediately got covered up by the next poster.

....And there's quite a bit about homosexuality that the media does not talk about. God does not prohibit homosexuality for no reason. He knows what we do not know.

Like, for example, why is it that homosexuals are such a tiny percentage of the overall population and such a disproportionately large percentage of the child molesters?

Gay activists might say it's because gay people's sexuality is messed up because they're discriminated against. But gay people can go to gay bars and gay men are just as promiscuous as straight men- so it's not hard to find willing gay partners. So what is the explanation for my question?

Mainstream discourse which is controlled by the media will not address my question and such discourse would prefer that this not be examined. If this issue is examined, the truths it would bring to light would not be pleasant for the activists promoting their agenda.

As to those who say think that sexuality is fixed at birth and does not change and people are either born gay or born straight, I have some statistics that might be a little awkward for your cause........

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_and_sexual_orientation#History_of_sexual_abuse

Now, according to the American Psychiatric Association, there is no link. Yet this is in blatant contradiction of the empirical data. So you can trust the American Psychiatric Association or you can trust the facts.

The reality is that a lot of these gay men were not born gay- they had something happen to them when they were very young that warped their sexuality. I am only stating what is blatantly obvious from statistics such as this "Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation."

Also, consider this Ancient Greece. A lot of people are introduced to Ancient Greece by learning about people like Socrates and Plato but those people were the exception and not the rule- Ancient Greece was an extremely hedonistic society. Their view of life was very bleak and they were utter slaves to their desires. Binge drinking, paganism, weird stuff like sex-with-priestesses, and insane promiscuity and all that were big parts of their society. And homosexuality and pedophilia were considered normal things. Does the Quran not teach that people follow patterns? Or is there no connection and what I just mentioned is just a random coincidence?? Anyways, moving on again....

This topic interests me. Why? Well...... for one I just moved back from San Francisco this year. I was in San Francisco for nearly a year. For a lot of the people here, gay people are like an abstract theory- something thought about but not encountered in real life. I live in Texas now and there are, of course, gay people here but they're secretive and don't talk about that aspect of their lives in public. In San Francisco, they felt no shame in discussing intimate details and no shame in flaunting their life-style in public. Before I lived there, gay people were like an abstract concept to me and I couldn't understand why God seemed to prohibit homosexuality. It wasn't until I had personal experience of dealing with the "gay community" that I became against homosexuality. I believe in treating gay people with respect and kindness but that doesn't mean I have to alter my religious views to suit them. Anyways, for you who have not seen what I've seen, I will talk a little bit about my experiences in San Francisco. Some things I describe following this are gross; you might wanna skip it.

I remember me and my friends used to think that there was something vaguely Satanic about San Francisco. We felt uncomfortable. Later on, I found out Anton LaVey's Satanic Church was based in San Francisco. So Satanism definitely has influenced the city. And I would say more than 90% of the gay men I knew were extremely promiscuous. San Francisco was so gay as a straight male I was actually a minority and I felt kinda isolated (I knew there was gay people in San Francisco but I didn't know it was THAT gay!). And I knew a lot of gay people so I knew a lot of gay men. I once saw men having sex in public and I heard a man brag about having sex with five men in one night. I remember a man who looked like he was 50-something years old randomly came up to me and offered me money to perform oral sex on me. That kinda thing was actually kinda normal. I would get approached constantly by gay men. I remember sitting on a bus and noticing the guy across from me was (very blatantly) checking me out. You can imagine how uncomfortable that sort of thing made me feel.

Wide-spread homosexuality inevitably leads to extreme hedonism and promiscuity becoming widespread- at least as far as gay men are concerned (lesbians are kinda a different story from my experience). Why is this? Some might say I'm promoting a stereotype- "gay men are promiscuous." The truth is simpler than that- men are promiscuous.

If a reasonably attractive man walked up a random woman on the street and said "hey baby let's have sex" would he not get slapped in the face 99% of the time? If the opposite happened, do you really think most men would turn down the offer? So homosexual sex becomes super easy to obtain. Thus, because it becomes super easy to obtain, gay men tend to obtain a lot of it. Thus it becomes a habit. Thus they very easily are lead into a hedonistic life-style of being addicted to such pleasures. This was something I saw with my own eyes. And not only that but they've already rejected sound moral guidance and thus they are left without a moral foundation to protect them from such a trap. In San Francisco, a huge amount of the gay men have become meth addicts because of this. Meth makes sex better and it's hard for them to resist when they're been converted into hedonistic pleasure-seekers with no unbending sense of morality. I remember seeing a former muslim leave his religion and becoming such as I've described. It was especially sad because he had a brilliant mind but it became totally warped by his life-style.

Also, there's this myth that your sexuality is fixed at birth and, unlike pretty much everything else in the Universe, is not in flux; that a person's sexuality cannot be altered. My experiences in San Francisco disproved this. I saw straight men turned bi. And then since gay sex was so easily obtainable, they'd become, for practical purposes, a lot more gay than straight. The reason being this said individual really, really, really wanted sex. But, as it often is for such men, it was hard to find willing female partners. So they settled for the next-best thing, which was a whole lot more easily obtainable.

And considering that modern society is turning gayer by the minute, San Francisco is the sort of thing that a lot of places are moving towards.

I've had so many shocks and so many times that I felt I was so certain of something and it was as though the rug has pulled out from beneath my feet. I sometimes feel utterly lost. I don't what is true. I know nothing. At least that's what's ringing in my head. I worry I will become an atheist. But- I remind myself- there's somewhere in the Quran that talks about disbelievers and it says something to this effect "do they disbelieve because reason leads them to disbelieve (as people like Richard Dawkins claim) or is their disbelief rooted in their wanting to ignore God and follow their desires (i.e., in the words of a self-proclaimed devil-worshipper, "do as thou wilt&quot." Anyways, that bits helps me. Because I constantly see sex all around me and it is constantly being promoted and being that I live in a place where it's relatively easy to "hook up" with women it's hard for me to not want to follow my lusts instead of waiting till marriage like I should. And I know if I do become an atheist, in spite of superficial appearances I might assume to deceive myself and others, I think that would be the real reason I would not want to be a muslim. I was not chaste before I become a muslim plus I got introduced to porn when I was like 12 and I feel a constant state of regret that I have polluted my mind in those ways and made those mistakes that make God's path harder to follow.

On the plus side, I looked at an atheist website. Apparently, atheists are still shallow and still cling to this insane idea that science can replace religion. So that was helpful in making me not wanting to join their ranks.

Anyways, sorry for the long rambling. I've just been distressed and felt like venting.

I have no idea. I hope someone can help shed light on this.

(The Rashad Khalifa translation)

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Say, "O you disbelievers.

"I do not worship what you worship.

"Nor do you worship what I worship.

"Nor will I ever worship what you worship.

"Nor will you ever worship what I worship.

"To you is your religion, and to me is my religion."

What I am wondering is this what is God trying to teach us with this Surah? Right now I'm reading a work of tafsir and what it says about this Surah is very opposed to what I see when I read the Surah. The message of the Surah, according to the tafsir is that our path as muslims and their path as nonbelievers are totally irreconcilable and we must remain aloof and hostile to them and their way of life. This is not what I thought the Surah was trying to tell me. Does anyone have an alternate explanation?

These European countries that are supposedly more "advanced" than the rest of the world are insane. To be fair, humanity in general is insane. But this.... I find this sickening and disturbing. Our societies are racing downhill at an alarming speed. I live in a conservative part of the Southern United States. I left my state for about a year and came back.... and it was as though a huge chunk of the men in my area had turned gay. We have to love our brothers and sisters whether they follow God or not..... but it's just depressing to me that society is leading people so far astray without people even realizing they're going astray. But God guides whom He will and I just have to hope and pray that God will guide my future children so that they don't participate in the various acts of rebellion against God that our societies are racing to attempt to legitimize.

http//www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/18/us-france-gaymarriage-idUSBRE94G0JH20130518