This is a post of mine from another forum regarding this issue...........

From what I've been taught as being a Christian my whole life....

Yes God does control all the elements....... afterall, He's the one who created them. LOL.

TV evangelists are the last people on earth to get an impression from. Even Christians can't stand them.

There was recently an article, some bishop of Cantebury or something said that people have questioned their faith in God over the Tsunami disaster.

Personally, I believe that this was not a test by God, nor a punishment. It was an opportunity. If you look back to the beginning of ANY scripture..... you can see the underlying message there....... when Adam and Eve named all the creatures and birds and everything that crawled. Basically what this is saying is....... we see, we percieve, and we name it. Now, we saw this Tsunami, we percieved it as a bad thing, so therefore we called it a bad thing. However, what we percieve may not be exactly correct. It's just our perception. We created the idea of good and bad..... only God knows what is what........ like I said, afterall, he created it. We only label it........ we have faults.

The reason I call it an opportunity is because.... 1. Again, in the beginning EVERYTHING God made was good. That immediately tells you that nothing God creates is going to bad NOTHING. Which is why I am against original sin. Why would God do that to us? That tree in the garden of eden wasn't a test either. moving along....... 2. Think about this........ what major life lessons have you learned during the happiest moments in life? you would probably answer none.... because when we are at our happiest..... we are in a simple state of bliss.......... but when we suffer, that is when we contemplate all of life's meanings. It is through hardship that we discover our connection with God, life's purpose, and how we treat others as well as ourselves.

This may be hard to swallow, but the Tsunami was a blessing. Yes, alot of people died.... but where do you think they went? If you believe in life after death.... then all those people dead on the shore shouldn't bother you..... THEY MET GOD. And if I had a choice between sitting here on the PC talking to you, and meeting face to face with God, I would rather have the latter.

Those bodies on the shores are nothing but empty packages..... those aren't people anymore.... they are the simple shell that carried their soul....... the package is empty now..... their soul is else where. It's like crying over a damaged box when you know the contents are safely placed on your shelf.

As for the people left behind..... the children without parents, the parents without children..... only God knows their future, and none of us knows what God has in store for them....... through this disaster.......... they now have an opportunity to look towards their earthly brothers and sisters in a compassionate way that they may have never used before. Instead of breaking their heart, this will also open thier hearts.... something that may have never occured had it not been for the Tsunami.

I would say that God has already created us in His image, so all we have to do is uphold what he has already given us, which was divine from the first humans. We are above everything on Earth..... the fact that we are created in his image shows that we are to mirror Him, because that is exactly what we are.... His mirror. But that's just my opinion.... I've always had a heretical slant to my thinking......... however, I'm never afraid to let it be known.

Thank you for your responses.

Speaking of following messengers..........

What are your views when Jesus said "he who is without sin, cast the first stone"?

Now..... another thing that I don't understand is..... does the Quran in some way replace all scriptures before it? I was told on another site that the Quran is sufficient enough, and that Muslims do not go by any other book..... but isn't it somewhere in the Quran where it is said that these books were sent down to the prophets beforehand? What is the statis of the ancient scriptures, and how or why does the Quran superceed them?

The reason I ask is because..... it seems to me that by rejecting any and all scriptures besides Quran, and focusing on only one prophet would seem like all the other prophets and scriptures are worthless in some way. I can't see how that could be.

Thank you. )

I am now having a hard time with the idea of stoning. The Quran specifically sais that the penalty for adultery is 100 lashings. Then there is a hadith that distinguishes married penalty from unmarried penalty.....

No where in the Quran does it say that there are two different penalties for two different situations....... I want to know why exactly Mohammed would have said such a thing.....

What makes the idea of this website so difficult for me to understand, is that in order to reject hadith, in a way, (to me anyway) is like rejecting the prophet.......

What made Mohammed say this? Is this a weak hadith or something? Is there anymore on adultery in the quran, or specifically, the subject of stoning? cry

? I am asking this question at different places, trying to make some sense of the issue from all kinds of perspectives.

Ok.... What are your views on music, singing, and dancing?

I was told that in Islam it's haram, and they gave me hadiths in which Mohammad simply said to not be like the pagans.... but some people are so strict with this, they insist that he meant all singing and dancing, and muscial instruments.

From what I've noticed at this site so far, am I correct in assuming this is a group that rejects hadith? If so, is my question addressed at all in the Quran?

Thanks.