Caringheart,

Edited by honeto - 19 July 2012 at 4:47pm

Caringheart,
yeah, but when you stand in front of that statue and respect, pray and worship, it becomes and object of worship. And it is called idol worship.

I worked really hard to show you what is a statue and worship of a statue. You did not address any of that.

As far as if one is just following others in doing something like bowing down in front of statues and praying to them, you asked: The answer is clear, if that person is sane, he/she is given basic faculties to help him/her to differentiate between hot and cold, to eat and drink when hungry or thirsty and so on. Not only that God has provided for him/her knowledge and guidance to differentiate between right and wrong.
If one is very good to figure out what is good for his/her education, career, life, wealth, and children, that person cannot have excuse when it comes to something more serious.
My wife comes from a Catholic turned Evangelist family. She is now a Muslim, she tells me that she did what her family did as a tradition, not conviction. She did not think of Jesus as God rather a man of God.
There are many people like her who I have heard saying the same. If we just pay even the same amount of attention we pay to our worldly matters that affect our lives to who we worship and why, I am sure we will not make mistakes. If we do make mistakes God is forgiving, but if we intentionally ignore guidance, we will dearly pay for that ignorance.
Hasan

Edited by honeto - 20 July 2012 at 3:41pm

unintentional?????

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:

Yes Hasan, I read the whole surah and it spoke to me as regards this issue we have been discussing.  What if the 'oath' is the content of the heart in worship?

How come the words of your quote from the Qur'an are different from mine?  Mine sound more right to me.

Tonight I stumbled upon this while doing research on India;

The Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir lived in relative harmony, since the Sufi-Islamic way of life that Muslims followed in Kashmir complemented the Rishi tradition of Kashmiri Pandits, and Sufi saints such as Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali were thought of as Muslim Rishis. This led to a syncretic culture where Hindus and Muslims revered the same local saints and prayed at the same shrines[citation needed]. Famous sufi saint Bulbul Shah was able to convert Rinchan Shah who was then prince of Kashgar Ladakh to an Islamic lifestyle, thus founding the Sufiana composite culture. Under this rule, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist Kashmiris generally co-existed peacefully. Over time, however, the Sufiana governance gave way to outright Muslim monarchs.


[edit]
More I just found while researching Bulgaria;

The Muslim population of Bulgaria, including Turks, Pomaks, Gypsies, and Tatars, lived mainly in northeastern Bulgaria and in the Rhodope Mountains. Most were Sunni Muslims because Sunni Islam had been more widely promoted by the Ottoman Turks when they ruled Bulgaria. Shia sects such as the Kuzulbashi and the Bektashi also were present, however. About 80,000 Shia Muslims lived mainly in the Razgrad, Sliven and Tutrakan (northeast of Ruse) regions. They were mainly descendants of Bulgarians who converted to Islam to avoid Ottoman persecution but chose a Shia sect because of its greater tolerance toward different national and religious customs. For example, Kuzulbashi Bulgarians could maintain the Orthodox customs of communion, confession, and honoring saints. This integration of Orthodox customs into Islam gave rise to a type of syncretism found only in Bulgaria.


So can you see that Islam is practiced many different ways according to culture?  Are you going to condemn these who call themselves Muslims and consider themselves to be following the way of Islam?

Culture and religion always influence one another and are intertwined.  Are we to be the ones to do the separating of the wheat from the chaff, or it that God's dominion only?


Edited by Caringheart - 27 July 2012 at 5:14pm