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About Me
- Mr. Dalton
- Mr. Dalton is an instructor in the Upper School at Beaufort Academy. He is inept at car repair and home or lawn maintanance of any sort, but is an accomplished philosopher. In his spare time he enjoys throwing darts while listening to old Duran Duran cassettes.
According to both Smith and Armstrong, the structure and message of Islam allowed for the Arab people to create great civilizations. Are Christianity and Judaism the cause for great powers as well? why or why not?
ReplyDelete- Islam is interesting in that a Muslim must believe only in God, not in Muhammad or anything else. It is not however, strict in that it allows for new ideas and expanding knowledge.
-Smith presents Islam more or less as a religion open to anyone willing to submit to God, while Armstrong presents Islam as the Arab religion.
1) According to both A History of God and The World's Religions, Muhammad believed that the Quraysh was a religion based strictly on money. Are other religions, specifically Christianity, based wholly on finances? Why or why not?
ReplyDelete2) Both Armstrong and Smith depict the Muslims' glorification of the Koran. In your opinion, is the Koran a glorifiable book? Why or why not?
3) Islam is a religion created for followers who WANT to know God better. Is the desire to know God and claiming to know Him the same thing? Explain.
Armstrong goes into much more detail of the beginnings of the religion than Smith does. She explores not only what society was like before the Koran, but also how the people felt. She goes into much more detail of the actual revelations of Muhammad.
ReplyDeleteBoth Smith and Armstrong show how the Kuran is also a political guideline -- it represents how the government should be run. Not only this, but they both dip into the socialist ideas behind Islam that I mentioned earlier in class. While Smith mentions the tax that is taken from the rich and given to the poor, Armstrong claims that the message of the Kuran is not that all the money should be held by only a few people, but that it should be spread amongst many.
This is a question for Mr. Dalton and will probably be worded in a confusing way because I'm confused on the subject myself. Towards the beginning of the Armstrong chapter (top of page 136) it says that the Arabs were angry and envious of the Christians and the Jews because God had sent them messengers, but he hadn't sent any to the Arabs. Does this mean that Muslims believe that they believe in literally the exact same God as Christians and Jews? I know that was covered before, but I didn't believe it was to this extent. And if so, why wouldn't they follow somebody else who they believed was a prophet? I guess it's kind of like the Jews not believing Jesus was the son of God, but the Muslims never had any sort of conflict like that. I'm just having a big discussion with myself on the blog.
Does a true desire to know God, or social pressures lead to the utter devotion to God prevalent in Islam? How does this play a role in other religions, both western and eastern?
ReplyDeleteMuslims generally view the Quran as a fundamentally holy book. How does this compare to Christianity in regard to both the New and Old Testaments, and in turn, how does that reflect back on Islam?
What produces the "best" secieties, the separation of Church and State prevalent in Christianity, or their unification in many Islamic nations?
1. How are Muslims supposed to know how to decipher "messages" of God?
ReplyDelete2. Why did Muhammad think the tribe was going to disentigrate?
3. Why did Muhammad find the revelations such an immense strain?
In their respective religions, the Koran and The Bible serve extremely different purposes. In what way is the Koran, and its literal meaning, important to Islam?
ReplyDeleteOn pg.136, Armstrong reasons that "the last thing they [The Arabs] needed was a foreign ideaology". Why didn't Christianity and Judaism flourish in the Arab region?
Unlike in Huston Smith's The World's Religions, Armstrong stresses the importance of pre-Islam idealogy in the formation of Islam. Armstrong discusses the importance of strong egalitarianism, and the "muruwah" which had fufilled many of the functions of religon before Islam.
religion*
ReplyDelete1. Based on both History of God and World Religions, both worshiped al-La and both did not have a God but "the God". Through these similarities what differed between Smith's and Armstrongs book?
ReplyDelete2. In your opionion, what are the similarities and differences of the Christian idea of angels and God and Islam's idea of "the God" and presence in which resembled angels.
3. Why do you think that Muslims are "not to abdicate their reason but to look at the world attentively and with curiosity"? Do you think all religions do this? Why do think science is not so much a danger for Islam as in Christianity.
1. The Crusades have played an integral part in the relationship between Christianity and Islam. Would a similar conflict have arisen if both the Europeans and the Arabs shared the same religion?
ReplyDelete2. It is interesting to note that the Islamic world was on the rise just when the complete collapse of the Christian West was occuring.
3. Why was Islam so successful in uniting diverse and independent people and creating powerful empires?
1. If Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship the same God, then why are there so many wars and conflicts over it? Shoud there (or is there) a one, supreme religion?
ReplyDelete2. Is being a devout Muslim any different than being a devout Christian?
3. How is the Bible any different from the Koran?