Brother Gideon,
peace, shalom, salaam, satsriakaal, namaste, alaabho, hamzor hama ashobed and all other ways of acknowledging the stranger and building relationships and developing the kingdom of heaven, where no one has to live in fear of the other.
All religious greetings express the same wisdom; may you be blessed, soaked and drenched in peace, so you and I can talk and act peace. Amen!
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Brother, I honor your beliefs, and hope you honor my beliefs. It is dead wrong for you or I to believe that the other one is wrong.. that is sheer arrogance and goes against the key principle of religion, every religion; humility.
Every word I am writing below, will be in Bible and is in Quraan and sure will find in all holy books. Eeach one of my statements below has origins in Quraan and my fellow Muslims can quote the verses. This is mainstream Islam.
Religion is not mathematics or physics to be clearly wrong or right, it is rather a belief, that has no rhyme or reason, and as such neither you, nor I can be wrong. Both are right in our own beliefs. The evil surfaces when we are tempted to push our beliefs onto the other, and erroneously and arrogantly believe that the other one is wrong.
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Life is a celebration.
Birth is a celebration, growing up is, graduation is, getting a job is, marriage is…. praying in church, mosque, synagogue, temples and altars is celebration of creator’s glory.
Father’s day, Mothers day, Anniversaries, Rakhi are all expressions of gratitude
One should be grateful every moment and to everyone who has done whatever little to enhance other’s and one’s own life.
Life will remain incomplete without expressing gratitude… it is a powerful emotional release that gives you peace of mind, the other components are justice, repentance, forgiveness…
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God does not want his creation to be exactly allike; he would have created if that was the case, he can do anything, after all he is the creator.
God created each one of us to be different intentionally, each one with his/her own thumb print, eye print, DNA… no two humans are alike…no two snowflakes are like… isn’t that God’s will?
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You may not like this, and most religious folks who are not “free” will not like this, but do think about it. Islam is about freedom and not bondage, it released slaves, women, egos and others from bondage…including my god v your god… and on an on.
God will not allow:
The entire world to be christian, hindus, muslims, sikhs, jews, buddhists are others.
Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, Moses or Buddha will never be allowed to have monopoly.
It just will not happen.
A few Christians, Hindus, Muslims live in the dream world that everyone would become…
It will not happen
Because it goes against God’s will
Even forcible conversions go against God’s will, because that is removing one more element of diversity that God has created.
And finally Brother Gideon, if your business is conversion, or proving others wrong, you got the wrong audience and the wrong guy for it. I celebrate every which way one worships the creator.
Dialogue is a must, and will continue it, and I pray that God give us all the humility to respect each other and their opinions.
Mike Ghouse is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a professional speaker, thinker and a writer onpluralism, politics, civic affairs, Islam, India, Israel, peace and justice. Mike is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity showon Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News and regularly at Huffington post, and several other periodicals across the world. The blog www.TheGhousediary.com is updated daily.