Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Jun 7, 2016 at 15:53

Hi, Dhimmino. You said,

"...the internet was the catalyst. Something is happening in the Muslim world and change is coming slowly as it should."

This is my view as well. I think this is the first time I've seen that stated so succinctly. A "catalyst" is something that overcomes an energy barrier by providing an alternate path for a reaction. Proteins, for example, are catalysts in that they hold reactants next to one another, like a vise and a pair of pliers, so they can be chemically combined -- much like in soldering two wires together. Those wires can then be joined irreversibly in a way that they would never have been joined by randomly throwing wires and solder together.

The key to catalysis, is that except for the barrier against reacting under ordinary, random conditions, the reactants (like the two pieces of wire) actually CAN join together under the right conditions. In the case of religion, the equivalent circumstance is that the people somewhere, down deep, WANT to know the truth. In their Islamic society, Egyptians have until now confronted social, religious and political barriers in their quest for the truth. The Internet offers them an opportunity to transcend those barriers. Once the wall is breached, so to speak, all things are possible -- for good or for evil.

I believe the single most powerful source of influence on the Internet that can change a Muslim, is exposure to some fairly clean translations of the Bible. In English, I prefer two:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/kjv/ (King James Version, entire Bible) and
http://www.godrules.net/library/hebrewgreek/inter.htm (interlinear Hebrew and Greek with English translation, and links for each word to a dictionary).

There are certainly good Arabic sites as well; but since I don't know Arabic, I can't recommend any (You probably can). The value of the Bible over any propaganda or other means of communication, is that the it is of ancient standing (pre-dating Qur'an by hundreds of years), objective, disinterested and apolitical; and it provides input concerning every aspect of life and thought. No person, acadamy, govenment, religion or philosophy can cover all these bases.

What's more, the Bible is peerless: there is no other document like it, in the whole world. The Tao is not like it; the Thought of Chairman Mao Tse Tung is not like it; the Bhagavad Gita is not like it; the Kybalion is not like it; and Qur'an certainly is no match for it. Concerning Qur'an, it is the ramblings of one man at one time, compared with the Bible, which was penned by dozens of authors over a space of hundreds of years -- all of them in agreement about who God is, what he has done, and what his plans are for our lives. Qur'an can pique the curiosity of a Muslim, leading him on a quest for the truth; but only the Bible can deliver the truth he is seeking.

On the last point, you yourself know that Qur'an even upholds the Bible as the standard of truth: It says that Allah has given us TWO books, namely, Torah and Qur'an -- making them of equal validity. It also acknowledges Jesus as a true prophet, one whose words ought to be heard and heeded. If I were a Muslim, I would want to see Torah in its original Hebrew text; and I would want to see the sayings of Jesus as recorded by eyewitnesses. I also imagine that Muslims everywhere, repulsed by the blood and gore preached and done by their fellow-religioners, long to see "Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful", which saying is repeated, word for word, over a hundred times in Qur'an.

Yes indeed, I imagine that thousands of Muslims are already secret believers, maybe millions. As more walls come crashing down, they will reveal themselves.

Shalom shalom :-)

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