What the hell?

[Sweet_Savant]

Aside from a few secular cults or tribal traditionalists, I doubt very many people would have any concept whatsoever of an afterlife - either as reward or punishment, good or bad. To most Zalanthans, an accurate portrayal of existance would be simply: You are born, you live and suffer, and finally die. Beyond that, there seems to be little evidence of widespread belief in an afterlife that I have seen. I am quite sure that any attempt to cultivate spiritual beliefs outside the practice of God-king worship would be quickly stamped out. On a practical note, there seems to be little or no evidence suggesting there even is an afterlife, which only serves to reinforce the obvious: that you live, suffer, and die.

On a technical sidenote, the Scripture evidences little knowledge of a Hell or even a vaguely hellish place where sinners go to suffer for eternity. There is, however, a reference to Gehenna - which is or was, if I am not mistaken, more or less a communal graveyard where criminals and the like were simply dumped in lieu of a proper burial. Periodically, the area would be would "cleansed" with fire - perhaps contributing to the Western idea that Hell is a place of fiery torment. One might make a connection there, tenuous though it is. Beyond that, there is little to support any prevalent belief in an unsavory afterlife. Even in Genesis, the Scripture states in plain language that Lucifer (who is most commonly held to be the warden of hell, another serious misreprensentation of Scripture) was thrown from Heaven not to some infernal den, but to Earth itself.

On another digression, "satan" is actually a Hebrew word meaning adversary or enemy. Used as a proper name, I believe it translates directly to -the- adversary, or -the- enemy. Shaitan has Islamic roots, however, and is not represented to be a chief spirit of evil, but rather a petty djin or genie who tempts men and leads them astray. I can see the corrolation, but it is not direct. I may be wrong in this regard, as my knowledge of Islam is somewhat limited.

[/i]

[Agent_137]

i prefer the derailment to the thread.

christians got the vast majority of all of their everything from judism and paganism. Christians got VERY little if nothing from islam due to timing.

see,
Jesus = jew
Disciples = jews
Basic underlying concepts, theories, and history = jewish
Paul = jew preaching to pagans
Most new christians in the first century = pagans
Most new rituals and symbols = pagan

it was only later islam met christianity and things got bloody.

[Sweet_Savant]

That makes perfect sense to me, Agent. All things considered, it probably could not have happened any other way. Because the Islamic religion is or was so austere and no-nonsense (dare I say bloody and warlike?) circa the time of the New Testament, I doubt many reformed Christians would have come from Islamic roots. Consider this: at the time of Jesus the Christ and his Apostles, a climate of love-thy-neighbor and turn-the-other-cheek was very, very prevalent. Quite a contradiction to Islamic doctrines, isn't it? Thus it seems only logical that the fledging Christian church would have espoused more peaceful notions of spirituality as opposed to Islamic principles (not that they did not later share many a similarity).

In my opinion, it's all a case of environmental/social conditioning. The theory goes that the demographic of any given region on any given timeline is going to seek what it most needs at that time. For instance, consider religious beliefs throughout the ages: we as primitive hunter-gatherers initiate our religious fervor with strong animistic beliefs. Underlied, of course, by our most basic need of animal meat and hides. Next on the timeline, we come to the first primitive civilizations, who have at this point discovered the wonder of crops and irrigation. Wonderment! Animism mutates into a land- and water-based religion centered around rivers, fertility and rainfall. We all know, of course, that once civilizations started sprouting up, so did the need for military strength-of-arms. So humankind at that point adopted a belief system centered around warlike and protective gods who would smite the enemies of their faithful and reward the slain with eternal paradise. Environmental conditioning, cut and dry. The fact of the matter is, any society is going to structure its beliefs and way of life around what it most needs at that time.

[Sweet_Savant]

Postscript:

Sorry for derailing. Continue with the discussion.

:lol:

[Cale_Knight]

Consider this: at the time of Jesus the Christ and his Apostles, a climate of love-thy-neighbor and turn-the-other-cheek was very, very prevalent. Quite a contradiction to Islamic doctrines, isn't it? Thus it seems only logical that the fledging Christian church would have espoused more peaceful notions of spirituality as opposed to Islamic principles (not that they did not later share many a similarity).

Christianity was already a well-established religion when Islam made the world scene. Way, way past its "fledgling Christian church" days.

[Sweet_Savant]

You are very right, Cale Knight; I did some research and found that the Muslim faith was not even a collection of progressive thinkers, much less a recognized faith, until the late seventh century A.D. with the emergence of Muhammad as a prophet. This just might explain why there were no Islamic converts or subverted religious ideals in the early Christian canon. Ah, well - I suppose we are all entitled to a little faux pas every now and then.

Nonetheless, the argument stands true as far as I can tell. Unless you would care to refute it instead of marking a chronological miscalculation, Cale Knight.

[Cale_Knight]

Well, I'm not sure which argument you're looking to have refuted. If it's the idea that early islam was necessarily a bloodthirsty religion, I'm afraid you're wrong on those counts. Muhammad was actually a shockingly progessive thinker for his time, and went a long way towards things like gender equality and, yes, freedom of religion. The society that he created was formed of quite a few Jewish and Chrtistian tribes along with the tribes who were following this new Islamic faith.

When the Muslim empire started expanding after Muhammad's death, under the rule of the "Rightly Guided" caliphs, many Jews as well as outspoken or radical Christians found that they actually had more protection under Islamic law than under Christian law, and so welcomed the Muslim conquest.

I don't know exactly when Islam "stalled out," so to speak, but there was a time when the Muslim empire was the most enlightened civilization on the planet.

As for the whole hell and Judaism thing, there's no "official" Jewish stance on hell, as there's absolutely zero mention of it in any of the scriptures. If you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find a group of Jews somewhere who believe any given theory - I've heard of one sect that believes in reincarnation. The most widespread belief I've heard (and the one I tend to cotton to) is that when you die, your soul is send to a sort of purgatory where you're made to view your sins in an objective light in a process of remorse and cleansing. At the end, you're raised to heaven. Those souls that are truly evil are simply destroyed. The idea of eternal punishment isn't something I believe a loving god would ever concieve of.

And, finally, Jews and satan. In Jewish tradition, there's an angel whose job is to lead men astray. But the important distinction is that he's not not evil. He's just doing his job - the idea being that holiness without temptation isn't complete. That angel is probably the reason why ham is so tasty.

This rambling hijack brought to you by Cale Knight and the number "four."

[Ritley]

i prefer the derailment to the thread.

christians got the vast majority of all of their everything from judism and paganism. Christians got VERY little if nothing from islam due to timing.

see,
Jesus = jew
Disciples = jews
Basic underlying concepts, theories, and history = jewish
Paul = jew preaching to pagans
Most new christians in the first century = pagans
Most new rituals and symbols = pagan

it was only later islam met christianity and things got bloody.

That's why I believe all religions are one and the same.
Muhammed=Jesus
Alah=God
and so on and so forth.....I just feel christianity has got it right better than the others. Doesn't matter what came first.

[Earendur]

Heh, here's a bit of irony for you.  Christianity is different from Judaism prominently because of Christ (go figure).  The addition of a messiah coming to earth as the son of God and everything else in the New Testament is what distinguishes the two.  

The difference between Christianity and Islam?  Islam teaches that there's a long line of prophets descended from Abra(ha)m among which Jesus is counted, they simply have one additional prophet whose name is Muhammad.  Christians would say that Christ is the last "prophet."  So all the Crusades the Christians waged against the pagan Muslims in the Middle-Ages were based upon this one additional prophet, just like they added the stories of Christ onto the Old Testament.

[Sweet_Savant]

If memory serves - and my mind is like a sieve, so it may not - the Qu'ran marks the first prophet not as Abraham and his progeny, but Adam himself. So along this strain many Muslims argue that the Islamic faith existed far prior to Muhammad in the same vein as Christianity and Judaism.

Islam was most definitively a bloodthirty religion. Muhammad himself executed attacks and caravan raids that went far, far beyond the need for defense. He was an expansionist, not simply a "progressive thinker". To say that any religion is less bloody or warlike than another is simply uneducated, I'm sorry. Whole schools of thought have diverged over nothing more than a petty doctrinal difference of opinion; take for instance the Muslim faith as opposed to Judaism and Christianity. How much warfare and bloodshed has been carried out over nothing more grievous than the addition of another Prophet? It is simply the nature of humankind. Men know - not think, but KNOW - they are right and any who oppose that potent acknowledgement are summarily brought low. Think the conquest and consolidation of Muhammad's reign. Think, Crusades.

[Sweet_Savant]

Earundur, good point. I neglected to mention that in my prior post. It is no great secret that the New Testament Scripture was consolidated on the shoulders of the Old Testament, which in turn was consolidated from Judaism.

[Cenghiz]

Diablo=Deccal
Baal and Mephisto=Yecüc and Mecüc
The archangels are totally the same, even their names.
Muslims also believe that Madonna is a saint and they believe she gave birth to Jesus without a father. Only difference about Jesus' life, muslims believe Jesus has not been murdered, instead he has been raised to the heavens.
Muslims also believe Jesus will return, to help Mehdi (Err.. Mehdi in Christianism is translated as 'the Lamb' to Turkish, I have read the section about his victory in the Holy Bible and it's nearly the same what Mehdi will do, sorrily I don't know if the translation of the name was right) in his battle against the evil. Even though nothing mentioned about the seals being broken as omens in Qur'an, muslims believe in nearly all signs of the Doomsday christians believe, as separate omens.
Also of course all prophets christians believe in are also muslims' prophets. Only Mohammed is added as the last Prophet. The basic rules of these religions are almost always the same. Allah is the unique, one God christians believe. John Milton tells us christian philosophy of the battle between the good and the evil in "Paradise Lost", unbelieveably similar to what Ibni Haldun has written about this topic in "Mukaddime".
There are many instances in Qur'an and 'hadis'es - the things the Prophet Mohammed had said - perfectly matching Dante's Infernoes about the afterlife.
As the last, in Muslim Şeriat - the life style of Qur'an, christians are not totally pagans. Muslim men may marry christian women without forcing them to atone and they are supposed to help their christian wives do their christian prayers. Churches must be seen as holy places, and in the Sura Kafirun (Sure: Section of Qur'an) the fifth verse says: "Leküm dînüküm veliyedîn." which can be translated as: Your religion is yours and mine is mine. Qur'an prohibits forcing other folks to change their religion.
So what's all the hatred in Bin Laden towards America and Christians? Eh, believe me or not, he's not really informed well about his own religion. He's just an idiot looking for fame and perhaps profit. I'm bored of such fools viewing christians and jews as evil, but also bored of christians and jews viewing muslims as evil.

[eska]

What is the main objective of this thread? Do we need to have hell in Arm or which one's religion beats? Quit that nonesense or take it to idle OOC chatter please.
And going back to the topic. I always use "What the drov?" instead of "What the hell?" The word "Drov" looks like a good substitute for "Hell"

[Sweet_Savant]

Drov is the plane of darkness - how does that translate into a place where dead people go to suffer, or even a general afterlife? I have never understood this. Maybe it is my overwhelming newbie status, but I fail to see the logic behind this albeit.

Maybe Nilaz would make a more appropriate substitute (although I see few people even knowing what this means). Nilaz is, after all, the absence of all other elemental powers, isn't it? Since life is more or less encompassed by all elements, would not the -lack- of all those elements equate death?

Eh, my thoughts on it, anyhow.

And sorry for the derailment.  :wink:

[RogueWarrior]

Well, I just have to say, I can't see a problem with the word 'hell' on Armageddon. Most religions (albiet not all) throughout the years (yes, on earth) have featured some sort of hell. Some sort of punishment for disobeying the promient deity, and I don't see why the Zalanthan religions can't feature a hell, thus making the word ICly 'legal'.

[Ritley]

I stick with my oponion that all religions are one and the same. They just all saw Jesus in different ways.