Posted on 01/20/2008 12:48:20 PM PST by america4vr
The description of heaven as depicted by Islam as reward for a devout, strictly adhered to life of a Muslim has always struck me as an eminently revealing aspect into the primitive mind of the Arab mentality and to the very legitimacy of Islam as God's word.
Islam is the only religion, the only belief system in a supernatural deity that entices its adherents with the promise of a decidedly puerile, salacious, beastial, unspiritual nature, with the promise of an eternal afterlife of carnal indulgence without end.
No other religion resorts to the sort of whorish pandering in which Islam exhorts it followers by virtue of the basest of Man's primal urges.
Historically, religions have always looked upon the sex act as being of the Devil, as vile, unholy, unclean, as a necessary evil to be engaged in for the sake of procreation only.
Other religions describe heaven only in the most abstract, following the word of God deemed good, worthy enough as its own reward.
Simply put, this central tenet of Islam's belief system has always struck me as the very indication, proof of its wholly unGodly decidedly terrestrial nature I will ever need.
As I understand it, these virgins get healed up and become virgins again, so it seems like one or two ought to suffice.
I've never had sex with a virgin, so I can't say for sure, but I'd rather eat at a restaurant where the chef has cooked before, at least for me.
It’s 72 white grapes; it never was 72 virgins:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it:80/articolo/7025?eng=y
What do they say Islamic women who go to Heaven get? I can’t imagine that 72 female virgins would appeal to many of them.
It's pretty simple to me. Ol' Mohammed knew his market. If he was alive today he'd be a Madison Avenue star.
72 plus 28 equals 100—not only are there 72 sloe-eyed maidens, but 28
“ghilman” — pretty young boys. That’s not often mentioned. And booze is plentiful in paradise, too.
“Historically, religions have always looked upon the sex act as being of the Devil, as vile, unholy, unclean, as a necessary evil to be engaged in for the sake of procreation only. “
Absolute nonsense. Judaism never, ever looked upon sex like this — this only krept into the western Christian church due to so many of the philosophical “fathers” long after the ministry of Christ who had hangups about females (if you catch what I mean) and influenced thinking for years.
And another thing — if sex is so bad in Judaism (of which Christianity and Islam are offshoots) why (on the wedding night) does a Hasidic Jewish groom hang the bedsheet out in public to show he got himself a virgin bride?
Yes, sex is to be controlled within the bounds of marriage, and procreation is commanded by God (something ignored by most Christians), but it is also reveared.
http://www.corkscrew-balloon.com/02/03/1bkk/04b.html
“...For example, the famous passage about the virgins is based on the word hur, which is an adjective in the feminine plural meaning simply “white.” Islamic tradition insists the term hur stands for “houri,” which means virgin, but Mr. Luxenberg insists that this is a forced misreading of the text. In both ancient Aramaic and in at least one respected dictionary of early Arabic, hur means “white raisin.”
Mr. Luxenberg has traced the passages dealing with paradise to a Christian text called Hymns of Paradise by a fourth-century author. Mr. Luxenberg said the word paradise was derived from the Aramaic word for garden and all the descriptions of paradise described it as a garden of flowing waters, abundant fruits and white raisins, a prized delicacy in the ancient Near East. In this context, white raisins, mentioned often as hur, Mr. Luxenberg said, makes more sense than a reward of sexual favors...
Historically, religions have always looked upon the sex act as being of the Devil, as vile, unholy, unclean, as a necessary evil to be engaged in for the sake of procreation only.
is a statement of pure rubbish, without a shred of evidence. Judaism and Christianity (before Rome elevated virginity to the heights) certainly have no evidence in their scriptures of such a negative view of sex: "be fruitful and multiply" was after all the 1st Command of Genesis 2 (along with the command to avoid one fruit...).
Sex and its full expression in monogamous marriage, as a creation of God, is considered holy--even a part of the sacrament of marriage. It is precisely because Judaism and Christianity have such a high view of the sexual act, that the MISUSE of it is considered so vile and degraded.
So high is the view of sex...in its proper context, marriage alone, that Holy Scripture includes a whole book, which can only be properly understood as an ancient erotic love poem. It is just in accurate wrong to characterize all religions except Islam as looking down on sex. No other religion but Islam that I know of sees an erotic afterlife true, but that's quite different than seeing sex itself as vile--as you characterize it.
No problem with the post itself, but this is not breaking news.
I actually have a a theory where the whole 72 virgins might work:
They never say whether the virgins are male or female. I assume a lot of these suicide bombers are virgins themselves. So what happens is they blow themselves up, and end up with a group of 71 other suicide bomber/virgins.
I stand corrected.
It nevertheless does not change my attitude on Islam's depiction of Heaven and remain unapologetic that essentially Muhhammad is Allah's self-described pimp
It was misinterpreted. What the jihadists get is one 72-year old virgin.
-———They never say whether the virgins are male or female goats. -—————
“Historically, religions have always looked upon the sex act as being of the Devil, as vile, unholy, unclean, as a necessary evil to be engaged in for the sake of procreation only.”
That statement is total bullshit. Most religions in our world history favored sex and designed and performed ceremonies to celebrate it. It was only with the advent of Christianity that such a healthy practice fell into disfavor. For reasons, perhaps known to others, Christianity brought women into ill repute and denied them their previous role in religious worship. That statement, quoted above, suggests to me that you may be the last of the Cathars. ;)
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