my translation of Allihu Ackbar.:...Come Blow My Head Off!!
So how would one say in Arabic, “God is great” without doctrinal theological meaning?
It’s a peaceful thing. Translates to “Aloha Snackbar!”
If you have to tell people how great you are means you are not.
People need to do more research before they post these things. The acclamation is more fundamental to Islam than just a shout at a tribe of Jews.
From its beginnings, Islam has spread through the ideology that if I can defeat you, our god is greater than your god. You must submit to our god. The bedouin culture was a multi-religious tribal culture that was subdued one tribe at a time through this understanding. Defeating your tribe means our god is greater than your god.
Knowing this interpretation gives you greater understanding into the full mindset of Islamists. They aren't allowed to suffer defeat. To suffer defeat is to admit that their god is not greater. That is why you see ridiculous scenes like Baghdad Bob proclaiming our defeat while we are a mile from his own location. That is why no Islamic country can accept Israel's existence. To do so acknowledges the conquest of lands that were once under Sharia Law. Islam is only allowed setbacks, never defeat. Once a land has been conquered, they will return and they will be relentless in that pursuit.
After that, they will move on to the rest of the world. Their overall goal is to turn Dar al Harb (the world at war) into Dar al Islam (the world submitted). Whether they call themselves "moderate" or "extremist" that is the goal of them all.
The situation was that people of Israel had taken to Baal worship, a faith that added a lot of whores to its rituals and thus gained immediate popularity. Elijah (not the one with the bears, that was Elisha) decided that the people had to choose between Baal and God. Rather than write a series of books or give a bunch of boring speeches, Elijah invited 450 Baal prophets to a contest, where both sides would set up an animal sacrifice. Whichever God could rain down fire on its sacrifice would be the one everybody worshiped.It's brilliant in its simplicity, and we're surprised religious debates were ever carried out any other way after that. You can raise all the intellectual challenges you want about faith and the origins of the universe, but at the end of the day, you have to worship the god who can set you on fire. It's common sense.
We like to think Elijah stood in front of the howling column of heavenly fire, straightened his robes, turned to the crowd and said, "Thus, my opponent's argument falls." Then, he finished the debate in the way that all debates should be finished: by having the losers slaughtered.
-- from the thread The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses
It's pronounced something like TSUNG-wah, and a Chinese person will tell you it means "middle country." What's wrong with that? Hey, it's "in the middle." Brings to mind our expression "middle of the road."
But that's not really accurate. A more exact translation would be "center country" - or perhaps "central country" - as in "center of the world" or "center of the universe."
- 1 Kings 18:21 (KJV)
Stop me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any other way around it: the Arabic al-ilah has a cognate in Hebrew el-elohi, which as I recall, simply means "the god"...
That's not my God, that's for sure.