Since Religion in general is a highly discussed topic nowaday, i started reading a bit of the Qu'ran now.

My Questions toward's believers (for different religions):

1. One of the first Verses in the Qu'ran seems to be about non believers. that nonbelievers think their thinking about the nonexisting of Allah is right, but it isnt. WHY, when we were created by him, why shouldnt we believe in him? If i were.. 'The Creator', i would make sure that they believe that i am existing, or i may even give them proof, let them hail to me all the time. So, why should he stay away from non believers to let them think what they think is right, but punish them afterwards, for their way of thinking? (that'd be a bad characterscheme, lol)

2. Women. i 'heard' the Qu'ran says that they are like your lands are yours, and you can use them as you will, and how you will. So why should non believing women question this? Why giving them the Intelligence to question it, the absolute sense of their existence?

3. Why are there just a handful of Prophets (in any religion) hearing word of the Creator? as i 'heard', its described that every believer in every religion is worth thw same, why not telling everyone the mind of their gods?

there sure are more in my head, but i think those 3 will be enough. and dont come up with 'God moves in mysterious ways'..

thanks!

1.  That's how religions work


2.  Islam and Christianity both came from the same area and mindset, from an age when men made all the decisions.  Actually, Islam is a bit worse than christianity so don't expect it to be that tolerant.

3.  Because in any religion, only a few people are deemed worthy enough to recieve such sacred messages, otherwise if anybody could recieve these, then it would break down. 

for what it's worth, i'm an athiest but am pretty interested in religion in general and used to be a big time southern baptist, I just can't believe in God anymore

The Torah also treats women as property, and marriage institutions in most countries used to treat women as property.  Religions are old and they all came out of that.

No idea why God would give us reason to doubt him and then punish us for exercising it.  That's one of the many reasons I don't believe.  I can't get behind a devious trickster god.  Sounds more like a comic book villain to me.

I am honestly not sure about god but in my opinion if an all powerful being such as god exsisted he/she/it wouldn't care less if we believed in it or not.

@Crystalchild: Your question(s) seems to be more of a "is there a creator or not" kind of question. I would suggest looking into creation apologetics first. It seems like now you are getting hung up on certain aspects of a specific theology, when you haven't satisfied in your thoughts the fact that there very well may be a creator. When I first began to question everything, I had to settle things logically that there could be a creator. From there I went to looking into specific faiths. Different strokes for different folks, but that was the only way I could go about it. To me it seemed backwards to look into certain faiths and those specifics, when I was not yet satisfied that there even could be a creator.

1) Most people do believe in a creator. Pretty much every culture that I'm aware of believed there is a creator/higher power. It is our nature to think this and wonder, not just live by bodily instints as animals do. Not only this, but many people accept there is a creator/higher power through logic. Science can take us back to the big bang, but what caused the big bang? I heard Stephen Hawking recently said that he no longer thinks God is a part of that equation, that gravity fills the God-part of the puzzle. My question is, what did gravity have around to have an effect on to initiate the big bang? What caused gravity to be? Was gravity around before existence as we know it?

As far as why God should "stay away" from non-believers, that is getting more into specific theology. I'm pretty sure Muslims and Christians(what I am) agree on this. God doesn't "stay away" from non-believers, they "stay away" from Him. If there is a God, a bad "character scheme" would be to reject God.

2) I'm not muslim so I cannot really speak about what the Quran says about women. I do know that the Old(some there I know) and New Testamant say that men and women have their own roles in marriage and the church.

3) From a Christian point of view, we all have access to the word of God now. As far as prophecies being told to certain individuals and why should they be revealed to certain individuals...why not? Theoretically, if there is a creator, why should he do things according to our wishes? You said if you were the creator of everything, you would do things your way; if there is a creator, he is certainly doing things his way. That is his perogative, just as it would be yours if you were the one who made it all. And from a Christian point of view, we can all recieve some sort of divine revelation; it doesn't need to be a prophecy pertaining to the salvation of mankind, end times, or anything like that. We do have to come to God on His terms, not our own, which is a problem for most of us.

Again, I'm not Muslim, so I cannot really speak from a Muslim point of view, but Islam is an Abrahamic faith, as is Christianity, which I am a part of. So there is some common ground there, but I'm not a Muslim so I cannot really speak for them.

The questions your asking are pretty philosophical.

I could fill pages upon pages trying to make a point. Really makes me wish like we could just talk in person, makes it so much easier to debate.

Anyways the woman part has to an extent been misconstrued. Arabic is one of those languages in which every word has two or more meanings. I can show you two respected muslim scholars each with their own different interpretation of passages.

Just as a small example. There is a passage in the Quran that can be translated into saying if your wife disobeys or angers you a certain number of times it is ok to hit her. However that exact same passage can be translated to meaning if your wife disobeys or angers you a certain number of times then you must leave the house and create distance between yourselves.

I fixed that there for ya.

1: Special pleading. If God can exist before the big bang why can't gravity? Surely an anthropic being that cares about what gender we have sex with and listens to our prayers etc (insert whatever specific claims about God/Gods made by any religion here) is far less likely to exist then gravity. The insertion of God into the problem doesn't solve the issue of the infinite regress anymore then saying gravity existed and everythin came from there.

Also, if time didn't exist before the Big bang then addressing such question in a linear manner may actually be a mistake since if time existed after the big bang then it could be said that the universe has existed forever. I prefer to take a view of suspended judgement in general. But I'm pretty certain that it will be science and not theology that answers this question, given the track record. If a God exists, it'll be a small indifferent more deistic God most likely in my opinion, thats if a God exists at all.

2: The issue of sexism is one that I like to think of in this way. When people say religion is man made I take that sentence literally. Patriarchy is something that I'm pretty sure was prevalent in those times so any Religion created by men in such times would probably serve to reinforce such values most likely.

Here's the answers from my personal point of view (no offence intended to those that believe differently):

1) According to Christians, God came to earth and was born as Jesus. Apparently he did some miracles (the Jews of the time accused him of sorcery as can be seen in their scriptures as well as in Christian scriptures, thus we can assume that he actually did do some supernatural things). Yet atheists still don't believe in God. So it seems that there was some proof that God exists (and there probably still is some proof) but once you decide that you don't want to believe in God... well, there's not really much even God can do!

2) I would say that the way ancient Jews, Muslims or Christians treated women is more of a cultural thing than a religious thing. Even today so-called believers justify their abuse of human rights by pointing to religious scripture. One must keep in mind that religious scripture was very much used to govern people in the old days. For instance, Christianity was designed by the Roman Empire to prevent conflict between rival religions. It was designed to suit everybody rather than any specific religious sect. Christianity was a compromise. So people tend to develop their religions to fit into their social ideologies or social needs rather than the other way around.

3) There's an ancient Sufi saying: "God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal and awakens in man." Anyone can be his own prophet. There's a voice of reason within every person that can guide that person to realise his/her full potential to be a happy person (or animal). However, some people do not know how to tap into that voice of reason. I believe that the prophets of old were no more than philosophers and great thinkers. They were able to analyze situations on a grand scale and make accurate predictions at times. However, sometimes they also spoke in meaningless riddles. Nostradamus had a knack for this as well. The predictions he made were so abstract that it could have meant anything. We are the ones that validate those predictions when we say: "Oh, yeah! So the rock he spoke about was actually a comet and the bones of the beast was the dinosaurs!"

To conclude: to believe in God, is a personal decision. All the various religions are other people's ideas of God. I think one should ask: "If God exists, how would I imagine Him?" For in the end, if God exists, we are all creations that were formed out of Him. We should thus have a pretty good idea how He would like us to act and what He wants us to believe. I guess it's a question of guilt. What makes you feel more guilty? Believing in God or not believing in God?

Go for the believe that makes you feel less quilty, whatever that may be. For my part, not believing in God makes me feel empty and meaningless. But that's me.

@TopsyKretts:

1) According to Christians, God came to earth and was born as Jesus. Apparently he did some miracles (the Jews of the time accused him of sorcery as can be seen in their scriptures as well as in Christian scriptures, thus we can assume that he actually did do some supernatural things). Yet atheists still don't believe in God. So it seems that there was some proof that God exists (and there probably still is some proof) but once you decide that you don't want to believe in God... well, there's not really much even God can do!

Scriptures aren't historical reocrds. Many people were said to have done "supernatural things" back then (magicians etc.). The people who wrote the Christian scriptures would've wanted to elevate Jesus to deity status, so of course they made up stories about his divine acts (even the followers of heretics during the Middle Ages would do this). This was a way top create a myth around the person they followed (very common back then). I'm also not sure Jesus is mentioned at all in Jewish scriptures.

2) I would say that the way ancient Jews, Muslims or Christians treated women is more of a cultural thing than a religious thing. Even today so-called believers justify their abuse of human rights by pointing to religious scripture. One must keep in mind that religious scripture was very much used to govern people in the old days. For instance, Christianity was designed by the Roman Empire to prevent conflict between rival religions. It was designed to suit everybody rather than any specific religious sect. Christianity was a compromise. So people tend to develop their religions to fit into their social ideologies or social needs rather than the other way around.

Chrisitanity was designed by the Roman Empire to prevent conflict between rival religions? Rival to whom?  How did Christianity suit eveybody? (It certainly doesn't "suit" everybody, gays for example, or women to an extent). And how was Christianity a compromise? Kill all non-chrisitans and demonise pagans?

3) There's an ancient Sufi saying: "God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal and awakens in man." Anyone can be his own prophet. There's a voice of reason within every person that can guide that person to realise his/her full potential to be a happy person (or animal). However, some people do not know how to tap into that voice of reason. I believe that the prophets of old were no more than philosophers and great thinkers. They were able to analyze situations on a grand scale and make accurate predictions at times. However, sometimes they also spoke in meaningless riddles. Nostradamus had a knack for this as well. The predictions he made were so abstract that it could have meant anything. We are the ones that validate those predictions when we say: "Oh, yeah! So the rock he spoke about was actually a comet and the bones of the beast was the dinosaurs!"

All prophecies are meaningless riddles, there are written in a way that describes common events that happen all the time to givw people the illusion of comming true. Also don't forget self-fulfilling prophecies.