Islam compared to Christianity from a non-expert's point of view

Comparing Islam to Christianity, certain points come to my mind. I might be somewhat off on some of them I hope one day to find some expert in Islamic doctrine and theology to straighten me out re the things I am wrong about.

1. Certain Islamic scriptures point to the notion that those who reject Islam are damned because they have rejected God's true prophet Mohammed. By way of contrast, Christianity in certain scriptures points to the notion that those who reject Christianity are damned they reject an incarnation of God, namely Christ the Son of God. Thus you have certain scriptures in Islam implying that lack of faith in someone Islam considers to be human and not divine leads to damnation; and you have Christianity implying that lack of faith in an incarnation of God leads to damnation. Although Islam is the religion that features many scriptures that condemn what Islam calls "shirk", the associating of something that is not God with God, Islam is the religion saying lack of faith in a not-God leads to damnation, whereas Christianity is the religion saying that lack of faith in a God leads to damnation.

2. Nowhere in Islam, to my knowledge, are there scriptures testifying to how God has many thoughts, speaks many words, and does many things that are not recorded in scriptures. Yet the scriptures of Christianity, in both the Old and New Testaments, admit that there are, and have been in the past, thoughts words and actions of God or God incarnate that went unrecorded in scripture. To me it seems important, that we should remember how there are thoughts in the mind of God that are not recorded in scripture.

3. In Islam, various different passages of scripture contradict each other more often and more directly than in Christianity. It seems to one who is not an expert re Islam such as myself, that in Islam you can find one passage that says that Christians should be given hostile treatment and another passage that says they should be given friendly treatment--contradictions of that sort.

4. It seems to a non-expert observer such as myself, that according to Islam, everything that happens on earth is the will of God. However according to Christianity, the Will of God is not always done on earth as it is in heaven.





@2005 David Virgil Hobbs

Northeastern University dream

I had a complicated dream about Northeastern University while asleep last night. I do not remember the exact order of the segments in the dream, and I do not remember all the details of the dream. Perhaps it is relevant that the first salesman I talked to at length at Honda Village about the car I eventually bought there was a Northeastern grad who I had a friendly conversation with and who suggested I become a part time salesman at Honda; maybe it is relevant that I saw Davianne B., who was on the Northeastern track team at a track meet and then sent her an email.

In the dream, Kate G who is I think jewish, who I saw at another track meet had something to do with Northeastern. The word or rumor in the air was that she was "huge" (in the chest) (I did notice at a track meet that she wore a big minimizer that flattened her chest).

In another segment in the dream, Northeastern was plying another school in Basketball; 80-something to 80-something was the score. I was trying to get used to the Northeastern uniforms, the colors of my new pet team, trying to develop some feeling for my new pet sports team. The team playing Northeastern had a tall black who took two huge steps without dribbling from about 20 feet away from the basket; after the second step he leaped towards the basket and "stuffed" the ball. The ball got stuck for a moment on the ledge connnecting the ring to the backboard but then went in. Then another black on the team playing against Northeastern did the same thing, but this time it was a clean stuff. Then a white guy playing for Northeastern who was not as tall as the blacks on the other team did the same thing; but the referee in his zebra-like shirt called the Northeastern guy for a violation. This ref was short and white and had had a big dark brown handle bar type mustache. I said something to him about his call, he said something back to me, and I diplomatically said to him "I'm not trying to judge you" or something like that.

In another segment, this young Chinese woman was standing up and talking to a crowd of Northeastern U people who were sitting outside on the ground on green field. I was sitting there with them. She was telling us that some kind of immunizations were available to us.

In another segment the most important person at Northeastern U was sitting next to me in a crowd of Northeastern U people who were sitting on the ground outdoors. He was tall and white with wavy-curly brown hair. I did not see his face. We talked and talked. He could have sat anywhere I was surprised he sat next to me and talked and did not go and sit somewhere else.

In another segment I was with someone from Northeastern U and I was shouting at my stepmother about her "stealing" my inheritance.

In another segment I was outside, there was snow on the ground, and there was this big red schoolbus that looked like a London doubledecker bus about a yard away from me. I was stuck between the bus and a wall or something like that. The bus began backing up and I was afraid it would hit me. I moved myself to try to find safety, into a shallow depression in the snow covered ground to avoid the bus. The bus halted and the driver of the bus gave me a silver colored screw that was about two inches long.

Compacts, small SUVs, and the future price of oil

Although a small SUV offers advantages a compact does not, there is the worry that the price of oil will rise drastically in the future as a result of which the small SUV will look in retrospect like a foolish buy.

The most pessimistic estimates regarding future oil and gasoline prices that can be found are 1) the price of oil will rise from the current $57 per barrel to $100 per barrel in 3 years ( http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsASoundView.aspx?articleid=10505&zoneid=55 ); and, 2) the price of oil will rise from the current $57 per barrel to $150 per barrel in 5 years ( http://westbynorthwest.org/artman/exec/search.cgi?cat=9&start=16&perpage=15&template=index/default.html ). Both these estimates assume the price of oil will grow at 21% per year. If the price of oil were to grow at 21% per year for ten years, in 2015 oil would be at $383 per barrel, which is 6.7 times the current price of oil.

This kind of projection should however be adjusted for inflation. A four percent annual inflation rate for things in general, is a modest level of general inflation to assume will occur side by side with such a gigantic increase in oil prices. It would be reasonable to assume that general inflation would be much more than four percent a year if oil prices were to increase so astronomically. If wages and prices in general were to rise by four percent a year over the next ten years, then in real terms the price of oil, would according to the most pessimistic projections rise by 21-4=17 percent per year over the next ten years, meaning in real terms the price of oil will rise from the current 57 per barrel to $274 not $383; 274 is 4.8 times 57. Thus since gasoline is now $2.32 per gallon you could expect, allowing for the general inflation that is kept up with by a general increase in wages, gasoline to rise from 2.32 per gallon to 4.8 times 2.32 per gallon or 11.14 per gallon by the year 2015. Coincidentally my off the cuff pessimistic estimate re the future of gasoline prices was that they would rise to ten dollars per gallon by 2015.

Suppose I project that I will drive 75 miles in a typical week. At 11.14 per gallon, a car getting 29 mpg like the Honda Civic, would require 2.59 gallons costing $28.85 per 75 miles; but a small SUV like the Honda Element would require 3.41 gallons costing $37.99 per 75 miles. Thus the difference in weekly cost between driving a Civic and an Element would be $9.14, or $1.31 per day. If using an Element I reduced the miles driven 24% from 75 to 57 miles I could pay the same price for gas weekly that I would pay using a Civic driving 75 miles per day.

Against this you have to balance the Element's having a safety rating superior to the Civic and the Element being more versatile than the Civic, useful for odd jobs, able to haul loads, and internally store scooters, bicycles, supplies and people who are awake or asleep.

The way I see it, in the future I could continue to be almost poor, or I could pull myself up to being well-to-do. The Element could be useful for a poor man in a bad economy in ways that the Civic is not, due to its versatility; a night spent in an Element could, especially in a bad economy, end up being much less expensive than a night spent in a motel. The Element could also be useful in ways the Civic is not for a well-to-do man, who is not under pressure re gas prices in a bad economy, because it has a higher safety rating than the Civic. The Element could be a useful tool, brought into a rich family by a not-rich man entering that family, a tool that compliments the transportation tools the rich family already has on hand.

Then you could take into account that when gasoline gets to be really expensive, a vehicle becomes something that people share in order to go places, so that they can share the cost of the gasoline required to go to the place they want to go to. If you look upon a Honda Element with one person paying for gas in it as having an mpg of 22, and a Honda Civic with one person paying for gas in it as having an mpg of 29, you could also look upon a Civic with two people paying for gas in it as having an effective mpg of 58, an Element with two as having an mpg of 44, a civic with three an mpg of 87, an Element with three an mpg of 66, a Civic with four an mpg of 116, and an Element with four an mpg of 88. Thus an Element containing two persons paying for gasoline has an effective mpg of 44, higher than a Civic with one person paying for gasoline in it at 29.

An Element is simply better able to transport two or more adult persons and their luggage in comfort and safety than a Civic is. The Element is roomier than a Civic, two people who are six feet tall can stretch out and lie down behind the back seats. You could say that the importance of safety in a car is doubled when there are two people in a car compared to one. Consumer Reports awards the Element a higher rating than the Civic for safety.

A busty woman with small breasts, falling from a skyscraper, Netanyahu, festivities in a hall-Dreams I've had since the last time I reported them

Dreams I have had since the last time I made a dream report. I could not remember some of the content in these dreams.

1 I was walking down Moody St. This was at a time when I had developed a habit of walking six miles a day in the evening on Main and Moody streets in Waltham. I got to the end of the street. There I met the tall, very buxom blonde glamazon lady from Frosty's. In real life at the bar I have heard that "she does". In real life I had seen her from far off once and inquired about her at the bar. In the dream, her breasts were average size, she was clothed, her face was pretty, and I felt a genuine affection for her that was beyond the sexual.

2 I was hanging on to this ledge that stuck out about a foot on a skyscraper. I tried to pull myself on to it to sit on it. I was on this tall tower made out of wood near the skyscraper, the tower fell over to its side, the other guy on it jumped off and survived. My hand slipped and I began to fall. This dream was too much of a bummer for me so I just woke up.

3 I saw the face of Binyamin Netanyahu the Israeli statesman. His face did not look the way it looks in real life. It looked more feminine than in real life.

4 Tonight early Wednesday morning I had the first long detailed dream I have had in a while. In the dream, my father, and this tallish thinnish english guy with wavy brown hair and glasses, and myself, attended some kind of gala festivity somewhere. We were in this long hallway crowded with people, that was sometimes kind of dark. A boy about 12-14 years old who I could not see began talking to me loudly everyone could hear him. He questioned me associating with "women who are too attractive" such as the Myrtle St girl. He and I were shouting back and forth. I do not remember all that he shouted or all that I shouted. One thing I shouted was that there is no such thing as a woman who is "too attractive". I do not perfectly remember the exact order of events but I think that next I was hugging the very buxom and pretty white woman I saw at "the Garage" in Harvard Sq Cambridge on JFK St. In real life The black lady at the dental clinic at Harvard had told me that "she (the Garage lady) does" and that "Wordsworth (the woman I saw at the Wordsworth bookstore) does". I hugged her, the one I saw "The Garage", out in the sunlight as opposed to the general darkness of the hall. She was wearing a tight yellow shirt. I was talking to her about how we get our expectations too high for occasions such as this (me hugging her) and so we do not enjoy them so much. Then the subject and the scene of the dream shifted, the next segment had to do with "Idlis". My dad and I wanted to make Indian food such as "Idlis", but did not have the book instructing us how to make them from scratch. I ran home to get the book. As I passed a road near Harvard Square on my way to get the book I saw a blonde female with shortish straight black hair in a car. I did not see her face. I think she was wearing glasses. Seeing her somehow triggered the following thoughts in me: I am now the "Fuehrer" of Germany...I am of an even greater stature than General Erwin Rommel was...German generals under me retain desirable qualities found in boys and women relatively well...I ran through some snow, I felt strong as I ran through it. I got the book. I went back to the festivities in the hall. Some people were having a problem with areas of their face becoming black and coarse. The area of the face that became black would become covered with small bumps like the skin of some animal, maybe an allligator. My father, or the English guy with him, or the both of them, produced some kind of solution that smelled like Hydrogen Peroxide. I splashed the Hydrogen Peroxide on someone who had the problem. The person's face immediately cleared up and became normal. Me and some people watched an animated display on a screen, showing the chemistry of the person's face returning to normal due to the hydrogen peroxide. I looked for "the Garage" woman. I could not find her, she had become afflicted with the coarse-black-face disease and was hiding herself--she was ashamed, or she had become crazy to the point of not wanting to be healed. All I had regarding her was some PO box in Cambridge MA. Then I went to sleep. It was dark, night, and some dark humanoid creature was in the bed with me. It was'nt trying to have sex with me but it was malevolent. I could not see it's face. I figured it was the cause of the black-face disease and other evils. I was wrestling with it. I was trying to scratch its face, so that the next day, I would be able to tell who the guilty party was due to the scratch on the face. I woke up, feeling quite frightened.

Waking thoughts re (4):

I have sent plenty of emails to the Wordsworth bookstore re that woman. They never answer the emails. They are putting me in a very awkward position, making things difficult and I resent it. The "nice" Boston area people will probably do the same thing with regards to the woman who I saw at "the Garage". This is not funny, these women will enter menopause one of these days and become unable to have kids.

I know of this guy who has been going on and on about how me committing polygamy is supposed to be "adultery" against some particular woman that he favors. To the contrary, I have examined my conscience and do not find myself guilty. I realize that in Romans 13 Paul exhorted persons to obey the government, but his exhortation was based on the idea that those who were listening to or reading his words, felt in their conscience that they should obey it. I realize in my mind through epiphany that I am a special person who should get dramatic, special respect from even strangers who encounter me. Ploygamy does not seem to me wrong for such a special person. Most persons, the overwhelming majority of persons, fail to show anywhere near the level of respect that persons should show for me. Many show the opposite of respect. Thus these women who express an interest in marrying me and do not shy away from participation in a polygamous family, are better, not worse, than people, and examples of that rare element--persons who show the kind of respect for me that persons are supposed to show for me. If they are guilty of anything they are guilty of romanticizing a relationship that should be platonic, but such is not as bad as what most persons are guilty of. It is difficult to be around beautiful woman who want to marry you, without becoming aroused. Such arousal is cleanest when it is part of marriage.

In my waking conscious life I have not been aware of any special topical properties of hydrogen peroxide, but I have heard that some think drinking very small amounts of it prevents heart disease.

The day before I had dream (4), I got a new mattress delivered, and I got a new car. Dream (4) was so frightening that I wonder if such new things need to be somehow prayed over and blessed.

Used cars that were Christy N, disarray in Harvard and Harvard Square, throwing rocks at Batman's advance men -- dreams

Here are the dreams I have had since the last time I reported on my dreams. There were a couple of dreams I do not remember now that I could only remember for a couple of seconds after I woke up.

In the first dream, there were these three boxes, colored a color I would describe as a dull light green, a watery green. These boxes were about the size of a car, open on top. In each of the boxes there was this little thin white guy with a thin beard and mustache and little hair on his head; the same guy was in each box. Each of these boxes with a guy in it cost a different amount of money, each of them was a used car, and each of them was also Christy N. When I woke up I was thinking that Masachusetts is not the kind of place where you want to have a baby with a woman, it is so feminist, so harsh on fathers. I was thinking how the presumption of innocence is gone, all it takes is a woman to accuse you of rape or something and you are guilty tlll proven innocent. I was thinking, what a great job they have done, of taking the joy out of fatherhood and being a sexual man, what a job they have done of making it so difficult to relax and be a father or simply a sexually active male.

In the second dream, I was in the Harvard Square area, it was overcrowded,. there was a white woman with straight short black hair who was muscular yet shapely and feminine about 5'6" tall, posing in a dark blue bikini in Harvard Square. When I woke up I was trying to figure out who this woman I saw was, she was'nt like any woman in my life, if Erin G weightllifted and got muscular she would be the closest thing to this woman I saw in the Square. I was thinking about the Myrtle St girl, seemed the Myrtle St girl was in the air. As a matter of fact in real life walking around Moody and Main streets in Waltham, doing my six mile walk, it has seemed to me as if the Myrtle St girl was in the air, and was the Church. In the dream there was chaos at Harvard, dim lighting, overcrowding of things and people, records I needed to look at to find the Myrtle St girl in disarray, junk such as old unused toilets lying here and there; inside the toilets were the corpses of snakes, which however did not look gross or disgusting because they had decomposed into something resembling worn out whitish plastic tubes. The people at Harvard were giving a job to a somewhat brutish looking tall clean shaven white guy with short hair, who liked like he was in his fifties; and I was thinking, that Harvard's hiring practices are such that they are like a Department of Welfare, that pays no attention to the interests and needs of its students.

The third dream I remember very little of, except that these fat wide white guys were returning from committing evil deeds and I was giving them high fives because I was afraid of them and wanted to be polite with them.

In the fourth dream, Batman as in the Batman TV show and the Batman movie, was due to come down Moody St in Waltham heading in a northern direction. There was a light brown piece of sponge about three inches square lying on the ground I put it in my pocket. Batman's advance men and women arrived in the area to the north of the train tracks that cross Moody Street. Me and this guy who was with me got into rock throwing fight with them. They were to the west, and we were to the east. One of them was a white guy with brown hair wearing a crimson shirt, the person I know of in real life who comes closest to him was the Harvard President Lawrence Summers. This guy in the crimson shirt and one or two other guys who were Batman's advance men were about fifty yards away from us. We threw rocks at each other. I was quite accurate with the rocks, they got hit, but not in the head. They got hit in the upper body, the arms. It got to be tough finding rocks of the size and shape you can throw accurately. I began to tire out. It got to the point where even after a running start, I could barely reach them with rocks. Batman's advance women arrived. They were white, one I remember had longish straightish black hair sort of bound in a pony tail (not as narrow as a pony tail) behind her back. These advance women of Batman were about 15 to 20 yards away. We hit them with rocks too, but not in the head. Finally we had them so disabled from the rocks we hit them with, that we were able to capture them and lock them up in this jail cell we had. The lock on the jail cell was electric. And I was thinking (there have been alot of power outages lately in my area) that if there was a power outage they could get out of the jail cell. RE this dream for some reason I have always sort of thought that the "villains" who opposed Batman were more interesting and zany and likeable than Batman.