I'm considering a parallel thread to this - The God of Christianity isn't the God of the Bible. What do you think?
I'm not a Koran Scholar, but I have been assured many times by Muslim friends that respect for the individual and women is a huge part of Islam. So I'm wary of judging on one or two texts. After all, what about, "He advised him to rape his sister, and the advice seemed good' bit?
Is there no place in your thinking, Shadow, for us all to have some facet of Truth in imperfect vessels? Yes, it's true that both can't be right, in the abstract - however, I'm loathe to disregard one of the three Monotheistic religions in a simplistic way. Certainly on the grounds of Jesus being the Way you are right. But... what if Christianity isn't the only way to Jesus?
Just a provoking thought - this looks like a good thread - have fun!
Like you can't find rape, incest,genocide and the downright silly and cruel in the Bible.
The Bible and the Koran are IMO human texts about how humans experience God ( a point of view, I know, not shared with me by most muslims and a lot of Christians).
Humans are fallible and therefore a fair bit of dross gets shovelled in with the sacred text.
This "their dross is worse than ours - so we're superior!" approach doesn't cut any ice with me.
Louise
quote:
Sura 4 v 24 says: "But no place of repentance shall there be for those who do evil until when death is close to one of them he saith 'Now verily I am turned to God'."
Luckily for you, I happen to have my annotated, bilingual copy of the Koran to hand, so can tell you it says no such thing. Surah 4 v 24 is in fact about whom you may not marry on grounds of consanguinity. If you are going to post something like this, at least get your facts right.
Respect of women? Pah!! Treatment of Prisoners?? double-pah!!
Please bear in mind my comments below relate to a fairly liberal Arab nation:-
Before we left the UK, I took counsel of a Christian friend who had lived in Pakistan. He had once been challenged by a fairly hostile group of Muslims, who wanted to know whether he believed in the existence of Mohammed. He paused before replying simply, "Yes." And continued to me in his explanation, "because the Bible warns, 'there will be many false prophets.'"
So that to me was pretty simple.
I won't post all my observations about the practises of their faith .. but I was gauled by the appalling double-standards apparent. They may well donate part of their salary to charity .. but always to Muslims first. (OK, we may give to Christian charities first, but not through obligation.)
They may well fast all the daylight hours, and then go and feast at mid-night - beeping the horns of their arrogant Mercedes to hurry up the poor Indian guy to run out to the car with the takeaway.
They are taught that the world will end in a battle against Jews - something which I told a very dear Arab friend of mine - was terribly sad. And also grow up believing that the holocaust was mere political propaganda.
They are taught to honour God by respect of fellow man ... and that means their own country folk. I was shocked at the class system which permeated through the beauracracy ... driving tests even ... you Ozzies and Canadians for instance have to take one, but we Brits and Americans don't. And if you're a native Indian - well - forget it mate.
Imprisonment ... the low-life servants from Asia ... bundled into large cells - lots of them - pot of jam with flies buzzing round it and pitta thrown in - just like dogs.
Rape ... Arab Sponsor of Indian housemaid - she is raped by him. The "Police" rooms in the Maternity Hosp - see her baby taken away, her deported ... the babe put into an orphanage in the desert and unloved for 18 yrs ... and then, used to pick up the litter that they drop from the car windows. And of course, "she" seduced him, so nothing is ever said.
I can't rationalise all of this with a loving your neighbour as yourself faith. I could go on and on.
However, to live there was in fact a very humbly and positive, rich experience, even though I was harrassed and belittled on the street by a Captain of Police. I can't comment on the "teachings" of the Koran, but concluded in my practical and pragmatic way that there really IS only one way to God, through our Saviour Jesus Christ, and yes, that may seem to make us arrogant as Christians. But what do we believe and hold fast onto? What IS our faith, if we don't stand up for it, like those persecuted did and still do today?
That's the sort of thing we did when we had a deeply literal view of the Bible and weren't restrained by constitutions and human rights legislation from using it.
Textual literalism, poverty, ignorance and lack of democracy allow plenty similar religious abuses to flourish in the present day Islamic world too.
For hundred of years Islamic Spain was a more tolerant and advanced society than the rest of Christian Europe - until the Christian reconquista put paid to that.
I have a train to catch and don't have time to go into more detail - poverty, ignorance and dictatorial regimes which allow sick-making propaganda are certainly not unique to Islam (how many of the worst crimes against humanity in Serbia, Croatia and South America do you think were committed by Christians - many of them devout?)
Attack the abuses of a religion and not the religion itself - unless you're bloody sure and can prove which teaching leads directly to which abuse - and that it's a valid teaching for that religion and not simply the beliefs of a tiny sect/government sponsored propaganda.
Louise
Pipkin - words fail me.
I am sure you are right in what you say - I am no advocate of hypocrisy in whichever religion - but... "Suffer the little Children"? With OUR educational system, discrimination against those with disabilities, not to mention abortion rate, dubious Child Protection prcedures and exploitation of third world labour..?
Do we have the gall to comment?
I wish posters would stop tarring an entire culture or religious group with the same brush. People are different. Some people behave like bastards. Some are Muslims, some are Christians. Some people will go out of their way to help others. Some are Muslim, some are Christian. It doesn't matter what you call God. It's what you practise on a day to day level that shows you for what you are.
I've never forgotten one of the chapters in the Narnia Chronicles where a young man, brought up in the service of the cruel god Tash, is eventually thrown as a sacrifice into a hut where Tash is said to have materialized. Instead, he meets Aslan, who says that although the young man didn't know it, all his life he has been serving him. It's the principle, not the label, that counts!
I should like to know why a reasonable and intelligent poster was recently drummed off the Ship by you for merely being slightly critical of your editorial policy, while buffoons like Ender's Shadow and Pipkin are permitted to post the sort of malignant drivel I've just read here. Please ban them both, otherwise I shall no longer be able to maintain any confidence in you.
Pipkin, I remind you to check the 10Cs, specifically, the third one. While I think that Ender's lost the argument in the OP (Godwin's Law), disputing specifically the points of Islam and the Koran is not out of bounds here.
sorry about the mistyping: it is Sura 4 v 22 not 24....
To balance my point, I do suspect that we will be surprised by who gets to heaven, and who doesn't. I have no doubt that many from a non-Christian background who have realised their total dependence on God will be there, and many 'Christians' who slipped into thinking they were doing OK and didn't need God anymore will lose out. I have great hopes that in practice many Muslims will be found to have cast themselves on the mercy of God, and will be found among us on the last day.
The object of this post however is to provide ammunition to those of us who want to demolish the interfaith clap-trap that says 'Our God is their god, so it's all right to worship along side them, or even not be open to the possibility of evangelising them - NEVER acceptable...
If this stops being about the Book of Koran and starts launching into an attack on Muslim people, the thread will be shut down.
Mohammed (sp?) himself engaged in Jihad and such. Christianity did not spread by war in it's early days whereas that's the primary way Islam spread from the beginning.
Yes, Christians have a lot to answer for, but Jesus, the Apostles, and their word do not. But as well shown here, Mohammed and the Koran itself provide the basis for what is evil about Islam.
Yes, I used the e-word. 
after all, do we take anyones' comments on the bible seriously if they have not so much as opened it?
wouldn't we feel they were just being bigotted and plain rude?
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
sorry about the mistyping: it is Sura 4 v 22 not 24....
Surah 4 v 22 says:
"And marry not women whom your fathers married
Except what is past:
It was shameful and odious -
An abominable custom indeed."
I don't think this is what you meant either. Again, please check your facts before you start posting this kind of material. You do have a copy of the Koran to hand, don't you?
God is God. He is not ‘ours’, He is not ‘theirs’, He just is. The various religions teach different things about God and His relationship to us and the created world. Obviously, they can’t all be right. And no one religion can teach the whole truth about God, since He is ungraspable by the human mind. So, we all deal in partial truths. The question is, is one religion consistently more right about everything than all the others? Pipkin and Ender’s Shadow, you’re entitled to your opinions on this - but, since we aren’t going to know for certain until we “see face to face”, please bear in mind that you may be mistaken and stop bringing your own faith into disrepute by slagging off other faiths in such ill thought out and offensive terms.
Both religions believe in One God, maker of all that is. They both derive from the same Jewish monotheistic roots.
They have different perspectives over how God is to be understood and how we approach Him (but - hey - isn't that true about different strands of Christianity?).
Overall - we have more in common with Islam than there is to divide us. We're not the same, but there is a lot we could learn from one another if we just stopped to listen instead of hurling insults.
Let's try and clarify what I'm trying to do here. It's a very limited project - it is to provide a useful extra argument to those who are presented with the claim that Islam and Christianity are talking about the same God. For me - and I admit it is a feature of my personality - it is details like this that give me the grounds for treating Islam as a false religion. It is too easy to be wowed by the good things in it to the extent of losing sight of its probable origin. The bible has relatively little patience with the proponents of false religion - read 2 John and Galatians 5 v 1-12 (ouch!)or even Mt 22 v 29f if you insist on a quote from Jesus's lips - which also offer 'Beware false prophets' - a passage that gets a lot less attention these days than 'Judge not...'.
One of the tests of a true prophet is that they get it right. These quotes establish that Muhammad got it wrong.
Of course there are elements within Islam that are helpful and challenging - God's grace is always capable of using things from the most unlikely of sources (Balaam's ass is always a useful perspective on that). But we need to work and pray towards a time when the full revelation of Jesus's love for the world is made known to Muslims everywhere - not the distorted version that the Koran offers (cf Jn 10 v16)- a cause that is significantly undermined if confusion is what is heard from Christian leaders about the nature of 'the prophet'.
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Please quit whinging about the precise quote - in my copy it is 4:22 - it might be 21 or 23 in yours, as the one you quote is 4:23 in mine.
The point I am trying to get across is that this quote does not appear in my translation anywhere in this entire section of this Surah, nor indeed anything remotely like it. You are quoting from a section of the Koran that deals with women, orphans and family rights generally. This is the case for at least the first 40 verses.
But I don't imagine this is going to make any difference, somehow.
Put in context this reads so
(Warning long scripture quote)
quote:
[23] The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question,
[24] saying, "Teacher, Moses said, `If a man dies, having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.'
[25] Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother.
[26] So too the second and third, down to the seventh.
[27] After them all, the woman died.
[28] In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her."
[29] But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
[30] For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
[31] And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,
[32] `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the
dead, but of the living."
[33] And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.
In this context 'scriptures' refers to the the Old Testament (the septuagint?) - from which the Sadducees themselves, as Jews - like Jesus were arguing.
In other words, Jesus's argument to them is that they don't know their OWN scriptures and they underestimate God.
How you get from that to condemning Islam as a false religion beats me.
If wresting scripture out of context like that is the way you treat the Bible, then I have to say that it doesn't give me much faith in your interpretative abilities with the Koran.
This trick of cherry-picking nasty passages and saying "Look at this drek, how can anyone believe in that!" is used by Atheists and Sceptics to discredit Christianity. Look for example at the
Sceptics Annotated Bible
which is provided by an Atheist precisely as a resource so that people can do the sort of thing you're doing, but use it to attack Christianity as a false, dangerous and destructive religion.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones or rather "Judge not... For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get."
Indeed that passage applies very well to this discussion, for the way you judge Muslims is the way atheists judge Christianity. By encouraging this style of argument in the end you're making a rod for your own back. It can be used to treat all religions based on ancient sacred texts as false.
Louise
PS.
A historical tangent to Mark the Punk/
I agree with you that Jesus never modelled such behaviour )however his words were used to justify autos-da-fe and witch-hunts - namely
"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for
him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea." was used to justify capital punishment for 'heretics' eg. Protestants, or Moriscos/Jews in Spain
Also - Matt. 5, v.17-18 were used to claim that the Old Testament law was still in force so that 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' and similar were to be taken literally.
So sadly Christians did manage to use Jesus's own words to justify these things 
/historical tangent off
quote:
I think (and I am using a technical term here) that Muslims are doctrinal heretics, in the sense that they don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God,
Indeed. Dante, in fact, put Mohammed in Hell as a schismatic, one who splits the church, and therefore akin to, say, an Avignon Pope and, perhaps, Henry VIIIth. or Luther.
Roger Bacon said that an educated man needed to know Arabic. This thread has reminded me that I do not know as much about Islam as I ought to, something I intend to address as time permits. I do find it difficult to believe that a religion held by a large number of educated people, a religion once associated with science and progress when Christianity was equally associated with sword-waving barbarians, can be satisfactorily categorised by posters on the basis of a shallow extraction of a few phrases out of context.
"God is only bound to turn again towards those who do evil through ignorance and then turn again. Surely, these will God turn again to, for God is knowing, wise. His turning again is not for those who do evil, until, when death comes before one of them, he says, ‘Now I turn again;’ nor yet for those who die in misbelief. For such as these have we prepared a grievous woe."
Comes from: http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/palm/004.htm
quote:
Such of your women as commit indecency,
call four of you to witness against them;
and if they witness, then detain them
in their houses until death takes them
or God appoints for them a way.
And when two of you commit indecency,
punish them both; but if they repent
and make amends, the suffer them to be;
God turns, and is All-Compassionate.God shall turn only towards those who do
evil in ignorance, then shortly repent;
God will return towards those; God is
All-knowing, All-wise.
But God shall not turn towards those
who do evil deeds until, when one of them
is visited by death, he says, 'Indeed
now I repent,' neither to those who die
disbelieving; for them We have prepared
a painful chastisement.
Endar, you choose to read this as meaning that there is no room in Islam for last-minute repentence, but to me it seems to say that God will not look kindly upon those who knowingly continue to sin, figuring that they can do what they want and then get in a last-minute confession before they die. I find your choice of this passage a bit ironic, since the idea of the 'death-bed repentence' was one of the things which caused me to disdain Christianity. (Was it in the Middle Ages - I don't remember - that the idea of only making a single confession was the norm and that you should wait until you thought you were going to die to make it?)
But in a more general sense, this whole idea of judging which God a religion worships by comparing isolated bits of scripture, taken out of context, is totally meaningless. And it becomes even more meaningless when you add in the problems caused by using translations from the original languages and cultural environment (as is all too obvious even when dealing with the Bible texts alone!)
I was brought up a Baha'i, not a Christian, but I have been attracted to Christianity since childhood. Unfortunately, the sort of narrow-minded Christianity which you are espousing on this thread kept me away from it for 30 years, and even as I convert makes me loathe to declare myself a Christian.
Ender's Shadow and MarkthePunk have both claimed that Islam is evil. I wonder if either of them would care to share his definition of evil and demonstrate that Islam fits that definition.
k - one easy definition that works for this discussion: evil is any action that supports the work of the Devil / Satan in his attempts to destroy / undermine / tarnish creation. In this case, Islam by undermining the faith and destroying the churches in the lands that it has conquered is evil (note that this isn't saying that Muslims deliberately persecuted, just that the combination of their deceptions and financial persecution were enough to do the destuction)
That's quite apart from the little matter of suicide bombers....
quote:
In this case, Islam by undermining the faith and destroying the churches in the lands that it has conquered is evil
Then to the same extent Christianity is evil. Go learn some history. Your argument is circular: you start from the presumption that Islam is evil, and so therefore its expansion is evil. Whereas presumably in your eyes Christianity is right, therefore its aggressive expansion through most of the last few hundred years is also right. It is OK for Crusaders to sack Jerusalem and carve out fiefs in the Middle East, or for the Habsburgs to destroy Moorish Spain, or for the British to conquer India and steal everything portable, because, hey, we're the good guys. Your depth of political analysis appears to be at the level of the author of the Chanson de Roland: Paiens ont tort, Chretiens ont droit.
Perhaps you should ask yourself what level of desperation drives an 18-year-old to be a suicide bomber.You might even wonder if the reason for the rise of militant Islam is because it seems to offer a hope to the marginalised people of the Earth, the poor and needy. Once upon a time Christianity did that. Now for many people around the world it is seen as irrelevant or part of the problem. Why?
To further this debate it might be also agreeing with the translation of the the Koran we should use (I found this on the net)
Considering the prophet in my opinion got his ideas from meeting Jews and christians I consider that the Koran catches glimpses of God but misses out altogether in some ways.
It is the bibles shadow so not all wrong or all right a bit like many holy writings written down the ages.
quote:
In this case, Islam by undermining the faith and destroying the churches in the lands that it has conquered is evil (note that this isn't saying that Muslims deliberately persecuted, just that the combination of their deceptions and financial persecution were enough to do the destuction)
Actually, if you substitute "Jews" for "Muslims" in the last sentence this has rather a familiar ring to it. But perhaps it's more socially acceptable, because it's a relatively newer phenomenon, to say such things about Muslims rather than Jews?
Firstly, a philological point. In one sense, the God of Islam is the 'same' as the one of Judaism/Christianity, in that 'Allah' and the OT name 'Elohim' are at root, the same word.
But I think that the 'picture' of God given by the Koran, although right in some aspects, is always going to be missing/in error in the eyes of Christians who believe Jesus to be Immanuel: God revealed as a man. (In the same way, we believe the Jews are not getting the full story if they do not recognise that Jesus is the awaited Messiah, and that His words are therefore of more importance than those of ANY OT prophet.)
Louise posted about how 'tolerant and advanced' Islamic Spain was, 'until the Christian Reconquista put paid to that'. I would like to point out that the Islamic Moors that invaded Visigothic Spain in the early 8th century weren't being very 'tolerant and advanced' in bringing their armies across from North Africa. And what eventually happened was a 'reconquest', the descendents of the people the Moors had ousted taking back what had been theirs.
Panurge posted this, which I cannot leave unanswered:
quote:
You might even wonder if the reason for the rise of militant Islam is because it seems to offer a hope to the marginalised people of the Earth, the poor and needy. Once upon a time Christianity did that. Now for many people around the world it is seen as irrelevant or part of the problem. Why?
This is utter rubbish. The Christian Church has grown pheonomenally in recent years in sub-Saharan Africa, in China, in South America, particularly amongst the 'poor and needy'. And the severe restrictions against holding Christian meetings, evangelising and possessing Christian literature in even 'moderate' Muslim countries means that the 'marginalised' people in them often don't have the option to find out the 'hope' that Christianity can offer.
quote:
Originally posted by Gill:
I confess to a certain horrified relief when the Afghan minister was murdered last week by people who then went gaily off on their Haj.
You will have seen that this is untrue. He was not murdered by pilgrims but by security personnel who belonged to a rival faction in the snakepit which is Afghan politics.
I notice there seems a tendency to a) quote a particular circumstance as typical of Islam/Christianity as a whole: with a counter-tendency to argue b) that the original is nothing like that, and that the said circumstance is a total travesty etc etc.
Raises the question, when are the actions of believers truely representative of the religion they believe in? When they do something admirable and humanitarian of course. Hmmm.
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Raises the question, when are the actions of believers truely representative of the religion they believe in? When they do something admirable and humanitarian of course. Hmmm.
Not on this thread apparently. Here the actions are regarded as truly representitive when those actions serve to confirm the poster's prejudices
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
That's quite apart from the little matter of suicide bombers....
You should be careful what you're saying there. If you're equating Islam with suicide bombers, do you also equate Christianity with sectarian terrorism in Northern Ireland?
In that sense Islam differs from Christianity in the same way Judaism differs from Christianity.
To cite the failings of Islam as proof of anything other than human wickedness seems to be a very partial thing to do - 2,000 years of Christianity should be enough to teach us what chaos happens when people are allowed to run a religion.
quote:
Originally posted by Helen Earth:
What is the relation between the God of Islam and the God of Christianity?Both religions believe in One God, maker of all that is. They both derive from the same Jewish monotheistic roots.
They have different perspectives over how God is to be understood and how we approach Him (but - hey - isn't that true about different strands of Christianity?).
Overall - we have more in common with Islam than there is to divide us. We're not the same, but there is a lot we could learn from one another if we just stopped to listen instead of hurling insults.
Lots of agreement here.
We both believe that there is One God who created the heavens and the earth, (and I gather that Arabic speaking Christians call God "Allah"). Since there is only one Creator God, then obviously the God of Islam and Christianity is One and The Same.
However, the 'concept of God' that is taught (not always followed) in each religion is quite different. In Islam, God is 'Other', quite different from human beings. They are not created in God's image. We do not have anything similar to God; we are created beings and God is God.
In Christianity, God became incarnate in Jesus the Christ, and is 'the only-begotten Son'. In Islam, God does not beget, neither is He begotten. Jesus is a prophet, to be respected and honoured and learned from. Jesus was born of Mary, a virgin, by a miracle done by God. (Not too different from what many Christians believe...)
We worship Jesus, the Son, but in Islam that is a terrible sin, to make anyone or anything equal to God.
This is just differences in teaching, not what people in each religion actually make up as their own concept of God, due to their projections and internalising of 'Father-figures' or 'God-figures' in their lives.
quote:
Pipkin and Ender’s Shadow, you’re entitled to your opinions on this - but, since we aren’t going to know for certain until we “see face to face”, please bear in mind that you may be mistaken and stop bringing your own faith into disrepute by slagging off other faiths in such ill thought out and offensive terms.
It upsets me when I see comments like this. I thought that this is a Christian board. It seems that we can say bad things (see the thread on Calvinism) about Christians and how they interpret the Bible (calling it evil, perverse, etc.) but we cannot use the same terminology when we talk about Islam. I'm beginning to think the Ship is too politically correct for me, and I am saddened by the prospect.
The "evil one" will sprinkle some good ideas in with his evil in order to draw more people away from God. This is what Islam has done. Why do you think they execute Christians who try to convince Muslims that they should be Christians? Why do Christians in Arabic countries have to be so careful about their faith? Why can I not mention the name of Jesus in e-mails to my brother for fear he will be killed for his faith?
I also consider misrepresenting the beliefs of others, be they the same as mine, as wrong as well.
quote:
Originally posted by Dyfrig:
FWIW Sharkshooter, I consider Calvinism and Islam to be wrong.
But I hope not in the same way: Calvinism is a part of Christianity, Islam is not Christian.
I believe that Armenianism is wrong, but I don't trash their belief system, since I accept that it is another way of understanding Christianity.
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Why do you think they execute Christians who try to convince Muslims that they should be Christians?
Because they are in power. Christianity did exactly the same when it was in power in Europe. I consider that 'the work of the evil one' too, but I don't think it entirely discredits the Christian faith.
(Pretty damn close though, actually.)
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
In this case, Islam by undermining the faith and destroying the churches in the lands that it has conquered is evil (note that this isn't saying that Muslims deliberately persecuted, just that the combination of their deceptions and financial persecution were enough to do the destuction)
Ender's Shadow, I should really rather you weren't posting on this site at all, and I hold it to be a failure on the part of the administrators that you have not been booted overboard yet. But, just to help you see things from a more balanced perspective, would you consider thinking about events which took place very recently in the Balkans.
70% of Bosnia's mosques were destroyed by Christian Cetniks, usually with the encouragement of Serbian Orthodox clergy.
Every single mosque in Banja Luka, including the 16th century Feradije Dzami, a UNESCO world heritage site, were completely razed to ground.
There is still no Muslim place of worship in Banja Luka, while there are numerous Orthodox and Catholic churches in Muslim Sarajevo.
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
....and I hold it to be a failure on the part of the administrators that you have not been booted overboard yet....
[host hat on]
Fiddleback, I have had it with you. You seem to have made a second career of breaking Commandment 6.
And these latest snipes certainly break commandment 1.
This is a formal demand that you apologize to the Administrators who run this board.
If you don't, you have already been warned that you will be suspended for two weeks.
My preference would be to have you walk the plank.
Now apologize, dammit.
tomb
hellhost
[host hat off]
How the hell did that happen?
And SteveTom is too. And we're on more stable ground there.
I think your problem, Ender's Shadow, is that you are equating 'not Christian' with 'evil'. Have you read the thread on Evil in purgatory? It makes interesting reading. Muslims and Christians alike are capable of performing terrible acts of evil, mainly through believing that they'r justiofied in doing the most horrendous things because they're 'good' and their victims are 'evil'.
The most chilling thing I read about the former Yugoslavia was a series of interviews about a year ago with random Serbians off the street. And they were saying things like 'I don't think they're being fair on Milosevic. He showed us what the Bosnians were up to'.
Scary.
FWIW, I don't believe that Islam is right either. If I did, I'd be a Muslim. But discounting them as 'evil' because they're Muslims and because they do things of which Christians are also guilty is a stupid thing to do, and not a little hypocritical.
quote:
I should really rather you weren't posting on this site at all, and I hold it to be a failure on the part of the administrators that you have not been booted overboard yet.
Obviously, when I said FB was right, I meant the bit about Muslims, and not this bit. 
Erin, apologies if I didn't conform with the norm' and gave you more unnecessary hassle.
I thought I made it clear I was stating my personal observations, in one specific place. I was not slagging off anyones belief. So did not think I was attacking a person/s. Of course I am not wrapping up the entire Muslim world in my earlier post. My Muslim neighbour does not hold with those traditions or culture.
I did, however, feel attacked on this thread yesterday - thinking this was a forum for sharing experiences. 
quote:
Ender's Shadow, I should really rather you weren't posting on this site at all
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I believe that Armenianism is wrong, but I don't trash their belief system, since I accept that it is another way of understanding Christianity.
And possibly Islam is another way of understanding God.
Just as in Christianity itself, there are many varied arguments, dissentions, and ways to interpret scripture...and many faces and attributes of God ... none of us seems to have the whole truth or understanding of God, or Christianity. (The Calvinism thread is a good picture of this happening among us..)
I have thought that God goes about revealing a different little bit of His very complex, uncomprehensible nature and person to the several religions and denominations that worship Him (echoing ChastMastr here...I'm not referring to tree spirits, Odin, Zeus, et all...) - so that we each have end up with one vegetable from His garden...and mistakenly think we have the One True Vegetable. When we might need the entire crop to make a decent meal.
Pipkin, nobody wants to deny the truth or validity of your experience - though I didn’t quite follow the bit about driving tests - but you posted it in the context of support for someone who is suggesting that Muslims worship a different and therefore (presumably) false God. No-one denies that some Muslims are ignorant, badly-behaved, cruel, narrow-minded etc. Some Christians are too. Injustice and oppression are not confined to the Islamic world. Niceness is not confined to the Christian world (if there is such a thing). Pity you didn’t mention your nice Muslim neighbour before.
If anyone wants to argue that the Koran is a less perfect revelation of God than the New Testament, they’re entitled to do so. Others may agree or disagree – mostly agree on this site, I guess - but I’m sure they’ll respond courteously. But to accuse Muslims of adhering to an evil, false religion is another matter.
Sharkshooter, being a Christian does not entitle anyone to heap ignorant abuse on another section of the human race. Please do not seek to hide behind feeble flag-waving about political correctness. The demand that your argument be intelligent, rational and soundly based is not about political correctness; it's about the dignity of the Christian faith.
Mea culpa, you are of course right, to the extent that there is rapid growth of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa, and that it has been opposed in some places. I have fallen into precisely the trap of Eurocentricity that I have remarked on in others.
To be fair, though, authorities in most countries throw wobblies whenever any new movement becomes popular, and go in for persecution. Whether it is HUAC in the US seeing Reds everywhere, whether it is the Chinese persecuting the Falan Gong, Christians and, I think you will find, Muslims, the Russians persecuting Muslims, the Catholic Church persecuting the Cathars, the Sa'udis forcing Christianity underground, or (in the case of my own small affiliation) the Quakers being imprisoned in the 17th C, the story is the same. As other people have commented in better phraseology than I can muster, we must be careful not to assign universal bad human behaviour to a particular group.
quote:
I realise the Goths might be a bit of a sensitive subject for you, Alaric
But you're not seriously suggesting a moral equivalence between the Muslim conquest of the Spanish Visigoths (bog standard medieval conquest) and the Reconquista (thousands of books publicly burned, forcible conversions, those not converted driven out, those who did convert then hounded for any non-christian practices and faced with torture and execution etc. etc. etc. read Henry Kamen on the Inquisition)?
If you are, then I suggest that Gothic patriotism is going a tad too far!
Anyway, on a more light-hearted note
What did the Arabs ever do for us!
cheers,
Louise
I have a relation in Eygpt who finds practicing their christian faith very difficult and indeed sending letters with religious statements is risky.
In part the way christians are treated in parts of the muslim world is an indirect consequence of ancient wrongs. I personally would have a greater respect for the muslim faith when a pentecostal church can be built in Mecca as easy as a Mosque could be built in Canturbury (Ok I know planning regs can be a tough!)
quote:
Originally posted by Nightlamp:
I personally would have a greater respect for the muslim faith when a pentecostal church can be built in Mecca as easy as a Mosque could be built in Canturbury (Ok I know planning regs can be a tough!)
And just how easy is it to build a mosque in Banja Luka, Nightlamp, or even to rebuild an historic one?
Sorry, Administrators, if I made you cross.
quote:
The only perspective - as St Paul suggests with'I consider the sufferings of this present world are as nothing compared with the glories to berevealed' - is really the long term issue of where people will be after judgement day.
This way of thinking can be very dangerous.
In its extreme form, it was a key attitude which underpinned autos-da-fe against Jews, Muslims and Protestants under the Hapsburgs and Spanish predecessors the most catholic Kings.
If torturing someone might save their soul, then what did their earthly sufferings matter?
The suffering of the victims of religious intolerance - whether Christian or Muslim - is not incidental to the proclamation of the gospel, it is antithetical to the gospel itself.
How we treat other people is not at all irrelevant in the context of Judgement.
It is the treatment of others which Jesus himself cites as separating the sheep from the goats. In particular, the issue he fixes on is how we treat the 'stranger'.
In fact, Jesus speaks about this specifically in the context of gathering all the nations (and presumably all the faiths) before him.
This is bad news for religious authorities whose hard-line minority interpretation of Islamic law measures up poorly against this.
But it might be equally bad news for us Christians to spend our time thinking up new attacks on the 'strangers' in our own midst, instead of getting on with the feeding, clothing and caring business, as instructed.
Just a thought.
Louise
Pipkin, I don't think you should have felt attacked -- sharing your experiences is what we're about, but your posts simply said "they" without clarifying who "they" are. That's a contentious area, particularly when the OP sets out to prove that Islam is a bloodthirsty religion.
I happen to believe, like you, that Jesus is the way the truth and the life (though I don't think that necessarily equals Christianity, but that's another thread), so you don't have to worry about being run off for that belief. Just be careful how you phrase things, because they can be misunderstood.
quote:
I would like to point out that the Islamic Moors that invaded Visigothic Spain in the early 8th century weren't being very 'tolerant and advanced' in bringing their armies across from North Africa. And what eventually happened was a 'reconquest', the descendents of the people the Moors had ousted taking back what had been theirs
Ah yes, the Visigoths, the Aboriginal people of Spain.
The conquest of other nations has been deemed morally neutral by the majority of political thinkers until the twentieth century.
It is possible, I think, to suggest that the teachings of Christ implicitly eschew imperialism, whilst the teachings of the Qu'ran condone it. However if one compares the practices of Christendom with the practices of the Ummah on the question of Imperialism, conquest and respect for other cultures I think Islam will probably win on points despite recent improvements in the political practices of Christian countries (frequently driven by secularists - take a bow M. Arouet) and the recent degeneration of political practices in the Ummah.
Historically speaking the likes of Bin Laden, Khomeni and the Wahabis are not representative. If the bad practices current in Islam are, as some posters seem to believe, the work of the Goat of Mendes, then I can only suggest that this late surge of activity by the forces of evil is related to the fact that, when the Christian Church was powerful in Europe, the Prince of Darkness was able to work very effectively through that august institution.
There is a certain saying about motes and beams that keeps coming to mind when I read this thread.
Can I just add that if Ender's Shadow thinks that Christianity is morally superior to Islam because the Qu'ran permits 100 lashes whilst Deuteronomy only permits 40 he must be pretty desperate for arguments.
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The only perspective - as St Paul suggests with 'I consider the sufferings of this present world are as nothing compared with the glories to be revealed' - is really the long term issue of where people will be after judgement day.
I know Louise has already made a very pertinent objection to this way of thinking.
I just wanted to say that I think that Paul's words are being slightly misused here. In Romans 8, Paul is trying to encourage Christians to not be too downheartened by their present troubles, and to keep their hopes fixed on the future glory. To paraphrase him "hey folks - keep your chins up - the best is yet to come. Things can only get better."
This is very different from saying "the only perspective is where someone will be after judgement day"
"the only perspective .... really is...."
the 'really' is there to tone it down - of course the record of institutional religion on both sides is horrible - especially when you go looking. My point is to focus on the longer term though - the reality of the division of the sheep and the goats is a painful one, and too often we don't take it seriously enough. This is one of the downsides of God's blessing of good health care these days; for many of us we seldom if ever come close to death - in my early 40s, I've only attended 2 or 3 funerals in my entire life. And the message of the gospel is most relevant to the horror that is death - there is hope, there is an afterlife of good things to come.
I focused on the 100 lashes issue because it is one that is easy to demonstrate. I think in general that Islam supports a tendency to dengirate and destroy the things of the creation, and so mock the creator. The tendency to cut off the hand of a thief is a part of this - as is the rejection of alcohol - which I would argue used responsibly is a good gift of our imaginative and creative God (yes of course it can be abused, like most other good things...)
To me this is all part of a pattern which gently but clearly indicates that the true author of the Koran is the one who 'fell like lightening' and has been raging at God ever since.
Enough to keep the thread bubbling for another day or two?!
quote:
The tendency to cutoff the hand of a thief is a part of this - as is the rejection of alcohol - which I would argue used responsibly is a good gift of our imaginative and creative God (yes of course it can be abused, like most other good things...)
Whilst Christian Europe was so civilised that it only used to punish theft by death - even for quite trivial amounts of stuff, down to the 19th century. Children as young as 12 were hung for theft were hung in Christian Europe only a few hundred years ago. Not to mention the frequency of punishments like branding and flogging. Forgers used to have their hands struck off.
Meanwhile the Bible has cutting off a woman's hand if she grabs for the genitals of a man fighting with her husband - apart from the usual gamut of bloody punishment to be found in books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
As for alcohol - have you never heard of Methodists? Temperance Campaigners like the Band of Hope? Plymouth Brethren?
You may not respect their position, but it was taken from a Christian standpoint. Faced with the evils of alcoholism in their time (and even in the present day) they wanted to lessen harm - especially to the working poor.
It has been pointed out to you repeatedly (not only by me) that your accusations against the practices of Islamic theocracies can just as easily be made against Christian theocracies.
There is a similar amount of drivel to be found in the Bible - we just have the good luck to be living in non-theocratic societies which don't impose the crazy bits.
The only thing you seem to be proving is that you haven't taken this argument in and that you're determined to denigrate Islam, no matter how often it is proved to you that your arguments do not justify it.
You keep making the same bad argument over and over again with slightly different content and it's getting very tiresome.
Louise
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
there is only one god. if some religions get more details wrong than others, that doesn't change the fact that they are all worshiping the same god.
I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. In my opinion, there is one God - the triune God who is God the Father, Jesus Christ, His Son and the Holy Spirit. There are many gods, of which one is the god of Islam, who is not the triune God of Christianity. If I recall correctly, Islam denies the deity of Jesus. Is this not correct?
I cannot see how these two can possibly be the same.
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I think in general that Islam supports a tendency to dengirate and destroy the things of the creation, and so mock the creator. The tendency to cut off the hand of a thief is a part of this ..
Oh, remind me who it was that said “If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out” and "if thy right hand offend thee cut it off"?
Yes, the Muslims don’t believe in the Trinity, neither do the Jews. Jesus was a Jew - did he worship a false god in the temple? Of course, if he did, that would explain the cutting off hands bit. 
I’m with Nicole : “if some religions get more details wrong than others, that doesn't change the fact that they are all worshiping the same god”
How can there be many gods? That’s a heresy!!! eek: 
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. In my opinion, there is one God - the triune God who is God the Father, Jesus Christ, His Son and the Holy Spirit. There are many gods, of which one is the god of Islam, who is not the triune God of Christianity. If I recall correctly, Islam denies the deity of Jesus. Is this not correct?I cannot see how these two can possibly be the same.
There is only One God. Islam says that Jesus was a Prophet, not God. That does not mean that the God Muslims worship, the Only God, is not God. It means that their concept of God is different from orthodox Christians. You might even say that it was lacking to some extent, in that the incarnation and personal redemption of Jesus Christ is missing in Islam.
However, all Christians do not wholly understand the Christian concept of God. We struggle to understand and live in communion with God. That does not mean that we do not worship God.
There is only one divine force in the universe, but it manifests in a variety of ways, and different people interpret it differently. Nobody has a monopoly on it. Nobody is big enough to grasp the whole picture, either.
And I refuse to write off the Sufi mystics (or anybody else) simply because they are not Christian.
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Islam is monotheistic. Christianity is monotheistic. Both religions have their own prophets.There is only one divine force in the universe, but it manifests in a variety of ways, and different people interpret it differently. Nobody has a monopoly on it. Nobody is big enough to grasp the whole picture, either.
And I refuse to write off the Sufi mystics (or anybody else) simply because they are not Christian.
I could not disagree more strongly. Christianity is the only correct way of 'interpreting God', because it is through Jesus that God has chosen to reveal himself to us and anyone who rejects the divinity of Jesus is simply wrong. No 'different bits of the elephant', no 'different ways up the same mountain' or any of that. Just Jesus.
Whether this means that only Christians can get to heaven is another issue. I haven't got a clue
quote:
Islam is monotheistic. Christianity is monotheistic. Both religions have their own prophets.
So, I could start my own religion, make up my own idea of what God is, determine who were the prophets (including me as the chief prophet), write my own book (to replace the Bible), and that is OK?!
No.
quote:
How can there be many gods? That’s a heresy!!!
Precisely.
so suppose you have two people who want to write a letter to the president of a college. so they both read up on him first so they know who they are writing to. so the first one reads a biographical thing that tells him that the president is very recently married, and likes to be called by his second name, george. and the second person reads a somewhat older book that says he'single, and furthermore, due to some inexactitude in the writing, he draws the wholy wrong conclusion that the president is gay. also it doesn't mentin that he uses the name george, simply saying that his first name is bertram.
so they both sit down to write their letters. one is writing to a married but childless married man, calling him george. the other thinks he is writing to a homosexual, calling him bertram. yet there is still only one college president, and the letters are going to the same place. obviously one is closer to accuracy about the president, but actually neither is totally correct, because in fact the president now has two children, and prefers to be called by the nickname his wife used for him.
in the same way, one god only. the letters, ie the prayers, go only one place. as long as they say "president of the college" on the envelope, the same person opens them.
'My way is right - everyone else is wrong!'
is so simple minded as to render analogy unnecessary.
Louise
quote:
'My way is right - everyone else is wrong!'
a point that can be made by against universalists and non-universalists. Since both say my understanding of reality is right so you must be wrong.
quote:
Yup, there's no shortage of analogies for the universalists.
so since you can't come up with anything to refute it, i assume you agree then? good...
quote:
Originally posted by Nightlamp:
Louise said
a point that can be made by against universalists and non-universalists. Since both say my understanding of reality is right so you must be wrong.
You should have quoted my entire short post, Nightlamp.
My point wasn't about universalism, it was about making flat 'I am right - you are wrong' style assertions'.
Nicole certainly wasn't doing that.
Louise
quote:
Since both say my understanding of reality is right so you must be wrong.
actually doesn't follow, as it doesn't allow for the possibility that one or the other might say,
"Well, this is what I think, but I'm open to the possibility that I might be mistaken and I'm willing to listen to your arguments and debate with you"
That is not the same as saying "I am right - you are wrong, there is no room for discussion - end of story - and meantime if you try to debate with me, I'm just going to take the piss out of your arguments"
Louise
A story is an excellent way of avoiding confrontation. Tim V should have stolen the story and twisted it. I thought about it but hey I am not that intreted in this thread.
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
so since you can't come up with anything to refute it, i assume you agree then? good...
Well, it's pretty obvious that you're being sarcastic. But fair enough, I'll try and explain where I think that your analogy fails. And it would be a mistake to assume that since I went for a simple one-liner reply it automatically follows that I am at a loss when it comes to refuting your point .
Firstly, there are lots of sorts of prayer where the nature of God is included. So if, for example, if a Muslim's concept of some characteristic of God differs from mine and their specific prayer includes or is based on that characteristic AND the Muslim is wrong about that characteristic then I'm not sure where that leaves their prayer.
In your analogy, this would be represented by the letter-writer saying something like "as a homosexual, perhaps you can relate to such and such an experience I have had and I am asking for your advice". The letter ends up on his desk, but he can't give the writer any help because that request just doesn't apply to him. In fact, he's bemused by the request and might even write back saying "actually, I'm not gay and my name is in fact George".
In addition, if you are going to make the claim that certain religions are different interpretations of the nature of God then you have to deal with the situation where two different 'interpretations', supposedly of the same God, are mutually exclusive. I say that Jesus died on the cross and rose again (and I say also that this is of paramount importance). The Muslim says that he didn't. I say that Jesus died so that we might have a relationship with God through Him, the Muslim disagrees.
Take away these things from Christianity and, I would argue, you are left with a meaningless husk. And I would say that, since Islam denies this and other vital parts of Christianity then it is devoid of value as far as a view of God is concerned. There may be much about it that is worthy and good, but I cannot accept that Islam is acceptable. Yes, there are differences between various denominations within Christianity but I would argue that these differences are of secondary importance. For a list of things that I would regard as being of primary importance, try the Apostle's creed.
The sort of attitude that you seem to be promoting is all very PC and postmodern and the attitude that I am promoting is often met with indignation and resentment but I can live with that .
Tim
Secondly, you say
quote:
A story is an excellent way of avoiding confrontation.
So it can be, because it can leave room for the views of others and for others to tell their different stories which can be constructive.
Louise
By all means discuss the imperfections of the texts and practices, but there is no way to argue that different monotheistic faiths have identified separate omnipotent Deities. There is only one God (1st commandment). Everything else is detail.
Anti-universalists may argue that other faiths are seeing God in a "wrong" way, but it is a narrow ignorance to believe that other faiths do not know God at all. I would argue that it is a "wrong" view of God to believe He would not inspire millions of Muslims to worship Him.
And I should know because God is my Father.
kennedy
quote:
And I would say that, since Islam denies this and other vital parts of Christianity then it is devoid of value as far as a view of God is concerned.
That might be your point of view, but there is at least a possibility God's point of view might be different. Who knows how God values and treasures all of us, regardless of our religious views or lack of them?
A child born without the capability of even forming a religious view would still be loved and treasured by God, despite the fact that the child couldn't understand, never mind assent to the Apostles creed.
I think someone gave the example earlier on in the thread of somebody who invents his own religion and declares he is the prophet of it.
Now the rest of us might judge that person as being mad, but if the person in his self-invented religion went about genuinely giving his all to trying to love God and his neighbour (the main things Jesus told us to do)then who is to say how God who told us through Jesus 'Do not judge' might judge that person?
I think it comes down to this - the main things we were told to do were to love God and to love others.
If Muslims are genuinely trying to do that, then by the standards of the gospel, their religion might not be devoid of value to God, however much someone with a traditional view of the atonement might be scandalised by it.
Louise
quote:
the letters, ie the prayers, go only one place. as long as they say "president of the college" on the envelope, the same person opens them.
Unless they send them to the wrong college. Or, indeed, not to a college at all (the sender not having the address correct) and they sit undelivered in the post office for eternity.
quote:
I think it comes down to this - the main things we were told to do were to love God and to love others.If Muslims are genuinely trying to do that, then by the standards of the gospel, their religion might not be devoid of value to God, however much someone with a traditional view of the atonement might be scandalised by it.
However, there are peculiar dangers with Islam, because the founder advocated and used violence and treachery, according to the Hadiths of Islam. One might object that Moses and Paul were sinners before they were redeemed, but Muhammed did some of his worst deeds AFTER meeting the "angel Gabriel." It's a matter of historical fact that he led raids on caravans to rob them, was involved in the massacre of hundreds of Jews who had been captured and disarmed, and threatened many other tribes and peoples with conquest if they didn't accept his religion.
There's a lot of dirt I can detail later if anyone wants from the Hadiths, oral tales written down later than the Koran. The Koran itself has only a couple of verses about chopping off the heads of Christians and Jews met in battle, and lots of graphic descriptions of hell.
The point of what I am saying here, is that the false revelations of Muhammed are dangerous, even though good Muslims can reach God. The Koran and Hadiths actually do support bloody jihads. Christians disobey their founder when they start wars, Muslims obey their founder when they do the same.
Fortunately most Muslims take a more sophisticated view of jihad as personal struggle against sins and obstacles, but really the fundamentalists are closer to what Muhammed taught.
Time this thread was closed?
Ruth
hellhost
Whilst I agree with Louise and others that a comparison of the sins of the various religions does not make Christianity come up smelling of roses (the crusades, the Inquisition, the Balkans etc in fact produce the opposite stench), arguably the kind of atrocities depicted here are a perversion of Christianity and a million miles away from what Jesus taught and who He is. What it boils down to for me is this: either I take Scripture seriously, and in particular on this point Jn 14:6, Acts 4:12 and others, or I don't - and I have to be true to what I believe Scripture to say and state, like Luther at the Diet of Worms "here I stand, I can do no other".
This is not the first time I've come across evangelicals being attacked in this rather personal way at SoF, and I am concerned about it. SoF is a Christian site and, while I would not in arrogance say that evangelicalism is the best/ only form of Christianity (it isn't!), it is nevertheless a pretty significant part of it, and to find that when evangelicals state their deeply and sincerely held beliefs, there are calls for them to be suspended or their threads to be closed and polemic heaped against them, smacks to me of censorship. By all means disagree and argue against our point of view - that is of course your prerogative and to be welcomed otherwise we can't have much of a debate :-). But calling us intolerant, arrogant, bigoted, etc seems to display the very qualities which you purport to despise in us, and is deeply saddening
Yours
Matt
The problem with many of the widely used analogies (paths up a mountain, etc) is that they imply humans can find their own way to God, following whichever path they stumble upon. I see no reason to believe that this is the case, bearing in mind the bible's view of the moral and spiritual blindness of fallen human beings. Without revelation we are lost.
This doesn't give us the right to parody or disrespect other religions, but it does mean we need to be cautious about their spiritual value, as they are not part of, and frequently contradict God's self-revelation in Christ. However uncomfortable we feel about the exclusivity of this position, I think it's the inescapable implication of the bible's portrayal of human nature and divine revelation.
OK, I believe that Jesus Christ is the only son of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life. And under those circumstances it seems a bit presumptuos of me to tell Him who He can or can't save .
So, if push comes to shove, yes, I would argue Christianity has got it 'right' and Islam has got it 'wrong'. But it's a bit of a jump of logic from there to say that we should hate Islam because it's obviously a demonic deception, which is what the OP seems to be saying....
I would have to re-read this thread to be 100% sure but I have not felt that there have been any personal attacks on ES or Pipkin for putting forward the Evangelical viewpoint here. The Evang view has been attacked, sure. There have also been a few personal attacks but these have been for a refusal to engage in debate on the points raised (mainly by ES) and not for holding the views put forward.
Any attack on Pipkins viewpoint was, I think, a misunderstanding as to the way she put it over intiially and has been sorted.
If you look carefully, I think you will find that most personal attacks on Evangelicals on these boards stem from a refusal to debate points raised, rather than being an attack for the views held. The hosts are firm in their enforcement of the 10C which condemn the latter.
Cheers
Matt
quote:
the mainstream evangelical viewpoint on this topic - that Allah is not the same as God,and that through Jesus alone are people saved.
Allah is the Arabic word for God. (As I understand it an Arab Christian would also pray to Allah. However they would understand Allah as triune and believe that Jesus was his son - if someone could confirm or deny I'd be grateful) Muslims, like Christians, worship the one God of Abraham. Surely it makes more sense to say that Muslims worship God but have erroneous ideas about him than that they worship another deity. I was not aware that it was the mainstream evangelical view that Muslims are unwitting diabolists.
Personally I would not be unhappy with the statement that only through Jesus are people saved. However I find it difficult to believe that non-Christians cannot be saved through Jesus. He never got worked up about religious orthodoxy whilst he was down here, indeed it was the religiously orthodox who nailed him to a cross, it seems strange to imagine that his attitude changed radically after the ascension. The parable of the sheep and the goats and the parable of the good samaritan suggest that grace works through compassion as well as faith and no religion can claim a monopoly on that.
I know Evangelicals of unimpeachable orthodoxy who would be happy to subscribe to the above propositions, as well as Evangelicals who would strongly disagree. Wouldn't it be fairer to suggest that the views you mention are "a mainstream evangelical view" rather than "the mainstream evangelical view".
I suspect that if I were to take the OP and post it as a representative evangelical view, the evangelicals on the ship would flame me within an inch of my life.
Reading the posts of some of the nutters on this thread makes me wonder whether the Fundamentalist Evangelical god is the same as the Christian God.
Has Ender's Shadow set a troll longevity record?
quote:
But I believe in a God who has actively revealed himself - he's come stampeding out of the jungle and made himself known. It's no good looking for him other than were he has fully revealed himself, namely in the person of Jesus.
This thread could be re-titled "The God of Israel is not the God of the Bible" and still make as much sense. To many Orthodox Jews the idea of Trinitarianism is blasphemous. "Shema Yisroel: Adonai elohainu, Adonai echad" (Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one), a sentiment which would be echoed by Muslims and Unitarians. If you start from that premise, include the New Testament in the Bible, and treat it at the same explanatory level as the Old Testament, then where do you find strong evidence for Trinitarianism? And if you do not, then how do you argue that Islam, which regards Jesus as a late and great prophet, does not refer to the God of the Bible?
I can happily agree that the God of Islam is not the God believed in by many Evangelicals, but the title of this thread refers to the Bible. On that issue, I do not believe a single convincing post has supported the thesis.
We will be surprised by who gets to heaven, and who doesn't. I have no doubt that many from a non-Christian background who have realised their total dependence on God will be there, and many 'Christians' who slipped into thinking they were doing OK and didn't need God anymore will lose out. I have great hopes that in practice many Muslims will be found to have cast themselves on the mercy of God, and will be found among us on the last day.
As I mentioned, there are great dangers inherent in the violent and depraved example of Muhammed's life ... fortunately most Muslims ignore most of that and stick to the nice stuff like praying 5 times daily and giving alms to the poor. God has inspired them through even a flawed religion.
______________________
Purely as a side note, Panurge, "Shema Yisroel: Adonai elohainu, Adonai echad" doesn't contradict the idea of a trinity, since "echad" could mean several-in-one, e.g. "(a man and his wife)shall be as one (echad)" or an OT reference to several grapes being one bunch. However I'm uncomfortable with the trinity concept.
quote:
Purely as a side note, Panurge, "Shema Yisroel: Adonai elohainu, Adonai echad" doesn't contradict the idea of a trinity, since "echad" could mean several-in-one, e.g. "(a man and his wife)shall be as one (echad)" or an OT reference to several grapes being one bunch. However I'm uncomfortable with the trinity concept
Good pilpul, but very definitely not a gloss that Orthodox Jews I have talked with would be at all comfortable with. And neither of your examples fully illustrates your meaning. The first is a metaphor and the second is about smaller things coming together to make a whole. Trinitarianism denies that the Trinity is a metaphor, and also denies that God is made of three smaller component parts (a grape is not an aspect of the bunch, it is a small and removable part.)
I think you still haven't really responded to the arguments made against that.
With regard to Hermit's post on the 2 John thread in Hell which was to be answered here
I would say that you've simply replaced selective quoting from the Koran with selective quoting from the Hadith (traditions about the prophet).
Ariel has already pointed out on that thread that Hadith are not on the same authoritative level as the Koran. Opinion varies widely within Islam as to which Hadith are authoritative or not and what they mean.
In respect of authority, Hadith are probably more comparable to the authority of the writings of the Church fathers in Christianity. Not everyone accepts the same ones and not everyone agrees about what level of authority they carry, if any.
To pick out a few traditions which may or may not be authoritative, or which may or may not be liable to intepretation in the way you suggest is hardly good grounds for condemning an entire religion.
And it certainly doesn't support ES's claim that that religion is demonically inspired which was what I was arguing against.
And a rider to Matt Black - I'm sorry you're not equally "a bit upset and disappointed" to see the sincere and deeply held views of Muslims derided as inspired by the Devil.
But as non-Christians they don't count, do they?
Louise
Of course this exercise is based on certain assumptions. The most significant of which is that it was actually 'inspired' by a spiritual presence, and not merely the result of Mohammed's 'good ideas'. This is an argument that is hard to sustain these days when it is common to dismiss even the book of Revelation as a 'composition' rather than truly a vision given to 'John'. As someone who has personal experiences of such 'revelations' I can assure you that there is a real difference; one that is occasionally hinted at in the bible (Jeremiah's dismissal of the false prophets who have not sat in the council of God for example).
Once one takes 'the prophet's' claim to be the recipient of a spiritual visitor seriously, the options become much more limited. The claim that our God could conceivably have caused such vicious lies to be written is laughable (the claim that it was not Jesus who died on the cross leads to the belief that he allowed his followers to make the claim that he rose from the dead - which is to make Jesus' claim to be a good man wholly impossible.)
Given the strategic spiritual situation, with the spread of Christianity into the area of Mecca, it is reasonable to argue that the demon that had been worshipped for hundreds of years in the Black Rock needed to nip this challenge to his authority in the bud. So 'he' ('she!?') looked around for someone who was willing to be a means of deceiving the local tribes. And there was this ambitious man - who was quite prepared to do almost anything to advance his personal power. And the rest as they say is history......
This is purely speculative. It does however offer as good an explanation in the spiritual realm of the rise and expansion of Islam as anything else. I can't prove it - but equally it can't be proved to be wrong....
As I've said before, and I'll say again; we serve a mighty God who is able to work in people's hearts despite this work of deception; but not far below the surface of the logic of Islam is the idea that you only need to complete the various rituals and you've got a reasonable chance of getting to heaven. The Christian ideal is far more radical - you have been bought at the cost of the death of Jesus, you are no longer your own, but you should be a living sacrifice living out your life as God requires in every detail. And of course Christianity offers the assurance of forgiveness - 'if we confess our sins, God is faithful and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'
My first post on SoF was an attempt to develop a theology of salvation. It always interests me that in John the work of the Holy Spirit is to convince the world of sin; the need for real repentance. IMHO the mistake that a lot of evangelical preachers make is to do that work for him - ending up 'convincing' their listeners of their need for God rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to convince. This is of course unhealthy - the story of two 19th century evangelists walking down a street and seeing drunk in the gutter someone who got 'saved' the previous week, with the comment 'Was that one of your converts' 'Yes - because it certainly wasn't one of God's' has a great deal of depth to it. However the opposite mistake is to underplay the reality of sin to such an extent that we are all comfortable and unrepentant - hiding in our own 'holiness'. Such is the danger that the liberal runs when he moulds his pastoral theology to suit the climate of the times - be it in allowing remarriage of divorcees, gay relationships or Muslims / Jews / Hindus to remain unchallenged. Of course it must be done gently; indeed the role of the Holy Spirit suggests that it needs little more than a clear witness in the church - not preached about ad infinitum - as certain churches like to do on the gay issue - but just there so that everyone knows what the church's view is.
At this point I must ask your indulgence and drop some hints without going into any detail. My church at the moment is faced with a number of messed up pastoral situations because there has been a failure to achieve this balance; we seem to have been unclear - with the result that certain situations have developed which are now much harder to resolve because of that lack of clarity. And it is out of the pain that I feel over that confusion that I write some of what I do.....
I hope some of that makes some sort of sense.... I apologise for the final 'hint'. It would be unfair to be more explicit - but it is a significant reality in my life at the moment.
quote:
Given the strategic spiritual situation, with the spread of Christianity into the area of Mecca, it is reasonable to argue that the demon that had been worshipped for hundreds of years in the Black Rock needed to nip this challenge to his authority in the bud. So 'he' ('she!?') looked around for someone who was willing to be a means of deceiving the local tribes. And there was this ambitious man - who was quite prepared to do almost anything to advance his personal power. And the rest as they say is history......
Someone's been reading Chick Tracts again...
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[ 22 February 2002: Message edited by: RuthW ]
quote:
I would say that you've simply replaced selective quoting from the Koran with selective quoting from the Hadith (traditions about the prophet).Ariel has already pointed out on that thread that Hadith are not on the same authoritative level as the Koran. Opinion varies widely within Islam as to which Hadith are authoritative or not and what they mean.
The only source of information about Muhammed comes from these eyewitness testimonies (the Church Fathers did not witness Jesus, so the Hadiths are more like the four Gospels). I think his moral character is of great importance in deciding whether he was actually a prophet, and reading the only records about him makes me decide he was not.
Many hadiths with slight variations record Muhammed requesting assassinations, for example. He commanded that anyone who fell away from Islam should be murdered. (Bukhari vol IV, no. 260; vol. V, no. 630) Volume IX is filled with death threats against apostasy (pgs. 10,11, 26, 34, 45, 50, 57, 341, 342).
He allowed women captured in battle to be used sexually, their marriages terminated. Sahih Muslim, Chapter 29: IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO HAVE SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH A CAPTIVE WOMAN AFTER SHE IS PURIFIED (OF MENSES OR DELIVERY) IN CASE SHE HAS A HUSBAND, HER MARRIAGE IS ABROGATED AFTER SHE BECOMES CAPTIVE
Book 008, Number 3432:
Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (Allah her pleased with him) reported that at the Battle of Hanain Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) sent an army to Autas and encountered the enemy and fought with them. Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of Allah's Messenger (may peace te upon him) seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah, Most High, sent down regarding that:" And women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (iv. 24)" (i. e. they were lawful for them when their 'Idda period came to an end).
From the same book, the aging Muhammed commands his teenage wife Ayesha to suckle an adolescent boy (several variations of this):Chapter 28: SUCKLING OF A YOUNG (BOY)
Book 008, Number 3424:
' A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Sahla bint Suhail came to Allah's Apostle (may peace be eupon him) and said: Messengerof Allah, I see on the face of Abu Hudhaifa (signs of disgust) on entering of Salim (who is an ally) into (our house), whereupon Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Suckle him. She said: How can I suckle him as he is a grown-up man? Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) smiled and said: I already know that he is a young man 'Amr has made this addition in his narration that he participated in the Battle of Badr and in the narration of Ibn 'Umar (the words are): Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) laughed.
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I'll skip temporary marriages for the convenience of soldiers ... an issue of importance is whether Muhammed's wars were purely defensive as Muslims claim. From http://answering-islam.org/Muhammad/oman.htm
THE MESSAGE OF THE PROPHET TO THE OMANI PEOPLE
Here is the text of the message the Prophet Mohammad sent to the Julanda brothers through the intermediary of his Messengers, 'Amr bin al-'As al-Sahmi and Abu Zaid al-Ansari.
"Peace be upon the one who follows the right path! I call you to Islam. Accept my call, and you shall be unharmed. I am God's Messenger to mankind, and the word shall be carried out upon the miscreants. If, therefore, you recognize Islam, I shall bestow power upon you. But if you refuse to accept Islam, your power shall vanish, my horses shall camp on the expanse of your territory and my prophecy shall prevail in your kingdom."
[Photograph of the Arabic original (sizes 27K or 772K) and the English text (31K) as it is on display at Sohar Fort, Sultanate of Oman.]
__________________
To me it seems obvious Muhammed cannot be considered a prophet of God, since he murdered, started wars, and had questionable morals in other ways. Even HE had doubts that Gabriel was from God!
As I mentioned, most Muslims pretty much ignore that stuff and take the nice things to heart, so God redeems them even through a false religion. However, the fundamentalists who foment terrorism actually have good scriptural support for their views.
thanks Daisymay for talking much sense within the confines of the premise of the thread.
To look at it a slightly different way: if this was in fact what really happened, in what ways would the history of the time be different from what we actually see? Don't forget that the demon's objective was to deceive - so he is not going to make it obvious..... That it doesn't fit with how you usually think about things doesn't make it untrue!
quote:
Originally posted by Tina:
Why should we assume that every 'good' idea is directly inspired by God, and every 'bad' idea by demons? Where does this leave any room for good old human free will?
Absolutely. And this goes for 'words of knowledge' and 'prophecies' (how do you spell that word?) too. People speak from their own hearts and minds, and from what is going on in their own lives. God may use those at times, and breathe Spirit into them, but when we assume they are dictated from God, then we mess up majorly.
FWIW, my own view, following the two scriptures I quoted earlier, whilst I think Teilhard de Chardin's concept of an 'anonymous' or 'unconscious' Christian has some mileage to it (ie: that eg sincere Muslims can unknowingly worship Jesus and thereby know God), I tilt more towards the views of the respected evangelical theologian J I Packer, who insists on the 'particular (or was it 'peculiar'?) exclusivity' of Christianity - is he a 'fundamentalist nutter' too, Fiddleback?
Yours, more in sorrow than anger
Matt
quote:
This is purely speculative. It does however offer as good an explanation in the spiritual realm of the rise and expansion of Islam as anything else. I can't prove it - but equally it can't be proved to be wrong....
And so on the basis of this purely speculative and unverifiable "reconstruction" you are prepared to accuse the Prophet Mohammed of being the tool of a demon and Muslims as being unwitting diabolists.
Being one of those notorious liberals I am appalling at remembering chapter and verse. Perhaps someone (An Evangelical!) could remind me where we find the prohibition "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour".
Matt Black - When I consider the good Father's opportunities I am astounded by his moderation.
quote:
Originally posted by Tim V:
Yup, there's no shortage of analogies for the universalists.
With respect, Tim, I don't think Nicole's approach was universalist. The letters would still go to the president of the college, although both correspondents have an incomplete concept of his identity. A universalist analogy would surely suggest that a letter sent to the janitor of the college would get you the same response (eg admission to the college) as a letter to the president!
.As far as the demonic nature (or lack of it!) of Islam or other religions is concerned, I genuinely don't know. I am certain that God desires everyone to be a Christian and think that it's probable that Satan hates it when a person is living their life in a relationship with God through Jesus. So given that, I would suggest that Satan prefers someone to be a devout Muslim than a devout Christian. And it is quite possible that he prefers a non-devout Christian to either of them. We know that Satan is a good liar, so is it completely unreasonable to suggest that he has deceived millions of people and turned them away from what God wants, which is for them to live in a relationship with him in the light of Jesus' sacrifice?
I would like to stress this, though: I am not saying that Islam is inspired by Satan. We don't know this either way and it's as unreasonable for someone to say that this certainly could not be the case as it is for someone else to say that it certainly is the case.
I don't think that anyone who has posted so far on this thread would disagree with what I have just said but I am open to correction. Be nice, though, because I have tried to be reasonable .
Tim
quote:
I would like to stress this, though: I am not saying that Islam is inspired by Satan. We don't know this either way and it's as unreasonable for someone to say that this certainly could not be the case as it is for someone else to say that it certainly is the case.
In one of the Omen films a priest is trying to convince the heroine that Damien is the antichrist. He says something like "I am a Christian, my religion forbids me to bear false witness against my neighbour. If I had the slightest scintilla of doubt about this matter I would be obliged to remain silent".
As you point out, we can't know that the Prophet Mohammed was inspired by Satan. Therefore the Christian response is not to make allegations that we do not know are true, given the high seriousness of the charge. I have nothing against abstract speculation but before something firmer is warranted before alleging that millions of good and decent people are following the teachings of a man inspired by the devil of hell.
Its reasonable to suppose that Satan would prefer those that consider themselves people of God to spend their time fighting each other instead of following God to the best of their understanding.
It would therefore be reasonable to suppose he might inspire people to try and stir up argument and hatred among different people of God agaist each other...
quote:
It would therefore be reasonable to suppose he might inspire people to try and stir up argument and hatred among different people of God agaist each other...
It seems to be working well on this thread.
Lord, grant us knowledge and understanding. Help us to see the good in people. Help us to treat others, including those with whom we do not agree, with respect.
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Don't forget that the demon's objective was to deceive - so he is not going to make it obvious..... That it doesn't fit with how you usually think about things doesn't make it untrue!
One wonders what else the Daemon has inspired secretly, and who else has obtained knowledge of his evil plottings?
Ender's Shadow, how do you know so much about what Satan is up to (and was up to centuries ago?). I hope you have not been having midnight congress with the devil.
HT
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Siegfried dismisses my comments because they sound like Chick tracts. This is offered as an argument?!
No, I'm suggesting you got your story from a Chick tract. If not, where did you get that marvelous tale?
quote:
Ender's Shadow continues:
To look at it a slightly different way: if this was in fact what really happened, in what ways would the history of the time be different from what we actually see? Don't forget that the demon's objective was to deceive - so he is not going to make it obvious..... That it doesn't fit with how you usually think about things doesn't make it untrue!
And how do you know it was a demon?
quote:
"if you are attacking those who deride Muslims for holding their beliefs, then fair cop.
What I object to is the deriding of Christians who sincerely believe that the Islamic belief system is
wrong - or even demonic
There I'm afraid we part company, Matt, I consider the labelling of the beliefs of others 'demonic' as constituting prima facie derision of others of the worst sort.
I don't like the fact that, even in jest, this is being thrown back at the evangelical posters who have dealt it out to others - even though it could be seen as only doing unto them what they do to others.
I do not believe that holding a belief sincerely is a justification or mitigation for that belief when it is used to dehumanise others as stooges of the devil.
A poster comes to this site and attacks muslims everywhere as following a religion devised by the Devil and the response of some posters has been effectively to say
'How dare anyone criticise him! He's only demeaning the faith of millions of people by calling it Satanic - what's wrong with that?'
Or to infer that if the rest of us challenge such views, then that must be the work of the devil stirring up disharmony - rather than a problem with posters who think it's fine to write off an entire worship tradition as directed to Satan!
It's rich to watch people line up to cry 'persecution!' because someone has been taken to task for attacking the religion of others in such a demeaning and disgusting and extreme way.
Louise
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Oh dear - well I guess having to justify myself is good for me. And I don't think it is possible to PROVE that the inspiration of the Koran is Satanic, merely to make a good case that there are reasons for thinking it to be so.Of course this exercise is based on certain assumptions. The most significant of which is that it was actually 'inspired' by a spiritual presence, and not merely the result of Mohammed's 'good ideas'. This is an argument that is hard to sustain these days when it is common to dismiss even the book of Revelation as a 'composition' rather than truly a vision given to 'John'. As someone who has personal experiences of such 'revelations' I can assure you that there is a real difference; one that is occasionally hinted at in the bible (Jeremiah's dismissal of the false prophets who have not sat in the council of God for example).
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you have had direct revelations from God, and therefore are capable of determining whether the "supposed" direct revelations of other persons were valid or not?
quote:
I have great hopes that in practice many Muslims will be found to have cast themselves on the mercy of God, and will be found among us on the last day.
So if one can "be found among us..." [us? endar, are you so sure, and does that include me?] "...on the last day" simply by having cast oneself on the mercy of God, why do you insist on all this belief in Jesus as the only way etc.?
quote:
OK - I thought I'd said this before - should confuse some people?!
We will be surprised by who gets to heaven, and who doesn't. I have no doubt that many from a non-Christian background who have realised their total dependence on God will be there, and many 'Christians' who slipped into thinking they were doing OK and didn't need God anymore will lose out. I have great hopes that in practice many Muslims will be found to have cast themselves on the mercy of God, and will be found among us on the last day.
Ok, Endar's Shadow, I will grant you these points, which I agree have been ignored in the heated response to some of your more provoking statements. But it bothers me that you seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand, the infidels might actually show up in Heaven and lots of the Christians won't. On the other hand, you are also sending a very strong message to me that I am doomed because I believe in a God who was also the God of my (Baha'i) grandmother and father, who passed on to me my faith in God by their example as evidenced in their lives. (The Baha'i Faith, in case you don't know, is an offshoot of Islam.)
So, Endar's Shadow, what does God tell you about me? Am I following the devil or am I saved? Is my religion "valid"? If you can pass judgment on the religion of Islam, surely you can pass judgment on me. (Even without getting into my beliefs about birth, death, heaven, and rebirth or reincarnation!).
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[ 22 February 2002: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Where the thing might be argued to become a problem is when you go to a Mosque (or a temple). Should you be willing to take your shoes off as a sign of honouring their deity? And of course the issue of 'praying with them' becomes really untidy - again the principles of the meat offered to idols makes it less acceptable to do so.
As to the comment about spiritual experiences giving the RIGHT to judge - no I'm not claiming that more so than I do of anything said by any person ('Test everything' 1 Thess 5 v 21). This requires discernment and a willingness to decide which is not what we are taught to do - the 'Judge not' being preferred to the 'Beware false prophets' in the same passage! My point is that we might want to take the claim of the Koran to be 'objectively given' seriously on the basis of my experience.
Does that make any sense?
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Where the thing might be argued to become a problem is when you go to a Mosque (or a temple). Should you be willing to take your shoes off as a sign of honouring their deity?
Let's put it this way. You wouldn't get past the entrance if you didn't. It's their mosque and their space. You're not obliged to go in. If you do, you will be expected to comply with their customs, and one would hope that you would behave in a respectful way and not bring shame on your own denomination by openly showing contempt for their practices. I would expect anyone entering a Christian church to behave with respect. I might not for example care much for the idea that in Spain a woman is required to cover her head in church, but I would do so because that's important to the Spanish and it's offensive not to, even though I personally do not accept or like this tradition.
When I have gone to a mosque or temple, I have been fine about taking off my shoes, wearing 'modest dress' etc. I also do this in churches where it is the custom.
I would never offer anything to any of the images or make obeisance to them; I don't do this in my own church either,- it has a few images around which are given devotion by some members.
I feel quite OK during prayer-time in a mosque to sit and pray (not attempting to perform salat ) while everyone else is doing their prayers.
I have a few friends who became Christian from Hinduism and if I was in a temple with them, I'd have to avoid accepting prasad because they mostly think it's dangerous for them to accept that - being 'food offered to idols'. On my own, I'd be much less bothered because I believe that either the idols are really nothing, or that the demons behind them have no power over me as a Christian.
It seems to me that you are also being quite deliberately dishonest in your use of Scripture when you imply that “a synagogue of Satan” is a swipe at the Jews, because the verse (Rev3.9, in my version) explicitly states ”Behold I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie” Not that I would take the authority of Revelations for anything, but that’s another matter.
The Islamic faith teaches respect and veneration of Jesus as a great prophet. As for your comment on Mohammed “Even HE had doubts that Gabriel was from God!” – it seems to show a proper degree of humility. An example we might all learn from.
Warmongering and breaking up families - Mt:34-39
Lack of charity and racism - Mt 15: 21-18
Self mutilation - Mt 5:29
Plain stupidity - Mt 13: 31,32
(any primary school kid who's grown the stuff on wet blotting paper knows better than this.
I could go on, but if this sort of thing was all we saw of the gospels, we might rightly think that Christianity is a load of bollocks, and perhaps even Satanic (if you're into demons and hobgoblins etc).
Ender's Shadow might also remember that until about thirty years ago a great many Catholics sincerely believed that the Protestant Reformation was a Satanic deception, in rather the same way that he imagines Islam to be.
My concern is whether the revelations of Muhammed and Jesus came from God, I can't judge the wisdom of either from my limited human viewpoint. So if Jesus hyperbolically calls a mustard plant a large tree, or if Muhammed says that Satan farts at the call to prayers, I can take either in stride IF the source is from God.
Now keep in mind that I believe sincere Muslim prayers DO go to God ... I don't believe the Koran is a revelation from God. I judge this because of the recorded history about Muhammed, facts even Muslim scholars agree to.
Let's compare the two. Jesus preached love for your enemy. Muhammed beheaded several hundred disarmed captive Jews in 628AD for not believing in him (Muslims claim it was for breaking a treaty). The Old Testament clearly predicted Jesus, including time and place of birth and manner of death. There is no mention of Muhammed. Jesus worked incredible miracles. Muhammed produced no sign from God; the Koran admits this and says Allah could have produced signs, but instead gave the Koran as the sole miracle.
So there is no evidence Muhammed was sent by God, as there is for Jesus, and in my opinion his moral turpitude AFTER Gabriel's revelation's argue against it having been from God. Moses and Paul were murderers BEFORE God redeemed them, but blameless AFTER.
On a very subjective note, I don't want to believe the Koran is from God. It seems uninspired and repetitive; one sees a pattern of graphic threats of hell for those who don't believe, praise for those who do, and a distorted story from the Old Testament ... then repeat ad nauseam.
Koran 9:30 The Jews call 'Uzayr-a son of God', and the Christians call 'Christ the Son Of God'. That is a saying from their mouth; (In this) they but intimate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth. Koran 47:4 When you meet the unbelievers in the Jihad strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.
Koran 98:1-8 The unbelievers among the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all creatures. Koran 43:74 ..The unbelievers shall endure forever the torment of Hell. The punishment will never be lightened, and they shall be speechless with despair...
Koran 22:19-22:23 Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. They shall be lashed with rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they try to escape from Hell, back they shall be dragged, and will be told: 'Taste the torment of the Conflagration!'
Can I prove that is not from God? No. But I just don't believe it is.
I do however find great wisdom in mystical strands of Islam such as Sufism and the teachings of Baha'ullah (who unfortunately proclaimed the truth of the Koran, but nobody's perfectf).
All that is truly good aligns itself with God and was created by God. All that is truly evil aligns itself likewise with those forces whose delight is continually evil. Someone may be sincerely deceived as was the young man to whom the Lion spoke in this story. I believe it is up to God to decide the eternal destination in individual cases where the people did not know the way, but did the best they could with the light they had.
quote:
However the question of whether the Koran is inspired by God is not the subject of this thread. The OP was about whether the Koran is inspired by Satan and/or anonymous demons.
One is that the visions of Gabriel and voices in his head were simple hallucinations. Muhammed was known to have epileptic seizures, and those are commonly associated with hallucinations. Having heard a mishmash of religious ideas while living with his first wife Khadija (a wealthy merchant), all of that may have percolated in his subconscious mind and erupted while he was having seizures in the cave.
However hallucinations don't usually last for hours, nor are they often coherent in nature. I don't discount the possibility that Gabriel (who inspired fear in Muhammed) was an actual spirit entity of some sort, not aligned with God.
It's not an easy book, but it does try to deal with the history of Islam and its encounter with Britain. And its conclusion was optimistic...that, of course, was before the Iranian fatwa, which resulted in Rushdie going into hiding and strong reaction in the West.
But of course Christians would never behave like that, would they? They'd never issue death threats against doctors in abortion or contraception programs, for instance? And then carry them out.
I seem to recall the blurb for one of C S Lewis's books included the slighly hyperbolic line "Over all the earth, the shadow of one dark wing". And I can't help feeling that the demon-calling on this thread is part of that shadow. Motes and beams.
Hmmm... now where have I heard THAT before?
I can actually trace my slow walk away from Evangelicalism from a day when I suddenly realised that what was being preached was that Satan is more powerful than God.
The fear! The horror that we might unwittingly offend God by accidentally doing something Satanic, like taking a Homeopathic remedy! The knowledge that every mosque had a secret message set under the doorframe which meant that every one passing through had promised to be Satan's in the next life!
I don't know how prevalent some of those are now, but this was real. And very silly, it suddenly seemed to me one day.
I don't think it's fair to oppose Jesus' actions and teaching to the examples in the Koran. Look at the atrocities in the OT!
All I know is, I work with children who would be lucky to get an invite to many churches - and we were welcomed into the mosque by people whose sincere love of God shone through them and who laughed as the boys ran riot in the prayer room, and who spoke to them of the need for tolerance and the need to look to God for life's answers. Not Islam. They said, "In your culture you might try going to church..."
Twenty years ago I would have interpreted this as Satan's wiles. Now I actually think it was God in them.
Oooooh am I damned yet????
'Satanic Verses' - excellent stuff. 
Have you read 'Midnight's Children'?
Except of course for the "Satanic" verses, which I believe were later revoked (Muhammed claimed he was influenced by Satan to speak false suras?) - I never read the book.
from one online Koran: "The Qur'an is one leg of two which form the basis of Islam. The second leg is the Sunnah of the Prophet (saas). What makes the Qur'an different from the Sunnah is primarily its form. Unlike the Sunnah, the Qur'an is quite literally the Word of Allah, whereas the Sunnah was inspired by Allah but the wording and actions are the Prophet's. The Qur'an has not been expressed using any human's words. Its wording is letter for letter fixed by no one but Allah. "
God doesn't tap people on the shoulder and say. "Put your shirt on Hermit's Boy in the 2.30 at Chepstow" (more's the pity). He says difficult and complex things and, possibly quite different things to different people in different times. To everything there is a season.
The most amusing aspect of this debate is, it seems to me, that the God of the Old Testament (especially as interpreted by Christian fundamentalists) is remarkably similar to the God of the Koran, especially as interpreted by Islamic fundamentalists. That still makes talk of 'demons' off the wall, IMO.
quote:I can agree with that ... even more, the people who write it down can make mistakes ... think of the apostles writing down what were probably perfect teachings, but decades after hearing Christ's words, passed down orally through different people with different theologies. But I'd say Muhammed was not given God's words, he was an unfit vessel for revelations, yes mistaken about the source of it.
God's word is always filtered through the mind of the hearer, who is bound to be limited in his/her capacity to understand (the passage quoted in your sig expresses this beautifully). And, of course, some people who think God is talking to them can be completely mistaken.
quote:Well, it's similar because he was impressed by the monotheistic ideas of the Jews he talked with. The Koran is stuffed with Old Testament stories, slightly distorted as if he'd heard them rather than read them.
The most amusing aspect of this debate is, it seems to me, that the God of the Old Testament (especially as interpreted by Christian fundamentalists) is remarkably similar to the God of the Koran, especially as interpreted by Islamic fundamentalists. That still makes talk of 'demons' off the wall, IMO.
I don't know the source of Muhammed's revelations, but it doesn't seem to me to be from God (for the reasons given above, and then some!). I think there is at least a POSSIBILITY that some sort of evil entity influenced him.
For those who don't have a Koran at hand and wish to read one online: http://www.hti.umich.edu/k/koran/
hadiths are at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchhadith.html
quote:
I think there is at least a POSSIBILITY that some sort of evil entity influenced him.
Secondly, on an emotional level, I too find exclusivism pretty distasteful - it sticks on my gullet to think of anyone not achieving salvation. My best friend at secondary school was a Muslim (sorry if that sounds like "some of my best friends are gay" but that's the honest truth!)so I would dearly love to believe in some form of universalism or pluralism (although my friend would havce been gravely offended by the idea), but at the end of the day I can't let my heart rule my head. and my head gets stuck on what the Bible says, and in particular the blatant exclusivism of no less a personage than Jesus Himself in John 14:6. I am not a fundamentalist and so don't take every verse of Scripture literally, but i think this one is pretty clear and can't realistically be contextualised out of its apparent meaning without an extreme feat of mental gymnastics. It also ties in theologically and soteriologically with the problem of reconciling a perfect God with imperfect humankind - only the perfect atoning sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary can achieve that; no other belief system adequately deals with the problem of sin. To come back to the question of the OP, since GOd has already revealed Himself fully in the person of Jesus (Jn 14:6 again)then God and Allah cannot be one and the same since Islam believes Jesus to be merely a prophet and not the Incarnation of the living God. If they are the same, however, then it follows that Islam, being a subsequent progression in the revelation of God, must be a more complete revelation than Christianity or Judaism and that accordingly proper Jews and Christians should convert to Islam.
Fortunately, I have every faith and hope that God's mercies are far superior to my little mind's petty workings, and that accordingly when all is said and done, what my heart desires will be far more fully realised than what my head reasons.
Yours
Matt
quote:Purely your opinion, Olorin. As for therapy, I've met psychiatrists who believe literally that demons or other spirit entities exist. I don't know your religion, but Jesus seemed to believe demons exist, and I believe him.
Most of your 'evil entities' are contained in your own subconscious, please don't externalise them onto other people. Try therapy instead.
Matt, some good points ... have you considered the Catholic position, which is that God has given some light to all religions, but the fullness of revelation through Jesus ... John 14:6 is true, but that doesn't necessarily mean one has to have consciously known Jesus for him to function as mediator. A Muslim, for example, who responded fully to whatever limited light God showed him might be saved.
However, there's no doubt the Koran is at loggerheads with the Gospels, and it solves that problem by insisting that the entire Bible has been corrupted. For example the gospels repeatedly say Jesus called himself the Son of God, while the Koran directly says that is untrue, God has no son. The gospels say Jesus was crucified, while the Koran denies that and says it only appeared that way, Allah deluded the sinful Jews. Yes, one must choose which revelation one puts faith in.
quote:
the blatant exclusivism of no less a personage than Jesus Himself in John 14:6.
I'm fairly sure that issue was discussed at length in Purgatory a while ago, but I've just looked in the archive and can't see a relevant thread. It might be worth starting one again as I know there are a lot of differing views on the boards about that which you might find interesting.
However this thread isn't about the extent of salvation but about whether we're talking about the same God or not.
Now I'm not sure if I'm following the rest of your argument correctly -
you say
quote:
To come back to the question of the OP, since GOd has already revealed Himself fully in the person of Jesus (Jn 14:6 again)then God and Allah cannot be one and the same since Islam believes Jesus to be merely a prophet and not the Incarnation of the living God.
Now I don't think that works - for instance the God of the Jews, the God of the Old testament is quite evidently still the same God worshipped by both the Jews and by us - despite the fact that Jews don't believe the same things about Jesus.
Now the Koran is quite clear that the God that it worships is the God of Abraham, the God of the Old Testament patriarchs. They have different ideas about Jesus (as the Jews do) but they stll believe in the one God of Abraham
Now you may reckon that their beliefs about what that God wants or teaches are mistaken (as they don't recognise Jesus)but they still seem to be talking about the same deity as us (the God of Isaac and Abraham and Moses).
To say that they are not is like claiming that another Christian who has radically different ideas about Jesus is somehow not worshipping the same God as the rest of us.
If God and Allah are the same deity then it does not follow at all that "that Islam, being a subsequent progression in the revelation of God, must be a more complete revelation than Christianity or Judaism and that accordingly proper Jews and Christians should convert to Islam."
Just because Islam comes after Christianity makes it no better and no worse for that reason. It does not have to be 'a subsequent progression of the revelation of God'.
It could be lots of other things.
It could be a theology built around a numinous experience of that same God which through different human interpretation and different cultural conditioning comes up with a picture of that God which we disagree with.
It could be based on interpreting a psychological experience throught the lens of the Old testament and coming up with a radically different theology about God.
We don't need to accept Islam as a theology but as it explicitly directs worship to the same God that we read about in the Old testament and whom we worship, it does seem odd to talk about there being two different Gods involved here.
It's certainly not necessary.
Louise
quote:
"Purely your opinion, Olorin. As for therapy, I've met psychiatrists who believe literally that demons or other spirit entities exist. I don't know your religion, but Jesus seemed to believe demons exist, and I believe him.
At least one well-qualified psychiatrist I've read of believes in the reality of alien abduction - it doesn't make him right.
But personally, I don't care whether people believe demons exist or not, so long as they don't start labelling other people and their religious beliefs demonic.
Jesus certainly used the idiom of his time and culture when dealing with certain forms of mental illness - make of that what you will.
But when it came to dealing with people of other faiths - Samaritans and Romans - he was noticeably short on throwing demonic accusations around.
An example which it would be nice to see followed on this board.
Louise
Either you believe Jesus was the Son of God as he claimed in the gospels, or you don't. The Koran specifically and repeatedly said that is not true, Jesus was not the Son of God, God has no son, and Jesus was not crucified.
I choose to put my faith in the Gospels as being the word of God, meaning the Koran is not. It is at least possible that the Koran came from a demonic source. You may not like that, Louise, but truth doesn't always conform to ideology, not even very nice ideologies - such as the idea that all religions come from God, or that there are no evil spirits.
If all the Scriptures in the world were united in one volume & cross referrenced & annotated we still would not have the Truth of God but only our collected record of our experience of God through different cultural milieus over time.
Scripture may say "that no one comes to the father but through me" however I am sure that God is the one who decides if our particular pathway leads through christ or not irrespective as to whether we, ourselves are expecting it to. He might say "Go away I never knew you" ...no matter what we claim to have done in HER name. AngelsandWoMen@bigpond.com
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
As I said earlier, it's not certain that Muhammed was influenced by a demon, but a possibility.
I do not believe that the Koran is true (otherwise I would be Muslim).
I do not believe that people should use grape juice for communion wine (otherwise I would be a Methodist).
But I do not believe that Methodists are inspired by daemons.
Just how do daemons get involved?
HT
quote:
I do not believe that people should use grape juice for communion wine (otherwise I would be a Methodist).
HT does that mean that if the Methodists changed to using real wine you would become a Methodist?
quote:Hooker's Trick, Muhammed (and the Koran) said that he was visited by a spirit entity in a cave that identified itself with the angel Gabriel of the Bible, and this creature delivered the Koran in stages over time.
But I do not believe that Methodists are inspired by daemons.Just how do daemons get involved?
If Muhammed was being truthful, then this either was Gabriel, it was a hallucination, or it was a demon.
Since Jesus and the NT writers believed in demons (although of course the word could also refer to other chronic maladies) those of us who believe in Jesus also believe there are demons - spirit entities who have chosen to rebel against God.
I can't imagine anyone calling himself a Christian, but denying there is good and evil, or good and evil persons.
Even Muhammed wasn't sure if Gabriel was a good or evil spirit, and I'll repeat the test his first wife made to discern whether the spirit was an angel:
We are told by Ibn Hesham, who wrote Muhammad's biography, that Khadija tested the spirit who squeezed Muhammad. She said to Muhammad: "Would you please tell me when the spirit comes to you?" When Muhammad told her of the spirit's arrival, Khadija said "Muhammad, sit on my left thigh." Muhammad sat on her left thigh. "Do you see the spirit?" she asked. "Yes." "Then sit on my right thigh." Muhammad sat on her right thigh. "Do you see the spirit?" she asked. "Yes," he answered. "Then sit on my lap." Muhammad sat on her lap. "Do you see the spirit?" she asked. "Yes," he answered. Khadija uncovered a feminine part of her body while Muhammad was sitting on her lap. "Do you see the spirit?" "No," he answered. Then Khadija said, "Muhammad, that spirit is an angel, not a devil" (Ibn Hesham, part 2, pages 74, 75).
Personally, I consider the test to be unconvincing, but then I'm not a Muslim.
quote:
It is at least possible that the Koran came from a demonic source. You may not like that, Louise, but truth doesn't always conform to ideology, not even very nice ideologies - such as the idea that all religions come from God, or that there are no evil spirits.
Let's talk about the terms 'possible' and 'not supported by the evidence'.
If I believed in fairies, I might think it possible that the Koran was dictated to the Prophet by a fairy and that he had just made a mistake about it being an angel.
However if the best evidence I could come up with for that was the exact same hadith as you cited, on the basis of which I declared
"If Muhammed was being truthful, then this was either was Gabriel, it was a hallucination, or it was a fairy."
And when asked well "WHY do you therefore think it had to be a fairy?" I replied "Well I'm sure it wasn't Gabriel, so if it wasn't a hallucination, it must be a fairy"
Then it might be pointed out to me that this was 'not supported by the evidence'.
Firstly because the evidence I was using was of dubious authenticity
(as the Hadith you cite may well be - we've yet to see its chain of guarantors or references to scholarship which would indicate whether that might be reliable or not, and given the fact that Hadith were not written down until many generations after the prophet, they need to be treated with enormous caution from a historical standpoint, anyway)
Secondly, it might be pointed out to me that even if my evidence was factual (which seems highly questionable) that it did not support my contention that if it wasn't Gabriel or a hallucination, then it HAD to be a fairy. The Hadith don't describe the being in the Cave (if there was one) - so if there was an 'it', which is not necessary, it could be anything. There is no positive evidence that the being is a fairy -it could for example be one of the prophet's mates dressed up as an angel for a lark - but there's no evidence for that either.
To which I could retort - 'Ah but it's in the nature of fairies to go round deceiving people and playing jokes on them and this sounds to me like a fairy having a laugh! It's possible that it's a fairy.'
And again people would point out to me patiently, "Yes, but even if you do believe in fairies - there's no evidence for it in this case, Louise. And you certainly haven't shown us why your explanation might be preferable to (1) the evidence being mistaken or (2) a psychological or physical explanation (fever, sleep deprivation, lucid dream, mate dressed as angel etc. etc)."
In fact , it might also be pointed out to me, that my theory for which I have so little evidence (you say it's Gabriel - I say it's a fairy!), is grossly offensive to Muslims, so why do I go around repeating it unless I want to cause offence by slandering the religion of others on very flimsy grounds?
To which of course, I could answer " How dare you! I have the truth! If you don't like it - tough! It's my Christian right to go around repeating offensive stuff about other people's religions based on highly dubious evidence! Isn't this how Jesus wanted us to behave to our neighbours?"
To which they might very well reply "No."
Which is what I think you're hearing from quite a lot of us here.
Louise
quote:
such as the idea that all religions come from God
Obviously this is wrong. Religions come from men. That's what causes all the trouble.
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
Hooker's Trick, Muhammed (and the Koran) said that he was visited by a spirit entity in a cave that identified itself with the angel Gabriel of the Bible
John Wesley said his heart was strangley warmed. Hell is warm. Maybe it was the Devil.
[QOUTE]I can't imagine anyone calling himself a Christian, but denying there is good and evil, or good and evil persons.[/QUOTE]
I do not imagine that many Christians deny the existence of good and evil. But I also imagine that many Christians can accept the existence of good and evil without personifying those traits unto fairy-story bugaboos.
quote:
Khadija uncovered a feminine part of her body while Muhammad was sitting on her lap.
Well this is most excellent. Why don't we have more uncovered feminine parts in our holy writings?
By the way, not being an expert on Islam, could you help us to determine the canonical standard of the biography you cited?
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas tells of the life of the Infant and Boy Jesus. In this Gospel, Our little Lord smites his playmates when they do not do as he says, and withers recalcitrant schoolmasters. Most Christians no longer hold the Infancy Gospel as canon.
quote:.
If Muhammed was being truthful, then this either was Gabriel, it was a hallucination, or it was a demon
Hildegard of Bingen was a Christian mystic of the 12th century who had visions of God. Some modern scholars now believe that poor old Hildy suffered from migraine. You could assert that her visions were brought on by bad headaches. Does that impact the truth or lack thereof of the lessons we can draw from Hildegard? Or imply that, since Our Lord would probably not willifully inflict debilitating anguish and pain on a poor nun in order to bring about heavenly visions, that Hidlegard's visions were the work of daemons?
Do you suppose that if Muhammed had only had a few Anadin the Koran might not have been written?
quote:Let's state it in a more general way - If Muhammed was being truthful about his vision, he was either hallucinating on the one hand (migraines, epilepsy or the wrong kind of mushrooms, whatever)or he was actually being visited by some sort of spirit being that called itself Gabriel. Of course one might consider outlandish ideas such as a joke by one of his companions, but let's stick to the main possibilities.
Let's talk about the terms 'possible' and 'not supported by the evidence'.If I believed in fairies, I might think it possible that the Koran was dictated to the Prophet by a fairy and that he had just made a mistake about it being an angel.
This spirit was either there at God's command (in which case you might call it a good fairy or an angel, or whatever you like), or it was not. In which case, lying about claiming to be from God and starting a false religion - that would indicate malicious intent, working against God.
But who believes in spirits or demons, in this day and age? Where is the evidence? What a horrible thing to do, to say there is even a possibility of a demon influencing a man to start a false religion, when we have no evidence there even is a God, or spirits, or ever was a Jesus who worked miracles.
Well, I've satisfied myself that there is a God, and the gospels are essentially accurate. This is not an apologetics thread but anyone who doubts that is welcome to PM me.
quote:
Let's talk about the terms 'possible' and 'not supported by the evidence'.
Call it a good fairy, a bad fairy, an angel or a demon - it is either for God or against God.
In addition to what Jesus said, there are simply loads of testimonies from people who have encountered good and evil spirit beings. Of course none of you have open enough minds to read about that, more's the pity.
Now since I have shown plenty of evidence that the Koran was not from God (which you may accept or decline) it follows that the main possibilities are hallucination or, (I won't say the D word since it upsets you so) a spirit entity which was rebelling against God.
.
quote:I'm not at all interested in shying away from truth to suit some ideology, I want the full truth, whether or not it hurts someone's feelings. In fact, Jesus was very offensive to certain persons with false religious beliefs, wasn't he? And again, the beliefs of Jesus about ANY spiritual matter are not dubious.
It's my Christian right to go around repeating offensive stuff about other people's religions based on highly dubious evidence! Isn't this how Jesus wanted us to behave to our neighbours?"
quote:Sure they can, but that's not what Jesus taught.
. But I also imagine that many Christians can accept the existence of good and evil without personifying those traits unto fairy-story bugaboos.
quote:I suppose it would make them more interesting ... Jesus did heal that woman with the bleeding, but as far as we know she remained clothed.
Well this is most excellent. Why don't we have more uncovered feminine parts in our holy writings?
quote:Certainly ... according to my Islamometer, it registers a 37.
By the way, not being an expert on Islam, could you help us to determine the canonical standard of the biography you cited?
Now concerning Hildegard, if there were objective signs such as miraculous healings witnessed by reliable persons, we might conclude that her visions were from God, and the scholars who put it all down to migraines are ... how shall I say it? Full of academic rot?
Every saint has suffered. Life is suffering, according to the Buddha (and me). If there were no value to suffering, it would not happen.
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
[QUOTE]The evidence is that of the gospels and the words of Jesus. Jesus believed in good and evil, and good and evil persons. Further, he believed in demons and demon possession. I take his words and beliefs very seriously, since I at least am a Christian
I don't like your tone of type here hermit. What are you suggesting/insinuating?
quote:
In addition to what Jesus said, there are simply loads of testimonies from people who have encountered good and evil spirit beings. Of course none of you have open enough minds to read about that, more's the pity
I don't *think* (and I may be wrong here, sorry if I am) that anyone here is arguing against the existence of demons per se. I think they are taking issue with the allegation that Islam is directly inspired by the devil/a demon and that the religion itself is demonic.
quote:
If there were no value to suffering, it would not happen.
So what is the value of an 80-yr old woman being brutally attacked and raped in her own home? She later died of her injuries.
What is the value of a young family's house being burnt to the ground a few days before Christmas?
What is the value of children dying of malnourishment in Ethiopia?
Please don't be trite. Thank-you
Viki
quote:Not everyone on this thread is a Christian, unless I'm mistaken. By their own admission, I mean ... and some merely think of him as a wise man, from the looks of things. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't like your tone of type here hermit. What are you suggesting/insinuating?
quote:No, some have doubted the existence of demons ... have a look through the thread, it's long but interesting. I've only said it is possible that the Gabriel who allegedly visited Muhammed in the cave and delivered the revelation, is a demon. Another possibility is hallucination, but it seems a bit lengthy and coherent for that. Another possibility would be a hoax by Muhammed. Least likely to me is the possibility that it was an actual angel sent by God.
I don't *think* (and I may be wrong here, sorry if I am) that anyone here is arguing against the existence of demons per se. I think they are taking issue with the allegation that Islam is directly inspired by the devil/a demon and that the religion itself is demonic.
quote:So you've discovered that life is full of suffering, and that we eventually die of one cause or another. How would I know the value of particular instances of suffering? I'm not God. But I believe we wouldn't be involved in a system where everyone suffers and dies if there were no reason for it.
So what is the value of an 80-yr old woman being brutally attacked and raped in her own home? She later died of her injuries.What is the value of a young family's house being burnt to the ground a few days before Christmas?
What is the value of children dying of malnourishment in Ethiopia?
Please don't be trite. Thank-you
What if everyone just painlessly floated through life? How would we develop character and individuality? Some of the most treasured memories I have in my life are of the most painful moments, the struggles and lessons I learned.
I myself am an unorthodox sort of Christian, I also take wisdom from Buddhism, Hinduism, and near-death experiences (but more speculatively, where they don't clash with the NT and help explain puzzling sayings of Jesus).
GRRRRRRR - preparing to leap to Ariel's defence. Subsiding, as realise that I'm probably behaving in a patronising manner 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Yes, do tell. Does that mean views expressed by such people may be safely ignored, or regarded as having lesser weight?
No, Ariel. What hermit is actually insinuating, to my mind, is that if we don't believe in demons then, since Christ did, we are not Christian.
quote:
Originally posted by Olorin:
"Ohh get her!"
Bloody fairies get everywhere don't they?
"I thought fairies did nice things -- like -- like granting wishes!"
"Huh! Shows what you know."
--- from Labyrinth
quote:Where did this come from, Ariel? I was saying that as a Christian I tend to believe what Jesus said. I'm aware that others who are not Christian don't, and that you have said you aren't a Christian.
Yes, do tell. Does that mean views expressed by such people may be safely ignored, or regarded as having lesser weight?
quote:There is no requirement to believe in demons to be a Christian, but shouldn't a Christian tend to believe what Jesus taught? I understand that some consider themselves Christian in a purely cultural way, just something they've been brought up in, but I have a hard time relating to that.
What hermit is actually insinuating, to my mind, is that if we don't believe in demons then, since Christ did, we are not Christian.
However, of course there is a great deal of leeway in the interpretation of what the word may have meant, some might argue that it was a catch-all word for unnamed illnesses. However, I believe it also meant spirit entities.
quote:Do I detect a little smirk on your face, Hooker's Trick? No, I've never had one, but have had a few out-of-body experiences (astral projection). I do enjoy reading about NDE's, in fact tend to believe some of them are modern-day revelations from God. http://near-death.com/
Have you had a lot of near-death experiences then, Hermit?
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
Where did this come from, Ariel? I was saying that as a Christian I tend to believe what Jesus said. I'm aware that others who are not Christian don't, and that you have said you aren't a Christian.
1) I don't believe in the divinity of Christ. That's one of the main reasons why I left the church. It doesn't mean I reject all his teachings.
2) It's still quite possible to believe in the existence of demons, or negative entities.
3) Your response to Sarkycow struck me as being slightly ambiguous. While it's possible I haven't interpreted it in the way you intended, I should still like some clarification on the question I've now raised. You are not obliged to answer, but I would still be interested to know. A simple yes or no would clear it up either way.
quote:No.
Yes, do tell. Does that mean views expressed by such people may be safely ignored, or regarded as having lesser weight?
2Cor:4:4: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
2 Corinthians 11:13: For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
14: And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
It is not impossible that Mohammed was deceived.
But I'm surprised you post this Hermit, because it undermines your argument about demons.
If the Koran was actually something which evolved over 100-200 years of oral traditon, then the likelihood that it was dictated entire by a spirit in a cave seems remote and the probability of pious fictions being inserted in the tradition becomes much higher.
Also as has already been pointed out to you the historical value of hadith is greatly disputed. The scholars like Wansborough and Crone cited in the article you post would place very little reliance on hadith for actually telling us anything about the time of the prophet. None of them were written down until about 200 years after his death.
You also cite (and I intially missed this because you used an antique spelling of his name)Ibn Hisham's rescension of the earlier lost life of the prophet made by Ibn Ishaq - the Sirhat. This is a 9th century version of a lost 8th century original. It mixes large amounts of hagiography with its history and is not a contemporary source for the events it recounts.
In other words this approach does not support treating the angel story as something to be literally believed and interpreted demonically. Quite the opposite.
One thing which the modern research does stress however is the very high original Christian and Judaic content of Islam and that this faith has alwys seen itself as worshipping the same God as we do - the God of the patriarchs.
Louise
PS. Since when did posting a bunch of proof-texts wrested out of context constitute an argument?
L.
quote:The article is highly speculative - remember that the new wave of Koran scholars are trying to pattern themselves after the sort of biblical scholar who 50 years was insisting the gospels had multiple authors, and were written hundreds of years after the death of the "legendary" Jesus. They jump wildly to conclusions based on a very few shaky facts.
But I'm surprised you post this Hermit, because it undermines your argument about demons.If the Koran was actually something which evolved over 100-200 years of oral traditon, then the likelihood that it was dictated entire by a spirit in a cave seems remote and the probability of pious fictions being inserted in the tradition becomes much higher.
However, I try not to become emotionally committed to an argument, and like to present alternative views.
Thank you for the additional information, but remember that most Muslims are not sophisticated academics, MOST believe the hadiths are very reliable, the Koran being the first leg and the Sunnah the secong.
Perhaps if anyone has had such discussions, that input would be insightful here.
quote:
I've only said it is possible that the Gabriel who allegedly visited Muhammed in the cave and delivered the revelation, is a demon. Another possibility is hallucination, but it seems a bit lengthy and coherent for that. Another possibility would be a hoax by Muhammed. Least likely to me is the possibility that it was an actual angel sent by God.
So it is possible that an entity which may or may not have visited the Prophet Mohammed may or may not have been a demon. Bravo!
Can I address the 'hallucination' theory for a moment. Lots of people have had visions and heard voices in their lives. They were not all mad, nor were they in touch with supernatural entities. This is one of the ways in which human psychology works. What matters is the content of these visions. The Emperor Julian, for example, believed himself to be in constant contact with the Gods of Greece and, by his own lights, he was quite sensible to do so, until he lost the plot and invaded Persia,they gave him very helpful advice.
Unless you can give me an example of an instance where the Prophet Mohammed had access to information he could not have possibly known by natural means, it seems much more rational and in keeping with the available evidence - not to mention charitable,to assume that the Prophet's visions were the work of his own psychology and not attributable to any kind of maleficient entity.
Louise, I hope we can agree to differ on this one. We can argue this one back and forth until the cows come home, but ultimately it comes down to what we respectively believe. I believe that God has revealed Himself to us already in the person of Jesus Christ and that the subsequent revelation of God that Islam claims for itself contradicts this; ergo, they cannot be one and the same. I guess it does depend on what you make of Jn 14:6, and I would be genuinely interested if you (or indeed anyone else)could find the archived discussion thread on this point. But at the end of the day it is clear that we do believe fundamentally different things on this issue; whilst I respect your view, I cannot agree with it.
Hermit - thanks for your response to my previous post. As a former Catholic, I cannot recall to what extent Rahner's 'anonymous Christian' idea was imported into Vatican II or beyond (I seem to recall that whilst it wasn't adopted wholesale, it was influential), but I think what you say amounts to a pretty close interpretation of what Rahner said (and, FWIW, my own view.
Cheers
Matt
Matt
That is also the impression I got from a discussion on Islam at church last night. The former Muslims in attendance there gave a distinct impression that they would agree with your statement.
I still can't understand why there is so much disagreement here.
Out of the first 50 links you'll find ALL of the ones which insist that Christians and Muslims don't worship the same God seem to come from a very conservative evangelical Christian viewpoint.
None of the muslim sites make such a claim at all. In fact, I couldn't find a single muslim site which claimed that Muslims Christians and Jews worshipped different Gods.
I suppose there might be Muslim fundamentalist sites which do make such a claim, but they didn't show up. Even a pretty anti-semitic site (www.submission.org)still admitted that Christians and Jews worshipped the same God as Muslims.
A few examples
University of Nottingham Islamic Society
[URL=http://www.welcome-back.org/ ]welcome back to Islam for converts[/URL]
[URL=http://www.submission.org/christians/friends.html ]Submission (has anti semitic comments)[/URL]
Muslims would indeed be scandalised at the thought of worshipping Jesus (which to them would constitute idolatry - elevating a human to the level of the Divine), but if we're talking about the First person of the Trinity, then Islamic teaching seems to be very clear that Muslims, Jews and Christians all worship the same God.
Can either of you find mainstream Muslim websites denying that Christians worship the same God as Muslims ?
Louise
PS I was interested to see that even the current Pope, not noted as a liberal, thinks Muslims and Christians worship the same God, so it seems does the Archbishop of Canterbury. seeBBC Christians and Muslims article)
or:
However,
1. Just because it is on the internet, doesn't make it true. I would rather take a persons word on it.
2. What is wrong with conservative evangelicals?
3. Actually, I was told (by ex-muslims) that Muslims believe that Christianity is not monotheistic but polytheistic, we have 3 or 4 gods, (1) the Father, (2) Jesus, (3) the Holy Spirit, and (maybe) (4) Mary.
"dedicated to informing the public about the religion of Islam from a Christian perspective. It primarily contains the writings and videos of renowned Biblical and Islamic scholar,Dr. Labib Mikhail. Dr. Labib is a former professor of homiletics from the Faith Mission Bible College in Cairo, Egypt."
Look at it's Home page!
I asked you for an ISLAMIC site ie. a site by a Muslim, giving Muslim teachings as they are generally understood and accepted by some mainstream part of Islam.This is plainly another evangelical Christian site. Citing evangelical Christina sites shows what some evangelical Christians believe - not what Muslims believe which is what you asked about.
Off to check out the other one.
L.
My Arabic-speaking (and evangelical) Christian friends from Egypt used to wear little jewellery on necklets saying "Allah Mahub" (please excuse if that is not quite right) which means "God is Love". They said it was the 100th Name of God that was not known in Islam.
There is only One God Who created the universe. So how can we be worshipping a diferent one? Both the Bible and the Koran admit this; Mahommed rebuked the Jews for not following God's laws, not for worshipping someone else.
It is actually Islamic,which is a start, but all it's denying is a Trinitarian understanding of God as any Muslim site would), it's not claiming that Christians worship another God.
It is, in fact, absolutely explicit in its belief that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
The internet can be an excellent source of information if you use it intelligently by checking out the home pages of sites, and looking around rather than just snatching at the first link offered by a search engine without checking it's source or context.
I looked at several other articles on that site, including their article on Jesus. They all confirm that they see Jesus as a messenger of the same God they worship. the link you post simply shows that they don't believe in the Trinity.
Not the same thing.
Louise
As to those texts, they are referring to the possiblity that even visions seen as angels and light messengers can in fact be deceptions. Without the Spirit of God to help one discern the truth, angels should only be believed if what they say corresponds with Scriptures. (Not that I have conversed with any.)
quote:In my own debates with Muslims, they have claimed Allah is God, and this is a good summary.
but if we're talking about the First person of the Trinity, then Islamic teaching seems to be very clear that Muslims, Jews and Christians all worship the same God.
Yaffle, Muslims do indeed claim that certain passages of the Koran indicate knowledge Muhammed couldn't have had, such as the development of a fetus, the existence of quasars, and a few other odds and ends. To them it proves the Koran is from God ... I doubt their references, but if they are right I suppose it would bolster the demonic possession theory (to me, at least!). And by the way, I don't disbelieve that Julian was in communication with demons, hallucinations rarely last very long or give coherent and useful information.
Muslims have gotten some big name embryologists to sign on to the theory that Muhammed had supernatural knowledge of embryonic development, shown here:
022.005
YUSUFALI: O mankind! if ye have a doubt about the Resurrection, (consider) that We created you out of dust, then out of sperm, then out of a leech-like clot, then out of a morsel of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order that We may manifest (our power) to you; and We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term, then do We bring you out as babes, then (foster you) that ye may reach your age of full strength; and some of you are called to die, and some are sent back to the feeblest old age, so that they know nothing after having known (much), and (further), thou seest the earth barren and lifeless, but when We pour down rain on it, it is stirred (to life), it swells, and it puts forth every kind of beautiful growth (in pairs).
It seems very reasonable to me.
quote:
Yaffle, Muslims do indeed claim that certain passages of the Koran indicate knowledge Muhammed couldn't have had, such as the development of a fetus, the existence of quasars, and a few other odds and ends. To them it proves the Koran is from God ... I doubt their references, but if they are right I suppose it would bolster the demonic possession theory (to me, at least!). And by the way, I don't disbelieve that Julian was in communication with demons, hallucinations rarely last very long or give coherent and useful information.
Hermit, the problem with your worldview is that you seem to be suggesting that anyone who has had a vision, that did not confirm the Nicene creed (conservative evangelical version) was in fact encountering the Prince of Darkness. There are a number of problems with this approach.
It overlooks the fact that there is a great deal of scientific evidence to suggest that visions are caused by something that happens to the brain. They are not merely spiritual events but physiological events. They tend to be interpreted according to the predisposition of the person who sees them, which explains the fact that Our Lady tends to appear a lot in Catholic countries whilst eschewing the protestant world. (Has it ever occured to you to wonder why Our Lady spends all this time appearing to devout Catholic peasants when, by appearing in Mecca during the Haj, she could settle everything once and for all?). It also explains why religious visions tends to be congenial to the theology of the observer. Why didn't God tell Loyola, for example, that religious intolerance was a bad thing?
Futhermore the quality of revelation tends to depend on the quality of the moral and intellectual capacity of the observer. Which is why you get, on the one hand, the Theophany of the Prophet Isaiah and on the other hand the rather banal "And then I, like, realised that deep down I'm me" quality of revelation from New Agers and its Christian twin, the Charismatic movement. Or the variable quality of supernatural advice which was proffered to the Emperor Julian or Joan of Arc.
It is quite possible to explain the visions of Mohammed without recourse to Supernatural intervention, in which case Occams razor suggests that this is the explanation we should favour. The reason for this intellectual parsimony is simple - time and again it has been shown to be effective. We no longer attribute crop failure to witchcraft because exorcism has had mixed results in dealing with crop failure. Anyone who has been to agricultural college will be able to suggest ways of explaining and rectifying the situation which would be beyond the capacity of the most skilled exorcist of the pre-modern period.
Quite simply the majority of things which exist in this world have natural explanations, the visions of saints, heathens and heretics among them. To abandon a search for natural phenomena is to have recourse to a paranoid universe where everything and everyone we don't like is the result of bad ju-ju. The reason that this has been abandoned is not some historic mass apostasy arranged by the Satanic forces of modernism. It is because observation and experience show that damning everything we dislike or fear leads to great evil. The 'back to the Malleus' theology which seems to pervade a great deal of Christian discourse about the devil should be resisted not merely on enlightened, rational and scientific grounds but on Christian grounds.
Finally, may I observe in passing that the example of the Prophet's grasp on the finer matters of embyology cited in your post would, frankly, not be beyond my own scant grasp of the subject. There are no mysteries there that would not have been common knowledge in the 7th Century AD. The observation that humans are created from sperm would, if taken literally, would tend to ignore the fairly pivotal role played by the egg during the process of conception which I believe was the folk belief until the development of, ta-da!, the modern science of embryology.
quote:
Originally posted by Yaffle:
why Our Lady spends all this time appearing to devout Catholic peasants
My dear professor, surely these devout peasants have actually been conversing with the Great Deceiver, dressing himself up in a blue frock and popping up in warm climes?
quote:
Originally posted by Yaffle:
there is a great deal of scientific evidence to suggest that visions are caused by something that happens to the brain. They are not merely spiritual events but physiological events.
Perhaps that part or nature of the brain is like a dock, from which a ship may set sail, but the destination can vary from crashing on the rocks to travelling to foreign ports to being shanghaied by pirates to going home...
quote:
My dear professor, surely these devout peasants have actually been conversing with the Great Deceiver, dressing himself up in a blue frock and popping up in warm climes?
I thought you'd given up gin for lent.
Even in science, the principle of parsimony is a helpful guideline, it doesn't always lead to truth. Sometimes a more complicated hypothesis turns out to be the winner. And had Newton been handed Einsteins Special Relativity, he would have slashed it away, since he didn't have the experimental evidence about the constancy of the speed of light. Yet Relativity better explains the world than Newtonian mechanics.
If we believe in the testimony of the gospels, and that at least the words of Jesus are from God (if not every opinion of NT writers), then there is no reason to disbelieve Christ's teachings about demons - he had knowledge of a realm we don't have enough data to speculate about.
quote:Yaffle, you might wish to read through the thread - it is long but interesting. I'm not a conservative evangelical, that's Ender's Shadow. I'm an eclectic unorthodox sort of Christian, who believes Hindus and Buddhists have had their share of God's light and revelations.
Hermit, the problem with your worldview is that you seem to be suggesting that anyone who has had a vision, that did not confirm the Nicene creed (conservative evangelical version) was in fact encountering the Prince of Darkness. There are a number of problems with this approach.
But of course I believe evil spirit entities demons, exist and can influence human affairs. That's what Jesus taught.
Visions conforming to a person's background and culture ... I think about this constantly, in fact, but it would be wandering too far from the OP to comment much on that. Of course the brain and physiology are involved, but sometimes there is a genuine message from God, or some kind of spirit entity. I would guess (as you suggested) that if there is information the person could not have gotten through normal means, or if there are miracles witnessed by several reliable witnesses, the event is supernatural.
Personally, I've known many people with mental illness and hallucinations - they are usually short in duration and not nearly as coherent as the Koran, which is why I doubt that hypothesis. I doubt any lengthy, coherent hallucination is from a purely hallucinatory, physiological source.
Muhammed produced no miracles, but there are the claims of knowledge a seventh century man who was semiliterate couldn't have gotten. If true (I'm certainly not convinced) it would indicate "Gabriel" was a spirit entity as Muhammed believed. Since the Koran directly contradicts the gospels on important issues, saying Jesus was not the Son of God and was not crucified, it could very well be that it was inspired by a malign spirit entity, one working against God - a demon.
The other options (hallucinations, the lefty Koran scholars' hypotheses, etc) are certainly possible. I believe we "see through a glass darkly", there is a great deal of mystery concerning spiritual matters, which will someday be cleared up when God's laws and all knowledge will be "written on our hearts."
So I can live with many possibilities in this issue.
quote:
Muhammed produced no miracles, but there are the claims of knowledge a seventh century man who was semiliterate couldn't have gotten. If true (I'm certainly not convinced) it would indicate "Gabriel" was a spirit entity as Muhammed believed. Since the Koran directly contradicts the gospels on important issues, saying Jesus was not the Son of God and was not crucified, it could very well be that it was inspired by a malign spirit entity, one working against God - a demon.
If it were a demon, its plan seems to have backfired, having resulted in a huge proportion of the worlds population seeking after God.
quote:
Hmmm, Yaffle, lots of food for thought in your post. Let me begin with the limitations of Occam's Razor - surely you know the Razor is wielded by modern skeptics to deny that there is sufficient evidence to believe in God? Yet I see by your profile that you apparently do believe in Him, unless you are attending church from a love of pews and stained glass windows.
As I understand it, a modern sceptic would suggest that Occam's Razor means that there is no need to postulate the existence of God as absolutely everything can be explained in terms of natural forces. I would argue that natural forces can't answer the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" So I don't think that Occam's Razor is a valid argument against the existence of God - parsimony needs to be balanced against inteligibility, the most parsimonious explanation of reality is solipsism. But I think that it's a valid line of enquiry. You can't avoid awkward questions just because the conclusion might be unpleasant.
quote:
If we believe in the testimony of the gospels, and that at least the words of Jesus are from God (if not every opinion of NT writers), then there is no reason to disbelieve Christ's teachings about demons - he had knowledge of a realm we don't have enough data to speculate about.
Alternatively, the doctrine of the Incarnation suggests that Christ assumed humanity with all its limitations. Christ wasn't omniscient, when someone touched him in the crowd he asked "who touched me". We know that Jesus was wrong on some points - he believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and probably believed in a triple decker cosmology. So who's to say that he wasn't wrong about demons. Jesus was without sin - not infallible.
I don't believe in the existence of demons and of course I could be wrong but it is a massive leap, unsupported by logic to suggest that because Christ believed in the existence of demons, it is legitimate to argue that they dictated the Qu'ran to Mohammed.
quote:
Yaffle, you might wish to read through the thread - it is long but interesting. I'm not a conservative evangelical, that's Ender's Shadow. I'm an eclectic unorthodox sort of Christian, who believes Hindus and Buddhists have had their share of God's light and revelations.
I apologise for the imputation that you are a conservative evangelical. Actually no I don't. I am, as you will have noticed, not a conservative evangelical but it strikes me that there is an integrity, albeit a narrow one, to a view which says that there is one true religion and all the rest are counterfeits. But to suggest that Hindus and Buddhists have recieved revelations from God whilst Muslims recieved theirs from the devil strikes me as being little more than vulgar Islamophobia. Mystics in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have had visions of deities. What grounds do you have for suggesting that these were genuine angels or deities if the Angel Gabriel was the Prince of Lies in disguise. Or do you just believe that all Muslims are terrorists and therefore Satanic?
quote:I suppose most demonic plans do backfire in the end. Most people will seek God through whatever religion is around, but Islam teaches that one acceptable way to find God is through jihad, holy war - which is untrue and has cost the world millions of lives (while Christians have waged holy wars, that is in clear violation of what its founder taught.)
If it were a demon, its plan seems to have backfired, having resulted in a huge proportion of the worlds population seeking after God.
So perhaps the demonic plan worked after all.
quote:Yaffle, it's true we don't know how much God "emptied" himself out to become Jesus, but we do know he came to teach spiritual truths. If he were fallible in spiritual matters, we would all be better off following a more modern wise man, perhaps Gandhi. His teachings about demons fall into realm of spiritual teachings.
Alternatively, the doctrine of the Incarnation suggests that Christ assumed humanity with all its limitations. Christ wasn't omniscient, when someone touched him in the crowd he asked "who touched me". We know that Jesus was wrong on some points - he believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and probably believed in a triple decker cosmology. So who's to say that he wasn't wrong about demons. Jesus was without sin - not infallible.
quote:Setting up strawmen again? I certainly didn't argue that because Jesus taught about demons, therefore the Koran was dictated by them.
I don't believe in the existence of demons and of course I could be wrong but it is a massive leap, unsupported by logic to suggest that because Christ believed in the existence of demons, it is legitimate to argue that they dictated the Qu'ran to Mohammed.
quote:I've carefully studied scriptures from all religions. There are truths and falsehoods in all of them, even Islam. But Christianity has the lion's share of the truth, in my opinion. However, all that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. As I've said several times, the Koran directly contradicts the Bible on key issues such as whether Jesus was the Son of God, and whether he was crucified (among other items). Both of them can't be the word of God. I've given the reasons why I believe demonic possession was a strong possibility.
But to suggest that Hindus and Buddhists have recieved revelations from God whilst Muslims recieved theirs from the devil strikes me as being little more than vulgar Islamophobia. Mystics in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have had visions of deities. What grounds do you have for suggesting that these were genuine angels or deities if the Angel Gabriel was the Prince of Lies in disguise. Or do you just believe that all Muslims are terrorists and therefore Satanic?
quote:
I've given the reasons why I believe demonic possession was a strong possibility
You've failed completely to demonstrate that this is a strong possibility. A possibility maybe - anything is possible - but nothing you've said demostrates this is a likely one. Neither have you demonstrated an reason why demonic inspiration is any more likely an explaination for Islam than any other non-Christian religion.
quote:
they are simply deluded about some ways to worship God
Aren't we all?
quote:
I understand that most of you have an ideology that blocks the facts in this matter from reaching your minds
We refuse to be persuaded, despite constant repeatition of your weak and flawed argument, therefore we are at fault?
Hermit has been criticised for the supposed weakness of his/her argument. But I find the reasoning that would suggest that Islam arose from a bona fide revelation from God given to Muhammed and that, as a consequence, Islam is on a par with Christianity and we are worshipping the same God, pretty weak personally. By that argument, any old Tom, Dick or Harry (and yes its usually us men who are to blame here) can claim to have received divine revelation, write his own holy book, and start his own religion - and that's to be regarded as equivalent to Christianity?? I don't think so. By that reasoning, the Mormons are also equivalent, even though their concepts of Jesus and of God are profoundly different to those of the Bible.
Arguments for and against Islam can both be criticised, but I really don't think we are going to convince each other by arguing; I would hazard an educated guess that most if not all of the posters on this thread have strong, conscience-based ideological/ theological views on the subject, and I strongly suspect that none of us are going to be particularly moved by contrary arguments.
At the risk of over-generalising, I think we've heard something of the catholic, evangelical (conservative?)and liberal viewpoints on this thread but I don't recall seeing anything from the Orthodox perspective (correct me if I'm wrong) - I'd be really interested in what they have to say on the subject.
Cheers
Matt
As for the argument that Islam arose from early Christianity, well, so did Docetism, gnosticism, Arianism, Modalism and other heresies - so presumably they're OK as well?
Very few people here (if any) have denied that Christianity is closer to the truth than Islam. Its the "Koran was dictated by a demon" line thats really got up peoples noses.
quote:
Originally posted by Sean:
There's a world of difference between saying Islam is equally valid to Christianity, and saying it's inspired by Satan.
Should, of course, have read "... is not equally..."
quote:
Hermit has been criticised for the supposed weakness of his/her argument. But I find the reasoning that would suggest that Islam arose from a bona fide revelation from God given to Muhammed and that, as a consequence, Islam is on a par with Christianity and we are worshipping the same God, pretty weak personally. By that argument, any old Tom, Dick or Harry (and yes its usually us men who are to blame here) can claim to have received divine revelation, write his own holy book, and start his own religion - and that's to be regarded as equivalent to Christianity?? I don't think so. By that reasoning, the Mormons are also equivalent, even though their concepts of Jesus and of God are profoundly different to those of the Bible.
I don't think that one has to subscribe to the argument put forward above to disagree with Hermit. Essentially there are three issues at stake.
1/ Do Muslims and Christians both worship the God of Abraham?
Both Muslims and Christians say yes therefore it is reasonable to say that they do.
2/ Are Islam and Christianity equally true?
As the two religions both say different things about God and about matters of historical fact it follows that they cannot both be equally true. It could be argued that the teaching of Christ is morally superior to the teaching of Mohammed. But considering Christianity and Islam as historic religions both have a mixed record.
3/ Was Mohammed inspired by the Devil?
No serious evidence to support this contention has been offered.
I think Mohammed did encounter a supernatural being, and it wasn’t his friends winding him up, or a result of the ‘mushrooms’ he’d eaten/not eaten. I think it did provide him with a message that, whilst containing some ‘good’ stuff, was contradictory to some ‘essential’ tenets of the Christian faith. So I don’t reckon the being in question was carrying out God’s instructions.
I look at what Satan, from his point of view, would do in response to Christ/Christianity. First, get rid of Jesus Himself – hence the Cross. That backfires a bit: ‘sin’ is dealt with, Satan is defeated, Hell is Harrowed, Christ is restored to life. Then, try and destroy/persecute the followers, with Pharisees and Sadducees, Roman rulers (esp. Nero ) all doing their ‘bit’. Oh dear, failure there too, the thing spreads too far, and the persecution seems to bring out the best qualities (i.e. least desirable from Satan’s point of view) in the Christians.
So try and corrupt the message: a few heresies will do nicely. But they all sit down at (e.g.) Nicaea and work out what they ought exactly to believe, and write it down so as future generations can refer to it.
So come up with a false religion. Satan knows that the Almighty particularly detested it when Israel prostituted itself by worshipping Baal, setting up Asherah poles, etc. But the error in such ‘old’ religions will quickly become apparent compared to the ‘light’ that Christianity gives. This time he needs a really effective false religion, one that might last for centuries. It mustn’t be ‘obviously’ false, or that will be seem through by wise humans, so very reluctantly, Satan realises it’ll have to be built on certain ‘truths’, like there is One God, and He speaks through prophets, and that He makes laws which should be obeyed, which the Jewish scriptures have a lot to say about. But as a diabolical masterstroke, when he (Satan or one of his demons)) communicates this religion, the man spoken to will be told he is the Last Prophet. So anyone who communicates something from God after the Prophet’s death that contradicts or ‘improves upon’ what he has said will not be considered to have the genuine gift of prophecy.
Where to spread this religion? Ah yes, the very part of the world that Early Christianity first ‘took hold of’. How to spread it? Warfare of course, and make holy war a fairly central part of the message. And, knowing the capacity of human beings to sin and hate, and not forgive, sow misleading ideas amongst the remaining Christian lands that their taking up the sword, rather than the Gospel, will be the best response for ‘liberating’ the lands where the false religion has spread. And with luck, the fighting can be kept going for ages, being re-ignited periodically.
I cannot prove any of the above, not being privy to the counsels of the Enemy. I think it is exactly the sort of strategy he would employ, though. The fact that NOTHING else rival to Christianity has endured so long or resulted in so much resistance to the Gospel speaks volumes to me of its likely inspiration.
I will probably have made a few ‘enemies’ with this post. That was not my intention, and I would rather it wasn’t the case. I will continue to support (financially and with prayer) efforts to get Bibles and Christian literature ‘into’ Muslim lands, for I consider it to be a very high priority of the church.
Perhaps the reason Islam is so successful is that (after Christianity & possibly Judaism) it is closest to the truth. Surely at least as plausable as your suggestion.
Sean's reply was:
quote:
Perhaps the reason Islam is so successful is that (after Christianity & possibly Judaism) it is closest to the truth.
Precisely. This is confirmation of what Alaric said:
quote:
it’ll have to be built on certain ‘truths’, like there is One God, and He speaks through prophets, and that He makes laws which should be obeyed, which the Jewish scriptures have a lot to say about
When there is truth, all else is false. If Christianity is true (which I believe it is), then Islam (taken as a whole being different from Christianity) - which may or may not be close to truth, is false.
It is like saying 2+2=4. That is truth (in base 10). To say that 2+2=5 may be close to the truth, but it is, nonetheless, as false as saying 2+2=145.
In reality, none of us has the whole truth, so we must all be wasting our time.
quote:
Sean's reply was:quote:
---------------
Perhaps the reason Islam is so successful is that (after Christianity & possibly Judaism) it is closest to the truth.
-------------Precisely.
My point, which I obviously didn't spell out clearly enough, is that
if success implies closeness to truth, it does not in anyway need to imply demonic influence.
1. Christians worship God as revealed in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ; since Islam states that Jesus is not God and thus denies this central tenet of Christianity, it follows that the God of Islam and the God of Christianity cannot be one and the same - no Jesus, no God
2. I think we are agreed that the two religions are not equivalent
3. Possibly - the eloquent Goth has put this much better than me. It follows from point 1 above that Islam cannot be from God - since it at best detracts from and at worse denies His self-revelation in Jesus Christ - so that leaves two possibilities - either it is entirely a human creation, or from the chap with horns; the same would apply IMO to any other 'revelation' such as Mormonism et al
Matt
quote:
Originally posted by Sean:
On that basis, if my version of Christianity is true, then yours is false and worthless (or vice-versa).In reality, none of us has the whole truth, so we must all be wasting our time.
Well, isn't this what the Nicene creed is for? It lays down the essentials and anyone who conforms to them all may be considered as a christian. Other stuff, such as the differing (or not!) roles of men and women within the church etc. may be considered as non-essential and while they may be worthwhile as matters for debate belief either way isn't going to affect a person's christian status.
1. Christians worship a God who revealed himself through the incarnation. However Christ is not the totality of God, so, while Muslims disgree with us about a pretty important aspect of God, that does not make Him a different God.
2. Agreed.
3. you haven't covered all the possibilites here. Another is that the revelation was from God but Mohammed misheard/misinterpretted some of that message.
Sorry, but I want something a bit stronger than speculation before I willing accept this slur against the religion of so many people. Like one iota of evidence.#
Tim:
1. Not everyone here who regards themself as a Christian takes the Nicene creed at face value.
2. Sharkshooter said there was one truth, and if you are not spot on you may as well be a mile off (not his words). The creeds do not come close to defining one truth.
3. No-one here claims muslims are Christians, or anything close to that. (Which is what the creeds attempt to define.) Just defending the fact that their religion is close to the truth in parts, may have some value (none of us will know till we're dead) and feel that making the sort of accusations against Islam made earlier in this thread demands some sort of evidence or a withdrawal.
Following the numbering-
1. I beg to differ. "In Him is the fullness of the Godhead."
3. 'Evidence' - if it is along the lines of "by a tree will you know its fruits", then Christianity measures up badly, as do other religions; religious hatred and killings are not the monopoly of monotheists either (look at what's happened in India over the last week). I'm simply saying that what I said in 3 follows from what I said in 1. I accept however the possibility that both Muhammed, Arius and Joseph Smith may have heard from God but totally misinterpreted it/ the message being corrupted through the human medium, but I find this less likely as in each case the end result was so far removed from the original truth.
Matt
Matt
Matt
quote:
1. I beg to differ. "In Him is the fullness of the Godhead."
But there are also God the Father & God the Holy Spirit. Thats the paradox of the Trinity.
quote:
3. 'Evidence' - if it is along the lines of "by a tree will you know its fruits", then Christianity measures up badly, as do other religions; religious hatred and killings are not the monopoly of monotheists either (look at what's happened in India over the last week). I'm simply saying that what I said in 3 follows from what I said in 1. I accept however the possibility that both Muhammed, Arius and Joseph Smith may have heard from God but totally misinterpreted it/ the message being corrupted through the human medium, but I find this less likely as in each case the end result was so far removed from the original truth.
So its still down to an unsupported hypothosis.
quote:
Sean, you refer to Islam being the "religion of so many people" - are you suggesting/ implying that if enough people believe something, it becomes true/ truth, no matter how wrong that belief might be?
Of course not. But an accusation of following a demonically inspired leader is a pretty big accusation to throw at 1/3 of the world (or whatever it is).
Well, there you go. Let the flames begin (or rather continue, just to be hotter in may particular corner).
tomb
hellhost
[ 07 March 2002: Message edited by: tomb ]
Save me the reading please! Has anyone mentioned that St. John of Damascus who worked for the Caliph as a civil servant and who retired to the desert thought of Islam (Ishmaelites) as a Judaeo-Christian heresy?
So, same God, wrong "picture."
(How annoying to write a final, lengthy reply and have it destroyed when the thread was moved.)
The Bible has an interesting prophecy concerning the Arabs, who are descended from Ishmael the bastard son of Abraham, according to the Koran.
Genesis 7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"
"I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.
9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." 10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
11 The angel of the Lord also said to her:
"You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers."
____________________
Turning now to 1 John we find: 22Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
But look at what the Koran says about that:
YUSUFALI: They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.
005.073
YUSUFALI: They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.
quote:What sort of evidence are you looking for, at this distance in time? A test tube in a scientific laboratory, with a little demon in it claiming to be the one who inspired Muhammed?
3/ Was Mohammed inspired by the Devil?
No serious evidence to support this contention has been offered.This is still pure speculation without an ounce of even circumstantial evidence.
I'll recap my arguments:
1. Muhammed claimed to be visited by a spirit entity calling itself Gabriel, who delivered the Koran to him in stages,
2. He wasn't sure if it was an angel or an evil spirit,
3. The message delivered directly contradicts the Bible on key issues, so both scriptures cannot be from God,
4. The message was coherent and each session lasted for hours, uncharacteristic of hallucinations,
5. The message possibly contained information that the illiterate or semiliterate Muhammed could not have known, also uncharacteristic of hallucinations,
6. Jesus taught that demons exist and can influence or even possess people,
7. If you disbelieve Jesus and need more evidence that demons exist, simply go into any large library and look up "exorcism" - there are thousands of written testimonies about them.
All this leads me to believe that there is a strong possibility that Muhammed was inspired by a spirit entity working against God - a demon.
It may not be enough for others here, but I've said about all I have to say on this matter, unless something new turns up.
According to Orthodox teaching, yes, demons exist and they are fallen angels or rebellious spirits, all immaterial.
My own take on Mumhammad is that he was a religion inventing plagiarist given to fantasies in his meditations in the same way that Joseph Smith was. His knowledge of Orthodox Christianity was woefully inadequate. It is true that when people are hooking up to something imagined, evil can step in. I certainly ascribe his religious militarism to that. His rather boring sin is wrong and you will get judged for it, virtue is good and you will get rewarded for it diatribe is hardly original and pastorally very shallow. Salvation is not a word he understands. All Merciful and Compassionate is a direct take from Orthodox liturgies, (as are prostrations and much else). He's like a man that tries to build a BMW from bits and pieces of other rust buckets. His monotheism is of the hyper-Calvinist sort. His "christology" Nestorian, (as was his uncle I believe) but his understanding of the birth and the "death" (did he die or didn't he) Apollinarian / docetic. He even raids the gnostic gospels for the legend of the boy Jesus making clay pigeons, breathing on them, clapping his hands, and hey! they fly away. As for preaching from the manger, well I ask you. What a rag bag collection of ancient heresies. Sadly his rewards and punishments morality is very old fashioned "English" and might prove a fatal attraction for the post-Christian west. God help us!
Some would indeed argue that. If so, though, do we really put all members of these religions in the same class as someone who is directly inspired as Mohammed or such, or regard them as people who are (at least partly) mistaken -- whatever the source of their founder's teachings? Because it is easy to cry "Oh, no! Mohammed must have met an evil spirit" and then run with it to "All Muslims are demonically inspired" with all the paranoid fears implied. It's simply not the same thing. Do we regard the Hindus in the same way?
What about Christians who have "charismatic" experiences which are doctrinally dodgy or even heretical? (Not that all or even most are, but certainly they can't all be right!) If someone says they have a vision from God and they're wrong about what they say He is telling them, does it mean their followers (who may be doing the best they know) are specially tainted somehow?
Perhaps this would be less of an inflammatory issue if we separate the issue of "was Mohammed in contact with something malevolent pretending to be Gabriel" from the view of Muslims in general. I largely see Islam as a heresy of Judeo-Christian religion rather than something wholly outside. (And the same goes for Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and the like -- I think their doctrines even about the nature of God to be very mistaken but I don't regard them as outsiders to Christianity altogether.)
In any case, I think the God of Islam is the God of the Bible and of Christianity and Judaism -- but Islam has some things wrong about Him -- rather than that Allah is something like, say, Zeus or Thor.
PS ... I forgot to mention about Ibrahim nearly sacrificing the wrong son. If there was ever evidence of selective history rewriting, this is it.
quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
He even raids the gnostic gospels for the legend of the boy Jesus making clay pigeons, breathing on them, clapping his hands, and hey! they fly away. As for preaching from the manger, well I ask you.
Just a few pedantic points. The apocryphal infancy gospels are goofy, but not gnostic. Also, there is no manger in the Q'ran: Mary gives birth alone in the wilderness and the infant Jesus speaks up in her defense when she returns to town and is accused of unchastity. Finally, I have no memory of the clay bird story in the Q'ran. Is it in some other Islamic source?
Sorry, I'm an incurable pedant. But I also think that if we're going to criticize Islam, we have to get the details right.
FCB
FCB
Below, for your education, I have set out Splodge's guide to the pecking order of the great religions/prophets. My schema seeks to "rightly divide the word of truth" and shows which prophets are closer than others to the full measure of the divine truth and the Counsel's of the Almighty. In descending order of spiritual enlightenment:-
Jesus
The Splodgite christian sect
St Paul
Shipmates I disagree with
Bishop Spong
Judaism (all flavours)
Mohammed/Pope Urban II (tie at 7th place)
Jehovah's Witnesses
Mormons
The Bogomils
Sikhism/Zoroastrianism
Buddhism/Taoism/Advaita Vedanta (equally plausible)
Worshippers of the Goddess Kali
Shamanism
Fetish worship
Methodism (surely some mistake? Ed.)
ROTFL!Hail the prophet Splodge!
Louise
However I see Islam as anti-christian in that Christainity is a religion of grace while (in my understanding at least) Islam is a religion of works. Also Islam tends towards a belief in double predestination which added to the works element makes it difficult (but not impossible) for me to see the God of Israel (Jesus's father) as being the same as Allah.
Cautious suggestion: that there is no possibility of being born again by following Koranic teaching.
I realize this may open more questions than it answers...
My son Scrambled Eggs is a big fan of yours!
You have scored a hit with your first post! Ding-ding-ding! Cigar, or coconut?
I suspect that a number of Shipmates may be familiar with the writings of your alter ego...
Big Hug!
Bye-Bye, Po!
Ham'n'Eggs
quote:
Originally posted by Astro:
I see Islam as anti-christian in that Christainity is a religion of grace while (in my understanding at least) Islam is a religion of works.
It worries me that people who don't seem to have much clue about the realities of Islam find it so easy to pass swingeing judgement upon it.
Talk to any half way sensible Muslim about his/her faith for 30 seconds and you'll quickly discover that Islam is far from being a "religion of works". In fact, you might go so far as to say that Islam is as much a "religion of grace" as Christianity.
Christians and Muslims may differ considerably on how we are to respond to God's grace and indeed upon how we perceive God (there isn't a similar concept of "Abba" within Islam, as far as I know) - but for Muslims, God is full of grace.
Here's a starter. A few years ago, I studied a number of faiths, and one of them was Islam. Now, a significant part of the Islamic picture of God is 'The One', which unpacks to the twin concepts that God is indivisible and God thus cannot be incarnate in the world (and thus, critically, Jesus, being human, could not be God). The separateness and holiness of God is overwhelming, so that all sorts of restrictions abound in regard to images, his names, etc., as found in much of Judaism and some Christian churches.
The points made earlier about not Islam not acknowledging Jesus as saviour are, in fact, rather understated - the idea of God becoming man would in fact be blasphemous in Islam, a viewpoint which seems from our viewpoint perhaps close to the heresy of dualism. (Though in their borrowing from Judaic sources there is a certain degree of scope in textual ambiguity to argue that God is described incarnate in the Q'ran, the theological stance is invariable from my experience - though some folks may know otherwise).
Whether or how this assists our understanding of the question at hand, I leave to the debate.
I’m sure that we could all find equally bigoted threads on Islamic sites. Being a bit post modern I don’t feel the need to measure straightness with my wonky stick.
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
What about Christians who have "charismatic" experiences which are doctrinally dodgy or even heretical? (Not that all or even most are, but certainly they can't all be right!) If someone says they have a vision from God and they're wrong about what they say He is telling them, does it mean their followers (who may be doing the best they know) are specially tainted somehow?.
Good point. As a charismatic myself, I am well aware that this is something against which I and my fellow-charismatics need to be strictly on our guard. IMO, ANY revelation purporting to be from God that contradicts or goes beyond the Canon of Scripture has to be suspect in terms of its origins (either from Man or from The Other Place), and that goes for Islam, Mormonism or a neo-gnostic post-canonical teaching like Prosperity Theology.
But to return yet again to the question of the OP, I canot see how Allah and the God of the Bible can be one and the same. At some point, the concept of God as espoused by religions such as Mormonism and Islam becomes so stretched and different from the Christian concept of God that, notwithstanding that the Being that is worshipped is called 'God', He/She/It is not the same. An essential touchstone of the Christian concept of God is the divinity of Jesus and the belief that in Him God has made Himself manifest to us. Since both Islam and Mormonism deny that divinity (Mormons if I recall correctly believe Jeuss to be God's son and Satan's brother but certainly not God Himself), it follows that the god in which they believe is essentially fundamentally different from the God of the Bible
"In the beginning God created Man in His own image and ever since Man has been repaying the favour" (can't remember who said that but very appropriate for this thread methinks)
Yours in Christ
Matt
Yours in Christ
Matt
Yours In Christ
Matt
As Christians, we generally believe that "all that is needful for salvation" is found in the Bible. So any other conception of God that anyone else can have, automatically makes it to be about another God?
<Spock>That is illogical Captain!</Spock>
I think that most of us here believe that God exists - that God is a real phenomenon.
Let us, by analogy, consider a real phenomenon, an elephant.
A relativist approach to God might be seen in the parable of the blind men who each felt an elephant and decided that it was several quite different things. The man who felt its tail thought that it was like a rope. The man who felt its tusks thought that it was like a spear, and so on.
Now most Christians reject this view. The orthodox, (and as I understand it the Orthodox) position is that whilst God is in essence unknowable he has revealed himself primarily but not exclusively through Christ and the Church. If you like, we are in the position of someone who had watched a documentary about elephants. We may not know the body temperature of an elephant, or the gestation period of the elephants young, or it's exact evolutionary relationship with moetherium but we do know that it is big and grey and intelligent and vegetarian and lives in Africa and India. If you like, the documentary is analogous to God's revelation of himself in Christ.
Now imagine a hack author, a Von Daniken or Graham Hancock, writes a book about elephants suggesting that elephants are intelligent beings from the planet newageguff and were brought here in a spacecraft shortly after the sinking of Atlantis. They argue that the veneration of Ganesh by Hindus is evidence of their superior intelligence.
Now it is quite legitimate for those of us who have watched the documentary to reject this view as nonsense. It may be the case that those who read and believe the book by our hack author end up behaving in ways we believe are incorrect. It might even be that those who take the theories seriously end up behaving in ways we find offensive.
However we are both talking about elephants. We are both talking about the same thing. There are not two kinds of elephants, those described by the reputable documentary and those described by the hack author. There is one kind of elephant which is understood imperfectly by those of us who have watched the documentary and which is understood incorrectly by those who have read the book.
If we were talking about entities that did not exist, Martians for example, it would be legitimate to talk about two different kinds of Martian. For example those that appear in War of the Worlds and those that appear in Quatermass and the Pit. It makes sense for an atheist to suggest that there are two entities, or more properly constructs, which might be termed "The God of the Bible" and "The God of Islam". But if one believes in God you are talking about one entity and two sets of statements about Him, one true and one false, or at least less true.
To be a Christian it is only necessary to believe that Muslims have incorrect beliefs about God. It is not necessary to believe that they worship the devil.
I've held back here but I have to disagree with the claim that the God of Islam is that different from the Judeo-Christian God. While we do have different theology and even different ethics to an extent (depending on interpretation), we do generally believe:
(1) there is one God
(2) He is utter good and not evil
(3) He is merciful
(4) He is also just (how the last two play out is part of the differences between not only Christianity and Islam, but different Christians and different Muslims -- we should not leave out that both sides have practiced "holy war" for example -- and both sides can point to, say, Israel vs. the Canaanites as precedent, whether this is a right or wrong interpretation)
(5) there is an afterlife to which the righteous (in some sense) will receive joy and the wicked (in some sense) will receive punishment
(6) we both revere the books of Moses and such as sacred Scripture
(7) we both believe that idolatry is forbidden and that pagans and polytheists should be shown that there is one God who made everything
Etc. -- the list does go on. If you took a Muslim and a Christian to any polytheistic culture, they would think we were practically the same religion, comparing us with worshipping multiple gods, gods who are not primarily concerned with right conduct, the approach to the afterlife, etc.
Obviously (from my other posts) I believe Christianity is right when it conflicts with Islam, but this doesn't make Islam something like, say, Hinduism, which does not make the claim that God appeared to this guy named Abram millennia ago and told him to follow Him.
If a Muslim and I were transported back in time to the Roman era and commanded to worship the Emperor or die, I think we'd probably, despite our differences, be glad to face death together as (while in opposition to some extent) fellow worshippers of the One God. I'd pray that God would accept his martyrdom as much as I'd hope He'd accept mine. We're very used, nowadays, to the notion of there being One God, and that being the default, but it is not the way the world was for the most part for most of human history.
It chimes with my research that at the heart of all religion is an awareness of the same God - it is surely this awareness, this "eternity set in the hearts of men" that drives the religious impulse in the first place. But of course God's nature is perceived and misperceived, understood and distorted in every religion. Thus IMO every religion including Islam has a greater or lesser understanding of God and his ways.
The fact that all religious people are in a sense seeking God, albeit in very crude, half blind, even harmful ways sometimes, is the best explanation account to for the commonalities and "perennial philosophy" shared by all faiths.
So yes, Allah is the same God as the christian God but God's nature as revealed in Christ and recorded in the bible is misunderstood or inadequately realised by muslims
(however this is no racial slur, for Mohammed & muslim probably have no more an inadequate and distorted understanding of christian doctrine than you would also find among members of the average unchurched white "christian" population)
It might be worth mentioning that muslims believe that we, the 'Ahl-kitab' the people of the book = jews & christians, do have the same God as them, but that we have distorted the testimony of our own prophets e.g moses, jesus who basically taught pure Islam.
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quote:Oh please - the modern IRA is not Catholic, it is explicitly atheist and Marxist, and doesn't seek the commendation of the church. By contrast Al-Quieda etc claims to be good Muslims, so this is a more valid question.
Originally posted by Eanswyth:
That's like saying that the God of the Catholic Church is not the God of the Bible because the IRA kill innocent people. What crap!
quote:I've read the whole thing. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean that I haven't heard the arguments, many, many times before. I know that the point has been made implicitly: I wanted to make it again, in more explicit tones. It was this kind of argument that put me off religion for years.
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Note that this is an OLD thread which I started, so Skielight, you need to be cautious about rushing into the debate without reading at least some of this thread; your point is discussed implicitly elsewhere.
As for it being an old thread, it was you who dredged it up again recently, not me.quote:This is splitting hairs. Whatever the appropriateness of the specific example of the IRA (which was supported by Catholic Clergy and laity, although not officially by the hierarchy and certainly not by the Holy Father) it is hardly difficult to find instances of religious atrocities committed in the name of God by Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants: by both Christians and Jews. It is intellectually disreputable to point to their murderers as evidence that Islam was inspired by Auld Hornie, whilst writing off our murderers as an unfortunate lapse. Sectarian drivel is the kindest description of such a position.
quote:
Originally posted by Eanswyth:
That's like saying that the God of the Catholic Church is not the God of the Bible because the IRA kill innocent people. What crap!
------------------------------
Oh please - the modern IRA is not Catholic, it is explicitly atheist and Marxist, and doesn't seek the commendation of the church. By contrast Al-Quieda etc claims to be good Muslims, so this is a more valid question.
quote:Did I say that? No.
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
In order to understand God, we have to combine the different understandings of God as determined by Christians and Muslims?
quote:Why? You jump from A to B too quickly, and I never took away the exclusivity of Christianity!
Following that line, we would have to include what every other religion and cult believe God to be and combine them into one being, whom we should worship.
quote:A little about my background: I was raised as an atheist. I've come to Christianity very recently. Although my background is in atheism, I was nonetheless taught to be respectful of other people's religious beliefs. Part of my objection to religion of any kind was that I saw it as arrogant and intolerant.
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
But I'm still missing something - what is the core of your objection to this approach? Are you saying that you don't believe it is possible for it to be true that Islam is a false religion? And that such a claim must be automatically rejected? On what grounds?
quote:Bollocks. God is God. Christians, Muslims, Jews, others may have different ideas about God, and at least some of those ideas must be false, but that doesn't create a different God it creates a new idea of God.
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
A further example of the difference between the God of Islam and the God of the Old Testament has emerged recently
quote:You mean we don't? I thought that was the whole point of theology...
Originally posted by ken:
The language yuo use implies that we create God.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
quote:Well for a Catholic Christian it's simple. The Church does not recognise the authority of the Quran, it recognises the authority of Holy Scripture. Whether Mohammed's visions came from an Angel, a Demon or his psyche doesn't alter that. If I believed that the Quranic world view made more sense than the Christian world view I wouldn't be a Christian, Catholic or otherwise. But it isn't necessary to postulate direct demonic inspiration to disagree with the Quran, any more than I imagine a devout Muslim would argue that St John the Divine was getting his visions from Satan in order to obscure the teachings of the Prophet Jesus.
It's a far comment to argue that perhaps Mohammed's visions were not the result of a spiritual encounter but psychosomatic; quite where that leaves their authority is however less clear - that his material still clearly contradicts the bible in vast swathes still remains clear, though it does reduce the light cast on the original issue of this thread.
quote:Did Mohammed allege he got it in one go? Alfred Guillame (a conservative source, sympathetic to Islam) suggests that his visions came and went and were written down as they occurred. The definitive text of the Quran was not established until the reign of the Caliph Uthman and alternative texts were extant in Muslim communities until the end of the first Millenium. To be a Muslim it is only necessary, I think, to believe that the Arabic text of the Quran to reflect exactly the text of the Quran as it exists in heaven. Whatever fundamentalists allege, most Muslims accept the role of the Umma in shaping both the Quran and Islamic doctrine with, of course, the important caveat that they would make claims for the Quran which, obviously, neither of us could accept. Some scholars suggest that not all the revelations in the Quran derive from Mohammed. Obviously Muslims would find this argument unacceptable and not being an Arabic scholar I am not qualified to comment, but it is a hypothesis worthy of examination before one resorts to a thesis of demonic inspiration.
What however I am far less happy with is the suggestion that Mohammed didn't get the Koran all at once - that in effect he lied about it's origin. It is mainstream to make the same allegation about the book of Revelation - that John wrote it over an extended period, and not as a result of a single vision, and I'm not a fan of that view either. However with the Koran there is the fact that the only miracle which Mohammed makes claim to is his reception of the book, and so we are placing him in the position of being a total charlatan. I guess I prefer simple solutions and trusting people to say what they mean, and either accept the whole package or nothing....
quote:That's close, although I think we are working with radically different models of inspiration. I'd guess that you think, say, that when St Paul wrote to Galatia (in a blistering bad temper) the Holy Spirit inspired his words. I'd say that the Christian community has, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recognised his words as being, in some sense the word of God. I'd say that St Paul, in advocating the Gospel of Grace was inspired by the Holy Spirit, but not that God literally told him that he should suggest the Judaizers should castrate themselves. Following Barth, I want some kind of model of scripture which suggests that the Holy Spirit is present when scripture is read as well as when it was written.
Perhaps we can agree that 'the inspiration of the Koran is not the God who inspired the Old and New Testaments'? This covers both the position that it was given by another spiritual entity or that it was created by Mohammed.
quote:Absolutely not! He claimed to have recieved messages at various odd times over about 20 years. At first he didn't even know that they were messages from God - he wasn't convinced of that till later. The revelations are supposed to have come in bits and pieces, some as short as a few words, some almost small books in themselves.
Originally posted by Professor Yaffle:
Did Mohammed allege he got it in one go?
quote:The traditional Muslim view is that Muhammad received the text of the Quran from the angel Gabriel in chunks at various times, and then repeated it to his followers, some of whom learned it off by heart. These "Reciters" accompanied the Arab armies during the wars of conquest after the prophet's death. As they died or were killed in battle, people began to write down the words to preserve them. Later, in the reign of 'Uthman, someone (whose name I've forgotten but had been Muhammad's secretary in Madina - Zaid?) is supposed to have constructed a definitive version from these others and from notes he had taken earlier, and interviews with the Reciters. Much later than that the false versions were suppressed.
Alfred Guillame (a conservative source, sympathetic to Islam) suggests that his visions came and went and were written down as they occurred. The definitive text of the Quran was not established until the reign of the Caliph Uthman and alternative texts were extant in Muslim communities until the end of the first Millenium.
quote:Not even that - you just have to believe and declare that there is no God but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God - knowledge of the Quran is thought desirable, but not neccessary.
To be a Muslim it is only necessary, I think, to believe that the Arabic text of the Quran to reflect exactly the text of the Quran as it exists in heaven.
quote:Of course. Frankly the "early" Suras (i.e. the ones that tend to be declamations of the power and uniqueness of God rsther than detailed legislation about the new Muslim community) make at least as much sense as a lot of Christian mysticism. As a Christian I get on much better with lots of the Quran than with, say, Gnostic Christian apocrypha, or some of the more OTT apocalyptic writings of some modern Christian sects.
But that does not oblige us to postulate satanic inspiration or to suggest that Mohammed must have been a charlatan or to deny that Mohammed was, like us, a worshipper of the God of Abraham nor need it prevent us from being open to whatever truth may be found in his teachings or in the subsequent teachings of Islam.
quote:
Compare
Sura 24 v2 - the whore and the whore monger - scourge each of them with 100 stripes
with
Deuteronomy 25 v 3
'Forty stripes may be given him, but not more lest if the one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother should be degraded in your sight'
There is a concern for the individual's dignity - even of a criminal - that is wholly lacking in the Koran
[/QB]
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