Muslim-Christian differences of opinion

[Bless_the_name]

Good afternoon everybody i'm sorry I never introduced myself and I didn't do to well with filling in the info about myself in registration. If I can I will edit it. Well you have my name but I failed to mention that I'm a Christian.

If you don't mind I would like to just say in response to the claims that my Muslim friends do believe in the original Bible and that it has been changed mostly by paul. The Quran & Allah does not back up this claim as in sura 2:4 allah takes credit for the Quran and sunnah and he also takes full credit for the torah & the Gospels which may I also add has been confirmed by historical findings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint proving that the words of the Torah, Psalms, and Prophets did not change during the thousand years preceding Islam or in the fourteen hundred years since. And twenty-five thousand New Testament fragments and scrolls dating to more than five hundred years before the earliest surviving Quran testifying that the Gospels remain unaltered.

Godbless you mam'
you asked for the link (here it is, bare in mind that it was from 2004) Oh! and to the question how can Jesus be in Cairo? An attribute of God is a marvelous thing that Only the One True God has, its called Omnipresence. Its being where you are and being where I am at the same time without being more than one God. Its in the Old testament. In Psalm 139:7-12 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light become night around me," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness and light are both alike to you.

Here is the link REMOVED CONTAINED SOME ANTI-ISLAMIC MATERIAL

May God Bless you all! Amen!!!!

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/peace;

.......

God bless you mam'

------and God bless u , too.

Oh! and to the question how can Jesus be in Cairo? ......

----Christians believe Jesus (p) will come back in the holy land . Do they also believe that before the second coming , Jesus (p) will ( not in kid's dreams ) but ' physically ' return back daily ( for 2 weeks ) ?

you asked for the link ....

---- the link…… is maintained by........ as a service to the Christian church.......looks like a publicity site , not a news site. I visited it before mod could deleled the link :D

..... no link of any Cairo newspapers , no photographs of the 2 babies or the killer husband.




BTW , why they returned back to the same grave ? Yes , it's permissible to use a very old grave to bury another dead body but it was not a old grave.....only 2 weeks old.



some more "reliable" stories from the link u gave.



A Muslim's Journey to God

---what does it mean ? IF a person does not believe in God , s/he is not a Muslim at all.



Seeing as all the signs were pointing specifically to a Christian God

---hahahaha....really funny comment. So , there is a Christian God , a Muslim God , a Jewish God , a Hindu God ??????


for ur kind information , God is only one. Allah is the Arabic name for God Almighty. Arab Christians say Allah & it does not make them Muslims.


comment from any Christian pl. about the following story. I did not read the whole story. Does Bible say that it's possible for other to raise from the dead ?


Resurrection of Pastor Daniel

Pastor Ekechukwu was from a city called Onitsha (Nigeria), where he was the pastor of Power Chapel Evangelical Church



.....was dead for at least 42 hours, visited heaven and hell during the time of his physical death, and was raised from the dead between 3:50 P.M. and 5:15 P.M. on Sunday

[Grace Seeker]

Salaam/peace;


------and God bless u , too.








----Christians believe Jesus (p) will come back in the holy land . Do they also believe that before the second coming , Jesus (p) will ( not in kid's dreams ) but ' physically ' return back daily ( for 2 weeks ) ?





---- the link…… is maintained by........ as a service to the Christian church.......looks like a publicity site , not a news site. I visited it before mod could deleled the link :D

..... no link of any Cairo newspapers , no photographs of the 2 babies or the killer husband.




BTW , why they returned back to the same grave ? Yes , it's permissible to use a very old grave to bury another dead body but it was not a old grave.....only 2 weeks old.



some more "reliable" stories from the link u gave.



A Muslim's Journey to God

---what does it mean ? IF a person does not believe in God , s/he is not a Muslim at all.



Seeing as all the signs were pointing specifically to a Christian God

---hahahaha....really funny comment. So , there is a Christian God , a Muslim God , a Jewish God , a Hindu God ??????


for ur kind information , God is only one. Allah is the Arabic name for God Almighty. Arab Christians say Allah & it does not make them Muslims.


comment from any Christian pl. about the following story. I did not read the whole story. Does Bible say that it's possible for other to raise from the dead ?


Resurrection of Pastor Daniel

Pastor Ekechukwu was from a city called Onitsha (Nigeria), where he was the pastor of Power Chapel Evangelical Church



.....was dead for at least 42 hours, visited heaven and hell during the time of his physical death, and was raised from the dead between 3:50 P.M. and 5:15 P.M. on Sunday

What to tell you? I don't find the story very reliable either, for some of the very reasons you gave. Of course I could site a dozen, or perhaps a hundred more. But then, you could site just as many "miraculous" occurances to "prove" that Allah was calling people to Islam. A friend of mine once sent me pictures of such "proofs" such as a honeycomb in which the honey was formed in the shape of :w: , and another where a banyan tree appeared to be kneeling in prayer toward Mecca. I don't think these things really prove anything, whether "proofs" of Islam or "proofs" of Christianity. Many are later found out to be hoaxes either staged events or purely fiction. Others have very natural explanations. And some are beyond any explanation.

Last week I met a man who proceeded to tell me the story of his death. He had been in an auto accident and pronounced dead by the paramedics at the scene. Over half an hour after this, one of his friends came upon the scene and claims that he felt called of God to pray for the then unknown man in the car. The paramedics told him it was too late, but he insisted and wanted to pray while laying hands on the body. Finally the paramedics relented and the man started to pray. When this friend touch the man who was "dead", his body was already beginning to feel cold. But as he prayed he claims two things happened, that he felt warmth returning to the body and that he felt a pulse. They called the paramedics back, took him unconscious to the hospital and there did surgery that ultimately saved his life. The man himself who was supposedly dead, told me that from his perspective he was totally unaware of any of this, only that he suddenly found himself in what he believes was heaven and standing outside the pearly gates. Now, I don't know what to make of such a story. I can't deny that these are the experiences of these people. They experienced them, I did not. But, I don't have to put the same interpretation on their experience that they do. Maybe he was really dead and in heaven. Or maybe the paramedics got it wrong and he was in some sort of near death state and is just lucky someone else came along and felt a pulse. I don't know. If these events only happened among Christians, or among Muslims, or among Hindus then perhaps they would prove something, but they happen all over the world. And I think we each bring to them our own very personal interpretation of what was happening at the time. I suppose that God is big enough that all could be true. In the meantime, I remain a skeptic of all the "proofs" there are for God, even as I believe in him.

I'm not saying that the miraculous doesn't happen. Years ago I knew a woman with one leg longer than the other, it was a major problem for her. She prayed and in a period of less than 6 months the short leg grew to match the longer one in length. Now, I think that was a true miracle. Yet, more recenlty I had the daughter of another friend dealing with the same problem and despite prayers there was no miracle and they had to do surgery. Does one thing prove God, and the other disprove it? I do not think so. I just think that God moves in ways that we don't fully understand, yet God knows best.

Likewise, a banyan tree appearing to be kneeling in prayer toward Mecca is just that, something that appears to us, but may not be God moving at all. However, if it sustains your faith, then by all means let it sustain your faith. But don't expect it to prove anything to someone else who is not predisposed to believe.




As to some of your other questions and comments:

1) Jesus can certainly make his presence known in more than one place at a time simply because he is God and is omnipresent. As I read the story it is the presence of Jesus, which is perceived in human form, I don't think they are saying it is actually the physical body of Jesus (unless I misread the story).

2) Most Christians do believe in the physical return of Jesus at the end of the world. Some Christians suppose that to be to the temple mount in Jerusalem. But the exact location is not something that all Christians would say could be known in advance. I've never heard anyone talk about his returning daily for a period of time. Generally, those who believe in his return believe in his return which then ushers in the last days. There is no series of multiple returnings.



3)

Seeing as all the signs were pointing specifically to a Christian God

---hahahaha....really funny comment. So , there is a Christian God , a Muslim God , a Jewish God , a Hindu God ??????

I agree, sometimes people speak nonsense when they should know better.



4) Can people be raised from the dead?
Certainly. The Bible has many stories where people were raised from the dead. Both in the Tankah and in the New Testament. In addition to the resurrection of Jesus, here is a partial list of others who were brought back to life:
1 Kings 17:17-23
2 Kings 4:32-37
Luke 7:12-15
Luke 8:49-55
John 11:1-44
Acts 9:37-40
Acts 20:9-12
Furthermore, Jesus told his disciples (and I believe it applies to all followers, not just the original disciples) that they would do these things (the miracles that he did) and even greater things (see John 14:12). So, since Jesus raised people from the dead there is no reason to think that it cannot continue to happen today.

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/peace;

A friend of mine once sent me pictures ......where a banyan tree appeared to be kneeling in prayer toward Mecca.

A tree in the posture of Islamic prayer

Place: Near Sidney, Australia

Hehe , I must admit that I liked that picture…..there is another one……….many trees showing an Arabic verse , there is no god but God ( Allah). Did u see that ? :okay:

if u have any miracle image & mod does not object , pl. post that says Jesus (p) is God . I would love to see that :smile:

Last week I met a man who proceeded to tell me the story of his death....he suddenly found himself in what he believes was heaven and standing outside the pearly gates.

---sounds interesting...i wish , i may have such experience. Can u ask him to describe more ?

She prayed and in a period of less than 6 months the short leg grew to match the longer one in length.

----are u sure , she never took any medicine or some other medical treatment ? Well , i think , miracles do happen if not in that case ,in other cases.

Yet, more recenlty I had the daughter of another friend dealing with the same problem and despite prayers there was no miracle and they had to do surgery

.


--- sorry to hear that . I guess ,doctors do pray to God NOT to cure everyone .....they will all become jobless ( sorry , just joking :p ).

Most Christians do believe in the physical return of Jesus at the end of the world.

---why most Christians ? If there is a specific verse , then all are supposed to believe in it.

.... So, since Jesus raised people from the dead there is no reason to think that it cannot continue to happen today.

As a Muslim , I do believe that Jesus (p) performed many miracles including gave life to death by the permission of God.


Regarding Quran , he made birds out of clay & they started flying ….though in one article explanation was like that it’s turning disbelievers to believers.

here is the verse:

Surah 3. The Family Of 'Imran, The House Of 'Imran

And (appoint him) an apostle to the Children of Israel, (with this message):


"'I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God's leave:


And I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by God's leave; and I declare to you what ye eat, and what ye store in your houses.

Surely therein is a Sign for you if ye did believe;




About forgiving adultery by Jesus (p) & a Biblical verse that says heaven is not for those sinners who are gay & commit adultery....how do u explain the matter ?

It seems to me that some Christians are using the story as an excuse to do that major sin .


As a Muslim , it hurts me when i see someone is using Jesus (p) for these horrible immoral acts....how can i tell them that their holy book Bible & Jesus (p ) really did n't approve these ?

Let's forget about punishment in this earth , what about the life hereafter ? Can it be true that really Jesus (p) assured Christians that there is no punishment for any sins ?

yakkkkk.....am i asking u toooooooooooooo many questions ? avoid those u think are not very imp.

Thanks for ur patience :D

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up

[Allah-creation]

God is all knowing, all wise, all powerful. He knows everything about his creation, future, past, present, and simultaneously. When he created the big bang he was independent of it, yet he knew everything that would occur in it. That means when God decides on something he doesn't make mistakes doing it. For He is perfect in every possible way. In the Christian’s view, when God created humans he was unaware of how vulnerable they are to sins. So, he had to bring his own son to die for humanity sins. Surely, God is all knowing, all wise, and being all knowing and all wise he would have knew that humans would commit multiple sins and definitely more then ONE. It doesn’t make sense to me that God would suffer for humanities sins when we are bound to sin, surely were not sinless like angels. We humans obviously are not perfect and do make mistakes. It also doesn’t make sense to me why God would bring down his only son to save humanity? Why can’t he just forgive them when they ask for forgiveness? Is their some kind of law preventing god?!?!



In Islam, we believe that God purposely created us humans weak and vulnerable to mistakes so we may repent for our sins. God knows that we are different then angels, we have freewill. Every one will be held accountable for his/her sins on the Day of Judgment and no one else. Their will be complete justice. Everything you ever done evil/good, will be acknowledged and justified. Their will be nothing to hide. The ones who decided to do evil will be held accountable for their actions no one else.

Take for example a teacher and his students. Assuming Child A does something ghastly and ends up hurting a fellow student the teacher is logically supposed to punish Child A. Accusing a completely random child and to discipline an entirely different child for child As actions wouldn’t fall into the realm of logic. This is the same for Christianities view. We as humanity have sinned therefore Jesus is punished. He is punished for our sins which we have committed with our free will, and determination. He is punished because of my murder. This logic is absurd and preposterous. How will humanity learn? How will they be ready to be accountable for there sins on the Day of Reckoning when they are expecting there “Savior” to come and be crucified for them.

Christianities weakness lies in its failure to take accountability for its own actions. The lack of logic proves it to be insensible.

[AB517]

My question:

How many Christian denominations are there and does each have different beliefs?

Hi

There are too many in the USA, something like 28,000. This is the product of an open society and lets be honost, satin is very smart. As I have seen here the diffrences are mainly in interpritaions. We Hope as Christains tho that we all are Bible based. Not all teachers are of God, in ours and your religions.

AB

[Fr0mHim]

God is all knowing, all wise, all powerful. He knows everything about his creation, future, past, present, and simultaneously. When he created the big bang he was independent of it, yet he knew everything that would occur in it. That means when God decides on something he doesn't make mistakes doing it. For He is perfect in every possible way. In the Christian’s view, when God created humans he was unaware of how vulnerable they are to sins. So, he had to bring his own son to die for humanity sins. Surely, God is all knowing, all wise, and being all knowing and all wise he would have knew that humans would commit multiple sins and definitely more then ONE. It doesn’t make sense to me that God would suffer for humanities sins when we are bound to sin, surely were not sinless like angels. We humans obviously are not perfect and do make mistakes. It also doesn’t make sense to me why God would bring down his only son to save humanity? Why can’t he just forgive them when they ask for forgiveness? Is their some kind of law preventing god?!?!



In Islam, we believe that God purposely created us humans weak and vulnerable to mistakes so we may repent for our sins. God knows that we are different then angels, we have freewill. Every one will be held accountable for his/her sins on the Day of Judgment and no one else. Their will be complete justice. Everything you ever done evil/good, will be acknowledged and justified. Their will be nothing to hide. The ones who decided to do evil will be held accountable for their actions no one else.

Take for example a teacher and his students. Assuming Child A does something ghastly and ends up hurting a fellow student the teacher is logically supposed to punish Child A. Accusing a completely random child and to discipline an entirely different child for child As actions wouldn’t fall into the realm of logic. This is the same for Christianities view. We as humanity have sinned therefore Jesus is punished. He is punished for our sins which we have committed with our free will, and determination. He is punished because of my murder. This logic is absurd and preposterous. How will humanity learn? How will they be ready to be accountable for there sins on the Day of Reckoning when they are expecting there “Savior” to come and be crucified for them.

Christianities weakness lies in its failure to take accountability for its own actions. The lack of logic proves it to be insensible.

I would like to state something here... idk if this is the right time or place but this is just what I believe...

well what if Child A did it the act because it was the way he was made?

No Christians dont sin just to be sinning. we actually do follow the rules in a sense.. just that doesn't everyone follow the rules... like Hindus, Buddist, and dont you follow the rules? the difference in Christianity and the rest of them is that we believe that there is a mediator who mediates for us when we do commit a sin. take Peter from the Bible Jesus knew what he would do just in a few hours before Jesus death... now what peter did was a sin and it is part of him being human... that he did it... but the Love he had for His God caused Him to repent it wasn't anything out of I have to be good...

I believe that when Moses went apon the mount and came down with 2 tablets that it was a picture that Moses went on tob to have quiet time with God and I always say that you act like the one who you hang out with the most... and so Moses came down with the law written on his heart...


Proverbs 3:3
Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

2 Corinthians 3:3
3You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

and I believe Jesus coming down to earth was not only to save us from our sin... But also to show that he wants to have a relationship with US imperfect people... and dont tell me that if your not loved you will still want to do something nice for that person... because if you are human then you would want to infact shun him away because you dont love them.. see Love compells me to act.. and I believe that as you act the Holy Spirit moves along side you as a companion helping you and guiding you through every situation and thought...

see I believe that God ordains all and everything happens by God and through God... some may say that I may sin because of my free will.... well I dont agree with that.... I think once a person starts to have that relationship with God he becomes more open and his eyes understands that God is the one who is ultimately involved in everything there is nothing and anything that doesn't have his start.. everything comes through him... free will may exist through a non spiritual person but I believe that God is ultimately the one who does everything... he even allows me to sin from time to time because he is using that to teach me and others.. now that is just my conviction right now... I understand that I shouldn't allow my beliefs to control me but I control my beliefs...

[Woodrow]

I would like to state something here... idk if this is the right time or place but this is just what I believe...

well what if Child A did it the act because it was the way he was made?

No Christians dont sin just to be sinning. we actually do follow the rules in a sense.. just that doesn't everyone follow the rules... like Hindus, Buddist, and dont you follow the rules? the difference in Christianity and the rest of them is that we believe that there is a mediator who mediates for us when we do commit a sin. take Peter from the Bible Jesus knew what he would do just in a few hours before Jesus death... now what peter did was a sin and it is part of him being human... that he did it... but the Love he had for His God caused Him to repent it wasn't anything out of I have to be good...

I believe that when Moses went apon the mount and came down with 2 tablets that it was a picture that Moses went on tob to have quiet time with God and I always say that you act like the one who you hang out with the most... and so Moses came down with the law written on his heart...


Proverbs 3:3
Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

2 Corinthians 3:3
3You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

and I believe Jesus coming down to earth was not only to save us from our sin... But also to show that he wants to have a relationship with US imperfect people... and dont tell me that if your not loved you will still want to do something nice for that person... because if you are human then you would want to infact shun him away because you dont love them.. see Love compells me to act.. and I believe that as you act the Holy Spirit moves along side you as a companion helping you and guiding you through every situation and thought...

see I believe that God ordains all and everything happens by God and through God... some may say that I may sin because of my free will.... well I dont agree with that.... I think once a person starts to have that relationship with God he becomes more open and his eyes understands that God is the one who is ultimately involved in everything there is nothing and anything that doesn't have his start.. everything comes through him... free will may exist through a non spiritual person but I believe that God is ultimately the one who does everything... he even allows me to sin from time to time because he is using that to teach me and others.. now that is just my conviction right now... I understand that I shouldn't allow my beliefs to control me but I control my beliefs...

I'm going to attempt to answer a few of these points you made to the best of my ability. Astagfirullah.

see I believe that God ordains all and everything happens by God and through God... some may say that I may sin because of my free will.... well I dont agree with that.... I think once a person starts to have that relationship with God he becomes more open and his eyes understands that God is the one who is ultimately involved in everything there is nothing and anything that doesn't have his start.. everything comes through him... free will may exist through a non spiritual person but I believe that God is ultimately the one who does everything... he even allows me to sin from time to time because he is using that to teach me and others.. now that is just my conviction right now... I understand that I shouldn't allow my beliefs to control me but I control my beliefs...

Are you sure you are not Muslim? :)

That is a reasonably accurate description of what I believe as a Muslim.

and I believe Jesus coming down to earth was not only to save us from our sin... But also to show that he wants to have a relationship with US imperfect people... and dont tell me that if your not loved you will still want to do something nice for that person... because if you are human then you would want to infact shun him away because you dont love them.. see Love compells me to act.. and I believe that as you act the Holy Spirit moves along side you as a companion helping you and guiding you through every situation and thought...

This will be one of our areas of disagreement. I do not believe Isa(as) came down to Earth and that he was born a whom by a miraculous birth that was the will of Allah(swt) As a Muslim, I have great love for Isa(as) he was given the true message to spread. His teachings only remain in part and the Injil that He(as) was given was ignored and only the accounts of Human witnesses remain, but like all human words they are subject to error and change.
As a Muslim I have only love for Allah(swt) and as his servant I can only worship and serve Allah(swt) alone.

Proverbs 3:3
Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

2 Corinthians 3:3
3You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

I can only agree to Biblical quotes that are also reflected in the Qur'an. This will be another area of difficulty, as I do not believe the Bible is the Authentic word of Allah(swt) and is only human remnants of what was given to the people. Subject to error and corruption.

No Christians dont sin just to be sinning. we actually do follow the rules in a sense.. just that doesn't everyone follow the rules... like Hindus, Buddist, and dont you follow the rules? the difference in Christianity and the rest of them is that we believe that there is a mediator who mediates for us when we do commit a sin. take Peter from the Bible Jesus knew what he would do just in a few hours before Jesus death... now what peter did was a sin and it is part of him being human... that he did it... but the Love he had for His God caused Him to repent it wasn't anything out of I have to be good...

I do my best to abide by the Pillars of Islam, It is my desire to serve Allah(swt) to the best of my ability and not stray from the straight path Allah(swt) has given us to follow. As Allah's(swt) servant I ask for guidance only from my Master(swt) and accept full responsability for following his commands.

well what if Child A did it the act because it was the way he was made?

You state Child A. We do not believe Allah(swt) will hold a child accountable for that which he is not capable of understanding.

[Fr0mHim]

I'm going to attempt to answer a few of these points you made to the best of my ability. Astagfirullah.




Are you sure you are not Muslim? :)

That is a reasonably accurate description of what I believe as a Muslim.

mmm.. well I honestly do have that ability :)



This will be one of our areas of disagreement. I do not believe Isa(as) came down to Earth and that he was born a whom by a miraculous birth that was the will of Allah(swt) As a Muslim, I have great love for Isa(as) he was given the true message to spread. His teachings only remain in part and the Injil that He(as) was given was ignored and only the accounts of Human witnesses remain, but like all human words they are subject to error and change.
As a Muslim I have only love for Allah(swt) and as his servant I can only worship and serve Allah(swt) alone.

well Im not saying that you don't love Allah by no means am I saying that... what im saying is that God on His part came down and showed the heart of the Himself to humans who like you said got stuff erred and corrupted... (one of the reasons I would love to learn greek, and arabic).....

I can only agree to Biblical quotes that are also reflected in the Qur'an. This will be another area of difficulty, as I do not believe the Bible is the Authentic word of Allah(swt) and is only human remnants of what was given to the people. Subject to error and corruption.

well I would say that I dont see it that way personally... I personally would like to know and understand the Qur'an. I believe that anything whether it be spiritual christian or secular can speak to me about the TRUE God.. (not saying that what I believe in is right... dont read me wrong... but what im saying is that if God/Allah/ or whoever created the universe then like a child to its mother... you can see the reflection of God in all things... but like you said most people cant see that because we do infact live in a fallen world..

if I have you wrong man please tell me!!! brow

I do my best to abide by the Pillars of Islam, It is my desire to serve Allah(swt) to the best of my ability and not stray from the straight path Allah(swt) has given us to follow. As Allah's(swt) servant I ask for guidance only from my Master(swt) and accept full responsability for following his commands.

man im with you right here I honestly am with you!!!! :) :thumbs_up man one of my favorite books in the Bible is Hebrews and I am just now reading it to learn about Faith and Hope... and well the Hebrew writer compares this world as a race or it could have been paul in one of his books... but the Hebrew writer atleast compares this world as a athletic even... and well as myself I try to run this race... I try to obey the 10 commandments but while im running this race I keep triping and falling... but I get up and I start running to the goal I strive to the end to get to God... but I do know that while my desire is to do good I am stumped by my desires and sins... which leads me away from God and well as Gods child I also ask for guidance.... but in the jift of that I am not giving up because God has promised his love and companionship...
"never will I leave you and never will I forsake you"

well I guess I do agree with you... hope you see that...

You state Child A. We do not believe Allah(swt) will hold a child accountable for that which he is not capable of understanding.

well I dont mean that... what I mean is from the story Child A did something wrong which obviously knew right from wrong... but it is by Child As weakness that Child A did...

let me ask you a question woodrow..

1. person is always good... maybe a few sin spots here and there but nothing drastically to bad like the adulterous man... this person goes to worship everytime.. this person though good doesn't feel compelled to tell anyone of his mistakes.. his path is straight... he seems to want a relationship with the creator

2. person is always bad... but this person seems to have that question in his heart is there something more out there... his mistakes make him more vulnerable to being crushed down by love and acceptance.... this person is open to his mistakes...this person is constantly going up and down.. this person wavers in worship... this person doesn't seem to want a relationship at all with his creator


which person would Allah give glory, grace, and mercy too....

[Grace Seeker]

It also doesn’t make sense to me why God would bring down his only son to save humanity? Why can’t he just forgive them when they ask for forgiveness? Is their some kind of law preventing god?!?!

Not sure whether you meant this as a real question or a rhetorical comment. But, I'll respond just in case you were really asking.


There are many things about God that don't make sense to me, a human being. My guess is that we could find those questions in virually every religion and even more when people have no religion. But, then, one of the lessons we learn from Job is that while it is OK to ask questions of God, it is another thing to call God into question. His ways are not our ways and he does things for reasons that may indeed be unexplainable to humans. I can't figure out why God would give his message to one man in the 7th century when he could have written his message for all mankind to have read in the clouds. But, he didn't.

It is part of our understanding of how God ordered the world which he created that sacrifice is required in payment of sin. This is something which Christianity received from it's parent faith of Judaism. It is a part of God's justice system that sin extracts a cost, and to me it makes sense because sin means that we are at enmity with God and thus seperates us from God. As you say, God could have simply allowed for a person to say, "I'm sorry" and that would be enough. But that simply isn't how he ordered the world, from the very beginning with see the importance of blood sacrifice as an atonement for sin, it is one of the horrific truths of both Judaism and Christianity. It is rituallized through the offering of sheep, goats, and bulls in the Jewish faith, but these do not really absolve one completely of sin, for the sin nature remains unchanged. One of the declarations of Christianity is that Christ's sacrifice on the cross is a one time and for all sacrifice. By incorporating that sacrifice into one's life -- Christians baptism is a baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus -- one's sin nature is itself displaced by God's presence in one via the Holy Spirit.

[YEh]

I'm going to attempt to answer a few of these points you made to the best of my ability. Astagfirullah.


This will be one of our areas of disagreement. I do not believe Isa(as) came down to Earth and that he was born a whom by a miraculous birth that was the will of Allah(swt) As a Muslim, I have great love for Isa(as) he was given the true message to spread. His teachings only remain in part and the Injil that He(as) was given was ignored and only the accounts of Human witnesses remain, but like all human words they are subject to error and change.
As a Muslim I have only love for Allah(swt) and as his servant I can only worship and serve Allah(swt) alone.

If you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin birth and was born of the Holy spirit (Divine DNA). Why do you find it hard to believe that he was divine ?

What other prophet was born in this special way ? And you still believe that he is just another prophet :?

There is simply no proof for your claim that the Bible has been changed to the point that you (muslims) suggest. Only speculation.

The Bible is very clear that "there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood." Because "the wages of sin is death".
This is consistent across the entire Bible. Judaism and Christianity.
The Quran denies this.

Also God foretold the Messiah's life in the OT and Jesus confirmed it in the NT. He confirmed the entire OT he upheld it's laws he believed it to be accurate. So we believe Jesus and Paul because they knew things that even the most learned scholars of Judaism didn't know.
Jesus only spoke the truth.
So we are sure the Bible is true and Jesus is true.

Whereas the Quran does not confirm the OT or the NT, it confirms no prophecy. It is almost a complete turn around of the Christian message back to the Judaism of 3000 years ago, with laws and rituals.

What reason is there to believe in Muhammad (Quran) ?

Not meant to be rude, just an honest opinion of what kind of impression that Christians get when they look at the Quran and Muhammad's life.

YEh

[Umar001]

I need to go somewhere so I will keep it short, Nice to meet you YEh and hope to have much fruitful discussion,

If you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin birth and was born of the Holy spirit (Divine DNA). Why do you find it hard to believe that he was divine ?

What other prophet was born in this special way ? And you still believe that he is just another prophet :?

We all life different lives, Abraham was the friend of God, Aadam was made by God's hands, Jesus was a word of God, be and he was, different miracles are not what make us different what makes us better or worse is how we react to them.

A person might be cured of blindness but he might be an athiest and he might still reject God and at the same time there might be a Christian who prays and prays to see but never does, am I sure you agree this does not mean the Athiest is better inthe sight of God than the Christian.

There is simply no proof for your claim that the Bible has been changed to the point that you (muslims) suggest. Only speculation.

The Bible is very clear that "there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood." Because "the wages of sin is death".
This is consistent across the entire Bible. Judaism and Christianity.
The Quran denies this.

There is proof, and I will be willing to share once I get back as it involves much time.

And as for your statement then I disagree, there is not a continous message in the Bible, rather, if one thinks there is then one will interpret the scripture to make it sound like ther is but if you are open minded again I can later quote you verses. :)


I will reply again later on insha'Allah,

Eesa

[YEh]

I need to go somewhere so I will keep it short, Nice to meet you YEh and hope to have much fruitful discussion,

Me too. :)

We all life different lives, Abraham was the friend of God, Aadam was made by God's hands, Jesus was a word of God, be and he was, different miracles are not what make us different what makes us better or worse is how we react to them.

A person might be cured of blindness but he might be an athiest and he might still reject God and at the same time there might be a Christian who prays and prays to see but never does, am I sure you agree this does not mean the Athiest is better inthe sight of God than the Christian.

You didn't seem to answer the question I was asking.

There is proof, and I will be willing to share once I get back as it involves much time.

And as for your statement then I disagree, there is not a continous message in the Bible, rather, if one thinks there is then one will interpret the scripture to make it sound like ther is but if you are open minded again I can later quote you verses. :)

But you cannot make that comment because, and now i'm assuming of course, you haven't read any book of the Bible in their entirety.
You see i'm trying to nip it in the bud, so to speak. When I usually discuss this topic. We discuss different statements made by Jesus in the NT. But that is simply not enough to understand the arcaic language used in translating accient greek.

Unless you have read at least one gospel and a letter of Paul's fully in context. And look at the cross references made to the OT prophecies. You cannot begin to understand Jesus's message.

If you have not honestly read the Bible to understand with honest intention and no pre-conceived idea's. Someone will not be able to see Jesus's clear message. It's a very complicated book well it is God's book. I guess he wanted us to use minds to test his word.
I believe the Bible has so many cross-references to the old and new testaments that 40 different authors over a period of approx. 4000 years that their is no way it could be written by man. Man could not write such a book that is so interconnected. So that we might understand God's nature of love and forgiveness.

I mean the NT explains even the spiritual meanings of the sacrifice of Isacc, the flood, the protection of the Jews by the blood of the passover lamb on the doorpost, the bread that was given to Moses in the desert, the wilderness, the significance of the length of days used for creation, to fast, for the end times.

I have read the biography of Muhammad. And a fair bit of the Quran with commentary. There is no mention of the significance of these events in the Quran or traditions. Only summarised versions of the Biblical stories. Which are a little different to Biblical stories.

So the only hard evidence that I have heard to this

so called corruption

is that archeologists have found older texts of the NT which do not contain the last few verses of Mark's gospel. They were just a copiest error which was added by a scholar to write notes about doctrines of the NT. Well it has been copied many times so that it can preserved. So it was a mistake not corruption of Jesus's message.

The only other evidence is that some ages and dates and generally numbers are not exactly the same when there is more than one account of events.

This is just amazing that these are the only errors found in the Bible. Which has been copied many times. For about 2000 years.
It has been preserved to an incredible degree for such accient document's.

I will reply again later on insha'Allah,

Also any proofs that were originally given by Ahmad Dheedat. I think we can all safely say have been debunked over and over again.

- Muhammad in the Bible.

There is so much evidence for every statement referring to Jesus, being the person mentioned not Muhammad. That in the book "The Choice".
Ahmad Dheedat simply says that because Jesus was divine and that Moses and Muhammad were human according to Christians, he is most like Moses.
He does not mention that any man could be the prophet according to that logic. :?

Eesa

Please do not continue to reply unless you have met the conditions I have mentioned above.

Thanks.

YEh

[YEh]

And anything about the trinity being 3 and not 1 God.

Is simply false. Please don't bother with this argument.

We believe there is only One God.
We don't know how God exists or what he looks like or is formed.
But God does exist as the Holy Trinity according to the Bible.

YEh

[Keltoi]

And anything about the trinity being 3 and not 1 God.

Is simply false. Please don't bother with this argument.



YEh

The Bible makes no mention of a Holy Trinity, although it does make mention of the three elements that Christians call a Trinity, if you understand what I'm saying. God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are indeed mentioned throughout the Bible, and as a way of explaining this concept the early Christian church coined the term "Holy Trinity".

[Grace Seeker]

Please do not continue to reply unless you have met the conditions I have mentioned above.

Thanks.

YEh

Your views might indeed by completely orthodox as far as Christianity goes. Your practice of how to treat others seems to be lacking what I understand as the standard modeled for us to follow by Christ.

My experience is that not everyone here will agree with us Christians as far as our beliefs, that is not surprising on a Muslim forum, but the vast majority will engage in respectful discussion of those differences if we will present ourselves as persons open to to hearing all sides. Among those most sincere in his own non-Christian faith, and yet willing to discuss what it is that Christians believe is Al Habeshi. I'm embarassed that a brother or sister in Christ might actually say to another "don't reply unless you meet my conditions." I don't think we get to set conditions on this board, or in real life. The moderators set the conditions here, and God sets them in life. I hope you don't think you are either.

[YEh]

The Bible makes no mention of a Holy Trinity, although it does make mention of the three elements that Christians call a Trinity, if you understand what I'm saying. God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are indeed mentioned throughout the Bible, and as a way of explaining this concept the early Christian church coined the term "Holy Trinity".

Yeh I know :) I don't think I said anything that contradicts the Bible.

[YEh]

Your views might indeed by completely orthodox as far as Christianity goes. Your practice of how to treat others seems to be lacking what I understand as the standard modeled for us to follow by Christ.

My experience is that not everyone here will agree with us Christians as far as our beliefs, that is not surprising on a Muslim forum, but the vast majority will engage in respectful discussion of those differences if we will present ourselves as persons open to to hearing all sides. Among those most sincere in his own non-Christian faith, and yet willing to discuss what it is that Christians believe is Al Habeshi. I'm embarassed that a brother or sister in Christ might actually say to another "don't reply unless you meet my conditions." I don't think we get to set conditions on this board, or in real life. The moderators set the conditions here, and God sets them in life. I hope you don't think you are either.

Yeh I know. :)

What I meant is that Muslims normally try to disprove the Bible (by pretending they are an expert in the Bible, such as Ahmad Dheedat, Nakir, etc) by quoting Jesus without understanding that the meaning of Jesus message cannot be looked at objectively by taking just a few verses (normally out of context) and expect to prove their position.

I am just recommending that he at least has the decency to read a couple of books of the Bible himself properly (in their entirety) so that he can be sure that what he is saying is said with knowledge.

That is all. It cuts the pointless (fruitless) convo. length down quite a bit.
I just find it easier to discuss if someone has actually read something that they are trying to explain and disprove.

YEh

[Umar001]

Please do not continue to reply unless you have met the conditions I have mentioned above.

Thanks.

YEh

Maybe you could clearly outline the conditions, the only condition I have seen outlined was this;

But you cannot make that comment because, and now i'm assuming of course, you haven't read any book of the Bible in their entirety.

Two replies,

1. You set a bench mark of 1 Gospel and 1 Book of Paul's, I have read, and prayed over much more than that, I have tried to understand context and tried to look at the greek whenever possible, have spoken to a pastor who ha s spent 6 years in learning theology, all this whilst I sincerly believed the Bible to be true. Nevertheless I know nothing compared to others and so I only ask and put forth ideas, if you search the forum I always encourage members to correct me if I am wrong.

2. Your condition is kind of off set, for in order for me to point out any parts of the Bible which are not in harmony, I would not have had to read the whole Bible as such, rather I would one have to read the part which I bring forth.

Moving forth,

You asked,

If you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin birth and was born of the Holy spirit (Divine DNA). Why do you find it hard to believe that he was divine ?

With regards to this then this logic is only special pleading, Aadam was born without mother or father, and God according to your book, breathed into Aadam, Aadam by that had DNA of Divine origin, does this mean he is divine no.

Furthermore, you are under the assumption that it was Diving DNA, for God can create by saying be and it is, a spirit can be sent by God without the spirit being divine, this is my belief.

What other prophet was born in this special way ? And you still believe that he is just another prophet :?

This is where my answer came in, someone born in a special way does not make him special, someone having a miracle happen to them does not make them special. If a person is by miracle cured of HIV who is an athiest, and a person who is a Christian dies of it does this mean the athiest is better in God's eyes? Similarly the Birth of Jesus is not an indication of his status.

I believe the Bible has so many cross-references to the old and new testaments that 40 different authors over a period of approx. 4000 years that their is no way it could be written by man. Man could not write such a book that is so interconnected.

This makes me wonder if you yourself know the history of Biblical compilation, if you told me the above and there was knowledge that the authors had no ideas of the Old Testament then I'd agree it'd be pretty amazing, but the authorsof the Gospel had the Old Testament there, they could make references as they wanted.

Furthermore, to show you one point, let me quote something interesting and you can reply for me;

Matthew 2:15

where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

This is a passage in which matthew uses a line out of the Old Testament as prophecy and places it upon the life of Jesus as being fufilled, let us turn back to the book where he got it from;

Hosea 11:1

"When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

Amazing in my eyes, a blatant misquote!! Talk about cross references.

So the only hard evidence that I have heard to this

is that archeologists have found older texts of the NT which do not contain the last few verses of Mark's gospel. They were just a copiest error which was added by a scholar to write notes about doctrines of the NT. Well it has been copied many times so that it can preserved. So it was a mistake not corruption of Jesus's message.

The only other evidence is that some ages and dates and generally numbers are not exactly the same when there is more than one account of events.

This is just amazing that these are the only errors found in the Bible. Which has been copied many times. For about 2000 years.

First thing, interesting way to dismiss this as copiest errors, you say they were notes written in by scholars about the doctrine, let us see the addition and think;

8Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))
9When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

12Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

14Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

15He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

19After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

Anyone familiar with the NT knows that this is how the Gospels are there is no evidence to show that this is only a side note, rather the evidence shows that this is a conitnuation of the story! Let us be honest if it was only side notes why would it still be in the Bible today.

Furthermore, it seems that you like to speak about cross reference, am assuming you have cross referenced the Gospels with each other, so how do you explain the evolution of the person of Jesus within those Gospels? Am sure you know what I mean after all you have set the conditions down so I expect you to know better.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Eesa.

[InToTheRain]

Words of truth :)

"Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself . . . " Robert G. Ingersoll


"God sacrificed his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their own sins might make some Christians love Jesus, but is an obcene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse, and may infect out imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us." (page 145-146) and "Actually, the fact that we have four gospels lies at the very heart of our problem. Because we read particular parables or sayings or stories in several different versions, we can't miss the disagreements between them" (page 3-4), From "Who is Jesus" by John Dominic Crossan (35 years of searching for the historical Jesus and former Catholic priest)

"Do not hate your enemy for he may one day become your friend" ~ Ali (ra)

[YEh]

Maybe you could clearly outline the conditions, the only condition I have seen outlined was this;

Two replies,

1. You set a bench mark of 1 Gospel and 1 Book of Paul's, I have read, and prayed over much more than that, I have tried to understand context and tried to look at the greek whenever possible, have spoken to a pastor who ha s spent 6 years in learning theology, all this whilst I sincerly believed the Bible to be true. Nevertheless I know nothing compared to others and so I only ask and put forth ideas, if you search the forum I always encourage members to correct me if I am wrong.

2. Your condition is kind of off set, for in order for me to point out any parts of the Bible which are not in harmony, I would not have had to read the whole Bible as such, rather I would one have to read the part which I bring forth.

No I didn't say you have to read the whole Bible. Just some of it but in context. Because All the Muslims I have met so far on forums or friends, try to point out contradictions and errors in the Bible and they haven't even tried to understand Jesus message.
So I cautioned that, this is my experience not neccessarily the case this time.
Trying to save time. :omg:

And after a whole bunch of discussion, it comes down to they haven't even read a full gospel before, or whole book of the Bible. They often quote from Ahmad Dheet books and video's of Dr Zakir or whatever. With one quote as proof against another quote.
It leads to long convo.'s about silly things. Which can be avoided if you just read a couple of books fully. :statisfie

Moving forth,

You asked,

With regards to this then this logic is only special pleading, Aadam was born without mother or father, and God according to your book, breathed into Aadam, Aadam by that had DNA of Divine origin, does this mean he is divine no.

Well I think he was. But he was created divine and became a decaying, human when he was cast from Eden. Jesus has always been, he was not created. That's the difference.

Furthermore, you are under the assumption that it was Diving DNA, for God can create by saying be and it is, a spirit can be sent by God without the spirit being divine, this is my belief.

This is where my answer came in, someone born in a special way does not make him special, someone having a miracle happen to them does not make them special. If a person is by miracle cured of HIV who is an athiest, and a person who is a Christian dies of it does this mean the athiest is better in God's eyes? Similarly the Birth of Jesus is not an indication of his status.

Well the statement was actually "What other prophet was born in this special way ? And you still believe that he is just another prophet".

So you don't think it significant that every prophet was born normally from a man and woman. And then the Messiah is born from a virgin by the Holy Spirit of God. :?
This definately signifies something different to me and anyone else if you compare his birth honestly.

This makes me wonder if you yourself know the history of Biblical compilation, if you told me the above and there was knowledge that the authors had no ideas of the Old Testament then I'd agree it'd be pretty amazing, but the authorsof the Gospel had the Old Testament there, they could make references as they wanted.

That's right but the NT authors knew how to interpret it so that it made sense.
They quoted fulfilled prophecies from the OT that mirrored Jesus's life. Only Jesus has fulfilled the many prophecies that the Jews were waiting for at the time of his life on earth.
And he will fulfill the rest when he returns.
But some Jews still followed Jesus, some of the apostles were Jewish.

Furthermore, to show you one point, let me quote something interesting and you can reply for me;

Matthew 2:15

where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

This is a passage in which matthew uses a line out of the Old Testament as prophecy and places it upon the life of Jesus as being fufilled, let us turn back to the book where he got it from;

Hosea 11:1

"When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

Amazing in my eyes, a blatant misquote!! Talk about cross references.

Well let's look at the context shall we:

Hosea 11 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society


Hosea 11
God's Love for Israel

1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

2 But the more I [a] called Israel,
the further they went from me. [b]
They sacrificed to the Baals
and they burned incense to images.

This is God speaking about his SON and Israel's rebellion. It is a direct mention of God having a Son in the OT (Judaism).
The prophecy states very clearly that GOD has a Son and he will call him out of Egypt.
Let's see if Jesus fulfilled this prophecy since we already know that Christians believe Jesus is God' Son.

Matthew 2:
19But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." 21And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

So this is a misquote how ?

Now are you going to dismiss the fact that the OT agree's with Christian belief ? :?

First thing, interesting way to dismiss this as copiest errors, you say they were notes written in by scholars about the doctrine, let us see the addition and think;

Anyone familiar with the NT knows that this is how the Gospels are there is no evidence to show that this is only a side note, rather the evidence shows that this is a conitnuation of the story! Let us be honest if it was only side notes why would it still be in the Bible today.

Ooops, I shouldn't have said that. I was thinking of something else that was a copiest erorr, my mistake. That Mark extension is obviously added later, maybe because the collection of Jesus's stories were ongoing as more witnesses were questioned.

Furthermore, it seems that you like to speak about cross reference, am assuming you have cross referenced the Gospels with each other, so how do you explain the evolution of the person of Jesus within those Gospels? Am sure you know what I mean after all you have set the conditions down so I expect you to know better.

Well I explain them as each person wrote down about Jesus according to their own experience and testimonies of witnesses. If 4 people all write about an event that took place they will never be 100% correct. Ever read different articles in different newspapers of the same event. They always mention things differently in different lights, ommit certain details and add some more to the story as they hear it compared to others.

What about the abbrogations in the Quran. Did God change his mind, or if it was slowly abbrogated for other teachings. How confusing does the message become to the un-enlightened ?
This concept is very dangerous.

What about the Hadith traditions to Quran contradictions. Which is much more suspect than different personal accounts of the Bible, which are just small details.
Since it commands people to behead people who leave the religion.
Behead people who insult Muhammad. He did this himself according to some traditions (Sahih).
Question: Why would the followers of Muhammad even write such things ? If they knew Muhammad and the Quran well enough to discount such violent commands. i.e. Muhammad couldn't have possibly killed a woman for insulting him. Muhammad's tradition writer: That's just absurd, let's not include that. Good idea.

Your accounts of events are not exactly perfect either. So I wouldn't bother about this issue.

I know you say the Quran is perfect and the hadith's are man's doing. But isn't the fact that some nut out there may read that and follow his example ?

That's what's really different about Islam and Christianty. Islam says all prophets were perfect because they were examples to their respective people.

Christianity says that no man should be an example because all men sin. Only Jesus was an example to follow in conduct because he didn't sin.
I think the Son Of God (Jesus) is a much better example to follow than a man (Muhammad).

Hope to hear from you soon,

Eesa.

Me too. :)

[YEh]

Words of truth :)

"Do not hate your enemy for he may one day become your friend" ~ Ali (ra)

Not really. Not much truth there at all.

Also if you believe in the quote mentioned above. How can you believe in Islam ?
Since Muhammad killed his enemies, this is hate.

"Love does no harm to your neighbor".

YEh

[InToTheRain]

Not really. Not much truth there at all.

Also if you believe in the quote mentioned above. How can you believe in Islam ?
Since Muhammad killed his enemies, this is hate.

"Love does no harm to your neighbor".

YEh

Your ignorance about Mohammad(SAW) surely shines through. I advice you to read his life story:

Sealed Nectar

Glory be to Allah(SWT), Mohammad(SAW) was a pacifist, Allah(SWT) ordered him to fight to defend the message of Allah(SWT) so that people like me can benefit from it and all praise belongs to Allah(SWT) the most merciful.

[Umar001]

Me too. :)

It took me ages to get the grips of quoting on this board, I know it can be a headache but try to seperate it I get abit confused.

Well I think he was. But he was created divine and became a decaying, human when he was cast from Eden. Jesus has always been, he was not created. That's the difference.

Well that's your presumption, thats ok, but the way you presented the case before it was pleading to a miracle to indicate the speciality of someone. But if you just say you believe Jesus was this and that thats ok, when you try to bring a logical reasoning to it thats where I oppose, specially to the one before.

Well the statement was actually "What other prophet was born in this special way ? And you still believe that he is just another prophet".

So you don't think it significant that every prophet was born normally from a man and woman. And then the Messiah is born from a virgin by the Holy Spirit of God.
This definately signifies something different to me and anyone else if you compare his birth honestly.

I don't know if you missed it, but using the miracle of the Birth means Nothing, I have asked you if you would consider an athiest who was healed by God to be better than a christian who was not healed by God, do you?

Furthermore, Prophet Adaam was born without mother or father, beats being born without Father but Mother, on top of that from Adam came eve, thats even bigger miracle.

That's right but the NT authors knew how to interpret it so that it made sense.
They quoted fulfilled prophecies from the OT that mirrored Jesus's life. Only Jesus has fulfilled the many prophecies that the Jews were waiting for at the time of his life on earth.
And he will fulfill the rest when he returns.
But some Jews still followed Jesus, some of the apostles were Jewish.

This is God speaking about his SON and Israel's rebellion. It is a direct mention of God having a Son in the OT (Judaism).
The prophecy states very clearly that GOD has a Son and he will call him out of Egypt.
Let's see if Jesus fulfilled this prophecy since we already know that Christians believe Jesus is God' Son.

You see, if you leave our minds behind then there's no point in discussion, that'll be my condition.

What we have is this, the author of Matthew writes quotes this;

Matthew 2:15

where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

And the author was talking about Jesus being called out of Egypt, so Jesus is taken out of Egypt, and then the author writes, 'And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son". So it is clear, the author is using this as a prophecy of Jesus. The author even leaves part of the verse out, the part which shows it's not talking about Jesus but Israel.

A blatant misquotation, now if you want to re interpret it in a way which nullifies any sort of thinking we as humans have then you can but anyone can do that with anything and make it mean anything. The verse tells us who the Son is, it's Israel, but the author of Matthew left that part of the verse out and misquoted it to apply it to Jesus.

Now are you going to dismiss the fact that the OT agree's with Christian belief ?

The above has nothing to do with the differences in the Bible, that was just showing the unreliability of the authors since in his zeal he tried to use something out of context to prove a 'prophecy'.

Ooops, I shouldn't have said that. I was thinking of something else that was a copiest erorr, my mistake. That Mark extension is obviously added later, maybe because the collection of Jesus's stories were ongoing as more witnesses were questioned.

No worries, who added it and was it inspired? And what substantiates your theory that it was more witnesses accounts?

Well I explain them as each person wrote down about Jesus according to their own experience and testimonies of witnesses. If 4 people all write about an event that took place they will never be 100% correct. Ever read different articles in different newspapers of the same event. They always mention things differently in different lights, ommit certain details and add some more to the story as they hear it compared to others.

That's one theory, what proof have you got for that theory? I would consider your theory if it was not for the fact that the changes are constant!

What about the abbrogations in the Quran. Did God change his mind, or if it was slowly abbrogated for other teachings. How confusing does the message become to the un-enlightened ?
This concept is very dangerous.

Lol, it is most illogical to compare the Bible and the Qu'ran when speaking of evolution within the text since the Bible is a compilation of Books which were seperate and later joined, authored by different people, whereas the Qu'ran was finished and all come through Muhammad, peace be upon him.

What about the Hadith traditions to Quran contradictions.

I don't know if you are familiar with what a hadith is, if there is a supposed hadith which is put forward but it contradicts the Qu'ran then the validity of that Hadith is deemed to be false!!

Which is much more suspect than different personal accounts of the Bible, which are just small details.

The different accounts of the Gospels for examples do not differ on small details only, I am really begging to wonder how much indipendent reading you have done.

Behead people who insult Muhammad. He did this himself according to some traditions (Sahih).
Question: Why would the followers of Muhammad even write such things ? If they knew Muhammad and the Quran well enough to discount such violent commands. i.e. Muhammad couldn't have possibly killed a woman for insulting him. Muhammad's tradition writer: That's just absurd, let's not include that. Good idea.

That has just confused me, I don't know what you are on about.

Your accounts of events are not exactly perfect either. So I wouldn't bother about this issue.

Seriously, don't say dont bother before you tread the issue, your explanation of the evolution in the gospels was enough to show you dont know much about it, so why dismiss it?

So for the record, if you are able plus willing to check your presumptions to try to stick to a logical discussion then we can talk, if not then I don't see much point.

See and they see not, hear and they hear not.

Eesa

[Grace Seeker]

With regards to this then this logic is only special pleading, Aadam was born without mother or father, and God according to your book, breathed into Aadam, Aadam by that had DNA of Divine origin, does this mean he is divine no.

Not on topic I know, but this is sort of what I am thinking of when the scriptures talk of human beings as being created in the image of God. Obviously we are pretty much the same as animals in most regards, but there is something unique about humans that separates us from the rest of the animals. What is it? It isn't our biological DNA, we share the majority of that with other animals (97% with chimpanzees and a little less than that with earthworms, but still a majority of our DNA and that of an earthworm are the same). And the constituent parts of our DNA are all found in other creatures. And it isn't our ability to use tools, have language, think and remember, or to experience emotions, all these things are found in many other species. What is unique about us is in our spirit, a spirit that was breathed into us by God himself and by which he created in us something of his very own image that we share with no other creature. So we are moral beings, created with an ability to no the difference between good and evil and the rest of the animal, vegetable, bacterial world does not.



Now, back on topic, I hope:

I don't know if you are familiar with what a hadith is, if there is a supposed hadith which is put forward but it contradicts the Qu'ran then the validity of that Hadith is deemed to be false!!

This is a concern of mine with respect to Islam. What I hear you saying is that if one finds any record of the Prophet Muhammad (pubh) acting or speaking in a way that is not in accord with the Quran, then it is discounted as untrue. Is that what you are saying? Because, if it is, then it is as if you have determined the veracity of something before even investigating it. Such could hardly be considered an unbiased search for truth.

And ultimately, this makes the scholars of Islam the gate keepers to the doctrines of Isalm, even the Quran and the message of the Prophet (pbuh) can only be understood through them. One is effectively prevented from thinking for one's self. I see this at work in things as inconsequential as whether or not music haraam -- just read other threads in this forum for illustrations of what I am talking about, to truly serious issues such as delivering fatwahs concerning jihad.

[Grace Seeker]

I have another question. As I post I see the title of my post to be going into a thread entitled "Muslim-Christian differences of opinion". Thus, as I have some questions and comments on some of the differences I see, I think that my post should be on topic. But then....when I see the post actually displayed in the forum, it is entitled "Questions to Christians" and most certainly my post would be off topic in such a thread.

How do I reconcile these differences internal to the forum?

[Umar001]

Not on topic I know, but this is sort of what I am thinking of when the scriptures talk of human beings as being created in the image of God. Obviously we are pretty much the same as animals in most regards, but there is something unique about humans that separates us from the rest of the animals. What is it? It isn't our biological DNA, we share the majority of that with other animals (97% with chimpanzees and a little less than that with earthworms, but still a majority of our DNA and that of an earthworm are the same). And the constituent parts of our DNA are all found in other creatures. And it isn't our ability to use tools, have language, think and remember, or to experience emotions, all these things are found in many other species. What is unique about us is in our spirit, a spirit that was breathed into us by God himself and by which he created in us something of his very own image that we share with no other creature. So we are moral beings, created with an ability to no the difference between good and evil and the rest of the animal, vegetable, bacterial world does not.

Whilst I do agree that we are different and so forth, I do have to say that the factor that makes the difference might be our spirit, even if I agree to that, then that does not mean that this spirit is not a created thing which God has given us, this spirit does not have to be a divine factor, it could be and I believe it is a spirit which God created and has given us. So I don't think us having a spirit which God gave us makes us God's image.

Now, back on topic, I hope:

This is a concern of mine with respect to Islam. What I hear you saying is that if one finds any record of the Prophet Muhammad (pubh) acting or speaking in a way that is not in accord with the Quran, then it is discounted as untrue. Is that what you are saying? Because, if it is, then it is as if you have determined the veracity of something before even investigating it. Such could hardly be considered an unbiased search for truth.

Grace I think your answer will come from understanding the position of the Qu'ran, if I were to take a non Muslim stand point then in the history we know that the Qu'ran has reached us as people through many, it is something which generations have memorised and kept and studied by the thousands and so forth, now if we have a single hadith, then this hadith is not as strongly as re inforced as the Qu'ran I can garantee that not as many people that have memorised the Qu'ran in history would have memorised that hadith, you see what I mean? It is because of this superiority of the Qu'ran's retention through history that anything that contradicts it is then cast aside, when it comes to choosing from hundreds of thousands of people against a couple of hundred, logically the hundred of thousands would be least likely to have all made mistakes.

And ultimately, this makes the scholars of Islam the gate keepers to the doctrines of Isalm, even the Quran and the message of the Prophet (pbuh) can only be understood through them. One is effectively prevented from thinking for one's self. I see this at work in things as inconsequential as whether or not music haraam -- just read other threads in this forum for illustrations of what I am talking about, to truly serious issues such as delivering fatwahs concerning jihad.

Again scholars too have to present their evidences for their descions and rulings.

[Grace Seeker]

Whilst I do agree that we are different and so forth, I do have to say that the factor that makes the difference might be our spirit, even if I agree to that, then that does not mean that this spirit is not a created thing which God has given us, this spirit does not have to be a divine factor, it could be and I believe it is a spirit which God created and has given us. So I don't think us having a spirit which God gave us makes us God's image.

But since God is spirit and it is God's spirit which is breathed into us, and since no other creature is created in this way, that uniqueness of our spirit, which you seem to be inclined to agree with, then is something that we actually share with God and that God shares with no other creature.

In other words, it is not a physical image that we share with God, it is a spiritual image. That which allows men and women to be receivers of eternal life is that fact that, like God, we are spiritual beings first and foremost, not merely creatures of flesh and blood. Despite the protestations I am sure to here from people worldwide who love their pets and want to see them in heaven, none of the rest of the animal kingdom is created as a spiritual being. Flesh and blood doesn't go to heaven, only our spiritual bodies. Or is this another area of difference between Christianity and Islam?

[Keltoi]

But since God is spirit and it is God's spirit which is breathed into us, and since no other creature is created in this way, that uniqueness of our spirit, which you seem to be inclined to agree with, then is something that we actually share with God and that God shares with no other creature.

In other words, it is not a physical image that we share with God, it is a spiritual image. That which allows men and women to be receivers of eternal life is that fact that, like God, we are spiritual beings first and foremost, not merely creatures of flesh and blood. Despite the protestations I am sure to here from people worldwide who love their pets and want to see them in heaven, none of the rest of the animal kingdom is created as a spiritual being. Flesh and blood doesn't go to heaven, only our spiritual bodies. Or is this another area of difference between Christianity and Islam?

From what I understand, Muslims believe their are physically manifest in Heaven. Perhaps not flesh and blood, but still a physical body.

[YEh]

Your ignorance about Mohammad(SAW) surely shines through. I advice you to read his life story:

Sealed Nectar

Glory be to Allah(SWT), Mohammad(SAW) was a pacifist, Allah(SWT) ordered him to fight to defend the message of Allah(SWT) so that people like me can benefit from it and all praise belongs to Allah(SWT) the most merciful.

My ignorance,

Excuse me, but that's a bit presumptuous isn't it ?

If you took the time to read my comments, you will have noticed I have read his biography and have studied a bit of the Quran with tafsirs. Alim software. :statisfie

Also the Quran and hadith's contain a very non-pacifist Muhammad, since it mentions many times in Sahih hadith that Muhammad killed people who insulted the Quran/himself and clearly was not of the pacifist nature that Jesus was "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.".
Muhammad would have been all for it :?

Muhammad completely contradict's this pacifist idea Jesus is so famous for. Muhammad pacifist ????? :?

YEh

[YEh]

It took me ages to get the grips of quoting on this board, I

know it can be a headache but try to seperate it I get abit confused.

Sorry aboot that. How do you use this thing anyway ?

Well that's your presumption, thats ok, but the way you presented the case before it was pleading to a miracle to indicate the speciality of someone. But if you just say you believe Jesus was this and that thats ok, when you try to bring a logical reasoning to it thats where I oppose, specially to the one before.

I was presenting and I am still presenting this is the case. You see it does mention that Jesus is here to wipe out the original sin, which keeps us from knowing God.
So the birth was a sign to say that just as one man who was created in a divine manner brought sin upon men, so will the saviour from that trespass be born in like manner.

Romans 5:
18Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

I don't know if you missed it, but using the miracle of the Birth means Nothing, I have asked you if you would consider an athiest who was healed by God to be better than a christian who was not healed by God, do you?

But this has to do with specualtion of knowing all of God's ways. And we simply don't. That goes without saying I think. :thumbs_up
But we do know that his birth was unique. Why would God have gone through all that trouble to make him born a sigificant way. If he is just another prophet ? :?
Also Adam was the first human to be created. Jesus was the first time God was made into a human.

Furthermore, Prophet Adaam was born without mother or father, beats being born without Father but Mother, on top of that from Adam came eve, thats even bigger miracle.

Yes that's true, but this was the story of the creation of man. It was a once and only creation. Why is Jesus's birth made in such a unique special way also ?

You see, if you leave our minds behind then there's no point in discussion, that'll be my condition.

What we have is this, the author of Matthew writes quotes this;

Matthew 2:15

where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

And the author was talking about Jesus being called out of Egypt, so Jesus is taken out of Egypt, and then the author writes, 'And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son". So it is clear, the author is using this as a prophecy of Jesus. The author even leaves part of the verse out, the part which shows it's not talking about Jesus but Israel.

A blatant misquotation, now if you want to re interpret it in a way which nullifies any sort of thinking we as humans have then you can but anyone can do that with anything and make it mean anything. The verse tells us who the Son is, it's Israel, but the author of Matthew left that part of the verse out and misquoted it to apply it to Jesus.

I think you might have missed the point a bit. :)

The point of Matthew quoting Hosea 11:1 is that. Just as Israel was affectionately called God's son. And was called out of Egypt from the clutches of the Pharoh.
God's son will also come out of Egypt.

Also ties in with Jesus at the time should get out of Judea, so that Herod does not kill him because he is trying to kill the Messiah, by killing all of the first born males. The same thing that Pharoh did in Egypt to try to kill Moses.

So Jesus's life is very similar to Moses's which means that Jesus must be the one spoken of in:

Deuteronomy 18:
17 The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.

If looked at from this perspective Hosea and Matthew's statement holds to be true.

Eesa

I'll reply latter to the rest. It's a heavy topic something I don't know too much about honestly. :-[

[Malaikah]

Muhammad completely contradict's this pacifist idea Jesus is so famous for. Muhammad pacifist ????? :?

So when an army comes to attack the Muslims, they are meant to not fight back and protect themselves? They should just give themselves up to die, not bother to protect their family and children, and therefore not give Islam the chance to spread at all because all the Muslims have been killed? :?

What is the point of being a pacifist when it means that evil people will end up abusing your refusal to fight back and cause great injustice in the land? How is that any good to anyone? The act of not fighting those who are going to abuse others is much worse than fighting in order to protect the innocent and stop wrong doers from taking over.

What about when the people of Mecca tortured and even killed people just for being Muslims, and then when the Muslims conquered Mecca, they didn't take revenge, they forgave them, even though those very same people had been the ones who tortured and killed them. Doesn't that show that the Prophet Muhammad was a peace lover.

Oh, and why don't you go read your own bible and explain to me why the there is so much blood shed ordered by God, especially with respect to the children of Isreal, and tell me does this sound like a pacifist? What happened? Did "god" only start being a pacifist when he manifest himself as Jesus? Keeping in mind that you Christians believe that God and Jesus are one and the same, then you believe it was Jesus who ordered those acts of blood shed in the OT, so how can you say Jesus was a pacifist?

[InToTheRain]

Muhammad completely contradict's this pacifist idea Jesus is so famous for. Muhammad pacifist ????? :?

Well obviously you haven't read the link I gave you, isn't it about time you did? the link provided in the last post is the Life story of our prophet(PBUH). Please read it and if you still are not convinced he was a pacifist (after reading it of course :)) then I will be glad to see what you bring to the table..thread :)

[YEh]

So when an army comes to attack the Muslims, they are meant to not fight back and protect themselves? They should just give themselves up to die, not bother to protect their family and children, and therefore not give Islam the chance to spread at all because all the Muslims have been killed? :?

I see what your saying. But Jesus overcame his enemies with knowledge and love.
"Love your enemies, pray for those who persucute you".

Killing is killing in the Bible, when anybody sinned there was judgement.
God punished some people by using the Jews to execute judgement. Remember though this was under the time of the law (the law has been lifted from our neck, because it was fulfilled by Jesus on behalf of us). The same law that punished Adam and the human race from life to death. For just disobeying one command of God's.

What you are suggesting is known as relativism. Killing is allowed under certain circumstances. Who decides when it is defence ?

What is the point of being a pacifist when it means that evil people will end up abusing your refusal to fight back and cause great injustice in the land? How is that any good to anyone? The act of not fighting those who are going to abuse others is much worse than fighting in order to protect the innocent and stop wrong doers from taking over.

Well just look at what that stance leads to. Palestine, 50 years of war.
Individuals and small groups that kill people just for being non-muslim.
I mean human history is a testament to the fact that, give any excuse for people to kill other people for having a different opinion or disobeying laws they will use it.
Even the Catholic church somehow found an excuse to Murder.
When Jesus said, to never hurt anyone for any reason. "Turn the other cheek".

What about when the people of Mecca tortured and even killed people just for being Muslims, and then when the Muslims conquered Mecca, they didn't take revenge, they forgave them, even though those very same people had been the ones who tortured and killed them. Doesn't that show that the Prophet Muhammad was a peace lover.

While it was nice of him not to take revenge. He shouldn't have attacked them in the first place. It has made people think a matyr is someone who dies protecting the religion in battle. The Christian matyr is one who is killed without any weapons in his hand, only his voice.

Oh, and why don't you go read your own bible and explain to me why the there is so much blood shed ordered by God, especially with respect to the children of Isreal, and tell me does this sound like a pacifist? What happened? Did "god" only start being a pacifist when he manifest himself as Jesus?
Keeping in mind that you Christians believe that God and Jesus are one and the same, then you believe it was Jesus who ordered those acts of blood shed in the OT, so how can you say Jesus was a pacifist?

No, Jesus has fulfilled (completed) the law so there is no more judgements on earth until judgement day. We leave all judgements to God. Men tend to get it wrong. I don't want that on my record on judgement day.
Under the law, "the wages of sin is death". Just as Adam was setenced to be able to die when he sinned and cast from heaven, so it was when any man or woman sinned.

The law was put in place so that we may know, that we do in fact sin. Without the law we wouldn't know what was wrong. But under the law we know that sin is death and seperation from God.
God is Holy and cannot stand sinful people, unless a life is paid, for your sin. Hence the animal sacrifices in the OT.
So Jesus came to bridge that gap between us sinners and God, so that we may be saved from our impending death and punishment and have life with God now and in the hereafter.

You see the law cannot be obeyed by humans even though it is right and just. But with the help of the Holy Spirit we are no longer a slave to sin. We have been reborn spiritually of God, not of man. Jesus puts sin to death in us by washing our hearts clean with his blood (wash away sinfulness, where sin starts). So that we build our spirit up to resist temptation.

Sorry just wondering, did you read the conditions before commenting ?

Peace,

YEh

[Umar001]

Sorry aboot that. How do you use this thing anyway ?

Well you have the thing in between the brackets. like: [QUOTE=YEh;7053] But it'd say my name, then you put my words after that, then when you finish the sentence or paragraph that you want to quote you then write [/ QUOTE] Without any gaps.

You see it does mention that Jesus is here to wipe out the original sin, which keeps us from knowing God.
So the birth was a sign to say that just as one man who was created in a divine manner brought sin upon men, so will the saviour from that trespass be born in like manner.

Well that's presuming the Bible is correct in this statement.

But this has to do with specualtion of knowing all of God's ways. And we simply don't. That goes without saying I think.

Well then we can't use Jesus' birth to speculate his status.

But we do know that his birth was unique. Why would God have gone through all that trouble to make him born a sigificant way. If he is just another prophet ?

But that has to do with specualtion of knowing all of God's ways. And we simply don't. :)

Yes that's true, but this was the story of the creation of man. It was a once and only creation. Why is Jesus's birth made in such a unique special way also ?

But this has to do with specualtion of knowing all of God's ways. And we simply don't. :)

I think you might have missed the point a bit.

The point of Matthew quoting Hosea 11:1 is that. Just as Israel was affectionately called God's son. And was called out of Egypt from the clutches of the Pharoh.
God's son will also come out of Egypt.

Also ties in with Jesus at the time should get out of Judea, so that Herod does not kill him because he is trying to kill the Messiah, by killing all of the first born males. The same thing that Pharoh did in Egypt to try to kill Moses.

So Jesus's life is very similar to Moses's which means that Jesus must be the one spoken of in:

Deuteronomy 18:
17 The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.

If looked at from this perspective Hosea and Matthew's statement holds to be true.
Also Adam was the first human to be created. Jesus was the first time God was made into a human.

It's pretty simple bro, all you have to do is read it, the author of Matthew states that a prophecy was fufilled by Jesus when God said 'Out of Egypt I calld my son' so this means for that prophecy to be a prophecy of Jesus is must be referring to him. The fact that the author of the Gospel cuts the verse in half is suspicious when one reads the rest of the verse we find that this passage is not talking about Jesus at all it's talking about Israel and when God called Israel.

If you mean that there is a parralel ok I agree for arguement's sake, but to say that this is a prophecy of Jesus then this is wrong, because the Prophet writing it made it clear who he was speaking of in that very verse, only the Author of Matthew took the verse apart.

[Umar001]

But since God is spirit and it is God's spirit which is breathed into us, and since no other creature is created in this way, that uniqueness of our spirit, which you seem to be inclined to agree with, then is something that we actually share with God and that God shares with no other creature.

Well this stems from the understanding of what is meant by 'God's' for example, you can say Eesa's Hand or Eesa's Coat, one is part of me and the other is owned by me.

I think you believe God's Spirit means a part of him and I believe it just means it's owned by him, and nonetheless a created thing. So whether we have it or not does not make us part of God or anything as such.

In other words, it is not a physical image that we share with God, it is a spiritual image. That which allows men and women to be receivers of eternal life is that fact that, like God, we are spiritual beings first and foremost, not merely creatures of flesh and blood. Despite the protestations I am sure to here from people worldwide who love their pets and want to see them in heaven, none of the rest of the animal kingdom is created as a spiritual being. Flesh and blood doesn't go to heaven, only our spiritual bodies. Or is this another area of difference between Christianity and Islam?

Well I dont think we share anything with God, I think God is nothing like us, we are his creation.

This is the fundamental difference which means that we both have then a different outlook.

I believe we have a soul/spirit and a body, and both these are created things which play part in our life and death.

Eesa.

[Grace Seeker]

Well I dont think we share anything with God, I think God is nothing like us, we are his creation.

You may not see the difference in what I'm about to say, but that is my problem with not being able to express myself well, not in your understanding. Nonetheless I want to try.

I don't think God is anything like us either. As you said, we are his creation. But I do think that we are something like God. (I'm not creating any status of divinity to us.) That is, there is created within us something that God himself did that makes us intrinsically different than the rest of the animal creation. And that difference is the image of God in which each of us are created.

Of course in saying that we are something like God, it is on the order of saying that a raindrop is like the ocean. Or that a blade of grass is like the prairie. And even that is giving too much credit to the raindrop or the blade of grass. Because you don't just multiply us by a million, billion times to come up with God. In that sense we have to remember that we are created beings, and God is the creator. But what I mean is that God put something of himself within us. That is why we have a soul and animals don't. We can connect with God; no other created being can do that. It is the image of God created within us that makes this even possible.

And, as an aside, I think this is why atheists exist. They have had this image so marred that they no longer experience that connection. But, now I come close to getting off topic again.

[MustafaMc]

I don't think God is anything like us either. As you said, we are his creation. But I do think that we are something like God. (I'm not creating any status of divinity to us.) That is, there is created within us something that God himself did that makes us intrinsically different than the rest of the animal creation. And that difference is the image of God in which each of us are created.

Muslims don't have the concept of humans being created in the image of Allah; however, I can relate somewhat to what you are saying.

Quran 15:28-29 Remember when your Rabb said to the angels: "I am about to create a man from sounding clay, black mud moulded into shape; when I complete his moulding and breath into him of My spirit, kneel down and prostrate before him."

Yes, there is something about us that makes us different from animals. This something, the soul, is a mystery to me.

[YEh]

It's pretty simple bro, all you have to do is read it, the author of Matthew states that a prophecy was fufilled by Jesus when God said 'Out of Egypt I calld my son' so this means for that prophecy to be a prophecy of Jesus is must be referring to him. The fact that the author of the Gospel cuts the verse in half is suspicious when one reads the rest of the verse we find that this passage is not talking about Jesus at all it's talking about Israel and when God called Israel.

If you mean that there is a parralel ok I agree for arguement's sake, but to say that this is a prophecy of Jesus then this is wrong, because the Prophet writing it made it clear who he was speaking of in that very verse, only the Author of Matthew took the verse apart.

It's a parallel and a prophecy. That's how prophecy is written in accient Hebrew.

This is a quote from some commentary on the verse.

PNT: 2:15 Out of Egypt have I called my son. The prophecy here quoted is found in Ho 11:1. Israel, which was called out of Egypt, is spoken of a son. Israel, however, was a type, and the events portrayed in Israelitish history were typical prophecies. That was the dispensation of types and shadows. Hence, the great outlines were prophetic, and the calling of Israel out of Egypt a prophecy of the Leader of the true Israel being called out of that land.

YEh

[YEh]

Muslims don't have the concept of humans being created in the image of Allah; however, I can relate somewhat to what you are saying.

Quran 15:28-29 Remember when your Rabb said to the angels: "I am about to create a man from sounding clay, black mud moulded into shape; when I complete his moulding and breath into him of My spirit, kneel down and prostrate before him."

Yes, there is something about us that makes us different from animals. This something, the soul, is a mystery to me.

Even the concept of breathing God's spirit into us made it into the Quran. This was the image that we have, our soul. That effects us in ways such as when we do something good to others we also feel good (heart warming moment). And when we do something wrong we feel guilt (heavy of heart).
"We have the law written on our hearts".

YEh

[MustafaMc]

Even the concept of breathing God's spirit into us made it into the Quran. This was the image that we have, our soul. That effects us in ways such as when we do something good to others we also feel good (heart warming moment). And when we do something wrong we feel guilt (heavy of heart).
"We have the law written on our hearts".

YEh

soul
1 : the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
2 : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe

im·age
1 : a reproduction or imitation of the form of a person or thing; especially : an imitation in solid form : STATUE
2 a : the optical counterpart of an object produced by an optical device (as a lens or mirror) or an electronic device b : a visual representation of something: as (1) : a likeness of an object produced on a photographic material (2) : a picture produced on an electronic display (as a television or computer screen)

How can the soul (immaterial essence) of man be in the image (optical counterpart) of Allah?

[Grace Seeker]

How can the soul (immaterial essence) of man be in the image (optical counterpart) of Allah?

Well, I would not have worded it as Yeh has done, but I will give you something to consider.

Is there any other being besides Allah that is able to know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad?

Hint: from a Christian perspective, this being is a creature created to live in communion with God.

Oh, and image does not have to mean an optical counterpart. The New Testament word which we translate into English as image was eikon. And as with all translation there is not a one to one correspondence between the Greek word and the English word.

eikon derived from eoika which has a present force, meaning to be similar, like. Examples include things that you might think of as images: paintings, statues, the figure stamped on a coin. But a comparison or a similie was also an "image"; indeed any sort of likeness or semblance qualified. The key is that in Greek thought the image shares the reality of what it represents. This is one reason that idols are contrary to God's law, for not only in the Greek language, but also in Jewish thought the essence of the thing appears in the image. Thus if one created an idol to represent a god (i.e. the idols of Baal), then the god himself was present and operative in his image.

But of course no image could ever bear the full reality of God. So, people were not to make them. Then how could man be called the "image of God"? The answer, man was not made by man, but by God. And indeed this term is used several times in Genesis. It is a part of the created order that God so bestows this on human kind. Theologian Gerald vonRad put it this way, "God set man in the world as a sign of his own authority, in order that man should uphold his -- God's -- claims as Lord." While most of us fail to fully submit to God in this way, Christ did submit. Thus the New Testament talks about Christ as the image of likeness of God. In Christ there is no difference between the image and the essence of the invisible God. (Note: If there were any difference, Jews and Muslims would not have to worry about Christians talking about a Trinity. It is only because there is no difference that we make claims that you think of as nonsense--or worse.) Thus in Christ we see God. And though sinned marred this image of God that men were created in, by our participating in Christ, people are once more able to express the image of God which has been restored in them. That is not to make us equal with God, for we only have this image as it is made available to us in Christ. But once again we gain knowledge of the difference between right and wrong (through the Holy Spirit actually dwelling in us) and we are able to have communion with God in and through Jesus Christ in whose image we have been transformed.

[Malaikah]

Even the concept of breathing God's spirit into us made it into the Quran. This was the image that we have, our soul. That effects us in ways such as when we do something good to others we also feel good (heart warming moment). And when we do something wrong we feel guilt (heavy of heart).

Not quite. It refers to a soul that belongs to God, not His actual soul in the same way humans have a soul.

[MustafaMc]

eikon derived from eoika which has a present force, meaning to be similar, like. Examples include things that you might think of as images: paintings, statues, the figure stamped on a coin. But a comparison or a similie was also an "image"; indeed any sort of likeness or semblance qualified. The key is that in Greek thought the image shares the reality of what it represents. .... But of course no image could ever bear the full reality of God. So, people were not to make them. Then how could man be called the "image of God"? The answer, man was not made by man, but by God. And indeed this term is used several times in Genesis. It is a part of the created order that God so bestows this on human kind. Theologian Gerald vonRad put it this way, "God set man in the world as a sign of his own authority, in order that man should uphold his -- God's -- claims as Lord." While most of us fail to fully submit to God in this way, Christ did submit. Thus the New Testament talks about Christ as the image of likeness of God. In Christ there is no difference between the image and the essence of the invisible God. .... Thus in Christ we see God.

Yes, you put forth a very good explanation. However, to Muslims this is treading on very thin ice. We hold that Allah is above his creation and just as He bears no semblance to it, His creation bears no semblance to Him. When one says that something or someone bears a "likeness of God" then there is a tendency to worship that thing or person. The ending of your post demonstrates to Muslims where we see Christianity has erred. In contrast, Muslims are strict monotheists and refuse to associate anything or anyone with Allah.

[Grace Seeker]

The ending of your post demonstrates to Muslims where we see Christianity has erred.

I don't expect Muslims to agree with my Christian theology, but I am thinking that when you ask questions about it, that you truly want to understand where it comes from. So I feel obligated to share it to the best of my ability -- at least to inform, even if not to persuade.

So, I don't mind you saying that I have erred. I just don't want you to err in understanding what we are saying (or sometimes not saying).

[MustafaMc]

I don't expect Muslims to agree with my Christian theology, but I am thinking that when you ask questions about it, that you truly want to understand where it comes from. So I feel obligated to share it to the best of my ability -- at least to inform, even if not to persuade.

So, I don't mind you saying that I have erred. I just don't want you to err in understanding what we are saying (or sometimes not saying).

The image analogy was explanied very well and, perhaps, I agree with it to a point. As always, I understand your points as you do explain the Christian perspective extremely well. Even as you present the Truth (as you believe it to be) as honestly and accurately as you can, we too present our perspective. I don't intend to offend, but I too feel obligated to share my understanding of the Truth as clearly as possible to avoid misunderstanding.

Dialog with you is very beneficial to this forum because you definitely increase our understanding of Christianity. Hopefully, you and others are gaining an understanding of Islam. Mutual understanding is a good thing.

[MustafaMc]

Theologian Gerald vonRad put it this way, "God set man in the world as a sign of his own authority, in order that man should uphold his -- God's -- claims as Lord." While most of us fail to fully submit to God in this way, Christ did submit.

I agree with this statement. In the Quran the conceptual word is translated as vicegerent -"one appointed by a ruler or head of state to act as administrative deputy." And, yes, Jesus (pbuh) did submit his will to God. In this sense he and Muhammad (pbut) are our role models - held in highest esteem.

[Umar001]

It's a parallel and a prophecy. That's how prophecy is written in accient Hebrew.

It is pretty simple right there, the verse is speaking of Israel, there is no mention of this is also going to happen to someone else, nothing as such, but the author of Matthew uses part of the verse leaving Israel out of it, and uses it and claims this was a prophecy of Jesus. The evidence is clear for any person who is willing to use their mind.

As for the commentry, it is merely an understanding of deriving the words of the author of Matthew.

If you show me where Hosea claimed it was a prophecy then that'd be cool, but the overwhelming evidence is clear, the Author of Matthew is presenting Jesus as a prophecy fulfulling man, in his zeal he quotes half a verse, leaving out the context, and claims it is a prophecy which Jesus fulfilled.

You may not see the difference in what I'm about to say, but that is my problem with not being able to express myself well, not in your understanding. Nonetheless I want to try.

I don't think God is anything like us either. As you said, we are his creation. But I do think that we are something like God. (I'm not creating any status of divinity to us.) That is, there is created within us something that God himself did that makes us intrinsically different than the rest of the animal creation. And that difference is the image of God in which each of us are created.

Of course in saying that we are something like God, it is on the order of saying that a raindrop is like the ocean. Or that a blade of grass is like the prairie. And even that is giving too much credit to the raindrop or the blade of grass. Because you don't just multiply us by a million, billion times to come up with God. In that sense we have to remember that we are created beings, and God is the creator. But what I mean is that God put something of himself within us. That is why we have a soul and animals don't. We can connect with God; no other created being can do that. It is the image of God created within us that makes this even possible.

And, as an aside, I think this is why atheists exist. They have had this image so marred that they no longer experience that connection. But, now I come close to getting off topic again.

From my view point this is not true, but I see what you mean. But then again we don't have Aadam's Spirit, God breathed into Aadam, that became Aadam#s spirit/soul, but our soul is different to Aadam's.

[Grace Seeker]

From my view point this is not true, but I see what you mean. But then again we don't have Aadam's Spirit, God breathed into Aadam, that became Aadam#s spirit/soul, but our soul is different to Aadam's.

God doesn't have to literally breath into each of our nostrils his Spirit. Take the creation of land animals:

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. (Genesis 1:24)

Once created, each is able to produce others of its own kind. God does not have to continually have the "land produce living creatures". They have the abiltiy to reproduce that aspect in them which God created to be true of them.

Similary God creates people:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

And these people have the ability to reproduce according the pattern in which God made them, and part of that pattern we are told is that we are created in God's image. Thus, all persons were to likewise be created in God's image, not just Adam. (For instance we can see that both Adam and Eve were created in God's image, even though we are only told that God blew his spirit into Adam, not Eve.)

Also, long after Adam has died, in the times of Noah, we find God reminding the people (assumedly all people, certainly not Adam since he has already died):

Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man. (Genesis 9:6)

Of course, I know that you are still going to disagree, as your stories of creation and the first generations, though close, do not match these. But I am glad that you can see from whence my thoughts come.