I'm just confused

Greetings and peace be with you Simple_Person;

However this something what your believe system is based on, should be as objective as possible.

hmmmm

You say that God made me a Muslim. No i CHOOSE to be a Muslim. God only opened the door for me to become Muslim. Why God opened my door is something else.

If God had not opened the door first, then you would not be a Muslim.

I can also choose to NOT be a Muslim, but rather follow Christianity.

But God did not open the door of Christianity to you, the Christian faith makes no sense to you.

I came to this forum nearly twelve years ago, not to convert anyone, or to be converted myself, rather I came in the hope of finding some ground for greater interfaith relations. God opened the door to Christianity in very profound ways for me, I do not want to go into detail on a Muslim forum, as this would be against forum rules.

In the spirit of searching for a greatest meaning of 'One God'

Eric

format_quote Originally Posted by Eric H

Greetings and peace be with you Simple_Person;



hmmmm



If God had not opened the door first, then you would not be a Muslim.



But God did not open the door of Christianity to you, the Christian faith makes no sense to you.

I came to this forum nearly twelve years ago, not to convert anyone, or to be converted myself, rather I came in the hope of finding some ground for greater interfaith relations. God opened the door to Christianity in very profound ways for me, I do not want to go into detail on a Muslim forum, as this would be against forum rules.

In the spirit of searching for a greatest meaning of 'One God'

Eric

In the Qur'an it is written on many places this.

"...And Allah guides whom He wills..." Qur'an 24:46
"...and guides whom He wills..." Qur'an 35:8

And more places.

Now think with me. We are going to follow a path of logic, rationality and reason. PURE AND ONLY this path. When for example i am a millionaire and you say brother, to whom do you give money? My answer being, i give money to whom i want to give. This would be the same principle right? as what in the Qur'an is stated. What does this say? It says, there must be some criteria i follow and then give money to a individual. If you later on say, what are the people that you give money to then? I then give you the criteria for example as. I give money to people who are poor, but NOT arrogant. I also give money to people who are honest and want to start a business. You then understand that my criteria is "People who are poor, but not arrogant" and "people who are honest and want to start a business".

So now looking at those parts of those verses of "Guides whom He wills", there MUST be a criteria. To my knowledge and experience and opinion is honesty part of this criteria. So for example some people are honest, but NEVER search for the truth, so if they never bothered for searching what the truth is.."why" should the Creator give them..if they are not even searching for it right? One could say "Yeah but why does God not give those people STILL the guidance?" Have you ever spoken with somebody who is not Christian or Muslim or Jew..but atheist. They brush you off as if you are bothering them. While what you try to convey is something beneficial for them, YET they brush it off as GET LOST..NOT INTERESTED!! Or some people search, but are dishonest. For example, you would say to an atheist..look around you how can all this exist without something creating it. How can all this balance come out of nothing? They agree with you that it is absurd that something as complicated as a cell can become like that just because of "chance"..yet they do not want to admit it (dishonest) and still do not agree with you.

So the door that i was talking about is filling up the heart with faith. That i came to Islam is again like i said based on objective findings. All based on logic, rationality and reason. My ONLY objection back then was that i couldn't accept this whole concept of a Creator, but even that was filled (although this was a personal (subjective) experience). However now almost 4 years later, i have pondered about a lot of things and the concept of a Creator can be even explained and has a solid basis based on logic, rationality, reason and evidence.

Why i do not follow Christianity is as following. My mind says it doesn't make sense some of the things, my heart says i am too honest and i agree with the mind that it doesn't make sense. The heart and the mind are connected. A certain balance exists. When this balance loses it's way you either become blind for faith(heart is closed, the mind is open) or either become blindly faithful (heart is fully open but the mind is closed). In the case of heart being closed, you also become dishonest. As many times you see with atheist it is no longer a discussion to pursue the truth, but they want to "win" the discussion (arrogance and ego). When your heart is fully open but your mind is closed and somebody brings you a scientific proof for something you reject it as it might go against your religion. Like putting your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes and starting speaking out loud so you absolutely not hear what that individual is trying to show to you as proof. As you can see and conclude yourself, both the cases are wrong and not balanced. You need the mind for sure but also the heart definitely. As my own experience with all kind of discussions with people of all kind of religions, i have come to conclude that atheist their hearts are closed and Christians for example their mind has closed (no offense), just my observation based on my discussion and all kind of debates.

That is why i said, look at the evidence that is available using your mind to analyse it and it will bring you to the true religion so to say. Then is the question off course, are you honest enough to indeed accept this outcome? Or not. When somebody KNOWS after doing their research and coming to Islam as the truth but do not follow it. This is what a "kaffir" is. He knows it is the truth, but he rejects it. So a person who has NEVER heard of Islam or what Islam exactly stands for is NOT a "kaffir", as maybe that person still may believe in 1 God and believing in 1 God and dying in that state still enter in paradise in Islam.

I have absolutely NO intention to "convert" you whatsoever. I only love intellectual discussion based on respectful treatment of each other and their perspective. Have a critical view based on something is not a insult. It could be that that critical view is misplaced and as a respectful individual one must acknowledge his misunderstanding and correct it in the future. A insult would be to say Person X is blblabl..without any real argument why or based on nothing.

I agree however with you that Christians and Muslims must seek the common ground as we for example both have much in common to fight against side by side. As an example the whole LGBT agenda.

Peace