Are you saying god only answer the prayers of Christians and Jews because it is the true God? Does the Christian god answer the prayers of Muslims, and people of other religions and cultures etc? If so it is the same god. Of course there are going to be differences. Every single person has a unique understanding of god. Does that mean there are billions of different gods? Maybe we should focus on the similarities. The Buddhist idol worship thing smacks of pure ignorance btw.
what a nice thing to say, bnb!!! thank you! you're right..Jesus Freak are my words. i wish I fit that title better!
1. didn't mean to offend on the buddhist idol worship thing. i do know that when Buddhists "evangelized" Korea, they didn't get much of a response. they knew that Koreans were already worshipping idols, so they "adopted" that part for them to adhere to. i'll try to find a source to back that up, but it's been a long time since i read that. 2. good question. i'm reading a book right now called, "Eternity in Their Hearts" that you might find interesting. it tracks the responses of a bunch of tribes that were encountered with the Gospel...and their response where they basically told the "creation story" to the missionaries before they were ever told anything about the missionaries' faith...though there were some variables (like drinking rice beer instead of "eating the fruit")...but the similarities were amazing! they all had a different name, but it usually meant something in their language like "the One, True God." They told of old stories where they felt they cut themselves off from this God because, for different reasons, they started worshipping creation...or worshipping different "gods." But how they were all waiting to be restored and brought back to the One, True God. Some of those tribes had prophecy among themselves that God's Son would be the one to bring them back. Pretty remarkable stuff, frankly. So does God hear their prayers? I believe He does...there's a lot I believe God hears from me that I wish he wouldn't! But my subjectivity doesen't change the nature of God. I'm either right about who God is...about who Christ is...or I'm wrong. I can't choose to believe that RM95 is anyone other than RM95. I may know him differently than you know him. But, ultimately, he is who he is. Or, as God said to Moses, "I AM." As C.S. Lewis put it, either Christ is "Lunatic, Liar or Lord." His words in the Gospels don't leave us with much choice, otherwise...though I understand that my Muslim friends think there is, perhaps, another option for who Jesus was.
I think you are right and wrong. We all are. The ultimate truth is too much for us to handle. Even when we "know" something. It is only a small part, or side, of the ultimate truth. I also think people feel a need to be "right". They cling to their perceptions of god as a form of security. But the sense of rightness has led to many terrible things.
Nice job of using a website to find things you like. I again ask you to take those verses in context. Can I explain all of them? No. However, I can tell you that the message actually taught to me is not what you claim to know. The game you just played (selecting quotes, not dealing with the whole passage) is the same one used by people of other faiths to scare members away from Christians. As a historical document, the Quranic definition of "infidel" would be those idol-worshippers who made up the majority of the Arabian peninsula's population during the time of revelation. They weren't Christian or Jewish, they were pagans. Muhammed and his party didn't attack them, in fact, until they were attacked by this group. If you don't believe this, that's fine. The ayats detailing the differences between Jewish, Christian, and Islamic belief should be taken as that. I don't see why this condemnation is any different from Christian texts detailing hell for those who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. They do say that God will handle it, right? And as for the legitimacy of Islam given the Biblical declaration to beware of false prophets... hey, that's a whole different discussion concerning the legitimacy of Islam in Christian eyes. No one is saying you have to believe in Islam. As for your gibberish about the word Allah... look, there's clearly nothing that will sway your viewpoint, even if you're having a discussion about it. All I can say is that even if you were right (and you're not), what does a human word have anything to do with the concept of the divine? Jewish belief is that you can't even say the actual word describing God, no?
I'm not trying to do terrible things to anyone. Because I believe I'm right about Christ, I'm called to do good things for other people. Called to make myself a servant to others. I get your point....it just assumes that God doesn't want us to know...I don't believe that to be so.
Again, it has to do with the differences between the prophets more than the differences in what God told them. How could you expect Mohammed, raised in a warrior culture, to say exactly the same things as Jesus? Buddha points to different attributes still as a result of his culture, experiences, and views of the world. They were all different men and their differences colored how the word of God made it onto paper. Again, I believe that ANYONE who takes any of these texts as the ONLY word of God is doing themselves a disservice. This is not to say that one cannot have a fulfilling relationship with God if they choose to believe only one set of texts. I believe that there are good Christians who believe fully in the Bible just as there are good Muslims who believe only in the writings of Mohammed. The reason that I chose to examine many vastly different systems of belief was to gain a more thorough understanding of what *I* believe to be true. The Bible alone didn't do it for me because of the various inconsistencies and, as a result, I looked at ALL the religions and belief systems I could so that I could find the things that rang true to my internal tuning fork. Again, the differences you point out in the religions are a result of the filters those messages passed through on their way to the paper, not differences in the messages that God Himself presented. Just as I (and a billion or more other people) believe that the writings of Mohammed, Buddha, and even the ancient Druids were divinely inspired. There have been MANY prophets throughout human history and, IMHO the Bible is not the ONLY divinely inspired text. Again, this is not to say that one cannot have a spiritually fulfilled life using only the Bible as their guide, I just found it EXTREMELY useful to examine many schools of thought when deciding what I believe in.
I think that they are the same God with different takes. It's like when people read history books published by different sides of a conflict. I remember once reading an American and an English version of the American Revolution, and they were definitely different, but still talking about the same thing. The English saw thngs slightly different than the Americans did, and vice versa. I don't thin that because people have different takes on things, it means they are talking about two totally different events. Clearly the Koran and Bible both talk about Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Noah, David etc. I don't think there happens to be two different Gods with all of those things in common. It's just a different understanding or belief, about that God, and certain events. The God described in the old testament has a much different temperment than God described in the new testament. I don't think that they are two different Gods, just that people's understanding of the same God grew or evolved, particularly through the grace of Jesus.
You said "its just a thing of beauty." Yep. Exactly. So if we do think that this is an incorrect practice, we can reasonably say 'Islam oppresses women' since most Muslims practice this, right?
I would certainly say that Christianity oppressed women then. I find this argument so tedious. Whether or not some OTHER religion does whatever action we are decrying does not mean Islam is not taking such indictable action.
That wasn't my point. I wasn't supporting it or decrying it. My point was that Islam is not alone in such practices. I think culture is involed as much as religion.
andy -- I believe Jesus to be the Son of God. God revealed in flesh. I don't put him on par with Mohammed...or Buddha...or any other religious leader. That's the very essence of Christianity. So I have a real hard time saying, "yeah, we're all worshipping the same God." We're not talking just about writings, here. We're talking about what document which purportedly account for real events and words related to the Jesus. Eyewitnesses testimonies. That's a sharp distinction from a book a guy writes when he goes off to the woods, alone...or finds some revelation, alone, in a cave. It's apples and oranges. You can examine many different schools of thought. I too have examined many different schools of thought. But that doesn't mean that wisdom necessarily means you can adopt them all...particularly when they present images that are in conflict with one another. Which is correct of Jesus? Is he the Son of God? Or is he just a neat guy? Or is he, as Muslims would say, the Prophet? We're not left with the, "well....I believe they're all right" option. My dog is brown. She's not brown and blue at the same time.
As do I. I just further believe that we are ALL the children of God just as Jesus was. I believe that Jesus once said "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" and I always took that to mean that divinity was imbued within each of us. I never saw where Jesus put himself ABOVE us or apart from us, but maintained that we are ALL children of God just as he is. You can believe that Jesus was more of a prophet or son of God than those others if you like. I just believe that it is those types of attitudes ("my prophet is better than your prophet") that are the true cause of conflicts between and within religions. Don't you think that it is a bit strange to think that Jesus was more "holy" than any other of the great prophets? Do you really think that Jesus would have put himself above Mohammed or Buddha? That is the thing. In my studies, I pretty much discarded conflicting ideas as the constructs of man rather than those of God. I did not adopt ALL of the tenets of ANY religion, instead trying to seek those truths that seem to be universal to ALL faiths. These are the truths that I believe were "translated" properly from the Divine to the flesh. Anything that did not match up with what *I* know to be true for myself I discarded knowing that the tuning fork that God himself gave me was a much better judge of universal truth than any one text or another. He is the son of God, and a neat guy, and a prophet. How are those ideas mutually exclusive???
Or alone in a desert for forty days...? I would rather have both apples and oranges, than only apples. Are you saying there is nothing to gain from other religions other than Christianity? Are they of no use at all? Is there no truth to be found outside Christianity? I think when Jesus said "I am the way", he meant his way of practice, his way of life is the way. It is not just worshiping his name or some idea of him. There are elements of his way to be found in other religions. Btw, your dog appears to be brown. It is not merely brown, it is blue, green, yellow, it is all colors and at the same time no color. There are no static, absolute qualities.
