Interesting Statement by Annie2

Aquinian wrote: Andalus wrote: Aquinian wrote: Well, to be frank, the Quran came 600 years after the time of Christ and yet it reads much like the Old Testament.  To paraphrase, "If this happens, stone this person."  "If that happens, pay this person 50 shillings."  I do not wish to blaspheme the Quran, but it is a regressive text, in terms of philosophical brilliance. You have made some errneous assumptions. 1) So if the Revelation to Moses came centuries after Noah, then the revelation to Moses is false because it was not the same as that to Noah, and soe not follow the philosophical specualtion of how Gd must work. 2) Perhaps we should compare your "philisophical assumptions" with your own theology. -Gd gives a series of commands to Moses -Christians have these commands in their bible, and the one (Jesus) they follow also followed them.  -Christianity is not given commands. They have now moved beyond Gd's law, and without any guidance, they have the "option" to create their own laws, 99% of the time is compeltely out of "convenience". This not an evolved progresion, this is called "pie in the sky" theology based upon the speculation of man. Aquinian wrote: Your faith should not read like a how-to manual - through the love of God, you should know what is right. So too bad for Moses, and Noah, and Jesus huh? A crack head ont he street gets a free ride with Gd but not Moses. Now thats certainly rational! So according to you, a religous manual should not read at all, excapet for a few ambiguous ideas, we can just be free to do whatever the heck we want! Nice. Sign me up! Aquinian wrote:   Christ uses figurative language, but it's not rocket science trying to figure it out.  Actually, rocket science is a lot easier than using the texts that your church has based its foundations on. Your texts support such a wide range of views about Jesus and his very nature. Not like rockte science? You are correct. Rocket science is way easier. This is due to the lack of any solid substance concerning what Jesus actually said and believed. Your faith is defined by men who never actually new him.   Aquinian wrote: I have a difficult time comprehending how the brilliance of Christ, the apostles, and Paul regressed so much with the texts of Muhammad.   I have always had a difficult time figuring out how people were duped into following "pie in the sky" theology that has no bases in the Hebrew Scriptures. Regression: Moses taught a law, followed the law, and told people they were able to follow it. Paul said the law was not important. The churc said we are incapable of following the law. Moses used the mitzvah to walk close to Gd. Paul taught that we only need to feel Gd. All of the prophets brought men close to Gd's law. Paul took men away from it. Moses taught to worship Gd alone, with any notion of a triune Gd. Paul set the foundations for one of the most wicked innovations ever: A Gd with three aspects. Moses brought forth truth. Paul distorted and even lied about the Hebrew Scriptures. Aquinian wrote:   600 years after Christ and he still couldn't get past the idea of "eye for an eye."  Jesus does away with it in favor of a higher understanding of how we treat our neighbor.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Actually, Christians inserted portions such as the adulteress woman. It is an added addition. Christian were left with nearly no guidance from Jesus, so they simply interpolated their own ideas and forged them into their own books. So the ideas that Jesus abolished the laws are based upon a fabrication, and trying to read personal conjecture into ambiguous verses. The Ebionites, Christians who rejected Paul, and thought of him as a lunatic, still followed the law, completely. How much of the commands thats houdl be followed was uncertain to your own eraly founders, who debated this. It required so much debate because of the lack of supporting evidence from Jesus. Aquinian wrote:  You would think Muhammad would have attempted to take something from the beauty of Christ's message. The Prophet addressed the core messages from the time of Jesus and beyond. What you mean is that he did not address what the church thought. aquinian wrote: Even if Jesus did say "I am God," you still wouldn't believe.  Irrelevant. The charge is this: You claim Jesus is Gd. An extraodinary claim. So I look for extraordinary evidence from yoru text. And it doeas not give the evidence required for the claim. Whether or not I believe it or not, is not relevant. Aquinian wrote:  He says that if you have seen Him, then you have seen the father.  What else do you need?  This kind of denial only indicates that you do not wish to say what you really think: Jesus' words in John are really not his words.  Say that instead of making this claim that Jesus had to say what you want him to say. You , like your church fathers, are forcing a single interpretation. Keep in mind that your complaint of a religion that has a "how to book", also carries with it "explicit" statements that define the faith, and defined what Gd wants you to do. Your book is full of implicit statements, and 99% of your proof texts are based upon implicit statements. The reason the church relies so heaviy on "implicit" statements is the very nature of such statements. This is from a reputable on line dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va =explicit Explicit 1 a : fully revealed or expressed without vagueness, implication, or ambiguity : leaving no question as to meaning or intent <explicit instructions> b : open in the depiction of nudity or sexuality <explicit books and films> 2 : fully developed or formulated <an explicit plan> <an explicit notion of our objective> 3 : unambiguous in expression <was very explicit on how we are to behave> 4 of a mathematical function : defined by an expression containing only independent variables This is in contrast to "implicit". 1 a : capable of being understood from something else though unexpressed : IMPLIED <an implicit assumption> b : involved in the nature or essence of something though not revealed, expressed, or developed Your faith relies too heavily on implicit statments, and this alone should be unsettling to anyone searching for the truth of Gd. This goes to the heart of the complaint that my brothers and sisters are bringing up. Your beliefs do not rest on anything "explicit". "Explicitness" is at the heart of Islam and to a lesser degree in Judaism. In fact, visiting Christians in Mecca once debated with the Prophet (saw) and in the debate they tried to argue from implicit statements in the Quran. The Problem for the Christian delegation was that the implicit are definded by the many explicit. Aquinian wrote: Does God have to be what you want him to be?  Does he have to be one person in one God or can he be three persons in one God if it is his will? Thats a good question you should meditate on. Your high level of use and dependency on "implicit" statements should cause you to deeply think and ask this very question. Aquinian wrote: Simplicity is not always the answer (negate Occam's Razor) - the brilliance of Christian thought and theology indicates that clearly, as well as the numerous advances made by Christian civilization in the past 2000 years. So chaos and ambiguity is the answer? Your faith has been redefining itself for 2000 years, with no hope of end in sight, because your faith lacks any texts that have any real information to define your way of life and who Gd is. Christian civilization has not been proof of "brilliance" that stands out. For the first 1000 years, one could find nothing but ignorance, disease, illiteracy, corruption amongst the clergy, and a completely backward society. Christendom took over a 1000 years to start forming any real civilization, and then by the age of enlightenment, western thinkers began a series of arguments that deflated church theology setting the course for darwinism and athiesm. In effect, the church put all of its eggs in the aristotilean basket, and when CHristendom did achieve learning, it came back to bight them and discredit their theology.  I disagree completely with your characterization of the Christian faith, but no surprise there. I'd say your main claim, in all of that redundant text, is that Christianity is based on implicit claims from a Bible that was created by individuals who had no intent to accurately represent Christ's words.

No. My claim is that the Christian faith is too dependent upon implicit verses for "extraordinary" ideas. The NT was put together by men who had no real clue as to the historical Jesus, due to the fact that they had no real connection through any verifiable chain of narrators or document that would allow them to truly discern fact from fiction. The men who composed your NT simply used narratives, four amongst hundreds, that best represented their theological position, not necessarily the historical Jesus. To futher their positions, they fudged their MSS (this is a fact) so that Gd's word would look closer to their ideas, and they chose implicit text (they a lot to choose from) to further prove their claims.

Aquinian wrote:   This is clearly false.  We have the actual words of Christ and his direct disciples, and we know what he said - it was written down and passed on just like your Koran.

Actually you don't. You have four written copies, of copies, of copies of oral narratives, from amongst hundreds of other narratives, without even the slightest clue as to the author, narrators, or historical validity. You simply pass along your trust to "faith".

And even after 300 years from the birth of Jesus, your doctors were still hashing out basics like the "nature of Christ". Why after 300 years were their various sects that could not agree on something as basic as "who is Jesus"?

Because they were without any real facts and they knew it, and they had to find their conjecture hidden in the implicit verses of the hundreds of narratives circulating.

Aquinian wrote:    Muslims have some notions of Christ but have no idea why they believe what they believe about him.  They certainly do not rely on Christ's words in the Bible because his words go against the faith of Islam, as I have proven.

I would say that Islamic Theology goes against much of Christian creative interpolating with the use of "implicit" statements. In other words, saying that your bible says Jesus is Gd, and when one looks at the passage, it is in the NT, and it is an extremely vague and ambiguous passage that requires circular reasoning in order to render as such due to the fact that there is nothing explicit which can define the implicit verse. We have only Christian belief and faith to guide us on the proof verses and nothing else. Islamic theology simply makes claims about Jesus that not onle make sense, but are also consistant with all other men of Gd.

Aquinian wrote: Seeing as how the middle east has failed to enter into its own enlightenment period yet, I would vouch for the west's movement into higher thinking during the Rennaissance.

You are now trying to superimpose western history onto the rest of the world. Entering an age of enlightement would assume that there was an age of darkness, and that the doctrine was problematic.

In your history, the church, and the faith that it rested upon did not work socially, as the holy ghost was never their to write holy law on the hearts of men. It was the age when men took reason, that they used philosophy to destroy the doctrine of the church. This brought Christendom out of the dark ages. Islamic civilization has reached a low point, but due to its inital high points, one cannot claim tha the doctrine is the cause. Islam is in need of a "re-enlightenment" that occure nearly 1100 years ago.

Aquinian wrote:  You are claiming that the enlightenment undermined the theology of the church, and yet the Catholic Church is the second largest church in the world, next to the church of Muhammad.

Interesting. So the age of enlightenment undermined church theology (that is factual), but it is the second largest church! So what does that tell you?

Are you saying that because it is the second largest church, that it must be correct? Or that the age of enlightenment was wrong?

Aquinian wrote:  Christianity is still the largest religion in the world, with many of its newest adherents coming from strongholds of Islam such has Africa.

Judaism was the smallest religion in the world during the temple period, yet it was the correct faith accoridng to your bible. Since the pagan faiths were larger, in your rational, then they should have been the correct faith?

As far as the droves of Muslims becoming Christians and the growth of the church in Africa...well...this is not something I would brag about.

1) The claim is exagerrated.

2) The adherents are 99.9% of the time desperate people trying to escape poverty. Targeting adherents that are in a desperate situation in life is not something I would be very proud of. Use it if you like, but I would rather show you adherents who made a choice out of thinking, and not out of hunger.

Aquinian wrote:     To say that the enlightenment undermined the theology of Catholicism or Christianity at all is a complete fabrication - it clarified it.

 The age of enlightenment castrated the church! Thats why it has little relevance in the governmental processes of today, in which it exists in "secualr societies". The age of enlightnement not only undermined your theology, but it also removed it from power as anyone could see that the theology was problematic.

Aquinian wrote:   Muslims point to the simplicity of their faith and somehow believe that it makes it more correct.  This is, as I said, an interpretation of Ockham's razor gone wrong. Christ says that you shall know the tree by its fruit.  When the fruit of Islam brings so much suffering for so many people, including women who are abused and mistreated by a male elite, children who are indoctrinated into hatred of the Jews, teens who willingly blow themselves up to kill Jews, fundementalists who encourage violence and a return to the middle ages (simplicity for sure), torture and mutilation of those who oppose them, court trials for religious converts, and many many other clear indicators of suffering, one must only conclude that the tree is dying.

Interesting little list. This is also evidence of your ignorance about Islam. I will not go through each claim. I would happy to go point by point?

Now lets talk about "fruits".

1) Since you believe that Jesus is Gd, then we can know his fruits when he had his chosen people slaughter babies. Now that is a tasy fruit ay? Or no?

2) The Church force converted the people of Europe to Christianity at the edge of a sword. Good fruit?

3) The Church committed atrocities against the natives of the Americas.

4) The Church persecuted Jews, and threw them, along with Muslims, out of SPain, and stole their money. Thats a tasty fruit!

5) The church promoted ignorance and growth for over a 1000 years. How fruity!

6) It was Christian America that first introduced policies of "terrorism" to promote a policy of "containment of communism" at all costs. What is the name of that fruit? It seems the Christian west were excellent teachers to the modern day PLO and Hamas.

7) The Christian US armed regimes such as Sadaam Hussein and even helped with with WMD. They continue to put into power the state of Israel and turn a blind eye to the terrible treatment it emplys against Christian and Muslim arabs.

As usual for many Christians, you suffer from "plank in your eye" syndrom.

Aquinian wrote: I would prefer an "enlightenment" that advances and clarifies the views of humanity through science and reason rather than a fundementalist dogma that dominates its people rather than sets them free.

I would prefer a religion that provides solid answers and solutions such that I did not require an age of enlightenment. I would prefer a religion that inspired great innovations in science and math, and encouraged people to learn and read. I prefer a religion that has texts that provide me a with a solid enough foundation so that I would not have to traget the weakest and most desperate of society in order to find converts.

It seems I found a bargain!

Just noticing some of the "clarity" of the Quran:

2:<A name=29>29</A> <SPAN ="c">He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth. Then turned He to the heaven, and fashioned it as seven heavens.</SPAN> And He is knower of all things.

So God created earth before heaven?  That makes no sense.

2:<A name=61>61</A> And when ye said: O Moses! We are weary of one kind of food; so call upon thy Lord for us that He bring forth for us of that which the earth groweth - of its herbs and its cucumbers and its corn and its lentils and its onions. He said: Would ye exchange that which is higher for that which is lower ? Go down to settled country, thus ye shall get that which ye demand. <SPAN ="i">And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them and they were visited with wrath from Allah. That was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully. That was for their disobedience and transgression.</SPAN>

<SPAN ="i">What prophets were there before Moses?  Whoops, Muhammad.</SPAN>

<SPAN ="i">2:<A name=194>194</A> The forbidden month for the forbidden month, and forbidden things in retaliation. And <SPAN ="i">one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you.</SPAN> Observe your duty to Allah, and know that Allah is with those who ward off (evil).</SPAN>

<SPAN ="i">Attack those who attack you.  This is another message of peace from the Quran.</SPAN>

<SPAN ="i">4:<A name=89></A>89 <SPAN ="i">They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve</SPAN>, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So <SPAN ="i">choose not friends from them</SPAN> till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then <SPAN ="v">take them and kill them wherever ye find them</SPAN>, and <SPAN ="i">choose no friend nor helper from among them</SPAN>,</SPAN>

<SPAN ="i">4:<A name=91></A>91 Ye will find others who desire that they should have security from you, and security from their own folk. So often as they are returned to hostility they are plunged therein. <SPAN ="i">If they keep not aloof from you nor offer you peace</SPAN> nor hold their hands, <SPAN ="v">then take them and kill them wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.</SPAN></SPAN>

<SPAN ="i"><SPAN ="v">In both cases, the Quran encourages the potential murder of innocent people.</SPAN></SPAN>

<SPAN ="i"><SPAN ="v">Anyone who claims that Islam is peaceful toward the non-believer is a liar.</SPAN></SPAN>

<SPAN ="i"><SPAN ="v">***EDITED***</SPAN></SPAN>

Either the fundementalists of the Middle East are defending their lands, in which case, Muslims would support their actions; or the fundementalists are committing murder.

Are the Osama bin Ladens defending the holy lands from an invasion?� If so, their actions are supported by the Quran, are they not?