A Christian Challenge for all you Christian Apologetics!

[PadraigPearce]

Here’s a challenge. Could you explain this part of the “infallible” Quran?

5:116 And behold! God will say: “O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of God’?” He will say: "Glory to Thee! never could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, thou wouldst indeed have known it. Thou knowest what is in my heart, I know not what is in Thine. For Thou knowest in full all that is hidden.

 

[AndrewA]

for the record the trinity IS one God.

 

[JRKH]

for the record the trinity IS one God.

Peace
James

 

[VetA]

This thread ha already been done…

 

[Karmartia]

I thought Trinity was revealed at Christ’s baptism in the Jordan. Christ rises from the waters, the Spirit descends upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaks from the heavens: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. This is one of Christ’s missions, to reveal the true nature of God. He has done so beautifully and poetically. Before Christ we could only guess at God. Now we have seen his face.

 

[Apollos]

First of all, lobbing tangled messes like this into our midst and expecting us to sort it all out is a sign that you are not at all interested in listening to us. You think we are starving dogs to be thrown a pile of garbage so that you can laugh at us as we fight over a flap of rotten chicken skin?

Here we go.

** Q1. Prove the gospels are eyewitness accounts WITHOUT DOUBT. Why else would you be inviting people to Christianity?**

A1. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment” (John 12:3). Falsified testimony never includes reports of odors.

** Q2. Why is Paul allowed to have such a huge role in deciding and making the sacred scripture when he didn’t even see Jesus, and basically just had a dream?**

A2. Mohammed never saw Jesus either but Mohammed single-handedly created a new religion from scratch. What Paul did was far more modest.

** Q3. You say the first Christians worshipped Jesus. Then what about the Ebionites? They didn’t worship Jesus! They worshiped God.**

A3. Never met an Ebionite, so I can’t say.

** Q4. Why didn’t God reveal himself as a Trinity in the Old Testament? Was he being deceptive for 1000s of years?**

A4. God waited 600 years to tell the world through Mohammed that Christians got it all wrong. Now who is being deceptive?

** Q5. The nature of God is supposed to be unchanging. Yet according to Christianity, the nature of God BEFORE 0 A.D was 100% non-flesh, whereas AFTER 0 A.D it was 2/3 non-flesh and 1/3 flesh (Jesus). What’s up with that?**

A5. There was no year 0 A.D. If you are that uninformed, then you won’t understand this answer anyway. But Jesus’ human nature is human, not divine. And the ratio is not 2/3 to 1/3, but 5/6 to 1/6.

** Q6. The concept of Trinity is simply illogical. Calling it complex is not doing it justice. Saying 1+1+1=1 is not complexity, it’s just a failing to grasp basic math. How can you continue to stand by something so irrational and illogical?**

A6. You just proved that you don’t understand our calendar AND you don’t understand elementary math. So what is illogical to you is merely your own ignorance.

** Q7. How can Jesus be both man and divine? The very nature of divine is to be unlimited, whereas the very nature of man means that he IS limited. It’s synonymous to saying that someone is both alive and dead, or perfectly good and perfectly evil. It’s impossible. Man and divine are polar opposites.**

A7. Your questions are turning into statements, which means that you are no longer interested in answers. And after displaying ignorance of our calendar and of basic math, you now show your ignorance of English grammar. Jesus can be both human and divine because the human and divine natures are united in him, not mixed. There is no exact analogy in the natural world, and Jesus is the sole example of such a union, so I can’t explain it further.

[From now on, I will condense your increasingly verbose, rambling statement-questions.]

** Q8. Why would God send anyone to hell?**

A8. Because some people want to go to hell.

** Q8 cont. Why doesn’t God give more evidence of the truth of Christianity?**

A8 cont. Because he knew Christians would be smart enough not to believe Mohammed.

** Q9. Christians have done bad things.**

A9. Muslims have done bad things.

** Q10. Why did Jesus say “Why have you forsaken me” if that was part of the plan? And how can God forsake God?**

A10. God forsook God so that no human could object that Jesus failed to fully experience the human condition.

** Q11. Christian art is unbiblical.**

A11. No Christian with a brain worships images.

** Q12. Which Christian denomination is the true one?**

A12. The Catholic one.

** Q13. Where in the New Testament is polygamy prohibited or a minimum age set for marriage?**

A13. Nowhere.

** Q14. Christianity oppresses women.**

A14. Islam oppresses women.

** Q15. Why did God permit Islam?**

A15. For the same reason he permitted The Fall.

** Q16. How is a mosque at Ground Zero unconstitutional?**

A16. It isn’t.

** Q17. Why are you silencing us?**

A17. Because your screeching is tiresome.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I’ll give a wack at it:

Here we go.

** Q1. Prove the gospels are eyewitness accounts WITHOUT DOUBT. Why else would you be inviting people to Christianity?**

A1. Silly question. It’s impossible to prove anything “without doubt”. The best we can do is eliminate reasonable doubt.

** Q2. Why is Paul allowed to have such a huge role in deciding and making the sacred scripture when he didn’t even see Jesus, and basically just had a dream?**

A2. Because God knew that Paul would become arguably the greatest Christian missionary and wanted to use his great intellect despite the fact that he didn’t see Jesus. So he sent him a vision. Silly question.

** Q3. You say the first Christians worshipped Jesus. Then what about the Ebionites? They didn’t worship Jesus! They worshiped God.**

A3. Then they weren’t Christians. They just called themselves Christians.

** Q4. Why didn’t God reveal himself as a Trinity in the Old Testament? Was he being deceptive for 1000s of years?**

A4. There was no point. His plan was being revealed to us slowly. Why confuse us?

** Q5. The nature of God is supposed to be unchanging. Yet according to Christianity, the nature of God BEFORE 0 A.D was 100% non-flesh, whereas AFTER 0 A.D it was 2/3 non-flesh and 1/3 flesh (Jesus). What’s up with that?**

A5. Stupid question. The concept of the nature of God is not physical.

** Q6. The concept of Trinity is simply illogical. Calling it complex is not doing it justice. Saying 1+1+1=1 is not complexity, it’s just a failing to grasp basic math. How can you continue to stand by something so irrational and illogical?**

A6. Divine laws and Earthly laws are not the same.

** Q7. How can Jesus be both man and divine? The very nature of divine is to be unlimited, whereas the very nature of man means that he IS limited. It’s synonymous to saying that someone is both alive and dead, or perfectly good and perfectly evil. It’s impossible. Man and divine are polar opposites.**

A7. He’s wrong, since men were made in the image of the divine. But beyond that, God limited himself so he could take on the human experience.

[Condenses Questions]

** Q8. Why would God send anyone to hell?**

A8. Some people reject God. Being without God is Hell. God doesn’t send them there.

** Q8 cont. Why doesn’t God give more evidence of the truth of Christianity?**

A8 cont. There’s a lot of proof.

** Q9. Christians have done bad things.**

A9. Muslims have done bad things too. That proves nothing at all.

** Q10. Why did Jesus say “Why have you forsaken me” if that was part of the plan? And how can God forsake God?**

A10. He was quoting one of the psalms.

** Q11. Christian art is unbiblical.**

A11. No.

** Q12. Which Christian denomination is the true one?**

A12.
Catholicism.

** Q13. Where in the New Testament is polygamy prohibited or a minimum age set for marriage?**

A13. Nowhere directly.

** Q14. Christianity oppresses women.**

A14. No.

** Q15. Why did God permit Islam?**

A15. As somebody else pointed out, the same reason he permitted the Fall. It will lead to a greater good. Perhaps just because it’s a step toward worshipping the Abrahamic God, if not the Christian God. Baby steps, people.

** Q16. How is a mosque at Ground Zero unconstitutional?**

A16. It’s not.

** Q17. Why are you silencing us?**

A17. We’re not. I responded to these stupid questions, did I not?

 

[JohnDamian]

** Q13. Where in the New Testament is polygamy prohibited or a minimum age set for marriage?**

A13. Nowhere.

Ephesians 5: 30-33 Because we are members of him, body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular love for his wife as himself: And let the wife fear her husband.

It is clear from this that one wife is reccomended, and that she be of age for them to consumate the marraige.

 

[Black_Knight]

Explain why God kept the fact that he was a Trinity a secret till the advent of Jesus. Show me where else, aside from mythology, where God was represented as Triune God before 0 A.D. Hit me up.

challenger2

Actually that is completely wrong because in Deuteronomy 6:4 (as well as the passage in Genesis 3 referred to above) God does reveal Himself as a plurality and thus opening the way for the Trinity implicit in New Testament.

Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” and among the Jews it is called Sh’ma Yisrael.

In the Hebrew the word for one is the same word as that used in Genesis 2:24 where it speaks of marriage, saying, “Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.”

Taken in the context of God’s continuing revelation of Himself, including the prophecies of the coming of His Son, the Messiah, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a continuing theme.

Next…

 

[Desertsailor]

I see no reason to respond to any of this drivel. Even after a thousand pages of evidence a non-believer is still going to be a non-believer. Remember what Abraham told the rich man in hell. Non-believers won’t believe even if the dead rise and tell them personally.

 

[JohnDamian]

I see no reason to respond to any of this drivel. Even after a thousand pages of evidence a non-believer is still going to be a non-believer. Remember what Abraham told the rich man in hell. Non-believers won’t believe even if the dead rise and tell them personally.

Poppycock. I didn’t use to believe.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Poppycock. I didn’t use to believe.

Cough Saint Paul Cough

 

[JohnDamian]

Cough Saint Paul Cough

I got off the hook easy, no blinding (God likes me more!)



But that was a particularily obtuse statement by Desertsailor, as though no one had ever been converted. If he goes about evangalising like that, no wonder he get’s no converts.

 

[vz71]

Explain why God kept the fact that he was a Trinity a secret till the advent of Jesus.

OK, time for my 2 cents…

God did not keep it a secret.

Throughout the old testament there are references to Jesus…and by extension, the trinity.

We simply could not understand what was actually being told us until Jesus came along.

 

[Apollos]

Ephesians 5: 30-33 Because we are members of him, body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular love for his wife as himself: And let the wife fear her husband.

It is clear from this that one wife is reccomended, and that she be of age for them to consumate the marraige.

JohnDamian,

Strictly speaking this text does not necessarily exclude polygamy, and as you yourself implicitly admit, monogamy is here presented as a recommendation, not as a command. Furthermore, its context is other than polygamy, so to use this verse against polygamy is to read something into it. Additionally, I deny that this passage sets a minimum age.

We Catholics however have certainty through magisterial teaching that it is impossible to be in two sacramental marriages simultaneously, and we also know from reason that minors cannot make certain kinds of contracts.

Apollos

 

[rvilbig]

Question 9. Christians have done bad things.

Christ actually appeared to Saint Berthold during the Crusades and denounced the ways of the crusaders. Saint Berthold settled on Mount Carmel and founded the Carmelite Order to live a life of peace. As I recall, many of the Carmelites were martyred there during the next century.

During the Spanish inquisition, Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull condemning the actions of the secular authorities:

“[M]any true and faithful Christians, because of the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people—and still less appropriate—without tests of any kind, have been locked up in secular prisons, tortured and condemned like relapsed heretics, deprived of their goods and properties, and given over to the secular arm to be executed, at great danger to their souls, giving a pernicious example and causing scandal to many.” (link)

Prior to World War II, Venerable Pius XII airdropped 80,000 copies of his encylical Summi Pontificatus on Germany, condemning the actions of German against noncombatants:

“The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.” (link)

In the 20th century, Blessed Pope John XXIII wrote an encyclical Pacem in Terris in which he condemned the arms race:

"[T]rue and lasting peace among nations cannot consist in the possession of an equal supply of armaments but only in mutual trust. And We are confident that this can be achieved, for it is a thing which not only is dictated by common sense, but is in itself most desirable and most fruitful of good. (link)

The Church alone will lead us to peace. Will you follow?

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com

 

[Betterave]

First of all, lobbing tangled messes like this into our midst and expecting us to sort it all out is a sign that you are not at all interested in listening to us. You think we are starving dogs to be thrown a pile of garbage so that you can laugh at us as we fight over a flap of rotten chicken skin?

Here we go.

** Q1. Prove the gospels are eyewitness accounts WITHOUT DOUBT. Why else would you be inviting people to Christianity?**

A1. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment” (John 12:3). Falsified testimony never includes reports of odors.

** Q2. Why is Paul allowed to have such a huge role in deciding and making the sacred scripture when he didn’t even see Jesus, and basically just had a dream?**

A2. Mohammed never saw Jesus either but Mohammed single-handedly created a new religion from scratch. What Paul did was far more modest.

** Q3. You say the first Christians worshipped Jesus. Then what about the Ebionites? They didn’t worship Jesus! They worshiped God.**

A3. Never met an Ebionite, so I can’t say.

** Q4. Why didn’t God reveal himself as a Trinity in the Old Testament? Was he being deceptive for 1000s of years?**

A4. God waited 600 years to tell the world through Mohammed that Christians got it all wrong. Now who is being deceptive?

** Q5. The nature of God is supposed to be unchanging. Yet according to Christianity, the nature of God BEFORE 0 A.D was 100% non-flesh, whereas AFTER 0 A.D it was 2/3 non-flesh and 1/3 flesh (Jesus). What’s up with that?**

A5. There was no year 0 A.D. If you are that uninformed, then you won’t understand this answer anyway. But Jesus’ human nature is human, not divine. And the ratio is not 2/3 to 1/3, but 5/6 to 1/6.

** Q6. The concept of Trinity is simply illogical. Calling it complex is not doing it justice. Saying 1+1+1=1 is not complexity, it’s just a failing to grasp basic math. How can you continue to stand by something so irrational and illogical?**

A6. You just proved that you don’t understand our calendar AND you don’t understand elementary math. So what is illogical to you is merely your own ignorance.

** Q7. How can Jesus be both man and divine? The very nature of divine is to be unlimited, whereas the very nature of man means that he IS limited. It’s synonymous to saying that someone is both alive and dead, or perfectly good and perfectly evil. It’s impossible. Man and divine are polar opposites.**

A7. Your questions are turning into statements, which means that you are no longer interested in answers. And after displaying ignorance of our calendar and of basic math, you now show your ignorance of English grammar. Jesus can be both human and divine because the human and divine natures are united in him, not mixed. There is no exact analogy in the natural world, and Jesus is the sole example of such a union, so I can’t explain it further.

[From now on, I will condense your increasingly verbose, rambling statement-questions.]

** Q8. Why would God send anyone to hell?**

A8. Because some people want to go to hell.

** Q8 cont. Why doesn’t God give more evidence of the truth of Christianity?**

A8 cont. Because he knew Christians would be smart enough not to believe Mohammed.

** Q9. Christians have done bad things.**

A9. Muslims have done bad things.

** Q10. Why did Jesus say “Why have you forsaken me” if that was part of the plan? And how can God forsake God?**

A10. God forsook God so that no human could object that Jesus failed to fully experience the human condition.

** Q11. Christian art is unbiblical.**

A11. No Christian with a brain worships images.

** Q12. Which Christian denomination is the true one?**

A12. The Catholic one.

** Q13. Where in the New Testament is polygamy prohibited or a minimum age set for marriage?**

A13. Nowhere.

** Q14. Christianity oppresses women.**

A14. Islam oppresses women.

** Q15. Why did God permit Islam?**

A15. For the same reason he permitted The Fall.

** Q16. How is a mosque at Ground Zero unconstitutional?**

A16. It isn’t.

** Q17. Why are you silencing us?**

A17. Because your screeching is tiresome.

lol! that was easy, sweet post!

 

[Betterave]

Explain why God kept the fact that he was a Trinity a secret till the advent of Jesus. Show me where else, aside from mythology, where God was represented as Triune God before 0 A.D. Hit me up.

challenger2

Jesus seemed to think Psalm 110 was a pretty good indicator that something was missing in the ‘Islamic’ view of God.

 

[MrZetterlund]

Wow. These are actually very easy for me now. I could answer these in full depth. I’ll get to work.

 

[Ignatius]

These are good questions. I can’t find answers to them anywhere.

Post them in print here and we’ll take a shot.