Eating "halal" meat?

[Pro_Domina]

The thing is that a document can now say that we should all go out and befriend a muslim but it would have no force if not properly ordered by someone with the authority to do so.

On the other hand, how many martyrs testify against them?
How many other Church authorities spoke against them?
Saints?

Bl. Urban II sent us out on a Crusade. That is authority. Not some random bishops saying their opinion, however venerable their opinions may be. Opinions are good. But not always authoritive.

 

[GraceDK]

(name removed by moderator);
I believe sam is endeavouring to say he agrees with you but your mad on for islam prevents you from seeing that i think. As even an ex-muslim is one of the ‘enemy’.

I am aware that Sam agrees with me. He agrees with me on alot of things. Since he has been a Muslim all his life but now knows that allah is not identical with the One true God I think we should listen to him.

**As usual a question about islam degenerates into how evil that faith is - which seems more motivated by paranoia about them been under attack by islam than by any theological doctrine. **

Paranoia is defined as being irrationally afraid of something that you imagine to be stocking you.
You say I am paranoid. I say I am reasonable and that my oppinion is based on serious studies and investigation as well as dialog with serious Muslims.
Actually Europe as well as many countries in the Middle East and Asia are under attack from Islam. I guess they are paranoid too in your optiq? My take is that many Americans wont see the reality until its standing in your own back yard.

There are muslim posters here who post bizarre nonsense about christianity and christians who post equally bizarre rants about islam.

Yet as I see it the most bizarre thing is when people, for the sake of a false sense of peace and unity, is willing to sell out on Truth.

The original question was an enquiry into a matter of fact issue. It has now become a matter of people allowing their own personal hates and prejudices to over-rule what the church actually teaches.

You are right. I hate Islam just like I hate any other kind of idolatry like Buddhism, New Age, satanism and atheism. But dont pity me in my “prejudice”… I am content and in good company. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

You’ve seen the church teaches that Islam worships the same god as christians that should be sufficient for you if you identify yourself as catholic otherwise you are setting yourself up as your own moral authority above and beyond the church.

If I was not firm in belief that I must follow God more than man I might be persuaded that I was wrong about this, but everything I have ever read in Scripture testifies to the cunning evil of false revelations and the spirits behind them.
Maybe you should write to the Pope and ask him to excommunicate me. However. I think his holiness is quite intensely aware of the fact that Islam is indeed problematic and the more you read into it, the clearer it gets…

 

[GraceDK]

(name removed by moderator) No Catholic is perfect in obeying every bit of the cathecism, for example on another thread in this section Pro Domina and I disagree on who can be called Children of God, as I tend to see all humans in that light while the absolute teaching of the church is that all people are creations of God first and can become his adopted children.

Well, ask the Bible about it. The Bible is pretty clear saying "Those who believe in Him (Jesus), were given the right to be called “children of the Most High”. Its does not get any more clear than that. More binding than the catechism I will always regard the Holy Bible.

** But placing Buddhism and Satanism on the same moral plateau as you have done there disturbs me.**

Well I understand that if you take it to the extreme. However, my point is merely this. That if the quran is a false revelation given by a false spirit then the person behind it is the devil. I know its not fashionable to talk so black and white… but I still wish more people had the guts to take the consequences of what we believe… which is that if one thing is absolute and true then the opposite cannot be said to be the same.

I** suppose the next time the Dalai Lama and Pope meet the latter should say, ‘Hang on mate sorry I’ve realise you are an evil being worshipping an evil faith we cannot possibly engage in dialogue any more’. **

You are not being fair now. I never said muslims or buddhists are evil. I said Islam is. I also believe that Dalai Lama is, probably unknowingly, serving a false religion and his serving this religion leads many people astray. I dont see the apostles dealing leniently with sorcerers at their time… verbally they made it clear what it was. We should do the same with the socalled lama… even and exactly because he is so popular. His doctine and that of Christ’s lead in two opposite directions… two different goals.

Atheism by it’s very nature cannot be idolatrous as it denies anything having any supernatural explanation whatsoever. You can’t just lump up all these beliefs together in on group indiscriminately.

My take on atheism is that its breaking the first commandment. This is done in many ways. idoaltry with gods is one way. Making oneself and the material world into gods is another… both are idolatry.

**By the way I am living in Europe, I come from Ireland originally and have lived in the UK for the better part of my adult life. Vastly simplified propaganda about the reality of events in Europe does not impress me. There are serious disagreements and tensions at time here but we are not in danger of been overrun by Muslim hordes anytime soon either despite some of the rubbish I see here telling us what is happening in Europe **

All I can say is… open your eyes. The Church in my country is in ruins. We have many converts to islam. We have a growing number of muslims… people dying often in “honour killings” children sent abroad to be mutilated, the Muslims here have many more children than the native population and its a demographic fact that they will become more than us in a matter of some decades. Then I might also add that absolutist secularism is extremely vibrant in Scandinavia and is strangling the Christian Church… So our circumstances might not be the same, yours and mine. However… we will see who was right in due time.
Do you know about the Balkan and how about Lebanon?.. there the Muslim populations have grown demographically over a few centuries… the unthinkable happend and the Christians can no longer live in these areas. Try to study the history of these areas. For some reason the Christians who flee from these areas say that the Scandinavian governments are naive when they let in so many Muslims…

I** have no intention of asking the pope to excommunicate you or anyon else here btw.**

Well, it would be an interesting case. I, for one, think the Pope needs to make a statement soon about this whole mess.

Peace.

 

[Badaliyyah]

[The angel Gabriel is said to have brought messages from the true God to Muhammed. However, we know through the lies in the quran that neither the real Gabriel nor the real triune God was behind this revelation. If He was he would be a god of confusion and self-contradiction. Why cant you see that you mock Christian and Jewish Scripture as well as God himself by saying that He inspired the Quran?
Have you even read it?..

Baal was an idol… but so is Vishnu, Buddha, the elephant god, Krishna, Zeus, Re, the norse gods and the god of islam.
See, if I come and claim to you that I am the Virgin Mary or that I highly esteem her and was sent from her, will you believe in me? I hope not. The Quran gives you a few things you can relate to - concepts like creator and names like Adam and Abraham - and then it claims to be the seal of all revelation and you just buy into that just because of its own claims ?

The source is darkness.

Are you next going to tell me that the Holy Spirit wrote the Bagavadgita too? It seems that everyone around me can understand the logic that the Quran and the Bible so contradict each other that the same author couldnt possible be behind both. I really cant see why you guys on this forum cant see it. Do you deny logic in order to, at any rate, defend a line in the catechism?
I do not worship the god of the quran who came to muhammed through a messenger. If you claim to worship this spirit then there is great need for concern.

…

I met an old Lutheran pastor who told me: “I agreed with all your Catholic stances, Grace, but I could not become Catholic for this one reason: your Church teaches that you worship the god of Islam”.
I understood him and I wait with anticopation for the day where the Church, as it must, clarifies the matter.

I am just going to point out once again that to say that Christians and Muslims (and Jews) all mean the same Allah when we say “Allah/Deus/Theos/God” is not a new idea that the Council Fathers made up during the 60s. This has been a pretty consistent theme from the time Christians first encountered Islam. In fact, for a long time Christians thought Islam was a form of heresy. Even when they figured out that it wasn’t (i.e., that Muhammad’s starting point was not Christianity) they did not consider them idolators. One finds the heresy claim throughout Eastern theologians (beginning with John of Damascus) who are the first to encounter Islam, and then gradually a move to deeper understanding. In the Latin Middle Ages, during which time intellectual exchange becomes very deep, the category of heretic is widely dropped and replaced with infidel: i.e., one who believes in God, but is not baptized, does not accept the divinity of Christ and does not accept the Trinity.

So you have three categories in use in the Middle Ages for instance: the Jews are perfidious (note the variation on “fide”), groups like the Albigensians (and a few hundred years later, Protestants) are heretics, and Muslims are infidels (again the variation on “fide”). All those groups worship the God of Abraham, along with Christians.

This remained the normative way in which Muslims were categorized for a very very long time. It meant that the scholastics could address and dialogue with Muslims very directly about Allah, because they shared a common conception with Christians of Allah. Note that the conversation with Judaism could supposedly be pushed further because there are overlapping, though not identical, understandings of revelation there. In practice Judaism and Islam had very similar objections to both the Incarnation and Trinity: it violated the absolute unity of God.

So, attempts to say that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same Allah is not only a rejection of Vatican2’s claim to that effect, it pretty much attacks Aquinas and any other scholastic you can think of. Vatican2 is just reinterpreting those old distinctions into new language.

salaam.
[/quote]

 

[Caesar517]

Yet as I see it the most bizarre thing is when people, for the sake of a false sense of peace and unity, is willing to sell out on Truth.

I think this is the real issue.

Pretending the differences aren’t there won’t make them go away.

I wish I could contribute more here, but I don’t know enough to make a decent argument.

 

[beeliner]

…the owners of Procter and Gamble are satanists.

LOL! Since when has this become a humor forum?

Seriously, you need to re-read, or perhaps read for the first time, the Ten Commandments. There was still one in there about bearing false witness the last time I looked.

 

[Contarini]

We certainly both can and must. god and God is not the same.

I agree. And that’s why we’ve found a typographical way of distinguishing them. I don’t mean that the same word can never be used equivocally. But when speaking of God, we are always speaking of our ideas/language about God. We can’t point out the window and say “by ‘God’ I mean that particular thing and not that other one.” “Allah” is the conventional term used by Arabic-speakers of various religious persuasions for a long time (before Muhammad) to refer to the Supreme Being, and by Abrahamic monotheists to refer to the Being who called Abraham out of Ur.

Let me try to explain my point about my grandmother and the Left Behind books. I was trying to say that even though some Christians believe things that are horribly wrong about God, I still say that they believe in the Christian God because they believe that God is the Holy Trinity and that the Second Person of the Trinity became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Similarly, even though Muslims believe many things that are wrong about God, and do not believe in the Trinity or Incarnation, they do believe that God is the God of Abraham and Moses and the Prophets.
We have three concentric circles here:

1. People who believe in the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. People who believe in the God historically worshiped by the ancient Hebrews.
3. People who believe in one Supreme Being.

We both agree that all members of the first category can be said to worship the same God. I would argue that all members of the second category certainly can be said to worship the same God, and I would strongly incline toward the view that all members of the third category do as well, though in a much vaguer and more problematic sense.

Now within each of these categories–whether you define “belief in the true God” in terms of Trinity, or of historic Abrahamic faith, or of a general philosophical monotheism–you can find people who believe things that are utterly repellent and abhorrent about God. The fact that many Muslims may believe things that are horribly wrong about God (and all Muslims reject certain truths about God) doesn’t put them out of the second category, any more than the fact that many Christians believe such things puts them out of the first.

---

You are right that there is only one true God… however, I must remind you of the deity Ba’al and the other gods that Israel fornicated with and worshipped…

No one ever claimed that Ba’al was the one eternal, almighty Creator. And of course Ba’al was not historically identified with YHWH. It would be trickier to ask whether the “El” of the Canaanites was in some sense the same being as the true God. I would say still probably not, but a case could be made. Ba’al, however, clearly wasn’t.

I disagree on that. You find a variety of creator-deities in the pantheon of many religions… both present and extinct.

The term “creator-deity” is often used loosely to mean the being who fashioned the world into the form we know. What is an example of a polytheistic deity who is a “creator” in the sense Jews, Christians, and Muslims mean by it? (I.e., a being who created the entire perceptible universe.) Name some and we can talk.

A foul spirit would most likely be cunning and use a bit of truth and some real good names and stories and then mix them with a bunch of lies… Thats how he works…

Yes, and his greatest victory is when we reject the truth because of the lies he’s mixed up with it.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I think this is the real issue.

Pretending the differences aren’t there won’t make them go away.

The problem is that generally it’s the “Muslims don’t worship the true God” crowd who are making political, non-truth-related arguments. I.e., they dislike Islam so much that they are horrified at the idea of admitting that Muslims worship the same God. For me, on the other hand, it has nothing to do with pleasing or displeasing Muslims. Of course given the choice I’d rather be generous and courteous to everyone. (Wouldn’t you?) But I take the position I do because I think it to be true. So your statement is completely irrelevant.

First you have to show that my position is wrong. It is rude to shortcut such a proof by idle speculation as to why I might believe what I believe, other than the obvious and straightforward explanation that I believe it because I think it true.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Well I understand that if you take it to the extreme.

An “extreme” is not really a meaningful category. The question is whether what you are saying is true.

That if the quran is a false revelation given by a false spirit then the person behind it is the devil.

But clearly not all of the Qur’an is false. And Satan cannot produce truth. Whether the being Muhammad encountered was a demon, or a hallucination, or (more controversially) some sort of non-human entity who was not entirely evil but wasn’t sent by God either (what Muslims would call a “djinn”–Christians generally don’t acknowledge the existence of such beings, but I see no compelling theological reason to be certain that they don’t exist), is really irrelevant. We have the Qur’an and we can judge how much of it is true and how much of it is false. What is true is from God, what is false isn’t.

I know its not fashionable to talk so black and white…

You keep using these meaningless categories like “extremes” and “black and white.” What matters is truth and falsehood. That could also be called “talking black and white.”

but I still wish more people had the guts to take the consequences of what we believe… which is that if one thing is absolute and true then the opposite cannot be said to be the same.

But Islam is not the opposite of Christianity. The Qur’an is not the opposite of the Bible. There are many points of similarity.

You need to have the guts to recognize this, however little it may conform to your inclinations.

Edwin

 

[GraceDK]

Contarini;An “extreme” is not really a meaningful category. The question is whether what you are saying is true.

Well, the word “estreme” exists to describe some point of view that goes down a track and becomes lost in it and then just continues until it makes no sense anymore…

But clearly not all of the Qur’an is false. And Satan cannot produce truth.

Really? satan cannot produce truth? well… you are right that he is not the author of it but he sure can mix truth with lies so that the soul who listens to him gets confused and eventually lost… the adversary is cunning. If he only said something that everyone could hear was nonsense then he would be out of job in no time,

**Whether the being Muhammad encountered was a demon, or a hallucination, or (more controversially) some sort of non-human entity who was not entirely evil but wasn’t sent by God either (what Muslims would call a “djinn”–Christians generally don’t acknowledge the existence of such beings, but I see no compelling theological reason to be certain that they don’t exist), is really irrelevant. **

I find it very, very relevant. The Bible tells us to discern the spirits… You may choose to make some grand theological project out of it and use alot of concepts but really, for me it gets down to that one question. Who came to Muhammed?
If you say: his own hallucination, then its a given that a big part of the world is blinded by the hallucination of a phedofile murderer. if you say: an evil spirit, then you are bound to say that you do not worship him as a Christian because you dont worship a lying spirit. If you say its both good and bad spirits then thats nonsense … So what I really think you are saying is that you hold to the religious scientist approach: that muhammed imagined some things based on knowlege he already had both from the nomadic arabian culture and its ideas and then also from the heretic Christians he had met and the religion of the Jews in his area… that is: a purely psychological explanation.

We have the Qur’an and we can judge how much of it is true and how much of it is false. What is true is from God, what is false isn’t.

Thats where I totally disagree. If its from God then there is no a lie in there…
Please remember what Islam states: that the Quran is the direct unaltered uncreated word of god and that every other revelation until then has been messed up.
What you have to deal with is purely and simply the voice behind the quran. Is it from God or is it from His adversary?
You might think I think too simply… but I am quite alright with that.

You keep using these meaningless categories like “extremes” and “black and white.” What matters is truth and falsehood. That could also be called “talking black and white.”

Yes… I ask you to be clear… thats all.

**But Islam is not the opposite of Christianity. The Qur’an is not the opposite of the Bible. There are many points of similarity. **

Points of similarity however vague are only an indication of our antroplogical outlook… from there comes ideas that are shared by all… However, this has little to do with the truth-question. Again: who dictated the Quran? Thats the question.

You need to have the guts to recognize this, however little it may conform to your inclinations.

With all due respect sir I used to say what you say and repeat the mantra that we all worship the same God. Now wheras I can see we all want to worship the true God, not all do so. Our criteria for discerning the spirits is the revelation that they each bring.
I have come to my own conclusion based on my Scripture reading and my academic studies as well as my conversation with ‘apostatised muslims’ as well as ardent muslims.
My aversion against Islam, as well as all sins, have grown rapidly since I met Christ and since I started my serious investigation.
It seems to me that the one with inclinations is you… or maybe you just want to defend something at all costs.
I have nothing to loose by finding the answer, but you might have.

Peace.

 

[Caesar517]

The problem is that generally it’s the “Muslims don’t worship the true God” crowd who are making political, non-truth-related arguments. I.e., they dislike Islam so much that they are horrified at the idea of admitting that Muslims worship the same God.

I could say something similar about those who bend over backwards to accomodate Islam, regardless of it’s teaching.

For me, on the other hand, it has nothing to do with pleasing or displeasing Muslims. Of course given the choice I’d rather be generous and courteous to everyone. (Wouldn’t you?) But I take the position I do because I think it to be true. So your statement is completely irrelevant.

Indeed.

First you have to show that my position is wrong. It is rude to shortcut such a proof by idle speculation as to why I might believe what I believe, other than the obvious and straightforward explanation that I believe it because I think it true.

Rude? My post was not directed at you, nor at anyone in particular. Rather, I was commenting on a mentality that I have witnessed.

I think I explained why I did not include such a proof here:

I wish I could contribute more here, but I don’t know enough to make a decent argument.

It may benefit you to read the entire post, for future reference.
Here I can only offer a humble semi-informed opinion based more on logic than fact.

 

[Contarini]

Looking into the major contradictions between the two religions, someone has really to think how it is possible that both religions are from the same God?,

You misunderstand. No one here is claiming that the basic claims of Islam (as they contradict Christianity) are from God. What some of us are arguing is simply that all truth is from God; Islam contains much truth, including the basic assertion of one God who created the universe, revealed Himself to the prophets, etc.; therefore this truth is from God and the God Muslims worship (with many errors) is the God whom Christians worship by means of a purer and truer revelation.

I think we need to read the history of the Arabs & Islam in more depth, and let us start by Muhammed’s father, the name of Muhammad’s father was “Abd-Allah”, and his grandfather name was “Abd-Almuttalib”, which mean “slave of Allah” & “slave of Almuttalib” respectively, both men were before Muhammed & Islam, and both were living near the 360 idols at Kaaba in Mecca, that means the name “Allah” was there BEFORE Islam,

Of course it was. No one disputes this. Why do you think this is significant?

so if Almuttalib was one of the 360 idols

Muhammad’s grandfather was an idol? This makes no sense.

I think some of our fellow Christian Arabs got deceived in the early days of Islam

Why on earth would you think that you understand the connotations of the word better than they did? For that matter, there are good reasons to think that Christians and Jews used this word before Muhammad ever came along.

I applaud you for your interest in Christianity. You might show a little more humility toward the Arab Christians who have preserved the true Faith for hundreds of years in the face of oppression and persecution by your ancestors. If you are interested in converting to Christianity, why not learn from Arabic-speaking Christians instead of setting yourself up as their judge?

I urge you to contact an Antiochian Orthodox or Melkite Catholic church. These are the Christian traditions that have roots in your cultural heritage. (Correct me, Eastern Catholics and Orthodox, if I’m wrong there!) If you want to learn about Christianity, one of these would be the most logical place to start. (I am right that you are an Arab, correct?)

I think if someone needs to know more about that subject, he/she only needs to google “moon god”

Why do you find these arguments convincing? No serious scholar takes this position, and if you actually read the websites (unless you’ve seen something I haven’t) you find that they have not one shred of evidence that “Allah” was ever specifically the name of the moon god. Rather, they claim that at least one group of ancient Arabs who worshiped the moon god sometimes referred to this god as “the God,” or “el-ilah,” which is arguably related etymologically to “Allah.” In other words, “Allah” means “the supreme God” and those who thought the moon god was supreme naturally used some form of “Allah” to refer to him. That does not mean that “Allah” ever had the specific meaning of “the moon god.” This is simply an invention of fundamentalist bigots.

In my experience, Muslims have a tendency (not that this applies to all) toward a very simplistic and rather ferocious approach to the faith. I trust that as you grow in your new-found faith in Christ (or at least interest in the faith of Christ), you will learn a rather different approach to religion rather than simply carrying over your habits as a Muslim and applying them to Christianity. Please forgive me if this is patronizing.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[RachelsAlumni]

Grace

yes. let’s please do stick to the point in question. Might I also suggest sticking to what’s actually written rather than reading into things that I never said.

I mentioned the Talmud as a comparison to the Koran in the way it debases Christ. I never claimed that either of them are divinely inspired and can’t for the life of me see how you could possibly thought I have. You, on the other hand seem to think “the torah with the law and prophets is undefiled”. When, in fact, the Talmud (the later written oral tradition of the Torah) has parts included in the Mishna or Gemara that clearly debase Christ.

It just seems inconsistent and very odd to me that you would think that the Muslims do not worship the God of Abraham and Moses, in spite of their claims otherwise, because of a later authored book that debases Christ the same way when the Jews have done the same in the Talmud. I would think if your views were consistent then you would also believe the Jews do not believe in the God of Abraham and Moses.

Perhaps another example, “The Book of Mormon”. Do you think that because Mormon’s give the book of Mormon such high honor negates their belief in the one, true, God? or could it be that their belief and honor of the Book of Mormon is misplaced and not consistent with the full Revelation of God?

Why cant you see that you mock Christian and Jewish Scripture as well as God himself by saying that He inspired the Quran?..The Quran gives you a few things you can relate to - concepts like creator and names like Adam and Abraham - and then it claims to be the seal of all revelation and you just buy into that just because of its own claims ?

Well since I never have claimed that God inspired the Quran I guess this mockery is all in your mind.

Are you next going to tell me that the Holy Spirit wrote the Bagavadgita too? It seems that everyone around me can understand the logic that the Quran and the Bible so contradict each other that the same author couldnt possible be behind both. I really cant see why you guys on this forum cant see it. Do you deny logic in order to, at any rate, defend a line in the catechism?

Maybe it’s because we’re not saying any of these things you falsely accuse us of saying. It’s obvious you don’t really read. You just carry on these imaginary conversations with yourself. It kind of makes it pointless to try to interrupt your conversation with yourself with facts.

 

[Pro_Domina]

LOL! Since when has this become a humor forum?

Seriously, you need to re-read, or perhaps read for the first time, the Ten Commandments. There was still one in there about bearing false witness the last time I looked.

Maybe you should learn what the 5th one is all about.
It is not only about putting a knife on a fool.

I think I know what the Ten Commandments entail.

In fact I could probably teach most a lesson or two on them.

Proctor and Gamble was famed for that, although the courts said otherwise.

 

[Caesar517]

Proctor and Gamble was famed for that, although the courts said otherwise.

A cursory google search suggests that this is a silly rumor that originated in 1980 which few people actually believed. This is off-topic, and so are the insults. :tsktsk:

 

[Pro_Domina]

Anyhow, satanism is more common than we think it to be.
Sorry if you felt insulted.

 

[Contarini]

Well, the word “estreme” exists to describe some point of view that goes down a track and becomes lost in it and then just continues until it makes no sense anymore…

Fine. But why not keep things simple and just say “this is false”? You create vagueness by saying "well this is true but not if it is taken to an extreme. . . "

**

Really? satan cannot produce truth? well… you are right that he is not the author of it**

Exactly.

but he sure can mix truth with lies

Rather, he mixes lies with truth. The truth comes from God. Period.

so that the soul who listens to him gets confused and eventually lost.

I would agree. For instance, I would say that the specious logic “Muslims believe false things about God, therefore they worship a different God” comes from Satan!

**

I find it very, very relevant. The Bible tells us to discern the spirits.**

And I do this by distinguishing truth from falsehood. That is, again, the only thing that matters.

You may choose to make some grand theological project out of it and use alot of concepts

This is specious rhetoric on your part designed to distract from the real question, which is once again: what is true? If my arguments are true, it does not matter whether they are “grand” or use “a lot of concepts.” If they are not true, then refute them!

but really, for me it gets down to that one question. Who came to Muhammed?

I have given my reasons for thinking this unimportant. You have dismissed but have not refuted them.

If you say: his own hallucination, then its a given that a big part of the world is blinded by the hallucination of a phedofile murderer.

Is it being “blinded” to turn from the worship of many gods to the worship of One? Is it being “blinded” to give women property rights instead of making them property? Is it being “blinded” to impose limits on warfare so that women and noncombatants are not slaughtered? Is it being “blinded” to pray to the one God, the Creator, and strive to do justice and exercise compassion?

If this is being blinded, bring on the blindness!

These truths were not Muhammad’s hallucination. These truths were from God, largely coming to Muhammad from Judaism and Christianity.

if you say: an evil spirit, then you are bound to say that you do not worship him as a Christian because you dont worship a lying spirit.

Muslims do not worship the being who came to Muhammad either. They worship the one God, the Creator, who revealed Himself to Abraham. They believe that the being who came to Muhammad was a messenger of that God. You and I disagree.

If you say its both good and bad spirits then thats nonsense

If you are talking about my suggestion that the being may have been what Muslims call a “djinn,” then calling it nonsense is irrelevant. You need to show that this is an impossibility.

So what I really think you are saying is that you hold to the religious scientist approach: that muhammed imagined some things based on knowlege he already had both from the nomadic arabian culture and its ideas and then also from the heretic Christians he had met and the religion of the Jews in his area… that is: a purely psychological explanation.

If you think that I think something other than I have stated above, then you are insulting me and acting foolishly. I say what I think. In this case I have said what I think: I think that there are three different possible explanations that do not involve Muhammad’s revelations coming directly and purely from God. You may choose to assume, in direct contradiction of what I’ve said, that I really believe one of these explanations to be true. If you choose to believe false things, you hurt yourself more than you hurt me. I honestly don’t know and don’t much care which of these explanations is true. The only real reason to care is for the sake of Muhammad’s own soul, since hanging out with demons is very bad for you. May God have mercy on him.

Thats where I totally disagree. If its from God then there is no a lie in there…

If it is divine revelation, then sure. But neither of us thinks this. Why do you bring this up as a possibility?

You might think I think too simply… but I am quite alright with that.

I think you are simple in the wrong ways and not simple enough in the right ones. I don’t think being simple is good or bad. What is good is to believe the truth and reject falsehood. If that means being simple, so be it. If it means being complicated, so be it. Why are you so fixated on things that don’t matter?

Points of similarity however vague are only an indication of our antroplogical outlook… from there comes ideas that are shared by all… However, this has little to do with the truth-question.

Of course it does. Don’t you think Christianity is true? If Christianity is true, then Islam is also true insofar as it agrees with Christianity.

The only thing that matters is truth. Hold on to that, and don’t base your views on things you can’t possibly know (such as the nature of the being Muhammad encountered in that cave).

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Perhaps another example, “The Book of Mormon”. Do you think that because Mormon’s give the book of Mormon such high honor negates their belief in the one, true, God?

I think one can make a much better case that Mormons don’t worship the true God than that Muslims don’t. Mormons are not monotheists in the traditional sense. I would not say unambiguously that they don’t worship the same God we do, but their ideas about God are so completely divorced from classical monotheism that one has to put all kinds of asterisks over against the claim that they do worship our God.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Anyhow, satanism is more common than we think it to be.

More common than you think it to be? How can you think that something is more common than you think it is? That’s logically contradictory.

Do you mean that it’s more common than other people think it to be? Which other people? How common do they think it is? How do you know how common they think it is? For that matter, how do you know how common it is?

I think that true Satanism is extremely rare and that most ex-Satanist stories are bogus. But I could be wrong.

Edwin

 

[beeliner]

Proctor and Gamble was famed for that, although the courts said otherwise.

What hogwash! ‘Famed’ indeed.

For those who don’t know, the story was made up by employees of the Mormon-run Amway Corporation, which sold household products that competed with P&G.

P&G sued, and Amway had to pay P&G over 19 million dollars.

The story was a complete falsehood.

So why are you repeating it here?

Would you do so if this were not an anonymous forum?

I suggest to the moderators here that, on your account, CAF might be held liable just as Amway was.

Would you care to withdraw the allegation? If not, what is your evidence? Amway certainly didn’t have any.