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A_Lion_Of_Islam
Guest
Out of the 1000 religions that exist that you are aware of, common sense will tell you (if you learn them enough) that completely submitting to God is the true religion… Follow that which asks you to do that
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AJTheMan
Guest
Fair enough.
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Reuben_J
Guest
The basic belief of Christianity is roughly summarized here in the Apostle Creed. Before you delve into any other things I would suggest you go through this first with our Christian posters here. For the sake of simplicity it is numbered and each number is a subject by itself. I suggest, if you are really a beginner into Christianity that you don’t go into something deeper like the Trinity before understanding the basic first.
Christianity is an apostolic religion, that is, its teachings and belief are derived from the apostles who were Jesus’ disciples and so witnesses to his life and teachings.
Again, there are many denominations in Christianity, but well, as you are in a Catholic forum, and you may for the most part get explanation from Catholic perspective.
The Apostle Creed
- I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
- I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
- He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
- He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
- He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
- He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
- He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
- I believe in the Holy Spirit,
- the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
- the forgiveness of sins,
- the resurrection of the body,
- and life everlasting.
Amen.
God bless.
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SteveVH
Guest
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think one of the differences between Christianity and Islam is that we consider God as a loving Father, not a distant Master. Our relationship to Him is familial, we are His adopted children, not slaves. We believe that God, the Father’s eternal Son, is our Redeemer who opened the gates of heaven by offering Himself for the sins of man. We believe that God, the Holy Spirit is, in essence, the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father, so real that He constitutes the third person of the Holy Trinity. One of the best analogies I can think of is the substance of water. It can be in the form of liquid, solid (ice) and gas (steam), three completely different charactaristics, yet it remains one substance. God’s fatherhood does not depend upon His relationship with human beings; He is eternally a Father to the Son and eternally a Son to the Father. He lives in us through His Spirit. As scripture tells us, God is Love. In order to love, there must be an object of that love; thus God is eternally a family and must be in order to be Love.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
I’m fairly certian if you have enough belief to even pray, you will get what God wills for you.
Being bold to ask, and please ignore my question if it is at all uncomfortable, but have you been brought up into any kind of belief system as a child?
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planten
Guest
Please leave this line alone. I have very recently read in other posts on CAF that bibleOT and NT admit the word slave. It is used by prophets. There is no harm in being a slave of God. The Mater / Servant relationship also tells us that we are to serve God. True service needs LOve and good faith. The best faith cannot be proved except to become a slave. The being a slave of God is not in the same sense as we may have about slave/ master relation in this bad world. God is not the bad Master.
That is your belief. Islam does not support such ideas. Islam does not support the original sin being found in the present day men and woman. The original sin theory of the church tells us that even a new born baby is a sinner. We Muslims do not believe in such things. We believe that Adam made a mistake (say sinned). Our Quran tells us that he repented. God forgave him.
Once forgiven, there is no sin to be carried forward in all the mankind.
Further we believe that God sent messengers / warners to all nations of the world. All nations received guidance. That Guidance was all correct and true, coming from One God. One God could not and would not tell one lesson to one nation and a different message / lesson to another nation. The message was all the same. That was peace, Peace and Love. No politics.
The father (living) in the son and son (living) in the father is not understood. There is a complication and serious contradiction.
If God is eternally a family and perhaps you mean that we are a part of that family, then it must be a big family of God. Then where will Jesus stand?? We know that Jesus cannot be a real, literal son of God. It can only be a symbolic son or metaphorical son. We do not deny that.
But we would wish that such things are explained to non-catholics in real terms. When catholics say that Jesus was the “begotten” son of God, that he was the “Only begotten son” of God, the matters become more complicated. That is because the word “begotten” is used in the bibleNT, mathew chapter one, verse one, two three…:
It says “Abraham begat Issac. Issac begat jacob. jacob begat Judas/Jehuda(?)…”
That word begat is being used in bible, gospels. That is the real use of the word, “beget”. So in what sense did Jesus become a begotten son?? It can only be in the spiritual sense. And we muslims will not deny that sense. We will believe that Jesus was spiritually begotten son, okay. But then there were many others like that… Abraham, Noah, Jacob, Moses, Krishna, Muhammad, Budha, they were all spiritually begotten. Why not?? Or, do not use such terms as begotten, under cover. Bring out the real meaning of such terms please.
Please think over, on a wider scale…
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TrinityKnot
Guest
This post is going to be short and sweet- it’s about the trinity. No one ever really understands it because our brains can’t comprehend it. If you’ve ever seen one of those celtic trinity knots, it’s like that really. No beginning, no end, three different persons, all connected… hope that helps. 
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LayingHands
Guest
It is amazing but you are stating what we should ALL follow…the Religion of Deitism. This is the religion of following our Supreme Deity, Father GOD. If you study all religions, you will find they ALL believe in a Highest GOD as Creator of all the Universe…should they all put down the dogmas of MAN and ALL religions followed the DOCTRINES, LIFE and LAWS of GOD…this world would be as close to HEAVEN now, as is possible. We would all LOVE and CARE for each other in Sympathy and GOOD. We would display HIS goodness in imitation of his BEING…you are asking the right questions, you are praying for the of him knowledge and his wisdom…searching for answers…keep thy mind open and listen to GOD inside as he replies…
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mfj
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wow!!!
I’m glad I didn’t come here for advise before I fell in love with the Most Holy Trinity
I’m glad I didn’t come here for advise before I fell in love with the Most Holy Trinity
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MrZetterlund
Guest
Hello, sorry I haven’t replyed yet. I plan on giving a very good in-depth explanation of why we’re right and everyone else is wrong. 
The computer should be available to me this afternoon, so till then.
The computer should be available to me this afternoon, so till then.
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Teneas
Guest
I have pondered this as well in my time. This is merely just thoughts, and not teaching or anything!! Just random thoughts!
God could appear as Buddha, or any other deity, so to speak, so that he is recognized by all the earth. I don’t honestly see it as far fetched to think that some member of the Bibity Bop tribe in the far reaches of Africa, where no other has been, is touched by Christ. Perhaps Christ/God takes on the appearance of Slappyhopstick the gopher God, to them. And in doing so, they actually live very peaceful loving lives. I don’t see an issue with this actually being some truth to it.
Now, it’s not what my Church believes, and I don’t personally believe it, but …but I can see it happening. I have one heck of an imagination, and don’t think God is limited to one form, or three for that matter, by any means.
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SnakeMauler
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The fact that you capitalized “He” clearly shows that you have some sort of Christian mind set (as Christians have historically capitalized “he” when referring to God) therefore you should probably become a Christian. You can’t really become a Jew (supposedly you can but it takes years or something), so yeah.
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SteveVH
Guest
We cannot pour the infinite God into our finite minds anymore than you can pour the ocean into a hole dug in the sand on a beach. As has been said before, no one is capable of completely grasping the nature of God. We believe in the Trinity because it has been revealed to us by Jesus, not because we completely understand it. No human mind “figured this out”. Be careful of only holding to a faith that you can completely grasp because if you believe in a God that is completely understandable in your human mind, then that God is no greater than you.
Whatever direction you decide to go, please make an informed decision because it does matter what you believe. Truth cannot conflict with truth, therefore if two religions condtradict each other in any way either both are wrong or only one is right. Both cannot be true and remain in conflict with each other. This will be the most important decision you ever make in your life and the consequences are eternal. There have been some great resources suggested to you on this thread. Please take advantage of them.
God bless you on your journey.
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SteveVH
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The Catholic Church teaches us that truth exists within every religion to some extent, but that the fullness of truth is only found in the Catholic Church. Insofar as Truth is present, God is present because He is Truth. Christianity is based upon Truth revealed to us by God Himself. To say “Could this big, big god be so confined into one single religion?” implies that it really doesn’t matter what one believes. Christianity is based upon revealed Truth found in the one Church instituted by God Himself. We would not know God unless He had reveald Himself to us. Everything else is pretty much just guessing.
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SnakeMauler
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That’s basically like the Bahai faith. For example, in Catholicism, we believe the last time basically the word of God was updated was by Jesus. Bahai Faith they believe it was through Jesus, then again through Mohammed, then so on and so forth to the founders of all religions.
However, if you’re wondering if God maybe appeared as Buddha or another form from another religion, you probably also have to taken into consideration the millions of small tribal religions (Austrailian Abroigines, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Ainu, etc.) and that since, say, you think it might be possible for God to have appeared in all sorts of forms throughout history, you also have to consider all the minor none major world religions that they’re are. Add that up and you get an infinite number of manifestations of God.
In any case, the Buddhist understanding of God or Buddha or whatever is very different from the Christian understanding of God, the world, and how one should live their life (for example, Buddhism sort of says that enlightment comes from complete detachment from the physical world and accepting that life is suffering, while in Christianity our goal is to exist in this world until we die and go throughout the world and evangelize and help alleviate the suffering in the world until the Second Coming).
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Teneas
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Yeah, I just think it’s neat to think about those things sometimes is all.
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aspirant
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That’s actually not what Catholics believe. We believe that our first parents’ sin has consequences in our lives from the moment of our conception. We do not believe that children are born guilty of personal sin.
Just the opposite. Jesus’ unique eternal Sonship is the truest Sonship; human sonship is the dim reflection of that divine reality.
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aspirant
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Neither of these is really an accurate statement about Buddhism.
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Kantaram88
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G-d or Allah? well whatever the answer is, you say revealed only one religion. If that is the case than its accepted, so which religion was that? I am sure you will say Islam, well Islam means complete submission to allah and one who submits to allah will never err or make a mistake least hurting allah. So why did Adam and Eve disobey allah? After all they were the original creations, and closest to Allah, possible more closer than the angels.
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Ad_Gentes
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You’re right; He doesn’t “need” a Son. He doesn’t need to be worship either, but we do worship him because He is God. As many others have said, the Trinity is a mystery. God is one God in three Persons. That’s a concept hard to grasp because human beings are one being in one person. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God, or more appropriately God the Son, because it has been revealed to us in Holy Scripture and the Tradition handed down from the apostles. We believe because we have faith and faith is not a product of reason (although reason can help us understand God better), but a gift of the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Trinity). That being said…
In which other religion did God come down from Heaven, was incarnated (assumed human nature), and died (was crucified) for our sins? God did not have to do this either; He did it for us beause He loves us. He then send his Holy Spirit to guide us through his Church as we wait for his second coming.
Should you received the call to follow Jesus Christ, you will find that his Gospel (Good News) is one of love and sacrifice. Jesus came to save us all and his Passion, which we get to experience in the Eucharistic celebration, is the greatest expression of love, for God gave his only begotten Son as a ransom for all…
God Bless you in your journey!
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