Is Islam true; how do I know it is not

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There’s like 100 things to unpack just from that first post. But to start with:
  1. There is definitely alot more evidence that Christ Rose from the dead than there is that Muhammad had any kind of revelation. Im not an Islamic scholar, but isn’t that whole religion based on trusting one mans account of something that happen when he was alone in a cave? Hundreds of people were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ.
  2. The Church got it’s authority from the apostles (who again are real historical figures) who got that authority from Christ. It’s not “Because the Bible says so” that the church has authority. The Bible does contain a record of the event of Jesus laying hands on the apostles, but that’s not circular logic.
  3. I’m not sure how well read you are on the topic, but nowhere in the Bible is the concept of the Trinity laid out. The church came to that conclusion after centuries of theology. It has it’s basis in scripture, but it took more than that.
 
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So when Jesus said (paraphrasing) ‘You have been told do not commit adultery, but I say to you, he who lusts after a woman has committed adultery with her in his heart’, what claim was he making?

He clearly says “God told you A, and I, Jesus, am adding to that.” No prophet has ever added to the word of God. They have passed the revealed word of God in to people, but none dared say “I say to you”.

Jesus also said constantly “Your sins are forgiven”, and even the Jews in the account reacted by saying “who is this man that he can forgive sins?” Person A coming in and forgiving person B for doing something wrong to person C makes no sense unless they’re claiming to be God.

And of course there is the statement of “before Abraham was, I AM.”, Which the Jews clearly understood as Him making a claim of godhood, because they immediately attempted to stone Him for heresy.

It’s there pretty clearly if you read it.
 
1 John5:7 is a terrible example. Show me when the initial corruption happened to all the manuscripts. Using one verse that was added in the 16th century after we have thousands of manuscripts before that is lazy evidence. Any reputable scholar wouldn’t use that. They know better. Watch James White defend the NT manuscripts and you’ll see that the Comma Ioanneum isn’t in the early versions. This is the beauty of the NT, in the manuscript tradition we have the full word of God. I would rather have thousands of freely copied manuscripts instead of a controlled text like the Book of Mormon or the Quran, where one group controlled its initial transmission and burned all other copies like the Quran. The Manuscript Tradition defeats any argument for corruption in the NT unless someone can give me a verifiable date when the entire manuscript tradition was corrupted.
 
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Muhammad taught that anyone who leaves Islam must be killed. No prophet would ever teach such a horrible thing. People should be free to come and go. It’s in Sahih al-Bukhari, which is the most authentic collection of Hadith in the Sunni school of thought. This is not something that was made up by the sahaba.
 
Jesus says ”I am the way, the truth, and the life” not a way, a truth, and a life
 
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This is very odd, because it os nothing more than a series comma, the use of which in modern writing is still being debated today.

For example, in the UK, it is rarely used; in the US, it is often used, altho not according to every style.

Since they didn’t really debate grammar and punctuation back then (when even spelling was not regularized as it is now), we can’t look back and say, well, since this came from such-and-such a publishing house and therefore…

To use something like this to refute the truth of the Bible is clearly an unbelieveable stretch. Back then they didn’t even have as much punctuation as we do, and yet no one objects to the insertion of question marks or even chapter and verse numbers.
 
In 610, an Arab salesman with a charismatic personality attracted a small cult of credulous fanatics by claiming to be a prophet. Though his “revelations” were self-referential and occasionally contradicting, he was successful in manipulating his followers with promises of heavenly reward and threat of divine wrath. The god heard only by him told them to lie and steal for him, to give their children to him for sexual pleasure and, eventually, to gruesomely murder his detractors…

There are two ways to approach a study of Muhammad. One is with reverence. The other is with skepticism. Thinking persons choose the latter.
"Muhammad is a narcissist, a [child molester] , a mass murderer,
a terrorist, a misogynist, a lecher, a cult leader, a madman
a rapist, a torturer, an assassin and a looter."

This quote is from a former Muslim, Ali Sina, who offered $50,000
to anyone who could prove this wrong based on Islamic texts.

The reward has gone unclaimed.
 
I believe Catholicism over Islam because the founder of Catholicism, Jesus Christ, suffered and died for us, and Mohammed just led his followers into war.

Because what is written in the Bible comes to us from 600 years before Mohammed, is written by multiple people, and the transmission occurred in public, not when one person was all alone in a cave.

And because Catholicism teaches what will make us better.

The good in the Koran comes directly from Judaisim and Catholicism, and is accompanied by bad.
 
CatholicMan17 said:
How do I know Catholicism is the Truth and not Islam?
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Did Muhammad say that after he dies, he would rise from the dead after 3 days in the grave, and did rise, and walked again among his followers? NOPE ! Didn’t happen.

Look at all the miracles Jesus performed. Did Muhammad do that also? NOPE ! Didn’t happen

As for how Paul argued for our faith, He wrote

1 Corinthians 15:13-23
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CatholicMan17:
It is very clear the gospels are inaccurate.
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Example?
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CatholicMan17:
Right now Catholicism seems false to me. Also the whole Trinity in the New Testament seems really over exaggerated and contradictory to the OT. The prophecies of Jesus are not negligible but another prophet who was expected is merged with the messiah in Christianity. Catholics seem to be capable of arguing when it comes to doctrine like confession, baptism, etc but when it comes to the basic teaching Catholicism falls apart because no one can argue for Trinitarianism without relying on the Bible which the can only say is inspired because the Church is given authority…in the bible. The argument is circular
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When you say “soon to be convert”, in your bio page, may I ask, soon to convert to what?

AND

Re: the bible, and Trinitarianism, etc

All the writers of the NT, were already in the Catholic Church that they were writing to and for. It’s Not a circular argument it is a linear argument.
 
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Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people saw the Risen Lord.

People from all the surrounding lands and nations heard the Apostles speak in languages they did not know when Christ’s breath, the Holy Spirit, descended upon them at Pentecost. Again, hundreds (if not thousands) of witnesses.

John was the greatest and the LAST prophet, Jesus made that clear. Mohammed is a false prophet, nothing more.

Christ our True God is risen from the dead,
Deacon Christopher
 
Read this again:

The ‘Comma Ioanneum’ is spurious, and yet for centuries the Church insisted it be included in 1 John 5: 7-8; on the grounds that it had become official Church teaching.

This is very personal…for me…I first read the CI as a child, and for most of my adult life believed it to be genuine…and true (I’m 74). For most of my adult life I was a Catholic. I was gifted a copy of Ott’s book in the early 80’s, after expressing a desire for life as a Religious. I still have that book, at my bedside.

The CI is the only New Testament text that speaks, quite clearly, of a Trinity. I trusted it. Heck, it’s in the first Catholic Bible I ever read! The Church was wrong to insist that it be included in 1 John.

When the corruption occured is irrelevant. What matters is that it did, and that the Church gave it her blessing…insisting that it be accepted as genuine scripture. In time I began to wonder…if the Church can be wrong about so important a text, why should I trust what she has to say about other texts? This was the start of a long, and painful, walk away from most of what I had so firmly believed it.

Someone, somewhere, might yet persuade me that I was wrong to leave…wrong to reject the Trinity (and other dogmas). But that can happen only if persuasion involves Catholic teaching alone. If Islam were to disappear overnight, leaving no trace in my mind, I would still be estranged from the Church…still unconvinced.

My wife is a Catholic, and most of my dearest friends were. I owe them more than I can ever repay. But…
 
In this context, the word Comma simply means a short clause, or insertion into the text. Not to be confused with a ,
 
I can relate to discovering something that shocks your religious world. I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, and when I discovered that the Watchtower was wrong it was heartbreaking and difficult. I know what you’re feeling. The pit in the stomach from even thinking about the former religion is a feeling not many can relate, especially in a culture where jumping from one belief to another is no big deal. I understand and hope that the pain I can tell you still feel will let go of you from its grip.
The only thing I can say about the Comma Ioanneum is that the Church did teach that the Latin Vulgate was authentic and any pretext against it was anathema. It stated pretext. But if the Church herself clarifies things learned through the manuscript tradition, then that is not a pretext therefore not wrong. It is enlightenment. I love the Latin Vulgate, and I read from the Douay Rheims daily for its beauty and the connection to my Reformation era Catholic predecessors. But, modern historical research has shone light on the manuscript tradition and the Church has accepted it as true.
Jumping to the conclusion that just because the comma is in the Vulgate and since the Church has declared that the Comma may not be legit in the text is reason for leaving the Church seems a massive jump. No where in the Church teachings did she teach that the Comma was 100% original. The Council of Trent did not define that.
To me, the doctrine of the Trinity is extremely easy to see in Scripture and Tradition without the CI. The Manuscript Tradition is just to strong to deny it in my opinion. A good site you could look at for some reading on the transmission of the Quran is : Is the Qur'an Pure? Book Burning in Early Islam
God Bless and many prayers your way
 
Niblo said:
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SeekerOfTruth7:
My question is: When was the OT and NT corrupted? Prove to me that it was corrupted.
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One example from the NT:

The King James Bible (including the American Version); the King James 2000 Bible; the Jubilee Bible 2000; the Douay-Rheims Bible; the Webster’s Bible Translation; and the Young’s Literal Translation contain what is known as the ‘Comma Ioanneum’. For the benefit of those who have never heard of it, here it is (emphasised):

‘For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost : and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in Earth , the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.’

Anthony and Richard Hanson write: ‘It (the ‘Comma Ioanneum’) was added by some enterprising person or persons in the ancient Church who felt that the New Testament was sadly deficient in direct witness to the kind of doctrine of the Trinity which he favoured and who determined to remedy that defect . . . It is a waste of time to attempt to read Trinitarian doctrine directly off the pages of the New Testament.’ (‘Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith; page 171).
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This is not, as far as I can tell, the general scholarly opinion. The general opinion (as I understand it) is that the Comma originated as a scribal gloss–that is, something put next to the text to make some kind of a commentary on it–which later got copied into the main text. This is backed up by the fact that we have manuscripts that include it as a gloss.

The idea it was invented as proof for the Trinity seems rather dubious. Not only was the Trinity established dogma based on other verses by the first time we see this added to manuscripts, one can just as easily get something like Modalism out of it.
The ‘Comma Ioanneum’ is spurious, and yet for centuries the Church insisted it be included in 1 John 5: 7-8; on the grounds that it had become official Church teaching.
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Exactly where did it make this insistence? The fact it was used in the Vulgate, which was named the official text of the church? That was never a statement that it was a perfect representation of the original Bible (in fact, it couldn’t be, given that it was a translation…) The fact Pius XII declared the Vulgate free of error in matters of faith and morals? That is not a statement that nothing in it was spurious, merely that anything that was spurious was nevertheless correct. If someone were to have inserted “objects normally fall to the ground unless held up by some force” into the Vulgate, that would be spurious, but it would still be true.

For that matter, this is not even what the original question was. SeekerOfTruth7 asked for proof of corruption of the biblical text as alleged by Muslims. Your argument is that the Catholic Church was incorrect regarding the verse. Even if true, that would only throw shade on the Catholic Church, but not prove actual corruption of the Bible given how late this supposed “corruption” was.
 
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For the sake of comparison, forget all the articles of faith. Jesus was poor, celibate, peaceful, and was killed for his faith and all his close followers were also killed. On the other hand, Muhammad was wealthy, had dozens of wives, led armies against nations and he and his companions lived long comfortable lives. So who has more credibility?
 
Are you referring to reincarnation in your last sentence? If so, that’s against the Catholic Faith.
 
May I ask what you hope to get from this discussion and debate? Do you wish people to convince you that Catholicism is the truth, or do you wish to convince most members of CAF that Islam is the truth? On a Catholic Forum, it is only logical you are likely to find the former, while on a Muslim Forum the latter. On a Jewish Forum…I think you understand. In addition, you are likely to receive wrong information about Islam because of the Catholic bias on CAF, just as you are likely to receive wrong information about Catholicism because of the Muslim bias on a Muslim Forum. So, let me repeat, what do you wish to gain from the discussion?
 
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