Islam & Christianity, which religion is more logical?

[Seraphim73]

Jesus has stated that his knowledge is not equal to God’s knowledge when he was asked about the Hour.

Matthew 24:36
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only"

If God and Jesus are one, there knowledge should be one too! But the father knows about the Hour and the son doesn’t, how can they still be one?

Jesus was a man. Men are not omniscient.

 

[fnr]

At a professional conference this week, I had a conversation this week with a woman who is a graduate student from Iran studying at a U.S. university. After a few minutes of talking about technical parts of our industry, we started talking about our personal lives. After a little while, she started talking about her personal philosophy, and started talking about God being all about love and how she doesn’t care what religion a person is as long as they live a good life.

I listened, then asked her if she is Muslim. To this question, she frowned and replied, “I have to be.” I said that I’m Catholic, and that God being love is a very central part of my beliefs, but that I’d never heard a Muslim say that. She seemed very unhappy at that, and we went on to talk about something else.

I was really shocked to hear someone answer that they “have to be” a particular religion. Retrospectively, I’m thinking that in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, she must have been feeling self-conscious about coming from a Muslim country, and that’s why she started talking to me about how she doesn’t care what religion someone is.

Does anyone have any thoughts about what would make this woman say what she did? Muslims I know quote a hadith in which Muhammad is purported to say, “there is no compulsion in religion.” However, this woman seemed really uncomfortable about my asking if she was a Muslim, even though she had been talking with me about God.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[Randy_Carson]

At a professional conference this week, I had a conversation this week with a woman who is a graduate student from Iran studying at a U.S. university. After a few minutes of talking about technical parts of our industry, we started talking about our personal lives. After a little while, she started talking about her personal philosophy, and started talking about God being all about love and how she doesn’t care what religion a person is as long as they live a good life.

I listened, then asked her if she is Muslim. To this question, she frowned and replied, “I have to be.” I said that I’m Catholic, and that God being love is a very central part of my beliefs, but that I’d never heard a Muslim say that. She seemed very unhappy at that, and we went on to talk about something else.

I was really shocked to hear someone answer that they “have to be” a particular religion. Retrospectively, I’m thinking that in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, she must have been feeling self-conscious about coming from a Muslim country, and that’s why she started talking to me about how she doesn’t care what religion someone is.

Does anyone have any thoughts about what would make this woman say what she did? Muslims I know quote a hadith in which Muhammad is purported to say, “there is no compulsion in religion.” However, this woman seemed really uncomfortable about my asking if she was a Muslim, even though she had been talking with me about God.

Any thoughts anyone?

She is young. She is female. She has no say. She has to be Muslim.

There are men in her life. :sad_yes:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

 

[7_Sorrows]

At first I thought she meant that she could not dream of being anything else than Muslim. I believe there are Christians and Jews in Iran, but they are a minority. But further reading of your post meant she was born into a Muslim family and has to be Muslim - no choice. Is that correct?

 

[meltzerboy]

Jesus was a man. Men are not omniscient.

Are you saying that Jesus was speaking here according to His human nature, not His divine nature? Would that mean therefore that when Jesus says the Son, he is referring to the Son of Man rather than the Son of G-d? (BTW, what does the Son of Man mean?)

 

[manualman]

Are you saying that Jesus was speaking here according to His human nature, not His divine nature? Would that mean therefore that when Jesus says the Son, he is referring to the Son of Man rather than the Son of G-d? (BTW, what does the Son of Man mean?)

I can’t speak for the guy you questioned, but my catholic education said that the Incarnation included Jesus willfully setting aside the power of divinity in order to truly become incarnate as man. He never ceased having the nature of God the Son (2nd person of the Trinity), nor did he lose the ABILITY to resume his full power and stature if he chose. Instead he chose to make himself a man like us in all things but sin. To me, that must include the need to learn the hard way and to accept and trust that which you don’t fully understand.

Son of God and Son of Man are both Jesus. There’s only one Jesus. He stressed different aspects according to what he perceived his audience needed to hear in order to correct their own perceptions.

 

[Seraphim73]

Are you saying that Jesus was speaking here according to His human nature, not His divine nature? Would that mean therefore that when Jesus says the Son, he is referring to the Son of Man rather than the Son of G-d? (BTW, what does the Son of Man mean?)

Jesus is not a nature, He is a person. A nature doesn’t think or speak or do. He didn’t say one thing as God and another as a man, or think some things as God and others as a man. The person of Jesus was a human exactly like us in every way except for sin. That includes not knowing everything. As manualman said when He became a man He voluntarily chose circumscription. He really, REALLY became just like us.

 

[meltzerboy]

Jesus is not a nature, He is a person. A nature doesn’t think or speak or do. He didn’t say one thing as God and another as a man, or think some things as God and others as a man. The person of Jesus was a human exactly like us in every way except for sin. That includes not knowing everything. As manualman said when He became a man He voluntarily chose circumscription. He really, REALLY became just like us.

Thank you. So back to the original question: what does Jesus mean when He says no one knows the hour, not even the Son, but only the Father? Is He not referring to the Son of G-d, that is, Himself? If so, how would Jesus, as a human, know that the Son of G-d does not know the hour, and why would He make such a statement?

 

[AyJSimon]

At first I thought she meant that she could not dream of being anything else than Muslim. I believe there are Christians and Jews in Iran, but they are a minority. But further reading of your post meant she was born into a Muslim family and has to be Muslim - no choice. Is that correct?

That was my interpretation. If she really thinks it doesn’t matter what religion you are, so long as you live a good life, then on those terms, there’s no reason she has to be a Muslim.

But the penalty for Islamic apostasy, everywhere, is death. So, on those terms, she absolutely does have to be a Muslim.

 

[meltzerboy]

I can’t speak for the guy you questioned, but my catholic education said that the Incarnation included Jesus willfully setting aside the power of divinity in order to truly become incarnate as man. He never ceased having the nature of God the Son (2nd person of the Trinity), nor did he lose the ABILITY to resume his full power and stature if he chose. Instead he chose to make himself a man like us in all things but sin. To me, that must include the need to learn the hard way and to accept and trust that which you don’t fully understand.

Son of God and Son of Man are both Jesus. There’s only one Jesus. He stressed different aspects according to what he perceived his audience needed to hear in order to correct their own perceptions.

Thank you. It seems therefore that Jesus is saying that the Son of G-d does not know the hour. Is Jesus considered to be the Son of G-d when He divests Himself of his divinity, because that might explain what He means?

 

[manualman]

Thank you. It seems therefore that Jesus is saying that the Son of G-d does not know the hour. Is Jesus considered to be the Son of G-d when He divests Himself of his divinity, because that might explain what He means?

The Incarnation is a mystery, which in the catholic dictionary means something that can be understood at the surface level, but that the human mind is not capable of comprehending its fullness. We humans exist within Time, but time is part of creation. God exists outside of it. This makes it beyond our comprehension to use words like “when” in reference to God. The Trinity means we believe there is one God, who is three persons (Father, Son and Spirit). Another mystery. Our muslim friend is quite right that this is confusing and seems impossible. What he seems to fail to imagine is that God is capable of more than we are. Son of God is, I think, just one way of referring to the second person of the Trinity, who via the incarnation is Jesus.

If you understood that fully, your brain would have exploded!

 

[Seraphim73]

Thank you. So back to the original question: what does Jesus mean when He says no one knows the hour, not even the Son, but only the Father? Is He not referring to the Son of G-d, that is, Himself? If so, how would Jesus, as a human, know that the Son of G-d does not know the hour, and why would He make such a statement?

He is referring to Himself. I’m not sure I understand the question. He could say that about Himself the same way I do. I don’t know the hour either.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I’m not going to discuss the Divine Nature of the Lord Christ, but I do believe that God cannot make a stone so heavy He cannot lift it, or make 2 = 1. God created the rules of logic and I do not believe that God violates logic.

Catholics agree…we learned this from George Carlin.

However, there is nothing about the incarnation that violates logic.

If I wanted to communicate more fully with ants and had the ability to become an ant, would that be one reasonable means of interacting with them?

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

Maybe according to human perspective, but from the perspective of G-d, perhaps it can.

So these two propositions

Jesus is God

Jesus is not God

Can be true somehow if taken from the perspective of God? You would have to radically reinterpret the phrases in order to get them to be true. Problem is in reinterpreting them you move away from what Muslims and Christians are both saying.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Taken out of context. Paul is talking about worship. This does not mean that God is easy to understand.

:clapping:

Well put.

Is that not, in fact, a kind of idolatry? Isn’t it quite likely that your concept of God has been trimmed down to fit the limits of your human mind?

This was my point in post #2.

No. But there are many passages where it is clear that Jesus claimed to be something more than a prophet, and to be and do for Israel and the world what only God could be and do. Of course, you are free to argue (without evidence) that this is an example of “corruption.” But then you are being a bit hypocritical in relying on the NT in your arguments, without any criteria (other than agreement with your own holy book) for distinguishing between the bits you can trust and the bits you can’t.

Hilarious. The Muslim uses a “corrupt” text to disprove Christianity. Contarini, you are the man, today.

Right. It looks very much as if Muhammad had trouble with the paradoxes and mysteries of the Christian faith and created a kind of simplistic caricature, which you take to be a deeper truth because it is simpler and less challenging.

Can you see why that is not, in fact, very convincing to me and other Christians?

Outstanding. That deserves a

http://www.pakkotoisto.com/attachme...eenissa-kyykkya-maastavetoa-ei-ole-booyah.jpg

 

[Randy_Carson]

Are you saying that Jesus was speaking here according to His human nature, not His divine nature? Would that mean therefore that when Jesus says the Son, he is referring to the Son of Man rather than the Son of G-d? (BTW, what does the Son of Man mean?)

I always want to call you “Lew” because I have a client named Lew Meltzer.

I tried to answer this in post #67. I’m going to do a bit of reading tonight, hopefully, to put some additional thoughts together.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Are you saying that Jesus was speaking here according to His human nature, not His divine nature? Would that mean therefore that when Jesus says the Son, he is referring to the Son of Man rather than the Son of G-d? (BTW, what does the Son of Man mean?)

Lew-

Jesus used that phrase “Son of Man” from the Book of Daniel in reference to Himself. This is one of the passages that I would argue shows Jesus claiming to be God before the Sanhedrin

Daniel 7:13-14
13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Daniel prophesied that the Son of Man would be worshiped as God.

Mark 14:61-65
61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” 62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 63 The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as worthy of death.

Replying to the High Priest at His trial before the Sanhedrin, Jesus quoted the Daniel and applied this prophecy to Himself.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Thank you. It seems therefore that Jesus is saying that the Son of G-d does not know the hour. Is Jesus considered to be the Son of G-d when He divests Himself of his divinity, because that might explain what He means?

Jesus never divested Himself of His divinity.

Therefore, when we say that Jesus died on the cross, we can rightly say that God died there because Jesus is God.

Jesus is God.
Jesus died on the cross.
God died on the cross.

This is similar to:

Jesus is God.
Mary is the Mother of Jesus.
Mary is the Mother of God.

 

[Robyn_p]

Randy_Carson:

Contarini, you are the man, today.

I’m bookmarking and subscribing to this thread just for his responses. They are gold.

 

[CommonWeal]

Don’t forget:

Islam: Heaven is a place where men enjoy carnal pleasures forever and ever with virgin women. Sounds made up by a man, right?

Christianity: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” The words of our Blessed Lord. Matthew 22:30.

Please, for your own sake, download and listen to this MP3 audio file.

Logic is only half the equation; the other half is Faith. Your knowledge of God and manner of worship is only natural religion; but we, on the other hand, worship supernaturally, in the manner in which Almighty God has revealed.