Muslims4Lent

[Picky_Picky]

So I’m supposed to assume that Anglicanism does not view itself as having any authority over understanding God or determining what comes from God and what does not?

Am I supposed to assume that Roman Catholicism has determined that Mohammed fabricated the Quran?

 

[Servant19]

You obviously don’t know anything about Islam or Catholicism and our Sacred Scripture. And here’s the thing, Muslims rever Muhammed pretty high up there. They follow Muhammed and his teachings as much as Christians follow Jesus and His teachings. Tell me, would you hang on every word of a Prophet if you didn’t believe that he wasn’t believed to be the fulfilment of all Prophets? Obviously not but Muslims follow Muhammed in a way that venerates Muhammed above Jesus.

Like I said, there’s error if you don’t believe that Jesus died on the Cross and has risen from the grave. No Muslim I know says the fulfilment of all truth is found apart from Islam but then again most Muslims would say that to be a faithful Catholic or Protestant is essentially Islam … Point is, Islam is seen as the fulfilment of all truth by most Muslims no matter how you slice the pie every Muslim still points to Islam.

Now, Any scholar knows that there are some errors in what we have as Sacred Scripture, all the more reason to reject Sola Scripture. And I mentioned the lineage of blessings from Abraham all the way through to King David … Muslims teach that Esau received the blessing and not Jacob. That is one historically incorrect teaching of Islam. But you kinda skipped over that.

Point, for the sake of redundancy, there is more archeological evidence to prove that Jesus walked the earth, died on the cross, and substantial reason to believe he raised from the grave more evidence of this than anything to prove Julius Ceaser lived and yet Islam rejects this claim.

Again… It all points to who Jesus is and who he claimed to be. You cannot side step around this. As a Catholic I don’t need for Sacred Scripture to be error free because I don’t believe in Sola Scriptura however, no false Prophet will be speaking anything remotely close to the fulfilment of all truth and if you don’t believe the veneration of Muhammed by Muslims you obviously don’t have a clue as to what Islam is about unless you’re trying to be willfully deceptive as quite a few Muslims say is OK because it Islam commends people for being deceptive in the spirit of jihad and pending on your interpretation of this jihad would determine how deceptive a Muslim might be… Itdepends of course what kind of Muslim. However, I’m going to assume you are just as ignorant about Islam as you are about the Christian faith because I don’t like to believe that people willfully confuse the issues and present a deceptive picture about Islam.

Dear sj,

You continuously state that Muslims says this or Catholics says that. But what I am interested in is where does MUHAMMAD say such a thing or JESUS, or the Apostles say something.

As far as we know Muslims may “say” something which contradicts the Quran or Catholics may say something else which contradicts Catholicism.

Please give me the quote in the Quran where Muhammad is revered HIGHER than Jesus.

Let us start there and we can discuss further from then on

.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

Am I supposed to assume that Roman Catholicism has determined that Mohammed fabricated the Quran?

-Yeah. Church teachings make it rather clear it didn’t come from God, make a rather strong argument that it wasn’t from a demonic source, and make no claim that it came from a person other than Muhammad.

-Now back to Anglicanism. If it holds that we can’t know who wrote the Quran and therefore God could be a possible author and holds that Christ was God it has to hold that God wasn’t the author at the same time it holds He could be the author. This is because the Quran makes statements that are contrary to Christian theology concerning Christ, further Prophets, and Scripture. The only way Anglicanism couldn’t hold that God wasn’t the author at the same time it holds that He could be the author is if Anglicanism makes no claims about the truth of Christianity. In effect, Anglicanism would have to be one of those non-Christian faiths that accepts that the truth is relative/changeable. Since I know that Anglicanism is a Christian faith, I have to conclude it, if presented correctly by the other poster, apparently holds two views that contradict themselves.

 

[Picky_Picky]

-Yeah. Church teachings make it rather clear it didn’t come from God, make a rather strong argument that it wasn’t from a demonic source, and make no claim that it came from a person other than Muhammad …

“Make no claim that it came from a person other than Muhammad” is not the same as “Mohammed fabricated the Quran” or “Mohammed made up the Quran”. And there is a particular problem with those statements, which is that “fabricated” and “made up” carry implications of dishonesty. That is why they are uncharitable.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

“Make no claim that it came from a person other than Muhammad” is not the same as “Mohammed fabricated the Quran” or “Mohammed made up the Quran”. And there is a particular problem with those statements, which is that “fabricated” and “made up” carry implications of dishonesty. That is why they are uncharitable.

-“J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. He made it up.”

That statement of course means the person making it is calling Tolkien a “liar, liar, pants on fire” right? No other possible way to interpret “made it up” right?

-And yeah, the Church hasn’t put out any claim the author is anyone other than Muhammad. That means the Church doesn’t hold the author to be- God, some demonic source, or another human. That process of elimination means that the Quran is a product of Muhammad. I.E. he made it up. Just like Tolkien made up The Hobbit. If you need to assign some sort of dishonest intent to why Muhammad or Tolkien made up their works, that’s really on you.

 

[Mystophilus]

There is a vast, yawning gulf between “It didn’t come from God” and “We know where it came from.”
Not when compared to a claim that we can’t know who wrote it; and not when used with reason and an understanding of Church teachings concerning Islam. Take God and demonic sources out of the possibilities for being the author and you’re left with Muhammad.

Not logically, no.

First, there is the crucial difference, which you are repeatedly ignoring, between Muhammad’s “being in league with” and Muhammad’s “being deceived by” the Devil. While claiming the first falls into the category of uncharitably accusing someone of wickedness, claiming the second does not, since he is then the victim rather than the perpetrator. Since they are independent from one another, removing one from the list of possibilities does not logically necessitate removing the other, which means that “not God” does not logically mean “a human” even if we exclude “being in league with the Devil”.

Second, even the removal of non-human agents from the context would leave all of the human agents, not only Muhammad.

Post 131, 94, 90, 69, 50, and 40. I’ve repeatedly brought up the fact that there is a difference between stating Muhammad made it up with a dishonest intent and stating Muhammad made it up with an honest intent. In fact, you won’t find any of my posts that make a positive claim on Muhammad lying. I personally think he made it up based on a good intent, but such a position is really just opinion because that, unlike the authorship of the Quran, is something we really can’t know.

Sorry, but no. We can start by throwing out #69 and #50, as they are questions, not assertions.

In #40, you said, “he made it up. He could have done so with a good intent”, to which I replied in #42, “there is no necessity to believe that the claim is dishonest”. You asked in #50 why claiming that he took elements from other beliefs to come up with Islam was dishonest. In #62, I responded, “saying that he made it up is saying that he was lying about the revelation”; you replied in #65 with no objection to that. I thus presumed, apparently mistakenly, that you had been using the phrasal verb “made up” in its Standard English sense of “fabricated/invented”, and had thus dropped that claim.

However, in #90, you said, “the only logical conclusion is that he made it up. The only implication of Muhammad acting with dishonest intent from my statement would be what you or any other reader puts into it.” To check the apparent contradiction in your using “made up” apparently for a sense other than its Standard English one, I asked in #91, “In what sense do you mean “he made it up” if not “he fabricated it”?”

You never answered the question, but it appears to be the root of the problem.

In #131 and #94 you do not use, “he made it up”: you use, “he created it”. We have different verbs in English because “looking” is not the same as “glancing”. I thus thought, again, that you had returned to the Standard English sense.

So, let me ask again. When you say, “He made up his trip to Spain”, are you saying that he went to Spain, or that he lied about going to Spain? If you say, “She made up her boyfriend”, are you saying that she had a boyfriend, or that she lied about having one? In other words, are you meaning “made up” in some way which is *not *the sense of the phrasal verb which we have been using for three and a half centuries, i.e. “To concoct, invent, fabricate (a story, lie, fictional scene or character, etc” (OED)?

If you are not asserting that Muhammad *consciously *produced a *fictitious *‘revelation’, then I have no objection. If you are, then my repeated objection to the lack of charity stands.

Yes, there is a vast gulf, but unfortunately for you we are using your standard of “we can’t know who wrote it.” If we can’t know who wrote it, then the worse possible moral option for the creation of the Quran would be what I presented. Not my fault you don’t agree with your own criteria.

Um, sorry, but this makes no sense at all.

The problem lies not in my criteria, but in the fact that you are conflating being deceived by the Devil with being in league with the Devil. Do you really imagine that the victim of a con is as guilty as the accomplice of the con artist?

Since we cannot know the ultimate source, the belief that the source was the Devil does not logically impugn Muhammad. If, as stated in your Catechism, Muhammad was deceived by the Devil, then the Devil is the source and Muhammad is a victim, which is far from being the worse possible moral option.

 

[Mystophilus]

-“J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. He made it up.”

That statement of course means the person making it is calling Tolkien a “liar, liar, pants on fire” right? No other possible way to interpret “made it up” right?

The enormous missing element in your claimed analogy is that Tolkien never presented The Hobbit as anything other than a work of fiction. Had he done so, he would have been a liar.

Thus, if you claim that Muhammad “made up” the Qu’ran in the same sense that Tolkien “made up” The Hobbit, you are claiming that Muhammad consciously produced a work of fiction. To have led his followers to their deaths over a work of fiction would make him immoral indeed.

 

[Mystophilus]

“Make no claim that it came from a person other than Muhammad” is not the same as “Mohammed fabricated the Quran” or “Mohammed made up the Quran”. And there is a particular problem with those statements, which is that “fabricated” and “made up” carry implications of dishonesty. That is why they are uncharitable.

This seems to be the problem: oldcatholicguy appears to be using “made up” as an absolute synonym of “create”, regardless of three and a half centuries of usage.

 

[Mystophilus]

Well, I think the Anglican approach to theology is through the use of Scripture, Tradition and Reason, but Anglican theology, I reckon, is stuff about God and the like.

I guess it depends upon whether we want to talk about “what it is” in terms of the processes which constitute its operation, or in terms of the subjects with which it is concerned.

I tend to prefer the former because the very name “theology” seems to me to align itself rather to closely with “geology” or “biology” or even “sociology”, fields which can actually *demonstrate *their subject matter. Theology is not the study of God, but the study of ideas about God.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

Not logically, no.

First, there is the crucial difference, which you are repeatedly ignoring, between Muhammad’s “being in league with” and Muhammad’s “being deceived by” the Devil. While claiming the first falls into the category of uncharitably accusing someone of wickedness, claiming the second does not, since he is then the victim rather than the perpetrator. Since they are independent from one another, removing one from the list of possibilities does not logically necessitate removing the other, which means that “not God” does not logically mean “a human” even if we exclude “being in league with the Devil”.

Second, even the removal of non-human agents from the context would leave all of the human agents, not only Muhammad.

Sorry, but no. We can start by throwing out #69 and #50, as they are questions, not assertions.

In #40, you said, “he made it up. He could have done so with a good intent”, to which I replied in #42, “there is no necessity to believe that the claim is dishonest”. You asked in #50 why claiming that he took elements from other beliefs to come up with Islam was dishonest. In #62, I responded, “saying that he made it up is saying that he was lying about the revelation”; you replied in #65 with no objection to that. I thus presumed, apparently mistakenly, that you had been using the phrasal verb “made up” in its Standard English sense of “fabricated/invented”, and had thus dropped that claim.

However, in #90, you said, “the only logical conclusion is that he made it up. The only implication of Muhammad acting with dishonest intent from my statement would be what you or any other reader puts into it.” To check the apparent contradiction in your using “made up” apparently for a sense other than its Standard English one, I asked in #91, “In what sense do you mean “he made it up” if not “he fabricated it”?”

You never answered the question, but it appears to be the root of the problem.

In #131 and #94 you do not use, “he made it up”: you use, “he created it”. We have different verbs in English because “looking” is not the same as “glancing”. I thus thought, again, that you had returned to the Standard English sense.

So, let me ask again. When you say, “He made up his trip to Spain”, are you saying that he went to Spain, or that he lied about going to Spain? If you say, “She made up her boyfriend”, are you saying that she had a boyfriend, or that she lied about having one? In other words, are you meaning “made up” in some way which is *not *the sense of the phrasal verb which we have been using for three and a half centuries, i.e. “To concoct, invent, fabricate (a story, lie, fictional scene or character, etc” (OED)?

If you are not asserting that Muhammad *consciously *produced a *fictitious *‘revelation’, then I have no objection. If you are, then my repeated objection to the lack of charity stands.

Um, sorry, but this makes no sense at all.

The problem lies not in my criteria, but in the fact that you are conflating being deceived by the Devil with being in league with the Devil. Do you really imagine that the victim of a con is as guilty as the accomplice of the con artist?

Since we cannot know the ultimate source, the belief that the source was the Devil does not logically impugn Muhammad. If, as stated in your Catechism, Muhammad was deceived by the Devil, then the Devil is the source and Muhammad is a victim, which is far from being the worse possible moral option.

You apparently don’t get it. If we can’t know the source of the Quran then it coming from the Devil is a valid option. Also if we can’t know the source of the Quran then we can’t know the intent of the author or of Muhammad. That means the worse possible moral option would be Muhammad making it up with a dishonest intent, but the Devil making it up with a dishonest intent and Muhammad spreading it as from God with a dishonest intent. You seem to have a problem understanding your own criteria and how it affects your need to paint those who state that Muhammad made it up in a bad light.

Since you still seem to have issue with what should be an easy to understand concept, I’ll use as few words a possible to help you
-Muhammad made up the Quran with a dishonest intent
-Muhammad made up the Quran with an honest intent

Both the of the above claim Muhammad made up the Quran, but only one does so based upon the idea Muhammad was trying to do something dishonest; and for some reason you apparently think the only valid one of those two is that he was being dishonest.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

The enormous missing element in your claimed analogy is that Tolkien never presented The Hobbit as anything other than a work of fiction. Had he done so, he would have been a liar.

Thus, if you claim that Muhammad “made up” the Qu’ran in the same sense that Tolkien “made up” The Hobbit, you are claiming that Muhammad consciously produced a work of fiction. To have led his followers to their deaths over a work of fiction would make him immoral indeed.

Oh, so one needs something more than just a person stating “X made it up” in order to claim that the person is calling X a liar. Like maybe intent of the author? Pretty sure I’ve mentioned that several times in this thread. I’m also pretty sure I’ve presented options for Muhammad making up the Quran with both an honest intent and a dishonest intent. Gee, maybe the fact this intent of the author thing has been so well ignored is why I used a fiction writer in an attempt to get someone else to point out the need to look at more than just “did he make it up or not?” and instead look at “why did he make it up?”

You see, when someone states “Muhammad made up the Quran,” the correct response would be “why do you think he made it up” and not “well you’re just being uncharitable by calling Muhammad a liar because we can’t know who wrote the Quran even though all three Abrahamic faiths have some rather set in stone teachings about who didn’t write it and a rather small list (i.e. 1 person) left of possible authors.”

 

[Servant19]

What was the prophecy of the prophet while he was alive? I hear there isn’t much historical evidence from the time of his death until approx 200 years later. When year was the first Quran given to us from heaven in relation to Mohammeds death?

Muhammad prophecied about the Day of Judgement and the Return of Jesus Christ.

.

 

[Servant19]

Servant19 - In the New Testament, Jesus is recorded as expressing His divinity and that He is ALSO the TRUTH. As DIVINE TRUTH, He needs must also encompass the totality of TRUTH - surely?

Dear Mount Carmel, this is an assumption made by Christians everywhere, and it is simply that, an assumption. If Jesus says that He is “the Truth” there are several possible understandings and interpretations.

Might I remind you that Krishna, the Founder of the Hindu religion also stated:

“There is no truth beyond Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread”(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita 7.7)

It is important to observe the “panorama” of religious Tradition and not allow our vision to be confined narrowly to our own selves and what we have been taught by our family.

As for Muhammad, well modern academic study of the historicity of himself and Islam, call into massive question his prophethood and many many other claims.

Can you show me references to what you claim here please?

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[Picky_Picky]

I guess it depends upon whether we want to talk about “what it is” in terms of the processes which constitute its operation, or in terms of the subjects with which it is concerned.

I tend to prefer the former because the very name “theology” seems to me to align itself rather to closely with “geology” or “biology” or even “sociology”, fields which can actually *demonstrate *their subject matter. Theology is not the study of God, but the study of ideas about God.

Yep, fair enough.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Muhammad prophecied about the Day of Judgement and the Return of Jesus Christ.

.

And what is new about that? Nothing?

Dear Mount Carmel, this is an assumption made by Christians everywhere, and it is simply that, an assumption. If Jesus says that He is “the Truth” there are several possible understandings and interpretations.

Could be you are simply wrong and an assumption by you.

Can you show me references to what you claim here please?

"He (Mohammed) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected; he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.

He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the Contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms - which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning (1). Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his follower’s by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and the New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place faith in his words believe foolishly." - Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 16, Art. 4. Footnote: 1. Sura 21:5, Sura 44:14; Sura 16:103, Sura 37:36

opusdeialert.com/st-thomas-aquinas-against-mohammed.htm

 

[oldcatholicguy]

This seems to be the problem: oldcatholicguy appears to be using “made up” as an absolute synonym of “create”, regardless of three and a half centuries of usage.

“Made up” has primarily meant “lied” since 1665? Mind citing your source?

 

[Tom_Baum]

-“J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. He made it up.”

That statement of course means the person making it is calling Tolkien a “liar, liar, pants on fire” right? No other possible way to interpret “made it up” right?

-And yeah, the Church hasn’t put out any claim the author is anyone other than Muhammad. That means the Church doesn’t hold the author to be- God, some demonic source, or another human. That process of elimination means that the Quran is a product of Muhammad. I.E. he made it up. Just like Tolkien made up The Hobbit. If you need to assign some sort of dishonest intent to why Muhammad or Tolkien made up their works, that’s really on you.

Tolkien wrote the Hobbit as a work of fiction not as non-fiction.

I could be wrong but I believe that supposedly it was claimed that Gabriel had something to do with the Quran and it would be considered non-fiction.

Your comparison between the two doesn’t hold water, so to speak.

No one could possibly call Tolkien a “liar” in his writing of the Hobbit since it is a work of fiction which by definition is “made up” but is not a lie.

 

[Picky_Picky]

“Made up” has primarily meant “lied” since 1665? Mind citing your source?

The phrasal verb “make up”, like many phrasal verbs, has a variety of idiomatic meanings. When applied to an utterance of supposed fact, it implies dishonesty:

usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/make+up.html

 

[Servant19]

-You’re still trying to compare two works by the standards of just one of them. Judaism and Christianity don’t hold that that OT is verbatim from the mouth of God which is the Islamic position on the Quran. The historical, scientific, linguistic, etc errors in the OT don’t matter to Judaism or Christianity since it is divinely inspired not divinely authored. What matters would be the theological truths.
-Christianity holds that their are no errors in theological truths in the OT, just that these truths are incomplete. The errors in post-Christ Judaic theological development and understanding come from the misunderstanding of these incomplete theological truths/ignorance of their completion through Christ.

Thanks for this oldcatholicguy

So the history in the OT is acknowledged to be incorrect in places, yet the theology is true.
Do you have a source for this teaching please?

Would the same apply to the NT too?

.

 

[Servant19]

And what is new about that? Nothing?

Well Muhammad didn’t make a claim to be any greater than Jesus. They both made one major prophecy and that was it.
If that makes Muhammad not a Prophet, but rather “Divine” like Jesus then so be it, I’m comfortable with that.

Could be you are simply wrong and an assumption by you.

Well I’m not making an assumption. My statement is based on the fact that Jesus explicitly professed that He didn’t reveal all Truth, but that the Spirit of Truth will do that, not Jesus.

opusdeialert.com/st-thomas-aquinas-against-mohammed.htm

We are looking for scholarly, objective analysis Gary, not the writings of professed enemies of Islam. That passage has errors in it.

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