The limit of Muslim love

[mark_avery]

TRUTH be known “FACT” There is only one GOD
If he is not for EVERYONE then what sort of GOD is he

 

[ddarko]

Now you are comparing the violence of Islam with the GOD of Israel!!

Old Testament violence is very specific- time, place and people. Do you not realize that the Old Testament violence was ordered against very despicable, depraved people- infant sacrifices, peoples proud of bing evil, torture, etc.

If the people left the land peaceably GOD did not order them to hunt down and kill the evil people. GOD gave the people chances to repent.

Read Genesis 18:

32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

GOD was willing to save the city of Sodom if even 10 righteous people could be found.

The allah of the Quran on the other hand says to subdue or kill **all non-muslims **.

No I think you don’t realize what I am saying. I am well aware of what you are saying about Israel being a nation in God’s plan etc.

It does not change the fact that something that could be deemed ‘violent’ was encouraged by God.

So my argument is not that our God is therefore UNJUST. I am sure it can be defended and shown that his actions were JUST. Who are we to understand God’s ways anyway. Abraham surely did not offer Isaac after UNDERSTANDING that he was going to stop him.

In short, my point is that one can’t simply look at the passages in Quran and say ‘oh my these are violent so it cannot be the true religion’. That point is moot. The God in the Quran might well be JUST in his actions and we can’t see it.

The problem with Islam runs deeper. There is no one who can say how to interpret the Quran as Mohamed intended. There is no Tradition or Authority, One needs all three, Scripture, Tradition and Authority. Otherwise no one can say what to believe…So Islam is a meaningless religion because no one can say what to believe for sure. For some, its a religion of PEACE. For others its a religion of “KILL THE INFIDEL”. Whose right? If it is indeed given by God, why would he do something like leave behind just a book? That is what makes one certain that it can’t be a true religion and something is wrong with it. ESPECIALLY considering that there is another religion in Catholicism which does not have this flaw.

So someone seeking which religion to choose, Catholicism is an obvious choice.

God Bless

God Bless

 

[Contarini]

Come on Edwin. Any fool knows that “Burn the heretics” is not a Church teaching.

Then please explain to me why Leo X condemned the view that “to burn heretics is against the will of the Spirit.” (Proposition 33 in the bull to which I linked–and note that all these are condemned propositions.)

Any fool knows today that burning the heretics is not Church teaching. (Actually there are lots of people–not necessarily fools, but ignorant people–who don’t know it. But I’m taking your remark in the hyperbolic spirit in which it was presumably uttered!) Clearly any fool in the sixteenth century did not know this. It would have taken a very wise man indeed to see that when Leo X condemned the proposition that burning heretics was against the will of the Spirit, he was not speaking for the Church.

The Church teaching was ‘heresy is wrong’ and ‘this is heresy’. How they went about it was a prudent decision which would have been political, psychological … who knows.

That is not what the evidence indicates to me. You have so far provided absolutely no evidence to counter my evidence from Exsurge Domine. And this is typical of this discussion, which I’ve had on these forums before. Catholics will come up with ever more clever explanations of why the sources I cite don’t really say what they appear to say. (I expect someone to suggest soon that Leo was really just condemning Luther’s presumption in claiming to know the mind of the Spirit, and was not really endorsing the burning of heretics. That’s why I initially framed this discussion primarily in terms of the Magisterium’s failure to condemn the burning of heretics, a failure which is patently obvious.) But no one yet has given me any sources that actually support these ingenious explanations. In other words, these are clearly explanations that modern Catholics come up with and that didn’t occur to Catholics at the time. Hence, my point stands: a sixteenth-century Catholic would reasonably have assumed that burning heretics was indeed Church teaching.

I am sorry, what does the magestirum have to do here?

I find that question confusing. Do not Catholics generally refer to the “Magisterium” when speaking of the bishops in communion with the Pope exercising their teaching office? Is not a papal bull an expression of the Magisterium (even if it is not infallible)? Is not the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly called for good Christians to denounce heretics to the secular authorities so that the authorities could exterminate heresy (but somehow failed to explain that the “extermination” was supposed to be nonviolent), an expression of the Magisterium?

The magestirium declared what was heresy. The people of the church during that time decided what to do about it.

You keep repeating this in the face of the evidence. IV Lateran gave the people explicit instructions as to what they should do about it–they should denounce heretics to the secular authorities for due punishment, and the authorities were expected to cleanse their territories of heresy. Sure, that could be done through exile rather than death, but we know historically that death was the normal penalty; we have Aquinas explicitly defending this; we have Exsurge Domine nearly 300 years later condemning Luther for saying heretics shouldn’t be burned; and we have not one shred of protest from the Magisterium against the burning of heretics.

All of this, taken together, amply supports what I have been saying. You don’t see this because you can’t see it. You daren’t, because your house of cards (not Catholicism but your simplistic misunderstanding of Catholicism) would collapse if you did.

But every time you ignore my evidence and repeat your empty mantra “the Church only condemned heresy; it didn’t tell people what to do about it,” you are simply discrediting Catholicism in the eyes of folks lurking this forum. And that’s a shame. Catholicism deserves a better defense.

The ones who advanced alternate interpretations should indeed have been condemned.

The “alternate interpretation” in question is that heretics should not be burned. You are agreeing that this should have been condemned?

Well I mean by your confused standards yes, everything is open. But may I remind you, the Church teachings have always been clear. It has never changed.

You aren’t “reminding” me. You are asserting. Blindly, stubbornly, without any evidence, in the teeth of the evidence I present.

A Catholic in 1520 had every reason to think that the Church officially endorsed the burning of heretics. Exsurge Domine alone would provide such a reason, even before you add the teaching of Aquinas and the decrees of IV Lateran and the consistent practice of the Church for at least 300 years.

A Catholic today has every reason to think that the Church condemns the burning of heretics.

Now you can claim that no change has taken place and that the Church “really” always opposed the burning of heretics in spite of appearances. But this isn’t going to be very convincing to anyone not desperately determined to accept your ultra-conservative version of Catholicism, is it?

It looks like change. It’s change by all the normal definitions. You have to invent special theological categories in order to argue that it isn’t.

 

[Contarini]

That is what you don’t seem to realize. Instead you are equating a political/people’s decision with the Islamic command to approve violence. You see the in the 2nd case with Islam, there is NO ONE who can claim to know the correct interpretation. That is the problem. I know it hits close to home considering you are not exactly Catholic but thats the truth.

It doesn’t hit home given the obvious inaccuracy of your understanding of the history of your own faith. As I said, maybe in Islam and Protestantism no one can claim to know. But you claim to know and are obviously wrong. So you are in even worse shape.

Was that Ex Cathedra?

Not by later definitions, no. Again, this is my point. Catholics revise the criteria as needed.

Was that taught by the magestirium of the Church? I don’t think so.

It was a papal bull issued as part of the Pope’s magisterial task of condemning theological error. So it’s a pretty tall order to say that it wasn’t taught by the magisterium. You’re making up criteria after the fact in order to save your position. That’s consistent, but not convincing to those who lack overwhelming, desperately urgent reasons to accept your position.

Note that I am aware that Leo’s statement was not *infallible. *I’m not accusing Catholicism of internal incoherence. In fact, I’m not necessarily saying that Catholicism is wrong. I honestly don’t know that one way or the other. I’m simply saying that it is not very easy to tell at any given moment just what current statement from the Pope and/or bishops will turn out to be permanent, authoritative Church teaching. I’m attacking your epistemological argument that Catholicism somehow provides certainty. It obviously does not.

Thats impressive logic right there How exactly did you come to the conclusion that 'kissing the silver pot three times is not what gets you saved"?

Obviously I didn’t. It’s a reductio ad absurdum. You appear to be suggesting that one simply determines on external criteria who speaks with authority, and then blindly accepts whatever that authority happens to say. I reject that view as wicked and blasphemous, a failure to use the good gifts of mind and heart God has given us. I may of course have misunderstood you–I hope you are not maintaining this evil doctrine, but what you say next does not encourage me:

You can’t really state that Islam is EVIL if it condoned violence against a certain group of people. To say such a thing is ridiculous logically speaking.

The killing of the innocent is always evil. I do not find the Qur’an sanctioning the killing of the innocent. I do find the Bible sanctioning the killing of the innocent. However, this is balanced by the fact that Christianity has more resources for avoiding a direct, literal reading of these passages than Islam. And that fits the historical evidence–Christians have committed horrific violence, thinking the Bible sanctioned it, but it has in the long run been easier for Christians to defend nonviolent readings of the Bible than it is for Muslims.

Take our own Bible. We have numerous cases where Israel ended up serving up the Canaanites some pretty huge doses of violence. Those are not symbolic but pretty real violence.

I do not take that for granted. Origen thought Joshua was allegorical. I do not know that he was wrong. Certainly I do not believe that the killing of children was ever truly commanded by God.

What would have happened if Israelite said to Joshua or Moses ‘Hey thats not right. These people have been living here. God is contradicting himself here. An all good God can’t ask something like that’ etc.

I think that if they had done this, God would have said, “Bless you, my children–how fast you are learning.” But in fact they didn’t. They interpreted God’s call for holiness in the cultural terms they understood (and a good case can be made that the language of wholesale slaughter was hyperbole found in many other Ancient Near Eastern writings). When they disobeyed, they seem to have done so out of a desire for loot and not out of mercy.

Or take Abraham. What if he said ‘God you can’t be real if you are not all good. You can’t ask me to sacrifice my only son’.

Again, I think that if Abraham had rejected the command for human sacrifice on moral grounds, God would have been pleased. Or rather, if Abraham had understood God as clearly as that, he would not have heard the command in that way in the first place.

So you see, our Moral Compass actually gets certainty from our faith. We might be able to reason to the natural law. BUT, there is really no necessity to uphold the natural law unless you start with basic premises like ‘dignity of human beings’, ‘freedom of choice’ etc. Depending on your religion, it might well be that those don’t hold true.

This is a rather confusing paragraph. First of all, you appear to have been arguing that God sometimes commands things that go against natural law. I deny this. Of course some religious beliefs may contradict natural law, and those beliefs can be shown to be false by that fact. I say “those beliefs” instead of “those religions,” because religions always come in multiple versions with plenty of room for interpretation. Some religious people have an unfortunate need to deny this, but that’s their problem! If in fact reason gives us access to natural law, then your argument fails–you can in fact judge that a purported revelation contradicts natural law, and reject it on that basis. That is in fact the most certain basis on which to accept or reject a religious claim.

 

[Contarini]

Also, you can’t simply pick your God and religion on preference.

Depends on what kind of preference. If you don’t choose your religion based on your moral sense, you are likely to wind up worshiping what amounts to a demon of your own devising. And I find that prospect a lot more terrifying than the prospect of uncertainty that seems to so bother you and some other conservative Christians.

You have to be able to see logically with certainty what you should believe in IF YOU accept Christ.

Why? This seems obvious to you. It doesn’t seem so to me. In fact it seems obvious to me that if this is necessary, then we will all have to be agnostics. You seem willing to accept a tissue-thin web of speculation as “logic” because you find the alternative of doubt too terrifying to contemplate.

In Catholicism, if you accept Christ, you know what you have to believe in.

I have shown this to be false. You have not refuted it. You have given me nothing but assertion with no evidence.

I explained this before. So no, Catholics were never ‘best guess’ Christians.

Hey, truths the truth. You are mixing up teachings with actions of Catholics.

By my definition, a statement found in a papal bull, condemning a theological proposition, counts as teaching. The fact that you choose to put it in the category “action” (let alone the fact that you think actions are irrelevant) says something to me about how flawed your categories are.

Please address the essence of my arguments. No need to give a line by line counter.

Unfortunately, there is such a need. If I did what you suggest, you could reasonably claim that I was misinterpreting you. Certainly when people do this to me, they generally misinterpret me.

Because I am interested in an honest debate, I am going to continue responding to the specifics of what you say. You are of course welcome to respond in any manner you choose. I would be happy to see you respond fairly and squarely to my point about Exsurge Domine. But I am not optimistic given your record so far.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Then please explain to me why Leo X condemned the view that “to burn heretics is against the will of the Spirit.” (Proposition 33 in the bull to which I linked–and note that all these are condemned propositions.)

Any fool knows today that burning the heretics is not Church teaching. (Actually there are lots of people–not necessarily fools, but ignorant people–who don’t know it. But I’m taking your remark in the hyperbolic spirit in which it was presumably uttered!) Clearly any fool in the sixteenth century did not know this. It would have taken a very wise man indeed to see that when Leo X condemned the proposition that burning heretics was against the will of the Spirit, he was not speaking for the Church.

That is not what the evidence indicates to me. You have so far provided absolutely no evidence to counter my evidence from Exsurge Domine. And this is typical of this discussion, which I’ve had on these forums before. Catholics will come up with ever more clever explanations of why the sources I cite don’t really say what they appear to say. (I expect someone to suggest soon that Leo was really just condemning Luther’s presumption in claiming to know the mind of the Spirit, and was not really endorsing the burning of heretics. That’s why I initially framed this discussion primarily in terms of the Magisterium’s failure to condemn the burning of heretics, a failure which is patently obvious.) But no one yet has given me any sources that actually support these ingenious explanations. In other words, these are clearly explanations that modern Catholics come up with and that didn’t occur to Catholics at the time. Hence, my point stands: a sixteenth-century Catholic would reasonably have assumed that burning heretics was indeed Church teaching.

I find that question confusing. Do not Catholics generally refer to the “Magisterium” when speaking of the bishops in communion with the Pope exercising their teaching office? Is not a papal bull an expression of the Magisterium (even if it is not infallible)? Is not the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly called for good Christians to denounce heretics to the secular authorities so that the authorities could exterminate heresy (but somehow failed to explain that the “extermination” was supposed to be nonviolent), an expression of the Magisterium?

You keep repeating this in the face of the evidence. IV Lateran gave the people explicit instructions as to what they should do about it–they should denounce heretics to the secular authorities for due punishment, and the authorities were expected to cleanse their territories of heresy. Sure, that could be done through exile rather than death, but we know historically that death was the normal penalty; we have Aquinas explicitly defending this; we have Exsurge Domine nearly 300 years later condemning Luther for saying heretics shouldn’t be burned; and we have not one shred of protest from the Magisterium against the burning of heretics.

All of this, taken together, amply supports what I have been saying. You don’t see this because you can’t see it. You daren’t, because your house of cards (not Catholicism but your simplistic misunderstanding of Catholicism) would collapse if you did.

But every time you ignore my evidence and repeat your empty mantra “the Church only condemned heresy; it didn’t tell people what to do about it,” you are simply discrediting Catholicism in the eyes of folks lurking this forum. And that’s a shame. Catholicism deserves a better defense.

The ones who advanced alternate interpretations should indeed have been condemned.

 

[Contarini]

Old Testament violence is very specific- time, place and people.

So is Qur’anic violence. Every sura of the Qur’an addresses a particular situation in Muhammad’s time. How those suras are to be interpreted today is a matter of debate among Muslims.

Do you not realize that the Old Testament violence was ordered against very despicable, depraved people- infant sacrifices, peoples proud of bing evil, torture, etc.

We have no evidence of torture that I know of. But granted that they were depraved, what of the command to kill children? (I think this may be literary hyperbole, but certainly many people have read it otherwise.)

There is nothing like this in the Qur’an. The Qur’an is restrained by comparison.

Edwin

 

[schaick]

…

The killing of the innocent is always evil. I do not find the Qur’an sanctioning the killing of the innocent. I do find the Bible sanctioning the killing of the innocent. However, this is balanced by the fact that Christianity has more resources for avoiding a direct, literal reading of these passages than Islam. And that fits the historical evidence–Christians have committed horrific violence, thinking the Bible sanctioned it, but it has in the long run been easier for Christians to defend nonviolent readings of the Bible than it is for Muslims.

…

The innocent in Islam?

I find it interesting that this verse doesn’t say we ordained it for the muslims-, but the Jews?!

005.032 On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.

OK, what is mischief? Almost everyday we can read in the news about Muslims killing Muslims for not being Muslim enough!

Preaching Christianity, saying a prayer in public, a non-muslim man simply shaking the hand of a muslim woman could be considered mischief, wait the muslim woman out in public without a chaperone.

You don’t want to be subdued and pay the special non-muslim tax quit causing mischief or else.

048.028 It is He Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion: and enough is Allah for a Witness.

The Muslim Golden Rule?
048.029 Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and **those who are with him are strong against Unbelievers, (but) compassionate amongst each other. **Thou wilt see them bow and prostrate themselves (in prayer), seeking Grace from Allah and (His) Good Pleasure. On their faces are their marks, (being) the traces of their prostration. This is their similitude in the Taurat; and their similitude in the Gospel is: like a seed which sends forth its blade, then makes it strong; it then becomes thick, and it stands on its own stem, (filling) the sowers with wonder and delight. As a result, it fills the Unbelievers with rage at them. Allah has promised those among them who believe and do righteous deeds forgiveness, and a great Reward.

 

[schaick]

So is Qur’anic violence. Every sura of the Qur’an addresses a particular situation in Muhammad’s time. How those suras are to be interpreted today is a matter of debate among Muslims.

We have no evidence of torture that I know of. But granted that they were depraved, what of the command to kill children? (I think this may be literary hyperbole, but certainly many people have read it otherwise.)

There is nothing like this in the Qur’an. The Qur’an is restrained by comparison.

Edwin

We consider the Old Testament** history**, why we need Jesus.

Muslims consider the Quran a book for all men for all times, along with the hadith a way to act in every situation.

If you say that is how Mohammad was told to act in a certain situation, at a ceertain time towards a certain people, the Quran is no longer a book for all man for all times.

How do you know the children GOD ordered killed in Old Testament times were innocent?

Psalms 58
3 Even from birth the wicked go astray;
from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.

 

[benidict]

The innocent in Islam?

I find it interesting that this verse doesn’t say we ordained it for the muslims-, but the Jews?!

005.032 On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.

OK, what is mischief? Almost everyday we can read in the news about Muslims killing Muslims for not being Muslim enough!

Preaching Christianity, saying a prayer in public, a non-muslim man simply shaking the hand of a muslim woman could be considered mischief, wait the muslim woman out in public without a chaperone.

You don’t want to be subdued and pay the special non-muslim tax quit causing mischief or else.

048.028 It is He Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion: and enough is Allah for a Witness.

The Muslim Golden Rule?
048.029 Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and **those who are with him are strong against Unbelievers, (but) compassionate amongst each other. **Thou wilt see them bow and prostrate themselves (in prayer), seeking Grace from Allah and (His) Good Pleasure. On their faces are their marks, (being) the traces of their prostration. This is their similitude in the Taurat; and their similitude in the Gospel is: like a seed which sends forth its blade, then makes it strong; it then becomes thick, and it stands on its own stem, (filling) the sowers with wonder and delight. As a result, it fills the Unbelievers with rage at them. Allah has promised those among them who believe and do righteous deeds forgiveness, and a great Reward.

Interesting insights. All of what you say is true BTW.

 

[tomarin]

How do you know the children GOD ordered killed in Old Testament times were innocent?

Psalms 58
3 Even from birth the wicked go astray;
from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.

Are you saying that children aren’t innocent because they bear the stain of original sin?

 

[Aydan]

Interesting insights. All of what you say is true BTW.