Why I am not a Christian?

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gurrato alaien:
Peace

Why I am not a Christian?
Peace to you as well gurrato alaien,

No one, not even God could ever force you to be Christian. We all have free will. God can give a person grace to believe the Truth, but he cannot force that person to believe it.

Obviously, you are posting this information on a Catholic forum. May I ask why? You stated you will never be Christian. Ok. Now what?

God bless you.
 
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Karin:
How does this help anyone?
For one thing, it helps to define in harsh, clear light where everyone stands, rather than leaving their real positions obscured by vague politeness.
 
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Hospitaller:
For one thing, it helps to define in harsh, clear light where everyone stands, rather than leaving their real positions obscured by vague politeness.
:confused:
 
No, I agree, it is always nicer when threads are conducted in a courteous manner, however … it takes two to tango. :dancing:
 
gurrato alaien:
Peace be to you also.
Why I am not a Christian?
Why I am not a Muslim.
I have never been a Christian nor will I ever become a Christian because of these main reasons.
I have never been a Muslim nor will I ever be because of these reasons.
1- Christianity is man-made religion. it contradicts pure monotheism which all previous prophets taught
Islam is a man made religion. Proof is that only Mohammed received the alleged revelation without verification nor proof. He did not provide proof by miracles nor did anyone witness the revelation besides him.

In contrast, Jesus provided HIs revelation and was witnessed by thousands. He established a Church which carries His Monotheistic Word in Trinitarian form, by Teaching, Tradition and Scripture. This Good News was witnessed and written by His Apostles and put together with the Old Testament which itself reveals the coming of Christ in signs and foreshadowings.
2- It is vague when it speaks of a man being God at the same time , and being the son of himself?!
Islam is cold and Allah is cold. Allah will not even touch His Creation.

In contrast, the Holy Trinity is symbolized by our very being. We are trnitarian in our three dimensional being and time and space are trinitarian. Nature points to the grandness of God. Ths is what I would expect from a true God.

Allah of the Muslims is one dimensional and far away. Such a being exists only in one’s imagination.
3- it accuses me of being guilty of an alleged sin which I have nothing to do with… Why are we being punished for Adam’s sin? After all, he ate the
forbidden fruit, we didn’t. It’s his problem, not ours, especially in
light of Deut. 24:16, which says children shall not be punished for the
sins of their fathers.
Perhaps the greatest reason why I would never be Muslim is because Islam gets everything wrong and confused. Just as Islam condemns a holy trinity composed of Allah, Jesus and Mary, it condemns the punishment of others for Adam and Eve’s sin. In other words, a true religion from God would know the truth, but Islam doesn’t.

Christianity does not punish anyone for Adam and Eve’s sin. Adam and Eve had something which they lost and they could not pass that on to their children, since they lost it.

On the other hand, not one Musllm has ever explained, if Adam and Eve in Islam were kicked out of paradise in punishment for their sin, then why aren’t you in paradise today? Accordingo to Islamic way of thinking then, you were also punished for Adam and Eve’s sin…
4- It makes God look so helpless and blood thirsty because He could not forgive Adam & Eve and required the torture humiliation of himself to forgive them ??!! in other words He killed himself to please himself!
Islam makes God look cold and uncaring. Having made man He leaves man to his own devices and does not care if man winds up in heaven or hell. In fact, it is written that Allah will fill hell before He sends anyone to heaven.

On the other hand, God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that those who believe in Him will be saved.
5- the Bible is full of contradictions, scientific and historical mistakes which proves it is man made/quote]
The Quran is full of contradictions and mistakes of every genre.
On the other hand, the Bible is inerrant.
6- If you must accept Jesus as your Savior in order to be saved (John
14:6), what about the billions of beings that die as fetuses, infants,
and mentally deficient, etc.? For them to accept Jesus would be
impossible. So they are condemned to hell because of conditions over
which they had no control. Deut. 32:4 says God is just, but where is
the justice?
I will not be a Muslim because Islam teaches that Muslims should kill Jews and Christians and that Allah will provide Jews and Christians behind rocks and trees so that Muslims may kill them and go to heaven.

On the other hand the Church teaches that those who do not have the knowledge of Christ:

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337 God is not bound by His sacraments and above all God wants that all men be saved::

1 Tim 2: 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

cont’d
 
  1. If God had created Adam and Eve to stay in Heavens, was He unable to protect them from Satan? Did He warn them against obeying Satan by telling them the consequences if they did?
    The fact is: When God created Adam & Eve, HE put them in Paradise & warned them against obeying Satan, & told them that if they did obey him, they will be kicked out of Paradise.
We know the rest of the story. Of course it was Gods plan all along to have Adam & Eve live here on earth, but He made them go through that experience with Satan as a practical lesson for all of us so that we know what happens to us if we disobey God & obey Satan, unless you think God planned for them to stay in Paradise forever but was unable to protect them from Satan.
I would not be a Muslim because Mohammed has created an Allah wo seeks to hinder man’s free will.

In contrast, Christianity teaches that God made man perfect and with a perfectly free will. A perfect man is not an all seeing, all knowing being. That is a description of God. A perfect man is a man who performs the function for which he was created perfectly. Man was made to love God and man can not perform this function perfectly unless he is free NOT to do it.

Therefore, if God had protected man from Satan and sin, then man would not have been perfectly free to love God.
8- salvation either wipes out all sins, or it does not.
If the first case is true, then it leads to what we say that Christianity encourages people to do whatever they please.
If the second case is the fact, then there is no need to what Jesus PBUH had gone through.
Again, the teachings of Islam have led its followers to this false dichotomy conclusion. That is why so many of them believe that Jesus was not crucified.

a. Salvation is union with God.
b. Justification is the process of salvation which we undergo during life. The closer we are to God the more justified we become.
c. Jesus death on the Cross permitted the entrance of humanity into heaven because He, God, came in the form of man to open the doors of heaven to men who have faith in Him.
  1. Christians worship more than one God, ie Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Christians say that it is only one God, however even their most knowledgeable priests cannot completely explain the trinity.
Can you explain Allah? Or is Allah unknowable? If Allah is unknowable then why do you condemn those who admit that they can’t understand their God?

But, although the Trinity is unknowable it is signified by space and time. Tell me, where do you divided the present from the past or the future? Is it now? Oh too late, its gone.

And it is signiified by the union of a man and woman in holy Matrimony. A man and woman united by the Spirit of Love. The Father, the Son, united by the Spirit of Love. This is why sex is univerally desired. It is a foreshadowing of the goodness of our heavenly rest in our God’s bosom.

This is not taught in Islam.
  1. Christians disregard the laws of the Old Testament,
Not so. You don’t understand the Christian religion.

Jesus said:

John 14
15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
and have made it legal for themselves to do sinful acts such as eating pork, drinking alcohol, and not circumcising their sons.
These are not the eternal commandments of God. These are signs of the old Covenant which has been fulfilled on the Cross.

Jesus said:

Matthew 5
18 For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.

And all was fulfilled on the Cross:

John 19:30 Jesus therefore, when he had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.

cont’d again
 
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  1. Christians depict images of holy figures such as Jesus, Mary, saints, and other prophets and use those images to direct their worship. I regard this as idolatry, and also as disregarding the second of the ten commandments:
“You shall have no other gods besides Me…Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above…”
Yet you have a black rock before which you bow and direct all your prayers in the direction of that rock. And you make yearly pilgrimages to that rock.

A sculpture is not a God and a figure is not a God. Those of us who can tell the difference between a rock and God make no sin if we bow before them to pray.

God Himself gave orders to sculpt figures of angels on the Ark and God would not have ordered men to commit sin. God Himself taught men to make a sign with a snake on it and to look at it and be heeled.
  1. Most Christians insult other religions/religious leaders such as Muslims. This tells me that they have very little tolerance and believe that they have a monopoly on truth; therefore they are unwilling to consider any other religions’ beliefs.
This from a religion who tortures people who bring Bibles into Islamic countries, forces nonMuslim into second citizen status and to pay special tithes because they aren’t Muslim. A religion which forces nonMuslims to worship under house arrest. And a religion which permits the enslavement of nonMuslims, teaches that one will go to heaven who kills a Jew or Christian and a religion which permits lying in times of war, times of peace and to their wives…

If we contrast the two, Islam insults the world in general. Christianity is at war with sin in the world. Islam is at war with the nonMuslim world.
  1. Most of the Christians practices in Church and in their homes were invented after the time of Jesus. Almost everything Christians due whether it is standing in church singing songs to hanging crosses on their necks is an innovation.
Another reason I wouldn’t be a Muslim is because Islam doesn’t grow. It is stuck in the time of Mohammed because Mohammed left no means for the Quran to be underrstood in varying cultures and times.

On the other hand, the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ is led by the Holy Spirit into all truth. The Truth of Christianity is continually seen more clearly and understood more completely because the breadth and depth of God can never be fathomed and because God’s Word is a living Word, not a dead letter.

It is true that we now hang crosses in our houses, there was no reason to do so before Christ was crucified. It is true that we now make statues of Mary and the Saints, they did not exist before the advent of Christianity. Jesus had not fulfilled the Law and set us free.
Peace be to you also.

Sincerely,

De Maria
 
  1. Islam is man-made religion. A man named Mohammed. Christianity does not contradict monotheism. It says that there is one God and that He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mysterious, yes. Contrdiction, no. Islam apparently believes that the God of the universe cannot be any more complex than Homer Simpson.
  2. See #1 above.
  3. I am not GUILTY of Adam’s sin. I suffer the effects of it. Sin effects others. Murder, stealing, lying, rape… they all have harmfull effects on people NOT guilty of the sin.
  4. You listen to Protestants too much. They DO oversimplify this. Jesus didn’t die merely to satisfy a legal precept. He died to satisfy the true implications of God’s Justice. As mentioned above, sin DOES have harmful effects. Jesus accepted them all. And by so doing, he showed us that love and forgiveness are GREATER than sin and vengeance.
  5. The Bible is not a science or history textbook. Thank God. Mankind does not need divine help acquiring scientific knowledge faster! We need help learning spiritual truths so that we don’t destroy ourselves with our too-quickly acquired scientific knowledge!
  6. You listen to too many Protestants. Catholic teaching is that salvation is only through Christ, but that he grants it in PERFECT justice. That includes those who never heard his name, or who grew up hearing lies about Him. God has plenty of time to judge EACH of us according to His perfect justice on the judgement day.
  7. God didn’t create puppets. He created beings with free will. Had he wanted puppets, He would have made them. But He didn’t. He wanted us to freely choose Him and His plan. That implicitly requires that another choice be available.
  8. You confuse ‘redemption’ with salvation. So do a lot of protestants. Redemption destroyed the previously irreversible effects of original sin. Each person’s salvation is dependent on his acceptance of God’s offer of Grace. Just like with Adam and Eve, God doesn’t want puppets. He wants us to choose Him freely.
  9. See #1. If a puny human can fully grasp and explain God, then he isn’t a God worth worshipping.
  10. Christians understand that the laws of the OT were meant to prepare a people, Israel, to receive the Messiah. To set them apart from the other nations. To show very clearly how impossible it is for man to live in perfect conformity to a rule book. To show how much we need the forgiveness of God. Christ fullfilled this mission and opened a new era of humanity. The moral truths of the OT will never change or be discarded. The Mosaic law whose purpose I describe above is obsolete.
  11. Primitive people thousands of years ago actually WORSHIPPED those images as gods in and of themselves. Statues and pictures have nothing to do with idolatry.
  12. Islam can be judged this way too. Moreso actually, since Mohammed didn’t set up a definitive teaching authority structure. Jesus did - the catholic church. That catholic church officially teaches that every religion posses SOME elements of the truth and that those common elements should be embraced as ways to build relations among peoples of different religions. Precious few catholic crowds chant ‘death to the infidels.’
  13. Practices can and should change to be meaningful to people in different times and cultures. What cannot change is doctrine and moral teachings. And in catholicism, it does NOT.
Ready to convert?
 
Congratulations ‘manualman’ and ‘De Maria’, those were excellent replies. You two have explained why I am a Catholic. However don’t be surprised if ‘gurrato alaien’, ‘Karin’, ‘meedo’, ‘Matt25’ and other Islamic apologist twist what you said and or accuse you of being anti-Muslim, ignorant, and bigotted.
 
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Lance:
However don’t be surprised if ‘gurrato alaien’, ‘Karin’, ‘meedo’, ‘Matt25’ and other Islamic apologist twist what you said and or accuse you of being anti-Muslim, ignorant, and bigotted.
Those *do *seem to be rather popular responses.
 
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Lance:
Congratulations ‘manualman’ and ‘De Maria’, those were excellent replies. You two have explained why I am a Catholic. However don’t be surprised if ‘gurrato alaien’, ‘Karin’, ‘meedo’, ‘Matt25’ and other Islamic apologist twist what you said and or accuse you of being anti-Muslim, ignorant, and bigotted.
Lance: I take offence at this comment. I am not an Islamic Apologist nor am I a catholic one.
What I dont like seeing is that people who do not agree with or understand another faith bash it.
Not everyone is a Catholic nor does everyone want to be one. It seems that everytime a Muslim tries to explain his or her faith you attack them…that I find a bit disturbing. It seems that Catholics really are not interested in learning anything about Islam…so why do you guys keep engaging them with questions asking them to defend their faith.
 
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Karin:
Lance: I take offence at this comment. I am not an Islamic Apologist nor am I a catholic one.
What I dont like seeing is that people who do not agree with or understand another faith bash it.
Not everyone is a Catholic nor does everyone want to be one. It seems that everytime a Muslim tries to explain his or her faith you attack them…that I find a bit disturbing. It seems that Catholics really are not interested in learning anything about Islam…so why do you guys keep engaging them with questions asking them to defend their faith.
Excuse me Karin, but you always seem to have a blind eye when it comes to their attacking our faith!
 
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Lance:
Congratulations ‘manualman’ and ‘De Maria’, those were excellent replies. You two have explained why I am a Catholic. However don’t be surprised if ‘gurrato alaien’, ‘Karin’, ‘meedo’, ‘Matt25’ and other Islamic apologist twist what you said and or accuse you of being anti-Muslim, ignorant, and bigotted.
Yes, they’ve expressed my sentiments exactly. Thanks!🙂

Vickie
 
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Karin:
Not everyone is a Catholic nor does everyone want to be one. It seems that everytime a Muslim tries to explain his or her faith you attack them…that I find a bit disturbing. It seems that Catholics really are not interested in learning anything about Islam…so why do you guys keep engaging them with questions asking them to defend their faith.
Karin -

We don’t expect everyone in the world to be Catholic. We recognize that there are different religions in the world. We do our best to acknowledge the common good each of these religions hold.

Because Catholics (and Christians) are a religion based on love (the love that God has for us and the love we have inside of us), it’s hard for us to fathom a religion like Islaam that appears so unwielding in their doctrine, so contradictory (not in the perception of “our God” vs. “their God” but more along the lines of their scriptural doctrines), and so historically lacking. So try as we do, the explanations given, at least by some of the ones here on this board that favor the Muslim religion, don’t quite “hit the mark” in coming to that common understanding Catholic Christians hold.

I have yet to be convinced that following true Islaam is a religion of good. The Muslims I see that act out of the goodness of mankind seem to me to go against true Muslim teaching…they appear to be more Christian than Muslim.

That’s just one Catholic Christian’s perspective…

Peace.
 
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Tonks40:
The Muslims I see that act out of the goodness of mankind seem to me to go against true Muslim teaching…they appear to be more Christian than Muslim.

That’s just one Catholic Christian’s perspective…
Shared by another. Essentially, that’s the impression I have as well.
 
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Tonks40:
We don’t expect everyone in the world to be Catholic.
Ummm, yes we do. As has always been taught and was reiterated by the Second Vatican Council, everyone has a moral obligation towards Catholicism:

Dignitatis Humanae:
“Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”

“…all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth…”
 
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Genesis315:
Ummm, yes we do. As has always been taught and was reiterated by the Second Vatican Council, everyone has a moral obligation towards Catholicism:
Which makes working with or alongside another prosletyzing faith also calling for conversion of the world to its doctrines an interesting prospect, if not a self-contradictory one, to my mind at least.
 
I don’t know much of the other muslims on this board. But Meedo and I have had a few good conversations. I find him a sensible and honest thinking chap. We don’t agree in matters of faith much.

But we’ve gone at each others religious beliefs vigorously without ever making each other feel PERSONALLY attacked. We all need to try harder to acheive that.

Of COURSE muslims are going to have problems with christianity. Of course they are going to articulate them and relate experiences that reinforce their beliefs. They ARE muslim; they believe it. Let them express their objections to christianity without us getting angry. Just play by the same rules and point out any misunderstandings they may have and point out the problems in Islam you know of. That can be done charitably in the true sense of the word.

Incidentally, the OP noted some pretty good reasons not to be an EVANGELICAL protestant christian. He gets points for doing some homework on christianity generically. He just doesn’t realize that the distortions he notes are not inherent to christianity, they are recent innovations no older than Martin Luther and John Calvin.
 
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Booklover:
Excuse me Karin, but you always seem to have a blind eye when it comes to their attacking our faith!

Excuse me…but what about you attacking their faith?
 
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manualman:
I don’t know much of the other muslims on this board. But Meedo and I have had a few good conversations. I find him a sensible and honest thinking chap. We don’t agree in matters of faith much.

But we’ve gone at each others religious beliefs vigorously without ever making each other feel PERSONALLY attacked. We all need to try harder to acheive that.

Of COURSE muslims are going to have problems with christianity. Of course they are going to articulate them and relate experiences that reinforce their beliefs. They ARE muslim; they believe it. Let them express their objections to christianity without us getting angry. Just play by the same rules and point out any misunderstandings they may have and point out the problems in Islam you know of. That can be done charitably in the true sense of the word.
Totally Agree…thank you
 
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