Why should I become a Muslim, and why you should become a Christian.

[dzheremi]

Can I ask you why Allah would challenge humanity to bring forth a work equal to the Quran, knowing ahead of time that they would not be able to do it? I really don’t understand the purpose behind this challenge. If the Quran is from Allah, then it will be impossible, and if it is not then who cares what is contained in it (including this challenge)? Besides, it makes Allah seem awfully worldly, cruel, and nonsensical.

 

[underdog]

The first reason why you should be a Chrisitan or a Catholic Christian is…you don’t want to call God a liar!.

Testimony Concerning the Son of God

This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

http://www.monstersinmotion.us/dvd/underdog3pack.jpg

Dear Muslim friends,

According to the Holy Scriptures, you are calling God a liar. There is no way around this divine revelation.

Reason 1 - You should be a Christian because you don’t want to call God a liar

 

[inJESUS]

Your example of God’s word doesn’t work, because this is an attribute of God not a separate person…

well we both agree that the Word of God is eternal and uncreated …now your problem is with calling it “person”, and you said “seperate person” when in fact it is “distinct”, not separate. If you read the OT, the Word or Wisdom of God is personnified, when the Wisdom speaks, the Father speaks, because the Father is not seperate from His Word. When the Holy Spirit speaks, the Father speaks, because God is not seperate from His Spirit. The Word and Spirit are distinct because the Father is the Font from which proceed the Word and Spirit, this is what distinction is about. In other words, when God speaks, His Word and Spirit speak because God is One and not seperate. “Person” is simply a human word used to teach that the Wisdom and Spirit of the Father are not “passive” powers.

No, the problem is not just with incarnation, it’s much before that, look at what Theophilus of Antioch said again…

what’s difficult in what he wrote? you find these teachings in OT and NT. Everything came into existence through the Word/Wisdom of God, and there was no time when God was Wisdomless, that is why the Word is not created . As to “sending Him”, you read it again in OT and NT:

Proverbs 8:22-30 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him…

Proverbs 1:24-28 Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: "How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you-- when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. "Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Wisdom of Solomon 9:9 With you (God) is Wisdom, who knows your works and was present when you made the world.

John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
Proverbs 8:35 For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.

John 1:11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (1:11)
1 Enoch 42:2 Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men, and found no dwelling place.

John 14:15 If you love me, you will obey what I command.
Wisdom of Solomon 16:18 And love of Wisdom is the keeping of her laws, and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality.

This a different case, Quran is God’s word, to write God’s word on paper has nothing to do with God himself being a man.

we don’t say God is a man. You call a book the eternal and uncreated Word of Allah, yet we do not say you believe Allah is a book.

Neither do we believe in the NT, so I have nothing to do with what you say. What you are doing is called a circular reasoning which is a logical fallacy.

you can call it whatever you like, still Jesus did not teach about scripture corruption unless you are suggesting He did but we sided with Jewish coruption.

Still circular reasoning.

it isn’t because those who wrote the OT are not those who wrote the NT, so if God sent prophets to correct books yet the OT authors corrupted this teaching, surely the NT writers would have exposed these teachings, but no one did simply because, among all the Biblical prophets, no one was sent to correct books.

What is your proof that this didn’t happen? Can you give me a historical evidence that this happened?
Mat 27:51 …

your quotes have nothing to do with the cave legend.

Seven Sleepers of Ephesus were, according to 6th-century legend, early Christian Ephesians who were walled up in a cave near by, taking refuge from the persecution of Decius. God put them to sleep: 200 years later they awoke to find their city Christian.

answers.com/topic/seven-sleepers

Whether this was the case or not, it’s a clear proof that corruption occurs in the Bible. And if it happened once, it can happen again and again, so it cannot be trusted.

it is clear that people can try to corrupt it, as when the Quran accuses some people of shredding it into pieces. You are quoting people who were accusing some Jews, not the scriptures because these people quoted the scriptures extensively.

 

[inJESUS]

The Quran challenged them to have a Sura like it, they couldn’t, and till now no one could do it, look for example at Shorosh who wrote his false furqan, and when he was asked to read a verse in the Quran, he had many mistakes.

the Quran challenged who? and who tried and failed? and who decided if they failed or not? and which Arabs believed in the miraculous nature of the Quranic language?

The miracle of the Quran is clear in the Muslims themselves, if you looked at history, you’ll find a directly proportional relation (it may even be considered exponential ) between Muslims’ abiding to Islam, and their leadership in the world, and once they are away from Islam, they began to be humiliated.

 

[inJESUS]

It’s Christianity’s fault, since it opens the doors leading to adultery as unveiling women and mixing between 2 genders and closes the doors preventing it as polygamy which solves social problems as the helping women who need a man to protect them and the need for children or fulfilling the desire for example, look at your priests and the notorious scandals everyday, this is due to all these reasons along with forbidding divorce, which puts Christians in a real trap, so many people cannot withstand all that and finally they fall.

an immoral person is an immoral person, whether you open the door or don’t, and vice versa. With all the marriage options and number of women a Muslim can have, Muslims still commit fornication and adulty. Where you are seperating men from women, your men are becoming homosexuals and your women are having sex with the taxi drivers. When you marry and divorce and marry and divorce, this is a cheap trade, not a sacred bond so do not blame God for your sins and do not expect Him to give you laws to accomodate your lusts and desires, but ask for a change of heart, because the problem is within.

So was Abraham of a harsh heart?

 

[Ibn_Taymiya]

Can I ask you why Allah would challenge humanity to bring forth a work equal to the Quran, knowing ahead of time that they would not be able to do it?

Can I ask you why Yahweh gives miracles, knowing ahead that these are miracles?

 

[Ibn_Taymiya]

Dear Muslim friends,

According to the Holy Scriptures, you are calling God a liar. There is no way around this divine revelation.

Reason 1 - You should be a Christian because you don’t want to call God a liar

Where did we call God a liar?

 

[dzheremi]

Can I ask you why Yahweh gives miracles, knowing ahead that these are miracles?

You indeed can, but this is a qualitatively different question. Miracles are cooperative (raising of the dead, healing of the sick, or even in the sense of strengthening of the faith, as in the miracle of the Holy Fire, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition; all of these things that draw humans closer to God). They are to reveal to those who see them the mystery of God’s great power in their lives and over all creation. What is cooperative about Allah’s challenge to humanity to out-do Him? Should they even attempt it? It seems like it is to separate the believers from Allah more than to unite them to Him in renewed faith of His power. If they can achieve it, then their God is false; if they cannot (and for sure, they cannot, and Allah knows this and they ought to know this), then what is the point of the challenge? That is the difference: Christ Jesus heals the blind and it is for the glory of the Father that the healed can recount their experience and live forever as a testament to the power of the Divine. If a human fulfills the challenge set forth by the Islamic Allah, then it proves Him to be powerless. So the challenge is destructive at worst, and at best proves what? That Allah is more powerful than humans? (Did they not know that before the challenge?)

I am still looking for some sort of explanation as to why Allah challenges humans to do what He knows that they will never be able to do. There is no analogue to this in Christianity. It is certainly not a miracle. There is nothing miraculous in it.

 

[Ibn_Taymiya]

well we both agree that the Word of God is eternal and uncreated …now your problem is with calling it “person”, and you said “seperate person” when in fact it is “distinct”, not separate. If you read the OT, the Word or Wisdom of God is personnified, when the Wisdom speaks, the Father speaks, because the Father is not seperate from His Word. When the Holy Spirit speaks, the Father speaks, because God is not seperate from His Spirit. The Word and Spirit are distinct because the Father is the Font from which proceed the Word and Spirit, this is what distinction is about. In other words, when God speaks, His Word and Spirit speak because God is One and not seperate. “Person” is simply a human word used to teach that the Wisdom and Spirit of the Father are not “passive” powers.

So you mean that the Word and Spirit are considered minor originating from the Father which is the main person? If what you are saying is the case, what is the need for you to say that they are three persons, as there is no need for the word or the spirit, since when they speak, Father already speaks?

what’s difficult in what he wrote? you find these teachings in OT and NT.

You were saying that my difficulty is in incarnation not the Trinity, I unedrstood from your words that you meant the word was just incarnated at Jesus’ time, which is why I brought this.

As for the OT telling about the Wisdom, tell me is God set up by God:
Proverbs 8:22-30 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

In another version:
(GNB) **I was made **in the very beginning, at the first, before the world began.

Everything came into existence through the Word/Wisdom of God, and there was no time when God was Wisdomless, that is why the Word is not created .

Actually there was, read again what Theophilus wrote:

For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered,61 the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason.
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf0…i.ii.xxii.html

1 Enoch 42:2 Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men, and found no dwelling place.

Are you an Ethiopian?

we don’t say God is a man. You call a book the eternal and uncreated Word of Allah, yet we do not say you believe Allah is a book.

We don’t say that God’s Word is incarnated on paper, but written on paper, that’s a vast difference, and I already explained it.

You don’t say God is a man, Jesus says:
Joh 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I heard from God: this did not Abraham.
God is not a man, while Jesus is a man, the result is:
Jesus is NOT God.

you can call it whatever you like, still Jesus did not teach about scripture corruption unless you are suggesting He did but we sided with Jewish corruption.

Jesus didn’t tell about textual corruption, but still didn’t confirm the OT (I mean in its shape now) itself, he just quoted some verses, and even the NT misquotes some OT verses as that Nazarene one, and there have been discrepancies between OT and NT as the case with the genealogies.
Btw, Jesus accused that Jerusalem by killing the prophets, is it present in the OT? The OT used to be a history book and told about the death of many prophets, so events like these must have been present in it, are they really present?

your quotes have nothing to do with the cave legend.

Yes, they have. I brought them to prove that not having enough evidence the something happen doesn’t prove that it didn’t happen. So by your logic, I can call these crucifixion verses a myth, since we have no evidence about these huge events that must have been documented with crucifixion which didn’t occur even in the other gospels.

Seven Sleepers of Ephesus were, according to 6th-century legend, early Christian Ephesians who were walled up in a cave near by, taking refuge from the persecution of Decius. God put them to sleep: 200 years later they awoke to find their city Christian.

Did the Jews believe in this story? The story mentioned in the Quran was an answer to a Jewish challenge, and you can go back to your link to verify that. Also there are another discrepancies between what you gave and the Islamic story, as the duration of their sleep, the Quran never mentioned this was in Ephesus or any other part, and this link even gives evidence that it occured in Jordan, it’s in Arabic, but you can google translate it, I don’t know if I can find a version for it:
55a.net/firas/arabic/?page=show_det&id=1002&select_page=1

it is clear that people can try to corrupt it, as when the Quran accuses some people of shredding it into pieces. You are quoting people who were accusing some Jews, not the scriptures because these people quoted the scriptures extensively.

So where are these verses cited by Justin and Chrysystom in the Bible now? People tried to corrupt it, and they succeeded.

 

[Ibn_Taymiya]

the Quran challenged who? and who tried and failed? and who decided if they failed or not? and which Arabs believed in the miraculous nature of the Quranic language?

The Arabs were very known by being rhetorical, and anyone can see this through their poetry, the Quran challenged them in that, and they couldn’t, and till now no one can’t. You want to know if they failed or not? If they really could meet the challenge, Islam would have been vanished from the beginning, since this challenge was set even before Islam had power, and people had no reason to enter it unless it was really from God and true (so that you don’t say it was because of the sword), and if the Arabs could have met the challenge, the Quran won’t have been believed by anyone, and Islam would have perished silently. Did this happen?

and the miracle of the Book of Mormons is clear to Mormons themselves and they challenge anyone to prove the opposive.

What if i challenge you to write something better that the Bible yet i am the judge? won’t you laugh at my subjective and human argument?

The case is different, as history here is a clear witness that the Quran is miraculous, and again you can read the Islamic history, and see when Muslims are strong and when Muslims are weak, you will find that it relates directly to following Islam.

If it appeared that Jesus was crucified, then we should agree that all empirical evidence available to someone on the scene should lead a person to conclude that Jesus was crucified. If this is not the case then the Quran is false in saying that it appeared that way.

The Quran says that he wasn’t crucified, the verse tells that it was appeard to them like he was, what’s your point?

a miracle to the Jews? yet they neither saw it, nor verified it, so what was the purpose of a miracle neither seen nor verified?

Do you think that they will document an evidence against them when they want to disbelieve in Jesus?

 

[dzheremi]

Isn’t the fact that something exists despite challenge a relatively low standard upon which to base your assessment of truth? Plenty of things exist that are false, so the mere presence of something is not confirmation of some truth inherent in it, but rather the willingness of its believers to believe that this is a sufficient standard. It is evidence of a belief, fairly valueless when it comes to judging the actual content of that belief.

Besides, while I know you’ll hate to read this, it should also be pointed out that as Islam has at times taken a very war-like posture towards outsiders/non-believers, it follows that it would be more likely to survive since it did not hesitate to eliminate threats (real and imaginary) to its expansion or its free practice. Who can thank Allah for his divine sanction of the killing of outsiders in the forbidden city of Harar, for instance? Is this evidence of Islam’s truth, or merely Islam’s willingness to be more violent than others (or more successful in its violence)?

I should suspect to see Christianity fall before Islam, but not due to Islam’s superiority. Never, ever, ever due to that! Rather, we are forewarned as Christians that in accepting our place as inheritors of the Kingdom of the Almighty, we will lose the world, and that’s okay. It is much prefered to the alternative, as the world is not meant for us anyway.

Islam’s truth, by your logic, is to be measured in pieces of land and conversions of the houses upon which they stand. You could convert the world, but it would not do anything to make Islam more truthful. No book, prophet, or post on the internet can do that.

 

[Ibn_Taymiya]

an immoral person is an immoral person, whether you open the door or don’t, and vice versa.

So according to what you say, all people are immoral since all of them are sinners, many people try not to sin, but circumstances overcome them, not all of them are willing to sin. And God must help them by giving laws which reduce their chance to sin.

With all the marriage options and number of women a Muslim can have, Muslims still commit fornication and adulty. Where you are seperating men from women, your men are becoming homosexuals and your women are having sex with the taxi drivers.

Well, you may have been right if marriage was that easy in our communities, nowadays, marriage has been much difficult due to economic circumstances and polygamy became rare and not the main case. Besides, adultery cases in the Islamic societies are still much less than that in Christian societies.

When you marry and divorce and marry and divorce, this is a cheap trade, not a sacred bond so do not blame God for your sins and do not expect Him to give you laws to accomodate your lusts and desires, but ask for a change of heart, because the problem is within.

Another gross misrepresentation for Islamic laws, you are talking as if divorce is preferred which is not the case, Islam puts many obstacles for divorce execution as waiting for 4 months and if the woman is pregnant,…etc. It is actually made as a solution to the case when the couple cannot live with each other not as a game. You can say as an emergency exit, which is not present in Christianity. It can happen that the man mischooses his wife or the opposite, and this could happen easily, and when they marry, they see that their characters don’t match with each other that their life together is impossible, why should they still live with each other?

i was talking about divorce.

Yes, you and Jesus

Polygamy was practiced, but it wasn’t the plan of God, just as divorce was practiced but not the plan of God. If you believe Jesus taught about polygamy yet “corrupt” Christians decided otherwise, then am speechless.

What plan do you mean? And why did God change His plan?

first, God did not call it moral.

But He accepted it.

Second, there was no laws back then, third, we have to keep repeating that not everything you read in the OT means it was ordained by God…

Neither do we say that Muta’ is ok today, it had circumstances at its time and once these were finished, it was forbidden.

 

[Ibn_Taymiya]

dzheremi, I must go now, so I will adress your post once I have time.

 

[inJESUS]

So you mean that the Word and Spirit are considered minor…

there are no “minors” as we do not dissect God. There was no time when the Father was Wordless or Spiritless so the Word is not a “minor”. I was talking about *distinction *between the Father and Word or Spirit, which is a distinction of position, not nature. Likewise, when you say the Quran is uncreated, yet only Allah is uncreated, it does not mean Allah is the Quran, it means that the Word of Allah has the nature of Allah but Allah is first in position because Allah begot it eternally. This is what we mean by distiction in position yet equality in nature.

You were saying that my difficulty is in incarnation not the Trinity, I unedrstood from your words that you meant the word was just incarnated at Jesus’ time, which is why I brought this.

 

[inJESUS]

The Arabs were very known by being rhetorical, and anyone can see this through their poetry, the Quran challenged them in that, and they couldn’t, and till now no one can’t. You want to know if they failed or not? If they really could meet the challenge, Islam would have been vanished from the beginning, since this challenge was set even before Islam had power, and people had no reason to enter it unless it was really from God and true (so that you don’t say it was because of the sword), and if the Arabs could have met the challenge, the Quran won’t have been believed by anyone, and Islam would have perished silently. Did this happen?

yes i want to see if they tried to meet the challenge and failed, who tried and failed and i want to know who was the judge. I want to know what Arabs believed in the Quran because of its language. You talk as if it happened, so who tried to meet the challenge but failed and who was the judge? and how come many did not convert, and even became apostates after Muhammad’s death if they believed the Quran is miraculous and no one could challenge it?

The case is different, as history here is a clear witness that the Quran is miraculous, and again you can read the Islamic history, and see when Muslims are strong and when Muslims are weak, you will find that it relates directly to following Islam.

 

[inJESUS]

So according to what you say, all people are immoral since all of them are sinners, many people try not to sin, but circumstances overcome them, not all of them are willing to sin. And God must help them by giving laws which reduce their chance to sin.

no , laws do not reduce their chances to sin if they want to sin. A saudi man can have 4 women and still he can leave his country and commit adultery…if he is immoral, he is immoral.

Well, you may have been right if marriage was that easy in our communities, nowadays, marriage has been much difficult due to economic circumstances and polygamy became rare and not the main case.

 

[inJESUS]

I it extemely important to note a very crucial difference between Christian understanding of scriptures, and Islamic one, which often results in Muslims and Christians not understanding the basis of the other party’s claims.

Muslim believe that the Quran is exactly what Allah uttered, nothing added or retrived. In other words, it is as if Allah dropped a book from heaven written by himself and no man was able to add or retrieve anything. I don’t know if the marks added to the non-marked old Arabic texts are exactly what Allah uttered, i don’t know if the names of the chapters were chosen by Allah himself, and i don’t know if Allah intended to gather his sayings according to lengh and not theme, i don’t know why the stoning verse is not in the Quran, but nevertheless, Muslims believe the Quran to be the masterpiece of Allah as He uttered and intended to be with nothing added or retrieved that is why it is preserved.

When we talk about scriptures, or the preservation of God’s words, we by no means believe in what Muslims believe. A Christian will still tell you God preserves His words, even though Protestants have less books or even though Jews have different books or the ethiopeans have more books. In other words, we are not people of books, we do not look for preserved letters to believe in God; even if the Church did not canonize the Bible, even if we do not have a Bible, we believe that the Church established by Jesus through the apostles is the preservation of God’s words and commandmants because God did not drop us a book but the Word in Flesh who gave us a church, not a book. This is something most Muslims do not understand because they believe Allah’s power resides in unchanged letters when we believe God’s power and guidance is to the Church He established; people can change/manipulate words and letters and people can gather all the Bibles on the planet and burn them but people cannot change/efface the belief of the first century churches established by the apostles. This is the preservation of God’s words and commandmants, this is God’s faithfulness, it is not about words and letters but about the community who saw and witnessed Jesus and His apostles and who grew and is still growing for more than 2000 years.

In other words, Muslims can attack whatver they want in the Bible or it’s canonization or translation, but Muslims cannot attack the faith of the apostles and their disciples throughout the different churches they established. In other words, Muslims must attack the belief of the Church before the Bible because the Church gave us the preserved teachings, it was not the Bible that gave us the church.

 

[dzheremi]

Yes! Post of the year! Reading that is like an early Christmas gift for all of us. Thank you, inJESUS.

I wonder how what you said can apply to Sola Scriptura Protestants, though I guess that is the subject for another thread. The important part is here, anyway: The Bible is central to Christianity, but not the basis for it. If there were no Bible, as was the case for the first several centuries of Christianity, there would still be a church, as God Himself established one.

 

[inJESUS]

Yes! Post of the year! Reading that is like an early Christmas gift for all of us. Thank you, inJESUS.

It is very important to point out this difference, otherwise Muslims won’t understand why our eyes do not even blink to what they consider “corruption” and they wonder how come we do not “see” it If Muslims discover that one single aya has been tampered with, all their theory collapses and hence their belief because the leg they stand on is the belief that not one word is corrupt because Allah preserved every letter which means the Quran is from God. Such belief is totally alien to us for the reasons i stated, and because not all preserved books means they are from God. And i repeat, Jesus left a church established by the apostles in different lands, and the apostles appointed their disciples after them and the teachings were passed down, and the belief was passed down before the canonization of the Bible and if the Church did not canonize it, we’d still have the same belief of the first century that opposes Muhammad’s book, that is why burn all the Bibles and Christianity will still exist, because you cannot burn the belief of the different churches established by the apostles. There is nothing called books dropping down from heaven but there is something called different churches in different lands in the first century with eyewitnesses to Jesus and the apostles and their disciples. Refute the belief of these first century churches and then come back to discuss letters and words.

 

[Muslim_Woman]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Salaam/ Peace

…With all the marriage options and number of women a Muslim can have, Muslims still commit fornication and adulty.