Islam

Dame Warrigal said:
I think Jesus referred to himself as "son of man" which referred to an OT prophesy about the messiah. Correct me anyone who has the time to clarify this point. It was others who used the words "son of God" (Peter, Roman soldier at the cross)and this may have been written into the stories later. I think Paul is probably the writer who most points to divinity.

The god of the OT is a tribal interpretation/understanding of the divine. Jesus preached, through the parables, a very different interpretation, one that could be universal and encompass non Jews. No-one before him had ever dared to address God as Daddy as he did in what we call the Lord's Prayer. (Abba is a very familiar Hebrew word for father).
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John 1:1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

This, in my way of thinking, is just one place it is said that Jesus was God. Matthew says, but also, I am thinking of the places where Jesus said it himself. One place: Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
Jesus replied, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?"[SUP]6[/SUP]

John 14:9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
 

Dame Warrigal said:
My understanding too. In our congregation we have people who still believe in Christ's divinity but many do not or are at best ambivalent about it, including our minister. It makes no difference to their commitment to try to live out the teachings embedded in the gospel narratives.
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I tell folks I lost my faith, but I haven't lost the good teachings of the bible. I think I'd like your church Dame;)
 
Lots of people with the same name of Jesus at the time. Sort of like going to Mexico. All the Gospels are a case of they said, that they said that he said. Interesting though that the Koran comes straight down by the man himself, and written in such a way that it can't be redefined.
 

rt3 said:
....... In both religions the earth, we and the sun were one before the separation, Christians call it the creation. ....../QUOTE]


This one little part rt3, I would have to disagree with you. I was in the Seventh Day Adventist Church for twelve years, and we never believed that we and the sun and earth were 'one' before a separation. The Christian belief is that God is.....and He created all that is. Just out of His Word, He spoke and all that is came into existence.

You brought up some interesting other points though.
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rt3 said:
Lots of people with the same name of Jesus at the time. Sort of like going to Mexico. All the Gospels are a case of they said, that they said that he said. Interesting though that the Koran comes straight down by the man himself, and written in such a way that it can't be redefined.
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I believe "if" God is real/exists, no man's/woman's itti, bitti brain is going to figure him out.
 
Debby said:
rt3 said:
....... In both religions the earth, we and the sun were one before the separation, Christians call it the creation. ....../QUOTE]


This one little part rt3, I would have to disagree with you. I was in the Seventh Day Adventist Church for twelve years, and we never believed that we and the sun and earth were 'one' before a separation. The Christian belief is that God is.....and He created all that is. Just out of His Word, He spoke and all that is came into existence.

You brought up some interesting other points though.
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The Mormons and Catholics would disagree with you.
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Anyway we have Islam to thank for our number system and batteries. Ever tried doing algebra in Roman numerals ?
 
Sunny said:
True, the Bible, especially Leviticus in the Old Testament is of the same cruel, primitive mindset as the Koran. Probably going back to Biblical days, the Jews were just as guilty of this stuff as the Islamist fanatics. And in Christianity, we don't even have to go back that far; there was the Spanish Inquisition, fundamentalist puritanism, etc.

But the big difference is: that was then, this is now. These Islamists cannot be let off the hook by pointing out the cruelties and ignorance of other religions in bygone ages. Even the most rigidly orthodox Jews and Christians are not bombing innocent people, flying planes into buildings, subjecting people to strokes of the lash(!) for expressing their own opinions, etc.

So this is apples and oranges. We cannot shrug off the Muslim atrocities by pointing out that at some time in the past, other religions were "just as bad." The Muslim religion seems to be permanently stuck in about the 12th century.
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The other religions changed with the times over the years. I hear the Vatican holds true the words of all the old texts. This is not printed, IMO, so that people CAN change with the times with their religions. Makes sense to not encourage death and barbaric destruction upon the world.
I was told the Quran does not allow for change. I have not studied or read everything in it, quite boring actually, but there is on just about every page barbaric destruction upon all who don't follow it. IMO, its almost like it was written by or told by God's fallen angel and a false prophet. It truely is evil most of it. We simply cannot live by those laws in today's peaceful society. I don't know how Islam thinks it can.
 
One has to be leery of religions who's dogma and rulings can change by a bunch of men getting together and voting on it.. If MAN can change the tenants of a religion, how much is divinely commanded? In other words.. if man can change it, God didn't make it. Most organized religions were invented by man.... for MAN.. and I mean that in the universal and gendered sense.. and like most things man does... for power and for profit.
 
rt3 said:
Debby said:
The Mormons and Catholics would disagree with you.
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Could you provide a link for that? I'd be interested to read that opinion.

*********

To save you the time, I looked it up myself:

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution

The Catholics believe that the world was created out of nothing. (the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must "confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing)

http://mormonbeliefs.org/mormon_beliefs/mormon-beliefs-the-plan-of-salvation/the-creation

And the Mormons believe that the God organized the existing elements to be different things (creatures, plants, rocks, etc.)
( From scripture revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, we know that in the work of the Creation, the Lord organized elements that had already existed (see Abraham 3:24). He did not create the world “out of nothing,” as some people believe.)

So as it stands, Christians including Catholics believe in the 'creation out of nothing' while Mormons believe 'organization of the existing elements'.
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QuickSilver said:
One has to be leery of religions who's dogma and rulings can change by a bunch of men getting together and voting on it.. If MAN can change the tenants of a religion, how much is divinely commanded? In other words.. if man can change it, God didn't make it. Most organized religions were invented by man.... for MAN.. and I mean that in the universal and gendered sense.. and like most things man does... for power and for profit.
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I agree with this. Reading the bible and then listening to religious leaders distorting and making excuses for it is what led me to become an atheist.
 
QuickSilver said:
I don't believe Jesus ever claimed to be GOD... or the Son of God.. And never spoke of the Trinity. That was all done by man inventing a religion.
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John 10:29-30 "...29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
30 I and my Father are one. ........
36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him."


Sounds like he's assuming the status of God there.
Then there's the following in John 1:


1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God........
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."


The Word was God...and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
 
Well GOD is the Father of ALL of us....... SO if I were speaking of Him... I would say the same... God is in every one of us too... NO? God sent every one of us into the world.. No?

You can read what you want in all your examples... It's all conjecture of what he may have meant.. and can be interpreted in different ways.

Show me a passage where Jesus says I AM GOD.. and you are to worship me.

Another thing you are forgetting is that the New Testament was written by MEN long after Jesus was alive.. SO how much poetic license you think was involved? How much was actually remembered or invented? How much was simply imagination?
 
I'm not forgetting that the NT was written much later at all. I was in the SDA church for twelve years and if anything, those people are big on Bible study. We had several Concordances in the house, plus all sorts of other 'explanatory' books to aid in Bible study. I also was a member of the church board and organized DVBS two or three years and I taught children's classes as did my husband. And there were the mid week Bible studies. And for those who weren't immersed in the church, a Concordance is a book that looks at every word in the Bible and explains the origins, number of uses (of said word) and the definitions, etc.

What must be remembered as we study it now is that sometimes cultural and societal traditions were also at play as in the admonition by Paul I think, that women should not cut their hair and cover their heads in church.

But as for those verses, I think if you look at most church's understandings of them, they would assure you that these are statements of divinity which is one of the reasons why the Jewish priests of the day were so hot to do away with him. Those statements (whether the original claims or the later written statements) were seen as blasphemous.

The following link supports the belief that God isn't IN ALL THINGS. Wouldn't that be more a pagan or pantheistic belief?
 
Debby said:
I'm not forgetting that the NT was written much later at all. I was in the SDA church for twelve years and if anything, those people are big on Bible study. We had several Concordances in the house, plus all sorts of other 'explanatory' books to aid in Bible study. I also was a member of the church board and organized DVBS two or three years and I taught children's classes as did my husband. And there were the mid week Bible studies.

What must be remembered as we study it now is that sometimes cultural and societal traditions were also at play as in the admonition by Paul I think, that women should not cut their hair and cover their heads in church. But as for those verses, I think if you look at most church's understandings of them, they would assure you that these are statements of divinity which is one of the reasons why the Jewish priests of the day were so hot to do away with him. Those statements (whether the original claims or the later written statements) were seen as blasphemous.


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Ah yes.... the SDA.... Don't they follow the teachings of Ellen White (1827-1915) the self proclaimed prophet who claimed to have visual experiences and talked directly to God?
 
QuickSilver said:
Well GOD is the Father of ALL of us....... SO if I were speaking of Him... I would say the same... God is in every one of us too... NO? God sent every one of us into the world.. No?

You can read what you want in all your examples... It's all conjecture of what he may have meant.. and can be interpreted in different ways.

Show me a passage where Jesus says I AM GOD.. and you are to worship me.

Another thing you are forgetting is that the New Testament was written by MEN long after Jesus was alive.. SO how much poetic license you think was involved? How much was actually remembered or invented? How much was simply imagination?
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http://www.everystudent.com/wires/whodoyousay.html
That link has some verses that seem to be making the statement that Jesus was God. One example:

Jesus Said He Existed Before Abraham
"Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad."
The people said, "You aren't even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?"
Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!"[SUP]4




[/SUP]"...that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"-


Jesus Said He Was the Same as God
"The Father and I are one."
Once again the people picked up stones to kill him.
Jesus said, "At my Father's direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?"
They replied, "We're stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God."[SUP]13



Obviously the people of the day had no problem with perceiving the claims to divinity.[/SUP]
 
QuickSilver said:
Ah yes.... the SDA.... Don't they follow the teachings of Ellen White (1827-1915) the self proclaimed prophet who claimed to have visual experiences and talked directly to God?
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Very good QuickSilver. Yes Ellen White was the leader of the church. Martin Luther also had a church named after him and he had different views on church teaching of the time and Menno Simons started the Mennonite Church. And then there's the Anglican church that was separated from the Roman so that an English King could get a divorce. (I think that's the way it happened:confused:)

Anyway, what you should know is that the SDA church doesn't veer from what is in the Bible itself. There are a couple of different understandings and one would be that they don't believe that sinners will roast and suffer for all eternity (unlike your typical Baptist or Catholic teaching) but that those who aren't believers will merely stay in the darkness of the grave. 'Punishment' is separation from God. I remember once having a discussion with a Mennonite cousin who got really angry at the thought that 'God wouldn't roast sinners forever'. I thought he was going to throw us out of his house, he was so mad. Compassionate guy huh? Preferred the idea of lots of suffering for anyone who wasn't 'like him'.

SDA's also believe that the example of Daniels good health on vegetables only, plus the Genesis admonition to eat plants was God showing that the vegetarian diet was intended for humans which is why most Adventists are vegetarian.The SDA church has a very strong health message and that belief is demonstrated in several hospitals across the US with the most well known being Loma Linda University Medical Centre in California.

As well, there is a strong message against outward adornment as in jewellery. So most traditional Adventists in America and Canada won't wear even wedding rings. Instead of engagement rings, young men often give their intendeds a nice watch because a watch is a practical and useful thing. In Europe, I think the admonition against jewellery is not so prevalent. When my daughter got married, her fiancee's pastor Grandfather from Germany, did the part of the ceremony where the rings are exchanged.
 
This is sooo true Quick, That's another way of looking at it. All over Christianity the same bible was rewritten and interpreted to suit the tribe(so to speak).
Within those Christian tribe, being Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, etc. I think they kept the 10 commandments intact (words to live by) and they don't focus so much on the evils but focus on the goodness of the words and stories so man can live peacefully and in harmony. Never harming others and never having evil tendencies toward others. Much of it is common sense to communication and relations with others. How to be treating, how to treat others. Some of that is said in the Quran as well, they choose to only interpret and focus on the evil words.
In Islam people of the whole world are infidels unless they convert to Islam. This is stated in the Quran. Infidels get slaughtered, butchered, raped and tortured. It is written so in their belief.

I thank God, the papal in the Vatican have secretly avoided print of such evil rules. Can you imagine a world living as Islam rules? I know I can't. I'd rather have a God, a Good God to believe in.
 
Quoting scripture doesn't mean anything. I live in a 3 state area surrounded by Mormons and (no affiliation) Catholics (no affiliation). They and every any "church" member I have met" read that stuff, take what they want and become hypocrites. None "take on the Mantle" as Mormons put it. One of my hobbies is collecting early Masonic, Catholic, and Mormon literature so I can argue with them about who stole what first.
Don't think of the Sun as it exists today, but as a consiousness, and as this consciousness "looked at itself" it began to precipitate into matter. Early Christians actually believed in re-incarnation, what happened to all that? Did the council of Nice forget to include that for some reason?

One can be atheist but still be agnostic., If you think someone owns the stairway to heaven, because they claim to know/own the definition of God/ good luck.
 
Debby said:
Very good QuickSilver. Yes Ellen White was the leader of the church. Martin Luther also had a church named after him and he had different views on church teaching of the time and Menno Simons started the Mennonite Church. And then there's the Anglican church that was separated from the Roman so that an English King could get a divorce. (I think that's the way it happened:confused:)

Anyway, what you should know is that the SDA church doesn't veer from what is in the Bible itself. There are a couple of different understandings and one would be that they don't believe that sinners will roast and suffer for all eternity (unlike your typical Baptist or Catholic teaching) but that those who aren't believers will merely stay in the darkness of the grave. 'Punishment' is separation from God. I remember once having a discussion with a Mennonite cousin who got really angry at the thought that 'God wouldn't roast sinners forever'. I thought he was going to throw us out of his house, he was so mad. Compassionate guy huh? Preferred the idea of lots of suffering for anyone who wasn't 'like him'.

SDA's also believe that the example of Daniels good health on vegetables only, plus the Genesis admonition to eat plants was God showing that the vegetarian diet was intended for humans which is why most Adventists are vegetarian.

The SDA church has a very strong health message and that belief is demonstrated in several hospitals across the US with the most well known being Loma Linda University Medical Centre in California.
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I am VERY familiar with SDA as well as Martin Luther.
 
flowerchild said:
This is sooo true Quick, That's another way of looking at it. All over Christianity the same bible was rewritten and interpreted to suit the tribe(so to speak).
.....
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I don't think the Bible has ever been 'rewritten'. It has been translated into various languages and in some instances, probably some modern cultural understandings have crept in, but never rewritten.
 
So just curious QuickSilver, how are you familiar with the SDA church? It's a little more obscure than say the Baptist church or Pentacostal . Were you a member or did you have a family member who belonged?
 
Debby you quoted:
38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him."
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I interpreted this to mean he's saying the father is in him. God is within us! Jesus was a prophet and some called him the Son of God. But he was just a prophet spreading the good words of God. He did this (my interpretation) to carry the word of rules on how to live with our fellow man in a good way. I think because of all the holy wars that proceeded his birth this came to be a necessary. Think that's written somewhere in the bible. It's been a very many years since I read the bible (grin).
 

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