georgec said:
The ROTJ and sequel analogy doesn't work because you're essentially saying The Bible is authentic and The Quran is an illegitimate knockoff, written by a different author, at odds with the original work. Once again, The Quran is meant to be an extension of those previous teachings while correcting what it says are errors in how those faiths approached aspects of belief in God.
But it does work, my Return of the Jedi sequel isn't an illegitimate knockoff! George's trilogy just got a lot of things wrong, that my sequel corrected. If you're a true believer in George's trilogy, then it would stand to reason that you'd have to take the stance that my sequel with its countless retcons and changes is a hack work and not in any way part of continuity. If you are a believer in my sequel, then you'd have to take the stance that my sequel is the real cannon and that George's story got a lot of things wrong.
I mean, Luke didn't really grow up on Tantooine, he was a long lost Naboobian prince who got exiled when Emperor Xizor took over his planet and murdered his father and 13 older siblings. In fact, those siblings were only his half siblings. His father was a knight named Alkaline who had an affair with Queen Panda behind the Naboobian king's back. King Ricoli Olie III never knew of his queen's infidelity, but it hardly mattered because two months after the birth of the infant, originally named Prince Ricoli Olie the IX (the other male sons of king Olie III were given the names Ricoli Olie IV - VIII), the Naboobian kingdom fell. Emperor Xizor's men murdered Queen Panda's husband and 13 children before her very eyes as she tightly clutched her young illegitimate son in her arms. As the Emperor's general approached to kill the last heir to the Naboobian throne, Panda screamed out a confession to her affair, begging the general to have mercy on the infant on account of him being nothing more than the lowly son of a knight. The general, general Lars granted her this mercy, swearing an oath to raise the boy as his own son, his own wife being barren and very much wanting a child. After giving his word to the queen, she handed him the child and knelt before him so that he could smite her dead, and he did.
General Lars fabricated a story to tell the boy, that he was the son of a Noble Coresantian Knight, named Alkaline Skywalker (an entirely fictitious character named after his own father who was merely a lowly Naboobian knight killed in battle whilst cowardly running away from the battle, rather than defending the Naboobian Royal Family as was his duty). General Lars claimed Alkaline Skywalker was his wife's brother (Skywalker being his wife's family name). Luke grew up dreaming of becoming a knight, in his youth he even gathered his friends and led them on conquests, pillaging and raping small Tusken settlements and bringing the spoils back to his father, who was very proud of his son.
Anyway, you get the picture.
Clearly, a claim that these two greatly varying stories were genuinely connected and one not just stealing ideas from the other and altering them would raise a few eyebrows. A claim that they came from the same author would be impossible to accept, unless you were to believe that the earlier story was altered and screwed up, and that the later was made to fix it. Either way, there is really no argument that they are completely at odds with each other, that the characters resemble each other in name only, and that you can only take one of them seriously at a time.
Judaism considers itself to be the final monotheistic faith (as to them Jesus was not the Messiah). Christianity considers itself to be final as Jesus was the son of God. Islam considers itself to be final because it is the word of God.
Akwat essentially said the same thing, though perhaps a bit more accurately, when he said Christianity claims it is the fulfillment of Judaism while Islam claims to be the abrogation of Christianity (or at least Christianity in its corrupt form, which is Christianity as we know it).
I don't know which one is correct (if any), but your perspective in this argument depends on which faith you have. Christians will say the Muslim God is different. Muslims will say it's the same God (but He didn't have a son). I'm not sure what Jews will say...
Because much like the two Lukes, (my Prince Ricoli Olie IX and George's Luke Skywalker), the characters of God mentioned in the Koran and God mentioned in the New Testament are very much at odds with one another.
You guys are saying what Islam says can't be resolved with Christianity because Christianity came first (ROTJ vs hack sequel). Then within that logic Christianity can't be resolved with Judaism, because Judaism came first. Which is the original work then - Judaism or Christianity? If one is consistent, we'd say Judaism is the original.
I think this is where your lack of understanding of Christian doctrine is tripping you up. Christianity claims to be the fulfillment of Judaism, so a Christian can easily say that the Old and New Testament mesh, even though to a Jew Christianity is a total bastardization of their religion. To a Muslim, Islam is the correction of the previous two religions that fell into the hands of corrupt people who twisted and ruined them. But thank goodness the Kuran is incorruptible, so that won't ever happen again.
Islam can't be resolved with Christianity, not because Christianity came first, but because you'd have to throw out every part of it that made it Christianity and make it Islam in order to resolve it to Islam.
While a Jew could say the exact same thing about resolving Christianity to Judaism, at least Christianity doesn't take everything from Judaism and say that it is flat out wrong and corrupt. Rather it says that Jesus' sacrificial death fulfilled the Levitical law once and for all, so now we no longer have to make constant sacrifices in order to remain clean in God's eyes. Because of this, you can have Messianic Jews who do believe Jesus was prophesied Messiah, but for a Christian to believe the doctrines of Islam, they'd literally have to renounce everything that makes them a Christian, admitting that Christian doctrine is corrupt beyond repair and too full of falsehoods to be trusted.
By using the different author idea, you're holding Islam to be illegitimate w/ respect to Christianity. I don't feel this is an objective view on the matter.
I'm trying to convey that, without ruling out Islam because it came after Christianity, the common denominator is the same God.
I think that is precisely where this discussion is at, and where the disagreement lies, you'd have to take the side of Islam (along with its caveat about corruption in the other two religions) in order to make the claim that the Islamic God is the same God as the Christian God is the same god as the Hebrew God. You'd have to take the side of Christianity to say that the Christian God is the same God as the Hebrew God, while the Muslim God is just a bastardization of that God as depicted by a false religion.
The God depicted in the Koran is extremely different from the Christians' depiction of God. It is me writing about a Luke Skywalker that molested Tuskens as a teenager and saying he is the same character we see in the films. Only with my explanation that George got it wrong, can those two characters be the same.
I think what we are ultimately trying to convey, is that without accepting the teachings of Islams, you can't make the claim that all three religion share in a single deity.
Sure, just looking at the surface all three claim the same deity, but once you touch ever so lightly on the surface, things get messy.