Akwat Kbrana

DuracellEnergizer said:

There were also Jedi in my dream. They weren't aliens, themselves, though; they were all Earth-born humans and they wore normal clothes. The Martians were targeting them the most for annihilation, so they had gone into hiding. Spider-Man - who was also a Jedi - was the only who was still operating in public.

Soo...Spider-Man's costume counts as "normal clothes?"

DOUBLE STANDARDS!

^OIC what you did thar.

*facepalm*

Lucas himself, IIRC.

Read Gen. 28:6-9. Esau married Ishmael's daughter Mahalath, and thereby entered his progeny by her into Ishmael's bloodline.

My whole point is that if one doesn't adopt the "Christianity came first" perspective, and looks at Islam objectively, within the framework of Islam Allah = God = Yahweh. Christians disagree because of the Trinity. Islam doesn't say it's a different God, it says that God has no progeny.

Again, you're talking about labels rather than characteristics. Yes, all three religions claim to worship the "God of Abraham." But no devout Muslim believes that Christians and Jews today are actually worshiping Him. Ditto for the other two faiths; Christianity sees Jews and Muslims as apostate, and Judaism sees Christians and Muslims as apostate. Thus, the three faiths do not see their own deities as identical. It is believed in Islam, for instance, that the Yahweh worshiped by Jews today (and in the fourth century, for that matter) is NOT the true God, but a false god, and that the Trinity worshiped by Christians is NOT the true God, but a false one. Therefore, while the labels may be interchangeable, the specific conceptions of deity are not.

I'm not saying the religions and all their fine details are the same. I'm saying that the groundwork, traced back to Abraham and earlier prophets before Jesus, is common.

Sure, there are commonalities, but there are also vast differences. All three religions claim to have definitive divine revelation from God Himself, yet these three revelations conflict. Was the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant extended to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or to Abraham, Ishmael, and Esau? Did Abraham attempt to sacrifice his first or second son on Mt. Moriah? More importantly, are only Jews going to Heaven? Or only Christians? Or only Muslims? The point is, all three "revelations" are mutually exclusive in certain respects (as least insofar as the communities of faith interpret them), so if your claim is correct then why did one deity reveal Himself in three such contradictory and mutually exclusive accounts?

Akwat - you interpret Islam's stance of Judaism and Christianity being corrupted as Islam saying they believe in a different God. That is incorrect. The Quran doesn't say that and your argument is invalid. Your quote does not say it's a different God anywhere. Islam says that the scriptures of The Old/New Testaments were partially corrupted by man. That is why The Quran is written as the actual word of God.

Technically, Islam does not believe that it believes in a different God, it believes that Jews and Christians believe in a different God. Which is functionally the same thing. That's why Jews and Christians who do not convert to Islam will suffer forever in Al-Hutamah and Laza. Surah 98:4-7: "And the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) differed not until after there came to them clear evidence. (i.e. Prophet Muhammad) (Peace be upon him) and whatever was revealed to him). And they were commanded not, but that they should worship Allâh, and worship none but Him Alone (abstaining from ascribing partners to Him), and perform Prayers and give Charity: and that is the right religion. Verily, those who disbelieve (in the religion of Islâm, the Qur'ân and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)) from among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) and pagans will abide in the Fire of Hell. They are the worst of creatures. Verily, those who believe [in the Oneness of Allâh, and in His Messenger Muhammad (pbuh)) including all obligations ordered by Islâm] and do righteous good deeds, they are the best of creatures.

I'm repeating myself because you are repeatedly ignoring the very fact that The Quran states repeatedly that Allah is the God of Abraham. You've ignored this because it contradicts your viewpoint.

I haven't ignored it, I've addressed it directly. Labels do not equal characteristics. My dad's name is George, and I assume from your screenname that yours is, too. That doesn't mean that the two of you are the same person.

You've also ignored the fact that The Bible condemns nonbelievers to hell as well.

Quite to the contrary, I said in post #155: "Islam consigns Christians and Jews to hell, while Christianity does the same for Jews and Muslims." Why would I ignore this, as it proves my point rather nicely? The personal Eschatologies (i.e., doctrines of the afterlife) of all three religions consign the adherents to the other two faiths to hell, and that constitutes incontrovertible evidence that--as far as these faiths themselves are concerned--the other two are not worshiping the same God. If they really believed that, then all three religions would regard the adherents of the other two faiths as Heaven-bound. They don't.

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...

This is rather uninformed, if you don't mind my saying. Again, devout Muslims do NOT believe that Jews and Christians worship Allah. Nor do Jews believe that Christians and Muslims are worshiping Yahweh. Nor do Christians believe that Jews and Muslims are worshiping the Trinity. Thus, the deities of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are different.

One need not adhere to any of these faiths in order to recognize and appreciate their respective complexities and the vast differences between them.

You guys are saying what Islam says can't be resolved with Christianity because Christianity came first (ROTJ vs hack sequel).You guys are saying what Islam says can't be resolved with Christianity because Christianity came first (ROTJ vs hack sequel).

No, I'm not. I have nowhere presented an argument based on chronological priority. My argument is that Islam's teachings can't be resolved with Christianity's or Judaism's because they are objectively irreconcilable. By the same token, the teachings of Judaism and Christianity cannot be resolved with those of Islam. The door goes both ways, but whichever vector of approach you choose, the point remains the same: The Allah worshiped by Islam is not the same deity as the Yahweh worshiped by Jews or the Trinity worshiped by Christians. And vice-versa.

I'm trying to convey that, without ruling out Islam because it came after Christianity, the common denominator is the same God.

Again, similarity does not constitute identity, and just because two things bear the same label does not make them identical. Ontologically, the characteristics ascribed to their respective deities by these three faiths are markedly different to the point of mutual exclusivity.

Thus, you're concluding that Islam is a false religion and it can't be resolved with The Bible.

Can't be resolved with the Bible? True. Islam a false religion? For my part, I have made such a claim nowhere in this thread. Please stop putting words into my mouth. Pointing out the differences between these religions' conceptions of God is not the same thing as ruling one or more of them true of false.

Islam does say that the word of God was corrupt in previous faiths.

Right. And that therefore, those revelations in their corrupted forms point to false gods rather than Allah.

That's simply not true because as I've stated over and over, The Quran draws on the stories/teachings of the many prophets in The Old/New Testaments.

It does indeed "draw" on them, but in so doing it alters and contradicts them. Have you ever done a comparative reading of the Qu'ran and the Bible? I recommend it. Specifically, compare Gen. 1:1-2:2 with Surah 41:9-12; 1 Sam. 9-10 with Surah 2:246-252, 5:20; Esther 3:1 with Surah 28:35-42, 40:36-37; Ex. 2:5-6 with Surah 28:4-10; Ex. 2:15-22 with Surah 28:23-28; Gen. 17:1-5 with Surah 21:60; Gen. 9:28-29 with Surah 29:14; Ex. 24:3-8 with Surah 2:92-93; and John 8:57 with Surah 5:110. And that's just the beginning; further contradictions could be produced ad infinitum. So, given the massive differences between the various faiths' relevations, we are left with basically only two options.

1.) The three versions of God are in fact the same, but for some reason the three accounts of Himself that He revealed are completely different and oftentimes contradictory. If this is the case, then none of these three religions may be taken seriously, since all conceive of God as unable to err, which obviously wouldn't be true given this scenario.

2.) At least one and possibly two of the three revelations of God are corrupted so severely that barely any semblance remains to what they originally said. If this is the case, then those relevations that have been corrupted now point inexorably to different (false!) versions of God. Hence, the three deities are not one and the same.

To support your argument that the Gods cannot be the same, you're using a belief system truncated after Christianity. Thus, you're concluding that Islam is a false religion and it can't be resolved with The Bible.

Again, if you'd read what we're actually saying rather than putting words into our mouths, you'd see that no one is making any value judgment as to which religions are "true" or "false." I am merely contending that the theological differences between the three religious systems are irreconcilable. You're the one who keeps trying to find some sort of religiously binding statement in what is essentially an objective discussion of comparitive religions, not an evangelistically-motivated polemic.

When you start talking about all the ways that Christianity debunks Islam, you have to equally look at all the ways Islam debunks (or attempts to resolve) Christianity.

Again with the polemic-talk. I'm not trying to "debunk" any religion; it is my aim in this thread simply to point out the complexity and variations between the three faiths. As I have argued, if you allow all three faiths to define their own terms, then you will inexorably arrive at the conclusion that they worship different (although similarly labeled) deities.

No, seriously, the Koran (dude, I totally spelled it wrong in the above quote) claims that the two religions that came before it are corrupt as hell, while pointing out that it itself is corruption proof.

Correct. The incipient form of this teaching is found in Surah 5:48 and 15:9. Later, it was expanded upon by Ibn Hazm, whose impact can still be seen on Islamic doctrine today. This concept (that the earlier revelations were terribly corrupted) is known as the Islamic doctrine of Tahrif, and I think it impacts this discussion directly. If the earlier revelations in their present form are corrupted to the extent that the deities to which they bear witness are false, then Islam itself essentially claims that the Gods of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are different Gods.

She's hiding somewhere in this picture. Can YOU find her?

The fact that you think I'm trying to discredit Islam somehow shows that you've completely failed to comprehend my argument clearly. Moreover, you're just repeating yourself rather than responding to my specific comments. In particular, this one:

It's not quite that simple, though. Islam does not teach that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God. Rather, it holds that Allah is the only true and living God to which the Jewish and Christian Scriptures originally testified. However, those Scriptures have become corrupted over time and therefore by the time of Muhammad were no longer to be considered completely reliable. Just as Joseph Smith's angelic vision is held by Mormons to signal the restoration of doctrinal truth, so also Muhammad's angelic vision is held by Muslims to signal the restoration of doctrinal truth. This is the Islamic doctrine of abrogation: where the Old and New Testaments err, the Qu'ran and Hadith correct them--and one of the most egregious errors in Jewish and Christian Scripture, according to Islamic teaching, is the departure from belief in Allah and the concomitant advocacy of false gods (Yahweh/Jehovah, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, etc.). The only way that Jews or Christians may come to worship the true God to whom their Scriptures originally pointed, is by converting to Islam. That's why the Islamic version of hell contains two levels reserved for the everlasting punishment of Jews and  Christians (Al-Hut?amah and Laz?a respectively; cf. Dictionary of Islam, edited by Thomas Patrick Hughes [Clifton: Reference Book Pub., 1965], 171.)

You seem to think that just because the same label is applied to two different concepts of deity, that makes them one and the same. The analogy you made about Inception would be far more accurate if we were talking about three different movies that all had the title Inception, but had different storylines, characters, and actors. Obviously, the fact that these three hypothetical movies are called by the same title doesn't mean that they're the same movie.

If I say that I worship the "God of Abraham" but then when you ask me to describe him I list off the characteristics and attributes of Vishnu, can I rightly claim to be worshiping the same God as Jews, Christians, and Muslims? Even though my doing so would deeply offend all three communities of faith, given the peculiarities of the deity I label "the God of Abraham?"

Your argument is clear. It's simply wrong.

Gee, you convinced me. Taking a page out of the "Twooffour's Guide to Intelligent Debating Tactics," huh?

Such senseless violence. Won't somebody please think of the children?

TV's Frink said:

Akwat Kbrana said:

It's not like it costs you anything to give it a shot, right? (Aside from lots of potentially squandered spare time, that is...)

And therein lies the rub...as your Mom surely understands.

You keep trying to discredit Islam with an inherent assumption/belief that Christianity is "correct".

Where did you get that idea? Can you find a single sentence of mine in this thread that says anything to that effect? I'm not trying to credit or discredit any religion. My interest is in allowing each religion to speak for itself, rather than forcing them all into a conceptual straightjacket with a priori decrees such as, "These three religions worship the same God." My argument is simply that if you allow each religious community to define its own terms, you will find that their three disparate conceptions of God are incompatible with one another. Each of these three monotheistic faiths denies that the versions of God worshiped by the other two, is its own. This can be proven either by investigating each religion's version of Theology Proper (in which case the mutually exclusive characteristics of the deity in question should rise to the surface) or by investigating each religion's version of Eschatology (Islam consigns Christians and Jews to hell, while Christianity does the same for Jews and Muslims).

I really don't know how else I can phrase this argument to make it any clearer. And I'm not sure it would be beneficial even if I could; you seem to be intent on responding to an argument (namely, which religion is "right") that I'm not even making.

Mrebo said:

In my brain, most of you look like your avatars.

Good thing I switched from G'kar to Neal Caffrey!

Akwat, then what do we say about the different views of Catholics, Baptists, and Mormons? To put it roughly, Catholics believe priests are a necessary conduit to God, that saints may be prayed to, that relics and idols have some importance, etc. That isn't reconcilable with the protestant view of God.

That there are variations, even major variations, is beyond dispute. But be careful not to conflate categories. Most of the differences between, say, Catholicism and Protestantism fall under the categories of Soteriology and Ecclesiology, not Theology Proper. As far as the ontological description/definition of God is concerned, both groups subscribe to Nicene Trinitarianism and Chalcedonian Christology; hence, their views on who/what God is are substantially identical. (Specifically: There is but one God in essence who exists eternally in three distinct Persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Also, Jesus is conceived of as truly God and truly man, one person yet two natures, the two natures being united without confusion, mixture, or division.) It would be completely accurate to say that the Catholic and Protestant views on salvation and the nature of the Church are mutually exclusive, but not that their views on the nature of God are mutually exclusive.

Now, as for the Mormon view of God, that's a little different. I don't profess to know as much about Mormon doctrine, but my present understanding is thus (Ender can correct me if I'm mistaken on anything): The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS sees itself as a Restorationist movement. That is, it holds that Christianity committed wholesale apostasy shortly after the Apostolic era, and adopted doctrinal stances contrary to what Jesus and the Apostles taught. The truth was therefore neglected in mainline Christianity until Joseph Smith received his vision from the angel Moroni, and restored the original teachings of Christ and the Apostles. While similar to mainline Christian doctrine in many respects, LDS doctrine does depart significantly from a number of historically-held "Christian" views, among them the doctrine of God.

Mormonism's version of God is neither pre-existent nor omnipresent. Moreover, the Mormon version of the Trinity is markedly different from classical Nicene Trinitarianism, conceiving instead of three separate Gods literally born in different times and places from one another. This view of God is maintained across a broad spectrum of LDS source material, including Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (345-349), Key to the Science of Theology by Parley P. Pratt (23), Abraham 4:1, and Apostles Orson Hyde (Journal of Discourses, 1:123) and Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses, 1:50). Thus, I think it is fair to say that the Mormon view of God is irreconcilably different from the Catholic and Protestant view of God. And I don't think that most Mormons would disagree with that assessment.

The Quran does not say, "Everything before this is crap. Here's the truth." It says, "We continue the teachings of the previous faiths, but here are a few corrections to what they believe." Again, very loose generalization intended to give the big picture that Islam, as defined in Islam, is a continuation of Judaism and Christianity. It doesn't adopt everything 100% from those religions, but it is a continuation.

Thus, to say that the Judeo-Christian God is not the God of Islam is actually in opposition to the central teaching of Islam.

It's not quite that simple, though. Islam does not teach that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God. Rather, it holds that Allah is the only true and living God to which the Jewish and Christian Scriptures originally testified. However, those Scriptures have become corrupted over time and therefore by the time of Muhammad were no longer to be considered completely reliable. Just as Joseph Smith's angelic vision is held by Mormons to signal the restoration of doctrinal truth, so also Muhammad's angelic vision is held by Muslims to signal the restoration of doctrinal truth. This is the Islamic doctrine of abrogation: where the Old and New Testaments err, the Qu'ran and Hadith correct them--and one of the most egregious errors in Jewish and Christian Scripture, according to Islamic teaching, is the departure from belief in Allah and the concomitant advocacy of false gods (Yahweh/Jehovah, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, etc.). The only way that Jews or Christians may come to worship the true God to whom their Scriptures originally pointed, is by converting to Islam. That's why the Islamic version of hell contains two levels reserved for the everlasting punishment of Jews and  Christians (Al-Hut?amah and Laz?a respectively; cf. Dictionary of Islam, edited by Thomas Patrick Hughes [Clifton: Reference Book Pub., 1965], 171.)

Georgec: I think you're missing my point. I don't deny that Islam claims to be the continuation (actually, the "abrogation") of Christianity, nor that Christianity claims to be the continuation (actually, the "fulfillment") of Judaism. My point is simply that from the perspective of a study of comparative religions, each of the three communities of faith ascribe to God characteristics that are mutually exclusive of the other two ascriptions. Therefore, to claim that the Muslim's God and the Christian's God are the same, is really unacceptable to both faiths--assuming we allow each faith community to set its own terms. So if the Christian God is described as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal in essence yet distinct in person, that definition will fall short of a Muslim's definition of God. And conversely, if the Islamic God is defined as a singular essence and a singular person, and nuanced in such a way as to explicitly deny divine status to Jesus, then that definition will fall far short of a Christian's definition of God.

The differences are therefore irreconcilable, and my comment about arrogance and fallaciousness was directed against those who would claim that they (the differences) are not.

Easiest way is to copy the text into notepad first, then re-copy from notepad before pasting into your post. That'll clear any special formatting.

That depends on which book you believe.

Islam talks about all of the previous prophets including Jesus, whom it says was not actually the Son of God. Whereas Christianity has the Trinity concept, Islam addresses this and means to restore the emphasis of divinity on God himself.

If someone is a Christian then of course he/she will not agree with this. But to a Muslim or even to a non-believing observer who might read the texts but not form opinions on what is true and not true, the Islamic God is the Christian God.

Of course it does. If you hold to the Qu'ran and the Hadith, you will deny Trinitarianism. If you hold to the New Testament--and your exegetical approach is roughly consistent with that of historic orthodox Christianity--then you will hold to Trinitarianism. That's precisely the point that I was making. For anyone, Muslim or otherwise, to claim that the Islamic God is the Christian God, is both arrogant and fallacious. Religious communities must be allowed to define their own beliefs. Muslims would be highly offended if Christians went around claiming that Allah is a Trinity, so it is similarly out of bounds for Muslims (or anyone else, for that matter) to claim that the Christian conception of Yahweh/Jehovah is not Trinitarian.

Marcion Of Sinope thought Yahweh was just a Demiurge and not the true God of peace, love and knowledge but saw himself as a Christian.

True, he did see himself as a Christian, but the community of faith itself disowned him. Again, you must allow communities of faith to define their own religious beliefs. Marcion was ruled a heretic and excommunicated because his beliefs were more in line with Gnostic philosophy than with Christian doctrine. That Marcion's allegiance to Christianity is questionable is also evidenced by the fact that he had to establish his own stripped-down New Testament canon in order to retain his peculiar viewpoint.

I'll leave the issue of the relationship between Islam's and Judaism's conception of God to someone else. All I want to stress is that Allah is quite distinct from the Christian God. Islam has no place for Trinitarianism, which is central to historic orthodox Christianity. Islam denies the Fatherhood of the Father, the Deity of the Son, and the person of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Allah cannot be reasonably equated with Christianity's conception of Yahweh/Jehovah.

darth_ender said:

"The land" can mean region.  Bear in mind that this verse is also speaking to a group of people that had not been in the Holy Land for hundreds of years.  They were probably not familiar with the geography, but knew where Jerusalem was.


Bethlehem was a suburb of Jerusalem, very close (I think no more than 5 mi.).  If I were to tell you I served my mission in Alpharetta, Cumming, Kennesaw, Griffin, and Buchanan, you'd probably not know what I was referring to.  But if I told you I served my mission in Atlanta, you'd probably have a better idea.

I don't have the exact verses at the ready, but bear in mind that the Old Testament calls Jerusalem "The city of David."  Luke 2 also calls Bethlehem "the city of David."

And yes, this has been addressed extensively by apologists as well and doesn't bother me in the least.

Thanks for the explanation. It's pretty well in sync with explanations I've heard from my other LDS friends. Personally, the discrepancy still bothers me, for the following reasons.

1.) Bethlehem is indeed quite close to Jerusalem, about five miles to the south. However, it must be kept in mind that five miles is a much quicker journey when traveling by automobile; in ancient Palestine, the primary mode of locomotion was walking. That being the case, I don't think it's accurate to label Bethlehem a "suburb" of Jerusalem. The Bible consistently treats them as separate cities, never conflating the two. This practice is, as far as I know, preserved in all extant contemporary extra-biblical documents as well. The moniker "city of David" is indeed applied to both, but for markedly different reasons. Bethlehem is the city of David's birth, while Jerusalem is the city that David conquered and from which he exercised rulership. Thus, they are "cities of David" in entirely different respects.

Now I realize that the distinction between accuracy and precision comes up often in discussions on inerrancy, but in this case it is not merely imprecise to equate Jerusalem with Bethlehem, it is simply inaccurate.

2.) If "land" is meant to be read as "region," it would be the only occasion that I'm aware of where "land of Jerusalem" is used in such a way. The far more common way of referring to the region would be "Judah" or "Judea," not "Jerusalem."

3.) If the Nephites were unfamiliar with Bethlehem, then it is lamentable that they knew so little of their own historical heritage. Bethlehem occupies a centrally important place in ancient Hebrew historiography. This is the city where the greatest Israeli king, King David, was born, and also where he was anointed king. It is also the burial place of Israel's favored wife Rachel, the homeland of the Levite who instigated the war against Benjamin in Judges 19-20, the hometown of Ruth and Boaz, and the prophesied birthplace of the Messiah according to the prophet Micah [Micah was written around 740-695 BC, at least ninety-five years before Nephi is alleged to has migrated to the Americas]. Given the historical importance of Bethlehem to the Hebrew people, the Nephites really ought to have been familiar with it if they were also familiar with Jerusalem.

4.) Here's the core of the issue: in Yahwism, prophetic accuracy is tremendously important. In fact, it's one of the two authorized tests for the veracity of a prophet given to Israel just before entry into the land (Deut. 18:21-22). The issue of confusing Jerusalem and Bethlehem thus becomes quite a serious matter, as it calls a prophet's credentials into question.

That's my take on it, anyway. I'd like to stress that I'm not trying to pick a fight or start an argument; the fact that you've been willing to field questions like this is quite commendable. I just want you to be aware of why non-Mormons might find Alma 7:10, and explanations given for it, objectionable.

You mean he's a...?

Good thing it's not TNG era; otherwise, it would mean that Jar-Jar occupies a command position!

(Like bombad general, for instance?)

Who's Don Tae?

Uh...

You get an epileptic seizure.

CatBus said:

George was a TREKKER the whole time.

If George had become a writer for Star Trek:

It's easy to tell that you majored in math rather than in English. ;)