God, Arab Christians, and One Big Misconception

[Seeker]

"God" is a title, like "President." "Jehovah" is a name. The confusion lies in the fact that Allah is both a title and a name: a title used by Arabic Christians, a name used by Muslims.

That said, the God of the Bible is not and never has been the "Allah" Muslims worship. This is simply because were they the same God, the Bible and Koran would agree on the fundamentals of Biblical faith. They do not.

Therefore, either "Allah" of Islam is too stupid to remember what he told all those OT prophets about the coming of Christ (including His virgin birth as the Son of God), and His death, burial, and resurrection, or Allah of Islam is not the God of the Bible, regardless of what terms Arabic Christians may use to describe the Judeo-Christian God.

This thread is little more than Islamic propaganda intended to confuse rather than enlighten.

Please - throwing away what I have said as 'propaganda' is little more than a written form of raising one's voice in debate. I think it was Archbishop Desmond Tutu (a man I have great respect for) who said, don't raise your voice - improve your argument. The only premise I ask for in discussion is not to get personal. I have not done so.

Anyway, there is discussion within the context of Arabic grammar and linguistic history over whether Allah is a name like Yahweh or a title, e.g. is it a contraction of Al-Ilah. This is not a religious question, as it predates Islam, as I'm sure you're aware. As such, the soundest historical viewpoint is that it is merely the word ("name" by definition is only a word by which something is known) that is specific to a supreme, singular, Creator (this is one of the reasons why Muslims are commonly keen to stick to Allah rather than switch to "god" which can be adulterated to gods, goddess, etc., though I have no objection to the word god because it is a word with a beautiful meaning - "he who is invoked"). Now, to go into details like this (which I have had to do) may well be confusing, but the conclusion is not confusing - that there is nothing inherent in "Allah" to distinguish it from the "Alaha" of Aramaic or even "Eloh" of Hebrew - indeed, the roots are clearly the same.

The theology is an entirely different question as you correctly pointed out (somewhat disrespectfully, I must say), but the language of that debate is irrelavent. We could discuss the Eloh as described by the Bible, and the Eloh as described by the Quran. We could discuss the Alaha as described by the Bible, and the Alaha as described by the Quran. We could discuss the Allah as described by the Bible, and the Allah as described by the Quran. This is the only point I have been making throughout the course of this thread, and anything else is a side discussion not raised by myself.

 

[Stormcrow]

...throwing away what I have said as 'propaganda' is little more than a written form of raising one's voice in debate.

No. It's the written form of wadding this up and throwing it in the trash, like tracts from the Watchtower Society.

Just to be perfectly clear.

there is nothing inherent in "Allah" to distinguish it from the "Alaha" of Aramaic or even "Eloh" of Hebrew - indeed, the roots are clearly the same.

Given that Mohammed likely plagiarized much of the Old Testament and repackaged it with his personal spin, one would expect similarities in the language (Semitic languages all come from the same language group.)

This, however, does not prove that they are the same deity, as there are clearly differences within the Bible and Koran at the most fundamental theological levels.

Therefore (and this is why this entire thread is nothing more than Islamist propaganda), you cannot separate the linguistic aspect (identity of God) from the theological aspect (nature of God), as a discussion of the identity of God necessarily revolves around His nature.

Again, if the Islamic Allah is the same God of the OT, why are there two inspired religious texts telling mutually exclusive stories about the virgin birth and incarnation of God?

Either Islam's Allah is not the God of the Old Testament, or he forgot what he told Daniel, Isaiah, Moses, Abraham, Hosea, et al when he talked to Mohammed.

Or he was simply too stupid to remember that he inspired the OT at all!

Is that the "god" you worship? A "god" who can't keep his own story straight and who allows Satan to tamper with his "inspired, holy writ?"

Is Islam's Allah so weak that he needs people - like you (Islamists) - to terrorize and kill others who call his very being into question?

I do not recognize Islam's Allah as being anything more than the invention of a sick, twisted man who molested a little girl and converted thousands to his twisted "religion of peace" at the point of a sword.

You seem like a decent guy. Why do you subscribe to such an unholy religion?

 

[Seeker]

The above tirade is shiveringly hostile and ignorant, and it - I am sad to say - betrays one who is not willing to engage in rational discourse with any level of sincerity. Thank God not all Americans are like that. I believe what I have written thus far on the topic is sufficient an exposition, but if there are any sincere thoughts then I will lend an ear, God willing.

Is Islam's Allah so weak that he needs people - like you (Islamists) - to terrorize and kill others who call his very being into question?

Peace.

 

[Sparrowhawk1161]

Every single time he posts and what he is looking for is just not "allah" which a form as CHristians use... but, something more important.

The trinity?

He..He...

Ok... Allah is name for God in many religions. So what is the trinity?

God The Father
God The Son
God The Holy Ghost

THe trinity

We Christians believe in One God... Ah...Ah... ah... yet we three!

1=1
3=1

Ok that dooesn't work does it. It seems like we believe in 3 Gods

1. The Father
2. The Son
3. And, the Holy Ghost or Spirit depending on demonations confuse the person even more...

So three Gods... but they are one. Which makes no sense.

Sense in unsensability:

OK... if you look at those three things listed... they are one... see, answered the question and go to the next thread... bye

What?

I cries from every poster telling me to explain the trinity. Yeh? Ummm... can I use Neo from, The Matrix movie who can answer just aboutr anything in this robotic world we have?

No You need a human... can I suggest..."

OOOwh...quiet... telling me to explain the trinity, like I know just about any traingular substance.

Fine...OK...

First for all these posts is the Trintity...

You have one God... yes you have one God. But, who told to be just one thing? You? What if he wanted to something else. What i9f he certain areas that important.

A guy pulls up wioth a old pan head harley Davidson motor cycle... a beauty...

"Can you fix my harley?"

"No, I can only fix engines."

"Why can you not fix my harley?"

"Cause fix engines?"

What?

GOd is single God, yes,

But he multi-taxing... he can do a whole bunch of things... like send down his, "Holy Ghost?"

I can imagine the pagans back 500 years AD finding out there is Holy Ghost?

"Who must shrine for Holy Ghost... don't want to make him mad, do we?" sad day Catholism back them when they had to try to explain was the same God...

"Well, we have shrine ready for unknown ghosty, we shouldn't P him off right?"

Yet, they hadn't understood that a One God can make many forms... like... His Holy Spirit, that can come dowm and do many things... Like impegnate Mary... Now that's a Spirit. Great Spirit come down and do that? Wow.

But, before you go into that Wow, that child, born of the Holy Spirit, God and mortal woman... was a very special man. God and man combined. Yikes!

Now, we learn how God really is multi-taxing... because he had this Holy Spirit.. which was him... just another name and created something was really strange...

The girl was called Mary. A very special Lady. How many of you had the preveldege to to have God come down to you and saying, "you are having my Child?'

Ok. Your a girl who is ready to be married to some guy and an Angel comes down and says... "Sorry, your plans of parenthood are completely gone?"

"God will come down as the Holy Spirit and have your child...OK?"

"Ahhh,... ok the nwords aren't the same from the Bible, but, imagine an angel coming down, scewing up plans of having children and having a Child of God?"

"O.K."

Now you have three aspects of God.

The Father... Mr know, "it all of the universe," who created everything in the entire world, saw sin happen, shoke his head and is try to make it right?
Then, you have a Holy Spirit of God... an aspect of God who comes down, and says, "Sorry for the interuption, but we need a child of God... NOW!"

And, then, the poor girl is impregnated by the God himself... the Holy Spirit!

So she is pregnant with the child of God!

Nw, this is where it get's interesting

Most protestant's see this as somethinhg that just, and put Mary on the backburner...

The Catholics saw this as something much more profound.

1. She could have never been impegnated unless a human was present
2. She was impregnated by the Holyt Spirit of God
3. According to St. Paul, everyone who has a union with Christaian is sanctified by that union
4. Mother Mary was sanctified by the Holy Spirit Himself
5. St. Paul said that anyone married to a believer is sanctified by marriage
6. Since Mary was santified by God himself, her sins were erased and she became Queen of the saints (immaculet conception) something like that as far as spelling.

Three in one working as the same God... aspects of God... simplest thing I can put down...

God is made up of three aspects he uses
1. God the father... the creater
2. God the son, which he created.
3. God, the Holy Spirit which finds us personally and works through us

One God... 3 different ways he works... basically

 

[Stormcrow]

The above tirade is shiveringly hostile and ignorant, and it - I am sad to say - betrays one who is not willing to engage in rational discourse with any level of sincerity. Thank God not all Americans are like that. I believe what I have written thus far on the topic is sufficient an exposition, but if there are any sincere thoughts then I will lend an ear, God willing.

OK, let me boil my objection to your view down to its simplest terms:

If the Islamic Allah of the Koran is YWHW of the Bible's Old Testament, and both books are said to be "inspired" by this one and self-same "God", why do these "inspired" writings convey two mutually exclusive ideas about the nature of this God and salvation?

If that is "shiveringly hostile and ignorant", then you should be able to address it without any problem, huh?

 

[Stormcrow]

God is made up of three aspects he uses
1. God the father... the creater
2. God the son, which he created.
3. God, the Holy Spirit which finds us personally and works through us

One God... 3 different ways he works... basically

Except that God didn't create Jesus. He "begat" Him. Christ is co-equal and co-existent as God from eternal past to eternal future. The same is true for the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine: fully human by virtue of His birth, fully divine by virtue of His preexistence as God. He is, literally, God incarnate: God "in flesh."

Islam rejects this. For this reason, among others, Islam is anathema to Christianity.

 

[Stormcrow]

Is Islam's Allah so weak that he needs people - like you (Islamists) - to terrorize and kill others who call his very being into question?

The above tirade is shiveringly hostile and ignorant...

Blasphemy in Islam is any irreverent behavior[1] toward holy personages, religious artifacts, customs, and beliefs that Muslims revere. The Quran and the hadith do not speak about blasphemy.[2] Jurists created the offence, and they made it part of Sharia.[2] Where Sharia pertains, the penalties for blasphemy can include fines, imprisonment, flogging, amputation, hanging, or beheading.[3][4] Muslim clerics may call for the punishment of an alleged blasphemer by issuing a fatwā.[5][6]

Blasphemy against beliefs and customs

Individuals have been accused of blasphemy or of insulting Islam for:

• finding fault with Islam.[41][42][43][44]
• saying Islam is an Arab religion; prayers five times a day are unnecessary; and the Qur'an is full of lies (Indonesia).[45]
• believing in transmigration of the soul or reincarnation or disbelieving in the afterlife (Indonesia).[46][47]
• finding fault with a belief or a practice which the Muslim community (Ummah) has adopted.[46]
• finding fault with or cursing apostles (Rasul or Messenger), prophets, or angels.[46]
• expressing an atheist or a secular point of view[6][20][48][49][50][51] or publishing or distributing such a point of view.[5][20][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]
• using words that Muslims use because the individuals were not Muslims (Malaysia).[25][62][63]
• praying that Muslims become something else (Indonesia).[64]
• whistling during prayers (Indonesia).[65]
• flouting the rules prescribed for Ramadan.[65]
• reciting Muslim prayers in a language other than Arabic (Indonesia).[65]
• consuming alcohol.[65][66]
• gambling.[65]
• being alone with persons of the opposite sex who are not blood relatives.[65]
• finding amusement in Islamic customs (Bangladesh).[67][68][69][70]
• publishing an unofficial translation of the Qur'an (Afghanistan).[71]
• practicing yoga (Malaysia).[72]
• watching a film or listening to music (Somalia).[73]
• wearing make-up on television (Iran).[74]
• insulting religious scholarship.[8]
• wearing the clothing of Jews or of Zoroastrians.[8]
• claiming that forbidden acts are not forbidden.[8]
• uttering "words of infidelity" (sayings that are forbidden).[8]
• participating in non-Islamic religious festivals.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_blasphemy

So, in the most severe cases of blasphemy under Sharia Law, people may be beheaded for any of these alleged offenses.

That doesn't sound like terrorism to you??? If you, as a Muslim, were living under Sharia, is this how you would want your religion to behave and be seen by others???

If not, why do you subscribe to it???

Is this your "religion of peace"???

 

[Davies]

Stormcrow,

Did you actually follow what Sparrowhawk1161 was saying? Wow! If you had to boil it down into a sentence, what was being said?

- Davies

 

[Seeker]

If the Islamic Allah of the Koran is YWHW of the Bible's Old Testament, and both books are said to be "inspired" by this one and self-same "God", why do these "inspired" writings convey two mutually exclusive ideas about the nature of this God and salvation?

OK - now here is a sensible question, asked in a reasonable way. I would be very happy to offer my point of view on this matter. (As for your second post regarding blasphemy laws, I ask two things please: one, that you start another topic because there are a lot of things to be said, and two, that you give me a little bit of a respite because I really should be studying for exams ) So to answer the question, I would like to further break it into logical steps: (1) What is the Muslim claim regarding Divine Books? (2) What are the differences between them? (3) Why is that so? With respect, there are errors in your understanding of at least two of these.

So firstly, what is the Muslim claim? It is that God Almighty - the Creator of the Heavens, the Earth and mankind -has sent prophets and messengers (synonymous for the purpose of this discussion) from amongst ourselves to recite God's words to us, purify us and teach us the God's guidance (Quran 2:151 and 50:1-5). Among them: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. To some, God gave a scripture. As for the Bible today as it is, we believe God's revelation to those earlier prophets is present in some form, but not in its exact, original text, and this explains why God has sent subsequent prophets to renew the message.

So now (2): what are the differences? This I will not go into in detail at the moment, but the primary difference with the NT is Trinitarian theology, that Jesus Christ IS God Himself.

And finally, (3) - why are there these differences? This relates back to (1) - we believe that the revelation to Muhammad was in order to bring back (what we believe to have been) the original messages of monotheism that all the prophets taught. It is not that God forgot anything between, say, Moses and Muhammad - rather, they were originally the same but elements were lost (though many are consistent, hence the frequent claim that Muhammad interpolated into his message Judaeo-Christian history). The question then is, why did God not protect these other documents from being changed, and what guarantee is there for the Quran? The answer is that for the other revelations, God sent more prophets to correct and reaffirm the message, but Muhammad is the final prophet. Therefore God Himself guaranteed: "Behold, it is We Ourselves who have bestowed from on high this reminder; and, behold, it is We who shall truly guard it [from all corruption].". So if something in the Bible is in harmony with this revived message, we believe it to be from God and of divine origin. If something is irreconcilably contradictory - then we do not believe so.


I hope this goes a little way in helping to understand why our scripture seems to contain differing ideas on some aspects of theology.

 

[Stormcrow]

we believe that the revelation to Muhammad was in order to bring back (what we believe to have been) the original messages of monotheism that all the prophets taught. It is not that God forgot anything between, say, Moses and Muhammad - rather, they were originally the same

They were and are not, hence the following:

So if something in the Bible is in harmony with this revived message, we believe it to be from God and of divine origin. If something is irreconcilably contradictory - then we do not believe so.

The apostle Paul - a Jew and a Pharisee - wrote that all scripture (meaning the Old Testament) was inspired by God. So you have a problem: if it's all inspired yet differs from the Koran, you reject that which was inspired in favor of something newer that wasn't.

Furthermore, the Bible is clear: Jesus is God incarnate (God "in flesh"). The fact that Islam denies this means that Mohammed preached a different gospel which was completely foreign to the prophets of the Old Testament, who looked forward to Messiah.

Islam is a soul-enslaving, wicked and perverse religion that worships at the altar of violence and deceit. Why do you believe in a "god" that demands the blood of its followers in the name of Jihad?

 

[Stormcrow]

Stormcrow,

Did you actually follow what Sparrowhawk1161 was saying? Wow! If you had to boil it down into a sentence, what was being said?

- Davies

I just went to the end and responded to his conclusion. It was the only thing that made sense, nevermind that it was wrong (Modalism is an anti-trinitarian doctrine.)

 

[Seeker]

The apostle Paul - a Jew and a Pharisee - wrote that all scripture (meaning the Old Testament) was inspired by God. So you have a problem: if it's all inspired yet differs from the Koran, you reject that which was inspired in favor of something newer that wasn't.

Furthermore, the Bible is clear: Jesus is God incarnate (God "in flesh"). The fact that Islam denies this means that Mohammed preached a different gospel which was completely foreign to the prophets of the Old Testament, who looked forward to Messiah.

Islam is a soul-enslaving, wicked and perverse religion that worships at the altar of violence and deceit. Why do you believe in a "god" that demands the blood of its followers in the name of Jihad?

Your argument is circular; the allegation that the Bible is clear on Jesus being God incarnate is not a proof unless one already begins with the premise that the Bible - in its present form - is the irrevocable word of God. Rather, my premise is that I only accept those parts of the NT consistent with a theology that does not accept God being incarnated into His creation, as it limits the Creator by the bounds of creation.

Again, your statement is circular: "you reject that which was inspired in favor of something newer that wasn't." Well, I would contend that the subsequent revelation was indeed also inspired, and this is the conclusion I have come to after much investigation. Therefore it is no surprise that I reject parts of earlier inspirations because God is consistent, and any inconsistencies must have been from other than God.

As for your last, wicked statement - I will ignore it for the time being in the name of patience. (Quran 25:63 "For, [true] servants of the Most Gracious are [only] they who walk gently on earth, and who, whenever the ignorant address them, reply with [words of] peace;") Peace.

 

[Stormcrow]

I will ignore it for the time being in the name of patience.

Is that a threat?

 

[Stormcrow]

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 1 John 4:15 (NASB)

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.

And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. 1 John 5:9-12 (NASB)

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. 2 John 1:7 (NASB)

Islam is heresy and anathema in that it denies the Son of God. Islamists are deceived and self-deluded, as is the case with many such cultists.

I pity them.

Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. 2 John 1:9-11 (NASB)

Seeker, with all due respect, you shouldn't even be allowed to post on this site. You come preaching heresy and trying to persuade people of your evil religion's false, anti-Christian doctrines. I have reported you for threatening language and hope this thread will be locked.

 

[reba]

Seeker, with all due respect, you shouldn't even be allowed to post on this site. You come preaching heresy and trying to persuade people of your evil religion's false, anti-Christian doctrines. I have reported you for threatening language and hope this thread will be locked.

I agree Stormcrow. I am sorry this is not my forum to moderate.

 

[Mike]

2.1: This is a Christian site, therefore, any attempt to put down Christianity and the basic tenets of our Faith will be considered a hostile act. Please read: Statement of Faith

This thread is now locked, as the line above has been crossed. :gah