Dear Christians

[fr0d0]

I have yet to see an interpretation that didn't have selfishness at its core.

That's very negative nm. Symptomatic of/consistent with your beliefs of course.

[Ryantology]

I wonder how many Christians would remain faithful and dedicated if God decided that there was no salvation for the sins of man and even the most devout and righteous in his eyes deserved, and would receive, an eternity in hell in spite of all their prayers and supplications.

[fr0d0]

There is no promise that you yourself has to benefit Ryan. You can be just as much a rebel as your nature dictates. Justice is served upon you in exactly the same way as it is on everyone. Also, it rains upon the righteous and the unrighteous equally. Your understanding of why is what matters.

[Faith No More]

That's very negative nm. Symptomatic of/consistent with your beliefs of course.

Oh really? What would my beliefs be?

[NoraBrimstone]

That's very negative nm. Symptomatic of/consistent with your beliefs of course.

Oh really? What would my beliefs be?

Negative and SATAN! of course.

[fr0d0]

That's very negative nm. Symptomatic of/consistent with your beliefs of course.

Oh really? What would my beliefs be?

Bite!!! :D ;)

---

A typical fr0d0-reply right there.

:dodgy:

So OK asshole... you trolled me for an in depth answer and.... nothing from you.

Your Muslim forum not coming up with answers for you?

[Rayaan]

No, fr0d0, I wasn't trolling you at all. I was going to reply to you later. I didn't forget about this nor did I ignore you. It just happened to be the case that my mind was on some other threads and on some other things that I was working on in the last few days. I also have a habit of procrastinating, and I'm a slow poster, and sometimes it might even take me ages to reply to something as I did in other forums ... kind of weird, I guess.

I also oftentimes do a lot of research before I post something; that is one of the things that I'm good at.

That being said, here are my replies for now.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It seems to be deliberate misinformation from Islam. Allah is never a name for God used by Jews or Christians.

Maybe you don't know this, but there are in fact many Arab-speaking Jews and Christians who do use the term "Allah" because they know that it has the same meaning as "God." For over nineteen centuries, millions of Arab Christians have been calling God "Allah" in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and in their daily acts of worship. See the link below.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/allah.html

Here are some videos as well which show that even some non-Arabic Jews and Christians prefer to use the name "Allah" for God:

Jewish Rabbi Worships Allah
A Jew explains why Allah is the one and only God
Allah - God of Israel
A Jew says Allah is a Biblical name for God
Bishop says let's call God Allah

The name predates Christ and was used for the moon God,

The name "Allah" predates Christ - yes.

But, no, it was never the name of a moon god ... because that is a misinformation that was first invented by the Christian apologist Robert Morey who provably resorted to suppression of evidence, forgery, and deliberate misquotation in an attempt to prove his theory that Allah was a moon god. But, not surprisingly, all of his moon god claims have been thoroughly rejected and falsified by both Islamic and Western scholars.

From Wikipedia:
Both Islamic and Western scholars have rejected these claims, some even calling them "insulting". It is argued that "Allah" is simply the word for "God" in Arabic, which ultimately derives from the same root as the Hebrew words "El" and "Elohim", both used in the Book of Genesis. In the words of Lori Peek, "Allah is simply the Arabic word meaning God. In fact people who speak Arabic, be they Christians, Jews or Muslims, often say "Allah" to describe God, just as God is called "Gott" in German and "Dieu" in French." - Full Article

Indeed, moon gods - and sun gods and many other gods - were worshipped in various cultures in the past such as by the ancient Sumerians, Mesopotamians, and even by some the Semites, for example. Pagan Arabs at one time also used to worship a moon god. There were also statues (or idols) of moon gods. However, there is no historical evidence nor any logical argument to to support the claim that "Allah" was the name of a moon god. Allah was never associated with any idols either.

Even when the Kaaba was filled with idols before Muhammad's time, there were no representations of Allah because everyone knew that Allah cannot be represented with anything materialistic; "The Kaaba contained hundreds of sacred rocks and statues from many Arabian tribes, but no images of Allah. No special cult was associated with Allah." - Professor William E. Phipps, Muhammad and Jesus, p. 21.

which was discredited in Judaism.

... as well as in Islam.

- Allah has strictly forbid Muslims from worshipping the sun, moon, nor anything except Himself (Quran 41:37).
- The moon will last only for an appointed time (Quran 13:2, 31:29) but Allah is eternal (Quran 3:02).
- One of the signs of the Judgment Day is the splitting of the moon (Quran 54:01).
- Allah created the sun and the moon, and the moon's purpose is to help us keep track of time (Quran 6:96) and to be a beautiful light (Quran 10:05).
- Allah has authority over the moon as well as everything else in the heavens (Quran 7:54).
- There is no god but Allah who is the creator of everything (Quran 6:102).

The crescent moon which identifies Islam seems to support this.

The use of a crescent moon symbol goes back thousands of years. It goes back before the time of Muhammad, who never used the crescent moon as a symbol for Islam.

The important thing is that the crescent moon did not become an "official symbol" for Islam until the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, your statement above cannot be used as an argument to prove that Muslims used to worship the moon or a moon god, since the crescent becoming an official symbol for Islam is a much later phenomenon.

The Prophet Muhammad certainly never used a crescent moon symbol to represent to Islam. Neither did the Muslims start using it until hundreds of years later, after the time when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453. Legend holds that the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman, had a dream in which the crescent moon stretched from one end of the earth to the other. Taking this as a good omen, he chose to keep the crescent symbol and make it the symbol of his dynasty. And years later, with no icon representing their religion, the crescent moon became associated not just with the Ottoman Empire, but with Islam in general.

Aside from that, it is very illogical to think that Muslims used to worship the moon or that Allah was a moon god just because we use a crescent moon symbol now. I mean, the star of David is used to symbolize Judaism, but that doesn't mean that Jews worship the stars nor that Yahweh is a star god, right? Likewise, a cross symbol is used to symbolize Christianity, but that doesn't mean that Christians worship a cross or a cross god, right? The same applies to the crescent moon symbol.

---

Christian God: One God revealed in three Persons (a Tri-unity or Trinity), Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity having the same essence (essential being), but each Member having different roles.
a. God approachable by man through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
b. A God of judgment on sin, but love toward sinners, proven by His coming to earth to die for sinful men. God first loves man.
c. A God that is a Father who cares for His children.

Islamic God: One God (Qur’an 2:163), Allah. Muhammad rejected the truth of the Trinity as blasphemous (Qur’an 5:73; 4:171). Muhammad taught that Allah was the only God, but originally Allah was one of the 360 idol-gods worshipped by the various Arab tribes.
a. God unapproachable by sinful man. He has only communicated with mankind through a progression of angels and prophets.
b. A God of wrath and judgment, who hates sinners (Qur'an 2:190). Man must first love Allah for Allah to love him (Qur'an 3:31)
c. A God that cannot be called "father" for that would mean Allah would have had a wife and children, and therefore would not be God (Qur'an 19:88-92).

At a very basic level, the 'god' all of these faith's must have some similarity. A smidgeon of knowledge is all a person needs to see the vast differences after that.

---

Thanks, but, as I argued in this thread, those attributes of the Christian god (Father, Son, human being, etc.) are, in my opinion, simply flawed interpretations of the Bible. I showed how Christians are wrong in their own interpretations on verses which speak about the nature of God. I posted many things there. However, I think it would be better for us to agree to disagree for now, fr0ds, unless if you really want to debate me on the same topic all over again, which I doubt you do.

I was just asking you to see whether or not would mention anything else which I haven't heard before, which you haven't, as I expected.

No, the god of the Jews is in fact the same god.

Then let's see how many similarities you can point to between the attributes of the Judaic god and the attributes of the Christian god (which you mentioned earlier).

No pressure, though.

[fr0d0]

Yes Ray. We've done the discussion before so I wonder why you have to start on it again. Funny that you try and say it's me that wants to drag this up.

Yes, Christianity and Judaism disagree fundamentally with Islam on the interpretation of the bible. I doubt very much ether you and I would stand a rats chance in hell of resolving that one.

Me, I'm happy to maintain the status quo. Viva La difference. See my first post in this thread... I didn't denounce other faiths at all, I just said that there was a difference.

Let me get this straight... are you saying that the Christian God and Allah are the same god or not?

if not, please stop being a dick.

[NoraBrimstone]

Yes Ray. We've done the discussion before so I wonder why you have to start on it again. Funny that you try and say it's me that wants to drag this up.

Yes, Christianity and Judaism disagree fundamentally with Islam on the interpretation of the bible. I doubt very much ether you and I would stand a rats chance in hell of resolving that one.

Me, I'm happy to maintain the status quo. Viva La difference. See my first post in this thread... I didn't denounce other faiths at all, I just said that there was a difference.

Let me get this straight... are you saying that the Christian God and Allah are the same god or not?

if not, please stop being a dick.

You missed this:

No, the god of the Jews is in fact the same god.

Then let's see how many similarities you can point to between the attributes of the Judaic god and the attributes of the Christian god (which you mentioned earlier).

No pressure, though.

I'm wating (somewhat impatiently) for your response.

[fr0d0]

No, fr0d0, I wasn't trolling you at all. I was going to reply to you later. I didn't forget about this nor did I ignore you. It just happened to be the case that my mind was on some other threads and on some other things that I was working on in the last few days. I also have a habit of procrastinating, and I'm a slow poster, and sometimes it might even take me ages to reply to something as I did in other forums ... kind of weird, I guess.

Yeah right. You don't stop trolling me until it's your turn to reply. Then nothing.

See the link below.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/allah.html

You quote an Islam website on another religion. Are you serious?!

And lol to those videos.

If you want the counter argument to your link, it's here: http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses...entity.htm

There are follow ups to that.

it was never the name of a moon god

there is no historical evidence nor any logical argument to to support the claim that "Allah" was the name of a moon god

Well your Wikipedia link says differently. "Some scholars trace the name to the South Arabian Ilah, a title of the Moon god"

---

Christian God: One God revealed in three Persons (a Tri-unity or Trinity), Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity having the same essence (essential being), but each Member having different roles.
a. God approachable by man through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
b. A God of judgment on sin, but love toward sinners, proven by His coming to earth to die for sinful men. God first loves man.
c. A God that is a Father who cares for His children.

Islamic God: One God (Qur’an 2:163), Allah. Muhammad rejected the truth of the Trinity as blasphemous (Qur’an 5:73; 4:171). Muhammad taught that Allah was the only God, but originally Allah was one of the 360 idol-gods worshipped by the various Arab tribes.
a. God unapproachable by sinful man. He has only communicated with mankind through a progression of angels and prophets.
b. A God of wrath and judgment, who hates sinners (Qur'an 2:190). Man must first love Allah for Allah to love him (Qur'an 3:31)
c. A God that cannot be called "father" for that would mean Allah would have had a wife and children, and therefore would not be God (Qur'an 19:88-92).

At a very basic level, the 'god' all of these faith's must have some similarity. A smidgeon of knowledge is all a person needs to see the vast differences after that.

---

I argued those attributes of the Christian god (Father, Son, human being, etc.) are, in my opinion, simply flawed interpretations of the Bible.

And I explained to you the Christian response to that, which you thanked me for. Unlike in Islam, Christianity is consistent with Judaic theology. This speaks volumes to me about your claims of flawed interpretation. But I'm not here to argue with you about it. I have merely stated that there are differences. Islam has a vested interest in making God and Allah the same. You have to argue it I guess.

You touch upon the simple difference betwen our faiths, the trinity, but fail to address the meat of the argument: the evolutionary step I refer to, mentioned above.

No, the god of the Jews is in fact the same god.

Then let's see how many similarities you can point to between the attributes of the Judaic god and the attributes of the Christian god (which you mentioned earlier).

No pressure, though.

The Judaic God and the Christian God are identical, from the Old Testament. the interpretation of the trinity causes some post interpretation perhaps, but the reading is exactly the same. Jesus as a Jew links directly to Judaism and Judaic law. There is no misheard approximations as found in the words of Mohammed... the trinity of the the father, mother and son, for example. Christianity isn't a 3rd party bolt on. It's a continuation from the source material.


I was looking for this earlier - a nice tableture comparison between the 3 Abrahamic faiths: http://christianityinview.com/xncomparison.html

Damn. And another: http://www.religionfacts.com/islam/compa...ianity.htm