The OP was about the similarity of the dilemma for Islam and Protestantism and how both solve the problem by manufacturing an alternate, unlikely and nostalgic pseudo-history of the One True Pure Belief ™ before it was corrupted by this other religion.
Just as Protestants fantasize about the Original Christian Church that they're trying to get back to, Muslims have reinvented Jesus. I say "fantasize" because there's no evidence this Original Christian Church existed. In fact, quite to the contrary. Early Christianity was deeply divided among many sects so wildly different as to make Trinitarian Christianity vs. Islam look like petty hair-splitting.
Similarly, there's not only no evidence to support the Muslim claims that Jesus preached a proto-Islamic message of strict monotheism and that another prophet would follow but the story runs against basic logic that the Jews would be so upset with and reject an obvious reinforcement of their monotheistic theology and that more prophets were to come.
As an aside, the entire attempt to rebrand Jesus as a forerunner to Muhammad seems suspiciously like the Christian efforts to rebrand John the Baptist as a forerunner to Jesus. The real history is that the Mandeans, followers of John the Baptist, were rivals of the early Christians and continued to insist that JtB was the messiah to this very day. Odd how they never got the memo from their leader that he prostrated himself before Jesus. Similarly odd that the early Christians decided to pray to Jesus instead of waiting for their future True Prophet that Jesus spoke of. But all that's another strange parallel for another thread...
From the perspective of a non-believer in any religion like myself, both the Protestant and Islamic story seems like pious fantasy with nothing to base it on aside from the imaginations of the faithful.
Your tangent on the strengths of Islam over Christianity are unconvincing to anyone who's an unbeliever in both. The Koran has the benefit of being a much shorter book and having only one author. Christians point to the Bible as having many authors written over a long period and still having "the same message". This too is unconvincing to the non-believer but religion has no hard evidence to offer so it must resort to philoso-babble and flimsy rationalization.
Just as Protestants fantasize about the Original Christian Church that they're trying to get back to, Muslims have reinvented Jesus. I say "fantasize" because there's no evidence this Original Christian Church existed. In fact, quite to the contrary. Early Christianity was deeply divided among many sects so wildly different as to make Trinitarian Christianity vs. Islam look like petty hair-splitting.
Similarly, there's not only no evidence to support the Muslim claims that Jesus preached a proto-Islamic message of strict monotheism and that another prophet would follow but the story runs against basic logic that the Jews would be so upset with and reject an obvious reinforcement of their monotheistic theology and that more prophets were to come.
As an aside, the entire attempt to rebrand Jesus as a forerunner to Muhammad seems suspiciously like the Christian efforts to rebrand John the Baptist as a forerunner to Jesus. The real history is that the Mandeans, followers of John the Baptist, were rivals of the early Christians and continued to insist that JtB was the messiah to this very day. Odd how they never got the memo from their leader that he prostrated himself before Jesus. Similarly odd that the early Christians decided to pray to Jesus instead of waiting for their future True Prophet that Jesus spoke of. But all that's another strange parallel for another thread...
From the perspective of a non-believer in any religion like myself, both the Protestant and Islamic story seems like pious fantasy with nothing to base it on aside from the imaginations of the faithful.
Your tangent on the strengths of Islam over Christianity are unconvincing to anyone who's an unbeliever in both. The Koran has the benefit of being a much shorter book and having only one author. Christians point to the Bible as having many authors written over a long period and still having "the same message". This too is unconvincing to the non-believer but religion has no hard evidence to offer so it must resort to philoso-babble and flimsy rationalization.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
