My Thoughts On Islam

[DeistPaladin]

Unfortunately, DP, your contention that the Muslim story about Jesus makes "absolutely no sense from start to finish" is rather a very knee-jerk type of response, in my opinion. On the contrary, whoever does an in-depth and sincere comparison between the religions, will find that the Muslim view of Jesus is much more consistent and plausible than the story that the Christians tell about Jesus.

You'll get no argument from me on some of the absurdities of the Christian view of Jesus. We'll have much common ground there. However, the story includes not just Jesus but those around him. Am I really to believe that Jesus preached what he did only to have Paul come along 3 years later and convince all his followers to ignore what Jesus taught them and instead to worship him and a divine intercessor? Why would his followers do this?

Additionally, where did Muhammad get his information about Jesus? If it was from worldly sources, how could it have been from anyone other than the very people he claimed got it so wrong? If it was from God, then why didn't God provide similar revelation to the Christians?

According to the Old Testament as well - just like in Islam - it is considered to be a blasphemy and a great sin to attribute Jesus as being God Himself or anything of that sort.

Agreed. This is why I say that Christianity is not a fulfillment of Judaism, as Christians like to claim, but rather the child of Judaism and Paganism.

To the Jews and Muslims, Jesus was only a Prophet of God, nothing else. And he didn't come to earth to perform any kind of a sacrifice on himself for anyone's sins.

To the Muslims, yes. I'm not so sure about the Jews. Last I checked, the Jews regard Jesus as neither a prophet nor a divine being.

And partly because of these false rumors being spread about Jesus, in addition to Paul's insistence that the whole message of Christianity is specifically centered around the death and resurrection of Jesus as an atonement for sins (which has nothing to do with keeping the Jewish law apparently), God sent the Quran to Muhammad as a last and final revelation in order to separate the truth from the lies.

This gets back to how the story makes no sense to me. Essentially, God's "great prophet" screwed up royally and God's solution to the problem was not to send any signs, angels or communication to the Christians but rather to sit back and watch them run off the beaten path for six centuries and then finally tell the truth to someone in a relatively distant land. This is what makes no sense and I'm left with the simpler explanation that Muhammad is no different from the many religious leaders before and since who claimed divine revelation.

There is also scholarly opinion that Christians themselves didn't worship Jesus as God nor the Son of God in Christianity's earliest generation (see below).

Again, no dispute from me that there were many Christianities. Which ones were the "first" is a matter that I don't think is so clear. I sometimes wonder if Islam is influenced by the Ebionite sect which saw Jesus as a mortal holy man adopted by God as a son and empowered by the Holy Spirit to perform miracles.

If I had to speculate, I'd say it's most likely the Docetics were the first, since they saw Jesus in visions and apparitions. We'd expect the spiritual Jesus to be the first and then later versions would be brought to earth in stories that might have first been intended as parables rather than a historical Jesus that later Christians would insist only existed as a spiritual being.

No, by and large the first Christians did not worship Jesus as such.

I'm not so sure based on the non-Christian testimony regarding the early Christians. To quote the letters from Pliny the Elder:

"Christians ... asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so." – Pliny to Trajan, circa 112 CE.

If you want to go much earlier than 112 CE, the history of Christianity becomes very murky and it's hard to separate Christian folklore from the truth.

you are essentially implying that the Christians are more likely to be correct about who Jesus was, which is that Jesus is God (or perhaps the son of God).

Just to make this clearer: Christians: Jesus is God vs. Muslims: Jesus is NOT God

Are you serious that you would choose the first option? I doubt it.

Well which would make more sense to you:
1. Muhammad was right about Jesus.
2. The people Muhammad heard about Jesus from were right about Jesus.

That's my logic. I'd go to the earliest sources to know the truth. Christianity at least has the appeal to antiquity, being the church supposedly established by those who knew Jesus. Muhammad came along much later and only heard about Jesus from these very Christians.

Now to be fair, I'm not saying Islam doesn't have some advantages over Christianity. Islam ditches the Trinity nonsense. Advantage: Islam. But Christianity has the pedigree of six centuries of a church established, allegedly, by the people who knew Jesus, along with a slick marketing package of supposed "eye-witness accounts" and folklore masquerading as history. Advantage: Christianity.

I'd also miss Christmas. Even as a non-believer, it's a lot of fun.