Christianity or Islam

[Westside Steve]

Serious topic boys. I hope Osiris will chime in but for anyone else wants to be rational about this. Now I know what I believe is the basis of Christianity just from growing up around people of faith. We pretty much, except for those who want to be abrasive, forget the Old Testament and center on the New Covenant. The best use of this, as I see it, or the ideas that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and there is paradise waiting for those who follow his teachings etc..

the teachings most often referred to are your basic love thy neighbor, help the poor, do unto others, turn the other cheek, spread the word, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and so forth.

I would be interested for someone to tell me the modern day message of Islam.

Modern day meaning normal everyday Muslims live and work among us; guys like Osiris. I'm not talking about the fringe or the radicals.

(and before you start typing woody neither do I mean the Westminster Baptist Church)

 

WSS

[big red one]

what I have a problem with - is that if there were a vocal "moderate" group of muslims out there,

 

they would be speaking, maybe even screaming out their collective message of condemnation over Islams militant extremists!

 

so far I hear crickets... since 911

[MLD Woody]

You know they're picketing Robin Williams funeral?

 

But no shit, you said no fringe, extremist groups...

[calfoxwc]

Actually, we can't completely follow the rules. We have free will,

and we will make mistakes.

 

All there is to a place in Heaven, is to know Jesus died for our sins,

and accept that.

 

Doesn't say you have to help the poor, go to church all the time, etc.

 

Of course, that's my understanding of it. Depends on which church, etc.

 

I think most Muslims keep quiet about it out of fear. Very sad.

[MLD Woody]

There is no free will

[Westside Steve]

I think accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior is step 1. Don't forget all the things he preached about in the New Testament.

That's my understanding, not my faith but he spent a lot of time talking about those things I mentioned as well.

 

Still it isn't my intention to compare the two or critique either one. I just don't know what is preached in your average Muslim service. What's their hook?

 

WSS

[DieHardBrownsFan]

There is no free will

I can't take anymore woody tantrums or immature posts. He is on permanent ignore. Like my kid when he was 8.

[WalterWhite]

The Westboro Baptist Church doesn't have the power to cut your head off.

 

Islam does. Just google it or search it on twitter.

 

 

Just by guessing Which religion did this:

 

 

[WalterWhite]

Take a guess which religion did this?

 

 

[WalterWhite]

[LogicIsForSquares]

I think accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior is step 1. Don't forget all the things he preached about in the New Testament.

That's my understanding, not my faith but he spent a lot of time talking about those things I mentioned as well.

 

Still it isn't my intention to compare the two or critique either one. I just don't know what is preached in your average Muslim service. What's their hook?

 

WSS

Yeah I think Osiris is the only one who can answer questions about your average American mosque service. I am interested in hearing this as well.

[VaporTrail]

[VaporTrail]

But seriously, the moderates aren't preaching anything too radically different than what priests are. Be faithful. Muhammad is the Lord's prophet, and his word is essentially divine. Jesus was also a prophet of God, but not the most important one.

 

That's pretty much that. According to this article in the WSJ today, there's a shortage of imam's which are sort of the equivalent to priests. They're losing these potential religious recruits to the fields of medicine, business, engineering, etc. As a result, half of the imams in the US are volunteers, and as such, there's a huge variety in what they preach. Steve, your question is kind of like asking if there's a consensus among Christianity among what is taught, and I can tell you that if you listen to AM radio on Sunday, it's a culture shock from what's being preached in a typical Catholic Church. And even within the Catholic Church, there's a huge discrepancy in what's taught by say, Opus Dei members vs the Vincentian priests at Depaul University which has LGBTQ and atheist student organizations. Back to the point, the majority of these young, American Muslims wouldn't be going anywhere if they believed what the average Joe thinks they believe.

 

My alma mater had a ton of foreign exchange students from Saudi Arabia, sons of oil tycoons, and each and every one of em paid full tuition. All the guys that I met were very friendly, but many of them paid a girl I knew to write their homework assignments for them, they also got shitfaced about 3 or 4 times a week. As far as I could tell, their religion wasn't really all that important to the majority of them. The females I met, on the other hand, typically wore the hijab and were considerably more conservative.

 

Some of those guys knew I was atheist, and it didn't really affect things one way or the other. I never really felt at ease around any of the girls though, and at one point our school newspaper quoted one of the female students as saying they'd rather study with Christians than atheists.

[MLD Woody]

I can't take anymore woody tantrums or immature posts. He is on permanent ignore. Like my kid when he was 8.

Can you prove there is free will? I'll wait...

 

There is evidence to the contrary though.

[The Cysko Kid]

A major reason that Islam has the tendency to allow such gratuitous violence is that they are taught that God is unknowable. There is no Jesus figure that humanizes god. Therefore the basic premise of Islam is to OBEY god not to understand god and in fact Islam roughly means 'submission'. Islam recognizes the other religions and recognizes figures such as Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus as prophets similar to Muhammed. Also the qu'ran is considered the only holy text not to be altered by man. Therefore everywhere the bible differs from the qu'ran the qu'ran is considered to be correct.

 

This if the qu'ran says to behead apostates and the Bible says "turn the other cheek, they'll get theirs" then you go ahead and behead them because the qu'ran is correct and you are not to know God only to obey.

 

 

The stupid thing about muslims is that it's known that god did not provide a textual copy of the qu'ran and muhammad himself did not transcribe it. It was allegedly revealed to Muhammed by I believe the angel Gabriel and transcribed by his followers after his death. So it was not given in its textual form by either god, Gabriel or the prophet and only by simple men. So it has every possibility of having been altered by men as men had to take the stories they were told and turn them into stanzas.

 

Also what mortal man prophet or otherwise could know the angel Gabriel from his brother Samael?

[MLD Woody]

Yes, clearly there is a flaw in the story. Other religions have stories that are water tight...

 

 

 

I wish Osiris would post. I'm sure it is annoying for him to keep dealing with this shit, but he'd have better insight than any of us here.

 

 

 

I do think though much of this extremism comes up in the Middle East not because of the religion in the area, but the state of affairs there. Illiterate, poor, desperate countries. Religion is being used as a means to control them, and more than one religion would work.

 

I also think this represents a very small majority. But, we have some on here taking word case examples and then painting that as all of Islam, while not foing that for other religions. Fringe religion is fringe religion

[The Cysko Kid]

I am not religious so I don't believe any religions story but leave it to you to quasi defend Islam above all others with that horse shit post. Yes I wish Osiris would post as well and that you would not in religious instances.

[The Cysko Kid]

What I posted is not speculation until the final paragraph. Before that it is factual to the beliefs of Islam

[MLD Woody]

How did I quasi defend Islam? Should I post about how I hate all Muslims and how they're all terrorists? Of course not.

 

What part of that was "horse shit"?

[The Cysko Kid]

The very first sentence set the tone. If you want to look into it you can. The five pillars of Islam and jihad the unofficial sixth are right there for you to discover

[MLD Woody]

I was making fun of the process of poking holes in religious story, or the origin story behind a religion. That's like an oxymoron to me. You could poke holes in any religious story. So that part of your post has no real bearing on what I said.

[MLD Woody]

Also, from quick google search, it seems like plenty of Muslim individuals and groups have spoken out against these terrorist groups. You just don't see it on TV a lot.

 

I'd imagine most Christian groups have spoken out again the WBC and any hone grown anti abortion "terror' groups.

 

No one here would say the Christianity calls for violence against abortion clinics or gays or whatever. Sane thing with other religions and their fringe groups.

[The Cysko Kid]

How did you even draw that conclusion from what I said? No one says all muslims are blah blah blah. I gave you a specific reason why Islam allows violence.

[MLD Woody]

Your reasoning being they are taught to obey god, not understand god? So if something is in their holy book, they are to just blindly accept it?

[The Cysko Kid]

Exactly

[The Cysko Kid]

That is absolutely factual

[The Cysko Kid]

However the qu'ran also teaches religious tolerance and mercy which is rarely given by types like ISIS. They are both not wrong and not right in their interpretation of the qu'ran

[MLD Woody]

Aren't most religions like that though?

 

I'm not sure why that's relevant?

 

The difference between any reasonable religious group and a fringe group, or a big difference, would be how directly they follow their books teachings. Anyone that follows the Bible word for word most people think aren't that bright, and that they don't represent Christianity as a whole. I'd I.agine this is the same for most other religions. Your modern, everyday Muslim probably doesn't take their holy book word for word.

 

 

 

The religion of Islam is definitely being used to manipulate some in the middle east to do what these terror groups want, but I'm not sure that means there is something unique to Islam that makes it the best choice. That was just the religion in the area at the time. A very illiterate, dangerous, backwards area. Which would make it more susceptible

[The Cysko Kid]

Christianity's new testament almost completely contradicts the old testament. It's a book based on mercy peace and seeking to understand god rather than following without question. That was the point of Jesus christ...to make god knowable to mankind and thus give us an understanding of God. A basic tenet of Islam is that we can never understand god and thus must obey god without question. I thought I already explained this

[The Cysko Kid]

Islam teaches that the qu'ran is the unadulterated word of God and as such may not be questioned and must be followed to the letter