Indiana church's sign viewed as knock on Allah

[henktermaat]

I'd like to point out that

"Jesus died and rose and lives for you. What did Allah do?"

 

[cce1302]

So it's not possible that men of differing Religions are not worshiping the same god?
Try this on for size.
Four men of differing religions all pray to their God, they abide by the Ten Commandants. They live each day to better themselves as servants to God. They avoid what they perceive as negatives within their religion and only do those things they find moral and good.
Will your God regardless of your religion Judge them the same?
Will only the man of your Religion make it to heaven while your God banishes the rest to Hell?

Edit: This is not a direct question to David, more of an open question to everyone.

where do you find any promise that those who follow the ten commandments or any particular "religion" will make it to heaven? Paul tells us in his letters that the purpose of the law was not to make us perfect, but to show us our sin before God. The only way to heaven is through accepting Jesus' death on the cross in our place.

 

[cce1302]

I'd like to point out that

"Jesus died and rose and lives for you. What did Allah do?"

God sent His only Son Jesus to live a sinless life, take your place and die, rise again, and live for you. What did Allah/Mohammed/Buddha/Ba'al/Osiris/Marduk/Mother Nature/Zeus do for you?

That's an awful lot to put on a sign, though.

 

[LLDJR]

where do you find any promise that those who follow the ten commandments or any particular "religion" will make it to heaven? Paul tells us in his letters that the purpose of the law was not to make us perfect, but to show us our sin before God. The only way to heaven is through accepting Jesus' death on the cross in our place.

absolutely, the 10-commandments exposed man's inability to keep them, read Galatians, a great insight to what the the Law can not do, which is save anyone from their sin.

 

[LPMan59]

here's a random thought....according to Messianic prophecy, the Messiah had to come from David's bloodline. Now its been a while, if IIRC Matthew dictates Christ's bloodline via Joseph...who is NOT Jesus' father. Is there any evidence that Mary is also a descendant of King David? perhaps a chauvenistic oversight on Matthew's part? me wonders these things....

and for that matter, how does divine DNA work? I mean if Jesus was human, then he had to have had DNA from Mary and God (himself)....ah, the mystery of the Incarnation. Make's a small, humble man's brain ache. i am NOT criticizing anyone or their beliefs, just wondering aloud (well as loud as a guy can get on an internet forum)

 

[dburkhead]

So it's not possible that men of differing Religions are not worshiping the same god?
Try this on for size.
Four men of differing religions all pray to their God, they abide by the Ten Commandants. They live each day to better themselves as servants to God. They avoid what they perceive as negatives within their religion and only do those things they find moral and good.
Will your God regardless of your religion Judge them the same?
Will only the man of your Religion make it to heaven while your God banishes the rest to Hell?

Edit: This is not a direct question to David, more of an open question to everyone.

You see, that's one of the "telling points." In some flavors of monotheism it doesn't matter how "moral and good" one is, but whether one crosses the right t's and dots the right i's. The Latter Day Saint belief is that one must be baptized and one must perform certain other rituals ("endowments," marriage for time and all eternity, that sort of thing) to enter into the highest level of "heaven." (LDS do provide an "out" in that these rituals can be performed by the living on behalf of the dead who did not have the opportunity in life with said dead having the choice of accepting or rejecting those rituals done on their behalf.) Others require that one simply believe in, well, something (the "something" one has to believe in can vary depending on the religion and sect). IIUC, in Islam one has to accept Allah as god and Mohamed as his prophet. In most flavors of Christianity however, one has to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God or God Incarnate (depending on flavor of Christianity) and as the "Savior" of mankind. These two beliefs are incompatible. To believe one is to reject the other. If either is right then the other must be wrong. If one has to accept Christ to be "saved" then a Muslim cannot be. If one has to accept Mohamed as the final authority to enter "Paradise" then a Christian cannot.

 

[JetGirl]

Is there any evidence that Mary is also a descendant of King David?

Actually, yes there is.
I don't have it in front of me currently, but I'll look for it later if someone else doesn't chime in with it.

 

[dburkhead]

So is it your position that one cannot worship God but only one's personal idea of God? Or maybe that one can worship God, but only if that individual has a full understanding of the nature of God?

How can you worship what you do not know? Suppose, for instance, that the actual "supreme being" were more like Loki than the usual conception of Christ. Would the adulation given to traits that are contrary to the deity's actual ethos really count as worship?

Flip side, if someone decided that the "supreme being" had traits more like those of Odin and whose worship consisted of things like hanging prisoners of war (short drop, so that they slowly strangled) or the Blood Eagle (google it), would that constitute worship of the same God that said "no greater love hath a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"? Suppose the person drew on the Bible and incorporated elements of Jewish and Christian belief into that system, would that make it the same God? Would the Christian God accept the Blood Eagle as a form of worship so long as enough other elements from Christian belief were brought into it?

Or that if one has a misunderstanding or incorrect belief about the characteristics of God, that individual is denied the ability to worship God because of that misunderstanding? It almost sounds like the idea of "worshiping God" is, in the framework of the above quote, virtually meaningless--we're all just worshiping the false god in our own imaginations, hoping somehow that the real God out there will give us good marks for effort. I suspect you may not actually feel that way, but that's what the quote says to me.

Close but not quite. What I'm trying to get across is that just because folk use the same label, that doesn't mean that what they are worshiping is the same.

Even if we assume that there is one and only one god that does not mean that everyone who worships one and only one god worships that being. They could be, and per the Bible many have been, worshiping a "false god" that's nothing more than a creation of their imagination.

If you are in fact saying that Muslims and Christians worship different gods because everybody worships a different god from everyone else regardless of their religion anyway, then we do in fact have a semantic disconnect. We should make sure we agree upon what it means to say that we worship God before we can continue in a meaningful way.

Nope. You'll find that in most forms of Christianity folk within a particular flavor of it by and large agree on what that "god" is. There are some variations that can peacefully coexist within a single main conception of "God" (for example in those flavors of religion that give God physical form, what color are his eyes?) and some that cannot (for example does God have a physical form as part of his actual "being" or is God pure "spirit"? Was sending a "savior" to redeem man from sin necessary or not?)

My perception of my mother has no bearing on whether or not she gave birth to me. Same with my brother.

The same is true even if you have absolutely no clue who your mother was. And it has no bearing on whether your "brother" even had the same mother--or if you had a mother at all (allusion: "my mother was a test tube, my father was a knife")

A better question: If I describe my mother as loving and nurturing while my brother describes his mother as cruel and sadistic, is it reasonable to conclude that we actually have different mothers?

There are several possibilities: you might not have different mothers. What one of you thinks is your mother is not. One or both of you are wrong (and if it's only one of you, it's you, because "loving and nurturing" toward you does not cancel out "cruel and sadistic" toward someone else).

What you really seem to be doing is taking the position that since there is one and only one God, that any worship of "one God" must be of that God. That does not follow. Nor does it follow that because some inconsistencies might be reconciled with a "larger picture" that all can be.

One has to really strain to make "they worship the same god" work--either that or simply declare it ex cathedra.

 

[dburkhead]

I'd like to point out that

"Jesus died and rose and lives for you. What did Allah do?"

Which pretty much points out one of the irreconcilable differences between the Muslim conception of God and the Christian conception.

 

[henktermaat]

You see, that's one of the "telling points." In some flavors of monotheism it doesn't matter how "moral and good" one is, but whether one crosses the right t's and dots the right i's. The Latter Day Saint belief is that one must be baptized and one must perform certain other rituals ("endowments," marriage for time and all eternity, that sort of thing) to enter into the highest level of "heaven." (LDS do provide an "out" in that these rituals can be performed by the living on behalf of the dead who did not have the opportunity in life with said dead having the choice of accepting or rejecting those rituals done on their behalf.) Others require that one simply believe in, well, something (the "something" one has to believe in can vary depending on the religion and sect). IIUC, in Islam one has to accept Allah as god and Mohamed as his prophet. In most flavors of Christianity however, one has to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God or God Incarnate (depending on flavor of Christianity) and as the "Savior" of mankind. These two beliefs are incompatible. To believe one is to reject the other. If either is right then the other must be wrong. If one has to accept Christ to be "saved" then a Muslim cannot be. If one has to accept Mohamed as the final authority to enter "Paradise" then a Christian cannot.

Mutual exclusivity.

There is no logic, faith, experience, or reason on the planet that can open the eyes of those who choose not to see.

 

[dburkhead]

So... after this long discussion. Anybody move an inch from their initial position?

I learned a few things, but I was disappointed some pertinent questions were not answered.

"You cannot reason a person out of a conclusion that he did not reach by reason in the first place." Not always true but usually the way to bet. People tend to hold religious views quite tightly and it's actually pretty rare to convince somebody to make a major shift.

This does not mean that debate is worthless however. Even when people disagree simply having the debate, coming to understand each others' POV, can be useful in learning to get along. Too many people don't even think about the world outside their own position. One does not have to agree with others, but one has to learn to accept that other people have different views and learn to get along with that for down the other road lies chaos.

THEODOTUS
Caesar: you are a stranger here, and not conversant with our laws. The kings and queens of Egypt may not marry except with their own royal blood. Ptolemy and Cleopatra are born king and consort just as they are born brother and sister.
BRITANNUS (shocked).
Caesar: this is not proper.
THEODOTUS (outraged).
How!
CAESAR (recovering his self-possession).
Pardon him. Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

 

[redneckmedic]

So it's not possible that men of differing Religions are not worshiping the same god?
Try this on for size.
Four men of differing religions all pray to their God, they abide by the Ten Commandants. They live each day to better themselves as servants to God. They avoid what they perceive as negatives within their religion and only do those things they find moral and good.
Will your God regardless of your religion Judge them the same?
Will only the man of your Religion make it to heaven while your God banishes the rest to Hell?

Edit: This is not a direct question to David, more of an open question to everyone.

Here is the basic difference between each of the four men and there God and his rules. God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, or what ever version you see fit (like Jewish carpenter Jesus myself) wants a personal relationship with each of us. The "rules" were merely for a population out of control that needed a "time-out" if you will. Once Jesus lived on earth he preached ONE message. LOVE, show me any other "god" that asks for only unconditional love then we might have a conversation about us worshiping the same God with a different name.

 

[KDUBCR250]

 

[groovatron]

"Allah" and "God" are different people, by definition. "Allah" may be the word for "God" in the muslim religion, but the definitions of the person "Allah" and God are specifically different. Anyone who says that "Allah" and God are the same doesn;'t know what they are talkling about.

Definitions?..?.....You lost me there. The definition of God is different from person to person. However, if you are talking about the dictionary definition, then Allah is indeed the Islamic term for God. Lets check the Webster.......

Main Entry: 1god
Pronunciation: \ˈgäd also ˈgȯd\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English; akin to Old High German got god
Date: before 12th century
1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: as a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe b Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Mind
2 : a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship; specifically : one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality
3 : a person or thing of supreme value
4 : a powerful ruler


Main Entry: Al·lah
Pronunciation: \ˈä-lə, ˈa-lə, ˈä-ˌlä, ä-ˈlä\
Function: noun
Etymology: Arabic allāh
Date: 1584
: god 1a —used in Islam




So, I'm not quite sure what you are talking about?!?

 

[Al B]

Been going through debates similar to this since I submitted my pro Christian Universalism paper in my college class this semester.
I love it !

 

[LLDJR]

People can Google Job chapter 38 when they have time....

Also, yes, the blood line of Mary does stem from the tribe of Judah, to post the genealogy would be way to long for INGO.


Job 38:4
New American Standard Bible
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding,

 

[gund]

"You cannot reason a person out of a conclusion that he did not reach by reason in the first place." Not always true but usually the way to bet. People tend to hold religious views quite tightly and it's actually pretty rare to convince somebody to make a major shift.

This does not mean that debate is worthless however. Even when people disagree simply having the debate, coming to understand each others' POV, can be useful in learning to get along. Too many people don't even think about the world outside their own position. One does not have to agree with others, but one has to learn to accept that other people have different views and learn to get along with that for down the other road lies chaos.

Very well said.

 

[jpo117]

What you really seem to be doing is taking the position that since there is one and only one God, that any worship of "one God" must be of that God. That does not follow. Nor does it follow that because some inconsistencies might be reconciled with a "larger picture" that all can be.

Not quite. I'm not saying that since there is only one God, any worship directed toward any god is actually worship of the one. What I'm saying is that if you and I choose to worship the same god but we both come to radically different conclusions about that god based upon our personal experience of that god, we are still worshipping the same god. One of us may be doing it wrong, but the worship is still directed at the same "place".

So if two Jews point toward the Torah and both say "I worship that God", they do. And if a Christian points to those same books and says "I worship that same God (and by the way, here's some more of God's revelation for your perusal)", then she still worships that same God (though she might be doing it wrong). And if a Muslim points toward the Christian Bible and says "I worship that same God (but really, the final authority on God's full revelation to man can be found in this book I have right here)", then she too is still worshiping the same God, just in a different and possibly incorrect way. I guess I'm saying that the individual's intent determines the object of her worship, even if that worship is fundamentally flawed in some way.

Note that I'm not saying that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim teachings all have to be compatible with one another in order for them all to worship the same God. And I do understand what you mean by stating that the object of worship is determined by the conception help by the worshipper--I'm just coming at the problem from the other direction.

I think it really does come down to a fundamental difference in our respective understandings of "worship". That's cool, though, because I think we've gotten to understand what each other are saying, and that's the fun part anyway.

 

[jpo117]

I'd like to point out that

"Jesus died and rose and lives for you. What did Allah do?"

There's actually a thread going on about that very topic:
https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...a_church_s_sign_viewed_as_knock_on_allah.html

 

[redneckmedic]

There's actually a thread going on about that very topic:
https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...a_church_s_sign_viewed_as_knock_on_allah.html

Here Too..

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...gn_viewed_as_knock_on_allah-3.html#post688818