Hello, Rex,
Absolutely NOT. God determines our life spans to start with. You argue a moot point.
Let me see if I understand. I say that God demands that we believe and obey or he will kill us. As I see it, God is using a death threat to coerce, making him a terrorist. You argue that God determines our life spans anyway. Put another way, he decides when we die and has the power to kill us whenever he pleases. You say this makes my point moot. I don’t think so.
Reading this statement, I can’t help but wonder how you view those who died in the recent terrorist attacks. Did God determine in advance that September 11, 2001 was the time for their life spans to end?
Many humans have the power to kill and coerce. I have the power to kill and coerce my son if he does not do as I wish. Because I’ve had the power to kill all along, does this mean I am not a terrorist if I coerce him with death threats?
1)The created does not judge the creator because he does not have sufficient facts.
2) God has offered redemption to all under His terms, as is His right.
3) God Himself paid the price by suffering the most excruciating death and humiliation. If you choose not to accept His sacrifice you are to blame for your own eternal death.
To accept these statements, I must believe many things. I must believe that there is a creator and that I am created. I must accept the Biblical description of God and his ways. I must accept the Trinity.
There are so many obstacles to overcome to believe as you do, Rex, and we’ve discussed them many times. Should we never question the ways of the god we worship? Does God want unquestioning obedience? Was there a literal Adam and did his sin set in motion the need for redemption? Can we trust that the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Are the stories about Jesus true? Why are there contradictions between the accounts? Does the redemption story itself make sense?
Even Jehovah’s Witnesses are beginning to recognize the difficulties with the redemption story. In the November 15, 2001 Watchtower, in an article called, “Jesus Saves—How?” they write:
Appropriately, the apostle Paul later wrote: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) Yes, because of the original sin, children that were supposed to be born perfect with endless life ahead of them were brought forth with sickness, old age, and death as their prospect.“That is not fair,” someone might say. “We did not choose to disobey God—Adam did. Why should we lose our prospect for everlasting life and happiness?” We know that if a court of law were to put a son in prison because his father had stolen a car, the son could rightly complain: “That is not just! I did not do anything wrong.”—Deuteronomy 24:16
Like you, the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not question whether God was just in punishing the children of Adam for Adam’s sin. They say that God was just and fair in providing a means of pardon for his sentence. In a court of law, would we think it fair and just if a judge sentenced a son to life imprisonment because his father stole a car if the judge also provided a means of pardon? I personally would not. I would still consider it unfair that the son was punished for the sins of the father. The Bible itself is mixed on this issue. (Compare Deut. 5:9 and Deut 24:16)
Ginny : Christianity has a history of martyrdom and crusades. This is not a straw man. The point is that historically some fundamentalists have been willing to die for a cause, just as have Islamic fundamentalists. If blaming Christianity for crusades is over-generalizing and unfair, then so is blaming Islam for the behavior of a few fanatics.
Rex: And that is a lie. It's a lie that the agnostic's use constantly. The Kingdom of God is not of this world and you can't lay any bloodguilt at the foot of the cross. No human organisation speaks for God and any that do good works can also become corrupt. Islam has as it's main focus conquest by man, which you continue to ignore.
You puzzle me, Rex. You began this post with a claim that a certain denomination would never suicide bomb. Now your reasoning sounds similar to that of Jehovah’s Witnesses whenever one of their flock does something bad. Anyone who behaves badly is not truly one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Do the acts of terrorism reflect the beliefs of the majority of Muslim believers? Muslims also see themselves as imperfect people striving to be submissive to God and do right. Only in the extremist literature have I seen a main focus of violent conquest. In all other Islamic literature the focus has been submission to God and peace. Jihad itself literally means struggle or striving and applies to many non-violent activities:
http://islam.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htmsite=http3A2F2Fwww.unn.ac.uk%2Fsocieties%2Fislamic%2Fjargon%2Fjihad2.htm
If you mean conquest in a religious sense, then Christianity also has a main focus of conquest, since its goal is to convert all people to Christianity. Can Muslims be faulted for wishing the same of their religion?
Ginny, you sidestepped my explanation for why Christians may not always act by Christian principles.
I side-stepped nothing, Rex. I do understand that spiritual transformation is a gradual process, so your comments seemed misplaced. Also, I did not understand to what you were referring. Martyrs? Crusaders? Yourself?
And again, if you apply this idea to Christians, should you not be fair and make the same allowances for Muslims? Won’t you find Muslims on all points of the spectrum from “desperately depraved” to “pretty nice”?
Ginny quoted: "It is worth reminding ourselves that extreme Christian fundamentalism breeds its own violent cells of terrorists here at home. According to the Abortion Rights League, there have been 2,500 reported attacks and 55,000 acts of illegal disruption against medical clinics since the late 1970s in the United States."
Rex: Which is American citizens exercising their rights to protest what they view as murder.
Okay. If American citizens are exercising their rights to protest what they view as murder by bombing abortion clinics, are not citizens of other nations exercising their rights to protest what they view as murder when they bomb American buildings?
Was he following the word of God in doing so? Christiianity has no Jihad. You are using incidental evidence that is in no way typical nor widespread.
I don’t think you understand what jihad means, Rex. If you equate it with a violent, holy war, Christianity has had plenty of those. Of course, any one who is violent in the name of Christianity is, in your mind, not a true Christian.
You seem to think that violence by Muslims is typical and widespread. Of course, most Muslims would say that those acting alone in the name of Islam are not true Muslims and are not following the holy Qur’an in doing so.
To get to the truth of the matter, we would have to determine what makes a person a true Christian or true Muslim, take a careful look at history and determine the motivations for acts of violence, and make a statistical tally. Many horrors have been committed in the name of Christianity, but you are quick to discount those. You are not as willing to make the same allowances for Islam.
Hmmm, you've yet to show me one car bomb that has destroyed innocents. I have yet to see dancing in the streets over the twin towers being destroyed by any similiar acts from any 'claimed' Christian.
Well, you’ve neatly sewed this up, Rex. The Crusades don’t count. I assume the violence during the Inquisition doesn’t count either. Christians who throw acid and bomb abortion clinics are exercising their rights to protest what they view as murder. Surely you also have a justification for Christians who violently harass atheists and for the violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, too. Any other acts of violence are “incidental” and are committed by those who only claim to be Christian. How very tidy!
Christians have danced in the streets when innocents were killed. This is from Will Durant's The Age of Faith:
At last, on June 7, 1099, after a campaign of three years, the Crusaders, reduced to 12,000 combatants, stood in exaltation and fatigue before the walls of Jerusalem. . . . The caliph offered peace on terms of guaranteed safety for Christian pilgrims and worshipers in Jerusalem, but Bohemund and Godfrey demanded unconditional surrender. . . . On July 15 Godfrey and Tancred led their followers over the walls, and the Crusaders knew the ecstasy of a high purpose accomplished after heroic suffering. Then, reports the priestly eyewitness Raymond of Agiles,"wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens were beheaded . . . others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days and then burned in flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses."
Other contemporaries contribute details: women were stabbed to death, suckling babies were snatched by the leg from their mothers' breasts and flung over the walls, or had their necks broken by being dashed against posts; and 70,000 Moslems remaining in the city were slaughtered. The surviving Jews were herded into a synagogue and burned alive. The victors flocked to the church of the Holy Sepulcher, whose grotto, they believed, had once held the crucified Christ. There, embracing one another, they wept with joy and release, and thanked the God of Mercies for their victory.
I am reminded of something I read recently:
When asked whether Christianity supports violence and is a violent religion, does one answer "Of course -- look at the crusades, the multiple blessings of wars, warrior popes, support for capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of conversion to Christianity, the systemic violence of women subjected to men, and more"? Or does one respond, "Of course not -- look at Jesus, the beginning point of Christian faith, who is worshiped as 'Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace' (Isa. 9:6); whose Sermon on the Mount taught nonviolence and love of enemies; who faced his accusers nonviolently and then died a nonviolent death; whose nonviolent teaching inspired the first centuries of pacifist Christian history and was subsequently preserved in the justifiable war doctrine that declares all war as sin even when declaring it occasionally a necessary evil, and in the prohibition of fighting by monastics and clergy as well as in a persistent tradition of Christian pacifism"?
From http://www.crosscurrents.org/weaver0701.htm
You asked:
How reliable is the information? Do the sites give us back up sources? Does this in any way compare with the amount of Islamic terrorism, condoned by the Jihad, from the KORAN, since Islam's inception? Frankly, I've seen the typical anti-Christian propaganda is just that.
LOL. Your standards are so skewed, Rex. You assume that Islamic terrorism is condoned by the Qur’an. Most Muslim believers would argue that it is not. You hold Islam responsible for all violent acts committed in its name since its inception; Christianity is not held responsible. To fairly compare the two religions is not propaganda, Rex.
We dealt with that above. Not only is this besides the point, since Christianity teaches that only those who are in league with Satan will die at armageddon, but also because you ignore the right of the creator to demand that His creation worship Him alone. Him and not our selfish desires, idols, money, other 'gods' and the list goes on. That is logical and that is just.
You don’t seem to understand that not believing in the God you describe has nothing to do with wishing to be in league with Satan or following my own selfish desires. I still value the same things I valued as one of Jehovah's Witnesses: love, truth, justice, etc. I cannot worship the God you describe because he does not reflect these values.
Rex: Hmmm, every one seems to have been a political or Islamic group. Then we have guys like Shabbaz and Farakahn teaching things like, "kill all Zionists".Ginny: I think you know as well as I do that there are Christian groups which promote hate and killing, the Ku Klux Klan for one.
Rex: Show me from theKoran where either of these are not teaching Islam. Oh sheesh, you call KKK 'Christian'? Is this the best argument (from slander again) that you can do?
There are many quotes from the Qur’an about peace, tolerance, and understanding:
http://www.submission.org/terrorism.html
I don’t think the KKK upholds the ideals of Christianity, but neither does the Muslim world believe that these terrorists upheld the ideals of Islam. If calling the KKK Christian is slander, your calling these terrorists Muslim is also slander.
Ginny: As I noted above, fundamentalist Christians have attacked medical clinics, killing innocent people. If abortion is terrorism, fundamentalists are fighting terrorism with terrorism.
Rex: Hmm. I saw no figures in the news for pregnant women, NOW activists, nurses, social workers or doctors. If they did, by the above argument (by me) they are NOT TRUE Christians, they play at being 'Christian'. Maybe some day a 'Christian terrorist' will fly a 737 into a abortion clinic, eh? Do you see how ludicrous your argument is yet?
Well, you might want to take a look at the statistics here:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm
Can’t you see how ludicrous it is for you to argue that the people who committed these acts are not true Christians while not allowing that the terrorists are not true Muslims? Terrorism is terrorism, regardless of the weapons used or the number of people killed.
They do not follow the Koran then, they are selectivly ignoring the horrid side of their belief. BTW, don't assume that even the 'moderates' are not cheering the Osama's of the world on. Just look at the complicity of the Saudis and the numerous muslim 'charities' taht are being exposed!
What specifically do you consider the horrid side of their belief from the Qur’an, Rex?
Criminals live in many countries and work under many fronts.
Ginny: some Muslims are extremists who will kill to advance their beliefs.
Rex: Yes, the ones who follow their Koran to the letter of its 'law'. The rest are 'backslid' according to their own faith.
I would like to see this letter of the Qur’an law, Rex.
Because they are taught thus. An important point. Do you realize that most moslem schools are training up little terrorists by their teachings? You better open your eyes, Ginny, they grow up to be effective with box cutters and suicide to try and gain paradise.
I haven’t seen this, Rex. When I worked for International Programs at Indiana University, I met thousands of Muslim students. Most of them were kind and gentle. Can you show me specifics about Muslim education?
Fanaticism and violence is NOT TAUGHT in Christ's life or his word as revealed to us. That is the point of the matter and you cannot dispute the stark differences between the N.T. and the Koran.
I pointed you to a site that showed the similarities between Christianity and Islam. You have yet to show me the stark differences.
One had a messiah who died for all of our sins and taught peace.
The other robbed caravans, ruled by violence, taught Jihad, never performed a miracle and never lived even by his own moral law.
Strange. According to the site below, Mohammed is considered a prophet and Jesus is recognized as the Messiah:
(3) belief in the prophets of Allah, of whom Mohammed is the last and greatest and the one commissioned to deliver Allah's message to humanity. Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth also are recognized prophets. Moreover, in the Qur'an Jesus is recognized as the Messiah, and Mary is highly respected.From http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens/2001-263.html
This is confirmed on a Muslim web site:
Jesus is the Messiah. He is a word from Allah, and a spirit from Him. He is honoured in this world and in the hereafter, and he is one of those brought nearest to Allah.From http://www3.sympatico.ca/shabir.ally/new_page_24.htm
I am not an expert on Islam, but from my reading on the net, I gather that Muslims, too, expect a second coming. They call their savior Mahdi, and he will fulfill the promise in Psalms, “"And just a little while longer, and the wicked ones will be no more...But the meek ones shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace...The righteous themselves shall inherit the earth."
I think you may have more in common with Muslims than you imagine, Rex.
Ginny
