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Dear Marduk,

Actually you do not sound harsh at all.

I thank you for your very informative post.

It sounds good, logical, compelling and reasonable to me. It makes me feel MUCH better about Islam, actually.

You have won me over!

If only all arguments were so easy to win, huh?

With much love in Christ,
Alice

It seems to me that the God of Islam is NOT the same God as the Christian God, and for this reason:

It is true that God revealed himself to the Jews, and they worshiped Him to the best of their understanding in those polytheistic times. However, our God is a Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Judaism came before Christianity, and was the religion Christ was born into. It most certainly can be stated that the Jews worship our God, and that those who continue as Jews to this day reject Christ, but still worship the Father, in an imperfect understanding of His Nature, but worship as a continuance of the religion which existed to worship Him in the days before Christ was incarnate.

On the other hand, Islam chose a pagan deity at a time AFTER Christ was incarnate, and formed a monotheistic religion that at its outset rejected the Truth that is Jesus Christ, and the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, AFTER that Truth was plainly revealed in the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ. Having had access to all the facts, as it were, the Muslims still rejected Christ.

The whole "peoples of the Book" thing is simply a manipulation of historical facts, those being, that for a while, the "Prophet" hoped to ally himself with the Jews, for financial reasons, and so adopted much of their theology, to prove that he should be accepted by them. Later, following the rejection by the Jews, he came out with the statements on infidels being all who were not Muslims. Since the Koran is not allowed to be altered, even to correct mis-spelled words, the earlier "prophecies" remain, with the harsher overlay that is Islam today.

The Jews of the time did not believe Islam worshipped the same God. Nor can I believe that a religion with access to the Truth that rejects it is attempting, however imperfectly, to worship the same God of the Christians and Jews. They built it by choosing a false God over the True. No one is arguing that Amenhotep worshipped God when he changed the religion of Egypt to woeship Amen, the Sun God, monotheistically, a HIGHLY unpopular move that got his very name expunged for centuries, after Egypt returned to polytheism. However, he did what the Muslims did...chose one of a pantheon to call THE God. The difference is that this did not involve a denial of Christ, as does Islam, as it occurred many centuries before the Incarnation.

Gaudior, who thinks salvation is God's perogative, and that it is hard enough to understand one's OWN faith to live it, let alone quibble over others.

Hmmm....

now Gaudior's excellent argument has the pendulum of my brain going back to my first belief about Islam...

As a religion, not only did Islam borrow from the Jews, as Gaudior so eloquently points out, but also from Christianity. I am and will remain somewhat suspect of a religion that has basically 'made itself up', borrowing from here and there, as time goes on.

I think that I will continue to understand and respect Marduk's erudite argument about St. Paul and the unknown God, which he put forward quite well, yet will also agree with Gaudior's historical analysis.

In the end, as for who 'Allah' really is, who really knows and who cares... :rolleyes:

As Gaudior said, we have enough to worry about as Christians and our own spiritual lives, and I would add, certainly, enough to be ashamed about in our infighting and schisms, which prevents us from being a witness of our Truth to Islam and the rest of the non-Christian world.

In His great mercy, I cannot help but close this post thinking of those Christians, (adults and children), under Ottoman occupation who were forced to convert to Islam...may He, our God who we DO know, have mercy on those unwitting souls, and may He protect us from such situations in an increasingly fearsome world.

Sorrowfully,
Alice

Dear brother Gaudior,

The Truth to Mohammed at the time is not as "plain" as you make it out. History attests that whatever knowledge he had of Christianity, it came from the Nestorians, who had a wrong view of Jesus in the first place. So you can't actually state that Mohammed based his religion on a rejection of Christianity, if one defines Christianity by orthodoxy and not Nestorianism.

The designation "People of the Book" was proposed by Mohammed, DESPITE any economic or political intrigues, not because of them. Islam has retained that nomenclature for Jews and Christians throughout her history, during times of relative peace with Christendom, and during times of great antagonism with her. So one cannot assign the phrase "People of the Book" to a mere patronizing exigency.

In any case, you cannot charge an entire religion and its adherenets with denying Christ with full knowledge and willfulness. It does not matter whether or not Mohammed actually believed in a Supreme Being (which he did). What matters is how the Muslims you might come across with TODAY view their Allah. I am willing to wager that any Muslim you meet today will tell you that his God is the God of Abraham, the God of the Pentateuch. That is enough for me. Who is anyone here of us to judge the belief of another. Will anyone here actually go up to that person and say, "well, it doesn't matter what you believe today. Research shows that your Allah is really a demon of a Persian religion."

I say, "SO WHAT?!!!" Are not people allowed to change their beliefs according to their conscience? If a Muslim over a thousand years ago believed their Allah was a demon-god, what bearing does that have on the Muslim who TODAY believes his God is the God of Abraham and Isaac, the God of the Pentateuch? Seriously. It reminds me of those witch trials of the Middle Ages, wherein a supposed witch is tortured into confessing to being a witch, though that was not the case.

What is rather ironic is that not a few self-styled comparative religion experts in the past have sought to "expose" the origins of Christianity in the milieu of Middle-Eastern philosophical and theological traditions. IOW words, these people believe they have made a causative link between the paganism of the past and Christianity. And their arguments are compelling indeed - just as compelling as the argument that Allah is really a demon-god.

I for one will not judge, since I know that others have tried to judge my own faith and religion in exactly the same manner others are now attempting to do with Islam. Jesus definitely exhorts against such biased judgmentalism.

Blessings,
Marduk

I was in the car after today, and heard a very apropos conversation.

It was the author of new book called 'Prophet of Doom'. You can go to the website, www.prophetofdoom.net. [prophetofdoom.net.] The author has made a VERY frightening in depth religious analysis of Islam and their motives. For the record, this author contends that the Judeo-Christian God is not the same as 'Allah'.

(This is not to refute Marduk's comment that Allah may not have originally been the same God, but if the Muslims of today believe he is, then in essence, they are actually worshipping Him...though the code of ethics and morals are far different in the god that Mohammed was inspired by than the one that we know. My own priest's summary of Islam is that he cannot take it seriously when it follows the tenets of a man with the morals of Mohammed. Jesus Christ, Abraham, or Moses...he certainly was NOT.)

Personally, without trying to make ANY political, or religious statements, (for I have great respect for Muslims when I see them do their prayer prostrations in public-- AND we should take their example--most Catholic and Orthodox don't even sign the cross in public anymore), I have GREAT fear for the future of Christians and the future of the world and the intent of Islam. It is a gut feeling that permeates my soul. This book which I just heard about today only reinforces what my heart of hearts already knows.

I will NEVER forget a snippet, (one of those the news shows put on, but then perhaps regrets--never mentioning it again), on CNN after 9/11. A very educated, Western dressed gentleman sitting at his office desk in London, and a supposed spokesperson of some sort for Islam, said point blank to the camera: The goal of Islam is to see its flag hanging from the White House.

Sorrowfully and prayerfully,
and without judgement for anybody,
yet with great fear for Christians everywhere,
Alice

Dearest Sister Alice,

I share your apprehension of the war-mongering type of Islam. I wish they would listen to their peace-loving brethren, and there are many of those here in the U.S. Though I do believe that Muslims worship the same God that we do, albeit their knowledge of Him is wrong, I will not admit that Islam is a generally peace-loving religion (though there are indeed many Muslims, perhaps not a majority, who do practice it in a peaceful way).

Blessings,
Marduk

Marduk, I think I understand your argument concerning St. Paul's reference to the unknown god and the differing levels of true knowledge of God.

Does this mean,then, that every person of a fair amount of good will in every religion anywhere and at anytime is worshiping the Triune God, only according to the percentage of Truth they may have acquired?

I would note that many Christian churches and shrines are constructed on the sites of former pagan temples.
I would note that many Christian denominations seem to be "making it up" as they go.
I would stress that whether one is worshiping the true God should be determined by the adherent's description of the nature of his god, not by our judgements concerning the relative merits of his religion.
I am amazed that such a simple proposition as "Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians", a proposition accepted by the Church, should merit so much argument!

Dear Brother Cizinec,

I believe there must be explicit belief in a Supreme Being in order to assume that someone believes in the same God as the Christians. This Supreme Being must have certain qualities in order to be considered a primordial representation of our God - 1) that Being must be omnicsient, omnipresent, and eternal (the Mormon god is definitely out of the picture, since their father-god had a beginning); 2) that Being must be good (even if defined by our human standard as "good"); 3) that Being must be personal and accessible (which differerntiates it from the impersonal universal force of Buddhism, Eastern Mysticism and the New Age); 4) that Being must be the Creator, the Source of everything; 5) that Being must, aside from special revelation, be recognized as incomprehensible.

In my fallible estimation, there are really only two possible entities in today's religions that meet these criteria: 1) The Allah of Islam, 2) the Great Spirit of native American Indians. As Iconophile wrote, I am sure there are many Indian religions all over the world, not just native American, who have a similar conception of a Supreme Being.

As the early Fathers maintained, the Truth was revealed to all men from the beginning through the Semitic peoples, but Satan managed to twist that Truth. So, according to the Fathers, all religions have a measure of Truth actually contained in them, it is simply that human or demonic accretions have occured which manage to obfuscate or completely twist the original Truth.

Blessings,
Marduk

Oh yes... another very important criterion: 6) that Being must be ONE. Thus, I am not certain about Hinduism. Thought they worship a Trinity, their Trinity are definitely three separate gods, and one of those gods is the diametrical opposite of the other!

Blessings,
Marduk

Hinduism contains an array of philosophical concepts about God, ranging from gross polytheism to monism, pantheism, and among some schools, a pure monotheism. "Hinduism" is not really the name of a single religion, but should be understood to mean all the religious expressions of the Indian subcontinent.
It is not that the Mormon god had a beginning; he did not: Mormonism posits immortal, uncreated "intelligences", [souls], of whom the god of this universe is a highly evolved speciman. Under his guidance, men can in turn evolve into gods of their own universes. At any rate, such a concept places them quite outside the definition of the true God. What confuses people is that they persist in using very traditional Christian terminology for what is in fact a sort of materialist gnosticism.
Marduk, I commend you for your consistently intelligent and well reasoned posts!
Or is it that I almost always agree with you?

Dear Brother Iconophile,

Really, I am ignorant compared to your knowledge. Thank you for the support and undeserved complement.

Blessings,
Marduk

Indeed Marduk writes well and intelligently!

I do not argue with any of his assesments of the many peaceful and loving Muslims. I myself, very much admire the women of Islam, and am very sympathetic to the impressions of peaceful people and existence in Islam that, Queen Noor, for instance, described in her book about her life as the Queen of Jordan. (Infact, Islam could use more ambassadors of example like the Hussein family of Jordan.) I am also very sympathetic to the beautiful cultures of the Middle East, many of which encompass both Muslims and Christians.

As in every religion, the majority peace loving people going about their daily lives, are not the fanatic trouble makers. Yet, even a minority can wreak havoc, because they are usually, in every religion, the ones that are figuratively and literally 'hell bent' to create trouble!

On the other hand, as far as the 'one' God, or 'Allah is one' of Islam goes, Muslims do NOT believe that the Christian's God is one.

In Muslim Ottoman occupied Greece of 400 oppressive years, many times the stories have been passed down how Christians were told that they must stop worshipping their 'Gods' (trinity) and convert to believing in the only God, Allah. So, from historical occupations of relatively recent history, it seems that Muslims do not think that we worship the same God either!

Many were the atrocities perpetrated on Greek Orthodox churches, monasteries, priests, nuns and monks in the name of Allah. Unfortunately, at every religious pilgrimage in Greece, there is some horror story of Muslim vs. Christian, that tells the soul to forgive, but not to forget... and... to beware the future.

In Christ,
Alice

The God of the Christians and the Jews says Thou Shalt Not Kill. The God of the Muslims says, kill the Jews, and anyone you kill, you get to share the plunder. The God of the Christians and the Jews advocates celibacy...the God of Islam allows rape of female captives...
How, precisely, is it possible one can read the Hadiths and come to the conclusion that OUR God has decided to turn against His own people in such a bizarre fashion?

It is more likely that, like Mormonism...the "Prophet" MADE IT ALL UP. Given this, it is no longer a case of imperfect understanding of God, but of the intent to use your "revelations" to gain wealth and power. In the Mecca years, when he had to be careful, because he had little money or power, his proclamations were peaceful. When he moved to Medina, and gained an army and plunder, the change happened immediately. So, if the intent was never to worship God, but to invent things to the self-aggrandizement of his "Prophet", I maintain that they do not worship the same God. They may say they do, but they DO NOT.

Read the Hadiths, then say it is anything other than a scam turned religion.

As such, there was no original attempt at true worship...just a power-grab, calling it religion as a means of controlling the masses. Sorry, but history speaks for itself.

Gaudior, in clarification.

Iconophile,

Let's not get excited. And don't put words in my mouth. God is infinitely just and infinitely merciful. If we strip this argument down, I think I can very plainly elucidate my position:

A: If, as fallen, finite human beings, we err on the side of Fear of the Lord, we have nothing to lose.
b: If, as fallen, finite human beings, we err on the side of mercy, we have plenty to lose.

Simply, if you die and it turns out you interpreted God as being a little stricter than He is, you're fine. But if you thought He'd swing a little looser, and you're wrong, you could be in trouble. That's not really so preposterous, is it? This is central to all of my arguments in the above posts, and why I wish "good luck" (which I really do mean, by the way, I hope as many as possible get to Heaven) to the softies out there, including the modern Vatican apparatus.

But thank you for your reassuring post re: Orthodox church visitation.

Mardukm,

I'm a bit confused vis a via the Orthodox situation. Catholic thought on the subject is admittedly obscure and seems to shift through time. Now, and I say this with the deepest respect and politeness I can convey without being face-to-face: yes, I think everyone's chances are better in the Catholic Church than any other. Else, why would I be Catholic? Else, why would you be Orthodox if you didn't think it was the surest road to salvation? But, if anyone outside Catholicism is saved, it would be the Orthodox first.

As a serious-minded Catholic, I take infallible pronouncements to be very grave matters. I can guarantee that with baptism, honest confession, receiving the Eucharist in the state of grace, and being under submission to the Pontiff (head of what I believe to be the one Church of God) that you will, to the best of my human knowledge, go to Heaven. I can't say that about any other Christian or non-Christian sect. While I give creedence to God's infinite mercy, I'm not laying all my chips on it, because of His infinite justice. Again, is this so peculiar?