What Divides Muslims And Christians

[Pomak]

[quote name='mommas_boy' date='15 December 2009 - 06:45 AM' timestamp='1260819959' post='2020473']
Sorry. Not trying to convert anyone, though I can see how you could have thought that from my post. I'm trying to be explicit about what separates us, and in a way, trying to offer an olive branch to our new Muslim members by pointing out how incongruent some of our beliefs are with one another.
[/quote]

I was not implying that, but my point is that if we try to convert others, we will 9 out of 10 times retreat to our dogma, if we are seeking to understand how the other side sees the material world and the other world, we will inherently be able to not have an issue with the whole dogma thing.

I have seen it here, when we have challenged you guys on basics of Christianity and I have seen it when Christians come to Muslims and debate. I think it goes down to intentions, when we do interfaith we get told (by our own side) not to try to convert under any circumstance.

[dominicansoul]

[quote] what divides muslims and Christians[/quote]

[quote name='Winchester' date='13 December 2009 - 08:40 PM' timestamp='1260754810' post='2019977']
A wall would help.
[/quote]

[mommas_boy]

[quote name='Pomak' date='14 December 2009 - 10:22 PM' timestamp='1260847346' post='2020776']
I was not implying that, but my point is that if we try to convert others, we will 9 out of 10 times retreat to our dogma, if we are seeking to understand how the other side sees the material world and the other world, we will inherently be able to not have an issue with the whole dogma thing.
[/quote]

Thank you for your reply, and clarification; I feel a lot better now!

I agree with you. It took me a while to come to that perspective in speaking with yourself and the others, but after reading several of the posts on these phorums, I wanted to write a post that emphatically expressed my faith, but did so in a way that was only a statement of my faith, rather than challenge. I believe that post was in another thread, it was in reply to extempers.

[quote]
[b]I have seen it here, when we have challenged you guys on basics of Christianity[/b] and I have seen it [u]when Christians come to Muslims and debate[/u]. I think it goes down to intentions, when we do interfaith we get told (by our own side) not to try to convert under any circumstance.
[/quote]

Thank you for taking responsibility for the bolded, as well as for pointing out our failings in the underlined. We are human, and we all grow impassioned about what is most important to us, and sometimes those passions can get in the way of reason and charity. Christians have a saying that the Evil One will appear as an Angel of the light ... that is, that the devil will often mask himself in good intentions, but his ultimate goals are to divide people, and get them to accuse one another.

As for not trying to convert, I think that this is an important point, and a difficult one for any person of faith to adhere and aspire to. Within Christianity, Christ gave his disciples the Great Commission to spread the Gospel to all the world; evangelism is very much part of the religion. In fact, the word "mass" itself comes from the Latin phrase at the end of mass: "Ite missa est" -- "Go! You are sent!" The word "mass" comes from the same Latin root as the word for "mission". To quote the Blues Brothers: "We're on a mission from God!"

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOHq5WbQ8k[/media]

That said, the question is how that message is propagated, how the mission is carried out. It's a question that has been debated in public on this phorum since your arrival, which is encouraging. And it's the question that you raise yourself. To put it in words often attributed to a Saint of the Church, "Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words."

[Hassan]

[quote name='Antigonos' date='14 December 2009 - 08:11 AM' timestamp='1260796297' post='2020208']It's just another attempt to gain legitimacy by co-opting the traditions of another religion.
[/quote]

Like Christianity co-opting the Old Testament to gain the respectability of a 'genuine' religion in the eyes of the Roman Empire. Or the numerous traditions and fables co-opted by Judaism from various cultures the Jewish people encountered in their ancient history.

No religion emerges in a vacuum, they all have 'co-opted' from other cultural and religious traditions to establish themselves, appeal to particular audiences, or survive new encounters.

[Antigonos]

[quote name='Hassan' date='15 December 2009 - 07:53 AM' timestamp='1260852782' post='2020820']

No religion emerges in a vacuum, they all have 'co-opted' from other cultural and religious traditions to establish themselves, appeal to particular audiences, or survive new encounters.
[/quote]

With one very big exception, you are right. Judaism was the first religion to postulate a single, incorporeal, omniscient and omnipotent God. At the time, all the civilizations which surrounded the Hebrews were polytheistic, and their gods were represented by images.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Antigonos' date='15 December 2009 - 12:54 AM' timestamp='1260856470' post='2020843']
With one very big exception, you are right. Judaism was the first religion to postulate a single, incorporeal, omniscient and omnipotent God. At the time, all the civilizations which surrounded the Hebrews were polytheistic, and their gods were represented by images.
[/quote]

At what time? The God of the Hebrew Bible is not a static being. He morphs and evolves throughout the text until eventually arriving at the grandiose monotheistic we think of now.

I can't speak to your assertions about monotheism. Certainly the Zoroastrian monotheistic deity precedes the God of Judaism although it must be granted that he was not omnipotent. The Jews may have been the first to eventually configure God as you have described him, however it certainly did not pop out of a vacuum. It developed over centuries through extensive contact with other cultures.

That doesn't mean that the Jews didn't contribute important and novel insights to the development of religious thought. I happen to think that in many ways Jewish authors, those of substance, not those found in the self help aisle of Walgreen's, are making some of the most important contributions to the development of religious thought in the modern age. I was recently invited to attend a tri-faith conference hosted by an CLP group in my dorm dedicated to promoting religious tolerance. The Rabbi in attendance was, quite frankly, the only one of the three (the others being a pentecostal pastor and Duke's Imam) that I could listen to without feeling as though I were developing a headache. I find his Zionist political views repugnant, but unlike the other two I felt in him a genuinely questioning, humble, yet powerful intellect. And his answers to the various question posed genuinely impressed me as a non-believer. He was the only one of the three who could answer modern questions posed by probing students without resorting to sophistry. It's not that I agreed with all his answers, but rather than I could not deney the immense substance contained in even those answers I felt were intellectually erroneous. I'm poorly studied in Jewish philosophy but from what I do know about it he drew this mindset and intellectual power largely from the modern reservoir of Jewish philosophical thought.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Hassan' date='15 December 2009 - 04:18 AM' timestamp='1260868716' post='2020873']
I can't speak to your assertions about monotheism. Certainly the Zoroastrian monotheistic deity [/quote]
Dualists.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Winchester' date='15 December 2009 - 09:16 AM' timestamp='1260886615' post='2020904']
Dualists.
[/quote]


You're right.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Hassan' date='14 December 2009 - 11:53 PM' timestamp='1260852782' post='2020820']
Like Christianity co-opting the Old Testament to gain the respectability of a 'genuine' religion in the eyes of the Roman Empire. Or the numerous traditions and fables co-opted by Judaism from various cultures the Jewish people encountered in their ancient history.
[/quote]

Um... Christianity was founded by a Jew, so it makes sense that the Church would consider the Old Testament to be inspired...

[misereremi]

[quote name='Pomak' date='13 December 2009 - 08:52 AM' timestamp='1260690743' post='2019593']
Personally, its because I was born about 400km from Srebrenica.
[/quote]
Welcome. I have been to your country twice but not to Srebrenica. In many places people I met were very scarred from the evils that took place in the 90's. Wasn't the divide about ethnicity/power not Christianity vs Islam? weren't Catholic Croats also persecuted and killed?

May all who suffered violent deaths there Rest In Peace and those who live who have witnessed them be consoled. God bless

[Winchester]

[quote name='Hassan' date='15 December 2009 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1260887563' post='2020907']
You're right.
[/quote]
Yeah, but I've never liked the age, original, only, numerically superior, etcetera arguments anyway.

[Varg]

[quote name='Winchester' date='13 December 2009 - 08:40 PM' timestamp='1260754810' post='2019977']
A wall would help.
[/quote]
Only Commies think like that!

[Winchester]

[quote name='Varg' date='15 December 2009 - 05:10 PM' timestamp='1260915000' post='2021276']
Only Commies think like that!
[/quote]
And Chinese Empirialists.

[Varg]

Who's descendants would become Commies.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Varg' date='15 December 2009 - 05:14 PM' timestamp='1260915266' post='2021280']
[s]Who's[/s] Whose descendants would become Commies.
[/quote]