[mikhael]

I'm sorry, Sandwich, the inscriptions in the Dome of The Rock do not obviate Muslims worshipping the same God as Jews and Christians.

You're basing your case on your belief in the words in a book. Muslims base their belief on the words in a book. Unfortunately, neither book can be proven (or disproven) to be the actual and factual Word of God. This is a simple case of a dispute over a fact of faith. You are indeed free to believe that they don't worship your God. That does not, however, make you correct and them incorrect. It only makes you BELIEVE them to be incorrect and BELIEVE you are correct.

Just out of curiosity, is there any passage in the New Testament where God Himself--not an apostle or Jesus--states unequivocally to the world that Jesus is His Son, in the specific biological and genealogical sense ("Sandwich is his father's son, ain't he cute!"), not in the general and figurative sense ("Sandwich is a son of Israel")? I don't know of one, which is hardly surprising, as I'm rather undereducated. If there is, could you quote it for me, with chapter and verse references?

In a discussion of comparitive theology (in the classical, secular definition of the word: study of religion), mere belief of one group or the other is insufficient to determine anything. It leads to unsupported theses, wherein believing something to be true, without establishing its objective truth, leads one to conclude the truth of something else.

[Ace]

Might I also add that there were Christian sects before the council of Nicea that did not believe in the trinity, even more so believed that Jesus was mortal and was the son of god in a methaphorical sense. After Nicea these sects were declared heretical.

Anyway, the inscriptions on the dome of the rock make it very clear that:
Allah is God
The Muslims do acknowledge the existance of Jesus, but do not believe in the trinity.

So by taking a heretical approach, you can easily reconcile the two religions. If protecting life requires bending the rules a little, then so be it. God might even be testing you to come up with creative solutions. I'm sure that someone is going to state that this type of opinion is what makes people "distant from God."

[Bobboau]

I have oftine wondered myself exactly why the 'son of God' thing couldn't be interpeted as more that we are all the children of God and he was just keenly aware of this fact.

[Stryke 9]

I don't recall Jesus saying he was the Son of God but the once, on the cross, and that was rather open to interpretation.

[Knight Templar]

Didn't he tell the Rabbis he was the son of God?

[Stealth]

he talked about God, his Father, on many occasions

[mikhael]

I'm not really sure it matters what Jesus claimed, really, since he didn't author any of the books of the New Testament. Any claim the man may or may not have made may have been altered injudiciously by any of the later authors.

That's why I asked about God Himself claiming paternity. Given the Muslim belief that Isa (Jesus) was a prophet, but not the literal Son of God, any statement by God Himself to the to the contrary would be a telling point in favor of Sandwich's assertion. If, however, there is no such passage, it merely appears that God's word as given to Muhammed and recorded in al-Qu'ran are correcting and clarifying what is to be found in the New Testament.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Stealth
he talked about God, his Father, on many occasions

Priests talk about God, the Father, as well. In the formalised prayers you find such things as "Our Father, who art in Heaven...". Personalizing your relationship with God into a powerful father-respectful child relationship is common.

[Stealth]

check this Stryke:
There are several places ... that speak of Jesus as the only "begotten" Son of God

also, with regards to the Muslims beliefs in Jesus (being the son of God):
http://www.carm.org/islam/obj_Jesus_son.htm

[Stealth]

Originally posted by mikhael


Priests talk about God, the Father, as well. In the formalised prayers you find such things as "Our Father, who art in Heaven...". Personalizing your relationship with God into a powerful father-respectful child relationship is common.

well i don't really know what this topic is about (or rather, what it's become)... i just looked at the last post (at the time it was Stryke, who said "Didn't he tell the Rabbis he was the son of God?") and replied.  i don't know any of the context, i was just trying to help with some research *shrugs*

[mikhael]

Interesting links up there, Stealth, but they have the problem of not being spoken by God in the text. They all come from men.

As I understand it, the most common doctrinal Islamic interpretation of Isa as 'son of God' is in the sense that all men are 'sons of God' and that he was a prophet, in the same manner as Mohammed. I'd say its a fair interpretation.

Specifically, I think the last paragraph of the carm.org page you linked shows a rather interesting lack of understanding of al-Islam. As a prophet, Isa would have no problem performing the miracles he is said to have performed, without having to be the literal 'Son of God'. Those prophets, they have mojo.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by mikhael
I'm sorry, Sandwich, the inscriptions in the Dome of The Rock do not obviate Muslims worshipping the same God as Jews and Christians.

You're basing your case on your belief in the words in a book. Muslims base their belief on the words in a book. Unfortunately, neither book can be proven (or disproven) to be the actual and factual Word of God. This is a simple case of a dispute over a fact of faith. You are indeed free to believe that they don't worship your God. That does not, however, make you correct and them incorrect. It only makes you BELIEVE them to be incorrect and BELIEVE you are correct.

Ok, I'm trying to understand what you're getting at here, because on the face of it, it seems like you've gone off the deep end with regards to logic.

On the face of it, it seems like you're saying is that Islam and Christianity may worship the same God, despite their holy writings having concrete contradictions. Which deserves a :



But in trying to understand what you're getting at, I realized that you may be saying that the holy writings themselves are in error concerning this point. Which would sort of help reconcile things, but for one wee problem.

I can't speak for Islam, but for Christianity, the Bible is the absolute unchanging Word of God. It doesn't matter that it was written by man, it was God-inspired, He holds the universe in His Hands, so making sure that we got The Real Thing™ was child's play for Him. It is the bottom-line comparison we can measure all the doctrines against. All our personal beliefs, if they are contrary to the Bible, are in error.

Now I'm assuming that what is written multiple times at Islam's 3rd most holy site, the Dome of the Rock, is also as true and unchanging for them.

Originally posted by Ace
Anyway, the inscriptions on the dome of the rock make it very clear that:
Allah is God
The Muslims do acknowledge the existance of Jesus, but do not believe in the trinity.

So by taking a heretical approach, you can easily reconcile the two religions. If protecting life requires bending the rules a little, then so be it. God might even be testing you to come up with creative solutions. I'm sure that someone is going to state that this type of opinion is what makes people "distant from God."

That's not the point I was getting at with those quotes. I was referring to the multiple statements there that "God has no son", which is impossible to reconcile with the basic concept of the once-for-all blood atonement of sins which God provided by allowing His Son to be sacrificed.

Originally posted by mikhael
Just out of curiosity, is there any passage in the New Testament where God Himself--not an apostle or Jesus--states unequivocally to the world that Jesus is His Son, in the specific biological and genealogical sense ("Sandwich is his father's son, ain't he cute!"), not in the general and figurative sense ("Sandwich is a son of Israel")? I don't know of one, which is hardly surprising, as I'm rather undereducated. If there is, could you quote it for me, with chapter and verse references?

Of course. Matthew 3:16-17:

[q] 16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."[/q]

[Setekh]

Originally posted by mikhael
Steak, I think, by focusing on the small part, you missed the whole point.

Changes in direction ARE made from Testament I to Testament II. If such changes can be made by God once, why can they not be made twice, or even three times?

Ah, I thought I had made a mistake for a minute, but I did understand your idea the first time. You see, I don't really think there are changes in direction between Testament I and Testament II - just completions of directions that were always there before.

[Grey Wolf]

Sandwich, if you were considering Allah not to be the same as Iehovah/Yhwh solely on the basis of the members of the Islamic faith not believing that Jesu is god, then you are forgetting your history of heretical sects in Christianity. Specifically, the Gnostics, who denied the divinity of Jesus.

And yes, I am having fun using archaic versions of names.

[pyro-manic]

Originally posted by Sandwich


Eh? Explain, please.

Erm, right:

Christians: Jesus is the son of God.
Muslims: Jesus is not the son of Allah, merely a messenger.

From that, I would have thought it's obvious that they're talking about the same entity.  They just have differing opinions on Jesus i.e. whether he is the son of god and a divine being in his own right, or a prophet of god and no more.

I honestly struggle to see how you can look at that and conclude that they are talking about entirely different deities (sp??? ). I really do. Your mind must work very differently to mine.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
Sandwich, if you were considering Allah not to be the same as Iehovah/Yhwh solely on the basis of the members of the Islamic faith not believing that Jesu is god, then you are forgetting your history of heretical sects in Christianity. Specifically, the Gnostics, who denied the divinity of Jesus.

And yes, I am having fun using archaic versions of names.

I've encountered a number of Gnostics here, actually. I have one question for them: If they do not hold Jesus to be divine, then what the hell are they doing worshipping a man?

And if you wanna get archaic, I can play too. It's יהוה (YHVH or YHWH) and ישוע (Yeshua, which is Jesus' name in Hebrew).

Originally posted by pyro-manic


Erm, right:

Christians: Jesus is the son of God.
Muslims: Jesus is not the son of Allah, merely a messenger.

From that, I would have thought it's obvious that they're talking about the same entity.  They just have differing opinions on Jesus i.e. whether he is the son of god and a divine being in his own right, or a prophet of god and no more.

I honestly struggle to see how you can look at that and conclude that they are talking about entirely different deities (sp??? ). I really do. Your mind must work very differently to mine.

Ahh, ok, on the surface it may indeed seem that way. If it were merely a question of Jesus' "true" identity then there wouldn't be much of a problem.

However, it is His identity as the unblemished Son of God which allows Him to fulfil the blood sacrifice required by God for the forgiveness of sins of the world. If He was merely a messenger, than His death and ressurection had no meaning (since He would ahve been sinful man) beyond being a cute miracle, and we're all royally screwed.

So I hope that you can see how the single statement that Jesus is not the Son of God essentially invalidates the very core of Christianity.

[mikhael]

Thanks for the reference, Sandwich. Can you tell me with certainty the original language was in the patrilinear and not the figurative sense?

Pyro-manic, Sandwich's position is based on the inerrency of the Bible and the inerrancy of al-Qu'ran. In other words, he's basing his belief about someone else's beliefs on his belief in a book of beliefs. Not terribly useful for comparitive theology purposes.

The idea of Biblical is rather silly at best, and downright heretical at worst. If the Bible cannot be in error, then God cannot change his mind and rewrite the rules. Further, the Bible IS in factual error on several things (grasshoppers, my friends, have six legs, not four, and rabbits do not chew cud).

If the Bible is errant, then inerrancy cannot be used to prove that Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians and Jews.

[Gank]

But its obvious from the same statement that Islam worships the same God as Christianity.

[mikhael]

Its obvious to you and me, Gank. I can imagine some reasons people would want to deny the connection.

[Ace]

Sandwich, the Gnostics did not worship Jesus they treated him as a prophet of God. Pretty much the way that most of the followers of Islam do.