A "Challenge" for Muslim members of this forum

[Nietzsche]

They're not all that hard to find.

Damn it Jay. We went over this. Let him have his moment. He has much to be humble about, let him have this wee bit o'pride.

 

[Sabour]

In other words, can you admit that there are verses in the Quran that can be used to justify homophobic terrorism?

Just would like to say that you can make anything in the world say anything you want if you cut and paste and put things out of context. Especially if it were a 600 pages book

 

[Glaurung]

According to Islam, everyone from Moses to Jesus is a prophet of God and they are to follow their teachings. To them, the tainting of the Christian text comes from promoting Jesus as Messiah.

I know what Islam claims, but that's not the point. If two people claim to believe in the same deity, but have fundamentally different beliefs regarding the nature of that deity and what it expects of us, then in what sense is it meaningful to claim these two people hold to the same deity? It may be true in a nominal sense, but my point is that such nominal claims are meaningless in the practical world.

It's the same thing here. When a Muslim says that the Injil is revealed, he is not talking about the teachings of Jesus as laid out in the canonical gospels. He's talking about the teachings of Jesus as constructed by Islam. They follow what Islam claims are the teachings of said prophets.

That is blatantly wrong as Muslims are instructed to read those books and follow the teachings of the prophets such as Moses and Jesus.

Wrong, they reject them.

When the Qur'an speaks of the Gospel, it is believed to refer to an original divinely revealed Book that came to Jesus Christ. It does not refer to any Gospel written by any of Jesus's disciples, such as the Gospels ofMatthew, Mark, Luke and John and other lost Gospels such as that of Peter. Some Muslims believe that the book titled the Gospel of Barnabas is a true gospel, but Christian and non-Christian scholars dispute its authenticity.

Although Muslims believe that Jesus' original Gospel has been corrupted and lost, they believe that hints of the message of the original Gospel are still evident in the traditional Gospels of Christianity. However, they believe that there have been additions and subtractions made to the real story in these Gospels, much like they do the Torah

(emphasis mine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam..._Bible#Islamic_view_of_the_Gospel_.28Injil.29

While a Muslim (when feeling generous) may admit the New Testament bits of truth sewn in here and there, they do not believe Matthew, Mark Luke and John to be authentic (but corrupt) revelation. They reject Christian texts almost out of hand. Muslims may claim to the same Jesus, but their rejection of the Christian texts regarding Jesus make it a pointless claim. Muslims accept the "Gospel", "the teachings of Jesus" only insofar as it is congruous with Muslim claims. Which for anyone who isn't Muslim, is next to meaningless.

In bref, what I'm saying this.

So what? What does that actually mean for anyone who isn't already predisposed to buy into Muslim claims?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I know what Islam claims, but that's not the point. If two people claim to believe in the same deity, but have fundamentally different beliefs regarding the nature of that deity and what it expects of us, then in what sense is it meaningful to claim these two people hold to the same deity? It may be true in a nominal sense, but my point is that such nominal claims are meaningless in the practical world.

Except that is pretty much the way of the world. Everything from philosophy, politics, and religion have people who hold their own ways as being the "true" way with everybody else getting it wrong. We can look at someone like Nietzsche, a philosopher that a plethora of groups have tried to attach to their own groups, or we can look at Hagel, who had followers who branched off into different groups, who also had Karl Marx as a follower, and Marx himself had people who took his views one way with other groups taking them another way. Even America's first government had the same Constitution they all signed, but yet we still had the Federalists and anti-Federalists.

 

[Glaurung]

Except that is pretty much the way of the world. Everything from philosophy, politics, and religion have people who hold their own ways as being the "true" way with everybody else getting it wrong.

Except (and this is the key difference) Islam was never a variant of Christianity or Judaism. Although it presents itself as the completion of the Abrahamic tradition, it was never an organic outgrowth of it. It was never a "heretical sect" because its founders were neither Jews or Christians. Islam was an outside imposition, a co-option, not an outgrowth. Which is why Christians are perfectly justified in rejecting Muslim claims to "follow Jesus", because if you repudiate everything Christians believe about what Jesus is and what he said, then it's frankly not the same Jesus. Not in any way that for the Christian is meaningful. It's meaningful only for Muslims, as they are the ones making the claim.

I'm not arguing for or against either religion here. I'm just saying that Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable in their claims. Islam is an outside repudiation of Christianity, not a movement of it like Christianity was of Second Temple Judaism.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Except (and this is the key difference) Islam was never a variant of Christianity or Judaism. Although it presents itself as the completion of the Abrahamic tradition, it was never an organic outgrowth of it. It was never a "heretical sect" because its founders were neither Jews or Christians. Islam was an outside imposition, a co-option, not an outgrowth. Which is why Christians are perfectly justified in rejecting Muslim claims to "follow Jesus", because if you repudiate everything Christians believe about what Jesus is and what he said, then it's frankly not the same Jesus. Not in any way that for the Christian is meaningful. It's meaningful only for Muslims, as they are the ones making the claim.

I'm not arguing for or against either religion here. I'm just saying that Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable in their claims. Islam is an outside repudiation of Christianity, not a movement of it like Christianity was of Second Temple Judaism.

Christianity did pretty much the same thing. It isn't an organic growth from Judaism because people who aren't Jewish created their own character to fill the role of Messiah, a character that Jews reject entirely, and don't even accept him as a prophet like Muslims do.

 

[Glaurung]

Christianity did pretty much the same thing. It isn't an organic growth from Judaism because people who aren't Jewish created their own character to fill the role of Messiah, a character that Jews reject entirely, and don't even accept him as a prophet like Muslims do.

Christianity was a Jewish sect, founded by Jews in the belief that Jesus was the messiah. Obviously not all Jews agreed, and eventually you had the development of Rabbinic Judaism. (Which mind you, is no more ancient than Christianity). Religious Jews may not like it, but Christianity (especially pre-Protestant varieties) is just as much a product of first century Jewish beliefs as the religion they practice today. The fact that Christianity shed Judaism's ethnic aspect, and took a radically different path than that of Rabbinic Judaism doesn't change that.

In short, it was a sect that became distinct (and powerful) enough to become its own religious tradition. I'm not saying that Christianity today is a form of Judaism, but it is a very different situation than what happened with the development of Islam. Which of course, is not to deny had much to do the the climate created by exposure to Christianity in that particular time and place.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

By now you have no doubt heard about the horrific attacks against members of America's LGBT community committed by one of your own on American soil.

My challenge to you is:

Will you condemn these attacks as being backwards and barbaric, in a genuine manner of reconciliation, WITHOUT trying to deflect the blame from Islam? In other words, can you admit that there are verses in the Quran that can be used to justify homophobic terrorism?

Secondly, will you condemn those verses?

The man was homophobic himself.

The man abused his ex wife.

The man used to drink to excess in the club.

His own parents have admitted he never practiced Islam.

Several sources have already claimed he was not in the correct mental state, especially following several rejections from other gay men at the club.

Yeah, definitely sounds like an Islamic extremist.