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“Scholar of Religions” Says Allah is “More Merciful” Than the God of the Bible
Frontpagemagazine ^ | January 28, 2019 | Robert Spencer

Posted on 01/28/2019 5:32:45 AM PST by SJackson

The Western intelligentsia just can’t get enough of hating Western civilization.

The Western intelligentsia’s capacity for self-flagellation and self-hatred seems to be endless. Jack Miles, Religion News Service tell us, is “author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘God: A Biography’ and a retired professor of religion at the University of California Irvine, now offers an erudite and highly readable close reading of Allah’s real nature.”

Miles’ “erudite” take on Allah is that the god of the Qur’an is “more merciful” and “more moral” than the God of the Bible. Miles is, of course, being feted and celebrated for this in all the right places by all the right people, those who know that teaching the people of Western Europe and North America to despise their own culture and heritage, and to love that of Islam, is a good and noble endeavor.

Miles’ claims, however, are completely wrong. In the first place, there is the evidence of present-day reality. There have been well over 30,000 jihad terror attacks worldwide since 9/11; virtually all of them carried out by Muslims acting upon Qur’anic dictates, many of them screaming “Allahu akbar.” There have been no terror attacks committed by Jews screaming the Shema or Christians screaming “Jesus is Lord.” No doubt Christians have behaved violently in the name of Christ throughout the history of Christianity, but in doing so they never invoked the violent passages of the Bible as justification for their acts.

But Miles says: “I offer examples of great violence from Jewish and Christian Scriptures and note that we don’t deduce from that that all Jews and Christians are terrorists in waiting. If we don’t do that for ourselves, we shouldn’t do it for Muslims.” Of course. All Muslims aren’t “terrorists in waiting.” But Miles ignores the real reason why there are so very many Qur’an-motivated terrorists and so few, if any, Bible-motivated terrorists: while there is a great deal of violence in the Bible, it is descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, it describes violent acts commanded by God, and that has created a number of theological problems that have preoccupied many Jews and Christians ever after, but nowhere does it present those violent acts as something to be imitated.

The Qur’an, by contrast, exhorts Muslims to wage war against unbelievers in commands that are presented as universal, that is, applying to all Muslims for all time. It tells believers that “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, ruthless to unbelievers” (48:29). It commands Muslims to “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89) and “kill the idolaters wherever you find them” (9:5, and remember, Islam considers virtually all other religions to be idolatrous in one way or another). It commands Muslims to wage war against and subjugate Jews, Christians, and other “People of the Book” (9:29).

The idea that these Qur’an passages are not limited to a long-past time and faraway place, but are open-ended and still valid for Muslims, has been taught by Islamic exegetes from Muhammad’s first biographer Ibn Ishaq up to the present day. Muslim scholars throughout the history of Islam have taught that these passages and others like them mandate offensive jihad against unbelievers as the highest and final stage of the Qur’an’s teaching on jihad.

And as for Allah being “more moral” than the God of the Bible, consider these passages from the New Testament and the Qur’an:

“God our Savior…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (I Timothy 2:3-4)

“And if we had willed, We could have given every soul its guidance, but the word from Me will come into effect: I will surely fill Hell with jinn and people all together.” (Qur’an 32:13)

So Allah is saying that he could have saved everyone, but has instead decided to torture some people in hell for all eternity, just because. “We’re talking about the same being,” Professor Miles? No, we aren’t.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: jackmiles; miles; rop; ucirvine
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1 posted on 01/28/2019 5:32:45 AM PST by SJackson
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To: SJackson

What an idiot.


2 posted on 01/28/2019 5:35:36 AM PST by bk1000 (I stand with Trump)
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To: SJackson

So the party of pedophilia loves the religion of pedophilia?

Shocker.

Democrats are evil.


3 posted on 01/28/2019 5:36:03 AM PST by stinkerpot65 (Global warming is a Marxist lie.)
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To: SJackson

I’m sure 8 year old brides are thankful to a moral Allah when their 60 year old husbands show up all randy.


4 posted on 01/28/2019 5:36:18 AM PST by King Moonracer (Bad lighting and cheap fabric, that's how you sell clothing.)
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To: SJackson

Is Allah as merciful as his messenger, Mohammed was?


5 posted on 01/28/2019 5:37:41 AM PST by windsorknot
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To: SJackson

So all of them get a free pass... By the time they discover it ain’t so, it will be too late.


6 posted on 01/28/2019 5:39:03 AM PST by frnewsjunkie
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To: SJackson

Self loathing narcissists should not be given tenure at taxpayer supported universities.


7 posted on 01/28/2019 5:40:54 AM PST by allendale (.)
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To: SJackson

Romans 1:22 King James Version (KJV)

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools...


8 posted on 01/28/2019 5:45:01 AM PST by HombreSecreto (The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year)
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To: frnewsjunkie

So all of them get a free pass... By the time they discover it ain’t so, it will be too late.


And then it will be the Chistians’/Jews’ fault ... denial is all to these people.


9 posted on 01/28/2019 5:45:40 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: SJackson

Interesting. Sounds as though he’s declaring that the God of Islam and the God of the Bible are not the same God. If they were the same then I’d expect the same moral code.

That said, how narcissistic, he’s basically claiming to have “judged Gods” and come to the conclusion which is more moral. And oh, how brave of him, he just happens to declare the God of Islam to be more moral. What a coward.

- Leave Islam = death
- Be gay = death
- Blaspheme = death
- Preach another religion = death
- Adultery = death
- Not Muslim = death

You’d have to be awfully dishonest to conclude the God of Islam has any virtuous morals.


10 posted on 01/28/2019 5:46:06 AM PST by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing of poor moral choices among everybody)
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To: SJackson

I’m guessing he’s selectively chose to ignore the New Testament and Jesus Christ.


11 posted on 01/28/2019 5:49:16 AM PST by bramps (It's the Islam, stupid!)
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To: SJackson

Haven’t they been telling us for years that it’s the same God?


12 posted on 01/28/2019 5:50:22 AM PST by JudyinCanada
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To: SJackson

The reason God ordered the Israelites to kill entire groups of people when they entered Caanan was the same reason God flooded the earth: Nephilim.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whomsoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.


13 posted on 01/28/2019 5:52:03 AM PST by Dogbert41 (When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own dwelling, his goods are safe. -Luke 11:21)
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To: SJackson

there still killing people like they have since 622 AD. I think the death toll is over 500 million now. People teaching this stuff is dangerous we’ve got several generations of infected Minds out there that were instructed in this gobbledygook!


14 posted on 01/28/2019 5:58:03 AM PST by lexington minuteman 1775
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To: SJackson

So much for the proclamation that God and Allah are all the “same”....NOT! There is only one God...the God of the Bible.
Allah is the figment of some deranged pedophile desert dweller’s sick imagination. There is no star in the middle of the moon.


15 posted on 01/28/2019 6:14:17 AM PST by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.)
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To: SJackson

This whole thing about the Lord God ordering the Israelites to kill people is way overblown. Two maybe three times. Several thousand years ago, Israelites are ordered to kill off the people who reside in land of milk and honey and these idiots who don’t believe in parting of the Red Sea by God, use that to condemn the Judeo-Christian cultur.


16 posted on 01/28/2019 6:17:07 AM PST by Mercat
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To: SJackson

Throw up.


17 posted on 01/28/2019 6:23:38 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: SJackson

Well, he’s wrong. So wrong as to be laughable.

But it’s also an irrelevant question. G-d is G-d, not a construct of self-appointed theologians. He Is. We do not shape or crate G-d. He creates us.


18 posted on 01/28/2019 6:25:19 AM PST by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: SJackson

Allah is a figment of the imagination, Satan has done a fantastic job in brainwashing millions.

We are approaching the biblical last days....Matthew 24 is coming to life.


19 posted on 01/28/2019 6:28:48 AM PST by Halgr (Once a Marine, always a Marine - Semper Fi)
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To: SJackson

The brutal eradication of Christianity is the core craving of the Democrat.


20 posted on 01/28/2019 6:30:13 AM PST by stinkerpot65 (Global warming is a Marxist lie.)
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