Posted on 11/20/2003 4:54:20 AM PST by truthandlife
I was watching the Tony Blair and President Bush press conference and an American reporter asked a question on the lines of do you believe Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
President Bush said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God!!!!
Does that make your screen name code for a snide, trollish, hate-filled insulter unable to cosntruct arguments to back his prejudices and lacking the intelligence to debate, slings his dung and hoots at those who's positions he has not even tried to comprehend?
Since we're reading fiction into screen names -- why not?
As many as man can imagine.
Some say they are the chilled or white raisins.
Special interpretation is not usually required. Read the Koran for yourself.
Do you know what the Law of Non-Contradiction is? That Law says that you are wrong. Logic always wins. The muslim God is monotheistic, but Jesus is not God and Allah is not a triune God. In Christianity, God is triune, and Jesus is God. Conclusion: This cannot possibly be the same God as these two groups have different idea of Who God is. Both cannot be true at the same time. Logic doesn't allow it. Therefore, you are wrong as wrong can be.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
"Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things." -- v. 18-23
In other words, I'd say Muslims (and everybody else) can recognize the existence of God, and even some of his qualities, merely from observing the physical world... but they rejected His truth for lies & became corrupted.
Christians believe Jesus Christ is God, seamlessly intergral of the Trinity of God. Similarly, Christians believe The Holy Spirit is God, seamlessly integral of the Trinity of God. Indeed, denial of the Holy Spirit is the unpardonable sin.
Muslims do not believe Jesus Christ is God, nor is there any place or space for the inbreathed Holy Spirit within their beliefs. Far, far from it. They judge such beliefs as demonic lies.
Now, Muslims cannot plead ignorance of Jesus Christ. They acknowledge him as a prophet, but only a prophet--and a lesser prophet than Muhammad, the "seal of the prophets." But they steadfastly deny he is the Son of God; they repudiate as a blatant, evil lie any suggestion that he died on the cross and was resurrected.
According to Christian belief, to deny Jesus Christ, to deny his death and resurrection, is to deny his Father, God. Such denial certainly doesn't qualify as the worship of the Father, God.
So let us ask again, from the perspective of the Muhammad and the Koran--do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?
Clearly, in a theological sense, fully informed and honest Muslims and Christians do NOT worship the same God. At most it may be said they recognize the existence of the same God.
But President Bush says Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Why is his assertion that they do, with its inescapable core implications, not offensive to Muslims?
At this point, the Christian and Muslim religions are inherently and unchangebly opposed at their cores. Any honest and informed answer to the question, "Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God" will point up this fundamental opposition.
For a Christian to deny this fundamental disagreement and say that Muslims and Christians do worship the same God, will not be understood by an honest and informed Muslim as praise and a healing compliment, but will be heard as rank blaspemy, an insult of the highest order.
Perhaps.
I don't see that happening.
And reading the Koran would demonstrate to me what exactly?
Interesting topic which deserves another thread. I will digress briefly. If you reduce your world to what you can see or touch, your life will be very impoverished. Even the nation cannot be seen directly. So the love, goodness, truth and beauty.
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