I've had another one recommended to me as well. I've only just started looking through it, but it appears to be quite informative as well.
www.answering-islam.org
The Muslims attempt to reduce Christ to a mere prophet and strip him of his divinity by saying that there is only one god and he did not have a son, and to claim such is as bad as committing murder.
This makes them anti-Christ, and the demand of their god for the death or conversion of the infidel makes them far too alien to live among Christians. Our government sees itself as secular, only pandering to the religious superstitions of the masses and some few members of it's elected officals. So government will not be on our side in this war against Christians in any fullsome way except when laws are broken or they themselves are threatened. I suspect the only reason the flack hasn't began about how Christians have exposed non-believers to danger by them having been lumped in with us in the minds of Muslim fanatics, is because Muslim fanatics hate unbelievers almost as much as they hate Christians.
Mohammad owned and trafficed in slaves. Jesus did not.
Mohammad married a six-year-old girl. Jesus did not.
Mohammad led wars of conquest and profit. Jesus did not.
Mohammad had his enemies executed. Jesus did not.
Mohammad created a religion which he used to enrich himself. Jesus did not.
Can we distinguish between darkness and light? Can we distinguish between evil and good? Can we distinguish between New Coke and Classic?
An often asked question, or at least an implication to the most popular answer, is, "Why should anyone care?" To many, issues of faith are issues of the imagination. Faith is about acting on what you believe, but what you believe may or may not have any basis in fact and it doesn't matter to anyone but you. Of course, it bothers people if you try to get on a school board and ratify text books, but that is a different subject.
This worldview understands faith as a personal issue that helps you deal with the difficult or painful events in your life. If you need money, that isn't a faith issue - just look for a job. But if you lose your job right before your baby was due and now you don't know how to pay the bills - turn to faith to help deal with the difficulty. Even more astounding, faith is a self-help system. This concept sees faith as a way to make your view on the world positive, and everyone knows a positive worldview makes for happier, healthier, and (in some cases) wealthier individuals.
So, this worldview puts faith in the realm of the imagination, or it is sometimes called fantisy.
But what if faith is something else? What if it is true that G-d is real? Does this have implications on how we live our lives?
That would depend on the nature and character of this real G-d. If G-d is real, but simply another implacable force in the universe like gravity, then it might be beneficial to understand G-d, but only to the point that we avoid falling to our deaths. Going further than that is only for people interested in trivia, or specialists.
But if G-d is interested in us, then faith is a very different thing altogether. If G-d cares about us then it stands to reason that He cares about us caring about Him. In that case, understanding Him as He is, not as we imagine Him to be, is critical.
Just as in a marriage, where you need to know your spouse in reality, not the idealized person you were dating, you need to know G-d as He is, not the image you have created in your mind. But this is impossible since, if there is a G-d capable of creating all that we know out of nothing, then He would be beyond our comprehension. Everything we know about Him would be but a model of a part of the real. As correct as it is, it would always be wrong.
Given that truth, many revert back to the presumption that, since G-d is unknowable, it doesn't matter what kind of model of Him you have. This puts everything back into the realm of the fantasy faith and leaves us with a reality that is indistinguishable from the G-d of imagination. Islam is how one mind views G-d, Christianity is how another mind views G-d, Judaism another, Buddhism another, etc. The views can be as diverse as we like, yet still envisioning the same G-d because this school of thought focuses on how the models can be wrong, not on how they can be right.
But remember, we came to the idea of a G-d who is important to know based on the idea that G-d is interested in us. In that case, He would also be interested in the model. And, since He is above our comprehension, He would have to give us the model and take an active part in making sure we don't corrupt it. Just like your spouse wants to communicate regularly with you, correcting you when you gain a mis-impression of him or her.
If G-d exists, and if G-d cares, then G-d will tell us about Himself. In the old Hindu story about the blind men and the elephant, G-d would be the elephant who speaks their language, and after hearing their argument interjects to say, "I'm none of those things. I am an elephant and this is how you can know me better." G-d would have to reveal Himself, which means that only the revealed faiths could have a hope of representing a valid and valuable model of G-d. That is, only the faiths that claim to come from a direct revelation of G-d would be significantly different from fairy-tale faiths.
As far as I know, there are few revealed faiths. I am aware of Judaism, Christianity (which is Judaism with some extensions), Mormonism (which is Christianity with a twist), and Islam (which is Judaism with a twist). There may be others that I do not know about, but these four offer an interesting answer to the original question, why should anyone care?
Islam and Mormonism are the latter two revelations in the list. Both have two things in common. The first is that they were revealed by an angel (messenger of G-d) to an individual. The second is that this revelation happened in private without witnesses. While I don't deny G-d the ability to reveal Himself through angels to individuals in a private setting, if we are to accept both Islam and Mormonism as reflecting G-d as He is, then we must expect those two revelations to be identical. That is, assuming still that G-d cares about us, we would expect Him to make the model as clear as possible and avoid confusing us.
Note here I'm talking about intrinsic issues, not extrinsic ones. Presume a loving father who enjoys his relationship with his children. If one child loves baseball and the other loves dance, the father might tell one child he loves baseball and the other he loves dance. This would not be a contradiction because it is possible to love both. However, he would be tailoring what he tells his children to suit their needs and his love for them. But if that father told one child he loves baseball and hates dance, then told the other child he hates baseball and loves dance, I would say that father doesn't care about his children. He is setting them up for enmity between themselves as they argue about who their father really is and who he loves more. So, if Islam and Mormonism are both true, they need to tell us the same thing, or at least non-conflicting things, about G-d. But Islam and Mormonism define G-d very differently, and in the intrinsic aspects of His character. Therefore, they can not both be true.
Judaism and Christianity, on the other hand, show G-d revealing Himself over a long period of time in three different ways. He reveals Himself in history, in private revelations to individuals, and in the wisdom of His followers who have meditated upon the results of the first two. Since Christianity is an extension of Judaism and accepts all of the Jewish revelation as its own, it is not surprising that the Jewish and Christian G-d exhibit the same core intrinsic character. Christianity adds some characteristics that Judaism rejects, but the core character of G-d is the same in both religions. It is possible for Judaism and Christianity to both be true, although that would require understanding Judaism as somewhat incomplete.
The final look at the four asks whether either Islam or Mormonism can be true at the same time as Judeo-Christianity is true. This is where the point of this article comes in and where the point of my post leaves us.
I assert that it is possible to distinguish between religions. I assert that G-d is real and that G-d cares about us. I assert that G-d so deeply desires a relationship with us that He has crossed eternity and infinity to make His incomprensible nature sufficiently comprehensible to us that we can enter into that relationship. I assert that only in entering into that relationship can life be given its true meaning - a life with G-d. But I caution that such a life can only have a real meaning if the G-d you know is truly G-d. Believing in the true G-d is the way to truely abundant life. Believing in the wrong one grants a shell of life. It's kind of like the difference between a solid and hollow piece of chocolate, or even between a solid piece of chocolate and chocolate-covered dung.
Answering questions like the one posed in this article is not only possible, it is critical. Knowing the real G-d is the most important task you will ever undertake.
Shalom.
Just substitute a reference to the Mormons for Islam here, and you can see the equivalent statement here just about any time the topic comes up.
Yes, there's no guide as reliable as the man who doesn't bother to read up on his subject.
I haven't read the Koran either, so I wouldn't make any sweeping judgements about Islam. You can find some very bad quotes in it. But that is also true of the Bible. Don't ask me to tell them to you. We did this all two months ago. If you really want to find them, look through Exodus and Leviticus and you will find some lines that you certainly won't like or approve of. There are some lines elsewhere in the Bible that can also sound pretty bad as well. You can also find many websites specializing in this sort of thing. And we have had our own holy wars.
To make the kind of judgement he wants to make about Islam, one would have to examine all the various schools and currents in Islam, which differ in many respects.
Can we distinguish between Islam and Christianity? Yes, we can. But the distinctions should be more than "Christianity good, Islam evil." It's natural that one believe in one's own religion, but once one starts thinking those who disbelieve evil, there is potential for great harm.
This author is clearly clueless. He writes about a subject which he states he knows nothing about.
One of the great things about the internet is that it allows anyone with access to the computer to express their thinking (or lack of it in this case). It also allows other, non-thinking people grab ahold of these peoples works and worshp them.
This is a good thing. Every once in a while unknown people produce real gems. This article is not one of them.
"Their ideas were in conflict with the official religions of their country of birth, so they fled to North America where they believed they would be free to exercise their Judeo-Christian beliefs."
The Christian is the dead guy.