Can I buy an "i"?
Posted on 03/30/2003 12:41:35 PM PST by NYer
Can I buy an "i"?
It gets pretty fuzze there was a time Ishmael did received the Word of God at one time from his father Abraham.
Some where in the journey things got Topy Turby. I am sure in the Lords time the original covenant the Lord had with the children of Ishmael will be known.
The Bible speaks of false prophets. All you need to do is look at the life of Mohammed ---the murders he committed, the lust, sex-slaves, child rape -- to know he could not lead people to the true God, not even an impartial revelation of the true God. He claimed Jesus was only a prophet but proclaimed himself as a greater prophet. Mohammed was far closer to "Emmanual" aka David Mitchell of the Smart case than he could be to a true prophet, there to steer people away from the true one God. If Mohammed was alive today in America ---he'd have to in prison for the crime of child rape (a 6 year old) among many other things.
Any way you look at it ---you have to consider the type of individual who wrote the Koran.
I pretty much agree with everything you wrote. I don't think it's pope or catholic bashing at all when people criticize some things, in fact I think it's that people often hold the Church to a very high standard ---and that isn't bashing.
Here it is:
The following prayer breaks the silence daily from every mosque: la illaha illa Allah! “There is no God but Allah!”
Allah, of course, is the same God Jews and Christians worship. Islam is not only a Western, monotheistic religion rather than an Oriental, pantheistic religion, but explicitly bases itself on the historical revelation of the God of the Jews, tracing itself to Ishmael, Isaac's brother, to whom God also promised special blessings according to Genesis. Isaac and Ishmael, Jews and Moslems, have been engaged in sibling rivalry ever since.
The older name that “infidels” gave this religion, “Mohammedanism,” is inaccurate, for neither Mohammed nor any of his followers ever claimed Mohammed was anything more than a human prophet. “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet," is the complete Moslem creed.
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Stole the above from Peter Kreeft who is a learned and esteemed professor of theology at Boston College.
Well yes. Happens all the time.
However, in this instance, Islam defines its belief in God as the God of Abraham as found in the Bible. Islam's full understanding of God is skewed of course, but they worship the same God as the Jews and the Christians.
I automatically discount the opinions of people who put themselves in God's chair and decide for themselves the fate of another's soul. None of us can know how far God's mercy reaches.
And I'll say to you that I hope He has more mercy on you than you show to others.
It amazes me that so many of us know the mind and will of God.
Fine. You know more about Mohammed than I do.
But this has nothing to do with the question of whether the God who is worshipped by Muslims is the God worshipped by Christians and Jews. The God of Abraham.
You say no. I say yes.
And the Church is always stronger and much more than the personality, decisions, or gestures of any one pope. It is a little distorted when some overemphasize the pope. The Church is never merely just the actions of a John XXIII, Paul VI, or even John Paul II, however charismatic, scholarly, orthodox, and/or well-intentioned he might be. The Pope cannot ever change the substance of the faith. He cannot change the Creed, the articles of faith, the sacramental theology, or the Gospels. The substance of Catholic spirituality and the teachings of Jesus Christ transcend the decisions or diplomatic gestures of any one pope. A pope can dishonor or harm the institutional Church or its public image by bad decisions, but he cannot bring Catholicism to an end.
The kissing of something like the Koran, while it may appear goofy or even scandalous, is fundamentally just a diplomatic and ecumenical gesture and does not have sacramental significance. There are, of course, other ways to indicate and express respect for non-Christians. Things which are likely to disturb, humiliate, or scandalize Christians should probably be avoided. The whole question of the evangelization of Muslims, the protection of Christians in Islamic countries, and how to structure diplomatic efforts to secure their safety, is something which can be debated logically and intelligently, hopefully without polemical or ad hominem attacks which irritate those who sincerely venerate the pope or those caught up in the personality cult of the papacy as a major focus of their Catholic identity. Popes as individuals are indeed fallible and, occasionally, extremely misguided. Church historians will debate the papacy of John Paul II just as surely as they have that of John XXIII or Paul VI. And they will certainly debate Christian efforts to evangelize, civilize , and exorcize Muslims.
Let's hope and pray that those efforts find some success before the radical Islamic apocalypse spreads its maniacal terror much further. The Church will certainly need a pope (and bishops) who brings a more activist, confident, and unambiguous leadership to restoring Catholicism to meet that challenge. If Catholic orthodoxy cannot be defended and protected in the United States, how likely is it to be so in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran , Syria, the Sudan, etc., etc.?
By Chritianity to you mean Catholicism? Non-Catholics don't have the fullness of the truth.
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