Posted on 03/30/2003 12:41:35 PM PST by NYer
Can we stick to the God that Muslims worship in relation to the God that the Christians and the Jews worship? Unless you want to broaden the topic. Which would muddy the water doncha know.
I prefer honesty over diplomacy ---I think Reagan was more effective when he was unafraid to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire" than Carter or Clinton ever were with their "diplomacy". You're right about the Church being more than the papacy and all that, it has stood the test of time. I don't think it will be this Pope who converts the Muslims, I think conversion will come from someone who is willing to point out the fallacies of their beliefs and make them see the errors in their ways.
I said Muslims and Christians and Jews all worship THE ONE CREATOR.
Uh... one and the same. Read your history.
Mohammed at first was impressed with the religion of both the Jews and the Christians, especially the Jewish prophets and started viewing himself as some sort of prophet, he would refer to Christians and Jews as people of the Book. In the city of Medina the Jews challenged his prophet status so he had them murdered (a whole tribe of about 800) and began his anti-Jew preachings and writings. He built his religion around his lust, he took a 6 year old girl as his "wife" ---not surprisingly his "favorite". He had 9 "wives" plus a number of sex-slaves. The Muslims have a clear choice ---follow someone like Jesus or they could choose the Jewish prophets or Abraham's way ----but they choose to follow a violent-lust-filled self proclaimed prophet who cannot lead them to the true God.
Guess you haven't seen the film from our friends at PBS?
PBS: Missionary for Islam?
By Daniel Pipes
What would be the single best way to convert lots of Americans to Islam?
Forget print, go to film. Put together a handsome documentary with an original musical score that presents Islam's prophet Muhammad in the most glowing manner, indeed, as a model of perfection. Round up Muslim and non-Muslim enthusiasts to endorse the nobility and truth of his message. Splice the story of his life with vignettes of winsome American Muslims testifying to the justice and beauty of their Islamic faith.
Then procure U.S. taxpayer sponsorship for the film. Get it shown at prime time on the most high-minded television network. Oh, and screen it at least once during the holiday season, when anyone out of synch with Christmas might be especially susceptible to Islam's appeal.
And that is precisely what the producers of "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" have done. In a documentary The Washington Post calls "absorbing, ... enjoyable and informative" and the Los Angeles Times describes as "thoughtful, flowing, visually stunning," exotic images of the desert and medieval miniatures mix with scenes of New York City and the American flag. Born- and convert-American Muslims speak affectingly about their personal bond to their prophet.
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will show this two-hour documentary across the United States initially on Wednesday, Dec. 18th, in the evening, then repeat it in most areas. The film's largest tranche of funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, "a private, non-profit corporation created by Congress" which in fiscal 2002 received $350 million in taxpayers' funds.
The heart of the film consists of nine talking heads competing with each other to praise Muhammad the most extravagantly. As a result, not one of them criticizes him. Some of their efforts are laughable, as when one commentator states that allegations about Muhammad contracting a marriage of convenience with a rich, older woman named Khadija are wrong for "he deeply, deeply loved Khadija." Oh, and his many marriages were "an act of faith, not of lust."
Other apologetics are more consequential. What Muhammad did for women, viewers learn, was "amazing" - his condemning female infanticide, giving legal rights to wives, permitting divorce, and protecting their inheritance rights. But no commentator is so impolite as to note that however admirable this was in the seventh century, Muslim women today suffer widely from genital mutilation, forced marriages, purdah, illiteracy, sexual apartheid, polygamy, and honor killings.
The film treats religious beliefs - such as Muhammad's "Night Journey," when the Qur'an says he went to heaven and entered the divine presence - as historical facts. Muslim wars are presented as only defensive and reluctant. All this smacks of a film shown by missionaries, not a prime-time documentary.
Move to the present and the political correctness is stifling. Hostility is said to be "hurled" at American Muslims since 9/11 - but there's no mention about the prior and vastly greater Muslim hostility "hurled" at Americans, killing several thousand. The narrator exaggerates the number of American Muslims, overestimates their rate of growth, and wrongly states they are the country's "most diverse" religious community.
But these are details. "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" is an outrage on two main counts. First, PBS has betrayed its viewers by presenting an air-brushed and uncritical documentary of a topic that has both world historical and contemporary significance. Its patronizing film might be fine for an Islamic Sunday school class (the Philadelphia Inquirer calls the film a "blessed opportunity for rest and reflection"), but not for a national audience.
For example, PBS ignores an ongoing scholarly reassessment of Muhammad's life that disputes every detail - down to the century and region Muhammad lived in - of its film. This silence is especially odd when contrasted with the 1998 PBS documentary, "From Jesus to Christ," which focuses almost exclusively on the work of cutting-edge scholars and presents the latest in critical thinking on Jesus.
Second, the U.S. government must never fund a documentary whose obvious intent is to glorify a religion and proselytize for it. Doing so flies in the face of every American tradition, custom, norm, law, and regulation. On behalf of taxpayers, a public-interest law firm should bring suit against the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, both to address this week's travesty and to win an injunction against any possible repetitions.
I am not trying to link Jainism and Islam, I'm simply asking the question of whether you believe that Jainists worship the same God as Judeo-Christians. Since all the ones I have met worship a single, monotheistic Creator, it seemed to fit the weak requirements you were placing upon the legitimacy of the Islamic deity Allah.
Christians who speak Arabic pray to "Allah". "Allah" means "God" in Arabic.
No it does not. "Ilah" means God in Arabic. "Allah" is a proper name. As I mentioned before, the only reason some Arab Christians pray to "Allah" is cultural contamination. Before the spread of Islam to dominate the middle east, this was not the case. Of course, at this point "Allah" has come to mean in common Arabic the name of God, but it is still a proper name (a good analogy is the name Caesar. Over time it might have become a title, but it, like Allah, was originally a proper name. And in the same way that later rulers taking the title only made them the ruler and not really Julius, using the name "Allah" for God does not make the original owner of that proper name, the tribal deity of Mohammed's family, actually God).
And the name "Allah" has been found in archealogical digs as the name of the One Creator long before Islam existed
While you are wrong on one point (which I will mention in a moment), otherwise that's my whole point! The problem is that pre-Mohammed, "Allah" NEVER referred to the Judeo-Christian deity, and DID refer to a deity in other pantheons, whose basic nature, as well as actions, personality, and history, were fundamentally incompatible with the Judeo-Christian God. The mistake you made is saying that the pre-Mohammedan "Allah" was a lone Creator. He was not. From both archeology and written history, we know that he was actually just one member of a pantheon of 360 deities worshipped at the Kaaba.
What?!? I have no idea how this statement fits into our discussion.
I'm trying to get you to answer a question. It is the same reason I asked about the Jainists. Does (in your opinion) the worship of a lone creator deity (or a deity that you believe is the lone creator deity) mean that you are worshipping the one true God? Since at least one Gnostic sect believes in a "luciferian" deity (a light-bringer whose true nature is hidden by a false-god who is worshipped as the creator even though they believe the fallen luciferian deity is the real creator), the question was asked, once again, to make the point that just because you worship a being that you think is the Creator doesn't actually make him the creator.
OK. Here is the bottom line for me. Muslims have a mistaken notion about the characteristics of God. But so do a lot of other religions. Does God not hear their prayers because their beliefs about Him are wrong?
Does God hear the prayers offered to idols? What if the person praying really believes the idol is the one true God?
Well, not really, although it certainly seems that way if you don't pay attention. The problem is that Islam didn't change their deity to match that of Abraham (Ibrahim), but instead re-wrote history to suggest that Abraham worshipped Allah instead of Yahweh. They say that Abraham built the Kaaba (a site that was historically, before Mohammed, always used to worship a pantheon, something that is incompatible with what we know of the biblical Abraham). In addition, nearly all the stories they tell describe details that are incompatible with the biblical story. If I tell the story of Noah but mention that Marduk told Noah to build the ark, that doesn't make Marduk another name for the True Deity.
Hmmm... Good insight.
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