Answer2 to Don

Submitted by Nazia (United States), Sep 22, 2005 at 22:12

Dear Don,
You are trying to explain Christianity to us as if it is Buddhism. To correct you, there is a heaven and a hell, reward and punishment throughout the Old Testament and New Testament...-just as it is in the Quraan. Christianity as preached today by some (like you) seems to be adapting itself into something that can be believed

Your ...argument " god playing hide and seek" does not really impress me. Think about it for a minute, God is the lord of the universe that may accommodate billions of earths, and creatures like us (our limited human brains cannot even imagine the limits of the universe, let alone imagining the lord, maker of all the billions of galaxies in the universe), that is why in the Quran (6:103) describes God as "no vision can encompass Him, but He encompasses all visions. The pagans before Jesus the son of man in the attempt to immagine God debased the Almighty in the form of statues, paintings etc as most Christians are doing now.

It is quite ironic that you speak of love. If He is a fair God, He should not love Hitlers, Bin Ladens, Stalins, Maos etc. It is also systematically hypocritical that whereas Christians are the ones that mostly speak of love and tolerance, they are also the ones who have killed more human beings than followers of any other Religions in the world and they are doing it even right now. Think of it statistically over the last century.
Or rather don't go that far into history, just take a look at some of the postings right here on Mr. Pipes website, and you will see the hatefulness, bigotry, intolerance of your fellow ...Christians. The almighty did show his love for his creatures when true Moslems (not the misguided ones you see today) toppled two pagan superpowers of the time out of nowhere – the Romans and the Persians. And He did show his love during the Crusades. Even now remember it is premature to judge.

And as far as "he demonstrated his love through the person of Christ is concerned…" , I tell you, I never punish my son for what his brother did and this is exactly what your version of Christianity is all about. This atonement argument is not only a blasphemy to the Almighty (both in Judaism and Islam), but is also intellectually nonsense and morally troubling. And regarding God manifesting himself in Flesh, then all the prophets before and after Jesus (Moses, David, Solomon, Mohammed etc) should also have been "God in flesh". God sent messengers from among human beings; He did not come down himself.

THE CREED OF NICAEA
"We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, …(The History of Christianity, a Lion handbook, p. 177). As soon as you read their first declaration, you see there is a problem: one God and one Lord (1+1=2)

Killing for Allah:
Correct Translation
"You should fight back against those who do not believe in God, nor the Last Day, nor do they prohibit what God and his messenger have prohibited, nor do they abide by the religion of truth – among those who received the scripture-until they pay the due tax willingly or unwillingly"
,
You see, you dropped the crucial word "fight back" which changes the meaning of this verse completely. Everybody has a right to fight back when he is attacked, the closest example that comes to my mind is when the US was attacked on September 11, almost all the world (and majority of Americans) agreed that US should retaliate, but little did they know that they were unwittingly following the above Quranic verse.

On other subjects that you seem to be confused I will get back to you inshallah, as I am running short of time. One last thing, I was wrong about Mutakaberin. Due to its English transliteration I had read it "Mukhtarin" which means independent. But you are still wrong about its meaning. It does not mean "proud", but it means Greatest. To settle this once and for all Mutakaberin is derivative of the word KABEER, TAKBEER, MUTAKABIR, and they all mean the Most Great or Most powerful. for your info, I don't need to go to some Chrisian web pages to check on Arabic words, I know Arabic grammar inside out.

Peace,
Nazia

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