Islam & Christianity the same tradition ?

Islam is one of the Abrahamic religions. For the faithful, however, this is irrelevant. Anyway, they only recognize their own religion.

 

Islam Judaism and Christianity all worship the same god of Abraham.

 

An interesting contrast between Jews and Muslims is that - as you say- Islam is all about "Submission" The name Israel - from when Jacob struggled with God = Struggle with God. The story of the Jews and their God is one of continuous struggle. Jews question everything - it is part of their upbringing and culture - even God ! So I would agree with you that whomever this Muhammad guy was talking to - It was not El - God of Abraham.

What then are we to say about the Christian religion. I don't think this is what Jesus intended but the Christianity turned out to be as bad as Islam. Christians are taught that if you "Question" or "don't believe" the tenets of some human interpretation of a holy book - the worst thing the mind can imagine will happen to you ... You will be mercilessly tortured in the afterlife. Not just for a few days - but for an eternity - for ever and ever and ever. In this way Christianity and Islam had much in common.

 

You really don't know what you are talking about - do you Yet you pretend otherwise. As per the Document hypothesis the Bible is a compilation of different authors writing at different time periods. The so called Priestly source are the parts of the Bible written by one group. The J or Yahwist source is another. There is also E and D - Elohim and Deuteronomy. The quote from the P that you are referring to is from the Bible - do the Bible is the source. You didn't read the link - did you. Too bad as it is very interesting.

The evolution of YHWH in the Israelite religion is complex and much studied - YHWH too is a fusion of the characteristics of El and Baal.
At one time YHWH also had a consort - Asherah as was common among the Gods. There is a holy Trinity for you .. El- The Father, Creator- Most High. Asherah the mother Goddess .. and Baal the Son.

I agree with you that the God of Jesus was very much about love and forgiveness. Don't forget the rock on which Jesus based his teachings - the Golden Rule - Do unto others as you would have done to you/ Treat others as you would be treated.

This is Obviously not the God YHWH .. not much forgiveness in that dude. That God had you stone the adulterer - not Love neighbor as self - Judge not - Let ye who is without sin cast the first rock. If a few people in a town were worshiping other Gods - the whole town was to be killed. This God was quite the flip flopper - along with being xenophobic and an genocidal maniac. YHWH makes a rule - Children are not to be punished for the sins of their parents - he then turns around and commands the Israelite's to kill children and babies - "because of the sins of their parents" - including Israelite's. Crazy stuff.

Unfortunately - Christianity has not been very good at following the teachings of Jesus - at least not since Constantine gave the Church Power. Christianity is better these days - but the Golden rule is still not emphasized much - unfortunately. The worst are the Evangelicals and Pentecostals of the religious right - a terrible example of Christianity - how not to follow the teachings of Jesus.

 

Nope.

Read Rambam. He prays Islam as a truly monotheistic religion.

For the faithful Jew, the religions of others are quite relevant, since the non-Jews who follow the seven laws of Noah are on the same level, in the eyes of god, with Jews who follow the 613 commandments in the Torah. Those righteous non-Jews will be resurrected and will enjoy eternal life at the end of times.

Seems like YHWH is the only god who doesn't punish non-believers with eternal torture.

 

So Christianity isn't a major religion. Who knew?

 

Studying the early literature concerning Christian beliefs - both Church Fathers and their opponents - is one way to gain insight into the fascinating world of early Christianity. Those writings kept the traces of bitter polemics not only between early Christians and pagans, but also between various Christian sects. We know that a gnostic was almost elected Bishop of Rome Gnosticism was mainstream.

The descent of Christianity into practices contrary to its own doctrines began when the new religion received official status in the Roman Empire. One of the first acts of the newly established Church was ordering their pacifist flock, who refused to serve in the Roman army, to take up arms, kill, and die, for the glory of their secular leaders. Then came the less than sophisticated barbarians, whose conversion - a huge gain for Christian leaders - wouldn't have been possible without sacrificing few philosophical and doctrinal sacred cows. Church Fathers - who would have been persecuted as heretics later -were opposed to those "adjustments" made to both draw and keep masses into the fold.

You mention the Golden Rule in one of your posts. It is, in fact, from the Torah - Leviticus 19:18. Hillel, a famous Jewish scholar in the first century BC - or someone from his school - stated he Golden Rule long before Jesus..

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Shammai

Judaism is vastly more than the books of the Jewish Bible.

 

The Golden Rule has been around for millennia. Hamurrabi's Law Code, Buddha, Confucius to name a few.

I know about Hillel- My understanding is that he was the most famous of Rabbi's. Jesus may have encountered this Rabbi growing up - or perhaps even studied under him. Regardless - Jesus actually quotes Hillel directly.

Rabbi Hillel is once responded to question with respect to the Torah with
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Now go and learn.”

Compare to Jesus - Matt 7:12 (one of my favorite passages - right up there with Proverbs - "better to sleep on the roof than in a house with a nagging wife ) - " Do unto others as you would have done to you - This rule sums up the law and the Prophets".

So there you have it - not just the same rule - but stated in exactly the same way.

I read a little on Gnostism but not too much so I would be interested if you might have some thoughts on the Logos/Trinity. The Logos concept "mistranslated as The Word" in John - was viewed as a kind of emissary between man and God - or rather between man and the Godhead. This seems to me a very Gnostic way of looking at things. Emanations from the Godhead.

I have always thought this was a very Gnostic way of looking at things.

Indeed after the Church got power it was "conversion by the sword". They treated "heretics" - folks who were Christians but had a different dogma - were treated even worse than Pagans. It was intolerance on steroids - the victims became the victimizers. I refer to the time period after the Church got power as "the 1000 years of Horror". That and knowledge destruction.

 

Agreed.

I just pointed out that during a long period of European history there was what a mounts to a shariah system in that Catholicism established much of the law, deriving that from interpretation of the Bible as interpreted by the church.

In other words, Christianity DID choose to have sharia style law.

It took a lot of years to separate church from state, allowing the state to end laws that were present purely for religious reasons and to allow acts such as divorce which were directly counter to religious law.

So, the fact that there is no Christian sharia doesn't come from Christianity - it comes from the move toward secular government.

I would say that the west has been more successful at separating government from religion, NOT that Christianity chose not to have sharia style law - because Christianity DID choose to have sharia style law.

 

No they don't, here's a former Muslim to explain it to you.

https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-global/do-muslims-and-christians-worship-the-same-god

 

Nonsense, the Catholic Church did a lot that was wrong and unbiblical. There is no Sharia in Christianity, Jesus made a distinction between church and state when He said give to God what is Gods and to Caesar what is Caesar's. There is no such distinction in Islam, there, the 'church' IS the state. He also said 'My Kingdom is not of this world', and did not look for or expect justice from the world's system short of His Second Coming.

 

Yes, they all worship the same god of Abraham

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/20/460480698/do-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god

 

I think Jesus was a god, not a man. A solar deity, perhaps, just one of the many ancient gods who died and came back to life. Early Christians were probably initiated in the mysteries of their religion, just like worshipers of Osiris or Cybele. That means all the gospels we have only reveal the public aspects of the cult, not the secrets taught to the smaller inner circle of initiates. Tertullian, if I'm not mistaken, has said that gospels are like milk for a toddler, not the solid food of true believers. Jesus of the canonical Gospels is not Jesus of the mysteries.

Gnostics believed Jesus pretended to be a man to evade detection by evil deities in his quest to save human souls. This is a possible origin of the confusion between man and god.

Jesus himself was the Logos, the universal order, the divine principle guiding all parts of the universe. Logos also designated the thought processes that led to insight, so when Jesus said he was the path he probably meant it literally.

Irenaeus, the bishop credited with choosing the canonical books of the NT all Christians use today, translated logos as "ordering principle" or "word" ("Against heresies"). Obviously "word" meant then something more for the initiate than it means today. In my opinion, its use in John's Gospel was either an attempt to reveal as little as possible from the secrets of the cult while still transmitting an accurate message, or a twist by an enemy of gnostics to belittle the role of rational thinking in favor of God's grace. I'd go with the latter.

As far as I know the concept ot trinity was introduced in Christian theology by the gnostic Valentinus, and it meant "hypostases". I'm not sure if Valentinus was influenced by Judaic mystical thought or the other way around (there was a Jewish gnosis, too), but his ideas are strikingly similar to some theories in the Kabbalah .Emanations of gods and avatars of gods are common in Hindu mythology - which might explain why Islam brought Jesus to India.

Christianity was born in a pagan, Greek speaking environment, It owed nothing to Judaism. Judaizing elements were later added due to conversion of Jews - most likely Greek speaking and heretics, since they used the Septuagint. Jews of Judea didn't use the Septuagint, yet this is the version Christians adopted. Christianity wasn't born in Judea, it's not the offspring of Judaism. It is, at most, a hybrid between pagan philosophy and Judaic heresies. Godhead is certainly not YHWH.

 

Yeah, I know, all that holy water nonsense has nothing to do with ritual cleansing.
Yeah that whole washing of the feet thing is more about containing athlete's foot outbreaks.
Baptism is just cooling the supplicant off because its a hot time becoming an annointed of god.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablution_in_Christianity

Its truly sad when an agnostic atheist knows more about your religion than you do. Who knew?

 

Show me where Jesus commanded any ritual ablution.

Please, you don't understand the first thing about it.

 

In some ways Mormonism may be closer to the Gnosticism of the first and second century than
modern denominationalism..... because Latter day Saints.... .may well be hearing the voice of
Moshiah Yeshua - Jesus - Issa fulfilling this promise.......

IF.... at least some near death experience accounts are examples of this promise being kept at this time...

"Until now you have not asked for anything in My name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. 25I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is comingwhen I will no longer speak to you this way, but will tell you plainlyabout the Father. 26In that day you will ask in My name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf.…" (John 16)

 

In the Holy Roman Empire the church was the state. Also remember that King Henry the VIII was king of England and couldn't get a divorce, because even he as king was subservient to the church.

Whether you think they weren't "Biblical" enough is irrelevant. There are divides in every religion today, with all of them thinking that the other denominations are apostate - having rejected the "true" version. King Henry the VIII was king of England and couldn't get a divorce, because even he as king was subservient.

The Caesar thing has more than one interpretation. What is it that a human has that doesn't have prior dedication to God? What decision making authority does a human have that could possibly override the prior dedication to God?

The thing about a division between church and state is that one must agree that the STATE has the power over a wide range of Earthly decisions.

I don't see the Caesar quote as suggesting that the state has that kind of power. The Caesar quote might just mean that the state can demand taxes - which isn't separation of church and state. Even there, if the taxes are to be used in ways that God would find unacceptable, questions would have arisen at that time.

The Caesar quote may also be an object lesson - allowing those of the day to note that Caesar has nothing and that God has everything, and that in the end, humans have full and complete prior dedication to God. And, that would be a dedication to religious government - NOT a church/state split.

 

Jesus never told the government to do anything, unlike the bloody prophet.

 

Well of course since it was based on the Oriental religion of Christianity but much later and like Japan's expansion after Western expansion they were not the right type. Islam, of course, took a different tack using the sword to convert instead of the word. Christianity was much more organic.

 

Haven't you ever read the fairy tale?

In Matthew 8:1-4, didn't Jesus tell the leper to go to the priests and offer some birds and animals for the black magic cure?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew8:1-4&version=CEB;ERV;NKJV;KJV;CEV

You might want to stock up on birds and animals for your sacrifices. The Jesus character likes that.

 

Islam is more tolerant to other religions.

 

It's about how a truth can be conveyed among humans and how a theology is authenticated by God.

A truth can only be conveyed to human individuals by means of the process of human witnessing, disregarding what type of truth it is. The conveying is supposed to be in the form of multiple account testimonies ultimately from eye-witnesses accounts. We know the existence of black holes not because it's evidenced to each human individuals. It's because it's evidenced to our multiple scientists who act as the multiple witnesses accounts for the rest of human kind to get to this single piece of truth. We have faith that our scientists are a reliable source of scientific information. That's how a truth can convey. If we have to rely on evidence, then the process of conveying will be very inefficient because our scientists will have to demonstrate how they detect the existence of black holes to each human individual for them to verify whether it's a truth.

In the case of other types of truth, such as history, evidence may not always be available. In this case, human individuals will have to rely on unverifiable testimonies to get to a truth with faith. That's how it works.

That being said. All OT prophets in the Bible are eyewitnesses of God. That's the validity of the process of human witnessing. Mohammad is not an eyewitness of God. Quran is not a book of testimony from human accounts. It's a hearsay from a self claimed angel. It's not a multiple account testimony. It's completely different from the nature of Bible in terms of human witnessing.

How God authenticate a Bible Canon.

At any point of time, God has an earthly representative acting as a guardian of the Scripture. This authenticated earthly authority, either tangible or intangible, guards the Bible such that you won't be able to add or subtract contents canon-wise.

However since this authority is made up of humans it can be corrupted. When the Jews (as represented by the Great Sanhedrin) are corrupted, God declares the authentication of another authority. God made His declaration by saying that He would build His earthly church a rock (same pronunciation as Peter). The term "bind and lose" represents an authentication in terms of God's Law.

Similarly, when the Catholics are corrupted, God authenticates the Protestants to take up the role of His earthly representative. As a result, the Jews, the Catholics and the Protestants all have a "version" of Canon to guard with. The Jews guard a valid OT Canon, as it's a long time canonization done by the Jews. The Catholics guard a valid NT Canon. The Protestants guard both a valid OT and a valid NT.


Mormon is not authenticated because it doesn't agree with a valid Bible Canon.

 

I believe in science because science works in the real world. A light bulb illuminates my room and this computer enables us to have this conversation and that is all part of an interwoven tapestry of knowledge that includes black holes. I can go and find this out for myself if I want because I have actually done so on multiple occasions and it has never failed to be as I am told. There is no faith involved.

You think that the Bible Prophets ( most of whom are in the Quran too, including Jesus) are eyewitnesses of God because you have Faith in them as you say. Your Faith is obviously a sustaining part of your life and that is a good thing. That does not mean it is a sustaining part of anyone else's life nor is it in any way any proof that what they say is in any way valid, that is, that any of them, Mohammad included, are in any way actual eyewitnesses to anything, God or anything else..

 

Once Christianity was established it had little reluctance to using the sword as well. Read up on Charlemagne and the Saxons

 

Is this where you try to discredit Christianity by highlighting people who didn't follow Christ's teachings?