Question about Islamic Belief

[Muslim]

Furthermore, if the centurions did not make sure that the person was dead, they would also face death. They had an incentive to make sure that Jesus was actually dead.

Note: You (plural) have done an excellent job of using comon logic and scripture to illustrate your points. I hope that the Muslims will apply critical thinking to what you have presented and consider that Jesus may have actually did what He said that He would do as per Bible.

And it did appear to them that they did indeed kill Jesus. Because God had made someone look exactly like Jesus. It's not like Jesus had an identical twin so they would have thought it was him.

 

[Muslim]

Then please explain the holes in his hands and feet,and the gash in his side.Explain how his own mother was deceived into this little charade.Explain how the roman soldiers watching him die were fooled.Explain how his disciples were fooled after the resurrection alon g with all the other eyewitnesses and people that knew him.

What's to explain? We've said all along that it was someone else who was crucified instead of Jesus. Don't you believe that God can make someone appear exactly like Jesus if he wanted to? Secondly, Mary's reaction to the crucifiction is not mentioned in the Quran so we cannot make any claims as to whether or not she knew it was him or not. And also, we do not believe that there was a resurrection on the third day, that is something which has been added to the Gospel.

 

[peaceful soul]

And it did appear to them that they did indeed kill Jesus. Because God had made someone look exactly like Jesus. It's not like Jesus had an identical twin so they would have thought it was him.

You are looking at degrees of deceit and not the deceit itself. Understand the implications of deception. This is not something to be treated lightly. Seriously, take time to relflect on what impiles from assuming your stance. Do not just blindly believe something without considering all of the casualities incurred. We are talking about God allowing people's spiritual wellbeing to be jeapardized. Worse than that, how about God's integrity?

 

[peaceful soul]

What's to explain? We've said all along that it was someone else who was crucified instead of Jesus. Don't you believe that God can make someone appear exactly like Jesus if he wanted to? Secondly, Mary's reaction to the crucifiction is not mentioned in the Quran so we cannot make any claims as to whether or not she knew it was him or not. And also, we do not believe that there was a resurrection on the third day, that is something which has been added to the Gospel.

Although God can do whatever He wants, He can not violate His word. What God says in His scripture and trough spiritual means, He is bound to it. If He breaks His word, He is no longer God. He has proven Himself imperfect.

Give some proof for your last sentence. What sound support can you provide for your position?

Would not you think that a deception of Jesus being crucified would have been important enough to have been expounded upon in the Qu'ran? It would also have seemed illogical that the Mother of Jesus would not have known the truth given the fact that God found favor in her to bring about a virgin birth. Would not God have sent an angel to her as He did when she conceived? What would be the true purpose of making Jesus appear to have not been killed?

 

[Muslim]

Although God can do whatever He wants, He can not violate His word. What God says in His scripture and trough spiritual means, He is bound to it. If He breaks His word, He is no longer God. He has proven Himself imperfect.

Give some proof for your last sentence. What sound support can you provide for your position?

Would not you think that a deception of Jesus being crucified would have been important enough to have been expounded upon in the Qu'ran? It would also have seemed illogical that the Mother of Jesus would not have known the truth given the fact that God found favor in her to bring about a virgin birth. Would not God have sent an angel to her as He did when she conceived? What would be the true purpose of making Jesus appear to have not been killed?

I think the problem is that you are still carrying the viewpoint of Jesus from Christianity. Muslims view Jesus as a man and not the son of God. So we do not see his leaving the world as a major event or something which mankind was being led to as some Christians have claimed. We believe exactly what is written in the Quran. That there was a man named Jesus, who was a pious prophet and Messenger of God. He called the Israelites to come back to the true religion and showed them many miracles. But the majority of the people rejected him and a group of them plotted to kill him but God saved him and brought him up to heaven because God plans to bring him back later on towards the judgment day. God made someone appear to look like him instead, and that person was most likely one of the men trying to kill Jesus. Muslims believe that Jesus made it clear to his apostles that there is only one God and they knew that he was not the son of God. So it did not matter that he left so suddenly because they had been given guidance.

 

[peaceful soul]

originally posted by mujahid263

What should make me beleive that they were uncorrected?

Likewise, what evidence would make me believe that they were corrected? Evidently it took over 500 years to do that. In the mean time, innocent people were being lead down the wrong spiritual path by a God that does not know how to raise up a prophet or send an angel, for example, to set the record straight immedaitely and salvage His text and those who were fooled.

You people completely deny books you've entitled apocrypha when they go against church doctrine.

Now you are trying to change the focus. God ultimately controls what is scripture and what is not. God always used His creation to achieve His goals. This is called "providence". It is common knowledge that at the time of Christ's presence on this earth, Judaism and Christianity had some sects that were heretical, and those heretics wrote what they felt was the essence of their belief of God, which of course, went against what was known to the desciples who spent initmate time with Jesus and knew what He said.

To think that a Christian would not critique those writings and reject them if they did not coincide with the oral and written word that was being circulated by those who actually followed Jesus (namely His apostles) is a bit illogical. What even makes your case worse is the fact that those same writings that you use to support your claims also go against many of your Islamic precepts. If those documents are true, then you must acknowledge that the Qu'ran must be validated by them as well. Otherwise you are creating a double standard.

And please do read Crucifixtion or Cruci-fiction. The fact that jesus appeared after his supposed "death" isn't a correction? You do realize that could go either way.

The issue is deciet - not wheter He was seen afterwards. People were lead to believe something that did not happen: the crucifixion of Christ. Deedat has no credibility in Christian circles. He is no better than the various atheist sites that you prop as authentic, or the heretical and liberal Christians that do not believe that Christ was God or that there was no Adam and Eve.

2) No, God wouldn't. God may have to allow those Christians BEFORE Islam into heaven who had been mislead but not those after Islam.

So, now you are establishing two different sets of righteousness. God can not change His standards to fit circumstances. His judgements must be made using the same criteria for everyone. God would be unjust to let them in on a technicality of His own reckoning.

I think many Muslims have already stated this.

It doesn't appear that you brough it to a logical conclusion.

Did God appoint you the judge of "true Christianity"? He sure left a damn lot of people unnotified.

Not at all. I am very well qualified to speak. I live by the Bible and see things that you do not see and will never be able to see as long as you insist that you know it all from a book that postdates the one that I follow. If the Qu'an never made claims against Christ, I probably would not be spending my time typing this stuff to you. It is of my concern that you do not remain ignorant of what true Christianity is about. You have a warped concept the eminates from reading a book that tells you not to seriously consider anything else that does not agree with what it says.

The flipside of this is that the Bible challenges us to prove it to be true and not just accept it as fact. I do not believe the Bible to be the Word of God just becasue my parents told me to or someone said it. I actually studied it and proceded to take God at His word. I started to see the spiritual truths of it. The more I involved myself in it, the more truthfulness I saw from the scriptures as my experiences were validating it. It was like dejavu. I could see God's faithfulness and trustworthniesss. Everything that the word said was comming to fruition. I realized that this was not pragmatism. I was actually interacting with the true living God.

This statement shows it is from someone who has probably never watched Deedat in a debate in it's entirety.

Since I do not come to the same conclusion that you do, I must be wrong in my assesment. I do not try to throw out critiuqes unless I have actually studied the materials and have given them as fair of an evaluation as I can. Everyone is biased in some ways, but it is a very hard disclipline to overcome that bias.

Your main problem is that you do not critique you own book with the same zeal as you do mine. And, you get your understanding from readings that are heavily filtered by Islamic sources. For example: you read that the Bible is corrupted. You accept their readings as true. Then you procede to read the scriptures with that view clouding your mind. This prevents you from seeing it from the other view. Your conclusion will always be in favor of that which you have presumptuously concluded to be true. That sounds like major bias to me.

The fact that Jesus appeared three days later shows he probably didn't die,

Logically, does event A necessarily produce event B? It would depend upon whether the two events were disjointed, dependent, or independent.

or was somehow magiclly brought back to life as you propose.

I never said that. I believe in the crucifixion. There was no magic. I came to my conclusion by doing honest studying, reading of scriputes, and praying with an open mind to allow God to change what I believed and be reformed with the knowledge of what is true. You can not come to truth if you are not willing to be humiliated by being proven wrong. I think that is a very prideful for some Muslims to tell us Christians that they know the real interpretation of the very scripture that many of us have spent years of studying, meditation, praying, and laboring over to understand and to bond with God.

And if God had deceived the Christians, which he hasn't since Jesus did somehow "re"appear and somehow the texts known as aporophya contain important testaments argueing his death--how exactly does that decieve Jews who don't beleive in Christ?

You have created a logical fallacy. Event B does not necessarily result from Event A. Christianty started with Jews. Not all Jews reject Christ. So, you can not make such a blanket statement. As I have previously stated, If you accept parts of documents that validate your claims, you must then accept the parts that invalidate Islam. Fair enough?

What certainity do you have that Jesus is actually God's son? That it wasn't Joseph and Mary who had Jesus? You have the testament of 2 eyewitnesses that Jesus was born to a virgin, what makes you so sure she was a virgin?

The certainity is that I have put the Biblical scriptures to test and have yet to find one of them that has not come to pass or to have not shown potential to be completely manifested.

By being a Muslim, you have not true concept of who the Holy Spirit is. All true Christians have the indwlling spirit of God (Holy Spirit) to testify to Christ. He teaches us in all things of God. He conforts us and assures us in what we do and that we are truly worshiping God.

The Islamic concept of Holy Spirit puts the spirit separate from God. That is why it is easy to believe that Mohammad is predicted in the Bible or that Mohammad was given the Qu'ran by God through His spirit, Gabriel. The Holy Spirit is a person (not fleshly). He talks with us, teaches us, has a personality, emotions , feelings, knowledge, understanding, love, etc.

When you are sitting here arguing with many of us Christians, you truly have no idea of what you are arguing against. Your intellectual outpour looks rather silly to us. I mean no disrespect to you, but you have not travelled the road that I have to know if what I speak is false. You can only hope that it is for your own sake.

One is a bold capital X followed by a comma, the other is a bold capital X with a period. You focused only on the X's themselves.

I made it bold purposefully. The deception on your part is that you are not looking at the x only. The comma and white space have their own unique properties. If we look at this in the context of the two look-alikes, the comma and whitespace would represent any combinaltion of entities other than those two look-alikes. In other words, the white space and comma would represent anything other than the look-alikes.

I truly hope that you can contemplate of what I am saying. I am not writing this for my health. I am trying to get you to see things from another perspective that has some substance to it. If you already have your mind made up in advance not to change, you have already been defeated. Only with an open mind can you learn and receive the wisdom that comes from God.

Shalom!!

 

[peaceful soul]

I think the problem is that you are still carrying the viewpoint of Jesus from Christianity.

Naturally, I do. My goal here is to ensure that you have the Christian perspective and try to see it in its context. As long as you do not critique your Qu'ran, you will not know if it is true. I critique my Bible. I expect you to critique your Qu'ran.

Muslims view Jesus as a man and not the son of God. So we do not see his leaving the world as a major event or something which mankind was being led to as some Christians have claimed.

I understand all of that very well.

We believe exactly what is written in the Quran. That there was a man named Jesus, who was a pious prophet and Messenger of God. He called the Israelites to come back to the true religion and showed them many miracles. But the majority of the people rejected him and a group of them plotted to kill him but God saved him and brought him up to heaven because God plans to bring him back later on towards the judgment day. God made someone appear to look like him instead, and that person was most likely one of the men trying to kill Jesus. Muslims believe that Jesus made it clear to his apostles that there is only one God and they knew that he was not the son of God. So it did not matter that he left so suddenly because they had been given guidance.

I am well aware of the above synopsis. The problem is not believing. It is the basis of your belief that counts. I would not believe the Qu'ran was the work of God unless the Qu'ran was able to show itself truthfully. There would have to be some type of evidence that I could see that was not pragmatic just for me to even think about trusting it. I will not believe in something that makes a lot of declarations and promises if those things could not be somehow manifested. I get this from the Bible. I see a living spirit interwoven into my life that is not by chance. Every time that I think that I have God in a corner, He somehow proves me wrong. He has a nack of making things that seem impossible become possible and realized. He seems to never be on time, but He is always there when it seems to count the most.

I would encourage you to put less emphasis on Islaimc scholars and what people think and more on what the Qu'ran speaks to you personally. God does not want us to follow a religion. He wants a personal relationship with us. Honestly, the Qur'an can not provide that based upon the claims of the Bible. If Jesus is who He said per Bible, anything else by default is a distortion of it. That is what I see. Since I see the spiritual truths of the Bible, there is not way these same spiritual truths can be in the Qu'ran too. I can just look at the Qu'ran and see that it lacks in the relatiohship with God that I currently have. I hope that makes sense to you. I reject because I have tested - not because I do not like it or disagree with it. My personal beliefs are not my barometer.

 

[Bevlina]

Well, to be honest, if I were a muslim, I would ask God if He has a son named Jesus who came to this earth in human form. God speaks.

 

[Green Man]

What's to explain? We've said all along that it was someone else who was crucified instead of Jesus. Don't you believe that God can make someone appear exactly like Jesus if he wanted to? Secondly, Mary's reaction to the crucifiction is not mentioned in the Quran so we cannot make any claims as to whether or not she knew it was him or not. And also, we do not believe that there was a resurrection on the third day, that is something which has been added to the Gospel.

That would make God the ultimate liar and deceiver.Can you be certain that it was god doing this and not shaitan(the devil)?Isn't that the kind of thing he does anyway,attempting to deceive the world?

 

[peaceful soul]

Well, to be honest, if I were a muslim, I would ask God if He has a son named Jesus who came to this earth in human form. God speaks.

Amen, Bevlina. The problem is us listening and obeying.

 

[The Midge]

I dont have time now to type everything out but i will present some FACTS from the INFALLIBLE Bible to CAST DOWN your arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

The problem is that Muslims don't accept the Bible any more than you accept the Qur'an. So there is no point using it as proof.

If you want to say the Bible is corrupt PROVE IT!

Fair point. The exegisis and interpretations in this thread have singularly failed to do this so far.

But you muslims dont.

You should not generalise.

And please don't SHOUT! Ive got a headache.

 

[The Midge]

What's to explain? We've said all along that it was someone else who was crucified instead of Jesus. Don't you believe that God can make someone appear exactly like Jesus if he wanted to? Secondly, Mary's reaction to the crucifiction is not mentioned in the Quran so we cannot make any claims as to whether or not she knew it was him or not. And also, we do not believe that there was a resurrection on the third day, that is something which has been added to the Gospel.

So we agree that God has power to do this just as God has the power to resurrect the son. Quits.

 

[The Midge]

I think the problem is that you are still carrying the viewpoint of Jesus from Christianity. Muslims view Jesus as a man and not the son of God. So we do not see his leaving the world as a major event or something which mankind was being led to as some Christians have claimed. We believe exactly what is written in the Quran. That there was a man named Jesus, who was a pious prophet and Messenger of God. He called the Israelites to come back to the true religion and showed them many miracles. But the majority of the people rejected him and a group of them plotted to kill him but God saved him and brought him up to heaven because God plans to bring him back later on towards the judgment day. God made someone appear to look like him instead, and that person was most likely one of the men trying to kill Jesus. Muslims believe that Jesus made it clear to his apostles that there is only one God and they knew that he was not the son of God. So it did not matter that he left so suddenly because they had been given guidance.

If Jesus is a man then he is liar deserving no respect or a lunatic but NOT a prohphet to be honoured and respected. That option simply isn't open to you. His teachings are invalid.

 

[Bevlina]

We are all overlooking one thing here. Muslims cannot say "Jesus Christ is Lord". I don't believe they would even be able to utter the words.
And, that's the one sure way to find something out when it comes to a few things.

I have even heard some crazy things in my time, but none so far out as those said by Muslims.
Anyway, who came up with this comtemptible "cruci-fiction" word? Who came up with the fallacy that it wasn't Jesus Christ on the cross?
Who came up with alot of these fables?
Only one could do it ...... satan. So .... er ... that leaves me with a bit of a statement. Satan didn't have a son.....soooo ... ???? Are Christians thinking what I am thinking?

Give it a bit of thought Christians!

 

[Muslim]

We are all overlooking one thing here. Muslims cannot say "Jesus Christ is Lord". I don't believe they would even be able to utter the words.
And, that's the one sure way to find something out when it comes to a few things.

I have even heard some crazy things in my time, but none so far out as those said by Muslims.
Anyway, who came up with this comtemptible "cruci-fiction" word? Who came up with the fallacy that it wasn't Jesus Christ on the cross?
Who came up with alot of these fables?
Only one could do it ...... satan. So .... er ... that leaves me with a bit of a statement. Satan didn't have a son.....soooo ... ???? Are Christians thinking what I am thinking?

Give it a bit of thought Christians!

Are you trying to say that the prophet Muhammad was Satan? Leave it to a Christian to resort to insults when faced with an argument that they cannot win.

 

[the_submission]

According to the synoptics, Jesus' death did go unnoticed by nature. According to Mark, the curtain of the temple was torn in two the moment Jesus died (Mark 15:38). Luke had the curtain torn just before Jesus' died (Luke 23:45). Matthew reported even more fantastic occurrences:

Matthew 27:51-53
And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Surely we are not asked to simply accept Matthew's word for this occurrence? We have already seen him to be unreliable in many instances. The account as it is does not tell us who were the "holy men" who raised from the dead, nor who they were that saw them. I will leave the critique of this ludicrous and unsupported report of Matthew to the American patriot Thomas Paine (1737-1809):



The book ascribed to Matthew says that there was darkness all over the land from the sixth hour to the ninth hour-that the veil of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom - that there was an earthquake - that the rocks rent - that the graves opened, that the bodies of many saints that slept arose and came out of their graves after the resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared to many. Such is the account which this dashing writer of the book of Matthew gives, but in which he is not supported by the writers of the other books.

The writer of the book ascribed to Mark, in detailing the circumstances of the crucifixion, makes no mention of any earthquake, nor of the rocks rending, nor of the graves opening, nor of the dead man walking out. The writer of the book of Luke is silent also on the same points. And as to the writer of the book of John, though he details the circumstances of the crucifixion down to the burial of Christ, he says nothing about either the darkness, the veil of the temple, the earthquake, the rocks, the graves, nor the dead men... It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again and went into the city, and what became of them afterwards, and who it was that saw them - for he is not hardy enough to say that he saw them himself - whether they came fully dressed and where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former habitation and reclaimed their wives, their husband and their property, and how they were received, whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive and buried themselves. Strange indeed that an army of saints should return to life and nobody knew who they were, or who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have anything to tell us!

 

[the_submission]

Christianity is a religion founded by Paul, however the religion of Jesus was followed by the Nazarenes of the Jerusalem Church who believed Jesus only as a messenger not divine and actually rejected the innovative doctrines of Paul see the incident of Antioch. They also strictly followed the Mosaic Laws - which Jesus himself strictly followed and even said he had not come to change them and even repeated the first Commandment to his followers!

Paul abolished Mosaic Law and made it ok for men to be uncircumcised and eat the flesh of swine - something which Jesus did not do nor his original followers!

 

[peaceful soul]

Are you trying to say that the prophet Muhammad was Satan? Leave it to a Christian to resort to insults when faced with an argument that they cannot win.

I can see that you may take it as an insult; but she is not trying to do it as an admission of defeat. That is pure conjecture. I understand what she means, and it is possible from our perspective.

We are not here to win an argument. That very notion is a sign that you do not understand the implications of what we are saying. You seem to be more interested in proving something than learning what we believe and to understand it properly even if you do not agree. The person that wins the argument in fact, may not know the truth.

Please here what we are saying and look closely at the arguments we present - not just yours. Treat this with the same zeal that you use to disprove our comments. Your mind is a spiritual door that is welded shut in my view. Allow it to be opened; else you will never be able to come to grips with anything that we say. Just look at the consistency of our defense compared to yours. You are willing to let go of logic at times that it serves your cause. IMO, that is hardly consistent with truth. There is more than one possible answer (yours) to explain things. Having said that, that possibility should be consistent with the known facts and observations.

 

[Muslim]

I can see that you may take it as an insult; but she is not trying to do it as an admission of defeat. That is pure conjecture. I understand what she means, and it is possible from our perspective.

We are not here to win an argument. That very notion is a sign that you do not understand the implications of what we are saying. You seem to be more interested in proving something than learning what we believe and to understand it properly even if you do not agree. The person that wins the argument in fact, may not know the truth.

Please here what we are saying and look closely at the arguments we present - not just yours. Treat this with the same zeal that you use to disprove our comments. Your mind is a spiritual door that is welded shut in my view. Allow it to be opened; else you will never be able to come to grips with anything that we say. Just look at the consistency of our defense compared to yours. You are willing to let go of logic at times that it serves your cause. IMO, that is hardly consistent with truth. There is more than one possible answer (yours) to explain things. Having said that, that possibility should be consistent with the known facts and observations.

It may be your intent to find out the truth but not all Christians share your viewpoint. You can see by looking at posts of some of the Christians in this thread that they would rather repeat verses from the Bible or just make statements which do nothing to convince anyone other than someone who already believes in them. I respond with clear and concise viewpoint which I support with evidence from the Quran and sometimes from the Bible. But the above statement about the prophet Muhammad does nothing but create more hatred. All statements like that do is to drive people further away from the Christian community. Muslims are tolerant of Christian and Jewish beliefs. We believe that both the Gospel and the Torah were revealed by God and that they contain many truths. But if you ask a Christian about the Quran they will most likely say it is from Satan. Now do you see where I'm coming from?

 

[the_submission]

good point bro, furthermore we believe in ALL the messengers, Jews on one extreme REJECT Jesus, Chrsistians elevated his status too high.

We accept him as a messenger only and believe in the LAST messenger Muhammad s.a.w and part of his message is to repsect and accep the previous messengers, had we insulted either Moses or Jesus it wud take us out of the fold of Islam.

We are here to defend Jesus against the slander and idol worship invented by Paul as we love Jesus and respect him but will only worship One God - the same God of the Pure Monothiest faith of Abraham - that Prophet Muhammad revived.