Have you ever looked into the the timeline for the writing of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? I find it fascinating that Judas becomes more demonised as time passes. This is not to criticise Christianity, it is just the nature of man. My grandfather witnesses something and tells my father, he tells me but of course adds a little to make it more interesting and by the time my grandchildren hear about it my grandfather would not recognise the story.
I wasn't sure what you were suggesting here . . . ? Was this Judas the one talked about in the Four Gospels who betrayed Jesus, or is it from other writings?
Quote 1: Very, very well put. I was a Christian and converted because as a Christian it felt wrong to me to place partners with G-d (this is what I felt I was being told to do), so this is not something I have been taught by Muslims. I believe Christianity is not broken, people have simply misunderstood the role of Jesus (pbuh). To be fair, I also get very angry when I see how some Muslims idolise the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). Perhaps it is the nature of man to cling to something we can mentally conceive? As no-one can grasp the nature of G-d we try to grasp something our little brains recognise and then hate and kill because of this. What a crazy thing the human mind is.
Quote 2: According to my faith you cant be a true Christian and convert to somethingelse... it basically means you never were one.
Hello and greetings, Muslimwoman.
Referring to Quote 2:
Concerning what we said before about "assigning partners to God" and our approach to Christianity being misguided, I believed it was important, though, to highlight one important issue. I still Christianity as a religion that puts a focus and emphasis on Jesus.
But the question is, what role or purpose could Jesus possibly play?
Ones of the things Faithfulservant has said is that one cannot be a "true Christian" can convert to something else. Quite obviously you're not Christian. You're not trying to hold onto both a Christian and Muslim identity at the same time. So why would she say that to you?
The question isn't for you to answer, though. It must be kind of ironic to have that said to you. That irony can be explained, and has relevance to the whole idea of Jesus in Christianity. If you look around and read some of the stuff here on CR, you might find some people "mixing concepts" from other religions with Christianity. I believe that happens more with regards to Christianity than other faiths. So Christianity is mixed with Buddhism, Islam, maybe Judaism, New Age and Wicca.
But why does it happen? I think the answer is simple. Christianity is seen as a subset of all these faiths. Strip away the "core concepts" of Christianity and you find that Christianity teaches part of what is already taught in Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, New Age and Wicca. But why don't people do that with Judaism, Islam or Buddhism? Does Judaism need Buddhism? Does Islam need New Age or Wicca? Once again, it may become clear to us that Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, New Age and Wicca all have some foundation that makes it unnecessary to mix them with other religions. Strip away the "core concepts" of Christianity, and Christianity becomes, essentially,
nothing!!!! This is, I believe, a very subtle property of Christianity that goes unnoticed. So people subconsciously find themselves supplementing Christianity with other faiths without understanding
why they are not doing it. This is why Christians often feel threatened by people from other religions. It seems not to have a so-called "foundation."
But this is where I believe it starts to get interesting. For a long time, we seem not to have understood why people mix Christianity with other religions, or even why Jesus was supposed to be so important in Christianity. We just did what we were taught. Christianity's foundation doesn't lie in its concepts or principles. Jesus himself was the foundation. That's why you'll often hear Christians referring to him as Cornerstone. He was Cornerstone for a reason. It was not just some metaphor or allegory made up so someone could tell a fancy story.
With regards to Quote 1, this might recall the issue of "assigning partners to God." The question is, considering what I've just said, how could Christianity not be "assigning partners to God?"
I think the idea can be best understood by relating the notion of Christ with the way Jews and Muslims connect with God. Jews connect with God by honouring the sacred concepts of Judaism. A Muslim aligns himself/herself to Pillars and uses the Pillars to reach God. Jesus is essentially the equivalent of those things. Of course, a Muslim may say that the Pillars eliminate the need for Christ, but for a Christian, Christ eliminates the need for Pillars. For a Christian Christ
is the Pillar.
It might be a simple matter of acquiring the same goal via different means. If Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have the same goal, why choose any of them in particular? I think it's a matter of
identity. I choose to be Christian because I feel I belong to Christianity, just as a Jew belongs to Judaism. I see Christianity as not just a religion, but something that has sentimental value. It's a part of who I am as a person. So a Muslim chooses Islam because it feels good and because he/she belongs to it.
Can you have your cake and eat it too? I believe you can. But I believe you have to put emphasis on either the having of the cake or the eating of it.
Identity is one of the most important things to the Abrahamic Faiths. We don't like people who have multiple identities. We like people to be either Jew, Christian or Muslim. We don't like people who want to be Sam, Barbara, Michael or Joshua all at the same time (or if you like, Tom, Dick and Harry).
