NiceCupOfTea
Pathetic earthlings
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well i dont think that thing you call you will exist in the same way as it does now.
other than that I think you make some good points.
Islamic Converts...
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well i dont think that thing you call you will exist in the same way as it does now.
other than that I think you make some good points.
Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
I think there is a lot of truth in that. Perhaps if you don't have an internal relationship with God then it's hard to understand but for me I simply know God exists and I accept virtually all religions are from God. However I had to find my path, it was my challenge, my test. Of course I believe now that religion is progressive and the final word was the Quran but that doesn't totally negate the teachings of other Prophets (pbut).
and I
met Jesus (in the Christian sense)
left Christianity
became Muslim
in that order.
Do we cancel each other out lol
I would disagree with that Salty. Had you said it was an alternative to Paganism then I would agree with you.
I don't see how anyone can know how many Muslims/Christians/Jews/Hindus/etc there are in the world ... does a chap come round with a clipboard and ask everyone? Wow that would take him a while but he'd do well in the frequent flyer stakes.
I think numbers of any such thing are just a propaganda tool by all sides imo.
enlightenment
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You are likely correct, re the inflating of numbers for propaganda reasons.
In terms of measuring those numbers, I am that man with the clipboard -
Seriously though, I suppose the closest you could come would be to take into account populations of each nation, and use that to estimate how many of each there might be.
NiceCupOfTea
Pathetic earthlings
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and I
met Jesus (in the Christian sense)
left Christianity
became Muslim
in that order.
Do we cancel each other out lol
yes perhaps we would cease to exist if we ever met.
Saltmeister
The Dangerous Dinner
Don't be silly! It's not like you're anti-matter.
Electrons and positrons...........
The arguing and fighting may release a lot of energy, but even if you're both dead it won't result in mutual annihilation. I am assuming you won't be having your discussion around flammable substances like gasoline or explosives. Even so, you might still both have skeletons left over.
Saltmeister
The Dangerous Dinner
Well, I know that taking the Arabs away from their paganism was one purpose that Islam had. When someone says, "alternative to paganism" and Christianity is part of the discussion, they usually also mean something else as well........
Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
Indeed. Weare all filling in our cencus forms at the moment ... I wonder how many Christiansthere will be who have never seen the inside of a church other than for a wedding, christening or funeral? It's all just guess work.
We could try it, if we don't disappear we could at least enjoy a nice cup of coffee and a cream cake
Yes there are different aspects to it and Islam also came to correct a misunderstanding in Christianity but I can't agree Islam "was always just an alternative to Christianity".
enlightenment
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I have never returned such forms on a point of principle, Sally.
As to the other, I would guess the majority (here in the UK, at least).
Indeed, I am often surprised when I tell a Christian something about their own religon, they don't believe me, they look at up...and find out I was telling the truth.
Indeed, calcium is quite difficult to burn...Don't be silly! It's not like you're anti-matter.
Electrons and positrons...........
The arguing and fighting may release a lot of energy, but even if you're both dead it won't result in mutual annihilation. I am assuming you won't be having your discussion around flammable substances like gasoline or explosives. Even so, you might still both have skeletons left over.
bob x
Well-Known Member
A Catholic comedian was talking about the Christmas and Easter services which are always packed with the people they don't see all year. "We LOVE the Christmas-and-Easter-only people! It's such fun watching them try to guess when they're supposed to kneel and stand up, making all these jerky false starts! And fumbling through the hymnal, and trying to figure out the tune to the hymn on the fly!"
Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
Saltmeister
The Dangerous Dinner
Well, I would like to know why you can't agree that Islam "was always just an alternative to Christianity" because when people aren't proposing Islam as an alternative, they would most probably like to describe it as "the one true religion." I dislike the idea of one religion being the "one true religion," because I don't agree with the idea of one religion having primacy over all others.
This is why I think the idea of an "alternative" is more suitable. I regard Islam and Christianity as mutually alternative to each other. NiceCupOfTea had his reasons for converting to Christianity and you had your's for converting to Islam. (Are you disagreeing with me for the same reasons as NiceCupOfTea?
)As for Islam correcting a "misunderstanding" in Christianity, while it did identify a problem in Christianity, I don't think Islam actually demonstrates an adequate understanding of the "misunderstanding" it sought to correct in Christianity. Ultimately, Islam doesn't actually "resolve" the misunderstanding. To properly understand the "misunderstanding" Islam sought to correct in Christianity (assuming I know what you were thinking of when you said that
), you have to know the history of the "misunderstanding."I don't think Islam as a tradition contains the background knowledge required to understand the "misunderstanding." Even if there was some tiny fragment of the Quran that may help a Muslim understand it, I think there is another major world religion that can understand it better: Judaism. I've been doing some reading about Judaism during the past one or two years, not enough to know Judaism inside out (far from it), but just enough to understand how it views Christianity and how Christianity fit within the Jewish framework in the first century.
The Quran doesn't seem to demonstrate much knowledge of the New Testament Canon and Christianity is based on the NT Canon. A big part of the NT Canon explores the relationship between Jews and Gentiles as well as the purpose of Jewish Law. Obviously, Christianity by the 7th century had changed to see itself as an independent religion from Judaism. It was no longer seeing itself in terms of the relationship between Jews and Gentiles or the purpose of Jewish Law. There are strengths as well as problems to that view/attitude.
Islam seems rather "ignorant" of the "proto-Christianity" of the 1st century and seems to be more like a response to the "independent Christianity" of the 7th century. Christian ideology had changed significantly by then. The later Christians by then had grown "arrogant," even to the point of declaring Judaism a "rejected religion." Rather than seeing Christianity within a Jewish framework and trying to understand Christianity as part of a Jewish eschatological process, the later Christians believed Christianity had replaced Judaism. They also believed that Judaism had no validity or value whatsoever in providing humanity with information on its destiny.
Islam could not correct that. Islam was a response to an independent Christianity in the 7th century, not to what was happening in the 1st century. Whatever "misunderstanding" Islam came to correct was in the 7th century. However, the 7th century is a bad example of what Christianity should be. This is why I think Judaism is better equipped to fix the problem than Islam. Judaism and Christianity had pretty strong links in the first century, if not through mainstream Judaism, then at least through the Nazarenes.
I personally don't believe Christianity was ever supposed to be an independent religion. It's got too many links with Judaism. Although one may argue that Christianity contains some "paganism," this was deemed acceptable as long as the new "Hellenistic monotheism" complied with the Seven Noahide Laws. The real question was whether adherents of the new religion were worshipping God or still engaging in idolatry. The assumption Christians have made through the centuries is that the so-called "pagan" concepts they kept wasn't really "idolatry."
The problem is not Christians keeping "pagan" concepts from the first century, but Christians insisting that these concepts are fundamental to Christianity. They are not. They were just left behind by a community trying to "assimilate," trying to get closer to the Jewish God. The NT Canon is to be thought of as a historical document that reminds us of this issue, not something dictating to us what we should believe. The information is right there in the NT Canon. The teaching should be: read and think for yourself, not read, dictate, chant (as slogans) and follow everything that is said (literally).
Unfortunately, the New Testament doesn't teach us hermeneutics. We have to learn that ourselves. That's why there's so many "dodgy" and "crappy" interpretations among Christians.A little dose of Judaism helped me to see this. But hey, I'm not trying to put down Islam. It's not just because Islam is our biggest rival. I can concede that Islam may point out some "problems," but to the best of my knowledge, Islam isn't the way to fix it.
enlightenment
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*Raises hand*
If Jews, Muslims and Christians all profess to worship the same god (which I believe to be true?), then you have to ask why this god would fail to deliver his message in such a way that would never have seen the multitude of religions and spin off religions, with vastly different belief systems built into them.
Indeed, since this has all become so splintered and confused over time, there is a good argument for saying that god would have a duty to get back now, and pretty much tell the Jews, Christians and Muslims how it is meant to be, from scratch.
If Jews, Muslims and Christians all profess to worship the same god (which I believe to be true?), then you have to ask why this god would fail to deliver his message in such a way that would never have seen the multitude of religions and spin off religions, with vastly different belief systems built into them.
Indeed, since this has all become so splintered and confused over time, there is a good argument for saying that god would have a duty to get back now, and pretty much tell the Jews, Christians and Muslims how it is meant to be, from scratch.
Saltmeister
The Dangerous Dinner
I don't see the multitude of religions and spin-offs as a real problem. Actually, I think it helps us to get to the end of the process of re-establishing our relationship with God. If God kept saying, "don't explore that option, don't do this, don't do that," that would be counterproductive. Out of curiosity, you would eventually do it anyway. Adam and Eve are a demonstration of that.
We have to explore these options so that we will never do it again. Because there are people out there exploring these options, we don't have to do it. We can instead explore other options. When we have explored other options and are satisfied that we learned something from it, we will finally explore the right one.
If this was God's plan all along, then it is working.
Actually, no. I think we might be close to figuring it out.
According to this site, there are 2.0 billion Christians and 1.6 billion Muslims in the world today. That's a total of 3.6 billion out of 6.9 billion. That's half of the world population.
Religions of the world: numbers of adherents; growth rates
As the total population of Christians and Muslims gets closer to the world population, there will be a "dilemma." A lot of people are expecting an "end of the world," apocalyptic scenario to happen soon, as well as the ushering in of a new age. The Christian Gospel is supposed to be preached to the whole world. That would be pretty hard with 1.6 billion Muslims around. Instead of the question being, "how do we reach all these 1.6 billion Muslims," the question becomes, "are Islam and Christianity really incompatible?"
Have a look at this page on what a rabbi named Maimonides said about Islam and Christianity:
In the Gospels, Jesus talks about a "harvesting" of people. I think all Christians and Muslims collectively are this "harvest." Christians and Muslims simply need to be persuaded not to convert each other (as well as not converting Jews) and focus on harvesting the rest of the world population.
I have a theory on how Christians might be persuaded not to convert Muslims (don't know about the Muslim side) and it has to do with what I have learnt about Judaism and its eschatology. The "we worship the same God" argument doesn't work that well. I think we have to go to a deeper level than that.
There should be a sharing of knowledge of other traditions. There may still be "personal conversions," where people try to find their "personal truth," but I think inter-missionary efforts between Islam and Christianity should end. The world population of Christians and Muslims has reached a critical number. It's time to re-evaluate our various goals.
enlightenment
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Saltmeister
The Dangerous Dinner
We learn from history!!!!!
The question is, what do we do now?
enlightenment
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We learn from history!!!!!
The ONLY people who appear to 'learn from history' are in fact the puppet masters, be they in the form of politicians or the clergy.
And what they learn is that the masses can be manipulated (and thus controlled), using much the same methods as those that went before them.
peaceandkarma
Well-Known Member
I think that dis-unity makes religions and sects separate and that only unity will bring them together. If everyone agreed to disagree and adapted a live and let live attitude the world would change over night.
Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
My apologies Salty, I jumped to a totally incorrect conclusion. I thought you were suggesting Muslims didn't fancy being Chrstian so invented their own religion
I will go and sit on the naughty step now.According to Islamic tradition that is precisely what God did ... TWICE ... but human nature is what it is and we keep bogging it up!! How many chances do we want to listen and get it right?!
This fits with Islamic tradition Salty. At the End of Days there will be a messianic figure who will bring the worlds population together to serve Allah as one accord. Of course Jews believe that accord will be Judaism, Christians Christianity and Muslims Islam ... personally I think there's going to be a lot of red faces and mumbled "oh, I see now"s at the end of days.
My apologies Salty, I jumped to a totally incorrect conclusion. I thought you were suggesting Muslims didn't fancy being Chrstian so invented their own religion
According to Islamic tradition that is precisely what God did ... TWICE ... but human nature is what it is and we keep bogging it up!! How many chances do we want to listen and get it right?!
This fits with Islamic tradition Salty. At the End of Days there will be a messianic figure who will bring the worlds population together to serve Allah as one accord. Of course Jews believe that accord will be Judaism, Christians Christianity and Muslims Islam ... personally I think there's going to be a lot of red faces and mumbled "oh, I see now"s at the end of days.
I don't think you or anyone else must needs chastise themselves as this is a very touchy issue MS.
Communication is the key...understanding and acceptance...