Christian Answers to Muslim Questions

RJM said:
I think religion is the interface. It’s the shell. It’s the finger pointing at the moon. It’s the lazy human desire for uniform regimentation. It means I don’t have to think for myself. Not too much, anyway. Thinking isn’t easy, it’s hard.
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It takes a massive amount of self reflection and thinking to find God within us.

No one has seen God, not even the Messengers, so what we are finding in us, is the example that the Messengers of God are. They are the perfect example of what a human has been gifted by God. The Messengers are all we can know of God.

Regards Tony
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
No one has seen God, not even the Messengers, so what we are finding in us, is the example that the Messengers of God are.
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Doesn't the Bible report that Moses saw, if not God's face, then at least God's back?
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
It takes a massive amount of self reflection and thinking to find God within us.

No one has seen God, not even the Messengers, so what we are finding in us, is the example that the Messengers of God are. They are the perfect example of what a human has been gifted by God. The Messengers are all we can know of God.

Regards Tony
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Hello Tony

The reason the messengers have not seen god is they seek him in all the wrong places. God is himself only he is only one mind, and they are trying to figure him out with many minds. Everything is inside of gods mind, but he is not who we are he is who he is or he is himself not ourselves. The messengers could use everything in the known universes to try and figure him out and still could not. To find god you have to become yourself only nothing else.

The biggest problem is god can teach us ourselves but he can not teach you himself, everything else you read and try to figure out is everything but god.

Just my two cents worth.

powessy
 
powessy said:
Hello Tony

The reason the messengers have not seen god is they seek him in all the wrong places. God is himself only he is only one mind, and they are trying to figure him out with many minds. Everything is inside of gods mind, but he is not who we are he is who he is or he is himself not ourselves. The messengers could use everything in the known universes to try and figure him out and still could not. To find god you have to become yourself only nothing else.

The biggest problem is god can teach us ourselves but he can not teach you himself, everything else you read and try to figure out is everything but god.

Just my two cents worth.

powessy
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Thank you for your input powessy.

My thoughts are that the Messengers are One with God. They are the oneness we can find as an individual, the oneness we can connect to.

I see the only concept we can have of God, will already be reflected from the Messengers.

Regards Tony
 
Cino said:
Doesn't the Bible report that Moses saw, if not God's face, then at least God's back?
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Both the Bab and Baha’u’llah have identified as being the One that spoke to Moses on this occasion.

This hits another amazing level of contemplation, that it is the Messengers that speak to themselves and send themselves. I am yet to gain any real certainty in this area, I have read many ideas.

I consider God's plan is above all our concepts. I consider that the sun rises each day. The process has been set and God is in control, but God has no need to change what is already a perfect process.

It is a whole new level of thought when we start reading what Abdul'baha offered in the Tablet of the Universe. https://bahai-library.com/abdul-baha_lawh_aflakiyyih

The Holy Spirit appears to be a creation/emanation of the Most Great Spirit (God), it is the Cause and that Cause has been spread out, set in motion and held in place. All the Names and Attributes given of God are that creative force we know as the Holy Spirit. So all the Messengers are part of that creation and they are its order and motion.

Happy to discuss, because as we do, new concepts open to our mind. The Tablet of the Universe is amazing, yet it is only a provisional translation, so some concepts may have different wording.

Regards Tony
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
Thank you for your input powessy.

My thoughts are that the Messengers are One with God. They are the oneness we can find as an individual, the oneness we can connect to.

I see the only concept we can have of God, will already be reflected from the Messengers.

Regards Tony
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I remember a time prior to this universe, I remember the ancients and their quest for immortality their search for god. I keep trying to figure out these memories they sputter then find time here again and again.

The knowledge I get from them is that we are all inside of something and we never figure ourselves out until there is nothing here this is how they figured god out there universe was at the end of its time, becoming nothing there.

I hope you find what you seek.

Powessy
 
powessy said:
I remember a time prior to this universe, I remember the ancients and their quest for immortality their search for god. I keep trying to figure out these memories they sputter then find time here again and again.

The knowledge I get from them is that we are all inside of something and we never figure ourselves out until there is nothing here this is how they figured god out there universe was at the end of its time, becoming nothing there.

I hope you find what you seek.

Powessy
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May we all be immersed in what we can seek Powessy.

I see we are indeed contained, but I see there in no void/nothing in this creation, or most likely any of the world's of God. We are contained in creation at this stage of our development/evolution.

Who knows what we will be when we are Born from this matrix!

Peace be with you.

Regards Tony
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
Baha'u'llah has indeed offered us a new way to look at these topics. We have been asked to look at them in the Light that we are One people on One planet.
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Useless exercise, not just marks messengers as failures but demeans any God they propose. It has been offered umpteen times and humans have rejected it. We simply are not one people. I am a Hindu and you are a Bahai. Each messenger has added to the strife by creating a new religion. Wish, there had been no so-called messengers.
 
Aupmanyav said:
Useless exercise, not just marks messengers as failures but demeans any God they propose. It has been offered umpteen times and humans have rejected it. We simply are not one people. I am a Hindu and you are a Bahai. Each messenger has added to the strife by creating a new religion. Wish, there had been no so-called messengers.
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I see that division is not because of the Messengers, nor is it of my making.

Regards Tony
 
MattSTL said:
I don't think it's either or...it can be both and. Here I am right? But for example we just did a whole video on our understanding of the trinity and we gave it 30 minutes for two of us to talk it through. If I posted the transcript here, nobody would read it. TLDR would be the response. :) Some people want quick answers...others want to hear full explanations with heart.

I believe both are important.
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Hello again..... But your thread title reads:- Christian answers to Muslim questions, and you've just presumed what the Muslim question might be.

But if you think that a Muslim has asked that question about the Trinity, your first mistake (imo) because Islam makes statement about it, then neither your film nor your writings could help much..... all you would need to do is to show the gospel verses where Jesus explains this, and Muslims could respond to that, maybe?

I'm a Deist so I will leave all this to any Muslims, I guess. :)
 
badger said:
..... all you would need to do is to show the gospel verses where Jesus explains this, and Muslims could respond to that, maybe?
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Jesus said "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father ... I and the Father are One ... Before Abraham was, I Am."

He told the disciples He would ask the Father send the Holy Spirit.

However Muslims reject the Gospel of John.

Muslims also reject that Jesus died on the cross, although the gospels say he did. They say either that the gospels are corrupted, or that another died in Jesus's place -- or that he was taken down alive, etc.

The fact is there's no winning because where the gospels contradict what the Quran or Hadith say about Jesus, Muslims simply reject the gospel passage as false, or corrupted?

The below thread lists all the words and actions of the Quranic Jesus (Isa)
The Words and Actions of Jesus in the Quran

The issue is that the Jesus of the Quran seems to serve only to assure the reader that he is not Allah. What else does Jesus do or say in the Quran? Does he comfort, or love, or uplift?

I seem unable to find illumination or wisdom or anything else from the Jesus of the Quran except the repeat assurance that he is not Allah. Where in the Quran does anyone really find Jesus?
 
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RJM said:
I seem unable to find illumination or wisdom or anything else from the Jesus of the Quran except the repeat assurance that he is not Allah. Where in the Quran does anyone really find Jesus?
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In the passages you quoted we find all the Messengers.

Muhammad was correct, you can not kill Christ, Christ does not die, when we talk of Jesus, we see the Spirit within, which is the Word of God, not the flesh.

John 6:63 "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life"

You quoted that "Jesus said "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father ... I and the Father are One ... Before Abraham was, I Am."

My post above to powessy explains this verse. Jesus is explaining He is all the Mesengers, they are all Christ. They are all the First and Last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega.

Regards Tony
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
when we talk of Jesus, we see the Spirit within, which is the Word of God, not the flesh.
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But it was Jesus in the flesh who walked and talked, who cast out the moneylenders from the temple court, and who healed the lepers and forgave sin? It was Jesus in the flesh who died on the cross, and Christ in the renewed flesh who was resurrected from the tomb?*

What's your take on the resurrection @Tone Bristow-Stagg?

Muslims do not accept the resurrection, because most do not accept the death of Jesus on the cross. Do Baha'i share the (general) Muslim belief -- that Jesus the man did not die on the cross?

*according to the gospels
 
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RJM said:
But it was Jesus in the flesh who walked and talked, who cast out the moneylenders from the temple court, and who healed the lepers and forgave sin? It was Jesus in the flesh who died on the cross, and Christ in the renewed flesh who was resurrected from the tomb?*

What's your take on the resurrection @Tone Bristow-Stagg?

Muslims do not accept the resurrection, because most do not accept the death of Jesus on the cross. Do Baha'i share the (general) Muslim belief -- that Jesus the man did not die on the cross?

*according to the gospels
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Jesus, the flesh died on the Cross. Christ did not.

Peter 3:18 "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit"

Hebrews 9:28 "so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him"

To me, that was the Message of the Bab and Baha'u'llah, the Bab being the gate to the 'Day of God', the day of humanities salvation from the depths of self.

Matthew 17:11 "Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things"

Regards Tony
 
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Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
Jesus, the flesh died on the Cross. Christ did not.

Peter 3:18 "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit"

Hebrews 9:28 "so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him"
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Fair enough.

I don't believe God will conform to my own paradigm. I do not think I should take firm positions about God. I believe I should let the Spirit be.

I think terms like Father and Son and Holy Spirit are used in scripture to try to give an idea of spiritual process to natural human minds. I think that Spirit goes beyond human words, and that symbols are used to show what words alone can't do.

Christ's message was not just his words. The symbols left to mankind by (the physical events of) the sacrifice of the Incarnation and the crucifixion and resurrection, go beyond words. The mysteries go beyond words. Arguments about the literal relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit miss the mark entirely.

Just my own thoughts
 
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