<p>Yeah I knew you were Mr.Tariq Ali. :p</p>
<p>GDWilner,</p>
<p>Having just read something by CS Lewis which addresses your question (in Mere Christianity) I might add something to the conversation. One of the central tenants of Christianity is to repent for your sins; to realize the sin and work to absent yourself from it. Yet, there seems to be a paradox in sin and repentance. Those who will be the first and best to repent--those who will submit themselves totally to the will of Godare, to a greater degree, good people. Therefore, they do not need to repent to the degree that the bad, who are less likely to repent, do. There is no one who is without sin (that is, imperfection), only God (who is perfection as such). Those who ARE sinful and need to be penitent, on the other hand, are by their very natures imperfect beings (imperfect human beings, inasmuch as there can be a perfect, ideal human being). Remember, by repenting, you are killing that part of yourself which is immoral in favor for the longed for part of the self that is not only moral but immortal (that is, your are transcending your deficient self). </p>
<p>Still, it takes a good man to repent (some might say, a perfect man), though the good man is the one who least needs it and the perfect man not at all. So how do we resolve this dilemma? Through Christ (God). By manifesting himself in man, Christ suffers and dies and surrenders his perfect will, as God and man. This is why it is Christ, and not men, that is able to absolve mankind from sin and set the perfect example of the sacrifice of the self for all men. </p>
<p>Love is the best analogy; to be in-love is to surrender the self (will) to the love of your beloved and become more perfect and profound in that love.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but as far as I can tell, all that establishes is that Christ does surrender himself to save everybody. I understand this part. Why does it work, though? Why can Jesus "repent" for everyone by dying, and how is it different from Hitler finding someone willing to die in his place, or a gang member "confessing" to a fellow gang member's murder?</p>
<p>it's moreso like this....Muslims believe that the Old and New Testements are basically incomplete, and that they've been altered over time....especially by the Roman Empire (i.e. Constantine) and by the Roman Catholic Church....</p>
<p>the basic difference on the view of Jesus is...we don't believe He's the son of God....we believe he WAS born from a Virgin, but he's a Messenger....one of the holiest of messengers...he's the only prophet still living, and he will come down prior to the Armageddon......but basically...we believe that God has NO equal....there is one God...and he has no offspring, wife, significant other....and that comparing even a prophet to His Holiness is blasphemy.....we also believe Jesus wasn't crucified.....instead...God saved him from such pain and suffering by changing his appearance to that of one of the individuals who were trying to dispose of him...and by changing the enemy's face to Jesus's...</p>
<p>The simplest way I can think of explaining it is this. Before Jesus died the concept of Christianity as it is now was not around. Of course there were Jews so the concept of a monotheistic God was around. Jesus died to absolve people of their sins because they were not perfect as Jesus was. The best way to explain it is that he died so that we could have the opportunity to redeem ourselves through prayer in the future which is why he said, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."</p>
<p>The only way to heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as your savior and accept that he died on the cross for YOU and to love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.</p>
<p>The thing about Jesus' death is that all humans up to this point were cursed with Original Sin, which arose because of Adam and Eve. The people were worshipping the 'wrong' God, and basically the only way to save them was for God to send down His own son. Jesus died so that everyone else could be granted passage into Heaven. Think of it this way: He absolved all of our sins.</p>
<p>I think Christianity runs into problems when it gets to the technicalities of heaven and hell.</p>
<p>Yes, when people try to find clear cut rules, definitions, etc. then problems arise. A few years ago I heard about some historians trying to use specific Biblical passages to determine the size of heaven. <em>shakes head</em></p>
<p>I believe that all humans naturally believe that there is only one all-powerful Being that maintains the universe. He is commonly referred to as God. From there some religions say that this Being has a son while others say that He is beyond any such relations.</p>
<p>To those that read the DaVinci Code. Is it true that Jesus only claimed to be a man or prophet?</p>
<p>And afterwards when Constatine needed to combine Chrisitians with the Pagans he called on the Council Of Nicea to make Jesus the Son of God while burning all references to him being anything else?</p>
<p>randomness, but I cannot find a justification for hell. eternal suffering...... doesn't seem in the scope of a merciful God. I like (though disagree w/) the 7th day adventists belief in soul sleep. That the righteous are resurrected to be w/ God forever, but the dead just stay that way. Like their souls are in an eternal state of sleep. or something like that.</p>
<p>well I'm suprised no one has bashed this thread yet. Minorites can get scappy( thought I guess onthe CC, Christians are minorities)</p>
<p>most of the Da Vinci Code is fictional....lots of that was just Dan Brown's imagination....but the Council of Nicea is known to have existed.</p>
<p>well....in Islam, you basically serve your time in Hell equal to your sins...BUT there are certain unforgivable sins which are punishable by an eternity in hell.</p>
<p>Minorities can get scappy?</p>
<p>In Islam you are born "sin-free" at birth. Whatever you do wrong later in life will be sin and so you repent to God.</p>
<p>Christianity teaches a born-baby automatically obtains sin at birth, because he is from Adam's "original sin".</p>
<p>Not to say that one is better than the other, just a comparison.</p>
<p>Unitarian Christianity rejects the Trinity of God (Father, son, holy spirit)- and is more similar to Islam in terms of worship (I think) than traditional Christianity.</p>
<p>In any event, I respect all monotheistic faiths. I am in no position to clarify as one religion superior to the other, even if there may be evidence, for I think God has "spoken" to me somewhat and said the best way to go at it in this life is to be neutral, respective and considerate towards religion.</p>
<p>And I think everyone else should be like that as well. Maintain your religious beliefs, but be open to others, learn more about them (which is what I'm doing)--and this doesn't mean you are going to have to change your beliefs as you learn, rather, you get informed about everything.</p>
<p>^ well said</p>
<p>In regards to our religious differences the Quran says, in the voice of God, that the different religious faiths should
...vie with each other in good deeds and in the end I [God] will let you know in which ways you differed.</p>
<p>Seems like very good advice, doesn't it.</p>
<p>The irony.</p>
<p>I just finished watching a set of Deedat lectures. Perhaps some of you may know who he is.</p>
<p>But, considering how teenage and uncultured most of CC can be, I'm not getting my hopes up.</p>
<p>Another difference between Islam and Christianity when it comes to Jesus is that in Islam, you dont know how Jesus looked during his time, other than that he had long hair. Christians, however believe to know his appearance, which you can see in most churches, and Christianity related books.</p>
<p>I am still confused about one thing in Islam though. In the Quran, it is said that God (or Allah) the most Merciful , yet one sin can get us into serious punishment in hell. So, i am still confused about it lol.</p>
<p>Ahmaad Deedat is, to my thinking, droll, un-necessary and didactic.</p>
<p>For a better perspective, I would refer anyone to either Seyyed Hossein Nasr (for an open-minded non-didactic intellectual Muslim perspective), or Peter Kreeft (for an open-minded non-didactic intellectual Christian Perspective) amongst many others such as Frithjof Schuon (The Transcendental Unity of Religious Experience), Martin Lings and, of course, C.S. Lewis.</p>
<p>"Christianity teaches a born-baby automatically obtains sin at birth, because he is from Adam's 'original sin'."</p>
<p>Just thought I would point out that Protestants don't believe this.</p>
<p>GDWilner--</p>
<p>I should have mentioned this long ago, but I definitely left something out in my explanation of Christianity. </p>
<p>Jesus' death on the cross is different from Hitler's finding someone to die in his place in that Christians repent for their sins. This means that they admit they've sinned, show regret for their sin, AND make a conscious attempt to not commit those sins in the future.</p>
<p>There are multiple passages in the Bible discussing the fact that people who do not repent in all three senses are not truly Christians. I wish I knew the Bible better, and I'll go find them now.</p>
<p>Vitan -- I somewhat agree with you when you say that there seems to be no justification for hell. It certainly feels unfair that just one white lie, one little left hook to Joe Bully's nose could send us to eternal suffering.</p>
<p>The point most people miss is just how perfect, how amazing God is. In the NT accounts of people's dreams of God, they discuss how amazingly unworthy they felt to be in His presence. In one account of heaven, the angels in God's throneroom have three sets of wings: one for flying, one for covering their feet, and one for covering their eyes. If beings that have been CREATED for heaven can't look directly at God, how amazingly perfect must He be? Also recall that when God appeared to Moses, Moses was only allowed to see His shadow. If he had actually seen God, he would have died.</p>
<p>We tend to reduce God to a nice being that kinda knows about what's going on in the world. Try to think of God as an EXTREMELY just judge who cannot relate to you in that you've sinned. He has no experience of sin, so he's got a tough time tolerating it. He's also the One that created the atomic force, utilized in the exploding of atomic bombs. He created the universe, the most vast thing we know of. Black holes, electromagnetic forces...ALL that was created by Him. Once we try to wrap our minds around the scope of God's amazing power and justice, we begin to realize why we deserve eternal suffering.</p>