Discussion vs Preaching Christianity/Islam

[jude3]

Apart from taking quite a few posts for me to understand your approach to discussing religion here, and your occasional lapse into 19th century orientalist terminology of Muslims and Islam, I have no issue with you stating your absolute certainty that everyone else is wrong and your view of what Jesus taught etc is right.

Rather than just add opinion etc - whay do you hardly ever respond to the verses?

In the above verse, what does "Once Delivered" mean to you?

Dispense with the logic, the reliability of the texts etc...just answer about the text.....

Then, just answer about the brass serpent.

[Shafique]

Interesting tactic there.

You refuse to tackle a verse where God gives the test for how to judge whether a Prophet of God is true or not - Deut 18.20, but seem to be obsessing about one Old Testament verse about what Moses may have done with brass serpents. Hmm.

I'm assuming you're going to take the brass serpent verse literally and use it as an argument to justify believing in the illogical. If Moses did do that, and it did work as described - then you and I could agree it was miracle by God. You may say it is illogical, I could argue that it is within nature and we don't understand yet how it was done. (or I could put it down to a metaphorical meaning). But to be honest, I haven't looked into it and have no real interest in that verse right now.

But your refusal to tackle God's commandments about how to judge a Prophet is true in 18.20 is a bit harder to explain.

Cheers,
Shafique

[jude3]

Interesting tactic there.

Eh? How long have I been quoting verses for you to answer on....? Weeks and hundreds of posts. A bit rich for you to now say I'm changing tactic.

You refuse to tackle a verse where God gives the test for how to judge whether a Prophet of God is true or not - Deut 18.20, but seem to be obsessing about one Old Testament verse about what Moses may have done with brass serpents. Hmm.

Yes, mmmm. It's no so much an obsession, it's a test-case to see your response re 'logic' and how you accept or reject the text. After all, if you can't get that verse right...how can we study ANY verse, eg Deut.!!! ;-)

I'm assuming you're going to take the brass serpent verse literally and use it as an argument to justify believing in the illogical. If Moses did do that, and it did work as described - then you and I could agree it was miracle by God. You may say it is illogical, I could argue that it is within nature and we don't understand yet how it was done. (or I could put it down to a metaphorical meaning). But to be honest, I haven't looked into it and have no real interest in that verse right now.

I'm not saying anything...I'm asking you what you think...because you keep going on about how your logic can't be offended etc.

Hold on...did you just say it could be a miracle....!!!??? Holy Golden Cow, Batman...that's TWO miracles in the entire bible you've acknowledged.....Yeah. The creation, and now this. Finally, we're getting there. What a relief. Now, what esle can we find....?

But your refusal to tackle God's commandments about how to judge a Prophet is true in 18.20 is a bit harder to explain.

No, not harder for me to explain...just harder for you to accept me not explaining it....! But, while ever you continue your approach of not answering my many q's re examples in the text, I'll not bother with Deut. Each to their own.

[Shafique]

Well, I've told you that I do indeed reject the belief that God does illogical things - like make talking donkeys, or cause the earth to stop rotating. I've also said I also believe in miracles - the virgin birth of Jesus (mammalian parthenogenesis a possible explanation how God did this), splitting of the Red sea (the scientists who explained this were quoted), the splitting of the moon by Prophet Muhammad, pbuh (see that thread) etc.

I've also explained that I follow your example and reject literal interpretations of Biblical verses that contradict other Biblical verses or clear principles that you already believe in.

But 18.20 is interesting for me - it has God telling you how to judge a claimant of Prophethood, and you choose to ignore these tests when assessing Muhammad, pbuh.

Cheers,
Shafique

[jude3]

I've also explained that I follow your example and reject literal interpretations of Biblical verses that contradict other Biblical verses or clear principles that you already believe in.

What do you mean by the red text?

[Shafique]

Let me speak in a parable style for you.

If we know that the earth rotates and makes the sun appear to rise and set, and we know that if the earth stops rotating the laws of the universe have stopped operating and there will be catastrophic tsunamis etc (the earth spins at a 1000 miles an hour, if it stops suddenly - all that water will continue to travel at that speed, for example).

Now if, say, some story in a book is presented that one day in the past - someone was engaged in a military siege and to help the attacking army the earth stopped rotating to allow enough daylight for the battle to continue.. we'd have a choice.

The choice would be to take the story literally, or to interpret it based on what we know to be true about the earth rotating.

In my case the clear principle is 'God does not do illogical things' another is 'God is one and unique, and the sole creator'.

Your principle could be 'the verses which back up Pauline Christianity are true, the others need to be ignored or explained away'

Speaking hypothetically, of course.

Cheers,
Shafique

[lumumba_s]

I take it that since Jude is only interesting in teaching us the message of the Bible, believes that the Qur'an is necessarily false and our interpretations of the Bible are likewise flawed from the very beginning, he really is not interesting in anything that we have to say. That is an enlightening bit of honesty...

[jude3]

Let me speak in a parable style for you.

If we know that the earth rotates and makes the sun appear to rise and set, and we know that if the earth stops rotating the laws of the universe have stopped operating and there will be catastrophic tsunamis etc (the earth spins at a 1000 miles an hour, if it stops suddenly - all that water will continue to travel at that speed, for example).

Now if, say, some story in a book is presented that one day in the past - someone was engaged in a military siege and to help the attacking army the earth stopped rotating to allow enough daylight for the battle to continue.. we'd have a choice.

The choice would be to take the story literally, or to interpret it based on what we know to be true about the earth rotating.

In my case the clear principle is 'God does not do illogical things' another is 'God is one and unique, and the sole creator'.

Your principle could be 'the verses which back up Pauline Christianity are true, the others need to be ignored or explained away'

Speaking hypothetically, of course.

Cheers,
Shafique

Well, then, you'd have to outright dismiss every OT miracle, eg the brass serpent, or the Jordan river heaping up when the feet of the priests entered...! Then there's Jesus miracles...eg raising Lazarus.

How do you account for Lazaris? How do you account for the paralysed man healed? How do you account for the blind being healed?

At some point, you must DISMISS the text, or try somehow to create a secular reason.

As to the earth standing still...you force the text to suit your needs. For example, how do you know the earth suddenly stopped so that the water rushed up? Please answer.

Then, if Gd created the laws of physics...and made the earth....why could God NOT 'muck around' with physics etc?

[jude3]

I take it that since Jude is only interesting in teaching us the message of the Bible, believes that the Qur'an is necessarily false and our interpretations of the Bible are likewise flawed from the very beginning, he really is not interesting in anything that we have to say. That is an enlightening bit of honesty...

Yes, this is correct...but please don't be offended. You have a section on this forum called Interfaith Dialogue. I reject this outright. This means, 'you have your truth, and I have mine.' It is relativism. It is totally false. Like the Pope kissing the Koran...just rubbish. You reject Jesus outright as deity...and I hold that he is. So, right from that point, we are worlds apart.

Sadly, you then put this guilt/blame on me for only wanting to present my views...and not listen to yours. Well...get real. It's hypocritical to say I'm only interested in 'preaching' WHEN YOU KNOW you're in the same boat.

Think, friend....

[Shafique]

Well, jude is quite clear he is here to preach and not to discuss Islam in anyway (except to tell us it is not a Divine religion).

Hence the thread title.

Cheers,
Shafique

[lumumba_s]

You have a section on this forum called Interfaith Dialogue.

This is not my forum, so I do not have a section on anything. As you have been honest in declaring that you are only here to sermonize and could care less for our opinions, I won't bother wasting anymore of my time. And I actually am interesting in what other people think and credit much of my intellectual development to my interactions with individuals whose opinions have challenged my own - a number of sincere Christians on this forum included who I continued to dialog in a very productive and respectful manner offline, in-spite of our mutually exclusive convctions. But I am not like you. I am a Muslim on a discussion forum called "UNDERSTANDING ISLAM". I'm not here to preach and I can guarantee that you will never find a "lumumba_s" trolling Christian forums, inserting myself in any and every discussion, attempting to pray upon vulnerabilities, while not even feigning to have a reasonable discussion.