Evidence for God from Science

RickD wrote:Where does the bible promise eternal damnation to unbelievers in "Christianity"?

Doesn't the bible promise eternal life to those who believe on Christ? John 3:16

Believe in God, Jesus' status as the Son of God, the resurrection and follow the moral precepts... virtually no Christian will deny that believing these is necessary to achieve salvation (the Bible even states this elsewhere). And those are the core tenets of Christianity.

It's the same with Islam. I don't think it requires anything more than belief and submission to Allah.

But in any case... even if salvation requirements were not exactly the same, so what? They are the same in principle. Both worldviews require you to believe certain propositions in order to be saved. Why does it matter what these propositions are? How does the content of the propositions which are required to be saved determine whether such a salvation system is cruel or not?

Noah, I'm confused. Your profile lists you as a Christian. Are you, or are you not a Christian?

Not anymore. I could be seen as sort of a liberal Christian, but for all intents and purposes, no I'm not. I am essentially agnostic with respect to the core truth claims of Christianity.

Murray wrote: Refuse to answer my questions then demand I answer yours, I shall take your lack of responce as a concession.

Which questions? I'm quite sure I answered every significant argument you've made on this thread.

I asked you to find love in some of those verses, you did not.

You simply stated the "bible says bad stuff too..."

Now the difference is if you stated one of these "evil" phrases from the bible, im sure our wonderful community could enlighten you on why they had to be done, again like the sacking of jerico for instance.

Ask a muslim to defend these and they will state it was the will of allah, and remember these are in context and have no reason other than pure hatred to be written. Gods law have actual meaning and purpose, please state one that bothers you so we can explain it to you and why god wrote it. These have no explanation other than human hatred and human bigotry and human cruelty.

If someone murders your slave, then you get to kill one of his. If it was a male that was killed, you kill one of the killer's male slaves. If a female, you kill a female. Murder for murder. Slave for slave. It all works out swell with Allah's wondrous rules. (Oh, and if you don't follow them, you'll have the usual painful doom.) 2:178

"Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you." 2:190

Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.) 2:191-2

Those who hide the Scripture will have their bellies eaten with fire. Theirs will be a painful doom. 2:174

"Fight in the way of Allah." 2:190, 2:244

If someone murders your slave, then you get to kill one of his. If it was a male that was killed, you kill one of the killer's male slaves. If a female, you kill a female. Murder for murder. Slave for slave. It all works out swell with Allah's wondrous rules. (Oh, and if you don't follow them, you'll have the usual painful doom.) 2:178

"Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you." 2:190

Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.) 2:191-2

Allah says that you must keep fighting until there is no more persecution and everyone on earth is a Muslim. Then you can stop killing people. 2:193a

Murray wrote:I asked you to find love in some of those verses, you did not.

I've never claimed any of these verses were loving. I even explained why they are not, and how Islamic theology doesn't require them to be. But apparently you can't read.

You simply stated the "bible says bad stuff too..."

Wrong. I said that it says identical things. Word of word. Thus, I contend, calling one set of verses cruel and the other expressions of perfect love is irrational.

I don't need explanations. There are none. They are the same, and no amount of denial will change that.

There is no need to list these verses since you already know that they exist, and where they are. Until you respond to this, I will regard that debate as conceded. Furthermore, it would be quite pleasant to see you stop plagiarizing Skeptic's Annotated Bible. It doesn't help you at all, except to add length to your posts in vain effort to filibuster your opponent.

Murray wrote:Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.) 2:191-2

Just out of curiosity, which Koran translation are you using? Yours seems almost nice! For instance My Koran translates Sura 2:191-2 as follows:

191 And slay them
Wherever ye catch them,
And turn them out
From where they have turned you out;
For tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter;
But fight them not
At the Sacred Mosque
Unless they first
Fight you there;
But if they fight you,
Slay them.
Such is the reward
Of those who suppress faith.

192 But if they cease,
Allah is oft-forgiving,
Most Merciful.

My Koran* is in English and each verse is juxtaposed with the corresponding Arabic. (It is also a study Koran ...) It is far more violent than your pasteurized translation!

FL

*The Holy Qur'an, translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali

His citation is not actually from the Koran. It is commentary from the author of Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

Noah1201 wrote: It is commentary from the author of Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

^ this

Believe in God, Jesus' status as the Son of God, the resurrection and follow the moral precepts... virtually no Christian will deny that believing these is necessary to achieve salvation (the Bible even states this elsewhere). And those are the core tenets of Christianity

Noah, I'm a Christian, and I don't believe I have to "follow the moral precepts" to achieve salvation.
In Christianity alone, God has made THE way for our salvation. John 3:16 All we have to do is believe on the finished work of Christ for salvation. It's a simple concept. All other religions require man to do some kind of works to please God.

But in any case... even if salvation requirements were not exactly the same, so what? They are the same in principle. Both worldviews require you to believe certain propositions in order to be saved. Why does it matter what these propositions are? How does the content of the propositions which are required to be saved determine whether such a salvation system is cruel or not?

Christianity and Islam contradict each other. Logically, Christianity and Islam can't both be true. They both can be false, or one can be true. But both can't be true. In fact, logically, If Christianity is true, and the only way to God is through Christ, then all other ways to God are useless. That doesn't logically conclude that Christianity is true, but we all need to examine TRUE Christianity and the REAL Christ, to see for ourselves.

Not anymore. I could be seen as sort of a liberal Christian, but for all intents and purposes, no I'm not. I am essentially agnostic with respect to the core truth claims of Christianity.

I can see why you say you're not a Christian anymore. Your idea of Christianity isn't really TRUE Christianity, and can easily be shown false. All you need to do to have eternal life is believe on Christ. The true biblical Christ. The perfect, sinless, sacrifice that is the only way to God. John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If there was any other way to God, do you think He would sacrifice His only begotten Son?

I don't need explanations. There are none. They are the same, and no amount of denial will change that

You seem to be in denial....

They are so very different in there meaning

I am amazed... I never thought I would live to see such astounding hypocrisy. Your argument essentially amounts to saying that it's only loving to send disbelievers in hell when your religion does it, but when any other does it, it means their god is wicked and enjoys torture and death.

Anyone with a slightest shred of intellectual honesty can see how laughably bad this "reasoning" is. Come on, people. I know there are plenty of reasonable people on this forum. Don't be ashamed to call stupid what it is just because it is uttered by someone who shares your religious beliefs.

neo-x wrote:
Hey, I am with Murray here, I have 13 korans, and I can tell you for certain that while God will judge the wicked in the Bible, the problem is, allah never grants redemption.


Incorrect. Islam allows repentance no different than Christianity does, except atonement is not necessary.

I probably won't be responding to this thread anymore, mostly because I think it's a waste of time. This should in no way be interpreted as an inability to respond; I think that, in this case, the opposition's points are so childish and easily refuted that any reasonable person can see it without me or anyone else spelling it out.

Noah, sorry to say this but you you don't know what you are talking about. If you wanna spill your dislike of the Bible or our childish reasoning, you are more than welcome to debate, however saying something and then running away, calling us hypocrites, doesn't cut it for me. The "I'm not gonna respond" is what I call childish.

p.s: I'm from a Muslim converted family, so don't think you are the only one who knows about it.

Furstentum Liechtenstein on Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:03 am

Murray wrote:
Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.) 2:191-2


Just out of curiosity, which Koran translation are you using? Yours seems almost nice! For instance My Koran translates Sura 2:191-2 as follows:

191 And slay them
Wherever ye catch them,
And turn them out
From where they have turned you out;
For tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter;
But fight them not
At the Sacred Mosque
Unless they first
Fight you there;
But if they fight you,
Slay them.
Such is the reward
Of those who suppress faith.

192 But if they cease,
Allah is oft-forgiving,
Most Merciful.

My Koran* is in English and each verse is juxtaposed with the corresponding Arabic. (It is also a study Koran ...) It is far more violent than your pasteurized translation!

FL

*The Holy Qur'an, translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali

This is another....

And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers

The truth is that modern qurans use a very soft vocabulary in contrast to the original or old ones, which are quite brutal and open in their usage if words. Islam is trying to modernize itself. But those who have older copies know the difference. for instance I have a 100 years old koran at home, I do not use it anymore because the paper is quite fragile now but it is far more violent than the new ones.

Noah1201 wrote:Believe in God, Jesus' status as the Son of God, the resurrection and follow the moral precepts... virtually no Christian will deny that believing these is necessary to achieve salvation

<snip>

Your statement here is a misrepresentation

making the rest of your post a complete non sequitur

The truth is that modern qurans use a very soft vocabulary in contrast to the original or old ones, which are quite brutal and open in their usage if words. Islam is trying to modernize itself. But those who have older copies know the difference. for instance I have a 100 years old koran at home, I do not use it anymore because the paper is quite fragile now but it is far more violent than the new ones.

To be fair some bibles do this as well, like the good news bible, the GNB is almost like a childrens bible if you read it

The truth is that modern qurans use a very soft vocabulary in contrast to the original or old ones, which are quite brutal and open in their usage if words. Islam is trying to modernize itself. But those who have older copies know the difference. for instance I have a 100 years old koran at home, I do not use it anymore because the paper is quite fragile now but it is far more violent than the new ones.


To be fair some bibles do this as well, like the good news bible, the GNB is almost like a childrens bible if you read it

Of course they do, but not for the same purpose, we are not trying to hide what happened or soften it up.

neo-x wrote:

The truth is that modern qurans use a very soft vocabulary in contrast to the original or old ones, which are quite brutal and open in their usage if words. Islam is trying to modernize itself. But those who have older copies know the difference. for instance I have a 100 years old koran at home, I do not use it anymore because the paper is quite fragile now but it is far more violent than the new ones.


To be fair some bibles do this as well, like the good news bible, the GNB is almost like a childrens bible if you read it

Of course they do, but not for the same purpose, we are not trying to hide what happened or soften it up.

Well I have never read a new revised or old koran so I wouln't really know the difference, But the big differences from lets say the GNB and the KJB is that Instead of having "hate" in the GNB and seen in the KJB the, they put in "dislike", My memory may be faulty but I believe they also change luke 19:22 in the GNB. But I guess the same message is still the general same in the 2....

Can you give me and example of 1 old koran quote and one new, I'm kind of interested to see what you mean by "trying to hide it"

There is an interesting book by Paul Copland called " Is God a Moral Monster" that attempts to answer the issues of a seemingly violent and bloodthirsty OT God.
I don't recall ANY such book done about Allah by any muslim.
Food for thought no?