Re: REALLY OT: News Flash
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 05:04:08PM +0200, Michelle Konzack wrote:
> Am 2007-02-28 14:28:41, schrieb Roberto C. Sanchez:
> > On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 02:05:02PM -0500, judd@wadsworth.org wrote:
> > >
> > > Actually, Muslims teach that Jesus was a true prophet, in fact one
> > > of the four (I think) major prophets of Islam. And the Shia believe
> > > that he will return (along with another prophet) at the end times to
> > > set thing right.
> > >
> > Of course, as I have pointed out, Jesus said (on more than one occasion)
> > that he, in fact, was one with God the Father. According to Islam, that
> > is the worst kind of blasphemy. How they can revere him so highly just
> > dumbfounds me.
>
> God in three is blasphemy.
>
> But the Islam accept all three Prohetes from
> the Jews, the Christions and Muhammad.
>
> The is a big difference!
>
> Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
> Michelle Konzack
> Systemadministrator
> Tamay Dogan Network
> Debian GNU/Linux Consultant
I'm not a believer in Islam or Christianity, I have grown up in USA
with much social contact with Christianity, some with Judaism, and
none with Islam. But I think that I have read enough to be able to
contribute some insight into the nature of this difference.
As I understand the Islamic position it is that the diety is without
attributes. (Here 'attributes' is the opposite of 'essence', both
taken in the senses of Catholic philosophers.) People have eyes,
minds, voices, thoughts, etc. These are attributes. But the deity
simply IS. In Islam, the diety never speaks, He sends angels who
speak, for example. According to this view, the deity cannot exist as
three persons. The deity is not even one person, since that implies
having a personality, and personality is an attribute. Why this 'error'
is considered so serious as to justify killing the person who adhers
to it is something I don't understand. It seems to me perfectly
possible to hold that Christians are simply stupid and unworthy of
respect. But that is not the tradidional Islamic view.
As to the respect for all Prophets, 'the Prophet' always means
Mohammed. Mohammed is the last in a sequence of prophets, not merely
the most recent. There will be no more prophets, according to their
belief. The job of revealing stuff to mankind is done. Any differences
in the several revelations are always resolved in favor of the last
prophet. He is surely the greatest prophet. There is not much
room for compromise in this position that I can see. When muslims
speak of tolerance, it is not in the same sense as that of Catholics
tolerating Jews in the modern world. Unbelievers are tolerated only if
they have been given a special protected status by the Sultan (no
democracy here). This tolerance is out of respect for the Sultan, not
out of respect of some idea of human rights. It is a very different
world view from that of modern Europe, or America. In nature (red in
tooth and claw) it may have greater survival value than my own
beliefs, or that of Christians or Jews.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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