Posted on 01/19/2008 2:38:36 AM PST by america4vr
Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.
The Da Vinci Code offered a silly fantasy in which Opus Dei, homicidal monks and twisted billionaires chased after proof that Christianity is a hoax. But the story of the photographic archive of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, now ensconced in a Berlin vault, is a case of life imitating truly dreadful art. It even has Nazis. "I hate those guys!" as Indiana Jones said.
No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, "The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.
What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources?
(Excerpt) Read more at thirdeyeconcept.com ...
And then all we would have to do is present this proof to the 1,300,000,000 reasonable muslims throughout the world and all our troubles will be over.
What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad
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I prefer the rule which is “SUPPOSED” to govern in Earthly courts. The burden of proof is on the positive, proving the negative is often impossible. In this case the Islamists would ignore any and all evidence to disprove their assertion and non-Islamists needed no proof to begin with.
Any religion that has as one of major tenets the murder of the members of other religions does not have a whole lot of cache in the legitimacy department as far as i am concerned.
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It would be a better world if there weren’t so many millions who are incapable of admitting that there are things they don’t know and may never know rather than being ready to kill anyone who questions their great “KNOWLEDGE”. I am beginning to develop a great love for those who say “I don’t know”.
Be sure to wear a stainless steel collar before going out and telling them
Stealing from other religions. And Islam continues this practice today with the destruction and takeover of others' religious sites.
Me too.
The Islamist “logic” would be, “You said something I don’t like, therefore you are a heretic and you must die!”
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No doubt! The worst part is that I have personally known people who claimed to be Christian and displayed the same attitude. One who was on my payroll briefly calls himself a minister, he once told me that there had been people who hated him and his family and these people had been struck dead by God in answer to his family’s prayers. Of course he was a rare case whereas the same attitude seems to be quite common among the Muslims.
Most of the Epistles, for instance, were written to specific recipients for specific purposes, usually to resolve local disputes concerning doctrines or morals. Paul and other Apostles wrote to particular communities (like Corinth and Galatia) in order to rectify these problems. There was no attempt to give comprehensive doctrinal instruction, because these people were already Christians and had already had comprehensive instruction, orally, from the preaching and example of the Apostles, before they ever had a written text in their hands.
Christian communities existed and flourished for years before even the first book of the New Testament was written. And they existed for centuries before the whole New Testament was collected and canonized.
Thus Scriptures are products of the Church. The Church is not a "product" of the Scriptures.
It's quite different in Islam, where the Koran is believed to have been dictated to a single man in a trance or some kind of paranormal psychological state (Mohammad) and recited, and transcribed verbatim, the ipsissima verba of Allah. It can never be changed by a single syllable nor even, with full legitimacy, translated out of Arabic.
If this is shown to be incorrect, man, it's Götterdämmerung. All hell could break loose. I am serious.
No, I think olezip is right, and it's not a snark against Christians.
Fact is, most people are far from intellectual. Most people aren't endowed with either the particular cognitive gifts, nor the time or inclination to think their way all the way back to First Axioms, master vast arrays of facts, and then work forward again to all the ramifying conclusions.
Nor should they, for heaven's sake. Most people have other inclinations, other drives, and other stuff to do.
But it's good that some people, including some Christians, are intellectual. Properly directed, they, too, can often make some useful contribution to society.
Contact between Hebrew religious thought and MANY other kinds of thinking is terrifically exciting. I'm with Matteo Ricci on this one. Salvation is being offered to all, even those who think like Mandarins, Hopis, Timorese, Punjabis, Mongols, and Cyberpunks.
Agreed!
As they say, Islam is not a civilization: it’s a graveyard of civilizations.
I agree with this statement. Your comments before made me think you believed Christians were drooling morons, believing what ever was handed to them.
I have yet to meet a practicing Christian that can be described as a drooling moron.
Very few Christians attempt to translate the original scripture writings. I, for one, let others do that although I do look at the various translations, especially the ones that stir a bit of controversy. Like most Christians I also am comfortable with my beliefs.
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Thanks Calpernia.To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.Zul-Qarnain - What is the argument?I have never claimed that Zul-Qarnain *is* the historical Alexander the Great. I don't know why your move to agree with me in this is considered a rebuttal... The argument is then that the Qur'anic story is clearly taken from the legends about Alexander. There are many many details of the Qur'an account which are nearly verbatim to be found in the Alexander legends. Conclusion: Zul-Qarnain clearly is the Alexander the Great of the legend stories. And because the Qur'an presents the material from the legends as if this were history, it shows that Muhammad could not distinguish between legends and history when he incorporated this material in the Qur'an. This is evidence that the Qur'an is not of divine origin. |
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Agree. In connection with the Arianism heresy, Islamists would agree. As Mohammed said, "God neither begets, nor is He begotten" (Koran, 112).
People today, for the most part, are puzzled by the controversy of so long ago.
The point being that Christianity has been evolving for a couple thousand years, with our leaders taking on all contradictions and challenges.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia (Arianism): First among the doctrinal disputes which troubled Christians after Constantine had recognized the Church in A.D. 313, and the parent of many more during some three centuries, Arianism occupies a large place in ecclesiastical history. It is not a modern form of unbelief, and therefore will appear strange in modern eyes. But we shall better grasp its meaning if we term it an Eastern attempt to rationalize the creed by stripping it of mystery so far as the relation of Christ to God was concerned. In the New Testament and in Church teaching Jesus of Nazareth appears as the Son of God. This name He took to Himself (Matthew 11:27; John 10:36), while the Fourth Gospel declares Him to be the Word (Logos), Who in the beginning was with God and was God, by Whom all things were made. A similar doctrine is laid down by St. Paul, in his undoubtedly genuine Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. It is reiterated in the Letters of Ignatius, and accounts for Pliny's observation that Christians in their assemblies chanted a hymn to Christ as God. But the question how the Son was related to the Father (Himself acknowledged on all hands to be the one Supreme Deity), gave rise, between the years A.D. 60 and 200, to a number of Theosophic systems, called generally Gnosticism, and having for their authors Basilides, Valentinus, Tatian, and other Greek speculators. Though all of these visited Rome, they had no following in the West, which remained free from controversies of an abstract nature, and was faithful to the creed of its baptism. Intellectual centres were chiefly Alexandria and Antioch, Egyptian or Syrian, and speculation was carried on in Greek. The Roman Church held steadfastly by tradition. Under these circumstances, when Gnostic schools had passed away with their "conjugations" of Divine powers, and "emanations" from the Supreme unknowable God (the "Deep" and the "Silence") all speculation was thrown into the form of an inquiry touching the "likeness" of the Son to His Father and "sameness" of His Essence. Catholics had always maintained that Christ was truly the Son, and truly God. They worshipped Him with divine honours; they would never consent to separate Him, in idea or reality, from the Father, Whose Word, Reason, Mind, He was, and in Whose Heart He abode from eternity. But the technical terms of doctrine were not fully defined; and even in Greek words like essence (ousia), substance (hypostasis), nature (physis), person (hyposopon) bore a variety of meanings drawn from the pre-Christian sects of philosophers, which could not but entail misunderstandings until they were cleared up. The adaptation of a vocabulary employed by Plato and Aristotle to Christian truth was a matter of time; it could not be done in a day; and when accomplished for the Greek it had to be undertaken for the Latin, which did not lend itself readily to necessary yet subtle distinctions. That disputes should spring up even among the orthodox who all held one faith, was inevitable. And of these wranglings the rationalist would take advantage in order to substitute for the ancient creed his own inventions.
It sounds like we agree on things. My husband is one of those who reads the New Testament in Greek and would read the Old Testament in Hebrew if he could get some classes. I should have thought more about your comment before posting the first time. FRiends?
What? Really? I think I could be just as happy with a bunch of sweet, juicy raisins...
I love anyone who carries a gun because they cannot carry a cop. Always friends...
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