Random Columns 2008-10-07T02:20:48Z http://columns.guidetosalvation.com/atom.aspx Quick Blogcast A Different Religion? tag:columns.guidetosalvation.com,2006-11-01:2bd4c086-1daa-4a95-8a17-f833eb4b3ca1 Tarek 2006-11-01T17:45:00Z 2006-11-01T17:45:00Z The Religion of Islam is the most misunderstood religion in the Western World today.  While the news is constantly making mention of the religion, few actually have knowledge of its true teachings.  Many believe it is a distinct religion based around  a God by the name of Allah and a figure by the name of Muhammad.  To them, not much is known about Muhammad.  Many believe that Muslims pray to him, or that he is even viewed as some sort of god.  Others believe that he is a sort of a Christian Jesus-like figure, a god-man that came to save the world.  These perceptions could not be any further from the truth.  Not only will you NEVER find a Muslim that believes this, but the Prophet Muhammad himself adamantly and consistently went out of his way to make it known that he was nothing more than the slave and messenger of Allah. 

     This may lead one to ask, ‘So just who exactly is Allah’?  Simply, Allah is the God of Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, Jesus, and other biblical figures.  Allah is the Arabic word for ‘The God’.  Islam is actually the continuation of the religion of Abraham.  The Prophet Muhammad wasn’t sent with a new religion, he was sent to confirm the previous revelations and to call the world to submit to the one and only God.

     While most mainstream Christians believe in a Trinitarian concept of God and the Divinity of Jesus, they have difficulty finding a clear-cut verse in the Bible to back such a belief.  In fact, many Christians are oblivious to the fact that the word Trinity does not exist in the Bible.  Also, many are unaware that Jesus never once in the Bible claimed divinity.  He actually claimed the contrary on numerous occasions (John 14:28, Mark 10:18 for just a few of many examples).  Muslims believe that Jesus was a great prophet sent by God to preach the Gospel.  Jesus, according to the Bible, was viewed as a prophet in his time (Matt 14:5, Matt 21:11, John 7:40).  Jesus himself admitted to being a prophet (Matt 13:57). 

     Islam recognizes the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels.  Note, this does not mean that the Bible is a revelation from God, it means some of the books in the Bible were, in their original form, revelations from God.  The Bible wasn’t composed till long after the death of Jesus, and most of the NT was written by Paul of Tarsus, who never in his life met Jesus.  The books of the Old Testament existed before the birth of Jesus.   The Bible is simply a library of books.  There were over 30 Gospels in existence before the early church fathers decided to omit the majority and keep only the four that exist today.  The reasoning behind choosing only four, as Irenaeus rationalized, is as such , “There actually are only four authentic gospels. And this is obviously true because there are four corners of the universe and there are four principal winds, and therefore there can be only four gospels that are authentic.”   The Gospels that the Qur’an affirms, revelations from God through the Prophet Jesus, are not necessarily the same Gospels that are in existence today.  Many scholars, in fact, don’t even believe that the Gospels in today’s bible were even written by those that were credited.  None of the Gospels contained signatures or identify the author in any way.  Even with what exists today, none of the Gospels support the teachings of the trinity or divinity of Jesus.  

So what is the basic message of Islam?  Simply to worship and submit to God and to God alone.  This has been the message revealed to each and every Prophet as the Qur’an attests, “We never sent any messenger before you [Muhammad] without revealing to him ‘There is no god but Me, so serve Me.’ (21:25).  To submit to God means to willingly submit to his laws.   God wills that we live in peace with each other in accordance with justice.  It is the duty of every believer in the one true God to strive in attaining justice.  This is the true meaning of ‘jihad’.  To strive against your own desires, to help the less fortunate, to aid the persecuted, To respect your parents, to take care of the orphan, to be just with those that have not fought you because of you religion, whether they be Muslim or not.  The religion of Islam is more than just religion, it is a way of life.  It is the way of life God has prescribed for us.  Before dismissing this religion, one should consider the following:  This religion has been given enormous negative press throughout the years, but It still remains the worlds fastest growIng religion, why?  Because people become curious, look into it, and find something that seems familiar, something they were born to do.  They find that this religion calls them to submit to their creator, the one and only God, Allah.*

 

 

 

]]> The Religion of Islam is the most misunderstood religion in the Western World today. While the news is constantly making mention of the religion, few actually have knowledge of its true teachings. Many believe it is a distinct religion based around a God by the name of Allah and a figure by the name of Muhammad. To them, not much is known about Muhammad. Many believe that Muslims pray to him, or that he is even viewed as some sort of god. Others believe that he is a sort of a Christian Jesus-like figure, a god-man that came to save the world. These perceptions could not be any further from the truth. Not only will you NEVER find a Muslim that believes this, but the Prophet Muhammad himself adamantly and consistently went out of his way to make it known that he was nothing more than the slave and messenger of Allah. This may lead one to ask, ‘So just who exactly is Allah’? Simply, Allah is the God of Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, Jesus, and other biblical figures. Allah is the Arabic word for ‘The God’. Islam is actually the continuation of the religion of Abraham. The Prophet Muhammad wasn’t sent with a new religion, he was sent to confirm the previous revelations and to call the world to submit to the one and only God. Should You Believe In A Trinity tag:columns.guidetosalvation.com,2006-11-01:e5c8cafe-9354-43e4-a8b7-fb592592135e Tarek 2006-11-01T17:43:25Z 2006-11-01T17:38:00Z Consider the following:  God sent his Prophets with messages to mankind so that we know the proper way of worshiping him.  In order to worship God, we must first know who it is we are worshiping.  In the Old Testament, God makes it abundantly clear:

Deut 4: 35”Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.”

2 Sam 7:22”Wherefore thou art great, O LORD God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”

There are actually dozens more examples such as these in the OT.  God wants us to know who he is.  He sent Prophet after Prophet after Prophet  and never once did any of them teach a Trinity.  Then Jesus was sent, and what did he teach?  Let us see:

—John 14:28  "The father is greater than I"

—Mark 10:18 "And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."

—Mark 12:29 "And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord"

—John 6:38 "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."

There is not a single verse in the entire Bible that supports the Trinity doctrine.    The word ‘Trinity’ doesn’t even exist in the Christian scripture.  Jesus never once claims divinity in the New Testament.  The term ’Trinity’  wasn’t even coined till the 4th century, that’s over three hundred years after Jesus.  If anything, Jesus himself denied divinity with verses such as Mark 10:18 listed above. 

     Many Christians don’t realize that the Trinity doctrine isn’t even original to Christianity.   Consider Osiris-Dionysus who was worshiped centuries before Jesus:

●Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the savior and "Son of God."

●His father is God and his mother is a mortal Virgin.

●He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three Shepard's.

●He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.

●He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.

●He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.

●He dies at Easter time as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

●After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heave in glory.

●His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.

●His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolizes his body and blood.

It is important to also note that Jesus was not born on December 25th, and no scholar would ever attest to such.  There were many trinities prior to Christianity.  The Trinity is a doctrine of man since it is nowhere to be found in the Bible.  Keep in mind that scripture is always the supreme authority in religion, and not the church.  Scriptures contain the revelations from God to man, delivered through his chosen Prophets.  If you choose to believe in the Trinity, shouldn’t you try and reinforce such a belief with Gods word?*

 

 

]]> Consider the following: God sent his Prophets with messages to mankind so that we know the proper way of worshiping him. In order to worship God, we must first know who it is we are worshiping. In the Old Testament, God makes it abundantly clear: Deut 4: 35”Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.” 2 Sam 7:22”Wherefore thou art great, O LORD God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” There are actually dozens more examples such as these in the OT. God wants us to know who he is. He sent Prophet after Prophet after Prophet and never once did any of them teach a Trinity. Then Jesus was sent, and what did he teach? Let us see: Gospel of Judas tag:columns.guidetosalvation.com,2006-04-07:e35fb447-a1f2-4087-b217-4550c0180a2a Tarek 2006-11-01T17:45:06Z 2006-04-07T15:52:00Z I read in the Las Angeles Times that the Gospel of Judas is "considered by some to be the most important archaeological find of the past 60 years."  Will, I'm going to have to disagree.  I think all this discovery does is reinforce to us how corrupt the bible is.  The reason for this is because the article states that the gospel of Judas "was ruled heretical by early church leaders because of its disagreement with the conventionally accepted gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."  Does anyone find this troubling?  It was ruled heretical by the most absurd and unsophisticated method of "its disagreement with" the other gospels.

Hopefully this won't be a newsflash for any of you, but the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't come with a signature.  Nobody can really say for sure who wrote them.  It is a widely held belief in fact that the Authors of Matthew and Luke both copied from the Gospel of Mark and a document known as "Q".  There are many books written about the subject by Western scholars, a few for example:

"Who Wrote the Gospels?" By Randel McCraw Helms.
"Who Wrote the New Testament?" By Burton L. Mack
"The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read" By Tim Leedom
"The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say?"  Funk, Hoover, And the Jesus Seminar

These book all make arguments and present proofs to the reader.  If you are unbiased you will surely realize there is something very wrong.  According to the Jesus Seminar 82 percent of the quotes attributed to Jesus, he probably never said.  In the process of putting the Bible together, many gospels were deemed heretical and burned.  The earliest gospel, the gospel of Mark, dates back to 65-80 C.E.  That's a long time to remember things.  There are no original manuscripts of any of the Gospels, and the oldest copy of Mark ends at Chapter 16 verse 8, meaning everything after this verse was added later.  There are too many problems with the bible. 

Consider this:  The earliest versions of Mark stop at chapter 16 verse 8.  Mark 16:17 reads "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. "  If someone were to follow these instructions, they would surely die.  How do you know that by following a book so corrupted, you won't suffer the 2nd death (hell)?  Research it on your own.  Mix your research with Christian and Secular sources.  You may be alarmed at how unreliable the biblical sources actually are.

From the Boston Globe:
"Parishioners at morning Mass at St. John Chrysostom church in West Roxbury were buzzing yesterday over news reports about the release of the Gospel of Judas, which some scholars suggest could revolutionize people's understanding of early Christianity.

In his homily, the priest explained that the Catholic Church of today rejects the Gospel of Judas, just as it did in the early centuries of Christianity. The main reason, he said, is that the text asserts that salvation comes through special knowledge imparted by Christ to select people during his time on earth. Catholics and many other Christians believe that salvation comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus. "

So once again the Church rejects a gospel due only to the fact that it doesn't fit the current belief system.  I ask you this:  What if the Church accepted the wrong gospels all along, and Christians are following an errant belief system?  There seems to be too much conjecture involved with the bible for one to invest their eternity in.

]]> I read in the Las Angeles Times that the Gospel of Judas is "considered by some to be the most important archaeological find of the past 60 years." Will, I'm going to have to disagree. I think all this discovery does is reinforce to us how corrupt the bible is. The reason for this is because the article states that the gospel of Judas "was ruled heretical by early church leaders because of its disagreement with the conventionally accepted gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." Does anyone find this troubling? It was ruled heretical by the most absurd and unsophisticated method of "its disagreement with" the other gospels. Hopefully this won't be a newsflash for any of you, but the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't come with a signature. Nobody can really say for sure who wrote them. It is a widely held belief in fact that the Authors of Matthew and Luke both copied from the Gospel of Mark and a document known as "Q". There are many books written about the subject by Western scholars, a few for example: