What's the difference between Islam and Radical Islam?

It is true there are some major differences in doctrines. Doctrines and books, however, are not as powerful as human relationships. We can either learn to get along or we can have wars that wipe millions out.Which way do you believe is the wisest?Which way would Jesus advocate?

I certainly hope I drive people away from your false Jesus.

Allah is today the generic name of God but it started out as the name of one of a pantheon of gods in mecca, that Mohammed elevated to the status of God on the same level as the Biblical God.

Not really. Ultimately it is likely derived from El - which you can find in the Bible as a name of God. But by the time of Muhammad it just meant "The God"

The problem is you give them no alternative.

Allah was the main god in a whole pantheon of gods, Mohammed made into the monotheistic God. El in the Bible refers to the One Creator God. "The god" Allah was one of many which is polytheism, not monotheism. Mohammed invented a new meaning for it.

The truth can't alienate anyone from the true God, but your false fleshly God that you actually think is the same as the murdering god Allah, and your "Jesus" who is a saccharine nonentity that appeals to fleshly fallen humanity, ought to be rejected by all.

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Allah was the main god in a whole pantheon of gods, Mohammed made into the monotheistic God. El in the Bible refers to the One Creator God

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In reality El originally referred to the head God in a whole pantheon of Gods - and there are traces of that still in the Bible. Yahweh, too, was originally part of a pantheon.Besides if Paul could say that the Greeks worshipped God as "the unknown God" why would it be impossible for the Arabs to worship God as part of their pantheon ?Further, Muhammad did not simply promote a pagan God to the one God, his ideas about God came from Christianity and Judaism, too.

How many people do you know personally? Not us on the internet...I mean at your church? How many have you helped? You can attack me all you like. Why not ask Jesus what to say before you type it?

What an utterly stupid thing to say Faith. No one has claimed they are not two different religions but just as with the Jews (who also know, not just believe) that God has no son worship the very same God as the Christian creation.

Far as I can see, Phat, you're the one who's attacked me. I wrote about the history of Islam, you responded without addressing any of it, just basically saying how knowing some Muslims was better than knowing the truth about Muslim history. I said you were wrong, you eventually got into personally attacking me personally about how I turn people away from Jesus -- by telling the truth about Islam? ;Apparently that's what you think. But in your posts you've revealed how little you know when you said we worship the same God. Do you really think you can attract people to Christ by saying something so false? There is nothing similar between Islam and Christianity, I mean nothing. Their God is completely different from ours in every possible way, and their "prophet" Mohammed "converted" people by slaughtering those who refused his religion. How are you going to win Muslims to Christ by saying their religion is the same as Christianity? If they're the same they have no reason to change. They even think they recognize Jesus because he's called a prophet. They need to be shown how wrong that is.Is that attacking you? Pointing out how wrong you are in ways that can be proved if you'd only stop trusting in your "intuition" and learn a few things? I finally did get to the point where I said your God and Jesus are false, and what's the point of winning someone to a false Christ? Who is that "helping?" But you are certainly attacking me by saying I drive people away from Christ by telling the truth about Islam. Anybody turned away by such truth isn't open to Christ anyway.All this is just you being offended that I say you are wrong. And boy are you wrong -- so you have to attack me personally.Most Muslims don't learn the history of Islam. At least one I read about turned away from Islam by taking the time to learn about that history. When he learned the truth it disgusted him. I can't remember if he became a Christian at that point or not but I think he eventually did. You don't serve them or Christ by avoiding such truths. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not according to the Bible. "El" may have had other meanings among the pagan nations but in the Bible El is the generic name for the One Creator God. I suppose you mean the "us" in Genesis: "Let us make man...?" I'm sure you know that in the Biblical context that refers to the Trinity: ONE God in three Persons, not to a pantheon. The Bible is relentlessly and consistently monotheistic. Jehovah was never a part of a pantheon, the point of the Bible is to reveal His nature and character and that is as the One and Only Creator God. Perhaps you get this stuff from the "scholars" you put above the Bible? They will always lead you astray. Many of the most famous of them don't believe in much of it. How can you find truth that way? Truth is only found by believing the Bible, period. The scholars will only mislead you. Paul needed a way to talk to the polytheistic and intellectual Greeks about Christ in a peculiarly inhospitable environment. He may have thought the "unknown god" they included in their pantheon represented the Creator God, that's not clear. but in any case he was able to use the idea to teach them about the true God. And he quoted a Greek poet about the nature of the true God "in whom we live and move and have our being" so he did know they had some recognition of the one true God.If he'd had Islam to deal with and managed to avoid getting his head whacked off before half a minute of preaching, perhaps he would have made use of Allah in a similar vein. But there doesn't seem to be a Creator God in Mohammed's world before he elevated Allah to that status. Even as "the god" Allah appears as merely the main one of many. Yes they did. It was the pagan Arabs who worshiped the pantheon he wanted to convert to the one God, but not to the God of Judaism or Christianity but to this new one he got from "the angel Gabriel" he believed was superior to both. Things would have been so different if only Mohammed himself had converted to Judaism or Christianity instead of coming up with this brand new religion made up of bits and pieces of both which he didn't understand anyway, and then spreading it by the sword.

According to the Quran Allah is not part of a pantheon, he is the One God the God of Abraham and Moses and Jesus. So did Mohammed. Not according to the Quran. Not according to the Quran.

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Not according to the Bible. "El" may have had other meanings among the pagan nations but in the Bible El is the generic name for the One Creator God

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As I said, there is an exact parallel. When will you learn that making poorly-considered excuses is not a winning debating strategy ?

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I suppose you mean the "us" in Genesis: "Let us make man...?

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No, I don't mean that, or not only that.

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Perhaps you get this stuff from the "scholars" you put above the Bible?

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By which you mean I trust real scholars more than I trust the men YOU put above the Bible.

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They will always lead you astray. Many of the most famous of them don't believe in much of it. How can you find truth that way? Truth is only found by believing the Bible, period. The scholars will only mislead you.

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An unprejudiced view is a far better way to find the truth than the gross prejudice of dogmatic belief. And the fact that you choose lies and slander to fight against the truths found by scholars only demonstrates that you are no Christian.And we know that when the book of Romans told you to obey the law of the secular authorities you appealed to a contradictory passage that you never found and probably doesn't exist to claim a loophole. Your belief in the Bible is not all you would have us believe.

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Paul needed a way to talk to the polytheistic and intellectual Greeks about Christ in a peculiarly inhospitable environment. He may have thought the "unknown god" they included in their pantheon represented the Creator God, that's not clear.

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So your only counter is that Paul might have been lying. Do you really want to say that ?

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Yes they did. It was the pagan Arabs who worshiped the pantheon he wanted to convert to the one God, but not to the God of Judaism or Christianity but to this new one he got from "the angel Gabriel" he believed was superior to both.

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Which would make perfect sense if he was speaking for the real creator God of Abraham and Jesus as he claimed. And if the Allah of the Arabs was a distorted memory of that God - which the parallels with El hardly discourage - your argument goes to nothing. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

No, it's Arabic for God.Look, here's the first verse of the Bible in Arabic (translated by Smith & Van Dyke in 1865).فِي الْبَدْءِ خَلَقَ اللهُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَNote that the word for God is اللهُ --- Allah --- because that is the Arabic for God. If you told an Arab, whether a Muslim or a Christian Arab, "لا أعتقد في اللهُ", you would be claiming to be an atheist, rather than claiming to disbelieve in the Islamic take on God in particular.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.