Islam does not hate christianity

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witnesses have historically been counted as evidence by courts, the more the better. Maybe no longer, maybe we've degenerated to the point that such standards are meaningless.

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Actually, the reason eyewitness accounts are now known to be generally ureliable is through our increasing understanding of how the brain deals with memory.It used to be thought that memories were kind of like video tapes, but we now understand that all memories are reconstructions of events. Also, memory is very plastic and maleable and memories are often manipulated and greatly affected by our emotional state, personal prejudices and biases.It is not through any "degeneration" that we don't put as much stock in eyewitness accounts as we used to, but because science has increased our understanding.Let me ask you this;Do you accept the use of DNA evidence in crime investigations and criminal trials?If so, if the DNA of someone identified by a witness, or many witnesses, as being the perpetrator of a crime does not match the DNA gathered at the crime scene, would you ignore the DNA evidence in favor of the witness accounts?There have been many cases of people being exonerated by DNA evidence even though the witnesses are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that they correctly identified their rapist or mugger.

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OK, foiled by my imperfect knowledge of the Bible.

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No, not until I've reread the books of Daniel, Revelation and Zechariah to check out whether it was ever the case in the Bible, or until somebody produces a Bible quote clearly showing that an angel did actually give prophecy as well as explain it. (The only intermediary COULD be an angel, but Mohammed's "angel" was no angel of God in any case.) ? Yes.But we're off topic.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-27-2005 14:08 AM

Want to start another thread on this new topic? I don't think it will go very far but it is off-topic and it would be good to keep some of these rabbit trails off this one.

Sure, I'll submit it.

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I once had a stalemate discussion with Buzsaw about the nature of war verses in the Qur'an, here:
EvC Forum: Fundamental Biblical Christianity and Fundamental Islam Fundamentally 180% Opposites

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Start with my reply on message 82.

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I have enough on my plate here for the moment, but I'll check there later if I remember or you remind me.

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I can't write much at the moment but I'm keeping an eye on this. And Faith, you are just taking Qur'an verses out of context. Again.

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There are two sides on this, and my view is represented by Muslim scholars too. You can't win the dispute by accusing anyone of taking the verses out of context. Historically they have all too frequently been taken at face value, context notwithstanding, and they are preached at face value by the jihadists and this is as legitimate a reading as yours, and far more lethal. Tell me how you are going to persuade your strict fundamentalist Muslim brethren, such as Bin Laden and the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, and the Wahhabis who are defining Islam in 80% of American mosques, that their literal interpretation of the Koran is wrong? This whole discussion is academic at best until you can do that. Persuading me is irrelevant. Tell me how you are going to persuade them. I would prefer that the milder readings were obvious, but they aren't, the violent readings are the straightforward obvious ones and some of the most powerful leaders in Islam have said so.

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The Qur'an only said that violence is allowed in defense. Period.
2:178 is about retaliating. This is allowed in Islam.
2:190 is 'fight those who fight you'. Defense.
2:193 and 2:216 is about fighting against oppression. That's a reason.
The chapter 3 verses relate to the Battle of Uhud, which is an attack to Muslims in Medina by Mecca pagans. So they're all about defense.
4:89 is about violence against 'the hypocrites', a group of people that backstabbed the early Muslim community.
4:100 is not about fighting, it's about fleeing persecution (seeking asylum)! The translation's inaccurate.

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As I said, prove it to the Wahhabis who are calling the shots for Islam these days.

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If you have issues with that please specify.

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Now if you could be so kind in singling out one Qur'anic verse that tell me to do offensive violence against non-Muslims...

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If you interpret them all into oblivion obviously nobody is going to be able to show you even what is right there in black and white, as I've posted before.[Edit to add: ] And again, it's the fundamentalists who need persuading. All your apologetic does is lull people to the fact that there are plenty of Muslims who DON'T read the Koran with the spin you do, but take it as I've presented it.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-27-2005 14:22 AM

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It is that they repeated had them torn down after planting again, had their farm burned, had their children barred from school, with no justification. These actions can partially be confirmed from the links I posted about the destruction of Palestinian agriculture primarily olive trees. And then we have a wonderful comment of your following.

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But you present all of this as if the Israelis were simply insane destroyers and I don't buy it. We're talking about an area that breeds terrorists whether your family is involved or not and you are giving me NO way to judge this situation. They have REASONS for their actions. There is a Biblical Proverb about how one person's story sounds very reasonable until you hear the other side. Well there is no other side to your stories so there is no basis for judgment.

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He doesn't know why the Israelis destroyed them, he merely assumes there was no good reason because he believes his family had no part in terrorist action and misses the olive trees.

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How can I? I don't know anything about your family. All I'm doing here is saying the mere actions of the Israelis do not prove anything about the rightness or wrongness of their actions given the situation that such actions are their dealing with terrorists in those areas. It appears your family has suffered terribly but their suffering says nothing about why these things are happening. The reasons may not be about your family, but something else having to do with terrorist threats in the area, I don't know, but it is certainly about terrorist threats as that is why Israel does those things. If they're wrong in your family's case you can't prove it by the mere fact of their actions.And I don't know you personally so how can I believe you that your family is not somehow involved in the terrorism? You get all offended that I don't just trust you, but who in their right mind trusts a faceless person on a website? Unfortunately this is how the Palestinian side is often argued -- no facts, but a lot of feelings where there should be evidence.

Sorry, another duplicate.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-27-2005 14:52 AM

To which Faith replied: Faith, have ever read ANY of the Bible? It's beginning to sound like you're just like most Fundamentalists and Literalists and have never even read the Book you're quoting. Who, may I ask, spoke to Joseph relating the birth of what he believed to be a bastard?Then jar asked: to which Faith replied: So again I ask, "Do you agree that prophecy may be transmitted through beings other than GOD (if you do not agree then Jesus is nothing but a bastard) and that the GOD of Christians is the same GOD as the GOD of the Jews?And this really is on topic as you will find when we work through this.Please excuse my slowness but I'm just an old man and can't handle big ideas and concepts. I'm afraid I have to break them down into little pieces to get my old mind to fathom them.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Faith, I asked you what YOUR problem was with Islam, not what those websites problems were. I believe it is against forum guidelines to supply only bare links with no input from yourself.

You are asking people to condemn the actions of the Israelis on the basis of hearsay and emotion and it is totally one-sided. Really, it would be far better if you left your family out of this altogether because it does nothing but bring emotion into a discussion that requires dispassionate argument and real evidence, which your family's situation is not. Who knows, if the whole story were presented your family might be shown to be in the right, but the whole story is not getting presented here, not even a smidgen of the other side's point of view, and this is unfair argumentation. Is that an objective argument there or just an emotional outburst? See how you make this into a battle of emotion? You tell us "no reason" but you don't know that. Would you execute a person for a crime on the basis of an emotional witness' accusation? Be careful, that's how miscarriages of justice occur all the time. That's all you're doing here, making emotional accusations, proving nothing. I'm not in a position to prove anything with nothing but your feelings for facts, and you are proving nothing whatever. This discussion is completely worthless as it is all nothing but your emotional assertions, and I'm going to end it. No more discussion of Palestine from me. It's gone way off topic anyway.{edited to clean up quote codes)
This message has been edited by Faith, 02-27-2005 15:20 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 02-27-2005 15:24 AM

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jar writes:
So you agree that prophecy can be transmitted through an intermediary such as an angel?

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To which Faith replied:

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No, not until I've reread the books of Daniel, Revelation and Zechariah to check out whether it was ever the case in the Bible, or until somebody produces a Bible quote clearly showing that an angel did actually give prophecy as well as explain it.

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Faith, have ever read ANY of the Bible? It's beginning to sound like you're just like most Fundamentalists and Literalists and have never even read the Book you're quoting. Who, may I ask, spoke to Joseph relating the birth of what he believed to be a bastard?

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Good point, the birth of Jesus was announced by angels. My focus was on the Old Testament and it was on prophecy of future events.

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Then jar asked:

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If so, is the Christian GOD the same person as the Jewish GOD?

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to which Faith replied:
Yes.
So again I ask, "Do you agree that prophecy may be transmitted through beings other than GOD (if you do not agree then Jesus is nothing but a bastard) and that the GOD of Christians is the same GOD as the GOD of the Jews?

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I still need to study the scriptures more carefully to see if this is really prophecy or if the announcement of a fulfillment of prophecy is something else. Have you memorized every word in the scriptures? Neither have I. I've read the entire Bible but since it has come up I don't know in a given case whether a prophecy was given to an Old Testament prophet by an angel or in all cases merely explained by angels. The great majority of OT prophecy was given direct from the mouth of God to the prophet.

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And this really is on topic as you will find when we work through this.

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Please excuse my slowness but I'm just an old man and can't handle big ideas and concepts. I'm afraid I have to break them down into little pieces to get my old mind to fathom them.

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I'm not so young myself.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-27-2005 15:35 AM

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Faith, I asked you what YOUR problem was with Islam, not what those websites problems were. I believe it is against forum guidelines to supply only bare links with no input from yourself.

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OK, I'll go through them later and give my own input on them.

Prophecy is NOT simply predicting future events. If that were true then Mose would not be a prophet. Are you sure you've read the Bible?So again, "Can prophecy only be transmitted directly by GOD or can {S}He send word by an intermediary (which would mean you are again really limiting GOD), and is the GOD of the Jews the same GOD as that of the Christians?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thanks for that Faith, but I don't need a running commentary on the web sites, I just wanted to hear exactly what it is you have against Islam. To be quite frank, I find that many stories in the Old Testament are pretty bloodthirsty and advocate violence against other faiths, but only if you take the whole thing literally.I am assuming that you see the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, rather than a record written by fallible man? To be honest, stories like the slaughter of the Amakelites I see as man's attempts to justify what he has done by claiming "God told me to". I believe Peter Sutcliffe used the same tactic. Unfortunately for him, the courts didn't believe him.Yu will find encouragement to violence in the Bible and in the Koran if that is how you choose to interpret them. Snag is, you really have to interpret both in the same way to reach a valid conclusion. At the moment you seem to be judging the Bible by one standard and the Koran by another standard.If I'm not really understanding your position, then please enlighten me.

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The Qur'an only said that violence is allowed in defense. Period.

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But what is defined as "defense" may cover a lot of ambiguous ground.

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2:178 is about retaliating. This is allowed in Islam.

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But what is considered to be provocation may cover a lot of ambiguous ground.

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2:190 is 'fight those who fight you'. Defense.

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But "those who fight you" may be defending themselves in the first place but it could still be called fighting you right?Also isn't there quite a bit of leeway about what "fighting you" means? Simply saying a word against Mohammed can be provocation to war.

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2:193 and 2:216 is about fighting against oppression. That's a reason.

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And fighting against oppression may be without concern whatever for the causes of the oppression, right? Say, the Palestinian refugee situation was caused by the Arab states but blaming Israel and fighting Israel is just fine anyway, right? Say, the "occupation" is perfectly legitimate but if it causes oppression then it's okay to fight the "oppressors." And by the way, the jargon of "oppressor and oppressed" comes from Marxism.Just wanted to have a more complete answer to the above than I gave before.