your controversy is just your own ignorance.
It's like asking
'why didn't Jesus really speak to the rabbis clearly? why was he using ambiguous language and constantly attacking them?'
they carried a message, their job wasnt to go on 'uniting' people. the truth they represented was meant to seperate the wheat from the chaff. it's meant to expose ignorance aswell.
@AspiringSoul, My bad, my earlier reply to you wasn't that good. Anyway, let me address the issue of your statements:
'why didn't Jesus really speak to the rabbis clearly?" Even if Jesus had spoken to Jewish leaders, still Jewish leaders would have rejected Jesus. But if God had spoken to Jewish leaders and clarified the controversial nature of the events, then Jewish leaders would have accepted Jesus since they(Jewish leaders) believed their God is the true God.
You made another statement which is: "carried a message, their job wasnt to go on 'uniting' people." Let me show you the issue here: God appointed Moses and others as prophets to let us know his word. It didn't work as planned cause someone confused Jewish people or for some reason they ended up having a misunderstanding and this created the religious belief that we call Judaism. While God knowing this issue, he sent his son to Earth. Although he sent his son to Earth, he never made a logical/meaningful attempt to help them to figure out why their belief is false. Instead, this time, he created Christianity. So, the story tells us that while God supposes to bring harmony to Earth, his actions created conflicts on Earth (if God exists as you believe, these are huge issues that we cannot ignore) and we still have very little understanding of what created these issues. For almost 2000 years we can't find God or the angels. If angels or God truly care about human lives, they had plenty of time to communicate with us in a logical/meaningful way, so we could have fixed the issues but this never happened. Because of these issues, how can we come to the conclusion that God indeed spoke to us if he actually exists?
It doesn't feel easy to answer without knowing what you believe. Your writing sounds like it's coming from a background of atheism. Either way, I can point out that looking at the Abrahamic religions in a broader context gives us some answers. They might not be the answers you want to hear, though.
If you measure with your preconceived notions of good/bad, then, of course, your conclusion will be skewed. That's also a logical fallacy. More importantly, good/bad is the wrong measurement for the substance of religion. The right measurement is something called impact. And I would make this same argument to any atheist, so take notes.
Look at religion compared to philosophy in terms of impact. There's no philosophy "bible," and nobody goes to Philosophy class every Sunday. I can argue that the more intelligent being knows that faith/spirituality has a greater impact. So that's why we got Abrahamic religions instead of logical atheism.
I would further add that humans needed something to do. Having God solve all our problems would lead to nihilism bro
@Aero , I actually don't have any beliefs about religions (also neither an atheistic belief nor any other belief either), instead, I have come to certain conclusions based on the evidence that I saw. For instance, because of the reported events, I saw that Allah failed to see an obvious issue and I also see the same issue with the intelligence that communicated (assume an intelligence indeed communicated with people) with Jesus.
On the other hand, the issue that I addressed has nothing to do with good or bad. Because of certain events, we can see a conflict on Earth based on religious beliefs. If you say that the conclusions (referring to the original post) that I have arrived from the reported events are wrong, then we can discuss the issue.
Your original post is a lot to digest. I would suggest making a second, more concise post with your main question for clarity. But nevermind - mine is just as long lol
I quoted this part because I think it is interesting.
There are spiritual entities that can present themselves as something they are not. So how do we know the real angel Gabriel, or any other angel, presented itself to a person? In other words, given the nature of spirits, how do we know whether the spirit/angel is not actually an entity with deceptive intent but posing itself as something of "truth".
The important thing to note is spirits cannot engage in the physical realm without some form of permission. For instance, with a secular example, many scientists at cern did not believe in a spiritual realm. However, through their experimentation with atomic bombardment, they picked up images of spiritual entities. My point is their action was an invitation for certain spirits to manifest on our physical technology.
With this in mind, the same can be done in our personal lives. Our actions can invite certain entities to attach themselves or manifest themselves in our lives. We can either conduct actions that attract holiness and angelic spirits or actions that attract demonic entities. If a person is meditating in order to invoke spirit(s) and communicate with them, and then encounters a spirit... how can we validate this spirit is from God? Well we can Look at its fruit. Listen to what it says. But then we can also assess what the person was doing when he/she encountered the spirit. Were their lactions in line with God or not? What does God say about meditation? Meditation by the sea, under the sun, moon or under trees?
Given God, and his record of faithfulness/being true to his word, was already in place (historically and spiritually) before Muhammad was born, whatever an angel claims to Muhammad must be in align with what God has already spoken/established. If it is not in line with that, then in this context it is not viewed as truth.
The Bible says there are spirits that disguise themselves as angels of light. When new agers are meditating and conducting their rituals, they claim to see an entity that appears as the catholic visionary of Jesus Christ (Caucasian with facial hair). At the same time, there are luciferian groups that speak to a spirit called lord sananda matreya that looks like the new age Jesus Christ AND the catholic Jesus Christ. So, what is the truth? Are these all the same spirit? And is this really Jesus christ of the Bible? Well no. The spirit suggests for individuals to become their own gods. That sounds familiar (genesis - garden of eden). This is the complete opposite of what Jesus christ of the Bible spoke of - all of which is historically accounted for in the Bible and other ancient texts (he went through an entire "court" trial due to his claims).
Basically it depends on the standard of which you use as reference for the claims. There is countless secular and religious evidence supporting the Bible as historically accurate and original. Hence why many ancient texts are compared to the Bible for cultural and historical (time line) context.
@craniumind , I wish I could address the issues related Abrahamic religions in one or two words. If you believe that the father of Jesus is the true God, how can you explain this?
Let's say the father of Jesus is the true God and he sent his son to Earth to help humanity 2000+ years ago. But now the question is why didn't he speak to Jewish leaders and tell them that he is sending his son to Earth? Why this is an issue? Because of the reported events, we know that Christianity is based on the Hebrew Bible and Christians believe that Hebrew Bible has the word of God (the word of the father of Jesus). Therefore, we can say that either father of Jesus (God) has spoken to Jewish people or at least we can say that the beliefs of Jewish leaders/people had when Jesus was on Earth were due to the actions performed by the father of Jesus(God). Therefore, the father of Jesus (God) should be responsible for the religious belief that Jewish leaders/people were having at that time (if we consider this line of thinking).
Although the father of Jesus (God) knew that the beliefs of Jewish leaders/people (God should know the cause of confusion), he did not say a word to Jewish leaders/people; and the intelligence claims to be God completely neglected the issue or did not make any logical/meaningful effort to fix the issue (If God was thinking that just by talking to Jesus directly and/or Jesus showing miracles to people would be enough for Jewish people to know that God has sent a prophet or his son to Earth, that's bad judgment. And that implies the intelligence claims to be God who communicated with Jesus had no clue how to resolve complicated human issues). Overall, the story of Jesus tells that, instead of God fixing the issue—by sending his son to Earth—he ended up creating another religion on Earth (His actions have already created Judaism by this time). By doing so, he made the situation worst. Because now Jewish people and Christian people even found reasons to argue and even to kill each other based on religious beliefs. Who is responsible? The intelligence claims to be God (or the father of Jesus). Because of these issues, either we have to say that the intelligence claims to be God has no knowledge or critical thinking ability to resolve human issues or if not we were communicating with an intelligence who deceived our civilization. If not, what reasoning can be used to explain this? What can we say about these controversies when we consider the parallels mentioned in this overall research?
@Wigi,
@TokiEl , please refer to the reply that I made to craniumind.
@Fajr, although you have come to the conclusion that Jesus is a prophet sent by Allah, Christians are not having the same belief. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Although their belief is false (another conclusion that you seem to have arrived), Allah's actions created Christianity (their beliefs) because of his work with Jesus. So, having paganism and Buddhism, and other religions during this period is actually not the issue. This is why I asked the following question earlier:
Let's say after Allah spreading his word about the Quran by appointing Jesus as a prophet, Satan confused Christian leaders. However, then that means, Allah knew exactly that Christian leaders were deceived by Satan after he sending Jesus. But Allah did not say anything to Christian leaders (till the 7th century and even up to this day, he totally neglected the issue) and instead of fixing the issue, he used the prophet Muhammad and worked with him for 22/23 years (had enough time to fix it) to spread the word about the Quran. By sending the Quran, he made the situation worst. Cause now Christians and Muslim people have a reason to argue and kill each other as well based on religious beliefs.
Therefore, if we take this hypothesis to Justify Allah's work, this hypothesis tells us that Allah or the intelligence claims to be God has no knowledge or critical thinking ability to resolve human issues, other than creating more and more conflicts among people or if not, this whole story implies that an intelligence was deceiving prophet Muhammad.
This is not the only issue, the story tells us that he spoke to Moses and others as well, and that also created a religious belief, which we call Judaism. When he appointed Jesus as a prophet, he ignored Jewish people as well, and instead of helping them to understand their false beliefs and correcting them, his actions ended up creating Christianity as well. So my question is, how can we explain these controversies? If so, based on what reasoning?
The first one.
But we don't even need to discuss Muhammad to know this if we approach the theological arguments made (or insinuated) in your incoherent, convoluted post. Basically, Islam is an ontologically defective religion that can't conceive of God outside of quantitative categories and is therefore fixated on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This is evident when you make such absurd claims as God not making a "logical" attempt to be understood, and then present illogical meanderings about Jesus.
You know, even if you proved that God is quantitatively one in his personhood so that the Son is not of the same essence as the Father, it doesn't logically follow that Islam's other claims about Jesus have to be accepted, right? There is literally no reason for anyone to accept that Jesus is even "just a prophet" other than "the Qur'an says so". Besides, who is this Jesus of Islam anyway? Can Muslims tell us anything about where he was born, which period he lived in and what he taught by only using the Qur'an? You first have to convince people that Jesus was someone worth caring about before even considering whether he was "no more than a messenger of God".
But of course, the doctrine of Islam does not actually evangelize the godless, those to whom the Qur'an was allegedly revealed (except maybe with wild theories about "scientific miracles of the Qur'an"); it is mostly predicated on belief in the Bible and dispelling "false beliefs" about "what was previously revealed", which as this thread shows, is why these polemics are invariably targeted at Christians (despite the usual pleading about "Abrahamic religions"). These topics can only be recycled so many times before they go beyond the point of amusement and seem like hopeless cries of desperation. People are a lot smarter than Muslims give them credit for and, I dare say, are tired of having their intelligence insulted.
@recure, please refer to the reply that I made to
@craniumind.
