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O son of Adam, so
long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you
have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach
the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I
would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins
nearly as great as the earth and were you then to face Me, ascribing no
partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.
Hadith - Qudsi 34
ASK YOURSELF...
Questions are the best source to discovering truth.
Following the right religion is the absolute most important thing we can do
in our lifetime. We must know who God is and how he is to be worshiped.
We were given this life for the sake of our eternity. This life determines where we spend
eternity. What is 70 years compared to eternity? Absolutely nothing.
Now, the question is, where and how do we want to spend eternity? Do we
want to suffer in hellfire (If you don't believe in hell, you most definitely
better make sure that it doesn't exist, cause if it does, you are following a
false doctrine) or do we want to be rewarded with the gardens of paradise?
This article will simply give you questions to ask yourself. Questions
that will make you think. If you believe you have a solid answer to these
questions, then e-mail me at
Tarek@guidetosalvation.com and I will post it. If you have questions
for the followers of any other religion, you may also e-mail those to me and I will
post them. your questions must be supported by doctrine or sources
accepted by those that follow the target religion.
Trinitarian Christians, Ask yourselves...
-Let's imagine that a person was
stranded on an island all alone since a very early age. This person never
had any outside influence whatsoever. One day, a bible washes ashore.
From reading the bible, would this man find the doctrine of the trinity?
The supreme authority in
Christianity is the Bible. Every doctrine should come from the Bible.
Scriptures are meant to be Gods message to man. If God wants to be
worshiped, then he must first let those to worship him know who it is they are
worshiping. In the Old Testament this is clear:
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Deut 4: 35Unto
thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God;
there is none else beside him. |
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Deut 4: 39Know
therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he
is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none
else. |
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Deut 6: 4Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: |
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1 Sam 2:2There
is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is
there any rock like our God. |
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2 Sam 7:22Wherefore
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. |
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1 Kings 8:60That
all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that
there is none else. |
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1 Chron 17:20O
LORD, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee,
according to all that we have heard with our ears. |
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Isa 45:5I am
the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I
girded thee, though thou hast not known me: 6That
they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that
there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
|
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Isa 46: 9Remember
the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am
God, and there is none like me, |
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Mark 12:29And
Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O
Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: |
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Note: these
are just a few of many. |
If God is in fact a trinity, it should be found clearly in the Bible.
It should be logical, with no question marks or room for misinterpretation.
1 Cor 14:33 "For God is not
the author of confusion" (KJV)
So where in the bible would this
person find a Trinitarian God? Keep in mind, the verses should be specific
and without confusion. For example, a common Trinitarian "proof-text" is
John 10:30, which reads:
"I and my Father are one."
The problem is that Jesus (pbuh) did
not mean one in substance, but one in purpose. This can be easily shown
with the following three verses:
John 17:22 "And the glory
which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are
one:"
John 14:28 "my Father is
greater than I."
Mark 10:18 "Jesus said to
him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."
The three above verses make it clear that Jesus (pbuh)
meant to say that he and God are one in purpose and nothing else. It would
take extreme stubbornness to read it any other way.
-Did Jesus (pbuh)
not deny divinity in Mark 10:18?
Mark 10:18 "Jesus said to
him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."
Jesus (pbuh), it is generally agreed regardless of religion,
came with the purpose to save. If a person went up to someone in that role
and asked, "How can I be saved?" The person in the savior role would
answer immediately, because that is what he's here for. It would take
something of incredible importance to interrupt his direction. Let us read
the sequence surrounding Mark 10:18:
Mark 10:17 "As he was
setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him,
‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 18Jesus
said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
19You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You
shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false
witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.”
’ 20He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these
since my youth.’ 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and
said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money*
to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’
22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away
grieving, for he had many possessions.
A man walks up to Jesus (pbuh) and basically asks "Good Teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?" This question is exactly what
Jesus (pbuh) was sent to answer. What does Jesus (pbuh) do? before
answering he stops to correct something that he must feel is so incredibly
important that it couldn't wait. He stopped to tell the man that he wasn't
God nor did he deserve any of the attributes that belong to God. He did
this by asking, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."
Then, after clearing that up, he went on to answer the question.
Basically keep the commandments and give charity, something every Muslim is
required to do.
-By claiming Jesus (pbuh) as divine,
doesn't this contradict the Old Testament?
Numbers 23:19 "God is not a
man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he
said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"
To say that Jesus (pbuh) is half-man, half-God, doesn't that
create a contradiction with the above Old-Testament verse? God is not a
man, Jesus (pbuh) was a man. He was born of a woman, the Bible describes
him with emotions, it describes him eating... these are human attributes, but
the OT clearly says God is not a man.
-How
do you explain "Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani?"
(from
www.answeringchristianity.com)
The Bible says
“For
the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones.
They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be
cut off;” (Psalms 37:28)
But yet when
Jesus Christ (pbuh) was put on the cross
according to the Bible. He cried out
“About the ninth hour Jesus cried out
in a loud voice, "Eloi,
Eloi lama sabachthani?"—which means,
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mathew
27:46)
“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried
out in a loud voice, "Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which
means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)
How can Jesus
be forsaken when God does not forsake his faithful ones?? Now the
Christians have four options to choose from.
1.
1. The person put on the cross was not really Jesus.
2. Jesus (pbuh)
was not faithful to God.
3. Jesus (pbuh)
lied that God forsook him.
4.
4.
Bible is lying when it says that God does not forsake his beloved ones.
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An attempt to answer this
dilemma by BibleProbe:
And when
the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole
land until the ninth hour. Mark 15:33
Mark 15:34 - And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a
loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is,
being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
To God, the sight of sin is absolutely repulsive. Jesus'
mission reached its fulfillment when He was dying on the
cross on that holy day in Jerusalem. At that moment, the
sinless Jesus was being held personally responsible for all
sin. With that immense load of guilt (our guilt & our sins)
upon Him, for just a very few seconds, God the Father
couldn't stand the sight of His only begotten Son whom He
loves dearly.
Guide To
Salvations response:
I've got
Seven Bible Translations, and for the life of me I can't
find this explanation anywhere. Is this something God
expects the readers of the Bible to just assume? You
just basically added an entire event that does not exist in
the Bible. Where can I look up that "for
just a very few seconds, God the Father couldn't stand the
sight of His only begotten Son whom He loves dearly."
I thought we were commanded to
not add to Gods words (Revelation
22:18-19, Galatians 1:9)? I'd very much of have loved
to debate this in your forum, but that is impossible since
you have a habit of deleting posts that you can't explain.
Also, it sounds like you're saying that God weakened for a
few seconds. That is blasphemy on your part.
|
For entire article, please
see:
Ask Yourself
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What Famous Authors and Scholars Are Saying
About the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh):
"If a man like Muhamed were to assume the dictatorship of the
modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems that would bring it the
much needed peace and happiness."
"I have studied him -the wonderful man- and in my
opinion far from being an anti-Christ he must be called the saviour of
humanity."
-George Bernard
Shaw
“Muhammed is the most successful of all Prophets and religious
personalities."
-Encyclopedia
Britannica
"Muhammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never
forgotten by those around him."
-Diwan
Chand Sharma, The Prophets of the East, Calcutta 1935, p.122.
"People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense.
People like Gandhi and Confucius, on one hand, and Alexander, Caesar and
Hitler on the other, are leaders in the second and perhaps the third
sense. Jesus and Buddha belonging in the third category alone.
Perhaps the greatest leader of all times was Mohammed, who combined all
three functions. To a lesser degree, Moses did the same."
-Professor
Jules Masserman
"He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's
pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a
standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed
revenue; if ever any man had a right to say that he ruled by the right
divine, it was Mohammed, for he had all the power without its
instruments and without its supports."
-Bosworth
Smith, Mohammad and Mohammadanism, London, 1874, p.92.
For More, click
What They're Saying
About The Prophet Muhammad
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Is The
Trinity Original to Christianity?
It is important
for a Christian to research whether God indeed is a trinity. If not, then
you have the complete wrong idea of God and thus can't be worshiping him
correctly. Before one knows how to worship, they must first know who they
are praying to. The Jews and all the prophets sent to them never taught or
believed in a trinity. Jesus (pbuh) never taught a trinity. It is
important to understand where the concept of the trinity originated. Below
is a look and comparison of different trinities throughout history.
**Other Trinities existed before Christian
Trinity.
|
Dionysus
was a Big Name God,
He was first worshiped in Thrace
(north and east of Greece). He came to
Greece by the time Homer
wrote the Iliad in maybe 800 BC. His priest
Orpheus reworked His legend
in the sixth, maybe seventh century BC and by
Hellenistic times (after 332
BC) He was worshiped from Italy to Greece and into Egypt and the
Middle East. |
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Birth
Dionysus' mom was the mortal
woman, Semele; his dad was the supreme
God Zeus.
Death
and resurrection
The mysteries of Dionysus celebrated the death of the
God in the myth of young Dionysus-Zagreus, who died—was
torn apart by the Titans, boiled, and eaten. Only his
heart was left; it was buried and from it Dionysus was
resurrected and ascended to heaven. Isn't it amazing how
ridiculous other peoples' myths are!
Salvation
Belief in Dionysus brought salvation In Italy, in the
fourth century BC, texts written on gold plates
and buried with the dead, describe the
souls of Dionysus followers in the afterlife,
drinking not from one particular spring in
Hades, but from
another cool pool—and that will give them
divinity and eternal life. |
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Dionysus was celebrated in Civic religion and in mysteries. The
Mysteries of Dionysus included
 initiation
by bathing—baptism
a
sacred meal
a
myth about the death and
resurrection the god
salvation |
"The devils, accordingly, when they
heard these prophetic words, said that
Bacchus
was the son of Jupiter,
and ...having been torn in pieces, he
ascended into heaven."
[Justin Martyr, First
Apology, 54] |
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Rome
The historian Livy mentions the
faith in Rome as early as
186 BC.
[Livy, Roman History,
39, 3,6]
Julius Cesar
first formally recognized his mysteries in the mid
first century BC
[Servillus, Bucolics,
5,29} |
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Palestine
Greek Dionysus entered Palestine with Hellenism after
Alexander's conquest in 332
BC.
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The early
Christians acknowledged that Dionysus (his Greek name) /
Bacchus (his Latin name) came before Jesus. How? The
Christian Father Justin Martyr, writing in the 100s AD,
wrote that the Devil reading the Old Testament
prophesies of the Messiah sent Bacchus early, to trick
men about Jesus: |
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Greece
Dionysus is mentioned in Linear B tablets
from roughly
1,200 BC.
Herodotus'
describes initiation into the mysteries of Dionysus in
the fifth
century BC.
[Herodotus Histories book 4,
78 - 80]
Euripides'
play about him, the Bacchae, was
first performed about
400 BC. |
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More examples of pagan gods here:
Is
the Trinity Original to Christianity
Is Jesus (pbuh) the Begotten Son Of God?
NUMBERS 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie;
neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath
he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it
good?
Christians
believe that Jesus (pbuh) is the begotten son of God because he is called the
son of God in the Bible in a couple of places. Also, because the KJV of
the Bible says he's the begotten son of God. First off, let's go over a
few biblical verses:
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»Luke 3:38Which
was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of
Adam, which was the son of God.
»1
Chronicles 28:6And he (God) said unto me, Solomon
thy son, he shall build my house and my courts:
for I
have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father.
»Exodus 4:22And
thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD,
Israel is my son, even my firstborn
»Jeremiah
31:9They shall come with weeping, and with
supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of
waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble:
for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
»Psalms 2:7I
will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me
(David),
Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
»Deuteronomy 14:1Ye
are the children of the LORD your God
»Romans 8:14For
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
»John 1: 12But
as many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God, even to them that
believe on his name:
»Genesis 6:2That
the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were
fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
»See also:
Genesis 6:4, Philippians 2:15, Job 38:7, Philippians
2:15, Job 1:6,Job 2:1.
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As one can
see by the above verses, many are termed the Son of God in the Bible.
David is even called the begotten Son of God. But there is more. All
the recent translations of the Bible have made changes. Even the New
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which used the oldest manuscripts
available, including new discoveries such as Nag Hamadi and others that date
further back then the manuscripts used by the KJV. One of the Major
changes can be found in the following verse:
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»John 3:16 ‘For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (NRSV)
»John 3:16"For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a]
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV)
»John 3:16"For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him will not perish but have eternal life. (NLT)
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The term Son
of God was used to describe those that were servants of God. Lower-case or
Capital "S" means nothing. The Semitic languages (Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew)
don't use capital and lower-case lettering. This is a non-issue. Here is what
Grolier's encyclopedia says under "Jesus Christ":
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For more about the "Son
of God" please see:
Is
Jesus The Begotten Son Of God?
Paul vs. God, Jesus and
The Disciples
When reading the Bible, one of
the first things we learn in the book of Genesis is that God made the following
covenant with Abraham (pbuh):
Genesis
17:10This is my covenant, which ye
shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every
man child among you shall be circumcised.11And
ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be
a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. 12And
he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every
man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or
bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
13He that is born in thy house, and
he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and
my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting
covenant.
We learn from
these verses that this covenant was meant to be everlasting. As we
continue reading into the New Testament, we also discover the following:
Luke 2:21And when eight
days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called
JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
So here we see
that Jesus (pbuh) was also circumcised, in keeping with the covenant God made
with Abraham (pbuh). And continuing on to the book of John, we also learn:
John 7:22Moses
therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the
fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man.
Here Jesus (pbuh)
reaffirms the necessity of this covenant. After making it past the
gospels, we come to the books of Paul, but here, things suddenly change:
Galatians 5: 2Behold, I
Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. 3For
I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the
whole law. 4Christ is become of no effect unto
you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
Galatians 2: 7But
contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed
unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
Paul now says
that circumcision is not necessary. This causes a problem: Was this
covenant meant to be everlasting? How can Paul single-handedly end an
everlasting covenant from God? So how did the Apostles take this?
Let us find out:
Galatians 2:11 But when
Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood
self-condemned; 12for until certain people came from
James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and
kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. 13And
the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led
astray by their hypocrisy.
Galatians 2:14But when
I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I
said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner
of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as
do the Jews?
So, obvious by
the above verses, they did not agree with Paul. So what
does Paul do? He calls them hypocrites and not upright.
These are apostles that were with Jesus (pbuh), and Paul, who
never in his life met Jesus (pbuh) is calling them misguided
hypocrites. Keep in mind that Barnabas was the teacher and
protector of Paul, peter the rock (Matt 16:18And
I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. ) And James the Just.
For More About Paul Please Read the Following
Articles:
—Paul
vs. Jesus
—Paul
vs. God, Jesus and The Disciples
—Paul
Admits to Deceit
—Trial
of Paul
Tony Blair Comments on the Qur'an
| "To me,
the most remarkable thing about the Koran is how progressive
it is. I write with great humility as a member of another
faith. As an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming
book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their
origins, much as reformers attempted to do with the
Christian church centuries later. The Koran is inclusive. It
extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is
practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward
marriage, women, and governance. Under its guidance, the
spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian
or pagan lands were breathtaking. Over centuries, Islam
founded an empire and led the world in discovery, art, and
culture. The standard-bearers of tolerance in the early
Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands
than in Christian ones." |
Full article can be found here at:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
(Jan/Feb 2007 issue)
List Of Articles |
