Young People Converting to Islam

Unending Powerhouse Match said:
My understanding is that she was some kind of weird-ass Nestorian.
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This would make sense. Cos why would she not correct Mohammad? There’s another thing that could contribute to Mary being called part of the Trinity, but is Mary in the Trinity in the Koran or the Hadith?

If it’s in the Koran, I’ve read that the Koran you can hop online and read was codified 150 years after Mohammad’s death vs the 30 years after Christs death to the gospel of Mark or the 10 years after Christs death to Paul’s letters. A lot happened between the 620s and the late 700s. Abbasids could have had an agenda in laying out their final copy of the Koran. The Ummayads and Rashadoons were already long gone by the time the Koran we have today was codified.
 
I live in London nowadays and had seen some share of this. Muslims, for all their errors, actually believe in their cruel God, which is more than can be said about CoE or, indeed, many of the "Cultural Catholics" (I was once arrested by Met Police for interrupting a sermon during which a """Catholic""" priest implored listeners to tattle-tale their neighbors to the police after some awful new polcol law was passed). Young people do sense that spiritual devastation and it is no surprise that some turn to the alien but still living religion of Islam. And it's been going long before the current flareup of Israeli-Arab (now more like Israeli-Turkish-Iranian) conflict. Muslims also have "lover boys" who seduce loose women and then use mixture of threats and promises to convert them to Islam. Not like that would stop a whore from being a whore, sometimes even if the family is hardcore enough to go full honor killing mode.
 
Unending Powerhouse Match said:
That's an awfully big G.
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Arguably, all monotheistic religions worship the same God. Even ancient Egyptian monotheism and old Persian religion (although the latter paid homage to veritable throng of lesser spirits). At least, from the point of view of mere human reason, in whose cold light one Creator ends up in a position of Uncaused Cause. But only one has a correct Revelation. Human philosophy is silent on a subject of God-as-a-Person - that's something only He Himself can reveal. So, I have no doubt that Muslims do pray to the same God as we do - but what they think of Him is perhaps not very kind to His grace. For example, the dogmat of Trinity has not come from reason, even if some Neo-Platonic philosophers had thought similar thoughts, and Muslims have trouble understanding that with their headstrong monotheism. Or how Jesus could be both Man and God at the same time.
 
OrthodoxWanderer said:
Arguably, all monotheistic religions worship the same God. Even ancient Egyptian monotheism and old Persian religion (although the latter paid homage to veritable throng of lesser spirits). At least, from the point of view of mere human reason, in whose cold light one Creator ends up in a position of Uncaused Cause. But only one has a correct Revelation. Human philosophy is silent on a subject of God-as-a-Person - that's something only He Himself can reveal. So, I have no doubt that Muslims do pray to the same God as we do - but what they think of Him is perhaps not very kind to His grace. For example, the dogmat of Trinity has not come from reason, even if some Neo-Platonic philosophers had thought similar thoughts, and Muslims have trouble understanding that with their headstrong monotheism. Or how Jesus could be both Man and God at the same time.
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The God I pray to is triune, and does not have a satanic black cube for a house. Christianity is not reconcilable with Islam, or any other religion for that matter. There are too many directly conflicting fundamental teachings between them. Scripture is clear: No one comes to the Father except through Christ.
 
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OrthodoxWanderer said:
Arguably, all monotheistic religions worship the same God. Even ancient Egyptian monotheism and old Persian religion (although the latter paid homage to veritable throng of lesser spirits). At least, from the point of view of mere human reason, in whose cold light one Creator ends up in a position of Uncaused Cause. But only one has a correct Revelation. Human philosophy is silent on a subject of God-as-a-Person - that's something only He Himself can reveal. So, I have no doubt that Muslims do pray to the same God as we do - but what they think of Him is perhaps not very kind to His grace. For example, the dogmat of Trinity has not come from reason, even if some Neo-Platonic philosophers had thought similar thoughts, and Muslims have trouble understanding that with their headstrong monotheism. Or how Jesus could be both Man and God at the same time.
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Judiasim and Christianity are not monotheist religions, we Christians believe in the Trinity, we in no way worship the same God as the Muslims, as the scriptures say all the Gods of the nations are demons
 
OrthodoxWanderer said:
Arguably, all monotheistic religions worship the same God. Even ancient Egyptian monotheism and old Persian religion (although the latter paid homage to veritable throng of lesser spirits). At least, from the point of view of mere human reason, in whose cold light one Creator ends up in a position of Uncaused Cause. But only one has a correct Revelation.
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That’s how I always believed it. Islam has the right God, wrong revelation. Mohammad does not have the keys to the truth and Paul warned us “if anyone teaches a different gospel than us…” I’d give the Jews the benefit of the doubt too like Islam but
• the lack of continuity from the temple period
• Jesus, the big guy himself, questions their loyalty to God
Calls this into question.
 
KulturedKaveman said:
That’s how I always believed it. Islam has the right God, wrong revelation. Mohammad does not have the keys to the truth and Paul warned us “if anyone teaches a different gospel than us…” I’d give the Jews the benefit of the doubt too like Islam but
• the lack of continuity from the temple period
• Jesus, the big guy himself, questions their loyalty to God
Calls this into question.
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I would say they try to believe in the same god as us but fall short (and Zoroastrians may fall in the same category, perhaps even Taoists). Compare this to animistic systems like Shinto which equate divinity with the created world, or to polytheism which is inherently idolatrous and self-contradicting. Jews and Muslims at least believe in one Creator of all things who exists both within and beyond the creation.

However, Scripture is clear not only that God is a Trinity but also that one can only come to know the Father through the Son, and the Son through the Holy Spirit. Thus, I would say we do not believe in the same god as the Jews and Muslims.

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
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-1 Corinthians 12:13

All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
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-Matthew 11:27
 
I tend to agree with Jay Dyer on this. Like GoodShepherd says, the core of our theology is the trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Muslims profess that God is not a father and has no sons. So by very clear contradiction in the most basic elements of our God, we can see that it's not possible for the god of the Muslims to be the same as ours.

That's not to say that there isn't spermatikos logos seeded everywhere in the world. But it's a big difference from saying that there are goodhearted Muslims trying to find God, to saying that they have the right God they just got some details mixed up.
 
OrthodoxWanderer said:
Arguably, all monotheistic religions worship the same God.
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This doesn't hold water. For an extreme example, Satan worshippers can be considered monotheists. Plenty of gnostics who could be considered monotheists, they say creation is evil which is a blatant contradiction with Christian Scripture.

If you research monotheistic religions, they have wildly different teachings, stories and morality. Rastafarians are monotheists. So how could they worship the same God? God has told us how we should worship and how we should live in the Scripture and if that is contradicted wildly like it is by many monotheistic groups then there's no way they can be worshipping our God.
 
One can reason oneself into monotheism. Everything has a cause, the the cause has a cause, etc, etc. Eventually, this loop has to terminate somewhere. Aristotle got his idea of the Prime Mover, but otherwise his writing is almost that of an atheist, clearly he had not considered God as a Person. The doctrine of his teacher, Plato, is a bit more intriguing. While Socrates in Platonic dialogues pays homage to Greek gods, in his reasoning it becomes evident he's a monotheist who believes in a single Creator, who is also fundamentally good. Although, Plato is rather evidently not fond of the world and his ideal Republic is at war with it, lest the evils of the imperfect world corrupt the citizens of the ideal polis. There were other pagan monotheists, like the Stoics, but, unlike Platonic-Aristotlean thought, they haven't influenced the Christian philosophy and theology much, so their ideas fell on wayside. But all of this is just human philosophy, no divine revelation. That's where Faith comes in; Reason alone can bring you no further.

And here's a passage from the Acts (17:15-33):
"And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed; Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing). Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent; Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them."

So, St. Paul clearly considers the Athenians to be honoring the same God as he does, but lacking revelation, which is Christ Jesus.
 
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OrthodoxWanderer said:
One can reason oneself into monotheism. Everything has a cause, the the cause has a cause, etc, etc. Eventually, this loop has to terminate somewhere. Aristotle got his idea of the Prime Mover, but otherwise his writing is almost that of an atheist, clearly he had not considered God as a Person. The doctrine of his teacher, Plato, is a bit more intriguing. While Socrates in Platonic dialogues pays homage to Greek gods, in his reasoning it becomes evident he's a monotheist who believes in a single Creator, who is also fundamentally good. Although, Plato is rather evidently not fond of the world and his ideal Republic is at war with it, lest the evils of the imperfect world corrupt the citizens of the ideal polis. There were other pagan monotheists, like the Stoics, but, unlike Platonic-Aristotlean thought, they haven't influenced the Christian philosophy and theology much, so their ideas fell on wayside. But all of this is just human philosophy, no divine revelation. That's where Faith comes in; Reason alone can bring you no further.

And here's a passage from the Acts (17:15-33):
"And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed; Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing). Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent; Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them."

So, St. Paul clearly considers the Athenians to be honoring the same God as he does, but lacking revelation, which is Christ Jesus.
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This is fair enough but it's a much more limited assertion than the one I was replying to. Just because some folks were reaching for God without knowing him, doesn't mean that's the case for every monotheist religion.

It is an interesting topic though. I think that perhaps every culture did have knowledge of The God sometime far, far in their past; deep, deep in their consciousness. But corruption, perversion, darkening of the nous, or simple lacking of spiritual teachers, caused it to be lost. Case studies like the Russian missionary work among the Alaskan natives is very interesting, with how quickly they seemed to pick it up.
 
Iakobos said:
It is an interesting topic though. I think that perhaps every culture did have knowledge of The God sometime far, far in their past; deep, deep in their consciousness. But corruption, perversion, darkening of the nous, or simple lacking of spiritual teachers, caused it to be lost. Case studies like the Russian missionary work among the Alaskan natives is very interesting, with how quickly they seemed to pick it up.
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This is basically a focal point of Guenon's works, although perhaps it is better suited to discussion in another thread.
 
For people who want to dive deeper into the philosophical issues about whether the Abrahamic religions are worshipping the same God, here's an essay from a Catholic Thomist philosopher

edwardfeser.blogspot.com

Christians, Muslims, and the reference of “God”

The question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God has become the topic du jour in certain parts of the blogosphere. ...
edwardfeser.blogspot.com edwardfeser.blogspot.com

He makes the argument that he thinks the three religions do worship the same God even if the other two religions get certain things significantly wrong such as not believing in the Trinity. Speaking of which, I saw a debate between Jay Dyer and Catholic apologist Trent Horn where they got into it about whether Abraham was worshipping the same God when Abraham had no idea about the Trinity and walked on Earth before Christ did which was part of a larger debate about whether other monotheistic religions were worshiping the same God even if they don't believe in or have no knowledge of all on the Trinity like Abraham. Jay did give some Biblical arguments that Abraham did actually encounter the Trinity even if he wasn't aware of it. The above article touches on this subject

Similarly, it is perfectly coherent to say that Muslims are “importantly” and “crucially” wrong precisely because they are referring to the very same thing Christians are when they use the word “God,” and that they go on to make erroneous claims about this referent. That the errors are “important” or “crucial” is not by itself sufficient to prevent successful reference. And since Muslims worship the referent in question, it follows that it also is not by itself sufficient to prevent them from worshipping the same God as Christians.

Even errors concerning God’s Trinitarian nature are not per se sufficient to prevent successful reference. Abraham and Moses were not Trinitarians, but no Christian can deny that they referred to, and worshiped, the same God Christians do. It might be objected that though they were not Trinitarians, this is only because they did not even know about the doctrine of the Trinity, whereas Muslims do know about it and positively reject it. But this is irrelevant. From the beginning of the history of the Church, Christians did not accuse others of worshipping a false God merely because they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. For example, those Jews who rejected the claim that Jesus was the incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity were not accused by the early Church of worshipping a false God. Nor were heretics generally accused of this. For example, at least some Arian baptisms were considered valid because of the Arians’ use of the Trinitarian baptismal formula, despite the fact that Arians held to a heretical understanding of the divine Persons. These baptisms could not have been considered valid had the Arian understanding been so radically deficient that “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” failed to refer to the divine Persons at all, but instead referred to false deities.
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Also in the article above has Feser giving an argument about what he thinks are the standards for determining an adherent of a religion is worshipping the same God as Christians do even if they get significant theological points wrong (like Muslims and Jews) or if their conception of God is far enough from the Christian God that they must be worshipping something completely different. He uses Mormonism as an example of a religion that has a conception of God that is so far off the mark that it can't be said to the same God. This could also apply to the Satanist example from an earlier post in this thread.

The Mormon conception of deity, then, makes of God something essentially creaturely and finite, something which lacks the absolute metaphysical ultimacy that is definitive of God in Catholic theology and in classical theism more generally. Even Arianism does not do that, despite its grave Trinitarian errors. To be sure, Arianism makes of the second Person of the Trinity a creature, but it does not confuse divinity as such with something creaturely. On the contrary, because it affirms the full divinity and non-creaturely nature of the Father, it mistakenly supposes that it must deny the full divinity of the Son. It gets the notion of divinity as such right, and merely applies it in a mistaken way. Mormons, by contrast, get divinity as such fundamentally wrong. Hence their usage of “God” is arguably merely verbally similar to that of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, et al. They can plausibly be held not really to be referring to the same thing as the latter, and thus not worshipping the same God as the latter.

Now, say what you will about Islam, it does not make of God something essentially creaturely. That God is absolutely metaphysically ultimate, is that from which all else derives, that which not only does not have but could not in principle have had a cause of his own, etc. is something Muslim theology understands clearly. Hence from a Christian point of view Muslims clearly must be regarded as like Jews and Arians rather than like Mormons. They are in error about the Trinity, but not in error about divinity as such.
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I think the view that Judaism, Christianity and Islam share the same God is patently false.

From a purely anthropological viewpoint one can see them as having relation to one another. But to say they are worshipping the same God is like taking two political philosophies that are related in terms of having influenced one another and making the claim that the related philosophies are thus the same philosophy.

There is one important distinction between Christianity and both Judaism and Islam. Christianity worships Christ as Lord, Judaism and Islam reject this. They are not the same.
 
Lawrence87 said:
I think the view that Judaism, Christianity and Islam share the same God is patently false.

From a purely anthropological viewpoint one can see them as having relation to one another. But to say they are worshipping the same God is like taking two political philosophies that are related in terms of having influenced one another and making the claim that the related philosophies are thus the same philosophy.

There is one important distinction between Christianity and both Judaism and Islam. Christianity worships Christ as Lord, Judaism and Islam reject this. They are not the same.
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Judaism especially is outright virulently hostile towards Christ.
 
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