Islam and Christmas

There are definately some contradictions there. I wonder how many muslims believe these exact scriptures. And I also wonder how many believe it , but act like they don't to get along or as not to sound extreme.

We most likely being God and the Angels. Jabriel (Gabriel) is the one who spoke to Muhammed throughout the Qur'an.

Raising up to life again is probably Judgment Day.

God cannot have a son, but that does not mean he can't do with the world as he likes. If God wants one to have a birth and he can create the Heavens and Earth, what's stopping him from doing so?

The Muslims simply deny the Trinity - Jesus is relegated to the standing of a prophet at best. And will stand BEHIND MoMo on the Judgment Day and apologize for the Christians tainting the message.

What surprises you here?

I see no contradiction. In this case "We" means "I". When God uses the first person, He uses "We".

good article and some very interesting points. I did not know this. It gives you something to think about

So, Nick, the angeles are allowed to put themselves on the same level as the One God? No way, and to insinuate that the angels have a say into what God chooses to do is blasphemous at best. The Angels were created BY God to do Gods bidding.
And if God "commands" a woman to have a child and puts that child inside Her womb, then who is the Father?
Jayson, the Muslims belive that there is NO God but Allah, right? No Son, no Holy Spirit, NO WE.

interesting but i agree that there doesnt seem to be a contradiction. Muslims believe like Grateful said that Jesus was a prophet on equal standing with Muhammad, the only difference being that Muhammad came last and will report last. (by "report" i'm referring to several different descriptions of various judgement day acts in hadith).

Hmm...how interesting. Yes, very interesting. That would mean that Jesus was born of Abraham's line through Judah! Gotcha! He was NOT born of Ishmael. Oh well, some other cult will come along given time if the nonsecularist Left doesn't destroy everything first. Thank you for the post.

The father, son, and the holy ghost. Seems like Christianity has some issues with pinning down the whole god thing to one diety as well!

What a pleasant conversation. I appreciate the kindness and respect accorded to one another here.

Great

The trinity is not an idea that is found in the bible under that title - theologians were trying to make sense of how it is that God, His son and the Holy Spirit seem to be interconnected, so they came up with the term, trinity. It seems to me that the relationship they have requires that believers rest in the mystery of the supernatural - we understand the 'natural.' We can relate to what is material and measurable, but the 'supernatural' is something beyond our understanding - maybe words just won't ever really do it justice, but they try... I think if we are going to understand the trinity, it requires trust that God has things figured out - maybe we don't have to put everything into neat little boxes.

Islam, like many forms of Christianity, likes to simplify who God is - "God would only do this." "God can only do that." "God would never lower Himself to..." That is how the Qur'an relates to the relationship between God and Jesus. Its not something that is easy for us to wrap our minds around - its SUPER-natural. Should the divine be something that is easy to figure out and define? It makes sense that God is complicated.

In Christianity, an important part of the story is that Jesus was divine: "I and the Father are one..." If God would go so far as to die as payment for the sins of humanity, this says a lot about the way God feels about humanity.

If there are many gods and God has competition, then He has a reputation to uphold - which is the way Islam thinks of God, that He is concerned about appearing shamed... The God of the Bible has no concern about this. The entire Bible is filled with stories about how God reaches out to humanity and is rejected time and time again. God's nation, Israel, are made slaves twice - people of other nations laugh at Israel - They had to be saying things like, "Their God is obviously false, or completely weak - if He was real, these people would not be slaves right now!" God's people in the Bible are inadequate and foolish - like most of us - the Bible tells of a people who God loves regardless of their inadequacy.

Its in their weakness and their inability that God shows up and rescues them. The Bible is about how God puts himself out there for humanity and how we sometimes respond appropriately, but much of the time we don't and instead of bringing glory to Him, we do the opposite - its when God comes into those situations that things turn around for His people.

The whole situation Jesus was born into - poor, no place to sleep on the night of his birth, conceived in an unmarried teenage girl, from a city thought to be a city of losers.

He doesn't choose to be born a prince, or to command armies - He chooses to be humble and to be thought of as lower than others. God chose this partly so humanity could see that God is not concerned with reputation...

Regardless of reputation, God will and can do amazing things. That is the story of the Bible.

No one is too 'low.' Nothing is too sinful, dirty or beyond His ability.

His love is so huge that He would do anything for us.


Islam presents arguments against that. Jesus, as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity, as God offering himself for us, to end that kind of thinking once and for all, - Islam is uncomfortable with the idea that God would lower Himself.

Islam wants the story to be neat and tidy.

In the Bible, Peter, Jesus most prominent disciple argues with Jesus and refuses to accept the idea that Jesus was going to die. Jesus says, "Get behind me Satan. Your thoughts are not the thoughts of God." Islam is like this.

I have friends who have converted from Islam. No one knows for sure what Mohammed was doing in that cave when he said he was meeting with the angel Gabriel, but the idea has been put forward, that the angel was not Gabriel - there was an angel and it was Lucifer/Satan. The Bible warns that Satan will disguise himself as an angel of light.

Islam does what it can to lead people away from the arms of the Father. God wants to bring us close to Him, but Islam wants to keep that from happening. In saying this, I am talking about the religion and the Qur'an, not Muslims.

Muslims are innocent people (just as much as any people are innocent) who have been tricked by culture and religion. They are people, like every other people, capable of peace or violence, love or hate. This is not about them.

The ideas presented above about Jesus are there to change the way people think about Jesus. If He isn't God's son and He was just another prophet, then Islam concedes, "yeah, he's interesting, but he's just one among many."

Judaism was a law based relationship with God. As is the case with any parent, infant relationship, rules need to be firm: "Don't put your hand on the stove!" "Don't play in traffic." There must be rules and expectations. Rules, ceremonies, rituals, these were there in order to help us relate to God - they were tools to lead us into sincerity as we turned our hearts back to Him on a regular basis. This is what God wanted from Israel and still what He wants from us today. Jesus came along and made this even clearer - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart." He emphasized what was important.

He came to "fullfill the law." - it was no longer the thing that made peace between humanity and God. He led people into a more mature relationship with God. In the same way that an infant grows into a teenager, the rules become less important and an understanding of respect and honor come into play.

God created Adam and Eve to be in the garden and enjoy life. He gave them one simple choice - Its like He was saying this: Choose me. I only want you to keep from doing this one thing - don't eat the fruit of this tree. In doing this, you are choosing to respect and honor me. Through the life of Jesus, we are invited back into that choice. Its not about law. Its about respect, honor and love for God... in choosing Him, we find freedom - and this is a freedom that cannot be found through law.

Satan was around in the garden, he was there trying to get the upper hand with Jesus, he was around Mohammed and he is around me and you today. What do we choose.

Effectively, in the lives of Muslims, Islam leads them away from freedom and back into a law based relationship... but God did not invite them into that deal. They were tricked into that relationship by Satan - Allah is not a name for God.

Jesus led people away from the law and as a result, closer to God. Satan saw this and knew that one clear way to destroy that intimacy was to make Christians into legalists, or even better, create a new system based on law that calls itself the next step from Christianity. What better way to counter act Christianity than to reverse its work.

Islam leads people into fear and hatred. This is not to say that Muslims are hate filled. They love their children just like most people do. They love their friends. Islam is about power and control on a political level, and the means by which the power is taken is left up to Muslims - Allah does not offer alternatives to violent resolution - violence is encouraged in the Qur'an/Islam.




The "We" is likely a 'royal we.' Its the way royalty talks about themselves. It may also just be an issue of translation.

In Islam it is the biggest sin of all to worship more than one God. That is a basic fact of Islam. Every child grows up knowing this. But why we and our? Its a style of speech. Its not saying we as in "we all who are more than one". It is simply a style. To truly understand the Qur'an it has to be understood in Arabic but ALOT of Muslim dont speak or know arabic so we have to have it traslated and the process of translating can sometimes not bring the truest meaning to us because another language may not use the same word or have the same word etc. Sometime the speaker says I and sometime says we. We also use that in our conversations. In the Qur’an you will see that often the first person singular such as I or My is used, when Allah speaks about His love, care and closeness and forgiveness for His servants. In a similar way the first person plural is often used when Allah speaks about His power, majesty, glory, great deeds or when He speaks about His anger and wrath for the sinners and criminals. (This is, of course, the general use. Sometime the reverse is also the case, depending on the context of the Surah.)