Why Is The Vatican So Accepting Of Islam?

[jasJis]

[quote name='Budge' date='Jun 20 2004, 02:50 PM'] You cant convert a religion and how is this Biblical? [/quote]
What do you mean 'convert a religion'?

Do you mean how Judaism became Christianity? That's Biblical and you can call it 'conversion' of a religion. All of us are converted from sinners to practicing Christians.

[MorphRC]

(Judaism is an exception, because they know Jehovah)

No such name..Its a mistranslation of YHWH, so who you talking to?

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote]You cant convert a religion and how is this Biblical?[/quote]

I would like to note that, yes, in fact, you can. AND it has been done before. After the Great Schism there were a whole bunch of different Churches in Egypt, Syria, and throughout the Middle East that sprang up. the Greek Orthodox Church was definately the most dominant, but there were lots of splits and fracture Churches that came off of it. Some people remained faithful to the Holy See and these groups became the Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church.

Many of the Churches that branched off of the Greek Orthodox Church have since [i]come back into communion[/i] with Rome. Not small groups of people. Whole Churches.

Rome has done it in the past, and it wasn't, as you (Budge) would have it. It was through patience, openness, and talking. THAT is what ecumenism is about.

Also, just to give you an even more ancient and close-to-Jesus example: The Roman Empire. It was, for all sakes and purposes, part of the religion to worship the Emperor as a God.

Enter Constantine: Enter Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. So riddle me this: If the Emperor is, according to the religion, "A God," and he converts to Christianity, and the old religion dies out as a result, how is that [i]not[/i] converting a religion.

Budge, it might be hard to accept, but it HAS been done in the past, and it CAN be done in the future. All we need is some serious prayer from the faithful, and a contrite and humble heart.

- Your Brother in Christ

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 20 2004, 10:44 PM'] I see many people have fallen for the 'Same God' junk here. Maybe the Church should do an ACCURATE study of history, instead of a biased one that only leads to the death of christianity.

Im sick of hearing they worship the same God, they respect Jesus and Mary, they wanna be one with christians..well maybe we should look at the[b] BYZANTINES[/b], [b]GREEKS, ROMANS, BOSNIANS, AFRIKAANS, SUDANESE[/b]. Yes these people respect Christians, christ etc, and they show it by cutting their heads off..wow [i]SHOW ME THE LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE[/i] [/quote]
Christians Jews and Muslims worship the same God, since there is only ONE GOD!!!

[MorphRC]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Jun 21 2004, 11:58 PM'] Christians Jews and Muslims worship the same God, since there is only ONE GOD!!! [/quote]
Who according to Church teaching and Apostolic teaching as?

GOD THE FATHER< GOD THE SON AND GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT.

You cant deny what God is and still worship the same God, thats illogical.

[Dave]

[quote name='Budge' date='Jun 20 2004, 03:50 PM'] I am a newbie Christian but actually I have.





[/quote]
Sorry to hijack this thread, but you were a Christian when you were baptized a Catholic. Maybe you didn't live the faith like you could have, but you were still a Christian by virtue of your Catholic baptism. That never changed even when you left the Church for Unitarian Universalism.

[quote]Its silly for you all to say I am mean to unbelievers. My best friend is a UU, I also have contact with many unbelievers. I can talk to all of them. I do talk to them about Jesus. In fact I have New Agers, and others over to my home constantly. My family is all Catholic with one exception. The only fund. Christians I know are my church members and a couple friends. I have a EO friend too and friends who are atheists. I am not silent and live and witness my faith. You need to LIVE AND SPEAK IT. Not just one or the other.[/quote]

The way you mention Catholics in that paragraph, are you implying that Catholics are unbelievers?

Also, quit saying that Catholics are universalists. We have told you that we're not and explained why. Please read what we say carefully, thoroughly, and with an open mind.

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote]Who according to Church teaching and Apostolic teaching as?

GOD THE FATHER< GOD THE SON AND GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT.

You cant deny what God is and still worship the same God, thats illogical.[/quote]

Morph, what is illogical is your line of thinking.

If I tell you that 2+2=5 you'll tell me I'm nuts, and wrong, and deny. To tell someone that the God that they worship is actually 3 persons IN that One God is even more difficult to deal with.

The Trinity is a hard, hard thing, but just because they don't understand the Fullness of the Truth doesn't mean that they don't understand ANY of it.

[MorphRC]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jun 22 2004, 08:33 AM']
Morph, what is illogical is your line of thinking.

If I tell you that 2+2=5 you'll tell me I'm nuts, and wrong, and deny. To tell someone that the God that they worship is actually 3 persons IN that One God is even more difficult to deal with.

The Trinity is a hard, hard thing, but just because they don't understand the Fullness of the Truth doesn't mean that they don't understand ANY of it. [/quote]
[quote]If I tell you that 2+2=5 you'll tell me I'm nuts, and wrong, and deny. To tell someone that the God that they worship is actually 3 persons IN that One God is even more difficult to deal with.[/quote]

Ok Poor arguement, not worth a rebuke.

[quote]The Trinity is a hard, hard thing, but just because they don't understand the Fullness of the Truth doesn't mean that they don't understand ANY of it.[/quote]

No its easy. We know it exists, we know how certain Persons work with others. IE Son from the Father, The HS from the Father and Son etc. Its not hard.

And they study Christianity more than most 'Christians' do today! So they are well versed in Christian doctrine, so ignorance cannot apply to them. Believe me ask a muslim for a debate about the Trinity, hes got tonnes of stuff ready to knock you down.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Morph, I can't believe that you just said about the Trinity, one of the [i]Mysteries[/i] of the faith, one of the things that Saints and Popes, Bishops and Priests have been spending their lives trying to understand and teach to people: [quote]No its easy...Its not hard[/quote]

Moreover, rather than simply saying "Poor Argument" please, indulge me. If it is such a poor argument, then it shouldn't take much time to "rebuke." How is saying that 2+2=5 any more difficult than saying that 1 God is 3 Persons, but all the same God (to put it in mathematical terms, 1 = 3 and 3 = 1)?

Also, with regards to the ignorance comment, you simply are not correct. If you grow up in an environment that is hostile to Christianity, and if a bias is bred into you, and, from your birth to your adulthood, you are told "when a Christian says 'this,' you counter with 'this'" there cannot be any true knowledge of the scriptures or of Christ.

To say otherwise would be to say that a child in WWII Germany who grows up hearing that Jews eat babies and spread social diseases "knows about" the Jews. The only difference is that now its worse, now they are not only being taught false information, but they are being taught how to respond in order to prevent the truth from comming out. In both instances, however, they are still ignorant of the truth.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='MorphRC' date='Jun 21 2004, 12:53 PM'] Who according to Church teaching and Apostolic teaching as?

GOD THE FATHER< GOD THE SON AND GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT.

You cant deny what God is and still worship the same God, thats illogical. [/quote]
Wrong.

Should I say that explaining to you is not worth the effort?

Wrong again.
If you only know God is Father, and worship Him only as Father, then you are worshipping Him in Spirit and Truth as you know it. God does not fault you for not knowing all the details.

There is only one God, so the Jews and Muslims do worship Him, but not as fully as completely as we do.

If you have been told something is wrong all your life, and God doesn't zap you as he did St Paul, then Revelation is a gradual enlightenment. God judges where people are, not you.

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jun 22 2004, 12:03 AM'] If I tell you that 2+2=5 you'll tell me I'm nuts, and wrong, and deny. To tell someone that the God that they worship is actually 3 persons IN that One God is even more difficult to deal with. [/quote]
Actually that works in clock arithmetic.

If you look around in nature there's a few examples of synergie like this..

[Aloysius]

actually, God makes complete sense by mathamatics.

infinity + infinity + infinity = infinity

only problem is, infinity is a scientifical mathematical mystery because it has never been observed. therefore, even when we CAN explain Him, we cannot.

pAx

[MorphRC]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Jun 23 2004, 12:19 AM'] Wrong.

Should I say that explaining to you is not worth the effort?

Wrong again.
If you only know God is Father, and worship Him only as Father, then you are worshipping Him in Spirit and Truth as you know it. God does not fault you for not knowing all the details.

There is only one God, so the Jews and Muslims do worship Him, but not as fully as completely as we do.

If you have been told something is wrong all your life, and God doesn't zap you as he did St Paul, then Revelation is a gradual enlightenment. God judges where people are, not you. [/quote]
Oy. Ive gone thru this with people like you literally hundreds of times. Go learn about islam. try Islam.Com, or Alquraan.com, or Ummah.Com

they all blatantly deny the Trinity.

[Aloysius]

duh. Cmom knows they deny the trinity. but they believe in ONE GOD, the God who worked in the Old Testament is who they recognize. They have clouded their vision of Him.

It's like this, in the fall we were all thrown into the darkness, and the world's out there searchin for the Light. The Light contacted a people in the darkness, the Jewish people, and the Jewish people thus recognized Who the Light Is. Then the Light came into the darkness, but the Jewish People didn't recognize Him. you know what they did? they put sunglasses on! Jesus didn't do what they expected (make them a powerful nation as an earthly kingdom) so they continued to look at the light the way it was most comfortable to them. that is WRONG, for this light doesn't damage your eyes and all men should stare strait at it, but they did it anyway. they're still looking at the same light. as Christians we now stand in the light and look at it completely, no sunglasses (well, protestants have some sunglasses that are lower calliber than the ones Jews and Muslims have, cuz they also find staring strait at the light too uncomfortable. also some Catholics put on different degrees of sunglasses). Mohammed studied Christianity and Islam, recognized that the Light was there and true, but it was too uncomfortable for him to accept all of it, he fashioned a special brand of sunglasses and handed them out to all his buddies, and that's what Muslims do. They look at the light with sunglasses. God will break those sunglasses in time if they allow Him to, but they are looking at God, they're just clouding their vision of Him.

pAx

Edited June 22, 2004 by Aloysius

[MorphRC]

So do some Buddhists, Hindus, pagans, do they? No.

[Aloysius]

They have sunglasses that block alot more out than Jews and Muslims block out.

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Jun 22 2004, 07:24 PM'] They have sunglasses that block alot more out than Jews and Muslims block out. [/quote]
That;s one way of looking at it...

[Guest JeffCR07]

Morph, the problem with your line of thinking is that, for you, people either get ALL of the truth, or they get NONE of it. So you argue that Buddhists, Pagans, Muslims, etc, don't have any of the Truth.

Now I'm about to make a drastic, scary, and perhaps sickening comment, so brace yourself:

Some aspect of the Truth can be found in ALL religions. Does this mean Muslims too? Yes. Does this mean Buddhists too? Yes. Does this mean Pagans too? Yes. Does this mean [i]High Mass Satanists[/i]? Yes it does.

For no matter how twisted the religion, no matter how terrible, no matter how [i]EVIL[/i] some shred of Truth must exist.

Remember, only God has the power to create something out of nothing. Satan can only corrupt that which has already been made, and all that is made by God is Good. Even the most corrupted religions still acknowledge a power beyond mankind. The question is, just how much of the Truth do they have?

Now, with regards to your issue about the Muslims:

There are plenty of us who HAVE gone out and learned about Islam: Do not be so quick to establish yourself as the only authority on the matter, you may, one day, find in your midst an Islamic scholar and subsequently be humbled.

YES they deny the Trinity. "Say not, 'Three' when you speak of Allah." YES this is wrong. But this does not mean that they are wrong in all things, nor does it mean that they worship a different God.

If God declares "White" to be "White" and "Black" to be "Black" then this is the Truth, unalterable by society. But what if you live in a society that tells you, from birth, that "White" is "Black" and "Black" is "White?" Moreover, what if that society tells you that anyone who says otherwise is not only wrong, but a blasphemer, because God himself declared White to be Black and Black to be White?

Truly, Morph, let me give you another example:

Lets imagine my cousin is 11 years old. He has learned elementary mathematics, and the beginnings of algebra, and he has just come to an understanding of the term "infinite." Now, I have finished calculus, and understand how integrals work, and I know that you can get a definite number that is the sum of an infinite number of points.

Now, I tell my cousin that such a thing is possible, and he doesn't believe me, because he knows "infinite" to be "uncountable" "never ending" and "forever."

So when I tell him the truth, that you can, using an integral, achieve a definite number that corresponds to infinite points, what does he do? He goes back and asks his parents:

Well neither of his parents finished High School, and they are bitter because I know more than they do. So they reassert his belief and tell him that I am lying to him, and that I shouldn't listen. So he doesn't, and like them, he never finishes High School.

Just because the boy never learned calculus doesn't mean my "math" is fundamentally different from his "math."

In the same way, someone who has been raised Muslim does not pray to a fundamentally different God.

- Your Brother in Christ, Jeff

[MorphRC]

Whatever bro..im not really in the mood for this debate..believe what you want, i dont have the time, to go thru all my books and get out quotes and passages..

[cmotherofpirl]

sunglasses...I love it .