The Town Hall Archives

hawkeye · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2003 11:59 pm Post subject:

If you accept Jesus is the Son of God, God sent his Son, Jesus to die on the cross for the world, and you accept Jesus's death to atone for your sins, then you are a Christian. Some Catholics believe this, some Jews believe this, many Mormans believe this, some Mason's believe this, and many SDAs believe this.

And let me add to Jared's comments that Islam, arguably worships the same God as the Jews, thus they worship the same God. But Muslims are not Christains.

Judaism spawned Islam and Christianity. Christianity forked into numerous directions, and one of them is Catholicism. The other major religions of the world, BTW, are Buddhism and Athiesm. All the other religions are rather minor.

Jared · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:33 am Post subject:

Hawkeye,

Your explanation of salvation is exactly right.

But a few things: Your "some Jews believe this" comment strikes me as wrong. There are Christians of Jewish lineage who still follow Jewish tradition but believe in Christ - the Messianic Jews. But they are no longer Jews... A Jew by definition believes that the Messiah has not yet come.

And Islam did not come from Judaism. It's closest roots would be the pantheistic worship in Mecca, where Mohammad attempted (at first unsuccessfully) to found his religion. Allah was the moon god in that pagan culture, one of hundreds of gods and goddesses worshiped there. Mohammad's big ploy was to take aspects of local pagan cultures, Judaism and Catholicism and mix them all together into one religion. It faltered and almost failed, but after the small group of followers won a few military victories, they started forcing people to accept the religion. Eventually, it gained "popularity."

But while some tenants of Judaism were incorporated into the system, it is far from coming OUT of Jewish belief.

hawkeye · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2003 11:30 pm Post subject:

The Messianic Jews are some of those Jews I refer to, but there are some in Isreal that do realize the truth. And others realize they are slowly rebuilding the temple, and that prophecy is after Jesus's first comming...

And As for Islam, Jews reconize Christianity and Islam came from it. Islam uses the Torah, and follows it. Islam, 'lineagely', is also a decendant of Abraham. Ishmael, Hagar's son. Jews come from Isaac. Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity comes from Jesus.

Islam follows Allah, which translated is the One True God. However, Muslims know God as one who is stern, as Ishmael knew God (and Abraham). Jews kow God as loving and forgiving. Muhammad claimed to get the Quran from God, and see Jesus as a prophet (which isnt completely inaccurate, but not accuate). Muhammed also interacted alot with Gabriel, or so the stories go, and Gabriel is God's personal angel. Muslims follow the Judaic laws, like passover, etc, sacrifice lambs, have temples... Muslims even reconize (and fear) the site of the original Jewish Temple. So, I know of no major pegan aspects of Islam. I know of more pegan aspects in Christianity. Sadly.

And I am speaking not from studiying it, but from what I experienced and was told by Muslims while in Turkey.