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Elvendon vs Arrow: Christians alone?
- Thread starter Elvendon
- Start date
Arrow
Member
Christianity and Islam differ greatly in the whole redemption view.
With Christianity, you have someone else dying for the sins of others. In a sense taking a bullet for someone.
Islam is highly disgusted with the notion that God would manifest himself in a human form is even regarded as blasphemy. They believe that you alone are accountable for your own sins and no one else can take the blame.
With Christianity, you have someone else dying for the sins of others. In a sense taking a bullet for someone.
Islam is highly disgusted with the notion that God would manifest himself in a human form is even regarded as blasphemy. They believe that you alone are accountable for your own sins and no one else can take the blame.
Elvendon
Mystical Tea Dispenser
Arrow said:
I would agree with this.
The mechanism by which salvation is achieved is considered to be very different. In Islam, it is merely a debt being written off. In Christianity, as you say, it is someone taking a bullet for someone else.
However - both claim that salvation comes from God, and God alone. Saint Peter died on the cross. Terrible and honourable though his matyrdom was, it didn't have any salvation properties. Only God, in the person of Jesus, can save us from our sins.
Similarly, in Islam, no-one can "deal" with sins, apart from Allah. Allah is the only being with the power and authority to forgive people their sins.
In this sense, both Islam and Christianity are "salvation" faiths - their core message is that by God alone may we be saved - however this might be done, and that only by "accepting Him" - whatever this might mean - may this salvation be extended to us.
Arrow
Member
(I do realize that at this point my only chance is to swing the core of Christianity...)
I do not know if i can accurately portray the core of Islam, but i might be able to swing this. I am going to go ahead and say that the core of Christianity is not salvation, but reconciliation. In this veiw, we are saved but we are also made to be new creations. When one becomes a Christian he or she becomes a child of God. Your heart is spiritually circumsized and you are no longer a slave to sin but a servant of God.
Realizing what i am saying and knowing a little about the Islam faith, something tells me that i might regret this...but i post this anyway in hopes that i have some kind of chance.
I do not know if i can accurately portray the core of Islam, but i might be able to swing this. I am going to go ahead and say that the core of Christianity is not salvation, but reconciliation. In this veiw, we are saved but we are also made to be new creations. When one becomes a Christian he or she becomes a child of God. Your heart is spiritually circumsized and you are no longer a slave to sin but a servant of God.
Realizing what i am saying and knowing a little about the Islam faith, something tells me that i might regret this...but i post this anyway in hopes that i have some kind of chance.
Elvendon
Mystical Tea Dispenser
Arrow said:
Not about salvation
That's crazy talk! :slap: So you can only have reconciliation with God if you are saved and vice versa?
Sorry bub, that's what Muslims believe
For Muslims, they need to be reconciled with God (by doing good deeds) in order to be saved (their bad deeds written off.)
For Christians, you need to be saved (have your bad deeds written off) in order to be reconciled (be truly good.)
Hm. They appear to do it back to front compared to us.
Well, you appear have won the argument, but seem to have converted to Islam :thud:
Arrow
Member
I promise that i have not converted to Islam. I am just at a point where i want to know the truth. I just want to follow the true God. I believe that Christianity is that true God, but i guess i am just struggling with it. The biggest thing right now is the whole atonment thing which is why i plan to start a thread right after this. You said that you studied Islam for two years and yet you are still Christian. Can you instruct me on why this is so? It would be greatly appreciated.
Elvendon
Mystical Tea Dispenser
Arrow said:
I studied Islam for two years as part of my Religious Studies A-level. An English qualification.
The reason why I did not convert to Islam is because mainly it did not resonate with me - the idea of an inscruitable, completely transcendent creator deity just didn't strike a chord with me. The triune God of Christianity strikes me as so much more involved and easy to relate to. Also, Christianity offers considerably more ritual freedom than Islam, which is highly perscriptive (due to the prolific recorded teachings of the prophet Muhammad.)
However, after studying Islam for two years I did recognise several important similarities between our two great faiths. An emphasis upon the power of God with respects to salvation, the total unity of God, the importance of ethics, the importance of treating your fellow human beings with respect and love and the mystical idioms of Sufism all struck a chord with me.
Essentially, if the Christ as incarnate deity and saviour issue were ignored, Islam and Christianity could be the same faith. As your attitude to salvation (which is decidedly Islamic from what it appears to me) shows, it is perfectly possible to be have very Muslim ideas about salvation and so on and yet be a Christian (and vice versa.)