Does God exist? (11 Viewers)

[Dr_Doom]

Jesus died to forgive our sins and rose 3 days later. (Today). If you guys don't believe that then what do you believe?

 

[HotShot]

Jesus died to forgive our sins and rose 3 days later. (Today). If you guys don't believe that then what do you believe?

um so what?

 

[crazyhomo]

Jesus died to forgive our sins and rose 3 days later. (Today). If you guys don't believe that then what do you believe?

that he didn't

 

[davin]

do you even know jesus's last name? wow u know a lot.

Do you try to be ignorant, or does it come naturally?
at that time, people really only had one name. Last names, as we have them now, were not in practice then. Hense, in part, him being referred to with terms like Jesus of Nazareth, because there wasn't the presence of last names

(note: a minor arguement could be made that he'd take the name of his father, Joseph, but I think you'd be hard pressed to show that in usage)

 

[HotShot]

Do you try to be ignorant, or does it come naturally?
at that time, people really only had one name. Last names, as we have them now, were not in practice then. Hense, in part, him being referred to with terms like Jesus of Nazareth, because there wasn't the presence of last names

hah- so you dont know his last name? at the time they had last names. how do u know they didnt?

 

[Dr_Doom]

that he didn't

Man your so cool I wish I was as cool as you. srsly

 

[davin]

hah- so you dont know his last name? at the time they had last names. how do u know they didnt?

and then what, exactly, was his last name, you claim?

 

[The Brucemaster]

OK im sure its a fascinating topic but i really dont think Jesus last name goes very far in proving the existence of God.

As to Islamic belief, yes, Muslims do believe that Jesus was a prophet of God and no Muhammed was not mentally insane.

Does God exist? I dont really care to be honest. I think its far better to be a good person generally than to worry about whether a being that may or may not exist approves of my behaviour.

Just my two cents though.

 

[SashatheMan]

Man your so cool I wish I was as cool as you. srsly

.

 

[Dr_Doom]

go pray. loser......

Okay I'll pray for you.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

there is every ince of possibility that the 'character' isa was jesus.

Oh dear.

‘Isa not an historical figure

The Qur’an’s ‘Isa is not an historical figure. His identity and role as a prophet of Islam is based solely on supposed revelations to Muhammad over half a millennium after the Jesus of history lived and died.

Jesus’ name was never ‘Isa

Jesus’ mother tongue was Aramaic. In his own lifetime he was called Yeshua in Aramaic, and Jesu in Greek. This is like calling the same person John when speaking English and Jean when speaking French: Jesu, pronounced "Yesoo", is the Greek form of Aramaic Yeshua. (The final -s in Jesu-s is a Greek grammatical ending.) Yeshua is itself a form of Hebrew Yehoshua’, which means ‘the Lord is salvation’. However Yehoshua’ is normally given in English as Joshua. So Joshua and Jesus are variants of the same name.

It is interesting that Jesus' name Yehoshua’ contains within it the proper Hebrew name for God, the first syllable Yeh- being short for YHWH ‘the LORD’.

Yeshua of Nazareth was never called ‘Isa, the name the Qur’an gives to him. Arab-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as Yasou’ (from Yeshua) not ‘Isa.

Jesus did not receive a ‘book’

According to the Qur’an, the ‘book’ revealed to ‘Isa was the Injil. The word Injil is a corrupted form of the Greek euanggelion ‘good news’ or gospel. What was this euanggelion? This was just how Jesus referred to his message: as good news. The expression euanggelion did not refer to a fixed revealed text, and there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus received a ‘book’ of revelation from God.

The ‘gospels’ of the Bible are biographies

The term euanggelion later came to be used as a title for the four biographies of Jesus written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the ‘gospels’. This was a secondary development of meaning. Apparently this is where Muhammad got his mistaken idea of the Injil being a ‘book’.

Most so-called prophets of Islam received no book

Virtually all of the so-called ‘prophets’ of Islam, whose names are taken from the Hebrew scriptures, received no ‘book’ or law code. For example, the Psalms are not a book revealing Islam, as the Qur’an claims, but a collection of songs of worship, only some of which are David’s. There is not a shred of evidence in the Biblical history of David that he received a book of laws for the Israelites. They already had the Torah of Moses to follow. So David was not a prophet in the Qur’an’s sense of this word. Likewise most of the prophets claimed by Islam were neither lawgivers nor rulers.

Biblical prophecy and Islamic prophecy are not the same thing

The Biblical understanding of prophecy is quite different from Muhammad’s. A Biblical prophecy is not regarded as a passage from a heavenly eternally pre-existent text like the Qur’an, but a message from God for a specific time and place. A biblical prophet is someone to whom God reveals hidden things, and who then acts as God’s verbal agent. When a Samaritan woman called Jesus a prophet (John 4:19) it was because he had spoken about things in her life that he could only have known supernaturally. Christianity teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but he brought no ‘book’: he himself was the living ‘Word of God’, a title used of ‘Isa in the Qur’an.

By no means all prophecies referred to in the Bible became part of the Biblical text. The Bible consists of a wide variety of materials originally written for many different purposes, including letters, songs, love poetry, historical narratives, legal texts, proverbial wisdom as well as prophetic passages. These are regarded as inspired by God, but not dictated from a timeless heavenly book.

As prophetic history, the Qur’an contains many errors and anachronisms

The claim that Jesus was not executed by crucifixion is without any historical support. One of the things that all the early sources agree on is Jesus’ crucifixion.

Mariam the mother of ‘Isa is called a sister of Aaron, and also the daughter of Aaron’s father ‘Imran (Hebr. Amram). Clearly Muhammad has confused Mary (Hebr. Miriam) with Miriam of the Exodus. The two lived more than a thousand years apart!

In the Bible Haman is the minister of Ahasuerus in Media and Persia (The Book of Esther 3:1-2). Yet the Qur’an places him over a thousand years earlier, as a minister of Pharoah in Egypt.

The claim that Christians believe in three Gods — Father, son Jesus and mother Mary — is mistaken. The Qur’an is also mistaken to claim that Jews say Ezra was a son of God. (At-Taubah 9:30) The charge of polytheism against Christianity and Judaism is ill-informed and false. (Deuteronomy 6:4, James 2:19a)

The story of the ‘two horned one’ (Al-Kahf 18:82 cf also Daniel 8:3, 20-21) is derived from the Romance of Alexander. Certainly Alexander the Great was no Muslim.

The problem with the name ‘Isa has already been discussed. Other Biblical names are also misunderstood in the Qur’an, and their meanings lost. For example Elisha, which means ‘God is salvation’, is given in the Qur’an as al-Yash’a, turning El ‘God’ into al- ‘the’. (Islamic tradition did the same to Alexander the Great, calling him al-Iskandar ‘the Iskander’). Abraham ‘Father of many’ (cf Genesis 17:5) might have been better represented as something like Aburahim ‘father of mercy’ instead of Ibrahim, which has no meaning in Arabic at all.

The Qur’an has a Samaritan making the golden calf, which was worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness (Ta Ha 20:85) during the Exodus. In fact it was Aaron (Exodus 34:1-6). The Samaritans did not exist until several centuries later. They were descendants of the northern Israelites centuries after the Exodus.

Many Qur’anic stories can be traced to Jewish and Christian folktales and other apocryphal literature. For example a story of Abraham destroying idols (As-Saffat 37) is found in a Jewish folktale, the Midrash Rabbah. The Qur’anic story of Zachariah, father of John the Baptist, is based upon a second-century Christian fable. The story of Jesus being born under a palm tree is also based on a late fable, as is the story of Jesus making clay birds come alive. Everything the Qur’an says about the life of Jesus which is not found in the Bible can be traced to fables composed more than a hundred years after Jesus’ death.

Jesus’ titles of Messiah and Word of God, which the Qur’an uses, find no explanation in the Qur’an. Yet in the Bible, from which they are taken, these titles are well integrated in a whole theological system.

The Qur’an mentions the Holy Spirit in connection with Jesus, using phrases which come from the gospels. Ibn Ishaq (Life of Muhammad) reports Muhammad as saying that this ‘Spirit’ was the angel Gabriel (cf also An-Nahl 16:102, Al-Baqarah 2:97). However the Biblical phrase ‘Spirit of God’ (Ruach Elohim) or ‘Holy Spirit’ can only be understood in light of the Hebrew scriptures. It certainly does not refer to an angel.

Jesus’ alleged foretelling of Muhammad’s coming (As-Saff 61:6) appears to be based on a garbled reading of John 14:26, a passage which in fact refers to the Spirit.

The Hebrew scriptures were Jesus’ Bible. He affirmed their authority and reliability and preached from them. From these same scriptures he knew God as Adonai Elohim, the Lord God of Israel. He did not call God Allah, which appears to have been the name or title of a pagan Arabian deity worshipped in Mecca before Muhammad. Muhammad's pagan father, who died before Muhammad was born, already bore the name ‘Abd Allah ‘slave of Allah’, and his uncle was called Obeid Allah.

We read that An-Najm 53:19-23 seeks to refute the pagan Arab belief that Allah had daughters named al-Uzza, al-Ilat and Manat. (See also An-Nahl 16:57 and Al-An’am 6:100).

The Biblical narratives are rich with historical details, many confirmed by archaeology. They cover more than a thousand years, and reveal a long process of technological and cultural development. In contrast the Qur’an’s sacred history is devoid of archaeological support. Its fragmentary and disjointed stories offer no authentic reflection of historical cultures. No place name from ancient Israel is mentioned, not even Jerusalem. Many of the supposed historical events reported in the Qur’an have no independent verification. For example we are told that Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba in Mecca (Al-Baqarah 2:127), but this is totally without support. The Biblical account, more than a thousand years older, does not place Abraham anywhere near Arabia.

The Qur’an is not a credible source for Biblical history

The Qur’an, written in the 7th century AD, cannot be regarded as having any authority whatsoever to inform us about Jesus of Nazareth. It offers no evidence for its claims about biblical history. Its numerous historical errors reflect a garbled understanding of the Bible.

http://answering-islam.org.uk/Intro/islamic_jesus.html

 

[Pierotte]

Jesus died to forgive our sins and rose 3 days later. (Today). If you guys don't believe that then what do you believe?

heheh i just HAD to quote this again.

 

[davin]

One of the things that all the early sources agree on is Jesus’ crucifixion.

No, all the early sources that were deemed official agree. The gnostics believed that Jesus wasn't killed on the cross, but someone was killed in his place. Of course, they were charged with, i think it would be heresy in this case, and so were pretty well taken care of for having differing thoughts on the matter.

though thats the only aprt of that i feel needs correction

 

[Dr_Doom]

heheh i just HAD to quote this again.

Yeh it's so funny aye :rofl: !

 

[bbonkers]

ive got a question about christianity/monotheistic gods. Ive never really understood this, im sure christians must have some sort of answer for it since it seems like such an obvious problem.

Firstly, God is omniscient. He knows everything, he is outside of time. he knows the past and the future.

Secondly, I have free choice to accept god or not. My future is not pre-determined, I can make my own decisions.

But how can I have a free choice if god already knows what Im going to do? God knows the future, he surely must know what I am going to do and if he does then I wouldnt have free choice. If he doesnt know what Im going to do, then he isnt much of a god.

Haha. I think you have hit the root of a problem that mankind has been trying to grapple with for aeons. Not so spacific as being created by god, but do we have free will or do we just follow a predetermined path? if every atom moves in a way that is confined to certain rules, every neuron in our brain fires when in the correct eniviroment, every cause has its effect, do we really have any choice? or is it illusionary?

 

[The Brucemaster]

My view here is that its as you say God KNOWS what you will do, however, he does not DETERMINE it. You have free will to choose what to do its only that God knows what you will choose.

 

[bbonkers]

EVERYTHING WE KNOW IS AN ASSUMPTION. Of course, this is an assumption of mine. Perhaps there is a god and he orchistrates the whole universe. Or perhaps, and those of you who have studied r and g will understand this, earth is the infinately flipped coin that eventually landed tails.

It is equally probable, and i hesitate to use the word as we are talking about things that exist outside probability, though possibly not, that there is in fact a giant hot dog in the shape of Mr. Howard that sneezed, starting a chain reaction involving mothballs to eventually create the universe. This is equally probable. Though possibly not.

 

[The Brucemaster]

It is equally probable, and i hesitate to use the word as we are talking about things that exist outside probability, though possibly not, that there is in fact a giant hot dog in the shape of Mr. Howard that sneezed, starting a chain reaction involving mothballs to eventually create the universe. This is equally probable. Though possibly not.

Interesting theory. Perhaps you could start a new religion. Crazier things have been done im sure.

 

[ur_inner_child]

My view here is that its as you say God KNOWS what you will do, however, he does not DETERMINE it. You have free will to choose what to do its only that God knows what you will choose.

Its a bit of a whack job isn't it, to think about it.

Then if God knows what you will choose, he will know why you did - ie, if you sinned, he would know you had these sorts of parents, friends, and people around you, and the past, your education and your judgement influenced you to do so. You were conditioned in this way and that. Which always led me to believe that he would be mericiful, because he gets you, even if the church would believe you were probably going to hell.

Even if sin is not the basis of going to hell, and its through the belief of Jesus, it is flawed because the all-knowing God would know why you didn't believe, and understand it. I mean, a 12 year old kid in China may know nothing about Jesus because he was simply not taught, gets killed, and God understands why there was no belief.

Which is why I think religious rules about heaven and hell really really infuriate me.

Does that make sense?

I went off on a tangent but hey.

 

[Dr_Doom]

I do biology and this whole evolution thing still hasn't convinced me. How on earth could bacteria evolve into a human. It's bs.