Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts

If you can;t sensibly address the points that I raise then please don;t bother to reply.

Gladly.

Nobody who has called my Biblical beliefs "intolerance" has any right to lecture me on Christian virtues. A brother in Christ would have that right, though he'd approach the situation with more respect for my personal space, but you are an anti-fundamentalist and you do not have that right. Aside from that, it is an incredibly INTRUSIVE CONTROLLING PRESUMPTUOUS thing to do. So I would appreciate it if you would NEVER EVER say such a PERSONAL thing to me again.That said, generally I appreciate your patient attitude and apparent willingness to understand what I'm saying before you smack me with how I'm wrong wrong wrong about absolutely everything and hang me for a straw man and demand "evidence" for sophomoric irrelevancies, and upbraid me for trivia as so many here do. Oh you always get there, to declaring me wrong wrong wrong, that is, but I do appreciate the extra rope as it were.That said, I hope to get to the actual post tomorrow.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-26-2005 03:30 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-26-2005 03:33 AM

Please, everyone, realize that many hold their religious beliefs very dearly and personally. What looks to you as a mere statement of fact may appear to someone else as a attack on the foundation of their faith. Make all the points you would make anyway, but please do your best to couch them in neutral and analytic terms.

---

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

You need to stop approaching discussion here from a position of anger and self-righteousness. You've been shielded from normal enforcement of the Forum Guidelines because we think beneath all the bluster that you might have something to offer. Well, if it's the messenger then I think Magisterium Devolver pointed out to you that there seemed to be some substance to what I've been trying to tell you. And yet you come to a new thread and continue just as you have been. Can nothing change your course?I have shown much respect for your personal space, Faith. The moderators here, including myself, have attempted to communicate this message to you many times, myself more than most, using a variety of approaches, including approaching you on ground familiar to you, but you have been resistant to all of it.EvC Forum is not your personal playground. There's a set of Forum Guidelines that you have a lot of trouble following. I was hopeful you could be counseled by some means or another into better compliance, but this hasn't been successful thus far. Wherever did you get that idea? I have different beliefs from you, but I'm no more anti-fundamentalist than I am anti-Moslem or anti-Hindu. You first came to my attention as a constant guidelines violator, and you maintain my attention for the same reason. It's a general rule of discussion boards that 10% of the people take up 90% of the moderator resources, and we try to manage that here by limiting the participation of people who become too much of a moderator headache. You have chutzpah, I'll grant you that. You're the one with a great deal of difficulty following the Forum Guidelines, getting along with others and being a general moderator headache. I'll make you a deal. Since you're resistant to all coaxing and counseling, you stick to the Forum Guidelines and I won't suspend your posting privileges. In other words, you'll be treated just like everyone else.

---

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I do not agree with your assessment of the situation, on some five points in your post. Sorry to be such a headache, however, but this is a relentlessly hostile environment and I deal with it as I can. If you have to ban me, that's just the way it will have to be. In any case I have to take a break for a while, so you can get a rest from having to police me.

quote:

---

Please, everyone, realize that many hold their religious beliefs very dearly and personally. What looks to you as a mere statement of fact may appear to someone else as a attack on the foundation of their faith. Make all the points you would make anyway, but please do your best to couch them in neutral and analytic terms.

---

Thank you Admin for your professionalism and restoring my Posting Privileges.I like to say few words here, which I think must be said.As a Muslim, I take my religion very seriously and dearly. But I am not a fundi and/or maniac. However, I can also be as nasty as the next guy, if I am provoked into that. But, I have no desire and/or intentions to initiate an action that entertain the idea of such behavior.I believe I have more knowledge of religions than most people have, and I can debate with reason and logic. I also don't concern myself to a degree ot being upset, if Islaam is questioned, but as long as reason is applied, I am more than willing to debate or answer questions to the best of my knowledge, while using authentic sources and references.So, if anyone including Faith want to discuss Islaam on factual basis, I am more than willing to do that. Here, I believe Faith has no answers for many people’s valid questions, especially when it comes to Science and/or Scientific, thus he/she (?) adopted the method to attack Islaam and Qur’aan to weasel out; under that pretext. They were cheap shots, especially after I already cleared the misconception twice that Qur’aan does not contain any alleged eyewitness accounts and Qur'aan gives no status to Christianity. At that point Faith should have stopped his/her (?) abuse.Again, thank you.Checkmate

---

"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

A muslim friend of mine once sent me the following. What is that from? Is it from the Islamic equivalent of the Talmud?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

quote:

---

I do not agree with your assessment of the situation, on some five points in your post. Sorry to be such a headache, however, but this is a relentlessly hostile environment and I deal with it as I can. If you have to ban me, that's just the way it will have to be. In any case I have to take a break for a while, so you can get a rest from having to police me.

---

May be or may not be. I just joined this forum; therefore, I am not in a position to comment. But, I noticed that people here are more receptive than I initially thought; even they may agree with you and/or me.Having said that, hostility is a two-way traffic. I was in fact, invited to this forum for your constant assault on Qur'aan. I was also told that there is no Muslim to defuse and/or refute you, so you have becoming more reckless.Thus, for me as a Muslim it was already an extreme hostile and hateful environment, which continued to get worst despite my all my efforts to defuse and/or respond to you in polite and professional fashion.However, problem may arise when some one is in denial. Say, if something is said about Islaam and I don't know the answer. It would be best for me to say so, because if I don't know the answer does not constitute that there is no answer at all. It is just that I don't know the answer. But if I continue like a knucklehead, while doing gaga-caca. Then I can be rest assured that, at one point I would be that paranoid to blames the environment; instead of examining and/or reviewing my approach.We often screw things up just for having the right motives but wrong approach. And when we anticipate unexpected results, we as human try to find out scapegoats to massage our ego and/or comfort our bruised pride.So we should not let our "zeal" blind us, of facts. Had it been me instead of you here. I would have not used Judaism and/or Christianity as you did Qur'aan and/or Islaam to answer questions or debate.Checkmate

---

"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

quote:

---

A muslim friend of mine once sent me the following.
This is a message written by Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to
those who adopt Christianity, far and near, we are behind them. Verily, I defend them by myself, the servants, the helpers, and my followers,
because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against
anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be changed from their jobs, nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His
Prophet. Verily, they (Christians) are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, this is not to take place without her own wish. She is not to be prevented from going to her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation is to disobey this covenant till the Day of Judgment and the end of the world."

​

What is that from? Is it from the Islamic equivalent of the Talmud?

---

Hi jarI have some reservations about the accuracy and/or authenticity of the entire text (as whole). But the language and/or context tells me that it is taken from some treaty between Muslims and Christians or a Decree that was issued by the Prophet of Islaam (SAW) once the land came under control of Muslims. Nevertheless, this is how Muslims and/or Islaam treated the religious minorities historically.In a nutshell, it is eighter a part of treaty or part of Decree.RegardsP. S.This response is based on my recollection and I have yet to verify all the Decrees and treaties for accuracy and to reconcile this text. But I don't think it is needed, since there is nothing to refute.This message has been edited by Checkmate, 04-26-2005 11:53 AM

---

"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

Jar - according to this site it was a message sent by the Prophet to the monks of Saint Catherine in Mount Sinai.PE

Thanks.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thanks. I was not putting something up for dispute so no rebuttal was needed.Looking at the history of Islam, for most of the period and in most circumstances, it has been a religion (and politic) of great tolerance.Would you say though that the statement was a resonable reflection of general attitudes of Islam towards other religions through most of its history?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

i understand a lot of it. and i also understand that a lot of it makes no sense. see, i already understand hebrew poetry better and context better than matthew did. which means that i understand something else: matthew is not hebrew. isn't that an important point?i mean, do you just believe ANYTHING you read? how do you know? because someone put it in a book with the rest of the stuff they say you should believe? this thread is about the objective qualities that make one text more believable than another. so what qualites are there?i mean, if i hand you a children's coloring book and claim it's the word of god, would you believe me? why or why not? where does god say "believe the stuff in deuteronomy, i wrote it?" i mean, the closest we get is that jesus quotes it (and one of those quotes was the one i used above, btw). but all he says is "it is written." not "god says." it is written. it is written, isn't it?heck, it is written that jesus was a homosexual. it is! doesn't make it true, does it? and it doesn't make it the word of god. no it is not. and this is my point. but SOME kinds of faith do prey on ignorance. and this worshipping treatment of the bible is one such kind of faith. it relies on the ignorance that the bible is a set of collections of texts by different authors spanning at least 1000 years of history. it relies on the ignorance of problems, contradictions, inconsistencies, history, literature, context, and archaeology.i mean, people here often claim the letters of paul are the word of god. if they were the word of god, they wouldn't be called "the letters of paul." unless paul is god, and paul is not god. they're just letters, not impartations of god's holy truth to us. he wrote them as advice to specific churches, not even for the whole family of churches, and not for modern churches. sure, maybe god inspired some of it. god reveals truths to many people. but it is not "the word of god" down to the letter. paul still wrote them.it's neccessary to look at what the bible actually is, instead of fawning over it, to understand what god's really trying to say. i examined earlier in another post what kind of faith jesus does ask of us, according to jesus. and you know what? he doesn't say specifically. but the indication is that he wants us to have faith in god, that he will take care of us. because god loves us the way husband should love his wife, faults and all. and he forgives us for those faults -- we should stop worrying about them and just try to be as good to each other as possible.nearest i can tell, that's what jesus was about. and studying the bible closely and CRITICALLY as not been destructive to that. i knew that when i started -- and i know it now. in fact, i even see it more clearly now. see, when i started out, i had this belief that god was strict and judgemental, and condemned us all because of the way he made us. through critically analyzing the text for that bit, i found the opposite to be true. god is a good guy, i found out, even from the beginning.so, to tell you the truth, using my brain a little has actually HELPED my faith. and it has shown that evil and corruption are neccessary in god's plan, and he controls them: so there is no need to worry about anything. god knows what he's doing, and he's taking care of us. and what's more interesting is that god can use evil and corruption for good -- there's good stuff in deuteronomy. he inspired some truths even in something faked by men.compare that to the blind faith in the book, and philosophy of god's out to get you unless you believe just right, and satan's out to get you too. i like this better. i'm more confident, and closer to understanding god than ever before. yeah, i agree. but a firm grasp on god's word depends on determining what is and what is not the word of god. what's true, what's a lie? what's meant to symbolic or idiomatic? what's meant to be a law, and for who? what's earthly wisdom and the works of wise teachers? which bits are prophesy? which bits are history? these are utterly and fundamentally very important questions.you can't claim to have a grasp on the word of god if you don't understand the first thing about how it was written, by whom, and for what purpose. i beg to differ. in the garden, there was a tree we weren't supposed to eat from. personally, i don't think god meant harm or to keep us in the dark. rather, like a good parent, he knew we weren't ready for it. but he put there knowing we would eat of it, would you agree.that tree was tree of knowledge of good and evil.and according to god himself, what did we become closer to the day we ate of it?most christians regret the day adam ate of the tree. for they think that it brought sin and death into the world. but that's not what it did at all. it brought knowledge of good and evil: rational thought and the concious mind into the world. why look back and dream of ignorance? if we want to be blind believers, with our eyes closed, we might as well be naked. it also brought clothes into the world. if god wants us to be ignorant and blind, he'd also want us to be naked, right? just the way he made us in the garden. i think i already posted the first one above. seem, madam? nay, it is. i know not seems. i've tried every other way. i only take what makes sense -- feels right -- to me. heck, i had the guts to tell my hebrew teacher, a rabbi and professor of hebrew literature (like the bible) that he was wrong on something once, because it just didn't make sense. and as you may have noted, i normally give a little extra creedance to jewish thought on matters of jewish texts.also, you're assuming this is the ONLY way i go about it. i'm a rational person, yes. but if i didn't have faith, and didn't trust god, i wouldn't call myself a christian. actually, i wouldn't even get this involved in debates -- i just wouldn't care.rather, i keep my RELIGION to myself usually. i explained a bit of it on this board recently, involving my actual feelings about the text, and my appreciation of it and for it. i don't recall exactly where it is.but i normally keep my religion private. it's between me and god, and to my knowledge no one here is god. this is partly because of the attitude jesus himself told us to have regarding how to pray, and partly because it normally results in a lot of arguments, disagreement, and questions. i really only bring a little of it out when i feel secure that it will settle debates rather than start them.but i don't see this as a problem. i see the people who preach ignorance instead of comprehension as the problems.

---

אָרַח

Sorry I said anything. I won't do it again.