Showing posts with label Muslims. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muslims. Show all posts

Friday 15 November 2013

Christian clergyman defiling book which did not belong to him

Like there are many misconception about different Muslims there are also many wrong ideas about Christians. Not all people who receive a correction on what they are saying on the others like that reaction.

Adnan Masih, 26 is a young Christian clergyman accused of blasphemy after he sought to correct misconceptions about Christianity in a Muslim book.
The Islamic extremist Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) and the police from Lahore, Pakistan are searching for him because they do find this man did something terrible against the prophet and the Pakistani judicial system, makes blasphemy against Islam’s prophet punishable by death.

The story began on 7 October with a misunderstanding. Adnan Masih was replacing his brother at an eyeglass store, the Diamond Glass, where the latter worked. Whilst there, the Christian clergyman saw a book on a shelf by a Muslim leader who heads an outlawed extremist organisation, the Jamat-ul-Dawa. He noted errors in the book about the Bible and penned corrections in it. He then left the store.
The next day Abid Mehmood, a colleague of his brother, filed a complaint against Masih at a police station, accusing him of blasphemy (under Article 295, sections A, B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code). When he heard about the complaint against him, the Christian man denied the accusations.
However, he became the subject of death threats from Jamat-ul-Dawa and eventually a fatwa. Fearing for himself and his loved ones, on 8 November, he turned himself in to local police, asking for protection.
"We're scared," family members said. "Adnan has not written anything against Islam. He only corrected some things about Jesus Christ."
"This is the third case of persecution against Christians based on the blasphemy law in just two months," Fr Arshed John, from the Diocese of Lahore, told AsiaNews. "I hope the police is able to protect him. I call on everyone, without distinction of religion, to pray for this man and his family. "

What the christian family does not seem to understand that first of all you can not write something in a book which you do not buy and is not your own. He should have bought it, read it and returned it with his corrections. But now just writing in something which did not belong to him we can not justify.

The man writing in the book has also doctrinal teachings which are not justifiable with the Biblical teachings. According to him the Old Testament demonstrates a plurality in the Godhead that is a united One, and this distinction is reaffirmed in the New Testament, but that is not at all so. According to the Holy Scriptures, which we consider to be the word of God, there is only One God.

The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most ven...
The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most venerated of Orthodox Christian icons of the Virgin Mary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Some may say "Because of Mohammed’s misunderstanding of what
Christians believed and practiced, Islam teaches that the Christian belief of the Trinity is a polytheistic teaching of  “three gods”, characterized as the “Father”, and the “Son” and the “Virgin Mary”. " They overlook that the Islamic prophet recognises the Jews and Christians who follow good teachings but also see the Jews and Chrisitians who follow false teachings. One of those false teachings of that group of Christians which went the wrong way according Muhammad is the Holy Trinity. That is not about a virgin Mary being God, though at his time and also still today there are Christians, like several Catholics who honour Myriam the mother of Jeshua as Maria or Mary, mother of Jesus and mother of God.

Text of
Text of "Our Father" prayer with Trinity in central column (God the Father, dove of the Holy Spirit, Jesus) and Biblical and symbolic scenes in left and right columns. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The “Virgin Mary” has nothing to do with the Trinity (it is the Holy Spirit, not Mary) which is according many Christians a person or figure. Those Christians do forget that God Himself is only One and is Spirit, not anything of flesh and blood, male or female in the strict sense like they see a human being. Lots of Christians do have 1 God the Father + 1 god the son + 1 god the Holy Spirit, and to our and to the Muslim mathematical thinking 1+1+1= 3. for that we can not say the prophet of that religious group had a wrong impression of those Christians who believe in a Tri-une God. Such a teaching is totally against the Words of God which can be found in many old writings, older than the quran.

Archaeological discoveries have repeatedly confirmed what Christians have already believed, that Biblical manuscripts and fragments dated even hundreds of years before Mohammed are virtually identical to the canonized Biblical texts we have today. From those old textfragments we can see that in later  centuries some alterations may have been brought in the Bible Translations, like the taking away of God His name and putting 'Lord' everywhere the tetragram or the Name of God was written, so that people could not figure out any more who it was that was been spoken of, god or Jesus. This alteration made to fit specific doctrinal teaching could not erase the essence of the real message, which each person still can find when he reads the whole assembly of 66 books.
The Biblical Tetragrammaton, the Hebrew Name f...
The Biblical Tetragrammaton, the Hebrew Name for God the Father. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Those who read the bible and compare the many translations with the old manuscripts will see how much conformity they still have.

When Muhammad recited the Qur’an, he clearly stated that he did not believe that the Bible was corrupt at that time and called upon Christians to adhere to the Scriptures that they already possessed.

Today, looking at some fundamentalist Muslims and hearing what they say about the Christian Scriptures, comparing them with the texts archeologist found until now, we could question them: "Since the Scriptures we have today are the same Scriptures that Christians had even well before the time of Muhammad, when do you believe the Bible could have possibly been corrupted, who corrupted it, and how was it corrupted?"

It is true that there are many Christians believe in something wich is nowhere noted in the Scriptures. We still offer 1000 € to the first Christians who can show us where in the original bible texts was written the word 'Trinity'.

The Muslims, like many Christians, Jews and gentiles should know that there are Christians who do not believe in a Tri-une God, but believe the Only One God, who does not tell lies and said about the Nazarene Jew Jeshua, whom we believe to be Jesus Christ the Messiah: "This is my only begotten beloved son". Jesus is the son of God and not god the son, nor the god the sun, nor god the light which we should honour. Jesus prayed unto his Father and told us to do likewise. We only should believe in One God only and One God that is not Triune.  Not three gods.

Islamic picture of Annunciation (Mariam)
Islamic picture of Annunciation (Mariam) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


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Thursday 7 November 2013

American atheists most religiously literate Americans

While it’s unknown how many atheists use YouVersion or other Bible apps, polls show atheists are among the most religiously literate Americans, topping Jews, Mormons and other Christians in a 2010 Pew Research Center poll.

Atheists seem to use a Bible App containing the Christian Scriptures which they can quote to have the Christians “tripped up”. Christians seemed to be sitting at the bottom of the knowledge rung, having been topped not only by atheists but by Jews and Mormons as well.

The Pew Forum gives that on average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.

On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge. Jews and atheists/agnostics stand out for their knowledge of other world religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism; out of 11 such questions on the survey, Jews answer 7.9 correctly (nearly three better than the national average) and atheists/agnostics answer 7.5 correctly (2.5 better than the national average). Atheists/agnostics and Jews also do particularly well on questions about the role of religion in public life, including a question about what the U.S. Constitution says about religion.

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

In addition, fewer than half of Americans (47%) know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist. Fewer than four-in-ten (38%) correctly associate Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism. And only about a quarter of all Americans (27%) correctly answer that most people in Indonesia – the country with the world’s largest Muslim population – are Muslims.

Other findings of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey include:
  • On world religions other than Christianity, about six-in-ten Americans (62%) know that most people in India are Hindus. About half know that Ramadan is the Islamic holy month (52%) and can name the Koran as the Muslim holy book (54%). Roughly one-third (36%) correctly associate striving for nirvana with Buddhism.
  • Two Missionaries of .
    Two Missionaries of . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
    Around four-in-ten Americans know that the Mormon religion was founded sometime after 1800 (44%) and that the Book of Mormon tells the story of Jesus appearing to people in the Americas (40%). About half (51%) correctly identify Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as a Mormon.
  • In addition to questions about religious knowledge, the survey included nine general knowledge questions (on history, politics, science and literature) for comparison purposes. These show, for example, that about six-in-ten Americans can name the vice president of the United States (59%) and understand that lasers do not work by focusing sound waves (60%). More than seven-in-ten (72%) correctly associate Susan B. Anthony with the movement to give women the right to vote, while just 42% know that Herman Melville was the author of the novel Moby Dick.
  • Overall, people who score well on the general knowledge questions also tend to do well on the religion questions. Atheists/agnostics and Jews correctly answer an average of roughly seven of the nine general knowledge questions. Among the public overall, the average respondent correctly answers 5.2 of these general knowledge questions.
  • While people with a high level of religious commitment do better than average on the religion questions, people with low levels of religious commitment do better than average on the general knowledge questions.
  • Many Americans are devoted readers of Scripture: More than a third (37%) say they read the Bible or other Holy Scriptures at least once a week, not counting worship services. But Americans as a whole are much less inclined to read other books about religion. Nearly half of Americans who are affiliated with a religion (48%) say they “seldom” or “never” read books (other than Scripture) or visit websites about their own religion, and 70% say they seldom or never read books or visit websites about other religions.

  • Mormons, black Protestants and white evangelicals are the most frequent readers of materials about religion. Fully half of all Mormons (51%) and roughly three-in-ten white evangelicals (30%) and black Protestants (29%) report that they read books or go online to learn about their own religion at least once a week. Only a small fraction of all religiously affiliated Americans – 6% of the general public and no more than 8% of any religious group – say they read books (other than Scripture) or visit websites to learn about religions other than their own at least once a week.


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Thursday 28 July 2011

Consequences of Breivik's mass murder

Breivik's mass shooting on the holiday island of Utoeya targeted youth members of Norway's Labour Party, which heads a relatively pro-immigrant, pro-multicultural government in coalition with the Socialist Left Party and the Center Party.
Utøya - killing spree's sequence of events ins...
Utøya - killing spree's sequence of events inscribed onto the island (Photo credit: quapan)


Breivik's actions could help the current government, and in particular the Labour Party, analysts said.
"In the short term, the parties are not going to touch the immigration issue ... I think it's going to make politicians quite cautious in their wording, their rhetoric," said Hanne Marthe Narud, political science professor at Oslo University.


"In a time of tragedy, voters normally flock around the established parties, particularly those in office. The Labour Party has been particularly harmed by this, and the way the prime minister has acted is extremely good. His popularity will spill over to the Labour Party," she added.

Norway's Muslim leaders were hopeful for the future, seeing Breivik's violent call for Europe to shun Muslims as actually more likely to bring Muslims and Christians together.
"I think minorities will think of themselves as more Norwegian ... religion, ethnicity, color will go into the background. The Norwegian identity will be strengthened," said Mehtab Afsar, Islamic Council of Norway general-secretary.
"We are standing shoulder to shoulder with our Christian brothers and sisters in Norway," he added.

Breivik_GP3
Breivik_GP3 (Photo credit: Uppdragsmedia)

Read more:

  1. Breivik geen enkeling

  2. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism

  3. Problems by losing the borders

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    2013 update:

    Breivik, held in isolation in a high security prison near Oslo for killing 77 people in twin attacks in 2011, placed an application to create an association he wanted to call "The Norwegian fascist party and the Nordic league."
    But Mette Siri Brønmo, a spokeswoman for the body that registers such applications, told the Aftenposten daily that Breivik's bid fell short of the legal requirements.
    "To be an association, you need to have two people or more ... and in this case, there's only Breivik," she said.

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