Religious Intolerance

» Robert O'Connor - My article "All Pray to One God"

A guest posted this comment on my article "All Pray to One God" (in full. My response follows after the indents with ::)

"Gaaahhh. Rubbish. Nonsense. Do you have ANY understanding of the Bible, the Koran and history?

Jesus said that He Himself is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that "No one comes to the Father except through" Him. All non-Christians (including Muslims) reject this.

::The passage you're quoting comes from the Gospel of John, which is the only gospel that directly asserts that Jesus is the only son of God. Muslims acknowledge Jesus (Issa in the Qu'ran) as a prophet, but do not accept the claims of his divinity, saying that those were added by man and corrupted the word of God.

"Their "god" is not Triune and did not live on Earth as the Christ. That may be something, and they worship it, but it isn't the GOD of Creation and Judgment. Furthermore, Jesus Himself said, "he who rejects Me, rejects Him who sent Me."

::As I said before, Muslims do not reject Jesus, only the claims of his being the son of God. If you're only argument that Islam and Christianity worship different gods is that Allah is not triune, you're going to have to try harder.

Ishmael, the first son of Abraham (the same Abraham) is considered the patriarch of the Arabs. The Kabbah in Mecca is believed to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael.

"GOD has a word for worshiping something other than Himself. It's called "idolatry". According to your theory, idolatry is not even possible. Well, both the Bible AND the Koran would kindly disagree with you.

::I did not say that everyone worships the same God whether they know it or not. The Eastern religions see the universe and the objects in it as reflections of a single deity.

The point of the article was that it shouldn't be a huge leap to acknowledge that Islam and Christianity worship the same God, but for others, it may be so.

"Still further, you imply that the reason we lack peace amongst religions is that *Westerners* won't accept Islam as equally valid. Why should we have to agree with Muslims before they'll live in peace with us? Can't we agree to disagree, consider each other in error and in danger of Hell, and still live in peace?

::Your implication is wrong. I said that one reason peace between religions is difficult, if not impossible, is that westerners believe that a different belief system means a different God, while those in the east believe that, as the Rig Veda says, "Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names."

"We don't execute Muslims who convert former Christians here in the West. Why should they execute Middle Easterners who evangelize, let alone those who simply convert in the East? Peace will NEVER come until Muslims stop attacking Christian evangelists and "Muslim apostates". Without individual freedom in matters of conscience and religion, there can be no peace. We in the West DON'T attack people for being Muslim. It's time for THEM to reciprocate. "

::That is a problem, and I don't condone it at all.

Maybe, and this is just something to think about, maybe the problem isn't with individual Muslims, but with Governments who use religion for evil ends (any Government that uses Christianity for evil ends would be called un-Christian, so we can safely call every government who uses Islam for evil ends un-Islamic)

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