Bashir: Without meaning to be offensive let me be as blunt as Ahmed Deedat.
Moslems worship a different god, they worship the moon god of mecca.
Christians worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and Ishmael)the Father of Jesus Christ.
Christians are told not to lie to anyone. Moslems are allowed, by the koran, to lie to unbelievers - or all non-moslems.
To moslems a non-moslem's life is worth nothing, according to the koran and many sheiks,leaders and teachers.
Moslems, male and female, are encouraged to commit suicide re suicide bombers. Not only encouraged but are rewarded with 40 or 70 perpetual virgins and 32 'pearls ( perpetual un-touched hairless boys) in paradise. Do not know what moslem women get, some say that they get to watch the men with their virgin women and un-touched boys.
The aim of islam is to convert the world to islam by what ever means.

According to God's Holy Bible moslems, I'm afraid are pagans. numbat

Numbat; Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon that follows 21st March (equinox)- sounds a touch pagan to me.

According to the dictionary, anyone who isn't a Jew, Christian or Muslim is a pagan. Etymology of pagan is rural.

BASHIR
first welcome to this forum. Let me also state quite forthrightly that no matter what you say, you are WELCOME to stay as long as u like (from my side anyway).. and I hope you will contrast this, (no matter how much flack you receive, and I assure you, there will be plenty) with the closed mindedness of many Islamic forums. Notably UMMAH.com and ISLAMICSYDNEY.
Both of which take strong exception to any criticism of Mohamed, or Islam. You can get about 2 posts of a critical nature through, then BAN.

Ahmad Deedat I’ve heard this man, debating with Josh McDowell. I don’t regard Josh as without blemish by any means in some of his ideas, but... what stood out more than anything in Deedats approach was this.

1/ Begin with an out of context, misunderstanding of a verse, (from the Bible)
2/ Build your whole argument on that ‘
3/ Defend this wrongly derived case with ridicule.

Not exactly building interfaith dialogue.

The other point which stood head and shoulders above all that Deedat said, was when McDowell spoke of a transformed life ‘in Christ’. Deedat had no answer.

But in any case. let us be very clear on one thing. When Jesus said “I am ‘the’ way” He mean’t it now that puts pagan Muslims out of the kingdom of God, as it does for all those outside of Christ.

He did not say that with any sense of arrogance. He said it based on the healing of the sick, the restoring sight to the blind, the casting out of demons, control of the weather, and the raising of the dead.

Christ came proclaiming the Kingdom of God, and he is the ‘Door’ into it. Which side of the door, are you on ?

<<medieval Muslim traders who spread Islam, through their character and their trading acumen,>> hmmm marrying into royal houses helped their cause somewhat also.

You make many true observations,

Yes.. the Jimmy Swaggart line is ironic. JS any verbal victory over Jimmy Swaggart, is not something I’d be bragging about as an accomplishment.

Bashir,

It is true that men of the likes of Deedat will be missed, there is absolutely everything to gain where moslems are shown how to interact with other faiths without resorting to voilence, of the type that is regularly witnessed by those of other faiths within islamic countries. We christians welcome as much dialogue as possible with other faiths, and it is all in the natural course of events that those other faiths might site situations such as the Jimmy Swaggart affair,

There can still only be one essential truth, the more we are able to discuss it the better, how great it would be to see the leaders of all faiths in the debating room with Christian leaders of proven ability and faith such as Josh McDowell, Peter Jensen in Australia could do an equally good job.

Are we being encouraged to grant godlike praise and admiration to this man or to the qualities of character and teaching he defended? We should admire the character qualities that reflect the image of God. It is to the character of God we give worship. If he is an apologist for the true revelation of God then he has performed his calling. However if he was merely a defendant of the Qur'an and Mahomet then his vision of God was limited to a brief and rather questionable period of Arabic history.

For instance the Qur'an reproduces the position of the virgin Mary as held by the pagan Roman Catholic in the period of Mahomet. So I ask was his message from God or merely influenced by contemporary thought. Similarly the Shari'ah developments coincided with the second Jewish Talmud of 600 AD.

Shoshana,
Christians prefer to remember to death, burial and to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus because it happens to coincide with the Jewish Passover celebrated during that celestial season. The Jews see the heavenly bodies as signs and demarcation of season [Genesis 1: 14] Christians remember Christ our Passover, who shed his blood and gave his life for us. The Church of the Roman Empire called it Easter because it occurred at the same time [the name Easter developed from Astare a pagan god of love and has nothing to do with Christianity]. The term Passover was subverted under Romanism and the name became syncretised with a festival of the pagan god celebrate at that time.

Quote you, "Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon that follows 21st March (equinox)- sounds a touch pagan to me.

"I first saw Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, who died at his home in Durban, South Africa..."

Have you ever noticed how all these 'tolerant' Muslims who promote "interfaith dialogue" never live in Islamic countries?

Bashir, I suppose that you are a 'good' Muslim, so could you please tell me where are this 'tolerance' and 'interfaith dialogue' goes when Islam dominates? Unless, of course, by 'tolerance' you mean a person can be a third class citizen and Islam will let you worship as you please as long as you don't offend Muslims in any way, and maybe not even then.

What a bunch of hypocrites Muslims are. Wherever Islam dominates, other religions as well as women, gays, Jews, etc... are oppressed and discriminated against.

This so-called dialogue that some Muslims in the West like to talk about is fake and phony. They don't respect us and we should not respect them. I have yet to meet a Muslim that can be honest about their dear prophet. Believe me, I have tried, as you folks may have noticed...

The bottom line is this: When other religions have the same rights (no more and no less) as Muslims and when women, jews, gays and other groups can walk, talk and live freely in Islamic countries, then there can be 'interfaith' dialogue. If you want to see the true Islam, look at the places where Muslims rule, not in the West.

Tell me, Bashir, does the fact that there are about a dozen accounts of your prophet inflicting brutal torture on people bother you? Do you care? Have you any shame?

Tell me why anyboy should respect a man that by Islam's own history was a murderer, slaver and torturer? Tell me why anybody should respect or believe people that follow a man like your dear "burn his eyes out" Mohammud? Tell me why I or anybody else should have dialogue with people that cannot even condemn a torturer?

Inquiring minds would like to know...