Aussies religion is sport,sport,sport all to replace what man has implanted in him is to worship something or someone.

The Greeks invented sport gods, and worshipped them, but had one vacant spot amongst their many gods ,Paul of Tarsus said to the Men of Athens;" I perceive thatin all things you are very religious;for I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship,I even found an altar which was dedicated to THE UNKNOWN GOD. Of course it was Jesus Christ the one that they inadvertantly missed was dedicated To The Unknown God ,knowing they had not found THE ONE TRUE GOD. Acts chapter 17 vs 22-24 New Testament Bible ,.

What I am getting at is that Australian's have copied the Greeks beliefs in worship of idols (gods) of sport, and have missed The One True God ,Jesus The Christ (The Anointed One).

So we know why "Oz", is in a hell of a moral and spiritual mess and getting worse daily,obviouslly they have the same mentality of the above comment.

The Fool has said in his heart ,"there is no God".
There is a void in Australia ,especially with the past 3 generations who only knew about religion and not real Christianity, they are two different systems of belief .
Religion says,"Do,Do,Do", and Christianity says,"Done ,Done,Done".

Religion tells you that you MUST do this or that to please God while Jesus did away with it all when he said on the Cross ,"ItIs FINISHED".

Jesus has appeared to thousands of Muslims all over the world is visions ,appearances and dreams even in Mosques but Muslims are too fearful to openly tell their immams and others in case of death or torture etc.
It proves that He is real and that he Loves Muslims and wants than saved ,. To check this out go to websites that tell of this including two girls buried alive by their Muslim father and cmae back for the grave 3 days after said a man called Jesus let them out.

Coach: This comes down to your perception of what revelation actually is, compared to what Muslims believe it is: something that was revealed over the course of time (almost 23yrs). You are free to disagree and froth at the mouth with your colleagues about it all you want, but that does not change the fact that we do not believe in our religious tradition as you assume we do, and that the vast majority of everyday Muslims have no idea what "taqiyya" even means, let alone practises it.peopl

Rex & Realist: I agree totally, I actually hate talking about religion. Actions speak louder than words. The only reason I am posting here is to share a different perception of my faith, as someone who believes in it, compared to those who have a clear agenda against it. To try and show some balance.

Rex: I also don't believe you would be automatically sent to hell for not believing in my God. So don't sweat it - I like the "fair go" idea. Except people here seem to think that those who have my belief always want to infringe on others.

Dawood.. if eternal separation from God is not the consequence of 'not' following your faith, then what is the point or the need of following it ?

It can only mean one thing..'power'. If there are no eternal consequences for not following Mohammed, why is there a death penalty for apostacy ? (whether practiced or not in some places)

What you said in that little mouthful, is in direct and repeated contradiction to your own scriptures in MANY places.

Lets be abundantly and unabmiguously clear here. Apart from Christ there is no salvation. I don't mind copping flack for this, but I absolutely know I'm being true to the scriptures in saying it.

Unlike yourself, who is willing to sugar coat the spiritual pill, for the sake of tricking a few people into thinking Islam is 'ok', I won't do that.

The whole point of the coming of the Messiah, was so man can be reconciled to God. To reject that reconciliation is to reject God.

John 12:44etc
"He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.

Yes..these are 'hard sayings'... many will react negatively. I will not sugar coat this.

If I did dip the issue of salvation in chocolate, clothed it in 'pleasure marraige'.. immersed it in 'fulfilling male lust', if I
cloaked it in 'pleasing and acceptable terms of many virgins in paradise' then I would be the worst of all people.

If I am to be criticized, crucified, incarcerated or carried out in a box,...let it be for the truth, rather than a lie.

Boaz,

"The whole point of the coming of the Messiah, was so man can be reconciled to God. To reject that reconciliation is to reject God"

May I ask you first to look up the Torah's definition of the meaning of Messiah to understand what it means first? It will also help you understand why they rejected Jesus (pbuh).

Second, your above statement implies that all those who don't share your faith are 'infidels'. I thought you are promoting harmony and co-existence? are you?

Peace,

Boaz: First of all, there is a difference between 'simple' apostacy, and that which is linked with treason against the state. The death was for treason, this is basic Islamic law 101 for anyone seriously interested in the subject. Even puritanical scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya clearly believed this, and is known for explaining this idea in various works. He is one of the most well known 'extremist' demagogues that is used by extremists today. They choose not to follow this part of his work though. This is not even mentioning contemporary or even classical sources on this issue of law.

Another thing Ibn Taymiyya was known for was his idea that hell would eventually become empty; that it is not eternal. Such was his zeal for "Oneness" that extremists seek to emulate, that nothing else could be Eternal apart from God. They also choose not to accept this.

When adding other theological scholars with clout in to the mix, it is clear that the issue is not so black and white regarding the afterlife. It may be for you, but not so for us. Ghazali divided non-Muslims in to 3 main categories (with nuance between): 1) Those who never heard of Islam; 2) Those who received a distorted view of Islam; 3) Those who received and understood 'true' Islam, and still denied it. He is representative of the dominant theological school today.

He explains that the 1st and 2nd were covered by God's all-encompassing Mercy, and that it was only the 3rd who would be punished. Technically only the 3rd are called 'kafir' too, as it means someone who buries/covers over something. A summary is basically "Who are we mere humans to seek to limit the Mercy of God when He has stated 'My mercy preceeds my Wrath'?"

He sounds slightly more egalitarian than you did in the post above. F_H has also criticized his views elsewhere on here. So why am I "sugar coating" anything? Various views exist within Islam, and I am merely representing one, as well as what I know of others from study and experience.

The problem dawood, fellow human, etal is you are obviously well informed about Islam and can argue fine points of law etcetera quoting many different scholars of Islam while you're deating with extremist Christians who are not only disinterested in that approach when discussing Islam they wouldn't have a clue on that level about their own religion and wouldn't be interested in that either.

I've been told over and over again by the extremist christians on this list that they don't believe in the Bible--if so how irrelevant are scholars of the Bible to them? So why would they be interested in scholars of Islam?

These are people who follow their religion with all the intelligence of people barracking for a football team where the fundamental point for them is everyone who doesn't believe in their football team is going to hell and they cannot understand why that does not scare you and others to follow their religion.

This is extremist hysteria. Every religion (and political party) has a section of people like this but especially religions that believe in heaven and hell, judgement day and the one and only religion with the one and only God.

You can join such a religion and be very intellectual about it and focus on the positive if you wish but in the end they will always attract the lower edge of people who just want someone to tell them what to do and they'll be 'saved' and everyone else will burn in hellfire just for being in another religion. Both Islam and Christianity deliberately try to attract these types because they make up a large proportion of humanity. Unfortunately.

This isn't Islam against Christianity.This is about intellectual people who are educated about their religion who choose to ignore the worst parts against non-intellectual people who often haven't a clue about their religion apart from some of the more gross beliefs who choose to ignore the worst parts of their religion and focus on the worst parts of others. You get both types in Islam and Christianity--just not on this list.