jimoctec,

Jesus is God incarnate. Believe it or not

There is One True God, “Truth” is Singular – any other notion is "fiction” - a deviation from the Truth, a human invention in collaboration with Satan.

FH,

Deedat? Common now – is that the best you can throw at me now?

The guy is dead, and so are his fraudulent arguments.

He could not stand a chance in debates today – but his material are still used to manipulate the spiritual weak – but then again these could fall for anything anyway.

The debate in Bankstown I told you about was by one of his followers… he did not have a chance.

sajo,

Good point – a lot of muslims escape their oppressive regimes – they don’t necessarily choose Australia, they just want to get “out” of hell. But hell is following them here.

Keith,

You are right we need more description re: muslim sects and cultural differences. This will certainly help Muslims self-expression if we knew where they draw their references.

Ev,

“The Abrahamic relgions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are all based on the fear of punishment, the fear of being punished. This is closely related to a deeply held fear of death.”

These are wrong assumptions because:

1. Islam claims to be a Judaic religion – both Judaism and Christianity refute that.
2. Christ has conquered death on the cross and has taken away the fear of the judgement for our sins.

For me to live in fear of death or eternal punishment is a lack of consideration for what Jesus has done.

________________

Muslims live in a bubble of their own. Their (islamic) state takes care of all their needs from the 'cradle to the grave'. Their religious beliefs are considered more precious than the blood of a martyr or the life of a Kaffir (non-muslim).

They will do everything to protect it from foreign influences: therefore they MUST keep their laws for that bubble to remain whole.

Beware!

ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS.

If we look at the 10 commandments. The first one contains 3 elements.

1/ Who am I ..."I am" a statement of 'who' is addressing Israel.
2/ What did I do...The reason and background to why this God is addressing Israel.
3/ How should you respond....Their reasonable response.

I am the LORD thy God,
who
brought you (Israel) out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Bearing in mind, that the reference to being saved from bondage, is something one could rightly expect gratitude for, I don't think the final "You shall have no other gods before me" is too much to ask.

Only 2 of the 10 commandments were 'positive'

1/ Keep the Sabbath, have a break !
2/ Honor your parents.

All the rest are in the form of 'Do not'....such and such.

The reason is that our natural tendency is to 'DO' those things, but doing them will alienate us from our Creator.

I don't get the impression that it was about 'fear' as much as it was about 'walking with God in His ways'.

If you had saved the life of a traveller, from certain death would it be fair to say that your relationship with the saved traveller was based on 'fear' ? Suppose he thought nothing of it, and ridiculed you, as if nothing had been done, you could rightly feel annoyed ?

In regard to Sharia, I have to go back one step to the prophet of Sharia, Mohammed. The difficulty I have, apart from simply rejecting totally that he was in any way 'from God', is that in his life, 2 concepts are linked and interwoven.

1/ Belief in him, (Mohammed) and
2/ Violence. (Military, Political and Domestic)

They are linked in very specific ways, which have been posted here many times. With this link, the whole culture and society becomes built around this founding point, will reflect ultimately that linking of ideas in its values and behavior...and we see this daily

BOAZ_David wrote: "The struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism in England was fundamentally political, not religious..."

Anyone who thinks the two are mutually exclusive must be a real dimwit.

The Spanish Inquisition was political, aimed at driving out residual Muslim influence from Spain. The right-to-life groups in the US who bomb abortion clinics and assassinate their workers are also political.

This is nothing to do with religion?

BOAZ_David also wrote: "There is not a single verse in the New Testament (on which Christianity is based) which urges believers to 'fight' for that faith. What it DOES do, is urge them to be patient and longsuffering, to be strong and endure, and further to love those who persecute."

That is a good example of my earlier point that text is one thing but interpretation quite another.

There is no Christian nation (and the United States is more Christian than most) that rests its foreign policy on being "patient and longsuffering", on loving "those who persecute". In the 13th century Saint Thomas Aquinas considered the doctrine of Just War, "Whether some kind of war is lawful" and concluded that there are certainly circumstances where it is, http://ethics.acusd.edu/Books/Texts/aquinas/justwar.html

The first Christian Crusade against Muslim Infidels occurred during the 11th century. Pope Gregory VII at the time "struggled with reservations about the doctrinal validity of a holy war and the shedding of blood for the Lord and had resolved the question in favour of justified violence." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

Seven centuries ago, Aquinas was codifying well established principles. It is pointless to protest that the New Testament contains no encouragement for Christian nations to fight. They have been doing that for over a thousand years.

Irfan has written an article that covers the following points:
1. Mr. Costello describes 6 values that define Australia. Irfan claims that Muslim scholars can identify 5 values of Sharia that are very similar if not the same as Costello's 6.
2. Because of this, some Imams claim that Australia is more Islamic than most Muslim majority States.
3. This is also because Sharia and Australia laws have the same basic origins, and have borrowed extensively from each other.
4. But a tiny minority doesn't have the precondition necessary for proper Sharia, namely Sufism. This is the source of the terrorist mentality.
5. Finally, if Aussie Mossies cant get this point over, how can they possibly criticise the rest of use if we don,t understand these points

To respond to these, all one has to do is mention one word, Malaysia. Similar origins to Australia, with British law and institutions. Originally a secular state until declared Islamic by the Maharthir.

Malaysia is a country where dhimmitude is practiced through the tax system and the over whelming preferential treatment granted to Malays. This is in despite of a disproportionate percentage of the economy being generated by the substantial Indian and Chinese communities.

Ethnic Chinese and Indians are grossly under represented in all forms of public service and government, and actively discriminated against.

This is also country where:
95% of all government contracts are given to Malays.
There must be 30% staff in Chinese companies, but 0% of non-Malays staff are legally required in Malay companies.
144 Indian and 50 Chinese schools have been closed down.

I had course to speak with an Imam in Malaysia. During this meeting he brought out a map that showed all the Islamic countries across from Iran/Iraq cross to Indonesia. A finger was jabbed at the outline of Australia with the proclamation that "we are working towards seeing that Australia become part of the the Ummah".

In my view the real issue is that Islam runs by the rule of "we will dominate, and not be dominated". Sharia and Sufism are side issues.

Dear Mike

yes, I know what you mean. The issue of 'interpretation' is very important.

Adolph Hitler intepreted the incident of Jesus cleansing the temple as follows:

1/ The merchants Jesus drove out were JEWS.
2/ Jesus drove out the JEWS.
3/ We must be like Jesus and drive out the JEWS from our communities.

Forgetting of course, that Jesus himself was a Jew, and that the scripture clearly indicates what that event was about. Nothing like Hitler understood.

So, a wrong interpretation tells you more about the 'people' concerned than the document itself. You will agree I'm sure that we have sent people to the moon based on the correct interpretation of words on paper. There are sound principles which must be applied.
We cannot grab verses like a lucky dip from anywhere and put them together to form our own brand of the faith.

In most cases, the political use of religion, has its roots in the maintaining of power, which in turn gives authority over people and resources.
Despots and Tyrants seem to either 'use' religion for political ends, or use political methods to destroy it altogether.

It would not matter how ridiculous the 'faith' was, as long as it had the effect of uniting the people, despots will use it.

So, in the end, we are left with documents, principles of sound interpretation and our consciences. I trust in God that you will use these for your own eternal benefit.

It would appear that some Germans have decided that the Koran is incompatible with their Constitution, and have referred the matter to the Courts. This should make things interesting.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1594464/posts

In terms of the basic law of Germany it would appear that it certainly has a case to answer.

http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/ggeng.html

It would also appear that this strategy is not new, and almost won the day in India a decade ago in a landmark case that still reverberates.See

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/tcqp/

As one commentator noted:

10. “The Islamic principles of denigrating the non-Muslims, of aggression and violence against them - principles that perpetually incite to riot and rapine - have boomeranged. However brave face the fundamentalists may try to put up, the victims of Islam today are by and large Muslims themselves. The Prophet must have known that violence begets violence and repeatedly exhorted Muslims not to kill one another after his death. He also had a premonition that violence of Islam against non-Muslims will be met with a backlash. There is a hadis in Sahih Muslim which says that once the Rasul opined that Islam which began in poverty in Medina would one day return to Medina in poverty. ‘Just as a snake crawls back and coils itself into a small hole, so will Islam be hunted out from everywhere and return to be confined to Mecca and Medina.’ The increasing power of the non-Muslim West and the disenchantment of Muslim dissidents point towards that possibility, howsoever remote.”

It appears that Muhammad had a premonition that Islam would one day be rooted out and reconfined to Mecca and Medina?

Most would say the sooner the better before the bugger up more countries with their manipulative, backward looking, medieval nonsense.