Furstentum Liechtenstein wrote:ryanbouma wrote:
Islam is a legalistic religion where those who do more good than evil are rewarded by Allah. There is no concept of grace in Islam, any more than there is in other false faiths. The sad truth is that all who die as professing Muslims go to hell. Sorry.
Interesting topic but quite numerous issues I have trouble with. firstly, why be so "fundamentalist" and play the judge in deciding who will be saved and who not? who gives us men the power to decide that someone won't be saved just because he's in a different faith? to me that's so repugnant. i mean, a god of love sending millions to hell simply because they were born in a "bad religion". isn't God's grace more than that we can imagine? and who is to judge who will go where when we have no idea what those people's conscience was and whether they acted in accordance or against it? i guess somewhere it says "unbelievers" will be judged according to their conscience
second, you believe christianity is true and the only way because you may have been raised with it and had personal experience with god, live in a relationship with Him etc. that's all fair, but I can guarantee there could be millions of people from OTHER religions claiming the same. you know, i've seen various "sects" if you want, and they all pretty much say the same when they switch. catholics say others are sects because of this and that and they say catholicism is a false religion because they use the bible to find numerous issues with it - idolatry in praying to saints, having the mass - 1 group i met believes it's an occult practice because Christ's sacrifice was complete upon the cross and nothing can be added to it. they claim the Eucharist and transsubstantion is demonic as this is like magic and they could quote endless bible passages to justify their claim. to a catholic that sounds insane and even blasphemous, but after trying to step back and take different points of view all i realized is that I'm not to judge and i can't know the truth by myself. each side has their points and to the other side may seem insane and about to be burned in hell forever.
and I've read conversions from catholic to sthg else, from mormon to jehovah's witnesses - somehow, there are similar elements in all of them: upon reading the bible they felt what they'd believed was wrong and they became utterly 100% inside out convinced that the new faith is right. no doubts, they felt convinced it was "the only true God". when a catholic was shown something about their eucharist, he'd say it was from God but if it was in the other group, he'd say it's demonic. do you see the point I'm making? people can be fooled into believing their belief system is true... and sorry to say this but also fooled and blinded into not seeing ANY problems... well, the more I want to have genuine faith in christ, the more problems i face
sure, i'm not denying christianity couldn't be true, but let's not forget to imagine what it's like being in their shoes. you are brought up believing islam/mormonism/judaism/whatever is the only truth. and you believe it inside out. then how on earth could you be judged for not believing the supposed "truth" if there was no sure way of knowing it? how can one be condemned for sthg he wasn't able to be respnsible for? to me that's utter madness and demagogy and there is no speck of love or grace in that.
and thirdly, some of you mentioned you have problems with islam. well i'm trying hard to understand my christian faith but sadly there are hundreds of issues that are baffling me all the time. God in the OT and legalism - strict laws which had to be respected and any disobedience was severely punished. is that a god of love? and then that same God said "go and kill other nations because i'm giving them into your hand". why does God command one thing in general but then commands the opposite? that's just one of my "personal" issues" I'm having. the more i try come closer to the christian God (and that of judaism) i always find sthg that's just making me disgusted, disappointed and unable to sympathize with his character. i know this may be irrelevant to the topic, but I can very much sympathize with other faiths or even sects or those atheists who would want to believe but always find some issue which puts them off
"Love is only possible if a choice of either love or rejecting the love is given." One of the most true things id ever heard, not so long ago.
-MMS-