[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]NVRGIVEUP wrote:
I have no idea what that means but a google search gave me the idea that it is related to the divine person of Jesus. Muslims believe that Jesus was a messenger of God ONLY, not his son. God does not need a son. We also believe that Jesus was never crucified. The day will come when Jesus will be back to show everyone that the Jews never really killed him, and that Christians did not know the truth of what happened. He will then rule the entire world (you don’t have to believe all this, it’s according to my beliefs as a Muslim.) [/quote]
This all fabulous, but just because you say something does not mean it is true.
Mohammedanism was a heresy. Once this is grasped, then I can go further. But, we’ll start with point one.
Mohammedanism did not start out as a pagan contrast to the Church or an alien enemy. It was a mere perversion of Christian doctrine. How it spread, its vitality and the length it continued gave it the outer appearance of a new religion. People that saw the rise of it saw it was not a denial. It was an adaption and misuse of Christianity.
Comparing it to other heresies, there is difference between it and them (but not all), it did not arise within the Church. The prime heretic, Mohammed, unlike other prime heretics, was not a Catholic nor did he have the doctrine at his beginning: he was pagan. Nevertheless, what he taught was the oversimplified Catholic doctrine. He was surrounded by Catholics, he lived in the Catholic frontier, and he traveled in Catholic areas. This doctrine inspired him in Mohammedanism. Of course he was familiar with the degraded idolaters of the Arabian desert, which the Romans did not see fit to conquer.
Strangly enough, he did not take much of the pagan ideas that he was born with. His preaching and doctrine was a group of ideas that were most definitely peculiar to the Catholic Church, these ideas distinguished it from the Greek and Roman civilizations it later conquered. The foundation of it was Catholic doctrine: unity and omnipotence of God. These attributes of God he took from Catholic doctrine: personal nature, all-goodness, timelessness, providence, His creative powers are the origin of all things, and His sustenance of all things by his power alone.
This also included the good and evil spirits and angels, the evil spirits in rebellion against God is part of his teaching, with a chief evil spirit, just as Catholic doctrine explains.
On the human side, too, immortality of the soul, responsibility for actions in this life, and the consequent doctrine of punishment and reward after death.
I have to get back to work, but I’ll write more later.[/quote]
You do seem to make a very good point. There is indeed great similarity between the two religions. I do not find it surprising, however, because I believe that both are messengers of the One and only same God, and although the religions might have minor differences here and there, the basic messages from both are the same, and you did a good job of outlining them.
I am a doctor of philosophy, but my PhD is in Physics. My knowledge of philosophy as a subject comes entirely from a 100 level philosophy course that I took in 1989. “Do you have a PhD or other doctorate in philosophy” would have been better.