Saturday, October 06, 2007

Questions and Conversion

Loved this section from an account of a Muslim who converted to the way of Christ. He was asking questions of both religions, and I think that when you ask questions of both religions, generally speaking, people will go with Christianity. But that's just me. Check out this man's questions and ask yourself if you can answer the questions he had about Christianity:

I reached a point where I was not sure how to deal with some of the difficulties in the Bible that were very unclear such as:

1. Why four books to present the "gospel" and not one, as Quran teaches of one gospel.
2. The whole issue of Sin and the need for shedding of blood and a Savior.
3. Jesus being God and Man and the whole concept of the Trinity.
4. Did Jesus really die on the cross and was he resurrected or not?
5. How could followers of Jesus commit the atrocities that are part of the church history such as the crusades?

But also in my quest to use the Quran as my standard, and the teaching and life of Mohammad as a model for life, I had some significant difficulties, for example:

1. The whole concept of "abrogation". That God chose to reveal verses in the Quran that supersede earlier revelation in the same Quran. How an eternal revelation of God could have such time bound revelation seemed at odds with the nature of God.
2. The inconsistency of the messages, for example facing Jerusalem and then Mecca; or fornication being a sin, but one can have sex with many slave women that have no legal marriage status; tolerance and peace message of earlier revelation, but the command to fight all unbelievers in later revelation.
3. The need for revisions of the Quran to standardize it and ordering the burning of all the older copies. Why this need to leave no trace of what the edited version did not contain and why.
4. The unequal status of woman compared to men in area of marriage, rule of law, social etiquette, modesty, etc.
5. Treatment of non-Muslims in the community and the command to Jihad.

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