I have always loved science: when most boys said they wanted to be policemen, I wanted to be a paleontologist and study dinosaurs. Now as a priest, I still enjoy looking at science as a sign of God’s beautiful work in the world. Looking for an Islamic understanding of natural science, I came across a few lines from Al-Ghazali, possibly the most influential Muslim after Mohammed:
“Natural sciences, some of which go against sharee’ah, Islam and truth, so it is ignorance, not knowledge that may be mentioned alongside the other branches of knowledge… there is no need for the study of nature.”
These divergent views on science illustrate one difference in how Muslims and Christians view God. We worship the same God but that doesn’t mean we understand him the same way. Obviously, Muslims and Jews believe in a monotheistic but not a Trinitarian God. Since God is the source of all meaning, how we understand God affects how we understand everything. Recent news stories have compared the two faiths with regard to terrorism, Syrian refugees, and obeying American laws, so I think it appropriate to explain the fundamental difference in how the two religions understand God. I will mention a few practical consequences at the end but I will focus on differences in how we understand God. The three primary differences I see are the relationship between God’s intellect and will, God as Father or master, and God as monad or Trinity.
(Notes: [1] Throughout this essay I will use the word “Allah” not to intend he is a different God but to indicate ways in which Muslims misunderstand the one true God. Writing “God according to Muslims” repetitively made for a tedious read. [2] I am using the theoretical, philosophical and theological, understanding: individual Christians and Muslims often vary.)
Will and Intellect
In Islam, Allah’s will is above his intellect, while in Christianity, God’s intellect is above his will. This difference in the internal hierarchy might seem like an abstract distinction but as we work through the consequences, we realize that this tiny change makes a huge difference. God can will things beyond our reason but not against it while Allah can will things against reason. This distinction of superiority is the reason for the discrepancy regarding science – if God wills arbitrarily, why try to understand non-existent laws. The same applies for finding beauty in God’s handiwork of creation. The same distinction applies to morality: there is a rational reason Christians believe in one-man-one-woman marriage but the reason a Muslim can have four wives but not five is Allah says so. With regard to wives, one is a special number while four is simply an arbitrary limit chosen. As Christians, we understand that God always wills good, yet permits evil, but Allah can will that someone does evil.
As Christians we can ask why God does or permits certain acts: why does God allow evil? St Augustine answers that evil is never willed because it is not something but a lack and God allows evil so a greater good can come about in mysterious ways. Why did Jesus have to undergo the cross? St Anselm says that our sin caused an infinite offense because is an offense against God but only God could make an infinite reparation but man must make reparation for the offense, thus the God-man’s suffering is the proper reparation.
Muslims can’t ask questions the same way: why does every Muslim need to perform the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca)? Because Allah willed it. Some slight explanations might be given but nothing approaching the Christian respect for reason. Why did Mohammed marry Aisha at six or seven, and consummate the marriage when she was nine? Because Allah willed it, period. No further explanation can be given.
The basic distinction: our Trinitarian God does everything according to reason while Allah can follow reason or do things arbitrarily.
Father and Lord
In Christianity we call God “Father”; Islam has 99 names for God but none are familial. Scott Hahn tells a story: before debating with an Imam, the two of them were talking. At one point, Hahn called God, “Our Father,” and the Iman got enraged yelling that Dr Hahn spoke blasphemy. Hahn was a little puzzled as we pointed out that among the 99 names there are “The Loving,” “The Nourisher,” “The All-Aware,” and “The Indulgent.” He asked why if you’re going to give God names corresponding to all the traits of a good Father why you can’t call him a Father? The Iman replied with a story: he had a dog will be loved, who he nourished, who he indulged, but he was moving and in his new apartment pets weren’t allowed, so he was putting his dog to sleep.
While “Christianity” is named after the central person of Christianity, Jesus Christ, “Islam” means submission. Submission is viewed in a fairly harsh sense – not a filial submission to a good Father but a slave’s submission to an arbitrary master. When God asks us something difficult, he asks as a gentle Father who we know wants the best for us. When Allah asks something difficult, a Muslim may or may not be given a reason – he is asked to submit like a slave.
An obvious sign of the daddy or master distinction is the difference in how the two religions view heaven. Since God is Father, the best we can imagine is being united with him in heaven: a family scene or a giant festive banquet of all Christians united together. Since Allah is simply a master, he instead motivates with a sensual vision: drinking wine on a couch with 70 virgins caring for you. Everyone wants to be with a good Father, but not everyone wants to be with a master.
The view of God as Father or master is partially a consequence of the previous point. If the intellect is first, infinite and perfect, God will always will what is good for each of his creatures – thus, it is appropriate to call him “good Father.” If, on the other hand, Allah is somewhat arbitrary in what he chooses for his creatures, treating them as peons, it is only appropriate to call him “Master.”
Monad and Trinity
We all remember from catechesis that there are three persons in one God: each of the three is God but each is not the others. Cardinal Ratzinger stated: “God is One and Three: he is not an eternal solitude; rather, he is an eternal love that is based on the reciprocity of the Persons, a love that is the first cause, the origin, and the foundation of all being and of every form of life. Unity engendered by love, trinitarian unity, is a unity infinitely more profound than the unity of a building stone, indivisible as that may be from a material perspective. This supreme unity is not rigidly static; it is love.” Love unites the Trinity and brings it closer than an individual alone.
On the other hand, in Islam God is a “monad” as he is absolutely one, singular and unique. There are no relations or modes in God. He simply is above everything else, alone in majesty.
If God is love – not only love but subsisting and uniting love – he has perfect happiness in himself and if he decides to create, his act of creation will be driven by love. Even though Allah is “The Loving,” love is simply an attribute of his relationship to believers and not part of his nature. God hates none of his creatures although he may hate some of their acts (sins); while Allah, according to IslamQA, “Hates those who disbelieve and disobey Him… [and] may hate a person at one time and love him at another time, according to his actions.”
The fact that God is Trinity makes God personal and relational. Allah is a personal God but Muslims are called to a much more formal and fear-based relationship. The Trinitarian nature of God puts love at the center of his nature rather than simply an external attribute. We are called to have the Trinity well within us while Allah is so transcendent, he always dwells apart. Even the Kaaba, the central rock in Mecca, is not a point of God’s presence on earth but simply where they believe God ordered Abraham and subsequent prophets to pray.
The Trinity implies relationship and love while a monad simply exists above and beyond all else.
Practical Consequences
Many practical consequences come about but I’ll stick to three: law, terrorism, and persecution.
Muslims generally want Sharia law and Christians generally want Biblical law. However, there is a huge difference. Since we as Christians believe in a rational, fatherly, and loving God we see the Bible as giving principles but letting our human reason decipher later laws from these principles. For example: the constitutions of Canada and the USA are different but they’re both based upon the Bible; the Bible forbids adultery but we realize that enforce that as a law would cause more problems than it would resolve; and we can create corporate legal persons (non-existent in Sharia), essential for modern economies, even though these came about later. On the other hand, since Allah is an arbitrary transcendent slave-driver, when he revealed Sharia law to Mohammed, it was perfect and cannot be improved or modified. Thus, the law that four male witnesses are needed to prove rape or adultery unless a person admits to it, cannot be improved. A practical consequence of this law is that if a woman accuses a man of rape but can’t find four males witnesses, she is punished for admitting adultery: it’s estimated that 80 percent of women in Pakistani jails are there as rape victims with insufficient witnesses. Biblical law starts with basic principles and then reasons to their particular application in the society while Sharia law begins and ends with a perfect legal system developed in the time of Mohammed.
Terrorism is radically different in Christianity and Islam. There have been Christian terrorists such as the IRA but they were terrorists for political reasons and despite being Christians. We believe in absolute morality where means never justify the ends – a Christian couldn’t kill baby Hitler even with foreknowledge because killing innocents is never permitted. However, since Allah is arbitrary and can will what would otherwise be evil, means justify ends. Thus, if suicide bombings expand Islam, they can be what Allah wills. That might sound crazy but according to Pew research, 13 percent of American Muslims, 24 percent of British Muslims, and 35 percent of French Muslims said suicide bombings are justifiable. Muslims often disagree on what Allah wills but a significant proportion believe he can will the evil of suicide bombings. If Allah treats you as a slave and arbitrarily wills what you should do, terrorism is an option, but since God always wills the moral good, terrorism is always an abomination.
Faced with denying their faith in persecution, Islam and Christianity take opposite paths. Christianity hails the martyr, “witness,” as the supreme example of what it means to be a Christian and follow Jesus. Muslims, on the other hand, maintain a doctrine of Taqiyya, which allows a Muslim to hide his faith in order to prevent consequences of being a Muslim such as death or loss of property. In Traitor, a 2008 film about an agent inside an Islamic terror group, the terrorists drink wine, forbidden in Islam, at a French café to hide they are Muslims. Taqiyya makes trusting Isalmic apologists in the West difficult because we can never be sure if his responses are authentic or Taqiyya: an apologist would be justified in claiming Islam was against all terrorism, even if believed otherwise, in order to protect himself and other Muslims from danger.
Since God is the source of all meaning, our view of God changes how we view all reality. Some minor changes in the differences between how Christians and Muslims view God makes radical changes in the way we each practice our faith. Always remember that God is your rational Father united in the Trinity by love.
124 thoughts on “Abba or Allah: 2 Views of the 1 God”
For the information of readers, “Allah” is just the Arabic word for “God,” etymologically related to the Hebrew “Elohim.” (Arabic is a Semitic language, like Hebrew.) For example, that is what Arabic Christians call Him. Obviously, Christians and Muslims have a very different understanding of God, as Fr. Schneider lays out very well in this article.
(Interestingly, there are some Western philosophies that conceived of God in a way similar to Islam: for example William of Ockham and René Descartes—much as their philosophies differs from Islam’s and from each other’s in many other respects—share with Islam the primacy of the will. Both, for example, would even go so far as to say that God can make immoral actions good and make inherent contradictions compatible.)
Which conclusions they arrived at by studying islamic commentators on ancient Greek philosophy!
Were Catholics in the French Resistance terrorists despite being Christian?
Allah is not omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. The God of Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Jacob never promised any man seven virgins when he gets to Heaven. If Christians and muslims worship the same God, why is there so much Jihad war in the world?
If we worshiped the same God, why will our Lord ban all people of Islam from making Heaven? If we serve the same God, why are there two different laws available to Christians and muslims?
If we serve the same Father, then there should be only one mediator between God and man, Who is Jesus and not Mohammed.
http://www.jimiakanbi.com/
Christians and Jews worship the same God, even if we have different understandings of Him. Muslims do not worship the same God — Muslims do not worship God at all, they worship a man-made creation. That many, if not all, do so sincerely and in good faith, believing that they do worship a real deity, does not make it so. What they worship is false.
Well, an angel might have appeared to him… just not one from God.
Abba or Ra: 2 Views of the 1 God
Abba or Zeus: 2 Views of the 1 God
Abba or Augustus: 2 Views of the 1 God
Just because there is one God, that does not mean that two monotheistic religions worship the same God.
There is one answer to the equation 2+2. If Peter says that that one answer is 4, and Mohammed says that that one answer is 5, does that mean that the answer is the same? Of course not. 4 and 5 are different. One is true, the other is false.
“Allah” the violent and self-contradictory manufacture of a maniacal Arab who wrote about a bunch of fictional messages from an angel is a false god — that is, not a god at all, and certainly not The God.
Fear the one who mixes hate with love…..love in Islam is not the same as in Christianity because in Islam Allah’s love is reserved for faithful Muslims likewise Muslims only love those that answer to Allah while Christians love all even non Christians – Do not be deceived – for there are two Islams. One that instructs for conversion techniques and the other for the converted. One is violent the other Peaceful to each other but skeptical of all that are not of their belief. This is how Jizya tax on non believers applies as does Taqiyya & Kitman which is Islam’s authority to lie for its protection & propagation No such techniques exist in Christianity.
I wish Father would expand upon God’s intellect being above His will. I would have thought that in God’s Divine Nature such distinctions are transcended by His absolute unity.
Both sides would agree that before hierarchy they are united but the distinction is in the hierarchy given after, and this is a HUGE distinction as I point out. Their is not a strict hierarchy but God’s intellect directs his will rather than vice versa so he will intelligently.
Back to St. Thomas “for airheads/dummies” http://www.sacra-pizza-man.org/st-thomas-aquinas-for-airheadsdummies/
I don’t think you addressed the Trinity vs. Allah fully. Muslims don’t recognize Jesus as God. If the Trinity is indivisible, and Jesus is God, and Islam denies that Jesus is God, Islam denies the Trinity. I don’t see how Jews and Muslims could possibly be worshiping the Trinity, since they explicitly deny the Trinity. Jews, before God revealed Himself as the Trinity, were worshiping the Trinity. But when God revealed Himself as the Trinity, anyone who denies that, is intellectually creating a false God that approximates the Trinity, but isn’t actually the Trinity.
As if our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ actually needed someone to play “clean up” hitter! If you, Father Matthew, actually believe in the vows you took, you need to seriously ponder the above statement. Father Matthew, I suggest you discern your calling in life, maybe you should follow that boyhood dream and become a paleontologist!
non sequitur
Definition of non sequitur: a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
Judging by that definition your whole article is non sequitur. In the second sentence of the second paragraph of your article, you write, “We worship the same God….”, and the rest of your article points out how the Christian God is completely different than The God of Islam. In the same sentence quoted above you write, “….but that doesn’t mean we
understand him the same way.” Isn’t this a distinction without a difference?
WE DO NOT WORSHIP THE SAME GOD.
We worship the same God but we understand him differently. I emphasized the differences as I didn’t realize the 1st half was so contested. I’ll try to write about the 1st half later.
Here’s a very simple question to you,Mr Schneider: If,as you say,Christians and Muslims worship the same God but”simply understand Him differently”, who should be blamed for causing such confusion in the first place? Us? Or Him? I await your reply.
How can you possibly say we worship the same God with a straight face? It’s nonsense like that why so many have left the faith.
Nope, the Christian/Muslim Gods are NOT the same, and simply saying it doesn’t make it so.
Misunderstand the Nature of God, misunderstand God Himself.
Simple categories.
Sorry,Matthew….but you’ve got your head up your @$$ on this one….whatever it is that Muslims worship,it is NOT the God of Israel…closer to the Sumerian moon “goddess” in fact
Christians worship the triune God, muslims do not. Jesus said whoever denies the son denies the father.
Sure,Akhmedsako…we get that Muslims”believe”in Jesus’existence,and that you have a fragmented notion of who He was, per your obviously limited understanding. But what you claim you”believe” and what the Christian Faith teaches concerning Jesus the Christ per the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures is an eternity apart, and will NEVER be resolved this side of His Second Coming. So deal with it,and as always—PEACE IN CHRIST, ALWAYS!
Tell you what,Akhmedsako…Let’s just end this right now,O.K? I’m Christian,you’re Muslim,and that’s that. Our perspective faiths have taught what they believe every since they came into existence,and they will NEVER,EVER be in agreement. So,you enjoy the holidays and God bless you. ( By the way,thanks for calling me a fool.Your willingness to insult someone you don’t even know reveals more about your character than this useless debate ever could—that is the REAL fruit of Islam.No doubt if I was your neighbor,you would be plotting to plant a bomb in my mailbox or under my car.There it is.)
Well,one thing is for sure…I certainly won’t have to explain ANYTHING to ANY human being.PEACE.
I don’t think so!!!!!!!
Fr Matt you are to be highly commended for not only having the guts to write such truth but doing so in a way that is both accurately academic and without exhibiting any pejorative emotions. This article should be placed in the editorial sections of every American newspaper. My guess is that there isn’t enough Muslim scholars alive who could refute the facts underpinning this illogical theology.
I do disagree on one point with the author who states at the beginning that muslims and Christians worship the same God. We don’t, and this piece shows perfectly why. The god of islam is NOT the God of Abraham, Issac and Joseph… is NOT God the Father as Jesus shows us.
No, allah is still the pagan female moon goddess Mohamed chose out of all the pagan gods at the Kaaba and then turned it into a male god (the first transgendered god!). The differences the author points out show clearly that the god of islam is pagan. Islam, in reality is the devil’s stab at counterfeiting God’s true religion. The devil wraps up the paganism with enough “bible stuff” to make it look like one of the Abrahamic faiths, but as this piece points out, it’s not.
Fr. Matthew, you’ve done an excellent job in showing how God and allah are NOT the same and also why we need to fight against it’s encroachment in this world and also why we need to witness the Gospel to muslims who are really in a satanic religion.
Wow…that was AWESOME,WelderChick!!!–Thanks!
The Qur’an says, “Never has God begotten a son” (23:91).
The New Testament says, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also….and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already…For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (1 Jn 2:22-23; 4:3; 2 Jn 1:7).
Jesus says that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).
This is a pointless attempt to answer a question that is meaningless — meaningless because not everyone who is a baptized Catholic worships the same God, and not everyone who calls himself a Muslim worships the same God.
Suppose Fred is walking along a path and sees one man jump out of the bushes and try to mug another. Fred tackles the mugger and pins him to the ground.
Now suppose that Alice is further down the same path, but sees the whole thing and says “that man [Fred] really did a good thing there in stopping a mugging.” Bob, on the other hand, is on a different path and views the scene from a different angle and because of stuff blocking his view and the time and the angle when he looked over, all he sees is Fred jumping on some guy. Bob then says “that man [Fred] just attacked someone for no reason.”
Alice and Bob saw the same Fred, but Bob’s picture is less complete and so Bob is wrong. But he does not “believe in a different Fred.” Likewise Muslims are addressing the same God as Christians – we are both referring to the God of Abraham and Isaac. That Muslims believe incorrect teachings about the God of Abraham and Isaac that were introduced by Mohammad may well mean that their conception of God is off, but it does not change that they are referring to the same God (any more than the idea that Christians believe God to be Trinitarian and Jews do not implies that Christians do not worship the same God as the Jews). Likewise, our fellow Christians (or even ourselves) may have incorrect ideas about God, but this does not mean that we follow a different God. Only that a lot of us are wrong to various degrees.
You are completely missing my point. What you say may apply to those of good will, but in the real world, not everyone is honest and not everyone has good will. Some people know God and worship Him; some worship God without knowing Him much at all (see the Samaritan woman at the well); some worship their bellies; some worship Satan. Now here’s the thing: just as it is possible to worship the One True God under the wrong externals (as virtuous pagans did) out of ignorance, it is also possible to uses crucifixes and the images of saints to worship evil spirits. This means that a one-size-fits-all answer to what all self-identified Catholics worship is not possible, to say nothing of attempting such an answer for Muslims.
Idolatry does not require statues or incense. I’m surprised that this is no longer understood today. Heck, even St. Jerome had a warning about this:
Then your point is addressing something completely other than the article at hand. But of course it is possible to not actually worship God while saying you do.
The conjecture “we worship the same God” is not “completely other than the article at hand”, since it is part of the article at hand.
Yes, but the article is talking about the religions themselves, not the various ways that individuals can fail to follow their own religion.
“I am using the theoretical, philosophical and theological, understanding: individual Christians and Muslims often vary.”
Nevertheless, it is true both that Islam and Christianity and Judaism proclaim the same God, and that individuals in all faiths always manage to find creative ways of totally messing that up.
So by your thought process Mormons and Jehovah;s Witnesses worship the same God… the early church battled the Arians (and other cultish and heretical beliefs) because their view of God diminished who he was and in essence they were worshiping another God
Their view of God can be wrong and diminish God without them failing to believe in the same God.
For one thing, there is no god but God. There are three possibilities: they are worshiping the actual God (but are wrong about many facts about Him), they are worshiping some actual thing that is not God, or they are worshiping something that they think exists but does not. I think in the case of Islam, the second and third case are ruled out, though this is not necessarily the case in all religions.
In the case of polytheistic derivatives of Christianity, it’s a little less clear, I think – I am not saying that there is nothing you can say so that you are no longer worshiping God, just that even large errors do not necessarily imply that.
Do you suppose that Mohammed, the founder of the religion that denies the Holy Trinity, the
consubstantial nature of Christ, the teaching from the lips of the Anointed One
Himself who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the
Father except through Me” – do you suppose this man did the will of the Father in heaven and has now entered the kingdom of heaven?
That’s an easy one: NO.
I do think there are Muslims today who are very much in the same position as the Samaritan woman at the well, though. You might remember this teaching from the lips of the Anointed One Himself who said,
Well, despite the “attempt” to politely present three differences between Christianity/Catholicism and Islam; between the God of the Bible and the Allah of the Koran and hadiths …the failure is in presenting only differences as both arise from the Abrahamic tradition as well as Judaism. Using religious belief (and you can find inexplicably inhumane and irrational passages in all three), to divide peoples beliefs can have but a single result, especially in the era of radicalized Muslims and extremist Christians …. division and in division one religion is always inferior to the other, less authentic, less true, less valid. This insinuation of inferiority leads to wars and inflames the terrorism in the world. We ate all brothers and sisters should be message….period. It is a message extremists refuse to hear.
Elie Wiesel — ‘No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them’ Wiesel experienced religious persecution intensely and reflects this is his many works.
Also the US Constitution was in no way founded upon more influenced by the Bible…I could provide hundreds of scholarly essays and historical tracts which disprove that assertion. Neither, God, nor Christ, nor any religious figure is mentioned in the Constitution except for the convention AD on the date which is used in all documents. The Constitution of the US was a flight from a theocracy by deists, some of whom brazenly re-wrote the Bible (Jefferson). I cannot speak of the Canadian constitution. I am willing to provide those hundred of reference, since your assertion is backed by none.
1) Who are these “extremist Christians” of whom you speak? and
2) “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The term “Creator” seems to be a direct reference to God.
Wow,
You quote the Declaration of Independence not the Constitution which the good Father claimed was based on the Bible and I said did not even allude to a God, The Declaration of Independence was (1) not a governing document, (2) a statement of separation from the theocracy of the King of England, (3) Creator does not mean what you think to the deist writers of the DoI….they refer to the Source of Mankind, not of a specific God. Check your history books.
..
Extremist Christians are like the KKK, Aryan Nations, Family Research Council, Center for Medical Progress, Robert Louis Dear, Scott Lively, Christian Militia Groups in the Central Africa Republic, the Lord’s Resistance Army, National Socialist Council of Nagaland, Maronite Christian Militia, US Army of God, Christian Identity (USA), Christian Patriots (USA), Eric Rudolph, The Covenant, The Sword and the Arm of the Lord (USA), Aryan Nations (USA), Robert Doggart, Frank Roque, Scott Roeder, Jim David Askisson, Paul Jennings Hill, James Kopp, John Salvi, members of the Order (USA), Liberty Counsel, Tony Perkins, Robert Spenser, extreme fundamental evangelicals, and how many scores of other do you want……
I guess I have to ask:
1) How do you define “Christian? Many of those listed aren’t Christian. and
2) how do you define “extremist Christian”?
Christians define themselves as that belief system with which they identify…rightly or wrongly…baptized and claiming to be one.
Extremes are literalist cherry pickers of the Bible, those that use Scripture to stone (kill) people like in the OT, those that refuse to help the poor, homeless, prisoners, etc. because they believe that these people station is life is there fault which is in opposition to Matt 25,those who do not read scripture in context but interpret it to be superior to their fellow people…those who use scripture to oppress anyone and self-aggrandize themselves, those who condemn others of different faiths and beliefs….those who show no mercy nor empathy.
And those people and groups I listed to self-identify as Christian and I consider them extremists.
That is a strangely promiscuous list you have. Exactly what is extremist about the Center for Medical Progress or Tony Perkins or Robert Spencer? In what sense were the British government or its sovereign in 1776 theocratic?
Rom– I think that you mean pernicious not promiscuous ….Here is extremism — and allow me to preface my explanation that I am pro-life.
Center for Medical Progress—a sham organization of David Daleiden famous for his anti PP videos. It’s ok to be pro-life, extremist to lie, deceive and manipulate. The videos were highly edited. The entire video is highly edited. He omitted the fact that that PP said they did not give fetal tissue to make any money, he edited those statements out. The fetus shown which CMP claims was aborted was actually stillborn and identified by the fetus’s mom. WHen in the process of being sued, he tried to invoke the 5th amendment to hide the release of the original videos, the collaborators or answer questions. The failure of truth and transparency is fraud….and fraud used for a good cause us is extremism.
Tony Perkins of FRC has a sordid anti GLBT agenda. Again it’s ok to disapprove of gays, if you choose. It is not ok to enlist David Duke and the KKK to support your cause of ethnic purity and supremacy. He paid Duke 88,000 for the KKK mailing list to engender a hate … hate, white supremacy, and the KKK are extremist.
Finally, Robert Spencer…..director of Jihad Watch and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America …no knowledge of Islam in an academic sense for a hateful, lying human being. His writings were readily referenced by Norweigan killer Anders Breivik….He also was banned from the UK for hate speech. How many ways do you spell extreme.
History of the Colonies and theocracy
http://study.com/academy/lesson/theocracy-in-the-american-colonies-definition-history-examples.html
Wow are you out in Pluto.
CMPs full length, unedited videos are out on the web to view. So, from your comment concerning the videos, you must be a pro-abort.
Tony Perkins: so he’s AGAINST the abominable gaystoppo, huh? Against the evil of homosexuality and all the ways the gays have been pushing their evil on the rest of us. That tells me you a gaystoppo supporter.
Robert Spencer: oh, yeah, how horrible of him to expose the evil of islam.
So a pro-baby killing, pro gaystoppo, pro islam liberal has the audacity to list Christians fighting against those evils “extremists”.
Yeah, cuz the baby butchers, the homo child abusers and the gang raping, infidel beheading muslims aren’t extremists.
In case you’re wondering, that last sentence is sarcastic.
The unedited CMP videos on the web are actually heavily edited and the in the law suit against CMP which which they are fighting in court to withhold the entirety of the videos from the plaintiff.
It is a function of one’s beliefs to oppose abortion, gay equality, Islam, or anything else. It is never ok to hate, to lie or deceive or commit fraud. The end, my friend, never justifies the means. Your language is quite nasty and filled with hate and sarcasm has no place in civil dialogue. Blessing for a holy Christmas.
Way to side step. No, the CMP full length videos are not edited and have been shown to be authentic.
I’m wondering how a pro-abort can possible celebrate the birth of a baby when you obviously support the murders of so many other children.
What I’m tired of is so-called Christians who support the whole sale slaughter of unborn children pretending that Jesus is ok with them supporting this mass slaughter of the innocents. I’m tired of so-called Christians who call God a liar when they say He’s not only ok with homosexual acts but “blesses” gay “marriages” even tho His word says otherwise.
Nasty? What’s nasty is babies being torn to pieces and their parts sold. Nasty is gays trying to force us to call their sinful behavior “normal” or risk losing our jobs or businesses. Nasty is calling ISLAMIC terrorism “workplace violence”.
I was clear that I was pro-life and anti-abortion. I do not believe that evil or fraudulent means or deception or lies are a proper way to attain a good goal. Evil does not beget good.
No where in your posts did you say you were pro-life. No where. And I’ve never come across a pro-lifer who defended PP like you do. Concerning your comment in the previous post about the stillborn baby: you really think women go to PP to deliver their babies?! Even stillborn ones? Of course it’s stillborn: it was killed with chemicals before being “delivered”. PP is a monstrosity and you’re making excuses for it. Planned Parenthood does NOT care about women who want to KEEP their babies. They are interested only in abortion cuz that’s what makes them money. http://liveactionnews.org/woman-recalls-pp-visit-they-told-me-dont-have-doctors-pregnant-women/
I find your silence about the gay stuff and islamic terrorism… interesting.
My pro life position was on another comment on Catholic Stand…and you obfuscate my point….take time to read and understand.
1. I did not support PP and am actively pro life….I do not need to lie, commit fraud, break the law, lie in order advocate for life. I never defended PP, my issues were CMP.
2. I am not gay, do not support gay marriage as being equal to matrimony. I do have friends who are gay and married and I have no animus to them.
3. I condemn Daesh. I have Muslim friends who are not radicalized nor jihadists and I am happy to be a friend.
4. The claim you make that the still born baby in the CMP video was killed chemically first is a lie…it is a fact confirmed by the producer of the videos. Again, lies cannot be used by you nor CMP to achieve a good end.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/baby-in-undercover-anti-abortion-video-was-stillborn-not-aborted-producer-says-143582/
Our issue which radically separates us is that I do not accept the commission of evil acts (lying, fraud, deception, distortion, hatred, bigotry, Xenophobia) in the pursuit of a good goal.
The law suits are due to the fact that CMP signed an agreement not to divulge what the National Abortion Federation was doing. The videos involved in that case were subpoenaed by Congress which then got leaked. They show an abortionist claiming to make a profit from the sale of fetal body parts.
Someone had forensic specialists check out the videos and the specialists say they weren’t edited.
“Someone” is hardly a verifiable source
It’s at
http://www.adflegal.org/detailspages/blog-details/allianceedge/2015/09/29/the-top-3-things-cmp-edited-out-of-the-planned-parenthood-videos
I think the most recent historical research on the beliefs of the founders concludes they were more Christian and less Deist than was previously believed.
Wrong….cite sources, please
http://www.freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html
1 other preemptive response based on comments elsewhere: I accept the teaching of recent Popes that Islam worships the same God in this article. Some disagree but that is another article I haven’t written yet.
may i suggest you write that article post haste.
I don’t have time until January at least.
Yes, i understand. I didnt mean to imply’ get cracking on it…’ have a blessed Christmas Season and thank you.
There is a reason that the ancients referred to them as Mohammedans – they worship Mohammed, not God. Allah is an excuse for them to enact the murderous cult philosophies of Mohammed.
Is there a point that you’re trying to make here,Akhmedsako?
Once again, why so many have left the faith.
The Pope is certainly authoritative when speaking on matters of Christian faith. But nowhere has it ever been asserted that the Pope is authoritative with respect to other religions. Statements regarding the tenets of Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism, etc., carry the same weight as statements regarding the best NFL team.
Thank you for pointing this out. I come across a lot of fundamentalists who believe that we believe that everything a pope or bishop says is something we must blindly follow. I’ve stated to them what you have stated concerning the pope and his arena authority. I am amazed, tho, at how many Catholics also kind of think the same way. I see this come up with the muslim refugees, global warming, and the problems at the US southern border.
A statement like “Muslims worship the same God” has never been infallibly defined but it is a well-founded teaching of the magisterium so it holds much more weight than a Pope’s opinion on sports or even the best contingent political choices. We should generally submit to such magisterium although we’re under no direct obligation.
Indeed…who would “infallibly” define an obvious falsehood,Mr.Schneider? There is no so-called ” magisterium ” that would dare attempt to undermine the Word of God on this issue,so…there it is. PEACE IN CHRIST, ALWAYS!
Pope’s are not infallible… in fact they are wrong on this issue.
The character of Allah and the character of YHWH are not the same (other people have made the distinction above so I wont).
Tell a Jihadi that we worship the same God and you will find their truth.
Allah has no sons according to the Qur’an.
This is just one of the VII ideas that Bp. Athanatius Scheider suggests needs more clarification.
I tried to clarify part of it here by pointing out how Allah is a BIG MISUNDERSTANDING of who God is.
Just as the Jews worship the Top of the Trinity, so do the Muslims. But that does not mean their form of worship is correct… rather, it is miserably flawed. The Jews use an incomplete Scripture, Jesus’ work completed it, and was written… The Muslims use a document that is corrupt, it came after Jesus, denies the Truth and points to violence. People can be deceived… even when it comes to worship and subsequent action.
Not really. We worship the same Father as the Jews. They have not yet realized who the Son is.
The Muslims, on the other hand, have taken the Divinity of Christ away and made him not only a prophet but also the warrior who will come on the last days to Dabqi to kill all the pigs and break the cross. He will slay the infidels. This is not only a “way of worship”. In fact, they totally disregard the teachings of St. Paul and claim that he headed some kind of coop to distort the true faith.
It’s simply Fanfiction.
Thanks for proving the whole point, Akhmedsako…Christians and Muslims most EMPHATICALLY DO NOT WORSHIP THE SAME GOD. Thank you! —PEACE IN CHRIST, ALWAYS!
Right. Muslims worship a demon called Allah. Christians worship God. Quite simple, really. QED
Thank you for proving my point.
Want to ask this Muslim if he worships the same god as we do?
The Vatican needs to look at this again, just as they did the Mormons.
Here is a Muslim telling you what they believe.
The truth of a pedophile and his blending of every religion he could find.
The devil fooled Mohammed as he put into the qur’an the verses about the exulted Cranes al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. If you want to believe the ramblings of one so easily defeated by Satan, have at it.
A”BIG MISUNDERSTANDING” on whose part Mr.Schneider? Yours?
Can you specify which Popes and cite the teaching document(s). Are Popes infallible in everything they teach? Does the Bible have anything to say on this issue?
Vat2, JP2, Benedict and Francis have all said this explicitly or implicitly. I’m thinking of writing this up as a separate article later so I won’t give a full response now.
Frankly you should save yourself the time and effort it will take you to attempt to prove an unproveable point,Mr.Schneider.As Christians(which I’ll assume you are), there’s nothing to prove inre this issue: What the Scriptures say, Almighty God has said. He has said in the Gospel of John: “This is My Beloved Son; hear HIM!”! For those of us who are authentic Christians, there is literally NOTHING ELSE to be saId, PERIOD!!! As the great Prophet Elijah challenged his people,…”How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God,then serve Him; but if Baal,then serve him”…Seriously,Christians! It ain’t that hard!!
Yes. Recent popes. What about the rest of the popes? Did the church only have 6 popes? St. Peter…….and then John XXIII thru Pope Francis? What about the missing years and popes between St. Peter and V2? From what I’ve read, which I admit hasn’t been too much yet… they don’t share this relatively new opinion of Islam.
I’ll add that to my investigation if I write about that.
Innocent III said something interesting in his commentary on the Apocalypse chapter 13.
When I think of Muhammad I think of Matthew 7:15 – “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
I’m sorry, but that’s it for me.
It seems to me that Islam was then as it is now – a deception to take people away from God.
It’s absolutely incredible so think God would send his son to suffer, be humiliated and die for us and then 600 years later talk to a Prophet and order him to kill in his name.
There may be many things Christians and Muslims share – but the core central framework of both traditions could not be further apart.
Baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is most fully described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12-14. It is also well described in the Acts of the Apostles.
Since you’re obviously a Muslim,the Holy Spirit spoken of in the Holy Scriptures,the Third Person of the Triune God,DOESN’T speak to you,except to point you to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Chris. But since as a Muslim you believe the unproveable claim that the Bible is corrupted,thereby impugning Almighty God’s Character and in effect calling Him a liar,again,The Holy Spirit CANNOT speak to you or those of your ilk.Reflect. [P.S.—calling me a fool.as you labeled me in another post, evinces contempt and disdain for a neighbor you are commanded to love,per the TRUE Word of God.But,since the Quran doesn’t teach that, I forgive your ignorance.—PEACE IN CHRIST, ALWAYS!
Show where “spirit”is synonymous with prophet ANYWHERE in the Bible,Akhmedsako. (Chapter and verse,please.)–Thanks.
It certainly wasn’t Islam.
If you want to use a passage from John’s Gospel as your defence, are you ready to listen to other parts of that Gospel too?
I have a difficult time with what is presented in this article. This morning, Franklin Graham made a post on Facebook on another subject that sums up my feelings about Allah vs God the Father:
“…She said that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Well she is absolutely wrong—she obviously doesn’t know her Bible and she doesn’t know Islam. The God of the Bible, has a Son named Jesus Christ. The god of Islam doesn’t have a son, and even the thought of that would be sacrilegious to Muslims. The God of the Bible sent His Son to earth to die in our place and save us from our sins. The god of Islam requires you to die for him to be sure that you’re going to heaven. That’s a huge difference—and there are many more examples!”
Like others, I have come to the uneasy conclusion that “Allah” is actually satan. That isn’t based upon some emotionally charged discriminatory feelings toward Muslims but upon careful thought and research. If you look in the Bible and seek out the definitions of evil and/or satan, the definition you find will almost perfectly fit Islam’s notion of Allah. That can’t be a coincidence. Too much of what Allah calls Muslims to do is either in violation of the spirit of Scripture or is outright opposed to it. You cannot refrain from committing murder while committing murder.
I also have to question part of what you say about God the Father. I agree with most of what you say but not everything God wills is explained. For example, why can’t I, as a Christian, commit murder or adultery? Yes, you can provide a number of intellectual and theological reasons why both of those things are wrong, but you cannot tell me why God says that they are wrong. We are not supposed to commit those acts because God tells us that we are not to commit them. He provides no rational for those Commandments but we are still bound by them.
I know one of the biggest objections will be certain passages in the OT where God seems to command evil. Space & time did not allow me to elaborate on this but I post this link to an article where Msgr. Charles Pope addresses this issue well: http://blog.adw.org/2010/01/did-god-command-genocide/
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called’hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.
Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text (although many Muslims choose to think of them that way). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran.
The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God. Most contemporary Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book’s call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. Their apologists cater to these preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.
Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad’s own martial legacy, along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran, have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.
“Kumbaya” is not in the Islamic hymn book I’m afraid…
I detest Islam, NOT Muslims, just like I detest Nazism, NOT Germans and I detest Stalinism, NOT Russians.
In Islam, *all* non-Muslims are called *unbelievers*, *infidels* or *kafir*(derogatory).
Islam is a murderous, fascist, supremacist ideology with a veneer of religion, founded by a mass murderer, slave owner and mass rapist that all Muslims are espoused to emulate.
The world is divided into the House of Islam and the House of War, the *Dar al-Islam* and the *Dar al-harb*. The Dar al-Islam is all those lands in which a Muslim government rules and the Holy Law of Islam prevails. Non-Muslims may live there on Muslim sufferance. *The outside world (non-Muslim), which has not yet been subjugated, is called the “House of War,” and strictly speaking a perpetual state of *jihad*, or holy war, is imposed by the law*.
The treatment of the infidels in Islam is divided into two categories. The polytheists, pagans, idolaters and heathens have the choice of converting to Islam or suffer death. The Jews and Christians, whom the Koran calls people of the book, can retain their religion but on the sufferance of accepting humiliation and subjugation to Islam and payment of *Jizyah* (poll-tax/extortion) to the Islamic rulers [For more detail read this article: Unfettered Religious Freedom in Islam – A Fact or Fiction? – by Alamgir Hussain].
Now, let us have a closer look at what the Koran says about the infidels:
Remember in Islamic jurisprudence, the “peaceful” verses in the Koran are abrogated and superceded by the “violent verses”.
_Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them_ (2:191)
_Make war on the infidels living in your neighboorhood_ (9:123)
_When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them_ (9:5)
_Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax_ (9:29)
_Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable_ (3:85)
_The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them_ (9:30)
_Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam._ (5:33)
_The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque_ (9:28)
_Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies_ (22:19)
_Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them_(47:4)
_The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them_ (8:65)
_Muslims must not take the infidels as friends_ (3:28)
_Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an_ (8:12)
_Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels_ (8:60)
The Qur’an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force to convert the unbelievers to Islam. For the non-Muslims, the alternative to this is to pay the humiliating protection money (Jizya tax) or be killed (by beheading, of course). A militarily dominant Islam, without doubt, precludes the peaceful co-existence with the unbelievers if the Muslims have to abide strictly by the unalterable stipulations of the Qur’an.
Thanks Fr. Nice work!
Attaboy comment win!
BTW, the IRA was NOT a Christian organisation. Many were atheists/agnostics. In fact if religion were brought up in meetings, a person would be expelled. Their only reason for existence was for politics and a united Ireland by any means.
Cardinal Dolan, Fr Dwight Longenecker and now Fr Schneider have compared the IRA with ISIS and branded both their actions ‘terrorism’. The comparison is away off the mark. IRA volunteers fought to bring down a supremacist government in an artificially contrived state called ‘Northern Ireland’ created from a protestant head-count – which denied Irish nationalists basic human and civil right. The IRA bombing campaign was aimed at economic targets – and in almost all instances warnings were given. (It was certainly true that some of the bombing operations were recklessly negligent which resulted in the loss of innocent human life).
No IRA action was ever undertaken in the name of religion or ever biblically justified. I have challenged Cardinal Dolan, who persists in linking ISIS and the IRA, to produce a single statement from the IRA that ever used religion as a motive or justification for their actions.
On the other hand, ISIS and Islam (even at its most benign) is supremacist – and all its actions whether roasting prisoners alive or beating wives are justified on the teachings of the Koran or the Hadiths or the example of Mohammed.
“Allah” in the Koran is called “The Great Deceiver”…That to me is Satan, The Father of Lies. Islam
is a totalitarian murderous ideology with a veneer of religion. 1.5 billion
people have the warlord, mass murderer, mass rapist and slave owner Muhammad as
a role model. That is frightening!
This academic, a former Muslim exposes the evil of Muhammad..
http://ibnwarraq.com/reasons-for-leaving-islam-islam-on-trial/