Übergeek 바둑이: Christians don't claim that the God of the Jews isn't the same ONE as the God of the Christians. They are the same.

Artful Dodger: Who's the "holy ghost"?

I know the "father" is the shared between Jews and Christian "God", the "son" is Jesus, but who is the Ghost?

Jim Dandy: Who can really understand God? But as I understand it, the Spirit is personal, distinct from God the Father, but ONE with the Father. The Spirit IS God as God is God as Jesus is God. The Spirit is the second Person of the Trinity.

Artful Dodger: kinda like the congress, senate and President with the same amount of gridlock

Jim Dandy: Nothing like that at all.

Artful Dodger:

> Who can really understand God? But as I understand it, the Spirit is personal, distinct from God the Father, but ONE with the Father.
> The Spirit IS God as God is God as Jesus is God. The Spirit is the second Person of the Trinity.

This is an interpretation of the Gospels. When John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, Jesus comes out of the water and Heaven opens. There descends a dove, and a voice from Heaven says "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

The interpretation is that the voice is God as the Father, the dove is God as the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is God as the Son.

This is God's miracle. He can be three beings at the same time. Thereby God shows that He has a power beyond that of a human being. Only God can be father and son at the same time. In other words, God creates himself, and manifests himself spiritually, without the physical limitations of a human being.

Of course, this is a matter of faith. Moslems do not see Jesus as the Son of God. As this Arab I met years ago told me. "Why should God need a son? If God wants to do something, He does it himself. He needs nobody else."

I suppose faith is a tricky thing, particularly since there is no solid historical proof that Jesus or John the Baptist existed. Belief in the Holy Trinity is entirely a matter of faith.

Artful Dodger:

> Christians don't claim that the God of the Jews isn't the same ONE as the God of the Christians. They are the same.

You said that Moslems have a different god. The point I am trying to make is that Moslems do worship the same God, not only that, but Zoroastrianism predates Judaism and it also worshiped the same monotheistic God.

Of course, Genesis says clearly that Abraham had a son with Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden. This son was called Ishmael and was the father of race today identified with the "northern Arabs". Arabs consider themselves Abraham's descendants too. Thise just merely points to a common origin for all Semitic people's of Asia Minor.

Übergeek 바둑이: It's simply not the case that they are the same. But there is no point going over it with you again.

Tuesday: I don't agree.

Artful Dodger:

> I don't agree.

You would disagree even with the Old Testament? I am not making up the story of Ishmael. It is in Genesis!

Übergeek 바둑이: this is that to which I don't agree.

Artful Dodger: II. ALLAH AND HIS ATTRIBUTES

There are two fundamental points between Islam and Christianity which, for the sake of the truth and the peace of the world, deserved a very serious and deep investigation. As these two religions claim their origin from one and the same source, it would follow that no important point of controversy between them should be allowed to exist. Both these great religions believe in the existence of the Deity and in the covenant made between God and the Prophet Abraham. On these two principal points a thoroughly con- scientious and final agreement must be arrived at between the intelligent adherents of the two faiths. Are we poor and ignorant mortals to believe in and worship one God, or are we to believe in and fear a plurality of Gods? Which of the two, Christ or Prophet Muhammad, is the object of the Divine Covenant? These two questions must be answered once for all.

It would be a mere waste of time here to refute those who ignorantly or maliciously suppose the God as mentioned in Islam to be different from the true God and only a fictitious deity of Prophet Muhammad's own creation. If the Christian priests and theologians knew their Scriptures in the original Hebrew instead of in translations as the Muslims read their Quran in its Arabic text, they would clearly see that Allah is the same ancient Semitic name of the Supreme Being who revealed and spoke to Adam and all the prophets.

Allah is the only Self-Existing, Knowing, Powerful Being. He encompasses, fills every space, being and thing; and is the source of all life, knowledge and force. Allah is the Unique Creator, Regulator and Ruler of the universe. He is absolutely One. The essence, the person and nature of Allah are absolutely beyond human comprehension, and therefore any attempt to define His essence is not only futile but even dangerous to our spiritual welfare and faith; for it will certainly lead us into error.

The trinitarian branch of the Christian Church, for about seventeen centuries, has exhausted all the brains of her saints and philosophers to define the Essence and the Person of the Deity; and what have they invented? All that which Athanasiuses, Augustines and Aquinases have imposed upon the Christians "under the pain of eternal damnation" to believe in a God who is "the third of three"! Allah, in His Holy Quran, condemns this belief in these solemn words:-

"Because the unbelivers are those who say: 'Allah is one of three.' There is but One God. If they do not desist in what they say, a painful punishment will afflict those of them that disbelieve." (Quran Ch.5 v73).

The reason why the orthodox Muslim scholars have always refrained from defining God's Essence is because His Essence transcends all attributes in which it could only be defined. Allah has many Names which in reality are only adjectives derived from His essence through its various mani- festations in the universe which He alone has formed. We call Allah by the appellations Almighty, Eternal, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Merciful, and so forth, because we conceived the eternity, omnipresence, universal knowledge, mercifulness, as emanating from His essence and belonging to Him alone and absolutely. He is alone the infinitely Knowing, Powerful, Living, Holy, Beautiful, Good, Loving, Glorious, Terrible Avenger, because it is from Him alone that emanate and flow the qualities of knowledge, power, life, holiness, beauty and the rest. God has no attributes in the sense we understand them. With us an attribute or a property is common to many individuals of a species, but what is God's is His alone, and there is none other to share it with Him. When we say, "Solomon is wise, powerful, just and beautiful," we do not ascribe exclusively to him all wisdom, power, justice and beauty. We only mean to say that he is relatively wise as compared with others of his species, and that wisdom too is relatively his attribute in common with the individuals belong- ing to his class.

To make it more clear, a divine attribute is an emanation of God, and therefore an activity. Now every divine action is nothing more or less than a creation.

It is also to be admitted that the divine attributes, inas- much as they are emanations, posit time and a beginning; consequently when Allah said: "Be, and it was" - or He uttered, His word in time and in the beginning of the creation. This is what the Sufis term "aql-kull", or universal intelligence, as the emana- tion of the "aql awwal", namely, the "first intelligence." Then the "nafs-kull", or the "universal soul" that was the first to hear and obey this divine order, emanated from the "first soul" and transformed the universe.

(V):   I wasn't planning to enter into this "debate" because I am not a scholar on the Bible or the Qu'ran.  In fact, I don't believe they are the final canons.  I agree with most of what V has to say here.  My views are Unitarian-Universalist who do not follow the traditional or Orthodox views about the Triune God.  People with my views were general cut off from the Christian debate in the 3rd Century when Constantine convened the Council of Nicea designed to form a singular religion of his state.  They declared the Triune viiew as the only legitamate view of God and branded anyone else as a heretic.  They also tossed any books in the Bible that contridicted what they called "prophesies".  People were also branded as heretics from that time on who did not believe that everyone who did not agree with their views were sent to eternal damnation.  Some of us survived, however.  Both Muslims and Christians take the latter view about their religion being the only true one, and that their Holy books are the final word make their world ripe for war over religion.  Both of their Gods descend from the birthline of Abraham, a fact which the extremist on both sides wish to delete from their history.

Ferris Bueller: Bad times for Christianity. Thankfully it didn't work. As one friend once said to a JW on the door to door convert wagon... "Who are you to tell me how to believe in God?" ... One answered truthfully.. "we can't".

The likes of the Gnostics, Origen (a must read I feel) did survive thank God.. And they could never get at the Desert Fathers.

Ferris Bueller: I agree with most of what V has to say here.

But (V) doesn't say much here. Copy and paste are his best friends.

Pedro Martínez: I'm not the only one to use C&P.. in fact I use less then many.

Tuesday: Nahhh... Implication.

(V): The post Ferris Bueller replied to was 100% copy and paste. You can't get “better” than 100%, can you? You don't even mention your source, making others believe the words are yours.

Pedro Martínez: Yes I do mention my sources. Just not all the time.. N' most people can see when I'm C&P.. just like they can see when others are doing it.

http://www.muhammad.net/other-scriptures-mainmenu-43/26-muhammad-in-the-bible/104-muhammad-in-the-old-testament.html

Here you are.. it was in my history

Pedro Martínez: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oShTJ90fC34