EnglishPaul

In a former era of my life I used to be a Christian.
As a Christian I was convinced that Christ was the only way. The side effect of that belief was that all other religions were wrong.
When other religions seemed to have power encounters within their faith, I figured that there were only 2 possibilities: a)they were mistaken, b) they were power encounters with something other than God. Since only God was good, in my thinking, any other power must be set apart from God, and by definition be evil. And in my understanding, the Devil was the ruler of evil.
One day it dawned on me that if Islam was based on a deity, and if that deity was not God, then there was only one possibility left. Put bluntly, Allah must be the devil.

I want to break my logical argument for a second, and point out that I am not racist as far as I know; and I like Muslims. I do not mean to offend, but this was the logical situation as I saw it. To be silent would be to not talk of the elephant in the room. And it is just my theory, which in many ways I hope is wrong.

Around this time a lot of the Christians I knew were talking of revival. My hope in this was that the sleeping Christians, those that were nominal and not active in their faith, would be led by God back to an active faith. That the prodigals would come home. And the church has far too many prodigal sons. But that's a different topic.
But one day it dawned that if I was waiting for dormant Christians to awake and see God's will done on earth; if Islam really was following a deity (that I knew as the devil), what if he too had this plan. What if when the time was right there would be an Islamic revival and all the nominal Muslims would become active Muslims? If that were the case, the devil would have a huge active army.
And it dawned on me that due to immigration, there were many Muslims in Britain, and many other countries. And perhaps my thinking was shaped by too many cold war theories, but if I was the devil, I would want to quietly infiltrate Christian lands with sleepers that could be awoken when the time came.

So is a huge war inevitable? Will there ever be peace when religions are involved? Because even if this theory is not true; it is true for the Christians. And how many of them can influence wars?

yustr

EP - you're trying to apply logic to a system that is by definition illogical.

Have faith that your God knows the outcome and has it all under control. For to think otherwise is to admit that your God is not omnipotent which pulls the corner stone out from the foundation of your whole belief system.

(BTW: This applies equally to any religion that I have come across. If someone knows of one that it doesn't, please let me know.)

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In Vino Veritas

sobeit

huh?????

every religion thinks the other is just another false philosophy. some just express it stronger than others.

To answer the question about peace, there will always be wars and rumors of wars because of religion.

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Do not feed the trolls.

mikeber

1) Then what are you know?
2) You start talking in the past then switch seamlessly to present.
3) Most people don't choose their religion. They are born into it.
4) Religions follow religions. Judaism started monotheism. Jesus was a Jew. Muhammad recognized and adopted things from both Judaism and Christianity. Muslims do recognize Jesus as a prophet.
5) When an older religion does not answer the needs of some, they will found a new one.

mikeber

Religions do not think. People do so by interpreting religions.
There are no wars because of religions. Wars are started by people for a variety of reasons: nationality, social order, money (which is THE factor in most wars), race and religion.
People have an inherent need for war and confrontation. There were wars between clans of cave men even before religion was invented.
I just watched an interesting documentary about natives in the Andes of South America. Once a year different tribes meet on the mountain slopes for a day of war. It's a ritual which goes back many years. They are not enemies, just neighbors. People are fighting with sticks and rocks until some get killed or badly injured. Then, they celebrate and go back satisfied and fulfilled - no hard feelings and can't wait for next year confrontation. I think that it gives a clue about the human nature.

EnglishPaul

I wondered if I'd have to defend that statement.
1) I am now an agnostic. I wouldn't be arrogant enough to claim that there wasn't a God. And there does seem to be a realm that our science just can't touch.
One thing that I am confident about is that God as commonly discribed by Christians does not exist in that form.
2) It wouldn't be the first time my thinking was a bit muddled! But mainly what I wanted to do was lay out things as I saw them at that time. Too many conditionals and the text would be very confusing.
And in a way, though my core beliefs have changed, I can still think as I did when I was a Christian. I can speak the talk, and can understand the mindset. And most of my values have not changed, and much of my culture hasn't. So sorry if you find me an enigma.
3) An interesting point. You are born into your religion, but you then must adopt it. How that works depends upon the religion. But as I understand the charismatic Christianity that I was familiar with, you choose to have a relationship with Jesus or you don't. I guess you also choose to follow Allah, or not. If religion was just a cultural entity, then you would be born into it, but religion should be more than that.
Now there is a more interesting subsequent question, which is were I to be born a Muslim, would I now be a freedom fighter, or radicalising others?
4) and 5) are really the same thing. And I think that 5) is true. When a religion does not meet all the needs, a new one emerges; either as a whole new entity, or as a denomination. And the process is always borne out of conflict.

Chode

It's always a mistake to speak of any religion as though it were monolithic. Rather, they are always amalgams of different sects which in turn are composed of lots of individuals. Those who need someone to hate and fear will always seize on the differences, the rest of us will look for common ground. Ultimately, I bet common ground wins.

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Sweet!

mikeber

THAT is the part that depends only on you. Your personality, morals and judgment. Your clarity of thinking. Your responsiveness to inflammatory speaking and if you yield to peer pressure. Many of these radicals are doing it because they want to belong. Many suffer from personal problems which they cannot solve but prefer to find an external target. Others are pure psychopaths who found their calling in killing God's enemies. Anyway, all that has little to do with religion.

sobeit

one thing you gotta say for the radical muslims, they are willing to die for their beliefs. I wonder how many non-muslims would do the same, not just say they would but actually mean it. .

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Do not feed the trolls.

bry623

John McCain would.

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When you fear Sarah, you attack her and try destroy her

EnglishPaul

Bry, dying for your beliefs, and letting others die for your beliefs are not the same thing.

EnglishPaul

It is an interesting challenge to any Christian (or any other person of faith) to find out what keeps them in that faith. I bet it would boil down to wanting to belong, and having problems which they cannot solve but prefer to find an external aide. Others are pure psychopaths who believe that they can hear the voice of God.
If Gods call (as you understand it) is to war, then to war you must go. How many Christians are at war over abortion? They discern that the foetus has an identity, and they war with the authorities to get that view across.
You would not call my personality, morals and judgement into question if I were to shoot someone attacking my family. And yet you can attack my God, but expect no comeback.

Radical is what radical is, and I think if many evangelical Christians had been brought up as Muslims, then they would be freedom fighters too.

EnglishPaul

How can there be common ground if my God says that your God is evil?

Chode

Missing the point EP. The "your God is a Devil" viewpoint isn't universal in any religion. That's one of those denominational things. For example, most Muslims have traditionally been tolerant of the religious beliefs of Jews and Christians (just as long as they paid a special tax), because they also worshiped the God of Abraham, and shared many common beliefs and revered many of the same prophets, and because their faiths antedated Mohammad.

Let's take a little more extreme case. Our staunch ally, Saudi Arabia, is dominated by the Wahhabi sect which denies tolerance to "People of the Book" (Jews, Christians) and holds that an infidel is an infidel. In fact, the public practice of any religion other than Islam remains a crime in Saudi Arabia. Even Shiite sects of Islam have been ruthlessly suppressed.

In spite of all that, the U.S. and the Saudis seem to manage to do an enormous amount of business together; in both the literal and political sense of the term.

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Sweet!