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posted on May 02, 2008 - 09:45 PM
This topic is in response to my previous topic (entitled "muslims...help!").
That muslim kid still argues and doesnt believe that Christ is God.
Can anyone help in any way to prove to him that islam is false?
Thank you and May God bless you all and have mercy on us!
_________________
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
posted on May 02, 2008 - 09:48 PM
I would like to add that I remember St. Paul, when he visited many cities in Europe and Asia, knew that arguing and condemning the people for not believing in Christ was a bad idea. You can never convince somebody to believe something by attacking them.
posted on May 03, 2008 - 12:37 AM
You don't prove Islam is wrong. You will never convert someone. Only God converts.
You are to love the person and when the opportunity kicks, you may freely talk about your own religion in a manner when only he's curious about something or asks something, and only in a manner that you will not compare your religion to his. You are to be friends around him and to take this chance what being a Christian means by your actions in front of him and to him.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)
Let him argue. He only proves his own folly. Don't go to the road of folly with him. But return it with love.
If he is a detriment to you, then separate yourself from him.
God bless.
posted on May 04, 2008 - 04:00 PM
by Eli Akim
ATLANTA, May 3, 2008 — A resurgent new day of respect and influence for the Coptic Orthodox Christian church may lie ahead, an American Bible researcher and writer says, if his stunning hypothesis stands up that African scholar St. Mark, or John Mark, an apostle of Jesus, is the author of the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation, in addition to Mark’s Gospel, as the writer claims. St. Mark evangelized Alexandria in the 1st century and founded the Coptic church.
If true, the new finding, which would reveal a vast cover-up some 1,900 years old, would turn Christianity upside down -- and reveal the depth of an age-old racially motivated heresy campaign involving extensive biblical tampering.
In support of his claim, Randall Gray alludes to the scene in John’s Gospel (Jn. 18:15,16) in which the unnamed “other disciple” argues as mediator on Jesus’ behalf as the high priest Annas listens. “John Mark, a scholar, and Jesus beloved friend, is arguing to defend Jesus, while Peter cowers outside denying Jesus, and Zebedee’s John and James are high-tailing it from Gethsemane,” the writer said. The point Gray makes is a valid one in stating that John the apostle, a Galilean, is “no different in terms of profession, education or residence than Peter would have been, who wilts at the hour of reckoning.”
“Zebedee’s John didn’t work in Jerusalem as a scribe … John Mark did,” Gray said. “The so-called ‘other disciple’ got an audience with Annas, because Annas knew John Mark, and he knew him because Annas worked with him. Zebedee’s John the Galilean would have been crucified right along with Jesus if he had showed his face. Peter surely knew that.
“And John was martyred, as Jesus predicted,” Gray added, “if you happen to believe the figurative words of Jesus (Mk. 10:38,40), which are of the sort that Jesus would use, and if you suspect, as we do, that racist heretics tampered with the Bible to cover up John’s death so as to obscure the African John Mark or Saint Mark as Revelation’s author.” Jesus tells both John and James, the sons of Zebedee — and likely Jesus’ cousins, Gray says — in response to their ongoing harangue over which disciple will be greatest in heaven that they will drink “the same cup” as Jesus, which is clearly a metaphor for martyrdom.
“John Mark, of Cyrene, was the only man named John whom the apostle Paul places in or near Ephesus (2 Tim. 4:11), and John Mark wrote in Latin and Greek, as well as Hebrew,” Gray added. “Do you want him, or a fisherman, writing scripture for you?”
The former religion editor and reporter for a daily newspaper in the American South bases his “admittedly bold” conclusion, in part, on a striking parallel of “John and Mary problems” he discovered in the New Testament and Leonardo Da Vinci’s 15th century painting “The Last Supper” after a two-year effort to “uncode” the so-called Da Vinci Code. “Decode,” says Randall Gray, would be an inappropriate term, as the former military cryptologist says there has “never existed a code” in the controversial work, but rather “a cover-up of a botched repainting” of the “dry-plaster fresco,” which he says occurred sometime after the French invaded Milan in 1499.
Gray suspects the Cyrenean John Mark was once present in the painting, because Leonardo’s patron for “The Last Supper” Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza, nicknamed “il Moro” at birth, or “the Moor,” possessed African features. The terms “Moor” and “African” are synonymous, the writer points out.
“Shakespeare confirms that in ‘Othello, the Moor,’ his last and best tragic play,” Gray pointed out, as does the archaic term ‘blackamoor.’ ”
Leonardo’s much-debated painting, which took the celebrated artist from the Italian Renaissance three years to paint (1495-1498), more closely resembles a parody or “a comedy of errors,” which Gray says Leonardo, “a perfectionist to a fault,” would never have committed. Among these errors, he says, is a plainly visible “hand gripping a knife with no arm attached, which is floating in midair behind the back of Judas.”
The greatly disintegrated but partially restored masterwork by Leonardo, which appears on a refectory wall in the Santa Maria delle Grazie chapel in Milan, depicts the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples, a pivotal event which took place, the writer notes, “in none other than the home of John Mark and his mother Mary,” both of whom were African refugees in Jerusalem from Cyrene, known today as Libya. Gray further boldly asserts that the founder of the Coptic church and his mother Mary are the “John and Mary” at the foot of Jesus’ cross in John’s Gospel (19:25,27), and not St. John the evangelist or apostle and Mary, the mother of Jesus, as implied. This means John Mark, or St. Mark, and not John, the son of Zebedee, a fisherman from Galilee, is the so-called “disciple whom Jesus loved.”
Gray defends this point by citing Acts 1:14, where Mary, the mother of Jesus, is in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension, being attended to by her “real sons,” Jesus’ half-brothers. “Why would Jesus have asked Zebedee’s John, who was probably his cousin and Mary’s nephew, to be her son, if she had plenty?”
Gray emphasized that his motives are not to discredit the Bible, but to discredit heretics, who “didn’t want in the first century, and obviously still don’t want, the Copts to get their due.”
“It’s important to me that Coptic Christians around the world, as well as their founding patriarch who has been hidden from us, get the credit they rightfully deserve as specially beloved of Jesus,” says Gray, who worked for a year in Ethiopia, at the time Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974. Prior to this assignment he was once arrested and detained at gunpoint at the Cairo airport at the height of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. “Nevertheless,” he says with a grin, “I loved visiting Egypt and its typically gracious people. My stay, unfortunately, was abruptly cut short.”
Gray rattled off a series of biblical contradictions or “errors” in the final, post-resurrection scenes of each gospel, which he says are not the fault of the gospel writers, but rather “the work of heretics who tampered with the Bible,” in like manner to the repainting efforts by heretics to remove John Mark from “The Last Supper.” He makes an irrefutable point to defend his charge of an alteration in the painting: “In the process, someone removed altogether anyone and everyone named John in the painting, so there are only eleven male disciples, none of whom are "the disciple whom Jesus loved -- and the whole scene revolves around him, because it is he who asks Jesus who will betray him.”
Asked to speculate on why the African apostle of Jesus and his mother have been obscured, as he claims, Gray rubbed his bald head and stroked his gray beard before answering. “If you want my cut-to-the-chase answer,” he replied, “they racially identify Jesus, clearly, which the powers that be don’t want, I suppose, whoever they are. But Jesus is much more than a man with dark skin, but rather, we think, a composite of all of the races which make up mankind, as Adam must have been.” Gray just in recent years has concluded that Eden, and a literal “first couple,” existed in Ethiopia, basing that conclusion on archaeological, genetic, paleographic and migratory research in the ancient nation where he once lived and worked.
“Ethiopia is unique,” he explained, “which is more accurately called Abyssinia, which means ‘mixed races.’ Eighty languages, with Amharic being the national language, and hundreds of dialects exist in that one nation, as do people with a variety of features. People with white skin and red beards, who call themselves original Berbers, are found in Africa, as is a single Ethiopian tribe with composite DNA, like we believe Adam and Jesus possessed, after all … they had the same direct biological father.”
So if Adam was a dark-skinned man, containing within him the DNA for all dark-skinned races, where did white people come from?
Gray chuckled, but gave a straight-faced answer: “Eve came from Adam’s rib bone, didn’t she?” he asked rhetorically, “and aren’t bones white?”
Gray, 54, of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, who is completing a non-fiction manuscript titled RETURNING TO ABYSSINIA (working), is currently seeking author representation, and is available for interviews.
posted on May 06, 2008 - 10:40 AM
The question should be:
How do you prove to yourself that your Christianity is correctly lived. only then Christ will rediate from you, and those willing to accept Him will accept Him.
_________________
Pray for me,
<b>Moheb</b>
<i>"Till we all come in the <u>unity of the faith</u>, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, <b>unto a perfect man</b>, unto the measure of the stature of <u>the fulness of Christ</u>" (Ephesians 4:13)</i> <b>AMEN.</b>
"εγω ειμι η αναστασις και η ζωη" - <b>ιησου χριστου</b>
posted on May 06, 2008 - 03:01 PM
That doesn't always work. It'll only work if the person appreciates and sees a value to the Christian life (the person you're trying to convince). He/she may or may not. There are a lot of "appealing" religions that are not correct.
The best way to prove to someone that what he/she believes is wrong, is have them explain why they believe in it, then you can point out all the holes in their reasons. This is one way.
The other way is for you to just explain why Christianity is correct. That will logically preclude anything that contradicts Christianity from being correct. In addition to this, mgeorge is right - live it out.
Again, as I said before: "Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." - Matthew 7:6. If the person will just ridicule Christianity, then it's better than you don't even discuss it. Only if the person really wants to have an intelligent discussion should you get into it.
In my discusions with Muslims, they usually just turn to ridiculing Christianity, since they don't have much support for their beliefs. This is why I rather have them talk about Islam and then I can point out the holes, because talking about Christianity becomes futile - they put up a mental block.
Eventually I just realized it's a waste of time. Some people are better left alone - and they can decide how much they want to look into Christianity. Not all people, but some people. I have the best results with atheists, they're usually more "academic," so they'll give and take.
posted on May 06, 2008 - 06:21 PM
I have one more question.
If I let him speak about why he believes in islam, how do i find an inconsistency or contradiction if i do not know much about islam. I know enough about islam to know that it is a horrible excuse of a religion but I really dont think i know enough about islam to debate a muslim even if he doesnt know much about islam either (which is kind of obvious). Can anyone help me?
posted on May 06, 2008 - 07:05 PM
From CopticCrusader:I have one more question.
If I let him speak about why he believes in islam, how do i find an inconsistency or contradiction if i do not know much about islam. I know enough about islam to know that it is a horrible excuse of a religion but I really dont think i know enough about islam to debate a muslim even if he doesnt know much about islam either (which is kind of obvious). Can anyone help me?
Because you don't know enough about Islam to engage in a debate or a discussion, it is precisely why you should not even think about debating or discussing. I feel that the most successful way to get someone interested in your religion is not to prove that they're wrong nor to prove that you're right, but to show how right you are. And when the time comes, people will ask you, "Why do you believe in this?" and that will be an opportunity for you to share your beliefs.
A Coptic priest one time shared his experience with us about a Jehovah's Witness who knocked on his door.
JW: How are you doing today sir?
Abouna: I'm good.
JW: Have you ever thought about what you believe?
Abouna: Yes, and if you'd like, I'll tell you what I believe.
JW: Sure, please do so.
Abouna: I believe in One God, God the Father, the Almighty, who created heaven and earth and all ... (reciting the whole Nicene Creed)
JW (dumbfounded and confused): Okay, sir, you have a good day.
Abouna: You too, and God bless you.
See this right there? The important part is not whether you want to prove the person wrong, but rather when given the opportunity to be a witness to the faith.
God bless.
posted on May 06, 2008 - 08:08 PM
I agree with Mina regarding not getting into a discussion if you don't know much about the religion yourself. You might actually do more harm than good. If he makes a very poor argument which you can't refute because lack of knowledge, he will think that he has made a good argument and that will only solidify his beliefs.
From my own experience, it's much harder to convince someone who's been talking to Christians who don't know much about what they're getting into that Christianity is the way. The even worse outcome is I know of Christians who got into discussions they didn't have the resources to get into who started questioning Christianity itself.
Regarding "showing that you are right," I have a different take on this than Mina and it really depends on why the person rejects Christianity. You can't show someone that Christ is God, but you can show someone that a Christian will turn the cheek. If the person rejects Christianity b/c of a bad experience with Christians, then turning the cheek would help him/her embrace Christianity. If it's a matter of not believing that Christ is God, you have to debate the issue.
In any case, only debate the issue if you know enough about the issue.
posted on May 07, 2008 - 08:17 PM
+Pi`<rictoc aftwnf!
Mina had some wise words on this one. What is the objective of the argument? What do you hope to gain by it? Is it truly to win someone to Christ for the sake of Christ, or is it to win an argument? Are you more excited by the intellectual debate than you are at any thought of the truths you're hoping to put out there? These are questions that we ought to ask ourselves if we ever enter discussion with people of other faiths (or of no faith).
People can't accept a faith for the sake of some logical argument. If someone's faith is based on just an argument, it takes only a counter-argument to lose that person. Like Mina already said, God converts. Imagine the consequences if you "disproved Islam" and left someone entirely faithless?
Rather than fight with the kid, like others have said, better to act as a Christian and have answers when asked about your faith, than to criticise and tear apart another's faith.
Pray for me.
_________________
Agapy,
Vortounatoc
Amyn, Maren a;a!
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posted on May 07, 2008 - 09:22 PM
I have utilized the "logic" road with 14 people who were serious about discussing religion, 9 of which eventually invited me to their baptisms. The whole point is that there's no good "counter-argument" since Christianity is True. God gave us our mental faculties, there's no better way to use them than to bring others to God.
I am merely stressing the importance of intelligent discussions about Christianity. This is not to say we are to go around and force others to hear us tear their religion apart. If somebody wants to discuss religion, we should give intelligent reasons for why we are Christians.
posted on May 07, 2008 - 09:49 PM
+Pi`<rictoc aftwnf!
I am not insinuating that there is a lack of logic in Christianity, nor the importance of employing the intellect that is a God-given gift, but logic cannot be the basis of faith. It's certainly a strong support that it is there, and there would be a fundamental problem if it was absent, but it is not the foundation of one's entrance to Christianity.
It was illogical, for example, that Gideon use three hundred men to fight thousands. It was illogical to ask a paralysed man to put forth his hand. The point I was trying to make is that a true faith supercedes the intellect. If you could explain God perfectly, He would not be God.
The point is that there is always a potential that when we "philosophise" everything, there will be someone who will have a pretty good counter-argument. The fact of Christianity is God, and He is above intellect. He gave us the intellectual ability to ponder Him and His ways, but as He told Job (but in colloquial terms), "Don't even try and get me. Were you there when..."
I have no major argument with you, Truth.Seeker, but just wanted to make the point clear that a debate can't be the foundation of a faith. This is very different from someone who is actively seeking knowledge/Truth. I agree that we ought to have rational reasons for why we belong to this faith, and there are both logical and illogical reasons for it, but the illogical ones are not a weakness. Nor, I would argue, ought we to use the logical ones aggressively to "win" people to the faith. Christ calls, and we are witnesses. Nobody comes to the Father except through Christ, nobody comes to Christ without the Father, and nobody knows Christ without the Spirit - we are blessed to be baptised in Him and cannot forget that when we are speaking with others.
Pray for me.
_________________
Agapy,
Vortounatoc
Amyn, Maren a;a!
Administrator for Content, Newsletters, and the Book Exchange
coptichymns.net
- a taste of what is Coptic ...
Questions? Comments? E-mail or PM me!
Need help? - Post here. Comment or criticism? - Use our Feedback Form
posted on May 07, 2008 - 11:17 PM
We discussed the issue of Logic and Christianity ad nauseum on this thread: http://coptichymns.net/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-8449.html. You can see my views there.
Since we don't really disagree (rather, each of us is emphasizing two sides of the same coin), I'm not going to give a long response, I just want to clear something up.
When I say something is "logical" I don't mean "it's consistent with human norms," I mean it is inherently not illogical. Gideon taking three hundred men into battle is not illogical if he knew God is on his side. It's not illogical to tell a paralyzed man to put his hand forward if God had just healed it. Human norms would tell us that these things are illogical, but human norms are not the limit to what is logical. Miracles are not outside of logic, they are merely beyond scientific logic.
Science is not the only way to prove something. The best evidence of that is that no person can use science to prove the proposition that science is the only way to prove something.
Anyway, it all comes down to: Matthew 22:37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and great commandment.
You emphasize the "heart," I emphasize the "mind," (at least in the context of bringing those outside the faith into the faith). Or perhaps you're saying that the "mind" by itself is not sufficient - absolutely. I view it as the gateway.
Pray for me as well
posted on May 07, 2008 - 11:20 PM
I put a period after the above URL, so it's messing with it - here's the link:
http://coptichymns.net/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-8449.html
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