Restored Topic

[Cogitoergosum]

Achiles had asked people to explain the rise of christianity. I don't know if it was supposed to prove that christianity was somehow special because of the way it rose, but how is that different than the rise of islam? Can you explain to me why you believe christianity to be better?

How do u explain the rise of christianity?

How do u explain the rise of islam?

1) The Gospels being written by at least the following dates
Mark 65-70 CE
Matthew 70-80 CE
Luke 80-85 CE

1) the koran being written about 700 C.E.

2) The letters of Paul and his writings on the subjects, specifically the parts where he refers to Jesus as a human, any of Jesus actions, and beliefs of himself and those he speaks about.

2) the "hadith" written as an add on to the kuran and the "ijtihad" written by imams that corroborate the divine message of mohammad and confirm his status as a prophet.

3) The writings of Josephus

referr to 2

4) The Historical account presented in the Talmud

The historical account in the Talmud of jesus is sketchy at best. Yeshua there is only a rabbi no magical powers, different set of parents than jesus, no disciples...
the historical account present in history books about mohammad and neighboring nations

5) The fact that the geography of the Gospels (especially Luke) is almost exact.

the geography in the history of islam and mohammad is accurate

6) The fact that Archeology has not uncovered anything that contradicts a Gospel, or acts, or Pauline letter account.

Archeology has not unproved anything in the koran

7) The beliefs of the very first Christians (Nazarenes).

the beliefs of the very first moslims

8) The accounts of history such as Caesars declaration around 60CE that bodies were never to be taken out of the graves, punishable by death, right near Nazareth.

I don't know what evidence that is, supposedly jesus's body is in heaven and not around nazareth. Multiple historical accounts confirm the existence of mohammad.

9) Later archeology and history such as Pliny's letters.

same as previous arguments

10) The conversion of Paul

the conversion of thousands of jews and christians of the time to islam.

11) The conversion of the early Jews, constituting the Council of Jerusalem
same as above

12) The Martyrdom of James

somebody killed him, so what?

13) The conversion of James

same as above

14) The martyrdom of the first apostles. ( I Know that there isn't solid evidence supporting these men being martyrs. However explain why the early church fathers would write about the details of their deaths, if something close to that did actually happen.)

martyrdom of the thousands of moslims while conquering lands and spreading islam.

so how exactly are these proofs of a divine religion?

[achilles12604]

4) The Historical account presented in the Talmud

The historical account in the Talmud of jesus is sketchy at best. Yeshua there is only a rabbi no magical powers, different set of parents than jesus, no disciples...
the historical account present in history books about mohammad and neighboring nations

Here is what is written in the Talmud.

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.(4)
Quoted in Habermas, The Verdict p. 98

Notice that there is in fact references to Magic powers, hanging on a tree, et al. I do agree that the information about Jesus is sketchy. However you were incorrect in your details here and it is in fact the corroboration of that these details provides which supports the Christian viewpoint and must be explained in conjunction with the other points I offered in my Challenge. As I pointed out non-theists like to divide up the points about Jesus and challenge them all individually. This tactic is nice because they don't have to deal with the fact that all the evidence interlocks with other evidence providing a picture which matches the Christian apologist viewpoint.

Hence the point of my entire challenge was to take away this unscholarly approach and ask non-theists to accomplish the same task that they demanded on Christians.

[achilles12604]

5) The fact that the geography of the Gospels (especially Luke) is almost exact.

the geography in the history of islam and mohammad is accurate
Quote:

6) The fact that Archeology has not uncovered anything that contradicts a Gospel, or acts, or Pauline letter account.

Archeology has not unproved anything in the koran

I included these points only as markers. Since some non-theists have made the claim that Geography of Luke and Mark was erroneous, I simply wanted to nip this one point in the bud. Nothing more.

[achilles12604]

7) The beliefs of the very first Christians (Nazarenes).

the beliefs of the very first moslims

THIS . . . This is actually one of my primary points and comparing it to Islam enhances my point drastically.

As I have argued in several places (even creating an entire thread on the topic), the beliefs of the original Christians is a unique point of strength in the Christian doctrine. No other religion I am aware of can use this point to their advantage like Christians can.

the reason for this is two fold.

1) The beliefs of the early Christian's included belief in miracles performed by Jesus himself in front of crowds of people in Jerusalem.

2) The people believing this were alive and living in the area that these supposed miracles took place.

No other religion in the world can combine these two factors. Not one. Islam is actually a good religion to contrast this with.

The very first Muslim followers of Mohammad had no idea if their leader actually received revelations from an angel. They were never allowed to join him. A shroud of secrecy surrounded Islam's formation. They also never had to contend with believing in miracles, much less miracles performed on a regular basis, on earth, right in front of them.

Christians had much more difficult beliefs to have and they had to have these beliefs under much more difficult circumstances as outlined above. Therefore, the fact that the first Christians did in fact believe the Jesus did perform miracles right in front of them, in their neighborhoods, gives a great deal more support to the truthfulness of these events as compared to the beliefs of the first Muslims.

Looking at is from another angle, the Muslims could have easily been fooled or misinformed. Mohammad could have been a liar, he could have been deranged, or he could have been mistaken and it would have been passed to and believed by the first Muslims just as easily.

If Jesus had never really performed miracles, these men and women would have been the first to know. If Jesus had never taught the things he did, they would have been the first to know. This is what makes their beliefs so very powerful as an argument for Christianity.

[achilles12604]

8) The accounts of history such as Caesars declaration around 60CE that bodies were never to be taken out of the graves, punishable by death, right near Nazareth.

I don't know what evidence that is, supposedly jesus's body is in heaven and not around nazareth. Multiple historical accounts confirm the existence of mohammad.

The point of including this was to further support the assertion that the very early Christians believed in a bodily resurrection of Jesus, even as early as 30 years after the fact. This corroborates and enhances the argument that Paul writing about 10 years before this did in fact believe in a bodily resurrection as well. This further enhances my argument that the very first Christians, the Nazarenes believed in a bodily resurrection. The key word here is bodily as the assertion by some non-theists is that all these folks believed in a Spiritual resurrection rather than a bodily one. As I said, all the evidence combines with and corroborates all the other evidence.

[achilles12604]

9) Later archeology and history such as Pliny's letters.

same as previous arguments
Quote:

10) The conversion of Paul

the conversion of thousands of jews and christians of the time to islam.

Your first point is valid. Both religions have similar verification on this one point.

As for number 10, there are several factors which all support the Christian doctrines.

Going from your point backwards to mine, the vast majority of the converts to Islam were done at the point of the sword. Islam spread due to attacking and conquering other nations. Compare this to Christianity who during their entire spread, never used violence as a tool to further their cause. In fact it was the other way around. The Christians were the ones being attacked and murdered.

Not until Christianity was very well established did it become polluted with violence. Islams spread, perhaps its very survival required violence and war. This was how it survived and grew.

Now Paul's conversion is also unique. The evidence for Paul being a Pharisee is fairly sound. First we have his word on it. What is more, he speaks of this as if it is common knowledge. He isn't trying to prove that he was a Pharisee to those reading his letters. He includes this information as if it was already known. Additionally his knowledge of the OT would indicate a great deal of study of its pages and his knowledge of the training and teachers (specifically Gamieliel I can't spell his name right now), would indicate he was familiar with the process.

Now with Paul's being raised and taught as a Pharisee, his conversion would have been extremely unlikely. The fact that he not only converted but in fact became the greatest teacher of Jesus in the world is a factor which must be accounted for. It's unlikelihood demands attention and explanation. This would equate to today as Hitler stopping world war 2, becoming a Jew in full view of the entire world, and then suffering enormous hardships in an attempt to spread the Jewish faith t other nations.

It simply must be accounted for.

[achilles12604]

I'm out of time for now. I will try and finish later.

[Cogitoergosum]

I am at work currently so i will answer you as best as i can until i have more time

Now first off you start out "quoting" something that I never wrote. Tsk, tsk.

Falsifying what other wrote is a blatant no,no. Please review my OP and you will quickly see that no where did I write the following. . .

I didn't mean to misquote you, it was a mistake but really irrelevant to the thread.

This is a decent place to begin I guess. Islam started with Muhammad, born between 570-572, in the city of Mecca now located in Saudi Arabia. The Story of the Koran began roughly 610 CE when Mohammad claimed that while in a cave the Archangel Gabriel came to him and over then next 23 years made him memorize verses which became the Koran. Around 622 CE he was forced out of his area and he went to Yathrib (now known as Medina) with his followers, where he was the leader of the first Muslim community.

Correct

Tradition holds that Mohammad's followers memorized what Mohammad said and that some of it was written down n stones or bark. However a full compilation of this rendition did not take place until Abū Bakr took control and compiled it. However his succession was immediately challenged by the first of four righteous Caliphs (Rashidun), the Shi'a who insist that he violated Muhammad's direct orders and orchestrated a coup. International scholarly consensus lists him as the first Muslim Caliph.

correct

Mohammad vs Jesus

First off we have a better understanding of Mohammad's pre-prophet life. This rendition, although it comes from only Islamic sources and may be nothing but legend, could be true. There isn't anything against this possibility so let it stand. Jesus is fairly unknown until his sudden emergence as a prophet figure. This difference slightly favors Mohammad. However the rest of the story favors a Christian viewpoint.

Jesus stories and deeds were done in full view of the public. Both doubters and believers were given equal seats at his life events. Mohammad on the other hand never performed a miracle nor did he allow any of his followers to join him in the cave with the angel. The secrecy of this is comparable to Joseph Smith and his Golden plates. There is no real evidence for the occurrences they claim but because they refused to allow any evidence to be gathered. So while it is impossible to claim 100% for sure that these individuals were deranged or liars, the reason it is impossible is because of their actions and their secrecy.

mohammad's actions were not in secret, you are wrong there. Jesus miracles cannot possibly be proven and thus should be disregarded. I posted a thread that none of you replied to called "miracles really" where i show that one of the alleged miracle is clearly epilepsy and not a demon and there was not way to know the boy was healed. When they say he healed the servant of the centurion at capernauem, the servant was at home and no one went there, so it is not possible to know he was really healed. Anyway those miracles cannot be proven.
mohammad ascribed all his victories to divine power, you can count that as a miracle which of course cannot be proven.

Compared to Jesus and his very open teachings, public appearances and miracles, Mohammad falls far short. Next we have the successors of our major prophets. On one hand Jesus followers do have difficulties and differences of opinions. They do not agree on some things mostly associated with traditions and readings of the old laws. Mohammad on the other hand has a major split immediately after his death which caused the two factions to battle one another. Jesus followers decided during the Council of Jerusalem on a compromise. Muhammad's followers arranged a coup.

there was no coup, mohammad on his death bed declared that his successor would be the one closest to him. Some interpreted that as the closest to him physically at his death bed (Sunnis), other the closest blood relative (Shi'a). They did not battle each other till like 20-30 years after the prophets died but BOTH accept the koran as god given.

Lastly we have the recording of the words of the prophets. This section gives various points to both sides. For Mohammad, we have the advantage of his words supposedly being recorded on rocks and bark. However, since we don't have any of these artifacts, they really have nothing more plausible that the Christian "q" document. Both sides used very heavily ORAL traditions to pass on the words of their teachers. The compilation of the actual holy books also gives points to both sides.

very similar to christian gospels indeed.

Some traditions about the origin of the Qur'an say that Abu Bakr was instrumental in preserving it in written form. It is said that after the hard-won victory over Musailimah, Umar ibn al-Khattab (the later Caliph Umar), saw that many of the Muslims who had memorized the Qur'an from the lips of Muhammad had died in battle. Abu Bakr asked Umar to oversee the collection of the revelations. The record, when completed, was deposited with Hafsa bint Umar, daughter of Umar, and one of the wives of Muhammad. Later it became the basis of Uthman ibn Affan's definitive text of the Qur'an. However, other historians give Uthman the principal credit for collecting and preserving the Qur'an. Shi'as strongly refute the idea that Abu Bakr or Umar were instrumental in the collection or preservation of the Qur'an, rather that they refused to accept Ali's Qur'an.

Like the christians refused a lot of gospels of the time.

The first part of this quote mirrors Christianity to some extent. One of Muhammad's followers saw a need to record the words (or in the case of Christianity the events). Despite the fact that the need arose because they were busy slaughtering infidels who refused to convert, the need was still there. However this is where the similarities end. Abu Bakr's Quran was not accepted by all Muslims. An entire sect refused to accept the most important document in all of Islam. Compared this to Christianity who's renditions were generally all accepted for almost 100 years until individuals far removed from the actual events wished to insert their own ideas into the religion with the rise of Gnosticism. This seriously discredits Islam. The equivalent would be half the Christians accepting Matthew and the other half rejecting it entirely as false. Obviously Christians did have differences of opinion on interpretations and such things, but they never had a faction like we see in Islam.

You forget also that christians killed a ,ot of pagans who did not convert, islam was not the only religion or the first to do this. Second ALL moslim factions have a koran which is 99% the same, minor differences arise between them in the hadith and ijtihad which you could compare to divisions like catholics and protestants...

The fact that such a split occurred fairly soon after Mohammads death indicates that no one was 100% sure of what Mohammad had actually said or did. This problem can be traced back once again to the secrecy in which Mohammad acquired his words from the angel. And once again we can see the advantages of Jesus teaching and performing in public.

Again that split you are talking about is not as big as you are describing it, they differ a little bit like catholics from protestants and evangelistics not more. Jesus's parables were said in public but how can you tell they were god inspired? mohammad has obtained his teachings in secret but they were publicly revealed also.

So far i fail to see major differences.

[Cogitoergosum]

The purpose of my referring to Paul's letters here was simply to refute those who claim that Jesus was never referred to as a real person. I also wished to indicate that Christian core beliefs returned very close to the actual events. There was not a significant gap of time before Christians are recorded as believing in the resurrection for example.

Because the hadith was not compiled until centuries later (like the 9th century) it is poor document to compare to Paul's letters. It doesn't serve any of the functions that the letters do simply because the power of the letters stems from their very early origins as well as their even earlier creeds.

The Ijtihad was actually the process by which the Quran and Hadith were used to discover and apply laws in Islamic societies. This has nothing to do with Paul's letters, nor does it corroborate the divine message of mohammad as you have asserted. Unless your understanding of the Ijtihad is different than mine, this document doesn't do anything you suggested it does and it certainly doesn't perform the same function as Paul's letters.

In fact, there is not real equivalent to Paul's letter in Islam. Nothing occurred or was recorded between Mohammad's lectures and Abu Bakr. So there really isn't anything to compare this to.

Even though paul's letters were written shortly after, it does not mean that the hadith and ijtihad are irrelevant because they were written later. Besides in paul's letters there are no mention of virgin birth or miracles or anything that would referr to jesus being more than a man.

[Cogitoergosum]

As I pointed out before, the Hadith was not compiled until almost 250 years after Mohammed. In addition to this the Hadith was written 1) by a devout Muslim, 2) who had never met anyone alive during Mohammed's time, and 3) without the intention of being a history.

Josephus on the other hand was not a Christian, was alive during the times of Jesus and his immediate followers, and did write his books with the intention of using them as a historical reference.

In addition to this, Josephus includes many historical markers. the Hadith is theology and does not contain such references. It isn't even close to fulfilling the same purpose.

josephus reference to jesus being holy has been refuted as a later addendum to his writings, all scholars agree that that paragraph he wrote was too christian to be jewish, so it cannot have been written by a jew that remained a jew.
Origen in his writings alludes that josephus did not belive jesus to be holy and from his writings you would get the iea that josephus in other works slanders jesus. so quoting josephus doesn't help your case. There was a lot of writings in history confirming mohammad's existence as a man and this is all what josephus writings and paul's letters are used for. To try to assert jesus's existence as a man and not as a myth. Besides almost all josephus' writings passed by the church first, so we have to wonder what has been added on.