I'm certain that most reading this blog would agree with me.
But here's the thing-we are judging HIM based on our morality-just as he is judging US by HIS.
He possibly believes that he is RIGHTEOUS, doing God's work, winning the world for Islam.
So...who is right?
If, as many do, you reject the idea that there is a moral God setting standards of right and wrong...then you have no right to judge anyone else regarding their morality.
Let's set aside this murderer for a moment or an eternity, and allow me to point up a different example.
If you believe that the abortion of humans is a morally correct (Not questioning its legality, so don't go there) and honorable enterprise, then quite possibly you believe that I am wrong to oppose abortion. You might be judging my morality by your own standards, and find me and my morality wanting or lacking.
Here's the thing-there is one God, Who has proclaimed what is morally right and what is morally wrong.
You and I and the murderer pictured above all live in His Creation.
Whatever our opinions or morals or life choices or sins...God is the only one whose opinion matters.
I could judge you until the cows come home and you wouldn't get your hair mussed-my judging has as little effect on you as your judging has on me.
But God?
"4“I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.
5“But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!"
18 comments:
These ISIS/ISIL terrorists are horrible human beings. They hide behind religion to do evil, to justify taking lives.
Their false religion will do them no good when they stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ.
Read Rev 20:11-15
And, according to you a few posts ago, my dear Catholic friend who would never hurt anyone is exactly the same morally.
Not trying to make your head explode, Lu, I promise.
But yes. Catholicism and Islam are both false religions which promise their adherents Heaven but instead send them to hell.
Islam is more violent these days, but both have a history of killing innocents in the name of God.
Your dear Catholic friend and my Catholic friends are trapped in a false religion, just as Muslims are.
I would love for everyone to be free from false religion, but that only happens through the work of Jesus Christ, and He chooses who will be saved. I can't jimmy the lock and sneak people into Heaven.
So if I join ISIS and murder innocent people, or if I join a Catholic mission in the slums of Calcutta and help as many people as I can, it's all the same to God. I know we've been over this before, but I cannot get my head around that. I don't believe in God, but if there is a God I don't believe God is the amoral monster you worship.
I've said before (as have many other people) that on the evidence we see all around us God can't be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent: pick at most two. The Calvinist says, no problem! I'll take the first two, as long as I get to go to heaven, and to hell with everyone else.
I think I know my lines by now, Lu, just as you do.
You, as a created person, are in no way able to judge God or His motives or His reasoning.
We can only judge God by what He has revealed to us about Himself in His Word.
AND
If you are not a Christian (born again by the Holy Spirit) then you will be incapable of understanding His Word which is why the bible doesn't make sense to you.
The uncaring hateful god that you imagine isn't the God I know.
When I write, as I often have here, that I would prefer Heaven full and hell empty,I mean it. That is from my heart. I don't want anyone to go to hell, but it isn't up to me, and my opinion, your opinion, no one's opinion matters except God.
As for dipping the name Calvinist in mud, Lu, I have an experiment for you.
Go to any Catholic priest in your neighborhood.
Introduce yourself and say, "I not only am not a Catholic, but I don't believe that God exists and I am a strong defender of Abortion.
If I die today, will I be in Heaven?"
And that Catholic priest might just tell you to go to hell.
I want you to be in Heaven-think of the arguments we could have throughout eternity! Except there probably won't be anything to argue about.
Have a good day, nemesis.
You are probably right about the Catholic priest, which means you and he have at least one point of agreement. (He wouldn't tell me to go to hell, but he would tell me the path I'm on now goes there.)
You're also right that the God you construe based on your understanding of the Bible doesn't make sense to me. Is God good? You say yes. Why would a good God create a species "in his own image" knowing full well that the majority of these beings would end up in everlasting torment? Only an amoral monster would do that.
Careful, Lu-you're very close to proving the existence of OUR God.
Here's the thing-I may resent/dislike/be abhorred by Islam and most especially by Islamic terrorists...but I don't hate Allah,as I am certain that Allah does not exist.
Why would I hate a non-existent entity? That's like hating Charlie Brown, another fictional character.
Likewise, why would you be so upset by the God I know...if He doesn't exist?
Granting your premise for a moment, if I hated God that wouldn't prove he existed, it would prove that I thought he did. Lack of proof that God exists is essential to your belief system, isn't it? If (granting that existence for a moment) God really truly wanted everyone to go to heaven, he could write across the sky in enormous letters, "listen, suckers, not only do I exist, you're not gonna like what I'll do if you don't shape up, so shape up. More info is available at deity.heaven.com." As I understand your reasoning, God doesn't do this because it would make it too easy for us.
What name do you suppose Arabic-speaking Christians invoke? Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. It's cognate with the Hebrew word El, as in Beth El, Elohim, Eloheinu, and so on. (Beth means house, in case you're interested, as in Beth Israel, Beth Shalom, and so on.)
My point (which you deftly avoided)
was that you wouldn't waste time hating a fictional God.
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm
is a site which clearly explains God vs Allah stuff. Good scholarship going on over there.
"What name do you suppose Arabic-speaking Christians invoke?"
Actually went through this a year or so back when the Pastor of my church was teaching in kid's Sunday school that Allah is the Arabic
word for God.
Funny co-incidence...at the time he was doing that, we in the adult Sunday school were watching a Bible study video where the teacher,
Dr. David Jeremiah said quite emphatically, "Don't let anyone tell you that Allah is another name for God!"
I agree with Dr. Jeremiah.
Allah, as you will see if you follow the link above, was a pagan Moon deity long before Islam came along.
"(Beth means house, in case you're interested, as in Beth Israel, Beth Shalom, and so on.)"
I thought it was short for Elizabeth. Y'know-like Jesus was born in a stable in Elizabeth of Bread.
Sholom Aleichem, Lucia.
And my point, which you missed (whether deftly or not I can never tell) was that God as you constitute him, fictional or not, isn't worthy of worship. Christians believe that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and that his choice of whom to save is completely unrelated to a person's virtue or lack thereof. Thus (according to you) he chooses to save Doug, but not Mother Teresa; George W. Bush, but not Jimmy Carter; one of the thieves, but not the other.
If God can't save everyone, he's not omnipotent.
If God doesn't know everyone who needs to be saved, he's not omniscient.
If God could save everyone but chooses not to, he's not omnibenevolent.
Whether God exists or not, and whether I believe he exists or not, is irrelevant.
And now for the fun scholarly stuff...
From the article you cited:
According to numerous inscriptions, while the name of the Moon-god was Sin, his title was al-ilah, i.e. "the deity," meaning that he was the chief or high god among the gods.
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah#cite_ref-rick_brown_7-2:
The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the [sole] deity, God" (ὁ θεὸς μόνος, ho theos monos).[14] Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.[15] The corresponding Aramaic form is Alah (אלה), but its emphatic state is Alaha (אלהא). It is written as ܐܠܗܐ (ʼĔlāhā) in Biblical Aramaic and ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ (ʼAlâhâ) in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply "God".
(...)
Arab Christians today use terms such as Allāh al-Ab (الله الأب, 'God the Father') to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage.
Me again: so, yes, al-Ilah or "[the] deity" has undoubtedly been used throughout human history for different deities. Today it means God, Muslim or Christian or otherwise.
(Biblical scholars detect two strains in the Hebrew Bible represented by two names for God, Yahweh and El (Elohim, Eloheinu, etc.). I believe Eloheinu literally means "our God.")
(I forgot about Aramaic. Mt. 27:46 gives yet another cognate of the same name.)
Fun scholarly stuff? Lu, wiki all you like, you wiki wiki lady, and cite every source to prove me wrong.
Go for it. I'll sleep just as soundly-just finished a 12 hour shift and am ready for bed.
No matter what the wiki says,I reject "Allah" as a name for God. And so do many other Christians.
Are their Christians who believe that that could be a proper name for God? I'm sure that there are.
{shrugs}
A large portion of "Born again" believers also hold as truth that a Christian can lose his or her Salvation. I reject that, too. My point being I know what I believe
and if I get some things wrong, it is proof that I am as fallible as anyone else.
Bye the bye, the Pastor mentioned above who was teaching the kids that Allah was a name for God-he cited as a source a man we know who has worked for years with Wycliffe Bible translators. I still reject the idea that Allah is a name for God.
Sincere thoughtful Christians can disagree on lesser points such as this, but we all do agree on the major points of theology.
Have a good night, Lu.
Ah, yes, Wikipedia is reality-based, and we can't have that. How about this one:
In Islam, Allah is the personal name of God and comprises all of the 99 Names of God in Islam. When a Muslim refers to Allah, he thinks of God as being One, Creator, Owner, Sustainer, and Almighty. In Arabic, the name is composed of four letters, ا ل ل ه (or Alif, Lam, Lam, Ha) which when brought together make الله. Arab Christians often use this name simply to mean "God". (The generic word for "god" is simply 'ilāh, though due to the strong association of Arabic with Islam this word is rarely used in modern speech.) These Christians do maintain a belief in the traditional Christian Trinity, however, and believe that Allah consists of the Father, Son and Spirit.
By the way, what would you have Arabic-speaking Christians call God, if they're not allowed to use their native language?
I can't imagine why this is a sticking point with you, except that you think that you are proving me wrong about a tenet of Christianity.
As I mentioned above, and now quote:
"Are their Christians who believe that that could be a proper name for God? I'm sure that there are.
{shrugs}"
Lu, my opinion is that it is wrong for anyone to use the term Allah to refer to God.
You can no more 'argue' me out of my opinions than I could 'argue' you out of yours.
You and I both have heard the true God called "Jehovah", which is never found in the Bible in the original languages. But we accept it as meaning God.
All through the Bible there is a clear demarcation-no false God is ever referred to as the true God, and the true God is never referred to by the name of any false deity.
Prove me wrong, Lu.
This isn't a matter of right or wrong, it's just, um, unreal. Is it OK with you if French Christians call on Dieu, Russian ones on Bog, Israeli ones on El? Probably. But since it's not OK with you for Arab Christians to address God in their own language, what language would you like them to use?
Here it is again in black and white, Lu:
"All through the Bible there is a clear demarcation-no false god is ever referred to as the true God, and the true God is never referred to by the name of any false deity."
Does that make no sense to you?
Because it sure makes sense to me.
"what language would you like them to use?"
However they refer to God, if they are true, born again believers, then God will reveal Himself to them as He wills. If they were born Muslim and become true Christians, they will reject Allah as a name for God, as God will make evident to them that Allah is a false deity.
Remember the story of the 3 Jewish boys in the fiery furnace?
They refused to bow down to the image that Nebuchadnezzar had made.
They would rather die than bow down to a false god.
Christians today are just as certain that Allah is not God.
Your argument as to languages might stem from the fact that you don't believe that our God is real.
The only way in which God has revealed Himself is through His Son and His Word, the Bible.
So He is not the Native American "Great Spirit", Allah or Bel or Horace or anything else you might come up with.
If you need a better definition, the bible states that He is the God of Moses, of David, of Daniel.
So if anyone refers to Him in that way, it is proper. But the nine million names for god which come from from some other faith/language/belief system do not refer to the true God.
An Arabic Christian would tell you, "I believe in the God of Moses, David and Daniel." He would not say, "Allah is God."
Have I pounded those points hard enough to make an impression on you?
I doubt it.
OK, when this hypothetical Arabic-speaking Christian says this, in what language is he speaking? If he's speaking Arabic, what word does he use for God?
Turn it around. This comment thread started talking about Catholics, who, according to you, don't worship your God (if they did, they would be saved, presumably?). And they had the name first. So why aren't you called upon to call God something else, to make it clear that you worship the true God and not the Catholic version?
At the end of the day I don't much care what you or anyone else calls God, nor is it my business, really. You're construing Allah as a personal name, which isn't my understanding. God isn't a personal name either.
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