Tough Questions of Priests! - Most Debated Issues of Muslims & Christians @MohammedHijab

Christianity says that Jesus sacrificed himself and died for the sins of mankind why is this belief wrong you say that the Bible and the Torah have been changed this is not a simple claim for Christians can you prove it as a Muslim you also believe that Jesus was born without the father and that he brought dead people back to life these are very extraordinary things aren't they enough reasons to call him a deity so how do you know that the Quran also has not been changed centuries have passed since then right asalam alikum brother Muhammad hijab thank you for accepting our invitation today in this cross-examination concept we'll ask some frequently asked questions about Christianity we are not Christians of course but we convey their difficult questions so that the truth can come out but be careful this is not Speaker's Corner we ask more serious and difficult questions if you're ready let's begin yes I am ready Christians believe that Jesus is God but Islam accepts him as a prophet is Jesus really mentioned in the Bible as God or is he described as how Islam says about him so we don't believe that the Bible is authoritative we believe that there are remnants of Truth in it but that has been corrupted and changed we don't believe that the Bible that we have today is something which is an authority from that perspective and that can be seen by different scholarly authorities comparing and contrasting the different gospels the Gospel of John for example it seems to have a higher christology than uh other gospels there are some indications from other gospel writers that Jesus might be divine but Jesus himself doesn't come across as saying that at all in fact in the gospels but be that as it may we don't really care even if he did come and say in the gospels that he was God because we don't believe in the authenticity of that document but we would say above and beyond all of that is the fact that Jesus Christ couldn't be God for logical necessity I mean it doesn't matter if the Bible said it or any other book said it because you can't have a man God anyway you can't have an unlimited limited being so it doesn't matter what book said this it's false and so I think anyone who knows the definition of God and the definition of Jesus Christ and human being cannot put these two things together no matter what book said it if Jesus didn't call himself a deity as you say then how could this belief arise how could they turn a prophet into a god there was clear motivation from the initial Roman Empire when you know Christianity became a religion in the Roman Empire in the year uh let's say 313 there was Constantine actually made it legal to believe in Christianity and afterwards he spread Christianity and other people other rulers spread Christian like theodosius II and others you can see a clear historic IAL development and how for example the beliefs of the pagans and the polytheistic and pantheistic beliefs of the Romans from Greek mythology Incorporated themselves into Christian Frameworks and there was a a political motivation for that which is that Constantine and others wanted to make Christianity a more palatable religion for these people and so how could it be that you know Jesus became co-equal and co-eternal as a god in a person and how could it be that the Holy Spirit had the same status you can see a clear historical development where that happened from what you call subordinationism until you had the three coequal coeternal Gods uh at the turn of the fourth century and so how could it be well it could be when you have a strong political Authority in the Roman Empire and clear political and sociological motivation and then when you combine those factors with the evidence that we have from primary source materials it's pretty clear how that can be Christianity says that Jesus sacrificed himself and died for the sins of of mankind why is this belief wrong this belief is wrong on many different grounds on a very basic logical grounds if you think about the Christian belief they effectively telling us you are born into sin original sin because Adam ate from the tree so you're born into sin because Adam ate from the tree and then that sin is removed away from you because some or Jesus died from the in on the cross so effectively you're given sin and it's removed to from you from two people all you have to do is believe in the story now that seems to me to be an a front to individual responsibility because the religion of Islam doesn't have it this way it has it in the way that you are responsible for your own actions what the religion of Christianity is telling you is you you have a sin for no action of your own and you will have that sin removed for no action of your own so we would say this doesn't make sense and how could it be that a God anyway dies on the cross this makes no sense what does it mean for a God to die on the cross so this all these propositions no matter how much one wants to say they're historical and they are attested to and there test Tony and whatever that the argument on the other side is frankly even if that was all the case it's still logically incoherent so it's unacceptable frankly as a Muslim you also believe that Jesus was born without the father and that he brought dead people back to life these are very extraordinary things aren't there enough reasons to call him a deity after all Allah gives life and takes life I mean Allah answers that question very directly in chapter 3 ver 52 of the Quran that certainly the similitude of Jesus is like that of Adam he created him from dust and he said to him be and he was because the argument is this is that if you're saying that Jesus is a God or the Son of God because he didn't have a mother or a father then surely Adam should be a bigger God because he didn't have a mother or a father and so if this is the argument then the argument Falls flat on his face on these basis but he brings dead people back to life he cures the blind all of that with God's permission of course Allah says and one could argue that quite frankly splitting the sea in the way that Moses did it is more impressive in many ways than curing the blind cuz frankly splitting the sea everyone can attest to that curing the blind can there could be a degree of conspiracy that could be like for example we see now in in many of the African countries someone could say pretend that you're blind and then I'll kill you splitting the sea frankly it cuts that undercuts that in a more meaningful way so I would say if if you're using miracles to try and prove the deity of God of Jesus Christ then frankly you can do the same thing with Moses on a higher level you say that the Bible and the Torah have been changed this is not a simple claim for Christians can you prove it I mean to be honest with you the proof of it is in what you call textual criticism now this has become a field of biblical studies or a subfield of biblical studies which now is being taught everywhere in the western Academy and there is almost consensus or in fact there is consensus among Scholars of Christianity not Islam that there has been change interpellation and corruption in fact this was the name of one of the books of Bruce mea a very famous book uh that was talking about the corruption of the Bible it's something which every want to test to and the question is where is the chain of narration where is the link between Jesus and the gospel writers because there is a degree of anonymity and it's Anonymous these people are Anonymous we don't know who they are and there is no link between them and there's almost 100 years between them so much so that it's interesting EP Sanders who wrote a book called the historical figures of the historical figure of Jesus Christ he said that if you remove the gospels and you remove the Christian evidence you're you're left with almost no evidence of his existence even Jesus Christ so you have a lacking of evidence of Jesus Christ existence except for that which tacitus and Josephus says and Josephus himself who was a Jewish philosopher was or Jewish historian was uh was accused or the interpolations of his Works were were accused of been put in there anyway the point is is that quite frankly we have weak evidence of Christianity and the preservation mechanism of Christianity has failed and there's no doubt about that according to the consensus of all Scholars can you also prove that these books have been corrupted from the books themselves maybe through contradictions absolutely and that's a very good point because you'll you'll find that especially for example let's take one of the the deepest and most meaningful Central talents of Christianity the crucifixion the resurrection just look at the accounts of crucifixion in Matthew Mark and Luke and compare them with each other and you'll find a shocking level of contradictions and not just that there's contradictions on many different fronts in the gospels uh themselves uh that's that's looking at the New Testament the Old Testament is filled with contradictions and I'll give you one example because I'm mentioning it um and I read this actually from William LAN Craig of all people and he mentioned that you know and I'll quote him in fact or paraphrase him he said that if you look at the biblical story in Genesis chapter 1 the very first page of the Bible you're looking at the very first page of the Bible and it said that as you know on the fourth day God created the vegetation the the the Sun and Sorry God created the vegetation on the third day and God created the sun and the The Luminaries on the fourth day so God created the sun and the luminaries in the fourth dat that's in Genesis 1 verse number six and John created God created the vegetation the plants and stuff on the third day but if you look at Genesis 2: number 5 it says no plant had sprung up yet but already we found in Genesis 1: number 6 that the plants have been there so so it's a contradiction if you just turn the page of the Bible so much so that William link Craig said about this that it's as if the author of The Bible didn't care if there was a contradiction in there just how embarrassing it was that even one of the the the notorious preachers and Scholars of Christianity of the 21st century had to admit there's a contradiction and he said this as if he doesn't care origin of Alexandria who wrote on first principles one of the biggest BG ecumenical Church fathers said what man of uh education will believe in this kind of thing and this is one of their biggest scholars in the early days of Christianity so contradictions are there in the Bible the Old Testament the New Testament everywhere else and that's very easy to see don't they see these contradictions as well why do they keep believing it they do see these contradictions and I think the way they try and get around it nowadays is they what they what you call spiritualize the text so they say it's all metaphor because they cannot live with these contradictions anymore they cannot enjoy them so they have to Spirit say this is just metaphoric language you just you take were literalist you know and of course if you look at the early days of Christianity apart from what you call the alexandrian school we have origin of Alexandri already mentioned then like filow his Jewish teacher you did not find this kind of belief among the schools of Antioch and other places in early Christianity when they were writing what you call the homes and the the ex jesuses or the teas of their Bible they weren't taking it like that even Augustine who wrote a book called against the literal interpretation of Genesis it doesn't have a metaphoric interpretation the way in which they want that us to have with these verses some verses for example origin of Alexandria he even metaphorized verses to do with war and killing because he found it was so abhorent that he had to metaphorize it you know and so someone like is called Hansen his name is Hansen he refuted origin in in multiple works but the point I'm making is that the way they get around that is by saying it's a metaphor you say that the Bible and the Torah are originally sent by God and then you claim that they have been changed why would God allow this the reason why God would allow this is because this the these particular Revelations were sent for a specific people and a specific time we don't believe that the Torah was sent for all humankind likewise we don't believe that the the gospel that was originally sent to Jesus Christ was meant for all people in all times we believe that the Quran was the only book really sent for all people all times accompanied with the sun of the Prophet mhammad wasam so there wasn't an impending need for all of humanity to have these Revelations actually preserved and that's why is this is indicated in the meaning of the verse in the which basically means that they were entrusted with the preservation of these books I.E the rabbis and the clergy of the of the old and they failed even though they were witness to it so in other words comparing that with what Allah subhana says in the Quran about the Quran that he will preserve it himself there's a clear difference and the difference is Justified due to the fact that these books were specified to their people in time and the Quran was spent sent for all people in all times what is the difference between the documentation and narration of the gospel and the Quran the major difference you will find is that there's a chain of narration with the Quran we in fact the scholars of Islam like for example jazar in his very famous work called he says that in order for something to be considered to be Quran it has to fulfill three criteria number one it has to have a chain of narration which is mass transmitted number two it has to have it has to be in line with the classical Arabic at the time of the Prophet Muhammad Sall alaihi wasallam and number three it has to have be in line with the O manic script okay so these are three things that have to happen this is triangulated me method so we have a chain of narration we have the script of aan this these are all things that we have we we have the language of the Arabic language of the F the classical Arabic has been preserved okay so these three things are there with the gospel you have 100e Gap effectively anything between 80 to 100 years without attestation or any link between Jesus and these Anonymous people who who purportedly uh witnessed Jesus Christ 80-year Gap no chain of narration all kinds of manuscripts contradictory manuscripts uh variants which contradict each other not just that they vary but they contradict each other and vary and uh and there's no such thing as script and they didn't have even a memorization culture and it was a hodg podge of different different languages I mean you had the Greek and Aramaic and hodge podge of different languages and the Old Testament has Greek translations to Hebrew Hebrew so you had the step tuent for example is a translation in Greek they use it for uh to inform a Hebrew translation so there's a translation element all of that is completely absent and completely different to the Islamic preservation method so how do you know that the Quran also has not been changed centuries have passed since then right well look I mean if you think about it we have we have a chain of narration okay going back to the prophet mammad wasam so for a fact and books like ja's book uh gives us the names of the people who actually transmitted this information one after the other going back to the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam so that is something the umah has of Islam that does not exist in Judaism and Christianity no doubt about it a chain of narration which connects the Quran of the people today with the prophet Muhammad wasallam directly this is the main thing but having said this there's also corroborating evidence I mean now we've got many palimpsests and different folios and different manuscripts I mean recently there was a manuscript that was as as a corroborating evidence the Birmingham manuscript which is dated between 5568 665 or something like that which is within the prophet's life the prophet died you know 632 ad and so this was within the time of the prophet's life even some of the orientalist scholars and stuff like that they rely on the HCM or the historical critical method they accepted that and so we have a range of different evidences we have the chain of narration we have the memorization of the people we we even have inscriptions I mean in the early days of Islam M AA for example you have inscriptions of verses of the Quran on the walls in M AA stuff like that you have inscriptions you and then you have radiocarbon data to a degree of 95.6% manuscripts going back to the time of the prophet and his life so all of that combined I mean I think it's really difficult for someone to make the case of a lack of preservation you can try and make the case that some things have been changed and stuff like that as a non-muslim you can make that case but you have no proof to be definitive about such a a claim and they know that we can be definitive about believing in preservation to uh the full extent they know that whereas there's no case in the biblical aspect of such a thing at all from Believers or non-believers so I think they they know the preservation of the Quran cannot be compared with the preservation of the Torah which has only been codified 300 years after Jesus I mean consider that there there is 1,400 years between the codification of the Torah and Moses that is the same distance between me and Prophet mammad wasallam so the first people that wrote it was 1,400 years Gap and they don't have chains of narration like Islam so what is this compare the two it's unbelievable that we're even having the conversation so I think the preservation of the Quran is absolutely not in push some atheists ask that couldn't Muhammad peace be upon Him have copied the Old and New Testaments and write the Quran it's very interesting that he if that was the case that he corrected everything that needed to be corrected because if you consider it like on a theological level the idea that God is one that all of these false doctrines of the Trinity and I'm not even saying that was in the Bible but if those false doctrines of the Christians were is not present in fact there's a reputation of those things not just that there's reputation of things which are explicitly in the Bible for example the resting of God and these kinds of theological misnomers Allah refutes that confutes such an ideology but then you have a range of different new information which couldn't have been known to the prophet wasallam or the probability of it would be very low which corrects or adds information to a Biblical narrative and I'll give you a couple of examples for example very simple example Pharaoh says I am your lord most high that's in the Quran you be surprised to find that that's not even mentioned in the Old Testament the there was gods that were woried in ancient Egypt now we know that for a fact because of the Rosetta Stone and we've translated the hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt Egyptian language to the current language that Rosetta Stone was discovered in the 1700s and 18th century the prophet didn't have access to that culture and that Civilization that language yet we know for a fact that these people div they they believed these people and then there's to go further than that there's Corrections for example in the Old Testament you have Joseph referring to the leader of his time as a king sorry as as a pharaoh in the Quran is referred to as a king and according to biblical Scholars okay you'll find that for example Joseph is located around the his hiscox dynasty that particular Dynasty didn't have pharaohs it had Kings so these precise matters how if he copied then how could he fix all these issues he's co copying and fixing that would mean that he's an editor that he's a historian he went to Egypt he excavated he archaeological things and I have so many examples of Corrections which are very clear which which fix for example contradictions or fix historical inaccuracies or theological belief systems so the fact that the Quran acts a m in a manner that can be understood today is something which is a definitive evidence to the fact that this was not although it did have an original source and certainly there are similarities in Quran and Bible and Stu that we believe because it came from the same Source it wasn't copied because if it was copied then how could it be corrected if everything is so clear as you say why are 2.3 billion people still Christians since they don't leave it isn't it possible that they see something in this religion think from the point of a Christian I feel good about myself I have some good developments in my life so why should I leave Christianity well I mean look I mean the the thing is you can have a lot of people following the wrong thing falsehood there was a time in history where people believe that the Earth is flatless and people still do I'm saying that just because a lot of people believe in something it doesn't make it truth so that's a false kind of assumption in a sense but then let's go with that for the sake of argument we believe that a lot of them haven't been exposed to The Message of Islam anyway and when you do expose such people to Islam a lot of them do convert frankly and that's why we we believe that they won't be punished until they're actually they receive the message but to answer your question directly there's a lot of people leav in Christianity because it hasn't stood the test of time and especially in the west it's becoming I mean now it's a minority religion in UK it's become minority religion I mean for the first time in 2,000 years effectively or 1,500 years since the Christianity spread in the United Kingdom it's a minority religion below 50% so people are leaving that religion because it doesn't have the Timeless feature because on theology on guidance on key aspects it doesn't offer anything more than liberalism in fact many people go into liberalism as a substitute for this religion so ask your question I think that uh first and foremost the there's a misn a false assumption which is that if many people follow something that it should be true or that it could be true or there's some truth in it now we do believe there's some truth in it Christianity has some a lot of good stuff in about we're not completely discounting it but that the truth uh is not fully there and that in order for someone to believe in Christianity they would have to make sacrifices to their logic but also many Christians spiritually say that I feel more peaceful when I pray to Jesus my prayer got accepted my child was sick and he got cured so how do you explain this yeah I I'm sure that I'm sure that's look at the end of the day there's going to be people who say the same thing about devil worshiping and Judaism or Hinduism there's going to be someone who jumps into the ganji river uh Hindu and he he comes in and he goes out and he's and he thinks that that's helped his life somehow and he so this can never be an Evidence because it's not it's not demonstrative it's personal experience you could be making a false inference you could be making a false cause and effect relationship and all those kind of things I would say this cannot be an evidence that you can use to prove that your religion is true not least because how do I know you're even speaking the truth okay we get that Christianity is wrong so how do we know that Islam is right what is the proof of that there are many evidences to show that Islam is true one of them is just the basic belief system in the theology which is believing and worshiping one God already when you believe in that it cves all of the other ma major world religions cu the way in which there's respectable monotheism believing in one God is the most consist and best explanation with the highest explanatory and justifiable scope that explains number one our existence number two the purpose of life so the idea ofed is actually the strongest evidence number one number two look at the character and the propit of the Prophet mallam when you look at his life you realize that the man was authentic through and through and so when you start to realize that this was the receptacle of The Message of Islam the final message that itself acts like an Evidence but then you have so many different things we've talked about preservation the lack of contradictions the inevitability challenge that there's a challenge from Islam to to other people to produce something like it which is it's a falsification test effectively okay that Islam provides and then you have predictions of Al Islam things which we claim and obviously we cannot cover this in short space of time that have been predicted of the future like for example the state of the economies of the future the way the infrastructure will look like in the future and so on and so forth that no other religion or claimant to Prophecy in the history of the world has ever have been so precise about and so with such frequency and sophistication then we have the historical aspects of kind of just mentioned it in the other question where we're talking about how history is being described in a manner which is consistent with how historians find the new histories which the prophet didn't really have access to in that manner and then you have for example the way in which Islam talks about naturalistic phenomena in a manner which can be conceived of the people of the past and also the people of the present in a very Timeless way unlike the way the Bible does it talking about for example the plants being created before the sun and how could it survive without photosynthesis I don't know it looks like the author of The Bible in this particular passage needed to go back to school so to say so then you have things like that and so we we continue speaking in that manner until we realize that on all these grounds the Quran really is Ironclad it's the it's the gold standard there's nothing that can beat it and so how do we know Islam is true if someone is sincere and they're really looking to find that truth with these kinds of evidences there's nothing I would say with categorical confidence that can match that you know that many Christians have this loving relationship with Jesus and Mary peace be upon them when they become Muslim would they be abandoning these people when they become Muslim they wouldn't be abandoning these people they'll be understanding and loving them in the appropriate and proper manner they'd know who they really are cuz you can't love someone you don't know you have a false or deluded illusory understanding of who they are if you think a man is God then you don't know who they what they are about what they actually were were claiming to be so we believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and that he was one of the greatest men that lived on the Earth but we don't believe that he was God or the Son of God having this belief system and then knowing and following Jesus on those grounds and loving him because of it that would reinvigorate and reestablish a relationship that someone can have with Jesus Christ that they couldn't otherwise have if they have this deluded picture of him being a man God the same thing with Mary which we actually believe is the top person woman in all of Islamic history of all of history in fact so really when you think about it like that then how could you not have a relationship with these two figures that are in the New Testament and which Christianity tells us to believe in the difference between Christianity in Islam in this regard is that Islam doesn't tell you to disbelieve in the key protagonists of Christianity the old prophets Jesus Mary Christianity forces you to disbelieve in the prophet Muhammad so all you'll be doing is adding to your faith and completing it with with this one you have to disbelieve in something which is so clear for the eye to see some Christians ask that when we look at the life of Jesus there is no no war there are only themes of Peace but when we look at the life of prophet Muhammad we see war and violence how would you answer them I would say that's a false notion because look I mean do not forget that Christian people believe that Jesus is part of the Trinity and therefore he was the author of the Old Testament so when there was a command given in the Book of Numbers Chapter 31:8 to go and kill the people and annihilate and take the young girls for yourself and so on you know as sexual property that was actually a command according to this belief system that was commanded by Jesus Christ now you cannot say that he was separate from the Trinity because the Old Testament author is Jesus is the holy spirit is the father all three of them are authoring this because they're all coming together and authoring this thing so he's commanding the people to kill the young ones or the The Villages and so on and then when he comes in the Book of Revelation in the Book of Revelation he comes back you'll find that he kills Jezebel The Prostitute and he does that one so this idea that he was some kind of peaceful figure it's a false analysis and the fact that they're comparing Jesus and Muhammad anyway shows you their weakness and their submissiveness and their insecurity and their fragility because why are they comparing someone they consider to be a God with someone we consider to be a prophet why don't they compare Jesus with Allah remember we believe Allah is a God so it should be God for God it shouldn't be God for Prophet having said that even if you go that far the difference between Muhammad s wasallam and Jesus Christ was that Muhammad had political Authority according to their testimonies Jesus Christ didn't have political Authority in fact he was whipped and crucified and humiliated according to them according to us no he wasn't but according to them he was whipped and humiliated he wasn't tested with political Authority and when he is tested with political Authority when he comes back he'll be killing the prostitutes and and seeking Vengeance so it's a false assessment it's like comparing the actions of a prisoner with that of a king and saying well this one is much more merciful than that one well this one's no because this person has a different analysis anyway to that one in the first instance so on all these grounds and more I think the question is en irely confused totally muddled and I think that those who make this claim can't actually live by the So-Cal principles of Christianity anyway soal slap your cheek and I'll give you my other cheek to slap those people when it comes to the religious debates are pacifist but when it comes to the pragat pragmatics of political and social life are closer to us than they would like to admit if all the Christians in the world were listening to you for 60 seconds what would you say to them I know you're a tough guy but try to be emotional this I'll say to them look message to my Christian friends I know and you know that ever since you were a child and you heard the idea that God is a man from your parents or from your Sunday school or from whoever told you this belief system you questioned it and you have the right to question it you are correct to question it why because it makes no sense God who is infinite in wisdom and power and knowledge and strength cannot be both infinite and finite at the same time he cannot be both unlimited and Limited at the same time you have had a right to qu you are right to question that when you were told as a youngster that the father is God the son is God and the Holy Spirit is God and you as a 7-year-old put three fingers up and then you were told that this actually means one and you raise your eyebrow to that notion you are right to raise your eyebrow because that is a ridiculous proposition you don't need to believe in this anymore you don't need to endure this contradiction anymore you can releve yourself from enduring this contradiction and believe in God in his Oneness as the Quran says well do not say three that just stop it's better for you and you know it's better for you because then you won't have the cognitive dissonance you won't have the anxiety the depression the frustration the the anger actually you have justifiable reason to have all these emotions but the only way out is to believe in one God worthy of worship one God worthy of worship and then you ask yourself what religion in the world focuses on this negates the trinity in the way that it does whatever religion is doing that in a manner which is commensurate with the Old Testament prophets of what Abraham said and what Moses said and Jesus said then this is the religion that you should follow think about that [Music] [Music]

Channel: Towards Eternity

Views: 381,492

Keywords: islam, muslim, towards etenity

Id: fgUKq4AXnfU

Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024