August 25, 2016

That Charlie Brown Moment in Church...

As of last night I am somewhat dismayed at the fact that, no matter how many times I proclaim the same truths to people, there will always be those who are vastly more concerned with my delivery style than they are that I am actually speaking the truth. No matter how much I try to temper the truth with solemnity, humor or compassion, the authoritative nature of the Truth itself is indigestible to these people. They hear it and either don't fully understand it or they just refuse to accept it.

Sorry folks, I refuse to dilute the truth at the cost of losing pieces of it in a quagmire of political-correctness and namby-pambyism. You know what you get from me because I refuse to mince words. Part of the clarity of the Scriptures is its authority and directness. Where I see direct contradiction to Scripture you can be assured that I will call that error out in a manner compelled by the Spirit and correct it.

If it be a rebuke in love, so be it. We’re are called to discern the truth through adherence to Scripture, not through our emotions or what we think we’re hearing. Our emotions and thinking have been twisted by The Fall and cannot be trusted detached from Scripture, not even for a moment without risk of going completely rogue almost instantly. We are always being held accountable either by direct measure to God’s word, by God himself or by our immediate brethren present when we speak.  I believe this is at the core of many problems in our churches.

(1) Too many people are too easily offended. We must often divest ourselves of the entitlement mentality that allows us to be offended. If we offend easily it assumes (a) we believe we are right separate from Scripture and (b) It assumes we are ‘above’ the fray. In other words we must give up our right to say that we shouldn’t be allowed to be offended. If we are clearly wrong, we need correction and if that correction offends, than that person is not wise. Sin is clouding their vision. The Bible clearly states these facts in Proverbs.

(2) Too many churches water-down their Scriptural teachings (or change or abandon them completely) so not to offend. Please understand the reason people are offended by the authoritative truth of Scripture is their sin. Sin in both thinking and action. Their minds and bodies are both at enmity with God. This cannot happen without the risk of losing the Gospel message completely.

Bottom-line: We must never forget that the Devil and the powers and principalities walk into (infiltrate) our churches each and every day. If we do not figure out when, how and where, we allow them to set up shop and squat without our permission and without identifying them. In this manner these dirtbag gain a foothold. Once they establish that presence in either our lives, families or churches…they are virtually impossible to dislodge because their putrefying claws dig in deep.

**Sigh** Feeling exceptionally disappointed today.

August 18, 2016

Understanding Islam XXXIV: A Strange, Redacted, Illogical Qur’an, Part 2

The Qur’an, Allah’s supposed final revelation, according to Islam, is transcendent, and consequently, beyond the capacity for conjecture, or criticism. What this means is that the Qur'an which we possess today is and has always been final and pure, which prohibits any possibility for verification or falsification of the text…even though I can prove it is in error which I just did.

There are known variations of the Qur’an that are theologically contradicting to other Qur'an even though Uthman ibn Affan attempted to have nearly all the extant copies destroyed. The official stance of Islam is that the extant copies are either invalid or forgeries even though most Muslim scholars will acknowledge their existence and validity and claim to true Islamic truth. What the hadith show is that because of infighting in the first century after Muhammad's death, there was no written copies of the Qur'an immediately following Muhammad's passing but once they were written, two major versions existed within 100 years and they were radically different. Although there was a concerted effort to destroy the radically different extant copies were….That is why the printing of the Qur'an is now controlled governmentally. The last official printing that I am aware of is Egyptian from 1924.

We also know from Islamic documented accounts in the Hadith that some pieces of the Qur'an were lost because some of the sole people that remembered them were killed in skirmishes and battles following Muhammad's death. That is why extant copies were collected and made into the Qur'an by later leaders. When those that collected them tried to corroborate the texts and unify them there were a few that refused and they were summarily beaten to get them to try and give them up.

Furthermore there are Islamic palimpsest that exist that have distinct variations between earlier writings that have left indentations but were erased right on the vellum and the text on the face of the palimpsest. There is hard empirical and obvious editing under black light or ultraviolet light. Not corrections...but rather intentional editing or redaction. It was either done to cover and inconsistency or correct a previous error. Considering the Qur’an is supposed to be the eternal inerrant word of Allah, there is an inherent problem here for Muslims.

The irony is this. Most knowledgeable Islamic scholars and Imam are very aware of these issues. The Islamic commoner is not. Yet the official line is that the Qur’an as the perfect revelation of Allah is maintained…even when it is known there are redactions. What then are we to do with the problems which do exist in the Qur'an? If it is such a transcendent book, as Muslims claim, then it should stand up to any criticism. Yet, what are we to do with the many contradictions, the factual errors and bizarre claims it makes?

August 4, 2016

Understanding Islam XXXIII: A Strange, Redacted, Illogical Qur’an, Part 1

One of my largest proofs that the Qur’an and therefore Islam is in error and contradictory is not in any particular verse but encompasses the entire Qur’an as a holistic whole. It is the claims that Islam makes about the Qur’an as a whole that are illogical. In the end my apologetic against the Qur’an (ironically and literally) comes down to an issue of semantics. Although semantics in most situations is petty stuff, when it comes to the revealed word or supposed revelation of a god, it becomes critical. It is critical because it is solely through words that the Islamic god chose to reveal himself to the Muslim. [[This in contrast to Christianity and the true God who chose to reveal himself through His Word and His Son in what is called Special Revelation (which Islam denies)]]. I digress….on with the post.

The Arabic word Qur'an is derived from the root qara'a, which means “to read” or “to recite.” This was the command which the angel Gabriel supposedly asked Muhammad three times to do when he confronted him in July or August 610 A.D. in the Hira cave, situated three miles north-east of Mecca (Mishkat IV p.354). According to Muslims the Qur'an is the final revelation from Allah. In Arabic the Qur'an is also referred to as Al-Kitab (the book), Al-furqan (the distinction), Al-mas'haf (the scroll), and Al-dhikr (the warning), as well as other names. Islam will claim the Qur'an is an exact word-for-word copy of God's final revelation, which is on the original tablets that have always existed in heaven. The original language of the Qur’an in Heaven is therefore Arabic. This of course begs the question: How can an eternal document that has always existed exist in a derivative form of other Semitic languages? Tablets which I might add have never been created but in actuality are divine and transcendent.

Therefore that which is divine in Islam is therefore limited to a finite language which clearly draws on preexisting Semitic norms of language. People always ask me to prove the contradictions of the Islamic belief system. Well, here’s another one to chew on. It is logically and chronologically untenable to support this Islamic claim about the Qur’an and the Arabic language needing to be the only language used to write the Qur’an (due to its supposed divine nature). Muslims continue to believe that the exact Arabic words which we find in the Qur'an are those which exist eternally on the original stone tablets, in heaven since eternity past. This, according to them, makes the Qur'an of ultimate importance as it derives from the “Mother of books” (Dura 43:3-4). This claim is clearly untenable and easily proven false as I do below.

Islam makes a claim to the “pure” nature of the Arabic that the Qur’an is written in hence the need to only translate it in Arabic. Arthur Jeffery, in his book Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an gathered some 300 pages documenting over one-hundred (non-Arabic) words, many of which had to have been used in pre-Qur'anic Arabic (Jeffery 1938, p79). One must wonder why these words were borrowed, as it puts doubt on whether “Allah's language” was sufficient enough to explain and reveal all that Allah had intended.

Some of these words in the Qur’an? Egyptian words: Pharaoh, in the Qur'an 84 times. Acadian words: Adam and Eden which are repeated 24 times. Assyrian words: Abraham. The correct Arabic equivalent would be Abu Raheem. Persian words: Haroot and Maroot are Persian names for angels. Sirat meaning “the path” has the Arabic equivalent, Altareeq. Hoor meaning “disciple” has the Arabic equivalent, Tilmeeth. Jinn meaning “good or evil demons” has the Arabic equivalent, Ruh. Firdaus meaning “the highest or seventh heaven" has the Arabic equivalent, Jannah. Hebrew words: Heber, Sakinah, Maoon, Taurat, Jehannim, Tufan (deluge) are all Hebrew. Greek words: Injil, which means “gospel” was borrowed, yet it has the Arabic equivalent Bisharah. Iblis is not Arabic, but a corruption of the Greek word Diabolos …and the list goes on.
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