On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 11:31:37 -0800,

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 11:31:37 -0800,

alt wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 12:30:21 -0800,

Please define Christianity and back your definiton up with the
Scriptures.
Hey,Sola Scriptura, you can't have it both ways.
Sola Scriptura makes Islam a Christian branch, so why do you think
Islam should not be classified as a Christian religion and culture?
Is it because it is based on the requirements of the Old Covenant?
Please elaborate

It's simple. Islam denies the Deity of Jesus.

Let me get this straight with you. Nowhere Christianity
is defined with Jesus deity. Nowhere. If that was the case
no Jew would have been converted to Christianity because
the Law of Moses forbids the worship of man as God.

You're right. Christians forbid worshiping man as God too. Only God is
to be worshiped.

I suggest that you do some research on the "Hypostatic Union": Jesus
is fully God and fully man. Jesus wasn't just "a man", he was the Son of
God (which infers deity and godhood).

If Jesus is not God, then Christianity is of no point. Christianity is
based on this one premise: Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, an innocent
lamb who was slaughtered as the ultimate blood sacrifice for the remission
of sins.

Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious
standard."

So who doesn't fall short? God doesn't.

This alone doesn't prove Jesus is God, but you can't have Christianity
without Jesus being God incarnate.

Christ-ian means he that believes Jesus is the Christ/Messiah
and follows him. This word originated in Antioch in the mouth
of the pagans

No. Christian means "Christ-like" and conveys the idea that Christians
want to be less like themselves and take on more of Jesus' personality
traits such as love, charity, patience, sacrifice and so on. You should
read up on the "Fruit of the Spirit" to get a better idea of what a
Christian aspires to.

Islam calls Jesus a
"prophet" and totally ignores his miracles, death and resurrection and

Paul also said nothing about Jesus miracles except his resurrection.
Those miracles are self-evident
for someone who knows what Messiah/Christ was meant to do and have
nothing to do with salvation.
If Islam ignores Jesus resurrection, then enlighten us where you think
it got the doctine of the resurrection of the dead from.

Considering that the Qu'ran denies that Jesus was even Crucified, your
argument is specious. I was talking about Jesus' death on the cross and
His resurrection, not about the more generic topic of "resurrection of the
dead":

Sura 4:157 - That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of
Mary, the Messenger of Allah.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified
him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein
are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to
follow, for of a surety they killed him not:-"

ignores Jesus' claims of Godhood. Islam converts the grace that God.

There is no evidence that Jesus claimed Godhood. This claim
was made on his behalf by "John" who put words in his mouth
to justifiy Paul's theology of the divine Christ

Luke 7: 26-50 tells the story of a "sinful woman". She is weeping at
Jesus' feet because her sins are many, pleading for forgiveness. Jesus
forgives her sins in v48. v49 reads "The men at the table said among
themselves, "Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?".

Only God can forgive sins. Jesus also forgave sins. So Luke definitely
creates the idea that Jesus is God.

Revelations, which is full of a lot of imagery, also tells of Jesus' deity:

Revelations 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega -- the beginning and the
end," says the Lord God. "I am the on who is, who always was, and who is
still to come, the Almighty One."

Revelations 1:12-20 tells of the Son of Man, Jesus. He says in v17, "Don't
be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the living one who died.
Look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the
grave."

That's a pretty solid endorcement of Jesus as God from the pen of John.

chose to show us through Jesus' death and resurrection, instead making man
work for his salvation.

This IS nonsense and NOTHING but a deformation of the FAITH.
There is no dichotomy between work and FAITH except in the mind
of some cultists and prosperity preachers and money makers.
YOU ARE ANOTHER IMPOSTOR

You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but the bible is clear:

Galatians 2:16 "... So we have believed in Jesus, that we might be
accepted by God because of our faith in Christ -- and not because we have
obeyed the law. For no one will ever be saved by obeying the law."

Ephesians 2:8,9 "God saved you by his special favour when you believed.
And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is
not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast
about it."

1 John 1:9 "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to
forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong."

However, I'm more interested in why you think that "Sola Scripture"
makes Islam a branch of Christianity. What is your argument?

The argument itself is in the Bible but of course you guys are
experts in picking and choosing according to your own fancies.

You didn't answer the question.

It was Moses who for the first time predicted the advent of the
Messiah/Christ
in Deut 18:15 and he defined him as a Prophet like himself.
If following Moses'Christology makes one un-Christian
then the whole Bible is meaningless and stephen and Peter
were worse than pagans

So God can't also be his own Prophet? Why not? Why can't God in the form
of a Man not be a Prophet? What prevents this?