Should christians be worshipping a crusified man?

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If you disagree with Christianity, just say so. Just spit it out already.

I depends on what context they are taken from. I don't know much about the bible or jesus, but from what I gather jesus taught love, peace and forgiveness. That I think should be the clear message. Now I'm preaching!

If don't think it is a good idea to over analyse the bible, no offence but it is a bit out dated, I'm sure there are plenty of things that contradict other things in it. Also you can interpret the meaings of things in different ways. Sure you can probably find wisdom from it, but I don't think live by it.

It depends on what beliefs you have? If they are bad you don't have to respect them.

So if are a good person, live your life as good person but are not baptized and don't believe in god then you will go to hell then. Seems a bit unfair don't you think?

If that is your belief I draw my own line in the sand and I don't respect that belief. That's a really extreme view.

Holy ash is common in all major religions except Islam. It's a very ancient animist/pagan/shamanist practice, probably as old as the discovery of fire itself. It's one of the countless pagan influences on Christianity.



Islamic view is that all non-Muslims will go to hell, but Allah may forgive those who deserved to be forgiven for their sins. Islam is purely a way of life more than anything else IMO.


On topic, I don't think Christians should be worshiping a man at all. It doesn't matter whether he was crucified or hung or anything else, he was just a human being.

One thing I found odd in Islam is that they give too much emphasis on Muhammad than on what Muhammad taught. It is always "Give Salat to Muhammad, Recite correctly the Shahadah with Muhammad being His Apostle, do this do that with Muhammad in mind, Muhammad was the only perfect man on earth."

To me it seems like Muslims are giving too much weight to Muhammad, are they forgetful that he was just a man and that there were other prophets before him? It seems like they are favoring one prophet more than the others; were they not great men? Why should I pray for Muhammad when according to Islamic beliefs he is already in Heaven? Does he need my prayer to find mercy inside Allah's domain?

Certainly calling him perfect is a bit too much in my opinion. Even some believing in the tales of Muhammad's pre-existence.

Emphasis is given on Muhammed because he's the last prophet, and the greatest of them. You can't "give salat" to Muhammed, that's shirk, it's blasphemy. He's not a demi-God as Jesus is in Christianity. Yes, I too doubted why Muhammed is given such emphasis, then I realised that prophets in all other religions except Judaism and Zoroastrianism are given a divine status. In fact, I think there's less emphasis on him compared to other religions. We don't start our prayers with "Dear Muhammed, son of our father etc etc" or any of that polytheistic nonsense Yeah, although we consider Christians as people of the book, we also consider them as polytheists at the same time, due to the trinity & veneration of Mary.

We haven't forgotten that there were other prophets before him. However, unlike him, the revelations they received were corrupted in time. We do mention them, in many aya's, however, their names are not included in the shahadah. Again, we don't pray to him or for him, we just add "may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him" as a sign of respect.

He wasn't perfect. We was a great man, but he made mistakes. Satanic verses, anyone?

I meant "Send prayers" as in asking for him to be blessed, etc. Obviously you cannot pray to Muhammad, but a lot of emphasis is giving on asking to bless him. I've never understood that and it feels like it's distracting.

I read and heard that the majority of muslims accept the Hadith because of where it came from. But I've always wondered how can anyone accept something that isn't revealed? The hadeeths have sayings which are pretty drastic, with passages starting with "Allah says..." or "The apostle of allah said..." The excuse is that the Quran says to follow the Prophet.

They follow to the point that they can't even think for themselves.

Well, we ask for blessing for all the prophets when necessary. We don't think it's distracting at all.

The hadith is basically a compilation of how the prophet lived his life. The various hadiths were written by his companions. There's no compulsion in following the hadith. I too agree with you on the hadith. There's just too much controversy regarding the hadith, in all schools of thought.

The Christian Holy Trinity is three personages of a single deity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all aspects of one being. It is 3-in-1.

Christianity is not a polytheistic religion. It's monotheistic. The worship of the Virgin Mary is not consistent througout all the denominations of our faith. The Blessed Virgin does not stand alone from the Trinity as an object of worship. Catholicism tends to deify the Virgin to the exclusion of all other sects. Is the Virgin Mary God, then? I don't know.

The Virgin is revered as are Saints etc, but reverence is not the same as worshiping as a god any more than Muslims believe that Muhammad is a god.



As for the Holy Trinity, again, these are not separate beings and hence calling it polytheistic is a gross inaccuracy (unless you want to get down and dirty with the semantics). Ummm...analogy...Think wave-particle duality. Two aspects. One thing. Yeah, that's the ticket...

Well, if you call christianity monotheistic, then you really have to call hinduism monotheistic too. Some sects claim that all of their gods are different manifestations of the being.
IMO, Khan_Sama does have a point. Islam is 'closer' to being monotheistic then Christianity, just as Christianity is arguably 'closer' to it then Hinduism.

Mmm, Khan_Sama, I have heard that Islam doesn't have a hell, or at least doesn't send unbelievers there just for being unbelievers. Is this true? I'm sorry if this probing, I'm just curious.

Yes, Hindus call their faith monotheistic as well, it's typically soft-polytheism IMO. All of their countless Gods and Godesses are avatars of three specific Gods, mainly Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma, who are again aspects of one God.

I'm not at all offended by your query, in fact, I appreciate your advance apology, which is highly decent of you, compared to a certain number of Islamophobes on this forum who directly insult my faith.

Hell indeed exists in Islam. In fact, we believe it's harder to get into heaven, we can't be forgiven for our sins by a priest (priesthood doesn't exist in Islam, we believe it's evil, our Imams are directly elected by the public) as it's done in Christianity. We believe all our sins and good deeds will be measured during the day of judgement, that there are 7 levels of heaven and hell, and that we enter a specific level depending on the number of sins and good deeds. We believe that we remain in our "graves" (I personally interpret it as either grave or area of death, depending on the situation) when we die, until the day of judgement. We receive benefits and are punished accordingly in our graves, depending on our sins and good deeds. I personally find this a bit difficult to understand, but I guess that I'll understand it only when I die. ^^; I haven't read this in the Quran as yet (I reverted to Islam less than a year back), it's what my mother has taught me.

Unbelievers do go to hell, but it depends. We consider shirk, or idol-worshiping, as one of the biggest sins possible (the only worse sins are rape and murder), and we even consider the worshiping of Jesus & veneration of Mary in Christianity as shirk. We do believe some unbelievers will go to heaven, depending on the situation, such as, for example, they may never have come across Islam, or researched it, etc. The decision rests entirely with the Almighty. There's this story my mother told me when I was a child, it's just a story, but gives a basic outlook - A pagan man (who committed very few sins apart from shirk) was walking a forest one day, when he noticed a thirsty dog (dogs & pigs are the most dirty creatures in Islam, it's forbidden to keep them as pets or consume their flesh, along with many other animals, we can eat only mammals which have split hooves), who was trying to drink some water from a pond, but couldn't reach it. The man took off his shoe, scooped some water, and gave it to the dog. By a freak accident, the man died the next day, and Allah forgave him for his sins, he entered heaven. So yes, some people can be forgiven, I guess, depending whether their heart is pure or not.

If Christianity didn't involve anyone being put to death on a cross, our faith would have something else as its most recognized symbol. But, since Jesus came to earth in order to redeem the sins of mankind by dying on a cross, our symbol is what it is. With plenty of justification. Other symbols of Christianity include the fish, the lamb, the Alpha-Omega, and the Chi Ro. You can go on Google and research these if you like.

Does Islam not teach compassion for all liviing beings? Why was it such a sin to quench the thirst of a dog?

so they're politicians?

It wasn't a sin, the pagan went to heaven. I think the point of the story is that Allah would not solely judge people by their beliefs, but by their intents and actions.