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RT @JaiApologetics: ARAB CHRISTIAN ATTACKED BY AMERICAN MUSLIM

You are profoundly welcome. If you have any questions, or want to dig in further, just reply to this thread and I’ll try to help. Rest assured, exploration of Scripture is, while nerdy, profoundly and perennially rewarding. I first started to really understand how well the books of the Bible tie together across centuries while listening to Mike Winger’s Mark series (available at biblethinker dot org for best organization), but that was years ago now, and it’s a gift that just keeps on giving. From lay beginners to doctoral works, it seems like the Bible just never runs out of new layers of fascinating detail and subtleties of meaning. The Scripture itself ends up being an evidence of God by its sheer impossibility. Pick a place (an idea, question, or theme) where you want to start, and we’ll help you sink your teeth in.

@JaiApologetics Standard refuges of the Muslim apologist: “The burden is on you to prove that our books say what they say, and you can’t possibly know using translations because Arabic is a magical language. Also, no Hadith is reliable, regardless of grade, unless it is.”

@RealisticLois @Strangeland_Elf I don’t know why this conversation is in my timeline, except perhaps because I dabble in science fiction and fantasy as well, but didn’t Tolkein pretty well cover this question? With the entirety of his career?

Hard to know with Kanye. I question those discipling him. But I know this is true. My wife experienced it when she converted from Islam. Once she began to consider baptism, her apartment got very scary for a few nights. I had told her to expect it, though, and to call on the name of Jesus if it happened. Shared a few anecdotes of potential converts experiencing haunting and having to self-exorcise. She called on Jesus aloud in the midst of an encounter, and it ended instantly. She prayed for him to cleanse and guard her apartment, and it never returned. My girl.

@ModestTeacher I have control over all three: I will do better, my children will answer to me, and the teachers are fired. I will bend heaven and earth to make homeschooling feasible for my family.

In the first case, that would be an interesting scholarly interpretation to trace out, as it seems to defy the plain reading of the sentiment. Is there a consensus of nonmuslim scholars to the same effect? And meanwhile, it leaves Muslims in the awkward position of saying “Our Quran is preserved in the sense that whatever changes happened to it, even after Muhammad’s death, were Allah’s will. Except the eating of the verse of breastfeeding. Since that one is well remembered, it is Allah’s will that we remember it, but not include it in the recitation, because he caused us to lose it.” It seems, from the outside perspective, that “preserved” and “abrogated” just mean “whatever happened was God’s will, whether a verse was lost, kept, altered, or even given in multiple versions.” Which is to say, “preserved” has no meaning at all.

RT @WCCollier1: @jrderatany @CollinRugg There are not as many sects of Christianity as you might think. Consider the Apostle’s Creed, a sum…

@FixingEducation And I’ll be coming up with my own curriculum and selecting my own course materials, thank you.

There are not as many sects of Christianity as you might think. Consider the Apostle’s Creed, a summary of the essential beliefs which any person must hold to be called Christian. It dates back almost the full two thousand years, and has been affirmed by doctors of the church throughout that span, across denominational lines. Likewise with the Nicene Creed. The greater Church has expressed consensus from very early on that deviating from these constitutes heresy. Where can you find a church that denies or substantially alters the meaning of any of the precepts in these creeds? Mormonism, JWism, WMSCOG. Go to from one to another of the individual churches across all the mainstream denominations, go to a Catholic church, go to any number of nondenoms, and ask, “What do I have to believe in order to be baptized?” See how many answer with one of these creeds. Even today, when mainline denoms like Pres and Methodist are going squishy on social issues in the name of inclusiveness, they cannot bring themselves to deny these, because the truth and scholarship of them goes back to the first followers of Christ and has been tested and hammered for too many centuries against the anvil of God’s word. Moreover, I would argue, as would the doctors of the Faith who first formulated and later affirmed these creeds and the other great Confessions, that you, as an average person, can see the truth of them if you but study the Bible. The beauty of Christianity is its public Scripture. You have been given the book, and the faculties to judge for yourself. You can ask, is anything in here contrary or additional to what my Bible says, or is it a faithful summary? You can look at the consensus of Church Fathers and modern thinkers and discern, “They all say this is essential when I’m not sure. And they reference these verses. Do these 1800 years worth of clearly faithful and serious Christian thinkers have a point that I need to consider?” You were made to be the kind of thing such that, if your heart is true, if you honestly desire the truth of God over your own wishes, your faculties will not guide you wrongly, especially given the assistance and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. (Part of how you were made is that you were made to be the kind of thing the Spirit of God can live in, unclean as you are, if you but have faith that God is true and holy, and that space in you which God has made for himself allows him to dwell and help you in keeping true north as you discern what is true and what is false.) What does this mean for you? Well, it means you will see more and understand more of about questions like these (“Is it so bad to change the word savior?”) the deeper you get into your journey with the Bible. Right now, you’re dependent on contemporary authorities—ie, you’re asking other Christians, at home or on Twitter, for their opinions, because you know there are a lot of people who have read more and thought more about the foundations of the faith. As you read more, and meditate more on what you read, you will become more certain of these things in your own heart. You’ll start to see why the replies in this thread are so consistent. Here are just a few of the Biblical teachings informing those replies, and you can see if you can find them in the Bible: All Scripture is God-breathed, and Scripture is sufficiently carefully written that it can be rightly studied down to the finest detail of wording. If Jesus did not rise physically, bodily, from the dead, Christianity is pointless, and we are hopeless. All people are sinners bound for hell, and no good we can do will get us to heaven. Only our faith in what God has done for us will save us from permanent Death. (See if you can find this in the Old Testament and the New.) What is the Gospel? Living Godly lives will attract people to the Gospel, but ultimately we are all flawed examples, and to make disciples, to save others, we must preach Jesus with our mouths. The Truth will be divisive.

@MajToure999 Country A aspires to a libertarian form of government. Country B uses slave labor. Country C does not. Would it be the Libertarian ethic for A to allow its citizens to trade freely and on equal terms with both B and C? Or would it be to penalize trade with B in favor of C?

May you live in interesting times.

RT @Pure_Monotheist: A Muslim, regardless of race or ethnicity, holds a higher status than a kafir!

@The_Kyle_Mann @RealisticLois This is essential to recapture of culture. All the polemics and apologetics are preaching to the choir. Only when we dominate fiction (novels and movies) for developing minds and hearts (from childhood to early thirties) will we have cultural victory.

@WaywardRabbler @DataRepublican

@DataRepublican For those curious.

@IMAO_ 👍 😂