A leader needs people who will follow him through thick and thin, who will not fall away when the going gets tough. A leader needs people who are committed and faithful.
As we study Jesus in the Qur’an, we see that Jesus invited people to be committed to him and to his message.
Sura 3:52-53 says: “When Jesus sensed their disbelief, he said, "Who are my supporters towards GOD?" The disciples said, "We are GOD's supporters; we believe in GOD, and bear witness that we are submitters." "Our Lord, we have believed in what You have sent down, and we have followed the messenger; count us among the witnesses."
Sura 61:14 says: “O you who believe, be GOD's supporters, like the disciples of Jesus, son of Mary. When he said to them, "Who are my supporters towards GOD," they said, "We are GOD's supporters." Thus, a group from the Children of Israel believed, and another group disbelieved. We helped those who believed against their enemy, until they won.”
Jesus asked the crowds a question: ”Who will be my helpers in doing the work of God?”
Those who had already committed themselves to Jesus and his teachings did not hesitate to speak out, even though unbelievers surrounded them.
“We are God’s helpers,” they said. “We believe in God. Count us among your faithful.”
About those people who spoke up promptly and bravely, the Qur’an calls Jesus’ disciples---students or followers of Jesus. They were committed to Jesus.
Commitment is very important. But commitment is not automatic. Commitment is not just a sudden emotional response of loyalty. Commitment requires steadfastness. Our commitment grows as we experience greater and greater trust, and as we grow in understanding God’s commitment to us. In the Bible, Psalm 37:5 says, "Commit everything you do to God - trust Him to help you do it and He will."
The Bible also mentions how the disciples became Jesus’ committed ones. Multitudes of people followed Jesus to listen to his powerful teachings and to see his great miracles. Jesus’ twelve disciples had been personally invited by Jesus, and had left their families, their homes and their jobs in order to be with Jesus. They had left everything for the sake of following Jesus.
As Jesus’ popularity grew, the political and religious authorities began to fear him. They knew that he could easily organize his followers and start a rebellion against their authority. Spies were sent to watch Jesus and to report his every activity.
In such a delicate situation, it became dangerous to be too closely allied with Jesus. Although people still eagerly volunteered to join him, Jesus warned them that they had to be totally committed. Nothing must stand in their way of following Jesus. He must become more important to them than their security, their friends, their family or their property. He must be more important to them than their whole life. No sacrifice really means no commitment.
“Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)
It’s amazing that people would still follow Jesus under such circumstances. Of course, there were many who turned back as the situation became more and more difficult. But of the twelve men that he personally invited and commissioned to be his apostles, 11 were with him when the authorities arrested him, 2 were nearby during his trial, and 1 saw every detail of his crucifixion and death. Several women were on the scene also, including his mother, Mary. After the resurrection, the 11 disciples and the women renewed their commitment to him.
Both the Qur’an and the Bible teach that Jesus demanded commitment from his disciples. The power of evil and sin are so strong that only persons who commit everything are of use in forming God’s Kingdom.
(Most of the above information is from "Jesus Gives Peace: Jesus In The Qur'an and the Bible," written by Yusuf Abdallah
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Very liberal bias:
Today on Technorati
'Republican PAC Makes Fun of Evolution In New Ad Campaign
Because nothing says I am "educated and articulate" like making fun of concrete scientific data. Way to go Alabama!'
Alabama
'Alabama "True Republican" TV Campaign Mocks Evolution'
Really, Alabama? This?
'In the current Alabama gubernatorial primary race, there's some serious mudslinging and general ugliness going on. True Republican PAC recently produced this campaign ad attacking conservative candidate Bradley Byrne for not being conservative enough. His crime? Bradley Byrne might believe in evolution!
Yes, there's no better way to flaunt your ignorance than to proclaim it loudly on television! But, you know, I'm actually kind of glad we live in a country where people can speak freely like this. It makes it easier to weed out the ignorant, hateful scum****s from the rest of society.'
Because let's not forget that this is the primary race that has also brought us Tim James' controversial "Language" ad, in which he proclaims, "this is Alabama, we speak English."
So, in case you weren't already sad enough about the state of American politics, break your heart watching these campaign ads!'
'Sura 3:52-53 says: “When Jesus sensed their disbelief, he said, "Who are my supporters towards GOD?" The disciples said, "We are GOD's supporters; we believe in GOD, and bear witness that we are submitters." "Our Lord, we have believed in what You have sent down, and we have followed the messenger; count us among the witnesses."'
'Sura 61:14 says: “O you who believe, be GOD's supporters, like the disciples of Jesus, son of Mary. When he said to them, "Who are my supporters towards GOD," they said, "We are GOD's supporters." Thus, a group from the Children of Israel believed, and another group disbelieved. We helped those who believed against their enemy, until they won.”'
Interesting take on the New Testament and Jesus. Different writing style than NT in appears. Different words are used.
In the current Alabama gubernatorial primary race, there's some serious mudslinging and general ugliness going on.
It sounds to me like the article is doing the most mudslinging, including the use of curse words.
In our society, anyone who is against the theory of evolution gets attacked. Darwinian Evolution is based on spontaneous generation, which was disproved over 100 years ago.
Interesting take on the New Testament and Jesus. Different writing style than NT in appears. Different words are used.
Yes.
Interesting comic tracts that have to do with Islam:
Allah Had No Son
Unforgiven
Men of Peace?
These comic tracts are interesting as well:
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Empty Tomb
Not to mention, there is no missing link.:)
Not to mention, there is no missing link.:)
Very good point.
In addition, there have been reports which would conflict with the Evolutionary claim that dinosaurs died out long before mankind came onto the scene:
From China there were claims that more than 1,000 people had seen a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang. (Lai Kuan and Jian Qun, ‘Dinosaurs: Alive and Well and Living in Northwest China?’, China Today, Vol. XLII No. 2, February 1993, p. 59.)
In Scotland, the latest Loch Ness monster sighting: Mrs Edna MacInnes reported on June 24 that she had seen a 15-meter-long creature with a neck like a giraffe in Loch Ness. (The Weekend Australian, 26–27 June 1993, p. 15; Radio National (Australia) 8 am news report, 25 June 1993.)
Professor P. LeBlond of the University of British Columbia told a meeting of zoologists about the many sightings of ‘Caddy’—short for Cadborosaurus—around the British Columbia coast and as far south as Oregon. The remains of a three-meter juvenile ‘Caddy’ have actually been found in the stomach of a whale. (‘Is Caddy a mammal?’ Science Frontiers, May–June 1993, p. 2; Penny Park, ‘Beast from the Deep Puzzles Zoologists’, New Scientist, 23 January 1993, p. 16.)
Russian scientists were startled to find remains of dwarf mammoths on Wrangel Island, off the Siberian coast, which they said were living only 3,700 years ago. (‘Reassessing the marvellous mammoths’, The Age (Melbourne), 29 March 1993.)
British explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell returned from an isolated Nepalese valley in March with photos of living creatures which looked something like mammoths or extinct stegodons. (‘The elephant that time forgot’, The Mail on Sunday, 23 May 1993.)
Many, many archaeologists have found bones with DNA in them. But here is what is very interesting: According to an Oxford Scientist: molecular biologist Bryan Sykes,
'the rate at which DNA breaks down in the laboratory is such that no DNA would remain intact much beyond 10,000 years.’ (Bryan Sykes, Nature, Vol.352, 1 August 1991, p. 381. For more information, see Carl Wieland, ‘DNA dating: Fascinating evidence that the fossils are young’, Creation magazine, Vol. 14 No. 3, June–August 1992, p. 43.)
There are existing sculptures that look very much like dinosaurs:
-from the Zhou Dynasty (1122 B.C. - 220 B.C.) or possibly from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. -220 A.D.)--the curvature in the neck, the plate on top of the head, the long tail, and the mouth resemble a dinosaur.
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-from the Shang dynasty (B.C. 1766-1122)---the ridges on the back, the scales protruding from the skin, the horn on the head, and the tail resemble a dinosaur.
-from a Mesopotamian cylinder seal
dated at 3300 BC. Moortgart, Anton, The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, 1969, plate 292---the long necks wrapping around each other, and how the neck leaves the body, makes these creatures look very much like dinosaurs.
-a Roman mosaic from about 200 AD that depicts two long-necked sea dragons look very much like dinosaurs.
-"Elders of the Kuku Yalanji aboriginal tribe of Far North Queensland, Australia, relate stories of Yarru (or Yarrba), a creature which used to inhabit rain forest water holes. The painting [left] depicts a creature with features remarkably similar to a plesiosaur. It even shows an outline of the gastro-intestinal tract, indicating that these animals had been hunted and butchered." (CEN Technical Journal, Vol.12, No. 3, 1998, p. 345.)
-The Ta Prohm, an ancient Cambodian Buddhist temple show---this carving on the temple depicts, with incredible accuracy, the stegosaur.
-The Thunderbird, commonly considered to be a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture, is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, the sound of thunder made by its wings clapping, sheet lightning the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it. In masks, it is depicted as many-colored, with two curling horns, and often, teeth within its beak. Is this only a mythological creature? Or is it based on a real animal? A Pterodactyl, for instance, had a wingspan of anywhere between a few inches up to over 40 feet long. Pterodactyls are believed to have flown long distances using large wings, and they had above-average eyesight to help them catch their prey. Paleontologists classify Pterodactyls as flying reptiles and not dinosaurs. Wings that big could presumably cause thunder sounds and probably felt like a storm when it attacked. The Pterodactyl was a CARNIVORE. That is very interesting, since many legends say that the thunderbird would eat Indians.
-The original Piasa Bird was a petroglyph (a prehistoric carving, usually pictorial, gouged into a rock surface). According to legend, in the years long before the Europeans arrived in the Meeting of the Great Rivers area, the Piasa (pronounced Pie-a-saw) was a bird-like creature of such great size that it could easily carry off a full grown deer in its talons. But what concerned the Illini tribes of the region was that the creature preferred human flesh. The native people attempted for years to destroy the creature but were unsuccessful and watched with terror as this monster destroyed whole villages. Could this have been a dinosaur?
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In the 13th century, the adventurous explorer Marco Polo detailed in his Travels much that he was told about the Rukh of Madagascar, also been said to be able to carry off an elephant. According to young Polo (Marco Polo's Travel; III, 36):
The Madagascarians related to him that "at a certain season of the year...the Rukh makes its appearance from the south. Persons who have seen this bird assert that when the wings are spread, they span fifty feet." [Approximately the same size as Native American accounts in The Legend of the Giant Bird]. Polo tells how he heard of a mighty feather presented to the Grand Khan of China, purportedly taken from a Rukh and measuring ninety "spans" long. In classic literature, a "span" is usually described as being the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger in a spread out hand, roughly nine inches. If the translation "ninety" is taken to be accurate, that would make the feather over sixty-seven feet in length, which is not likely. It is probably a mistranslation, with the actual measure being NINE spans. That would make the feather somewhere just over six feet long, similar in length to the one described as coming from the American southwest in "The Boy and the Giant Feather."
In the 17th century, renowned British traveler and florist John Tradescant obtained what he claimed was the claw of the Rukh, "a bird capable to trusse an elephant." The claw was an outstanding feature in Tradescant's museum, which later became the famous Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.
The Quillayute Tribe in the Pacific northwest of the United States speak of a very large bird, with feathers as long as a canoe paddle. When he flaps his wings, he makes thunder and the great winds. When he opens and shuts his eyes, he makes lightning. In stormy weather, he flies through the skies, flapping his wings and opening and closing his eyes.
There are many stories of killer birds. And they all seem to have the same basic story. Is this evidence of dinosaurs merely hundreds of years ago?
The Loch Ness Monster is a creature believed to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next. Popular interest and belief in the animal has fluctuated since it was brought to the world's attention in 1933. Evidence of its existence is largely anecdotal, with minimal and much disputed photographic material and sonar readings. The scientific community regards the Loch Ness Monster as a modern-day myth, and explains sightings as a mix of hoaxes and wishful thinking. Despite this, it remains one of the most famous examples of cryptozoology. The legendary monster has been affectionately referred to by the diminutive Nessie.
In 1977, in Japan, a fishing trawler netted the alleged corpse
of a plesiosaur. Unfortunately, the captain of the boat ordered the body to be thrown overboard because of its horrible odor. We will never know for sure what it was, with just photographs. The following article was originally published in "Reports of the National Center for Science Education," May/June 1997, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 16-28:
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(cont.)
A decayed carcass accidentally netted by a Japanese trawler near New Zealand in 1977 has often been claimed by creationists and others to be a likely plesiosaur or prehistoric "sea-monster." Plesiosaurs were a group of long-necked, predatory marine reptiles with four paddle-like limbs, thought to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. However, several lines of evidence, including lab results from tissue samples taken from the carcass before it was discarded, strongly point to the specimen being a shark, and most likely a basking shark. [My note: I have seen the photo several times, and to me, it looks absolutely nothing like a basking shark. Basking sharks look like a regular shark, except their mouths and gills open very widely, and they have a large head. And some scientists disagree that it is a basking shark.] This should not be surprising, since basking sharks are known to decompose into "pseudoplesiosaur" forms, and their carcasses have been mistaken for "sea-monsters" many times in the past. Unfortunately, the results of scientific studies on the carcass data received less media attention than the early sensational reports, allowing widespread misconceptions about this case to continue circulating. Therefore, a thorough review of its history and the pertinent evidence is warranted.
In 1997, the Navy recorded a sound deep in the ocean, off the coast of South America, from an unknown animal. Based on the frequency, it is determined that the animal was bigger than a blue whale.
Not too long ago, the giant squid was thought to be just legend, but now we know they are real animals.
As mentioned earlier, in Cadboro Bay, sea serpents called Cadborosaurus, or 'Caddy' for short, have been sighted for many decades. In 1937, the corpse of a dead cadborosaurus was pulled from the stomach of a freshly-harvested whale.
In Australia, a photo was taken of a supposed huge sea serpent resting on the bottom. There have been reported sea monster sightings, reports and illustrations ever since man ventured into the vast oceans.
New scientific evidence suggests that dinosaur bones from the Ojo Alamo Sandstone in the San Juan Basin, USA, date from after the extinction, and that dinosaurs may have survived in a remote area of what is now New Mexico and Colorado for up to half a million years. This controversial new research, published today in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, is based on detailed chemical investigations of the dinosaur bones, and evidence for the age of the rocks in which they are found.
Are all of these things just myths or mistaken identities or coincidences? How were the ancients able to depict creatures that look very much like what scientists today have discovered to be dinosaurs? Why are dragons mentioned all over the world, with many nations coming up with the same type of animals---animals that very much resemble dinosaurs that have been discovered by today's scientists?
(cont.)
(cont.)
Around 600 B.C., during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, a Babylonian artist fashioned bas reliefs on bricks used in the enormous archway of the Ishtar Gate and the high walls of the approach road. The bas reliefs consist of three animals, and each row of bricks displays numerous images of one of them. The rows alternate, some showing lions, others rimis (as the Babylonians called them), and still others sirrushes (dragons).
The dragon, of course, was a purely imaginary animal. Or was it?
Willy Ley has described the sirrush, which he considered a "zoological puzzle of fantastic dimensions," thus:
... a slender body covered with scales, a long slender scaly tail, and a long slim scaly neck bearing a serpent's head. Although the mouth is closed, a long forked tongue protrudes. There are flaps of skin attached to the back of the head, which is adorned (and armed) with a straight horn....
Dragon stories range from the West, to the East, to the North and to the South. Yet many of these nations did not have any communication or knowledge that they existed---so how did these cultures come up with the same type of animal?
The Apocrypha's Book of Bel and the Dragon relates a curious story: that in the temple of Bel, Lord of the World, Nebuchadnezzar's favored god, the priests kept a "great dragon or serpent, which they of Babylon worshipped." The king challenged the Hebrew prophet Daniel, who had been going about sneering about nonliving gods of brass, to dispute this god, who "liveth, and eateth and drinketh; you canst not say that he is no living god; therefore worship him." To remove himself from this quandary, Daniel poisoned the animal.
The fortieth chapter of Job in the Old Testament, though written anywhere from 100 to 1300 years earlier than the Ishtar Gate's construction, may refer to the sirrush by another name:
Behold now Behemoth ... he eateth grass as an ox. Know now his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass, his bones are like bars of iron.... He lieth under the shady trees, in the cover of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.... His nose pierceth through snares.
The behemoth's identity has long puzzled biblical scholars, who have not doubted that Job was writing of a real animal, even if no satisfactory candidate among known animals seems to exist. Mackal offers this interpretation: "The behemoth's tail is compared to a cedar, which suggests a sauropod. This identification is reinforced by other factors. Not only the behemoth's physical nature, but also its habits and food preferences are compatible with a sauropod's. Both live in swampy areas with trees, reeds and fins (a jungle swamp)."
The discoverer of the Ishtar Gate, German archaeologist Robert Koldeway, gave serious thought to the possibility that the sirrush may have been an actual animal. Unlike other fantastic beasts in Babylonian art, he noted, images of the sirrush remained unchanged over centuries. What struck him about these depictions was the "uniformity of [the sirrush's] physiological conceptions."
The sirrush, he said, was more like a saurian than any other animal. Such creatures did not coexist with human beings, he wrote, and the Babylonians, who were not paleontologists, could not have reconstructed a saurian from fossil remains; yet the Old Testament states explicitly that the sirrush was real. All this considered, he was reduced to speculating that the Babylonian priests kept "some reptile" in a dark temple and led the unsuspecting to believe it was a living sirrush.
Birdzilla Part 1
Birdzilla Part 2
Birdzilla Part 3
Birdzilla Part 4
Eyewitness claims to have seen a living pterodactyl
Ancient Dinosaur Depictions
In 1934, W.D. Strong published a convincing article detailing the Native American knowledge of the wooly mammoth. The Naskapi describe a monster they call Kátcheetokúskw (present in many of their myths) as being very large, having a big head, large ears and teeth, and a long nose with which he hit people. When presented with photos of modern elephants, the informants said they fit the description of Kátcheetokúskw as represented in their oral history. The Penobscot of Maine describe a huge animal with long teeth that leaned against certain trees to sleep (noting that when these beasts lay down, they could not get back up). The Ojibwa and Iroquois note the existence of a large beast that once ranged through the forest and was so strong that it would easily knock down any trees that stood in it's path. These "elephant" legends are rampant in many other Indigenous cultures such as the Micmac, Alabama, Koasati, and Chitimacha.
In 1944, M.F. Ashley Montagu confirmed Strong's finding in an article published in American Anthropologist. The Osage of Missouri persevered a record of an incident that involved the encroachment of a herd of megafauna upon the land of the smaller animals already living there. The Osage of course incorporate supernatural beings into their account and attribute the encounter to the actions of the Great Spirit. At a certain period, many monstrous animals encroached upon the territory (along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers) of the much smaller animals already living there. The Osage were forced to abandon their homes and refrain from hunting because the gigantic animals posed a deadly threat. They remained at a sufficient distance however to witness the courageous smaller animals attack the invading monstrous animals. After a long battle, the larger animals prevailed and continued their march eastward. The Osage then burnt some of the bodies as an offering to the Great Spirit while the rest were buried in the Pomme de Terre (which was later called Big Bone river). The Osage considered this to be a sacred place thereafter and subsequently gave offerings periodically to commemorate the battle. In 1839, American settlers seized the sacred land to the great dismay of the Osage and began the construction of a tub-mill (a machine used to pound corn). After digging, the settlers discovered a mass of bones, which were identified as those of young mastodons.
(cont.)
(cont.)
In the case of Mount Multnomah (which is a grouping of three adjacent volcanoes) in Central Oregon, informants from the Warm Springs reservation provided Ella Clark with the following account of its creation: "Klah Klahnee, the Three Sisters, was once the biggest and highest mountain of all; it could be seen for many miles. One time the earth shook for days, and the mountain boiled inside. It boiled over, and hot rocks came out of the top of it. Flames and smoke rose high in the air. Red-hot stones were thrown out in ever direction. Many villages and many Indians were buried by the rocks. When the mountain became quiet again, most of it was gone. Only three points were left."
This is an accurate account of the formation of Mount Multnomah that was later confirmed by a geologist named Edwin T. Hodge. In 1924, Hodge did extensive fieldwork at the Mount Multnomah site. He concluded that the three adjacent volcanoes were once a part of a larger, once standing ancient volcano. Hodge said that this ancient volcano erupted in what was a gigantic explosion and subsequently formed the three smaller volcanoes present today.
The Native American account obviously requires that this particular tribe was present when the original volcano erupted and created the three peaks. There is no other way to explain how they could have attained such accurate knowledge of the eruption beforehand. A major problem arises however with the date of eruption calculated by Hodge using the potassium-argon dating method. The date given by Hodge is approximately 25 million to 27 million years ago. Although it cannot be denied that the Warm Springs tribe was present during the eruption, it is highly unlikely that oral history can be stretched this far deep into time. The problem then is not with the oral tradition, but with the dating method. According to Cremo and Thompson, the Potassium-argon dating method is very inaccurate. They cite an incident whereas "scientists have obtained ages ranging from 160 million to 2.96 billion years for Hawaiian lava flows that occurred in the year 1800."
It's funny that the posted article is about Islam, but the comments here are mostly about Evolution.
(cont.)
Hodge himself has doubts about the dating method as he relates that "The most striking peculiarity of the Three Sisters region is the obvious youth of the many volcanic floods, volcanoes, and cinder fields. These black, scoriaceous, volcanic rocks look so young that many are convinced that they have congealed within historic time." Although Hodge admits the volcanic rocks appear to be very young, he goes against his own logic and maintains the eruption occurred 25 million to 27 million years ago. Perhaps a random guess at the date of eruption would have made as much sense.
The politics of Anthropology have become more important than the attainment of objective knowledge and the field has suffered greatly. For the past seventy years, anthropologists have blindly followed the Bering Strait and Clovis Point theories without testing the validity of the doctrines for themselves. Because of this blind faith, anthropologists have been forced to abandon the principles of cultural relativism and have instead adopted an ethnocentric approach, which marginalizes the cultures they are supposed to be preserving for the advancement of the field. Only until Anthropology becomes a truly holistic discipline based upon data that actually correlates with the oral traditions of the very people they are studying will it begin to produce objective knowledge that can be verified.
'The politics of Anthropology have become more important than the attainment of objective knowledge and the field has suffered greatly.'
This theme and like come up again and again.
'The dragon, of course, was a purely imaginary animal. Or was it?'
Funny, Ralph Papa draws a Japanese Dragon on YouTube and he states basically that he does not know if it was a fictional animal or not.
Papa
Funny, Ralph Papa draws a Japanese Dragon on YouTube and he states basically that he does not know if it was a fictional animal or not.
Ha. Good ole' Ralph Papa. I wonder if I wrote him and asked him to do a YouTube video about drawing Muhammad, if he would do it. Or would he be too afraid?
Kurt Westergaard, who has been facing death threats for four years over his cartoon of the prophet Muhammad, has had the windows his house broken, damage to one of his artworks and axe marks on the door of his house. Before that, Danish police arrested several people with a Muslim background suspected of conspiring to kill Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is being protected by security guards, and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons about Muhammad.
The film director Theo van Gogh was working to produce the film Submission, which was critical of the treatment of women in Islam, before he was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim.
Islam: "Whoever Changes His Religion - Kill Him" II
APOSTASY IN ISLAM:
The punishment for apostasy from Islam is a controversial topic for Muslims living in the West, and for ex-Muslims everywhere. That's because Islam teaches that apostates are to be killed. We know from historic Islamic documents that during Muhammad's lifetime and the lifetimes of the next four "Rightly Guided Caliphs", tens of thousands of Muslims left the faith of Islam, and thousands were killed. On a large scale, the Muslims made war on groups that chose to leave Islam, and massacres of apostates occurred. On a smaller scale, individual apostates were executed. This death sentence is in effect whether or not the apostasy occurred in or out of the Islamic state.
The Price of Conversion
Muslims who convert to Christianity face harsh persecution. Even those living in Western countries aren't safe from retribution.
One man paid a heavy price for rejecting Islam to follow Christ, and his suffering came from those who once loved him the most.
Adam will never walk again.
His legs bear the scars of many operations to repair devastated muscle, tendon, and bones.
He suffered these injuries when he was thrown off a fourth-floor balcony at a shopping mall.
It's a miracle he survived.
What's more shocking is that the person who ordered the attack was his own mother.
"I received a letter from my mom, threatening me, that she was going to kill me if I do not go back to Islam," he said.
Adam is a Christian living in Canada, but he was born and raised a Muslim in Morocco.
"I was raised in a very strict family. I was punished all the time if I failed to comply by the teachings of Islam," Adam began. "I remember it was Ramadan and I did not pray, and for that, my mom hit me on my nose, and she broke it, and it is still broken until now."
Taking a Second Look at Islam
At age 20, Adam moved to Canada and met many Arab Christians.
He also started watching Christian TV programs that challenged the teachings of Islam.
That led him to an Internet chat room called "Pal Talk."
"That's when I started gaining a lot of information about Islam that I felt were really strange and that's when I was convinced that this religion cannot be from God," Adam explained. "How can a religion that is based on killing and slaughter and terrorism come from God?"
He took his questions to a sheik in Canada and received a startling answer.
"I told him that this religion can not be from God and that I thought that Bin Laden and Al Zawaheri are terrorists. He replied, 'No, they are not terrorists; they are the real Muslims.' That's when I decided to leave Islam."
Through Pal Talk and the ministry of Father Zakaria Boutrous, Adam discovered the Bible and Jesus Christ.
"I finally felt like I found what I have been looking for all my life. I found a loving God, who died for me on the cross. I dedicated my time to study the Bible and pray, and that's how I found my way to Jesus Christ."
In most cases, that would be the happy ending of the story, but for this Muslim-turned-Christian, it was the beginning of many trials.
His wife of six years left him, and his family began a campaign to force him to return to Islam.
They even had him arrested when he went to Morocco for a visit.
"I was tortured every day. They used to hang me upside down and beat me up. After 21 days, my mom came and asked me if I have changed my mind. I said that I would never forsake Christ, even if she wanted to kill me."
'His wife of six years left him, and his family began a campaign to force him to return to Islam. They even had him arrested when he went to Morocco for a visit. "I was tortured every day. They used to hang me upside down and beat me up. After 21 days, my mom came and asked me if I have changed my mind. I said that I would never forsake Christ, even if she wanted to kill me."'
With friends/family like that who needs enemies? I am glad that with a Biblical/Reformed view of election and salvation, it would be pointless and wrong to treat an unbeliever in such a way.
satire and theology,
With friends/family like that who needs enemies?
Exactly.
I am glad that with a Biblical/Reformed view of election and salvation, it would be pointless and wrong to treat an unbeliever in such a way.
Amen.
Thanks, Russ.
'Ha. Good ole' Ralph Papa. I wonder if I wrote him and asked him to do a YouTube video about drawing Muhammad, if he would do it. Or would he be too afraid?'
I doubt he would present such drawings.
The way he draws the Muslims might not know who he is drawing anyway.
'Oh, that is Saint Scribbles.'
satire and theology,
The way he draws the Muslims might not know who he is drawing anyway.
Ha! That's a good one.
'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' Unleashes Facebook Fracas
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