Merry Christmas and Thank You Ayatollah! Leader marks birth anniversary of Jesus Christ

a reply to: PeaceShalomSalam

also worth mentioning... when people are married "two become one"

this doesn't imply one and the same...

a reply to: chr0naut

But I'm fairly sure that Allah didn't incarnate and get tortured to death at any stage, on our behalf.

If there is a God then I'm pretty sure Allah is just a different name for that same God , stories are made by man.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: chr0naut

But I'm fairly sure that Allah didn't incarnate and get tortured to death at any stage, on our behalf.

If there is a God then I'm pretty sure Allah is just a different name for that same God , stories are made by man.

Allah is Arabic for God. They are both titles and not names. The same as Lord, or Mister, or President, or General, or King, or, etc.

What is the name of Allah/God?

a reply to: PeaceShalomSalam

What is the name of Allah/God?

Why would a God need a Human name other than one given to it by Humans as a identifier for Humans.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: PeaceShalomSalam

What is the name of Allah/God?

Why would a God need a Human name other than one given to it by Humans as a identifier for Humans.

Why do you think God wouldn't have a name? Do you have a name? If you have a pet does it have a name? If you looked up at the stars do you think they have been named?

When you look at trees do they have names?

Do streets have names?

What doesn't have a name?

Oh, God doesn't have a name. That is your logic. Everyone and everything has a name but God. Hmm, seems legit.

a reply to: PeaceShalomSalam

Oh, God doesn't have a name. That is your logic. Everyone and everything has a name but God. Hmm, seems legit.

Names are used to distinguish different things from each other , you use Human concepts for something that if it exists is not Human , I'm sure that seems legit to you but to me it makes no sense.

originally posted by: Raggedyman
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Christians are not people of the book, flat out wrong
Christians are the servants of Jesus.

Christians are not saved by a book or serve a book or even called to love a book

That is not how I characterize the Judaeo-Christian faiths, it's how the Muslims do. I don't believe that they use the term to describe what the Jews and Christians believe about the "Book" (Old Testament) but that they believe in a single god that created the universe, not multiple gods.

Wikipedia - "People of the Book"

People of the Book/Scripture (Arabic: أهل الكتاب‎ ′Ahl al-Kitāb) is an Islamic term which refers to Jews, Christians and Sabians.[1] It is also used in Judaism to refer to the Jewish people and by members of some Christian denominations to refer to themselves. The Quran uses the term in reference to Jews, Christians and Sabians in a variety of contexts, from religious polemics to passages emphasizing the community of faith between those who possess monotheistic scriptures.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Cool thanks, but
I do know some Christians who believe the bible to be perfect and worship it but
It’s not what Christians are, Christians are followers of Christ not a book

Fair point, well backed up, thanks

a reply to: Waterglass

Just an Islamic conversion narrative. "we're still cool with Jesus" BS

Not saying Muslims don't have respect for Jesus but coming from this clown means nothing.

a reply to: JDmOKI

Fine its your pine. Have you done a fact check on your Congressional men and women wishing a Merry Christmas or even mentioning Jesus. How about the Senate?

a reply to: Trueman

Whatever and so what. Just another means to muddy the bath water. Like who give a fluff.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: chr0naut

But I'm fairly sure that Allah didn't incarnate and get tortured to death at any stage, on our behalf.

If there is a God then I'm pretty sure Allah is just a different name for that same God , stories are made by man.

No, I think that there are very many possible conceptions of God or even gods.

And I think that every one of those conceptions cannot possibly encompass the full truth of what God must be (because our conceptual capacity is finite and there are so many aspects of a true God that must necessarily approach infinities).

A 'god' who cannot do things for themselves, who requires human agency to achieve their ends, is not that true God.

Similarly, a 'god' who is bound by physical properties such as time, or who can have their will countered by other 'gods', or is somehow constrained by rules of a 'realm of the gods', falls short of a God capable of ALL of creation.

I cannot conceive of a reality that has the rules that this realty has, as arising from nothingness. The usual 'sciency' explanation is that we arose from quantum fluctuations creating virtual particle pairs which for some reason didn't re-annihilate back into nothingness. While we do have theory that explains how such an effect can create escaped vParticles (Hawking Radiation), the situation requires massive gravitational tidal forces. You can't create the basic building blocks of a universe without the existence of very massive amounts of universe already in existence.

A way around this may be temporal loops where an emergent and existent reality can effect physicality so as to ensure its own existence/emergence. But such a situation requires intelligence, engineering and a knowledge that would significantly exceed our current capabilities.

It has been theorized that the universe, if it continues on its current path, has an end point in time, and that this will also coincide with the near peak growth of intelligence and consciousness in the universe. At this point, temporal and spatial engineering will allow differential collapse of some of the universe so as to vastly extend the existence of pockets of the universe or even the creation of entirely new universes into which that super-intelligence might transit. At this stage it would be trivial for such a super-intelligence to reach back across time and also ensure that the condition for it's emergence are also clearly set.

As the processes of the emergence of that super intelligence also require certain attributes in its member species, it is likely that it would begin to inculcate those moral and ethical principles from the earliest times. Ask yourself, why is pride as sin, and at that, considered the first/worst sin? What are the consequences of pride for a group mind?

This super-intelligence, consisting of a sum of all intelligent beings in the universe, working, thinking and feeling together, is just one viable conceptualization of God.

originally posted by: Akragon

originally posted by: Trueman
a reply to: Waterglass

I'm Christian and I'm not even sure if this is Jesus real DOB.

it isn't... said date was adopted to get more converts from paganism

Sol Invictus was the celebration before it was Xmas

Sol Invictus was a knee jerk reaction against Christianity and arose 274 years after Christ, under the reign of the Roman Emporer Aurelian.

The December the 25th Christmas date relates to an accounting from the time when the High Priest (Zachariah) burns incense in the Holiest of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. This happens once a year on the day of atonement or Yom Kippur. Because the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar, it's dates vary compared to our Gregorian calendar, which is luni-solar. Yom Kippur or 10 Tishri in the Hebrew calendar, which, in our Calendar, occurs from late September to early October. In 1 BC (if that was the year) 10 Tishri fell on 27 October in the Roman calendar.

The next time an angel appeared was to Mary the mother of Jesus to say that she was going to conceive and also that her relative Elizabeth had a child and was 6 months along. With the vagaries of calendars and month lengths calculated, the 15 months to Jesus birth puts it around December 25th.

a reply to: chr0naut

yeah I've heard that explanation before... Though im still inclined to believe it had to do with winning converts from paganism.. theres never been a definitive date on the birth of Jesus mentioned anywhere... and theres several celebrations relating to that date within the first 300 some odd years of his birth... Mithra worship comes to mind...

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: chr0naut

yeah I've heard that explanation before... Though im still inclined to believe it had to do with winning converts from paganism.. theres never been a definitive date on the birth of Jesus mentioned anywhere... and theres several celebrations relating to that date within the first 300 some odd years of his birth... Mithra worship comes to mind...

It's not some conspiracy theory. Christmas and Sol invictus was combined together since many Roman pagans and Christian converts were living together. This was before Constantine. The date doesn't even matter. Emperor Aurelian was a follower of the cult of Sol and just saved the empire after the crisis of the third century so it wasn't used to convert pagans.

Even the worship of Sol invictus was new to the empire at the time. Sol invictus was just the Roman winter solstice and its for sure not the date of the birth of Jesus.

They have no evidence the birth of Mithra was celebrated on December 25th and was probably just a common date of celebration of the winter solstice in the Roman empire.

originally posted by: Waterglass
a reply to: JDmOKI

Fine its your pine. Have you done a fact check on your Congressional men and women wishing a Merry Christmas or even mentioning Jesus. How about the Senate?

Maybe you should fact check the tolerance of the Iranian ayatollah. I don't believe US politicians and I for sure dont trust the leader of an Islamic theocracy. He doesn't care about Christians he doesn't even care about people who are the wrong brand of Islam.

a reply to: JDmOKI

Fair on all. We have much in common.

originally posted by: Raggedyman
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Cool thanks, but
I do know some Christians who believe the bible to be perfect and worship it but
It’s not what Christians are, Christians are followers of Christ not a book

Fair point, well backed up, thanks

Thanks to you for the thoughtful comments as well.

I go along with you in that the book is just a book. As a Christian all you need are the words spoken by Christ. If you believe in that much that is written, you don't need the whole book. I even have a problem with the apostles as Jesus had to dumb down his explanations with parables when he spoke to them. If Jesus were here now as a teacher like he was then, would you have more faith in him or some book?