Belinda wrote:ForCruxSake, I refer to your latest post addressed to me. Regarding idolatry,this has little to do with statuettes or other images. It has to do with making a human and their ideas into a figure of perfection. Only God is perfect. Muhammad is not Allah, yet Muslims regard Muhammad as perfect.
Actually in Islam it is a lot about images and representations of those things to be idolised. It's why there are so few paintings of the prophet. The ones that do exist usually show him with a veil on his face. In a weird kind of way it's doing the same thing, setting him apart as something that is above description.
In orthodoxy, no human figure should be represented in any form of art. It's why fleur-de-lys and geometric designs were so popular in Islamic art. They were not to create anything that could be idolised.
Belinda wrote:True, Muhammad was a great innovator. politician, and reformer the spirit of whose ethics is relevant today. Muhammad however is not an aspect of God as is Jesus Christ, but is God's messenger. As messenger Muhammad should not be regarded as perfect.
I didn't say Muhammad was an aspect of God. He's revered by his followers. Jesus, too, should be respected by Muslims as a prophet, mentioned in the Qu'ran, but after a couple of centuries of the Crusades it's easy to understand why Jesus doesn't come up in too much in Islamic preaching. Perfect or not, the prophet Muhammad is the role model for how a Muslim should behave. Let them have that instead of trying to tell them what and how they should be.
Belinda wrote:Jesus of history was not an ordinary criminal as you said but was possibly an insurgent against a cruel and stupid Roman regime of occupation in Palestine. It was more likely that J was a wandering holy man with a charismatic way of preaching Judaism.
Not according to some of the History Channel stuff I've watched. He was not the only potential for Messiah either, all of whom were politically rallying at a time of Roman occupation.
What do we know about the Messiah from prophecies written by the Jews ('cause let's face it the Christians couldn't have prophecised the Messiah now, could they?)? No time to précis it but here's a comprehensive link, that says why Jesus COULDN'T have been the Messiah, by citing Jewish scripture.
http://www.beingjewish.com/toshuv/real_messiah.html
One of criteria for Messiah is that he would lead people to war against the enemies of the Jews. He was meant to be a warrior, not a man of peace. The war he would initiate and win, was the thing that was meant to bring peace. Not contemplative preaching,
I was educated at CofE schools, at both primary and secondary school levels. Jesus as a warrior came up for discussion back then too, but this is more History Channel stuff. But what do they know, right?
