welovejesustoo

Yesterday I saw a sticker on the back of a car like this:

WELOVEJESUSTOO
discoverislamaustralia.com

I don't really know what my question is...maybe just what do you think about it? What is it's purpose?
To show similarities between religions...to recruit people to islam? Though I didn't think muslims really tried to recruit people like some christian denominations do but maybe I'm wrong.
I'm not Muslim so I was just wondering what a muslim perspective on it would be. I can't explain what i think about it so I won't try, i'll have a think about it more.

Many Muslims feel that they are better Christians than Christians.
Jesus is one of our most respected prophets and many Muslims feel that to consider him to be an incarnation of God is profoundly disrespectful and totally missing the point of the messages that he delivered and the miracles he performed. They point to the fact that nowhere in the Bible does he explicitly say that he should be worshipped and argue that references to being the son of God are purely metaphorical and should be understood in the sense that all humans are the children of God.
I don't know enough about the bible to understand the validity of their arguement.
Lots of Muslims feel that if Christians understood Islam better that there would be less antagonism towards Islam. generally speaking I think it's true to say that Muslims have a better understanding of Christianity than Christians do of Islam.
One statistic that I find quite interesting is that the rate of conversion from Christianity to Islam is much higher than the rate of conversion from Islam to Christianity. Many Christians have found that Islam answers questions they have about thier faith nut the opposite is seldom true.

I was raised under the Christian church, it gave me a good grounding for living my life, but I don't activly practice. Stories are often based on real events, which is what I consider the Bible. I dated a muslim for 4 years when I was 19, his family were wonderful and sweet, we never got into relgious debates, but I began to understand that Islam was a gentle, kind and considerate religion. Unfortualtly I think it has been given a bad rap from fanatics. The Western world generally looks at Islam as repressive towards women, and in some instances it is. But opinions are often formed as a result of what the media feeds us. I beleive there is something greater out there and that there are many similaralities between many differnet relegions. We could learn something from all of them as they all offer similar stories of tolerance. Yet most wars are waged because of religous reasons. Anyway, If we could all be more tolerant, the world would be a better palce.

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Many Muslims feel that they are better Christians than Christians.
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Lots of Muslims feel that if Christians understood Islam better that there would be less antagonism towards Islam.

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Well, I don't normally pop my head into this forum, but as someone who survived a pentecostal upbringing that was akin to a cult, I can;t agree with you more, Dachlostar. I am so sick of hearing everyone getting stuck into the muslim population as the source of all evil in the world...

I don't want to derail the thread, so i might start a new one to lead off what one of the other posters here mentioned - the prevailing idea that Islam is advocates
violence or disrespect towards women. I don;t think it's true, and I had a muslim friend once alude to the fact that the wearing of the veil is representative of a special respect between the woman and man, and that the man reciprocated that respect in some way, but they didn't go into details. I'd love to know more so that next time I get into a debate on Christianty versus Islam, I am better armed.

I will always remember something another friend said to me, who had converted to Islam, about the differences and similarities between the two religions - "all these years of war and strife over what shape to make the windows in our temples"...

Ok, I think I've realised why I thought the sticker was a bit strange. Because as a christian we wouldn't do anything like that like welovemuhammadtoo because it would be misrepresenting our religion and be wrong.
But thanks for explaining it Chloe, now I get that they weren't misrepresenting Islam in order to get people to join (or whatever it was I thought was going on), but it actually is one of their beliefs!
Well, I think it was a good sticker because it got me thinking about it. I went to the website to try to find out what was going on and posted here.
Thanks guys.

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They point to the fact that nowhere in the Bible does he explicitly say that he should be worshipped and argue that references to being the son of God are purely metaphorical and should be understood in the sense that all humans are the children of God.

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This is interesting and something I didn't know either, and I obviously don't agree with it but it's still interesting. I didn't know that Muslims knew so much abot Christianity either.

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Ok, I think I've realised why I thought the sticker was a bit strange. Because as a christian we wouldn't do anything like that like welovemuhammadtoo because it would be misrepresenting our religion and be wrong.
But thanks for explaining it Chloe, now I get that they weren't misrepresenting Islam in order to get people to join (or whatever it was I thought was going on), but it actually is one of their beliefs!

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I know Im a little late, but never the less!
I am not Muslim, nor Christian, however I was raised a Christian and I agree with you Chloe (but htats another thread! lol)
I just wanted to add that the thing thats stayed with me all these years (wrt to the similarities and differences b/n the two) is that we learnt that the angel Gabriel was the angel that appeared to guide the 3 wise men to Jerusalem and also the angel that appeared to Mahummad(sp?) at the mountain...

Anyway, I think that the information and similarities are there if people cared to bother to look for them instead of trying to prove the differences.

(Pleease correct me if I am wrong, this was a long time ago!! lol)

I don't have much to add as i'm neither Christian nor Muslim, but a friend lent me the Seerah of the Prophet (Muhammed's pbuh life story) and it's something i think all Christians should read. It was very enlightening to me. I am of Jewish extraction and always regarded the Jewish and Christian godhead to be one and the same, and it is clear to me now that Islam also refers to the same godhead.

Sometimes i despair of all the religion-based hatred in the world. We are like childish siblings fighting over who loves the parent best. What makes it especially frustrating (for me) is that the bible, which is the only religious text i am at all familiar with, seems to tell us NOT to fight over such things. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It is a sin for us to do that which we know to be sinful for ourselves. Love thy neighbour as thyself. It's all there.

I am wearied by the fighting and politics and that is why i shun organised religion. The first thing i was ever told about religion was "God is Love" and with that in mind, none of the fighting makes any sense to me. There is always talk now of the rejection of religion in the modern world. Alot of the most religious people i know have rejected religion simply because they are repelled by the better-than-themness of it all.

Bx

Hoobley: I agree, the Bible (The New Testament, ie after Jesus) is a rare text in that it does advise to "turn the other cheek". It would be easy to throw your hands up in the air and want nothing to do with religion... but I see value in it despite how MAN chooses to interpret the writings. It's not God's fault we are misrepresenting his word. I think the challenge is often to ignore Man's input and just focus on what God ie his spirit in the body of Jesus told us. And it does say in the Bible that the way to God is through Jesus. He was crucified because he did ask people to follow ie worship him.

It's human nature to "flock together" with people of like-minded beliefs. But this has it's dangers when it comes to organised religions. I think the best churches are the ones that allow each individual to remain individuals and to have the power to make up their own minds about things. The ones that have too many rules to govern the details of our lives (I think) are the ones that get a bit confused about "the most important thing" and that there are many paths to God.

ETA: whoops, I didn't realise this thread was in the Islam forum... I just replied from an email notification... sorry about the Christianity focus of my reply. I think those 'paths to God' can be ones that follow Buddah, Allah, Krishna etc but I think the main theme is that people on the right paths are relinquishing their own authority to a greater authority. To have the ability to admit that there is a greater truth than what you can come up with (at any given stage of your life/mood/ state of mind/ state of health/ whether you were treated fairly by your mother etc ... some independent truth is the key.