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a muslim imam taking pictures of church?
a muslim imam was taking pictures of church of st george st shenouda church in jersey city new jersey the same imam pulled up near 3 kids the night before and staired hard at them for no apperent reasion.the imam was later arrested and charged it just shows you that there will always be hatred towards the coptic community and why we should always be proud to be coptic because our beliefs are the right way god bless all of you
Comments
for every muslim that treats christians badly, there is a 'christian' that treats muslims badly and fellow-christians also, and also there have been very compassionate, loving, caring muslims who follow some of Jesus' teachings better than many of us christians do
We know we have God by our side, and we try to follow His commandments, but we are all human likely to sin at any time, which is why we should beg for the Lord's mercy but not just for ourselves, but for all human beings
for: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
God Bless
This a great statement u have there...... But just controdict with the story you just said. Your belief is NOT to hate those who would not exactly like you, even ur enemies, but to FULLY LOVE them and do asmuch as u can to bring them to the right way.
im not saying it to be rude or to hate i do not hate them at all but i am a former muslim i know how they think i have seen it first hand how they bash the christians behind there backs of course not all muslims are bad and of course there are bad christians and vice versa but i saw it myself for years and years and one thing all muslims religoues or not follow the quran very strict as to us christians take forgranted what we have i bring up this point because in the quran it says every non muslim is a kufar and all this other bad stuff you cant blame me cause i saw really bad things first hand in the mosques i use to attend please forgive me if i have insulted anybody but i do pray for them
you are not insulting anyone here specificlly. you just didn't LEAVE the past yet. you are baptized, so you have a new life in which everything thing before is just nothing. if you keep thinking of the past, even though you left it, then you didn't do anything. then you are just baptized to leave islam...not to be with Jesus!!!
sorry if i am harsh but that is what it sound like in all of your words about islam. leave it, worry about your own salvation IN CHRIST.
+mahraeel+
jw..wats an imam?
+mahraeel+
They are the the Abuna's of the muslims.They are the ones who are responsible for the translation of the Quran.If they say a certain Quranic verse is saying 'go and kill the infidels', one has no other choice than to accept their teaching. They incite hatred, send the innocent to their certain death by encouraging them to commit suicide for the sake of Allah with the prospects of g heaven with 72 virgins and rivers of wine etc. These hypocrites never send their own kids with bombs. They are those who grow long beard but shave off the moustache and look like weasles. You rememebr Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran, the crazed mullah? He claimed ,he was an Allah sent infallible imam who came to prepre the way for 12th Hidden Imam whom the Shiittes await his glorious coming any time soon. But when khomeni died, his corpse fell out from the casket on its way to the funeral.Well,that was hardly a sign from God. Sorry, I despise them.
im sorry
+mahraeel+
Pray for me and for all the christians of all of the world and may our lord Jesus Christ preserve us, guide us, and protect us from every evil, grief, and distress from these people:)
I apologize again but I just had to say this
Please pray for my weakness
God Bless
Guys, forgive me please, but let us not talk about religious authorities of other religions in general in such a bad way. I think this is unacceptable, you know very well that our priests are not infallible, and I'm sure none of us would like to see muslims talking about our priests this way because of mistakes they did. In fact, about people interpreting religious book the wrong way, why don't we go back to the Middleages. Look what attrocities some so-called christians commited in the name of Christianity?
Hi godislove,
You point is well taken.I appreciate your advice.It is not a healthy thing to badmouth others.I believe in this general rule.
When it comes to the religious figures, in this case ,the Imam's , all I did was describe the nature of their job.The Imam is a public figure.His words are in the public domain.Whatever he says, good or bad, it becomes a public matter open to commendation, critcism and condemnation, despite the fact that he has anointed himself as 'infalliable'. Today's Islams problem are not the muslims but their leaders,the imams ,the mullahs, the sheiks that is. It is not the 15 year old kid who goes amongst the crowd to committ suicide and kills the innocent,but those masterminds behind the curtain who push him to do that who are at the centre of the problem. The Imams are islamists who declare that Muslims have a God given right to own the world, a duty to establish 'Allah's' rule on earth.They preach such incendiary rethoric not to empty but to full mosques. Individual muslims can easily see how their teachings reflect of their ‘holy book’. Imams like Abu Hamza of London are the spiritul mentors to some of the 9/11 terrorists. Sheiks like Qaradawi are the true faces of institionlised Islam.This sheik, for example, is the closest to which might pass for titular head of musilms akin to the Pope.His words are broadcasted by TV network Al Jazeera – and are taken as authoritative pronouncement of Islam.He encourages suicide bombings and calls it a call from Allah. This guy is the leader of the Muslim botherhood, the group that perpetually persecute Copts and other christians. When talking about them the way I did, I do not think I am necessarily talking bad about their person ,but I can not seem to describe them otherwise.
True our priests are not 'infalliable". Unlike the Imam's and the Catholics,Our Popes never claimed so. I would not be bothered if I see a muslim talking exactly what he sees about our priests. If he knows that a certain priest is not acting the way an Orthodox Christian priest should ,I would not wait until the Muslim points that out to me. I do it myself. My beef with an ordinary Muslim would only be, if he twists things to suit his beliefs. Yes,you are right, many atrocities have been committed in the name of Christianity. If you are talking about the crusaders, then the atrocities they committed were in direct opposition to the express commands of Jesus Christ and the apostles of his church.Unlike the violent verses of the Koran,the doctrines of the New Testament do not provide justification for barbarism toward any person or armed conflict to expand the Chrsitian cause.We must not forget that it was the muslims who started jihad against other nations early on in their history. If there was not Jihad invasion of Jeruslam, the idea of the crusaders would not have been born.In part, the crusades were a backlash against the muslims for their attempts to overrun European Christendom.And as we know the crusades is a thing of the past while militant Jihad is still being waged.In all this what gives me comfort is,the problem of the crusade is the problem of the Catholic church and not of the Orthodox.The crusades were in fact responsible for the fall of constantinople, reducing it to rubbels and making it vulnerable to islamic invasions. That shameful deed sealed the schism between the Eastern and Western churchs. For all I know, Copts did not retaliate against their Muslim brethen when the crusaders had upper hand or when Great Britain colonised Egypt in the last century.Thus ,a muslim has no business pointing his fingers at an Orthodox Christian for crimes committed by others.
I thought I should let you know why I characterised the Muslim clerics the way I did.
I get where you're coming from as I also have friends who have converted to Christianity and they have suffered a lot. For example some of my friends can't go back to their home country because its too dangerous. There are also Muslims who don't want to hurt Christians, so I would recommend that we make friends with lots of Muslims and try and show them that Christians are not like they think (some of them have lots of wrong ideas about Christians). Of course this involves a degree of risk-taking, but as far as I can tell, our job as Christians involves taking risks for our faith.
I would just like to add a couple of corrections about Catholics, as I have studied the different Christian groups a lot recently.
Catholics don't believe their Pope is infallible, they believe that when he makes a statement of faith and precedes that by saying that this is a specific issue of doctrine that all Catholics must believe that this statement is infallible, i.e. he can't get it wrong. This has actually only happened on 2 occasions. They do not believe their Pope cannot sin. I personally don't see why they need this idea, but I think it is related to the church wanting political power (see below). Otherwise, Catholics believe loads of good stuff; we can learn from each other.
About the crusades, I sorry, the Orthodox are also really guilty on this one. Many of the Christians at that time believed hate sermons from the churches and went out to kill Muslims. There is a lot of historic evidence for this. The main problem as I see it was that most Christians did not have access to the Bible in their own language for them to read or listen too (not many could read in those days), so they relied entirely on what their leaders said. Also many church leaders (most especially in the Roman church) had vast political power so you could end up in prison for not agreeing with them. These things are very wrong; Jesus never said 'go into all the world and force people to believe in me'. I'm not saying you can't defend yourself, but going to other lands to kill the people that live there is wrong.
These days, we can ask Abouna questions at dars kitaab and check him out by looking in our own Bibles, so, as a church we are more protected from heresy than in the old days.
So lets read the Bible a lot, listen carefully at church and spend time with atheists and people from other faiths and show them the truth we have as well as tolerance of their opinions.
May God help us
Otherwise, Catholics believe loads of good stuff; we can learn from each other.
About the crusades, I sorry, the Orthodox are also really guilty on this one.
True, catholics do believe a lot of good stuff, but the issue of the infalliability of the pope (or as you have explained: his doctrinal statements) is not the only thing where we don't agree on with the catholics. There is also the idea of purgatory, transsubstantiation and the immaculate conception of the holy theotokos. But I do know, that some catholics are starting to review their faith today and would like to see some changes...
When you say the Orthodox are guilty, who exactly do you mean?
I have wondered about this actually, since I reside in Europe now, I find that I know so much about the history of Europe only, but not necessarily the simultaneous happenings in the rest of the world.
I do believe that the fact that we, as copts, have been under persecution for so long, was the best thing that happened to us, because when people are in trouble they tend to be more humble and stick to their God more. Also, as far as I know, the copts have never made themselves guilty of attrocities such as the Inquisition in which all non-catholics were in danger...
The thing with the coptic church, it didn't have the chance (thankfully) to become as powerful as other churches and to intervene in political matters and have great wordly powers...
Maybe some Orthodox from Greece and such joined in the Crusades (since the Schism happened in 1054 which is about the same time of the crusades) but Copts have been under occupience since the beginning of christianity in Egypt. First by the Romans, then the Byzantines, then the Arabs, then the Turks (Ottomans)... also, although the number of egyptian christians (copts) must have been great in the beginning, through the ages that number declined from conversions and such, I would find it very strange if the Coptic Orthodox church then had made itself guilty of joining the crusades which took place nearly 400 years after the Arabs had taken power over Egypt...
But as I mentioned my history is very much limited to European so if someone has more info, plz share
God Bless
Please pray for me
may God give us strength to defend the faith without weapons of war (Ephesians 6:12) as our struggle is against the spiritual forces of evil. remember 'He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world' (1 John 4:4)
may God guide us and protect us
bigeee, I understand you might have had some bad experiences with muslims, but I don't think it's right to think of them as all bad in general or to refer to them that way
for every muslim that treats christians badly, there is a 'christian' that treats muslims badly and fellow-christians also, and also there have been very compassionate, loving, caring muslims who follow some of Jesus' teachings better than many of us christians do
We know we have God by our side, and we try to follow His commandments, but we are all human likely to sin at any time, which is why we should beg for the Lord's mercy but not just for ourselves, but for all human beings
for: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
God Bless
I completely agree. The worst people I've met in my life were Coptic (and I don't even live in Egypt). However, if there was a competition, I'd say it was a neck and neck with a muslim egyptian guy also.