Unjigorjigor

Thank you for writing this

@Angelite When I first read the Qur'an I had a great dilemma because it tore into the main beliefs of Christianity, and well. Jesus is a man here (held in honour) and he was not crucified, those two claims bump into Paul (specifically regarding the crucifixion, as far as I can tell it isn't obvious that Paul is trinitarian, that seems to me to be a misreading by the church. Paul always seems to me to distinguish between God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.) It was when I came to the Qur'an in my journey that my orthodox Christianity came crashing down. It is verse after verse of plain sense and threat of fire. A Furqān as you say. Here is a sample of how he damages Christianity: "That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";-but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not." Sura 4:117 "O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: Nor say of Allah aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers. Say not "Trinity": desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah: Glory be to Him: far exalted is He above having a son. To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth." Sura 4:171 "In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary." Sura 5:17 "They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode." Sura 5:72 "For it is not consonant with the majesty of Allah, Most Gracious, that He should beget a son." Sura 19:92 I found it easy to come to monotheism or let's say unitarianism from trinitarianism, but I struggled so long with what is said about the cross and what it is meant to mean seeing that, at face value, the Qur'an and New Testament are at odds. It's easy to think that Paul was not a trinitarian; he was a devout jew and they would never accept that God is three in one, for them God is just one and this is absolutely fundamental. But as for the cross, this is his whole teaching! "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,..." That verse in Qur'an saying Jesus wasn't even crucified is the only verse dealing with the crucifixion; in about 50 words Muhammad rejects Paul's entire ministry. If he wasn't even crucified then what is Paul going on about? And all of Christianity since? As is my habit I tried to reconcile them; I am an idealist in that I believe that the people who have guided mankind spiritually should surely, surely all be saying the same thing but in different ways according to time and culture. My attempt to reconcile them led me to gnosticism, which also says Jesus wasn't really crucified (certain sides of gnosticism that is), and gnosticism took me to Plato and the neoplatonists, and they took me to a knowledge of the One, which is equivalent in essence to nonduality. The gnostics say that the true teachings of Christianity were always taught in secret, and communicated in veiled form from the time of Jesus, so that only the wise and discerning could understand it. This saying from Paul they use to show how he had a hidden message that wasn't expressed publicly in his letters: "...However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." So in some sense Islam initiated me into the esoteric and mystical, which sent me upward to the high Unity, the One and Only, and I'm grateful to the prophet of Islam (even though he intimidates me.) Even with Islam though I needed Sufism or else I would've had to run from him, and I did until I found Sufism. With Sufism I can extrapolate the same spiritual sense without being frightened by Muhammad's dominant personality into keeping Sharia, which I think is time-bound and cultural. He is a warrior and his text is a fiery law.

@Leo Gura @mandyjw Thank you for your responses. Every time I speak to Christians they go to Paul and so I wanted to determine if he could be synthesised, but he is rather proud of his gospel: "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." I commend him for this audacity, because a spiritual teacher should believe his teaching, although I don't like his attitude; but now today we have a hard time waking the Christians up because of this. My spiritual journey began with Christianity and as a Christian I was very zealous, but never in the way of the church, hence I started exploring outside because I wondered, "how can we all read the same bible and such an institution like the church can exist?" I felt this way based on what I was seeing from the inside. I worked at a church for a while. And, most Christians I find do not read the bible. Christianity is about the new testament mostly which is mostly Paul's letters; no matter with how much reason you speak to Christians they are proud to hold Paul's perspective, and scared because of his scare tactics, to hold any other. One of the most frustrating statements from him is "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." And then a little later, "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Christians I've tried reasoning with dismiss me with this, because they are happy to be foolish thanks to this. I was always told by my pastor that my intellect gets in the way of my faith, but nevertheless he could never answer my questions. It didn't matter though because according to Paul God will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and put to nothing the understanding of the prudent. I've been isolated from my family too because I have journeyed beyond so-called orthodox Christianity and I try to show deeper things. I'm always reminded that Jesus is the only way. I'm sure they think I'll be burning, that I've lost my faith. But I myself am happy to use the bible as a part of my reading and I still do, I'm quite competent in the bible, I read it in the Greek, but when I show interpretations which as you say Leo are more "mystical", it is seen as heresy. I challenged the trinity at theological college and made a lot of people angry. The reason I thought this thread was necessary was because the Christians close their ears and we need to know Paul's thinking to address them in their own language. But I was hoping Paul could be synthesised with all the other wisdom tradiations. For the most part he can but it is on the point of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the significance of it that he is on his own. (The gnostics claim Paul is theirs to be fair, and they have a way of reading him, it just seems like they are doing a lot of work with his words to say the things they say.) Christmas is coming up soon and people are singing the carols and everyone is worshipping the saviour, celebrating his birth, and it is completely normal, and others who are like me are heretics. I live in South Africa and we're very orthodox Christian, very pentecostal, and I don't meet many enlightened people. Not even many Christians who at least understand gnosticism or some of the esoteric strains of Christianity. In fact I've only met one person who has gone beyond that church orthodoxy. Plotinus describes the spiritual path as "the flight of the alone to the alone", and frankly I wouldn't want what happened to Christianity to happen to enlightenment, I wouldn't want it to be mainstream because that's when it would sufficate. But I'd still like to see those I care about liberated.

Hmm... the term nonduality just does the best job of communicating the idea of oneness, unity, etc. but no its not that I'm sad if something is " not nonduality"; let's put the term aside and come to the meaning, the meaning is that all is one, that everything is united, that there is unity at bottom in all the diversity. If it is not this way then... If man and woman are not human... Without the unifying quality things move away, separate, are divisive by nature. Without unity it is also impossible to know anything or love anyone. I mean if unity was not a principle. If oneness was not definitive of things. And if it is, but not in the case of God, then all the problems which would arise if it wasn't in any other case would arise with God. Again, if man and woman are not also at once human, the differences would be all, and we would be separate, even opposite. If God is separate from anything at all that would mean that howsoever you define God you must give the opposite quality to the other thing. If God is good, and is separate, all else is evil. If God is good and is one with everything, goodness then is the quality of everything. So I personally prefer to share in the qualities of the highest good and would love it if everything else was of that same quality. It is sad to me if it is not this way. The alternative is the upward effort to becoming good, but how is that possible if I'm already evil? If God is not me, and he is good, and there is duality but not nonduality at bottom, then I am evil and so is anything else that is not God. How then can the evil be good? By becoming God seems the only way. These are the results of God being something other than me myself. All systems which I've studied seem to speak of this, except Paul's. His lamb sacrifice to me does seem to answer the disparity and close the gap, by putting a mediator between God and man, as he says: "there is one God, and one meditator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." He says we give up our nature which is evil, because it is seperate from God's, which is good, and we accept Christ's nature as a gift which then reconciles us to God.