Evangelical Christians often try to put Islam down by saying there is no atonement for sin in Islam, that in Islam sinners can simply be forgiven by God and sent to heaven by being a good person.
For Evangelicals this cannot be, God simply can’t forgive a person of their sin without atonement, the sin cannot simply be absolved by the person repenting and becoming a good person, there must be blood as they.
Now it is true, in Islam God doesn’t require perfection from you to enter paradise, and this is indeed something wonderful. We as humans are not perfect, and we never will be, so how just would it be for God to expect complete perfection from us when we were created to not be perfect?
Having a God that understands your limits, and a God that understands you will make mistakes, and accepts that you will make these mistakes, is a far better and understanding God than one who doesn’t. In Islam it’s not about being perfect, rather it’s about realizing your shortcomings when you make them, and to then pick yourself back up by turning to God.
A God who is always open to you no matter how bad you are is indeed a God worth worshipping, and this is an excellent relationship to have, because no matter how bad you are, God is always there for you to turn to, he doesn’t shut the door on you to reform yourself and make amends, he is waiting and very much willing for you to turn to him and realize the wrongs you have made, and to right those wrongs.
God at the end of the day is the All-Merciful, the All-Forgiving, and the All-Hearing one, so he can forgive and show his mercy to you no matter what, obviously you have to be sincere and change your ways, but the door is not shut, and God doesn’t require perfection from you, and he isn’t going to punish you for eternity just because you were not perfect during your existence.
Now back to the Evangelicals, their position doesn’t really make a lot of sense, for starters they say God can do anything, so if God can do anything, why then can’t he simply forgive the person of their sin, why must their be blood or a sacrifice? Isn’t God capable of doing everything? If he is, then it would be very simple and easy of him to forgive someone’s shortcomings without the necessity of a sacrifice.
Secondly, how just is the human sacrifice of Jesus, has the sin really been atoned for? At close scrutiny, the answer is a solid no. Basically all Jesus dying for you means is that your sin was transferred to Jesus, and he paid for it, how is that just? This is the equivalent of a judge passing the crime and punishment for person A, to person B.
So let’s say person A committed murder, rather than punishing person A for what he has done, and for person A to take full responsibility for what he has done, the judge puts the crime and sentencing on person B, and person A get’s off scotch free, all person A has to do is accept person B taking the fall for him, and he can live happily ever after. What kind of nonsensical theory of justice is this?
Categories: Christianity, Current Affairs, Featured, Islam
The Muslim Debate Initiative 
Could you clarify how justice works in your belief system? For example, take the case of murder that you used.
If someone murders somebody else in Islam, the murderer is to be executed, however the murderer can be pardoned by the family and will then have to pay blood money.
Thank you for your reply. I guess my question was focused more on the example you gave where the substitutionary death of Jesus, accepted by faith, puts a person in right standing with God according to the Christian gospel.
In Islam, how does a murderer (or any sinner, which we all are) gain right standing with God? Forgive me if I missed your point.
“Secondly, how just is the human sacrifice of Jesus, has the sin really been atoned for? At close scrutiny, the answer is a solid no. Basically all Jesus dying for you means is that your sin was transferred to Jesus, and he paid for it, how is that just? This is the equivalent of a judge passing the crime and punishment for person A, to person B.”
how about guilt?
they say,
“The primary condition of the moral value of guilt is that the person who displays it must be the same person who owes it. ”
“guilt is the recognition of one’s own wrongdoing”
“only the sinners own sorrowful self-acknowledgement would be properly called “guilt.” ”
so if jesus did not DO the sin then what is the point in saying , ” dear old lady, please forgive me for robbing you, god created guilt for jesus just for the weekend” ?
a judge punishing himself , using his own punishment powers and making sure that the punishment is over after the weekend CANNOT appease his own JUSTICE.
what can appease his own justice is the following from numbers:
And Yahweh said to Moses: “The man shall be put to death! All the congregation [625,550 men!] is to batter him with stones outside the camp.” (Num 15:35)
there is a rape and pedophilia done in the year 2014
where is the cause and effect between 2014 crimes and jesus’ violent execution?
1. did jesus do rape and pedophilia in 2014?
2. did the action of rape and pedophilia go back in time and work on jesus?
3. did the trinity look at past, present and future actions of rapists and pedophiles and create flesh for itself so that flesh was specifically designed for getting raped by past present and future rapists or did god punish god for what was in his mind/knowledge?
how is the SUFFERING of finite flesh ,JUST for the weekend, going to atone for a crime like rape? does it really matter how much WORKS the rapists did to make AMENDS? the christian god is supposed to be a just god and a just god must punish the rapist .
he cannot take his ACTIONS and PUNISH himself with them.
you see in the torah that picking up sticks on the sabath meant guaranteed death
And Yahweh said to Moses: “The man shall be put to death! All the congregation [625,550 men!] is to batter him with stones outside the camp.” (Num 15:35)
in the same way , the just yhwh , must take out his wrath on the christian rapist and pedophile. no temporary self controlled execution can appease yhwhs justice.
“But substitutionists reverse this natural order of the relation between crime and punishment, making the removal of the “reatus poena” antecedent to the removal of the “reatus culpae”—that is, exemption from punishment is the antecedent of deliverance from criminality.
Hence, the sinner is pardoned, released from all liability to penal suffering, when Christ became his substitute, but is left in his criminal and polluted state; morally corrupt, but not liable to-the divinely ordained consequence of his corruption! At enmity against God, yet not liable to the consequences of that state of enmity. Such a state of things, it is self-evident, is impossible in the sphere of either physical or moral law. It would be possible only in the sphere of human law, and possible here only because of the inherent weakness of human law. Thus, a man commits a malicious murder, is indicted and tried by the proper court; but, by the bribery or death of witnesses, or by corrupting the court, he procures a verdict of acquittal, and is set free. This verdict operates as a barrier against subsequent prosecution and punishment. This is exactly the state in which substitutionary satisfaction puts all for whom Christ died. His death absolutely delivers from “reatus poena,” but leaves them in the meshes of “reatus culpae,” from which, however, they are at some indefinite time to be wholly or in part relieved (pp. 113-14).”
1. murderer would inform his god that he punished himself for the murder he did in year ….
murder would do cheap repentance and do good mixed with sins. christians often tell muslims that nothing they do would be scaled on day of judgement. their repentance and faith and deeds won’t be scaled because yhwh can’t stand repentance, deeds mixed with sins, yhwh requires 100 % perfection. no bloody covering can cure imperfection.
“A God who is always open to you no matter how bad you are is indeed a God worth worshipping, and this is an excellent relationship to have, because no matter how bad you are, God is always there for you to turn to, he doesn’t shut the door on you to reform yourself and make amends, he is waiting and very much willing for you to turn to him and realize the wrongs you have made, and to right those wrongs.”
what i don’t get is that they say that the crucifixion is a “universal sacrifice”
1. a sacrifice means to LOSE something , in jesus case, after a few days , he gets REUNITED with his powers. where is the loss? there is gain and since god owns EVERYTHING , he didn’t lose in the 1st place. if christians say that god has had malfunctioning in his powers since the sacrifice, then one can say god lost functionality and still is malfunctioning.
2. if a diety can BECOME finite and use finite ROMAN hands to change his finite “sacrifice” in to “universal sacrifice” why can’t the muslim god with his INFINITE fairness, kindness, mercy and justice change the DEEDS of a muslim into something bigger? like make it as heavy as a mountain? they say their god has to change finite MURDER into infinite sacrifice, then one can argue that in islam, GOD can make deeds heavy.
Interesting… I do not have much contact with christians which is why I probably have never heard anyone tell me that Islam is ‘soft’ on sins. However I do hear from my indian friends that Islam (or any of the monotheistic religions) is not forgiving of anyone who dies as a disbeliever. For example a good person who dies NOT having believed in Moses/Jesus/Muhammed (p.b.u.t.a), will go to hell regardless of his good deeds or lack of bad deeds. My knowledge is very limited and I am still learning hence I always struggle to answer this question. Please share your thoughts ..
“Abu Burda reported on the authority of his father that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: No Muslim would die but Allah would admit in his stead a Jew or a Christian in Hell-Fire. ‘Umar b. Abd al-‘Aziz took an oath: By One besides Whom there is no god but He, thrice that his father had narrated that to him from Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him).” (Sahih Muslim, bk. 37, no. 6666, Siddique)
Is that Just?
The Hadith say that the Sins of Muslims will be laid onto the shoulders of Jews and Christians …How is that Just or Righteous?
@Craig Macdonald – What Hadith are you referring to?