ptldM3
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Once again, you demonstrate your difficulty with English and Logic. Since your comprehension difficulties are clouded by your bigotry (you again claimed that Catholics are not Christian), I can walk the readers through what the New York Times article talks about.
You keep repeating the same thing without even debating it which tells me you have no argument. On the other, hand i have actually spoken about the subject in depth. So do you want to debate, or do you want keep repeating the same empty rhetoric?
I also said that there is a big difference between Catholicism and Christianity and that many Catholics especially the few that i have spoken to do not like it when people call them Christians. Also refer to # 137, in it i stated that Catholics can call themselves Christians as in they believe in Christ but that Catholics and protestant Christians share very different beliefs. Again do not clump the two together or keep assuming that i somehow favor certain viewpoints based on religion, it does not matter if it's Christian, Catholic or Muslim.
The whole article is about the tactics used by Christian missionaries, specifically in the context of the ongoing controversy about the use of 'Allah'. The 'Allah' issue is the backdrop to the whole debate. It is stated clearly in the first paragraph in plain English.
The debate is as follows:
The unscrupulous missionaries claim their use of 'Allah' is justified and present their case. There is no dispute that they use 'Allah'; the only dispute is whether it is justified.
Congratulations! You have just said what i have been saying in every post. The problem is that before you would not budge and instead insisted that your opinion and the opinion of Dr. Reynolds were unmistakably the correct opinions, while i cautioned that this debate i subjective with different parties disagreeing.
The experts on the other side point out that
a) missionary organizations encourage their operatives to use 'Allah'
b) the missionaries' use of 'Allah' is semantically and theologically incorrect, since the Muslim concept of 'Allah' is fundamentally different from the Christian concept.
In that case then Muslims should not be allowed to use the word 'Jesus' when speaking to Christians since the Muslim concept of Jesus is fundamentally different from the Christian concept.
See what i did there? Your concept is bigotry in its purest form, you are not only advocating suppression of free speech by trying to mask it as differences in concept but you are also advocating the discrimination of Christians which is brushed off as collateral damage.
The question then becomes whether the missionaries are just misguided or deliberately malicious. That's where the experts point out that the missionaries have a history of misconduct and deception. Such misconduct includes calling themselves as 'muslim' to deceive people.
One person has said this and not expert(s). I have stated that missionaries have probably done questionable things in the past but i still questioned Dr. Reynolds source, which he gave none. This is not to say he is a liar but that rather he gives no evidence or back-round to his claim. Being a phD or anyone in power does not excuse you from making mistakes or repeating things that they have heard from other people. Even i have had professors that were bias and mostly one sided.
For example in 2003 when the Bush administration was telling the world of Iraqi WMD the Bush administration lied, not to mention governments agencies also lied to certain people in the Bush administration, in essence a bunch of people in positions of authority were lying. These people were highly educated, had contact with UN weapons inspectors, the CIA, FBI, and various other groups and organizations. Yet these people lied to the world, this included 'experts' lying.
Notice no missionaries have admitted to calling themselves Muslims rather this is an allegation and even if we assume that some missionaries at some point used this tactic. it would be rare even Dr. Reynolds the man that made this claim admitted so by saying it would be "extreme" cases. So if this does happen albeit rarely it would be unjust to impose such a discriminatory rule on an entire people.
The NY Times article, in the interest of fairness, lets both sides tell their point of view. It does NOT change the fact that missionaries engage in misconduct, including calling themselves 'muslim' and using 'Allah' in a way that is theologically inaccurate.
The point is that even Dr. Reynolds states that it happens in "extreme" cases. It is also rare for Muslims to use violence in the name of Islam against other, so just because 1% of Muslims do use violence against other people how fair would it be to impose discriminatory practices against all Muslims? Not very.
And I notice you still haven't answered my question about your idiotic allegation that Dr. Reynolds defended the use of 'Allah'. Go ahead and demonstrate your intellectual (in)competence by showing us where Dr. Reynolds does that.
Listen.....to what i say and what i have said in the past. I stated that it was David Garrison that said this, i said this many times, in one post i inadvertently wrote Dr. Reynolds when i meant to say Dr. Garrison but i have said that it was Dr. Garrison enough times and even before you asked for clarification for you to know that i was talking about Dr. Garrison.
Here i am talking about it:
ptldM3 said:"Garrison never denied using the word allah, in fact he made a strong argument as to why it is appropriate to use."
And here a quote from your source:
As Dr. Garrison explains it, “there is only one God, the God who created the heavens and earth,” so talking about the Christian God as “Allah” is not misleading.