Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!kilroy
From: kilroy@mimsy.umd.edu (Nancy's Sweetie)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: "People of the Book"
Message-ID: <4768@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 5 Mar 90 23:57:55 GMT
References: <4549@accuvax.nwu.edu>
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Reply-To: kilroy@mimsy.umd.edu (Nancy's Sweetie)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
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Approved: sadeghi@oxy.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)

Naim Abdullah writes:
>
> Believing that Jesus was the son of God or believing in the trinity is
>clearly "shirk".  [...]
>
>In my opinion, the "Christians, Jews and Sabeans" (CJS) referred to in the
>ayah mentioned by Basalat MUST be those who are following the original
>teachings of Jesus or the original teachings of Moses.

Most Trinitarians I know consider the doctrine `a mystery', and are actually
quite monotheistic about Christianity in practice.

Anyway, while it may be `clear' to you that believing in the Trinity is
`shirk', I do not see the issue as quite that cut & dried.  The doctrine
pretty clearly states that there is only one God, it just attempts to
describe what he is like (internal structure, sort of).  I will certainly
grant that it is confusing, and indeed the idea that some people carry in
their heads probably does come out polytheistic; before I can actually
accept that a claim against it has any validity, I'd have to be convinced
that the idea being argued against is not itself considered wrong by
the doctrine.

[ Note that I am not arguing for the Trinity, since I'm not sure it makes
  any sense myself (I am one of those very monotheistic Trinitarians I
  mentioned above  8-) ; I am just picky about counterarguments. ]


I am also curious about is what allowances are made for ignorance and human
error.	You claim that Christians/Jews do not follow the original teachings
of Jesus/Moses; but does it make any difference if they think that they are,
having studied the issue to the best of their ability?	Does it matter if
they have never heard of the Quran?  What about those Christians/Jews who
died before the Quran was written?


kilroy@cs.umd.edu	   Darren F. Provine	      ...uunet!mimsy!kilroy
"It's not what you know, it's what you think you know." -- Steve Martin