The spread of Christianity

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I thought Muhammad was a prophet.

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Depends on what you believe. Muslims believe he was the last prophet, non Muslims believe he is just the founder of Islam.

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The questin is, why? Was he merely persuasive, or was it more than that?

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Again, it depends on what you believe. The Bible states Jesus performed many miracles, that would certainly help gain many followers.

okay, as to the miracles, in the movie 'Snatch', in the first scene, they discuss that in the bible, we are told Jesus "walked on water", but that the actual translation is "walked by the water".

does anyone know if this is true?

as far as relevance, this goes towards the 'miracles' statement posted above.

[Mackerel]

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okay, as to the miracles, in the movie 'Snatch', in the first scene, they discuss that in the bible, we are told Jesus "walked on water", but that the actual translation is "walked by the water".

does anyone know if this is true?

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I am no theologian, and I'm certainly not an expert on the ancient Greek language, but every independent translation of the bible that I'm familiar with translates the verse "walked on the water".

[RJT]

Lestat,

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Excuse my ignorance on this, but isn't Muhammad's following on par with Jesus'? Did Muhammad recognize Jesus? If someone could provide these answers, I'd really appreciate it.

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Not sure what you mean by “on par”. Christians believe Jesus is both man and God. That He is God incarnate. “The Word made Flesh“, we often say when referring to Jesus. (So, no not on par.)


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I thought Muhammad was a prophet.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that Jesus surfaces among many religions. Proof that he was certainly listened to and taken seriously by many. The question is, why? Was he merely persuasive, or was it more than that?

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It is my understanding that Muhammad is believed to be a prophet to whom Allah dictated the Koran.

Was Jesus more than to what you refer? Well, we Christians believe so.


RJT

I don't think that Christianity was even that popular before Constantine. I'd say that Emperor Constantine was the second greatest spreader of Christianity next to Jesus. I think that if it weren't for Constantine that the Christian religion wouldn't be near what it is today and may not even be around today.

[chezlaw]

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
Not likely to be of interest if you don't believe in natural selection. Fun read though.

chez

[purnell]

404 not found. I tried typing it in manually but still got an error. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Yeah, just clicking on it doesn't seem to work. But, if you highlight it and then just copy and then paste it into a new page it works just fine. Try it, it worked for me.

[chezlaw]

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404 not found. I tried typing it in manually but still got an error. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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try this

[purnell]

Dawkins' virus analogy seems pretty plausible to me. I had never thought about it that way before, and need some time to digest it fully. Anybody else read that essay? What do you think?