WHY DID THESE PEOPLE EMBRACE ISLAM?

(56)

DIFFERENT FATHERS

I am M. E. Proust, 31 years. I was a regular reader of The New Testament, where I came across many contradictions which I could not reconcile, especially those related to Jesus.

I could not understand how Jesus can be the son of God and God at the same time, nor how he is the son of Joseph, the son of God, and the Son of David, all at the same time, as The New Testament tells.

The Holy Quran of Islam genealogically refers to Jesus in one single way only, i.e., the son of Mary. No one can deny that Jesus is the son of Mary. Islam always gives the indisputable truth, the clear truth, the unrefusable undeniable truth. You never find any false statements in The Holy Quran, God's pure true final word.

(57)

THE LAMB

I am K. A. Randolph, 30 years. The church always repeats that Jesus is the Lamb of God slain to bear our sins. I thought if the Lamb is always there ready to bear our sins, then we should never worry about committing as many sins as we like as long as we have the Lamb, someone who is always ready to pay the bill.

The church simply says to us, "Sin, and the Lamb will carry your sin." I figure out that this lamb theory is a very strange, illogical, and ethically destructive theory. As a matter of fact, it encourages people to sin and sin and sin worrying about nothing because God offered his beloved only son as a sacrifice on the cross in order to save them from the burden of sin. The church is implying this message to its followers: be as sinful as you wish to be because all your sins were, are, and will be paid for and borne by Jesus.

The church message is simply destructive to morality, ethics, good behavior, and community welfare. What people actually need, I believe, is not an encouragement to sinning, but rather a discouragement. People must be warned against sin, rather than be tempted to do it.

Islam, I have known, does the opposite of what Christianity does. Islam keeps on warning people against sin and its dangers. Islam teaches people that if you sin, it is you, and only you, who will pay for it, not Jesus or any other one. Islam teaches that all your good deeds and all your bad deeds will be written in your record, and on the Day of Judgment the balance will be worked out: which overweighs which? Do your good deeds overweigh or do your bad deeds overweigh? As a result, Islam builds up in the individual a sense of ethical responsibility, certainly not achieved by the Christian lamb theory.

I have chosen Islam because once you truly know it, you cannot but accept it. I am absolutely sure, beyond any doubt, that Islam is the only right choice.

(58)

INCOMPLETE

I am J. A. Swift, 45 years. I was attending a Sunday prayer, which I used to observe regularly. The priest referred us to the ten commandments in The Old Testament. He also emphasized the fact that the ten commandments do not appear in The New Testament and that they only appear in The Old Testament.

I thought that the ten commandments are the only ethical code in the whole Bible and I wondered, if they are so important, why they appear only in The Old Testament and not in The New Testament as well. The reason, I thought, may be that a Christian should abide by both Testaments and that the two testaments are to be considered as one book. However, this explanation is opposed by the fact that the church has cancelled The Old Testament, which is referred to selectively only. Although Jesus said that he came to confirm Moses' law, the church cancelled this law. Then Paul came and cancelled most of what Jesus enjoined. Finally, we ended with a Christianity that has little to do with Jesus Christ.

It also occurred to me that most of the ten commandments are in the negative, i.e., don'ts. What if the verbal prohibition is not obeyed in practice? What if killing actually happens despite the don't? What if stealing happens? What if fornication or adultery happens? The New Testament gives no penalties if a transgression occurs, probably because our Jesus, the Lamb, will bear or has already borne all our past, present, and future sins, crimes, and what not.

In Islam, I know, there are so many detailed commandments about behavior, which makes human life so happy because there is little room for faults if God's word is listened to. A Muslim lives in light: everything is clear and well-defined. The Muslim knows what to do, what to say, and how to behave because all is made clear in the message of Islam, unlike Christianity, which leaves its followers in complete darkness and in puzzling skepticism most of the time.

Islam does not only give commandments but it also gives penalties if the commandments are violated. Islam gives advice and gives punishment too. Islam meets the psychology of humans better. Islam does not preach and teach only; it also punishes transgressors.

(59)

ONE, NOT THREE

I am Y. J. Thomas, 40 years. The church says that The Bible is God's word, but I began doubting this claim when I started examining The Bible. For one thing, The Old Testament always talks about one God, whereas The New Testament sometimes refers to three gods. How can the book of God not be sure about God Himself? Does God not know whether He is one or three?!

Because of this, among other reasons, I seriously began to suspect the origin of The Bible and began to doubt its authenticity. I have come to the conclusion that The Bible cannot be God's pure word.

In contrast, The Holy Quran, the book of Islam, consistently refers to God as one. I take The Holy Quran to be God's pure word. That is why I have embraced Islam, the religion of pure monotheism.

(60)

LOST ORIGINAL

I am P. D. Thoreau, 21 years. The original version of Jesus' Gospel in Hebrew is lost. Of course, God could have preserved it if He had wanted to. But He did not wish to do so. This is a proof that God does not want The Gospel to be His final word. Had God wanted The Gospel to be His final word, He would have preserved its original from loss.

Because the original of Jesus' gospel is lost, nobody knows for sure what God's word to Jesus really was. That is why we have now the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In fact, in the beginning, there were more than one hundred different gospels, which the church reduced repeatedly and gradually until the number finally reached four. The fact that the gospels are four proves the point, i.e., that God's pure word to Jesus or Jesus' gospel is lost. What The New Testament now has is merely stories about Jesus, some of which are true and some are not, some of which are complete and some are not.

Looking at The Holy Quran, the Holy Book revealed by God to Prophet Muhammad, I know that The Holy Quran is, was , and will be as it was revealed in its original form and original language, i.e. Arabic, with no letter more and no letter less, in one form and one version. God has preserved The Holy Quran because He wants it to be His only final Revealed Book. The only book that contains God's pure word is The Holy Quran, not The Bible. That is why I have embraced Islam. The fact that God has preserved The Holy Quran from corruption and has not preserved The Bible proves that The Holy Quran, not The Bible, is God's pure word.