PAUL THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY

PAUL THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY 
 

According to Hart, the honor for founding Christianity is to be shared between Jesus (pbuh) and St. Paul. The latter he believes to be the real founder of Christianity.

I cannot help agreeing with Hart. Out of the total of 27 Books of the New Testament, more than half is authored by Paul. As opposed to Paul, the Master has not written a single word of the twenty-seven books. If you can lay your hands on what is called "'A Red Letter Bible," you will find every word alleged to have been uttered by Jesus (pbuh) - in red ink and the rest in normal black ink. Don't be shocked to find that in this so called "Injeel," the Gospel of Jesus, over ninety percent of the 27 Books of the New Testament is printed in black ink!

This is the candid Christian confession on what they call the "Injeel." In actual any confrontation with Christian missionaries, you will find them quoting one hundred percent from Paul.

NO ONE FOLLOWS JESUS (PBUH)

Jesus (pbuh) said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

He said further, Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven . . ."

(Matthew 5:19)

Every Christian controversialist you question, "Do you keep the laws and the commandments?" will answer, "No!" If you ask further, "Why don't you?" He will if he is a Bible-thumper, invariably reply, "The law is nailed to the cross!" Meaning the law is done away with. "We are now living under grace!"

Every time you prod him with what his Lord and Master (pbuh) had said, he will confront you with something from Cornithians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, etc. If you ask, "Who are they?" You will hear, 'Paul, Paul, Paul!" "Who is your master?" you question, and he will say, "Jesus!" But he will ever and anon contradict his own Jesus (pbuh) by his Paul!

No learned Christian will ever dispute the fact that the real founder of Christianity is St. Paul. Therefore, Michael H. Hart to be fair, had to place Jesus (pbuh), in slot number three. WHY PROVOKE YOUR CUSTOMER? This placing of Christ in the number three spot by Michael H. Hart poses a very serious question for us. Why would an American publish a book of 572 pages in America and selling in America for $15 each, go out of his way to provoke his potential readers? Who will buy his books? Surely, not the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis, neither the Arabs nor the Turks! Except for a few copies here and there, the overwhelming number of his customers will be from the 250 million Christians and the 6 million Jews of America. Then why did he provoke his customers? Did he not hear the dictum - "the customer is always right!" Of course he did. Then why his daring choice. But before I close this episode of Hart, I will allow him to make his one last apology for his "temerity."

"MY CHOICE OF MUHAMMAD TO LEAD THE LIST OF THE WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS MAY SURPRISE SOME READERS AND MAY BE QUESTIONED BY OTHERS, BUT HE WAS THE ONLY MAN IN HISTORY WHO WAS SUPREMELY SUCCESSFUL ON BOTH THE RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR LEVEL." Michael H. Hart "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", New York: Hart Publishing Company, Inc., 1978, p.33.

Source

To Be Continued....

Dajjalian System of Life - Lessons From History

Dajjalian System of Life

It is important to distinguish between Dajjal the individual, and Dajjal as a world-wide intellectual and social phenomenon based on materialism and atheism. The latter is manifested as the philosophical outlook that has taken shape during the last few centuries in Europe, as well as the culture and life-style based upon that Godless outlook. The system of life which is predominantly materialistic and which dominates the entire globe today is actually the “Dajjalian System” itself, whereas the greatest defender of that system will be Dajjal the individual.

As we have seen earlier, the innovations introduced by St. Paul in the original teachings of Prophet Isa (AS) had led to the  genesis  of  a  completely  new  and  different  religion.  The highly  irrational  claim  of  Trinity  ultimately  resulted  in  the divorce between two natural allies, religion and reason. The conversion of Caesar Constantine in 313 C.E., and of the entire Roman Empire during the next hundred years or so, turned out to be the starting point for the establishment of Christian Theocracy in Europe. The huge vacuum created by the Pauline idea of abolition of the Mosaic law was then filled with the virtually unlimited authority of the Church, represented by the infallible Pope. During the Middle Ages the Church and the clergy ruled the masses with an iron hand, oppressing and exploiting them in the name of religion, while discouraging any inclination towards science or rationalism.

The Aristotelian system of cosmos, as adopted by Ptolemy, was already incorporated into the Christian theology. As a result, when Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo opposed the Geocentric doctrine and proposed Heliocentric views based on their scientific observations, the Church condemned and vehemently opposed them as heretics, thus starting the unfortunate rivalry and rift between Science and Religion.

The scientific and rationalistic movement in Europe, therefore, came face to face with the powerful religious establishment of the Church. The latter used all its resources to halt this new wave of progress towards knowledge and learning, but succeeded only in producing among the masses a deep mistrust of all things connected with religion. The ruthlessly unfavorable attitude of the clergy caused a reactionary feeling of hatred against the Church, and then against the very idea of religion itself.

The development of science and philosophy in Europe, therefore, was forced to take place in an environment which was hostile to religion, and this hostility has since then permeated deep down into the very roots of Western thought. The world- view and civilization that grew out of this materialistic frame of mind  is  what  we  call  the  “Dajjalian  System”  of  life.  The hallmark of this system is a profound shift of emphasis — from God the Almighty to the material universe and laws of nature, from   spiritual   pursuits   to   sensual   gratification,   and   from salvation in the life-after-death to material prosperity in this world.

Human beings have been endowed by Almighty Allah (SWT) with two distinct sources of knowledge, that is, (a) information gathered by the senses and their interpretation by means of reason, intellect, and logic; along with (b) Revelation, in order to acquire knowledge of the ultimate realities and also the practical guidance for living a just, virtuous, and balanced life.  However,  the  unfortunate  shift  of  emphasis  mentioned above resulted in a serious imbalance in the modern thinking process. Thus, while humanity has made an incredible amount of progress with regard to science and technology, we see that, correspondingly, religion and morality have undergone unprecedented decay and decline. As such, the Western civilization can be described as possessing only a single eye, epistemologically speaking. In other words, it has invested everything it had into a single source of knowledge — Reason and  Science  —  while  totally  ignoring  the  other,  equally important,   source   of   knowledge   —   Revelation   from   the Heavens.

The  system  of  life  resulting  from  this  materialistic mental attitude is characterized by a morbid preoccupation with collecting things and accumulating money. The corner stone of the Dajjalian System is the producer-consumer process, which is promoted as the ideal way of life. Highly sophisticated means are employed to convince the masses that they want newer and more  expensive products, so that they can be made to work continuously in order to earn the money to pay for the goods and services they don’t even need. The life blood of the Dajjalian System is usury, which is used to subjugate individuals as well as entire nations so that they can be controlled and manipulated by a financial aristocracy. The masses are encouraged to work hard, to enjoy their weekends, to uncritically digest whatever the media feeds them, and to invest all their time and energy in the pursuit of material well-being and sensual gratification. Humans are being reduced to the level of beasts. Endless consumption of products has become the dominant life-style of our times, and people have been made conditioned to measure each other on the basis of wealth and affluence, rather than character and morals. A whole entertainment industry has been created to keep the minds of the masses occupied whenever they are not working.

The entire system is geared so that the overwhelming majority is deprived of either the time or the energy to give any serious thought to the nature of existence, to the Creator, to the accountability in the Hereafter — or to the exploiters. Dajjal the individual   will   represent   the   interests   of   those   who   are financially exploiting the whole world, against those who are being exploited. After the Armageddon, a Just Social Order will replace the present Dajjalian System, and there shall be no more exploitation.

Source:Lesson from History (Book) by Dr. Israr Ahmad

The Myth of Crucifixion - Lessons From History

The Myth of Crucifixion

Last, but not the least, is the matter of the alleged crucifixion  of  Prophet  Isa  (AS),  regarding  which  there  is  a crucial disagreement between the Islamic belief and the account of the four Canonical Gospels. According to the latter, the supreme Jewish authority in Roman Palestine — the Sanhedrin — convicted Jesus of blasphemy and insisted for death sentence, which was carried out by the Roman governor Pilate Pontius by way of crucifixion. Afterwards, on the third day, the dead body of Jesus Christ was miraculously resurrected and revived; the Christ then met with his disciples, and, after giving them some instructions, ascended into the heaven.

On the other hand, the Holy Qur’an strongly rejects the idea of Prophet Isa (AS) having been crucified, and — according to the authentic Prophetic traditions or Hadith — he was saved from such an accursed and humiliating death by direct Divine intervention and raised up alive into the heavens. It has also been unequivocally explained to us by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) that Prophet Isa (AS) will reappear on earth to live out the rest of his life, and then he will die like any other mortal.

The only void left in this Islamic tradition, however, concerns the “when” and “where” of the ascension of Prophet Isa  (AS),  and  the  question  regarding  “who”  actually  got crucified in his place. This vacuum can be satisfactorily filled with the help of the narration in the “Gospel of Barnabas” according to which, when the traitor Judas Iscariot came ahead of the Roman soldiers and entered the garden where Prophet Jesus Christ was hiding, God the Almighty caused his face and voice to be changed so that he looked and talked exactly like Jesus, while in the meantime the prophet himself was raised up into  the heavens. 

Thus it was the traitor who was crucified, while Prophet Jesus Christ was miraculously saved by direct Divine intervention. It may be pointed out here that, unlike Barnabas who was a close disciple and companion of Prophet Jesus, none of the writers of the four so-called authentic gospels — i.e., Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John — ever met with the prophet himself. These gospels were written between 70 C.E and 115 C.E. but their earliest available manuscripts date back to the fourth century C.E, making their authenticity rather dubious. 

A number of different gospels were in circulation throughout the early  period  of  Christianity,  the  manuscripts  of  which  were freely altered and amended by the copyists in order to suit the doctrines of their particular sect. The four gospels that are included in the New Testament were accepted as genuine by the Church — and the rest were rejected as apocryphal, and their possession prohibited — not on the basis of merit, but only because these four books were in conformity with the official Church dogma. 

The Gospel of Barnabas was among the books that were banned in 325 C.E by the Nicean Council; it was forbidden by the Decree of the Western Churches in 382 C.E; it was again banned by Pope Innocent in 465 C.E, and then by the Glasian Decree in 496 C.E. 

To this day, Christian authorities refuse to accept the Gospel of Barnabas as authentic, despite striking similarities between this Gospel and the documents discovered in 1947 in the caves of Qumran, popularly called the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is because the Gospel of Barnabas proclaims  absolute  Divine  Unity,  criticizes  the  pagan innovations of St. Paul, declares the truth about the myth of Crucifixion, and, above all, contains unambiguous prophecies regarding  the  advent  of  Prophet  Mohammad  (SAW),  all  of which is enough to destroy the very foundations of the Christian faith  as  it  exists  today.   

However,  any  unbiased  comparative study  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Dead  Sea  Scrolls,  and  the Gospel of Barnabas is bound to reveal that this gospel is the correct and genuine account of the life and teachings of Prophet Isa (AS), not withstanding the flimsy objections being raised by the Christians.

Source:Lesson from History (Book) by Dr. Israr Ahmad