Quote:I don't seek to condemn, sentence, and execute ppl for their beliefs.
Well you sure do a good job of making it look like you do..
Quote:Whatever their beliefs are, they can answer to God for - when they meet him.
If you sincerely believed this, you wouldn't be here arguing.
Quote:There you go again, limiting God
At least I only limit from 3 to 1, you limit from 300 to 3. Do the maths. Your same argument could be used by any polytheist to justify any number of deities, it's not a very sound argument.
Look in your Bible, and see how many times you can count the phrase "Your God is one". Did God all of a sudden realise he's actually 3? did he forget all those OT years when he kept proclaiming himself to be one??
Quote:I could prove to you from Genesis that the creator can be a part of his creation.
If you respect the Jewish Bible???
As stated previously, since we don't know anything at all about it's origins, we do not consider it authoritative.
Quote:Scripture says that God's feet were washed by Abraham's water, and God ate Abraham's meat.
God was hungry and had dirty feet... sounds like you really have respect for your Lord.
I actually looked up the rest of the chapter and read it, quite an interesting read. Abraham (pbuh) according to this chapter argued with God and won? Interesting. He bargained God down from 50 to 10 men to save Sodom and Gommorah, didn't realise he was such an astute haggler. Did you think you were going to somehow increase my respect or your books by showing me this? Everytime I read the Bible, I become more and more convinced that it has been severely corrupted by the whims of men, and more and more glad I rejected it and embraced Islam.
Quote:Why would i need to seek the advice of a ppl whose philosophy is to deceive those not of their group?
i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
Taqiyyah is the license to outwardly deny Islam, in order to save your life, that's all. Although some groups of Shi'a have used it for other purposes, in mainstream Islam (ie. that which is practised by about 90%) it is only a dispensation that can be used in life threatening situations. Did you actually read the wiki article? Or did you just read the term on answering-islam.org and then pasted a link without even knowing what you're pasting?
What you should be investigating, is under what circumstances Muslims have had to use Taqiyyah, I'll give you a hint start in Spain....
Wouldn't have been those nice peace-loving Christians slaughtering any Muslim who didn't publically denounce Islam would it? How about you go wiki
Moriscos.
Quote:Better to look myself, at ISLAMIC doctrine, study the Koran and Hadith, and observe how muslims act in the world.
You're free to study it as you like, but know that you're not looking at Islam, you are looking at it's opponents tainted perception of it.
Quote:But if ISLAM is faultless, as its proponents proclaim, then its virtues will surely shine through any criticism that can be levelled against it.
Yes it will, and in fact there's quite a lot of ex-Christian missionaries who studied Islam to debunk it, and ended up Muslims. So you'd better be careful any way you study it.
A good example of this is
Sheikh Yusuf Estes, an American who embraced Islam, after reading about it, so he could preach to a business colleague. He's now quite a famous propagator of Islam, and has studied Islam extensively in the Middle East. although I guess they put him in the Taqiyyah classes, where the secret Islam isn't taught

Or how about
Dr Gary Miller, a Canadian theologian and missionary and minister who embraced Islam.
Here is a more
extensive list of famous Muslims who were formerly Christians, there's even a whole section of former priests and missionaries. This is the difference between Muslims who convert to Christianity, and Christians who convert to Islam. Christians convert to Islam often from the highest ranks of your religion. The very knowledgable and sincere hard workers. Those Muslims who convert to Christianity are usually either very poor (seeking refuge/wealth from Westerners), unknowledgable about Islam, usually very secular and astray from Islam.
Quote:I have studied some of the Koran and Hadith.
Yeh no doubt. Very very select verses, with a lot of spin from answering-islam.org
Quote:I have studied enough of it, to wish that those ppl who call themselves muslims, would also study the Koran and Hadith, to learn what these books contain, and teach
I've found the average Muslim to know a lot more of his religious texts than the average Christian.
Quote:But to me, much of the Koran and Hadith seem gibberish, and illogical, violent nonsense.
Quite befitting that you used the word 'gibberish' here.
"Gibberish:
The term is first seen in English in the early 16th century. The word comes from the name of the famous 8th-century Islamic alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, whose name was Latinized as "Geber", thus the term "gibberish" arose as a reference to the incomprehensible technical jargon often used by Jabir and other alchemists who followed."Christians weren't capable of underatanding Chemistry at this time... Like Islam for you.