"Jesus was Muslim" could some one explain this to me?

[Toddlerteaplease]

Not trying to be goady, I'm genuinely puzzled by this statement. I saw it on one of the stalls giving out Information and literature about Islam, In my city centre. I am aware that Jesus is regarded as a prophet In Islam. But since he was Jewish, his entire life, I'm not sure how anyone can claim he was Muslim.

@Feelingathomenow The 3 faiths are different because we follow different books.

We believe that the previous book and its rules are invalidated when the new prophet comes with a new book

If I was born before Muhammad, the correct religion for me was that of Christ, according to our belief. But since Muhammad arrived already I follow him

Similarly if I was born before Christ, the prophet in charge was Moses and I would follow his rules. (Message is same, rules are different for each time).

Jews rejected Christ, so they continued with Torah and its rules. Christians and Jews rejected Muhammad so they continue with Bible and Torah respectively.

Also regarding misogyny and aggressive, I know what you mean so I suggest to sincerely learn Islam from the its real source, the Quran, not from the behaviours of some Muslims.

What an interesting thread. I find a number of bits hard to grasp. Jesus was Jewish, so this OP's stalls statement just doesn't sit well with me, it's just a twist that suits. It's like if you twist something enough, insisting black is white, it eventually will be.
And I don't agree with Islam dying out, I think it's the opposite, and is on the rise, and may take over.

Well I’m afraid the one Jewish person you spoke with isn’t really speaking for all Jews. In fact there is really no official Jewish consensus there beyond Jesus did not fulfil messianic prophecies. Of course each montheistic religion will be complete (subject, usually to the the end of times) as otherwise it would leave it open to uncertainty and even more manipulation- in short it would remove its power.

If someone else came a long claiming to be a prophet ahead of Mohammed Islam would also reject it because otherwise it would deem their religion null and void.

If a new religion came along (as is inevitable) called itself Miat and said that word meant that everyone is a worshipper of God it also came along, as all religions do with a series of rules and beliefs would you think you're now Miatian not Muslim?

Islam comes with a series of requirements, a set of beliefs. Outside of those beliefs a Muslim is someone who follows Islam. If you’re saying all it takes to be Mudd sad Kim os to submit to God then why can’t a midd sad Kim eat certain things or dress in certain ways. Why do they need to believe certain things are required? If you say you need to do these things to submit to God then, by your definition someone eating a ham sandwich or any other forbidden food is not Muslim. The concept you’re talking about falls apart under even the most cursory of glances.

Of course Islam will eventually disappear, religions always do. Usually a religion will disappear either by coming into contact with a different set of beliefs, those beliefs not fitting into a changed culture or because those beliefs no longer serve the purpose for which they are designed. I would suggest, with globalisation many of these factors are currently inter playing with Islam. It might have a brief rise as it tries to rally and cling to life, but like all religions it will eventually die out and be replaced by something different.

I highly suspect the next major religion will be Earth based with rules to back up scientific analysis on how to heal the earth. Bit like the banning of shellfish in hot climates religions was designed as a public health measure, no mixed cloths as a trading standards measure, buying dead quickly etc. In fact we are slowly starting to see the resurgence of earth based religions. Traditional religions will face a dilemma of balancing the need to have sufficient numbers in order to protect themselves and not have too many followers to have insufficient resources. At this point “everyone is Muslim” will definitely disappear out of Islam.

I do always find it perplexing why followers of a religion don’t think theirs will go the way of hundreds before them.

All religions die out, patients often rally as the try and cling on to life just before death

Oh Jews didn’t all reject Christ, some fully accepted him - we refer to those people as the first Christian’s. In fact for many years Christianity was seen as a Jewish cult.

I’m afraid that most of the teachings of the Quran appear misogynistic to most westerners. It’s not just teachings in a book, it is the actions of its followers which show what a religion is.

How do you think it will pan out and why?

"Jesus is a muslim" followed by "it's as simple as that" 😂
Bold statements to make. Your name must be ironic

@Feelingathomenow
The major religions have the world have been practised for thousands of years by thousands of staunch believers across the world and you are confident they will die out 🤨

For someone who believe religions are going to die out, it's curious why you're expending so much energy into it.

Since you bought up misogyny - Islam is most certainly empowering for women. And the opinions of "most of the westerners" are not a paragon of virtue.

While the west was grappling in dark ages burning 'witches', Islam granted rights to women that were revolutionary for their time, such as inheritance rights, the right to own property and the right to consent to marriage.

I feel this conversation has run its course now. I was sharing facts about Islam relevant to what OP asked. No intention to prove anything to anyone or convince anyone. This is what Islam teaches, whether it sits well with anyone or not.
The Quran says "do not force religion upon anyone". It's completely a choice.

To you is your way and to me mine.

I like the way your attitude has changed once I start asking difficult questions about the illogical nature of your/islams argument. Are you not able to answer these questions or just unwilling. You don’t seem to want to answer what you meant by “ we’ll see how your prediction pans out”.

There have been innumerable religions that have died out, I could still find pockets of people worshipping Isis but most would argue that the Egyptian religion of Osiris, Isis, Horus etc is dead. The religions of the Aztecs, Incas etc. dead but for small pockets.

The Jewish and Christian religions have changed so much, they are largely secular now in the West. The same will happen to Islam in the west there is no institutional support or integration into the fabric of society that will be needed for it to survive in the West. There is no appetite amongst the vast majority of people to see a reintegration of religion and the state, it is moving increasingly away from this. Where it does exist, that religion will always be Christianity because that is the religion against which the institutions of government were founded.

Where states have an Islamic basis it will be interesting to see how that develops in the face of growing globalisation and resource decline Many of the rules in these states are directly in opposition to the values of western democracy. Foremost amongst these is the treatment of women. No one in the West is going to put up with systems which can see a woman flogged for being raped - remember the poor female official in the World Cup, where girls are denied education, where they can’t drive, where they have to cover up in public, where being gay can land you in prison etc no western woman is going to want her brother tagging along if she’s meeting a make friend etc. so Islam is faced with a decision adapt or decline if Islamic countries want to take part in globalisation. The same can be said of the few fundamentalist religious countries who aren’t Islamic and are for example Christian.

Your claim Islam was giving women rights when the west were burning witches is pointless, when was the last witch burned in the west? Where are women’s rights in Islamic countries now?

Why am I discussing this? Well I think it both interesting and important.

Regarding “don’t force religion on anyone” how’s that going In Afghanistan?

We will certainly see how it pans out. I think we have about 3m of the 67m in the UK who are muslim, so pretty small. The Uk does have a growing population. Generally when people move here from countries with high birth rates after a generation or two birth rates go down for the newcomers and UK secular influences tend to have an influence on people losing their faith but obviously some cultures have managed to continue here not least because we are one of the most accepting countries on the planet which is probably one reason people want to come (we are second to the US now only for number of people arriving each year - peak Britain as it were.....)

Different religions do spring up over time eg the LDS in the US in the 1800s (after Islam) who say Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ in the USA. For most of mankind's history the religions of today were not of course practised. Our species emerged from Africa about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Homo erectus before that survived for 2m years - they are probably more successful in terms of surviving for a long time that home sapiens which seems intent on doing itself in. So in terms of religious survival we have about 2m years of none of the more recent religions and several thousand for some of the more recent ones.

Yes I do always wonder how anyone comes to the conclusion their religion is “the one” when they only exist for a blink of an eye. This is because humanities needs change, and religion arises out of human need.

in many ways Islam is already on the decline, even Muslim scholars agree it’s “golden age” ended in th 14th century. Birth rates are growing numbers, but as you say this will naturally level off, probably in 20-40 years.

Yes Britain is very tolerant but it’s also very defensive driven when the need arises.

Yes. I am just finishing a book I started last week on holiday The Witness Wore Red (about a splinter group from the LDS/Mormon church who kept the 1800s faith of polygamy as indeed does Islam although in each case it is the men are allowed more than one wife but women are not allowed more than one husband - Islam limits it to four and the aim back in the day was to ensure men stuck with their first wife and financially protected up to 4 wives which when that rule came out in Islam was, given the times, protection for women. The FLDS was similar - widowed women, no means of support and a man would take them on and it became you only get to the higher reaches of heaven if you have 3 wives, 7 even better and the "Prophet" (who is now in a US jail) many more.

That book by a lady who escaped does explain well how people can believe theirs is the one true religion. In fact the FLDS were told the world would end in the year 2000, sold businesses, got ready and then told they were not worthy enough so it was all delayed, again and again.

A lot of the fundamentals of most of the main religions are good - family values, kindness, respecting others, helping in effect groups of people live in harmony with each other. All very interesting stuff.

It’s interesting isn’t it how the religious rules start off with good intentions, and indeed are useful at the time they were invented yet when society changes, these rules, unless the religion adapts, often become the source of pain.

You could say the same about the origins of views on homosexuality (and it is nearly always gay relationships between men rather than between women that’s the issue). Why would this be a problem? Well when women relied on their husbands to survive, it was important that there were sufficient men for women to marry so it was important that all men were available for marriage. In a time of high infant mortality it was important that the numbers of children were optimised. Men being gay affected both of these things.

Now women can be self sufficient, rates of infant mortality is vanishingly small in the west - yet faiths continue to vilify people for being gay, because they don’t understand the origins of the rule. In order for faiths to remain relevant they need to adapt to the times. They can do this by having fundamental purposes and being less tied into the rules to facilitate these purposes. Once these rules become archaic, an organisation protecting them becomes irrelevant. New churches then spring up - some cling on to old rules and attract those in fear of change other religions spring up with new rules, relevant to the contemporary world addressing the same framework

Yes. In fact I remember to this day my (Catholic) mother telling me why so many rules from the middle east were about foods going off in hot desert conditions which of course makes sense - you don't leave pork and shellfish etc out in the sun in burning hot temperatures.

I think the ancient Greeks were pretty happy with gay men - they got up to all sorts.

@Xenia

I think that the foundations of early Catholicism were heavily influenced by Greek intellectual thought and knowledge. In inheriting all of this, the church tried to avoid inheriting some of the cultural practices of ancient Greece, nominally the pederasty as that didn't sit with the framework of the family unit and crucially, the right to autonomy for all individuals ( the younger boys were groomed by the older men) - the idea that we are all individuals of value in the eyes of God. That's why homosexuality was seen as taboo as it was the practice in ancient Greece they wanted to prevent. I also read that it could be a translation error as in the word for pedophile/pederast was mistranslated as homosexual from Greek.

Yes you a trace Greek philosophy very easily into a lot of the gospels. The Pauline books obviously have a lot of Greek mixed with Jewish mysticism. All the NT reflects many old Jewish laws.

because muslims believe that everyone is born muslim. That's why they call those that convert to islam REVERTS as in they are going back to their original faith.