> In the case of Christianity, the New Testament actually contains only
a very small set of words attributed to Jesus. Jesus only taught for
about 3 years, partially in secret, and even towards the end of his
ministry his closest disciples still didn't totally understand
everything he was talking about. Paul's words make up more of the
Bible than any other person's, including Jesus. Paul never met Jesus
in the flesh. And actually persecuted the early Christians until he
had his experience on the road to Damascus. He didn't even spend much
time with the disciples who knew Jesus (out of 13 or so years, he
might have spent 2 weeks with a small group of them in Jerusalem).
James had a different interpretation from Paul's and he was Jesus' own
brother and the head of the church in Jerusalem. And we know that
there were many other non-Pauline groups in existence which could also
claim to be authentic.
<I will assume for the sake of argument that your description above is historically 100% accurate. So do you propose that the advent of Jesus was basically useless and was not a guide in any way to the people? You yourself agreed that SOME FORMS of Christianity to really convey the essence of what Jesus taught: One God, Oneness of humanity, etc. Did these Christians accidentally come to believe these things? Or did they come to believe these things based on one of the versions of the contemporary Gospel? Who guided mankind from the death of Jesus until the manifestation of Muhammad? Do you really think we were left alone by God during this time?
>In the case of Islam, the Quran consists of words which were spoken by
Muhammad (saaws) . And you might not like them, but our knowledge of
the prophet is also supplemented by hadith.<
I don't think whether or not I like them is the issue. The issue is, how realistic is it really that God, who is supposedly infinite, compressed all His knowledge into one single Book we call the Qur'an? I believe since God's knowledge is infinite, so too are His Books. In a thousand years or so, God will continue revealing His Book where He left off with the Kitabi Aqdas.
> I think it is easier to make a case that Islam accurately represents
the teachings of Muhammad (saaws) than one can argue that modern-day
Christianity represents the teachings of Jesus. In the latter case,
there is alot more distance, and seperation and gaps.
<
I believe unity is one of the most fundamental principles of God. Islam was disunited as soon as Muhammad passed away. There is no logical way we humans can unite the Shi'a with the Sunni, let alone unite the whole world. Their differences are too fundamental. Therefore, God needs to intervene to bring about the unity of mankind: This is the goal of the Baha'i Revelation.
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