Addendum to my previous i-log

This is mainly a response to the person who accused me of religious ethnocentrism because of what I wrote in the i-log titled Allah.

I am not really surprised at the comprehension level of those who call themselves scholars. A person who is no less guilty of stereotyping and making gross assumptions has told me that I am racist for what I wrote. I would like someone who is a little more objective point out where it is that I said anything negative about people's faith other than there is a difference in the nature of Allah of the faiths that I listed. That is a fact based on faith. And that is primarily to what I was referring.

In my last paragraph where does "we" become one-sided? I do not believe I said anything about one faith being guilty of atrocities towards humankind. If that is what you see, that is YOUR perception, which I am only too aware, has got you attacking windmills thinking they may be giants (thank you Don Quixote) more often than I can presently recall. I suppose when I say the "history of the world", I am only being one-sided about said history?

Furthermore, yes, you are correct, the word "Trinity" that is part of the Orthodox Christian belief, never escaped from Jesus' lips. All Christians would agree on that. The "Trinity" was formulated as part of our creed, and the Church Fathers formulated that based on their reading and subsequent understanding of Gospel readings and the Pauline epistles, among others in the New Testament. They arrived at this formulation in the wake of controversies and heresies such as Arianism regarding the nature of God, as well as that of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The history of this is a lot more detailed and complex than I am posting here. I think Wikipedia summarizes it quite well. I can also recommend certain texts that would help explain that better in terms of Church history IF only you were interested. Of course there are Christians who do not accept the Trinity, and those are the schisms within Christianity. As a Muslim, you trying to point out what the Trinity is/was is appreciated, but it is not something that you believe in as it is. And my belief IS what I profess in the Nicene Creed. Right there, we are already at an impasse in regards to the "Trinity".

What I said about Arab Christians using the word Allah before the dawn of Islam is true. I also meant that Arab Orthodox Christians and Catholics, and other Christians whose creed includes their belief in the Trinity believe in the Trinitarian Allah TODAY, as well as centuries past. I said that based on the Byzantine chant I posted in my previous ilog which you may not have read.

As to your warning to me about the "white man". That too is appreciated. I do always watch out for the "white man". By the way Christianity did not see the dawn as the result of the "white man" unless you choose to see Semites as such. It was certainly distorted, and perverted by the "white man". But I do not follow such a man, or woman for that matter. Thank you for the warning though, it is good to know you are watching out for me. :)

I am not opening this up to comments for you because I am not going to discuss this with you any further. You can choose to believe my blog was ethnocentrically motivated, and it is unfortunate that you do. I guess you really did not read the i-log prior to the one on which you based your accusation - the one where I said that I have a problem with hyper-ethnocentrism. As I said earlier, we are already at an impasse because of our different beliefs. I think we should leave it at that and acknowledge that we are not in agreement. I won't ask you to apologize for what you've accused me of, and we can still try to maintain civil conversations.

Again, thanks for your comments, and I hope you have a nice day too.