Category Archives: Anthony Rogers

Refutation: True Shahada Indeed

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Exposing lies, misconceptions & misunderstandings

regarding John 17:3 

Question Mark

Purpose


This paper will serve (Inshallah) as an utter debunk to the lies, misconceptions, misunderstandings and outright abuses which Anthony Roger tried to knit at: (http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/true_shahada.html). I would discourage readers to read his article rigged with mordant remarks and filthy invectives on Allah and Mohammad, peace be upon him.

Prelude


His paper specifically tries to establish deity of Jesus, peace be upon him, through:
(i) A comparative study of John 17:3 with Islamic shahada
(ii) Flimsy attempts to refute Muslim arguments on John 17:3 through:
(a) “The conjoining of Father and Son”
(b) “Father and Son are Coordinate sources of Eternal life”
(c) “Contextually Relevant Considerations”In the few passages to follow any unbiased reader would, Inshallah, witness truth. So, unbiased, I leave it at your objective perusal.

Our stand


In the house of Islam there are no clouds of conjectures and doubts hovering above the head of this mighty “Son of Man” named Jesus, peace be upon him. For we read in Quran:
“…Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) An apostle of God…” (THE HOLY QURAN 4:171)

AND
“The similitude of Jesus before God is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him: “Be”: And he was.” (THE HOLY QURAN 3:59)
But the Christolator says, NO – “Jesus is God” discrediting the Last Testament. So, we show to them from their so called ‘Word of God’. (Reader would soon read my upcoming article proving logically that Bible, as a whole cannot be an inspired word of God)

Left over proof text

At this point of time let me make it absolutely clear that when I witness Biblical verses to Christians I do so because they mistake it to be the Word of God. I do not. I do not consider Biblical verses, I use, to be any type of “Left over Islamic proof text.” As Anthony wrote:
“…many Muslims believe that John 17:3 is a left over Islamic proof-text found in otherwise corrupted book.” (Emphasis mine)
Our proof text is Quran – Quran is our “Alpha and Omega”; the final authority. We only use Biblical verse because it helps us extricate millions of Christians carrying heavy yokes of associating partners to God – Almighty; POLYTHEISM.


What is in the box
“And eternal life means knowing you, the only true God, and knowing Jesus Christ, whom you sent.” (HOLY BIBLE, JOHN 17:3, TEV)
Roger writes in his paper that Muslims use the aforementioned verse to prove two points:
“1) a Unitarian – Islamic version of monotheism.., The first claim is immediately undermined by the fact that the one whom Jesus calls “the only true God” is the Father (John 17:1-2)”

The Refutation


To begin with, Muslims do not try to prove “Unitarian – Islamic version of monotheism”. They but strive to prove “Tawheed”. There is a difference of chalk and cheese between the two. The difference between these two concepts are beyond the scope of this refutation.
Then, this witty fabrication of a misconception to score cheap points over Muslims can be debunked by the fact that Muslims do not abhor the word “Father” per say given the knowledge of Jewish parlance and vernacular, that is, the way the Israelites used the word “Father.” Consider these verses for instance:

“Do you thus deal with the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not yourFather, who bought you?” (THE OPEN BIBLE, DEUTERONOMY 32:6, NKJV). Emphasis mine.
“Doubtless You are out Father,..” (THE OPEN BIBLE, ISAIAH 63:16, NKJV). Emphasis mine.
“Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?”(THE OPEN BIBLE, MALACHI 2:10, NKJV). Emphasis mine.

Conclusively then, the Jews never used the word “Father” with its literal import whenever referring to God. It was just a part of their living language that for some out of other reason they preferred calling God as “Father”. In this sense Muslims have no problems at all with the word – “Father”. However what a Muslim seriously repels is the LITERAL understanding and usage of this blasphemous word “Father” when used for ALLAH (John 3:16 abuses ALLAH with the same. Kindly read John 3:16 in conjunction with Quran 19:88). This kind of rendering is anathematized in Islam and we will continue to eschew it.
Furthermore, because many may not be acquainted with Jewish colloquism added with the problem of variations of connotations of words with generations; Muslims play safe not to use the word “Father” to refer to ALLAH. Anyway, it does not make sense for a Muslim to use a vulnerable word when 099 attributive names are readily available in Quran. Let us take an example to close this argument. Now – a – days people generally call Nature as “Mother Nature”. Now if, somebody, Anthony Roger in particular, starts to understand it literally (!) then, I think, he should immediately consult a psychologist.

He wrote that Muslims use John 17:3 to:
“and 2) a denial of the deity of Christ.” He argued in this fashion to defend deity of Christ:
“As for the second claim, that Jesus is not God, it rests on a logical fallacy. The reasoning goes something like this: The Father is the only true God, Jesus is not the Father; therefore, Jesus is not God. When stated more formally, the argument takes the following form : A is B; C is not A; therefore, C is not B.
Even someone untrained in logic should be able to immediately see that this is fallacious. It is no different than arguing the following: Plato (A) is mortal (B); Socrates(C) is not Plato (A); therefore, Socrates(C) is not mortal (B). Both argument – the one against Christ’s deity and the one against Socrates mortality – take the same form; hence, both are fallacious.”. (Emphasis mine.)

The Refutation

What the ‘trained Logician’ did was he used another construction of PLATO (A), MORTAL(B) AND SOCRATES (C) to logically break the construction and interpretation of FATHER (A), ONLY TRUE GOD(B), JESUS(C) as used in John 17:3. A meticulous perusal of the 2 constructions will undoubtedly establish that the 2 constructions does not “take the same form”. The first argument was mischievously tailored to look “no different” than the second.

Where is the catch

Let us arrange the above constructions one after the other:
“As for the second claim, that Jesus is not God, it rests on a logical fallacy. The reasoning goes something like this: The Father is the only true God, Jesus is not the Father; therefore, Jesus is not God. When stated more formally, the argument takes the following form : A is B; C is not A; therefore, C is not B.”
So, we have:
A(1) = The Father
B(1) = Only True God
C(1) = Jesus
AND:
“It is no different than arguing the following: Plato (A) is mortal (B); Socrates(C) is not Plato (A); therefore, Socrates(C) is not mortal (B).”
So, here we have:
A(2) = Plato
B(2) = Mortal
C(2) = Socrates

So, were you alert enough while reading the above 2 breakups and constructions, if not, then re – read breakup numbered B(1) and B(2). When once adjective “ONLY” was used in B(1) (as used in John 17:3); logic and sincerity then demanded Anthony Roger to be consistent with it in B(2). But the insincere Logician was inconsistent for he is a sincere Christolator.
Then, a ‘sincere’ Construction will be:
A(2) = Plato
B(2) = Only Mortal
C(2) = Socrates
In a sentence, subsequently, it would read:
“Plato(A(2)) is ONLY Mortal(B(2)); Socrates (C(2)) is not Plato(A(2)); therefore, Socrates is not Mortal(B(2).
Well now, the argument and logic of Plato and Socrates is holding good; if Plato is ONLY Mortal then Socrates cannot be Mortal. On the same lines if Father is ONLY true God then Jesus, peace be upon him, cannot be God – Almighty. Therefore, stop the blasphemy right here right now.

Roger admitted that Jesus is not God – Almighty

Next, he wrote that Muslim claim on John 17:3 would have held if the text would have read that only the Father is God. Here are his own confessions:
““Things would be different if the text said “only Father is God”, or “the Father alone is the only true God”, but it does not.”
Ironically, Anthony Roger has himself admitted that the only true God is Father (!). To prove it, all I would do is to re – produce for you his own words:
““…. The first claim is immediately undermined by the fact that the one whom Jesus calls “the only true God” is the Father (John 17:1-2)”

What say? Who is the ONLY TRUE GOD?, according to Bible, Muslim exegesis AND Anthony Roger’s own words – The Only True God is Father.

Now, that it has been established that the Only True God is Father and consequently Jesus, peace be upon him, is not God; I need not write a word any more to his childish ‘article’.
Nevertheless, let me further clean his misconceptions so that he may be extricated from the mire or “Shirk” – associating god to God – Almighty.
To prove the deity of Jesus, peace be upon him, he wrote under various sub – headings (I would deal with each of them, Inshallah). First of them were :
1. “The Conjoining of Father and Son”: Inside this sub – heading he adduced 2 Biblical verses to establish the impossible, namely, the divinity of Christ, peace be upon him. First of the 2 was:

A. “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also (1 John 2:23)”

The Refutation
Well, there can be at least two fold refutations. They are as follows:-
A1. Biblical context of 1 John 2:23.
Kindly read the verse preceding 1 John 2:23, i.e., verse 22, to know that anybody denying the “Messiah ship” of Jesus, peace be upon him is to be considered as an enemy of Messiah (Christ), peace be upon him, “Who, then is the liar? It is anyone who says that Jesus is not the Messiah. Such a person is the enemy of Christ – he rejects both the Father and Son.”(TEV) Various points needs to be immediately noted here. Firstly, denying Messiah ship of Son is the rejection of Father. Secondly, why is the denial of Messiah ship of Son tantamount to gainsaying Father! Why? It is because it was God’s (Father) eternal plan to crown Jesus, peace be upon him, with the exclusive title of Messiah and to send him in the world. Remember Messiah (Jesus), peace be upon him, was send in this world by Father
“… I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent me” (John 5:30, NKJV)(Emphasis Added)
And again,
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now God’s salvation has come! Now God has shown his power as King! Now his Messiah has shown his authority!” (REVELATION 12:10)(Emphasis Mine)
Conclusively denying Jesus, peace be upon him, got to be denial of Father who dispatched Jesus, peace be upon him, on this earth. OR, if this is not the explanation for the combined denial of Father and Son, then, you would have to agree with me that Father was also Messiah!
B1. The Conjoining of Allah and Mohammad, peace be upon him.
As we have just seen how ignorantly and misconceptually Anthony Roger had tried to conjoin Father and Son using 1 John 2:23 out of context. Similarly, I may ignorantly conjoin Allah and Mohammad, peace be upon him, there by deifying Mohammad, peace be upon him. Let me (mis) use, The Holy Quran 4:80, which states:
“He who obey The Apostle, obeys God” (Emphasis Mine)
And,
“The desert Arabs say, “We believe.” Say, “Ye have no faith; but ye(only) say, ‘We have submitted Out wills to God, For not yet has Faith entered your hearts.’ But if ye obey God and His Apostle…” (The Holy Quran 49:14)(Emphasis Mine)
Now read this, have your ever heard a Muslim using the aforementioned Quranic verses to conjoin Mohammad, peace be upon him, and Allah. Obeying Apostle is obeying Allah not because Apostle is Allah but because the Apostle does nothing but what is commissioned to him by God – Almighty, similarly, rejecting Son is in effect rejecting Father because the Son, also, does not seek his will but the will of his Father who send him. Make sense?
He provided yet another Biblical verse to prove the deity of Christ , peace be upon him, under the same sub – heading, “The Conjoining of Father and Son”.
““…even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”(John 5:23)”
There can again be atleast 2 easy refutation for this gibberish argument, which are as follows:-
A2. ‘G’od was send by God: If read carefully then the author of John 5:23 conceded to end of verse with “…Father who sent Him.” So, Jesus, peace be upon him, was an ambassador, a chosen man. So, by disgracing Jesus – the sent man one would be discrediting the one who has sent Jesus, namely, Father! It does not prove that Father and Son are the same; but it does prove the contrary that Father and Son are not the same. Let me explain with one practicle day to day example. Suppose, George Bush (who does not know him!) has sent Condolezza Rice (now who does not know her) on a delegation to my country. And if suppose my countrymen and / or chieftains dishonor her; then it would certainly be an insult to George Bush himself. OR, agree insanely that Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice are one and the same. Will you dare to “conjoin” Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice!
B2. In this version of refutation let us read verse 22 along with verse 23:
“For the Father judges no one but has committed all judgement to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (JOHN 5:22-23, NKJV)
To paraphrase the above 2 verses, it says:
God has authorized (does someone “co-equal” needs an authorization!?!) or has commissioned Jesus, peace be upon him, with all judgments so that people may respect him for his lofty judgments – the judgments which he ultimately receives from God – Almighty. THEN, verse 23 comes and states that dishonoring Jesus, peace be upon him, is in turn dishonoring Father; Does this prove to be equal to God? Certainly, not in the remotest sense of it. But it does elicit the impotency of Jesus, peace be upon him, to take divine judgments.
Next to come in the support of Christ’s, peace be upon him, divinity was sub – heading No. 2, namely, Father and Son are coordinate Sources of Eternal life.
2. Father and Son are Coordinate Sources of Eternal Life

He wrote:
“The fact that eternal life consists in a saving knowledge of both the Father and the Son, not one without the other, also bespeaks the closest possible relation between them.”

My Explanation:
Muslims agree that there can be no salvation without Jesus, peace be upon him. One will have to recognize Jesus as well as other prophets along with him to achieve salvation; as is written in the Word of God:

“To those who believe in God and His Apostles and make no distinction between any of the apostles, We shall soon give their (due) rewards…”(The holy Quran 4:152)(Emphasis Mine)

“And Zakariya and John, and Jesus and Elias All in the ranks of righteous.” (The Holy Quran 6:85)
Furthermore, if we analyze Quran then we would learn that there can be no salvation without Mohammad, peace be upon him. Similarly a denial of Mohammad, peace be upon him, would be headlong acceptance of hell-fire. Consider a couple of verse:

“Those are limits set by God: those who obey God and His Apostle will be admitted to Gardens with rivers flowing beneath, To abide therein (forever)And that will be the Supreme achievement. But those who disobey God and His Apostle And transgress His limits will be admitted to a Fire, to abide therein: And they shall have a humiliating punishment.” (The Holy Quran 4:13-14)

Now, the pith of the argument is, Can I deify Mohammad, peace be upon him, just there is salvation is accepting him, peace be upon him, and doom in rejection? Can I, horrendously write a passage appelling “Allah and Mohammad are Coordinate Sources of Eternal Life!” Understand the status of each of these 2 ‘sources of eternal life ‘ and recognize the capacity in which they can provide you “Eternal Life”.

He named his last argument to prove the deity of Christ, peace be upon him, as:

3. Contextually Relevant Considerations

In the very first he wrote:
“Although the Muslim creed does not have a context to safeguard it from misinterpretation, Christ’s statement in John 17:3 is a part of larger context.”

Ironically, if HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN chapters of Quran does not build a context to natural and innate Shahada (Testification) then nothing does.

Then he argued that in John 17:3, if read in context proves deity of Christ, peace be upon him. So let us study the context of John 17:3.

“Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world.”

Anthony Roger’s ‘visionary’ eyes saw three arguments in the “context” of John 17:3(Cited above) to support divinity of Christ, peace be upon him.

[i] Pre-existence:
He wrote, “And the context very clearly teaches that Christ pre-existed his incarnation…but he pre-existed from eternity…”

Easy Refutation

If pre-existence and presence before the beginning of world is one the criterion to prove divinity then prophet Solomon, peace be upon him, Jeremiah, and prophet Job, peace be upon him were all deities! Consider the following verses:
“The LORD created me first of all, the first of his works, long ago. I was made in the very beginnings, at the first, before the world began.” (HOLY BIBLE, PROVERBS 8:22-23, TEV)
“The LORD said to me, “I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you to be a prophet to be nations.” (HOLY BIBLE, JEREMIAH 1:4-5, TEV)
“I am sure you can, because you’re so old and wee there when the world was made!”(HOLY BIBLE, JOB 38:21, TEV)
[ii]Authority:
“He was given authority to wield, words to speak, a work to do, and people to save..”
In the first place, wielding, speaking words (as Jesus, peace be upon him, was speaking), working (as Jesus, peace be upon him, was working) and trying to save people (as Jesus, peace be upon him, was trying) are characteristics or prophets not to be attributed to God.. But even if he insists in proving the deity of Jesus, peace be upon him, through these points then he should pay care, firstly, almost all the Biblical prophets wielded, spoke, worked and tried to save people. Secondly, the fact that Jesus, peace be upon him, was “given authority” so there is nothing special, nothing divine in the exercise of second hand granted authority. It is against the majesty of true God to tarry to receive authority over his own creation; His erroneous creation(Genesis 6:6)-Humans. Or, put in other words, if he had to receive authority to exercise on his creation then that authority is not his own but of a ‘greater’ Power and thus, the receiver (of Authority) cannot be true God. As Jesus says in John 5:30, “I can of my own self do nothing.” Smell the impotency here.

[iii] Same Glory:-
He wrote:
“and in same glory that the Father has.”

To begin with, nowhere in the Biblical verse does it states Jesus having same glory as that of Father. If you do not believe me then re-read the verse he produced:
“…Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
Kindly realize very carefully that all the verse says is, firstly, the ‘request’ made by Jesus, peace be upon him, (By the way is it befitting for a ‘God’ to make requests!?!) to glorify him together with Father. Now the point to understand is that there can be 2 different levels of glorifications for 2 different ‘persons’ even if glorified at the same time. Secondly, what needs to be understood, is the beseech, request, wail of Jesus, peace be upon him, to return back the previous glorify which he possessed when he was with Father. The glory might still be different. But if at this stage the christolator Anthony Roger is contemplating to refute me then he should turn his face to ROMANS 8: 16-17, 26
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (THE OPEN BIBLE, NKJV)(Emphasis mine)
“… we will also share his glory” (HOLY BIBLE, TEV)(Emphasis mine)

Cleaning the filth

In the last part of this paper I would draw your attention to one of Jesus’s, peace be upon him, teaching (Biblical) which can also be taken as a litmus paper test to filter out false prophets from a true one, he said:

“Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking life sheep on the outside, but inside they are really like wolves. You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briars do not bear figs. A healthy tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in fire. So then, you will know the false prophets by what they do.” (HOLY BIBLE, MATTHEW 7:15-81, TEV)
So, let us put Paul and Mohammad, peace be upon him, to the above test. Let us check how does the “fruits” of each fair the test. On one hand, we have, Anthony Roger, a sincere follower of Paul’s teachings (mind you we are testing Paul’s candidacy for prophet hood) address ALLAH and Mohammad, peace be upon him with most gutter like words, he wrote:
“In the end, Allah turns out to be an idol and Muhammad a worthless prophet,…”
Nonetheless, we have Mohammad, peace be upon him, a veritable prophet, as gentle as dew drops, teach in Quran 6:108 to the world:

“Revile not ye those whom they call upon besides God, lest they out of spite Revile God In their ignorance.” (THE HOLY QURAN)

Conclusively, the difference between Mohammad, peace be upon him, and Paul is glaring to a meticulous eye. Finally, does not Paul fit into the category of false prophet? And should not he be “cut down and thrown in fire.”?

Refutation: Ijaz Ahmad vs. the Prophet Zechariah!

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Anthony Rogers released a series of articles after our debate in which he had decided to forward some unfortunate, if not rather disparaging comments in the process. I’ll be carefully and honestly examining his claims and comments in my responses to him. It should be noted that he has also made a video and appeared on live television to further promote his comments. I would like to explicitly state that I discourage and remove myself from any relation to this man’s incredulous behaviour.

The Introduction.

He begins with stating:

In my recent debate with Ijaz Ahmad he made much of the fact that the Angel of the Lord in Zechariah 1:12 intercedes with the Lord for Jerusalem, something that presupposes that the two are distinct.

I did propose that YHWH and Mal’ak YHWH were two distinct individuals, something which Anthony during the debate also supposed that he was in agreement with, as stated in his thesis:

Notice that my thesis entails both the deity of the angel as well as his distinct personhood from another and or other persons in the Godhead. This means it will not be sufficient or at all relevant for my opponent to argue that the angel is distinct from Yahweh as if this somehow negates my position. In fact any good argument my opponent puts forward to prove that the angel is distinct from another person called Yahweh will receive a quick and robust ‘Amen’ from me. This also means that my opponent will necessarily either have to show that the angel is also not identified as God as I will argue or provide some way for accounting how the angel may be identified that is consistent with Unitarianism, the belief that God is only one person and the Old Testament.

From the get go, Anthony’s contradiction is clear. During the debate, he asserts that he’d be in complete agreement with me, if it is that I proved that YHWH and Mal’ak YHWH were distinct, he’d give a resounding ‘Amen‘. Now a few days later, he’s found himself arguing against his own thesis. Apparently, it’s now in his best interest to argue against his own argument, I could not have asked for a better example of inconsistency.

The Arguments.

Anthony then, proceeds onwards to argue against the fact that they are distinct:

“According to Ijaz, this shows not only that a distinction obtains between the two, but that the distinction is ontological in nature, i.e. it demonstrates that the former alone is Lord and the latter is not.”

Anthony in this case, concedes that indeed they are demonstrated as being distinct from one another. Something which he refused to do during the debate. Is this perhaps an attempt at back peddling to correct his mistakes? What’s worse is that Anthony’s problem is such, that he asserts that Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH but that they are both distinct at the same time. The problem can be manifested as such-:

Argument 1:
Anthony: Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH.
Ijaz: If Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH, how are they distinct? (see: Zechariah 1).

Argument 2:
Anthony: Mal’ak YHWH is another person from YHWH.
Ijaz: If they are not the same person, how then can Mal’ak YHWH be YHWH? (see: Anthony’s first argument above).

This is a problem that Anthony can’t resolve because he’s created it  himself. So what you’re seeing in his articles, is a clearly confused individual, trying to cite as many sources as he can towards his biased position (fallacy of appeal to authority), but at the same time, contradicting his own criteria for a valid argument (following from his thesis in the debate). Let’s continue to see what other problems he has put himself in:

Although I did point out that the Angel of the Lord is also identified as Lord in His own right in Zechariah 3, and thus that “the Angel of the Lord” is the distinctive title by which this second person who is Yahweh is distinguished from the first, the title being most appropriate since He is evidently the heavenly Mediator and Messenger between God and His people, a fact that follows naturally from Zechariah1, I think much more could be and needs to be said than I communicated during the debate.

Let’s put Anthony’s statements into perspective:

  1. Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH.
  2. Mal’ak YHWH is a different person than YHWH.

The problem we see here now, is that Anthony has realised there exists an issue, that he’s arguing against himself, so he decides to reconcile this issue by stating the ‘Angel of the Lord’ is now a title, to distinguish YHWH from himself. With this in mind let’s examine Anthony’s new argument:

  1. Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH.
  2. Mal’ak YHWH is another name for the person who is the same as YHWH, but they’re different because it’s a different title.

Following his line of reasoning, every time that his God is called by a different title in the Bible, that would have to mean that it isn’t just another name for God, it’s an entirely new person into the Godhead. That would mean that Adonai is a different person to Elohim, who is a different person to Hashem Adonai who is different to Mal’ak YHWH who is different to YHWH, who is different to the ‘Messenger of the Covenant‘. If that is the case, then Anthony’s God, is beyond tri-personal, unless it is then, that he presents the case that a title isn’t always a new person in the Godhead, it’s only a new person when it suits his dogmatic agenda, in which case his argument would then be guilty of taking the form of ‘the fallacy of confirmation bias‘.

“Since this was the passage on which Ijaz drew most of his thunder, and since most people I have talked to were unimpressed with his other arguments against the deity of the Angel, particularly his failure to grapple with the lexical and scholarly evidence I provided for the fact that the word angel (mal’ak) is not restricted in meaning or use to created spirits…”

By ‘most people’ he means the two Christian Paltalk rooms which came out to support him.

The Reception of his Arguments.

On that same note to demonstrate how his supporters did not listen to his thesis, during his opening statement, we have Radical Moderate, commenting on the debate.

Topic of Debate: 
“The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

Anthony’s Thesis (Taken from the debate):  
“In fact any good argument my opponent puts forward to prove that the angel is distinct from another person called Yahweh will receive a quick and robust ‘Amen’ from me.”

Supporter of Anthony (Radical Moderate):
His theisis is not that the Angel of Yhahwee is distinct person from Yahweh.

So confused are the people he confesses were unimpressed by my argument, that they don’t even understand what he was arguing. No wonder they agreed with Anthony (as he claims), they’re just blindly cheerleading him onwards, while not even grasping what exactly his argument was. According to this supporter, whose comments are under all of Anthony’s posts (congratulating him, praising him, flirting with him), Anthony’s argument was against the very topic and the very thesis that Anthony used. Brilliant ‘support’, would Anthony dare criticise his fan base or choose to correct their own misunderstanding of his presentation? Anthony continues by stating:

” his failure to grapple with the lexical and scholarly evidence I provided for the fact that the word angel (mal’ak) is not restricted in meaning or use to created spirits – something that brought on the bizarre charge from Ijaz that I was the one guilty of playing word games and being unscholarly, a lapse on his part that was aggravated by the fact that he didn’t bring a single scholarly source forward to justify his repeated misuse of the term, or even for anything else that he mentioned”

To begin with, there was no need on my end to redefine the word Mal’ak and appeal to the eisegesis of the reductive fallacy. Essentially, Anthony’s argument boiled down to this:

  • Mal’ak YHWH = YHWH.
  • Mal’ak YHWH = YHWH.
  • YHWH = YHWH.

That’s essentially what Anthony’s entire ‘lexical’ argument was. It was a simple play on semantics to eliminate the purpose and the rationale behind the word mal’ak, this type of lexical manipulation is most commonly referred to by academia as “the reductive fallacy”. Following from this, Anthony ‘claims’, that I used no scholarly source to justify my use of the term “mal’ak”, with that being said, it is either Anthony recognizes that he used no scholarly source himself or he fails to realise from where I quoted my definition of “mal’ak”  during the debate. I took the definition of mal’ak, directly from Anthony’s article, “The Malak Yahweh Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament: Part I”. Which reads:

“The word that is used in the Hebrew text is malak (מַלְאָך). The lexical sources are unanimous that the Hebrew word malak, in its original signification and as it is used in the Bible, means “one sent; a messenger” (e.g. Gesenius; Brown, Driver and Briggs)”.

With explicit evidence of the source for my definition, would Anthony Rogers be honest enough to apologize or recant his erratic statements? Most likely not and I wouldn’t expect any better from him, if anything, he’d try to find a way to claim I used his definition incorrectly, the problem therefore being, that I quoted it verbatim from his article. I’m not quite sure if he expected me not to point that out, or if he was simply looking for material to attack me with. He follows this by saying:

That is to say, the following passages that speak of two persons as Yahweh prove that the Old Testament teaches that God is not a solitary person and in this sense He is not like any other conscious agent in existence – including schizophrenics, a straw-man trumped up by my opponent that applies to Modalists who believe the persons of the Trinity are actually only one person who banters back and forth between different alter egos, rather than to Trinitarianism, which teaches that God subsists in three actual persons – He being uniquely multi-personal, and thus unlike anything or anyone.

For a moment here, we see Anthony attempting to respond to the claim that a singular being with multiple personalities is not considered to be suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder or even Schizophrenia, something which I indicated during the debate, which Anthony did not have a chance to respond to. Multiple Personality Disorder refers to one being, having more than one personality and seeing as Anthony’s God is one being, unified by the Godhead, yet eternally possessing three distinct personalities, this clearly indicates that the Christian concept of God is schizophrenic and possibly an allusion to MPD. Anthony attempted to further solve this by saying his God was ‘uniquely multipersonal’, or in other words, when you go to the psychiatric ward of any hospital, all the in patients that suffer from MPD or Schizophrenia, or some mental disease are all told that they are special and unique so that they can be normalized and their feelings controlled. Taking a play from that appeal to emotion, Anthony himself is applying that same tactic to his followers, a revealing metaphor to say the least.

Biblical Bitrinitarianism.

In an attempt to defend his eisegesis, Anthony invents a new term:

The first of many examples for Zechariah’s overall “binitarianism” presents itself

So what is bitrinitarianism? Unfortunately that’s the term that Anthony presents as the basis for Mal’ak YHWH becoming YHWH. He doesn’t really explain more than that, so I can’t respond to something he’s just made up. I can understand why he’s making up terms now though, he’s made an Angel into God and well, just as the early Church fathers had to do when trying to defend their religion against the Jews, they just had to make up words and terms as you go along. Some common examples are, “The Trinity”, “Godhead”, “Immaculate Conception”, “Original Sin”, “Incarnate Word”, and today,we have Anthony holding true to that erratic tradition, thus giving us, “Bitrinitarianism”. If I were to break down this word to attempt to derive some meaning, it would make little to no sense:

  • Bi – Two
  • Tri – Three
  • Unity – United
  • ism – belief

Which would give us, “the belief of three persons united (as one), but also as two”. Just gibberish really. This is an appeal to Christians, if you can give me a definition for this term that actually makes sense, please do so, thanks.

Anthony versus Zechariah, Judaism and Common Sense.

To demonstrate his, “bitrinitarianism”, Anthony appeal to Zechariah 2:6-12 which reads:

6 “Ho there! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have dispersed you as the four winds of the heavens,” declares the Lord. 7 “Ho, Zion! Escape, you who are living with the daughter of Babylon.” 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, “After  glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye.9 For behold, I will wave My hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me. 10  Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” declares the Lord. 11 “ Many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become My people. Then I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. 12 The Lord will possess Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem. 13 Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for He is aroused from His holy habitation.”

Obviously we understand and agree that these are the Lord’s words. However, Anthony is attempting to state, that the person who delivers this message to Zechariah is YHWH himself, yet Zechariah does not claim that YHWH is delivering the message, no less than three verses before we have Zechariah explicitly stating that an angel is delivering the words of the Lord:

“While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him” – Zechariah 2:3

Which is the purpose of the Angel of the Lord, in Hebrew this is properly translated (by Anthony) to mean the “Messenger of YHWH”.  So an Angel who is the Messenger of YHWH delivers a message to Zechariah from the Lord. It is obvious that if the Angel who is a Messenger is going to deliver God’s word, that the Angel will declare the words to be from God and not from himself, which the Angel does do in the passage that Anthony references:

  • “…declares the Lord”
  • “…declares the Lord”
  • “For thus says the Lord of hosts…”
  • “… declares the Lord”

It’s as clear as day, that the Angel who is the Messenger of the Lord, as demonstrated by the verse itself, is conveying/ declaring to Zechariah what God has said. Yet Anthony does not seem to understand that. To give an example of Anthony’s absurd rationale, let us demonstrate with an example:

I saw the neighbour, he approached me and said, the wife says, “I like your roses”.

According to Anthony, this would mean that the husband likes the roses and that the husband is the wife. Anthony furthers his inanity by then validating and accepting my argument:

“…let the following be noted here: while Zechariah’s actions here in speaking for the Lord are in a measure consistent with what the Angel of the Lord does in Zechariah one, which is to be expected since the Angel is a distinct person who can speak to and for Yahweh…”

Recall, as I said Mal’ak YHWH is the Angel who is a Messenger of the YHWH, so this messenger is expected to speak on behalf of YHWH and to YHWH. So Anthony concedes that this is the case, but then he contradicts himself by saying that the Messenger of YHWH is YHWH. If they are distinct as he himself says, why then, doe he interpret them to be joined/ united as the same person? A clear contradiction yet again.

Understanding Zechariah 2.

Since we are examining the Jewish book, we should be honest and use the Jewish version, not the Christian perversion of the Septuagint from a mystery text translated into Greek and then Hebrew and then finally to English, whereas the Jewish text is simply Hebrew to English. I’ll be using the JPS Translation and the Hebrew Masoretic Texts as provided here and here.

“And he said to him, “Run, speak to this young man, saying: ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited like unwalled towns, because of the multitude of men and cattle therein.’ ”   But I will be for it-says the Lord-a wall of fire around, and for glory I will be in its midst. Ho, ho! Flee from the land of the north, says the Lord; for I have spread you as the four corners of the heavens, says the Lord. Ho, Zion! Flee, she who sits among the nation of Babylon. For so said the Lord of Hosts: After glory, He sent me to the nations that plunder you, for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.” – Zechariah 2:6-12.

The difference is vast, if we use Anthony’s version we have a distinct and completely different rendition of Zechairah 2, as opposed to the Hebrew of the Jews. Yet, there is one verse which stands out as being in common with them both:

For so said the Lord of Hosts: After glory, He sent me to the nations that plunder you, for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.

What we have here is Anthony’s verse 8 and the Jewish version’s verse 12. Yet the Jewish version makes it is not YHWH who is sending himself but that YHWH is sending someone and in verse 13 of the Jewish text, this person being sent is referred to as the “hand of God” or the person though whose hand, God’s work is done:

“For, behold! I raise My hand over them, and they shall be prey for those who serve them. And you shall know that the Lord of Hosts sent me.”

The “hand of the Lord” is a term which refers to the person who is the Angel/ Messenger of the Lord who not only conveys God’s message, he is the angel which executes God’s punishments upon the earth and supports the faithful:

“So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.” – Exodus (Shemot) 3:20.

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.”” – Exodus (Shemot) 6:1.

“he will not listen to you. Then I will lay myhand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.” – Exodus (Shemot) 7:4.

“And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out myhand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.”” – Exodus (Shemot) 7:5.

Anthony’s problem is that he appeals to the Christian rendition of the text, the problem is, Zechariah according to his own beliefs was not a Christian but a Judaic Prophet, therefore using his own faith’s belief about Zechariah, if we read the Judaic rendition of the texts, we see that Anthony is in opposition to myself and the Hebrew Judaic Version of Zechariah’s writings. It is absurd to think that we should appeal to the Christian rendition when Zechariah was not a Christian but a Jew, therefore any indepth study of the Christian rendition is therefore inconsequential to the discussion at hand, and merely a ploy at appealing to confirmation bias and wishful thinking.

Anthony versus Basic Christian Doctrine!

In one section of his article, Anthony Rogers who is lauded by Sam Shamoun as being the best “Christian Apologist”, makes a fundamental error in his doctrine. In a book recommended by Sam Shamoun, “Understanding the Trinity”, by B.P. Harris, he states (page 121):

None other can show forth the Father, for He alone is in the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). He alone exists in the form of God (Phil. 2:6). He alone is the radiance of his glory (Heb. 1:3). And He alone is the exact representation of His Person (Heb. 1:3).

From this we know for certain that the Father is the invisible, incomprehensible, majestic, unseen God. Yet Anthony in his diatribe of an article, states the following:

First, there is the example of something Moses says in Genesis 19. After Genesis 18 tells us that the Lord appeared on earth with two angels to Abraham just prior to Sodom’s destruction

Not only is Anthony confused as to the form of the Father, he actually ascribes a known form to an invisible God. It would then seem that Anthony is not only arguing with Sam Shamoun, BP Harris, but that he is also arguing with his own scripture. I must commend him on his behaviour, one debate and Anthony is already arguing against the Christian religion.

In his article he tries to state that the invisible God, who then changes His mind and becomes an Angel, sorry, three Angels, then changes back into being invisible, but leaves two Angels back, which are really two Angels of Himself and then goes to heaven from wherein He rains down fire and brimstone in Genesis 19. Makes perfect sense, I suppose!? Somehow that’s supposed to indicate that YHWH is Mal’ak YHWH.

Zechariah 12:9-14 Proves Nothing.

Again, we find ourselves, returning to the Jewish rendition of a particular set of verses. What we find once more, is that what Anthony’s version claims and what the Jews claim, from whom Zechariah was a member of (according to Anthony), contradicts his rendition in numerous ways:

 And it shall come to pass on that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come upon Jerusalem. And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplications. And they shall look to me because of those who have been thrust through [with swords], and they shall mourn over it as one mourns over an only son and shall be in bitterness, therefore, as one is embittered over a firstborn son. On that day there shall be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart: The family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart. The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart. All the remaining families-every family apart, and their wives apart. – Zechariah 12:9-14.

Which doesn’t fit Anthony’s explanation, from his article:

“In the above passage the Lord says that the people will “look on Me whom they have pierced,” and tells us that the house of David and Jerusalem’s inhabitants will mourn for Him, i.e. Yahweh, the pierced one”

That presents a problem, as the invisible God can now actually be pierced. How can you pierce the invisible, all powerful, eternal God who is YHWH? Unless of course, he’s not referring to YHWH the Father, but the other person who is also God, the son, who is Mal’ak YHWH, the Word, the Incarnate Word. We just went meta, you have a God who has two other personalities and one of those two personalties has other personalities that are also eternal but co-equal with each other, but also fully God. His interpretation of these verses is really “special” to say the least. From the Judaic rendition, Anthony’s eisegesis amounts to nothing but mere attempts again at correcting the beliefs of the Jews from whom according to Anthony, Zechariah was from.

YHWH Kills Himself with His own Sword.

To those of you who have managed to reach this far without asserting that Anthony has lost the plot, it gets worse:

“A third passage in Zechariah of some significance is found in Zechariah 13 and is closely related to the passage in Zechariah 12. For just as Yahweh said in 12:10 that He would be pierced, so in Zechariah 13 we are told not only that false prophets, by the Lord’s decree, will come to such a fate, i.e. they would be pierced through, but even the Shepherd of Yahweh would experience a terrible fate, no doubt the piercing mentioned in 12:10, and back of it would be the Lord’s own sword. Most significantly for present purposes is the fact that “the Shepherd,” –indeed, “My Shepherd,” – is identified by Yahweh not only as one distinct from Himself, but as “My Associate.”

So according to Anthony:

  • YHWH says false prophets would be pierced.
  • YHWH will pierce Himself.
  • YHWH will become a Shepherd.
  • YHWH who is a shepherd will pierce/ stab Himself with His own sword, a punishment meant for false Prophets.

At this point, I’m not sure if Anthony is arguing for Christianity or against it. I’ll leave that judgement up to you.

Conclusion.

I have aptly demonstrated that Anthony’s premises are self contradictory, dynamic, erratic and that he has gone above and beyond to refute his own argumentation. He has demonstrated that he does not grasp the true nature of YHWH, at one point he tries to demonstrate that God will kill himself, with a punishment meant for cursed persons with false teachings by his own sword. At another time he tries to demonstrate that God, even though He is invisible and without a known form, became an angel, thus contradicting his Bible and his doctrine. None of those points demonstrate the case for YHWH being Mal’al YHWH. At no time did he present a viable case for his self contradicting premises:

Argument 1:
Anthony: Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH.
Ijaz: If Mal’ak YHWH is YHWH, how are they distinct? (see: Zechariah 1).

Argument 2:
Anthony: Mal’ak YHWH is another person from YHWH.
Ijaz: If they are not the same person, how then can Mal’ak YHWH be YHWH? (see: Anthony’s first argument above).

I look forward to seeing how Anthony will actually attempt to address these issues and when he shall admit his faulty logic. It is my view, that his reinterpretation of Judaic scripture is not only embarrassing for himself , but for the Christian religion as a whole. I do apologize to my Christian brethren if his erratic statements were insulting in anyway.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Response to Anthony Rogers

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

A few days ago, Anthony Rogers, upset at the revelation of some odd bits of Christian history during my debate with him, has released a video claiming that Allah ta ‘ala had loins. Unfortunately for him, his poor scholarship and intellectual dishonesty became extant. As it turns out, after he realised that the, ‘holy prepuce’ argument was a valid piece of history, he decided to look for some way to demonstrate that Allah ta ‘ala also had ‘genitals’ or ‘loins’. Unfortunately for him, he gathered his quotes from this website. Recall:

  • Anthony cannot speak or read Arabic.
  • His video uses the exact same quotes with the same translation from the website.
  • The author of that website, translated the Arabic himself.
  • Therefore it became easy to find Anthony’s sources, as the translation is unique.
  • The translation on the brother’s article was based on an error concerning manuscripts which he obtained.
  • Anthony, by using the same translation and same error, therefore showed that he copied from the Brother’s website.

The brother upon seeing Anthony’s video, made contact with me and I decided to let him refute Anthony Rogers. The video contains quotes from various Arabic lexicons and Etymological codices, demonstrating that the word Anthony appeals to cannot and has never meant, ‘genitals’.

We’ve quoted all the relevant Arabic texts and included them in the video, thereby completely refuting his claims and calling him to apologize for his plagiarism of the website’s contents. Here is the video:

According to the various Arabic lexicons and dictionaries the phrase ‘haqwa’, when used, means ‘to seek protection of someone or from something’. Since that is the case, Anthony has no real intellectual basis for his argument, but an incorrect translation that the Brother himself (the author of the article Anthony uses), clarified his mistake and therefore has soundly demonstrated the lowly character and lengths to which Anthony Rogers would stoop for attention.

We ask Anthony to come forward, whether in a new video or a response in an article and explain for us, his research skills and Arabic reading/ speaking skills, both of which he knows he cannot qualify.

PS: Anthony, if you’re going to copy something off of the internet, try to validate it before you make your ‘research’ public.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Debate with Anthony Rogers Available on Youtube

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

The debate has been uploaded on Youtube, “The Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine, Person in the Godhead”, between myself and Anthony Rogers:

Do enjoy insha Allaah, any questions pertaining to the debate, let me know in the video comments or via our Facebook Page or use the ‘Contact Us‘ page on the website.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Anthony Rogers vs Ijaz Ahmad: Debate

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

The debate can be either streamed (audio) or downloaded from this link. The YouTube video is still being uploaded, it’s 10.5 gb, so that’s going to take a while. I’ll upload the Youtube video sooner or later, it’s really just a more accessible form of  the debate, as opposed to using 4shared, which you can’t share via most social networking platforms. There was no video feed, i.e. of the debaters as this debate was done via Paltalk, an audio chat program. Anthony’s version (?) of the upload should be done soon.

 

 

How Did this Debate Originate?

Before any accusations are thrown, or assertions made, as is usual in these highly emotive events, I did have a post, located here, highlighting the origination of this event, emails included. This debate was initially proposed by Mr. Rogers and I accepted.

Why was this Topic Relevant to Islam?

While more of a Judaic based theological conundrum with Christianity, Islam does lay claim to being the only proper monotheistic Abrahamic faith. Islam’s relevance therefore was paramount in being able to demonstrate the polytheism and continued creation worship as proposed and propagated by Christianity.

What are Your Thoughts on the Debate?

I (Br. Ijaz), personally enjoyed the discussion, it was exciting, especially as the audience numbers began to grow. It gave me a chance to demonstrate creation worship in Christianity and it allowed me to demonstrate the lowly and fallacious argumentation of Mr. Rogers, which I will expound upon lower down. Anthony did accede to the understanding that we needed more than one event to discuss this topic and I’ll hold him to his word, I’ll email him soon and confirm the follow up for part two.

Opening Statement (Anthony):

Anthony’s opening statement was rooted on pedantic word play. I received complaints not only from Muslims but from Christians who were a bit disappointed that he spent well over 10 minutes of his 20 minute opening speech playing with semantics. When it came to actually quoting scripture to demonstrate his point, there was a clear disconnect between what he initially presented and what he later laid claim to. His opening argument can be summarized as such:

10 minutes – 15 minutes:

  • Define Mal’ak.
  • Define what an Angel is.
  • Quote some scholars on the meaning of the word Mal’ak.
  • Mal’ak YHWH actually means YHWH.

5 minutes:

  • Mal’ak YHWH is God because in Genesis 16 he’s called God.

Nothing really special, as I indicated previously, his argument didn’t flow (i.e., it was non-sequitur), it’s almost as if he copy pasted and then read, his part one of his article series,”The Malak Yahweh Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament” and then from that, he realised he needed to fill in 5 minutes of his elapsed 15, so somewhere in their he threw in 7 verses from Genesis 16, hoping that it would aid his argument. Rather, he just played with semantics for 15 minutes and then tried to argue the deity of an angel in 5 minutes. Duly unimpressive and somewhat embarrassing, especially for a man almost twice my age and with official schooling in this field.

Take note however that he bases his entire argument on the following thesis (verbatim quotes from his opening statement):

  • I want to state clearly that from the onset the thesis I will be defending in this debate and which my opponent will necessarily have to direct his remarks to, if he wants to avoid attacking a strawman or position I do not hold, the thesis I will be defending is simply this:
  • The Angel of Yahweh is a distinct, divine in the Godhead according to the Old Testament.
  • Notice that my thesis entails both the deity of the angel as well as his distinct personhood from another and or other persons in the Godhead.
  • This means it will not be sufficient or at all relevant for my opponent to argue that the angel is distinct from Yahweh as if this somehow negates my position. In fact any good argument my opponent puts forward to prove that the angel is distinct from another person called Yahweh will receive a quick and robust ‘Amen’ from me.
  • This also means that my opponent will necessarily either have to show that the angel is also not identified as God as I will argue or provide some way for accounting how the angel may be identified that is consistent with Unitarianism, the belief that God is only one person and the Old Testament.

Opening Statement (Ijaz):

From the get go, I point out Anthony’s lazy scholarship, i.e. repeating his copy pasted argument from his published work. I started with indicating that it was common for Christianity to progressively worship creation, based on Jeremiah 16:20, I demonstrated that:

  • They worship both man (Jesus) and woman (Mary – Catholics and Collyridians), as their history indicates (http://carm.org/roman-catholicism-mary-idolatry), something which he denied.
  • That they then began to worship animals through symbolism, i.e. Jesus is both a lamb and a mother hen, the Holy Spirit is a dove.
  • That they continued until they began to consider themselves like Gods, some literally applying the titles, ‘son of God’, ‘daughter of God’ and ‘child of God’ to themselves, while believing that God, who is the Holy Spirit is inside them, see 1 Corinthians 3:16.
  • Yet, they didn’t stop there, they forwarded that until they even worshipped the foreskin of Christ, dubbed, ‘the Holy Prepuce‘, something which Anthony got verbally upset for, and accused me of insulting his beliefs. Anthony, I do have to ask, you do realise that Jesus was a man, no? In your worship, you take a man as your God and you’re upset with me because I point out that the man you worship, had genitals? I’m a bit perplexed here, in what part of worshipping a ‘man’, did you not expect that he had genitals?
  • The conclusion from this therefore, is that there was no surprise that Anthony wanted to worship an angel. It’s simply a progression of turning God’s creation into God.

I then laid out of what form, that I expected Anthony’s argumentation to take:

  1. The Angel of the Lord claimed to be God.
  2. The Angel of the Lord did acts that God would do.
  3. The Angel of the Lord was worshipped.
  4. The conclusion therefore being, that the Angel of the Lord is God.

Looking back on Anthony’s opening statement, I had him spot on, you’d notice he appealed to premise one and during his rebuttal period, he introduced points two and three. All three however, I addressed in my opening statement.

More to come soon…….

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Debate Reminder

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Today’s the debate between Anthony and I, we’ll be debating, “The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

Date:
27th May, 2012.

Time:
6 PM (PST).
8 PM (CST).
9 PM (-04:00 UTC / EST).

Location:
Answering Christianity Paltalk room.

Anthony has been trying to appeal to emotion for quite sometime, continuously implying that he believes that since the debate is being held in a Muslim room on Paltalk, that he could be muted from speaking during the debate. The problem is, for anyone who has ever attended any of my debates, my opponent has never been dotted, sometimes even when their allotted time for speaking was up. Therefore, if Anthony has such concerns and if he believes they are real, he is free to create another room, if he wills and we can do our debate their instead. However, this is simple an appeal to Argumentum Baculum, and nothing more than a ploy to evoke emotive support for his weak premises and eventual poor argumentation.

For those of you who have read Anthony’s work, and then heard him speak on his one time appearance on ABN TV, it should remind you of these statements of Paul:

By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away…..For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” – 2 Corinthians 10:1,10.

It’s quite hilarious to see however, that when I awoke this afternoon, I found that he’d made a post, offering some advice for me. Appealing to Dr. Laurence Brown’s argument based on the Christian belief that God wrestled Jacob. Anthony, among many other flaws, failed to see the sarcasm and satire  due to perhaps his lack of foresight, that Dr. Laurence was alluding to. Really, he was asking, “Can God get His but whooped by His own creation? Is that sensible?”. Unfortunately, Anthony’s disposition was to immediately come to the defense of man-worship and state:

No doubt it is intolerable for Muslims to hear that God would do something that sounds so Christ-like, but there it is. And in the Torah to boot. What was Moses thinking?

The problem is, the term used for “Lord” in the Christian Old Testament, alludes to the fantasy that God lost a wrestling match with a man. Something in contradiction with other places of the Old Testament:

  • It is impossible to see God (Exodus 33:20)
  • God is not a man (Numbers 23:19)
  • God is not physical (Deut.4:12,15).
  • Idolatry is always defined as the worship of any god that was not made known to the Judaic ancestors when God revealed Himself (Deut.4:35) to them at Mt.Sinai,  (ie.Deut.13:3,7,14,etc.) The Jewish people never heard from their ancestors that they were to understand that God has a body or that they were to conceive of Him as physical in any way.

Unfortunately, Anthony’s argument falls flat when it comes to the Judaic-Hebraic Old Testament, which states that Jacob wrestled with an Angel of the Lord and not God himself.

The debate promises to be fun, can’t wait, only a few hours to go.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Debate: Br. Ijaz Ahmad vs Anthony Rogers

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

On the 26th of April, 2012, I received an e-mail from one, Anthony Rogers, proposing a debate between ourselves. This is the e-mail I received:

“Hello,

This is Anthony Rogers. I am writing in response to your request to receive an official e-mail concerning my challenge to you to debate the following proposition: “The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

The aforementioned challenge was originally issued by me in light of your claim that Christianity is an innovation upon Old Testament religion in regard to the Trinity.

Accordingly, I will be arguing that the Old Testament does in fact teach that the Angel of the Lord is a distinct divine Person. By calling Him a “Divine Person” I mean that He is nothing less than Yahweh. By saying He is a “Distinct, Divine Person inthe Godhead,” I mean that He is also distinguished from another person (or persons) who is/are also identified as Yahweh.

Since this was in response to your charge of innovation, you will accordingly take the negative position in this debate.

As far as date and time go, sometime in the evening on May the 27th (a Sunday) is good for me. I live in Nevada (USA), so let me know where you are so we can coordinate the time. ”

The topic which was proposed by Anthony and agreed upon by myself and of which will be debated is,  “The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

Date:
27th May, 2012.

Time:
6 PM (PST).
9 PM (-04:00 UTC).

Location:
Answering Christianity Paltalk room.

(On information on how to use Paltalk or to access the room, I will provide a brief instructional guide soon, insha Allaah, the debate however will be recorded and posted by both Anthony and myself).

Format:

Opening Statements
Affirmative: 20 minutes
Negative: 20 minutes

Cross-Examination:
Negative: 3 questions (1 minute question, 2 minute response)
Affirmative: 3 questions (1 minute question, 2 minute response)

Rebuttals:
Affirmative: 10 minutes
Negative: 10 minutes

Cross-Examination (2):
Negative: 2 questions (same time constraints as above)
Affirmative: 2 questions (ditto)

Rebuttals (2):
Affirmative: 5 minutes
Negative: 5 minutes

Closing Statements:
Negative: 10 minutes
Affirmative: 10 minutes

 
wa Allaahu Alam.
[and Allaah knows best.]

Debate: Br. Ijaz Ahmad vs Anthony Rogers

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Does, “The Old Testament Teaches That the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct Divine Person in the Godhead“? Anthony Rogers and Br. Ijaz Ahmad faced off on the 27th of May, 2012. A thrilling encounter with an exciting back and forth discourse that provoked the crowd to swell throughout the night.

Click Here for the Audio Stream of the Debate or to Download >>

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