These are all self congratulatory opinions, every group of believers have this kind of "specialty" attributed to them by themselves. Muslims say the same things too. I know plenty of guys who says there are no such things as ex-muslims. So this aint gonna cut it...it is meaningless in the argument. Whether you personally think that a ex-christian exists or not is irrelevant, people have left the christian faith and in the world they are called apostates, some turned muslim and wrote books too. If I happened to be a non-christian, would your answer satify me? Never. It is a biased opinion and I can easily say that you will ofcourse say so...so what?by RickD » Tue Apr 08, 2014 3:58 pm
Neo wrote:
How credible do you find an ex-christian's views on Christianity?
What's an ex-Christian? For that matter, I'd like to know what makes someone a Christian in your mind Neo.
A Christian: one who trusts Christ for salvation.
So, without getting into the whole assurance issue again, there's no such thing as an ex-Christian, so your question is irrelevant.
I have never met an ex-christian who didn't have something wrong with his understanding of the scriptures. I am not saying that an ex-muslim can't teach islam. He can, only saying, its HIGHLY IMPROBABLE you find someone with unbiased views.
I disagree. An ex-Muslim who trusts Christ for salvation, probably did his homework. He knows about Islam. He lived it before trusting Christ
The problem is I only know a handful of people who actually read the source, their best sources are these books, period. I am only advocating against this practice. You can read many books on Islam but that does not mean you are proper familiar with it. The same way you can read many books about Christianity too without ever experiencing it, and pray tell me do you think you would know much of it in reality?If I'm going to learn about Islam, I would use every means I can. Including ex-Muslims. Of course I would also go to the source. But that's not what we're arguing here. Nobody is saying we should only go to ex-Muslims, and avoid the Koran and Muslims. But you said not to go to those who converted.
Again, if I want to know about Islam, including ex-Muslims in my study just means I'm trying to cover all my bases.
I never said so nor I meant it even if you have misread me, I said, go, listen but don't let it be your primary source for LEARNING a religion. Once you read the source these other sources become trivial, only useful occasionally.Nobody is saying we should only go to ex-Muslims, and avoid the Koran and Muslims. But you said not to go to those who converted.
You are covering your bases with a biased view. Its not your view.Again, if I want to know about Islam, including ex-Muslims in my study just means I'm trying to cover all my bases.
And again how many Christians comparatively, you know who have actually read the koran and the hadith? There are not many...simply because most people just don't care about authentic source reading and research, it takes time and its toll.
My only issue with all of this is in the OP :
These books are a good place to start learning about how a christian and an ex-muslim, sees islam. You will learn only this here.If you don't know much about Islam, the Qur'an or Muhammad, these books are a good place to start learning.
You wanna learn Islam? get yourself a copy of koran, get a couple of respected commentaries, get the hadith...and study.