vid outline ahraz

[title card]
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

Peace be upon those who follow righteous guidance.

“God is One”.
That is a central belief in Judaism, the teachings of the Messiah, and the Qur’an, for which the Creator has bestowed on us our innate faculties to acquire and understand, as true belief from and of God.

[1st Principle card]

The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible repeatedly prescribes belief in the One Creator:

To believe in the existence of the Creator, may He be blessed, i.e., that there is an Existence that is perfect (and absolute) in all facets of existence.
He is the cause of all that exists, the sustenance of all, and through Him all is maintained.
There is no possibility that He does not exist because without Him, all existence would cease to be and nothing would remain.
... For He is self-sufficient in His existence, He suffices in Himself, and His existence requires nothing other than Himself. [For all created beings] need Him for their existence.
This is the first Principle of the Jewish faith, as affirmed by the verse (Exodus 20:2) “I am God, your Lord...”


[2nd Principle card]
With recognition of the Creator is recognition of His Oneness, as He prescribes:

We believe that this Primal Cause [God] is One.
[His is] not like the oneness of a pair,
nor like the oneness of a species,
nor like man, whose complex oneness may be divided into many units,
nor like the oneness of a simple body, which is one in number but may be divided and separated without end.
Rather, He is One with a Oneness that knows no parallel in any manner.

This is the Second Principle, as affirmed by the verse (Deut. 6:4): "Hear O Israel, God is our Lord, God is One."

[Trinity??? card]

This monotheistic belief is wholly in line with Islam. Explicitly absent, and wholly irreconcilable with the Jewish understanding of God's Oneness, is the invented matter of the Trinity.
The Bible affirms the existence of One God, Who is the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, and Who is not divisible into distinct persons or beings; the concept of a dependent, multi-personal, created Almighty God, is fundamentally contrary to pure monotheism central to the teachings of the Messengers of Our Lord.

[created Almighty??? card]

The concept of a divine Messiah, or created Almighty, is associated with Paul and the Trinity. Passages are used to affirm this in the New Testament, although there are many explicit passages in it that suggest a different understanding of the Messiah's nature and role.
Christian scholarship has readily recognised that these passages portray a limited, human view of the Son of Mary, rather than the fully divine view associated with Paul and the Trinity.

These well-known teachings demonstrate the Messiah as a Mighty Messenger from the Almighty, who ate, slept, defecated, and experienced trials—all of which is wholly incompatible with the nature of God understood through the monotheism in Jewish tradition, that was established by the Prophets and those whom they instructed.

In Jewish tradition, the Messiah is a human being, who is appointed by God, to bring about redemption of the world—a powerful, righteous figure who fulfills God's Will.

Unquestionably, this belief of a human messenger, a created servant, coheres best with the Jewish monotheism that was prevalent and well-known among the generation that received the Messiah.

[Paul's Problem card]

The Messiah as a fully divine being is not compatible with the Jewish belief in God's absolute Oneness, especially not the Trinitarian view of the Divine as multiple persons—this was seen as a departure from the strict monotheism of the Jews.
We see it not from the teachings of the Messiah.
And we see it not from the teachings of the Disciples.

The first promotion of this polytheism came first to negate the primary requirement for the remission of sins. According to the Torah, there is no remission of sins without repentance of the sinner. We see many individuals and communities engaging in repentance, in order to seek forgiveness of their sins.
For example, in the Book of Jonah, the people of Ninevah repent of their evil ways and turn to God, and God forgives them.
Repentance has always been the primary and necessary requirement for the forgiveness of sins.

But not to Paul.

[Acts 17:17-18 card]

Paul presented a different understanding, that instead of repentance, God requires blood. Paul teaches that this requirement is something we could never fulfill ourselves, but he claims the Divine would fulfill it — and since the Divine is perfect, the Divine would require perfection. But, the only thing perfect, that could be a perfect atonement, is the Divine.

From the perspective of classical logic and Jewish monotheism, this new idea of multiple Divines and intermediaries would be seen as a form of polytheism. Paul does away with the Jewish tradition of God as merciful and forgiving, of the forgiveness of sins attained through repentance, connection to God, and piety. Instead, Paul's new theology promotes that a perfect sacrifice is required to satisfy God's justice and make possible the forgiveness of sins.
This seems to introduce at least a second divine being or intermediary, which would be blasphemously problematic from the Jewish perspective.

Indeed, we see that Paul's preaching was no stranger to the reality of the consequences of his innovative preaching, as we are informed in Acts 17:17-18: where the Jews and those familiar with classical logic immediately identified his departure from pure monotheism, and the salvation that the Most Merciful, the Mighty Forgiver, makes freely available from Himself to those who turn to Him and seek His Ways.

As we will see at the end of this video, this teaching of a loving, forgiving Creator is central to every major world religion except for Pauline Christianity.

O Followers of Paul, how is it that we should reject the forgiveness that the Mighty Forgiver makes directly available to us, and instead, begin to accept the idea that He is in need of a sacrifice to forgive us?

Do you not see this as a blatantly failed attempt at providing a solution to a problem that does not exist?

[cue nasheed louder, start John Hick pan ( https://i.imgur.com/ypzjzxi.png ) & Bible verses slideshow & end on "Jesus Worship Quran" ( https://i.imgur.com/nmZPE0I.png ) card]