Religion

The Middle East is home to three major religions, and each loves this land for a variety of reasons; there are sites for each that help strengthen their beliefs. Scholars from all three religions have helped us put together a detailed summary about each religion. They will inform you of how the religion started, the number of followers, the basic beliefs of each, and much, much more.

Sit back and learn about each of the religions, and then take a tour of the holy sites.

Christianity

Definition of a Christian: "A Christian is someone who, realzing that God loves them but that their sins separate them from God, repents and accepts by faith Jesus Christ's sacrifices on the cross as the payment for their sins, thereby receiving God's forgiveness and the free gift to eternal life"

Definition of God: "God is love and grace and He longs for felloship with man. His love and grace, however cannot bypass or ignore His perfect holiness, righteousness, and justice. These perfections must condemn man in his sin. But then neither can God's holiness ignore His love. So in His sovereignty, onmipotece, and infinite wisdom, He provided a solution of grace through the person and work of Christ thereby satisfying the toality of His perfection"

(from: Theology proper: The Doctrine of God)

Some beliefs about Christianity---

  1. God exists, not as a vague entity, but having a personality of unlimited intelligence, goodness, and power.
  2. God is the first cause behind the existence of everything.
  3. God's attitude toward men and Women is one of love
  4. Men and women chose to love themselves more that their originator. This broke the love relationship that was uniting God and humankind.
  5. But in spite of this rebellion, God's love remained firm.
  6. Men and women connot restore the relationship with God by their own iniative and power.
  7. Result of this separation:
    • Men and woman have an inner void that needs to be filled--commonly felt as pointlessness in life, nothing to live for, or feeling that life is just not working as it should.
    • There is a desire that has affected every part of an individuals personality, Christ called it "sin" and He described the center of an individual's personality as the "heart" he said that every person has this desease.
    • There is friction and trouble between human beings--individuals and groups.
    • A future separation from God. Christ said that God does not want any person to experience this fate.
  9. In a mysterious series of events, which are scarcely understood, God entered human history in an unique person known by his contemporaries as Jesus of Nazareth.
  10. His body was buried, and after 3 days in the grave, He came vack to life. He visited his followers, who later saw Him vanish into the clouds.
  11. He is still alive. He makes an appeal to individuals and offers His death substitute for our soul death. He threfore "saves us from our sins." In return He asks that each of us accept Hima s director of our lives.
  12. We respond to Jesus Christ on a person-to-person basis. We can either accept him or reject him.

Islam

Definition of Islam--Islam is the Arabic word for submission. The essence of Islam is the complete submission of one's self and life to the will of Allah. The one and eternal God and the Lord Creator of the Universe. There are six basic beliefs of Islam and five pillars a Muslim must follow. Although they constitute the basics of Islam, the "building" of Islam consists of more than just beliefs and "pillars."

"Definition of God---It is a known fact every language has one or more terms that are used in reference to God and sometimes to lesser deities. This is not the case with Allah. Allah is the personal name of the one true God. Nothing else can be called Allah. The term has no plural nor gender. This shows its uniqueness when compared with the word "god" which can be made plural (gods) or feminine (goddess.) It is interesting to notice that Allah is the personal naeme of God in Armaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic.

To a Muslim, Allah is Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, who is similar to nothing and nothing compares to Him. The Propeht Mohammed was asked by his contemporaries about Allah, and the answer came directly from God Himself in theform of a short chapter of the Quran

Some basic beliefs about Islam:

  1. God is eternal and everlasting.
  2. God's attributes are also eternal and everlasting
  3. He does not lose his attribute nor aquire new ones.
  4. His attributes are absolute.
  5. There are no other Gods, and God has no children.
  6. He is self sufficient or self subsistent
  7. The creator does not create only in the sense of bringing those into being, he also perservers them and takes them out of existence and is the ultimate cause of whatever happens to that being.

(from: Islamic Faq, Asim -Mughal--mughal@caltech.edu--- http//www.eecs.uknas.edu/~nghosheh/islam.html#menu)

Judaism

There are thirteen basic and general principals Jews believe in:

  1. God Exists
  2. God is one and unique
  3. God is incorporeal
  4. God is eternal
  5. Prayer is to be directed at God an no other
  6. words of the prophets are true
  7. Mose's propechy is better thatn any other prophet's
  8. The written Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and oral teachings (teachings now contained in the Talmud and other writings) were given to Moses.
  9. There will be no other Torah
  10. God will reward the good and punich the wicked
  11. God knows the thoughts and deeds of man
  12. The Messiah will come
  13. The dead will be resurrected

Unlike mnay other religion, Judaism focus much on abstract cosmological concepts. Although Jews have certainly considered the nature of God, man, the universe, life and the afterlife at great lengths, there is no mandated, official, definitive belief on these subjects, outside of the general concepts.

(http//members.ao/com/jewfaq/plain/index.html)