Actually, there is a sect of self-identified* Christians who do not believe in the Trinity – the Unitarians. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the definition of a Unitarian is, rather curiously: 1) a monotheist who does not believe in the Trinity; or 2) a Christian who does not believe in the Trinity.
By that definition, most Christians are not Unitarians but Muslims are. :rolleyes:
One more, as a previous poster had mentioned Nestorianism:
Nestorian [adj.]: Designating a church of the East that adheres to the doctrines of Nestorius, which assert that Christ had two distinct natures, divine and human.
A good word to know…
Yes, but for Muslims and Jews, God is, by His nature, indivisible…He’s a unity. So to say that God has distinct parts, from the Muslim or Jewish perspective, is coming very close to polytheism.
Not quite accurate. Nestorius taught that Christ had two natures, true, but more importantly, linked “nature” (“physis”) with “subsistence” (“hypostasis”) united under one persona (“prosopon”), so giving Christ two hypostases. This had the effect of turning Christ from one integrated person into a human Jesus and a divine Logos, which only appeared to be one person or prosopon, and also meant that Nestorius denied the Virgin Mary the title of “Theotokos” or “birthgiver of God”, instead calling her “Christotokos” only.
So there is nothing in the Qur’an per se that can be interpreted to say that Christians were polytheists?
WRS
Well, there is 5:116, which in the Yusuf Ali translation is rendered:
This would imply that Christians are polytheists.
yBeayf - that quote reminds me of a comment an uncle of mine made, which made me want to ask you something. He said that Christian and Jewish leaders know that Islam is the truth, but they hide it. They refuse to convert to Islam or to teach their followers that Islam is the truth because they fear the reaction they would get from other leaders of their religion, not to mention that converting to Islam or teaching that Islam is the truth would mean losing their followers and, thereby, their source of livelihood.
What prompted this comment was his discussion of a Christian professor who taught Islam. He said that the professor taught Islam without bringing in anything that contradicted or questioned what Islam taught. He taught in such a way that even a Muslim would feel comfortable and edified. One would have thought, from attending his lectures, that he was Muslim. But to the end, he never converted. He then commented that he and other Christian and Jewish leaders, who have studied Islam, know Islam is the truth but refuse to convert or teach that it is the truth for the abovementioned reasons. (Part of me thinks this argument arose to explain those who have studied Islam but never converted because they didn’t find it to be the truth: most Muslims cannot conceive how someone could study Islam and not join it.)
In what you have studied, is this something that is present in the Qur’an or ahadith or something that can be derived through interpreting them, or is this something that arose independently of the traditional sources?
WRS
Because it’s rooted in Judaism. It’s quite hard to reconciliate a strict monotheism and a son of god. Actually, the trinity just doesn’t make sense. That’s why it’s amongst the “mysteries” of christianism (i.e. : chrstian concepts that can’t be understood by using reason. There is a handful of them).
I think that christians (or more generally westerners who have been surrounded by the christian culture) are too accustomed to the concept of trinity to really notice that it’s indeed quite blatantly polytheistic in essence. If you belong to a truly monotheistic religion, I don’t think you need hadiths or a surate to perceive it as such.
“There is no god but God, except that there are three of Him”. Yes, sure…
Protons, neutrons and electrons are all discreet from each other and separable and none of them is an atom in itself. The premise of the trinity is that each “person” is completely God in itself and is not separable from the others. It is not a matter of “composition” as you said before - it’s not three different things that combine to make another thing - it’s three different things that each are the other thing, in and of themselves. A better analogy might be something like how a person (let’s take you for instance) can be a father, a husband and a son simultaneously and without contradiction, and each of those “persons” is still wholly you, not just components of you.
Of course, with the Trinity God is his own son, somehow, and I still don’t have much grasp of what the “Holy spirit” is, and I don’t know why those "persons " have to be limited to three or why there can’t be a “mother” in the mix somewhere, and I don’t know why Jesus prayed to himself and said that he and God had different “wills” but I’m digressing. There are theologians who are sophisticated enough to formulate answers to those questions. My point was just to object to a characterization of the Trinity as mere compositional components.
As to the OP, I think the main reason Islam sees Christianity as idolotry is because of its deification of Jesus. Islam sees that as the worship of a human (albeit a Great prophet) and that’s a no no. Even the worship of Mohammed would be considered idolotrous by Muslims.
As McMurphy said to Martini at the poker table in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a half a ten cent cigarette ain’t a nickle, it’s shit. Analogies by definition are not perfect, but a split atom has lost its essence. The Holy Spirit is our Advocate and Teacher.
Lib, I have no particular peeve about your general point re the Trinity, but why not just drop the atom comparison for simplicity’s sake?
As others have pointed out, a split atom doesn’t lose its essence, but can actually split into smaller but complete atoms (eg fission of uranium, for one) or into smaller particles (eg protons, neutrons, electrons and their components) without becoming an absurdity. This particular 10c cigarette does split into a couple of 5c cigarettes. It’s just not a good comparison, and you’re losing the more literal-minded, nit-picking Dopers. Which is to say, most of us.
(bolding mine)
So, which is it, angles yes, or angles no 
Anyway, to the OP… I think part of it is probably the stuff others have mentioned with the icons and statues and trinity, although it should be noted that muslim Persian art had no problem with human and animal representation at some points in history.
But part of it is just demonization of the competition, IMO.
Frankly, as I already said, no analogy is perfect, and, as you know, these descriptions of atoms are themselves analogies. They don’t look like minature solar systems with discreet orbiting balls whose positions and momentums we can predict. They’re more like clouds, but they aren’t like that either. It is illogical to declare a thing ill-conceived merely because its analogies are flawed. When false analogy is a logical error, the fault is with the analogy. It isn’t because the Trinity is a flawed concept. You could make analogies for everything from evolution to quantum mechanics, and they would all have flaws. And yet, people demand analogies because they claim that they cannot understand the Trinity. Or they make absurd categorical declarations about it being ill-conceived. Analogies are to help illustrate certain particulars of a thing. They are not intended to be definitions or descriptions that are in every respect accurate. My point of using an atom was to illustrate that something could be one and yet still be comprised of components. That’s all. All this “Yeah, but this other thing is not similiar” business is beside the point.
Off the top of my head, I don’t believe there are any ahadith that specifically say this. The Qur’an also doesn’t say this explicitly, but it does hammer home the point that many of the unbelievers are simply being obstinate and refusing to see the truth for what it is.
Bwah? Christianity embraces the Old Testament including the 10 Commandments. Worshipping Jesus potentially places another god before Yahweh–unless it can be argued that they are one and the same. Nothing to do with Islam.