Ricardo and his brother’s testimony
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*WARNING* |
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An ExamineTheTruth.com disclaimer. |
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"Ortiz" use to be a weight instructor at a fitness gym
here in
Word of Ortiz’s conversion got around the gym; most people were
really cool with it. But, there was a small group of narrow-minded Assyrian
Christians who didn’t take the news to well, and started to become very cold
with Ortiz. They then contacted a Christian missionary named Sam Shamoun, to meet with Ortiz and bring him and his
brother back to Christianity.
"Sam pretended to be real sincere, someone you really
wanted to make your friend, so I made the terrible mistake of inviting him to
my house" exclaimed Ortiz. "Sam started to talk about the Prophet
Mohammed (P), and at first it seemed very interesting what he had to say."
But he then began to corner Ortiz and his brother Ricardo with trick questions,
and started to make disparaging remarks. "He pulled out the Bukhari
hadeeth book and exploited it."
Ricardo recalled about that day, "It’s not that I didn’t
care what he had to say, a lot of what he said was interesting, but a lot of
what he said was b.s.(false), and we knew it, but we didn’t want to be rude, so
we just listened to him. I didn’t want to be close-minded, because that’s not
the kind of guy I am, that’s not how I came to Islam anyways…. I came to Islam
open minded.. and feeling secure about it because it made sense. So I gave him
a chance, he came off as a sincere guy.. so I basically soaked it all up."
In an attempt for them to come back to Christianity, Sam Shamoun tried to "prove" the Bible to them.
"His cornerstone argument was about the Dead Sea Scrolls, trying to prove
that the Bible had never been corrupted….". Well, isn’t that ironic? J For
those who have heard the debate between me and Shamoun., "What the Quran says about the Bible
(corrupt or uncorrupt?)" know exactly what I am talking about. You can
download the debate here. In this debate, Sam Shamoun was caught in terrible lie, which has been
documented here:
One of the high lights of the debate in my opinion, is when I
confronted Sam Shamoun about him red handed LYING to his followers about the
true status of the Bible. I mentioned that Sam stated:
"I don’t
believe anyone can corrupt the Bible"
"It is the pure
word of God"
And he agreed with with a group of Jews that the Old Testament
was 100% the Word of God. But now, prepare for the shock. When Sam Shamoun is
confronted with Biblical Scholars or qualified critics of the Bible, this is
what Sam Shamoun has to say about "uncorrupt", "pure",
"word of God":
"No document of
antiquity (referring to the Bible) has come down variant free, without
corruption"
Sam continues, but we know where the corruption in the Bible is.
So, to his blind congregation, Sam Shamoun champions the Bible as the uncorrupt
and pure Word of God, but when knowledgeable people cross examine him, he
calmly and plainly admits to them that the Bible is corrupt (but still good). I
guess Sam figured that what they (his congregation) don’t know won’t hurt them.
I further challenged Sam repeatedly through out the entire debate to respond to
this serious charge of fraud, yet he refused to and ducked it, till he briefly
stated what he believed about the Bible in the question and answer time, but
could not dismiss the serious charge of fraud nor even attempt to challenge my
allegation. Therefore, this is pure deception, and a deliberate attempt to
mislead unwary people
When Ricardo first visited ExamineTheTruth.com and saw Shamoun’s
name, he couldn’t believe it. As he recalled laughingly his first reaction was,
"Oh my God that’s him! man I have to tell me brother!"
After he heard the heard the debate, he was shocked. Because,
these were the very same false arguments which Sam Shamoun used on him and his brother but of course
didn’t work! Ricardo claimed, "Shamoun would say, the Quran would say to
go back to the Bible for guidance!".
Ricardo argued, "He claimed that he spent 2 years studding
the Bible, he would basically tweak the verses and connect them to other verses
that kind of had a related theme, then he would build a thesis out of that. So
basically, he would say here is this issue, and this other part of the bible
clarifies that…. he would say, ok I know this verse is fuzzy (appears
contradictory), but this other part of the Bible clarify it."
I had to ask the 2 brothers if it was it convincing at all.
Ricardo replied, "well. .. no it wasn’t. because they were his
interpretations.. that’s all they were!!! And I even told him that. What
Shamoun told us didn’t make Christianity more true." This of course is no
surprise to Sam Shamoun, as he himself had openly admitted
that he has never been able to "convert" ANYONE to Christianity. The
belligerent missionary became frustrated when he saw that both brothers didn’t
want to leave Islam and come back to Christianity, inspite of the fact that he
tried to use his favorite bogus arguments from his website "Answering
Islam". "He kept coming (to his home) after that, so much to the
point that I pretended not to be home wishing that he would leave me
alone".
When it became apparent that the "Answering Islam"
arguments were flopping these with these 2 new converts to Islam, and they
refused to convert back to Christianity, Shamoun and his gang of Assyrian thugs
began to taunt Ortiz at work and started making fun of him for converting to
Islam. Ortiz stated, "Basically there attitude.. if he is stupid enough to
become a Muslim, he must be really stupid. But I just said to myself, Allah
will straighten things in the end." And by the grace of God things did
indeed straighten out in the end, and Ortiz’s prayer was answered, As ExamineTheTruth.com
hunted Shamoun down, challenging him to a public debate and utterly humiliated
him, exposed him as a lying deceiver, and rendering him as nothing more than a
hapless clown in the eyes of his peers.
"When my bother came home, and told me how Shamoun and his
friends were mocking and laughing that he became a Muslim, that was the
breaking point." Ricardo continued, "even when I was a Christian, I
would never do that, I would respect that, even if I disagreed with that. That
tells me something about the inside of that person, that there is something
wrong, something… you know .. I don’t know……. rotten. It’s just not right.
Honestly, I don’t feel that is what a true Christian is."
Finally, I asked the Ricardo, briefly, sum up your overall
opinion of the arguments and apologetics of Shamoun and "Answering
Islam". Ricardo, paused, his face became twitched, and responded:
"If I’m used car sales man, and I want to sell you something,
but I know that there is something wrong with the engine, and I’m trying to
pitch it off to you like there is nothing wrong with it, that is fraudulent!!
I’m selling you a lemon! I’m selling you something for a price that is not
worth it!! That’s what he is doing! He knows that there are holes in his
arguments; he knows that he can be refuted; he is selling a car as though it
was brand new, but there are a lot of things wrong with it.. knowingly."
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