last evening at half past six, an interfaith dialogue which was organised by FOSIS ireland was held at trinity college dublin (TCD). due to a technical difficulty (heh, i slept actually), i came late and the edmund burke hall was filled almost to full capacity, most of them are students and the dialogue was already under way once i arrived. it is essentially a comparative religion dialogue discussing the similarities and differences between the two major religions, christianiaty and islam. the guest speakers were sheikh shabir ally of the islamic information centre and mr chawkat moucarry, lecturer of all nations christian college. the two speakers were very knowledgable on the two faiths and both studied the holy scriptures and both researched the historical properties of both beliefs, yet both have, most of the time, different interpretetations.

the dialogue started off with the speakers conveying their arguments and points based on their understanding of the holy scriptures. interesting enough, the main focus of the session was, i think, about the T in TCD , the concept of the trinity. holy spirit, father, son and sins were among the recurring phrases yesterday. after a short break, the two speakers were asked to give out their conclusions. mr shabir ali concluded that islam are both rational and compatible with the old testament and the new testament while mr moucarry requested the audience to analyse the quran and the bible and understand these basis of these two beliefs.

the dialogue ended with a promo video of the next main event in the FOSIS EIRE calender, the end the occupation seminar that will take place in our beloved astra hall, university college dublin sometime in march.

this saturday, the 29th of january, shabir ally will visit cork for another interfaith debate with george hilliard at university college cork.

at around 10 o'clock everyone put on their jackets, exited the edmund burke hall and left the most famous university in ireland into the bitter coldness of the night, with something to ponder about.

here's some videos of shabir ally's past lectures.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28, 2005 at 1/28/2005 11:13:00 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.