Hispanics are becoming Republican but I see the point.
Everyone needs to give up tribal racial politics, including black people. It won’t work otherwise.
Hey Tabreez. Thanks for being patient
Not cheeky at all! Just using the definitions that medical historians themselves use.
When scholars distinguish infirmaries from hospitals, they’re doing so because the institutional hospital is a specific historical invention, not a generic category of "places where sick people received care"
Here’s the point you’re skipping:
If Mihintale met the criteria, historians wouldn’t classify it as a monastic infirmary = but they do.
Repeatedly.
Across every major survey of ancient medicine.
And the distinction is not arbitrary:
Infirmary (Mihintale):
monks only
Ayurvedic therapy
no continuous public charity
no disease-organized wards
no triage system
no administrative structure
no instruction of physicians
Hospital (Basilieas model):
staffed medical professionals
open to the general public
isolation wards
disease-specific wings
charitable mandate
institutional funding
attached medical instruction
Those are not ‘narrow caveats’, those are the features that define the institution.
You asked who invented the hospital, not who had early forms of care.
If we blur the categories, then by your logic Babylonian healing temples, Asklepion shrines, or Roman valetudinaria would all count as "hospitals" which no historian claims.
History isn’t playing semantic games. It is distinguishing types of institutions.
Christians didn’t invent "places where sick people existed".
They invented the hospital as a structured, charitable, and publicly accessible medical institution.
That’s not selective.
That’s literally the consensus in Porter, Nutton, Temkin, Ferngren, and every serious historian of medicine.
Sure. Now, I see islam first in your bio. So, here's what I want to do first:
There's a lot in here. If we're going to be debating each, then we need to focus on individual answers. We'll respond accordingly, and I see you don't have a check, so I will answer, you take as many comments you need to debate, then tag me back in to respond. Deal?
It’s always Islam at the end of the sword; it is criticized, questioned, defamed, misrepresented, and debated often, perhaps every day on this platform.
How about we discuss something different today? Let’s say Christianity, and perhaps how it defies logic and “common sense”?
I have 1M for any Christian who can provide satisfactory answers to the questions below: 👇
1. Is God one person or three?
If one being but three persons, what exactly is a “person” in this context, and how is that different from three gods?
2. Can the Father exist without the Son or the Holy Spirit?
If not, then each is dependent, but a dependent being cannot be God.
3. If Jesus is fully God, then:
- Who was sustaining the universe while he was a baby?
- Who controlled the laws of nature while he slept?
4. If the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit, but each is God, how is that not three gods?
5. If the Son and the Spirit are “begotten” or “proceed from” the Father, doesn’t that give the Father priority, meaning they are not equal?
6. If God is omnipresent, how can Jesus be physically located in one place at a time?
7. Why does Jesus repeatedly say:
“The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28)
“The Father… has sent me” (John 5:30)
If they are equal? 🤔
8. In Mark 13:32, Jesus says he doesn’t know the Hour, but the Father does.
How can God be ignorant of God’s knowledge?
9. Why does Jesus pray to God?
Who is he talking to if he is the same being?
10. Why does Jesus call the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3)?
Where does that leave Jesus?
11. If Jesus is God inside a human body, was Mary the mother of God?
- If yes, then God has a mother.
- If no, then Jesus is not fully God.
12. Can God die?
- If no, then Jesus did not die.
- If yes, then God can cease to exist, which contradicts His nature.
Thank you. So we are in full agreement:
✅ No Christian sect ever worshipped both Jesus and Mary as “two gods beside Allah.”
(Your words: “there’s no evidence of any Christian sect…”)
✅ The Collyridians were fringe, debated, not Christian, and did not worship Jesus at all.
✅ Therefore Qur’an 5:116 is not describing any real Christian group.
And if the verse is, as you say, a rhetorical warning rather than a description of Christian doctrine, then it simply reinforces the point I’ve been making:
Qur’an 5:116 puts into Jesus’ mouth a correction of a belief no Christians actually held.
That’s the entire argument. Nothing more, nothing less.
Thanks for the clarification.
Short answer: there’s no evidence of any mainstream or recognized Christian sect that worshipped both Jesus and Mary as “gods beside God”; the Collyridians (reported by Epiphanius) involved Marian worship, were fringe, and are themselves debated by scholars.
Many scholars read Qur’an 5:116 as a rhetorical warning against shirk or against excessive veneration rather than a description of orthodox Trinitarian belief, with references to fringe groups or perceived practices rather than the Christian mainstream.
Thank you. This actually proves my point cleanly.
If quran 5:116 is not describing any historical group that worshipped both Jesus and Mary as gods, and is instead a symbolic “broad anti-shirk warning,” then that means:
✅ The verse is not describing Christianity
✅ The verse is not describing any Christian sect
✅ The verse is addressing a scenario that never happened in Christian history
Which is exactly what I’ve been saying.
If a verse is framed as a dialogue with Jesus about what “your followers” supposedly did, but no followers of Jesus ever did this, then the verse is not correcting Christian doctrine, it’s correcting a belief Christians never held.
That’s all I was pointing out.
Short answer: the Arabic of 5:116 presents a single question to Jesus about people taking “me and my mother as two gods besides Allah,” and classical tafsirs treat it as a broad anti-shirk rebuke that covers any excesses in devotion to Jesus or to Mary, not necessarily one group that worshipped both together.
So yes, many exegetes read it as encompassing multiple patterns of exaggeration (veneration of Mary by some, deification of Jesus by others), framed in one rhetorical scene rather than requiring the same community to hold both beliefs simultaneously.
Let’s be precise:
Epiphanius says the Collyridians:
🚩were NOT Christians
🚩 were condemned by every Christian bishop
🚩did NOT worship Jesus at all
🚩 were a tiny local Arabian cult
🚩 practiced pagan bread-offering rituals
🚩 were so obscure he said they had to be hunted down to even find them
Which means:
They do NOT match Quran 5:116.
Not historically.
Not doctrinally.
Not grammatically.
Not theologically.
Qur’an 5:116 describes:
A group that worshipped Jesus
AND worshipped Mary
TOGETHER as gods beside Allah
AND identifies them as "the people" Jesus was sent to
No group in Christian history ever taught that.
Not the Collyridians.
Not the Maryamites.
Not anyone.
So let’s clarify the core issue:
Either:
(a) the Quran misunderstood Christian doctrine,
or
(b) the Quran is addressing an obscure Arabian pagan cult, not Christians.
There is no third option.
So I’ll ask one more time:
Can you name a single Christian sect actual Christians that ever worshipped both Jesus AND Mary as gods beside Allah?
Yes or no.
If the only example is a fringe pagan cult that didn’t worship Jesus, didn’t follow Christianity, and wasn’t part of the Church then the correct answer is no, and quran 5:116 is not describing Christians.
If quran 5:116 is describing Christians, name the Christian group that worshipped BOTH Jesus AND Mary as gods beside Allah.
If you can’t name one, then Quran 5:116 is not describing Christians.
If you say “the Collyridians,” then you admit they were not Christians, did not worship Jesus, and were condemned by Christians, so quran 5:116 still isn’t describing Christians.
Therefore you must choose:
Either the Quran misunderstood Christianity, or it was addressing a tiny pagan Arabian cult, not Christians. Which one?