Posted on 08/02/2009 7:15:16 PM PDT by FreedomPoster
My remarks are "a great distortion" in what?
Sure it is. Now.
And the Nestorians are very small.
But once they were very numerous.
And Christianity never took root in India no matter what language the litergy is in.
Christians are 20% of the people in India, where 30% are Moslem and most of the rest are Hindus or Jains. As many as 20% in a religiously plural society is a root.
Christianity did originate among a Semitic people, but it never took deep roots among Semites. Most Jews never converted and never will.
The Jews didn't, but the Christian Jews did.
And when Islam came along, a form of religion conforming more to Semitic cultural values, it easily supplanted Christianity.
Yes, with taxes and the sword -- but then I repeat myself. The Arabs used the police power and the edge of the sword, the toll of boys and the immersion techniques used today by cultists to convert Greek-speaking Christians to Islam.
Christianity is a minority religion among Semitic peoples. Among them, Islam and Judaism predominate.
No, Islam predominates -- by force, as I said before.
The Semites are not just the Hebrews and the Arabs. They include the Phoenicians of the coast, Syrians, Aramaeans, all the Nabataeans and Edomites (who may be the same people, all proto-Arab), and 90% of the people of Mesopotamia, in the time of Christ. Christianity was very widespread and the predominate religion in this region in the time of Justianian, its only real competitor being Zoroastrianism from the age of Theodosius forward. Your claim that "Semites" gave Christianity no mind is hollow.
If by "Semites", however, you mean only the Jews and the Arabs, then again you have a problem in argument: because "Jews" has always meant the Jehovah-worshipping Semites of the House of Abraham who clung to the Mosaic Law after Christianity had appeared -- so that you are arguing a tautism: if "Jews" means only the Jews who never converted from the Law of Moses, then of course your statement is perfect because it's a tautology, and because you then say that Christian Jews are no longer Jews but Gentiles.
Sorry, no sale.
But that did not last when Islam came along. Islam predominates in the Middle East and northern Africa. And it has for 1600 years, largely displacing Christianity. Are there still pockets of Christians? Yes, but Islam predominates.
Christians are 20% of the people in India, where 30% are Moslem and most of the rest are Hindus or Jains. As many as 20% in a religiously plural society is a root.
Your statistics are completely wrong. In India only 2% are Christian. Also Muslims are 14%. Jains are 0.4% and Zoroastrians (Parsees) have an even smaller percentage. Hindus are about 80% of the population. I am using Wikipedia for the stats. As I said, Christianity never took hold in India.
if "Jews" means only the Jews who never converted from the Law of Moses, then of course your statement is perfect because it's a tautology, and because you then say that Christian Jews are no longer Jews but Gentiles.
The majority of Jews never converted to Christianity. I have known Jews who have converted to Catholicism or other Protestant denominations. None of them follow the Mosaic law like Orthodox Jews. The Jews who call themselves Christian and follow the Mosaic law are a very small minority of Jews. Most Jews have no interest in converting to Christianity. I think it more likely that the sun will fall from the sky tomorrow and extinguish its fire in the ocean than my Jewish accountant convert any time during his life time.
You have misrepresented Hellenistic culture.
We’re next if we are not careful.
Islam has NOTHING to offer the world but violence, brutality and intolerance.
you have defined Hellenism by the worst in that culture. Like defining Judaism by the ACLU or American Culture by the Black Eyed PEas
Actually, no -- I was pointing to the point of departure between Western European (modern) and Classical cultures, and the difference between them in the area of ideas about the personal (personal space, modesty, etc.). That difference is the Christians following Judaica not Classical culture.
I would never engage in the fool's errand of derogating Greek culture. It's just that, in some areas where Classical and Jewish social mores diverged, we follow the Jews.
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