Posted on 09/22/2001 10:00:05 AM PDT by BibChr
Dear Lazarus,
Both you and Dave have serious emotional problems. You find Jerry Falwell scarier than a terrorist who has just killed 7,000 of your fellow citizens? How many would he have to kill in order to become the bigger monster: 70,000? Seven million?
"I would lump Bin Ladin and Falwell in the same camp as far as using religion for evil."
Let's see, so far Falwell has grown a church, founded a university, has funded numerous charitable works and - as of this moment has committed no murders. Not one, zero, nada. Bin Laden's religious activities include (but are not limited to) bombing embassies, the USS Cole, and the attack on the US which we have all witnessed. But to you, Falwell and Bin Laden are equally evil, and you fear Falwell more.
You are an idiot.
Furthermore, you and your kind are dangerous, because it's perfectly apparent that your hatred of fundamentalist Christians knows no bounds, is beyond reason, and puts you in the same mindset as Hitler. He also feared and hated a group of people, and had a solution.
Love and peace.
I'm not sure that I agree with the idea that the Jewish conception of G-d is closer to the Christian idea than it is to the Muslim idea. I think that, while all three religions share some common ideas about G-d, each is pretty distinctive. For instance, the Christian belief in a divine Trinity is utterly antithetical to the Jewish and Islamic belief in a wholly incorporeal G-d. Both Judaism and Islam forbid graphic representations of G-d as a result; Christian art, of course, is dominated by representations of one or more parts of the Trinity.
As a Jew, I'd agree with you that Christianity evolved out of Judaism -- with the caveats that I'd say (1) it evolved out of a totally different form of Judaism to what is practised today, a version that centred around priests, sacrifices and the Temple(s). Rabbinic Judaism was also formed in the early centuries of the Common Era (eg after Jesus's death), and (2) it evolved so much that it is very dramatically different in terms of theology, ritual, practice and observance.
Star Traveler asserts that Judaism and Christianity are both Abrahamic religions and that Islam is not -- but elaborates a theological position, rather than a description. Jews more than just the divinity of the Messiah, they reject most of the fundamental tenets of Christianity -- original sin, for instance.
But broadly speaking, Christianity and Judaism seek to serve the same God, do they not? And is not their God the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and Elijah? And don't they share, generally, much of the Old Testament as sacred scripture?
From what I have seen of the Koran, it is radically different from the Old and New Testaments.
You asked: "But broadly speaking, Christianity and Judaism seek to serve the same God, do they not?" I don't really think they do. What makes you say this? What are the elements of similarity? The Jewish and Christian conceptions of G-d are very very different. Jews fundamentally reject Jesus as Christ--we fundamentally reject the *idea* of a deity in human form. You asked "And is not their God the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and Elijah?". The answer is that, yes, Jews and Christians believe in a link between their G-d and the G-d of the people you mentioned (Jews might traditionally refer to "the G-d of Avraham, Yitzhak v'Ya'akov" in this context). So, of course, do Muslims. And, of course, Muslims also believe in the 'Old Testament' as being sacred scripture. They differ from Jews in that they believe the same of the 'New Testament'; Judaism rejects the 'New Testament' entirely and *never* refers to the Torah as the 'Old Testament'. Judaism also traditionally believe in the Talmud as being sacred -- Torah she'be'al'peh (Torah that is in the mouth, as opposed to written). That adds a collection of more than a million words of Jewish thought that is unique and not at all Christian (or Islamic) in outlook.
I think it is easy both to over-play and to under-play the resemblance of each of the three religions to each other. They are distinct and distinctive, sister faiths. They share some important concepts -- and are utterly unlike each other in other ways.
Messianic Jews, who are a growing group and are like the First Church in Jerusalem (of whom we hear from James [Jesus' brother] and Peter) are evidence of the tight integration of Jews and Jesus Christ. You don't find such a thing as "Messianic Muslims" (either in history or the current day).
There is no connection between Islam and Christianity. But Jews and Christians have the same God as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- who is the One true God ("Allah" being one of the many false gods that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stands against).
The First Christian Church was in Jerusalem and consisted of Jews. The origination of Christianity was totally Jewish -- as there were absolutely no Gentiles in the beginning (but, of course, later on -- as evidenced by Peter under guidance of the Holy Spirit and from prophetic Scriptures of the Jews).
There was no such thing with Islam and they set themselves against Christians and Jews in their own writings.
Christians don't set themselves against Jews in their Holy Scriptures -- and in fact -- say that they are part of the same belief and same God. Jesus, Himself makes that claim. And Christians accept totally and 100% the Holy Written Scriptures -- the law, prophets and writings of the Jews, that Jesus accepted, too -- in their entirety.
There is *no such thing* with Islam - in any way.
it's time for Kol Nidre
And history speaks against you on this -- in that they were considered fully Jews-- in Jerusalem, while accepting Christ as the Messiah. In fact, there were those of the ruling religious class in Jerusalem who accepted Christ as the Messiah.
So, even history speaks against you.
You will find that the Christians and Jews are coming together -- with our brethren of the Messianic Jews forming the bridge -- bringing things back to where it was with the First Christian Church in Jerusalem.
We are coming to that time when all will be joined -- with the Messiah returning.
I'll put it to you this way. The Messiah who returns and builds the Temple in Ezekiel, will be accepted by the Christians, fully and without reservation.
You will not find a single Jew from across the spectrum of liberal to haredi Jews who would accept a Messianic Jew as truly being Jewish.
The JEWS who do accept Jesus as the Messiah would disagree with you -- AS JEWS. They will maintain by all other standards -- that they are Jews (and rightfully so), while they do accept Jesus as Messiah. They are a witness against other Jews.
We hear often how this name "Operation Infinite Justice" is offensive to the Muslims. Somehow it is not being noticed that it might be offensive to someone INFINITELY more important - God Himself.
Yes, rather than usurping the place of Our Creator we should repent.
However, I don't share them. And as I said in a previous post, this is the case because I find the concept of god(s) unreasonable (supernatural entities, omniscient beings, etc.) and so I cannot believe in a particular god. You gave me your reasons for your beliefs but I don't find them convincing.
You said that the Bible is a good (eventually the only correct) description of reality but in my eyes that's not the case. The Bible is a smorgasbord of stories and tales from different authors and written over a long period of time. These not only contradict each other in some aspects but very often conflict with contemporary science (and there are many sites on the net dealing just with this topic).
However, I acknowledge the fact that the stories in the Bible describe a society over a long period of time. During this vast amount of time this society was confronted with good as well as bad situations and therefore you find in these writings how people behave under certain circumstances. Our knowledge may have advanced enormously since those times but our nature has not - we're the same humans (especially regarding our emotions) we were 5,000 years ago, even 20,000 years ago.
The society the Bible deals with (that of the ancient Hebrews) was a very stable one. But for societies to exist at all it is necessary that it's individuals trust each other i.e. an individual should not be a threat to the life of an other one. From these presuppositions certain rules arise: don't hurt/injure an other individual from your society (with killing as worst case), don't steal from him and don't lie to him (of course under certain circumstances society has agreed upon, exceptions from these rules can be made). These rules can be found in any society we know of - they are therefore the basic rules of the system called society.
In the Bible are also other rules (commandments, laws, recommendations) that deal with issues that may lead to the cases mentioned above or issues that may in other ways destabilize society. That could be in most general terms uncommon behaviour because in ancient societies people were suspicious and even afraid of what they weren't used to (tolerance is a rather recent "invention" but nonetheless there are people who act as described above).
In the field of human competition,there is almost always the need for an umpire...somebody the contestants mentally assent to as being the highest authority in the game.The higher the competion factor and the more there is at stake...the greater the need for the umpire.If the contestants already know the rules and conditions of play (and we'll assume that most who compete are mentally competent enough to understand them) then why can't we simply rely on reason to rule and dispense with the uneccessary intrusion of an umpire?
Now that's interesting. If you didn't mention that I'd come up with that myself. Why do I think so? Well, man is selfish and therefore he is tempted to breake the rules mentioned above for his own advantage (especially when he thinks he's not going to be caught or he is in a position where he needs not fear any punishment by others) but of course that's detrimental to society. And how do you make him obey those rules? You can explain the rules to him and show him the negative effects his acts can have on society and that he in the end is affected by this. But as you stated above most people are mentally not competent enough to understand that (and it's also a hell of a job to explain that to everyone). Therefore it's easier to tell them to obey the rules because you told them so and it's good for them (I'm sure everyone heard that as a child). But who are you to tell someone else how to behave.
Of course if your an authority (e.g. king, priest, etc.) that's a lot easier but there are nonetheless problems: you cannot supervise the people all the time and if you break one of those rules (you're a human after all) others may see no reason to respect them anymore and do what they want.
Therefore it may be wise to attribute those rules to god(s). These entities are used to explain things people don't understand, they are feared and the most important fact is people are convinced they are everywhere and thus can see respectively know everything and of course last but not least they're immortal. So if people are convinced that these rules are devine and every single action of them is seen by the god(s) and misbehaviour is going to be punished they automatically try to follow those rules.
What's important here is that people believe all that. Whether these gods exist or not is secondary. (In a way it is comparable to the fear of little children that Santa Clause may not leave any presents under the Christmas Tree if they're disobedient.)
So just because something is useful doesn't make it automatically true.
I don't want to say you don't believe in God but IMO you rather believe in 'believing in God', i.e. "you should believe in God because that makes you a better/more moral/more loving/etc. person". But I think if someone arrived to see it that way he can be good/moral/loving and treat others with respect without a belief in a deity. Or to quote Einstein: "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed".
The problem with deities however, is that you never know what they really want. Their will is always subject to interpretation and of course different people have different views of what his will really is (hence the vast number of Christian denominations). A real umpire always makes clear what he wants and how he sees things. Therefore your Superbowl game has no umpire. It is said he made the rules but the players have to apply them themselves. If a foul seems to have occured he is not there to decide whether it really was a foul or not. But the players are left alone to decide that according to his rules. But of course the players of the two teams have different views of this occurrence and one team would say the Great Umpire would say it is a foul and the others would claim the contrary.
Therefore the decision of an umpire should always be clear and the two parties should not have to interpret his decision. and that's why I think that a god is no umpire. In other terms you need an umpire to decide what the Great Umpire really decided.
Though I don't accept the Bible as an authority I don't say that everything in this book is bollocks (though there is a lot that doesn't make sense and so if it was His message he could have done better). If we use ideas from this book we should not use them because they're from the Bible but because we think they are reasonable. If they're not reasonable we should discard them. Our modern society is much more complex than that of the ancient Hebrews and therefore we have to find out for ourselves what is acceptable and what not.
So long
The Messianic Jews have yet to convince *any* other Jews of the validity of their Jewishness--telling me that *they* think of themselves as Jewish is neither convincing nor surprising. The question of who is a Jew, is of course, an extremely complex and controversial subject in Judaism, with a huge set of halakhot and responsa on the subject. Matrilineal descent and standards of conversion are two of the hot topics of today. The question of "can someone believe in Jesus as the Messiah and be Jewish", however, is not now and has never been, a topic of debate. The answer, according to every Jewish authority, is no.
Jews who, like "those of the ruling religious class" that you mentioned who "accepted [Jesus] as the Messiah" were and are considered by other Jews to be heretics, to have stepped outside the boundaries of Jewish faith, by their actions.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.