Posted on 03/25/2007 7:31:29 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
I say this with total respect for Christians, Jews, and anyone else who does not worship mohammed, as the slaves of islam do:
The worshippers of mohammed, mohammedans, pretend that Judeo-Christian history is their own. It is a "history" found in mohammed-worship theology (the silly-goofy koran is the primary source) only because not-so-smart mohammed was a sociopath who incorporated elements of other religions while he was devising his own religion designed to associate mohammed with allah.
The irony of islam is that, for rational folks, it is a direct challenge to any basis of faith. The worship of mohammed is so absurd, so made-up, so religious, that it is impossible to raise any question about mohammed-worship without raising questions about any other faith.
With Good Friday approaching, it is important to look at the precursor event, the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. God ordered that Abraham slaughter Isaac, as an animal would be slaughtered. Isaac, who was a famously piquant gift to Abraham, would be burnt by his old father.
Abraham was exalted by God for his willingness to inflict such suffering not only upon Isaac, but also, and maybe more-so, upon himself. The beauty of Jesus was his understanding that this barbarism was unacceptable.
There is nothing, and was nothing, admirable about the slaughter of Isaac. The story is repulsive. It is self-evident that any entity requiring a man to kill his son for the pleasure of the entity, to test loyalty, is actually a story about those who believe that arbitrary suffering is good and wonderful.
The story of the worship of mohammed is a story about a sociopath who has spawned hatred, violence and the love of infliction of suffering. Suffering, to allah, is his ultimate pleasure.
There is no way to logically separate the belief in the goodness of Abraham's willingness from the brutality of belief in allah, and his brutal "messenger."
Our President, who in so many respects has been so well intentioned, and who does not deserve the ridiculous and outrageous calumnies put upon him, is tethered to a basic premise about existence which renders him incapable of understanding what we are up against.
He is our Abraham, willing to sacrifice us on the rock altar of belief in the fundamental goodness of submission to God.
"God will provide himself a Lamb for The sacrifice."
My biggest problem with Dubya, and this may be a related point, is that he's too queasy to do what's necessary to win this war.
Churchill was a far more morally complicated figure than Dubya, but it took a Churchill to carpetbomb German cities and win WWII. Dubya has spent too much of the last four years looking out for Iraqi civilians, in my view, when he should have been trying to win the war.
So perhaps it does take an amoral SOB to properly wage war from time to time. And in that sense, an evangelical like Bush, who has it in the back of his mind that he'll have to answer to God for every dead Iraqi, etc, may not be the best guy for the job. You sort of need an anti-hero at times like this. Not sure if that's what you're getting at.
I've always loved the promise God made to Abraham that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore.
May one assume that the descendents have not reached that point yet? And therefore the last days of earth must be a long way off . . .
***I'm not trying to be argumentative, but Ishmael might disagree about that 'only son' thing.***
God's promise was that the son would be born by SARA, not Hagar. As a result Hagar has no claim although her son did father many kings.
Finite man can't grasp the infinite.
Your points are all garbage, but I do so appreciate you posting them as the replies have been thoughtful and stimulating. . .
Where you err is with the assertion that islamofascism has anything to do with religion and therefore, could be compared to Christianity and Judaism in the first place.
~faith.
I'm not real sure about that either. Maybe Isaac was his only remaining son after he sent Ishmael away? I'm used to not understanding the Bible completely. Genesis 1:26 still has me shaking my head after all these years. But I do believe, even though I don't entirely understand. I figure if God thinks it is important for me to understand He'll see that I do.
Islam is not an "Abrahamic" religion, whatever that is.
Abraham is the biological progenitor of the Arabs, through his son Ishmael. Arab is not an equivalent of Muslim. The fact of Abraham's monotheism is claimed by some to link his religious beliefs system to Islam because Islam is monotheistic. But the God of Abraham is not the god of Islam. And, of course, Muslims reject the doctrine that Abraham's One God is manifested in three persons, the Trinity.
It seems to me that you have touched on a somewhat controversial subject, though not particularly for Jews who understand the story from all its angles. I will provide the Jewish perspective on the matter.
First, we must understand that the story of Isaac's sacrifice is not a simple matter to understand. We, as humans, particularly in the modern age, find it difficult to comprehend something as controversial as sacrificing one's son.
In Judaism, there are two ways to interpret this story. One interpretation is the standard one as understood by the vast majority of bible scholars and bible readers. The other interpretation is much more complex and much more controversial. Both lead to the same conclusion, but both take two completely different paths.
Let's begin with the standard interpretation:
Isaac was a grown man (somewhere between 25 to 37, depending on the source) and could've easily fought off his father if he wished not to be sacrificed. Yet Isaac did not resist and did not make a sound. Like a righteous man, he has accepted his fate. G_d instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son without giving him a reason for it. The practical explanation suggests that it was the most heavenly, most difficult, most powerful test ever given to a man to test his belief in G_d. The story goes on that just before Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac, an angel interferes and manifests a ram (or a goat, depending on the source) where Abraham chooses to spare his son and sacrifice the ram instead.
The second interpretation is not widely accepted, but one that was suggested by several Jewish scholars of old. Keep in mind that this is the unorthodox interpretation and by far the most controversial of the two:
The story starts the same. The only difference is that the angel is too late to stop Abraham from sacrificing his son and Isaac is in effect, sacrificed and has died. Further interpretation suggests that when Abraham has sacrificed his son, many angels cried and screamed in agony to G_d as to why He would allow such a cruel, unmerciful act. It is further explained that G_d resurrects Isaac from the dead by bringing him into His "Raqia Shevi'i" (loosely translates to "Seventh Heaven") and reinstalling, so to speak, Isaac's soul and then bringing him back to life.
As you can see, both interpretations take different paths, but both lead to the same conclusion - Isaac lived. Whether he wasn't sacrificed and lived or whether he was sacrificed and resurrected, the result is the same. This clearly suggests that G_d never intended for Abraham to kill Isaac, but rather sacrifice or attempt to sacrifice Isaac in order to test Abraham's trust in Him.
Some suggest that G_d was indeed testing Abraham's faith in him, though I believe it goes considerably deeper than that, into areas and ideas we may never comprehend. Someone here used the term "obedience" which is grossly incorrect in this case as G_d did not demand obedience from Abraham, but rather inquired into his belief in Him. So, in effect, this was much more a test of trust and free will rather than a test of obedience. Obedience relates more to a command. G_d has not "commanded" Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. G_d has "asked" Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Because it was such a grueling test of free will and Abraham has stepped to the "challenge", G_d has since considered Abraham as his own son and has promised his offspring and his people great lands and wealth.
I could discuss this much further as there are other implications to consider such as the rather large gap between the time of Isaac's sacrifice (when he was around 30 years old, depending on the source) to the time Isaac married Rebekah (when Isaac was around 40-45 years old). There are of course other implications, but I would not venture to discuss them at this point as I have to call it a night.
Rather like our current practice of abortion.
Yes, I meant to add one of your points earlier. I have taught Genesis and Exodus to mixed classes of Jews, Christians, and at least some students who have never even seen a Bible.
In western art, Isaac is usually portrayed as a young man, maybe a teenager. But some of my Jewish students who have studied the Hebrew Bible said that the traditional Jewish interpretation of this passage is that Isaac was in his 30s, old enough to be responsible, and old enough to fight off his father if he had chosen to. Abraham was more than a hundred years old when Sarah CONCEIVED Isaac, so presumably he was over 130 at the time of the sacrifice.
In other words, it must be concluded that Isaac was not forcefully tied up and placed on the burning pile to have his throat cut, but that he CHOSE to permit his father to do this. In other words, he was tested too, and he too chose virtuous obedience.
Interestingly, in Buchanan's 16th-century Latin tragedy about Jephtha's daughter, he makes the same presumption: that she voluntarily agreed to be a sacrifice so her father could fulfill his unfortunate promise. This doesn't make these stories a whole lot easier, but it does put another light on them.
Yes, Ishmael was disowned and banished, and he became a wanderer. He was traditionally said to be the progenitor of the wandering Arabs or Bedouin, which Mohammed seems to have picked up on in his distorted version of the story.
Ecclesiastes 1:2
:)
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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