mindlight
See in the dark
Guess Abraham is not your "father" you speak the language of another parent when you call evil good and light darkness. There are a great many Muslims who would condemn these attacks and even more Christians.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Brussels Under Attack
- Thread starter Altfish
- Start date
Guess Abraham is not your "father" you speak the language of another parent when you call evil good and light darkness. There are a great many Muslims who would condemn these attacks and even more Christians.
Demonslayer
Well-Known Member
mindlight
See in the dark
Aspects of the theocratic law are notvrelevant to Christians e.g ceremonial and food laws and laws designed primarily to isolate the Hebrews from the pagan practices of the nations around them. But the Mosaic law cannot merely be dismissed and has much to teach Christian law makers in entirely different cultures and contexts. Also the freedom and mercy that Christ opened up means that the boundaries of theocratic law itself can be set considerably wider than in the days of Moses.
Demonslayer
Well-Known Member
I'm still not understanding, let's take another route.
Who exactly in that passage should be stoned to death, according to God, and for what? Please be specific.
Someone is getting stoned to death at Gods command. Who and why? Jews only? Are the Jews doing the stoning, or are the Jews being stoned?
mindlight
See in the dark
Another tragedy but I think people are reacting with less surprise and deranged passion. Salafi jihadism needs to be hunted down and destroyed but let us not condemn the innocent with the guilty. Firm and clear headed determination rather than a new racism and blind hysteria is what is needed.
Flankerl
Well-Known Member
Which is terribly confusing to me.
Jews who have been found guilty of transgression of this law being stoned by other Jews.
No non-Jew harmed in the process. They could carry on to sacrifice their children to their Gods outside of Israel.
Regarding the politics, one thing I learned was, via google search, is why any group claims responsibility for such an attack. Kind of obvious, but wasn't sure till I read it. The way to advertise your terror organization is to claim responsibility of such attacks, helps with further recruiting. Which then leads to follow up question of how would one substantiate such claims? This is where (secret) intelligence comes into play, tracking of known code words and such. Still, as long as that is (intentionally) kept secret, seems like the masses are asked to just have faith in who did what, and even why.
Regarding the spiritual, when I first heard of attacks (around 3:30 a.m. CST-US), and for about the next hour, I certainly was entertaining notions of revenge against attackers, those that support this form of attack. But realize that is perpetuating the problem. The idea that a good defense is an attacking offense is seemingly rooted in our collective forms of justice. IMO, you can be entirely without any religious belief and still justify revenge as a proper reaction to any attack, especially atrocities / attacks involving deaths. It's challenging to escape from that mindset. But there is an escape, and it is rooted in forgiveness. If forgiveness is for you some notion of bestowing a judgment (of release from guilt) upon another, then that's fine. I think it is the normal concept of forgiveness. But, not how I think of forgiveness foremost. Instead, I see it as forgiving own self from insisting that this is the way the world (or rather my world) has to operate. That revenge is the most logical response. Even in thought, much (much) less in action. There is strength in being vigilant for (the) peace (of God). Not wanting to be over zealous here. Just noting how I found escape from my own thoughts of revenge. Might revert later on to thoughts of revenge based on such attacks, as I think at times they are atrocities worthy of my emotional investment. But also just a reminder to stay vigilant for peace. May come across as 'doing nothing' but sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something that perpetuates the problem.
Regarding the spiritual, when I first heard of attacks (around 3:30 a.m. CST-US), and for about the next hour, I certainly was entertaining notions of revenge against attackers, those that support this form of attack. But realize that is perpetuating the problem. The idea that a good defense is an attacking offense is seemingly rooted in our collective forms of justice. IMO, you can be entirely without any religious belief and still justify revenge as a proper reaction to any attack, especially atrocities / attacks involving deaths. It's challenging to escape from that mindset. But there is an escape, and it is rooted in forgiveness. If forgiveness is for you some notion of bestowing a judgment (of release from guilt) upon another, then that's fine. I think it is the normal concept of forgiveness. But, not how I think of forgiveness foremost. Instead, I see it as forgiving own self from insisting that this is the way the world (or rather my world) has to operate. That revenge is the most logical response. Even in thought, much (much) less in action. There is strength in being vigilant for (the) peace (of God). Not wanting to be over zealous here. Just noting how I found escape from my own thoughts of revenge. Might revert later on to thoughts of revenge based on such attacks, as I think at times they are atrocities worthy of my emotional investment. But also just a reminder to stay vigilant for peace. May come across as 'doing nothing' but sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something that perpetuates the problem.
Demonslayer
Well-Known Member
So God commanded Jews to murder other Jews if they worshiped a different God. I still fail to see how that is fundamentally different than God commanding Muslims to murder non-Muslims.
LOL. "No non-Jews were harmed in the making of this film."
godnotgod
Thou art That
What has been forgotten/ignored are the reasons terrorism has arisen in the first place, reasons we don't really want to address, since the juggernaut agenda to exploit the rest of the world's resources and cheap labor is at the top of the priority list, mostly at the expense of poorer countries. Western 'civilization' is the Trojan Horse we think we can foist on them with the lure of glittering trinkets, 'democracy', and 'freedom', while making them believe we are their friends. They fall for it every time. Now we are paying the price.
Last edited:
heksesang
Member
Compare it to God commanding Muslims to kill other Muslims if they worship another God. Do you see any fundamentally different between that and God commanding Muslims to kill non-Muslims for worshiping another god?
It isn't. It's just tyrannical and a denial of basic human agency and dignity.
heksesang
Member
Sharia is highly debatable. It's not well-defined. What is it you consider Sharia? Does that include the Sunnah? Or only the Qu'ran? If you include the Sunnah, which hadiths do you consider authentic?
heksesang
Member
While it's tyrannical, it limited the scope to a lesser portion of the human population. So while not good, it is better than telling them to kill anyone who is worshiping other gods. So it's somewhat different, even if different doesn't make it good.
Quantity doesn't matter in this matter of ethics. It's wrong to persecute anyone for simply having a different religion, period, regardless if its an in-group or out-group conflict. I see that you're from Norway. It would be as if you were living centuries ago and your relatives murdered you for converting from Germanic religion to Christianity.
Demonslayer
Well-Known Member
Sure I guess, but I don't know how it's important when it comes to deciding if a religion is "peaceful" or not.
It's still God commanding people to murder other people for worshiping someone else. I can't see the difference when it comes to Christians saying their religion is peaceful while Islam isn't. They both have Gods that command their followers to murder people for various reasons.
The only real reason Christianity seems less murderous today is secularism. Christianity doesn't have any Theocracies. I guarantee if you let the Bible Belt in America form a nation where Christian Law ruled the country instead of secular law, you'd have homosexuals being put to death, adulterers, etc.
godnotgod
Thou art That
There can be no peace until wanton exploitation of the world's resources and it's people stop. It may already be too late. We had our chance. It may be that a Big Wheel is slowly, imperceptibly turning toward some worldwide catastrophic set of events, or that we may already be there, a turning that has passed the point of no return, and that there really is nothing we can do about it.
First Baseman
Retired athlete
I disagree completely with this. Demonslayer, are you not allowing your hatred of Christianity to control you here?
I always wonder what would happen if somebody stole the Qaaba meteorite and wouldn't return it until there's a guarantee that all attacks will cease. And if attacks don't cease, then directly bomb the Qaaba and every Muslim symbol available in Mecca and Medina. Attacking symbols would cause less casualties than what is done now which is bombing facilities, houses, etc. And it would prove to Muslims that Allah doesn't protect his things. I think the whole terrorism thing would stop. But before you tell me I'm insane; there are some US Republicans thinking about this already. I think Occidental governments don't do this because they only care about the war business. Also, creating Israel at that location was the biggest error in History. That is the main thing that angers Muslims. Jews believe that's their place, only because of a "Promised land" superstition. There are even anti-zionist Rabbies. Israel shouldn't have ever existed and all Jews should move elsewhere and leave that place as Palestine.
I obviously, strongly, disagree with such an assertion. World peace is interesting, perhaps highly coveted. But matters little compared to own worldview that maintains peaceful outlook.
The 'point of no return' is not a notion I can (easily) go along with.