Lionel Refson
Member
Only if you think Elohim reads as God. Rabbi's don't read is as God
Don't they? Not the old elohim is plural of eloheh argument?
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Only if you think Elohim reads as God. Rabbi's don't read is as God
1/ Muslims revere AbrahamSame flawed assumptions in this thread:
1. Abrahamic religions are all the same!
False. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are not the same. Islam is questionable to be called 'abrahamic', since it is merely an offshoot of the Judeo/Christian faith, with little to no ideological harmony. Muhammad was 600 years after Jesus, and thousands after Abraham. Their ideology and core beliefs are radically different. Islam has nothing to do with Abraham, and is opposed to Jesus.
2. Religion is the cause of all war, oppression, and evil in the world!
False. Man's inhumanity to man does not require theism. Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and other atheists in the last century prove that. It must be shown, logically that an ideology promotes violence and oppression. Condemning an ideology by the actions of outliers is bigoted and unfair.
3. 'Something must be done! ..to end hate and evil.. let's kill them all!'
Fighting evil and oppression with evil and oppression is just more of the same. How is it any different? Proposing more humane ways of genocide?
The 'problems!' i see illuminated by this thread, are:
1. revisionist history
2. religious bigotry
3. a disneyesque view of humanity
4. progressive indoctrination
5. state sponsored propaganda
6. the 'religion' of Progressivism smearing and demeaning the competition.
trust me as an ex-orthodox jew........it means GodDon't they? Not the old elohim is plural of eloheh argument?
Nope, Hebrew knows that the term Elohim is a homonym, and denotes God, angels, judges, and the rulers of countries
In fact the creator God is hardly mentioned in the OT
To a large extent we already have that, at least within Christianity. Leaders of the various denominations dialogue with each other all the time. Catholics and Orthodox, Orthodox and Anglicans, Lutherans and Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans... You name a denomination, I can name agreements and shared statements of faith that it has with other Christian denominations. Christianity pretty much started the ecumenical movement within Christianity and with other world religions. And for the most part, the Jews never hurt nobody. The poor lads just wanna be left alone to do their own thing for once in 2000 years.Given the strength of feeling that would emerge if we tried to ban the Abrahamic religions, I would propose setting up some form of global inter-faith assembly where the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions and their various schisms sit down
This isn't a matter of the text inherently teaching people how to act. The Bible, the Qur'an and the Talmud don't each only have one possible interpretation of what constitutes ethical behavior. They have many possible interpretations concerning ethics, which is one of the reasons why there are different denominations in the first place--some denominations like the Jehovah's Witnesses shun and cut all contact with anybody who leaves their church, some denominations like the Reformed or Anabaptists think that drinking and even dancing are sinful, some denominations are pacifist like the Anabaptists, some denominations uphold pacifism as the ideal but will resort to war if need be like the Orthodox...and have to agree to remove everything in the texts which teaches any form of
1/ hatred
2/ social divisiveness
3/ violence to another person in any form and for whatever reason
4 feelings of religious/spiritual superiority and ownership of God
5/ Intolerance of any kind
Should we do the same with history teachers? Should we cut out the speeches of any general encouraging their men before a major battle because it encourages violence? Should we portray everybody who ever took part in a battle as bloodthirsty barbarians?These leaders will have to accept that they have a duty of care in allowing teachings that contain any of the above and must therefore take personal responsibility for any future use of these teachings. if they refuse to remove the teachings from the text then they should be put on trial,
We already do this. It's called the criminal justice system, and murder charges, and terrorism charges. Did you even think about any of this?together with any person who in future uses the texts to spray bullets in schools, blow up innocents etc etc
Sure, Salafi Islam is on the rise, but that's not the sole cause of the violence in the Middle East. Don't forget that it was Western colonial powers who arbitrarily divided up the region and continued to meddle in the internal affairs of these countries, sponsoring political parties and militant movements without thought that later turned out to be brutal dictators and terrorist organizations. The rise in extremist Islam is just a consequence of political instability and turmoil in the region. Albania, Bosnia and the Central Asian nations, for example, don't have nearly the amount of Islamist political violence that we see in the Middle East, despite being overwhelmingly majority Muslim. I remember being in Sarajevo last year, and it was beautiful. It was the first city I'd ever been in where the mosques outnumbered the churches, but the Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Muslims have been coexisting in that country for centuries. Sure, Bosnia was at the boundary between the Ottomans and the Austro-Hungarians, and that brought with it much conflict, but the average people living in Bosnia are able to get along just fine for the most part.We are currently facing extreme violence in the world, which has its roots in the teachings of the Abrahamic religions
Yes, and the root is not the religions themselves. I'm sure if you study history and politics, you will find that secular society does even more damage than extremist religious ideologies, because society changes much more quickly than religion and thus can create problems far faster than it can solve them. The growing rise in fundamentalism is a symptom of the political and societal polarization that came from secular society. Just look at the millions and millions of people killed under atheistic Communist regimes in the past century.There is a growing rise in fundamentalism on all sides. If we do not deal with the issues at their root, they will continue to grow and poison the minds of future generations. Whilst of course this approach will be met with cries of protest at the desecration of the holy books, I personally think it is more important to save lives than treasure hateful and divisive texts,
It cannot be free speech etc if it causes violence to another , a price has been paid.
How many people do you think actually teach children to become terrorists or to murder other people in the name of God? Do you think all Christians, Jews and Muslims are mustache-twirling supervillains plotting on creating armies of brainwashed children to take over the world? Because that seems to be what you think based on your proposals to either outright ban the Abrahamic religions altogether, or to strip them of anything you deem objectionable.This is my viewpoint. I would like to hear yours. Bear in mind that there might be now right now some young kid reading verses on why he should slay the non-believer, stone the blasphemer etc. The Bible and the Koran radicalizes in the wrong hands, with the wrong teachers. Why allow the ones that do the material to do that?
Given the strength of feeling that would emerge if we tried to ban the Abrahamic religions, I would propose setting up some form of global inter-faith assembly where the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions and their various schisms sit down and have to agree to remove everything in the texts which teaches any form of
1/ hatred
2/ social divisiveness
3/ violence to another person in any form and for whatever reason
4 feelings of religious/spiritual superiority and ownership of God
5/ Intolerance of any kind
These leaders will have to accept that they have a duty of care in allowing teachings that contain any of the above and must therefore take personal responsibility for any future use of these teachings. if they refuse to remove the teachings from the text then they should be put on trial, together with any person who in future uses the texts to spray bullets in schools, blow up innocents etc etc
We are currently facing extreme violence in the world, which has its roots in the teachings of the Abrahamic religions . There is a growing rise in fundamentalism on all sides. If we do not deal with the issues at their root, they will continue to grow and poison the minds of future generations. Whilst of course this approach will be met with cries of protest at the desecration of the holy books, I personally think it is more important to save lives than treasure hateful and divisive texts,
It cannot be free speech etc if it causes violence to another , a price has been paid.
This is my viewpoint. I would like to hear yours. Bear in mind that there might be now right now some young kid reading verses on why he should slay the non-believer, stone the blasphemer etc. The Bible and the Koran radicalizes in the wrong hands, with the wrong teachers. Why allow the ones that do the material to do that?
If you disagree why? if you agree, how could such an event be implemented?
I think one part of deconstructing the Abrahamic religions would be to demonstrate how Christians (ab)used the original teachings of Jesus and made a religion out of something that was never meant to be one.Given the strength of feeling that would emerge if we tried to ban the Abrahamic religions, I would propose setting up some form of global inter-faith assembly where the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions and their various schisms sit down and have to agree to remove everything in the texts which teaches any form of
1/ hatred
2/ social divisiveness
3/ violence to another person in any form and for whatever reason
4 feelings of religious/spiritual superiority and ownership of God
5/ Intolerance of any kind
I think you are both missing a point here. People that are indoctrinated with negative biblical verse, believe they are acting for a higher power and that is a major threat to the fabric of world society. they do not feel a need to listen to anything but God and the verses they select are the ones that give fuel to and justify their actions
IMO It is unethical and dangerous to allow words of hate and violence that are purportedly from God to be read by half-formed minds. The most dangerous person in the world is the one that commits atrocities believing God is on their side.
((Can you imagine any way that could actually ever happen? Teaching people to see their scriptures in a different context, where the scriptures are telling them not to do those things, would be even better, and it has already happened with many thousands, maybe even millions of people of all religions.))I would propose setting up some form of global inter-faith assembly where the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions and their various schisms sit down and have to agree to remove everything in the texts which teaches any form of ...
I think you are both missing a point here. People that are indoctrinated with negative biblical verse, believe they are acting for a higher power and that is a major threat to the fabric of world society. they do not feel a need to listen to anything but God and the verses they select are the ones that give fuel to and justify their actions
This comment you directed towards Daniel, but I wanted to point out that I and many people here understand what you're saying. There has not been a very liberal approach for the last thousand years though. We had some breathing space due to sicknesses unexpectedly clearing out the American continents which allowed European cultures to expand and experiment with new ideas. The last thousand years have been very conservative, very stop and go with small bubbles of free societies. Overall people have not been free, not having a choice of job or choice of ideas or social stratum. Its only been in the last 50 years that people worldwide have started to believe in human value as something important or even given it a chance.Rationally, i would agree with you, but I imagine there will be the mother of all wars before the cherry picking began in earnest. Right now, any kid can be radicalized, or counter-radicalized , go into a school and kill your kids or mine, in the name of God. Why would we wait for common sense to possibly prevail, sometime in the future. This liberal approach hasn't helped much over the past 1000 years imo. and right now the extremes on all sides are gaining strength. A very dangerous time
Yes. Did he have a special path to God, more so than you or I, just because he was famous or a scholar or a famous jewish scholar? He wrote for his times.trust me as an ex-orthodox jew........it means God
So Maimonides the eminent Jewish scholar was wrong just because you say?!
To a large extent we already have that, at least within Christianity. Leaders of the various denominations dialogue with each other all the time. Catholics and Orthodox, Orthodox and Anglicans, Lutherans and Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans... You name a denomination, I can name agreements and shared statements of faith that it has with other Christian denominations. Christianity pretty much started the ecumenical movement within Christianity and with other world religions. And for the most part, the Jews never hurt nobody. The poor lads just wanna be left alone to do their own thing for once in 2000 years.
This isn't a matter of the text inherently teaching people how to act. The Bible, the Qur'an and the Talmud don't each only have one possible interpretation of what constitutes ethical behavior. They have many possible interpretations concerning ethics, which is one of the reasons why there are different denominations in the first place--some denominations like the Jehovah's Witnesses shun and cut all contact with anybody who leaves their church, some denominations like the Reformed or Anabaptists think that drinking and even dancing are sinful, some denominations are pacifist like the Anabaptists, some denominations uphold pacifism as the ideal but will resort to war if need be like the Orthodox...
Also, what constitutes "intolerance of any kind"? Is simply disagreeing with somebody's opinion "intolerance"? Is disagreeing with somebody's life choices and pointing out sin and immorality "intolerance"? You're operating on extremely vague categories. Jesus called out hypocrites and chased money launderers out of the Temple grounds. Looks like Jesus is pretty intolerant, better get rid of Him. Is this seriously what you're going for? Did you think about the consequences of this proposal for more than two seconds?
Should we do the same with history teachers? Should we cut out the speeches of any general encouraging their men before a major battle because it encourages violence? Should we portray everybody who ever took part in a battle as bloodthirsty barbarians?
We already do this. It's called the criminal justice system, and murder charges, and terrorism charges. Did you even think about any of this?
Sure, Salafi Islam is on the rise, but that's not the sole cause of the violence in the Middle East. Don't forget that it was Western colonial powers who arbitrarily divided up the region and continued to meddle in the internal affairs of these countries, sponsoring political parties and militant movements without thought that later turned out to be brutal dictators and terrorist organizations. The rise in extremist Islam is just a consequence of political instability and turmoil in the region. Albania, Bosnia and the Central Asian nations, for example, don't have nearly the amount of Islamist political violence that we see in the Middle East, despite being overwhelmingly majority Muslim. I remember being in Sarajevo last year, and it was beautiful. It was the first city I'd ever been in where the mosques outnumbered the churches, but the Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Muslims have been coexisting in that country for centuries. Sure, Bosnia was at the boundary between the Ottomans and the Austro-Hungarians, and that brought with it much conflict, but the average people living in Bosnia are able to get along just fine for the most part.
Yes, and the root is not the religions themselves. I'm sure if you study history and politics, you will find that secular society does even more damage than extremist religious ideologies, because society changes much more quickly than religion and thus can create problems far faster than it can solve them. The growing rise in fundamentalism is a symptom of the political and societal polarization that came from secular society. Just look at the millions and millions of people killed under atheistic Communist regimes in the past century.
How many people do you think actually teach children to become terrorists or to murder other people in the name of God? Do you think all Christians, Jews and Muslims are mustache-twirling supervillains plotting on creating armies of brainwashed children to take over the world? Because that seems to be what you think based on your proposals to either outright ban the Abrahamic religions altogether, or to strip them of anything you deem objectionable.
I think one part of deconstructing the Abrahamic religions would be to demonstrate how Christians (ab)used the original teachings of Jesus and made a religion out of something that was never meant to be one.
Those teachings of Jesus were still very similar and close to the non-Abrahamic paths, so this will make the more educated Christians realize where Christianity lost the way.
I'm not sure whether the same treatment would be possible for the other two Abrahamic religions and besides, those both have very strong mystic variants that could be promoted over fundamentalism.
I think you are missing the point that you are doing exactly what you are criticising: deciding that you have discovered the truth and that the world needs to reflect your dubious personal preferences based on naive, sweeping generalisations and superficial understanding of human nature, and human culture.
There is also no functional difference between thinking you are acting for a 'higher power', or thinking you are acting for 'the good of Humanity' as you are doing.
If I'd been killed during Soviet purges, or tortured during Mao's cultural revolution, I'd probably not be thinking "at least it wasn't the Abrahamics..."
The Abrahamic religions brainwash their followers with gulit and fear. Only the minority will go out and kill, thinking God is on their side. But what then follows is a response from another of these religions. Hatred breeds hatred.
The form of that quote can be applied to many things such as marxism, deconstructionism, patriotism etc.
This comment you directed towards Daniel, but I wanted to point out that I and many people here understand what you're saying. There has not been a very liberal approach for the last thousand years though. We had some breathing space due to sicknesses unexpectedly clearing out the American continents which allowed European cultures to expand and experiment with new ideas. The last thousand years have been very conservative, very stop and go with small bubbles of free societies. Overall people have not been free, not having a choice of job or choice of ideas or social stratum. Its only been in the last 50 years that people worldwide have started to believe in human value as something important or even given it a chance.
Seriously? Correlating biblical Christianity with ISIS?there is a huge rise of Christian fundamentalism in the USA and ISIS have not been defeated
It takes one to know one my Nicaean friend.
Just non stop phony narratives and anti religion smears...
Your assumptions and beliefs are flawed, based on revisionism and bigotry.