Still killing over a cartoon

Throwby · 06-03-2008, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by JensenS

The very, very condensed view of my belief that the two religions worship the same God come from the similarities that they share in their general doctrine. The fact that Islam recognizes Abraham (He's considered the founder of their religion), Noah, Moses, and Jesus as prophets is one of my primary reasons.

Just an FYI too, I'm looking at this from a purely scholastic approach as I'm not a religious person.

If you'll notice, I didn't attack you with my first post I attacked your ridiculous source for your post. I fully concur with you and Dave that those killing over these cartoons are absolute animals (is this strong enough verbiage to satisfy you now?)

I guess I can dig up my copies of the Bible and the Koran to try and go more in depth, but I can't say that I really want to if the time is going to be wasted.

I am aware of the origins of the faiths and the fact that Jews and Arab Muslims both decended from Abraham and have other commonalities which I previously noted are primarily due to Mohammed's knowledge of Jewish writings which already existed. I am coming from a Christian worldview and I respect your perspective of that as a nonreligious scholar. I probably could saved some back and forth banter and misunderstanding had I seen that earlier in the conversation.

As I mentioned previously I do not equate Allah with the Christian/Jewish God but I absolutely understand how one who is using your approach could come to that as a logical conclusion. It's an unfortunate part of cyber chats that things are assumed and misunderstood. No harm intended.

_SL_ · 06-03-2008, 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by JensenS

The very, very condensed view of my belief that the two religions worship the same God come from the similarities that they share in their general doctrine. The fact that Islam recognizes Abraham (He's considered the founder of their religion), Noah, Moses, and Jesus as prophets is one of my primary reasons.

Jensen your opinion is shared by some religious scholars but I guess I'll say that I think views which consider some religions or most religions to all be different paths to the same god are very problematic. For starters, I think problems become apparent when we try to just demarcate different religious practices from our object of study "Religion" (which is difficult to define itself). Take Christianity for example -- in South Africa, there are many Christian churches but when considered in themselves I would say the practices are qualitatively more similar to VooDoo than Christian traditions in the US. More direct to the conversation, the qualities of God within those traditions varies from our traditions quite a bit as well (I do not suggest that Western notions of Christianity are superior, only that they are different). So, if even all Christian traditions worship the same God, some of these traditions are quite wrong about the qualities of the God they worship, which seems odd to me. If we look back in the history of Christianity as well, we see that conceptions of God have changed. Otto's The Idea of the Holy is illustrative of this, as I don't think everyone has the same sublime/ mystical experience of God as he does.

Ground&Pound · 06-03-2008, 10:14 PM

If I could jump in...

He said the same "general doctrine."

Sure, the details will differ from culture to culture and from church to church.

But, the general doctrine of an all powerful and all knowing higher power remains constant.

JensenS · 06-03-2008, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by Throwby

As I mentioned previously I do not equate Allah with the Christian/Jewish God but I absolutely understand how one who is using your approach could come to that as a logical conclusion. It's an unfortunate part of cyber chats that things are assumed and misunderstood. No harm intended.

Good on you then, glad we were able to move past some of the initial stuff earlier in this thread and see where each other was coming from a little better.

SL, obviously both religions have many, many, many different sects. I was doing my best to speak in THE most general terms possible as once you start delving into sects you start opening up all kinds of new cans of worms.

_SL_ · 06-04-2008, 09:43 AM

I guess I would say that it is difficult to speak generally, or have a "general doctrine", if an object of study (e.g. Christianity) has not been identified. I think that project is a bit difficult across all religions, because of the variety of practices that are considered to be Christian. This even occurs within the history of a given sect -- as I showed Otto, who was a Lutheran scholar (I grew up in a Lutheran Church), had a religious experience that I found to be very unfamiliar, and his conception of God was quite different from the God I was exposed to less than 100 years later in the Lutheran tradition.

Considering the variety of Christian experiences, I think there is a tendency to want to snub or treat as subaltern practices that are unlike the ones we are familiar with in the West, b/c our practices are more purely Christian or w/e. Maybe I am wrong in making this assumption, but I would like to say that this hardly seems to be speaking about Christianity in general. And even when we make this generalization I would think that even in the West, the United States, or w/e, there are differences in the conceptions of God that are significant enough for me to consider the gods to be different. That may be where we disagree. But I would not treat as identical a loving god and a god we must fear, a god who gives us freewill and a god who doesn't, a god who leaves some things to chance and a god who has a complete master plan, or a god who isn't omnipotent and a god who is.

Tight-Waist · 06-04-2008, 10:52 AM

It truely is unfortunate that the vast majority of Muslims are stereotyped due to the actions of a radical hate filled minority. I do believe most Muslims are peace loving, God fearing people that privately abhor terrorism.

Unfortunatly... they (the vast majority of peace loving Muslims) have choosen to not condemn the violent acts of that hate filled minority minority. Warranted or unwarranted that silence has been interpeted as tacit approval.

I believe it is incumbant upon members of a group to vocally condemn those within their midst who use the name or mission of that group to commit acts of violence or lawlessness.

ccbig · 06-08-2008, 04:26 AM

Originally Posted by Tight-Waist

It truely is unfortunate that the vast majority of Muslims are stereotyped due to the actions of a radical hate filled minority. I do believe most Muslims are peace loving, God fearing people that privately abhor terrorism.

Unfortunatly... they (the vast majority of peace loving Muslims) have choosen to not condemn the violent acts of that hate filled minority minority. Warranted or unwarranted that silence has been interpeted as tacit approval.

I believe it is incumbant upon members of a group to vocally condemn those within their midst who use the name or mission of that group to commit acts of violence or lawlessness.

I agree with Tight-Waist on these points but I would add that extremists of any religion can be very dangerous.

Modern era examples of dangerous "Christian" leaders would be Jim Jones, David Koresh etc.

Any religious group that seeks violence or oppression of those who do not believe in their ideals are a real problem for any society.

FloggingSully · 06-08-2008, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Tight-Waist

Unfortunatly... they (the vast majority of peace loving Muslims) have choosen to not condemn the violent acts of that hate filled minority minority. Warranted or unwarranted that silence has been interpeted as tacit approval.

How do you know most muslims don't condemn it? How many muslims have you discussed this issue with? Just because network news shows don't cover the muslims who aren't crazy doesn't mean they don't feel strongly about the issue.

BTW, I've never seen any news coverage of any christian condemning any of the christian terrorists in North Ireland or the one's who were shooting up abortion clinics, is it fair to assume that no christians condemned these acts?

Tight-Waist · 06-09-2008, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by FloggingSully

How do you know most muslims don't condemn it? How many muslims have you discussed this issue with? Just because network news shows don't cover the muslims who aren't crazy doesn't mean they don't feel strongly about the issue.

BTW, I've never seen any news coverage of any christian condemning any of the christian terrorists in North Ireland or the one's who were shooting up abortion clinics, is it fair to assume that no christians condemned these acts?

see below

Tight-Waist · 06-09-2008, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by FloggingSully

How do you know most muslims don't condemn it? How many muslims have you discussed this issue with? Just because network news shows don't cover the muslims who aren't crazy doesn't mean they don't feel strongly about the issue.

BTW, I've never seen any news coverage of any christian condemning any of the christian terrorists in North Ireland or the one's who were shooting up abortion clinics, is it fair to assume that no christians condemned these acts?

As a matter of fact I DID speak with a Muslim Doctor after 9/11 and after giving the perfunctory "I abhor all terrorism", spent the next 10 minutes defending it. I have yet to see muslims marching in the streets ANYWHERE in the world calling for an end to all terrorism and the reason for that is the either approve it or are intimidated by the others who do. Yet we see them marching in support of terrorism all the time.

I have sat in Catholic Mass and listened to the Priest condemn the IRA's terrorism.

Virtually every anti-abortion group has condemned the abortion clinic shootings. Go look it up.

Still killing over a cartoon

Politics & Religion