George.

Sure, it is counterproductive to attack GRATUITOUSLY other people's sense of what is holy and sacred, just because you don't agree with them.

If Muslims, JWs, Mormons, Christadelphians, Hindus, Buddhists, Raelians, "Radical Faeries", Social Crediters, utopian socialists etc want to believe what they believe, that's ok, BUT "your freedom to swing your fist stops at my nose". If pursuit of your belief doesn't infringe my similar right, then go for it, and I will be tolerant, even if I think you’re bonkers. You can believe, and proselytize, and for change your beliefs - while you don't destroy or infringe mine.

I am definitely a LIBERAL, not an authoritan violence-merchant.

The Brisbane Courier-Mail of 11 August 2008 reported:
"DEAD Bali bomber Imam Samudra has urged from the grave that Muslim teach their children to become terrorists and slaughterers of "Kaffirs" or non-Muslims.

"The … last will of Samudra was released in his home village in West Java where he was buried amid the awful spectacle of a hero’s funeral on the weekend. He declares the “war” is not over.

"Always fiery and lacking in any remorse or guilt, Samudra urged his fellow Muslims to fill their lives with the murder of non-believers, saying the title of terrorist was more holy than the title of Ulama or Muslim scholar.

"The will begins: “My brothers, this is my will to you and all Muslim people who have committed themselves to Jihad and martyrdom, to continue Jihad and fighting against the biggest evil, America and the cursed Jew”. "And he urges his like-minded the brotherhood: “For you who have committed yourself to fight against Kaffir dogs, remember the war is not over.”

"He calls on others to fill their lives with murder of non-Muslims.

“Isn’t it Allah who has ordered us to kill them all, just like they have killed us and our family. Have a desire to become the slaughterer of Kaffir people. Educate your children and grandchildren to become terrorists and slaughterers of all Kaffir people.”

I make no apology for despising, loathing and TAKING UP ARMS AGAINST religion like this.

George - on the Pope and Islam:

Nearly all Christians worship a Trinity: the one of which it is written "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus speaks of his father, and tells his disciples that if they have seen him, they have seen the Father. He speaks also about the time after he leaves the earth to return to the Father, when he will ask the Father to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. John 14:6-21 strongly underpins the doctrine of the Trinity.

Muslims never speak of Allah as Father. They have no concept of a personal relationship with God. They have no concept of God as love, evidenced in the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of their desire for a relationship with us.

Jesus taught us to pray starting "Our Father ...."

Muslims say to each other "Fear Allah" – as befits a grand Dalek.

Muslims consider Christians and Jews to be in error about the nature of God. They rabbit on about Christians (trinitarians) being polytheists. They revere Abraham and Jesus, but Mohammed had no access to an Arabic translation of the Bible, and what he "recited" by instruction from a demon purporting to be Jibreel (Gabriel) included references to what he had heard orally before about the content of the Jewish holy books and the Christian Injeel (Gospel). His references are hopelessly garbled with errors of fact, time and import.

A Satanic deception - enough historical references to be plausible, but with the essential spiritual truths distorted.

Yet Muslims claim that the Gospels and the OT have been "corrupted" by Christians and Jews! What CHUTZPAH!

The Pope knows very well we are not fighting over different interpretations of the same faith. Islam is a different and an ENEMY faith: a distorted and garbled travesty of our own, attempting to piggyback on ours as an "improvement" and "final revelation". It is a lying, misleading, and evil Satanic impostor.

Abu el Glorfindel seems intent on waging his own armed jihad against Muslims.

If I was as rabidly authoritarian as him I'd call for his religion to be banned - but that would be silly, wouldn't it?

Oliver,

Yes, I have to concede, some people indeed see myths as mere fairy tales, like those who think mathematics is nothing more than doing (complicated) calculations. No “attacks” meant. Science has been with us (Westerners) for only a couple of centuries, whereas myths have been a part of humanity‘s self-awareness for millennia with various degrees of metaphysical sophistication. It is easier to think we understand the reality studied by science, than to understand what myths refer to (the “fool” and “the finger pointing to the moon”).

I agree that belief in a Reality existing beyond physical reality does not have to lead to a belief in a God whom you can contact on a person-to person basis, which on its turn does not have to lead to a belief in a “chosen people”, and that again does not have to lead to a belief in Incarnation, i.e. God “embedding Himself“ in one particular human to show empathy with His creation. The Christian Credo is not a treatise following from one axiom, but rather a list of “axioms“, tenets.

Glorfindel,

Thank you for adding to Constance’s list another collection of facts that I cannot, and do not want to, dispute. I can only repeat what I have already said: All the horrors of Medieval practice (Crusaders’ rampages, Inquisition, witch hunts, etc.) cannot lead me to condemn Christianity, only the particular ways Christianity was practised, either because it acted against its own principles, or because of what we now see as a naive, literal, interpretation of these principles.

Like I will not condemn nuclear physics because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or sex because of its “application“ by a rapist.

I do not see any other solution beside giving Islam the benefit of doubt, that one day they will also recognise these practices as either going against their own principles, or as the consequence of a naive, literal, interpretation of these principles. Because if we condemn the very principles (instead of some deplorable practices) that are sacrosanct also to the vast majority of non-violent Muslims, how can we expect to co-exist? (ctd)

(ctd) Of course I agree with your other post. There are indeed discrepancies between how Jews, Christians and Muslims see their God, and of course these discrepancies between the last two are bigger than e.g. those between the first two. Each one of these religions considers the others “to be in error about the nature of God”, the Muslims more so than the other two who have more historical experience behind them. I also agree that although all three have some traces of the command to love your God and your neighbour, it is in Christianity that this is made most explicit.

I am sure the Pope is well aware of all this, and I agree that he “knows very well we are not fighting over different interpretations of the same faith“. So do I and most Christians. Nevertheless I think that part of being a Christian is not to view other faiths, other world-views, as ENEMY faiths or world-views, but only as them being further away from grasping the Truth about what actually exists and in what sense - Truth that no human can fully grasp - than we are. Of course, others will see this the other way around.

I also believe that the Referee, who will pass the ultimate judgement (about who is closer to this Truth), is not one of us, humans, and He does not like it if we usurp this role for ourselves.

This all, let me repeat again, has nothing to do with condemning - and, where possible, fighting and preventing - deplorable practices, beccause they are deplorable per se, and not because the perpetrators refer to Koran or other Islamic authority.

Oliver,

Postmodernists are dismissive of history as it is based on the personal interpretation of sources.

They may have a point.

If history could be constructed as a single narrative then it would be a true social science, a discipline. But in reality, history is a series of competing views or theories, not constrained by the power of the imagination.

My observation on the etymology of YHWH is mainstream, while yours is pseudohistory (ie. drawing controversial and speculative conclusions which depart from conventional methodology in a way which undermines the conclusions).

“Mythology”, “fairy tales”: it’s all history to you:

“The Kenite hypothesis simply stated says that Yahweh was the tribal God of the Kenites before the Israelites and that Moses developed his attachment to Yahweh through Jethro, his father-in-law. The hypothesis was first put forward in 1862 by R. Ghillany...

The Kenite hypothesis does not in anyway explain the origins of the worship of Yahweh but it does provide us with a likely precursor to the worship by the Israelites.

To oppose the Kenite Hypothesis, T.J. Meek argues that even though Yahweh is introduced to the Israelites by Moses, it is not necessary that Yahweh was a new God, only that He may have been a new interpretation, significance and/or a new understanding of the existing God.

The origin of the worship of Yahweh is still debated and unknown.”

http://www.childrenofyah.org/yahweh_it's_origin%20and%20sigificance.htm

Modern application: The origin of the name is less important than what was believed about YHWH. The OT remains the definitive piece of scholarship on YHWH worship.

George: On the OT "can be variously interpreted”: I’ve been studying the bible for about six years now and I am struck by the cogence and coherence of God’s word. For, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us”. (1 Cor. 2: 12)

Teuku’s writing is also pseudohistory.

I may be a Christian, but I am also a Christian with an advanced degree in history!