This is a remarkably thorough piece. The point about naskh (abrogation) is often the missing key for Western readers trying to reconcile the different 'versions' of Islam they encounter. The contrast you draw between a contractual relationship with God in Islam versus the unconditional love in Christianity is thought-provoking and worth sitting with.
I've read it. Excellent book. Peter's newest book is Manifesto. This book is a must read for every freedom loving individual. It is brilliant in its revelations about why and where we are today.
Because it tells the truth. The "Religion of Peace" is an outright lie. The end goal of Islam is the total conquering of the world. Anyone who says that isn't their goal is either an outright liar (Taqqiya) or an idiot/ignoramus. "They" tell us that this their goal. We've been fighting them for 1400 years. It is only because of idiots in the West since the late 20th Century that we've allowed them finally past our gates and into our cities. The world was a relatively pretty safe place until Mohammed invented Islam in 610 A.D. From there, the world has been fighting Islam ever since. This book points out exactly every sentence, every paragraph in the Quran and Hadiths where they tell us what they want to do. We - who are so afraid of being branded "Racists", have capitulated to their deception. They use our laws against us to get exactly what THEY want. And too many stupid people today have fallen into their trap and that includes all levels of governments.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, but I have a minor quibble. Unconditional love in Christianity? Is it not a fundamental premise of Christianity that God condemns those who don't worship him and pray to him for salvation to eternal torment in a postmortem existence? Is it to be believed that he loves those he sends to eternal torment in Hell?!
PS In raising this skeptical question I do not mean to imply that Christian doctrine is as bellicose as that of Islam; to the contrary, it's essentially pacifistic -- too much so for practical purposes, IMO.
This is a very good and serious question. To answer it requires an understanding of God’s character. He is entirely holy and cannot abide anything unholy so “hell” means eternal separation from Him. We were created by Him in His image and remarkably, with free will. His desire is for us to choose to believe in the redemption of Jesus Christ. Therefore, He does not condemn us to hell, we condemn ourselves by choosing not to believe.
Not just separation! Instead of parroting a PC gloss from some namby-pamby modern sermonizer try reading the actual words of Jesus himself as recorded in the gospels. Here, for instance, is a pertinent excerpt from the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:
"Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
As someone who was raised in a strict evangelical environment I believed, even though I read the bible a lot. My environment taught me how to interpret what I read.
Now older and wiser...its clear jesus was in no way a christian and did not teach what christians believe today.
He did teach love though and I'm down with that. But that don't make him god.
Dude, heard of literary style? The refs here I believe were to the G-Hinnom Valley, where they buried their dead. ie, the worst place they could think of. Anyhoo, enough from me. All the best kemosabe.
I simply quoted something that Jesus says according to the gospel of Matthew. Do you suppose that he didn't mean what he said? Or that accounts of his sayings in the gospels are not to be trusted?
How the f do any of you/us, profess to know the mind of a deity about whose very structure & form we know nothing?? This discussion of an omnipotent being is like so much useless, non-productive mental masturbation, because none of us can know or do a damned thing about it; we assume we know the nature of this being through so-called "holy books" which have been passed down & altered to fit a particular narrative for thousands of years! Consider if you will the fact that a antediluvian (pre-flood) civilization existed, was wiped out, then, for all practical purposes, history was then re-written; what then do we know of the knowledge that civilization had of this "God?"
1 Corinthians 2:9 addresses your troubles with a finite mind not being able to comprehend an infinite God. Every objection we can some up with have been dissected and answered a million ways in countless lifetimes of sincere people truth seekers, not arrogant contrarians who are more anti Faith bigots that actual seeker of truth.
Experiencing Christ and the Holy Spirit is the single most important transformative experience a human can have. It’s heartbreaking knowing that many will never have the humility to even research with an open mind the single most important event in human history, literally splitting the timeline into before Christ and after BC and AD.
The arrogance to dismiss what thousands willingly died for is astounding.
Are you serious! IMHO, the single most transformative experience is not some religious experience claiming to be the know-all to end-all, it is arriving at the knowledge that ALL religions worship the same deity, with the only differences being in [how] one worships that deity, in addition it is the knowledge that one need not worship any deity to be able to return to that universal oneness when shedding this mortal body. Rather than allowing a "holy book" to guide our lives, one which was written by man & propagandized w/a controlled narrative in order to control the masses, we need to listen to those hundreds of thousands, even millions who have glimpsed the other side in so-called NDEs, Near-Death Experiences. Most tell us of a non judgemental hereafter which is indeed a pleasurable experience defying description.
Let’s theorise for a moment that we are living in a bubble of illusion. That this very idea of condemnation to hell is based on our own beliefs and end in eternal torment of the soul is true and real, is most likely not accurate.
This instillation of inducing fear into believers of god is a mockery of what god is. God is not wrathful to those who choose not to believe. He is not condemning us for choosing not to believe.
They are your thoughts my friend.
And it’s THIS fanatical Christian viewpoint that creates mass movements of the “true” believer.
In my belief system (monotheism) God is holy and above all others - and is a loving God. Yes, we have each been created with a soul and with free will - which allows us to study, learn, and make decisions to follow God’s commandments - or not. Even after a long time of disobedience, we can redeem ourselves and be forgiven of our trespasses - and can work towards a better world for ourselves, our neighbors, communities, and others within and beyond our borders.
Nice-sounding words but have you studied the history of man at all? Do you honestly think a "Messiah" is waiting in the wings to come in and clean up all this mess? Do you understand this is the very reason some of us want to believe in the narratives of such ufo-alien charlatans, so-called researchers/disclosure advocates like Dr Steven Greer who tells us a similar story about a quasi-messianic bunch of ets who are just hiding their time to show themselves to us, then come in just in the nick of time to save us??
Whether you're speaking of canonical doctrine or dogma of any kind you cannot apply that to EVERY Christian church, group or sect. So no it is not accepted by ALL Christians.
Jeez, look up the word "dogmatic!". Have you ever considered that it could be YOUR interpretation that is flawed? As if a 2,000 year old book which has been altered to fit particular narratives & in many respects mistranslated, could serve as the know-all to end-all?
When they say weeping and wailing and nashing of teeth, I believe these scriptures are talking more about demons (the causers of temaption) and less about the sinners (those who succumb to it). Also, I believe (if I understand correctly) that hell is not a place in the sense that it is something physical. It is a state we can enter when we sin. When Christ harrows Hades, he is liberating us from the state of sin accross time and space.
I would argue that this highlights the embodied nature of the scriptures--it needs good faith interpretation to understand it. Just as the author of this article mentioned abrogation, the Christian fatih requires the reconciliation of several of the passaged via an experienced guide who can give contextual insights that are bot obvious to the modern reader.
Is it to be believed that God doesn't pay back people who have brutalized others with no regard for His laws? Instead, He gives unrepentant abusers the same future of eternal bliss, alongside their innocent victims?
I would submit that today's idea of Love is twisted by a double standard, which brands Justice as unloving -- until we are the ones deprived of it.
Unconditional love means no consequences for behavior? That's not love. That's infantilism and indifference = isolation and separation and emptiness = the real hell. Which seems to be modern America and Europe.
You're ascribing an opinion to me -- that God should love everyone and punish no one in a postmortem existence no matter what they do -- which I have neither expressed nor implied. (Fwiw, I don't believe in God or life after death.)
Since you've seen fit to close with gratuitous and insulting advice, I'll return the favor: try to upgrade your reading comprehension.
Fair question, but there is no basis (logical, scientific nor theological) for an 'eternal' hell. "Hell" is simply the absence of God and God's Love. Its narrative use is to illustrate how awful existence would be without God. Just like there is no actual 'devil', simply man's ability to choose evil. (It's called 'free will', somewhat different than in Islam, just saying...). Your sniff test is valid - how would an all loving God create something like Hell. He wouldn't. And the mythical Satan (read 'the opposing argument' - see Book of Job for example) could also not 'create' his own little eternal abode cos 'he' ain't God. (Even if you took the narrative literally, at most he is a fallen angel. Angels, if you believe in them, can't 'create'. This 'devil' dude would not have a shit show in a fight so I'm bemused by all who believe 'he' has some kind of super power to oppose the Creator. The Devil, talking snakes (not even called Satan in the text, but that won't stop people conflating the two & thus 'Satan tempted Eve'..) and the like are narrative features, not literal things.
Anyway, just my 10c to explain how I reconcile my theism with your question. I thought the article was a most excellent summary btw. Thanks to the Author.
To repeat what I pointed out in a message posted here on June 17:
As quoted in the gospels, Jesus persistently referred to Hell as a place where unredeemed sinners will be tormented by fire. And in Matthew 25 he said that unredeemed sinners will go into "eternal fire" -- repeat, ETERNAL. So tell me, what should I believe about what Jesus said: you, or the gospels?!
Matthew 13:41
"The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace."
Matthew 18:9
"And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire."
Matthew 25:31-46, speaking of Judgment Day:
“he [the Son of Man] will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. .... Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. .... And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Mark 9:43
"And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire."
One more question: Where in the Gospels does Jesus say that Hell is merely absence of God's love rather than a place ?
as a kuffar/nonbeliever I find the pride of "unconditional love" hysterically amusing. How has that been worked in real life historically? I mean effing please. Say what you want about Islam, but the religion has been responsible for far less human slaughter and suffering than the "unconditional love" of Christianity, once the clerics were able to project political power.
Are you for real? Go and check the death toll from the Islamic conquests (estimates range from 60-80 million across Persia, India, and North Africa), the Arab slave trade (which predated and outlasted the Atlantic trade by centuries), or the Taiping Rebellion alone—which was inspired by Christian millenarianism and killed 20-30 million people, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.
The 'unconditional love' doctrine has indeed been grotesquely betrayed by Christians in power—no argument there. But claiming Islam has been 'responsible for far less slaughter' requires either profound ignorance of the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Ottoman expansions, or a very selective memory about places like the Hindu Kush, where the destruction was so thorough they named a mountain range after it.
Both religions have been weaponized by power-hungry men. The difference isn't the body count—it's that you're apparently only counting one side's corpses.
I know those stories and caliphates better than your recitation of your "facts" about them. The expansions you are talking about weren't about slaughter . they were about land and power, two things consistently outside of religion that the people like to use the banner of religion FOR. Again, for the MOST part, they liked having non Muslim subjects. Because they paid the jizzya MONEY for people in power. Another aspects always more important than 'religion'. Want me to clue you in on something else?? consider the socieites that the Arab cavlary (the eearly expansion were all cavalry based for most part) came from? (it's bizarre they conquered both Persian and Byzantine empies when they should had been squashed like a bug by either . Of course Muslim will claim it was because of Allah but we know that's preposterous (he most common excuzse, still hard to believe it ath those empires were exhausted by non stop 400 years of war on each other. Anyways .. what was the main activity of the Arab tribes on Arabian peninsula??? RAIDING... Islam forbids raiding other Muslims.. so now we have a problem .. what can we do with all these men who have been living and enjoying life doing only ONE thing???? send them raiding against non Muslims!! and successful raids only beget more successful raids :) (they also had a true military genius as general for their early and most rapid expansions .. the "Sword of Islam" Khalid ibn al Walid (Khaled, son of the Walid)
60-80M sounds low: the conquest of the Hindi seems to have whacked 60M off their population. Beyond that, it made them captives in their own land for, umm, more than 500 years. That’s one unit of Islamic Conquest.
don't know the history as well as I should but the attempt to conquer the Indian subcontinent culminating in the Mughal Empire (which wasn't particularly "Islamic", ironically) would be the biggest "stain" on the murder scale for Dar Al Islam
so what? they were done in the NAME of "Christ/Christianity" nonetheless. Want to tell me more about "unconditional love" with burning heretics and witches and the stake? AND the "Crusades" in Europe, such as the wholesale genocide of the pagan Pomeranians? (sanctioned by Papacy) why do you think the Germans moved and lived so far East of the Oder River? I mean wtf are we talking about here? wholesale delusion?
I largely agree, but the New Testament gives us clear guidance about how this contradicts the example of Jesus, as the OP says.
In fairness, you also have to credit Christianity with the good things it has inspired, like the abolition of slavery and rules of war.
In any case, Christianity should be judged by its teachings, not by the actions of its supposed followers. One of the Bible's main themes is how the people are continually going astray.
peace and love, Sir, have nothing to do with religion. Humankind kind of figured that out all by itself way way before they even started to associate features of weather with "Gods".
meh.. those are isolated and I don't know much about the conflict to be honest, but I suspect it's at least as much tribal as religious. and I really don't think you want to go back in history.. I think the author of the substack tried a "historical comparison" some posts ago which I found deficient.
Modern namby-pamby, pacifistic, woke Christianity is far more innocuous than any of the main strains of Islam. If you don't believe it read chapters 6 and 7 in Ibn Warraq's *Why I Am Not a Muslim*
there are "strains" and there are "strains". Most Muslims just want to live in peace and most importantly live well, they really dont' give a fuck about the old infidel or even kuffar nonsense
Perhaps you're also sure you know what they believe, but if you read those two chapters from the linked text you may learn something at odds with your current suppositions in that regard.
well having lived among them for 7 years I have a general idea of what MANY want .. though that sample size is limited to a specific socio economic strata. Also since I think ALL religion is man made./created bullshit - reading anything created by these men as some basis for "sacred truth" strikes me as completely idiotic?
I agree that all religious doctrine is BS, and since the penalties for Islamic apostasy are severe I assume there are more than a few nominal Muslims in countries where that religion is officially established who are covertly skeptical. But obviously many accept Islamic dogma as true -- and since that dogma is incompatible with liberal democracy it would be best to bar such true believers from taking up permanent residence in the US and other countries where civil liberty and secular rule of law prevail.
There is a fault in your understanding, It’s not Christianity’s unconditional love, it’s Messiah & God of Israel’s unconditional Love, there is a big difference.
the "God of Israel's" "UNCONDITIONAL LOVE"? I mean .. are you SERIOUS .?? when was the last time you glanced the the Old Testament. That book is full of his "unconditional love" right?? I am not familiar with the Torah, so cannot comment on what is in it. but I do know according to the Old Testament, :God" allowed them to slaughter the males of the tribes on land(*s) that "God gave them" LOLOLOLO and take their women (the circumcision of their males and then their slaying in their "weakened state" is one of my favorite stories!!!
Yes! I’m very serious! I’ve been reading it for about 25 years, one cannot extract a verse, out of context, The context is vital to understand. The Covenant given to Moses on mt Sinai, wasn’t given to the NT Church, that was a bilateral covenant, which is now no longer functioning. Yes! There are some passages that are harsh in our human understanding, these are war times. Here’s one of those passages:
The key verse is Judges 4:21:
“But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the peg into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” (KJV)
Having myself frequently occupied with Qu´ran and Islam, and—as is the case with every religion and as it gets pointed out here—a significant portion, if not the entirety, is a "matter of interpretation".
It can´t be any other way because no (human) being knows G*d, if It exists at all, what It is etc.
This in itself is no problem; nor do individual believers—whatever their reasons for believing may be—pose a fundamental problem anywhere.
Rather, the fundamental problem with Islam is that it does not, in principle, permit freedom of belief.
While there do exist "interpretations" asserting that faith can—and indeed must—arise solely from personal freedom and individual choice, these particular "interpretations" have been suppressed and persecuted for at least a thousand years.
They celebrate Ibn Rushd, but persecute mercilessly most everything he wrote.
And this is no mere coincidence; the notion that faith can and should not be a matter of free choice is entirely consistent with the very nature of Islam and its historical origins.
Such attitude dominated for long periods in Christianity as well—where, in many instances, they persist to this day.
However, within Christianity, it is evident that this stance is not intrinsic to the faith itself, but rather a deviation/ aberration that stands in fundamental opposition to "true" Christianity.
In Judaism—of which Christianity is, in essence, merely one "interpretation"—this clarity regarding faith as a deeply personal matter that cannot be prescribed is even more pronounced.
Similarly, in Buddhism, for instance, there exist some 700 different "interpretations"—like a.o. in Hinduism—and they are able to coexist with one another in a more or less peaceful manner.
In Islam, however, such coexistence appears as virtually impossible; there appears to be nothing but a bitter struggle over what constitutes the "true faith." Islam is, in this regard, conceivably extremely far away from being a "religion of peace".
As long as Islam fails to undergo an "Enlightenment"—one involving the brutal and irreversible disempowerment of the clergy—there is absolutely no prospect of improvement at horizon.
Rather, Islam tends to expand, seeks to spread solely to avoid having to confront itself and its unresolved internal struggles.
Therefore, the strict regulation, rejection, and containment of Islam are indispensable, so that its adherents may bash in one another's heads rather than those of others.
One may endlessly debate various „interpretations", but such discourse remains futile if any given "interpretation" can, at any moment, be brutally crushed by self-appointed "true believers“.
Heartworker, thank you for this. The Ibn Rushd observation is one of the sharpest compressed arguments about the Islamic intellectual tradition I have encountered in a comment section. They celebrate the man and suppress everything he actually concluded. That is not incidental, as you note. It is structural. The tradition cannot tolerate what serious engagement with his work produces, which is exactly the problem I was trying to name from a different angle.
Your distinction between Christianity's authoritarianism as deviation versus Islam's as intrinsic to its nature is the same distinction I arrived at after years in the primary sources, and I am glad to find someone else who reached it through their own reading rather than accepting the popular consensus that all religions are equally prone to the same abuses.
I will push back gently on two things, not to win an argument but because the dialogue is the point.
Christianity as merely one interpretation of Judaism: I understand why a secular European intellectual framework produces that framing and I respect the tradition it comes from. But from where I stand, having spent years in both testaments, Christianity is better understood as Judaism's own prophetic tradition arriving at its intended destination. The Hebrew prophets were not describing something that never came. That is a different claim than interpretation, and it is worth the argument even if we do not resolve it here.
Your conclusion, strict regulation and containment so the adherents may settle their internal conflicts among themselves rather than externally, is honest in a way that most people are not willing to be publicly. I find I cannot fully disagree with it as a policy observation. But it leaves me with no hope for the individual Muslims I have known, including the man whose friendship produced the books. The containment of a system and the redemption of the people shaped by it are not the same project, and I am unwilling to abandon the second even while I argue honestly about the first. However i believe in the redemption of the individuals within the tradition of Islam i do not believe that this redemption of the people can be found through the tradition of Islam but by the abandonment of it. Muhammad was a blind guide who clearly stated that he did not know where he was going when he died. He never heard Gods voice or encountered Him directly. Muhammad never had a prophecy fulfilled or a miraculous sign that CONFIRMED his message. Muslims following this blind guide are just like every other superstition following group. Hoping for good things but never sure of the outcome.
The dialogue you are modeling here is exactly what is needed.
Again, thank you for engaging seriously. Without dialog, we all descend into barbarism.
I found your assessment of the prime differences between Islam and Christianity, i.e., the nature of the god that each worships insightful and on point.
But to characterize the POV of this previous comment as "European..." is frankly bizarre.
Christianity is not an interpretation of Judaism, to be sure.
Christianity is, forgive me, best described as a derivative cult of Judaism, using "cult" in it's authentic sense.
The God that Jesus describes is the God of his people, his faith, i.e., the Jews.
Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah spoken of in Jewish traditions.
Jews disagree.
This is not a "European...." interpretation of anything.
It's a simple statement of one of the clear differences between the two faiths.
I shall rely on you for the factual accounts of the various early Christian sects and I do understand that they must have believed that Jesus was the Messiah at the beginning.
And certainly the fact of their persecution is in evidence.
My understanding is that they believed Jesus was going to return imminently and that most Christians today also believe that he will return and usher in a new age.
This is the crux of the difference between Judaism and Christianity to this day.
Jews simply do not accept that the Messiah would die only to return.
As Christianity aged and developed it's own mythos, the schism between the two faiths broadened.
As for your position that Judaism was subsequently forced to adopt Christian beliefs in the post Temple era would it not be more plausible that early Christianity mirrored the early Rabbinical adaptations?
Well, early Jewish Christianity was Judaism along with the fulfilment of prophecy in ways people didn't expect. But the rabbinic shift towards introspection and other methods for atonement of sins is well-documented after the destruction of the Temple. In many ways, the loss of the Temple represented a spiritual existential crisis, as well as the material crisis Judaism was facing.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, a key founder of Rabbinic Judaism explicitly elevated acts of loving-kindness (gemilut chasadim) as the primary act of atonement and closeness to God in place of Temple sacrifices. He drew from Hosea 6:6, but prior to the destruction of the Temple this would have seemed controversial to say the least, given it was a departure from the pure pursuit of ritual purity. Repentance (teshuvah), prayer, and fasting all also became more prominent.
From an AI: 'Many purity laws lost practical relevance (especially those tied to the Temple and sacrifices). While some purity concepts survived or were spiritualized, the overall system shifted toward ethical and communal behaviour. Purity became more metaphorical or limited to specific contexts.'
Jacob Neusner is the most prominent Jewish scholar on the subject, but you could also check out TheTorah.com on the subject.
Five year ago it would have taken me half an hour to recover this half-remembered information. AI is great- provided one has the intellectual humility to avoid instrumental rationality.
Good point about the imminent return of Jesus. We see the same thing today. Many people didn't read the gospels closely enough. Most people tend to mingle the Kingdom, salvation and the Father's house, and the Final Days and the physical rebirth which follows. Jesus explicitly said 'only the Father' 'knows'. The Kingdom is the core distinction. It had a multi-layered meaning. The mustard seed was a metaphor for a number of ethical, moral and spiritual transformations.
Apart from anything else it provided a means of rewiring human culture. Although Judaism was a prototypical guilt & forgiveness culture, most cultures in human history have been honour & shame, hardly conducive as a foundation for the Enlightenment or an Age of Reason. In addition we still see the radical egalitarianism Christ introduced through metrics like Hofstede's Power Distance Index.
The biggest mistake of Christianity was ignoring Christ's advice about 'Render unto Caesar'. Worldly power was never supposed to be on the table. It's inherently corruptive and prone to the misuse of force and coercion. The early Christians were moral exemplars, rushing towards plagues to tend to the sick, when even sick family members were forsaken. In tying spiritual matters to state power, Christianity opened itself up to all sorts of false prophets who subverted the religion to nefarious purposes which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian ethos.
Obviously, these tendencies within Judaism were already present. Jesus himself drew upon them to preach his radical message. However, it was only after the destruction of the Temple that they fully came to the fore, and became central the Rabbinic tradition (for the better, given that it provided the resilience for Jewish culture to persist, when so many cultures became little more than historical footnotes).
I almost missed your reply. Did you reply to me or someone else?
Sorry, I am new to this space but yes, I was replying to you.
I am very much enjoying our discussion!
Three thoughts:
Isn't AI marvelous!!
And, I'm not sure how accurate it is to assume that pre Rabbinic Judaism was wholly reliant on ritual and sacrifice.
Judaism has always been a communal culture but the nature of a sole soul, so to speak, was always deeply intimate and internal.
And I do agree that when Christianity became the de facto religion of power it fundamentally changed the reality, and perhaps, the nature of the religion but in turn it also allowed the explosive growth of it.
I think the explosive growth was there already. Early Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the ancient world, going from eleven frightened men in an apartment in Jerusalem to a faith which encompassed 5-10% of the Empire's population when Constantine wrought his changes- all despite the most awful and systemic persecution. I think it spoke to the deep human need to be heroes in our own narratives, but in a moral sense, deeply aspirational in the desire of ancient peoples to become far better people than they currently were, rather than the 'King of the Hill' mentality which preceded it, the path of temporal strength.
What alignment with the state did for Christianity was to give it temporal power, something Christ himself explicitly rejected during the 40 days in the wilderness. The viral peaceful spread which occurred naturally was displaced by religious imperialism.
I wouldn't say that pre-Rabbinic Judaism was wholly reliant on ritual and sacrifice. Rabbinic Judaism didn't invent the various concepts promoted after the Temple destruction, it simply brought them to the fore, elevating their role and importance within the faith. I agree with you about the sole soul. The main shift was in atonement practices. Prior to Rabbinic Judaism it was a means of centralising the faith around the Temple.
This also explains why Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was so influential in his revisions. The forced decentralisation created a crisis for Judaism. Jews of the time would have needed to strengthen their group bonding and loyalty increasing both social enforcement and methods to increase the web of bonds within a community. In this respect the significant amplification of loving-kindness and the internalisation of atonement for sin both served to make Jewish communities stronger internally. It was a response perfectly calibrated for group solidarity and communal living.
Pre-Rabbinic culture was probably more fractious, factional and prone to one-upmanship. Sectarian rivalries are particularly well-documented from the time, and some sources point to performative religiosity as a form of prestige competition. One of things Rabbinic Judaism quickly became good at was dispute containment, and the preservation of minority opinions without schism. Many aspects of modern day Jewish culture owe their existence to this evolution, particularly the enthusiastic embrace of friendly debate.
I'm also enjoying the conversation. These types of conversations are one of the great aspects of Substack. Only Discourse forums seem to produce a similar dynamic.
As an Orthodox jew, I am confused about your description of Jesus as the messiah. My understanding of the Trinity is that Jesus is God in human form. He looked like a person, and acted like a person but he was actually God in the shape of a human being. If Christianity is a monotheistic religion this has to be true. Your description of a messiah sounds different to me. Maybe because the authentic Jewish messiah is a person, not a diety. How can Jesus be both God and messiah at the same time? If He is, is Christianity truly monotheistic? Islam for all its problems as you describe, is most definitely monotheistic. That's its most important element, tawhid. That is its greatest achievement, bringing monotheism to 1 billion+ people.
HR is right that millions of words have been devoted to explaining this conundrum, and I'd like to avoid a detailed discussion, myself. The notion that Jesus is God in human form is the ancient heresy named "docetism," from the Greek "doceo" meaning "seem." (Jesus merely "seemed" human.) The orthodox Christian position is that God is a trinity consisting of three "persons," and that Jesus has two "natures" (truly divine and truly human).
I appreciate you using the fine distinction with regard to 'cult'. Many more superficial readers would view this with its negative connotations, when one could just as a easily state that Buddhism was a cult which sprang from Hinduism.
However, there are several fine points which bear remembering.
1) The messianic and resurrection claims were there from the beginning. With the exception of Ebionite Christianity, gnostic and Aryan variants which saw Christ as less than the Son of Man (Son of God) only began to emerge in numbers roughly 70 years after the events described in the gospels.
2) Many Jews did acknowledge Christ as Messiah and Son of Man. They just weren't in the majority and didn't hold the reins of institutional power, or the monopoly on force.
3) Nazarene Jewish Christians were more numerous than Ebionite Jewish Christians. In addition, it's also highly plausible but not certain that Ebionite Christians muted down their beliefs about Jesus because to do so would have been a means of at least partially mitigating the extreme persecution meted out towards Jewish followers of Christ in Galilee and Judea.
4) Sadly, as Christianity spread, first due to the apparent miracles during the apostolic age, and, later due to the demonstrably morally superior of behaviour of the early Christians in showing populations a model of behaviour to aspire to, Jewish Christianity became marginalised and treated by suspicion by both Gentile Christians and mainstream Jews. By the 5th century they were for the most part absorbed into both groups.
5) Ironically, Judaism was forced to evolve in many of the ways that Jesus advocated during his life. With the destruction of the Temple perhaps the main source of atonement was separated from Jewish life. Many of the means which Jewish rabbis used to remediate this deficit were at least popularised by Jesus, even if they had existed in some previous subsidiary form before his life, which begs the question: prophecy or providence?
6) it's truer to state that some Jews disagreed and some Jews didn't. Sadly, we can never know the proportions given the quite draconian suppression of Jewish Christians during the period.
7) By the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 AD), Jewish Christians were clearly a minority strong enough to refuse joining the revolt, but not large enough to sway mainstream Jewish society.
Sounds like a cult then when stated this way. But doesn't have any real relief except personal faith for the believer. It does make it hard to separate the teaching from the followers 😞
Lovely article. I don't usually read things like this but it called me and carried me through even to the comments.
Faith is a tricky switch in the mind and it needs built and then maintenance. The more my Divina talks to God's in her mind the less I care for them.
Thank you for the research and sharing your findings.
Wow, your thoughts are very interesting. One way to summarize the world’s religions, all of them make rules to be followed and a god to be worshiped, all except Christianity. Christianity says human are born sinners, unable to understand spiritual wisdom ( you are right- no human can understand an infinite holy God, that is why God Himself took on human nature to die on an ugly humiliating cross for those who would believe in Jesus would be saved. You must not want to believe in a personal God that might demand something from you for you daid “if It exists”. Beware of your pride in figuring all this out, the “devils believe and tremble” because they will not bend their knee to His majesty.?
May I ask why you say he never heard God's voice? The story goes that he heard the Angel's voice at least? Does this not qualify as a message from the divine?
Muhammad can claim he heard the voice from an angel, or a donkey, or a baked potato… but none of those claims make muhammed a prophet. And why should anyone believe the testimony of 1 man. Where are the proofs? Where are the witnesses. There are REQUIREMENTS that must be met for anyone who claims to be a prophet, in the line of prophets, and from God. If muhammed conveniently left those facts out of the quran… it is because he does not meet those requirements. I see nothing but reasons to doubt muhammed. Why should I trust his word over the eye witnesses? God endorses the testimonies of the eye witnesses with miracles. But God does not endorse muhammeds message with any miracles.
Can you see how at every level muhammed produces doubt and distrust. He did not even know where he was going when he died. Why follow a blind guide.
I'm neither a Christian nor a Muslim, and am a sojourner here, so you can take this as the orthogonal comment it surely is to the main thrust of your writing. I enjoyed your main post because it seemed you were sincerely engaging with a tradition not your own, and a tradition that troubles you. Your response here is different in tone however. You seem to be applying a standard of proof ("God endorses His prophets with miracles") whose reliability I'm not inclined to accept at face value (e.g. what witnesses are you relying on for the miracles related in the Bible?) and you're using it to sweepingly reject all of Islam. Now, I'm not enjoining you to accept Islam (since I don't myself either), I'm just pointing out that you haven't really answered my question. As far as I understand it, from a Muslim POV, the reception of the Quran by Muhammad is itself a miracle, due to his putative illiteracy and the text's richness in the original language etc. Non-Muslims are perfectly entitled to doubt this, but non-Christians I'm sure you know are perfectly entitled not to accept the infallibility of the Bible or the Christian tradition too.
A fair observation and I will take it seriously rather than dismiss it.
You are right that I was applying a standard. What I should have made explicit is where that standard comes from, because it is not a Christian standard I am importing to disqualify a Muslim claim. It is a Jewish standard that predates both Christianity and Islam by roughly a thousand years, and it is a standard the Quran itself cannot reject without undercutting its own claims.
Deuteronomy 13 and 18 establish the framework. A genuine prophet must speak in continuity with prior revelation. His specific predictions must come to pass without failure. One failed prediction disqualifies entirely. And the standard of divine communication is set by Moses himself, face to face, without intermediary. These criteria were not invented by Christians to attack Muhammad. They were established by the tradition Muhammad claimed to be completing.
Here is the problem that creates for the miracle you mentioned. The Quran's claim to be Muhammad's confirming miracle rests on the assertion of its literary inimitability. But Islamic theology itself, in its formal doctrine of prophetic miracles, requires that a confirming miracle be publicly witnessed, independently verifiable, and impossible to duplicate by any creature present. Literary excellence, even genuine literary excellence, does not meet that standard. It is a subjective aesthetic judgment, not a publicly falsifiable event. Muhammad's own tradition sets the bar higher than he cleared it.
More importantly, the continuity test does not wait for the miracle question. Deuteronomy 13 is explicit: even a prophet who performs genuine signs is disqualified if his message leads away from the established revelation. Signs do not validate message. Message validates signs. Muhammad's message contradicts the Torah on the covenant with Israel, the nature of God, and the Mosaic standard for prophetic communication. On the tradition's own terms, those contradictions are disqualifying before the miracle question is even reached.
Now to your broader point about applying skepticism evenly. You asked what witnesses I am relying on for the miracles in the Bible. That is a legitimate question and it has a verifiable answer. The New Testament miracle accounts were written within decades of the events by people who were either eyewitnesses or had direct access to eyewitnesses. Luke names governors, census events, and architectural details that have been confirmed by archaeology repeatedly. The church fathers writing within living memory of the apostles quote the New Testament so extensively the entire text could be reconstructed from their letters alone. The Dead Sea Isaiah scroll, copied a thousand years before the manuscripts previously available, matched the received text with a precision that startled the scholars who examined it.
The Bible has been under hostile academic examination for three hundred years, motivated and funded and institutionalized. It has come out of that process looking more accurate, not less. Every time a specific claim was called a legend, the archaeology eventually gave way under the critic, not the text.
Islam has faced a fraction of that scrutiny. The oldest complete Quran manuscript does not predate 737 AD. The Hadith canon was assembled two centuries after Muhammad by scholars who themselves acknowledged they were sorting through hundreds of thousands of fabrications. Uthman burned the competing versions rather than archiving them.
You are right that non-Christians are entitled not to accept the Bible's infallibility. But entitlement to doubt is not the same as having equal grounds for doubt. The evidentiary situations are not equivalent and treating them as though they are requires ignoring what three centuries of hostile examination actually produced.
The standard I am applying is not mine. It belongs to the tradition Muhammad claimed to be completing. I am simply reading the verdict it returns.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify how you assess it. That makes more sense. As an outsider to the Abrahamic traditions it's helpful to learn the specifics. I've no beef at all with anyone choosing their tradition using their own assessment as long as they're not trying to force their view of another tradition's wrongness or inadequacy on anyone else (which I'm not saying you are, and that obviously goes for proselytising Islam too). The only thought bubble I feel moved to express is: the evidentiary standards you mention pertain to historicity of biblical persons and places. As you say, centuries of scrutiny have filled out the picture well at least with the New Testament, and the same mightn't be the case with Islam. But that doesn't "prove" the biblical miracles, it just establishes that yes, the gospel writers weren't writing about a semi mythical time or anything. They were real persons. But the acceptance of "this miracle really happened, God really filled this prophet or disciple with His power" to my mind still comes down to personal faith, personal reasoning, and personal engagement with a tradition. Islam for instance after its establishment has a long history of Sufi saints reportedly performing miracles, healings etc. As do non-Abrahamic religions. Cheers.
"You are right that non-Christians are entitled not to accept the Bible's infallibility. But entitlement to doubt is not the same as having equal grounds for doubt." Great answer.
To which I add a challenge to the honest skeptics:
The Jews' return to their original homeland from a global dispersion was repeated some 30 times in different places in the Jewish Bible. Some contain peculiar details which would not likely have occurred to wishful thinkers. And all 30 were written down centuries before there even WAS a global dispersion.
The challenge: If you can explain the success of this prediction (including the peculiar details) in terms other than the Supernatural Source as the Jewish prophets themselves claimed, I will grant that you have equal grounds for doubting both the Quran and the Bible.
From memory of a college course in the NewTestament 60 years ago --- the books of the New Testament were not written by people who knew Jesus in life. They were texts circulating and eventually some were selected by early Christian leaders. Google "How was the New Testament compiled" and the first sentence says it was assembled over the course of 4 centuries. That is a lot of time and space for interpretation and pleasant stories (the 3 wise men?) to find their way in. It didn't end in 4 centuries. The Immaculate Conception (of Mary, in her mother's womb) became dogma in 1854.
Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of God dictated to Muhammed - who did not read - in the 7th century. What's relevant, in my opinion, is their belief, not whether it is true. (Because its not possible to find whats true in any of these books) Christians believe 3 wise men followed a star with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Its a fantastical story that doesn't fit in with anything else in the NT. Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, Hadith --- my take is that each of these books is a compilation by people who lived much later. I wouldn't argue it with a believer, but that's what makes sense.
The Message of Muhammad...the Quran...is the Miracle, the Theophany, at least in Islamic thought. Your question, why follow a blind guide is relevant, but serves as a proof that Muhammad was receiving revelations that he then transmitted...Allah was the author of the Quran and Muhammad's destiny in the Islamic framework. According to Islamic thought, the eye witnesses of Muhammad and their immediate offspring established an Islamic empire by advancing their witness of Islam to Morocco and Spain in the West and India in the East...by Dawah and Jihad. In Islam, that is referred to as the Futuhat, derived from Allah's Name Al-Fattah, the one who opens the way, where the opening Fatihah Surah of the Quran originates...in this, what was the Treaty of Hudaybiya called? The Fath...the opening...that guaranteed Mecca would in the near-term surrender to the Will of Allah.
The angel Messenger could have been a devil angel to further deceive seekers to follow another “god” running interference for them finding the true God. Many know there are good and bad spirits
Most versions of Christianity have no room for freedom of belief either. Instead of believers killing the unbeliever in the here and now, God commits them to eternal conscious torment in the hereafter. Humans are more tolerant and God is the barbarian.
You are describing the God of the Old Testament. The God that Christ revealed is a loving God. The life that Jesus led was one of compassion and forgiveness, even until his last breath.
The God of the Old Testament IS the God that Christ revealed. Jesus IS God. The doctrine of the Trinity is threaded throughout both the Old and New Testaments. But God has numerous attributes. Love is the greatest. He is also holy and just, and justice in the OT looked different than it would look today, but it is no less of Him. Jesus spoke very harshly to the crooked religious leaders, clearly demonstrating what God thinks of people who use His name or faith to oppress people. But it is not oppression to tell people, who want to ignore that they are created beings and be their own gods, that they are missing out on what they're really here for.
At the risk of applying the no true Scotsman fallacy aren't you describing false versions of Christianity when you compare them to the teachings found in the gospel?
One has to wonder how the rich man and the eye of a needle contorts into the 'me' evangelism which claims people 'deserve' their wealth. And by the way, the passage doesn't mean exactly what most people suppose. Instead it's an exhortation which asks people to pursue what really matters, in this case salvation.
Try asking an AI this and you will see what I mean 'I have an interesting question for you. It relates to what human's pursue versus what humans need to be happy as a byproduct of others things they pursue in the lives. Create two lists one for what they pursue versus what they should pursue to be fulfilled and happy. the lists can comprise things like self-sufficiency, autonomy, empowerment, connectedness, etc. Rank order each list and make as many entries per list as you feel is necessary.'
Has the Old Testament been removed from the Christian Bible, has Judaism been outlawed or condemned for continuing the basic tenants we know from the Old Testament?? I doubt any of us would recognize this Jesus should he return to walk incognito around us. Back during the 60's and 70's, what would society have said and how would they have treated this long-haired, hippie-freak-looking cult leader? In Andalusia, AL back in the mid-60's, I saw a notice on a Baptist church bulletin board that asked people of color, should they venture inside this bastion of whiteness, to turn around and walk right back out and not cause a scene!
AFAIK, there's no reason to suppose that Jesus' hair or any other aspect of his superficial appearance was unusual, let alone freakish, in the eyes of his Jewish contemporaries.
Clearly, the people in the church in Alabama were sinning as the Bible is clear that God’s children are from every tribe and tongue. Other white Christian pastors marched together with Black Christian pastors in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. It was the Reverend Martin Luther King and other pastors—both white and black that led the Civil Rights movement. There will always be people, who call themselves Christians, but don’t follow God.
Don’t you mean “had”? Not “has”? The sentence reads oddly. I’m not sure I understand your meaning! Jesus is a creature of his own time. Anything we take from his story has got to be taken as symbolism or emotional truth? Not actual, physical truth.
I had 15 years of Jungian analysis, which means dream analysis. Every once in a while I would dream about God. How did I know? There was something about him, but it wasn’t his clothing. First of all he was always young, a young man. He wore ordinary street clothes of our time, not robes from 2,000 years ago. He seemed quite ordinary, except that he was astonishingly handsome, and I couldn’t see him quite clearly except by standing a distance away. Too close and things got blurry. This fits with mythological stories about humans encountering God. Too close and you are burned to ash. And if you aren’t ready to meet an archetypal presence you can blunder in and be turned into a stag to be hunted down by your own hounds. (Artemis and Actaeon by a pool in the forest when she was in her bath) or you can be burned to ash, like the Nazis at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In my understanding, God is myth and symbol and intuitive truth. The historical figure is less relevant in a lived life. It is the transpersonal truth that maintains belief, that connects humanity to its search for wholeness. And it is timeless.
No, I do not mean had, but it could be interchangable as I'm not speaking of a particular time period, just asking the question in general, as it could pertain to any time since the dawning of Christianity; in fact, my sentence structure makes perfect sense. Idk why you can't understand that I'm contrasting her depiction of a loving, compassionate Christ figure, which is supposedly the crux of Christianity, with the inconsistent messaging still found in the Old Testament, in addition, I ask for the benefit of those who aren't Christian but still maintain the tenets of the O.T. which are still used in the Judaic faith w/the Talmud & Torah, with which Zionist Christians see no problem. I'm fully aware of what Jungian analysis is all about, I've personally participated, but why do you need to tell us about that when a recounting of your dreams about God would suffice? You certainly lost me in the last part of your stream-of-consciousness narrative, so exactly what do you mean by "historical figure," do you mean the concept of God or as Christians believe in the concept of Jesus as God-incarnate? Your last sentence does indeed make perfect sense, God does transcend any type of interpersonal relationship (as Christianity emphasizes) & is, as you say, more of mankind's search for wholeness, which certainly is timeless.
Perhaps you should read the Scriptures . . . Paul explains in Romans 11 what happened to many Jews regarding Jesus.
He also describes how Christianity is Grafted into Judiasm, they share the same root.
All of the creators of the Bible, Jesus and the Aposals were Jews . . . we you not aware?
Paul also say that "All Israel will be Saved" . . .
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Psalm 132:13 For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
14 This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
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Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
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Revelation 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
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John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
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Jesus claimed he was God . . . which was why the Pharasees and the Saducees wanted to kill him for blasphemy.
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ALL the end times Prophases take place in and around Jerusalem . . . when Jesus returns he returns to the Mt. of Olives . . . where he will Rule for 1000 years.
“I had 15 years of Jungian analysis, which means dream analysis…”
Oh, in that case you must be right about everything being discussed here and there’s no need to question things further.
All mystery is now resolved because good ol’ Carl (or rather some analyst’s interpretation of his insights) sorted out the infinite mind and Divine plan of our Creator … using his finite mind … and passed on the ontological truth of God Himself to you in your dreams.
Pop Quiz for Saralyn: --- are these two verses in the Old Testament, or the New?
"YHVH, YHVH God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin."
"It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
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Pop Quiz for Robert W:
Since eternal conscious torment in the hereafter is too barbaric, what sentence do you think God *should* give to those who used their freedom of belief to shed innocent blood or torment the helpless?
(Of course, if you believe there is no justice after death, then you have an entirely different dilemma.)
Jesus died for the sins of the world, and offers abundant life. People choose to know and love God and accept His free gift of abundant life with Him or they choose to be their own god, and are live with their choice—which leads to “gnashing of teeth” and torment after they realize they have rejected the One, who loves them and died to save them. God is the ultimate free choice giver, but choices have consequences—to choose life or death has always been the choice.
The difficulty is that humans also have any enemy, who wants to see God’s image bearers destroyed, and who regularly tempts and distorts humans away from all that is good and life giving to acts and beliefs that are untrue and distortions of what is life giving and full.
My relationship with God is personal. Religions are precepts of man. No matter what religious institution I go to, my relationship with Him is between Him and me.
I have had the same experiences. My Muslim friends have had open friendly conversations with me about faith and do not condemn me for having faith without a tie to a particular religion. Some of my Christian friends are similar, others work endlessly to get me to claim Christianity as my religion and go to church because they are certain I will go to hell otherwise. Online, random Christians have condemned me endlessly, foretelling my journey to hell, calling me Satan’s daughter- they are dreadful humans to interact with. Random Muslims have engaged openly and have been willing to answer my questions. I have never been told that I’m condemned to hell by a Muslim. In my personal experiences, Muslims have all seemed to follow the early teachings of Muhammad. But, clearly, the staunch followers of his later teachings also exist. It is perplexing, but also enforced my view that no religion is the one source of truth, but rather, there is truth, knowledge, and wise advice to be found in almost all religions (I say almost because I doubt there is any good to be found in worshiping Baal or other inherently evil entities).
The acceptance that matters is that Christ died and was part of the prophesy that could not be fulfilled by anything short of the real deity.
All the rest is counterfeit including Islam. Do not believe religions like Latter Day Saints that push their narrative of God is over here.
Christ crucified as propitiation for the sins of the world. That is the only way to see God. If not all the other religions have merit and you might as well go get your 78 virgins.
The thing with this view of Christian theology is that in my heart I don’t believe I have ever done anything wicked enough that some dude I don’t know from Adam must die in my behalf. Especially in such a heinous way. I didn’t ask for this and I don’t approve of it. Human beings are fallible, and so am I, but for God or the Romans to execute this mild-mannered Hebrew seer on my behalf seems way out of proportion.
And all the stories of virgin birth were added in to the Christ story well after his death. Virgin birth is not exactly impossible, but the child would be female, basically a clone of her mother. A male child is impossible. That’s science.
Many of the stories in the New Testament parallel stories prevalent in the Middle East at that time. Dionysus is the god who dies every fall to be reborn again every spring. There are many others I don’t know about I’m sure. So why is this Hebrew guy so special. It seems to me to be quite an ego trip to imagine you are the light if the world. See, Christianity is a myth system like many other religions. The major work religion that seems the most grounded to me is Buddhism.
More than anything, I see myself as a Jungian. As the son of a Protestant clergyman, he looked into theology with the eye of a folklorist as well as a deeply spiritual person, but I think the God he said in an interview that he “knew,” is a personal belief in the transpersonal reality of our lives on Earth. The divinity present in all things. This divinity does not require a human sacrifice. It simply needs to be acknowledged and honored. Not a simple task at all.
Too many prophesies were fulfilled by Christ. Read Psalm 22 as a start. Your email is a dark reminder of the largely wrong information given to the world by demonic forces. None of tne religions you mention save the world from sin by God. Mere morals did not design this and we are not the creator.
I hope you find the truth. Seek tne true God and you will find.
Only the God of the Bible tells you the Beginning from the End . . . things that have not yet occurred . . . no other religious text does this . . .
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
12 Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.
Belief that one has a religious right or obligation to kill (or enslave, or humiliate, or despoil, or displace) others who don't share one's own religious convictions is far more inimical to others' welfare than a doctrinal conviction that unbelievers will be punished in a postmortem afterlife.
No, but that's beside my point. Would you rather be a) murdered or b) told that your soul will be condemned to eternal postmortem torment if you don't confess your sins and pray for divine forgiveness? If you say you'd prefer a) I won't believe you.
I’m saying that the barbarism of eternal torture is worse and Christians happily believe that this will happen to billions of peaceful Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, native Americans, etc.
So what? Muslims believe that it will happen to Christians, do they not?
Anyway, you're dancing around my question. I didn't ask whether you think that eternal postmortem torment is worse than being murdered. Rather, I'm asking whether you think that merely being TOLD that your soul will suffer such torment unless you do a, b, and c is worse than being murdered.
The God I believe in does not commit anyone to hell although you may wind up there through your own actions. You can liberate yourself from hell but don't ask me how cuz I haven't been there yet. Unless you mean hell on Earth and yeah I've been there a few times.
Before Libertas Religionis freedom of belief only existed in prototypical form. Other cultures had articulated the concept but for the most part as a memetic structure it was theoretical or confined to the dry world of philosophical thinking. What you fail to recognise is that religion is inherently dangerous like any ideology or philosophical movement, but unlike most other movements Christian ethics provide the seed by which the stronger epistemic argument will be the right and just one. The problem is that as with most ideas the loudest argument is usually the wrong one.
You also have entirely the wrong view of human nature. It's an easy mistake to make when one swims in the cultural waters bestowed upon us by a legacy of cultural Christianity. Before Jesus, most cultures were far more deterministically hierarchical and prone to the unforgiving cruelty of the dominant. We still see this as a legacy in social science like Hofstede’s Power Distance Index. Most cultures are significantly more deferential to those who possess higher social standing and power, and significantly more dismissive and casually contemptuous of those of lower social standing. It's something which most W.E.I.R.D. people just don't see, because those they come into contact with from diverse cultural backgrounds tend to be at least part way along the journey towards Western acculturation. Their PDI scores bear this out; those in tertiary education have lower PDI scores than their countries of origin.
The key change Jesus enacted in the world, other than switching culture from honour/shame to to guilt/forgiveness is a form of radical egalitarianism which saw inherent worth in every human being. He switched human worth from extrinsic to intrinsic, even if the extrinsic worth is still valued in the West and elsewhere. Of all other system only Buddhism came close, but then inherently assigned some blame for a benighted condition through the Saṃsāra cycle.
Like most comments these days I ran my thoughts through a couple of AIs, one of which I've trained to be pretty belligerent. Surprisingly, the feedback came back fairly positive. However, the belligerent AI came back with an interesting insight:
It queried this claim: He switched human worth from extrinsic to intrinsic, and argued instead that 'It did not fully abolish extrinsic status competition — humans remain humans — but it subordinated worldly status beneath a transcendent moral equality.'
And, yes, I know that we owe a lot to the Greeks and the Romans. Our political system is a direct descendent of the Greek model. However, our ethical system is primarily a system of Christian ethics, by comparison the Greeks and the Romans made relatively minor contributions, even when one looks at the role of the Enlightenment philosophers. The exception would be Stoicism with its emphasis on self-control and duty, and to a lesser extent, Aristotle with virtue ethics and the concept of natural law.
Jeremiah 31:33 - I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Before this prophecy, God's Law was only found in scripture and Messenger relays. Jesus was the first evidence that God's Law was written on a Man's heart. This is the reason God became a Man...to make this reality completely evident. Paul would later remark how Greek gentiles advanced God's Law naturally in their philosophy.
For the record, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle came after Jeremiah. So, many of the Greek philosophical tenets that found their way to Christendom's modern nation states, arguably have the tenor of religion.
The question we must ask ourselves is whether or not Jeremiah was the break water point, where the old tide of reasoned self-determination gave way to a reliance on God. We often think of philosophy as an evolution from religion which was an evolution from mythology. But, what if...mythology was the natural result of a people that did not have the Law of God etched on their hearts? What if Philosophy was the middle ground...and religion was the evolved position?
Have you heard how Tolkien converted C.S. Lewis from his early atheism/agnosticism? He maintained that although not all myths were a product of the yearning for the truth and spiritual beauty embodied by God, many were. The argument which ultimately won C.S. Lewis over was the idea that much of history and man's belief in myths pointed to one singular figure- Jesus Christ- the one true myth, the culmination of the half-glimpsed yearning for meaning man had searched in vain for before.
It's also one of the delineations John Lennox makes in his Christian apologetics. Most atheists argue God as a God of the Gaps. That might be true of pantheistic pagan entities, but an all-knowing, all-powerful, singular creator of all certainly isn't a product of man's need to explain storms or agricultural cycles. It's a strawman, and it's little wonder that the atheists come to the conclusions that they do given the deeply flawed conceptual error atheists make when they imagine that a belief in a monotheistic God came into being in the same manner as all the petty pantheistic Gods and Goddesses which served as a meagre substitute for man's intuitive knowledge of a spiritual truth beyond imagining.
Which comes first Zero or One? It seems to me that on a linear progression, Zero comes first, but One is necessary for Zero to have meaning. Zero only has value as an absence of One. The Greek push for the mathematical faith in the One as the Source of Good, Light, Truth, Law, and Society holds a pride of place that Religious missionaries would do well to acknowledge.
Well yes. Plus zero is primarily a theoretical value. In practice, at a quantum level, zero is more likely spontaneous positive and negative forces in balance.
I think this is actually how God made the universe, or at least the firmament.
Guilt and shame come from the enemy of our souls. Conviction of sin and exhortation (You are made in the image of God to do good works, which he prepared for you before the foundations of the world) comes from the Holy Spirit. Jesus is about repentance not guilt. Shame is never from God, but Jesus will discipline those he loves. New life is find in Christ. Baptism is about dying to the old self and rising in newness of life in Jesus. Repent (Turn from wicked and evil ways and turn to the new life in Christ—dying to the old and living and abiding in Him). Yes, you’re right that Jesus is all about forgiveness. Jesus brought good news—You’re important. You matter. You’re made in the image of God to love and be loved by God. God is choosing to redeem you. Will you accept the free gift of new life in Christ?
I already have. It doesn't make me feel any more worthy of his love, although I will readily admit to feeling the water welling. I experienced it most recently watching an episode of The Chosen. I like Wes Huff, think his work is important, but I definitely disagree respectfully with him on The Chosen!
In many ways my faith had become a dry, parched, intellectual thing. The Chosen renewed my faith and centred it. The UK is a very secular society. It's very fashionable for celebs and pseudo-intellectuals to present superficial strawman arguments in the cultural zeitgeist.
To be candid, my feelings of unworthiness probably stem from masturbation. I'm 53 and single. I am somewhat reassured that masturbation by Christian single men is very common, but that doesn't prevent a certain amount of guilt at not living up to a high standard.
Anger is another problem. Particularly in relation to culture. Sometimes I just have to check out of all media for a few days. I don't use my phone for news. I limit myself in terms of media consumption and try to stick to more highbrow content, although on fiction I'm definitely a sucker for anything sci fi.
2. Being angry is not a sin, but “the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.” So be angry, but don’t sin.
3. Rather, “Cast your cares upon the Lord for he cares for you.”
4. You may want to use your anger to pray for your country or culture: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will heal their land.”
No one is worthy except Christ. You know in Paul’s letter to the Romans that he reminds them that all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. Our worthiness is completely based on having the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus—not on our own righteousness. He also reminds the church at Ephesus that this a free gift of God that cannot be earned. And he reminds believers that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So begin by accepting these truths with thanksgiving—lots of it. One of the easiest ways to come to God is with Thanksgiving.
Your particular issue is two-fold—God’s gift to men and women in their marriage bed and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In all things God wants all manner of good things for you. All the promises of God are yes and Amen! Satan is called the “Accuser of the Brethren,” and he is always about guilt and shame. Christ is about grace, forgiveness, new life, and removing any guilt or shame “as far as the east is from the west.” The Father through the prophet Isaiah says, “ Come now, let us reason together, though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
So, 1. give thanks to God for his design to give us pleasure in the marriage bed. Perhaps, you desire a wife? If so, pray for this and act accordingly—ask someone out for coffee.
2. Take every thought captive. It isn’t the physical release that is a sin, it is usually the dwelling on coveting someone else’s wife, or a porn addiction, or focusing your mind on your lusts rather than on God and all that he has for you—these thoughts can steal from you and your intended. You may want to use an app like this one:
Ultimately, fight against sin because it steals all that God has for you and those around you. Also, God has great things planned for you. Many pastors like to say, if you’re doing all the good work the Lord has planned for you, you don’t have time for “the sin that so easily entangles you.” You may also want an accountability partner/prayer partner.
I am glad you found the Chosen helpful. Practice constant gratitude to God and praise Him all day and see if you don’t enter His courts: “Enter His courts with Thanksgiving in your heart, enter His courts with Praise. Say, “This the day that he Lord has made. I will rejoice for He has made me Glad!”
Ultimately, faith is not all about feelings, but if we never have feelings that is also an issue. Practice gratitude and praise all day everyday, but if you still feel no great love for God only an intellectual understanding, find a brother in Christ, who is able to help you spiritually. The church is the body of Christ. Just as Lazarus did not take off his own grave clothes after Christ rose him from the dead, so our brothers and sisters in Christ help remove ours, so we can fully experience the abundant life Jesus intends for His children: John 10:10.
Thanks for your words of encouragement. On porn, I’m fundamentally old-fashioned. I have a few Mayfair issues from a ways back. I find modern online porn ugly and nasty. Intellectually I understand that salvation isn’t earned, it’s about acceptance of a gift, and emotionally I’m getting there- I just need to remind myself at times.
Untrue that Go is a barbarian, yes. Untrue the much of Christendom characterizes Him as a barbarian, no. That is quite true. I’ve sat through all to many “God is gonna get you” sermons, and come forward and accept Jesus or get tortured forever altar calls.
The whole point is, you pays your money you takes your choice.
The first and therefore archetypal God in anyone's life is the parents. W have all had oarents: loving ones, neglectful ones, abusive ines, punitive ones...
When children rightly fire their parents they may subconsciously find another God: Charles Manson, for example, or febtanyl or alcohol or weed, or in the case of narcissists, themselves.
And does Christianity condone freedom of belief? Has Christianity not fostered some of the most dogmatic, narrow-minded beliefs with a culture which washed over into our political institutions? Has it not been used to foment wars, racism, and misogyny, even to condone slavery?? How dare you engage in such hypocrisy!
What exactly is "Judeo-Christian philosophy" and what does it have to do with the foundations of democratic government which came out of, if I'm not mistaken, Greece?
Democracy did not break out in Europe till it was Christianized . . . over 1000 years after the Greek Philosophers . . . certainly there were elements of that philosophy . . . but Caucasian Christian Men were the motivators . . . and Judaeo/Christian Values were the basis of the Law, especially in the USA the home of the best Constitution on the planet.
These assertions are incomprehensible, as I am compelled to assume that my arguments were not read correctly or completely by you - as a.o. I specifically and expressly mentioned the rigidity and questionable nature of Christian dogmas—and of the prohibitions against challenging them—and explicitly noted that rigid dogmatic tenets, along with their consequences, continue to exist within Christianity to this very day.
But critics of this quite rarely face dead threats, insults and physical threats up to murder as frequently in Islam.
Also I wrote that Islam as of yet is lacking an"Enlightenment". This "enlightenment" can be traced back directly to Jesus - if you believe in him as "Messiah" or not. Furtherly I wrote that such branches that emphatically vote for freedom of belief, aren´t unknown in Islam.
Please, if you want to open a discussion, take respect of and refer to what I really pointed out and not what I nowhere stated. Thanks in advance.
I’ve sat in evangelical churches and been threatened with eternal torture literally every Sunday. If you believe in an afterlife that is a worse threat than death. What the essay seemed to be about was the moral superiority of Christian doctrine concerning tolerance. That doesn’t seem that clear to me.
There are "problematic" passages, doctrines, and statements in more or less every religion; however, the same applies—for instance—to non-believers/atheists, politics/political parties, philosophy, and many other fields.
Which of these elements ultimately prevail is usually—if not frequently or generally—determined by society as a whole: specifically, whether that society permits, respects, and fosters personal freedom.
This societal context also determines, for example, which "interpretations" gain traction and what the actual practice of religion looks like on the ground.
Regardless of which opinions held by the "majority" happen to prevail, however, there should always exist the personal freedom to choose whether to engage in a specific religious practice or to refrain from doing so.
This is invariably an ongoing process—one that is never fixed once and for all time.
If, for instance, a society is predominantly indifferent, ignorant, or even hostile toward "excessive" personal freedom, the public face of religion within that society will inevitably be shaped by that attitude.
Alas, after all, one of the defining characteristics of religion is precisely the fact that the individual—the believer—"submits" to a specific form of religious practice.
Nevertheless, this must always remain a purely personal decision.
Whether this freedom is effectively safeguarded within a given society depends not solely on religious representatives, believers, or clergy, but rather on the overall state of that society as a whole.
Personal freedom is unequivocally greater in "Western" societies—those that are, to varying degrees, "shaped by Christian tradition"—than it is in Islamic societies; at least, this holds true at present and has been the case for some time.
Within Christianity, there are certainly inherent tendencies that foster such freedom; regrettably, however, it is by no means "guaranteed"—partly because there exist various competing "interpretations," including some that seek to curtail personal freedom.
Meanwhile, the historical figure of Jesus Christ—regardless of whether one believes in him or not—offers absolutely no basis for such restrictions.
If that is directed at me then I'd ask you to do the same thing, go back & re-read what I wrote, at no point did I say that you wrote anything in particular about what I pointed out, in fact, that's why I bring them up, to compare & contrast Islam with Christianity. Where do you gather the evidence that in Islam questions about dogmatic tenets are met with "dead threats (I think you mean death threats), insults, physical threats, including murder"?? Are you not aware the media is absolutely controlled by American & Israeli intelligence & that [false flag events] like you describe, have been concocted & carried out by these very same entities, especially the Zionist Intel networks!
If the terrible things that are done in the name of Islam are AGAINST the teachings of Muhammad then one might expect the Imams, muftis, and Muslim scholars to condemn these actions… but they don’t. And they don’t because they cannot.
For to condemn those grape gangs and the murders of the non believers is impossible. To do so would be to contradict what the Quran teaches. AND WORSE, they would be criticizing what Muhammad did. And that is a blasphemy for Muslims. Those who disagree, don't understand Islam.
Look and see just how many “peaceful passages”, are CANCELED OUT, by abrogation in the Quran. Because those peaceful passages no longer hold any legal restraint on the actions or behaviors of Muslims. Never mind that the 10 commandments were never there to begin with… the few peaceful passages did not last 20 years after Muhammad spoke them before they were cancelled out by the chapter 9 passages. When I ask someone to bring me peaceful passages from the Quran, I know they are not there. And I know that what is there, is abrogated away.
You are wrong if you think that Islam is like the other religions. It is not. And the difference makes all the difference. The violent fruit of Islam is NOT the work of those who do not understand Islam. It is the predictable fruit that ALWAYS FOLLOWS the orthodox Muslims who take Muhammad’s teaching seriously.
If I roam in any town in the "Free West" wearing an Israel Flag to show my support for Jews and Israel,I get regularly spat at, insulted, physically attacked by complete strangers. Sure they are paid to do that by "Zionist Networks". SHUT UP, NAZI ! F*CK YOU !!!
'Rather, Islam tends to expand, seeks to spread solely to avoid having to confront itself and its unresolved internal struggles.'
That is a very good point. It is like a person who is always busy, busy, busy never stopping in case they have nothing to do except think; and those thoughts they do not wish to visit - but will be visited by them nevertheless, so they work ceaselessly to prevent that from happening.
Like all cults, the chants, the mantra's the writings, the garb, the rites and rituals, they are not there to be questioned; they are there to be performed, read, chanted etc., ad- nauseam - not thought about. 'Four legs good : two legs bad, four legs good : two legs bad, four legs good : two legs bad' comes readily to mind, and you can see this across society not just in religions; how many on 'marches' for whatever cause can actually articulate why they are there? And if asked, chant or scream louder and louder - those at the bleeding edge are the most ferocious and fanatical wide-eyed zealots, they are the ones to be feared for with them there is no debate, no reasoning and no humanity.
“… one involving the brutal and irreversible disempowerment of the clergy…” Yes, and muslims have to perform the task themselves, not Christians or others.
So essentially, Islam does not belong on the Coexist bumper sticker, because it can’t. So we have to find a replacement for the C. I’d agree with that sentiment.. it’s not that we are projecting that on to Islam, it’s that upon further inspection we find it does it to itself.
Fortunately your statement “ no (human) being knows G*d,” is not true. You have made a serious logic error by projecting your own lack of knowledge onto everyone else.
An incomprehensible statement, for nowhere have I claimed that I "do not know God".
Maybe I just don´t (want to) talk about it ?
Faith is after all—among other things—also about the idea or experience that there are, could be, or might be certain "gifted" individuals who are blessed, sometimes named "Holy", and some want to give witness, some don´t.
I also "know" many friends, acquaintances, neighbours, and colleagues—and yet I know nothing truly substantial about them.
Likewise, one may have had experiences with "God"—or experiences that one takes to be (experiences with) God.
Even if I had made "divine" experience I would never (dare to) say I "know" God.
In fact, I know quite a few people who have had such experiences—or believe they have—yet very few of them describe them as such, regularly out of a sense of humility and they just (don´t want to) talk about it - mainly because—much like faith itself—it is a completely personal experience that cannot truly be conveyed to others.
I agree with 100% Skip Mercer! Just because he doesn't know God, it doesn't mean others don't. Too many times God has played a direct role in the way my life went. I don't care if Heartworker doesn't believe, it's not his place to tell me what I know or don't know.
Your thoughts are interesting. I am curious: you say that in Judaism there is clarity regarding faith as a deeply personal matter that cannot be prescribed.
Didn’t the prophets spend a lot of time denouncing people with different interpetations? Setting up idols in high places, and whatnot. They did not seem to cut much slack to deeply personal faith.
That´s true, but you find that in more or less every religion, that the "chief priests", the "orthodox", the "prophets" of course have strict ideas - and they have a right to do so and often their tellings can be very important also for "non-strict-believers". In the end the characteristic indicative of a religion is what comes out of it in reality for "the masses" of "average" or "sceptics" or "non-believers", and there Judaism shows a great openness even if "orthodox" insist on strict rules. To me, Judaism fundamentally is a never-ending questioning which is learned by studying the scriptures. Incessant doubt is ingrained in Judaism; hence, openness inevitably arises.
"...no (human) being knows G*d, if It exists at all, what It is etc." Sorry, but you're ill-informed with all your education on the subject. God has spoken to me on many occasions. And all I have to do to know he is real beyond speaking to me is look around at this beautiful, magnificent world and the universe around us. As a non-believer, he's never had a reason to reach out to you beyond giving you the life you now have.
Please read carefully, I am not a "non-believer". I am member of a Church and have served as a minister for nearly 15 years.
Recently I wanted to publish a photo of that on Substack, but it is impossible. Maybe it´s better that way.
Most of my words are nowhere about "Belief" or "God" but about the dubious role of "religions" and the way they try to FORCE Human beings into a "belief".
One thing: for oh too many beings this world by far is not "beautiful".
Appreciate how you approached your study of Islam. It's nice that their books steal from Torah and Christianity. It's too bad they made their new religion a religion of coercion and punishment, of supremacy and sex. Of guilt and damnation. Ultimately of degradation.
I too enjoy the company of some of the individual Muslims I know. Islam is about the Umma, it is not about the individual. You said yourself, there is no freedom of belief. Therefore, push comes to shove, rubber meets the road, there are no Muslim individuals. There is only the collective.
The collective has slaughtered millions of people, ethnically cleansed millions of people, pursued endless war, violence, slavery, and sexual perversity. As the collective, the Umma, grows in the fertile soil of the West - leaving the desert of their destruction - a nice Muslim individual will come to your home and the homes of your children and will politely apologize while slitting yours and their throats or maybe just gouging your eyes out.
The invasion of the West is not about a book called the Koran. The Koran is a distraction. Some people read about furries and worship them. The book is a symptom at best. Want to understand Islam and Muslims - then look at the history of action not some textbook.
I have Dan Burmawi on my shelf as well. I recommend Dan Burmawi and the whole IDI group. They are doing excellent work. If you would like i could send a reading list in my followers chat, Specifically on Islam. Just message me there and i will. Its a long list full of gems.
We learn with people. Talking with you is great. I'd like to see your library. You have my library and it's expanding thanks to people like you. You probably understand my Bracha to you: חזק ואמץ. ברכה והצלחה. חג שמח ושבת שלום.
1) Spanish inquisition was evil, Christians own that, acknowledge it. An aberration CONDEMNED BY CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES . Carried out AGAINST teachings of Jesus.
2) Crusades were DEFENSIVE, reclaiming land conquered by and pillaged by islam who were FOLLOWING THEIR SCRIPTURES to do so.
Both were heavily politicised. Again the Christian church owns the atrocities carried out that went beyond the necessary.
The Crusades were also driven by papal politics, feudal land hunger, and religious enthusiasm — not purely defensive logic The fact that they lasted 450 years also diminishes the ‘self defence ‘ argument. This time a lot of Jews, Christians & Muslims lived alongside each other yet were still affected.
And Jihad. How long? 1400 years and ongoing. Both political (look at mayors of UK cities, recent elections) and physical (9/11 and many others; grooming gangs, cities full of concrete blocks).
And Islam has been trying to conquer Christendom for over 1400 years. Your point is? Over 750 Muslim battles against Christians and non-Christians since 635 A.D. and 17 major battles during the Crusades from 1010 A.D. to approx. 1450 A.D. Jews wanted only Israel, the land promised to them by GOD. Muslims want the whole world (sounds like a guy from the German 1930s and 40s) and haven't yet stopped. And Jesus said; "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." John 8:7.
The Spanish Inquisition? Yeah. Part of the Reconqista. The RE-CONQURING. You know; after the initial Islamic CONQUERING?
That was the military conquest when Muslim armies (led by Ummayed commander Tariq ibz Zayad) came to Europe from Africa to conquer Christianity, and took over the Iberian Peninsula. Fortunately they were finally stopped Charles Martel at the Battle of Lourds in 732 AD, or you wouldn't be allowed outside without a male relative. Your family would also have the legal right to your honor killing if you had pre-marital sex, or Allah forbid [*clutches pearls*] sex with an infidel. But it still took literally over seven *centuries* of battles to win back the Iberian Peninsula [i.e.-Spain and Portugal] from the "religion of peace". So color me crazy if I look at Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in a more positive light than some modern day revisionist historians who try to paint Western Christian civilization in a bad light.
And regarding the Spanish Inquisition itself; that's what happens when you have to deal with a religion that actively promotes lying (taqiyyah) while also actively seeking to conquer the world.
Prove it. Just because the Hamas Health Authority says something, doesn't mean it's true - kinda like Mark Carney. You've been lied to. Hamas randomly killed as many people as they could. The IDF used targeted hits to take out Hamas terrorists who intentionally built their bases in schools, hospitals and mosques. Don't be so obtuse. You've been conned.
The senior official said the actual breakdown of the Gaza death toll is still under review, and it is unknown exactly how many of the dead are members of terror groups and how many people died directly as a result of the fighting.
And if you look at the breakdown by age, you will see that at least 40,000 of those who died eitherchildren or women. And while we’re on the subject of statistics, there are more paediatric in Gaza than anywhere else in the world.
According to you, thalidomide would be a good drug.
70k source: "The senior official said the actual breakdown of the Gaza death toll is still under review, and it is unknown exactly how many of the dead are members of terror groups and how many people died directly as a result of the fighting." So, you lie.
Nor do you take into account expected deaths.
Then, there are all the children used as human shields for the tunnels and unarmed civilians shooting their AK47s and RPGs.
Then, there are the innocent 30yo children with beards.
You don't give a damn about the African Christians murdered daily by Muslims. You don't give damn about the 40k Iranians murdered by their Muslim masters.
You still don't know any history. We've been conversing for over a week and all you do is bring idiotic propaganda. My replies are for people who want to learn. You - your mind forg'd manacles I hear.
Again, you have some freedom in your thinking, words, and actions. That disappears if you succeed.
Bullshit! Hamas confirms 72,000 with 50,000 fighters.
There is NO moral equivalence between western values and Islamic values! Islam is a death cult without ANY redeeming qualities and without reform, like the Nazis, it must be destroyed.
May the CONSEQUENCES for Gaza be extreme, horrific and eternal!
A blood curse on the people of Gaza may their lives be a nightmare of pain and suffering!
Bullshit! Hamas confirms 72,000 with 50,000 as fighters!
There is NO moral equivalence between western values and Islamic values! Islam is a death cult without ANY redeeming qualities and without reform, like the Nazis, it must be destroyed.
May the CONSEQUENCES for Gaza be extreme, horrific and eternal!
A blood curse on the people of Gaza may their lives be a nightmare of pain and suffering!
Engineered by whoever wanted to steal the oil by using intimidation and exploiting superstition in Arabia by masquerading as clerics and teaching that Islam is terrorism. Well done.
Third paragraph applies to all nations and religions. It’s interesting that Christians claim the moral high ground and yet are the biggest mass murderers etc on the planet.
1. Do you know any Muslim history? Do you know any communist history? Any Chinese history? Any Nazi history? None are Christian.
2. Is your reply to me defense of the 100s of millions killed by Muslims? Is it in defense of the Muslim invasion of Europe and America? Is it in defense of the eternal war of Islam on non-Muslims?
3. Does Christianity or Torah or Buddhism sanctify murder and rape as the Muslim world does? Yes, people make war.
The Muslim invasion of the world and the 1400 years of Muslim eternal war - sanctified in both their book, their ‘heaven’, and their behavior - has nothing to do with anyone's moral high ground. The West is larger than Christianity but much of Christianity has evolved to include the its Greek, Roman, Torah, and enlightenment roots and ideals. In short, Western evolution - see Victor Davis Hanson. The Iranian-Persian history, prior to Arab--Muslim colonialism, was an evolving jewel in the East. Arab colonialism in the 8th C began the decline of Iranian intellectual evolution, though Iranian thought was the foundation of the brief golden age attributed to Islam.
The dirty laundry - history - is part of the position we're discussing. It's accurate that we do all have dirty laundry. As Dan Burmawi writes, some cultures wash their laundry and some double down and insist on more blood and filth for the express purpose of blood and filth. My observations, analysis, conclusions, and action, followed by evaluation, looks at process and dynamic flow. Simply, the West takes 2 steps forward and 1 step back. Islam takes 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I'll take the West. It's like the old saying, democracy or capitalism sucks, but it's better than everything else. The Universe wasn't created to remain static, it wasn't created to be perfect - it was created to be worked and improved. There is hope for the West. There is no hope for Islam.
That's nice. And, vague. Enjoy your choice of worship if allowed. There is one religion with many people who say they are part of its political-culture who kill those who worship differently from them - their book demands it globally and their history demonstrates it globally.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, Pete Hegseth it’s very much in favour of killing, and he seems to be a Christian nationalist. This is a quasi scholarly hatchet job on Islam which attributes all the worst bits to the entire Islamic world but excuses the worst bits of Christianity as being abherrations. Perhaps that wasn’t your intention, but that is how it comes across to those of us who are neither Christiane Muslim.
Your choice. The West vs Islam. You and others defending Islamic aggression and invasion of the West refuse to acknowledge history. To be aware of history. To the extent that you acknowledge history, you pervert it to convince yourselves of some delusion that you hold. The Umma will repeat the behavior of Muslims for 1400yrs. The Christian world is not perfect - that should make you all consider the reality of bloodlust of Islam. Christian theology does not make killing a divine instruction. The Christian heaven is not automatically given to a Christian who kills a non Christian. Christian heaven is not all about men getting 72 virgins.
Ignore history and human behavior if you want. You're accountable. That's Life.
BS to the max. Christianity is responsible for far more killing than Islam, even though it’s not called for in the Bible. Very very few Muslims act as if they’re called to murder non-Muslims. Get serious.
You've been brainwashed by CNN and CBC. It's incredible that people - like you, can be so out of touch with reality. Islam has killed far more people to date than Christians EVER have! There have been over 49,000 Islamist attacks around the world since 9/11 alone. Thirty million of the 40 million people stolen from Africa went to the Middle East alone. You need to stop getting your history from Disney movies.
You are aware that there are practicing Islamic gay marrieds? Try reading some of Irshad Manjis work. It might educate you about those “ medieval views of Islam” you appear to have espoused. Doesn’t the bible pre date the medieval era?
As you appear to study the subject, do Israeli hilltop settlers murder Palestinian Shepherds? Did the IDF shoot a seven month old baby last week? Shall I therefore conclude that Judaism is a violent religion? I don’t think so I think you are a bigot who seeks confirmation bias of your bigotry
Nothing. You bring nothing. You demonstrate by your words that you are not interested in understanding others. To understand others you first have to accept who they are, what they say, what they do. You can't make stuff up to suit some ideology that is dear to you. You haven't comprehended a word I've written because you have blinders on, filters that actually pervert the incoming data.
Again, the Umma will follow the leaders. There will be few individuals and those individuals will be killed along with the infidels. That's the history in the Christian Levant, Iran/Persia, Coptic Egypt, Christian Anatolia and Greece and the Balkans. Hindustan. Africa. Enormous enslavement. Are there decent Muslims. Of course, there are. A lot of people are decent and then …
Go ahead, it's your choice. The choice is a West where there is some individuality and a reasonable community or a Caliphate and fragmented tribes and clans like we see throughout Muslim history and currently.
You still have the opportunity to choose because you are living on the oxygen of the evolved West. That oxygen is being depleted.
Forgot Hitler! None of those mentioned killed in the name of a religion. And historically more people were killed by those individuals and their regimes than any other time in history!
They killed in the name of their own power and that of their state.
Hitler believed he was doing god's will. He specifically write that.
And went against the jews specifically because he was christian having read Martin Luther who hated jews. He also boasted that he had stomped out the atheists.
Nazi germany was a christan country. That's also why nazis were later saved in particular by the Catholic church. Though the Catholic church was a bit critical of their war.
Neither Pol, Mao or Kim. Killed in the name of atheism ie non belief in god. They killed in the name of their own and their state's power.
Atheism in itself isn't an ideology. Just a lack of belief. Those rules shared that lack of belief.
But there are many others rulers who also have that lack of belief and don't kill people.
To think that it was a lack of belief in god that made them kill. Makes no logical sense.
It's like thinking that every single war has been done by leaders not believing in the spaghetti monster or unicorns. And therefore non belivers of the spaghetti monster or unicorns, so called, aunicornists, (by those beliving in unicorns) are potentially very bad.
You've recently graduated from an American college, haven't you? WOW! Have you ever swallowed the Kool-Aid. Until Mohammad showed up and created Islam in 610 A.D., Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians for the most part got along pretty well with each other.
Those weren't Christians. Those were militant 'Catholics' mainly. The big difference is Christians sacrifice themselves as opposed to the rest, but to be fair we'd all be speaking Arabic now if it weren't for the Church, for all its flaws and paganism (wouldn't be here). Another example of God's hand for the greater good else His Son's legacy rendered meaningless.
The thing to note here is that Satan's people infiltrated all 3 Abrahamic faiths early on. That's who you mean. The Kaaba is an altar to Baal, never stopped being one to many, Donmeh in particular--a Saturn cube (as opposed to golden cube New Jerusalem in Revelation). The Vatican is a joke to real Christians. Jesus would tear that place apart, if verbally. And Jews, well, we don't even know who a real one is anymore, and I could start a tirade on them alone.
No Jesus, no heaven. His words are pretty simple yet argued about continually. "If you love me, keep my Commandments" occurs many times. Number 6 is taken very seriously, though there are more than 10. The guilt is pretty equal across the board actually. Blame the Baal (Ars Goetia)-worshipping Xstein class mainly.
Christian West has evolved and grown. The nature of the West is to evolve and grow. It is impossible for Islam to change - change equals death, change equals infidel. That's what Imams say all over the world. That's what your book says.
Your way of thinking is already calcified.
Your apologies for Muslim aggression and slaughter - jihad - is just more lying for the sake of the Islamic goal - there is no god but allah and following in the path of the murderous pedophile mohammed.
The Muslim leaders in the US and Europe have already stated that their goal is to make the US and Europe Muslim - to kill the infidels and take their white women for sex slaves. Islam has made slaves out of more people than the West. It has engaged in 10s of thousands of murders with the goal of killing infidels and weakening their countries. It's all there. To deny it is to deny the superiority and warrior ideal of Islam. There is no god but allah. Really? There are a lot of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Shintos, Morari who disagree. They are the infidels for Muslims to kill, convert, or oppress.
To be fair, the the Muslims take Yazidis who aren't white as sex slaves, too. Or, they burn them alive.
Really you’re sweeping generalisations are pitiful. The West has evolved and grown, except in Uganda and Ghana where they’ve recently decided that they are going to hang gay people in a very unenlightened . You completely ignore the different sects of Islam, justice that you talk about Christianity as being monolithic. Should I judge Judaism by the behaviour of the Israeli Kahanist government? Of course not.
I fear that your agenda is not to study religion, it is an excuse to demonise Islam and Muslims and I’m not going to discuss with you any further.
I follow no religion. Calling Islamic thought my thinking is just one of the many errors in your thinking, including the absurd notion that Islam cannot change or that all Muslims in the world think the same. Seriously? Give your head a shake.
You’ve demonstrated quite clearly that you’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest of your type.
Exactly where did Hitler write he was doing Gods will?? Hitler did not invade Poland in the name of Jesus, etc. nor did he kill 6 million Jews and 4+ million other humans in the name of Jesus/God! Which differentiates from killing in the name of Allah!
Note: all European countries at the time were Christian countries!
That’s just absurd. You’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest. Your ignorance of the richness of Islamic thought and culture is breathtaking.
Good luck to you. You obviously need it, as terribly confused as you are.
Dear Mike: You’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest. Your ignorance of the evilness of Islamic thought and culture is breathtaking.
Good luck to you. You obviously need it, as terribly confused as you are.
Dear Mike: You’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest. Your ignorance of the evilness of Islamic thought and culture is breathtaking.
Good luck to you. You obviously need it, as terribly confused as you are.
In essence, Islam has no New Testament to soften it. No sacrifice by God’s only son to take on our sins and ensure our place in an afterlife. It’s just the fire, brimstone and retribution of the Old Testament. An eye for eye only worse in that it also encourages sex with children! It’s a religion that belongs in the Middle Ages and not on modern western streets.
"Islam has no New Testament" is a point I've made to some of my friends who have become apologists for Islam. But when I read Rosenthal's excellent article I realized that the more accepting, gentler Islamic 'new' testament came first and the harder, unforgiving 'old' testament followed (and superseded the 'new'). In that sense, Islam and Christianity are very opposite.
You are talking about laws passed 1200 yrs before Islam. I don’t defend them by any means, but did not most of humanity learn by that time that children were verboten when it came to sex?
You can't read Aramaic but you can repeat lies. The text in the original says nothing about the permissibility of sex with children.
It's sad that you think that every relationship discussed must be about the permission of penises to penetrate orifices. There is no such permission given for sex with children.
There is acknowledgement that people engage in sex with children, with animals, and between men (as well as between women and between unmarried heteros and extramarital sex, as well as within marriage.) It's all discussed because as we all know, it happens and is perpetrated. Whoever said that discussing something means permitting it?
That might be so, but our Bible doesn’t instruct Christians to have sex with children. That’s still a fact and I’ll also wager, on a pro rata basis, there has been far more abuse of children and women under the blanket of Islam. Muslim men treat women like property and can do as they like with them.
Christ didn't simply pay a price - He defeated Death.
1 Corinthians 15:54-57: "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?... Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Revelation 1:18: Jesus says, "I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
I fell in love with an Egyptian girl and read the Quran twice in English. As you described, once I understood the historical context of the surahs, it became apparent that he became angry and violent at anyone that would not yield to him. Whatever divine revelation he had early on was overshadowed by him listening to demons. Your friend is ignorant of history and the 150 million slaves that is the legacy of Islam. Hundreds of millions dead in the Indian continent. Tens of millions dead in Europe. There has been no force so murderous as Islam. Fuck Muhammad and your "nice" friend. It is his ignorance that allows Islam to live on. Oh, and fuck pope Bob as well.
My name is Janice. I’m not a female dog. Are you a veterinarian? I have been to Pakistan and Egypt. Didn’t need a burqa. There are no waters above my head. And no the entire Muslim world isn’t Muslim only by force. And no the Muslim world isn’t the only place where slavery is practiced. Hitlers Germany were mostly Catholics...you should study more about the real history of both world wars. Hirohitos Japan ...many did not want it and were imprisoned because of that. And it was the Buddhist Bushido belief that controlled Hirohito. The point was it wasn’t Muslims that caused either world wars etc. Definitely war is hell . And I’m acquainted with it. Yes I’ve heard that theory about the Japanese wouldn’t have surrendered etc and it simply isn’t true. They tried to more than once....but in typical US INC fashion it was ignored because they wanted to test the “bomb”. The fact also is that the US pushed Japan into war and the other important fact is that they knew about Pearl Harbour and let it happen...I’ve also lived in Japan for a long time. Korea Vietnam and Cambodia were not “defended” by the US. Neither was Afghanistan etc. The soldier does believe that though. The fallout from agent orange is ongoing...no those wars are not defensible under the just war theory. I reiterate that Christian nations have been the worst aggressors on the planet. And the “government “ of the United States is the biggest terrorist on earth. All of this of course doesn’t even mention convid and the millions that have died from the prick...there are 700,000 iatrogenic deaths per year in the US alone. And most of it is deliberately done. And we haven’t even looked at the CIA death toll in South America where it is estimated to be at least six million. De pop don’t you know ...it all is and it’s perpetrated by the Christian west. Not western funded and organised hamas, hezbolleh, Muslim brotherhood, Isis, Al quada, all of them. And every Muslim country has the right to defend themselves. The CIA etc has been interfering in Iran for over seventy years. “ Failed “? I wasn’t aware this was an exam...stick to the facts. Ad hominem attacks aren’t useful.
Your post shows there is no final answer to the question “How wrong can you be?” US pushed Japan into war? Well, no use trying to answer the whole farrago. Will only note that you can not push someone into war by failing to help him attack his neighbor.
Julius Streicher used to use this method - make a whole bunch of unsupportable statements at once ( usualy about Jews) and hope the difficulty of refuting the whole bunch at once would let some of them seem unanswerable.
As he said, “ If you throw enough mud, some of it always sticks”.
You are more than welcome to get out of the USA, since we are such an evil place. I would hate to see your purity contaminated by living with us evil people. You are welcome to move permanently to China, or any of the Muslim world, just don’t come back.
I believe that only Indonesia is the only place in the Muslim world that wasn’t initially Muslimized, if that is a word, by the sword, as in conquest and then the inhabitants given to choice convert or die or pay a tax in perpetuity.
Most Americans ( most of the planet ) pay tax in perpetuity infact there is rumblings that property tax should be ditched so one can actually own ones house....and income tax is actually illegal. Trump did at one point entertain the idea of abolishing it but that seems to have tanked along with his no war promises. He and his are making lots of cash though. Might be a good idea to use ones efforts to sort out one’s own corrupt gov first and foremost? Ditching AIPACs ownership of congress would be a major step in the right direction. It was why JFK was murdered...
You have some interesting ideas about things: You are showing signs of antisemitism ; Kennedy assassination—CIA , not Israel or AIPAC, which is an American PAC, are you suggesting disenfranchising American citizens who are Jews?
Trump’s tariffs program is/was in part to wean the government off of the illegal/unconstitutional (16th amendment to make it legal); you have no evidence that Trump won’t return to abolishing the income tax.
Wars: Venezuela = apprehension of a criminal, how many casualties?
Iran: work in progress, 14 US deaths, hostilities ended, terrorist regime neutered & hemorrhaging financially, not able to afford to support terrorist regimes, CCP now buying US oil from Alaska.
Florida is ending property tax, IIRCC; DeSantis is Trump ally;
Trump gives his salary away, he is poorer than he was before he came to office; what, his family isn’t allowed to make money legally?
Are you advocating for the Biden crime family model of political grift? I don’t recall you posting
Indonesia has suffered terribly from CIA interference. It isn’t a solution for anyone to abandon the US that has been so weakened by the corrupt politics. The constitution clearly states the citizens have a responsibility to tackle bad government. Indeed Ben Franklin said it was obedience to God to rid the country of tyrants. Maybe the USA should be recolonised by the Brits...and we come full circle. 😎and you’re welcome to move somewhere else too.
Where do you see me defending the CIA? Trump & Tulsi are/were in the business of reforming the CIA (which is why they have been working so hard to thwart him, even to the point of attempting to assassinate him (& don’t tell me that Butler wasn’t a deep state attempt on Trump’s life & don’t tell me that he had it staged)
Whether Germans were Catholics or Protestant or whatever, Hitler’s philosophy was in no way Christian, nor was he. Atheism or pagan.
You are obviously wealthy to have lived all those places, and maybe as a wealthy tourist, you didn’t have to wear a covering, but to live there permanently, my guess is that you would be expected to cover.
Ok, bitch, why the phuck don’t you go to Gaza or Pakistan or Egypt, & be sure and wear your burka.
You have really waded into waters far, far above your head.
You are aware that the whole Muslim world is only Muslim because of conquest and forced conversions, that the Muslim world is the only place where slavery is practiced. WWI I might give you, though religion really had nothing to do with it, just politics. Neither Hitler’s Germany nor Hirohito’s Imperial Japan , the aggressors in WWII were remotely Christian. War is hell, it has been said by some people more acquainted with the realities of it than you or I.
The civilian casualties as a result of Imperial Japanese conquests in WWII I am quite sure exceeded the death toll of both atomic bombs dropped on Japan by the US, and the consensus of reliable sources @ the time & since were & are that it was felt that an invasion of the Japanese homeland would have been necessary to get the Emperor to surrender and casualty estimates were on the order of 1 million; and the A bombs arguably prevented that.
Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia were the result of communist aggression against countries that were only partially Christian, but were defended by the US, a largely Christian nation.
All you have provided are examples of wars that are defensible under the just war doctrine, so you failed.
I think we were talking about terrorism, but that was an assumption on my part.
Well,bitch, the British Empire (like all empires), is not what it used to be, it has been judged by God, as everything under the sun is (including you, Missy, whether you believe it or Him or not,(& you should tremble). It has been found wanting, though it had its place. Everything & everyone has their good points and bad. The exceptions being cults and false gods/religions, which are of the devil.
Most of the 3rd world is Christian thanks to the British Empire. Europe was Christianized , became Christendom because of the brutal Roman Empire. Empires are brutal affairs. The Japanese Empire in its brief reign was absolutely brutal, ever hear of the Rape of Nanking? Do you know the Old Testament? Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery, but Joseph said to them, what they meant for evil, God meant for good.
Good bad ugly wasn’t the point. It was real and it was brutal and it was Christian. Cults are alive and well mostly in the west. Lots of false prophets too. Many things of the devil including hypocrisy. As for the judgements of God that is up to Him. Not you and not me. And I’m not a “ missy”.
Banu Qurayza betrayed their oath and broke their treaty with the prophet, and conspired to kill all the Muslims in an attempt to wipe out Islam completely.
Of course Jews and Westerners portray this as an act of aggression by Muhammad towards poor innocent Jews.
Muhammad (saaws) was known to be a just and fair leader. He showed mercy towards his enemies when he gained the upper hand. He was an extremely compassionate man who had a lot of mercy and forgiveness in his heart towards those who brutalized him.
Banu Qurayza got exactly what they deserved for their betrayal. And “slavery” has a very negative connotation in the West bc of how Westerners do slavery.
The prophet Muhammad (saaws) forbid the abuse and overworking of slaves. Slaves in Islam were to be treated with respect, fed from the same food and clothed by their masters. One of the best deeds was the freeing of slaves, and slaves were taken as a means of taking care of them, of reabsoring and reincorporating them back into a society in which orphans and widows were extremely vulnerable. Slavery in Islam bore absolutely no resemblance to the race based, dehumanizing chattel slavery of the West.
Sarah, I want to respond to this with genuine respect, because you are clearly speaking from conviction and not bad faith. I also agree with you about something important from the beginning: the Muhammad you are describing is absolutely present within the Islamic tradition. The Quran itself calls him “a mercy to the worlds” in Surah 21:107, and there are many accounts in the tradition that describe patience, forgiveness, generosity, and restraint. I am not denying those things, and I think it would be dishonest to pretend they do not exist.
But I think the real question begins when we stop pretending that those are the only things the tradition says about him.
You say Banu Qurayza betrayed their oath, but that claim itself is part of the tradition’s justification for what followed, not an independent moral answer to it. Even if one accepts the Islamic account at its strongest, the result is still that the men of an entire Jewish tribe were executed, the women and children were taken captive, and their homes, land, and property were absorbed by the Muslim community. That is not a Western invention. The Quran itself refers to the event in Surah 33:26-27:
“And He brought down those who supported them among the People of the Scripture from their fortresses and cast terror into their hearts. A party you killed, and you took captive a party. And He caused you to inherit their land and their homes and their properties…”
That is not a hostile outsider speaking. That is the Quran describing the event. The killing is there. The captivity is there. The seizure of property is there. And it is presented not as a tragic excess, but as divine judgment and inheritance.
You also say Muhammad was known as just and fair. But this is exactly where I think the difficulty appears. If justice means executing the men of a defeated tribe and taking their women and children captive, then we are not merely discussing whether Muhammad was “just.” We are asking what kind of justice the tradition is asking us to call good. The problem is not that critics invented this darker Muhammad. The problem is that the Quran and early Islamic sources preserve him. What makes Muhammad wealthy is not how "Goodness" is defined by anyone else except Muhammad's banker. Did the children receive justice? Did their women? Justice for what crime? It was greed and convenience that inspired their enslavement, not justice, mercy, compassion or Goodness of any kind. And if every one of the men were killed, were they one by one asked if they took part in a betrayal of an agreement or was their crime simply trying to prevent the enslavement of their wives and children. Was resisting a slave trading bandit army attacking your community a crime worthy of a death sentence?
On slavery, I agree with you that Islamic slavery was not identical to modern Western chattel slavery. That distinction is real and should be acknowledged. But acknowledging that distinction does not make Islamic slavery humane, nor does it erase the fact that the system permitted and STILL permits the enslavement and sexual exploitation of slaves. The ownership of human beings, war captivity, concubinage, and sexual access to female captives is all endorsed by Islam. The Quran repeatedly refers to “those whom your right hands possess,” including in Surah 4:24 and Surah 23:5-6. Classical tafsir and Islamic jurisprudence did not treat that phrase as metaphorical. It referred to slaves and captives, including female captives who could be "Plowed" as often as their masters wished.
So when you say slavery in Islam was really about caring for vulnerable widows and orphans, I think that leaves too much out. If the system were only about protection, it would not include concubinage. If it were only about reintegration, it would not preserve the master’s sexual rights over captive women. And the system would not explicitly outlaw adoption. (Which was done to legalize Muhammads sexual desire for his sons wife. Can you see the pattern?) Feeding a slave well, clothing a slave well, or encouraging manumission may reduce some forms of cruelty, but they do not change the basic moral fact that the person is still owned.
There is another difficulty here as well. You appeal to Muhammad’s compassion for orphans and vulnerable people, but the Quranic material surrounding Zayd and Zaynab complicates that image. Zayd was Muhammad’s adopted son, yet Surah 33:37 presents Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab, Zayd’s former wife, as divinely authorized. In the same broader passage, Surah 33:4-5 rejects the full legal status of adopted sons. Whatever theological explanation one gives for that, the result is still that adoption is weakened in precisely the context where Muhammad marries the former wife of the man who had been known as his adopted son.
Again, the sources themselves bring into question your representation of Muhammad.
The Muhammad of Surah 21:107, the mercy to the worlds, is in the Quran. But the Muhammad of Surah 33:26-27, under whose authority Banu Qurayza were killed, captured, and dispossessed, is also in the Quran. The Muhammad who showed forgiveness is in the tradition. But the Muhammad whose example is tied to warfare, enslavement, concubinage, and the restructuring of adoption to legalize his marriage to Zaynab is also in the tradition.
So I think the real issue is not whether Muhammad showed mercy at times. He clearly did. The issue is that the same sources also preserve moments of execution, enslavement, sexual possession of captives, legal privilege, and coercive authority, and they preserve them as morally legitimate within the Islamic framework.
That is the tension I spent years trying to understand.
So my question to you is not meant as mockery, but as something sincere to sit with:
When you defend Muhammad, are you defending the full Muhammad preserved in the Quran, hadith, and early biographies, or are you defending a refined Muhammad shaped to fit modern moral expectations?
That question changed the course of my own research, and it is the reason I eventually called my book The Two Muhammads. acrosenthal.com
We know our history very well. We’ve meticulously documented every detail.
You can’t rewrite history. But you can lie to yourselves about it and retell it in a way that makes you feel righteous.
The Jews and Christians monks who met the prophet Muhammad (saaws knew he was a prophet, and some of them converted.
Others were shocked, and they became angry. They refused to accept the truth that they knew.
They hoarded knowledge and withheld the truth of Muhammad (saaws) from their ppl, from the laymen who couldn’t read scripture.
The hoarding of knowledge and denial of truth, keeping it from the people and lying to them about Muhammad (saaws) out of bitterness and spite…
The sense of entitlement, and even feeling angry and betrayed by God,
that He should sent an Arab as the last prophet instead of one of them…
Christianity has always been used as a tool of empire.
To this day the church is hiding gospels.
You can’t rewrite our own history and then try to persuade us.
If you truly believe in God and love Him and his prophets, you should just accept the truth instead of trying to distort it and lead many masses astray with lies.
You will be held accountable before God for knowingly hiding God’s guidance from ppl.
Muslims sincerely would love for you to go to heaven too, inshaAllah.
Sarah, I genuinely appreciate the spirit in which you wrote that. The heaven-wish is received.
But I want to ask you something I think deserves a real answer rather than a deflection.
How do you know Muhammad was a prophet?
Not why do you believe it. I understand you believe it. I am asking how you know. What did Muhammad demonstrate that established his prophetic credentials to an independent standard? Because every tradition that has ever taken prophetic claims seriously, including the tradition Muhammad himself claimed to confirm, built a testing framework specifically so that sincere people would not be deceived by a false claim. The sincerity of the claimant was never considered sufficient evidence. The warmth of the message was never considered sufficient evidence. The framework existed precisely because false prophets are often sincere and often warm.
So let me walk through the tests the tradition requires and ask honestly how Muhammad measures against them.
The first test is Deuteronomy 18. A genuine prophet makes specific predictions about future events and they come to pass with 100% accuracy. One failure disqualifies entirely. Not most predictions. Every prediction. This is a falsifiable standard, which is exactly what makes it useful. Can you name the verified, specific, datable predictions Muhammad made that came to pass? And can you account for the ones that did not?
The second test is Deuteronomy 13. A prophet who leads toward other gods is false, regardless of signs performed. The test is doctrinal continuity with what was already revealed. The Quran denies the Trinity, denies the crucifixion, denies the resurrection, and denies the divine nature of Christ. These are not minor adjustments to prior revelation. They are direct contradictions of it. The Torah and the Gospels that Muhammad claimed to confirm say something categorically different from what the Quran says about who God is and what he has done. Deuteronomy 13 does not ask whether the new prophet is sincere. It asks whether his message contradicts what was already given. On that test, the verdict is not ambiguous.
The third test is Numbers 12:6-8, the Mosaic standard specifically. God tells Moses: I speak to prophets through visions and dreams, but not so with you. With Moses I speak face to face, clearly, not in riddles. This is the benchmark. The prophet like Moses communicates directly with God without an intermediary. Muhammad himself never claimed this. His own tradition is explicit: revelation came through the angel Jibreel. Quran 42:51 confirms it directly. On the Mosaic standard Muhammad claimed to fulfill, he does not meet the defining criterion of that standard.
The fourth test is Galatians 1:8, written roughly 600 years before Muhammad was born: if an angel from heaven brings a different gospel from the one already delivered, let him be accursed. The angel Jibreel brought a gospel that contradicts the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the divine identity of Christ. Paul described that precise scenario six centuries in advance and named it. That is either a remarkable coincidence or it is the apostolic deposit functioning exactly as it was designed to function.
The fifth test is the fruit test. Matthew 7:15-20. You recognize a prophet by what his teaching produces over time in the communities that follow it. I have written at length elsewhere about what fourteen centuries of that fruit looks like and I will not rehearse the whole argument here. But I will ask the question simply: by the standard of the tradition Muhammad claimed to confirm, what does the long-term fruit of his teaching demonstrate about the tree?
Now here is what I want to say carefully, because I think you deserve a careful answer.
You said the scholars who rejected Muhammad were hoarding knowledge out of bitterness and spite. I want to ask you to consider another possibility. Many of them were applying exactly the framework their scripture required them to apply. They were not angry that God sent an Arab. They were applying Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18 the way their tradition had always required them to be applied. When a claimant's message contradicts prior revelation and his miracles cannot be independently verified, the tradition does not say: perhaps he is right and the prior revelation was wrong. It says: test the claim. They tested it. The framework gave them a verdict.
You have asked me to accept that everyone who applied the test and got the same answer was lying. That is not an argument I can accept, because it makes the position unfalsifiable. Any evidence against the claim becomes evidence of conspiracy. That is not a testing framework. That is a way of making a claim permanently immune to examination.
I am not your enemy, Sarah. I am not trying to lead people astray. I am doing exactly what Moses told Israel to do when a new prophetic claim arrived: test it. Apply the criteria. Follow the evidence to where it goes.
I want to go to heaven too. Which is exactly why I cannot afford to trust a claim that does not meet the standard the tradition itself established for distinguishing the real from the false. Muhammad did not know where he was going when he died. And said so. This makes him a blind guide, it is most unwise to follow a blind guide. But Jesus is not a blind guide. He paved the path, walked the path, and came back from the father to give us assurance that the path is true, works and can give those who trust in Him a blessed assurance of salvation. Jesus rising from the dead is the proof that the christian path works. And there are many more.
The question I am leaving with you is not rhetorical. It is sincere. By what standard did Muhammad establish that he was a prophet? What proof did he demonstrate? What test did he meet that the tradition requires? Because the beauty of the Quran is a failed test. I’ve read over 2000 books and the Quran is by a far margin the most boring and the most poorly written. And i have also heard it in the Original Arabic. STILL it is a snore. Nothing is in chronological (or even logical) order. In an effort to impress the reader with big chapters, the book is taken out of the order, out of time time sequence, rearranged and the biggest chapters are put first. Because bigger is always better. Some might say that the CONTENT, substance, merit, pros and wisdom contained within the text would make the argument for the Quran. But it doesn’t. So the only thing left, is the size of the chapters. This confuses the whole Abrogation Doctrine. Which is a ridiculous, confusing thing to do. The book that is supposed to bring all understanding and make things clear doesn't even have its chapters in proper order. It doesn't have a narrative spine. It doesn't even contain a complete story. The story of Joseph is the closest thing it has to this and it is incomplete. And this doesn't even bring up the preservation of the text... That is a way bigger issue for the Quran.
THAT is why, I am genuinely asking, “what makes you think Muhammad was a prophet?” Because I have looked, and I cannot find the answer.
So what you're saying is that you need evidence for your faith. A prophet has to perform magic tricks for you to believe.
I read your piece and many of the comments attached to it, and while I have no doubt of your sincere objective pursuits, I hope you realize that you appear to encourage a dangerous following raging with anti-muslim hate. Reading you and your followers at the heels of the San Diego Islamic Center shooting fills me with dread.
You and some of your followers who call for an Islamic reformation seem to ignore the efforts of imams to counter the harder interpretation of scripture.
A final thought: wasn't God's love to Adam and Eve conditional? Didn't they suffer for breaking the condition?
lol "efforts of the Imams to counter the harder interpretation of scripture?" Like what? The thing is, reformation of Islam is not possible according to the tennants, dogma, structure and text of Islam itself. Let me ilistrate: To criticize child marriage would be to criticize Muhammad, the Quran, and Allah. Because they all agree and sanction it. And by what standard could that criticism be done? Who has a higher standard then Allah? IN FACT, that means that anyone who objects to child marriage, is in their heart, saying that they personally have a higher standard of right and wrong in their heart then Allah! THAT IS WHY, no Imams CAN criticize the behaviour of terrorists or child brides. BECAUSE they would be blasted for blasphemy. Placing their own convictions above Allah’s and Muhammad's. So go on and provide examples of where this has happened... and the changes survived longer then a generation before reverting.
The question 'can Islam reform?' already concedes too much. It orientalist in that it accepts Western modernity as the universal finish line. Reform toward what, exactly, and by whose measure? And even on its own terms, the argument proves less than you think.
Distinguishing eternal principle from historical contingency is a tool Muslim scholars have used for centuries. It doesn't require claiming a higher standard than God, and those who think it does have misundertood a key aspect of the religion. What it requires is good-faith ijtihad. That tradition exists and has always existed within Islam.
More fundamentally: texts don't reform. People do. And intellectual evolution requires conditions: security, space for debate and dissent. Those conditions have been repeatedly and violently disrupted. That's a historical fact, not a verdict on the tradition's capacity.
“… encourage a dangerous following raging with anti-muslim hate. …”
A sad lie that tries to stoke moral panic from thin air, sadly not a new tactic. What you’re responding to is the kindest, most respect and articulate criticism of Islamic belief you’ll see in a year, and the best you have to respond with is an attempt at utterly unjustified demonziation of the author? Have you no shame in your life? At least admit that you have not a shred of intellectual courage to confont what the author writes.
I didn't demonize the author. I said clearly that I didn't doubt his sincerity but the effect of the following he's cultivated. Those are different things. Read more carefully before lecturing about intellectual courage.
Compelling stuff, layered in folds not unlike Texts from the Rabbinical writings. God no matter what one’s faith is contains many mysteries only to be known more completely by grappling with the truth one comes to understand by thorough investigation, faith, and prayer.
Thanks for this. I have tried to read it but found it was so contradictory and nonsensical it was unreadable. On the understanding of the nature of God, as an agnostic, the Islamic understanding is not different from Judeo/ Christian apart from the addition of Christ and his mum if you're RC. It's obvious that if God is the creator and omnipotent there can only be one.
Thanks for explaining that the nasty violent parts are the layer revisions and that explains why Islamic is dangerous and the West needs to keep it out and get rid of the bums up enthusiasts.
There are beautiful thing in the Coran bu I am very happy to follow Jesus instead of Muhammad. I don't have to find any excuses for slavery, rapings and killing, for a sex relation with a 9 years old child.
Too tidy. I do take your point but definitely it isn’t irrelevant. Andy has been rearrested as the cops “investigate “and Charlie may have to abdicate it’s getting so bad. ( Time for the whole circus to be relegated to the recycle charity shops and the Brits to be citizens at last and no longer subject subjects). Of course if may all be further drama to achieve a further stranglehold on an already beleaguered people. As Trump/Netanyahu/aipac war of choice with Iran has done nothing but increase the cost of everything for the American people etc as per plan. My point was that no religion or nation has the moral high ground. Not since Jackson probably. Thank you for this post though.
God gave Canaan to the Israelites for all time as an inheritance. Pretty high moral ground there. Why is it problematic that the Israelites do not want to enjoy their inheritance without the specter of Shariah Law hanging over their heads?
Mentioning Epstein is an irrelevance, and maybe an admission that your true point can't be recalled with enough detail to bring the point home. That happens to me too. Meat brains are inefficient. I'm with you there.
That being said, Epstein passed a poly on whether he knew the ages of the under-agers in Palm Beach, the only place we have validated evidence of under-agers and sexual contact in the Epstein story. The reason why he passed is that "victims" recruited new girls (that specific thing is Epstein side: hey we'll pay you to bring in more) and some of those new girls were underage and the "victims" told them to say they were 18. Both Haley Robinson and Virginia Giuffre are known to have done this. Robinson actually made a recent statement to the effect that *all* of the victims were recruiters because that was the game. They got paid to do it. There wasn't anything violent taking place, but it was sexual contact with what Epstein thought were consenting adults. The man was a John. It seems to be the case that he used the young attractive women to gain access to other men so he could have them as a contact or just have the company of famous people. It may even be there was an intelligence function to all of this, as so many have claimed. I just can't find direct evidence of this. Yet.
...but there's no "Epstein and Co." related to underage anything. Not in evidence.
Why do/did we think this was real?
The women were approached by attorneys looking to get paid. The first one of the crop (Edwards) is actually in jail due to trying to front-run his contingency fees by seeking investors to fund the cases against Epstein (and some banks I believe). Another criminal of the bar, David Bois, convinced Giuffre to fraudulently accuse Dershowitz then said to Dershowitz "1 million and it all goes away". The Dersh, as we know, said "Go fuck yourself" and exonerated himself. They have *all* sought and many have won large cash settlements already and continually seek more money.
The Media, of course, have been trying to make the Epstein story a Trump story, which it is in the sense that they'd been friendly in the 90s before Epstein started poaching Trump's employees. Sadly for the media, there's nothing there and they can't admit that because, well, they're owned by the Democrat party, the criminal cabal which has a mixed history as a political party dating back to defense of Slavery in the US, but I digress. Anyway, the media hid the story when they were afraid his association with their owners would be a problem, and they put all their effort into pretending it was about Trump to distract from the association of Epstein and prominent democrats. So it was suppression first, then misdirection from the media.
The irrelevance you introduced is built on a lie: a lie cultivated by crooked attorneys and dishonest media, but it's honest on your part. You aren't the problem here: it's the grifters who have been mis-telling the story.
Satanism is a legal officially recognised religion in the USA. It’s not the religious personality stuff. It’s the condemnation of all Muslims that is the sickening hypocrisy.
And who wrecked Libya? And Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan etc etc... and who is funding the psychopaths in “ Israel”? It wasn’t the Muslims that organised the holocaust in Germany either. And yet they are paying the price for all that plus any Christians that happen to get in Netanyahus way. And who is responsible for the global sex trafficking? Epstein anyone? The hypocrisy is incredible.
I respect everything you have said and your fairness and honouring of individual Muslims, but it must be borne in mind that the Saudi regime are not universally loved in the Muslim community and many don't accept their custodianship of the Kaaba as legitimate. Epstein most likely was able to make this purchase due to compromised members of the family spending their leisure time in his vicinity.
No doubt you are correct. I would not be surprised if there was significant money exchanged, deals made, and that 95% of Muslims would have been in opposition to the exchange. My reason for posting the connection was to demonstrate that those in power on all sides have dirty hands. Pretending its only one side is kidding yourself.
I agree with you entirely. I have lived among Muslims for decades, and am in awe of the beauty of many "Islamic" cultures. I'm currently examining to what extent this is dependent on religion, as the cultures seem to survive the desertion of faith by many individuals. The worldly hierarchy of all religions is very suspect throughout history.
Yes, it is sex-magic. It is very evil. It is Kabbala/Masonic/Wichcraft. And these evil bastards are world wide. In Mecca, In the Vatican... everywhere. They are the rich and powerful world wide. It is naive to think that they are only at the top of one nation, religion, or group. It's world wide.
It's more than that, it's the culture of it that goes back at least to the first empire builders and so earlier. And it inserted itself into every institutition of every new organisational format since. It was rampant in Australian Marist brothers schools until the 1980's by which time the burgeoning middle class of the west began to see them for what they are and families didn't need to 'sacrifice' boys for economic value to the church so the brotherhood died. I lost two gay schoolmates to the aftermath of their grooming, paedophilia, and peter-panning. One to HIV in the early 80's, in his 20's; another later, sad, alone and ungrounded in his 50's. The culture has been widespread, empowered by institutions that have created a massive platform for the elite of that culture. So it's early days since society has decided to eliminate such practices but that culture is on the ropes, and humanity will be allowed to flourish more and more hereon in.
The billionaire oligarch class doesn’t see itself as citizens or loyal to any particular country (with the exception of the mother of darkness, Israel).
They view themselves as jet setters who have transcended statehood. The entire world their oyster.
Thank you for being such a good example of a faithful Muslim. You are why I know that we will never be able to live in peace with the followers of a desert Death Cult.
Rabbi Dovid Feldman said Netanyahu was an anti semite bc he endangered the lives of all Jews and bc of the slaughter in Gaza. He also said “ Israel “ is in rebellion against God. Many, many Jews fast and pray for the destruction of the state of Israel bc they know that their people were deported before for Epstein type choices. And that therefore only God can establish them again in a land of His choosing and creating. They wait on Him. Not Rothschilds or Netanyahu or Trump or the American tax payer. Does all that make them anti semite? A large portion of the worlds people are semite. Descendents of Shem the son of Noah. That includes Arabs and many other people eg in Gaza as the Rav stated. It is impossible to be anti semite. By the way this term was first used by a revolutionary in Germany in the late nineteenth century and adopted later by the CIA as a useful prop to stir up war. Etc. The misnomer is part of an ongoing CIA/Mosaad psy op. I’m anti bullshit as most “ anti semites” are. Israel is twelve tribes not one. Judah is not the birthright tribe. Joseph is. If all the tribes descended on “ Israel “ claiming their portion Judah would have to move their bbqs from the border where they watch Gazas starvation and destruction to a much smaller place. I am of the tribe of Joseph. Get your act together.
There are reports of Aisha being nineteen etc...it’s so easy to drop a digit when translating over and over again. There is an example of that in the Bible of the ascension of King Joiachin. He is written of as being eight and also eighteen...2K24:8 and 2Chron36:9.
Janice, whether she was 9 or 19, the exact age of Aisha is kind of beside the point. What’s being left out of this relentless smear campaign against Muhammad (saaws) is a few important points:
That age of maturity and marriage varies widely across time and cultures. And it was common all around the world for ppl to get married at ages significantly younger than we do today.
This whole thing with the age of Aisha was never something that Muhammad’s detractors ever said before modern times. I heard someone once say this is called the fallacy of presentism, which means you’re judging the past by modern standards. It’s intellectually dishonest.
Aisha was also known to be highly intelligent and mature for her age. In addition she was already engaged to someone else before Muhammad (saaws). Her parents and society deemed her as mature enough for marriage.
There’s also zero evidence that Aisha herself ever viewed her marriage to Muhammad (saaws) negatively. In fact the opposite is true and Aisha (RAA) went on to become one of the biggest and most influential scholars of Islam.
It’s also important to note that many historical figures throughout American and European history married young women who by today’s standards would be considered as “a child”,
hv the allegation that said historical figure is a pdf and supposedly married “a child” is never brought against them as character assassination. This is something reserved only for our beloved prophet (pbuh) and was only even possible as a smear through the modern lens.
In English common law the age of consent for centuries was as young as 10-12, and later raised gradually over time.
In many U.S. states during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, legal marriage age was as low as 10.
This is why the anti-Muslim propaganda machine needs an anti-intellectual approach and is dependent upon masses who don’t read, don’t understand real history at all, and who have been fed lies from every direction, generation after generation.
The disgusting slanderous rhetoric against Muhammad (saaws) particularly his marriage to Aisha is designed to make a person choose not to learn or understand anything about Islam beyond this outrageous accusation against him.
The fact of the matter is that Islam helps people see and understand our reality more clearly, and produces more focused, disciplined and meaningful lives.
And our Zionist gov. DO NOT WANT PPL WHO ARE FREE, or aware, or intelligent. It just wants dumb angry brutes who think their neighbours are the enemy.
It is not God per se who had the problem but that human beings had the problem and God's revelation while not being limited, can only take hold on human society in a form that that society can respond to. We have to really understand what an immature age we have been going through this past 10,000 years. But we are at the threshold of maturity now. We can be open to the greater revelation, the hidden. But just look around at how many people respond from 'this is the way it should be coz that's the way it has been'. It takes humans a long slow time to have moved in an obviously transformative manner.
Read the Talmud? One in every three women in Christian USA has been sexually abused. No religion or nation has the moral highground. Under Moses young women were taken captive and forcibly married. Etc. Etc etc
Thats a great Question Ozzy. I'm finished the rough copy, i'm still working with the editor beforepublishing. Follow in my group chat and I'll keep you updated there. Most likely you will be able to get it on Amazon. Thats where my other two books are available.
The “god” of Islam, Christianity, Judaism are the very same Abrahamic “god”. It is man that changes the story and message of that one “god” for human purposes.
Needless to say, i am not a believer in the omnipresent.
I think it is time “man” takes full responsibility for their actions.
This is a remarkably thorough piece. The point about naskh (abrogation) is often the missing key for Western readers trying to reconcile the different 'versions' of Islam they encounter. The contrast you draw between a contractual relationship with God in Islam versus the unconditional love in Christianity is thought-provoking and worth sitting with.
The 2017 book by Peter McLoughlin "Muhammad's Koran - Why Muslims Kill For Islam" details "abrogation" - except the book was banned.
I've read it. Excellent book. Peter's newest book is Manifesto. This book is a must read for every freedom loving individual. It is brilliant in its revelations about why and where we are today.
Agreed
It can still be purchased here: https://mk.urbanscoop.news/shop/books/mohammeds-koran/
Why was it banned?
Because it tells the truth. The "Religion of Peace" is an outright lie. The end goal of Islam is the total conquering of the world. Anyone who says that isn't their goal is either an outright liar (Taqqiya) or an idiot/ignoramus. "They" tell us that this their goal. We've been fighting them for 1400 years. It is only because of idiots in the West since the late 20th Century that we've allowed them finally past our gates and into our cities. The world was a relatively pretty safe place until Mohammed invented Islam in 610 A.D. From there, the world has been fighting Islam ever since. This book points out exactly every sentence, every paragraph in the Quran and Hadiths where they tell us what they want to do. We - who are so afraid of being branded "Racists", have capitulated to their deception. They use our laws against us to get exactly what THEY want. And too many stupid people today have fallen into their trap and that includes all levels of governments.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, but I have a minor quibble. Unconditional love in Christianity? Is it not a fundamental premise of Christianity that God condemns those who don't worship him and pray to him for salvation to eternal torment in a postmortem existence? Is it to be believed that he loves those he sends to eternal torment in Hell?!
PS In raising this skeptical question I do not mean to imply that Christian doctrine is as bellicose as that of Islam; to the contrary, it's essentially pacifistic -- too much so for practical purposes, IMO.
This is a very good and serious question. To answer it requires an understanding of God’s character. He is entirely holy and cannot abide anything unholy so “hell” means eternal separation from Him. We were created by Him in His image and remarkably, with free will. His desire is for us to choose to believe in the redemption of Jesus Christ. Therefore, He does not condemn us to hell, we condemn ourselves by choosing not to believe.
Not just separation! Instead of parroting a PC gloss from some namby-pamby modern sermonizer try reading the actual words of Jesus himself as recorded in the gospels. Here, for instance, is a pertinent excerpt from the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:
"Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
As someone who was raised in a strict evangelical environment I believed, even though I read the bible a lot. My environment taught me how to interpret what I read.
Now older and wiser...its clear jesus was in no way a christian and did not teach what christians believe today.
He did teach love though and I'm down with that. But that don't make him god.
Love is the Master plan
Dude, heard of literary style? The refs here I believe were to the G-Hinnom Valley, where they buried their dead. ie, the worst place they could think of. Anyhoo, enough from me. All the best kemosabe.
And of course you take this quite literally?
I simply quoted something that Jesus says according to the gospel of Matthew. Do you suppose that he didn't mean what he said? Or that accounts of his sayings in the gospels are not to be trusted?
How the f do any of you/us, profess to know the mind of a deity about whose very structure & form we know nothing?? This discussion of an omnipotent being is like so much useless, non-productive mental masturbation, because none of us can know or do a damned thing about it; we assume we know the nature of this being through so-called "holy books" which have been passed down & altered to fit a particular narrative for thousands of years! Consider if you will the fact that a antediluvian (pre-flood) civilization existed, was wiped out, then, for all practical purposes, history was then re-written; what then do we know of the knowledge that civilization had of this "God?"
1 Corinthians 2:9 addresses your troubles with a finite mind not being able to comprehend an infinite God. Every objection we can some up with have been dissected and answered a million ways in countless lifetimes of sincere people truth seekers, not arrogant contrarians who are more anti Faith bigots that actual seeker of truth.
Experiencing Christ and the Holy Spirit is the single most important transformative experience a human can have. It’s heartbreaking knowing that many will never have the humility to even research with an open mind the single most important event in human history, literally splitting the timeline into before Christ and after BC and AD.
The arrogance to dismiss what thousands willingly died for is astounding.
Are you serious! IMHO, the single most transformative experience is not some religious experience claiming to be the know-all to end-all, it is arriving at the knowledge that ALL religions worship the same deity, with the only differences being in [how] one worships that deity, in addition it is the knowledge that one need not worship any deity to be able to return to that universal oneness when shedding this mortal body. Rather than allowing a "holy book" to guide our lives, one which was written by man & propagandized w/a controlled narrative in order to control the masses, we need to listen to those hundreds of thousands, even millions who have glimpsed the other side in so-called NDEs, Near-Death Experiences. Most tell us of a non judgemental hereafter which is indeed a pleasurable experience defying description.
Thank you! Very well explained.
We condemn ourselves by choosing not to believe.
Let’s theorise for a moment that we are living in a bubble of illusion. That this very idea of condemnation to hell is based on our own beliefs and end in eternal torment of the soul is true and real, is most likely not accurate.
This instillation of inducing fear into believers of god is a mockery of what god is. God is not wrathful to those who choose not to believe. He is not condemning us for choosing not to believe.
They are your thoughts my friend.
And it’s THIS fanatical Christian viewpoint that creates mass movements of the “true” believer.
In my belief system (monotheism) God is holy and above all others - and is a loving God. Yes, we have each been created with a soul and with free will - which allows us to study, learn, and make decisions to follow God’s commandments - or not. Even after a long time of disobedience, we can redeem ourselves and be forgiven of our trespasses - and can work towards a better world for ourselves, our neighbors, communities, and others within and beyond our borders.
Nice-sounding words but have you studied the history of man at all? Do you honestly think a "Messiah" is waiting in the wings to come in and clean up all this mess? Do you understand this is the very reason some of us want to believe in the narratives of such ufo-alien charlatans, so-called researchers/disclosure advocates like Dr Steven Greer who tells us a similar story about a quasi-messianic bunch of ets who are just hiding their time to show themselves to us, then come in just in the nick of time to save us??
My faith does not expect or worship a human. Rather all of us should be focused on creating a better world and future for all.
How about an alien?
"Biding" their time that is.
I don't remember Jesus saying any of that.
Whether or not Jesus said it, that's canonical Christian doctrine, is it not?
Whether you're speaking of canonical doctrine or dogma of any kind you cannot apply that to EVERY Christian church, group or sect. So no it is not accepted by ALL Christians.
Jesus DID say it, and those who say otherwise are heretics.
https://www.crossway.org/articles/jesus-said-more-about-hell-than-anyone-in-the-bible
Jeez, look up the word "dogmatic!". Have you ever considered that it could be YOUR interpretation that is flawed? As if a 2,000 year old book which has been altered to fit particular narratives & in many respects mistranslated, could serve as the know-all to end-all?
I would push back on this a bit.
When they say weeping and wailing and nashing of teeth, I believe these scriptures are talking more about demons (the causers of temaption) and less about the sinners (those who succumb to it). Also, I believe (if I understand correctly) that hell is not a place in the sense that it is something physical. It is a state we can enter when we sin. When Christ harrows Hades, he is liberating us from the state of sin accross time and space.
I would argue that this highlights the embodied nature of the scriptures--it needs good faith interpretation to understand it. Just as the author of this article mentioned abrogation, the Christian fatih requires the reconciliation of several of the passaged via an experienced guide who can give contextual insights that are bot obvious to the modern reader.
At least, as far as I know.
Yeah, I was going to say, Jesus talks about hell quite a bit... it's more like the Christian dogmatists seldom say (that Jesus said) it
Consider the alternative.
Is it to be believed that God doesn't pay back people who have brutalized others with no regard for His laws? Instead, He gives unrepentant abusers the same future of eternal bliss, alongside their innocent victims?
I would submit that today's idea of Love is twisted by a double standard, which brands Justice as unloving -- until we are the ones deprived of it.
Unconditional love means no consequences for behavior? That's not love. That's infantilism and indifference = isolation and separation and emptiness = the real hell. Which seems to be modern America and Europe.
Grow up.
You're ascribing an opinion to me -- that God should love everyone and punish no one in a postmortem existence no matter what they do -- which I have neither expressed nor implied. (Fwiw, I don't believe in God or life after death.)
Since you've seen fit to close with gratuitous and insulting advice, I'll return the favor: try to upgrade your reading comprehension.
Fair question, but there is no basis (logical, scientific nor theological) for an 'eternal' hell. "Hell" is simply the absence of God and God's Love. Its narrative use is to illustrate how awful existence would be without God. Just like there is no actual 'devil', simply man's ability to choose evil. (It's called 'free will', somewhat different than in Islam, just saying...). Your sniff test is valid - how would an all loving God create something like Hell. He wouldn't. And the mythical Satan (read 'the opposing argument' - see Book of Job for example) could also not 'create' his own little eternal abode cos 'he' ain't God. (Even if you took the narrative literally, at most he is a fallen angel. Angels, if you believe in them, can't 'create'. This 'devil' dude would not have a shit show in a fight so I'm bemused by all who believe 'he' has some kind of super power to oppose the Creator. The Devil, talking snakes (not even called Satan in the text, but that won't stop people conflating the two & thus 'Satan tempted Eve'..) and the like are narrative features, not literal things.
Anyway, just my 10c to explain how I reconcile my theism with your question. I thought the article was a most excellent summary btw. Thanks to the Author.
To repeat what I pointed out in a message posted here on June 17:
As quoted in the gospels, Jesus persistently referred to Hell as a place where unredeemed sinners will be tormented by fire. And in Matthew 25 he said that unredeemed sinners will go into "eternal fire" -- repeat, ETERNAL. So tell me, what should I believe about what Jesus said: you, or the gospels?!
Matthew 13:41
"The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace."
Matthew 18:9
"And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire."
Matthew 25:31-46, speaking of Judgment Day:
“he [the Son of Man] will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. .... Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. .... And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Mark 9:43
"And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire."
One more question: Where in the Gospels does Jesus say that Hell is merely absence of God's love rather than a place ?
Indeed!
Free will follows the road of reflection,imitation,and experience. He is can be reach,just call his Name.
Mass murdering is never isolated!
Not really thorough. It’s and for his books; you’ll have to read them for the answers to the questions posed in the article.
as a kuffar/nonbeliever I find the pride of "unconditional love" hysterically amusing. How has that been worked in real life historically? I mean effing please. Say what you want about Islam, but the religion has been responsible for far less human slaughter and suffering than the "unconditional love" of Christianity, once the clerics were able to project political power.
Are you for real? Go and check the death toll from the Islamic conquests (estimates range from 60-80 million across Persia, India, and North Africa), the Arab slave trade (which predated and outlasted the Atlantic trade by centuries), or the Taiping Rebellion alone—which was inspired by Christian millenarianism and killed 20-30 million people, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.
The 'unconditional love' doctrine has indeed been grotesquely betrayed by Christians in power—no argument there. But claiming Islam has been 'responsible for far less slaughter' requires either profound ignorance of the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Ottoman expansions, or a very selective memory about places like the Hindu Kush, where the destruction was so thorough they named a mountain range after it.
Both religions have been weaponized by power-hungry men. The difference isn't the body count—it's that you're apparently only counting one side's corpses.
i know my history QUITE well. Islam has been responsible for FAR LESS slaughter. It's not really a debatable point
You'll have a hard time convincing anyone when your only retort to the facts I brought you is "but it is so because I say so".
I know those stories and caliphates better than your recitation of your "facts" about them. The expansions you are talking about weren't about slaughter . they were about land and power, two things consistently outside of religion that the people like to use the banner of religion FOR. Again, for the MOST part, they liked having non Muslim subjects. Because they paid the jizzya MONEY for people in power. Another aspects always more important than 'religion'. Want me to clue you in on something else?? consider the socieites that the Arab cavlary (the eearly expansion were all cavalry based for most part) came from? (it's bizarre they conquered both Persian and Byzantine empies when they should had been squashed like a bug by either . Of course Muslim will claim it was because of Allah but we know that's preposterous (he most common excuzse, still hard to believe it ath those empires were exhausted by non stop 400 years of war on each other. Anyways .. what was the main activity of the Arab tribes on Arabian peninsula??? RAIDING... Islam forbids raiding other Muslims.. so now we have a problem .. what can we do with all these men who have been living and enjoying life doing only ONE thing???? send them raiding against non Muslims!! and successful raids only beget more successful raids :) (they also had a true military genius as general for their early and most rapid expansions .. the "Sword of Islam" Khalid ibn al Walid (Khaled, son of the Walid)
So many fools... so little time.
need to stop staring at your mirror
Channeling Peewee Herman?
60-80M sounds low: the conquest of the Hindi seems to have whacked 60M off their population. Beyond that, it made them captives in their own land for, umm, more than 500 years. That’s one unit of Islamic Conquest.
don't know the history as well as I should but the attempt to conquer the Indian subcontinent culminating in the Mughal Empire (which wasn't particularly "Islamic", ironically) would be the biggest "stain" on the murder scale for Dar Al Islam
Nowhere in New Testament scripture can passages reasonably be interpreted as inciting or condoning such actions.
so what? they were done in the NAME of "Christ/Christianity" nonetheless. Want to tell me more about "unconditional love" with burning heretics and witches and the stake? AND the "Crusades" in Europe, such as the wholesale genocide of the pagan Pomeranians? (sanctioned by Papacy) why do you think the Germans moved and lived so far East of the Oder River? I mean wtf are we talking about here? wholesale delusion?
I largely agree, but the New Testament gives us clear guidance about how this contradicts the example of Jesus, as the OP says.
In fairness, you also have to credit Christianity with the good things it has inspired, like the abolition of slavery and rules of war.
In any case, Christianity should be judged by its teachings, not by the actions of its supposed followers. One of the Bible's main themes is how the people are continually going astray.
People abused ideas of peace and love to do terrible things. Therefore peace and love are invalid and should be condemned.
peace and love, Sir, have nothing to do with religion. Humankind kind of figured that out all by itself way way before they even started to associate features of weather with "Gods".
But people have done terrible things in the name of peace.
Not so sure humankind has figured out peace and love...this comment thread alone shows quite a bit of bitterness and animosity.
muslims have recently slaughtered hundred thousands of Christians in Africa…!?!
meh.. those are isolated and I don't know much about the conflict to be honest, but I suspect it's at least as much tribal as religious. and I really don't think you want to go back in history.. I think the author of the substack tried a "historical comparison" some posts ago which I found deficient.
Modern namby-pamby, pacifistic, woke Christianity is far more innocuous than any of the main strains of Islam. If you don't believe it read chapters 6 and 7 in Ibn Warraq's *Why I Am Not a Muslim*
http://www.conflicts.rem33.com/images/books/Ibn%20Warraq%20-%20Why%20I%20Am%20Not%20a%20Muslim.pdf
there are "strains" and there are "strains". Most Muslims just want to live in peace and most importantly live well, they really dont' give a fuck about the old infidel or even kuffar nonsense
Unlike you, I'm not sure what most Muslims want.
Perhaps you're also sure you know what they believe, but if you read those two chapters from the linked text you may learn something at odds with your current suppositions in that regard.
well having lived among them for 7 years I have a general idea of what MANY want .. though that sample size is limited to a specific socio economic strata. Also since I think ALL religion is man made./created bullshit - reading anything created by these men as some basis for "sacred truth" strikes me as completely idiotic?
I agree that all religious doctrine is BS, and since the penalties for Islamic apostasy are severe I assume there are more than a few nominal Muslims in countries where that religion is officially established who are covertly skeptical. But obviously many accept Islamic dogma as true -- and since that dogma is incompatible with liberal democracy it would be best to bar such true believers from taking up permanent residence in the US and other countries where civil liberty and secular rule of law prevail.
There is a fault in your understanding, It’s not Christianity’s unconditional love, it’s Messiah & God of Israel’s unconditional Love, there is a big difference.
the "God of Israel's" "UNCONDITIONAL LOVE"? I mean .. are you SERIOUS .?? when was the last time you glanced the the Old Testament. That book is full of his "unconditional love" right?? I am not familiar with the Torah, so cannot comment on what is in it. but I do know according to the Old Testament, :God" allowed them to slaughter the males of the tribes on land(*s) that "God gave them" LOLOLOLO and take their women (the circumcision of their males and then their slaying in their "weakened state" is one of my favorite stories!!!
Yes! I’m very serious! I’ve been reading it for about 25 years, one cannot extract a verse, out of context, The context is vital to understand. The Covenant given to Moses on mt Sinai, wasn’t given to the NT Church, that was a bilateral covenant, which is now no longer functioning. Yes! There are some passages that are harsh in our human understanding, these are war times. Here’s one of those passages:
The key verse is Judges 4:21:
“But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the peg into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” (KJV)
Having myself frequently occupied with Qu´ran and Islam, and—as is the case with every religion and as it gets pointed out here—a significant portion, if not the entirety, is a "matter of interpretation".
It can´t be any other way because no (human) being knows G*d, if It exists at all, what It is etc.
This in itself is no problem; nor do individual believers—whatever their reasons for believing may be—pose a fundamental problem anywhere.
Rather, the fundamental problem with Islam is that it does not, in principle, permit freedom of belief.
While there do exist "interpretations" asserting that faith can—and indeed must—arise solely from personal freedom and individual choice, these particular "interpretations" have been suppressed and persecuted for at least a thousand years.
They celebrate Ibn Rushd, but persecute mercilessly most everything he wrote.
And this is no mere coincidence; the notion that faith can and should not be a matter of free choice is entirely consistent with the very nature of Islam and its historical origins.
Such attitude dominated for long periods in Christianity as well—where, in many instances, they persist to this day.
However, within Christianity, it is evident that this stance is not intrinsic to the faith itself, but rather a deviation/ aberration that stands in fundamental opposition to "true" Christianity.
In Judaism—of which Christianity is, in essence, merely one "interpretation"—this clarity regarding faith as a deeply personal matter that cannot be prescribed is even more pronounced.
Similarly, in Buddhism, for instance, there exist some 700 different "interpretations"—like a.o. in Hinduism—and they are able to coexist with one another in a more or less peaceful manner.
In Islam, however, such coexistence appears as virtually impossible; there appears to be nothing but a bitter struggle over what constitutes the "true faith." Islam is, in this regard, conceivably extremely far away from being a "religion of peace".
As long as Islam fails to undergo an "Enlightenment"—one involving the brutal and irreversible disempowerment of the clergy—there is absolutely no prospect of improvement at horizon.
Rather, Islam tends to expand, seeks to spread solely to avoid having to confront itself and its unresolved internal struggles.
Therefore, the strict regulation, rejection, and containment of Islam are indispensable, so that its adherents may bash in one another's heads rather than those of others.
One may endlessly debate various „interpretations", but such discourse remains futile if any given "interpretation" can, at any moment, be brutally crushed by self-appointed "true believers“.
Heartworker, thank you for this. The Ibn Rushd observation is one of the sharpest compressed arguments about the Islamic intellectual tradition I have encountered in a comment section. They celebrate the man and suppress everything he actually concluded. That is not incidental, as you note. It is structural. The tradition cannot tolerate what serious engagement with his work produces, which is exactly the problem I was trying to name from a different angle.
Your distinction between Christianity's authoritarianism as deviation versus Islam's as intrinsic to its nature is the same distinction I arrived at after years in the primary sources, and I am glad to find someone else who reached it through their own reading rather than accepting the popular consensus that all religions are equally prone to the same abuses.
I will push back gently on two things, not to win an argument but because the dialogue is the point.
Christianity as merely one interpretation of Judaism: I understand why a secular European intellectual framework produces that framing and I respect the tradition it comes from. But from where I stand, having spent years in both testaments, Christianity is better understood as Judaism's own prophetic tradition arriving at its intended destination. The Hebrew prophets were not describing something that never came. That is a different claim than interpretation, and it is worth the argument even if we do not resolve it here.
Your conclusion, strict regulation and containment so the adherents may settle their internal conflicts among themselves rather than externally, is honest in a way that most people are not willing to be publicly. I find I cannot fully disagree with it as a policy observation. But it leaves me with no hope for the individual Muslims I have known, including the man whose friendship produced the books. The containment of a system and the redemption of the people shaped by it are not the same project, and I am unwilling to abandon the second even while I argue honestly about the first. However i believe in the redemption of the individuals within the tradition of Islam i do not believe that this redemption of the people can be found through the tradition of Islam but by the abandonment of it. Muhammad was a blind guide who clearly stated that he did not know where he was going when he died. He never heard Gods voice or encountered Him directly. Muhammad never had a prophecy fulfilled or a miraculous sign that CONFIRMED his message. Muslims following this blind guide are just like every other superstition following group. Hoping for good things but never sure of the outcome.
The dialogue you are modeling here is exactly what is needed.
Again, thank you for engaging seriously. Without dialog, we all descend into barbarism.
I found your assessment of the prime differences between Islam and Christianity, i.e., the nature of the god that each worships insightful and on point.
But to characterize the POV of this previous comment as "European..." is frankly bizarre.
Christianity is not an interpretation of Judaism, to be sure.
Christianity is, forgive me, best described as a derivative cult of Judaism, using "cult" in it's authentic sense.
The God that Jesus describes is the God of his people, his faith, i.e., the Jews.
Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah spoken of in Jewish traditions.
Jews disagree.
This is not a "European...." interpretation of anything.
It's a simple statement of one of the clear differences between the two faiths.
I shall rely on you for the factual accounts of the various early Christian sects and I do understand that they must have believed that Jesus was the Messiah at the beginning.
And certainly the fact of their persecution is in evidence.
My understanding is that they believed Jesus was going to return imminently and that most Christians today also believe that he will return and usher in a new age.
This is the crux of the difference between Judaism and Christianity to this day.
Jews simply do not accept that the Messiah would die only to return.
As Christianity aged and developed it's own mythos, the schism between the two faiths broadened.
As for your position that Judaism was subsequently forced to adopt Christian beliefs in the post Temple era would it not be more plausible that early Christianity mirrored the early Rabbinical adaptations?
Well, early Jewish Christianity was Judaism along with the fulfilment of prophecy in ways people didn't expect. But the rabbinic shift towards introspection and other methods for atonement of sins is well-documented after the destruction of the Temple. In many ways, the loss of the Temple represented a spiritual existential crisis, as well as the material crisis Judaism was facing.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, a key founder of Rabbinic Judaism explicitly elevated acts of loving-kindness (gemilut chasadim) as the primary act of atonement and closeness to God in place of Temple sacrifices. He drew from Hosea 6:6, but prior to the destruction of the Temple this would have seemed controversial to say the least, given it was a departure from the pure pursuit of ritual purity. Repentance (teshuvah), prayer, and fasting all also became more prominent.
From an AI: 'Many purity laws lost practical relevance (especially those tied to the Temple and sacrifices). While some purity concepts survived or were spiritualized, the overall system shifted toward ethical and communal behaviour. Purity became more metaphorical or limited to specific contexts.'
Jacob Neusner is the most prominent Jewish scholar on the subject, but you could also check out TheTorah.com on the subject.
Five year ago it would have taken me half an hour to recover this half-remembered information. AI is great- provided one has the intellectual humility to avoid instrumental rationality.
Good point about the imminent return of Jesus. We see the same thing today. Many people didn't read the gospels closely enough. Most people tend to mingle the Kingdom, salvation and the Father's house, and the Final Days and the physical rebirth which follows. Jesus explicitly said 'only the Father' 'knows'. The Kingdom is the core distinction. It had a multi-layered meaning. The mustard seed was a metaphor for a number of ethical, moral and spiritual transformations.
Apart from anything else it provided a means of rewiring human culture. Although Judaism was a prototypical guilt & forgiveness culture, most cultures in human history have been honour & shame, hardly conducive as a foundation for the Enlightenment or an Age of Reason. In addition we still see the radical egalitarianism Christ introduced through metrics like Hofstede's Power Distance Index.
The biggest mistake of Christianity was ignoring Christ's advice about 'Render unto Caesar'. Worldly power was never supposed to be on the table. It's inherently corruptive and prone to the misuse of force and coercion. The early Christians were moral exemplars, rushing towards plagues to tend to the sick, when even sick family members were forsaken. In tying spiritual matters to state power, Christianity opened itself up to all sorts of false prophets who subverted the religion to nefarious purposes which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian ethos.
Obviously, these tendencies within Judaism were already present. Jesus himself drew upon them to preach his radical message. However, it was only after the destruction of the Temple that they fully came to the fore, and became central the Rabbinic tradition (for the better, given that it provided the resilience for Jewish culture to persist, when so many cultures became little more than historical footnotes).
I almost missed your reply. Did you reply to me or someone else?
Sorry, I am new to this space but yes, I was replying to you.
I am very much enjoying our discussion!
Three thoughts:
Isn't AI marvelous!!
And, I'm not sure how accurate it is to assume that pre Rabbinic Judaism was wholly reliant on ritual and sacrifice.
Judaism has always been a communal culture but the nature of a sole soul, so to speak, was always deeply intimate and internal.
And I do agree that when Christianity became the de facto religion of power it fundamentally changed the reality, and perhaps, the nature of the religion but in turn it also allowed the explosive growth of it.
A double-edged sword.
I think the explosive growth was there already. Early Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the ancient world, going from eleven frightened men in an apartment in Jerusalem to a faith which encompassed 5-10% of the Empire's population when Constantine wrought his changes- all despite the most awful and systemic persecution. I think it spoke to the deep human need to be heroes in our own narratives, but in a moral sense, deeply aspirational in the desire of ancient peoples to become far better people than they currently were, rather than the 'King of the Hill' mentality which preceded it, the path of temporal strength.
What alignment with the state did for Christianity was to give it temporal power, something Christ himself explicitly rejected during the 40 days in the wilderness. The viral peaceful spread which occurred naturally was displaced by religious imperialism.
I wouldn't say that pre-Rabbinic Judaism was wholly reliant on ritual and sacrifice. Rabbinic Judaism didn't invent the various concepts promoted after the Temple destruction, it simply brought them to the fore, elevating their role and importance within the faith. I agree with you about the sole soul. The main shift was in atonement practices. Prior to Rabbinic Judaism it was a means of centralising the faith around the Temple.
This also explains why Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was so influential in his revisions. The forced decentralisation created a crisis for Judaism. Jews of the time would have needed to strengthen their group bonding and loyalty increasing both social enforcement and methods to increase the web of bonds within a community. In this respect the significant amplification of loving-kindness and the internalisation of atonement for sin both served to make Jewish communities stronger internally. It was a response perfectly calibrated for group solidarity and communal living.
Pre-Rabbinic culture was probably more fractious, factional and prone to one-upmanship. Sectarian rivalries are particularly well-documented from the time, and some sources point to performative religiosity as a form of prestige competition. One of things Rabbinic Judaism quickly became good at was dispute containment, and the preservation of minority opinions without schism. Many aspects of modern day Jewish culture owe their existence to this evolution, particularly the enthusiastic embrace of friendly debate.
I'm also enjoying the conversation. These types of conversations are one of the great aspects of Substack. Only Discourse forums seem to produce a similar dynamic.
As an Orthodox jew, I am confused about your description of Jesus as the messiah. My understanding of the Trinity is that Jesus is God in human form. He looked like a person, and acted like a person but he was actually God in the shape of a human being. If Christianity is a monotheistic religion this has to be true. Your description of a messiah sounds different to me. Maybe because the authentic Jewish messiah is a person, not a diety. How can Jesus be both God and messiah at the same time? If He is, is Christianity truly monotheistic? Islam for all its problems as you describe, is most definitely monotheistic. That's its most important element, tawhid. That is its greatest achievement, bringing monotheism to 1 billion+ people.
HR is right that millions of words have been devoted to explaining this conundrum, and I'd like to avoid a detailed discussion, myself. The notion that Jesus is God in human form is the ancient heresy named "docetism," from the Greek "doceo" meaning "seem." (Jesus merely "seemed" human.) The orthodox Christian position is that God is a trinity consisting of three "persons," and that Jesus has two "natures" (truly divine and truly human).
So is Christianity monotheistic?
Indeed. Although my understanding is that there have been millions of words written by Christians explaining just this conundrum.
I appreciate you using the fine distinction with regard to 'cult'. Many more superficial readers would view this with its negative connotations, when one could just as a easily state that Buddhism was a cult which sprang from Hinduism.
However, there are several fine points which bear remembering.
1) The messianic and resurrection claims were there from the beginning. With the exception of Ebionite Christianity, gnostic and Aryan variants which saw Christ as less than the Son of Man (Son of God) only began to emerge in numbers roughly 70 years after the events described in the gospels.
2) Many Jews did acknowledge Christ as Messiah and Son of Man. They just weren't in the majority and didn't hold the reins of institutional power, or the monopoly on force.
3) Nazarene Jewish Christians were more numerous than Ebionite Jewish Christians. In addition, it's also highly plausible but not certain that Ebionite Christians muted down their beliefs about Jesus because to do so would have been a means of at least partially mitigating the extreme persecution meted out towards Jewish followers of Christ in Galilee and Judea.
4) Sadly, as Christianity spread, first due to the apparent miracles during the apostolic age, and, later due to the demonstrably morally superior of behaviour of the early Christians in showing populations a model of behaviour to aspire to, Jewish Christianity became marginalised and treated by suspicion by both Gentile Christians and mainstream Jews. By the 5th century they were for the most part absorbed into both groups.
5) Ironically, Judaism was forced to evolve in many of the ways that Jesus advocated during his life. With the destruction of the Temple perhaps the main source of atonement was separated from Jewish life. Many of the means which Jewish rabbis used to remediate this deficit were at least popularised by Jesus, even if they had existed in some previous subsidiary form before his life, which begs the question: prophecy or providence?
6) it's truer to state that some Jews disagreed and some Jews didn't. Sadly, we can never know the proportions given the quite draconian suppression of Jewish Christians during the period.
7) By the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 AD), Jewish Christians were clearly a minority strong enough to refuse joining the revolt, but not large enough to sway mainstream Jewish society.
Sounds like a cult then when stated this way. But doesn't have any real relief except personal faith for the believer. It does make it hard to separate the teaching from the followers 😞
Lovely article. I don't usually read things like this but it called me and carried me through even to the comments.
Faith is a tricky switch in the mind and it needs built and then maintenance. The more my Divina talks to God's in her mind the less I care for them.
Thank you for the research and sharing your findings.
Great article and that carries through to the comments! Thank you all for a long and excellent read!
Wow, your thoughts are very interesting. One way to summarize the world’s religions, all of them make rules to be followed and a god to be worshiped, all except Christianity. Christianity says human are born sinners, unable to understand spiritual wisdom ( you are right- no human can understand an infinite holy God, that is why God Himself took on human nature to die on an ugly humiliating cross for those who would believe in Jesus would be saved. You must not want to believe in a personal God that might demand something from you for you daid “if It exists”. Beware of your pride in figuring all this out, the “devils believe and tremble” because they will not bend their knee to His majesty.?
May I ask why you say he never heard God's voice? The story goes that he heard the Angel's voice at least? Does this not qualify as a message from the divine?
Muhammad can claim he heard the voice from an angel, or a donkey, or a baked potato… but none of those claims make muhammed a prophet. And why should anyone believe the testimony of 1 man. Where are the proofs? Where are the witnesses. There are REQUIREMENTS that must be met for anyone who claims to be a prophet, in the line of prophets, and from God. If muhammed conveniently left those facts out of the quran… it is because he does not meet those requirements. I see nothing but reasons to doubt muhammed. Why should I trust his word over the eye witnesses? God endorses the testimonies of the eye witnesses with miracles. But God does not endorse muhammeds message with any miracles.
Can you see how at every level muhammed produces doubt and distrust. He did not even know where he was going when he died. Why follow a blind guide.
I'm neither a Christian nor a Muslim, and am a sojourner here, so you can take this as the orthogonal comment it surely is to the main thrust of your writing. I enjoyed your main post because it seemed you were sincerely engaging with a tradition not your own, and a tradition that troubles you. Your response here is different in tone however. You seem to be applying a standard of proof ("God endorses His prophets with miracles") whose reliability I'm not inclined to accept at face value (e.g. what witnesses are you relying on for the miracles related in the Bible?) and you're using it to sweepingly reject all of Islam. Now, I'm not enjoining you to accept Islam (since I don't myself either), I'm just pointing out that you haven't really answered my question. As far as I understand it, from a Muslim POV, the reception of the Quran by Muhammad is itself a miracle, due to his putative illiteracy and the text's richness in the original language etc. Non-Muslims are perfectly entitled to doubt this, but non-Christians I'm sure you know are perfectly entitled not to accept the infallibility of the Bible or the Christian tradition too.
A fair observation and I will take it seriously rather than dismiss it.
You are right that I was applying a standard. What I should have made explicit is where that standard comes from, because it is not a Christian standard I am importing to disqualify a Muslim claim. It is a Jewish standard that predates both Christianity and Islam by roughly a thousand years, and it is a standard the Quran itself cannot reject without undercutting its own claims.
Deuteronomy 13 and 18 establish the framework. A genuine prophet must speak in continuity with prior revelation. His specific predictions must come to pass without failure. One failed prediction disqualifies entirely. And the standard of divine communication is set by Moses himself, face to face, without intermediary. These criteria were not invented by Christians to attack Muhammad. They were established by the tradition Muhammad claimed to be completing.
Here is the problem that creates for the miracle you mentioned. The Quran's claim to be Muhammad's confirming miracle rests on the assertion of its literary inimitability. But Islamic theology itself, in its formal doctrine of prophetic miracles, requires that a confirming miracle be publicly witnessed, independently verifiable, and impossible to duplicate by any creature present. Literary excellence, even genuine literary excellence, does not meet that standard. It is a subjective aesthetic judgment, not a publicly falsifiable event. Muhammad's own tradition sets the bar higher than he cleared it.
More importantly, the continuity test does not wait for the miracle question. Deuteronomy 13 is explicit: even a prophet who performs genuine signs is disqualified if his message leads away from the established revelation. Signs do not validate message. Message validates signs. Muhammad's message contradicts the Torah on the covenant with Israel, the nature of God, and the Mosaic standard for prophetic communication. On the tradition's own terms, those contradictions are disqualifying before the miracle question is even reached.
Now to your broader point about applying skepticism evenly. You asked what witnesses I am relying on for the miracles in the Bible. That is a legitimate question and it has a verifiable answer. The New Testament miracle accounts were written within decades of the events by people who were either eyewitnesses or had direct access to eyewitnesses. Luke names governors, census events, and architectural details that have been confirmed by archaeology repeatedly. The church fathers writing within living memory of the apostles quote the New Testament so extensively the entire text could be reconstructed from their letters alone. The Dead Sea Isaiah scroll, copied a thousand years before the manuscripts previously available, matched the received text with a precision that startled the scholars who examined it.
The Bible has been under hostile academic examination for three hundred years, motivated and funded and institutionalized. It has come out of that process looking more accurate, not less. Every time a specific claim was called a legend, the archaeology eventually gave way under the critic, not the text.
Islam has faced a fraction of that scrutiny. The oldest complete Quran manuscript does not predate 737 AD. The Hadith canon was assembled two centuries after Muhammad by scholars who themselves acknowledged they were sorting through hundreds of thousands of fabrications. Uthman burned the competing versions rather than archiving them.
You are right that non-Christians are entitled not to accept the Bible's infallibility. But entitlement to doubt is not the same as having equal grounds for doubt. The evidentiary situations are not equivalent and treating them as though they are requires ignoring what three centuries of hostile examination actually produced.
The standard I am applying is not mine. It belongs to the tradition Muhammad claimed to be completing. I am simply reading the verdict it returns.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify how you assess it. That makes more sense. As an outsider to the Abrahamic traditions it's helpful to learn the specifics. I've no beef at all with anyone choosing their tradition using their own assessment as long as they're not trying to force their view of another tradition's wrongness or inadequacy on anyone else (which I'm not saying you are, and that obviously goes for proselytising Islam too). The only thought bubble I feel moved to express is: the evidentiary standards you mention pertain to historicity of biblical persons and places. As you say, centuries of scrutiny have filled out the picture well at least with the New Testament, and the same mightn't be the case with Islam. But that doesn't "prove" the biblical miracles, it just establishes that yes, the gospel writers weren't writing about a semi mythical time or anything. They were real persons. But the acceptance of "this miracle really happened, God really filled this prophet or disciple with His power" to my mind still comes down to personal faith, personal reasoning, and personal engagement with a tradition. Islam for instance after its establishment has a long history of Sufi saints reportedly performing miracles, healings etc. As do non-Abrahamic religions. Cheers.
"You are right that non-Christians are entitled not to accept the Bible's infallibility. But entitlement to doubt is not the same as having equal grounds for doubt." Great answer.
To which I add a challenge to the honest skeptics:
The Jews' return to their original homeland from a global dispersion was repeated some 30 times in different places in the Jewish Bible. Some contain peculiar details which would not likely have occurred to wishful thinkers. And all 30 were written down centuries before there even WAS a global dispersion.
The challenge: If you can explain the success of this prediction (including the peculiar details) in terms other than the Supernatural Source as the Jewish prophets themselves claimed, I will grant that you have equal grounds for doubting both the Quran and the Bible.
From memory of a college course in the NewTestament 60 years ago --- the books of the New Testament were not written by people who knew Jesus in life. They were texts circulating and eventually some were selected by early Christian leaders. Google "How was the New Testament compiled" and the first sentence says it was assembled over the course of 4 centuries. That is a lot of time and space for interpretation and pleasant stories (the 3 wise men?) to find their way in. It didn't end in 4 centuries. The Immaculate Conception (of Mary, in her mother's womb) became dogma in 1854.
Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of God dictated to Muhammed - who did not read - in the 7th century. What's relevant, in my opinion, is their belief, not whether it is true. (Because its not possible to find whats true in any of these books) Christians believe 3 wise men followed a star with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Its a fantastical story that doesn't fit in with anything else in the NT. Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, Hadith --- my take is that each of these books is a compilation by people who lived much later. I wouldn't argue it with a believer, but that's what makes sense.
The Message of Muhammad...the Quran...is the Miracle, the Theophany, at least in Islamic thought. Your question, why follow a blind guide is relevant, but serves as a proof that Muhammad was receiving revelations that he then transmitted...Allah was the author of the Quran and Muhammad's destiny in the Islamic framework. According to Islamic thought, the eye witnesses of Muhammad and their immediate offspring established an Islamic empire by advancing their witness of Islam to Morocco and Spain in the West and India in the East...by Dawah and Jihad. In Islam, that is referred to as the Futuhat, derived from Allah's Name Al-Fattah, the one who opens the way, where the opening Fatihah Surah of the Quran originates...in this, what was the Treaty of Hudaybiya called? The Fath...the opening...that guaranteed Mecca would in the near-term surrender to the Will of Allah.
The angel Messenger could have been a devil angel to further deceive seekers to follow another “god” running interference for them finding the true God. Many know there are good and bad spirits
Circular logic.
I know God and God knows me.
Most versions of Christianity have no room for freedom of belief either. Instead of believers killing the unbeliever in the here and now, God commits them to eternal conscious torment in the hereafter. Humans are more tolerant and God is the barbarian.
You are describing the God of the Old Testament. The God that Christ revealed is a loving God. The life that Jesus led was one of compassion and forgiveness, even until his last breath.
The God of the Old Testament IS the God that Christ revealed. Jesus IS God. The doctrine of the Trinity is threaded throughout both the Old and New Testaments. But God has numerous attributes. Love is the greatest. He is also holy and just, and justice in the OT looked different than it would look today, but it is no less of Him. Jesus spoke very harshly to the crooked religious leaders, clearly demonstrating what God thinks of people who use His name or faith to oppress people. But it is not oppression to tell people, who want to ignore that they are created beings and be their own gods, that they are missing out on what they're really here for.
I am describing the God that is preached in pulpits all over the world. Not my belief but surely a popular one.
At the risk of applying the no true Scotsman fallacy aren't you describing false versions of Christianity when you compare them to the teachings found in the gospel?
One has to wonder how the rich man and the eye of a needle contorts into the 'me' evangelism which claims people 'deserve' their wealth. And by the way, the passage doesn't mean exactly what most people suppose. Instead it's an exhortation which asks people to pursue what really matters, in this case salvation.
Try asking an AI this and you will see what I mean 'I have an interesting question for you. It relates to what human's pursue versus what humans need to be happy as a byproduct of others things they pursue in the lives. Create two lists one for what they pursue versus what they should pursue to be fulfilled and happy. the lists can comprise things like self-sufficiency, autonomy, empowerment, connectedness, etc. Rank order each list and make as many entries per list as you feel is necessary.'
Has the Old Testament been removed from the Christian Bible, has Judaism been outlawed or condemned for continuing the basic tenants we know from the Old Testament?? I doubt any of us would recognize this Jesus should he return to walk incognito around us. Back during the 60's and 70's, what would society have said and how would they have treated this long-haired, hippie-freak-looking cult leader? In Andalusia, AL back in the mid-60's, I saw a notice on a Baptist church bulletin board that asked people of color, should they venture inside this bastion of whiteness, to turn around and walk right back out and not cause a scene!
AFAIK, there's no reason to suppose that Jesus' hair or any other aspect of his superficial appearance was unusual, let alone freakish, in the eyes of his Jewish contemporaries.
Clearly, the people in the church in Alabama were sinning as the Bible is clear that God’s children are from every tribe and tongue. Other white Christian pastors marched together with Black Christian pastors in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. It was the Reverend Martin Luther King and other pastors—both white and black that led the Civil Rights movement. There will always be people, who call themselves Christians, but don’t follow God.
Don’t you mean “had”? Not “has”? The sentence reads oddly. I’m not sure I understand your meaning! Jesus is a creature of his own time. Anything we take from his story has got to be taken as symbolism or emotional truth? Not actual, physical truth.
I had 15 years of Jungian analysis, which means dream analysis. Every once in a while I would dream about God. How did I know? There was something about him, but it wasn’t his clothing. First of all he was always young, a young man. He wore ordinary street clothes of our time, not robes from 2,000 years ago. He seemed quite ordinary, except that he was astonishingly handsome, and I couldn’t see him quite clearly except by standing a distance away. Too close and things got blurry. This fits with mythological stories about humans encountering God. Too close and you are burned to ash. And if you aren’t ready to meet an archetypal presence you can blunder in and be turned into a stag to be hunted down by your own hounds. (Artemis and Actaeon by a pool in the forest when she was in her bath) or you can be burned to ash, like the Nazis at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In my understanding, God is myth and symbol and intuitive truth. The historical figure is less relevant in a lived life. It is the transpersonal truth that maintains belief, that connects humanity to its search for wholeness. And it is timeless.
No, I do not mean had, but it could be interchangable as I'm not speaking of a particular time period, just asking the question in general, as it could pertain to any time since the dawning of Christianity; in fact, my sentence structure makes perfect sense. Idk why you can't understand that I'm contrasting her depiction of a loving, compassionate Christ figure, which is supposedly the crux of Christianity, with the inconsistent messaging still found in the Old Testament, in addition, I ask for the benefit of those who aren't Christian but still maintain the tenets of the O.T. which are still used in the Judaic faith w/the Talmud & Torah, with which Zionist Christians see no problem. I'm fully aware of what Jungian analysis is all about, I've personally participated, but why do you need to tell us about that when a recounting of your dreams about God would suffice? You certainly lost me in the last part of your stream-of-consciousness narrative, so exactly what do you mean by "historical figure," do you mean the concept of God or as Christians believe in the concept of Jesus as God-incarnate? Your last sentence does indeed make perfect sense, God does transcend any type of interpersonal relationship (as Christianity emphasizes) & is, as you say, more of mankind's search for wholeness, which certainly is timeless.
Perhaps you should read the Scriptures . . . Paul explains in Romans 11 what happened to many Jews regarding Jesus.
He also describes how Christianity is Grafted into Judiasm, they share the same root.
All of the creators of the Bible, Jesus and the Aposals were Jews . . . we you not aware?
Paul also say that "All Israel will be Saved" . . .
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Psalm 132:13 For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
14 This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
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Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
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Revelation 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
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John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
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Jesus claimed he was God . . . which was why the Pharasees and the Saducees wanted to kill him for blasphemy.
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ALL the end times Prophases take place in and around Jerusalem . . . when Jesus returns he returns to the Mt. of Olives . . . where he will Rule for 1000 years.
“I had 15 years of Jungian analysis, which means dream analysis…”
Oh, in that case you must be right about everything being discussed here and there’s no need to question things further.
All mystery is now resolved because good ol’ Carl (or rather some analyst’s interpretation of his insights) sorted out the infinite mind and Divine plan of our Creator … using his finite mind … and passed on the ontological truth of God Himself to you in your dreams.
Where do so sign up?
Pop Quiz for Saralyn: --- are these two verses in the Old Testament, or the New?
"YHVH, YHVH God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin."
"It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
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Pop Quiz for Robert W:
Since eternal conscious torment in the hereafter is too barbaric, what sentence do you think God *should* give to those who used their freedom of belief to shed innocent blood or torment the helpless?
(Of course, if you believe there is no justice after death, then you have an entirely different dilemma.)
And resurrection
Jesus died for the sins of the world, and offers abundant life. People choose to know and love God and accept His free gift of abundant life with Him or they choose to be their own god, and are live with their choice—which leads to “gnashing of teeth” and torment after they realize they have rejected the One, who loves them and died to save them. God is the ultimate free choice giver, but choices have consequences—to choose life or death has always been the choice.
The difficulty is that humans also have any enemy, who wants to see God’s image bearers destroyed, and who regularly tempts and distorts humans away from all that is good and life giving to acts and beliefs that are untrue and distortions of what is life giving and full.
Correctly put across.......!
Boy howdy! I have been accosted on numerous occasions with angry warnings of my eternity unless I truly accepted various strains of Christianity.
My relationship with God is personal. Religions are precepts of man. No matter what religious institution I go to, my relationship with Him is between Him and me.
I have had the same experiences. My Muslim friends have had open friendly conversations with me about faith and do not condemn me for having faith without a tie to a particular religion. Some of my Christian friends are similar, others work endlessly to get me to claim Christianity as my religion and go to church because they are certain I will go to hell otherwise. Online, random Christians have condemned me endlessly, foretelling my journey to hell, calling me Satan’s daughter- they are dreadful humans to interact with. Random Muslims have engaged openly and have been willing to answer my questions. I have never been told that I’m condemned to hell by a Muslim. In my personal experiences, Muslims have all seemed to follow the early teachings of Muhammad. But, clearly, the staunch followers of his later teachings also exist. It is perplexing, but also enforced my view that no religion is the one source of truth, but rather, there is truth, knowledge, and wise advice to be found in almost all religions (I say almost because I doubt there is any good to be found in worshiping Baal or other inherently evil entities).
The acceptance that matters is that Christ died and was part of the prophesy that could not be fulfilled by anything short of the real deity.
All the rest is counterfeit including Islam. Do not believe religions like Latter Day Saints that push their narrative of God is over here.
Christ crucified as propitiation for the sins of the world. That is the only way to see God. If not all the other religions have merit and you might as well go get your 78 virgins.
The thing with this view of Christian theology is that in my heart I don’t believe I have ever done anything wicked enough that some dude I don’t know from Adam must die in my behalf. Especially in such a heinous way. I didn’t ask for this and I don’t approve of it. Human beings are fallible, and so am I, but for God or the Romans to execute this mild-mannered Hebrew seer on my behalf seems way out of proportion.
And all the stories of virgin birth were added in to the Christ story well after his death. Virgin birth is not exactly impossible, but the child would be female, basically a clone of her mother. A male child is impossible. That’s science.
Many of the stories in the New Testament parallel stories prevalent in the Middle East at that time. Dionysus is the god who dies every fall to be reborn again every spring. There are many others I don’t know about I’m sure. So why is this Hebrew guy so special. It seems to me to be quite an ego trip to imagine you are the light if the world. See, Christianity is a myth system like many other religions. The major work religion that seems the most grounded to me is Buddhism.
More than anything, I see myself as a Jungian. As the son of a Protestant clergyman, he looked into theology with the eye of a folklorist as well as a deeply spiritual person, but I think the God he said in an interview that he “knew,” is a personal belief in the transpersonal reality of our lives on Earth. The divinity present in all things. This divinity does not require a human sacrifice. It simply needs to be acknowledged and honored. Not a simple task at all.
Too many prophesies were fulfilled by Christ. Read Psalm 22 as a start. Your email is a dark reminder of the largely wrong information given to the world by demonic forces. None of tne religions you mention save the world from sin by God. Mere morals did not design this and we are not the creator.
I hope you find the truth. Seek tne true God and you will find.
You are free to accept or reject the free gift of eternal life. At some point there will be no backsies, choose wisely, my friend.
With Islam, they don’t have the confidence to offer that; that is a tell.
Doubts on that anyone has freedom to accept/reject eternal life appear not as refutable.
The only "sin" appears to me when a human overreaches o.s. that arrogantly trying to tell others what "true God" should be.
This „God“ has been invented by „tolerant“ humans.
Only the God of the Bible tells you the Beginning from the End . . . things that have not yet occurred . . . no other religious text does this . . .
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
12 Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.
Belief that one has a religious right or obligation to kill (or enslave, or humiliate, or despoil, or displace) others who don't share one's own religious convictions is far more inimical to others' welfare than a doctrinal conviction that unbelievers will be punished in a postmortem afterlife.
Killed now is worse than tortured forever?
No, but that's beside my point. Would you rather be a) murdered or b) told that your soul will be condemned to eternal postmortem torment if you don't confess your sins and pray for divine forgiveness? If you say you'd prefer a) I won't believe you.
I’m saying that the barbarism of eternal torture is worse and Christians happily believe that this will happen to billions of peaceful Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, native Americans, etc.
So what? Muslims believe that it will happen to Christians, do they not?
Anyway, you're dancing around my question. I didn't ask whether you think that eternal postmortem torment is worse than being murdered. Rather, I'm asking whether you think that merely being TOLD that your soul will suffer such torment unless you do a, b, and c is worse than being murdered.
The pot can never be better than the potter.
That's a hilarious and cold assessment of God!
The God I believe in does not commit anyone to hell although you may wind up there through your own actions. You can liberate yourself from hell but don't ask me how cuz I haven't been there yet. Unless you mean hell on Earth and yeah I've been there a few times.
Before Libertas Religionis freedom of belief only existed in prototypical form. Other cultures had articulated the concept but for the most part as a memetic structure it was theoretical or confined to the dry world of philosophical thinking. What you fail to recognise is that religion is inherently dangerous like any ideology or philosophical movement, but unlike most other movements Christian ethics provide the seed by which the stronger epistemic argument will be the right and just one. The problem is that as with most ideas the loudest argument is usually the wrong one.
You also have entirely the wrong view of human nature. It's an easy mistake to make when one swims in the cultural waters bestowed upon us by a legacy of cultural Christianity. Before Jesus, most cultures were far more deterministically hierarchical and prone to the unforgiving cruelty of the dominant. We still see this as a legacy in social science like Hofstede’s Power Distance Index. Most cultures are significantly more deferential to those who possess higher social standing and power, and significantly more dismissive and casually contemptuous of those of lower social standing. It's something which most W.E.I.R.D. people just don't see, because those they come into contact with from diverse cultural backgrounds tend to be at least part way along the journey towards Western acculturation. Their PDI scores bear this out; those in tertiary education have lower PDI scores than their countries of origin.
The key change Jesus enacted in the world, other than switching culture from honour/shame to to guilt/forgiveness is a form of radical egalitarianism which saw inherent worth in every human being. He switched human worth from extrinsic to intrinsic, even if the extrinsic worth is still valued in the West and elsewhere. Of all other system only Buddhism came close, but then inherently assigned some blame for a benighted condition through the Saṃsāra cycle.
Like most comments these days I ran my thoughts through a couple of AIs, one of which I've trained to be pretty belligerent. Surprisingly, the feedback came back fairly positive. However, the belligerent AI came back with an interesting insight:
It queried this claim: He switched human worth from extrinsic to intrinsic, and argued instead that 'It did not fully abolish extrinsic status competition — humans remain humans — but it subordinated worldly status beneath a transcendent moral equality.'
And, yes, I know that we owe a lot to the Greeks and the Romans. Our political system is a direct descendent of the Greek model. However, our ethical system is primarily a system of Christian ethics, by comparison the Greeks and the Romans made relatively minor contributions, even when one looks at the role of the Enlightenment philosophers. The exception would be Stoicism with its emphasis on self-control and duty, and to a lesser extent, Aristotle with virtue ethics and the concept of natural law.
Jeremiah 31:33 - I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Before this prophecy, God's Law was only found in scripture and Messenger relays. Jesus was the first evidence that God's Law was written on a Man's heart. This is the reason God became a Man...to make this reality completely evident. Paul would later remark how Greek gentiles advanced God's Law naturally in their philosophy.
For the record, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle came after Jeremiah. So, many of the Greek philosophical tenets that found their way to Christendom's modern nation states, arguably have the tenor of religion.
The question we must ask ourselves is whether or not Jeremiah was the break water point, where the old tide of reasoned self-determination gave way to a reliance on God. We often think of philosophy as an evolution from religion which was an evolution from mythology. But, what if...mythology was the natural result of a people that did not have the Law of God etched on their hearts? What if Philosophy was the middle ground...and religion was the evolved position?
Have you heard how Tolkien converted C.S. Lewis from his early atheism/agnosticism? He maintained that although not all myths were a product of the yearning for the truth and spiritual beauty embodied by God, many were. The argument which ultimately won C.S. Lewis over was the idea that much of history and man's belief in myths pointed to one singular figure- Jesus Christ- the one true myth, the culmination of the half-glimpsed yearning for meaning man had searched in vain for before.
It's also one of the delineations John Lennox makes in his Christian apologetics. Most atheists argue God as a God of the Gaps. That might be true of pantheistic pagan entities, but an all-knowing, all-powerful, singular creator of all certainly isn't a product of man's need to explain storms or agricultural cycles. It's a strawman, and it's little wonder that the atheists come to the conclusions that they do given the deeply flawed conceptual error atheists make when they imagine that a belief in a monotheistic God came into being in the same manner as all the petty pantheistic Gods and Goddesses which served as a meagre substitute for man's intuitive knowledge of a spiritual truth beyond imagining.
Which comes first Zero or One? It seems to me that on a linear progression, Zero comes first, but One is necessary for Zero to have meaning. Zero only has value as an absence of One. The Greek push for the mathematical faith in the One as the Source of Good, Light, Truth, Law, and Society holds a pride of place that Religious missionaries would do well to acknowledge.
Well yes. Plus zero is primarily a theoretical value. In practice, at a quantum level, zero is more likely spontaneous positive and negative forces in balance.
I think this is actually how God made the universe, or at least the firmament.
Guilt and shame come from the enemy of our souls. Conviction of sin and exhortation (You are made in the image of God to do good works, which he prepared for you before the foundations of the world) comes from the Holy Spirit. Jesus is about repentance not guilt. Shame is never from God, but Jesus will discipline those he loves. New life is find in Christ. Baptism is about dying to the old self and rising in newness of life in Jesus. Repent (Turn from wicked and evil ways and turn to the new life in Christ—dying to the old and living and abiding in Him). Yes, you’re right that Jesus is all about forgiveness. Jesus brought good news—You’re important. You matter. You’re made in the image of God to love and be loved by God. God is choosing to redeem you. Will you accept the free gift of new life in Christ?
I already have. It doesn't make me feel any more worthy of his love, although I will readily admit to feeling the water welling. I experienced it most recently watching an episode of The Chosen. I like Wes Huff, think his work is important, but I definitely disagree respectfully with him on The Chosen!
In many ways my faith had become a dry, parched, intellectual thing. The Chosen renewed my faith and centred it. The UK is a very secular society. It's very fashionable for celebs and pseudo-intellectuals to present superficial strawman arguments in the cultural zeitgeist.
To be candid, my feelings of unworthiness probably stem from masturbation. I'm 53 and single. I am somewhat reassured that masturbation by Christian single men is very common, but that doesn't prevent a certain amount of guilt at not living up to a high standard.
Anger is another problem. Particularly in relation to culture. Sometimes I just have to check out of all media for a few days. I don't use my phone for news. I limit myself in terms of media consumption and try to stick to more highbrow content, although on fiction I'm definitely a sucker for anything sci fi.
Regarding the anger:
1. You are wise to leave media alone for days.
2. Being angry is not a sin, but “the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.” So be angry, but don’t sin.
3. Rather, “Cast your cares upon the Lord for he cares for you.”
4. You may want to use your anger to pray for your country or culture: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will heal their land.”
https://biblehub.com/2_chronicles/7-14.htm
That’s a really good idea and Britain certainly needs all the help it can get! I will try it tonight.
No one is worthy except Christ. You know in Paul’s letter to the Romans that he reminds them that all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. Our worthiness is completely based on having the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus—not on our own righteousness. He also reminds the church at Ephesus that this a free gift of God that cannot be earned. And he reminds believers that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So begin by accepting these truths with thanksgiving—lots of it. One of the easiest ways to come to God is with Thanksgiving.
Your particular issue is two-fold—God’s gift to men and women in their marriage bed and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In all things God wants all manner of good things for you. All the promises of God are yes and Amen! Satan is called the “Accuser of the Brethren,” and he is always about guilt and shame. Christ is about grace, forgiveness, new life, and removing any guilt or shame “as far as the east is from the west.” The Father through the prophet Isaiah says, “ Come now, let us reason together, though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
So, 1. give thanks to God for his design to give us pleasure in the marriage bed. Perhaps, you desire a wife? If so, pray for this and act accordingly—ask someone out for coffee.
2. Take every thought captive. It isn’t the physical release that is a sin, it is usually the dwelling on coveting someone else’s wife, or a porn addiction, or focusing your mind on your lusts rather than on God and all that he has for you—these thoughts can steal from you and your intended. You may want to use an app like this one:
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-to-de-addict-gen-z-from-porn
Ultimately, fight against sin because it steals all that God has for you and those around you. Also, God has great things planned for you. Many pastors like to say, if you’re doing all the good work the Lord has planned for you, you don’t have time for “the sin that so easily entangles you.” You may also want an accountability partner/prayer partner.
I am glad you found the Chosen helpful. Practice constant gratitude to God and praise Him all day and see if you don’t enter His courts: “Enter His courts with Thanksgiving in your heart, enter His courts with Praise. Say, “This the day that he Lord has made. I will rejoice for He has made me Glad!”
Ultimately, faith is not all about feelings, but if we never have feelings that is also an issue. Practice gratitude and praise all day everyday, but if you still feel no great love for God only an intellectual understanding, find a brother in Christ, who is able to help you spiritually. The church is the body of Christ. Just as Lazarus did not take off his own grave clothes after Christ rose him from the dead, so our brothers and sisters in Christ help remove ours, so we can fully experience the abundant life Jesus intends for His children: John 10:10.
Thanks for your words of encouragement. On porn, I’m fundamentally old-fashioned. I have a few Mayfair issues from a ways back. I find modern online porn ugly and nasty. Intellectually I understand that salvation isn’t earned, it’s about acceptance of a gift, and emotionally I’m getting there- I just need to remind myself at times.
That's garbage
Untrue
Untrue that Go is a barbarian, yes. Untrue the much of Christendom characterizes Him as a barbarian, no. That is quite true. I’ve sat through all to many “God is gonna get you” sermons, and come forward and accept Jesus or get tortured forever altar calls.
The whole point is, you pays your money you takes your choice.
The first and therefore archetypal God in anyone's life is the parents. W have all had oarents: loving ones, neglectful ones, abusive ines, punitive ones...
When children rightly fire their parents they may subconsciously find another God: Charles Manson, for example, or febtanyl or alcohol or weed, or in the case of narcissists, themselves.
Allah is not loving. Jesus is.
And does Christianity condone freedom of belief? Has Christianity not fostered some of the most dogmatic, narrow-minded beliefs with a culture which washed over into our political institutions? Has it not been used to foment wars, racism, and misogyny, even to condone slavery?? How dare you engage in such hypocrisy!
That be MAN . . .
especially those on the Left side of the spectrum . . .
At one time you do realize Slavery was the Norm in the world . . . I believe it was Christians who were the first to abolish slavery.
.
Neither the Old or New Testament venture into the Political realm . . .
But Judaeo/Christian philosophy is largely responsible for the Creation of ALL the Western Democracies.
What exactly is "Judeo-Christian philosophy" and what does it have to do with the foundations of democratic government which came out of, if I'm not mistaken, Greece?
Democracy did not break out in Europe till it was Christianized . . . over 1000 years after the Greek Philosophers . . . certainly there were elements of that philosophy . . . but Caucasian Christian Men were the motivators . . . and Judaeo/Christian Values were the basis of the Law, especially in the USA the home of the best Constitution on the planet.
These assertions are incomprehensible, as I am compelled to assume that my arguments were not read correctly or completely by you - as a.o. I specifically and expressly mentioned the rigidity and questionable nature of Christian dogmas—and of the prohibitions against challenging them—and explicitly noted that rigid dogmatic tenets, along with their consequences, continue to exist within Christianity to this very day.
But critics of this quite rarely face dead threats, insults and physical threats up to murder as frequently in Islam.
Also I wrote that Islam as of yet is lacking an"Enlightenment". This "enlightenment" can be traced back directly to Jesus - if you believe in him as "Messiah" or not. Furtherly I wrote that such branches that emphatically vote for freedom of belief, aren´t unknown in Islam.
Please, if you want to open a discussion, take respect of and refer to what I really pointed out and not what I nowhere stated. Thanks in advance.
I’ve sat in evangelical churches and been threatened with eternal torture literally every Sunday. If you believe in an afterlife that is a worse threat than death. What the essay seemed to be about was the moral superiority of Christian doctrine concerning tolerance. That doesn’t seem that clear to me.
There are "problematic" passages, doctrines, and statements in more or less every religion; however, the same applies—for instance—to non-believers/atheists, politics/political parties, philosophy, and many other fields.
Which of these elements ultimately prevail is usually—if not frequently or generally—determined by society as a whole: specifically, whether that society permits, respects, and fosters personal freedom.
This societal context also determines, for example, which "interpretations" gain traction and what the actual practice of religion looks like on the ground.
Regardless of which opinions held by the "majority" happen to prevail, however, there should always exist the personal freedom to choose whether to engage in a specific religious practice or to refrain from doing so.
This is invariably an ongoing process—one that is never fixed once and for all time.
If, for instance, a society is predominantly indifferent, ignorant, or even hostile toward "excessive" personal freedom, the public face of religion within that society will inevitably be shaped by that attitude.
Alas, after all, one of the defining characteristics of religion is precisely the fact that the individual—the believer—"submits" to a specific form of religious practice.
Nevertheless, this must always remain a purely personal decision.
Whether this freedom is effectively safeguarded within a given society depends not solely on religious representatives, believers, or clergy, but rather on the overall state of that society as a whole.
Personal freedom is unequivocally greater in "Western" societies—those that are, to varying degrees, "shaped by Christian tradition"—than it is in Islamic societies; at least, this holds true at present and has been the case for some time.
Within Christianity, there are certainly inherent tendencies that foster such freedom; regrettably, however, it is by no means "guaranteed"—partly because there exist various competing "interpretations," including some that seek to curtail personal freedom.
Meanwhile, the historical figure of Jesus Christ—regardless of whether one believes in him or not—offers absolutely no basis for such restrictions.
If that is directed at me then I'd ask you to do the same thing, go back & re-read what I wrote, at no point did I say that you wrote anything in particular about what I pointed out, in fact, that's why I bring them up, to compare & contrast Islam with Christianity. Where do you gather the evidence that in Islam questions about dogmatic tenets are met with "dead threats (I think you mean death threats), insults, physical threats, including murder"?? Are you not aware the media is absolutely controlled by American & Israeli intelligence & that [false flag events] like you describe, have been concocted & carried out by these very same entities, especially the Zionist Intel networks!
If the terrible things that are done in the name of Islam are AGAINST the teachings of Muhammad then one might expect the Imams, muftis, and Muslim scholars to condemn these actions… but they don’t. And they don’t because they cannot.
For to condemn those grape gangs and the murders of the non believers is impossible. To do so would be to contradict what the Quran teaches. AND WORSE, they would be criticizing what Muhammad did. And that is a blasphemy for Muslims. Those who disagree, don't understand Islam.
Look and see just how many “peaceful passages”, are CANCELED OUT, by abrogation in the Quran. Because those peaceful passages no longer hold any legal restraint on the actions or behaviors of Muslims. Never mind that the 10 commandments were never there to begin with… the few peaceful passages did not last 20 years after Muhammad spoke them before they were cancelled out by the chapter 9 passages. When I ask someone to bring me peaceful passages from the Quran, I know they are not there. And I know that what is there, is abrogated away.
You are wrong if you think that Islam is like the other religions. It is not. And the difference makes all the difference. The violent fruit of Islam is NOT the work of those who do not understand Islam. It is the predictable fruit that ALWAYS FOLLOWS the orthodox Muslims who take Muhammad’s teaching seriously.
If I roam in any town in the "Free West" wearing an Israel Flag to show my support for Jews and Israel,I get regularly spat at, insulted, physically attacked by complete strangers. Sure they are paid to do that by "Zionist Networks". SHUT UP, NAZI ! F*CK YOU !!!
Do you actually believe that?!
'Rather, Islam tends to expand, seeks to spread solely to avoid having to confront itself and its unresolved internal struggles.'
That is a very good point. It is like a person who is always busy, busy, busy never stopping in case they have nothing to do except think; and those thoughts they do not wish to visit - but will be visited by them nevertheless, so they work ceaselessly to prevent that from happening.
Like all cults, the chants, the mantra's the writings, the garb, the rites and rituals, they are not there to be questioned; they are there to be performed, read, chanted etc., ad- nauseam - not thought about. 'Four legs good : two legs bad, four legs good : two legs bad, four legs good : two legs bad' comes readily to mind, and you can see this across society not just in religions; how many on 'marches' for whatever cause can actually articulate why they are there? And if asked, chant or scream louder and louder - those at the bleeding edge are the most ferocious and fanatical wide-eyed zealots, they are the ones to be feared for with them there is no debate, no reasoning and no humanity.
“… one involving the brutal and irreversible disempowerment of the clergy…” Yes, and muslims have to perform the task themselves, not Christians or others.
So essentially, Islam does not belong on the Coexist bumper sticker, because it can’t. So we have to find a replacement for the C. I’d agree with that sentiment.. it’s not that we are projecting that on to Islam, it’s that upon further inspection we find it does it to itself.
Fortunately your statement “ no (human) being knows G*d,” is not true. You have made a serious logic error by projecting your own lack of knowledge onto everyone else.
An incomprehensible statement, for nowhere have I claimed that I "do not know God".
Maybe I just don´t (want to) talk about it ?
Faith is after all—among other things—also about the idea or experience that there are, could be, or might be certain "gifted" individuals who are blessed, sometimes named "Holy", and some want to give witness, some don´t.
I also "know" many friends, acquaintances, neighbours, and colleagues—and yet I know nothing truly substantial about them.
Likewise, one may have had experiences with "God"—or experiences that one takes to be (experiences with) God.
Even if I had made "divine" experience I would never (dare to) say I "know" God.
In fact, I know quite a few people who have had such experiences—or believe they have—yet very few of them describe them as such, regularly out of a sense of humility and they just (don´t want to) talk about it - mainly because—much like faith itself—it is a completely personal experience that cannot truly be conveyed to others.
I agree with 100% Skip Mercer! Just because he doesn't know God, it doesn't mean others don't. Too many times God has played a direct role in the way my life went. I don't care if Heartworker doesn't believe, it's not his place to tell me what I know or don't know.
Please read carefully, your remarks have nothing to do with me and what I really wrote.
As compared with the persecution of Salman Rushdie, Ibn Rushd had it easy! https://www.britannica.com/question/What-happened-to-Salman-Rushdie-in-2022
Your thoughts are interesting. I am curious: you say that in Judaism there is clarity regarding faith as a deeply personal matter that cannot be prescribed.
Didn’t the prophets spend a lot of time denouncing people with different interpetations? Setting up idols in high places, and whatnot. They did not seem to cut much slack to deeply personal faith.
That´s true, but you find that in more or less every religion, that the "chief priests", the "orthodox", the "prophets" of course have strict ideas - and they have a right to do so and often their tellings can be very important also for "non-strict-believers". In the end the characteristic indicative of a religion is what comes out of it in reality for "the masses" of "average" or "sceptics" or "non-believers", and there Judaism shows a great openness even if "orthodox" insist on strict rules. To me, Judaism fundamentally is a never-ending questioning which is learned by studying the scriptures. Incessant doubt is ingrained in Judaism; hence, openness inevitably arises.
"...no (human) being knows G*d, if It exists at all, what It is etc." Sorry, but you're ill-informed with all your education on the subject. God has spoken to me on many occasions. And all I have to do to know he is real beyond speaking to me is look around at this beautiful, magnificent world and the universe around us. As a non-believer, he's never had a reason to reach out to you beyond giving you the life you now have.
What do you know about my life ?
Please read carefully, I am not a "non-believer". I am member of a Church and have served as a minister for nearly 15 years.
Recently I wanted to publish a photo of that on Substack, but it is impossible. Maybe it´s better that way.
Most of my words are nowhere about "Belief" or "God" but about the dubious role of "religions" and the way they try to FORCE Human beings into a "belief".
One thing: for oh too many beings this world by far is not "beautiful".
Appreciate how you approached your study of Islam. It's nice that their books steal from Torah and Christianity. It's too bad they made their new religion a religion of coercion and punishment, of supremacy and sex. Of guilt and damnation. Ultimately of degradation.
I too enjoy the company of some of the individual Muslims I know. Islam is about the Umma, it is not about the individual. You said yourself, there is no freedom of belief. Therefore, push comes to shove, rubber meets the road, there are no Muslim individuals. There is only the collective.
The collective has slaughtered millions of people, ethnically cleansed millions of people, pursued endless war, violence, slavery, and sexual perversity. As the collective, the Umma, grows in the fertile soil of the West - leaving the desert of their destruction - a nice Muslim individual will come to your home and the homes of your children and will politely apologize while slitting yours and their throats or maybe just gouging your eyes out.
The invasion of the West is not about a book called the Koran. The Koran is a distraction. Some people read about furries and worship them. The book is a symptom at best. Want to understand Islam and Muslims - then look at the history of action not some textbook.
Wait till you see the Post i will release tomorrow. It deals with the numbers...
I recommend following Dan Burmawi and reading his book, Islam, Israel, and the West. Bernard Lewis writings. Ephraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism.
Edit: another outstanding book is Ike’s Gamble by Doran and Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Oren.
I have Dan Burmawi on my shelf as well. I recommend Dan Burmawi and the whole IDI group. They are doing excellent work. If you would like i could send a reading list in my followers chat, Specifically on Islam. Just message me there and i will. Its a long list full of gems.
https://raymondibrahim.substack.com/p/misunderstanding-islam-is-a-slow?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=w218
@bxpansive You know your stuff. Quoting Raymond Ibrahim, and Dan Burmawi. I’m sure you have a quality library :)
We learn with people. Talking with you is great. I'd like to see your library. You have my library and it's expanding thanks to people like you. You probably understand my Bracha to you: חזק ואמץ. ברכה והצלחה. חג שמח ושבת שלום.
תודה רבה. חג שמח ושבת שלום.
Over 49,000 acts of terrorism in the name of Allah around the world since 9/11.
Ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition or The Crusaders?! In what God’s name were these atrocities carried out?
1) Spanish inquisition was evil, Christians own that, acknowledge it. An aberration CONDEMNED BY CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES . Carried out AGAINST teachings of Jesus.
2) Crusades were DEFENSIVE, reclaiming land conquered by and pillaged by islam who were FOLLOWING THEIR SCRIPTURES to do so.
Both were heavily politicised. Again the Christian church owns the atrocities carried out that went beyond the necessary.
Thank you for a succinct interpretation of what my mind was trying to articulate in response.
The Crusaders were in response to the terror and violence of Islam–in a sense it was an act of self defence.
The Crusades were also driven by papal politics, feudal land hunger, and religious enthusiasm — not purely defensive logic The fact that they lasted 450 years also diminishes the ‘self defence ‘ argument. This time a lot of Jews, Christians & Muslims lived alongside each other yet were still affected.
And Jihad. How long? 1400 years and ongoing. Both political (look at mayors of UK cities, recent elections) and physical (9/11 and many others; grooming gangs, cities full of concrete blocks).
Without question the biggest number of perpetrators in this country are white men. Stop being ridiculously selective in your accusations
And Islam has been trying to conquer Christendom for over 1400 years. Your point is? Over 750 Muslim battles against Christians and non-Christians since 635 A.D. and 17 major battles during the Crusades from 1010 A.D. to approx. 1450 A.D. Jews wanted only Israel, the land promised to them by GOD. Muslims want the whole world (sounds like a guy from the German 1930s and 40s) and haven't yet stopped. And Jesus said; "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." John 8:7.
The Spanish Inquisition? Yeah. Part of the Reconqista. The RE-CONQURING. You know; after the initial Islamic CONQUERING?
That was the military conquest when Muslim armies (led by Ummayed commander Tariq ibz Zayad) came to Europe from Africa to conquer Christianity, and took over the Iberian Peninsula. Fortunately they were finally stopped Charles Martel at the Battle of Lourds in 732 AD, or you wouldn't be allowed outside without a male relative. Your family would also have the legal right to your honor killing if you had pre-marital sex, or Allah forbid [*clutches pearls*] sex with an infidel. But it still took literally over seven *centuries* of battles to win back the Iberian Peninsula [i.e.-Spain and Portugal] from the "religion of peace". So color me crazy if I look at Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in a more positive light than some modern day revisionist historians who try to paint Western Christian civilization in a bad light.
And regarding the Spanish Inquisition itself; that's what happens when you have to deal with a religion that actively promotes lying (taqiyyah) while also actively seeking to conquer the world.
Charles Martel, the Christian King fought the Muslims in 732 in the Battle of Tours...https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Tours-732
Well we’ve had 40,000 children killed by the IDF Justin Gaza in three years so I’m not sure that your figure is quite as dramatic as it sounds
Prove it. Just because the Hamas Health Authority says something, doesn't mean it's true - kinda like Mark Carney. You've been lied to. Hamas randomly killed as many people as they could. The IDF used targeted hits to take out Hamas terrorists who intentionally built their bases in schools, hospitals and mosques. Don't be so obtuse. You've been conned.
You’ll find that the IDF confirms the figures. You only need to check, although I guess you won’t want to
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-believes-70000-gazans-killed-in-war-as-claimed-by-hamas/
The senior official said the actual breakdown of the Gaza death toll is still under review, and it is unknown exactly how many of the dead are members of terror groups and how many people died directly as a result of the fighting.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206479861/israel-gaza-hamas-children-population-war-palestinians
And if you look at the breakdown by age, you will see that at least 40,000 of those who died eitherchildren or women. And while we’re on the subject of statistics, there are more paediatric in Gaza than anywhere else in the world.
NPR is not a credible source for information. They have been caught in lies over and over again. Their CEO says that Truth gets in the way.
According to you, thalidomide would be a good drug.
70k source: "The senior official said the actual breakdown of the Gaza death toll is still under review, and it is unknown exactly how many of the dead are members of terror groups and how many people died directly as a result of the fighting." So, you lie.
Nor do you take into account expected deaths.
Then, there are all the children used as human shields for the tunnels and unarmed civilians shooting their AK47s and RPGs.
Then, there are the innocent 30yo children with beards.
You don't give a damn about the African Christians murdered daily by Muslims. You don't give damn about the 40k Iranians murdered by their Muslim masters.
You still don't know any history. We've been conversing for over a week and all you do is bring idiotic propaganda. My replies are for people who want to learn. You - your mind forg'd manacles I hear.
Again, you have some freedom in your thinking, words, and actions. That disappears if you succeed.
Bullshit! Hamas confirms 72,000 with 50,000 fighters.
There is NO moral equivalence between western values and Islamic values! Islam is a death cult without ANY redeeming qualities and without reform, like the Nazis, it must be destroyed.
May the CONSEQUENCES for Gaza be extreme, horrific and eternal!
A blood curse on the people of Gaza may their lives be a nightmare of pain and suffering!
Bullshit! Hamas confirms 72,000 with 50,000 as fighters!
There is NO moral equivalence between western values and Islamic values! Islam is a death cult without ANY redeeming qualities and without reform, like the Nazis, it must be destroyed.
May the CONSEQUENCES for Gaza be extreme, horrific and eternal!
A blood curse on the people of Gaza may their lives be a nightmare of pain and suffering!
Engineered by whoever wanted to steal the oil by using intimidation and exploiting superstition in Arabia by masquerading as clerics and teaching that Islam is terrorism. Well done.
Third paragraph applies to all nations and religions. It’s interesting that Christians claim the moral high ground and yet are the biggest mass murderers etc on the planet.
Read my post tomorrow it deals specifically with this issue.
1. Do you know any Muslim history? Do you know any communist history? Any Chinese history? Any Nazi history? None are Christian.
2. Is your reply to me defense of the 100s of millions killed by Muslims? Is it in defense of the Muslim invasion of Europe and America? Is it in defense of the eternal war of Islam on non-Muslims?
3. Does Christianity or Torah or Buddhism sanctify murder and rape as the Muslim world does? Yes, people make war.
The Muslim invasion of the world and the 1400 years of Muslim eternal war - sanctified in both their book, their ‘heaven’, and their behavior - has nothing to do with anyone's moral high ground. The West is larger than Christianity but much of Christianity has evolved to include the its Greek, Roman, Torah, and enlightenment roots and ideals. In short, Western evolution - see Victor Davis Hanson. The Iranian-Persian history, prior to Arab--Muslim colonialism, was an evolving jewel in the East. Arab colonialism in the 8th C began the decline of Iranian intellectual evolution, though Iranian thought was the foundation of the brief golden age attributed to Islam.
Wait for tomorrows post, its all about who has the dirtiest laundry.
The dirty laundry - history - is part of the position we're discussing. It's accurate that we do all have dirty laundry. As Dan Burmawi writes, some cultures wash their laundry and some double down and insist on more blood and filth for the express purpose of blood and filth. My observations, analysis, conclusions, and action, followed by evaluation, looks at process and dynamic flow. Simply, the West takes 2 steps forward and 1 step back. Islam takes 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I'll take the West. It's like the old saying, democracy or capitalism sucks, but it's better than everything else. The Universe wasn't created to remain static, it wasn't created to be perfect - it was created to be worked and improved. There is hope for the West. There is no hope for Islam.
The point is no religion or nation has the moral highground.
That's nice. And, vague. Enjoy your choice of worship if allowed. There is one religion with many people who say they are part of its political-culture who kill those who worship differently from them - their book demands it globally and their history demonstrates it globally.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, Pete Hegseth it’s very much in favour of killing, and he seems to be a Christian nationalist. This is a quasi scholarly hatchet job on Islam which attributes all the worst bits to the entire Islamic world but excuses the worst bits of Christianity as being abherrations. Perhaps that wasn’t your intention, but that is how it comes across to those of us who are neither Christiane Muslim.
Your choice. The West vs Islam. You and others defending Islamic aggression and invasion of the West refuse to acknowledge history. To be aware of history. To the extent that you acknowledge history, you pervert it to convince yourselves of some delusion that you hold. The Umma will repeat the behavior of Muslims for 1400yrs. The Christian world is not perfect - that should make you all consider the reality of bloodlust of Islam. Christian theology does not make killing a divine instruction. The Christian heaven is not automatically given to a Christian who kills a non Christian. Christian heaven is not all about men getting 72 virgins.
Ignore history and human behavior if you want. You're accountable. That's Life.
BS to the max. Christianity is responsible for far more killing than Islam, even though it’s not called for in the Bible. Very very few Muslims act as if they’re called to murder non-Muslims. Get serious.
You've been brainwashed by CNN and CBC. It's incredible that people - like you, can be so out of touch with reality. Islam has killed far more people to date than Christians EVER have! There have been over 49,000 Islamist attacks around the world since 9/11 alone. Thirty million of the 40 million people stolen from Africa went to the Middle East alone. You need to stop getting your history from Disney movies.
Speaking of the bible?
Speaking of the Quran/Koran?
?
My word; you do have a twisted view of Islam, to defend it so.
If you are a woman, you should be particularly critical of the medieval views of Islam, towards women.
If you’re a man, I can’t take you seriously, if you’re choose to identify as Janice?
Wake up…
You are aware that there are practicing Islamic gay marrieds? Try reading some of Irshad Manjis work. It might educate you about those “ medieval views of Islam” you appear to have espoused. Doesn’t the bible pre date the medieval era?
You didn’t answer the question. Are you a woman or trans?
Try out your naive ideas, in Gaza or the West Bank…
You are a deluded, troubled soul.
As you have studied the subject, tell us: does Hamas throw gays off a roof?
As you appear to study the subject, do Israeli hilltop settlers murder Palestinian Shepherds? Did the IDF shoot a seven month old baby last week? Shall I therefore conclude that Judaism is a violent religion? I don’t think so I think you are a bigot who seeks confirmation bias of your bigotry
Nothing. You bring nothing. You demonstrate by your words that you are not interested in understanding others. To understand others you first have to accept who they are, what they say, what they do. You can't make stuff up to suit some ideology that is dear to you. You haven't comprehended a word I've written because you have blinders on, filters that actually pervert the incoming data.
Again, the Umma will follow the leaders. There will be few individuals and those individuals will be killed along with the infidels. That's the history in the Christian Levant, Iran/Persia, Coptic Egypt, Christian Anatolia and Greece and the Balkans. Hindustan. Africa. Enormous enslavement. Are there decent Muslims. Of course, there are. A lot of people are decent and then …
Go ahead, it's your choice. The choice is a West where there is some individuality and a reasonable community or a Caliphate and fragmented tribes and clans like we see throughout Muslim history and currently.
You still have the opportunity to choose because you are living on the oxygen of the evolved West. That oxygen is being depleted.
Pol Pot, Stalin , Mao, Kim Jun Un were murderers of sizeable numbers..
Forgot Hitler! None of those mentioned killed in the name of a religion. And historically more people were killed by those individuals and their regimes than any other time in history!
They killed in the name of their own power and that of their state.
Hitler believed he was doing god's will. He specifically write that.
And went against the jews specifically because he was christian having read Martin Luther who hated jews. He also boasted that he had stomped out the atheists.
Nazi germany was a christan country. That's also why nazis were later saved in particular by the Catholic church. Though the Catholic church was a bit critical of their war.
Neither Pol, Mao or Kim. Killed in the name of atheism ie non belief in god. They killed in the name of their own and their state's power.
Atheism in itself isn't an ideology. Just a lack of belief. Those rules shared that lack of belief.
But there are many others rulers who also have that lack of belief and don't kill people.
To think that it was a lack of belief in god that made them kill. Makes no logical sense.
It's like thinking that every single war has been done by leaders not believing in the spaghetti monster or unicorns. And therefore non belivers of the spaghetti monster or unicorns, so called, aunicornists, (by those beliving in unicorns) are potentially very bad.
You've recently graduated from an American college, haven't you? WOW! Have you ever swallowed the Kool-Aid. Until Mohammad showed up and created Islam in 610 A.D., Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians for the most part got along pretty well with each other.
You don't know much about history do you? Especially 20th Century history. Guys like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., weren't Christian...
Those weren't Christians. Those were militant 'Catholics' mainly. The big difference is Christians sacrifice themselves as opposed to the rest, but to be fair we'd all be speaking Arabic now if it weren't for the Church, for all its flaws and paganism (wouldn't be here). Another example of God's hand for the greater good else His Son's legacy rendered meaningless.
The thing to note here is that Satan's people infiltrated all 3 Abrahamic faiths early on. That's who you mean. The Kaaba is an altar to Baal, never stopped being one to many, Donmeh in particular--a Saturn cube (as opposed to golden cube New Jerusalem in Revelation). The Vatican is a joke to real Christians. Jesus would tear that place apart, if verbally. And Jews, well, we don't even know who a real one is anymore, and I could start a tirade on them alone.
No Jesus, no heaven. His words are pretty simple yet argued about continually. "If you love me, keep my Commandments" occurs many times. Number 6 is taken very seriously, though there are more than 10. The guilt is pretty equal across the board actually. Blame the Baal (Ars Goetia)-worshipping Xstein class mainly.
Examples?
Replying to bxpansive.
We are grateful for Israel and pray for Israelis!
You said all that without a single punctuation point. Talk about a run on diatribe.
Now do Christianity and its slaughter in the Americas and elsewhere.
I am married to a Muslim. Still waiting for the throat-slitting.
Christian West has evolved and grown. The nature of the West is to evolve and grow. It is impossible for Islam to change - change equals death, change equals infidel. That's what Imams say all over the world. That's what your book says.
Your way of thinking is already calcified.
Your apologies for Muslim aggression and slaughter - jihad - is just more lying for the sake of the Islamic goal - there is no god but allah and following in the path of the murderous pedophile mohammed.
The Muslim leaders in the US and Europe have already stated that their goal is to make the US and Europe Muslim - to kill the infidels and take their white women for sex slaves. Islam has made slaves out of more people than the West. It has engaged in 10s of thousands of murders with the goal of killing infidels and weakening their countries. It's all there. To deny it is to deny the superiority and warrior ideal of Islam. There is no god but allah. Really? There are a lot of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Shintos, Morari who disagree. They are the infidels for Muslims to kill, convert, or oppress.
To be fair, the the Muslims take Yazidis who aren't white as sex slaves, too. Or, they burn them alive.
You've chosen Islam. You've chosen a dead end.
Really you’re sweeping generalisations are pitiful. The West has evolved and grown, except in Uganda and Ghana where they’ve recently decided that they are going to hang gay people in a very unenlightened . You completely ignore the different sects of Islam, justice that you talk about Christianity as being monolithic. Should I judge Judaism by the behaviour of the Israeli Kahanist government? Of course not.
I fear that your agenda is not to study religion, it is an excuse to demonise Islam and Muslims and I’m not going to discuss with you any further.
Question for you: How old is the Earth?
I follow no religion. Calling Islamic thought my thinking is just one of the many errors in your thinking, including the absurd notion that Islam cannot change or that all Muslims in the world think the same. Seriously? Give your head a shake.
You’ve demonstrated quite clearly that you’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest of your type.
Says someone who evidently thinks that ad hominem invective is the cat's meow.
She hasn't been called yet...
You really are a full-blown idiot lol
... and thinks that playground insults are trump cards.
Exactly where did Hitler write he was doing Gods will?? Hitler did not invade Poland in the name of Jesus, etc. nor did he kill 6 million Jews and 4+ million other humans in the name of Jesus/God! Which differentiates from killing in the name of Allah!
Note: all European countries at the time were Christian countries!
That’s just absurd. You’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest. Your ignorance of the richness of Islamic thought and culture is breathtaking.
Good luck to you. You obviously need it, as terribly confused as you are.
Dear Mike: You’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest. Your ignorance of the evilness of Islamic thought and culture is breathtaking.
Good luck to you. You obviously need it, as terribly confused as you are.
Dude, you don’t even understand what a bigot is. I wear insults from fuckheads like you as a badge of honour.
Dear Mike: You’re nothing but a garden variety bigot. Very unoriginal and typically dishonest. Your ignorance of the evilness of Islamic thought and culture is breathtaking.
Good luck to you. You obviously need it, as terribly confused as you are.
Repetition does not make those playground insults more cogent.
In essence, Islam has no New Testament to soften it. No sacrifice by God’s only son to take on our sins and ensure our place in an afterlife. It’s just the fire, brimstone and retribution of the Old Testament. An eye for eye only worse in that it also encourages sex with children! It’s a religion that belongs in the Middle Ages and not on modern western streets.
"Islam has no New Testament" is a point I've made to some of my friends who have become apologists for Islam. But when I read Rosenthal's excellent article I realized that the more accepting, gentler Islamic 'new' testament came first and the harder, unforgiving 'old' testament followed (and superseded the 'new'). In that sense, Islam and Christianity are very opposite.
The Talmud has no issue regarding sex with children either...
Jews & Muslims eh…. I wish we didn’t have to worry about their beliefs 🤔
Weird cause you only ever complain about Jews. Never Muslims. Wonder why..
I wish we would all study properly and learn and let the joy flow.
Can you refer to a specific passage, verse , context to prove what you say- “the Talmud has no issues regarding sex with children”.
I wrote more references but it appears substack is censoring.
The Talmud is still very much viable as we speak.
Sanhedrin 54b.
You are talking about laws passed 1200 yrs before Islam. I don’t defend them by any means, but did not most of humanity learn by that time that children were verboten when it came to sex?
You can't read Aramaic but you can repeat lies. The text in the original says nothing about the permissibility of sex with children.
It's sad that you think that every relationship discussed must be about the permission of penises to penetrate orifices. There is no such permission given for sex with children.
There is acknowledgement that people engage in sex with children, with animals, and between men (as well as between women and between unmarried heteros and extramarital sex, as well as within marriage.) It's all discussed because as we all know, it happens and is perpetrated. Whoever said that discussing something means permitting it?
That might be so, but our Bible doesn’t instruct Christians to have sex with children. That’s still a fact and I’ll also wager, on a pro rata basis, there has been far more abuse of children and women under the blanket of Islam. Muslim men treat women like property and can do as they like with them.
How Jesus treated women VS how Muhamad treated women
This isn’t true.
Replying to mike.
What are you, an Iranian bot or something?
There’s little difference actually looking at it from the strict Old Testament perspective.
Exactly. Islam basically promotes paedophilia.
U have been blinded by biased,
Islam didn't even belong in the Middle Ages either--at least, not in Europe. What do you think half of the reason for the Crusades was?
Show me where in Israeli law that is? Unlike Saudi where they have passed a law just like that.
Confusion is of the Devil and Islam is full of confusion.
Muhammad was evil and a fraud.
Islam is evil and creates demon-possessed monsters.
Islamic culture is a festering cancer upon any and every land and people it infects.
Islam is evil, so was Muhammad, and to try and apologize for them is also evil, and morally repugnant.
Allah is Satan
honestly? it surely comes across like that
https://foileroffoibles.substack.com/p/master-of-sadism
How utterly ignorant.
Replying to “ foe”.
How is it ignorant to be witness to facts about a “religion” that sacralizes rape & murder as “holy”? Is that not the very definition of Evil?
The difference between YHWH and Allah was one of the first things I noticed.
God is love and he paid the price for us to enter heaven.
Allah loves his followers, for a price. That's not always guaranteed.
So it’s conditional love - not much to aspire to is it….
Christ didn't simply pay a price - He defeated Death.
1 Corinthians 15:54-57: "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?... Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Revelation 1:18: Jesus says, "I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
Thanks A.C. for doing the work, reading, analysis and summary I will likely never delve into.
Thank you for doing this, much appreciated
Thanks, A.C. This is an excellent essay.
I fell in love with an Egyptian girl and read the Quran twice in English. As you described, once I understood the historical context of the surahs, it became apparent that he became angry and violent at anyone that would not yield to him. Whatever divine revelation he had early on was overshadowed by him listening to demons. Your friend is ignorant of history and the 150 million slaves that is the legacy of Islam. Hundreds of millions dead in the Indian continent. Tens of millions dead in Europe. There has been no force so murderous as Islam. Fuck Muhammad and your "nice" friend. It is his ignorance that allows Islam to live on. Oh, and fuck pope Bob as well.
By their fruits ye shall know them. That is all one has to know. It’s from the pits of hell. No need to go deeper.
So where does that leave the “Christians” and all their mass murders? At the “pit of hell” too?
Watch for the article i post tomorrow it tackles that very issue.
You throw that phrase around like you know what it means; you don’t.
? Are you replying to me ?
Uh, please show us some examples:
And “ bibi “ has been found guilty of crimes against humanity by the ICC.
It’s incredible the assumptions you keep making about me. Stick to the facts.
By the wise wealth isn’t measured by cash flow or stuff.
But wealth is required to be a world traveler such as you claim to be, and I see no evidence of wisdom in your posts.
And no I didn’t live anywhere as a wealthy tourist.
You & I are both wealthy by the world’s standards. What or who enabled you to live all those places?
Replying to Roger Kimber....MD.
My name is Janice. I’m not a female dog. Are you a veterinarian? I have been to Pakistan and Egypt. Didn’t need a burqa. There are no waters above my head. And no the entire Muslim world isn’t Muslim only by force. And no the Muslim world isn’t the only place where slavery is practiced. Hitlers Germany were mostly Catholics...you should study more about the real history of both world wars. Hirohitos Japan ...many did not want it and were imprisoned because of that. And it was the Buddhist Bushido belief that controlled Hirohito. The point was it wasn’t Muslims that caused either world wars etc. Definitely war is hell . And I’m acquainted with it. Yes I’ve heard that theory about the Japanese wouldn’t have surrendered etc and it simply isn’t true. They tried to more than once....but in typical US INC fashion it was ignored because they wanted to test the “bomb”. The fact also is that the US pushed Japan into war and the other important fact is that they knew about Pearl Harbour and let it happen...I’ve also lived in Japan for a long time. Korea Vietnam and Cambodia were not “defended” by the US. Neither was Afghanistan etc. The soldier does believe that though. The fallout from agent orange is ongoing...no those wars are not defensible under the just war theory. I reiterate that Christian nations have been the worst aggressors on the planet. And the “government “ of the United States is the biggest terrorist on earth. All of this of course doesn’t even mention convid and the millions that have died from the prick...there are 700,000 iatrogenic deaths per year in the US alone. And most of it is deliberately done. And we haven’t even looked at the CIA death toll in South America where it is estimated to be at least six million. De pop don’t you know ...it all is and it’s perpetrated by the Christian west. Not western funded and organised hamas, hezbolleh, Muslim brotherhood, Isis, Al quada, all of them. And every Muslim country has the right to defend themselves. The CIA etc has been interfering in Iran for over seventy years. “ Failed “? I wasn’t aware this was an exam...stick to the facts. Ad hominem attacks aren’t useful.
You have interesting views about 20th century history, just not accurate.
Obviously we don’t study from the same sources.
Your post shows there is no final answer to the question “How wrong can you be?” US pushed Japan into war? Well, no use trying to answer the whole farrago. Will only note that you can not push someone into war by failing to help him attack his neighbor.
Julius Streicher used to use this method - make a whole bunch of unsupportable statements at once ( usualy about Jews) and hope the difficulty of refuting the whole bunch at once would let some of them seem unanswerable.
As he said, “ If you throw enough mud, some of it always sticks”.
You are more than welcome to get out of the USA, since we are such an evil place. I would hate to see your purity contaminated by living with us evil people. You are welcome to move permanently to China, or any of the Muslim world, just don’t come back.
I believe that only Indonesia is the only place in the Muslim world that wasn’t initially Muslimized, if that is a word, by the sword, as in conquest and then the inhabitants given to choice convert or die or pay a tax in perpetuity.
Most Americans ( most of the planet ) pay tax in perpetuity infact there is rumblings that property tax should be ditched so one can actually own ones house....and income tax is actually illegal. Trump did at one point entertain the idea of abolishing it but that seems to have tanked along with his no war promises. He and his are making lots of cash though. Might be a good idea to use ones efforts to sort out one’s own corrupt gov first and foremost? Ditching AIPACs ownership of congress would be a major step in the right direction. It was why JFK was murdered...
You have some interesting ideas about things: You are showing signs of antisemitism ; Kennedy assassination—CIA , not Israel or AIPAC, which is an American PAC, are you suggesting disenfranchising American citizens who are Jews?
Trump’s tariffs program is/was in part to wean the government off of the illegal/unconstitutional (16th amendment to make it legal); you have no evidence that Trump won’t return to abolishing the income tax.
Wars: Venezuela = apprehension of a criminal, how many casualties?
Iran: work in progress, 14 US deaths, hostilities ended, terrorist regime neutered & hemorrhaging financially, not able to afford to support terrorist regimes, CCP now buying US oil from Alaska.
Florida is ending property tax, IIRCC; DeSantis is Trump ally;
Trump gives his salary away, he is poorer than he was before he came to office; what, his family isn’t allowed to make money legally?
Are you advocating for the Biden crime family model of political grift? I don’t recall you posting
Indonesia has suffered terribly from CIA interference. It isn’t a solution for anyone to abandon the US that has been so weakened by the corrupt politics. The constitution clearly states the citizens have a responsibility to tackle bad government. Indeed Ben Franklin said it was obedience to God to rid the country of tyrants. Maybe the USA should be recolonised by the Brits...and we come full circle. 😎and you’re welcome to move somewhere else too.
Where do you see me defending the CIA? Trump & Tulsi are/were in the business of reforming the CIA (which is why they have been working so hard to thwart him, even to the point of attempting to assassinate him (& don’t tell me that Butler wasn’t a deep state attempt on Trump’s life & don’t tell me that he had it staged)
The MAGA movement & Trump are all about cleaning up US politics; it is the Dems & RINOS who are in the way.
Whether Germans were Catholics or Protestant or whatever, Hitler’s philosophy was in no way Christian, nor was he. Atheism or pagan.
You are obviously wealthy to have lived all those places, and maybe as a wealthy tourist, you didn’t have to wear a covering, but to live there permanently, my guess is that you would be expected to cover.
Most women don’t wear burqa. And its a choice. As it is for catholic nuns.
There are women whose face has been scarred by acid for making the wrong choice, some definition of choice, liar.
Not in Iran it’s not.
Hiroshima? Nagasaki? WWI? WWII? Vietnam? Cambodia? Korea ? Etc
Ok, bitch, why the phuck don’t you go to Gaza or Pakistan or Egypt, & be sure and wear your burka.
You have really waded into waters far, far above your head.
You are aware that the whole Muslim world is only Muslim because of conquest and forced conversions, that the Muslim world is the only place where slavery is practiced. WWI I might give you, though religion really had nothing to do with it, just politics. Neither Hitler’s Germany nor Hirohito’s Imperial Japan , the aggressors in WWII were remotely Christian. War is hell, it has been said by some people more acquainted with the realities of it than you or I.
The civilian casualties as a result of Imperial Japanese conquests in WWII I am quite sure exceeded the death toll of both atomic bombs dropped on Japan by the US, and the consensus of reliable sources @ the time & since were & are that it was felt that an invasion of the Japanese homeland would have been necessary to get the Emperor to surrender and casualty estimates were on the order of 1 million; and the A bombs arguably prevented that.
Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia were the result of communist aggression against countries that were only partially Christian, but were defended by the US, a largely Christian nation.
All you have provided are examples of wars that are defensible under the just war doctrine, so you failed.
I think we were talking about terrorism, but that was an assumption on my part.
Have a good evening.
Tomorrow my article addresses this exact issue, properly.
I await your post.
Osho has a good YouTube regarding your F word in all its hues and uses.
Not to mention the great and almighty British Empire.
death toll estimates here:
https://politicalislam.com/tears-of-jihad/
Well,bitch, the British Empire (like all empires), is not what it used to be, it has been judged by God, as everything under the sun is (including you, Missy, whether you believe it or Him or not,(& you should tremble). It has been found wanting, though it had its place. Everything & everyone has their good points and bad. The exceptions being cults and false gods/religions, which are of the devil.
Most of the 3rd world is Christian thanks to the British Empire. Europe was Christianized , became Christendom because of the brutal Roman Empire. Empires are brutal affairs. The Japanese Empire in its brief reign was absolutely brutal, ever hear of the Rape of Nanking? Do you know the Old Testament? Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery, but Joseph said to them, what they meant for evil, God meant for good.
Good bad ugly wasn’t the point. It was real and it was brutal and it was Christian. Cults are alive and well mostly in the west. Lots of false prophets too. Many things of the devil including hypocrisy. As for the judgements of God that is up to Him. Not you and not me. And I’m not a “ missy”.
Banu Qurayza betrayed their oath and broke their treaty with the prophet, and conspired to kill all the Muslims in an attempt to wipe out Islam completely.
Of course Jews and Westerners portray this as an act of aggression by Muhammad towards poor innocent Jews.
Muhammad (saaws) was known to be a just and fair leader. He showed mercy towards his enemies when he gained the upper hand. He was an extremely compassionate man who had a lot of mercy and forgiveness in his heart towards those who brutalized him.
Banu Qurayza got exactly what they deserved for their betrayal. And “slavery” has a very negative connotation in the West bc of how Westerners do slavery.
The prophet Muhammad (saaws) forbid the abuse and overworking of slaves. Slaves in Islam were to be treated with respect, fed from the same food and clothed by their masters. One of the best deeds was the freeing of slaves, and slaves were taken as a means of taking care of them, of reabsoring and reincorporating them back into a society in which orphans and widows were extremely vulnerable. Slavery in Islam bore absolutely no resemblance to the race based, dehumanizing chattel slavery of the West.
Sarah, I want to respond to this with genuine respect, because you are clearly speaking from conviction and not bad faith. I also agree with you about something important from the beginning: the Muhammad you are describing is absolutely present within the Islamic tradition. The Quran itself calls him “a mercy to the worlds” in Surah 21:107, and there are many accounts in the tradition that describe patience, forgiveness, generosity, and restraint. I am not denying those things, and I think it would be dishonest to pretend they do not exist.
But I think the real question begins when we stop pretending that those are the only things the tradition says about him.
You say Banu Qurayza betrayed their oath, but that claim itself is part of the tradition’s justification for what followed, not an independent moral answer to it. Even if one accepts the Islamic account at its strongest, the result is still that the men of an entire Jewish tribe were executed, the women and children were taken captive, and their homes, land, and property were absorbed by the Muslim community. That is not a Western invention. The Quran itself refers to the event in Surah 33:26-27:
“And He brought down those who supported them among the People of the Scripture from their fortresses and cast terror into their hearts. A party you killed, and you took captive a party. And He caused you to inherit their land and their homes and their properties…”
That is not a hostile outsider speaking. That is the Quran describing the event. The killing is there. The captivity is there. The seizure of property is there. And it is presented not as a tragic excess, but as divine judgment and inheritance.
You also say Muhammad was known as just and fair. But this is exactly where I think the difficulty appears. If justice means executing the men of a defeated tribe and taking their women and children captive, then we are not merely discussing whether Muhammad was “just.” We are asking what kind of justice the tradition is asking us to call good. The problem is not that critics invented this darker Muhammad. The problem is that the Quran and early Islamic sources preserve him. What makes Muhammad wealthy is not how "Goodness" is defined by anyone else except Muhammad's banker. Did the children receive justice? Did their women? Justice for what crime? It was greed and convenience that inspired their enslavement, not justice, mercy, compassion or Goodness of any kind. And if every one of the men were killed, were they one by one asked if they took part in a betrayal of an agreement or was their crime simply trying to prevent the enslavement of their wives and children. Was resisting a slave trading bandit army attacking your community a crime worthy of a death sentence?
On slavery, I agree with you that Islamic slavery was not identical to modern Western chattel slavery. That distinction is real and should be acknowledged. But acknowledging that distinction does not make Islamic slavery humane, nor does it erase the fact that the system permitted and STILL permits the enslavement and sexual exploitation of slaves. The ownership of human beings, war captivity, concubinage, and sexual access to female captives is all endorsed by Islam. The Quran repeatedly refers to “those whom your right hands possess,” including in Surah 4:24 and Surah 23:5-6. Classical tafsir and Islamic jurisprudence did not treat that phrase as metaphorical. It referred to slaves and captives, including female captives who could be "Plowed" as often as their masters wished.
So when you say slavery in Islam was really about caring for vulnerable widows and orphans, I think that leaves too much out. If the system were only about protection, it would not include concubinage. If it were only about reintegration, it would not preserve the master’s sexual rights over captive women. And the system would not explicitly outlaw adoption. (Which was done to legalize Muhammads sexual desire for his sons wife. Can you see the pattern?) Feeding a slave well, clothing a slave well, or encouraging manumission may reduce some forms of cruelty, but they do not change the basic moral fact that the person is still owned.
There is another difficulty here as well. You appeal to Muhammad’s compassion for orphans and vulnerable people, but the Quranic material surrounding Zayd and Zaynab complicates that image. Zayd was Muhammad’s adopted son, yet Surah 33:37 presents Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab, Zayd’s former wife, as divinely authorized. In the same broader passage, Surah 33:4-5 rejects the full legal status of adopted sons. Whatever theological explanation one gives for that, the result is still that adoption is weakened in precisely the context where Muhammad marries the former wife of the man who had been known as his adopted son.
Again, the sources themselves bring into question your representation of Muhammad.
The Muhammad of Surah 21:107, the mercy to the worlds, is in the Quran. But the Muhammad of Surah 33:26-27, under whose authority Banu Qurayza were killed, captured, and dispossessed, is also in the Quran. The Muhammad who showed forgiveness is in the tradition. But the Muhammad whose example is tied to warfare, enslavement, concubinage, and the restructuring of adoption to legalize his marriage to Zaynab is also in the tradition.
So I think the real issue is not whether Muhammad showed mercy at times. He clearly did. The issue is that the same sources also preserve moments of execution, enslavement, sexual possession of captives, legal privilege, and coercive authority, and they preserve them as morally legitimate within the Islamic framework.
That is the tension I spent years trying to understand.
So my question to you is not meant as mockery, but as something sincere to sit with:
When you defend Muhammad, are you defending the full Muhammad preserved in the Quran, hadith, and early biographies, or are you defending a refined Muhammad shaped to fit modern moral expectations?
That question changed the course of my own research, and it is the reason I eventually called my book The Two Muhammads. acrosenthal.com
We know our history very well. We’ve meticulously documented every detail.
You can’t rewrite history. But you can lie to yourselves about it and retell it in a way that makes you feel righteous.
The Jews and Christians monks who met the prophet Muhammad (saaws knew he was a prophet, and some of them converted.
Others were shocked, and they became angry. They refused to accept the truth that they knew.
They hoarded knowledge and withheld the truth of Muhammad (saaws) from their ppl, from the laymen who couldn’t read scripture.
The hoarding of knowledge and denial of truth, keeping it from the people and lying to them about Muhammad (saaws) out of bitterness and spite…
The sense of entitlement, and even feeling angry and betrayed by God,
that He should sent an Arab as the last prophet instead of one of them…
Christianity has always been used as a tool of empire.
To this day the church is hiding gospels.
You can’t rewrite our own history and then try to persuade us.
If you truly believe in God and love Him and his prophets, you should just accept the truth instead of trying to distort it and lead many masses astray with lies.
You will be held accountable before God for knowingly hiding God’s guidance from ppl.
Muslims sincerely would love for you to go to heaven too, inshaAllah.
It’s up to you to accept the truth.
Sarah, I genuinely appreciate the spirit in which you wrote that. The heaven-wish is received.
But I want to ask you something I think deserves a real answer rather than a deflection.
How do you know Muhammad was a prophet?
Not why do you believe it. I understand you believe it. I am asking how you know. What did Muhammad demonstrate that established his prophetic credentials to an independent standard? Because every tradition that has ever taken prophetic claims seriously, including the tradition Muhammad himself claimed to confirm, built a testing framework specifically so that sincere people would not be deceived by a false claim. The sincerity of the claimant was never considered sufficient evidence. The warmth of the message was never considered sufficient evidence. The framework existed precisely because false prophets are often sincere and often warm.
So let me walk through the tests the tradition requires and ask honestly how Muhammad measures against them.
The first test is Deuteronomy 18. A genuine prophet makes specific predictions about future events and they come to pass with 100% accuracy. One failure disqualifies entirely. Not most predictions. Every prediction. This is a falsifiable standard, which is exactly what makes it useful. Can you name the verified, specific, datable predictions Muhammad made that came to pass? And can you account for the ones that did not?
The second test is Deuteronomy 13. A prophet who leads toward other gods is false, regardless of signs performed. The test is doctrinal continuity with what was already revealed. The Quran denies the Trinity, denies the crucifixion, denies the resurrection, and denies the divine nature of Christ. These are not minor adjustments to prior revelation. They are direct contradictions of it. The Torah and the Gospels that Muhammad claimed to confirm say something categorically different from what the Quran says about who God is and what he has done. Deuteronomy 13 does not ask whether the new prophet is sincere. It asks whether his message contradicts what was already given. On that test, the verdict is not ambiguous.
The third test is Numbers 12:6-8, the Mosaic standard specifically. God tells Moses: I speak to prophets through visions and dreams, but not so with you. With Moses I speak face to face, clearly, not in riddles. This is the benchmark. The prophet like Moses communicates directly with God without an intermediary. Muhammad himself never claimed this. His own tradition is explicit: revelation came through the angel Jibreel. Quran 42:51 confirms it directly. On the Mosaic standard Muhammad claimed to fulfill, he does not meet the defining criterion of that standard.
The fourth test is Galatians 1:8, written roughly 600 years before Muhammad was born: if an angel from heaven brings a different gospel from the one already delivered, let him be accursed. The angel Jibreel brought a gospel that contradicts the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the divine identity of Christ. Paul described that precise scenario six centuries in advance and named it. That is either a remarkable coincidence or it is the apostolic deposit functioning exactly as it was designed to function.
The fifth test is the fruit test. Matthew 7:15-20. You recognize a prophet by what his teaching produces over time in the communities that follow it. I have written at length elsewhere about what fourteen centuries of that fruit looks like and I will not rehearse the whole argument here. But I will ask the question simply: by the standard of the tradition Muhammad claimed to confirm, what does the long-term fruit of his teaching demonstrate about the tree?
Now here is what I want to say carefully, because I think you deserve a careful answer.
You said the scholars who rejected Muhammad were hoarding knowledge out of bitterness and spite. I want to ask you to consider another possibility. Many of them were applying exactly the framework their scripture required them to apply. They were not angry that God sent an Arab. They were applying Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18 the way their tradition had always required them to be applied. When a claimant's message contradicts prior revelation and his miracles cannot be independently verified, the tradition does not say: perhaps he is right and the prior revelation was wrong. It says: test the claim. They tested it. The framework gave them a verdict.
You have asked me to accept that everyone who applied the test and got the same answer was lying. That is not an argument I can accept, because it makes the position unfalsifiable. Any evidence against the claim becomes evidence of conspiracy. That is not a testing framework. That is a way of making a claim permanently immune to examination.
I am not your enemy, Sarah. I am not trying to lead people astray. I am doing exactly what Moses told Israel to do when a new prophetic claim arrived: test it. Apply the criteria. Follow the evidence to where it goes.
I want to go to heaven too. Which is exactly why I cannot afford to trust a claim that does not meet the standard the tradition itself established for distinguishing the real from the false. Muhammad did not know where he was going when he died. And said so. This makes him a blind guide, it is most unwise to follow a blind guide. But Jesus is not a blind guide. He paved the path, walked the path, and came back from the father to give us assurance that the path is true, works and can give those who trust in Him a blessed assurance of salvation. Jesus rising from the dead is the proof that the christian path works. And there are many more.
The question I am leaving with you is not rhetorical. It is sincere. By what standard did Muhammad establish that he was a prophet? What proof did he demonstrate? What test did he meet that the tradition requires? Because the beauty of the Quran is a failed test. I’ve read over 2000 books and the Quran is by a far margin the most boring and the most poorly written. And i have also heard it in the Original Arabic. STILL it is a snore. Nothing is in chronological (or even logical) order. In an effort to impress the reader with big chapters, the book is taken out of the order, out of time time sequence, rearranged and the biggest chapters are put first. Because bigger is always better. Some might say that the CONTENT, substance, merit, pros and wisdom contained within the text would make the argument for the Quran. But it doesn’t. So the only thing left, is the size of the chapters. This confuses the whole Abrogation Doctrine. Which is a ridiculous, confusing thing to do. The book that is supposed to bring all understanding and make things clear doesn't even have its chapters in proper order. It doesn't have a narrative spine. It doesn't even contain a complete story. The story of Joseph is the closest thing it has to this and it is incomplete. And this doesn't even bring up the preservation of the text... That is a way bigger issue for the Quran.
THAT is why, I am genuinely asking, “what makes you think Muhammad was a prophet?” Because I have looked, and I cannot find the answer.
Wow. A beautiful sincere response based on truth.
This is all the patience and love for the lost I lack.
So what you're saying is that you need evidence for your faith. A prophet has to perform magic tricks for you to believe.
I read your piece and many of the comments attached to it, and while I have no doubt of your sincere objective pursuits, I hope you realize that you appear to encourage a dangerous following raging with anti-muslim hate. Reading you and your followers at the heels of the San Diego Islamic Center shooting fills me with dread.
You and some of your followers who call for an Islamic reformation seem to ignore the efforts of imams to counter the harder interpretation of scripture.
A final thought: wasn't God's love to Adam and Eve conditional? Didn't they suffer for breaking the condition?
lol "efforts of the Imams to counter the harder interpretation of scripture?" Like what? The thing is, reformation of Islam is not possible according to the tennants, dogma, structure and text of Islam itself. Let me ilistrate: To criticize child marriage would be to criticize Muhammad, the Quran, and Allah. Because they all agree and sanction it. And by what standard could that criticism be done? Who has a higher standard then Allah? IN FACT, that means that anyone who objects to child marriage, is in their heart, saying that they personally have a higher standard of right and wrong in their heart then Allah! THAT IS WHY, no Imams CAN criticize the behaviour of terrorists or child brides. BECAUSE they would be blasted for blasphemy. Placing their own convictions above Allah’s and Muhammad's. So go on and provide examples of where this has happened... and the changes survived longer then a generation before reverting.
The question 'can Islam reform?' already concedes too much. It orientalist in that it accepts Western modernity as the universal finish line. Reform toward what, exactly, and by whose measure? And even on its own terms, the argument proves less than you think.
Distinguishing eternal principle from historical contingency is a tool Muslim scholars have used for centuries. It doesn't require claiming a higher standard than God, and those who think it does have misundertood a key aspect of the religion. What it requires is good-faith ijtihad. That tradition exists and has always existed within Islam.
More fundamentally: texts don't reform. People do. And intellectual evolution requires conditions: security, space for debate and dissent. Those conditions have been repeatedly and violently disrupted. That's a historical fact, not a verdict on the tradition's capacity.
“… encourage a dangerous following raging with anti-muslim hate. …”
A sad lie that tries to stoke moral panic from thin air, sadly not a new tactic. What you’re responding to is the kindest, most respect and articulate criticism of Islamic belief you’ll see in a year, and the best you have to respond with is an attempt at utterly unjustified demonziation of the author? Have you no shame in your life? At least admit that you have not a shred of intellectual courage to confont what the author writes.
You’re right that A.C. Rosenthal is rare in his level of education and respect in addressing Muslims regarding Islam.
It’s extremely refreshing to come across someone like him.
I didn't demonize the author. I said clearly that I didn't doubt his sincerity but the effect of the following he's cultivated. Those are different things. Read more carefully before lecturing about intellectual courage.
Compelling stuff, layered in folds not unlike Texts from the Rabbinical writings. God no matter what one’s faith is contains many mysteries only to be known more completely by grappling with the truth one comes to understand by thorough investigation, faith, and prayer.
Good grief, Muhammad made up the whole thing.
Was it Muhammad or Uthman?
I have no idea. It's a made up religion.
If Islam was made up, there wouldn’t be a war against it, and it wouldn’t have billions of people absolutely certain of its truth.
Logically if there’s a true religion, then only one religion is true.
Meaning in actual reality, Islam is the only thing that can even qualify as a religion.
Thanks for this. I have tried to read it but found it was so contradictory and nonsensical it was unreadable. On the understanding of the nature of God, as an agnostic, the Islamic understanding is not different from Judeo/ Christian apart from the addition of Christ and his mum if you're RC. It's obvious that if God is the creator and omnipotent there can only be one.
Thanks for explaining that the nasty violent parts are the layer revisions and that explains why Islamic is dangerous and the West needs to keep it out and get rid of the bums up enthusiasts.
As an agnostic i have another post on that. In fact i have an entire series that is for agnostics. Perhaps you will find it more palatable.
https://acrosenthal.substack.com/p/god-looks-nothing-like-the-sketch?r=7xlwq1
There are beautiful thing in the Coran bu I am very happy to follow Jesus instead of Muhammad. I don't have to find any excuses for slavery, rapings and killing, for a sex relation with a 9 years old child.
It’s in dispute about her age. Epstein and Co aren’t Muslim.
Sahih al Bukhari 5134: There is no dispute and never was.
Do some more research.
Why would I do that when The Holy Quran has told the truth of Aisha already? 😆
Aisha isn’t mentioned in the Quran. As I said do some more research.
They don't sell the Kaaba Cloth to just anyone. https://religionnews.com/2026/02/03/epstein-bought-kaaba-covers-what-does-the-sacred-kiswah-cloth-represent/
Too tidy. I do take your point but definitely it isn’t irrelevant. Andy has been rearrested as the cops “investigate “and Charlie may have to abdicate it’s getting so bad. ( Time for the whole circus to be relegated to the recycle charity shops and the Brits to be citizens at last and no longer subject subjects). Of course if may all be further drama to achieve a further stranglehold on an already beleaguered people. As Trump/Netanyahu/aipac war of choice with Iran has done nothing but increase the cost of everything for the American people etc as per plan. My point was that no religion or nation has the moral high ground. Not since Jackson probably. Thank you for this post though.
God gave Canaan to the Israelites for all time as an inheritance. Pretty high moral ground there. Why is it problematic that the Israelites do not want to enjoy their inheritance without the specter of Shariah Law hanging over their heads?
Mentioning Epstein is an irrelevance, and maybe an admission that your true point can't be recalled with enough detail to bring the point home. That happens to me too. Meat brains are inefficient. I'm with you there.
That being said, Epstein passed a poly on whether he knew the ages of the under-agers in Palm Beach, the only place we have validated evidence of under-agers and sexual contact in the Epstein story. The reason why he passed is that "victims" recruited new girls (that specific thing is Epstein side: hey we'll pay you to bring in more) and some of those new girls were underage and the "victims" told them to say they were 18. Both Haley Robinson and Virginia Giuffre are known to have done this. Robinson actually made a recent statement to the effect that *all* of the victims were recruiters because that was the game. They got paid to do it. There wasn't anything violent taking place, but it was sexual contact with what Epstein thought were consenting adults. The man was a John. It seems to be the case that he used the young attractive women to gain access to other men so he could have them as a contact or just have the company of famous people. It may even be there was an intelligence function to all of this, as so many have claimed. I just can't find direct evidence of this. Yet.
...but there's no "Epstein and Co." related to underage anything. Not in evidence.
Why do/did we think this was real?
The women were approached by attorneys looking to get paid. The first one of the crop (Edwards) is actually in jail due to trying to front-run his contingency fees by seeking investors to fund the cases against Epstein (and some banks I believe). Another criminal of the bar, David Bois, convinced Giuffre to fraudulently accuse Dershowitz then said to Dershowitz "1 million and it all goes away". The Dersh, as we know, said "Go fuck yourself" and exonerated himself. They have *all* sought and many have won large cash settlements already and continually seek more money.
The Media, of course, have been trying to make the Epstein story a Trump story, which it is in the sense that they'd been friendly in the 90s before Epstein started poaching Trump's employees. Sadly for the media, there's nothing there and they can't admit that because, well, they're owned by the Democrat party, the criminal cabal which has a mixed history as a political party dating back to defense of Slavery in the US, but I digress. Anyway, the media hid the story when they were afraid his association with their owners would be a problem, and they put all their effort into pretending it was about Trump to distract from the association of Epstein and prominent democrats. So it was suppression first, then misdirection from the media.
The irrelevance you introduced is built on a lie: a lie cultivated by crooked attorneys and dishonest media, but it's honest on your part. You aren't the problem here: it's the grifters who have been mis-telling the story.
Epstein is not a religious personality to follow (unless you consider satanism as a religion)
Satanism is a legal officially recognised religion in the USA. It’s not the religious personality stuff. It’s the condemnation of all Muslims that is the sickening hypocrisy.
I know a lot of muslims and they are very good people indeed. I pray for them to convert.
That is just not true.
And who wrecked Libya? And Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan etc etc... and who is funding the psychopaths in “ Israel”? It wasn’t the Muslims that organised the holocaust in Germany either. And yet they are paying the price for all that plus any Christians that happen to get in Netanyahus way. And who is responsible for the global sex trafficking? Epstein anyone? The hypocrisy is incredible.
Have you not heard? https://religionnews.com/2026/02/03/epstein-bought-kaaba-covers-what-does-the-sacred-kiswah-cloth-represent/
I respect everything you have said and your fairness and honouring of individual Muslims, but it must be borne in mind that the Saudi regime are not universally loved in the Muslim community and many don't accept their custodianship of the Kaaba as legitimate. Epstein most likely was able to make this purchase due to compromised members of the family spending their leisure time in his vicinity.
No doubt you are correct. I would not be surprised if there was significant money exchanged, deals made, and that 95% of Muslims would have been in opposition to the exchange. My reason for posting the connection was to demonstrate that those in power on all sides have dirty hands. Pretending its only one side is kidding yourself.
I agree with you entirely. I have lived among Muslims for decades, and am in awe of the beauty of many "Islamic" cultures. I'm currently examining to what extent this is dependent on religion, as the cultures seem to survive the desertion of faith by many individuals. The worldly hierarchy of all religions is very suspect throughout history.
Reply to Alan.
And the millions of kids trafficked yearly in the west is hidden.
Allahu Akbar!
Allahu Akbar that ppl are figuring it all out.
20,000-30,000 Americans convert to Islam every single year.
In the UK is at a similarly high and consistent rate.
Your lies, your vitriol and hatred has no power whatsoever against Allah’s plans.
He guides whom He wills, and you can’t stop free ppl everywhere from seeking Allah’s guidance.
The Islamophobia machine is the billionaire oligarchs and Zionists gov.s efforts to slow
down the growth and spread of Islam. Bc it’s not good for capitalism.
Islam is the cure for this evil and sick world, and a mercy, and guidance for all mankind
from the Creator.
https://youtube.com/shorts/htWqivhGdvo?si=2yxEd88DqcFWwh2E
Typical arrogant coward Muslim, throwing bombs while hiding behind her baby. Enjoy your Satan worship, you fool. Only a cult forbids leaving.
How many American Muslims convert to Christianity every year? Do you have those stats handy?
The love of Jesus is the only cure
Comment on the castration performed on kidnapped male slaves by Islamic captors
And um trans culture? For one example...
See "Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World" by Justin Marozzi, 2026
This type of comments are unwelcome on my channel. Sarah, I am sorry that Alan was so rude to you. he has been banned.
I appreciate that. It’s unfortunately to be expected.
It’s always the pedophiles who are accusing the prophet Muhammad (saaws) of being sexually inappropriate.
This is such a sad tired lie that has been debunked over and over again.
And it’s all you’ve got. Ppl are figuring out for themselves what Islam is, and discovering it’s not at all what hateful ppl like yourself say it is.
The “civilization” of Epstein perverts continue to accuse us of being what they are.
We are nothing like you. Peace and blessings be upon the prophet Muhammad (saaws).
Lets not Pretend that Epstein had no connection with Islam. https://religionnews.com/2026/02/03/epstein-bought-kaaba-covers-what-does-the-sacred-kiswah-cloth-represent/
This is witchcraft/black magic.
Yeah I know about this.
Yes, it is sex-magic. It is very evil. It is Kabbala/Masonic/Wichcraft. And these evil bastards are world wide. In Mecca, In the Vatican... everywhere. They are the rich and powerful world wide. It is naive to think that they are only at the top of one nation, religion, or group. It's world wide.
It’s the most evil thing you can do, and they’re deep into this stuff, and it’s very, very dark.
It’s been dismissed as conspiracy theory for far too long.
Borders are for poor normies like us.
It's more than that, it's the culture of it that goes back at least to the first empire builders and so earlier. And it inserted itself into every institutition of every new organisational format since. It was rampant in Australian Marist brothers schools until the 1980's by which time the burgeoning middle class of the west began to see them for what they are and families didn't need to 'sacrifice' boys for economic value to the church so the brotherhood died. I lost two gay schoolmates to the aftermath of their grooming, paedophilia, and peter-panning. One to HIV in the early 80's, in his 20's; another later, sad, alone and ungrounded in his 50's. The culture has been widespread, empowered by institutions that have created a massive platform for the elite of that culture. So it's early days since society has decided to eliminate such practices but that culture is on the ropes, and humanity will be allowed to flourish more and more hereon in.
https://youtube.com/shorts/R2Mf2WHkm9A?si=7cjgDO3n-QIwB-g0
The billionaire oligarch class doesn’t see itself as citizens or loyal to any particular country (with the exception of the mother of darkness, Israel).
They view themselves as jet setters who have transcended statehood. The entire world their oyster.
Thank you for being such a good example of a faithful Muslim. You are why I know that we will never be able to live in peace with the followers of a desert Death Cult.
Are you speaking about Talmudic “ Jews”?
Sahih al-Bukhari 5134.
Talmud says a lot of things. All of which is not treated correctly by antisemites.
Rabbi Dovid Feldman said Netanyahu was an anti semite bc he endangered the lives of all Jews and bc of the slaughter in Gaza. He also said “ Israel “ is in rebellion against God. Many, many Jews fast and pray for the destruction of the state of Israel bc they know that their people were deported before for Epstein type choices. And that therefore only God can establish them again in a land of His choosing and creating. They wait on Him. Not Rothschilds or Netanyahu or Trump or the American tax payer. Does all that make them anti semite? A large portion of the worlds people are semite. Descendents of Shem the son of Noah. That includes Arabs and many other people eg in Gaza as the Rav stated. It is impossible to be anti semite. By the way this term was first used by a revolutionary in Germany in the late nineteenth century and adopted later by the CIA as a useful prop to stir up war. Etc. The misnomer is part of an ongoing CIA/Mosaad psy op. I’m anti bullshit as most “ anti semites” are. Israel is twelve tribes not one. Judah is not the birthright tribe. Joseph is. If all the tribes descended on “ Israel “ claiming their portion Judah would have to move their bbqs from the border where they watch Gazas starvation and destruction to a much smaller place. I am of the tribe of Joseph. Get your act together.
Anti goys have a lot to answer for too don’t you think 🤔
Oh Sarah A- i think you do not.
There are reports of Aisha being nineteen etc...it’s so easy to drop a digit when translating over and over again. There is an example of that in the Bible of the ascension of King Joiachin. He is written of as being eight and also eighteen...2K24:8 and 2Chron36:9.
There is only Sahih al-Bukhari 5134. As the writer explained in his article.
Janice, whether she was 9 or 19, the exact age of Aisha is kind of beside the point. What’s being left out of this relentless smear campaign against Muhammad (saaws) is a few important points:
That age of maturity and marriage varies widely across time and cultures. And it was common all around the world for ppl to get married at ages significantly younger than we do today.
This whole thing with the age of Aisha was never something that Muhammad’s detractors ever said before modern times. I heard someone once say this is called the fallacy of presentism, which means you’re judging the past by modern standards. It’s intellectually dishonest.
Aisha was also known to be highly intelligent and mature for her age. In addition she was already engaged to someone else before Muhammad (saaws). Her parents and society deemed her as mature enough for marriage.
There’s also zero evidence that Aisha herself ever viewed her marriage to Muhammad (saaws) negatively. In fact the opposite is true and Aisha (RAA) went on to become one of the biggest and most influential scholars of Islam.
It’s also important to note that many historical figures throughout American and European history married young women who by today’s standards would be considered as “a child”,
hv the allegation that said historical figure is a pdf and supposedly married “a child” is never brought against them as character assassination. This is something reserved only for our beloved prophet (pbuh) and was only even possible as a smear through the modern lens.
In English common law the age of consent for centuries was as young as 10-12, and later raised gradually over time.
In many U.S. states during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, legal marriage age was as low as 10.
This is why the anti-Muslim propaganda machine needs an anti-intellectual approach and is dependent upon masses who don’t read, don’t understand real history at all, and who have been fed lies from every direction, generation after generation.
The disgusting slanderous rhetoric against Muhammad (saaws) particularly his marriage to Aisha is designed to make a person choose not to learn or understand anything about Islam beyond this outrageous accusation against him.
The fact of the matter is that Islam helps people see and understand our reality more clearly, and produces more focused, disciplined and meaningful lives.
And our Zionist gov. DO NOT WANT PPL WHO ARE FREE, or aware, or intelligent. It just wants dumb angry brutes who think their neighbours are the enemy.
If God understood that murder was wrong 1600 years ago, why couldn’t god understand that little girls could not consent to sex as children?
It is not God per se who had the problem but that human beings had the problem and God's revelation while not being limited, can only take hold on human society in a form that that society can respond to. We have to really understand what an immature age we have been going through this past 10,000 years. But we are at the threshold of maturity now. We can be open to the greater revelation, the hidden. But just look around at how many people respond from 'this is the way it should be coz that's the way it has been'. It takes humans a long slow time to have moved in an obviously transformative manner.
You’re sad.
Yes.
Ad hominem attacks aren’t a defense. Dispute facts.
Dropping in to Reply to your other observation (think someone Blocked me).
“What religion hasn't done that?”
Islam espouses deceit, theft, rapine & murder as legitimate means of dealing with non-Muslim. It's doctrine.
That's a FACT.
“What religion hasn't done that?”
NONE. None, other than Islam.
Oh, it's not an Abrahamic religion, either.
**
Vaya con Dios
Read the Talmud? One in every three women in Christian USA has been sexually abused. No religion or nation has the moral highground. Under Moses young women were taken captive and forcibly married. Etc. Etc etc
Btw Osho has a great YouTube about your apparently fav word.
Andrew is probably the child of incest. Only these types are as ignorant as a stick
Its not an insult. But the truth. Your ignorance will be your demise in this life and the next. Remember this!
I have no authority. The one who created you and I both decides where our ignorance will lead us in the next life
What courage !
Excellent post. Having read many, but not all, of the materials you list, I found & find myself in agreement of much of what you write. Well done
So did you tell your friend what you found? What was his reaction?
We argued back an forth for over a decade. I've just finished writing a book about it.
When will it be published and where can it be purchased?
Thats a great Question Ozzy. I'm finished the rough copy, i'm still working with the editor beforepublishing. Follow in my group chat and I'll keep you updated there. Most likely you will be able to get it on Amazon. Thats where my other two books are available.
The “god” of Islam, Christianity, Judaism are the very same Abrahamic “god”. It is man that changes the story and message of that one “god” for human purposes.
Needless to say, i am not a believer in the omnipresent.
I think it is time “man” takes full responsibility for their actions.