Christians, Jews, Moslems and the Holy Hand Grenade

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Demerzel

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Sorry to think out loud here folks but I seem to be having a crisis of faith. :confused:

Sometimes I wish I was a black sharecropper happily singing spirituals as I work so I could live and die with a smile on my face and Jesus in my heart instead of always being plagued by these infernal questions. :mad:

Here it is, the more I read the Old Testament the more I see the Moslems of today. I know Islam is supposed to be a heresy based in part on Christianity and Judaism, but I’ll be darned, yes darned, if I can tell the difference between the freakazoids chanting “Allah Ahkbar” and the Jews in the Old Testament. Think about it. When you read the Koran and the Hadith you see numerous references on how you should smash the infidel and otherwise make a general pest of yourself. Well, you see the same thing in the Old Testament. You read all kinds of commands to wipe out this or that town and leave nobody alive, slay them with a jawbone of an arse, stone this or that person for farting in public etc… You think the Moslems don’t like infidels? Jews couldn’t even talk to or walk on the same side of the road as infidels. I don’t see any discernable difference between them. It appears that everytime either of these two collections of rabble rousers comes in contact with someone who so much as talks with an accent or, God forbid, a lisp they wet themselves in their haste to break out the proverbial Holy-Hand Grenade!

The Jews were such a general pain in the butt the Romans had to send Titus down to destroy everything and run them off. And not more that a hundred years later the Jews were still causing a ruckus so the Romans had to do it again and make it stick. Does this sound like any of the crazy eyed malcontents we know and love today?

Out of all the religions Christianity stands out. It is counter-intuitive and goes against man’s nature. Unlike Judaism and Islam, it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing one would make up. Judaism and Islam say why love someone when you can stomp em in God’s mercy? Christianity says God loves us and want’s us to emulate him.

The sticking point is this, how can Christianity be true if it is an heir to such ignoble troublemaking? No amount of twisted and convoluted theology has ever been able to reconcile this for me. Can I really worship the mentally ill being described in the Koran or Old Testament? I can’t imagine God not being at least as nice as me. I would never let Rover loose on the Jehovah’s Witless when they come to the door preaching nonsense. No matter how tempted I am or how much the neighbors may cheer me on. Can God do less?

I do believe in God and want to believe in Christ. He has done many great things for me and my family. I can’t explain the Old Testament to my son when he asks “gee Daddy, God seems to have had an attitude back then didn’t he?”

I’m sure there will be those who hiss and cry “anathema!” Or perhaps “Jihad!” I really am trying to sort this out though. Any help would be appreciated… Agnostics are boring and I don’t want to be one.

Thanks…

Demerzel…The conflicted…😦

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Difficult one.

I used to get very troubled by the massacres of Joshua, finding them hard to correlate with a loving God.

I later learned that the Canaanites had been condemned by God for their many sins, and had in fact been given time to repent - which they did not. God therefore intended to drive them from the land anyway - the Jews were used as a **tool ** for this by God, when he might otherwise have used some other race or natural disaster. With Sodom and Gomorrah, the people were slain by natural disaster, again for wickedness, and God would have spared them if ten just men could have been found there.

God used this same method on the Jews themselves when the Kingdom of Israel was utterly destroyed by the Assyrians, and Judah was exiled by Babylon - also for sin and pagan worship. Again after the crucifixon, the Jews were swept out of the Holy land by the Romans after great bloodshed - and the temple was destroyed.

So whatever bad ideas that present-day Jews and Arabs may have of God, He does not play favourites in that way. He eventually acts against vicious sin, whoever is responsible.

Jesus taught that the Jews of His day did not understand the law of God. They thought it was rules, regulations and national favouritism. Jesus said it was all about Love. Some still miss that message today.
 
After the Fall, God did not reveal the fullness of His message to mankind all at once. He revealed it step by step based upon “where man was”. The Old Testament captures a period in time of violence and idol worship. Each instruction that God gave the Hebrews was an important step forward in His plan of salvation. For example, the instructions given during the forty years in the desert were critical in teaching the Hebrews to trust God – even when - especially when - it did not make sense.

Idol worship was an major threat to the existence of the Hebrews. If you look at Solomon, you will see the chaos that ensued from his marriage and concessions to a pagan. While God’s instructions to destroy everyone is barbaric today, it was not then.

If you look at “an eye for an eye.” It was a step forward from the reciprocations that were taking place at the time.

Yes, human failings played a part in this, too. We know that some of the Jewish authorities established their own laws. Jesus, the Fulfillment of the Law, set things straight with his new commands. While the implementation of the law in the Old Testament was imperfect, Christ perfected God’s Law. This was part of God’s gradual revelation which was completed and perfected with Jesus Christ.

I have not studied Islam at length. What I do know is that it includes many distortions of the Truth revealed in both the Old and New Testaments. Revelation was completed with Christ, therefore Mohammed’s visions, which contradict Christianity, could not have been from God. (There are some kernels of truth there, and the Muslims that I have known have been gentle, kind and sincere.)

One last thought, there are fanatics in all religions. We see them on the news every night. Satan likes to work with those claiming to be devout followers of God.
 
Axion,

Thank you for your comments. However your answer seems to beg the question. Were the Canaanite children, cats, dogs, sheep also condemned? Again, the God of the old Testament acts like the same tyrant found in the Koran and Hadith…

Thanks for trying though…

Demerzel…
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Axion:
Difficult one.

I used to get very troubled by the massacres of Joshua, finding them hard to correlate with a loving God.

I later learned that the Canaanites had been condemned by God for their many sins, and had in fact been given time to repent - which they did not. God therefore intended to drive them from the land anyway - the Jews were used as a **tool **for this by God, when he might otherwise have used some other race or natural disaster. With Sodom and Gomorrah, the people were slain by natural disaster, again for wickedness, and God would have spared them if ten just men could have been found there.

God used this same method on the Jews themselves when the Kingdom of Israel was utterly destroyed by the Assyrians, and Judah was exiled by Babylon - also for sin and pagan worship. Again after the crucifixon, the Jews were swept out of the Holy land by the Romans after great bloodshed - and the temple was destroyed.

So whatever bad ideas that present-day Jews and Arabs may have of God, He does not play favourites in that way. He eventually acts against vicious sin, whoever is responsible.

Jesus taught that the Jews of His day did not understand the law of God. They thought it was rules, regulations and national favouritism. Jesus said it was all about Love. Some still miss that message today.
Click to expand...
 
Hello Elizabeth,

Thank you for your ideas.

I understand God was preparing mankind for the future. If I were a person at the time, and based on what God showed me, I would have thought he was the equivalent of Ghengis Khan. When the Jews had Christ killed it was no anomaly, it was business as usual. Not an aberation, but a fitting punishment for a heretic as outlined in the Old Testament in numerous places.

I have found most Jews and Moslems to be just like everybody else more or less. But the Jews can find support for Zionism in the Old Testament just as Moslems can find support for Jihad or terrorism in Islamic writings and tradition. Especially the Hadith.

I still can’t imagine God ever working through mankind in the way he has with the Jews and Moslems…I’m not talking about radicals or zealots, I’m talking about actions straight out of sacred writings…

Thanks…

Demerzel…
Elizabeth B.:
After the Fall, God did not reveal the fullness of His message to mankind all at once. He revealed it step by step based upon “where man was”.

I have not studied Islam at length. What I do know is that it includes many distortions of the Truth revealed in both the Old and New Testaments. Revelation was completed with Christ, therefore Mohammed’s visions, which contradict Christianity, could not have been from God. (There are some kernels of truth there, and the Muslims that I have known have been gentle, kind and sincere.)

One last thought, there are fanatics in all religions. We see them on the news every night. Satan likes to work with those claiming to be devout followers of God.
Click to expand...
 
It just makes one wonder, how the Middle East has been in turmoil since practically the beginning of time? (Or at least after Noah). Just for the fact that these outbreaks have lasted this long could be a continual lesson from God to teach us not to fight with our neighbor.
Both the Jews and the Muslims seem to be caught up in Religious and National PRIDE.
I do not know or think there will ever be a solution until the Second Coming of Christ.

Simply pray for those affected.

Go with God!
Edwin
 
There are several key differences between Judism and Islam.
Judism is not a universal faith, it is intended for one group of people. Islam is universal.
Second, in the OT the atrocities that happen are very clearly the work of man. God protected and guided the Jewish people when they followed his laws, when they did not he abandoned them to their enemies. The Caanites are a special case, it is the one and only time that God commanded the Jews to commit genocide - one target, one time. Islam is predicated on “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” - that’s everyone, always.

In Christianity you find even more striking differences. Christ was a matyr who refused to fight for his own life, he accepted execution by the Roman authorities willingly.
Mohammad on the other hand was a pirate, he and his followers sacked whole villages, raped, pillaged and looted and by the commands found in the Qua’ran 1/3 of all booty his followers collected was to be paid to Mohammad himself. This is a typical warlord-army arrangement. This is how Roman legions were paid as well - in plunder.
By all accounts and as a matter of faith the life of Jesus Christ was sinless - the life of Mohammad, as documented in the 4 texts of Islam, was filled with fonication, rape, incest, adultery, murder, robbery - you name it.

Equating Judism or Christianity with Islam is a mistake - in order to justify violence and hate as a Christian or Jew you must be a heretic and ignore or twist the examples of Christ and the prophets. In order to do so as a Muslim you must be orthodox and live as Mohammad did.
 
Just thought I would throw out the suggestion that you look into the “Bible Timeline” study series by Jeff Cavins.

In the study, Jeff walks through both the Old and New Testaments and lays out the relationship between them–basically explaining salvation history and how the “OT” God and the “NT” God are still the same loving God and Father of us all. It is a very impressive study, covering many of the “inconsistencies” in the OT (including Joshua, and the story of Esau and Jacob, among others) and putting it both in historical context (what was historically happening to the Jewish people at the time) and theological context in a way that is not “convoluted” or “twisted” as some explanations are…

Jeff is a noted Catholic Biblical scholar, and has worked with Scott Hahn and others at the Franciscan University in Stuebenville extensively. He is a very orthodox Catholic and, in my opinion, is a very trustworthy teacher in full communion with the Magisterium.

You can find more info on the Bible Timeline at thebibletimeline.com

Blessings,

+veritas+
 
Demerzel
  • the Romans had to send Titus down to destroy everything and run them off. And not more that a hundred years later the Jews were still causing a ruckus so the Romans had to do it again and make it stick. Does this sound like any of the crazy eyed malcontents we know and love today?*
I can see the parallel between the state-sanctioned violence that Imperial Rome directed at the Jews, and the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime’s imperialist aspirations and their use of state-sanctioned violence in Iraq.

Even the jackals give the breast
and suckle their young,
but the daughter of my people has become cruel,
like the ostriches in the wilderness.
Lamentations 4:3
 
With everything I’ve seen it appears as if Islam is just an organized mob rather than a true religion.
 
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