Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?

"...as the absurd Qur'an makes clear, it is Allah himself that allegedly makes the disbelievers blind to the truth."

Yes, I'd also noticed that bit of nastiness about Allah: he created all the un-believers solely to torment them throughout eternity. What a ghastly god!
It looks like Allah demands human sacrifice, and created the un-believers to give the Moslems a supply of victims. Allah is the equivalent of Huitzilopochtli, Itzli, Tlaloc, and the other Astec gods all rolled into one.

And I like Phillip Glass and minimalist monotony, Dude-in-Chief.

haha. .Put's the good back into '' good 'un ''

'see "Philip Glass"'

Oh yes. I can almost see right through him!

Allah will also spend eternity in hell sadistically torturing the poor souls he made blind.

Sounds more like Satan to me.

Islam is a backward religion. evil is good, good is evil, hell is paradise, paradise is hell (if you are a virgin, especially), "honor" is anything but, respect for women means beating them into submission, and on and on.

Islam is the bizarro-world of all good faiths.

That's ambience for ya.

Try this:

see "Egress"

What a "role model". Almost as bad as the "Prophet" himself...

Made worse, Graven, by the fact that by general consensus our role models are to be chosen from among athletes. Especially NFL defensive backs and wide receivers with the first Mohammed.

Oh, and don't forget Akkcchhmahd Rashad, as Bud Grant used to say.

*** 33:21 ***

Prez Makkcchhmood Akkcchhmandinejad. There, I said it.

Umar and Paul are not comparable. Paul spread Christianity by preaching, and supported himself by making tents, not by plundering and robbing. Umar was a successor warlord to Muhammad.

The name Umar looks as if it may be cognate to that of Omri, a king of Israel (I Kgs. 16:16-28), and father to Ahab (Elijah's nemesis). Any comment from someone who's a better Semitic scholar than I?

Likewise, Glassworks, and Glissssssenda, check it out.

You are right. It is off-topic. I don't dislike Christianity. I don't like Paul. Unlike Jesus, Paul despised God's law, calling it a "ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones..." (2Corinthians chapter 3) I've got a problem with that. Moses said God's law gives life. Paul's contempt for God's law, I fear, has done significant and lasting damage. I don't want to argue Christianity on this site either. When I read Governor Rick Perry has been praying "for" Mr. Obama, I have a problem with that also.

Perry: "Frankly I pray for the president every day."

Let me be clear, I am not praying for Barack Hussein Obama.

Robert, I am not the only Jew who "misunderstands" Paul. I am more than certain you are aware, I am in good company along with Jewish historians, rabbis, scholars, etc. Were it not for Paul, there might not have been this schism between Christianity and Judaism in the early centuries CE. There would be no Christianity as we know it today, more than likely, absent Paul.

PS: Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew and he died a Jew. When he returns, he will be a Jew.

"Yes, I'd also noticed that bit of nastiness about Allah: he created all the un-believers solely to torment them throughout eternity. What a ghastly god!

It looks like Allah demands human sacrifice, and created the un-believers to give the Moslems a supply of victims. Allah is the equivalent of Huitzilopochtli, Itzli, Tlaloc, and the other Astec gods all rolled into one."

True, Allah is a nasty bastard but demands for human sacrifice runs in the 'familiy' so to speak - the family of gods.

Previous sacrefices of humans, such as the Aztec's you mentioned, and other ceremonies from which we recoil, were common in the ancient world and took the form of propitiatory murder. An offering of a virgin or an infant or a prisoner was assumed to appease the gods - not a very good advertisement for the moral properties of religion.

"Martyrdom", or a deliberate sacrifice of oneself, can be viewed in a slightly different light, though when practiced by the Hindus in the form of suttee, or the strongly suggested "suicide" of widows, it was put down by the British in India for imperial as much as Christian reasons.

Those "martyrs" who wish to kill others as well as themselves, in an act of religious exaltation, are viewed more differently still: Islam is ostensibly opposed to suicide per se but cannot seem to decide whether to condemn or recommend the act of such a bold shahid.

However, the idea of a vicarious atonement, of the sort that so much troubled evfen C. S. Lewis, is a further refinement of the ancient superstition. Once again we have a father demonstrating love by subjecting a son to death by torture, but this time the father is not trying to impress god. He IS god, and he is trying to impress humans. Ask yourself the question: how moral is the following?

I am told of a human sacrifice that took place two thousand years ago, without my wishing it and in circumstances so gastly that, had I been present and in possession of any influence, I would have been duty-bound to try and stop it. In consequence of this murder, my own manifold sins are forgiven me, and I may hope to enjoy everlasting life.

Let us just for now overlook all the contradictions between the tellers of the original story and assume that it is basically true. What are the further implications? They are not as reassuring as they look at first sight. For a start, and in order to gain the benefit of this wondrous offer, I have to accept that I am RESPONSIBLE for the flogging and mocking and crucifixion, in which I had no say nd no part, and agree that every time I decline this responsibility , or that I sin in word or deed, I am intensifying the agony of it. Furthermore, I am required to believe that the agony was NECESSARY in order to compensate for an earlier crime in which I also had no part, the sin of Adam. It is useless to object that Adam seems to have been created with insatiable discontent and curiosity and then forbidden to slake it: all this was settled long before even Jesus himself was born. Thus my own guilt in the matter is deemed "original" and inescapable. However, I am still granted free will with which to reject the offer of vicarious redemption. Should I exercise this choice, however, I face an eternity of torture much more awful than anything endured at Calvary, or anything threatened to those who first heard the Ten Commandments.

The tale is made no easier to follow by the necessary realization that Jesus both WISHED and NEEDED to die and came to Jerusalem at Passover in order to do so, and that all who took part in his murder were unknowingly doing god's will, and fulfilling ancient peophesies.

(Absent the gnostic version, this makes it hopelessly odd that Judas, who alledgedly performed the strangely redundant act of identifying a very well known preacher to those who had been hunting for him, should suffer such opprobrium. Without him, there could have been no "Good Friday", as the Christians naively call it even when they are not in a vengeful mood.).

There is a charge (found in only one of the four Gospels) that the Jews who condemned Jesus asked for his blood to be "on their heads" for future generations. This is not a problem that concerns only the Jews, or those Catholics who are worried by the history of Christian antisemitism. Suppose that the Jewish Sanhedrin HAD in fact made such a call, as Maimonides thought they had, and should have. How could that call possibly be binding upon successor generations? Remember that the Vatican did not assert that it was SOME Jews who had ordered his death, and that the Jewish people as a whole were the bearers of a collective responsibility. It seems bibizarre that the church could not bring itself to drop the charge of generalized Jewish "deicide" until very recently. But the key to its reluctance is easy to find. If you once admit that the decendants of the Jews are not implicated, it becomes very hard to argue that someone else not there present was implicated, either. One rent in the fabric, as usual, threatens to tear the whole ting apart (or to make it into something simply man-made and woven, like the discredited Shroud of Turin). The collectivization of guilt, in short, is immoral in itself, as religion has been occasionally compelled to admit.

Those reasons so consistently formulated by Christopher Hitchens in "God is not Great" (2007), are part of the reasons I am an agnostic and not a believer. If I should chose a religion I would chose Buddhism with (modern European) evangelical protestantism as second choice and with Islam last in a special class outside logic, morality and category. Hitler admired Islam and despised Christianity, that's a good guideline if in doubt. ;-)

I don't like Paul.

St. Paul, the apostle (not the insolvent city on the Mississippi River) was Christianity's key figure.

Compare his statements and actions to those of the first Caliphs and you got your Comparative Religion PhD rat there.

*** 33:21 ***

If ya must bash a Paul, lemme suggest that you take on Ron Paul, M.D. This guy takes gullibility and lack of critical thinking to new heights whenever axed a question about this or that latest major problem or threat from Moslems.

Watching the "discourse" on the "financial crisis," which is actually a long overdue showdown between socialism and capitalism, always makes me think about how eagerly people decouple from reality.

*** 33:21 ***

This too happens when discussing Moslems, their false claims and their many predations.

Whenver the agitprop agents claim Michelle Bachman is crazy, I think to myself, "That's what they said about St. Paul, too."

Michele Bachmann is on record fully supporting Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0nN_hAiWY

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/MicheleBachmann-Israel-support-Kibbutz/2011/07/01/id/402147

Wildjew:

PS: Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew and he died a Jew. When he returns, he will be a Jew.

For pete's sake, who ever denied that? I should have known better than to get into this with you. Once again, as I have encountered before, your idea of what I think and what I actually think are so far apart as to preclude rational discussion. And so, enough.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Robert,

You quote Wildjew for the obvious statement:

"Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew and he died a Jew. When he returns, he will be a Jew."

- And ask the question:

"For pete's sake, who ever denied that? I should have known better than to get into this with you."

The Nazis did!

"... Others found theological grounds for the 'guest' status conferred upon the Jews. Ironically, theologicans who opposed Nazism could often come up with nothing better than the claim that Nazi emphasis on salvation through racial election indicated that 'Their thinking is completely Jewish', or 'The racial idea is Judaism.'

... The exclusion of Christians of Jewish origins from both congregations and the ministry was accompanied by attempts to purge Christianity of Jewish elements, a process whose consequences were analogous to removing all vital organs in the interests of saving the patient. Few German Christians grasped that this was preparatory, once the Jews had gone, to eradicating Christianity itself. The Old Testament was decanonised, while the Gospels were rewritten to established *that Jesus was not a Jew*, the crassest example being that no Jews worked as carpenters. His ethnicity was rearranged, either by describing him as an Aryan or by positing that 'Galileans' were not Jews. His troubles with Pharisees and actions against usurers were viewed through an antisemitic lens.

Broadly speaking, a compassionate, suffering Christ was replaced by an angry purger of usurers, or a universal soldier, as the German Christians 'redeemed the Redeemer'.
This was the next best thing to following Hitler in obliterating Christ altogether. The Führer talked a lot about God, rarely about the Saviour. If Christ was not immune to reinterpretation, nor were core Christian concepts. Sin was found to be an inconvenience. As the SS journal 'Schwarze Korps' explained: 'The abstruse doctrine of Original Sin, whense the need of salvation is said to arise; the Fall - and indeed the whole notion of sin as set forth by the Church, involving reward or punishment in a world beyond - is something intolerable to Nordic man, since it is incompatible with the "heroic" ideology of our blood.' This was part of a wider 'purification of our Volksoul ... from the diseases caused by Jewish contamination ... one of which is the self-alienation of the German from his Germanic history. ... Only by regaining our self-identity shall we emerge as victors out of the strugge for survival." ...

(Quoted from Michael Burleigh's "The Third Reich - A New History" (2000) p. 258-260).

Cordially
Ole Hartling

Robert, in the final chapter of the book of Romans, Paul concluded with the following benediction: "Now to Him who is able to establish you according to MY gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past..." etc.

Notice Paul refers not to 'the' gospel, but to "my" gospel.

Acts chapter 13, verse 46: "Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you (the Jewish people) first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles...."

According to Paul, Jews who rejected his (or "MY") gospel, judge themselves (ourselves) unworthy of life.

Then a couple of chapters later we read the following:

Act 15:1 Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom (law) of Moses, you cannot be saved."

And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.

Act 15:4 When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

But some of the sect of the Pharisees WHO HAD BELIEVED (emphasis mine) stood up, saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses...."

Thus there were indeed Jews who believed in Jesus and his ministry and rightly believed gentiles should who wanted to join the house of Israel should keep God's eternal covenant; the one He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But this was too much for Paul who proceeded to win over Peter and James.....

Act 15:12 All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

"After they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, "Brethren, listen to me....."

....we know the outcome of that first 'church' council. Just as some of our weak Congressional leaders caved to Obama's demand that they raise the debt ceiling, Peter and James caved to Paul's demand that they accept his (or "my") gospel.

In the same book from which you quote Robert (the book of Galatians), Paul mocks those "reputed pillars" who were of "high reputation" (yet they "contributed nothing to me"):

"But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)— well, those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me.....

James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (Galatians chapter 2)

In the book of Romans, Paul reviles Jesus' brethren, calling them, "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?" (Romans 9:22)

Paul went further in his demonization of Jesus' people in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2: "For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did FROM THE JEWS, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. BUT WRATH HAS COME UPON THEM TO THE UTMOST.

Robert, can you imagine these might have be construed as marching orders by disciples of Paul?

Oh, good grief. No one was calling for Christians to forget ethics and morality such as the Ten Commandments—just that comparatively minor points of the law such as circumcision or eschewing certain types of food are not—in and of themselves—indicative of such morality.

Jesus himself said (Matthew 15:11):

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

(Yes—this is not the place for this discussion, I know—but I couldn't let this stand.)

Dot, I am concerned about Perry. I've been sending these (Perry) articles out to my mailing list. Also to Gary Bauer who is an officer in Christians United For Israel (CUFI). Pastor John Hagee (Cornerstone Church, San Antonio, Tx), founder / head of CUFI apparently is a strong Perry supporter, even as he was a strong Bush supporter. I wrote Pastor Hagee during Bush's second term asking him and his organization (Christians United For Israel) to take a formal stand against the Bush-Saudi Road Map which envisions the establishment of Muslim-enemy state in Israel. Hagee refused to take a stand.

Perry is beginning to look like former President George W. Bush. I voted for Bush in 2000. He was a huge disappointment. Somehow I am not impressed when a candidate wears his or her religiosity on his or her sleeve. That does not mean you should deny your faith or not be proud of your faith. There is a difference. Then I read Perry is praying "for" President Obama. (It does not matter what he is praying for.) My faith does not enjoin me to pray for evil men. I pray God will remove Obama from office. This nation cannot withstand another four years of this man.

Hagee wrote a piece in the Washington Post after Obama was inaugurated saying he and millions of Christians should pray for Obama because apparently this what he believes Christians are obligated to do.

Hagee: "The Bible commands that "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established," (Romans 13:1). So while I endorsed his opponent in the recent presidential election, I fully support Barack Obama as my new President.

"I do not offer my good wishes out of religious conviction or civic spirit alone. Throughout the campaign, President Obama conducted himself with civility and grace.......

"I am astonished by those who wonder if evangelical Christians, a majority of whom did not vote for Mr. Obama, want to see our 44th President succeed. Of course we do...."

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/01/my_hopes_and_concerns_for_obam.html

If Hagee were a German citizen in the nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties, would he have prayed for Adolf Hitler? I am not making a direct comparison between the two men. Obama however is very dangerous.

Now we are reading Perry has a close relationship with the Muslim community in Texas. Far left Salon writes: "Rick Perry: The pro-Shariah candidate?"

Chron.com wrote: "While some other presidential candidates bring up concerns about American Muslims’ loyalty and decry Islamic law in the U.S., here’s a Christian, Republican politician who initiated a teacher-training program on Islamic history and has been friends for years with the Aga Khan, head of an Islamic sect called Ismailis, Salon points out. Perry even laid the first brick at the groundbreaking ceremony for an Ismaili worship center in Plano in 2005."

And this: "The Muslim community has a significant number of political conservatives, and they do support Perry," said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Houston, a group that took a position against Perry’s recent Christian-only prayer rally.

"Carroll notes that Muslims donated to President George Bush’s campaign and have given to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns."

If Perry is the nominee, I suppose I will be forced to vote for him. Obama is that dangerous but we do NOT need another George W. Bush.

I have since this AM convinced myself that this is chron.com reverse psychology. They really do dislike Perry that much, so as to try to shun any and all conservatives away from him. Pro-sharia Perry. That should do it.

Next!

You call this president Hussein Obama. That's OK by me. If a schlub like me could recognize Hussein as an enemy of God, why can't a great pastor like John Hagee? Hagee did not see who Hussein hung with his entire adult life? Pastor Hagee did not see with whom Hussein worshipped for twenty years. I know CUFI has done good work but when I asked Hagee to take a formal stand against the Bush road map, he refused. Hagee's aid asked me to send him a sample formal resolution CUFI might adopt at their annual meeting in Washington. I did and it was a great resolution that CUFI could easily have adopted. They could have sent it to the Bush White House and to Congressional Republican leaders. It was not original to me. I got the resolution from a strong pro-Israel pastor in Orlando.

I read, Hagee had access with the Bush White House, or with administration officials. Gary Bauer told me some CUFI officers might be willing to adopt such a moral stance; many other officers (several of them pastors and ministers) would not.

What if I were Jesus himself or an angel of God asked Hagee to take a stand against his president who was doing terrible, immoral things against the God of Israel, the land of Israel, the people of Israel, and Hagee refused? What will Hagee say when he meets God's messenger one day? Will he say, "It was a mistake?" We all make mistakes. I know I've made my share. But if someone asked me to take a moral stand on something as important as this, I could not imagine refusing because of political or some other consideration. Can you?

You wrote: "Can John Hagee take a stand that the Knesset won't take?"

Perhaps you know, your argument is consistent with the argument at least one CUFI officer gave me. What you are saying is essentially, "Why should Hagee be more Catholic than the pope (i.e., Israel)?" In other words if Israel's weak leaders are not willing to stand up for their God-given right to the land of Israel, why should Hagee or Americans or America's leaders? If Israel's weak leaders are willing to commit political suicide, why shouldn't America help her, since it will endear America to the Muslim enemy?

God told His prophets, He would judge the nations that seek to divide His land, Israel. But you and Hagee and many other Americans believe it is OK for America to lead this effort to establish a Muslim-enemy state in Israel because Israel's weak leaders won't stand up to mighty America.

Bush was the first American president to make the establishment of a Muslim-enemy state in Israel a "formal goal of U.S. policy." He made his policy formal only days after the 9/11 Muslim-terror atrocities in New York and Washington. Bush cut a deal with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, late August 2001. Bush served Israel up on a platter to the Muslim enemy.

You speak of Hussein Obama. Has it occurred to you Dot that God is already judging America for seeking to divide His land?

In what way do you think I am toying with you?

Re: I had a dream one night that Muslim apologists in "high places" started reading Jihad Watch .

###

Are you sure it was a dream and not a vision? Certainly they read it. How else would they be able to come up with anything coherent???

By combining politics and Damascus Road experiences. They are mutually exclusive. Once again here we are with what appears to be the MSM picking the next president. The NYT seems to really heart Rick Perry. What's up with that? Nevermind -- I don't even want to know.

Thanks.