Why I am now a ChristianI can understand her rejecting Islam, but she lost me with "the Judeo-Christian tradition". There is no such thing. Western civilization was built on the Christian tradition, and the Jewish tradition played no significant role. Christians and Jews do not agree on very much.Atheism can't equip us for civilisational war ...
To understand why I became an atheist 20 years ago, you first need to understand the kind of Muslim I had been. I was a teenager when the Muslim Brotherhood penetrated my community in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985. ...
But we can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that “God is dead!” seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in “the rules-based liberal international order”. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. ...
And so I have come to realise that Russell and my atheist friends failed to see the wood for the trees. The wood is the civilisation built on the Judeo-Christian tradition; it is the story of the West, warts and all. Russell’s critique of those contradictions in Christian doctrine is serious, but it is also too narrow in scope.
To me, this freedom of conscience and speech is perhaps the greatest benefit of Western civilisation. It does not come naturally to man. It is the product of centuries of debate within Jewish and Christian communities. It was these debates that advanced science and reason, diminished cruelty, suppressed superstitions, and built institutions to order and protect life, while guaranteeing freedom to as many people as possible. Unlike Islam, Christianity outgrew its dogmatic stage. It became increasingly clear that Christ’s teaching implied not only a circumscribed role for religion as something separate from politics. It also implied compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.No, Christianity did not outgrow its dogmatic stage. It was always clear that Christianity separated religion from politics. Even in the Middle Ages when the Christian Church was much more powerful, it did not write laws, or appoint politicians, or collect taxes, or judge criminals. It existed outside government.
That is why I no longer consider myself a Muslim apostate, but a lapsed atheist. Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday.Yes, she has a lot to learn.
3 comments:
Roger,
Some things some Jewish people have done through history really pisses me off, HOWEVER, Some things some Jewish people have done is actually quite brilliant, deeply spiritual, and often enlightened, and has enriched our civilization in ways too numerous to list here. The fact of the matter without any real debate is that Christianity sits atop the old testament, and wouldn't exist without the legitimacy of its own foundations in the Torah. The entire Nativity of the New Testament very painfully ties Jesus and his two lineages (through the mother and the father) to the Old Testament, because the writers very much wanted to claim he was related to King David, for the purposes of scriptural legitimacy. The three wise men in the nativity are the equivalent of expert authorities for the time, though astrology would be considered laughable by today's standards of scientific authenticity. With any historical accuracy we can confirm, Jesus was in fact a Jew from Nazarerth (not Bethlehem) and he never glorified his parental lineage or himself as anything but a Jewish man with a very important message, and if he had claimed otherwise as many Christians today believe, he most certainly would have been executed for blasphemy.
Some historical perspective: It is well known that for the time Jesus lived in, using the lord's name in vain would have gotten you into trouble, but it's almost nothing compared to calling yourself God. The priest classes who persecuted Jesus were looking for excuses to have him killed, and yet never used any charges of him claiming to be God against him, which they REALLY would have loved to have done so if he had, as it would have been easy grounds for garnering public support for his execution. They were trying to trump up far lesser charges of him Jesus indirectly claiming to be King David reborn as 'King of the Jews', not God.
Christianity has always been very sloppy with certain terminology, WHEN it suits their purposes to be vague. 'Messiah' does not mean 'God', it NEVER has, it means messenger of the divine, and there has been more than one. Jesus solemnly spoke of God VERY DISTINCTLY and SEPARATE from himself as 'My Father' and 'Our Father', and never 'It's ME!' Calling one's self a 'son of God' does not denote anything other than being 'a child of God', a poetic acknowledgment of their subordinate spiritual relationship to their creator, not divine heredity. Historically, Jesus was only later deified by his followers, but never himself.
You need to learn more nuance in your appreciation of things, learn to separate the good from the bad, and not be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or much like the Woke posers, you will be left with nothing between the covers of your books. Let some of your anger at the Jews as a whole go. Be angry at specific people if you like, for specific reasons, but the whole 'tribal' condemnation thing is not doing any of your arguments you propound any favors.
I can't tell you who you must love or hate, that will always be your decision and your right. But I can advise you to consider metanoia, and change your mind.
Roger,
You just keep being you and don't listen to what Wordsy McTalksalot says.
Mike,
When someone you have regard for is doing something ... foolish, you don't encourage them to step on the gas and speed up, unless you are an idiot or just plain evil. Encouraging anyone to flirt with bigotry or outright ignorance of history in a publicly viewed forum is not ok.
If you don't like words, you might want to stick to tik tok and facebook, they love shallow one liners, and will never judge you as you self destruct.
Roger really needs to study his history quite a bit more before he publicly declares to the world the Medici banking clan never controlled the Catholic Church, and denies appointed political flunkies by the Church was quite common at various times between reformations, and that the church actually did collect indulguences to forgive sins, and a tithe WAS taxation and mandatory, and that the Spanish Inquisition certainly did judge, jury, and execution, the hell out of quite a few people who's property they most certainly coveted and kept for themselves.
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