Article

2006-05-05 Down Under

Australian Archbishop Angers Muslims, Environmentalists in same speech

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Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-05-05 04:36|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 It's a twofer!!

Posted by GORT 2006-05-05 08:26|| 2006-05-05 08:26|| Front Page Top

#2 Bravo to the Archbishop for tweaking both their noses.

That being said, I wonder if anyone has ever done a side-by-side comparison of the Bible and the Koran, listing three catagories of violence: historical, approved, and demanded; and what approved and demanded violent acts they share in common?

Historical violence can be rationalized by the "That was then, this is now" argument.

Approved violence can also be rationalized as violent acts that have no religious punishment, but may be criminally sanctioned by the government.

However, demanded violence, that is ordered by God, cannot be rationalized. It flies in the face of social and secular order, and forces religion into one of two positions: either they will commit violent acts in the name of God, or they renounce what their sacred text says God demands of them.

This is where push comes to shove, and where Judaism and Christianity are superior to Islam. Only the former are willing to say that they refuse to carry out Bibical edicts to violence as ordered by God.

But also that they will punish those among them who *do* carry out those demanded acts of violence.

This is a critical point. If, for example, a Christian kills an avowed witch, in any (well, non-African) Christian country, other Christians will still convict them of murder and send them to prison. There is no passivity to violence committed because of an edict, a commandment by God.

So what does the list, the side-by-side comparison of the Bible and the Koran say?

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-05-05 10:22|| 2006-05-05 10:22|| Front Page Top

#3 It's days like this I'm proud of my church.

Posted by Mike 2006-05-05 11:20|| 2006-05-05 11:20|| Front Page Top

#4 Anonymoose, a distinction should be made between Judaism and Christanity: Judaism is a state religion, and restricted to a specific set of people descended from a specific persion. We can tell because the commandments given on Sinai include requirements for what armies should do and not do during war, treatment of aliens, provision of aid for the poor, mandates on business and the king, and formulation of judicial standards. On the other hand, Christianity restricts itself to individuals and the Church, with nary a bit of advice or counsel to Governments AS the government. Government officials, of course, are bound to Church teachings AS INDIVIDUALS. By virtue of their office as government officials, they have duties and powers that exceed those of ordinary citizens: as an example, executing punishment on evildoers and levying taxes are cited as specific government duties by Paul, and nowhere in the New Testament are such rights given to individual Christians. I know this is an argument from silence, but I am an adherent of the principle of "Where the Bible speaks, we speak, and where it is silent, we are silent." Almost all abuses by Christians can be traced to believing they replaced the Jews, and thus were required to obey Israel's civil laws as outlined in the Torah.

Now, I want to distinguish between God-authorized force and God-excuse-based force: Your assumption that God mandated force is to be renounced assumes there is no God, and thus all such mandates come from man. I disagree. There are times when God authorized the use of force, and there are times when people use force CLAIMING that it was from God: King Ahab tried to convince King Jehosaphat to help him in a war, and the man of God prophesied defeat, while all the false prophets prophesied victory.

My point is that when you carefully look at all the times when God mandated violence against an enemy, He went through a prophet AND gave authoritative miracles and signs to back it up. He was AWARE of the possiblity of false prophets urging war or peace in His name, and thus gave signs that would convince the cautious that God was indeed the instigator of the command. If you are going to take literally the invasion of Canaan by the Hebrews, then you have to take literally the Crossing of the Jordan and The Fall of Jericho as the validating signs. If you're going to take literally the assertion that Elijah had the Prophets of Baal killed, then you have to take literally the miracle of the drenched altar annihalated by fire from God before the assembly as the authorizing miracle.

This was SOP with the Jews, and the Pharisees were not condemned for demanding a sign from Jesus. They were condemned for not accepting the signs that God, through Jesus, elected to do, and the one who DID accept them at face value was Nicodemus, was commended.

The Koran neither presents nor records any such miracles from God that would authorize Mohammed as his prophet. With the Jews, the miracles came BEFORE the War. With the Koran, the promised victory AFTER the War is the justification FOR the War. I.e. the only way to know, before fighting the war, if God approved of the war was to fight it anyhow. If this sounds like twisted thinking, well it's par for the course for Arabs if you haven't noticed by now.

I should finally point out that Christianity does have some capability for violence built into the scriptures, but they've been suppressed and it takes a bit of teasing out to find them. However, they all have one thing in common: They are all miraculous, and involve no physical human intervention. Based on my study, I would certainly denounce anyone who claimed to act for God if he shotgunned an Abortionist, and I would never lift a hand physically against an Abortionist, even if I heard "God" audibly tell me to physically kill him. However, it is a different ball game altogether if, at a distance and without physical intervention, I miraculously struck the abortionist blind for two weeks after God tells me he gave me miraculous powers to stop him. YOU might not like it, and you may denounce it, but I would suggest that you think twice before going beyond that.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2006-05-05 13:20|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2006-05-05 13:20|| Front Page Top

#5 Whoa! Hear! Hear! Ptah!
I've never thought about it that way, but Gawd used a 2 key system when getting ready to rumble.

Posted by 6 2006-05-05 15:26|| 2006-05-05 15:26|| Front Page Top

#6 Ptah: In all fairness, Christianity is rather split on whether Jesus was to be Messiah, King of the Jews, or else he was the start of a new religion, one disabused of much of the holy covenants of the past. However much it may claim to be both of these things, by all appearances, they are mutually exclusive.

While there are covenants that apply to all mankind, there are others that are uniquely Hebrew. In this there is some agreement between Judaism and Christinity in that Jews would say that Christians are not part of the Mosaic covenant; and these same laws, statutes and judgements were refuted in Christianity.

So, for this reason, properly, Christians should disavow the Mosaic period entirely from their Bible--it doesn't apply to them. They have no cause to cherry pick from the laws of the Hebrews and say that those things also apply to them.

Unfortunately, this leaves important parts of the old covenant or testament understated, such as the Noahide covenant, which do apply to all persons, as the prerequisite to the new testament, most of which is justifications for Jesus and multiple interpretations of his ideas, coupled with exotic predictions of the future.

And yet this is academic to what Christians and Jews *do*, as compared to Moslems. There are large numbers of Christians who would be inclined to violent acts just as do Moslems, except that for their purposes they refuse to carry out what they think are the commands of God.

There are many Christians, for example, who strongly believe that homosexuality is a mortal sin, and yet *they* won't either kill homosexuals themselves, or tolerate those who do. Perhaps they accept the notion that punishment for such a religious offense is done in heaven, after life.

How it is rationalized doesn't really matter, the important thing is that it *is* rationalized, so that not just inaction and refusal are the norm, but also condemnation of those who *do* carry out "God's laws".

You made a fine analysis of Christianity, as to what it should be; but in practice, very, very few have such an understanding of Christianity as yours.

The same grace should go to Islam, in either direction, that is, while some Moslems incorrectly interpret the Koran to encourage violence and repression, others might eventually do as Christians do, and while holding somewhat distorted beliefs about their religion, neither participate nor condone violent acts.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-05-05 19:48|| 2006-05-05 19:48|| Front Page Top

#7 The Christian view on government regulations can be summed up in the words of Christ Himself:

Redde Caesari quae sunt Caesaris....

Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, render unto God that which is God's.

"n all fairness, Christianity is rather split on whether Jesus was to be Messiah, King of the Jews, or else he was the start of a new religion, one disabused of much of the holy covenants of the past."

Actually the theology is both: He is King of the Jews - the fulfillment of the old covenant and the beginning of the new.

Remember the original covenant began between Abraham and God - when God put himself in a blood covenant with the nation that woudl bceom Israel (read the passages about the lamp passing between the split halves of the animal sacrifices - that represents both agreeing thier blood should be shed to break the covenant).

Christs death was the blood that fulfilled the original covenant between God and Man from Abraham. So he was the Messiah (the King of the Jews), in that he freed them from their bondage to God as a matter of covenant, and established a "new and everlasting covenenat" that is open to any individual that declares himself into it by way of belief in Christ Jesus.

So its not either-or, its both.

Christians are still bound by the basics of the law (Mosaic Commandments) in terms of morality, but the picky-points of governance are suspended by fulfillment of the covenant in Jesus' offering of blood and death on the cross.

After all the 4 pillars of the Catechism of the Catholic Chruch include the 10 Commandments as the basic law - as specified by Christ. And ignore the other laws that Christ made an exmaple of: chasing the money changers out of the temple, working on a sabbath if needed (he "worked" miracles which scandalized the Pharisees), etc.

So there is a fairly complete theology behind all this and its not nearly as divisive as some would want to make it.

To address you question abotu homosexuality, most mainline Christian denominations believe homosexualtiy to be prohibited as an activity, and thus a sin. After all, Christ instructs men to cleave only unto his wife, and the wife only unto the husband, and homosexual relationships are not included in this - thus those participating in those activities are wrong, just the same as sex outside of marriage is wrong between a man and a woman. Where some Chrstian deonminations go off the raisl is that they forget to "Hate the sin, heal the sinner". From there you get dangerously misguided people whocan warp thigns into hate (Fred Phelps for example).

There's a huge amount of theology on this, includign Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body", which will likely be studied about and written about for generations.

Not saying any of you have to believe it, just presenting the viewpoint of the Church as I know it from my catechesis.

As for the Archbishop - I simply say "He must ahve read the Koran".

I have. And he's right - its hate filled with incitement to violence repeated throughout it.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-05-05 23:59|| 2006-05-05 23:59|| Front Page Top

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