In Joe_Cool’s language, “pulling hateful lies out of your ass” apparently means “speaking symbolically.”
Well, your opinions on the matter are so ludicrously mis-informed and shaped by, well, religious bigotry that it really is hard to call it “discussion.” Further to that, your citations to those sites rather reinforce an odd selectivity for if Allah is not your God, then surely the Jews God is not either. Religious bigotry really is what is informing this, not theological consistency.
I second DDG observation in regards to your opinion on the P’s (a good % of whom share your religion.).
Ah well, Xian charity and all that.
(On the Islam-Judiasm connexion, I would suggest a reading of Bernard Lewis’ Jews of Islam would be productive, further making Captain and Tamerlane’s points. In re the Jesus angle in Islam, I do note that Jesus is indeed popularly important, esp. in some Sufi sects.)
Damn hamsters!
Anyway Joe thanks for the links, but they all make the same point ( some better than others ). That Muslims don’t worship a Triune God. Absolutely true. But then again, neither do the Jews. So my point stands - You can’t argue that Christians and Jews worship the same God, but Muslims don’t, if your only argument revolves around belief in the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. It’s logically inconsistent - By those standards it would be Jews and Muslims that worship the same God, not Jews and Christians. Perhaps you might wish to re-think that position a bit off the board.
I will note that barring, perhaps, some oddball heterodox group ( or maybe some thoroughly inconsistent radicalized ultra-orthodox ), it is more or less an article of faith for Muslims that they share the same God with Christians and Jews, because Muhammed essentially said so. Even if Muslims do believe that the notion of the Trinity is completely mistaken and a bit blasphemous, they still regard Christians as ‘Peoples of the Book’. But then that is not surprising since it is the youngest of three faiths and looks back at the older two as foundational ( at least in a sense ).
- Tamerlane
My mum used to say that everyone was worshipping the same God.
Isn’t hate speech forbidden on these board, or is there a post 9/11 exemption for anti-Arab rants? If Joe Cool was posting the same sort of garbage about Jews or blacks, wouldn’t he be banned? Example from Joe’s post:
“So in my limited experience, I have found Palestinians to be a very hateful people…”
Substitute the word “blacks” or “Jews” in the sentence and he’d be gone in a heartbeat, would he not? So why is he permitted to spew this puke about Muslims
Here it is, less than 12 hours after I said I was done with this thread, and here I am, so appalled by the foolishness I see applied to my words, that I’m posting in it again.
First. “In my experience, I have found Palestinians to be a very hateful people.”
That is not hate speech, it is a fact. It is an observation that I have formed after interacting with a group of people numerous times. I don’t have to befriend a Palestinian to know that it’s not pleasant or safe to walk through the Palestinian section of town, and that I am treated with prejudice by said people for no greater offense than sampling their cuisine or driving on streets near their homes.
Second. DDG, you don’t appear to need a “rhetorical speech” flag, as you caught it effortlessly when I used it without the flag. You’re evidently not as handicapped as you seem to think.
And your little substitution trick doesn’t work, for these reasons:
Israel is NOT under military attack. Palestinians are waging immoral attacks against people who cannot defend themselves, and killing civilians going about their daily business, not military targets.
There is no Israeli section of Paterson that I’m aware of, and in addition, I have never experienced or heard of danger from walking through a Jewish section of town after dark. Have you?
I’ve never had a car load of Jews try to run me off the road and yell racist insults at me while driving in said Jewish section of town. Nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening.
When the WTC was destroyed, Palestinians did not even wait for the bodies to get cold before they celebrated the deaths and attacks. Israel, on the other hand, was the first to pledge its support and assistance after the disaster.
In fact, even in Jerusalem, which I hear has a fairly large Jewish population, my point is played out. Palestinians are dangerous. I have yet to hear of Jewish car bombs or suicide bombs in Palestinian malls. Has it been happening and I’ve just missed it? If so, then please accept my most sincere apologies, once you provide a cite
(military retaliation for terrorist attacks DO NOT COUNT).
I’ve been to Israeli restaurants and businesses many times, and have never once experienced the kind of treatment I’ve had in the Palestinian section of Paterson.
In other words, my statement was not “I don’t know anything about these people, I don’t like them.”
It was rather “based on my personal experience with these people, I don’t like them. But regardless of that, carrying out acts of terrorism against innocent civilians is abhorrent, and I don’t like that.”
The fact that there are Palestinian Christians doesn’t change the fact that the Palestinian leaders, government, and terrorists are going to be the downfall of their entire society, any more than the existence of American Muslims makes them hate the United States any less. I’m sure there were Japanese Christians during WWII, but that doesn’t mean that the actions of JAPAN (the nation, not each individual, since you don’t seem to understand the distinction) were any less atrocious.
Collounsbury:
Since Christianity is properly a sect of the Jewish faith, using the same sacred text, I don’t see any contradiction there at all. Take note the fact that the OT does mention God in three specific forms: The LORD (whom Christians consider the Father), The Spirit of God (14 mentions of people being filled with the Spirit of God and of the Spirit of God coming upon people), and The Angel of the Lord (preincarnation physical form). Also, feel free to explain the use of singular verb and plural noun in reference to God in the OT.
The God of the Jews and of the Christians is the same. That of the muslims cannot be, as the personal natures are quite distinct.
Newsday, August 28, 2002 (available via Google cache):
(Looking suspiciously at Joe_Cool)
And there are plenty more like it. I cannot find even a single reference from a legitimate news source to people celebrating 9/11 in Paterson. Oh sure, there are a few dubious sources that assert something happened, but nothing from a real news source. Had anything like a celebration actually occurred, it would have been all over the news, even more so than the stuff that undoubtedly did occur over yonder in the Middle East. To the contrary, the news reports all indicate that the Muslim community in Paterson was shocked, dismayed, and fearful.
Why am I not surprised?
With all due respect Joe_Cool, I don’t think I would consider Christianity to be a sect of Judaism. Christianity and Judaism do share some sacred texts, although not all. Jews don’t consider the “New Testament” to be sacred, and Christians don’t consider the Talmud to be sacred. (Interestingly enough, Muslims do consider both the Jewish and Christian scriptures to be divinely inspired). However, those scriptures they do share, Jews and Christians interpret radically differently, and the idea of a triune G-d that takes human form to save mankind from hell is really completely alien to Judaism.
However, the concept of G-d in Judaism and Islam are very similar. In both cases, G-d is an omnipotent being beyond the full conception of human beings, but who loves human beings and has given them laws, so they can serve Him and each other, and blesses those who obey Him and curses those who disobey him. He inspires prophets, to more fully explain His laws to human beings and call them back to obedience. Really, the only major difference is that Muslims believe both Jesus and Muhammed were prophets of G-d, and Judiasm believes they were not.
Islam is an offshoot of the same tradition and in pretty much the same way. It accepts the Torah, the Psalms of David, and the Gospel of Jesus as holy text in addition to the Qur’an ( though their conception of them is obviously a bit different than the Christian take ).
And whether or not the OT mentions God in various aspects or not, it is still a fact that Jews do not accept a Triune God. It was for this reason ( as Captain Amazing in part pointed out ) that the 12th century Jewish scholar Maimonides considered Christians idolators ( this is obviously not a universally held belief anymore, if it ever was ).
The God of the Muslims is no more distinct in nature from the God of the Christians, than the God of the Jews is from the God of the Christians.
Again, you could make a logically consistent argument that the Christian God is distinct from both Islam and Judaism based on the belief in a Triune God ( I’d still disagree, but at least you would have an internally consistent argument ). But you cannot separate out Islam in this fashion, but then not separate out Judaism. It just doesn’t make any sense.
- Tamerlane
Joe, first of all, your accounts ofso-called “prejudiced” treatment by Palestinians sound highly dubious and paranoid to me. I’ve known plenty of Palestinians in my life, and they have been, to a person, extremely peaceful, kind and generous to me. Believe it or not, most Palestinians do NOT condone terrorist attacks against Israel, and every Muslim I’ve ever talked to about this has expressed a belief that terrorists go to hell.
Who gives a DAMN if they believe in your own personal narrow-minded definition of God? What does that have to do with their rights as human beings?
Israel commits human rights violations against Palestinians virtually every day. The Israelies occupy land they have no right to set foot in, they bulldoze Palestinians off of their own land. The herd them into camps reminiscent of American Indian reservations. They deny Palestinians such basic rights as freedom of movement, and the right to vote. Worst of all is their “collective” punishment of thousands of innocent people for the crimes of a few. This is apartheid, pure and simple, and it’s American funded apartheid at that. The systematic, institutional oppression of one group of people by another is going to result in some desparate retaliations. If the Israelis started treating the Palestinians as equal human beings with equally rightful claims to the holy land, then the terrorism would go away. frankly, I don’t believe that Israel is truly interested in stopping terrorism because they are dependent on its propaganda value to keep the American gravy train rolling.
Then I guess it all comes down to semantics, because I could give you some cites showing Ariel Sharon and the Israelis bombing civilians in, for example, the Al-Daraj neighborhood last spring, and you would just say, “Oh, that was military retaliation for terrorist attacks.”
And first you say:
–and then you say:
Huge contradiction here, Joe. Make up ya mind. Either you don’t know any Palestinians, or you do.
And I believe Minty has established that you evidently haven’t “interacted” with any Palestinians at all, if the sum total of your “interaction” was (a) seeing them dance in the streets of Paterson, which they apparently didn’t, so you must have dreamed the whole thing, and (b) intercepting dirty looks from them as you pass through their neighborhood.
Well, BFD, dude–when I pass through the neighborhood here in Central Illinois where everybody is different from me (it’s the Pink Umbrella Neighborhood), I intercept some dirty looks, but I make damn sure I don’t extrapolate this to mean, “All people who carry pink umbrellas are hateful, just like those people in the Pink Umbrella Neighborhood who give me dirty looks every time I drive down their street.”
It’s a mental discipline technique called “not being a bigot”.
[
Perhaps Joe my boy, you should instead perhaps reflect on how your opinions and indeed your very own words have strung yourself up.
This strikes me as pure bigotry and bullshit on your part. I am not going to advance some P’s are loving people as another reply, however I will note the following:
(a) my personall experience has been that aside from the most hate filled radical elements, Arabs generally consider it the height of impoliteness to openly disrespect visitors, be it in their neighborhood or their house. I have rarely seen open prejudice (hidden, well that is another matter) or exclusionary attitudes in my long experience in the region and with Arabs in the states. Perhaps my ambiguous features get me a pass, but given P’s come in all kinds of colors and so forth…
(b) I have often heard your kind of characterization about neighborhoods (black, Arab, whatever) that I know, and have not recognized it. It strikes me one finds what one’s bigotry desires. E.g. people telling me they were afraid in the Atlantic Avenue neighborhood in Brooklyn (an Arab neighborhood). They may very well have been afraid, but I never noticed any objective “hatred” directed at outsiders there (except in one Islamist store). You may well have recieved dark looks from a few folks – your extrapolating it onto the group is bigotry.
You are a bigot. Either face up to it, or weasel.
I believe it has been adequately shown your opinion is illogical, inconsistent and essentially ignorant as to the theological facts. You may or may not like Islam as a religion, I could give a fuck, however in advancing the argument you bear some responsibility to be at least minimally informed through reliable sources. I would suggest starting with Bernard Lewis (a jew mind you) on his historical works on Islam, such as Jews of Islam and related works. Perhaps you can relieve some of your bigotted ignorance.
As to the langauge usage, what are you refering to? The holy KJV translation, and the English usage? What relevance is that, Joey? I am sure you are aware… well strike that part … of plural usages as a sign of respect (the Vous in French for example). A naive and biased reading w/o ref to the original texts is just plain ignorance. A specialty perhaps?
Properly a sect of Judiasm… as would be then Islam.
No, he’s talking about the way the Hebrew noun “elohim” is plural, but it goes with a singular verb. This is generally interpreted by Christians as proof of the existence of the Trinity, although there’s an equally vociferous contingent who claim that since the Holy Spirit didn’t come to Earth until Pentecost, it’s just the “editorial ‘we’.” Or maybe God is referring to Himself and all His angels…
Aha, thanks DDG.
Well, my obs re usage stands, although I can’t claim to have much knolw. about Hebrew style. Obviously in analyzing this, one would have to attach the analysis to the context of how Hebrew used the form at that time period.
I can’t recall if the Quran uses similar devices… might be interesting if I find a moment to look into that.
Actually I can answer that. The best thing people can do if they want to get along is not be so convinced that they are right about their respective religion. Allow for the possibility that you may not be correct about what you believe and you can get along with anyone.