Pastor weighing plans to burn Qurans amid U.S. warnings

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Regarding the three Abrahamic religions, it is Christianity on the outside, not Judaism. Islam and Judaism are both regulatory (rules about diet, worship, times, etc), whereas Christianity is largely philisophical (focus on direct spirituality). Judaism and Islam also regard salvation as a matter of adherence to doctrine, as opposed to the Christian view of salvation through faith.

In my more cynical moments, this is why I believe Christianity has such a large following. It is one of the more "easy" religions to subscribe to.

Although Christianity's holy book does indeed include the Hebrew scriptures, they are largely superceeded by the revisions in the New Testament by Messianic decree (This is the New Covenant....). The Old Testament is regarded, for the most part, as a primer in the historical roots of the faith.

I have often wondered about what I perceive as a series of "cherry picking" of stuff people like about the old testament (10 commandments) but conveniently forget what they don't like (Deuteronomy and Leviticus).

This has confused me. Either the old testament is or is not "part" of Christianity. John 10:35; Mathew 5:18; 15:3, and 15:6 seem to indicate that it is a part of Christianity. But many Christians I have spoken to disagree. Most confusing.

[antikristuseke]

Concistency is not a strong point of religions.

[Gerald]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Concistency is not a strong point of religions.

You just reminded me of the beginning part of this comedy skit:

[tater]

Originally Posted by The Third Man

How many jews have you met? The reason I ask is the Torah is part of the christian bible and none of the Koran is part of the Christian bible.

Based on that alone I'd say you are wrong.

Um, that's cause the koran came after. It has stolen bits from both that preceded it (not very well, in some cases—I don;t mean using pre-existing theology, but taking bits nearly verbatim and putting them in another mouth.

[Takeda Shingen]

Platapus, I agree with much of what you have said. In fact, Christians are frequently selecting what appeals to them and making their own god. Regarding the command that Scripture cannot be broken, it is later contridicted in John 14:6 (I am the way...) and in Matthew 26:28 (New Covenant), which would seem to indicate that one should 'forget what you learned in Hebrew School; we're doing things my way now'. All of this really does reinforce what antikristuseke said about the lack of consistency.

My personal view has always been that the problems viewed by the modern reader stem from two realities:

First, that the teachings of the New Covenant were a slow revelation and conversion to an uneducated group of devout followers. The disciples and followers of Jesus were the cast-offs of society; simple fishermen, leppers, prositutes, gamblers, etc. He would use a slow system of replacement to ease the transition. This would result in contradictions when reading a synopsis of teachings, which is really what the Gospels are.

Second, the Gospels themselves were pieced together by second-hand accounts, and was written by four individuals with very different viewpoints and directions for the fledgling Church. The Gospel of John is extreemly theological; hammering home the point that Jesus is the incarnation of God. The Gospel of Matthew is much more focused on the reconsiliation with Judaism proper. The Gospel of Luke regards Christianity as something along the lines of social revolution. Accordingly, you'll have very different accounts of events.

For me, it is the fact that each writer is consistent in the major tenets of Christianity that sells me. However, the devil is always in the details, so I can understand someone who sees the differences and reaches the opposite conclusion.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

You just reminded me of the beginning part of this comedy skit:

[tater]

(gotta love the newspaper headline)

[Gerald]

[Skybird]

From the "lefty" Der Spiegel, with grim love:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...716648,00.html

I once again come back to the German causa Thilo Sarrazin, not to derail the thread, but because the case illustrates so exemplary how things are being done nowadays if somebody dares to object and prove wrong the enforced political correctness dictate of what is acceptable to be recognised in reality, and what should be hidden and ignored at all cost by either pretending it does not exist, or making many glossing, foul words about it.

the political class and the ratpack of Gutmenschen stands united in their attempt to diffame sarrazin at all cost - in orer to hide their own failure over the past decades and in order to hide the failure of multikulti- and integration policies. the wide public, however, supports Sarrazin, a very solid and overwhelming majority. Of the current 163 customer feedbacks at German Amazon, his book scores 134 5-star ratings, 12 4 star ratings, but only 6 1-star ratings and 3 4 star ratings. Newspapers got quoted with having up to 90% of their reader's feedback on articles about Sarrazin being in support of him, something that by skimming the online articles about him by tendency I believe can be confirmed. and why is that so? This paragraph hits the nail on top and describes the dilemma, the drama and the misery of very very many western people who feel more and more discomfort about the tyranny of "the right opinion" poltical correctness has established in the name of a quasi totalitarian demand for unlimited tolerance and support for islamic immigration:

But what all these technicians of exclusion fail to see is that you cannot cast away the very thing that Sarrazin embodies: the anger of people who are sick and tired -- after putting a long and arduous process of Enlightenment behind them -- of being confronted with pre-Enlightenment elements that are returning to the center of our society. They are sick of being cursed or laughed at when they offer assistance with integration. And they are tired about reading about Islamist associations that have one degree of separation from terrorism, of honor killings, of death threats against cartoonists and filmmakers. They are horrified that "you Christian" has now become an insult on some school playgrounds. And they are angry that Western leaders are now being forced to fight for a woman in an Islamic country because she has been accused of adultery and is being threatened with stoning.

And more:

Strangely enough, a good number of our fellow Turkish citizens are more outraged by Sarrazin's book than they are about those things.
Should those Turkish immigrants fortunate enough to have exemplary careers not start exerting a bit of influence over their fellow immigrants and their neighborhoods, so that the Koran shows its gentler, more charitable face? Isn't it time for them to stand up and show their backing for plurality and freedom of expression?

That certainly wasn't the case recently when the Migration Board, an umbrella group for immigrant organizations in Berlin, spoke out successfully against a reading by Sarrazin during the International Literature Festival in the German capital. Bernd Scherer, who heads the House of World Cultures, the venue of the festival, buckled under the pressure and cancelled the event. Now the reading is to be held at another venue on Friday -- under police protection.

On the origin of why critics so easily get called racists nowadays:

Klaus von Dohnanyi, who is to defend Sarrazin as the SPD seeks to expel him, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper how Germany was overshadowed by its Holocaust history and how a culture had developed whereby anyone saying the words "gene" or "Jew" was automatically considered suspect.

He is right to complain that we shy away from debates which "are commonplace in other countries." Among those is the discussion that "specific ethnic groups" share specific characteristics.

and:

These are the passages of Sarrazin's book that I find most interesting. Those which melancholically reflect that Germans are not only demographically working towards their own demise, but also that they are bidding farewell to their cultural and educational background. Whoever calls that racist simply doesn't get it.


But ever since the Sarrazin case, it is clear that intimidation from the politically correct thought police of the media and the threats they issue of casting people out of society no longer work. By now the public has a highly developed instinct for fairness.

The support Sarrazin has received demonstrates this. The Germans are learning. Maybe, one day, the country's newsrooms will catch up with where British colleagues have long been -- a place where debates can be conducted without blinders or language controls.

Not only in Germany, but in all E-U-listan. And in this very forum as well. Two weeks ago I complained about the self-destructiveness of an unlimited freedom and unlimited tolerance as it is propagated by some americans. I stick to that criticism of mine. But that does not mean that our constitution over here, that sees some things different than america, gets honoured and followed in full, or that freedom of speech is working and is in order over here - it is not, not at all. Political opportunism is the big sin over here as well, like it is in America. Say the wrong thing, and the Gutmenschen will come over you and pull you to the scaffold of pretended collective moral outrage - even if you are right and can empirically prove it. It cannot be what should not be. Ideology goes over reality.

However, such moral propagandists should not claim to represent a majority in opinion. It seems to me the overwhelming majority is against them like it is against the hidden tyranny of the EU as well. Problem is that still many people need a push or a kick to find the courage to stand up for their opposing opinion in public. I know that problem very well - I was one of several people of a civil rights initiative that went from door to door to distribute information material about an islamic community that obtained property by fraud (stupid of them, good for us) and wanted to enforce a huge visible mosque in a district where even no muslim community was residing. most people whose doorbells i rang, agreed with us - but to make them engaging themselves for their opinion and stand up for it in public, was a most frustrating affair. I know today that this way of trying to mobilise people does not work, at least not in Germany. Germans smile when they see reports about American campaigners who during elections call private households and go from door to door. In america i maybe would do it again that way, not for parties and elections, but for certain ideas mof civil rights movements. In Germany - sorry, the different mentality does not match that approach, I think.

Debates about identity and cultural dominance are ubiquitous in an increasingly globalized world -- in the United States just as in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands or Denmark. Such a debate doesn't exclude cosmopolitanism in the slightest. It merely represents an insistence on maintaining traditions and values. Religion is one of them and it is not something that people will let go of lightly.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Vendor

[Gerald]

[MH]

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by Vendor

[Blood_splat]