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Comments and reply on “Islam is one of the heretic Christian-Jewish sects”

When a reader invest time to send an expanded comment, I feel responsible to reply.  In order to follow-up with the discussion, please first read the subject matter on https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/islam-is-one-of-the-%E2%80%9Cheretic%E2%80%9D-christian-jewish-sects/

One of the comments said:

“Although I do appreciate the anthropology lecture.  It put some details on what I knew generally.  For that I thank you.  However, …
Your last sentence in this Blog article is a cheap shot and shows how you tend to want to compare religions to achieve some kind of supremacy: the true danger of this type of thinking.

At first, you show your interest in exploring historical progression of religions.  But then you turned this into competition.  FYI Christianity is first a religion then it has its own sects just like Islam does too.
Anyway, that shows your ignorance as from the average muslim standpoint, the proper comparison is with Jesus Christ (not another prophet but the beginning of the Christian religion thinking influence).

You would think that with you realizing the importance of the Christian religion in the evolution of Mohammad’s actions into creating Islam, that you would be a constructive person.  Unfortunate really.

All this knowledge and you maintain the poor level of spirit to be constructive.  You should think of how to bring all this knowledge into useful constructive result for muslims to be more tolerant of christians (whatever sect they are from) and talk of christianity as a religion and not an ethnic group, regardless of historical events.

We live in a time when communication is so fast, that we should use this luxury to quash the tendencies of using the difference of religion beliefs for competition purposes.  You can’t judge todays people by the historical events of their ancestors of hundreds and thousands years ago.  This is where things can turn dangerous.

What’s so good about that?  We don’t want that … do we?
I would assume that you are familiar with the evolution of our planet and its creatures and so I ask you, what’s the use of religion in an individual’s life?  I mean why the complication?

When you realize the usefulness of religion, you will start seeing the answer to this question, then you will turn into constructive thinking.” End of quote.

I re-read my article. and the last paragraph, and the last sentence, and the note…and could not find a relationship between the string of comments and the subject matter.  The only correspondence could be the keyword “religion”.  My reply could more accurately be defined as “Comments on comments”.  The comments, although going on tangents, open up serious issues that need to be confronted.

Every religion is inherited from the dogma of previously disseminated religions.  The differences are essentially minor in the fundamental abstract concepts.  The antagonism among religious believers are consequences of the application of the clerics, vested with the power to influence and disseminate the set of moral values that suit the power-to-be.

Almost all religious “messengers” shared common characteristics; First, they were learned people, relative to their period, and assimilated the previous religious dogmas known during their period. Second, they applied kinds of meditation techniques, and experienced periods of asceticism. Third, they had the courage to speak in public places and confront set values predominant at the period.  I guess charisma is a combination of moral characters, level of knowledge, and comfortable inclination toward mass communication.

My post was not an anthropology lecture, and I don’t know how the reader understand the term anthropology. I was suggesting a scientific method for studying the various “monotheist religions”.  How supremacy came to be discovered in my post?

And then the reader writes “ignorance as from the average muslim standpoint”, and I wonder: “why did he have to assume I am a Moslem? Did this guy read the Koran, did he practice Islam, did he assimilate Islam…in order to assign me a poor grade?”  This idiosyncratic tendency is pretty common: When you discuss about a minority religion within a majority religion community, and refrain from belittling the minority religion, then you are judged to be a member of the minority religion.

In any case, I don’t give a hoot about religious belief.  Actually I feel pain when I listen to someone talk on religion for hours on, or proselytizing full-time for his religious sect.  It sends the strong signal that the person is culturally illiterate, trying to convince another individual on abstract matters as originating from “divine” Books…

Suddenly, this reader jumps to “talk of christianity as a religion and not an ethnic group, regardless of historical events…”  This is interesting: First, I didn’t say anything on that issue, but since the comment brought it up I take the plunge.  I hear frequently that we should distinguish among the religion, the dogma, the clerics, and the community of believers…These distinctions are virtual intellectual discussion.  Why?

Religious clerical system forms the largest and deepest educational network in any society, especially among the majority religion.  The seeds of the teaching (philosophy and moral values…) existing in the language, the customs, the tradition, and the value system of the religious dogma and teaching, are predominant and active, regardless of the changes that occur in society.

The kind of philosophies that rely on religion as sources of their framework of thought are not philosophy, but a line of thought which represents the power-to-be ideology and defined culture.

I have to agree that “religion is the opium of the common people” because the religious hierarchy deny the believers rational thinking, and encourage them to vote and think according to the dominant culture, the patriotic values to abide with…

The courageous stands in public places is very contagious. So is cowardness for tackling rational reflections.

Note:  I realized that this article registered 550 hits. I hope people will focus more on how religion was applied and why it was applied, and stop focusing on the abstract notions that are common to all religions.  It is not worth saying “My God will vanquish my enemy” when going to wars for vested material interest.  A minimum of humility and respect for the other opinions and positions are fundamental requirements for any semblance of peace.


adonis49

adonis49

adonis49

May 2023
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