The Christian Industrial Complex

Ankaboot,

Greg is right, if you are a Muslim, you are not a Christian.

That's what Greg believes. And it is quite certain that I turned away from my family's European Christian heritage a long time ago. I am definitely not Greg's kind of Christian. And I am definitely muslim, and do not expect anyone here to think otherwise ~ I made that clear when I arrived, and have not needed to emphasize that my faith is different from Greg's. We are talking about two distinct religions of Abraham, two entirely different traditions, and two entirely different roles in God's Plan for humanity.

You won't find me going to church. I don't go door to door or anywhere else to tell people the Good News. I don't celebrate Christmas or Easter. I don't observe a sabbath of either kind, Saturday or Sunday. I don't regard the Bible as having anything to do with me, other than as a way to know and recognize Jews and Christians. I don't regard baptism or any other ritual practice of Christianity as necessary for my salvation in any way. I don't regard Christians as my brothers. And I have no interest in going to "heaven." So to the extent that any of those things defines what it is to be a "Christian" or a "muslim," I'm obviously a muslim and not a Christian.

But there are some things that I know, and say. I know Jesus is God's Word, and say so. I know he was the Messiah of Israel, and I say so. I know that those who follow Jesus are the "faithful remnant" of Israel, and I say so. And I know that those who are faithful to God and follow Jesus faithfully will enter paradise, and say so. So to the extent that any of those things defines what it is to be a "Christian" or a "muslim," I'm obviously a muslim and a Christian. I seem to remember something like "Whosever believeth in me ..." or words to that effect. I don't just "believe" in Jesus, I know him, without a doubt.

Now should you be unable to grasp that, or to understand it, or to see what it means in terms of my relationships with people who say they are Christians, that's not a problem for me. There is no contradiction in it. In the world around me there are people who deny Jesus, people who claim to believe that God does not exist, people who consider God, Jesus, religion, and anything related to any faith not just as irrelevant, but harmful. Maybe it's not like that for you ~ maybe for you there are people who believe exactly as you do, and then there are the deniers of Christ and the infidels. For me, there are muslims devoted to God, Christians devoted to God, Jews devoted to God, and others devoted to God, and then there are the deniers and those they deceive, and others who are simply ignorant and just as likely to want to stay that way as not.

By definition you have a different Jesus than that of Christians.

By definition, there is only one Jesus. We believe different things about him. That's all there is to "different" in this difference between Christians and muslims.

And if you are telling people that we are brothers in Christ, then you are trying to deceive people.

My brothers pray shoulder-to-shoulder five times a day, and otherwise pray or remember God constantly. Some are Christians, some are Jews, most are muslim.

Mormonism has taken Christian teachings and distorted them.

Completely incorrect. Mormon teachings most certainly did not come from Jesus.

Islam has too.

Also incorrect, but I teach and explain, I don't argue about it.

Again Christian teachings about Christ and who he is date to decades after Christ was on this earth. Islamic teachings about Christ date 600 years after he was on this earth. Mormonism's teachings about Christ date to 1800 years after he was on this earth. So who's writings are more reliable? I would go with the one's closest to the source. 600 years is a long time.

Jesus and Satan are not "brothers" in "the god family," and no Scripture says that we will be "exalted with the gods," or each rule over a planet of our own, so those 1800-year teachings are reliable only for misleading people. Until Jesus came, the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures were in the exclusive custody of the scribe and pharisees who denied Jesus, and no one else could even see them, let alone touch them. See Jeremiah 8:8 for the fidelity of the scribes and "reliability." What the Qur'an says about Jesus is exactly what it said 1400 years ago, and I won't argue about it.

But you have your convictions, I have mine, and they're different. That's fine with me, and I have little or nothing to say about what you believe, other than "We differ and that's fine with me."

But I really have to go fight dragons wearing three-piece suits whose only talent is the ability to confuse judges. Their only interest in Christians or muslims is as wage slaves and cannon fodder, and keeping us complaining about what they're doing instead of doing something about it.

I'm doing something about it. You can do whatever you want.

Not saying they are justified in what they are doing, just saying that they blame the U.S. and its military structure and are acting out of that... clothed in religion.
-Dave_Metz

Seriously? You are a fool to believe that their entire agenda is not based on their religion. Have you read the Qu'ran? It's basically got the same ideas as the old Testament when it comes to dealing with people who don't believe the same as you, the only thing is, they live their religion the way their book tells them to, and that's what they're doing with their acts. I refuse to call anyone a Christian until they start stoning homosexuals on sight. Otherwise, they are trying their best to imitate it within the law, or just don't have to balls to be a real Christian I guess.

The Pharisees were simply teachers of the law and nothing more.

They weren't even that -- they made up a lay group.

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" Until Jesus came, the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures were in the exclusive custody of the scribes and pharisees who denied Jesus, and no one else could even see them, let alone touch them."

Ankaboot, This statement is false. There are multiple text families that were outside of the Pharisees. There are a least two text families of the Old Testament that are Greek that were translated from various other languages. I know this and am not even an OT scholar. And the Septuagint was translated for Greek speaking Jews living outside of Palestine.

If you are not reliable in knowing the basics of Scripture - which obviously you are not - then you are someone that should not be listened to when considering religious concerns that have to do with the afterlife. You have shown yourself to be ignorant and incorrect, if not willfully misleading.

The Pharisees were simply teachers of the law and nothing more.

They weren't even that -- they made up a lay group.

Sure. I'll go with that. Perhaps a better wording would be, "they THOUGHT they were teachers of the Law". They often misinterpreted the Law and even added a bit of their own man made traditions. But, in most part they were considered teachers of the Law, however erroneous they were in their interpretation.

Until Jesus came, the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures were in the exclusive custody of the scribes and pharisees who denied Jesus, and no one else could even see them, let alone touch them.

Ankaboot, This statement is false.

I see you know as much about the Judaism of the rabbis as you know about Islam ~ almost nothing. That's understandable, and quite common ~ the "Oral Torah," the Talmud, as well as other writings and teachings that are never written down, are not well-known to most people.

And the Ark of the Covenant, containing the original, has been "lost" since the time of Solomon ~ what was translated into Greek (after much hesitation and considerable editing) was from the reconstructed "second edition" of Ezra, after the Babylonian Captivity.

But that's wildly off-topic in this forum, I'll leave you to your own studies, which obviously are far from complete.

Have a wonderful Christmas.

Ankaboot,

My bottom line with you is that you are not knowledgeable about the stuff you are writing in this form. No one knows when the Ark when missing. If you've read that it was the time of Solomon, that claim can't be verified. Biblical historians will speculate on possible times it may have gone missing, but to say time of Solomon. You are the one that is talking about stuff you don't know here.

I make a claim and point to source material in the BC time period. I ask you to give a source and you point to a book written in 2008.

You are right, I don't know much about Islam other than that Islam's understand of Jesus Christ is wrong. And I don't practice Judaism, so I don't know much about the Talmud.

Ankaboot, much of your understanding of biblical history is from distorted sources that are on shaky ground when it comes to their historical integrity. This is something you should look into, for a number of years if that is what it takes.

As a Muslim, Ankaboot should not be on here teaching Christians about their faith.

Well now, that's amusing.

You go to a foreign country, a muslim country where you're a stranger, for the explicit purpose of teaching muslims that their religion is false ~ even though you know virtually nothing about Islam ~ and that's "God's Work," even though those muslims' ancestors knew the Good News since the time of father Abraham, and lived it for a thousand years, producing the fruits of the Kingdom by which Christian Europe raised itself out of the Dark Ages.

I come to a Christian forum and tell Christians that their religion ~ which I grew up with right here in America, where my family has llved for a thousand generations, and know quite well ~ is true, and that's not God's Work, it's "another agenda."

What's really amusing is that you think I'm "teaching Christians about their faith," as if the Christians in this forum don't know their faith.

But it's the Christians in this forum ~ who are discussing ways and means of carrying out Jesus' social ministry to the outcast of their own society ~ who do know their religion.

I really like this forum. There are people here with hearts full of faith, people of little faith, and people with no faith at all.

Have a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are.

Until Jesus came, the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures were in the exclusive custody of the scribes and pharisees who denied Jesus, and no one else could even see them, let alone touch them.

Ankaboot, This statement is false.

I see you know as much about the Judaism of the rabbis as you know about Islam ~ almost nothing. That's understandable, and quite common ~ the "Oral Torah," the Talmud, as well as other writings and teachings that are never written down, are not well-known to most people.

And the Ark of the Covenant, containing the original, has been "lost" since the time of Solomon ~ what was translated into Greek (after much hesitation and considerable editing) was from the reconstructed "second edition" of Ezra, after the Babylonian Captivity.

But that's wildly off-topic in this forum, I'll leave you to your own studies, which obviously are far from complete.

Have a wonderful Christmas.

Not saying they are justified in what they are doing, just saying that they blame the U.S. and its military structure and are acting out of that ... clothed in religion.

Were they trying to "bring down what they perceive as the greatest evil on the planet," they would be dealing body blows to America ~ attacking industrial and military strength ~ not slapping America in the face by attacking symbols of American pride.

But explain this to me, please ~ are you bothered because some people are defending themselves and their homes from foreign invaders who destroy their schools, hospitals, public buildings, roads, water systems, and agricultural lands, and do so indiscriminately, killing tens of thousands of noncombatant farmers and their families in the process, or are you bothered because they are defending themselves because God tells them to do that?

And other than modern-day "Israel," can you name another country that invades other countries that have invaded or attacked nobody, bombing and destroying those countries, slaughtering their people wholesale, and building military bases and occupying the homelands of those other people, all the while falsely claiming that these are wars to "defend" themselves from people with little or no military capacity even to defend themselves?

Or is it merely the fact that those other people have an "old-time religion" from a Merciful God whose faithful reflect God's Mercy, rather than an "old-time religion" from a Wrathful God whose faithful reflect God's Wrath, and who drove out the faithful who accepted the Messiah, who showed them God's Mercy, rather than choosing to be bearers of God's eternal message of peace?

Why are American military forces slaughtering innocents? And why shouldn't those innocents defend themselves?

Never mind those idiots and maniacs who slapped America in the face on 9/11, with a lot of help from our "friends" ~ what did the people of Afghanistan and Iraq do to America, other than giving a Caspian Basin pipeline franchise to Venezuela instead of an American cartel, and pricing their oil exports in Euros rather than dollars?

Or are these gratuitous wars and their accompanying mayhem a new kind of Christian missionary effort based on that "old-time religion" of a Wrathful God?

The Talmud isn't Scripture.

That may be meaningful for you, it has a completely different meaning for rabbinical Judaism. Many people think the US Constitution is conclusive on questions of liberty and rights ~ but it's the rulings of the Supreme Court, and the Court's interpretations of the Constitution, that determine rights and liberty in America. The Talmud is analogous to the Torah in exactly the same way ~ it's the Talmud that interprets the Torah that defines Judaism. That's why the Talmud is sometimes called "the oral Torah" ~ along with other non-Scriptural materials ~ and has more weight in Judaism than the Torah itself.

The entire Jewish Canon has undergone heavy editing.

"Editing" religions to serve the interests of political elites seems to be an unavoidable temptation that after Moses became a habit. The same thing happened after Jesus, and again after Muhammad.

Funny how history repeats itself ...

No one knows when the Ark went missing.

With all due respect, you don't know what others do or don't know. Did you notice that I put the word "lost" in quotation marks? The Ark of the Covenant is like Noah's Ark ~ "lost" to anyone who doesn't know where it is. That doesn't mean that it's lost to everyone, it only means it's lost to everyone you know about.

Ankaboot, much of your understanding of biblical history is from distorted sources that are on shaky ground when it comes to their historical integrity. This is something you should look into, for a number of years if that is what it takes.

I have sixty feet of library shelves filled with books that are 95% worthless, accumulated over the space of half a century, and I've read them all. They contradict each other, positing one speculation or theory against another speculation or theory.

I also have more library shelves filled with books, and I've read them all, too. It's amazing how consistent they are with each other, even though they come from different religious traditions, in different languages, from different regions of the world, and with different underlying messages.

I'll rest on what I know. Biblical scholars and sages have agreed with what I write. Your opinion is your opinion, I won't try to change it ~ but I don't intend to argue with anyone about what I know, there's no reason to do that and plenty of reason to not do it.

When you've been to Jerusalem and walked beneath the Dome of the Rock, visited Mount Gerushim, spent some time at St. Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai, followed Jesus' and Paul's footsteps in Arabia, and joined the annual procession at Axum, then we can discuss what I know and what I don't know.

And when you've spent fifty years of your life devoted exclusively to studying God's Word and God's Works and God's Plan for humanity, you can come visit my grave if you can find someone willing to lead you to it. I don't expect I'll be very conversational then, though ...

The Talmud isn't Scripture. The entire Jewish Canon has undergone heavy editing.

Here: "Perhaps the most important implication of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the history of the development of Christian doctrine after the New Testament is the clarification of the connections between sectarian Judaism and the beginnings of heretical Christianity. With the help of such additional sources, less than familiar aspects of the Jewish heritage of early Christian teaching are being illuminated, and it is becoming possible to check more accurately the various reports of the fathers about the influence of heretical Jewish ideas upon heretical Christian theology. THERE WERE ALSO INFLUENCES IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, AS MANDAISM AND OTHER HERETICAL SPECIES OF JUDAISM ABSORBED ELEMENTS OF CHRISTIAN HERESY; AND SO IT CAME ABOUT THAT BOTH JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN HERESY CONTRIBUTED TO THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM." -Jaroslav Pelikan

Ankaboot,

My bottom line with you is that you are not knowledgeable about the stuff you are writing in this form. No one knows when the Ark when missing. If you've read that it was the time of Solomon, that claim can't be verified. Biblical historians will speculate on possible times it may have gone missing, but to say time of Solomon. You are the one that is talking about stuff you don't know here.

I make a claim and point to source material in the BC time period. I ask you to give a source and you point to a book written in 2008.

You are right, I don't know much about Islam other than that Islam's understand of Jesus Christ is wrong. And I don't practice Judaism, so I don't know much about the Talmud.

Ankaboot, much of your understanding of biblical history is from distorted sources that are on shaky ground when it comes to their historical integrity. This is something you should look into, for a number of years if that is what it takes.

You go to a foreign country, a muslim country where you're a stranger, for the explicit purpose of teaching muslims that their religion is false ~ even though you know virtually nothing about Islam.

Do I? When do I do that? Do you know something I don't know? Because, I never knew I did that. Once again, Ankaboot, you have your facts wrong. That is NOT how we do our work here. You are once again misled.

I come to a Christian forum and tell Christians that their religion ~ which I grew up with right here in America, where my family has lived for a thousand generations, and know quite well ~ is true, and that's not God's Work, it's "another agenda."

American for a "thousand generations"? Really!? Wow. Impressive. Do you have proof of this geneology?

What's really amusing is that you think I'm "teaching Christians about their faith," as if the Christians in this forum don't know their faith.

You said it yourself. You stated, and I quote: "Actually I've written more in the way of pointing Christians toward the Christian mission". Sounds like your teaching Christians something here, my friend.

Have a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are.

Ditto.

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Anka,

You write a lot about "I."

*I've been writing...

* I had to go to court to protect our right...

* People have urged me repeatedly to publish my Web writings...

* I turned away from my family's European Christian heritage a long time ago. I am definitely not Greg's kind of Christian. And I am definitely muslim, and do not expect anyone here to think otherwise ~ I made that clear when I arrived,...

You tend to announce a pretty high opinion of yourself.

Being a pacifist is never easy. Especially now.

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Pacifism is never easy. Especially now.

I am troubled when I see a political group adopt the flag, which represents us all, as their emblem. I am troubled to hear people confusing militarism and defense.

During the past sixty years our country has sent armies to places in the world under dubious excuses. The wars we have fought have been considered by many to be immoral. I can even remember a time when the military itself shuddered at the thought of fighting a land war in Asia -- but we have fought five of them. And not won any.

Defense? I think not.

What does this prove? It only shows the migration of man. And, this is if you believe in a 100,000+ year old earth; which many monotheistic religions like Islam don't believe. So, once again, do you have any proof of your American ancestry that dates thousands of generations?

What suggests that I have any inclination or feel any need to "prove" anything?

As for "proof of this genealogy," I am quite certain that you would not accept anything as "proof," you simply were unable to avoid challenging me, contention is in your nature.

The best "evidence" of my "native American" ("Redskin") lineage, however, is my calm, accommodating, pacific attitude and human nature, which is readily distinguishable from the frenetic, disputatious, aggressive, insecure, "challenge-response," predispositively defensive human nature of that branch of the human family that had to survive for thousands of years in hostile environments ~ that is, of those descendants of Japheth who lived in the glacial northern regions of the eastern hemispheric land mass after the separation of the western land masses.

But that's neither here nor there, it's relatively inconsequential compared to the ways we think about each other ~ that is, how we love our neighbors as ourselves. Hatred, anger, doubt, envy, and suspicion are always waiting to shape our perceptions of others, particularly of strangers, and certainly of people who identify themselves as "different" from ourselves.

Here, I identify myself as a muslim, to people who identify themselves as Christians, and there is a long history of deliberately manufactured contention between European Christians and Middle Eastern muslims. The nearer you are to your ancestral human nature from the northern European climates, the more likely you will be to react to "a muslim" the same way our ancient European ancestors reacted to arriving strangers likely to be coming after our food stores, tools, daughters, and blood. It's natural.

And yes, God spent a lot of time creating us. We're discovering how He did it. It turns out that our DNA is smarter than we are ~ amazingly smarter. "Yom" and "yaum" in the Semitic tongues means "a period of time" ~ the idea of a 24-hour "day" came with Nimrod, long after Noah had landed the Ark. For our understanding, God divides His creation's time into seven periods, the last of which never ends, when He "rests" on all humanity and dwells among us. We count six thousand years or so in the Bible, but the first "Days" of those years ~ before the creation of day and night as we know them ~ were longer than we can comprehend. We ~ humanity ~ were not born "yesterday," we've been the crown of creation, the most formidable of creatures, learning to be caretakers of the creation, for a very long time. We're slow learners ... we're still learning how to take care of ourselves.

Some of my ancient ancestors, from the same branch of the human family that populated northern Europe, crossed the continental land mass that now lies beneath the Bering Straits and lived for thousands of years without suffering the hostile environments of northern Europe and Asia. There was plenty of room for expansion into lands rich in natural resources readily available for raising large families and tribes. The passage of time had a different effect on the way our human nature evolved, in terms of social relations and in terms of individual predispositions and dominant character traits.

That's how we recognize Jesus ~ he was calm, accommodating, pacific, loving, and without fear of other people. He wasn't like the savages who came from "the East," or the Viking savages who came to America centuries after Jesus, he was like us. We knew others would be coming, fair-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned, their physical characteristics shaped by glacial temperatures forcing a sunless existence indoors burning scarce wood and animal fat and dung just to stay alive and warm. Then, when the Anabaptist pilgrims came, we recognized Jesus in them, as well, and welcomed the newcomers to this ancient land where we had lived in harmony for countless generations among our many nations.

And then, later, others came ~ those who had driven the pacific Christians out of Europe, to America. And some of my ancestors nearly annihilated some of my other ancestors ~ both sets of ancestors being closer "cousins" than in any other geographically-separated branch of the human family. And for a long time there have been wars, and rumors of wars, and ravages and turmoil and mayhem and slaughter ...

And what do we find here at the Christian Sojourners discussion forums? Calm, accommodating, pacific attitudes and human natures, recognition that being human means taking care of each other in mutually beneficial ways, not mistrustful and defensive and dismissive ways, and occasionally we see some contention, suspicion, and animosity.

We get from life what we put into it.

And now I really need to go fight ~ on paper ~ some people who don't want us to continue providing shelter and comfort to some decent folk whose livelihood work falls short of what anyone actually needs to live like a semi-civilized human being. In America, land of the free, the land of plenty, with liberty and justice for all ...

Not saying they are justified in what they are doing, just saying that they blame the U.S. and its military structure and are acting out of that ... clothed in religion.

Were they trying to "bring down what they perceive as the greatest evil on the planet," they would be dealing body blows to America ~ attacking industrial and military strength ~ not slapping America in the face by attacking symbols of American pride.

But explain this to me, please ~ are you bothered because some people are defending themselves and their homes from foreign invaders who destroy their schools, hospitals, public buildings, roads, water systems, and agricultural lands, and do so indiscriminately, killing tens of thousands of noncombatant farmers and their families in the process, or are you bothered because they are defending themselves because God tells them to do that?

And other than modern-day "Israel," can you name another country that invades other countries that have invaded or attacked nobody, bombing and destroying those countries, slaughtering their people wholesale, and building military bases and occupying the homelands of those other people, all the while falsely claiming that these are wars to "defend" themselves from people with little or no military capacity even to defend themselves?

Or is it merely the fact that those other people have an "old-time religion" from a Merciful God whose faithful reflect God's Mercy, rather than an "old-time religion" from a Wrathful God whose faithful reflect God's Wrath, and who drove out the faithful who accepted the Messiah, who showed them God's Mercy, rather than choosing to be bearers of God's eternal message of peace?

Why are American military forces slaughtering innocents? And why shouldn't those innocents defend themselves?

Never mind those idiots and maniacs who slapped America in the face on 9/11, with a lot of help from our "friends" ~ what did the people of Afghanistan and Iraq do to America, other than giving a Caspian Basin pipeline franchise to Venezuela instead of an American cartel, and pricing their oil exports in Euros rather than dollars?

Or are these gratuitous wars and their accompanying mayhem a new kind of Christian missionary effort based on that "old-time religion" of a Wrathful God?