I'm currently reading Karen Armstrong's book Muhammad which shows had huge respect for Judaim and Christianity, and viewed Abraham as the father of the true belief in the one God, common to all the three religions. And derived much of his learning and hence his own religious framework from Jews and Christians. Only half-way thru so perhaps things will go mental from here on regarding views of Jews and Christians. Of course the given linked piece shows screwed up responses though I wonder how Christians would respond to statements in the Talmud that Mary was a whore and Jesus is eternally boling in faeces for his sins, or that non-Jews are non-human, and have sex with animals. The kind of ideology that the Askenazi Jewish(European Jews who immigrated there in the last century was opposed to Mizrahim Jews local to the area) extremists governing Israel have used from its inception which presumably American Christians in general are quite unaware of. Explains the very strong opposition of True Torah Jews to Zionism which they believe to be an abomination of true Judaism. All these nutcases with rigid mental frameworks that demonise those of other mental frameworks. Though I'm pretty sceptical as to the real nature of the various fundamentalists actual belief systems coinciding as their actions often do much more with the demonic than the divine.
Your last point, Andrew, is a very good one. There usually is a disconnect between fundamentalists of any stripe and the faith to which they claim to attest. One could even say this of Richard Dawkins, whose fanatical scientism gives science a bad name.
Dostoevsky summed up Dawkins beautifully, Frank with these words "Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms." And I think you're certainly right in pointing to him as someone rigidly entrenched in a mental framework- in support of which he is struggling manfully to call up any "facts" he can get hold of. It's perhaps a quiet comical level of absurdity- to spend one's life obsessed with something one believes not to exist.
I'm currently reading Karen Armstrong's book Muhammad which shows had huge respect for Judaim and Christianity, and viewed Abraham as the father of the true belief in the one God, common to all the three religions. And derived much of his learning and hence his own religious framework from Jews and Christians. Only half-way thru so perhaps things will go mental from here on regarding views of Jews and Christians. Of course the given linked piece shows screwed up responses though I wonder how Christians would respond to statements in the Talmud that Mary was a whore and Jesus is eternally boling in faeces for his sins, or that non-Jews are non-human, and have sex with animals. The kind of ideology that the Askenazi Jewish(European Jews who immigrated there in the last century was opposed to Mizrahim Jews local to the area) extremists governing Israel have used from its inception which presumably American Christians in general are quite unaware of. Explains the very strong opposition of True Torah Jews to Zionism which they believe to be an abomination of true Judaism. All these nutcases with rigid mental frameworks that demonise those of other mental frameworks. Though I'm pretty sceptical as to the real nature of the various fundamentalists actual belief systems coinciding as their actions often do much more with the demonic than the divine.
ReplyDeleteYour last point, Andrew, is a very good one. There usually is a disconnect between fundamentalists of any stripe and the faith to which they claim to attest. One could even say this of Richard Dawkins, whose fanatical scientism gives science a bad name.
ReplyDeleteDostoevsky summed up Dawkins beautifully, Frank with these words
ReplyDelete"Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms." And I think you're certainly right in pointing to him as someone rigidly entrenched in a mental framework- in support of which he is struggling manfully to call up any "facts" he can get hold of. It's perhaps a quiet comical level of absurdity- to spend one's life obsessed with something one believes not to exist.