A place to snark and vent about CoC doctrine and/or our experiences in the CoC. This is a place for SUPPORT and AGREEMENT only, not a place to tell someone their experience and feelings are wrong, or why we disagree with them.
In order for Christianity to be 'true', then Judaism must be 'true' (its okay in this case to argue that JEWS are wrong, but any Christian MUST say that 'Judaism' is (basically) 'true' - or else Christianity is wrong.
In order for Islam to be 'true', then Judaism and Christianity but also be 'true' (again, its okay to argue that Jews and Christians are wrong, but Judaism and Christianity must (basically) be 'true' - or else Islam is wrong.
Judaism, however, doesn't care. Judaism is 'true' no matter whether Christianity is or isn't right or wrong or true, and ditto for Islam.
I've met Tovia Singer. He's a nice guy, but kind of mono-focused. Not that I blame him for that. It's a hard path he's taken.
Sometimes I have to admit I get mad at you Jews sometimes. You have such great potential to take down all these Christian blowhards but you don't do it. Rabbi Singer and Jews for Judaism do it easily. If you all en masse started showing why the claims of the New Testament are false you would put an end to a lot of this right wing bullcrap going on in this country.
You claim you are the chosen people with the purpose to be used by God to make the world better for all people, okay, don't put your light under the bushel but let it shine and show the world what bullcrap Christianity is. It's not like we are in the Middle Ages and you have to fear persecution for exposing the foolishness of the Christians. Israel has nuclear weapons.
Now, I said I get angry at yall when I think about this but I still love ya.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.----Karl Marx
I think Israel can take down any blowhards, whether they be Islamic, Christian, or otherwise. And since the Evangelical Right Wing of Christianity in this country is made up of closed-minded, condemnatory, hate-filled bigots, it's doubtful to me that they could ever be gotten rid of in any sense of the word, but rather could only be minimized and marginalized as their motives and hypocrisy are exposed over time. They tend to just hang themselves. But I think religious coexistence is the only option in this age and there are "universalists", for want of a better word, out there in all religions searching for the better angels in everyone else, and ISTM hope must rest with them and be allowed to move forward as time goes by. Even in WWII, many (but not enough) brave Christians helped Jews escape their demise.
Furthermore, Rabbi Singer and Jews for Judaism are free to their opinions and apologist posturing if that's what they want to do for the rest of their lives. However, every point they make is rebutted by Christian apologists, esp. Michael Brown, who similarly just seem to want to do that as their life's primary drive. But both sides (all sides) in religion have their points and counter-points and rebuttals and counter-rebuttals. Nothing is gained by trying to "one-up" the other side and kill them off. Rather, peacemaking needs to begin with the surrendering of "one-upsmanship", IMO.
The thing is, Christianity and Islam each make competing claims to possessing the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth.
Judaism doesn't make that claim. Judaism claims to have the Truth. It doesn't deny that OTHER faiths ALSO have some of the Truth, too. God is not exclusively the God of the Jews, just the Jews have exclusively this one God and no other. God is still the God of EVERYBODY ELSE, and (presumably) had given every other 'people' a valid path to God. Judaism is 'the path (way - halakha) of the Jewish people'.
Judaism is the Jewish path to God. It isn't the ONLY path to God. Other people have their own paths. What Jews for Jesus and Messainic Judaism do, which is so incredibly offensive, is claiming that THEIR path is the Jewish path - when it isn't. It is a Christian path. Christians have a perfectly valid path, and they certainly don't need to appropriate the path of the Jews and pretend ownership of every single path in existence.
So of course there is no organized Jewish 'plan' to 'prove the NT/Quran wrong'. Why should there be? Those paths are simply different paths, not wrong or evil, just different. Jews might think those paths are inferior as paths, but they are not INVALID paths.
It's only the small groups of encroaching (lying SOB's, sorry but I don't like those groups) who try to claim what isn't theirs (usually known as 'theft') who are - rightfully - confronted.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
"All Truth is God's Truth" is really the path to moving beyond religious absolutism ISTM. Here are the words of John Hick in the UK with whom I personally agree:
So the bottom line, I am suggesting, is this: we should live wholeheartedly within our own faith, so long as we find it to be sustaining and a sphere of spiritual growth, but we should freely recognise the equal validity of the other great world faiths for their adherents, and we can also be enriched by some of their insights and spiritual practices. We should not see the other religions as rivals or enemies, or look down upon them as inferior, but simply as different human responses to the divine reality, formed in the past within different strands of human history and culture. And we should seek a friendship with people of other faiths which will do something to defuse the very dangerous religious absolutism that is being exploited in almost all the conflicts going on in the world today. To support religious absolutism is to be part of the problem which afflicts humanity. But we can be part of the solution by setting an example of transcending that absolutism.
agricola wrote:...In order for Christianity to be 'true', then Judaism must be 'true' ...
I really agree with this for a couple of reasons:
(1) There are tons of scriptures in the OT that Christians attribute as prophetic of Christ, and in fact it can be argued that Christ is present in those scriptures, especially at the creation. Christ Himself said that before Abraham was, He was. And the NT alludes to the gospel having been preached to Abraham. So Christians have no basis to look down on Judaism in any way, and especially in a condemnatory sense like the CofC does.
(2) Christians have been grafted into the root/trunk tree of Judaism in its own teaching, again reason enough for wondering how any Christian could be anti-Semitic...it is a self-defeating construct without any rational basis in their own faith. Yet they spew that hatred in the name of God.
agricola wrote:... Judaism claims to have the Truth. It doesn't deny that OTHER faiths ALSO have some of the Truth, too. God is not exclusively the God of the Jews...
Judaism is the Jewish path to God. It isn't the ONLY path to God. Other people have their own paths. What Jews for Jesus and Messainic Judaism do, which is so incredibly offensive, is claiming that THEIR path is the Jewish path - when it isn't. ... Those paths are simply different paths, not wrong or evil, just different. Jews might think those paths are inferior as paths, but they are not INVALID paths.
...
Maybe, but I am confused as to why Jews go after and attack so vehemently the Messianic Jews? And if all paths are just valid paths to God then why do Jews practice "shunning" when a Jew takes one of these other valid paths? That is the thing I can't square with this Jewish ecumenical spirit that there are many paths to God and it is all good. If so, then there would seem to be no place for the shunning.
Isn't the world wonderful...I am all for rational optimism and I am staying positive.
KLP wrote:
Maybe, but I am confused as to why Jews go after and attack so vehemently the Messianic Jews? And if all paths are just valid paths to God then why do Jews practice "shunning" when a Jew takes one of these other valid paths? That is the thing I can't square with this Jewish ecumenical spirit that there are many paths to God and it is all good. If so, then there would seem to be no place for the shunning.
I am not aware of Jewish shunning. Messianic Jews are Christian with a Jewish overlay. The Jews are a cross section of humanity. Their are many types of Jews with subtle differences. Some are dietary observant and some not. Some groups may are may not be acceptable. I am somewhat aware of Samaritans. They claim to be Jews as they were before the Babylonian captivity. They are not centered in Jerusalem. Some Jewish communities might consider them not really Jew. Jesus was aware of this in the Good Samaritan. Where a Samaritan was the hero and A Priest and Levite were not. In a way it was a backhanded slap. Is there only your path and none other?
Because Messianic 'Jews' make ownership claims to Judaism, klp. They appropriate the outer forms and take on the outer appearance of 'Judaism' in order to deceive. They 'practice to deceive' and deny actual Judaism any reality, attempting to blur it out of existence.
That's really rude, not to mention a few other things.
We'd far rather an honest Christian with an honest opinion that Christianity is correct.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
