FtG (03/23/83)
Larry Bickford has insulted at least one major world religion with hundreds of millions of followers: the Moslems. Believe it or not Larry, these people accept Jesus as a great teacher but not as being divine in any way. The Moslems, along with many millions more, recognize that the Christian texts were written by Christians to prove their own point and can not be considered canonical. The Moslems have their own separate set of teachings by Jesus (some of which do not appear in the New Testament). In particular, it is a Moslem tradition that someone else was mistaken for Jesus and was crucified (some say Judas). Hence the Passion stories in the Gospels are inaccurate and the texts are not to be trusted as a whole. (Jesus is not considered to be as good a prophet as Mohammed, or even Moses, since he didn't establish his Kingship in his lifetime.) Many, many more people throughout history have considered Jesus to be a great teacher/rabbi/prophet without presuming any divinity. Even within the Gospels, the proper interpretation of "son of God" is not the same for all people. (E.g., "I am A son of God." reads a whole lot differently.) In summary Larry, keep your own particular view of "There two sides to every story- my way and the wrong way." to yourself. Let other people believe what they want and leave the rest of us alone. FtG
hutch (03/25/83)
I disagree, mr. FtG, Larry need NOT keep his opinions to himself, if you don't want to read them, then either hit "n" or desubscribe. This newsgroup was formed in order to allow free exchange of religious views in an environment where that sometimes distasteful process can be isolated. As to the imagined insult to the Islamic believers all over the world, my first response is, Larry was quoting C.S. Lewis, and since Mr Lewis's published works are available all over the world, you are spitting into the wind in your attempt to keep them from being heard. A more level-headed response, less inflammatory at least, is that the Christian traditions, as well as the Christian DOCUMENTS, about Jesus of Nazareth, are a whole lot more reliable than those places in the Kuran (alt. sp.) where He is mentioned. Among other things, the Kuran incidents are clearly the product of the Arab culture in which the Kuran was written, and Jesus is portrayed doing and saying things that are totally contradictory to His true nature as displayed in the writings of His friends and immediate followers. The Islamic version of Jesus is an ascetic person who mocks the Jewish laws. Jesus did not mock the Law, and He ate and drank (wine) with sinners, harlots, tax collectors, public officials, and other criminals. The only event in the Kuran (that I know of) which describes Him in such a light is a passage where He is challenged by the Pharisees coming out of a House of Ill Repute (cliche' my own phrasing) and informs them that when one wishes to find sick persons to heal, one goes to a hospital. (Phrasing and wording may be a bit off here - I am quoting from memory) It is all fine and good for the Islamic faith to have its own traditions about Jesus, but don't expect us to accept them just because the Moslems believe them. We don't try to say you have to believe the Bible just because we do, only that you should in all fairness to yourself investigate it carefully. Steve Hutchison
FtG (03/28/83)
dadla-b!hutch should learn how to read. Period. read the original article and my response first before accusing me of somehting I did not do. 1. The original article attempted to impose the author's particle narrow view as the BASIS of debate. The usual "anyone who doesn't believe in doing it MY way goes to hell" implication was clear. 2. My response pointed out that there are hundreds of millions of people who don't view it that way. The main example was the Moslems. I was in no way defending the Moslem viewpoint, MERELY (hold to your seats) THEIR RIGHT TO HOLD IT. It is one thing to critisize another's view, it is something else entirely to deny them their right to have it. If you don't like other's religions- tough. It is this imposition of a narrow view by "fundamentalists" that is making so many people so very nervous. FtG p.s. to dadla-b!hutch: I have never gone by the first name "mister".
hutch (03/31/83)
I will reply to FtG publicly so as to limit side flak. Sorry about the "mister" but it is for me a generic honorific. I could as easily have said "FtG-san" but would have come off sounding (more) pretentious. I have repeatedly stressed the importance of checking sources when possible in dealing with religious beliefs. This remains the case for my reply to you. If it appeared that I was attacking you for defending the Islamic right to a point of view, then perhaps you should re-read what you said and how I replied to what you said. It was my perception that you were defending the right to believe something provably suspect. Since I agree that people have the right to hold whatever opinion they wish, we are in no disagreement on that point. However, I also hold that there is such a thing as "truth" which in my humble opinion ought also to be a part of the opinions people hold. Belief in a lie does not make it less a lie. People may still choose to believe lies, but they would be better off to eelieve truths. IN MY OPINION the Islamic descriptions of Christ are lies. I support this claim, as I said before, with the historic evidence that the New Testament was written *long* before the Islamic stories about Him, and that those latter stories are all strongly culturally biased towards the extant Arab culture rather than the Jewish culture of early Christianity. Opinions are all fine and good. Unevaluated, they are as harmless as unloaded guns or blunted knives. However, people tend to ACT on their opinions. The fundamentalist groups you abhor belive that they have the right to impose their own beliefs about evolution on others. Do you readily defend their right of belief to the extent of allowing this? Of course not, neither would I. Clearly it is the truth of an opinion, when that truth can be discerned and evaluated, that makes it worth holding. If you cannot discover that truth, then it is the effect of that belief, held with incomplete or partial evidence, on yourself and others, which gives it what value it might have. Commentary is welcome, response may be slow Steve Hutchison Tektronix - Design Automation - Logic Analyzers ... decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!hutch
mark (04/02/83)
#R:rocheste:-105300:zinfandel:17500007:000:642
zinfandel!mark Mar 26 12:44:00 1983
Steve Hutchinson:
... It is all fine and good for the
Islamic faith to have its own traditions about Jesus, but don't expect us
to accept them just because the Moslems believe them.
Also don't expect the rest of us to accept your traditions about Jesus
just because you do. Arguing that the Bible proves them doesn't help,
just as arguing that the Kuran (your spelling) doesn't prove the Islamic
viewpoint, since you don't accept the Kuran as literally accurate
and some of us don't accept the Bible as literally accurate.
Mark Wittenberg
...!decvax!sytek!zehntel!mark
...!ucbvax!menlo70!zehntel!mark
...!teklabs!zehntel!markhutch (04/04/83)
AAARGH! (Better? Well, wait a while and they might go away) For the hopefully last time, I am not trying to impose anything on any of you. I merely want to request that before you parade your opinions, that you check to see that they make minimal sense, or we end up with these relatively fruitless discussions about peripheral issues. Remember that horribly long article I posted about information systems? Remember that section on belief systems? Perhaps I didn't make this very clear, but it was intended to point out that belief systems DO have rules for rejecting things as being invalid, untrue, or inconsistent with the known information in the system. I avoided trying to suggest a basic operating belief system for various reasons: space, necessity, and the notion that people could probably use their own intellect and reason to identify which of their inf. systems are beliefs and which are knowledge, and which are in between. When I present the contradictions between Christian view of Christ and Islamic views, I present them from the basis of an historian, and it is unreasonable to try to refute that basis by attacking my own beliefs, since they are not central to the issue of historic accuracy and the reliability of the document. You might just as well say that because Barbara Cartland wrote about Queen Elizabeth 1 (I don't know if she has) that her fictionalized history was "equally valid". Come on, folks, if you think my beliefs are wrong, you are free to say so, but don't try to pretend that you can refute my historical analysis on that basis alone. At least try to address the issue, which in this case was the reliability of the documents, with something more factual than the opinion that "anyone is entitled to believe anything" and that the "bible is not literally accurate" without any qualification of the latter assertion. What a wonderful way to start a monday ( <- sarcasm) Hutch