This question is not so simple as it may appear. It is a short question to a very large issue. Now, when talking about other Religions such as Har Krishna, Buddhism, and the great multitude of other faiths in the world I would have no idea where to start. I've never practiced them, nor have I studied them to any great extent. My knowledge of them is superficial at best. But Islam, and Christianity I can talk about.
Cheery picking is really the very deep issue of Deuteronomy 4:2 which is as quote:
"You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish from it, that you may keep the commandments of the L-RD your G-D which I command you."
We talked about this in my previous posting concerning what happens when you inch by inch begin to veer off the path. Eventually you will find yourself very far away from the road. Torah most certainly is our road map for how we as humans should conduct ourselves. But like we found with people who fall into apostasy you will find that rather than make their funny ideas personal, and private they generally have to bring others with them. It is better to die as a group rather than die alone, right? One fight one right eh? We saw this with the Dead Sea sect that created strange writings in the Ge'ez language surrounding Enoch, Adam and Eve and "Nefillim" (no longer great men who fell, but suddenly demon giants form the seed of disobedient angels). All of which is complete bogus, then the Church took those same writings and highly Christianized them. We also saw this with the Baal worshipers, and the Sadducee's. All of these people vanished. No longer identified as Jewish. We see it with the early Christians which were Jewish, they have not a single line today that identifies as Jewish. They lost their place with the People Israel.
It is important to point out that the Christianity we are all familiar with is not Mark's Christianity, nor Luke's, nor Matthew's. Certainly Luke, Matthew, John, and Paul share ideas but having Mark being the earliest of the "synoptic gospel" we find that Mark see's everything very differently. No, in fact the earliest writings are the letters of Paul who was forming his Church. He was done with the Jews, and went to the non-Jews. To do this though, he had to remove Judaism from Nazarene first. This is why we find the Christian writings favoring the Romans greatly, and instead of being Jewish, they flirted with idolatry. Hence the later veneration of Mary, the "virgin birth", the trinity, and Jesus being G-d made flesh. Christianity converted to Rome, not the other way around. This is WHERE the cherry picking started. At least with the Dead Sea sect they were still somewhat frum (observant, religious), but they did attempt to change the Torah. Create new stories and mythologies. The thing about the Sadducee is that this group utterly rejected the Oral Torah, and were more interested in being like the Romans, and "getting with the times" than anything else. Both "died out". They either went away and were lost to the diaspora, or they went back to what we call in modern times (thanks to Reform Movement) Jewish Orthodoxy. So for Christianity as we see now for it to survive it HAD to go away from the Jews. Matthew and Luke was very frustrated with how they couldn't get Jews to join. Paul was fed up, and went to the pagans. It just could not survive with the People Israel.
Islam had to do the exact same thing. Don't go to the Jew. Most certainly don't go to the Christian. Go instead to a war torn, deeply wounded people as a result of Roman rule in the rest of the fertile crescent, all pagans, and spread Islam there.
So what was the program for everything?
Christianity holds that: G-d changed His mind and left the Jews. Turned away from the Torah. No more would people be bound to it. He instead went to the Gentiles (non-Jews). You no longer followed the laws...except the law against male homosexuality (which now includes female homosexuality). Pray to Jesus instead of pointing yourselves towards Jerusalem, and praying to G-d, and the cross is your symbol of salvation.
Islam holds that: G-d changed His mind again, and left the Christians. Replaced Jesus with Muhammed, and went to Arabic people who descended from Abraham's first son Ishmael. Newer laws were made replacing Christian law...except for general homosexuality. Still a no no. Also, instead of praying to Jesus you pray pointed towards Mecca. Instead of the cross, it is the kabba as your symbol of salvation.
What do these two have in common? G-d changed His mind. But the problem is, such a concept does not ever enter into the Torah except on what two occasions? The giving of punishments, and warnings. Those can always be changed. If they could not, how truly merciful would G-d truly be?
We can see the trend as follows:
G-d says He will never change His mind, and that He is not a liar (Numbers 23:!9, above picture), goes to the People Israel, says He has made an eternal un-breaking promise with us. And gives 3,000,000 of our ancestors 600,000 Torah's. However...
(Christianity)
G-d changed His mind from ISRAEL and TORAH to ----> Christian, to New Testament, and Jesus.
(Islam)
G-d changes His mine AGAIN from CHRISTIANITY, NEW TESTAMENT, and JESUS to -----------> Islam, Quran, and Muhammed.
So what is the problem we see here? Both Christianity and Islam MUST admit to the following issue:
G-D CAN CHANGE HIS MIND ANYTIME
And therefore, Christianity and Islam are only as valid as the new found fickleness of G-d. They therefore must admit that at any point in time no matter how far in the future it may or may not be, a new group can come along through a lone "Prophet" who magically had a revelation while in seclusion rather than 3,000,000 people experiencing the SAME revelation at once. And there it is. The issue is that both faiths are based on a temporary seating, and nature.
I think this is a good place to end this post for the day. Allow yourselves to consider my words. Then study the Torah, and see what G-d's opinion is on this. The Torah is abundant with His unchanging opinions. I've quoted a few already.
Be well,
No comments:
Post a Comment