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Saturday, March 1, 2014

Just some random thoughts on a not so random conversation.

So if there is one thing I can count on from my Friends and Family, both ones I have met and others that I only know through Facebook, is that there will always be some very rousing conversations going on on their FB pages. They can range anywhere from history to philosophy to Gods only knows what else. The most amazing conversations come into being because someone posts something or says, “Hey what if?”
So my friend JB posted the below picture:

Photo
Now I am not going to go into whether Muhammad was a good guy or a bad guy or even whether or not he was an actual Prophet of God. I am not going to go into how badly the teachings of pretty much any religious leader (Well maybe not Buddha) have been perverted over the centuries. This is more of an observation on Human Nature.
In the dialogue mentioned above, several of my friends claimed outrage because Mohammad was “Not a teacher of peace.” They, correctly, mention that many of his teachings and proclamations were more than a tad extreme. They point out that Jesus never taught such things as proof that Islam is the religion of hate and violence while Christianity is the nice religion.
While they are technically correct, these claims completely ignore the first half of the Christians' Holy Book. Another newer but just as dear friend pointed out multiple passages in the Bible that are just as grim and violent as anything taught in Islam. Murder, Genocide, Slavery, Adultery were all performed by the Great Men of the Bible. The Old Testament reads like a laundry list of crimes and sins.
Christians love to ignore these horror stories. Their attitudes range from “Well, those stories are only meant to be parables not to be taken literally” to “Sure those things happened, but then Jesus came along so none of that stuff counts anymore.” Sure God was a real prick in the Old Testament, but once his kid showed up, he really mellowed out.
If you have to discount half of your holy book because the things in there make you uncomfortable then you pretty much invalidate any arguments you might have against other religions no matter how off kilter they may be. I always kind of felt like that is the reason you only see New Testaments in Hotels because they really don't want people to see the nasty stuff.
As a final thought before I end this rant, I'd like to point out one thing. In Christian Mythos, Jesus was the son of God so supposedly he had his own mind and his own thoughts on pretty much everything. So even if God was a bit of an Ass in the OT, Jesus could preach and teach a message of peace that was different than his old Man's actions. Muhammad was Not the Son of God. If you believe the Koran, he was simply the Prophet from who God handed down his laws and orders. So it would be more accurate to compare Muhammad to the OT Prophets than to Jesus. So if you use that comparison, then the injunctions passed down by him pretty much line up with the ones of God from the OT,
No matter what religion you believe in, no matter what God you follow there is one inescapable fact. Even if you believe that your religion's teachings started out as the absolute truth and the most accurate when he or she first put them forth, the moment that Man got his greedy little paws on those words the truth was lost. Modern day Imams corrupt the words of the Prophet to suit their own needs. Modern day Priests/Preachers corrupt the words of the Bible to support their own arguments. Until someone discovers that time machine and we can go back in time to listen and see for ourselves, no one will know for sure.
End of Rant

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