"Violence is incompatible with the nature of God"? Then why doesn't the Pope remove all the cruel and violent passages in the Bible? Catholics have (thankfully) ignored them (along with most of the Bible) anyway. Why not use the Pope's infallibility to get rid of the bad stuff in the Bible for good?
A good place to start would be to remove 2 Chronicles 15:13. Such a verse "is incompatible with the nature of God" and therefore could not have been inspired by him (her, etc.)
Christians, Jews, and Muslims should either accept the fact that their religions are based upon violent texts or clean up those texts so they are no longer violent.
3 comments:
Great pictures! Loved the alien one.
Entertaining cartoons to say the least... but Catholics dont JUST have the Bible, there is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is the expression of the single interpretation bestowed upon it (and put in simple form for people to actually read). Generally, if your not aligned to that (the Catechism), you'd have a hard time justifying being Catholic (a la carte doesnt fly)...
So, there is no need for the Pope to even consider removing anything from the bible at all, as is perscribed by this slightly uninformed, but understandable (most people dont actually bother to look into the Cathechism) cartoon.
Its only after the rejection of the Church during the time of the protesting (where "protestant" comes from) against what some of the people were using it for (their own greed etc) and later tens of thousands of break-offs of that is where mass mis-interpretation occurs.
I dunno if this is a good analogy, but: I suppose its like stemcells protesting against a body and deciding to create their own. (thought not physically possible, bear with me)
So they go off, and give it a go, but since they arnt in the body anymore, they dont know what to become. Using what they learned previously, they try to create something similar, but are always missing things and disagreeing with eachother (leading to other "bodies" attempted to be created) and eventually you have heaps of "churches" all trying to be what they actually protested against in the first place.
So, you can see where from and why alot of mis-understanding occurs. Infact alot of people have named it the "Deformation" (as would describe these aforementioned "heaps") instead of the "Reformation", for understandable reasons.
I suggest reading it if you want the real Catholic interpretation of the Bible. I hope in doing so, he/she might find himself a little more comfortable with what is the belief of the Church. Otherwise, the slippery slope of relativism, and mis-interpretation awaits in door number 2 :)
As for Islam... they, as a whole. Arn't taking responsiblity for their extemists or those trying to stirr up hatred and violence.
At the moment, the majority, are peace-seeking people, who are bullied by the noisy and weapon toting minority. You might not imagine this as possible, but when the family is the centre of a belief, you can get people to do anything you want them to do with a descriptive and inclusive death threat.
The Islamic world will continue to be further polarised because of the extremists who basically control it. They have figured out a nice vicious cycle and continue to agitate it: Violence breeds violence, so they attack people to get a militairy/violent responce, then victimize themself to further polarise those who wernt originally extremists towards their cause. Thus growing their ranks.
Its about time they stopped crying about the crusades (you cant invade europe and expect people to just let you keep their land, same goes with Iraq), and demonizing the west. Those who sit on the gate and claim to stand for peace but dont try to stop the spreading of violence, are just helping it. Its like not standing up for a friend who is being bullied, your letting it happen, and are just as guilty. Take responsibility for these people, and stop telling the world what you think you stand for, and do something about it for once, take responsiblity!
Now concerning the Koran:
I have read many passages of the Koran, and the essence of what I get, is that it makes one despressingly tempermental bit of writing/prophecy (caring and charity one minue, but blatant acceptability for killing the next)
But it is absolutly awsome (in its efficiency/interpretational pliability) as a miliary/governmental idealogy.
What worries me, is how peace-loving muslims will be able to actually defend themselves against extremist interpretations. In essence, they cant, they can only accept it as "someone elses" interpretation and are suseptible to its influences because they dont stand against it. This means, that you can manipulate people into doing what your own needs require quite easily, without much trouble.
I suppose to finish this off, it would be appropriate for the following idealogical ouline comparison, just for a tidbit of intention.
1. Judaism - Always a closed, respectable following that was given to only for a select tribe of people who grew slowly over time, never openly converting and accepting others into their faith. They avoided inter-faith marriges and tried to keep their community as preserved as possible. Possibility of violence, minimal, except if provoked.
2. Christianity - Born out of Judaism, to both fulfull the promises that were made to the Jews, and to accept everyone, with a universal teaching. Is openly preached, taught and people's conversions should be by choice and discernment. "Love thy enemy" being a forefront of belief. Philosophy and theology being intertwined and used to find greater meaning (not altering the essence or ideal, but to explain them to a changing society with more depth and vigor) to messages.
3. Islam - Also seen internally as a universal teaching, for everyone, but actually has methods of spreading (jusitifed by writings) that arn't contained to words or verbal and spiritual challenges (hint hint). Accepts the Koran without question, Philosophy doesn't adhere to Islamic intentions. The "accept or die" policy; being openly enforced by the fact that those who leave Islam are open season to being murdered. This is fostered through the idea that those who do so are dead anyways, and they are saving them the suffering of living.
I hope all of this has a little bit of insight.
Excellent comments! I really like your post and comments on this. Un-biased and neutral, even fair, yet educated.
Although, on the comment about the Jews, true they worked hard to keep their traditions, you'll find that a huge number also are either very liberal, question the Scriptures' validity, or don't even believe in God altogether (though they continue to keep with the traditional holidays). But then, many Christians and Muslims also fit into this category.
I hope you're still posting! I look forward to reading more of your material.
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