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To: DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis

Islam actually is based on the weirder parts of what we call the Old Testament, and it takes everything very literally. By the time the Jews had made it to the point of at which their tradition was codified and the warfare had become mainly adherence to the Law, they no longer believed in dashing the heads of their enemy’s children against the stones (a phrase that appears in the Psalms and elsewhere).

Islam is the first fundamentalism, but it’s also stuffed with other things: polygamy and fertility cult moon worship, for example, and probably a lot of things that would appeal to the heirs of the Baal worshippers that the Arabs overran. There are a few figures from the New Testament and then a lot of hatred of the Jews. This was because Mohammed was influenced by Arian Christianity, which was always highly antisemitic.


7 posted on 10/12/2014 1:33:57 PM PDT by livius
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To: livius

Polygamy has a part among the Old Testament figures. Jacob/Israel is the perfect example. He had four wives, or two wives and two concubines, yet he was one who spoke to God, and wrestled with an angel. Even in the OT, a small minority of the Jews were polygamous. The majority were monogamous, likely 90+ percent had only one wife, at a time.


9 posted on 10/12/2014 1:41:15 PM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: livius; metmom; boatbums; caww; presently no screen name; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer; ...
By the time the Jews had made it to the point of at which their tradition was codified and the warfare had become mainly adherence to the Law, they no longer believed in dashing the heads of their enemy’s children against the stones (a phrase that appears in the Psalms and elsewhere).

That explanation is akin to the charge in the interview that the Torah was distorted and forged, as in fact that Law was first given that mandated the annihilation of the Canaanites in judgment against them.

The differences btwn religious violence in Scripture and Islam are that:

1. The covenant Israel made with God was preceded by unmistakable supernatural evidence that the God of Abraham was real and delivering and directing them, which was so manifest that there could not be a rational atheist among them (though that did not stop them from acting like atheists sometimes, while atheists can be quite irrational in disallowing a Creator-judge even as a hypothesis).

In contrast, Islam's laws on conquest have no such unmistakable supernatural attestation, but Muhammad's revelations were such that at first he wondered if they were of the devil. Which they were of course.

2. The laws of conquest given to Israel were specific and geographically and ethnically limited, versus Islam's were are universal.

3. The Bible provides extensive historical narratives and context for its laws, in contrast to the disjointed mundane monologues of Allah to his pseudo-prophet. And which at best do not provide a coherent theology on religious violence that would relegate the conquests of ISIS type groups to having as much Quranic warrant as the so-called "Lord's Army" in Africa has from the Bible for its violence. And in contrast, the context of certain strong commands to engage in religious violence, and what "war" can consist of are such that they can provide sanction for ISIS.

4. The Bible promised a New Covenant, in which the kingdom of God is spiritual (Jn. 18:26) and thus its warfare is waged by spiritual force, (2Cor. 10:3,4; Eph. 6:12) prayer and the word of God, (Acts 6:4) not by employing the sword of men to deal with theological foes or act as a theocracy.

In contrast, if Islam has a different covenant then it was when Muhammad was a minority prophet in Mecca, thus the suras that call for tolerance are from that period, while once he was a majority in Medina then his "revelations" accommodated his needs and lusts.

More as its bedtime.

14 posted on 10/12/2014 9:30:27 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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