St. Paul’s Take on Existence
Trying to get clearer in my mind the purposes of Paul.
Continue November 30, 2008
Archives – November, 2008
God, Angels, Mormons, Muslims, Christians
Musing about the conversions of Muslims and Mormons into Christians, especially how the Muslims and Mormons reciprocally shake their belief systems and thus together open the door to a rational and informed choice for Christianity.
Continue November 29, 2008
Christian Evangelism regarding Islam
Reviewing a plan for the awakening and conversion of the Islamic masses to Christianity. An appeal to rationality.
Continue November 28, 2008
Thinking about Islam
Thinking now of Islam
I am taken by Sura 18 and especially the “Instruction of Mosesâ€. The “teacher†says, in so many words: Moses, you must learn patience. You must learn to hold judgment in silence until all the facts are made known to you. For example I knock a hole in this poor fisherman’s boat and it sinks here close to the shore and will require repair. Terrible you want to say. But I tell you this even now robbers are passingby us and are looking for a boat and will not take the disabled boat, and the poor, decent fisherman can get back to work. So what seems evil is sometimes good, but you just can’t tell by looking, but only through patient waiting.
Consider this little boy whom I now kill with this knife. That seemed terrible, didn’t it? But let me tell you that this little boy was going to become disrespectful to his pious parents, and by killing him I have done two goods: I have enabled the little boy to achieve to a paradise deserving of him in his immediate innocence (before his actual evil) and sparing his parents the pain of what was to come. Instead they will have a new son and he will be good to them. So here again it looks like evil to the one who judged prematurely before all the facts are known, and instead two goods. (I am improvising upon the text for effect.)
Now notice that I am building up a wall in this evil town so that it will not require the evil ones to repair it. Looks like I am rewarding the evil, doesn’t it? And that’s evil, right? No, what I am doing is to prop it enough so that it will not need repair because buried under it is the last savings of a poor pious family trying to be righteous in this evil town. If the evil neighbors had to fix the wall the treasure would be discovered and confiscated.
And so in all cases things are not always what they seem and we are well advised by God to defer judgement and to wait until all the facts are out on the table on the Day of Judgment.
Well and good. Now what is troubling to me here is the mischief that a Mullah could make if he had reason to in view of this doctrine. He could convince young people to undertake what to their mind would have to be immoral acts on their own, e.g., killing innocent children, in the belief that actually something good was taking place and requiring patience.
A Mullah, I guess, could push pacific passages when he had use for that, and then violet passages when that was useful. Since the final result of all the interpretations is the establishment of a universal reign of Islam, this then being the highest good for humans and justified by all that took place before.
This is saying that the Muslim, as every rational being, knows the difference between the moral and the immoral, and so this does not say that the Muslim is immoral. What this says is that the Muslim may legitimately undertake an act he and all people know is immoral and have good (scriptural) reason to think that it could be quite moral and that a higher good will arise and will be apparent on the final day.
At least that is my take on Sura 18 (verses in the 60’s) that we are authorized to accept an interpretation of scripture negating the moral capacity of humans in a practical way.
I think now about the son of sacrifice of Abraham of the Islamic sources. How Abraham dreamed God’s “command” and told his son about the dream, and his son agreed to die, based on this dream of his father, ready to die either in order to get in to heaven and/or to help his father win favor before God, or both, one selfish the other loving, the both together complete. Now ordinarily we say that it is moral wrong to take your own life when you still can do some good. And yet this boy was willing to do it, out of self interest or love we cannot say, the boy wanted to show extreme submission to God, where even the hint of a command is as good as the command, and thus both to warrant a paradise immediately and to help his father. And his father did it for the sake of his son, that his son might have the happiness of the martyr, and then of course also because he wanted to demonstrate his great zeal for complying with the commands of God, and where the hint (the dream) were perhaps a whisper of an angel.
These then join up into a negation of all moral laws by a people who still have reason to think of themselves as moral, but with patience, i.e., willing to permit immoral acts as “actually†moral and only appearing confused to someone without all the facts.
According to this, for example, we would say if someone had murdered the young Hitler at some early age much pain would have been avoided and he would not have to deserve such a special place in hell (as people generally assume). Such a murderer would be soundly condemned by all of society and executed or imprisoned, but the angels would know that the murderer were an agent of a benevolent God who does all things for the sake of his purposes. And at the end we all, Hitler included, will applaud the murderer when they learn of the damage and evil that would have arisen from that life of Hitler. It is this thinking, I think, that marks the mind of the Muslim. Don’t be mislead by human moral judgment before all the facts are in. Remember that it is ok to slay a child sometimes. It even serves them by keeping them from doing evil in their lives and warrants to paradise in the hereafter.
The best way to get in to Islam is to present Mohammed in contrast with Joseph Smith and show how one of them is obviously a fake (since their testimonies are in conflict) and while you can’t tell for sure, if you were to go by the appeal of their stories you would really have to opt for Smith, for it is as though he had learned from Mohammed and just brought him more up to date with a better science, e.g., “paradise†actually means one of the planets circling their suns; and a better connection with the previous scriptures. This might have some traction with younger Muslims who are of an age to want to be self thinking and to come up with ideas of their own, independently of the parents. This could be done on YouTube, I bet, by someone who was savvy to that. Present the two stories and show how Smith, the free American, is actually better at composing revelations and divine communications than Mohammed (a very bad sign for Muslims, by the way), and then make a suggestion of something to add to the mix, namely the tales told by the Christians’ St. Paul, and then to take a hard look and decide first which was the more credible of the three, and see if they will not opt to become Christian sovereigns, free of all imposed law, and acting voluntarily according to the rule of neighborly and Christian love, and seeking to spread cheer in all the world.
I hope to write more on this tomorrow
November 28, 2008
Dealing with Lunatics
Living lunacy and how some, if not all, of religious people could be considered as lunatics and what this portends for the world.
Continue November 27, 2008
The Second Chance of the Christians
Rambling on the purpose of Jesus with regard to cooperation as the way to make the second chance meaningful and fruitful.
Continue November 27, 2008
The Supreme Principle of the American Union
Trying to put the California gay marriage case into a context of the original surrender of some rights by the founding fathers of the American union for the sake of a mutual endeavor, a commonweal.
Continue November 24, 2008
Musing further on the American Promise and the Christian Gift
Wondering and wandering regarding the importance of the bill of attainder ban on the US and also upon the Christian church, and how the American Union and the Christian Church have much in common with regard to concept.
Continue November 24, 2008
Musing on Liberty and Union, both American and Christian
Here I wonder about liberty to join in a union, and conclude that the Constitution’s bill of attainder provision protects the rights of gays to gay unions equal to that of straight unions, and that the Christian church can give sanction to such unions and provide an example of the right union by giving up the right of divorce. The principle of no-divorce of the Christian unions is more akin to the no-succession principle of the American union than are the civil unions within that American union.
Continue November 23, 2008
Final Solution of the “Gay Problem” for both America and Christianity
Second draft of an idea I am developing about the rights of gays and the prohibition of bills of attainder, and how this can benefit American Christians and help renew the Church and enrich its purpose now. I’ll be working on this probably tomorrow also.
Continue November 23, 2008