Not to be facetious, but what moral standard are you using to call ego pride and greed sinful? You're using a Judeo-Christian worldview. Can you imagine a moral framework where killing infidels is moral? That's Islam. In the West we are totally blind to the fact that our own worldview is largely based on the New Testament of the Bible, t…
Not to be facetious, but what moral standard are you using to call ego pride and greed sinful? You're using a Judeo-Christian worldview. Can you imagine a moral framework where killing infidels is moral? That's Islam. In the West we are totally blind to the fact that our own worldview is largely based on the New Testament of the Bible, though without the specific spiritual instruction on worship, faith or prayer.
Rather clumsily I'm trying to make the point that every moral framework has to have an anchor in a faith system. And I mean every moral framework. Secular humanists like to think that they can invent morality (i.e. moral relativism) but if there is no absolute morality then their moral framework is the divine right of Kings to do whatever the heck they want ("Might makes right"?). Islam uses the Koran as their faith system, so for them, killing infidels is 'moral'. We rightly regard that as abhorrent, but my subtext is that the reason we find killing innocent foreigners immoral is 2000 years of Christian history. If you had been born in, say, Somalia in the current time, or born back in Roman days pre-Christ, you would find killing foreigners to be good if your warlord or slave master told you to. We don't have a morality without the New Testament - or at least not one that works. So why is what you think to be not ok, not ok? Because Jesus said "Thou shalt not kill", and added that getting in a rage or resenting or unforgiveness is a sin. Anglophone morality is steeped in the practice of Christianity, which is a historical fact. We just don't say that out loud very often because some people might find it 'not inclusive'.
Yes of course. But Jesus quoted Moses as we find it in Matthew's gospel, and then extended it from 'law' to personal application. Critically, without Jesus being born, would not the West still have an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth as the fairest justice system? Yes, the whole Bible reveals that judgement is to be tempered with mercy. (David honored King Saul when he could have killed him, for instance. Yet Samuel was outraged that Saul had disobeyed and spared some of the Amalekites.) But Jesus, ministering as a Rabbi, in full agreement with the Torah, taught that "Don't murder" doesn't go far enough. Jesus said that if you hate your brother it's the same guilt as killing him. Our whole Western understanding of justice, forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration are because Christians believe that Jesus fulfilled the Torah and as Isaiah's Suffering Servant, earned the right to become our Savior. But thanks for pointing that out! I'm humbled to be discussing such holy words with you.
My world view is based in Judaism and Buddhism. These moral positions are not only held in the West but also Eastern spiritual traditions as well. The problem you are trying to solve and the questions you are asking lead you to different places.
In Judaism the question is: How do we heal the world?
In Buddhism it is: How do we relieve suffering of all living beings?
I like these questions. I don't know what the question is in Islam.
Very interesting. I imagine Mohammed viewed the corruption of the emerging post-Roman and decadent-Christian worldview in 600AD as given over to license. Probably an accurate view. Leveraging a waking vision he received from Allah, he decided to enforce a morality on everyone, raised an army, invaded Mecca, and appointed himself as Prophet and his followers as the enforcers of world righteousness. So I guess Islam's question is "How can we end corruption?"
The fallacy (dare I say it) is that the place to start on righteousness is in your own heart, which unfortunately Islam completely neglects.
Instead, the Christian question is "How can I be free from the burden of sin?"
If the question for Islam is, as you suggest, "how can we end corruption?", then it has been an abysmal failure. I am not excusing or suggesting that the West does not suffer from some corruption, but not on the scale seen in most Middle Eastern and other countries. Corruption is precisely one of the mechanisms to obtain and secure power. Hamas, Hezbollah and other radical Islamic groups, are supported by a highly corrupt government, Iran. And, rather than use their funds to better their people, they instead build tunnels, buy munitions, and otherwise engage in jihad. Let me suggest, that just being a nonbeliever does not mean that you are corrupt. Perhaps Islam needs to look in its own mirror and perhaps engage in a reformation before pointing the finger elsewhere.
To a Muslim, anything that leads away from Islam is corruption. It can be people, laws, institutions, art, anything. To them, our Western definition is only a tool to use against infidels and their works.
Then they ought not come here and be tempted. Moreover, they need to answer for why their corrupt leaders do not use the funds provided by others to build schools, hospitals, roads, infrastructure to benefit the people, but instead steal it and use it to build tunnels, buy weapons, and deliberrately install military installations in and under civilian populations making them human fodder - is that not the definition of corruption?
Not to be facetious, but what moral standard are you using to call ego pride and greed sinful? You're using a Judeo-Christian worldview. Can you imagine a moral framework where killing infidels is moral? That's Islam. In the West we are totally blind to the fact that our own worldview is largely based on the New Testament of the Bible, though without the specific spiritual instruction on worship, faith or prayer.
Confused by your comment. Do you think it’s ok that some believe that killing infidels is moral? Because I certainly don’t find that to be ok.
Rather clumsily I'm trying to make the point that every moral framework has to have an anchor in a faith system. And I mean every moral framework. Secular humanists like to think that they can invent morality (i.e. moral relativism) but if there is no absolute morality then their moral framework is the divine right of Kings to do whatever the heck they want ("Might makes right"?). Islam uses the Koran as their faith system, so for them, killing infidels is 'moral'. We rightly regard that as abhorrent, but my subtext is that the reason we find killing innocent foreigners immoral is 2000 years of Christian history. If you had been born in, say, Somalia in the current time, or born back in Roman days pre-Christ, you would find killing foreigners to be good if your warlord or slave master told you to. We don't have a morality without the New Testament - or at least not one that works. So why is what you think to be not ok, not ok? Because Jesus said "Thou shalt not kill", and added that getting in a rage or resenting or unforgiveness is a sin. Anglophone morality is steeped in the practice of Christianity, which is a historical fact. We just don't say that out loud very often because some people might find it 'not inclusive'.
Well, you’re wrong since it wasn’t Jesus who said that. G-d said that to Moses way before Jesus was born.
Yes of course. But Jesus quoted Moses as we find it in Matthew's gospel, and then extended it from 'law' to personal application. Critically, without Jesus being born, would not the West still have an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth as the fairest justice system? Yes, the whole Bible reveals that judgement is to be tempered with mercy. (David honored King Saul when he could have killed him, for instance. Yet Samuel was outraged that Saul had disobeyed and spared some of the Amalekites.) But Jesus, ministering as a Rabbi, in full agreement with the Torah, taught that "Don't murder" doesn't go far enough. Jesus said that if you hate your brother it's the same guilt as killing him. Our whole Western understanding of justice, forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration are because Christians believe that Jesus fulfilled the Torah and as Isaiah's Suffering Servant, earned the right to become our Savior. But thanks for pointing that out! I'm humbled to be discussing such holy words with you.
My world view is based in Judaism and Buddhism. These moral positions are not only held in the West but also Eastern spiritual traditions as well. The problem you are trying to solve and the questions you are asking lead you to different places.
In Judaism the question is: How do we heal the world?
In Buddhism it is: How do we relieve suffering of all living beings?
I like these questions. I don't know what the question is in Islam.
Very interesting. I imagine Mohammed viewed the corruption of the emerging post-Roman and decadent-Christian worldview in 600AD as given over to license. Probably an accurate view. Leveraging a waking vision he received from Allah, he decided to enforce a morality on everyone, raised an army, invaded Mecca, and appointed himself as Prophet and his followers as the enforcers of world righteousness. So I guess Islam's question is "How can we end corruption?"
The fallacy (dare I say it) is that the place to start on righteousness is in your own heart, which unfortunately Islam completely neglects.
Instead, the Christian question is "How can I be free from the burden of sin?"
I don't know. They seem to talk a lot about justice.
If the question for Islam is, as you suggest, "how can we end corruption?", then it has been an abysmal failure. I am not excusing or suggesting that the West does not suffer from some corruption, but not on the scale seen in most Middle Eastern and other countries. Corruption is precisely one of the mechanisms to obtain and secure power. Hamas, Hezbollah and other radical Islamic groups, are supported by a highly corrupt government, Iran. And, rather than use their funds to better their people, they instead build tunnels, buy munitions, and otherwise engage in jihad. Let me suggest, that just being a nonbeliever does not mean that you are corrupt. Perhaps Islam needs to look in its own mirror and perhaps engage in a reformation before pointing the finger elsewhere.
To a Muslim, anything that leads away from Islam is corruption. It can be people, laws, institutions, art, anything. To them, our Western definition is only a tool to use against infidels and their works.
Then they ought not come here and be tempted. Moreover, they need to answer for why their corrupt leaders do not use the funds provided by others to build schools, hospitals, roads, infrastructure to benefit the people, but instead steal it and use it to build tunnels, buy weapons, and deliberrately install military installations in and under civilian populations making them human fodder - is that not the definition of corruption?
... but that would make them Christian ;-)