Thanks for answering back and shining a light on this alleged controversy, Ale. If someone here attacked my religion, the Baha’i Faith, I’d feel constrained to do the same. Theosophy attacks every genuine religion, which is why thinking folks in the West generally hate all religions since the hippie days. I honestly feel that all of the genuine religoins are one religion, though, which is one reason it saddens and sometimes angers me when anyone mindlessly assaults a single religion.
People who hate religion based on circumcision, battles during the days of the Prophets and various other social dynamics back in the day fail to recognize how brutal the world was until very recently. The social laws of religions vary according to the requirements of the time they’re born. The spiritual foundation never changes. Clergy and other unthinking people will focus mainly on the social laws and ordinances and ignore the spiritual foundation; the discerning person will pay little attention to the changeable social laws and will dig into the spiritual core for gems of insight and understanding. Each of the revealed religions has its own unique character so if one has the interest it’s like having a bunch of gifted professors, each with a unique and empowering view of reality.
Regarding the conditions of the times, Muhammad’s battles were strictly defensive, for instance. Even though the Muslims won all those battles they didn’t pursue the fleeing attackers and if any of the enemy wished to convert, he was instantly welcomed. Nor were Jews and Christians who lived in Muslim communities during the life of the Prophet required to fight or convert to Islam. Conversion was entirely voluntary except under the Turks. I doubt anyone can argue that the Turkish empire represented Islam, any more than the Vatican represents Jesus’ liberating Message.
Moses had to whip a very degraded Israel–a nation of obsequious slaves by then–into shape for more than a generation after they left Egypt, It’s kind of like how the fascist White Depression Babies in America and Britain need to pass on before we can discard their beloved corporate tyranny, I think. Then the hardy Jews took some territory from the Phillistines, who would have destroyed them all if they could. Evidently, even the Phillistines were eventually civilized by the influence of the Jews because one of them designed Solomon’s temple [Image Can Not Be Found]
One of the better known Greek philosophers of the period praised the civilizing influence of the Jews.
Jesus beat the crap out of the shylocks in that temple. This was not politically correct according to today’s standards but I doubt anyone would argue that it was inappropriate for the time.
Circumcision no doubt had a purpose for the day in which it was required of Jews–maybe it was so that no Jewish man could deny his faith to the enemy? Who knows?
If we balance the civilizing influence of Judaism in the world at the time against the pain of circumcision we can get a clearer historical view, perhaps. Judaism was extremely progressive since it appeared in a time and place where human sacrifice, institutional sodomy and pedophelia, the absolute denigration of women and wholesale graturitous slaughter characterized the popular religion. As Ale’s reference to the quote from teh book of Luke indicates, the times had changed when Jesus showed up and people were evidently more capable of following the essence of the law than before, so were no longer constrained to be chained to the letter of the law.
If we move ahead in history it’s apparent that the teachings that Muhammad brought were even more suited to the individual’s desire to discern reality independently, hence the explosion of science, architecture, poetry, relative peace, philosophy, non-usurious banking, progress in women’s rights, etc., that soon followed the lifetime of Muhammad . Some say that the ten-headed Beast referred to in Revelations is the Umayad Dynasty (the Turkish empire), by the way, and that Muhammad was ‘The Comforter,’ who was predicted by Jesus.
A generation ago, very few people openly talked about individual discernment–it wasn’t much of an issue. Even the hippie alleged revolution was based on conformity, for instance, and the parroting of Theosophical silliness. Notice how muich we refer to discernment in this forum and other milieus, though. I think it’s a positive sign of human progress. It doesn’t matter if the vast majority of humanity, including Zionist Jews, are not catching on. The vast majority of people will always remain relatively clueless–the Pajama People. Even they’re progressing, though, because most of them know that war and race hatred are no longer appropriate, at least.
I felt a need to broach the subject of religious prejudice being advanced in this forum and I think it paid off. Thanks for sticking to the purpose of the forum, everyone.
~Don