SPEAK THE TRUTH! And Redeem This World From Hell

[x-ray peat]

You will without a doubt vehemently disagree, and I don't wish to see your head explode in saying the following, but regarding Islam, I also see it as a vehicle of divine revelation, just like Judaism and Christianity, so for me at least, it's not extraneous to bring up.

Just as Christianity takes from Judaism themes/doctrines that it emphasizes more, shifts other themes to places of lesser, little or no importance, while adding brand new elements, above all the idea of God as man, the monotheistic God-man (1), Islam does the same with Judaism and Christianity. Islam brings back God's transcendence - and that's prominent theme in Judaism, it restores the place of Law in its own context with sharia (thus bringing back another Jewish strength), and replaces the God-man identity of Jesus with the identity of a major prophet (2), something that could easily come out of Judaism. At the same time, Islam maintains and preserves God's immanence, a very major Christian focus, but in a new way, without the need for a priesthood to undertake the complex theological acrobatics (which cannot be done relying on the OT alone, they required the Greek philosophy for this) needed to makes sense of the enigmatic "mystery" of God and man as one in Jesus. Islam directs their believers to the Koran as both the location and conduit of Divine Revelation which any Muslim believer can access and personally draw on, without mediation of a priestly or ecclesiastical machinery (both problematic impediments, salvifically speaking, in Judaism and Christianity). Islam, by minimizing or radically reducing he role of priestly/ecclesiastical machinery, universalizes access to salvation to an even greater magnitude than Christianity. (3) The Koran in Islam is functionally equivalent to Jesus in Christianity, just as Jesus in Christianity is functionally equivalent to the Koran in Islam.

From all the above, it may become clear that Islam is a "correction," so to speak, of the imbalances and excesses that inevitably developed in Judaism and Christianity. It fuses the best from Judaism and Christianity in proper proportion and values those fused or connected elements to the proper degree. At least in principle, and sometimes in practice, as with the earliest Muslims, and especially among the Sufis since then.

If Judaism corrects and adds something new to paganism, and Christianity corrects and adds something new to Judaism, then, in this developmental scheme, Islam corrects and balances out and adds something new to paganism, Judaism and Christianity. A very different version of what Christians call "salvific history," eh?

(1) BTW, you are incorrect in saying the NT gets everything it has from the OT. No it doesn't. There's nothing in the OT that indicates God is or could be a human being. The NT - or the way it gets interpreted and understood by Christians even then and later - gets any such notions from the Greeks. Ordinary, pious Jews at an earlier time, a little more than two centuries before say, who had little or no contact with Greek ideas, would be in principle fine referring to him as a human messiah, but to say some blue-collar working-class carpenter called Jesus is God Himself, in entirety, walking around on the earth? No, relatively earlier pious Jews would have been shocked by that as blasphemy, it would have reverberated with abundant pagan resonances to their ears.

(2) And as we know, Muhammad for Muslims, unlike Jesus for Christians, is NOT a God-Man, he is strictly a human and a prophet, a messenger.

(3) Protestantism registers the "Muslim impulse," so to speak, within Christianity to increase salvific universalism by ditching that machinery, but it does so at the cost of watering down the coherence of the Christian message, and above all, at the cost of destroying the unity of the Christian community, which splinters and fragments into hundreds or thousands of little - and often warring - sects that absolutize a few facets from the whole of that message. Extreme imbalances and ever-increasing cumulative confusion comes in the wake of Protestant Christianity. Instead of taking the escape hatch from this into say, Islam, the western world has chosen to take the fork in the road of secularism, nihilism and Dostoyevskian "If there is no God, everything is permitted" political replacements for religion, such as Marxism or Nazism.

Well my head didn’t explode, but it did shake back and forth quite a bit. The idea that “Islam is a correction” to the “the imbalances and excesses” of Christianity and Judaism is probably quite popular in academia but I suspect a left wing anti- Judaeo-Christian politics are at work. To me this claim is predicated upon using an archaic version of Judaism and an idealized one of Islam. A fair comparison would look at each religion during the same time periods, such as comparing the Priestly Theocracy to the pagan world of human sacrifice and idolatry. Or 7th century Rabbinical Judaism to 7th Century Islam. Judaism hasn’t had a Priesthood for 2,000 years and I would argue that it has corrected itself much farther than has Islam. With that line of thinking, Mormonism and Santeria, could be argued as corrections to Christianity.

Looking realistically at the three religions, both Judaism and Christianity have undergone major reformations as the needs of people and civilization have evolved. By contrast, an Islamic reformation is long overdue. An opinion held by many in Islam. As an example, the Talmud stated 2,000 years ago that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is considered bloodthirsty. Christianity stopped killing heretics with the ending of the Inquisitions and the religious wars of Europe. The same can’t be said for Islam. Public executions, corporal punishment, and lengthy imprisonment for the smallest infractions are all commonplace in the Muslim world.

Spoke too soon, your last paragraph almost made my head explode. Islam is not the “escape hatch”.

And to clarify, from a Christian perspective the OT does prophesize the coming of a God-Man Messiah; born of a virgin who will establish an everlasting Kingdom that he will rule forever. The Jews of course have a different interpretation and believe in an anointed man imbued with the Spirit of God.

 

[yerrag]

Yes, I agree with this. So my argument is not a takedown, per se. I choose not to participate directly in any religion. I choose not to participate directly in many authoritarian systems of control. Yet some are inevitable. And understanding them as such makes my choices within those systems more satisfying and less agonizing. Note "more" and "less".

That said, it is also possible to create systems that are less (again, "less" not "not") authoritarian. Or for systems to evolve to be less (or more) authoritarian.

There are other ways to frame this, but "authoritarianism" is uniquely connected to this forum, and altogether satisfying, for me at least.

It's commendable to choose something that's less authoritarian. Civilization is joined to the hips to authoritarianism. And so it's appropriate to simply aim for less, or die in despair.

The good, by definition, can’t be mutilated. I rather love men and women personally than love god abstractly. It’s like what camus says about humanitarians, they can’t love a single individual so they claim to love humanity.

I agree. Don't try to change the world. Change yourself and be kind to those around you.

 

[Badger]

How is my use of the word "seminal" revealing when I didn't use it? The closest word I used to that is "Seminary." So maybe your misreading of that word is revealing.

What is the primary cause of human alienation? The first rejection most people experience is a denial of the warmth and love of the mother. That initial rejection is dealt with culturally in a multitude of ways. Also your use of the word “seminal” is revealing.

 

[Badger]

I know that Dr. Peat is very smart, probably a genius, but he is not a universal genius, no one who ever lived was. Hence it's a real good bet that Eliade knows more about history of religion than does Peat. Besides this, I get the feeling you cherry-picked what is really a secondary or third-level idea of Eliade's as a means to find a reason to ignore his work. I can tell you, if you are interested in a different opinion, what you zeroed in on has no salience in any consideration of how he analyzes religion without pushing reductionism on it. My impression is reinforced by your taking it not from Eliade directly but from a secondary source in Wikipedia, itself a resource which, on matters of religion and much else, is less reliable than the Jehovah's Witness literature stuffed in my mailbox. And I won't even get into serious concerns with the context in which these ideas of of Eliade occurs that you cherry picked. But do as you will, fine with me.

From Wikipedia:

Eliade thinks the Platonic Theory of forms is "primitive ontology" persisting in Greek philosophy. He claims that Platonism is the "most fully elaborated" version of this primitive ontology

I’m more interested in semiotics than in Platonic forms and their authority. This goes back to RP’s talk on authoritarianism and eternal forms which no one has challenged as of yet.

 

[Badger]

Buber was a very popular religious writer in his time who was a wonderful influence no matter what one's religion, and a very humane person. I admit not having much read him directly, though. I saw him quoted a lot in all kinds of theological writings, and heard people lecture about him. Your reminding me of his ideas makes me think of one of my favorite Sufi Zen-like paradoxical statements, "The murshid says there is hierarchy (authority) and brotherhood, but brotherhood comes first." In my view, that's the way it was with Jesus and his disciples. For Sufis, actual practice of brotherhood in community is a pillar to a degree way beyond ordinary Islam, which does value community as a means to come closer to God. But for them, hierarchy comes first, as it does for most mainstream Christians and Jews (and assuming there is any brotherhood, not always much in some cases). Always exceptions among some sects of them, of course.

Martin Buber wrote extensively of this alienation and was one of the early proponents of kibbutzim. But he found that the sense of community was so strong that it superseded the religious basis. To his chagrin at the time, but hs unusual openness led him eventually to understand this as a more authentic religious experience than an objectified relationship with "God" through texts and institutions.

This, among other experiences, led him to abandon his (based in Hassidism) view of god and man as a unity. His famous "Ich und Du" advances a mol heretical (although few recognized it at the time) notion that god is known through profound relations between people that are not manipulative. Not being a naive idealist, he realized that this was a rare and fleeting condition but that it was the only thing that resolved authoritarianism (I've often wondered if Peat has read Buber). But his next heresy was recognized: he considered Christianity to be a manifestation on the ongoing encounter between god and man. He also rejected orthodox notions of rigidly codified behavior or normative compulsions. So he also embraced the notion of Palestine as a Jewish AND Arab state and harshly criticized unfair treatment of Arabs for example. And he questioned orthodox dogma purely based on its dogmatic nature rather than its content.

He is a great example of a profoundly religious person transcending authority. But, then, I think many would agree that he also transcended religion.

 

[Badger]

No, it's not at all popular in academia, except in historical sociology of religion circles. I've never seen leftys espouse them at any time. If of any interest to you (disregard if not), my main influence for such ideas, on the historical and social side of analysis, are Max Weber, Peter Berger and Mircea Eliade. Their expertise is seeing these religions in terms of process, change and transition, and identifying the human processes that lead to change and the new meanings and contexts that symbols and doctrines acquire. Articulating such ideas in a theological, philosophical, metaphysical context, on the "divine side," my primary influences are Eliade again (as a philosopher - not historian - of the history of religions), then what's called the Traditionalist school, and a major member of that school of religious thinking, Rene Guenon above all.

I would agree a comparative analysis of these religions is quite appropriate. One of my examples would be to compare say, the the Muslim Golden Age in Muslim Spain , with Christian Europe, which was quite primitive religiously, culturally and scientifically at the time. There's others I could add.

Islam has had its reformations (though confined to more local areas) and as mentioned above, it's "golden age" and great cultural/intellectual flowering in part of Europe, of all places, comparable to the best of the high Middle Ages of Schoolmen learning in great medieval cites of learning, such as Paris. 7th century Rabbinical theocracy was much less impressive than early Islam at the the time, in that Muslims, like ancient Jewish warriors, such as David, Moses, Joshua, and others, slew countless pagans and idolators. Unlike the Jewish warriors, who were commanded by God to slay every man, woman and child among the pagans of their time in various incidents recorded by the OT (something you omitted in another post that I forgot to bring you up on), Muhammad tried to give his pagan enemies a choice. Shows a higher ethic than the OT, and as far as I know, the Jews of Muhammad's time weren't out there warring against and risking there lives fighting pagans to get them to follow the Mosaic path.

I agree with you to only a very limited extent about contemporary Islam. What you say about the Islamic world being barbaric, cruel, bloodthirsty and other terrible things only applies to specific and limited sectors and small populations, and much of that just uses religion as cover for purely political and economic objectives. Most of the Muslim world is quite civilized most of the time. Terrorists, extremists and fanatics are a relatively tiny minority, and they are being used by financial-political forces that are not even Muslims. I've been to Turkey a number of times, for example, and I found so many ordinary Muslims are kind, loving, generous, good-hearted, very pious and devout. Their mosques and tombs of Muslim holy men are beautiful. No head-chopping or vicious persecution at all there, and little that's abusive motivated by religion. And I've met many, many American Muslims who are really fine, moral and devout people. Have you ever met any Muslims in the US, and gotten to know them well?

You omit the Jews in Israel, whose government, Zionist fanatics and some of their major Rabbinic organizations, mercilessly torment, torture, bomb, imprison and kill mostly innocent Palestinians, and have done so for decades. And that's based on religion, as Zionist rabbis gleefully produce theological rationales for the harm and abuse they perpetuate on the Palestinians. Contemporary Islam has its degenerate, toxic, vile Muslims, and so does Judaism, especially in Israel. One could say the same about Christians too, including Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, though in contexts different from violence.

Just as Christians claim Jesus is prophesied in the OT, Muslims says the same about Muhammad in the NT. The most famous verse on this score being, "John 14:16 "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." (American Standard Version) Yes I know, you will tell me Muslims misinterpret this line, which is really" about the Holy Spirit. But Jews say. quite rightly, you misinterpret their Scripture citing passages that supposedly prophesy Jesus.

Well my head didn’t explode, but it did shake back and forth quite a bit. The idea that “Islam is a correction” to the “the imbalances and excesses” of Christianity and Judaism is probably quite popular in academia but I suspect a left wing anti- Judaeo-Christian politics are at work. To me this claim is predicated upon using an archaic version of Judaism and an idealized one of Islam. A fair comparison would look at each religion during the same time periods, such as comparing the Priestly Theocracy to the pagan world of human sacrifice and idolatry. Or 7th century Rabbinical Judaism to 7th Century Islam. Judaism hasn’t had a Priesthood for 2,000 years and I would argue that it has corrected itself much farther than has Islam. With that line of thinking, Mormonism and Santeria, could be argued as corrections to Christianity.

Looking realistically at the three religions, both Judaism and Christianity have undergone major reformations as the needs of people and civilization have evolved. By contrast, an Islamic reformation is long overdue. An opinion held by many in Islam. As an example, the Talmud stated 2,000 years ago that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is considered bloodthirsty. Christianity stopped killing heretics with the ending of the Inquisitions and the religious wars of Europe. The same can’t be said for Islam. Public executions, corporal punishment, and lengthy imprisonment for the smallest infractions are all commonplace in the Muslim world.

Spoke too soon, your last paragraph almost made my head explode. Islam is not the “escape hatch”.

And to clarify, from a Christian perspective the OT does prophesize the coming of a God-Man Messiah; born of a virgin who will establish an everlasting Kingdom that he will rule forever. The Jews of course have a different interpretation and believe in an anointed man imbued with the Spirit of God.

 

[Badger]

"the OT does prophesize the coming of a God-Man Messiah; born of a virgin."
BTW, are you aware the Koran states Mary, Jesus' mother, was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus? Her name is mentioned in the Koran many more times than in the NT. She, like Jesus, are very greatly revered in Islam.

Well my head didn’t explode, but it did shake back and forth quite a bit. The idea that “Islam is a correction” to the “the imbalances and excesses” of Christianity and Judaism is probably quite popular in academia but I suspect a left wing anti- Judaeo-Christian politics are at work. To me this claim is predicated upon using an archaic version of Judaism and an idealized one of Islam. A fair comparison would look at each religion during the same time periods, such as comparing the Priestly Theocracy to the pagan world of human sacrifice and idolatry. Or 7th century Rabbinical Judaism to 7th Century Islam. Judaism hasn’t had a Priesthood for 2,000 years and I would argue that it has corrected itself much farther than has Islam. With that line of thinking, Mormonism and Santeria, could be argued as corrections to Christianity.

Looking realistically at the three religions, both Judaism and Christianity have undergone major reformations as the needs of people and civilization have evolved. By contrast, an Islamic reformation is long overdue. An opinion held by many in Islam. As an example, the Talmud stated 2,000 years ago that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is considered bloodthirsty. Christianity stopped killing heretics with the ending of the Inquisitions and the religious wars of Europe. The same can’t be said for Islam. Public executions, corporal punishment, and lengthy imprisonment for the smallest infractions are all commonplace in the Muslim world.

Spoke too soon, your last paragraph almost made my head explode. Islam is not the “escape hatch”.

And to clarify, from a Christian perspective the OT does prophesize the coming of a God-Man Messiah; born of a virgin who will establish an everlasting Kingdom that he will rule forever. The Jews of course have a different interpretation and believe in an anointed man imbued with the Spirit of God.

 

[yerrag]

Badger, thanks for another perspective, which I don't get to hear. I'm only aware that Saladdin was a great and just Muslim Kurd warrior, who was very civil in his relations with his Christian prisoners. It was the time of the Crusades, and it wasn't a time Christians would look back into with pride. There were internecine battles and self-serving crusaders galore. This misuse of religion led to Constantinople being severely weakened by its sacking by fellow Christians in the crusaders. This led to the eventual fall of Constantinople. This all brings to fore that it's politics using religion as its pretext to gain the appearance of a moral high ground to commit acts of aggression and subjugation.

It appears that the civilization, with its attendant religion, at the height of power and influence assumes the semblance of benevolence, while the one in decline, with its religious affiliation, takes the form of barbarism. The dominant civilization can very well afford to be magnanimous, while the vanquished civilization fights for survival by expressing itself through its radical elements. This probably explains why the view of Muslims by Christians these days is through the prism of its radical Wahhabism, rather than thru the peaceful moorings in Sufism. Just as Saladdin was magnanimous towards Christians who were coming out of the barbarism of the Dark Ages.

 

[LUH 3417]

I know that Dr. Peat is very smart, probably a genius, but he is not a universal genius, no one who ever lived was. Hence it's a real good bet that Eliade knows more about history of religion than does Peat. Besides this, I get the feeling you cherry-picked what is really a secondary or third-level idea of Eliade's as a means to find a reason to ignore his work. I can tell you, if you are interested in a different opinion, what you zeroed in on has no salience in any consideration of how he analyzes religion without pushing reductionism on it. My impression is reinforced by your taking it not from Eliade directly but from a secondary source in Wikipedia, itself a resource which, on matters of religion and much else, is less reliable than the Jehovah's Witness literature stuffed in my mailbox. And I won't even get into serious concerns with the context in which these ideas of of Eliade occurs that you cherry picked. But do as you will, fine with me.

Ray Peat is challenging ontology and knowledge as a whole, including religiousity and the history of divinity. I cherry picked the most obvious part of Eliade because it’s apparent from my skimming that he was a U of Chicago academic writing within a very specific tradition of knowledge. I don’t really trust academics from University of Chicago by the way.

The entire tradition needs revision but you don’t seem to pick up on my point.

The word was seminary which is similar to seminal in the sense that there were no female philosophers around to engage at a seminal seminary.

The entire western and religious tradition is based on a denial of the female form. This thread is a testament to that.

 

[LUH 3417]

I know that Dr. Peat is very smart, probably a genius, but he is not a universal genius, no one who ever lived was. Hence it's a real good bet that Eliade knows more about history of religion than does Peat. Besides this, I get the feeling you cherry-picked what is really a secondary or third-level idea of Eliade's as a means to find a reason to ignore his work. I can tell you, if you are interested in a different opinion, what you zeroed in on has no salience in any consideration of how he analyzes religion without pushing reductionism on it. My impression is reinforced by your taking it not from Eliade directly but from a secondary source in Wikipedia, itself a resource which, on matters of religion and much else, is less reliable than the Jehovah's Witness literature stuffed in my mailbox. And I won't even get into serious concerns with the context in which these ideas of of Eliade occurs that you cherry picked. But do as you will, fine with me.

I know that Dr. Peat is very smart, probably a genius, but he is not a universal genius, no one who ever lived was. Hence it's a real good bet that Eliade knows more about history of religion than does Peat. Besides this, I get the feeling you cherry-picked what is really a secondary or third-level idea of Eliade's as a means to find a reason to ignore his work. I can tell you, if you are interested in a different opinion, what you zeroed in on has no salience in any consideration of how he analyzes religion without pushing reductionism on it. My impression is reinforced by your taking it not from Eliade directly but from a secondary source in Wikipedia, itself a resource which, on matters of religion and much else, is less reliable than the Jehovah's Witness literature stuffed in my mailbox. And I won't even get into serious concerns with the context in which these ideas of of Eliade occurs that you cherry picked. But do as you will, fine with me.

Another more subtle and perhaps less reactionary way to see it is by realizing that the female body and subjectivity have been so problematic to this form of knowledge that the feminine principle is defined by its hiding or lack of presence in the public sphere. Kind of analogous to the anatomy of the sex organs.

 

[LUH 3417]

I know that Dr. Peat is very smart, probably a genius, but he is not a universal genius, no one who ever lived was. Hence it's a real good bet that Eliade knows more about history of religion than does Peat. Besides this, I get the feeling you cherry-picked what is really a secondary or third-level idea of Eliade's as a means to find a reason to ignore his work. I can tell you, if you are interested in a different opinion, what you zeroed in on has no salience in any consideration of how he analyzes religion without pushing reductionism on it. My impression is reinforced by your taking it not from Eliade directly but from a secondary source in Wikipedia, itself a resource which, on matters of religion and much else, is less reliable than the Jehovah's Witness literature stuffed in my mailbox. And I won't even get into serious concerns with the context in which these ideas of of Eliade occurs that you cherry picked. But do as you will, fine with me.

You also never addressed the primary rejection most people feel, and the desire for the mothers life giving breast.

 

[LUH 3417]

The feminine can be traced back to one who suckles. That means our only conception of the feminine is as a girl-child. No wonder pedophilia is rampant.

 

[managing]

No, it's not at all popular in academia, except in historical sociology of religion circles. I've never seen leftys espouse them at any time. If of any interest to you (disregard if not), my main influence for such ideas, on the historical and social side of analysis, are Max Weber, Peter Berger and Mircea Eliade. Their expertise is seeing these religions in terms of process, change and transition, and identifying the human processes that lead to change and the new meanings and contexts that symbols and doctrines acquire. Articulating such ideas in a theological, philosophical, metaphysical context, on the "divine side," my primary influences are Eliade again (as a philosopher - not historian - of the history of religions), then what's called the Traditionalist school, and a major member of that school of religious thinking, Rene Guenon above all.

I would agree a comparative analysis of these religions is quite appropriate. One of my examples would be to compare say, the the Muslim Golden Age in Muslim Spain , with Christian Europe, which was quite primitive religiously, culturally and scientifically at the time. There's others I could add.

Islam has had its reformations (though confined to more local areas) and as mentioned above, it's "golden age" and great cultural/intellectual flowering in part of Europe, of all places, comparable to the best of the high Middle Ages of Schoolmen learning in great medieval cites of learning, such as Paris. 7th century Rabbinical theocracy was much less impressive than early Islam at the the time, in that Muslims, like ancient Jewish warriors, such as David, Moses, Joshua, and others, slew countless pagans and idolators. Unlike the Jewish warriors, who were commanded by God to slay every man, woman and child among the pagans of their time in various incidents recorded by the OT (something you omitted in another post that I forgot to bring you up on), Muhammad tried to give his pagan enemies a choice. Shows a higher ethic than the OT, and as far as I know, the Jews of Muhammad's time weren't out there warring against and risking there lives fighting pagans to get them to follow the Mosaic path.

I agree with you to only a very limited extent about contemporary Islam. What you say about the Islamic world being barbaric, cruel, bloodthirsty and other terrible things only applies to specific and limited sectors and small populations, and much of that just uses religion as cover for purely political and economic objectives. Most of the Muslim world is quite civilized most of the time. Terrorists, extremists and fanatics are a relatively tiny minority, and they are being used by financial-political forces that are not even Muslims. I've been to Turkey a number of times, for example, and I found so many ordinary Muslims are kind, loving, generous, good-hearted, very pious and devout. Their mosques and tombs of Muslim holy men are beautiful. No head-chopping or vicious persecution at all there, and little that's abusive motivated by religion. And I've met many, many American Muslims who are really fine, moral and devout people. Have you ever met any Muslims in the US, and gotten to know them well?

You omit the Jews in Israel, whose government, Zionist fanatics and some of their major Rabbinic organizations, mercilessly torment, torture, bomb, imprison and kill mostly innocent Palestinians, and have done so for decades. And that's based on religion, as Zionist rabbis gleefully produce theological rationales for the harm and abuse they perpetuate on the Palestinians. Contemporary Islam has its degenerate, toxic, vile Muslims, and so does Judaism, especially in Israel. One could say the same about Christians too, including Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, though in contexts different from violence.

Just as Christians claim Jesus is prophesied in the OT, Muslims says the same about Muhammad in the NT. The most famous verse on this score being, "John 14:16 "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." (American Standard Version) Yes I know, you will tell me Muslims misinterpret this line, which is really" about the Holy Spirit. But Jews say. quite rightly, you misinterpret their Scripture citing passages that supposedly prophesy Jesus.

Turkey, unfortunately is rapidly changing, and not for the better. You're description is quite valid recently, but its unfortunately headed in the wrong direction. Iran also was like that for decades leading up to 1978. Meanwhile, the young Saudi prince imagines himself bringing such an age of enlightenment and openness back to Saudi Arabia. If successful, he could be a visionary, a "philosopher king". Or he could turn out more like the Rush song: "He's noble enough to know what's right, but weak enough not to choose it". Or he could simply lose his head if he misjudges his cult of personality and tries to move too fast.

 

[x-ray peat]

No, it's not at all popular in academia, except in historical sociology of religion circles. I've never seen leftys espouse them at any time. If of any interest to you (disregard if not), my main influence for such ideas, on the historical and social side of analysis, are Max Weber, Peter Berger and Mircea Eliade. Their expertise is seeing these religions in terms of process, change and transition, and identifying the human processes that lead to change and the new meanings and contexts that symbols and doctrines acquire. Articulating such ideas in a theological, philosophical, metaphysical context, on the "divine side," my primary influences are Eliade again (as a philosopher - not historian - of the history of religions), then what's called the Traditionalist school, and a major member of that school of religious thinking, Rene Guenon above all.

I would agree a comparative analysis of these religions is quite appropriate. One of my examples would be to compare say, the the Muslim Golden Age in Muslim Spain , with Christian Europe, which was quite primitive religiously, culturally and scientifically at the time. There's others I could add.

Islam has had its reformations (though confined to more local areas) and as mentioned above, it's "golden age" and great cultural/intellectual flowering in part of Europe, of all places, comparable to the best of the high Middle Ages of Schoolmen learning in great medieval cites of learning, such as Paris. 7th century Rabbinical theocracy was much less impressive than early Islam at the the time, in that Muslims, like ancient Jewish warriors, such as David, Moses, Joshua, and others, slew countless pagans and idolators. Unlike the Jewish warriors, who were commanded by God to slay every man, woman and child among the pagans of their time in various incidents recorded by the OT (something you omitted in another post that I forgot to bring you up on), Muhammad tried to give his pagan enemies a choice. Shows a higher ethic than the OT, and as far as I know, the Jews of Muhammad's time weren't out there warring against and risking there lives fighting pagans to get them to follow the Mosaic path.

I agree with you to only a very limited extent about contemporary Islam. What you say about the Islamic world being barbaric, cruel, bloodthirsty and other terrible things only applies to specific and limited sectors and small populations, and much of that just uses religion as cover for purely political and economic objectives. Most of the Muslim world is quite civilized most of the time. Terrorists, extremists and fanatics are a relatively tiny minority, and they are being used by financial-political forces that are not even Muslims. I've been to Turkey a number of times, for example, and I found so many ordinary Muslims are kind, loving, generous, good-hearted, very pious and devout. Their mosques and tombs of Muslim holy men are beautiful. No head-chopping or vicious persecution at all there, and little that's abusive motivated by religion. And I've met many, many American Muslims who are really fine, moral and devout people. Have you ever met any Muslims in the US, and gotten to know them well?

You omit the Jews in Israel, whose government, Zionist fanatics and some of their major Rabbinic organizations, mercilessly torment, torture, bomb, imprison and kill mostly innocent Palestinians, and have done so for decades. And that's based on religion, as Zionist rabbis gleefully produce theological rationales for the harm and abuse they perpetuate on the Palestinians. Contemporary Islam has its degenerate, toxic, vile Muslims, and so does Judaism, especially in Israel. One could say the same about Christians too, including Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, though in contexts different from violence.

Just as Christians claim Jesus is prophesied in the OT, Muslims says the same about Muhammad in the NT. The most famous verse on this score being, "John 14:16 "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." (American Standard Version) Yes I know, you will tell me Muslims misinterpret this line, which is really" about the Holy Spirit. But Jews say. quite rightly, you misinterpret their Scripture citing passages that supposedly prophesy Jesus.

Another selective and biased comparison using the best of one culture and the worst of another. A more fair comparison of that age would be between the best of each, such as Spain under Moslem rule to that of the Eastern Roman Empire. Moreover the Golden Age in Muslim Spain has been attributed to the blending of several cultures including Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Moreover there is a lot of debate as to just how Golden the Muslim Golden Age was.

I already addressed the issue of Israeli occupation but will just say that your description of it is so biased, vitriolic and one sided that I don’t see much room for a fruitful discussion. I’ll just repost my reply to these same points you made before since you had ignored them the first time around.

“This is just more double standards and more untruths. Yes it’s unfortunate what is happening to the Palestinians but to only blame Israel for their situation completely ignores history. Just as in the partition of British India, it was necessary for Muslims living in the future Hindu lands to move to Pakistan as it was necessary for Hindus living in future Muslim lands to move to India. As mentioned, Jews were a significant presence throughout the Ottoman Empire and were actually the majority population of Jerusalem during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Though the vast majority of Ottoman land was given to the Arabs, they refused to allow any other religious group to have a share. This is not only true for Israel but also true for the Kurds and many other ethnic groups now living under less than egalitarian Islamic rule.

The plight of the Palestinians is sad and needs to change but they have to bear responsibility for their situation as well. They continue to deny the right of Israel to exist and still maintain in their legal documents that Palestine must stretch to the sea, thereby destroying Israel. They also continue to reward suicide bombers and terrorists with pensions for their families as well as continually attack Israel with rockets from Gaza. If that was done to us by Mexico I doubt we would have tolerated it as long as Israel has.

I would also add that before the 1967 war and the capture of Jerusalem, the entire West bank was held by Jordan who annexed it in 1950. Talk about the theft of land. Moreover they did very little to help the people there and it wasn’t until Israeli rule that some semblance of development took place. Not one university existed under Jordanian rule whereas now there about two dozen started under Israel as just as one example.”

And as to your once again anachronistic comparison of violence in the Old Testament to that of Islam 4,000 years later, I addressed this too but maybe you missed this as well

“Any incitements to violence in the Old Testament where directed at specific tribes in Canaan at the time of the conquest and was primarily due to their common practices of demonic worship such as sacrificing their first born to Molech and other evil acts. It was punishment for specific sins against God, not an injunction to murder all non-believers. The New Testament of course also does not preach violence against innocent unbelievers for all time to come. Only Islam does that.”

 

[x-ray peat]

"the OT does prophesize the coming of a God-Man Messiah; born of a virgin."
BTW, are you aware the Koran states Mary, Jesus' mother, was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus? Her name is mentioned in the Koran many more times than in the NT. She, like Jesus, are very greatly revered in Islam.

Yes I am well aware of the many similarities between Islam and Catholicism includ the focus on Mary as well as the prophecy of the return of Jesus. Were you aware that 25 year old Muhammad's first wife, the 40 year old Khadijah, was a devout Catholic and one of the richest women in the Middle East. Her money is what funded Muhammad's early military adventures and most likely the writing of the Koran. I would highly recommend Dr. Walter Veith’s video titled “The Islamic Connection” that was posted recently to the board. IMO real history or true religion for that matter are not taught in state controlled schools.

 

[x-ray peat]

Just to bring things back full circle to Jordan Peterson, whether or not one believes in God, we should have an appreciation for what religion does provide in terms of basic morality. Peterson is basically elaborating on Nietzsche's belief that when we kill God we kill the morality that goes with it.

 

[managing]

Just to bring things back full circle to Jordan Peterson, whether or not one believes in God, we should have an appreciation for what religion does provide in terms of basic morality. Peterson is basically elaborating on Nietzsche's belief that when we kill God we kill the morality that goes with it.

But Nietzsche was no sentimentalist, he was a philosopher. He acknowledged the death of absolute values, and acknowledged the abyss of nihilism. But he also denied the inevitability of nihilism. Ultimately, he was compelled to find values that went deeper than religious values.

It could be argued that he failed. It could also be argued that search sent a lot of brilliant people down dead ends, such as Heidegger's flirtations with Nazism. But they all agree that morality still exists without god. This is a fact that still, 130 years after Zarathustra, leaves religious devotees angst-ridden and in denial.

"God is dead. And no one cares." -Trent Reznor

He is of course wrong about the "no one cares" part.

 

[LUH 3417]

Just to bring things back full circle to Jordan Peterson, whether or not one believes in God, we should have an appreciation for what religion does provide in terms of basic morality. Peterson is basically elaborating on Nietzsche's belief that when we kill God we kill the morality that goes with it.

Morality and pleasure don’t go hand in hand, at least not for women as the history of civilization has shown. Nietzsche was trying to kill the father and escape the fate of having to reproduce whatever came before him. The only way Oedipus resolves the dilemma is by refusing to partake in the myth of progress and going inward to discovery humility.

 

[LUH 3417]

Just to bring things back full circle to Jordan Peterson, whether or not one believes in God, we should have an appreciation for what religion does provide in terms of basic morality. Peterson is basically elaborating on Nietzsche's belief that when we kill God we kill the morality that goes with it.

Realistically civilization is the antithesis to pleasure. It’s all theater and spectacle and show but no real feeling. You trade in your sexuality for sophistication.

 

[LUH 3417]

But Nietzsche was no sentimentalist, he was a philosopher. He acknowledged the death of absolute values, and acknowledged the abyss of nihilism. But he also denied the inevitability of nihilism. Ultimately, he was compelled to find values that went deeper than religious values.

It could be argued that he failed. It could also be argued that search sent a lot of brilliant people down dead ends, such as Heidegger's flirtations with Nazism. But they all agree that morality still exists without god. This is a fact that still, 130 years after Zarathustra, leaves religious devotees angst-ridden and in denial.

"God is dead. And no one cares." -Trent Reznor

He is of course wrong about the "no one cares" part.

That nihilism developed into “being and nothingness” and lots of other French theory. It’s not all death and decay. Of course this goes back to ontology and the idea that there can never be something from nothing, and back to the Vedas and thingness having three properties (sattva rajas and tamas), and back to eternal forms, and back to authoritarian systems of control, and hey look here we are on the Ray Peat forum again.