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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: How do Muslims see Christians?
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matins:
Indeed
If Muslims see making their religious convictions the norm for national life via the political process, the secular democracies of Europe have to ask themselves if it makes sense to keep allowing Muslims to immigrate to their countries and eventually take part in the political process. My guess is they are hoping that Muslim immigrants come to embrace the secular democracy of their new home. I'm sure some do and some don't. In any event, those reading the comments of Plato's Cat and believing them to be the norm for Muslims might start to find the message of right wing groups wanting to limit immigration more and more appealing. Unless, as Molopata the Rebel suggests, there is some nation where Islam is the state religion where a majority of Western Europeans would prefer to live than their own nation. I can't think of one off the top of my head.
It might be useful to note that many Muslim minorities rather like living in western secular states. My Ismaili and Ahmadi friends tell me that they are quite pleased that they can operate openly in Canada, and can put up signs at their mosques, without having them pulled down or worse. The Ismailis, in particular, value girls' education, and need not fear that their daughters will be prevented from going to school.
A former colleague, an Iraqi Sunni, said that western life makes for a purer Islam- on enquiry, he told me that there are few Muslims out of habit here. Moreover, religious Muslims were aware that they were being looked at critically by many and were being held to a higher standard of ethical behaviour, as Islam was being judged by their comportment. He did, however, admit that not all of his co-religionists had cottoned on to this.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
"Christianity is a way of life" is exactly how my church and the church of many other Shipmates sees things. However those claiming to rule in God's name are nearly always frauds and tyrants.
Every "Christian" party in Australia is obsessed with trying to make people holy (by banning naughty things) instead of looking after the poor and dispossessed.
No thanks, I will vote for the non-religious parties that actually fulfill my religions priorities.
Christ is still considered to be the truth, the way, and the life by Christians, but they moved on. Which is why one sees most reasonable Christians oppose the implementation of many "Christian" ways as laws of the state.
Of course, things were not always this way.
During the middle ages, we had theocratic regimes in the Christian world. But unlike Islam, the Christian West moved beyond that.
Of course, this comes at a cost. Essentially it means that although they confess these things to be true (about how God wants men to live), they don't really believe them, hence they can be apathetic (or even supportive) towards the secular division between the law of men and the law of God.
Islam seems more consistent, as far as that point is concerned. But this comes with another problem; the "law of God" can make the lives of people very difficult.
[ 31. May 2009, 16:38: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plato's cat:
there is no country in existence today that I would describe as Islamic. Most Muslim majority countries are ruled by secular dictatorships (eg Syria).
Then why is that?
What of those Muslim-majority countries which are not secular?
Would it be possible to sketch an ideal Islamic state? What would it look like?
And to reiterate my last question, which country on earth comes closest to the ideal?
I think Andrew has made an important point. God's law is ultimately purveyed by men, therefore, it is not, IMO, easy to separate the two.
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... The Respectable
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
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the_raptor
Shipmate
# 10533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
Of course, this comes at a cost. Essentially it means that although they confess these things to be true (about how God wants men to live), they don't really believe them, hence they can be apathetic (or even supportive) towards the secular division between the law of men and the law of God.
Oh fuck off with your newly enlightened bullshit Andreas. Especially when you still don't have a clue about any brand of Christianity outside Orthodoxy. In my denomination we believe that preventing people from breaking the law of God does not make them any more Christian or in any way enhance their chance of ending up in heaven. The rich young man had kept the commandments since he was a child, but it wasn't enough.
So I vote for politicians that will take care of the orphaned and the oppressed, and not those that try and regulate personal sin.
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Mal: look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly
Posts: 3921 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
Oh fuck off with your newly enlightened bullshit Andreas. Especially when you still don't have a clue about any brand of Christianity outside Orthodoxy.
And even then....
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
A politician trying to regulate personal sin would be like an old lady trying to fix a garage-door spring with a bobby pin.
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
Posts: 6351 | From: Hesychia, in Hyperdulia | Registered: Aug 2004
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the_raptor
Shipmate
# 10533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
Oh fuck off with your newly enlightened bullshit Andreas. Especially when you still don't have a clue about any brand of Christianity outside Orthodoxy.
And even then....
Oh I know. But he has some inkling of a clue about some things in Orthodoxy (because that is where he came from). His punches at "Western Christianity" are mostly hitting the empty air of a holo-strawman built from TV and the liberal end of the Ship.
It is like a blind man trying to describe the Mona Lisa. Especially as he has the naivety to discount that any other current Christian on the Ship has had a crisis of faith and been where he is. Been there, done that, bought the shirt, try again.
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Mal: look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly
Posts: 3921 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leetle Masha:
A politician trying to regulate personal sin would be like an old lady trying to fix a garage-door spring with a bobby pin.
Are you speaking from experience?
Far too many politicians try to regulate personal sin.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
Yes. On both counts. Fortunately, for the garage door, a good neighbour is now in charge of the problem--three 3-inch bolts worked their way out of the door-jamb, releasing the huge, heavy spring, so that I nearly dislocated both shoulders trying to raise the door this morning--walked into church looking like a cross between a crab and a wounded turkey.
The general shape of the result is what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force, if you get my meaning. If that garage door had crashed down on me, I wouldn't be here writing this; they'd be planning the panikhida.
Love in Christ,
Mary. Sin-tax paid, receipts obtained and filed.
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
Posts: 6351 | From: Hesychia, in Hyperdulia | Registered: Aug 2004
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
So I vote for politicians that will take care of the orphaned and the oppressed, and not those that try and regulate personal sin.
You try to make a contrast between "personal sin" and helping the needy.
That won't do.
According to traditional morality, abortion is murder. Simple as that. If someone brutally murders an old person, your laws will demand that he goes to prison. And society will think this is a good thing.
Yet (according to traditional morality) innocent babies are brutally murdered all the time in Western societies, yet many Christian politicians instead of criminalizing abortion like they do with other forms of murder, they even facilitate it.
True, a few politicians do their best to oppose it. But we have Christian politicians who pass and accept and tolerate laws that make it legal. And we have people who don't mind living in such a horrible place, and voting for those horrible people, because they don't actually believe what they nominally assent to, that abortion is contrary to the will of God.
Only a few nutjobs actually believe that we are in front of a situation much much worse than the Holocaust, and the moment they say that, they become marginalized and called fundamentalists.
And they are fundamentalists. But simply because traditional Christianity, and traditional monotheism in general is fundamentalist.
Essentially, you are not just ignoring everything that doesn't fit with your imaginative distinction between helping the needy and personal sin. You are also rejecting the Torah itself, and the way ancient Israel and ancient Christian countries operated and worked, thinking you have got it right, when you are simply being inconsistent.
[ 31. May 2009, 21:36: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
quote:
Oh for the peaceful coexistence approach of Buddhism!
Though according to the charity Open Doors Bhutan is the 11th worst country in the world for persecuting Christians...
[/QUOTE]
Oh you little controversialist you. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Do you know much about India & the Himalayan regions abutting or are you an avid quoter of progressive organisations. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
May I refer you to the website of St Joseph's College, North Point, Darjeeling, in pre 1947 India possibly the best Catholic school founded to educate the scions of the Raj. Laurence Durrell was once a pupil.
http://www.sursumcorda.org/visdetindex.htm
With the sahibs, including my own kin, having departed with the last lowering of the Union Jack, places like North Point & the even posher & more pukka St Pauls on the opposing mountain (no Indians admitted till 1940) became, thankfully, Indianised.
Both schools catered heavily for the sons of Army officers & higher civilians, plus boxwallahs (British businessmen) from Calcutta and tea planters (Darjeeling tea).
Students at both schools are mostly from Calcutta & Bengal but there are many from neighbouring countries like Bhutan.
I think the current Rector of North Point is still Father Kingley Tcherring SJ: a member of one of the most aristocratic families in Bhutan & a convert to Catholicism.
Interestingly,the Jesuits, long established in the community refused to baptise Father Kingley, who had to go to the Franciscans.
You might like to read or even communicate with him about the situation for Christians in his country.
The Bhutanese have been trying to retain their unique Himalayan culture against waves of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants trying to flee their particular failed state & are well aware of the dangers of the more fulminatingly conversion-or-nothing evangelists from North America & the West trying to flog their particular brand of spiritual firewater to them & thereby possibly destroy their whole culture the way we destroyed that of our Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander fellow citizens. 'First the missionaries & then... ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif) '
Sounds good doesn't it, Yerevan, 'persecuting Christians'?
Do you know much about the original spread of Buddhism 2500 years ago & its genuine coexistence with so many other religions in India till the great destruction of the great Buddhist university at Nalanda by the invading Muslims? Who invaded Burma & deposed Thibaw?
I think you're pretty ignorant there.
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Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
quote:
The Bhutanese have been trying to retain their unique Himalayan culture against waves of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants trying to flee their particular failed state & are well aware of the dangers of the more fulminatingly conversion-or-nothing evangelists from North America & the West trying to flog their particular brand of spiritual firewater to them & thereby possibly destroy their whole culture the way we destroyed that of our Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander fellow citizens. 'First the missionaries & then... '
So in other words its ok for the Bhutanese government to kick around their own miniscule Christian minority once they claim its to 'protect their culture' from the trillions of nasty evangelical missionaries no doubt massing on the Bhutanese border even as we speak, ready to take control and pave the way for an American invasion or whatever. Are you for real?
The rest of that post was too patronising to bother with.
PS I'm not sure where the "we" in the bit about wiping out Aborgines comes from. I think thats your problem...
[ 01. June 2009, 13:44: Message edited by: Yerevan ]
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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the_raptor
Shipmate
# 10533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
Yet (according to traditional morality) innocent babies are brutally murdered all the time in Western societies, yet many Christian politicians instead of criminalizing abortion like they do with other forms of murder, they even facilitate it.
Except not all Christians think abortion is murder so your idea of inconsistency goes right out the fucking window. Holy Shit Andreas not every Christian agrees with "traditional morality". Considering you aren't a Christian anymore you don't even get to tell them that they are doin' it rong!
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
But we have Christian politicians who pass and accept and tolerate laws that make it legal. And we have people who don't mind living in such a horrible place, and voting for those horrible people, because they don't actually believe what they nominally assent to, that abortion is contrary to the will of God.
Divorce is contrary to the will of God. Do you actually think the situation would be improved by Christians voting for Christian politicians to outlaw it?
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
Essentially, you are not just ignoring everything that doesn't fit with your imaginative distinction between helping the needy and personal sin.
Yeah I remember the bit where Jesus said "and petition your rulers to make the civil law synchronized with religious law, for truly in persecuting the adulterous there I am".
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
You are also rejecting the Torah itself, and the way ancient Israel and ancient Christian countries operated and worked, thinking you have got it right, when you are simply being inconsistent.
Wow ignoring the way ancient Israel operated! I wonder if it had anything to do with God through the prophets and the Son of God Himself saying ancient Israel had it all bloody wrong? And ancient Christian countries? What you mean the ones where the religion had been largely taken over by the secular authorities?
Yeah I can't see any reason to ignore how they operated. Oh wait we split from the Roman Catholic Church over these issues. How surprising then that today we wouldn't agree with those ancestors.
Not.
Maybe you should actually pick up a book on protestantism written by someone with actual academic credibility, because it is quite obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.
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Mal: look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly
Posts: 3921 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
Except not all Christians think abortion is murder so your idea of inconsistency goes right out the fucking window.
Not all Christians think that NOW, BUT the historical position has been different. Therefore, what I said stands.
[ 01. June 2009, 17:15: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Campbellite
Ut unum sint
# 1202
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
So I vote for politicians that will take care of the orphaned and the oppressed, and not those that try and regulate personal sin.
That works for me.
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I upped mine. Up yours.
Suffering for Jesus since 1966.
WTFWED?
Posts: 12001 | From: between keyboard and chair | Registered: Aug 2001
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the_raptor
Shipmate
# 10533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
Except not all Christians think abortion is murder so your idea of inconsistency goes right out the fucking window.
Not all Christians think that NOW, BUT the historical position has been different. Therefore, what I said stands.
And those historical Christians acted and voted differently then those today, which is why a place that still has strong "traditional morality" like Ireland still bans abortion. No inconsistency at all.
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Mal: look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly
Posts: 3921 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
traditional Christianity, and traditional monotheism in general is fundamentalist
Maybe traditionalism is fundamentalist, so the only non-fundamentalist Christians are those who wear their tradition lightly...
Would it be impolite to suggest that perhaps there are fewer of those among the Orthodox than among other Christian groups, so that it would be unsurprising if an Orthodox upbringing led one to confuse Christianity and traditionalism ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Maybe traditionalism is fundamentalist, so the only non-fundamentalist Christians are those who wear their tradition lightly...
Would it be impolite to suggest that perhaps there are fewer of those among the Orthodox than among other Christian groups, so that it would be unsurprising if an Orthodox upbringing led one to confuse Christianity and traditionalism ?
Fine, you can draw that distinction, PROVIDED one does away with the ecumenical councils. But most mainline Christians today, no matter how light on tradition they are, they have a nominal faith in the ecumenical councils.
Almost no one actually goes to say that the ecumenical councils are fundamentalist and they must be rejected.
Essentially we have people use their imagination to make a picture of Christianity they like. We are Christians, we accept the ecumenical councils, but we are light on tradition, i.e. we don't actually accept the ecumenical councils but our version of them which is not historically or theologically accurate!
It's the theology of the ecumenical council's that's fundamentalist. Not later church tradition.
And the councils are fundamentalist not because after that bad Constantine the Church was corrupted, but because the holy texts themselves are fundamentalist.
Are we going to revise the Scriptures as well?
Well, there are already plenty of people who say they are Christians and yet don't agree with many points of the New Testament.
I'm sorry, but in this case, words lose their meaning. We can't redefine what being a Christian means and claim continuity with the apostles and the ecumenical fathers at the same time!
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
most mainline Christians today, no matter how light on tradition they are, they have a nominal faith in the ecumenical councils.
Almost no one actually goes to say that the ecumenical councils are fundamentalist and they must be rejected.
Essentially we have people use their imagination to make a picture of Christianity they like. We are Christians, we accept the ecumenical councils, but we are light on tradition, i.e. we don't actually accept the ecumenical councils but our version of them which is not historically or theologically accurate!
It's the theology of the ecumenical council's that's fundamentalist. Not later church tradition.
And the councils are fundamentalist not because after that bad Constantine the Church was corrupted, but because the holy texts themselves are fundamentalist.
Are we going to revise the Scriptures as well?
Well, there are already plenty of people who say they are Christians and yet don't agree with many points of the New Testament.
I'm sorry, but in this case, words lose their meaning. We can't redefine what being a Christian means and claim continuity with the apostles and the ecumenical fathers at the same time!
§Andrew,
Not quite sure I see where you're coming from, but I suspect there's an excluded middle here somewhere.
In between feeling bound to be totally obedient to the letter of the ecumenical councils, and rejecting them wholesale.
In between following the letter of the NT absolutely and living a self-invented Christianity with no connection to the historic teachings of Jesus.
"Wearing tradition lightly" means not cutting oneself loose from historical Christianity, nor subjecting oneself to it unthinkingly, but sort of living in tension with it.
Not sure if this is a good example or not, but you'll know the verse of the Gospels where the author has the Jews say "His blood be upon us and upon our descendants" or words to that effect.
Now it seems to me pretty unlikely that that line is an eyewitness observation - it reads as an editorial comment making a highly political point in the context of the early Church.
Now one could take the view that it's a line of the Gospel, so it must be true, and anyone who calls themselves Christian is bound to accept it and to think of the Jewish people and act towards the Jewish people accordingly.
Or one could take the view that this proves that anti-Semitism is right at the heart of Christianity and therefore want nothing more to do with Christians and their bigoted ideas.
But it's really not necessary to be so all-or-nothing about it. Loosen up a bit. We can be grounded in Christian tradition without being afraid to step outside it or re-interpret parts of it in the light of other parts.
Revise the Scriptures ? No, we shouldn't. However chauvinist or antisemitic they may appear.
In science, there is data and there is theory. A good theory has several characteristics - internal coherence is one, fitting the data is another, simplicity/comprehensibility is another.
Editing the data of Christianity to fit our current theory is bad practice. A theory that suggests that some of the data may have become corrupted may be the best-available theory, but only if it fits the rest of the data taken as a whole.
We're called to work out, in fear and trembling, the best theory we can, in the knowledge that anything we do is likely to be flawed in some way. And then to act on and live out that theory, and trust God for the rest.
CS Lewis described medieval culture as (loosely paraphrased) a book-oriented culture that had lost most of its books to the darkness and therefore clung to the ones it had as indescribably precious. We live in the internet age; we don't have to be like that any more.
Does this make any sense ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Dear Russ
Sure, there might be influences. After all, no religion is created out of nothing; they all borrow things from their environment and the religions that came before them.
However, this does not make it alright for people to say "We accept the ecumenical councils" when they only mean that they take some influences from them and they go on to say things at odds with what the actual ecumenical councils said.
I think it has partly to do with poor education over what the ecumenical councils actually taught. I see many people in these boards saying they follow Nicea or Chalcedon, and if you discuss with them about it, you will find out that they mean they accept the Latin Creed which is a modification over the Creed of Constantinople and not Nicea, and the definition of Chalcedon, but, and here's the crucial part, without accepting the teachings that clarify what the creed or the definition means, nor accepting the other teachings or canons of the ecumenical councils.
In my view it's only because of the reputation of the ecumenical councils, and the fact that they were central to the Christian faith in the past, that people today feel the need to say they follow them, even though they know hardly anything about them and their teachings.
That's the conclusion I reached after spending much time on these boards.
But that's not traditional Christianity. What traditional Christianity teaches is there for all to see. It's not a bit mystery or something that's controversial. The texts are there.
I don't have a problem with people holding different views than traditional Christianity's. But I do have a problem when people assume that their views are in accordance with traditional Christianity when they aren't and when in fact they reject quite explicitly all those views traditional Christianity held.
And they do that for good reason, because they wouldn't feel comfortable with rejecting explicitly traditional Christianity and saying that they are having a different view, because traditional Christianity has accumulated much power in people's minds and they think that it is true (even though they would accept that there were some minor mistakes).
To put it differently, because most people equate traditional Christianity with orthodox Christianity, and they are not aware of what it actually teaches, they feel free to assume they are in continuity with it, and that therefore they are (in their mind) real Christians, when they are expressing views that have been rejected explicitly by traditional Christianity.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Plato's cat
Shipmate
# 11158
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Posted
As this thread is supposed to be about 'How do Muslims see Christians?' I'll tell you how many of us view certain recent events in the UK.
I believe that Islamic values and traditional British values walk hand in hand, but before I discuss this I want to say a few words of a general nature.
The Western image of the typical Muslim is often an image of lethal anger. The television viewer watches, from the safety of his armchair, mobs on the rampage; “hallucinated automata”, to quote Wyndham Lewis’s phrase. He sees faces contort with fury and hears voices made hoarse by the shouting of slogans. If these were indeed religious manifestations, one would be justified in abandoning all hope for the future of Islamic spirituality. But they are nothing of the sort. “Anger”, said the Prophet, “burns up good deeds just as fire burns up dry wood”.
Anger can be a powerful manifestation of the disordered ego, and the very meaning of the word Islam implies the subordination of the ego to the spirit, its chastening and its purification. ‘Holy anger’, when the circumstances demand it, is detached, calm and just.
People who complain that Muslims refuse to fit in with what are called “civilised values” are unaware of just what is being demanded of Muslims. These values are part of the air we breath whether our politics are of the left or right, conservative or liberal. They are the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.
I think they can be summarised in four ways:
Firstly, man is now the measure of all things and nothing is to be judged in relation to an absolute or to a transcendent reality.
Secondly, man is both judge and criterion of judgement. There is no higher court of appeal or source of pardon.
Thirdly, whatever happens occurs within earthly time, for human existence stretches only from birth to death. Mans earthly life is therefore unconditionally important; to live is the supreme value, at death the game is over and lost.
Finally, there is the conviction that man is basically good; the evil which surrounds him is never his fault. It can only be blamed on institutions, on society, the economic system or defective education. Even MPs say their fraudulent expenses claims are entirely within the rules. Its not their fault!
These beliefs, so readily taken for granted, cannot be reconciled with Islam or traditional Christianity. What we do in this life echoes in eternity and we will be held to account for all our actions and thoughts by a God who is both completely just and the most merciful of all those who show mercy. Mankind is called to submit to Gods will, not to do our own will. As Jesus is reported to have said to his Lord, ‘May thy will be done, not mine’. This spiritual disposition is vanishing fast from Britain’s Christian churches, which have made some astonishing compromises with the spirit of the age. But Muslims see religion as a citadel resistant to decadence and changing tides of opinion, not as one strand in the pattern of modern life – the western way of life – but as an alternative to it. Those who have gone astray are invited to return and that is that. For Muslims there is one fixed mark, set down in the midst of times flow and that is the Faith as it came from God through the Prophet.
Recently the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland voted by 326 to 267 to uphold the decision to appoint a gay minister to a church in Aberdeen. The man in question, The Rev Scott Rennie, lives with his male partner. Muslims, and traditional Scottish Christians, find this decision astonishing for two reasons:
The very idea that men and women can actually vote , and by a majority verdict, alter God’s clearly expressed will, seems like presumption and blasphemy. The Christian churches, it seems, are trying desperately to keep up with the times and are in dereliction of their duty to be faithful to the revelation they received.
Secondly, God has expressly given us his commands in the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran. They cannot be changed. We, as Muslims, stand should to shoulder with those traditionalist clergy who resist these compromises with modernism. One of these ministers, the Reverend David Randall said, according to the BBC website, that he believed “a minister is somebody who ought to live by the Bible and we believe that the Bible’s teaching is quite clear in this matter – that marriage is the right and only context for sexual relationships.” And Muslims of course agree.
So not Islam is not a threat to traditional British values, which historically are based on Christian values, but their ally. Islam complements and reinforces them. I could duplicate many times over the same point: whether it be the sanctity of life, opposition to abortion on demand, the rejection of euthanasia and assisted suicide, or the respect and courtesy due to women, Muslims find a natural affinity with many traditional Christians in our churches, and hence with the best of British values and culture which were formed by the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.
But of course Islam is a challenge to the forces of atheist materialism that reduce the individual to a mere consumer of goods; it is a challenge to those hedonist philosophies that deny God and worship the man-made idols of short-term pleasure and greed.
So the enemy is not Islam, which like Christianity and Judaism shares a common origin in the faith of Abraham, the great prophet of God.
Posts: 715 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2006
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plato's cat:
I believe that Islamic values and traditional British values walk hand in hand
Only if you assume traditional British values = conservative Christian values.
One might say, for example, that respect of other people's ways of life, like homosexuality, or atheism, and respect of other people's choices like pre-marital relationships and so on and so forth, is a traditional British value.
Essentially you agree with traditional Christianity, because both are conservative and oppose modern secularism and democracy, but is this agreement with traditional British values?
What exactly do you have in mind when you say traditional British values? Middle Ages Britain? But that would be anti-Islam. Modern Britain? But that would be pro other people's rights and contra "God's will as described in a holy book" to be implemented in the public life.
Something else?
I think that's worth discussing about.
As is the fact that Islam agrees with traditional, read: conservative, Christianity.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Plato's cat
Shipmate
# 11158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
quote:
Originally posted by Plato's cat:
I believe that Islamic values and traditional British values walk hand in hand
Only if you assume traditional British values = conservative Christian values.
One might say, for example, that respect of other people's ways of life, like homosexuality, or atheism, and respect of other people's choices like pre-marital relationships and so on and so forth, is a traditional British value.
Essentially you agree with traditional Christianity, because both are conservative and oppose modern secularism and democracy, but is this agreement with traditional British values?
What exactly do you have in mind when you say traditional British values? Middle Ages Britain? But that would be anti-Islam. Modern Britain? But that would be pro other people's rights and contra "God's will as described in a holy book" to be implemented in the public life.
Something else?
I think that's worth discussing about.
As is the fact that Islam agrees with traditional, read: conservative, Christianity.
you make some excellent points, but before I reply, I'd like to read some other responses by shipmates...
Posts: 715 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2006
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plato's cat:
Muslims see religion as a citadel resistant to decadence and changing tides of opinion, not as one strand in the pattern of modern life – the western way of life – but as an alternative to it.
I think the "traditional British values" have something to do with letting the Muslims lead traditionally ordered Muslim lives, and letting the Jews lead strict Orthodox Jewish lives, and letting the hippies lead chemically-enhanced drop-out free-love lives and letting gay men live together and speak in camp voices and sleep in the same bed and decorate their flat in pink and purple if they wish to, so long as they're all polite to each other in public and don't jump the queue, and say "sorry, officer" if a policeman stops them because their brake lights aren't working.
No Muslim principle is threatening to "British values" if held as a private conviction about the right way to live. Any principle, of any religion or ideology, is potentially an issue if it is held in the form of a doctrine that the British state should enforce said principle upon those who do not hold it.
This tolerant pluralism does not depend upon acceptance of the sort of Enlightenment principles that you suggest; ask a dozen taxi drivers on the streets of London whether they agree that "man is the measure of all things" and you'll get a dozen different answers.
You may detect such principles at work behind recent actions of the Church of Scotland, but that organisation doesn't speak for the whole of Britain (it probably doesn't speak for more than a large minority of its own members).
The British believe in fair play, and playing by the rules (without, it must be said, always spelling out in complete detail exactly what the rules are).
Build your citadel, but don't create a public nuisance during Gardener's Question Time, no matter what you believe the word of Allah would have to say about the matter.
Any strand of Islam that stresses personal discipline rather than communal obedience, that can show to others the same respect that they wish others to show to them, should flourish in Britain.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
Having come to veiw this thread late, I am saddened by the tone of most posts in response to the OP theme "How do Muslims see Chrstians.
I agree with Plato's Cat's post midway through:
quote:
If the views I have expressed on this thread are at all representative of most Muslims sentiments, and if the views expressed by the Christians on this thread (and others from the West) are at all representative of most Western sentiments, then we have here, in microcosm, a picture of what divides the West from the rest.
Very sad really, and it bodes ill for the future of our world...
It seems that we Christians would rather leap to defend what we hear as being an attack rather than hearing it as another person' opinion. When a defensive response is given war begins.
Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
"War begins?" This War has been ongoing for well over one thousand years. The Jews count their warfare in the millennia.
This is very simple, really: either you participate or you refuse to engage. The way you participate is by joining one of the sides: you adopt an "us and them" perspective.
If, because of accident of birth, you find yourself IDed by "the other side" as "one of them", you still have a choice whether to engage or not. The way you refuse to engage is to be ecumenical: we are all far more alike than different religiously. And we all know that "God" never taught any of our forebears to slaughter innocents: that was manmade crap added into the dogma. If you believe this, then you can accept anyone who behaves humanely as a neighbor; let him adhere to whatever religious background he will....
Posts: 3499 | Registered: Jan 2007
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Plato's cat
Shipmate
# 11158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Having come to veiw this thread late, I am saddened by the tone of most posts in response to the OP theme "How do Muslims see Chrstians.
I agree with Plato's Cat's post midway through:
quote:
If the views I have expressed on this thread are at all representative of most Muslims sentiments, and if the views expressed by the Christians on this thread (and others from the West) are at all representative of most Western sentiments, then we have here, in microcosm, a picture of what divides the West from the rest.
Very sad really, and it bodes ill for the future of our world...
It seems that we Christians would rather leap to defend what we hear as being an attack rather than hearing it as another person' opinion. When a defensive response is given war begins.
thanks for the support IconiumBound!
Posts: 715 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2006
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