My only concern with the film is the type of reaction it is trying to exact upon the general public, by scaring them of their Muslim neighbours and fellow citizens. A few days ago, I had a BNP leaflet posted in my letterbox, and most of its points used the ‘Muslim’ issue to create a sense of fear.

Reem:

‘I believe that we do Islam a disservice to insist on finding interpretations for Quaranic verses we are uncomfortable with rather than embracing the spirit of the Quran as a whole.’

But this was even the case during the time of the prophet (pbuh) himself..if he and his companions would have simply embraced the ’spirit of the day’ many practices and attitudes which we rightly feel to be distasteful would have continued. In fact, this opens the door to cultural relativism; in a society ravaged by war ‘the spirit of Islam’ could be understand in a totally different manner.

I feel this is a rather facile argument, no?

I believe it is not your right to determine who is Muslim and who is not.

I believe God offers guidance and encourages us to think for ourselves both as individuals and collectivelly.

I believe that we do Islam a disservice to insist on finding interpretations for Quaranic verses we are uncomfortable with rather than embracing the spirit of the Quran as a whole.

b’shalom

bananabrain

If a piece of text is clearly long outmoded, factually incorrect or morally abhorrent (or all three), isn’t the obvious conclusion that it did not derive from a benevolent divinity? Just someone making stuff up to get an edge on the opposition?
</blockquote

and good point douglas

Look, I realise you have to rationalise your beliefs, and, frankly I admire you for that. I also admire your pragmatism.

What an excellent riposte.

Your lot also ’saw off’ Osiris and Horus did you not?

More seriously, the problem would seem to be down to religious texts where an extant group – Jews usually – are seen as the bad guys. I’d kind of hoped that in my lifetime that could have been pushed into a historical past, but it seems to me to be a tad unlikely. Folk seem very wedded to even the most ridiculous bits of their holy books.

Although your point about the flexibility of sociomorality does give me some hope. As long as it is a ratchet effect towards a more liberal society, at least. For which there is, obviously, no guarantee.

However, I do stand amazed at the vast expense of human intelligence and scholarship which has been spent on reconciling passages which are clearly political expediencies to fit very local and time-specific squabbles with the idea that these are the revealed communications from the Creator of the Universe, and as such eternally true – one way or another. If that much brain power had been directed elsewhere we would probably have decoded the genome by the fourteenth century and would currently be terra-forming the outer planets of Arcturus.

perhaps the amount of mental discipline we have developed from doing this has contributed to our influence on human society? and besides, we’ve hardly been prevented from directing our brain power into other fields – without judaism you get no maimonides, spinoza, marx, freud or einstein – or leonard cohen, woody allen, groucho marx, etc. more to the point, we are hardly short of jewish scientists, even believing ones. i take your point about brain power, but, as one of my old bosses once said, “you can’t make a baby in one month by putting nine women on the job”; i don’t think scientists have done a particularly great job of coming to terms with the moral issues needed to deal with the capabilities science gives us; look at GM food, or climate change. we need moral (and spiritual) maturity in order to make the most of our raw potential, i’d have thought.

If a piece of text is clearly long outmoded, factually incorrect or morally abhorrent (or all three), isn’t the obvious conclusion that it did not derive from a benevolent divinity? Just someone making stuff up to get an edge on the opposition?

it’s *one* conclusion. the fact that it may be obvious to *you* does not make it correct. (jews aren’t lawyers for nothing!) it may refer, for example, to an allegorical or symbolic interpretation, a hint to go and investigate something else, or indeed a mystical and esoteric tradition based on coded references.

the fact is that what someone thought was “outmoded” in the C19th with their infatuation with progress (like, say, “backward” tribal societies) may upon contingent understanding by, say, a social anthropologist reveal a wisdom that has been forgotten by people who are in a hurry to terraform the outer planets of arcturus.

as for “factually incorrect”, what appears to be a fact at one point may change over time, as any scientist will tell you about, say, newtonian physics or the ptolemaic cosmological model. not so long ago we thought people in the middle ages thought the world was flat and that certainly turned out to be bollocks.

as for “morally abhorrent”, it should be obvious from the case of how moderns view homosexuality that sociomorality too changes over time.

you may find this trite, but as a parent i treat my child very differently as a 2-year old than i expect to treat him when he is a teenager or an adult. i pick him up when he falls over, change his nappy, prevent him from running into the road, tell him things in terms of “good” and “bad”, make him sit on the “naughty step” etc. as he develops a more nuanced set of understandings over time, i will have to intervene less and less in his affairs – he’ll be able to do everything from cross a road to wipe his own arse. i can’t stop him sticking his fingers in the electric sockets indefinitely or he’ll never learn anything. what makes you think G!D Views humans differently? back then we couldn’t be trusted to know good from bad – it is, as i think you would all agree, more complex nowadays and to a certain extent much improved. that doesn’t mean good and bad don’t exist any more, but G!D as Divine Parent has a more complex relationship with us. what i am saying, essentially, is that G!D, in the jewish view, expects us to improve ourselves, to challenge each other and the Divine itself, to test our limits and to grow. it is our challenge, for example, to not assume we know whether the denizens of stamford bridge are girgashites or indeed any other sort of shite.

in short, wearing a t-shirt with “i’m a big fat purple girgashite” on it doesn’t make you a girgashite any more than john cleese dressing up as hitler makes him a nazi. it is our job as human beings to develop that sort of critical intelligence and discriminatory faculties.

“missing a beat”, forsooth. sometimes it seems to me that what really upsets people here is that a traditionally-minded monotheist can be as reasonable and pragmatic as a socialist atheist. and that, quite often, feels a leetle bit chauvinist to me, with a C19th eurocentric flava. you have to take the long view. we have survived the girgashites, assyrians, babylonians, persians, greeks, romans, catholics, muslims, philosophers, mongols, psychologists, communists, nazis and americans and we’re still here, a mote in the eye of history. it would seem to me that perhaps we have a perspective on human potential that is worth investigating as well as some valuable experience.

b’shalom

bananabrain

I realise that that is the bloody point. Oh, I can’t stop laughing over Girgashites.

Look, I realise you have to rationalise your beliefs, and, frankly I admire you for that. I also admire your pragmatism.

But what if there were a Girgashite, perhaps pretending to be a Chelsea supporter – it fits, don’t it – well what would you do?

I’ll answer the question for you. You would assume that he wasn’t a Girgashite, you’d assume Girgashite’s were not Chelsea supporter, and you’d walk away from this obvious nonsense. You do realise that rationalisim is not necessarily sense?

Just don’t assume that a straight on atheist is ever, ever, going to be convinced!

I respect you Bananabrain, I really do. I just feel you’ve been missing a beat recently…..

and “we canaan and we kicked yer arse”

I can hear the mobs baying even now,

‘You’re Girgashite and you know you are.’

Actually, I think Muhamad {peace be upon me} had misinterpreted Sid’s point ( I believe Sid is more or less a Spinozan when it comes to matters deistic)rather than having a pop at Hinduism.

However, I do stand amazed at the vast expense of human intelligence and scholarship which has been spent on reconciling passages which are clearly political expediencies to fit very local and time-specific squabbles with the idea that these are the revealed communications from the Creator of the Universe, and as such eternally true – one way or another.

If that much brain power had been directed elsewhere we would probably have decoded the genome by the fourteenth century and would currently be terra-forming the outer planets of Arcturus. (Or not, I have nothing to back that up with.)

If a piece of text is clearly long outmoded, factually incorrect or morally abhorrent (or all three), isn’t the obvious conclusion that it did not derive from a benevolent divinity? Just someone making stuff up to get an edge on the opposition?

The failure to identify these folk – I ask you, Girgashites – is actually a deliberate attempt to turn a blind eye.

that’s the bloody point, douglas! we *know* that sort of thing isn’t on any more, so we’ve taken steps to defang the legislation – and we did it 2000 years ago! moreover, G!D is down as *approving* of our having done so!

more to the point, it was never about *racial* extermination. if you look at *any* halakhic source on this, it talks about post-sennacherib, eliminating the *characteristics* of these people, ie idol worship, sexual immorality/slavery, child sacrifice and so on. now i consider that nazis should be eliminated as well, annihilated and wiped from the face of the earth. does that make me a genocidal maniac? no, it doesn’t, because it is only nazi *actions* that can be penalised. i can’t do anything about someone’s beliefs, nor do their beliefs have anything to do with their ethnicity.

is that sufficiently clear?

b’shalom

bananabrain

I didn’t realise there was this amount of religious discourse going around in the 21st Century

We have bananabrain, who I enjoy debating with, coming away with stuff like this:

….so we can’t spot a girgashite any more. i certainly wouldn’t know what one looks like even if he danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing “girgashites are here again”. so actually, it’s still literal, but it has been, if you like “disarmed” using hermeneutics.

which is hilariously funny, and witty. But the tail end of it isn’t.

Identified, true Girgashites would indeed be fair game, even now. The failure to identify these folk – I ask you, Girgashites – is actually a deliberate attempt to turn a blind eye. Sadly, any sort of racial extermination, including the Girgashites, is probably proto Nazi. Call me for the Godwin, Bananabrain, but you know it it true. That is no more acceptable than calling for Jewish extermination, and you have the brains to know it.

Continuing elsewhere.

Then of course we have Muhamad {peace be upon me}

So, as long as it’s an abstracted notion of godhood (abrahamic), it’s fine? The Hindus are the real idiots.

Personally, I wouldn’t have thought so.

I’d have thought it was all you god swallowers who ought to get together, support each other and check the marks on Monica Lewinski’s dress. There may, indeed be the face of the sweet little baby Jesus! In other words, you are being a tad hypocritical.

b’shalom

bananabrain