Islam is about performative action. It is about demonstrating that you are following the rules. Do not think, above all, do not argue, do everything as it is prescribed. Perform your submission. No-one is interested in what is in your heart, your morals.

Judaism is about hearing the small, still voice and heeding it. Christianity is about the transformed heart, of being called out of your pagan ethnicity into election (judaism) for all. Morality is at the heart of both.

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Yes the mitzvot. Not only that, but if soren (and all his bible bashing buddies) actually bothered to read their NT, they'd find the Jews were criticised and considered on the wrong path exactly for this same reason they're trying to criticise Islam for, "Following the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of it". But now all of a sudden in the 20th. century and beyond, Judaism is not the target anymore, Islam is, so Judaism has now become all moral and fuzzy wuzzy, and only Islam is legalistic...

abu_rashid wrote on Nov 8^th, 2008 at 10:34am:





Reform judaism is not  hung up on the letter of the law as orthodox judaism - it has heeded the warning. And still - the jews do not blow each other up over dogma, like the Mohammedans. Not even secular jews are blown up, as they go about their daily lives, by the orthodox. A jew is a jew in his heart and mind (and his trousers). the rest is between him and god to arover. yes, a jew will argue with god.
The world is a cooperative effort between man and god. The Christians have learned tha from the jews , but the Mohammedans, having misunderstood judaism, haven't and now it is too late for them to learn it.
So the nature of the relationship for jew and christian is personal, of the heart. For the mohammedan, the relationship is of the slave and the potentate in the law courts of the poteentate.

Soren wrote on Nov 7^th, 2008 at 11:33pm:







"Christianity is about the transformed heart, of being called out of your pagan ethnicity into election (judaism) for all."


Soren,

I believe you are correct.

I see the purpose of Christianity in the same way.


The experiences and the stories in the OT [& NT] were all given to mankind as spiritual parables [i believe].

All those who come to walk in God's way, are, and become, the children of Israel.

soren,

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It's actually 613, the word "Mitzvah" means command. So they ARE commanded to follow 613 rules, and this is what Judaism is about.

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Actually the majority of believing Jews identify as either Orthodox or Conservative both groups follow the Mitzvot. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews are the minority, unless you wanted to count them with atheistic/secular Jews who generally don't even believe in God or religion at all anyway.

Regardless, it's part of their religious teachings and doctrines, and that's what we're discussing here, not peoples adherence or lack thereof. I really don't understand why you're so intent on proving the Jews are like Christians (and unlike Muslims) for most of your history you persecuted and murdered them and considered them to be an absolute abomination as far as their religious teachings were concerned. Why change now?

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A Muslim is not a Muslim in his heart? What kind of nonsense is this...

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Your idea of Islam is extremely skewed. Judaism is, according to Christian doctrine, a works-based religion, and Christianity reacted and claimed to be faith-only based. Islam is the perfect union of the two, as we believe the original teachings of both religions once were, and that is best understand from one of the most oft-repeated verses of the Qur'an, "Those who believe AND work righteous deeds".

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What are the five pillars of Islam? what is the first and most important one?

Also note that Jews have 6 special Mitzvot, which are considered the fundamental commands, and one of them is to fear God. Do you fear God soren? Or do you believe we should fear God? Another of them is to affirm the ABSOLUTE oneness of God, do you believe we should do that soren? Is that more compatible with Christianity? Or with Islam?

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Heeded the warning and ordained gay Rabbis?  

Reform Judaism is a joke, it's Judaism without the Judaism. The "Clayton's Judaism".

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Tell that to Yitzak Rabin, or to the Jewish historian who recently had his house bombed by Jewish extremists, because he wrote that Zionism had dispossessed the Palestinians of their land, rather than spewing out the propaganda line that it was terra nullius (land without a people for a people without a land).

Your one-eyed view of Islam and more worryingly of Christianity and Judaism is based on nothing but whimsical fantasy soren. But if you close your eyes and wish hard enough, maybe you'll wake up and it'll be true...

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The word that's sometimes translated as slave is wrong. It actually means worshipper, and comes from the Semitic root ع ب د ('abada) which means "he worshipped, sanctified". A Jewish temple for instance is called a M'abad in Arabic meaning "place that worship takes place". It can mean 'to serve' as one serves the God he worships. Do you not 'serve' God soren? Or are you constantly in disobedience to God?

This same word is used in the Bible (1 Chronicles 5:15) in the name Abdiel, meaning "servent/worshipper of God (El)", and is cognate with the Islamic name Abdullah, having the exact same meaning.

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I didn't persecute or murder anyone. I don't think Yadda did either. We don't hold you personally responsible for every immoral act ever committed by Muslims. Why do you attempt the same?

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Abu, we are kind enough to defer to you and other Muslims on questions of Islamic doctrine. Why can you not do the same? Who cares how Christian doctrine defines Judaism? It's how Jews define it that matters.

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My criticism was not based on the presence of rules, but on the absence of morals. I can appreciate both rules and morals, but not the replacement of morals with rules.

freediver,

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That post was directed at someone, and  I'll give you a hint, it wasn't you, nor Yadda. how about you read the first word of the post?

Either way, no matter who I was addressing, I was quite clearly spekaing about Christianity as a whole, which both Yadda and soren have indicated they represent. You have not (to my knowledge), so you can consider it not aimed at you.

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Again, soren initially began trying to define Jewish doctrine as it relates to this subject, so take it up with him, it's nothing to do with me. I simply responded to his claims.

If it bugs you, then address it, with him. If it doesn't, and you're just trying to score points from every point I've made, try addressing the ones that relate to you first, then worry about assisting soren in the damage control for his fanciful posts.

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So this is all about you holding that physical punishments are immoral? Is Indonesia immoral for executing the Bali bombers?

Also, I don't live in a Caliphate, if I steal, my hand won't be chopped off, yet I am still not permitted by Islam to steal. The rule is no longer active, so what's preventing me from stealing? Also in times of famine, the punishment for stealing is suspended, yet stealing is still not permitted... on what basis??

Wouldn't be an underlying moral that stealing is wrong, would it? Nah... Islam couldn't be moral could it??

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Ok, so Islam has both the moral and the rule.

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Non-sequitur perhaps? Since I consider that all the rules of Islam emanate from morals, then yes it is a logical conclusion that you can't replace the morals with the rules, because the rules only exist as an extension of the moral, and therefore can't exist without it.

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If you took away people's 'right' to attack Islam as a whole everytime a Muslim did something wrong, this forum wouldn't even exist. It'd just be you and a coupla white supremacists bickering with one another and a looney Christian ranting along to the chorus. Don't bite the hand that fills your forum.

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They represent Christianity as Christians. They regularly attack Islam based on the actions of Muslims, yet if I do the same back, you're going to jump down my throat?? Where's the even hand here?

You're really proving yourself to be quite a joke freediver.