Perhaps people on the list can help: is the following a fair
description of the nature of the Jewish/Christian God, and how it is
different from the nature of the Moslem God?
And if so, are the fundamental political implications as described?
Are more Moslems likely to believe in false conspiracies because of
these beliefs than US Christians or Jews?
An article in Asia Times Online
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EJ28Aa02.html
says
... the Jewish God enjoys only a qualified sort of omnipotence. His
sympathy with mankind, his creation, compels him to suffer along
with his creatures. He cannot help but hear the cry of innocent
blood, the complaint of the widow and orphan, the mistreated
stranger and the oppressed slave (Professor James Kugel of Harvard
makes his hoary argument in _The God of Old_). He is the God of the
town meeting, of the popular assembly, of the democrats. With good
reason, Friedrich Nietzsche labelled the Jewish deity a God of
slaves. He permits the likes of Abraham and Moses to give him a
hard time over such things as the destruction of Sodom, or
exterminating the sinners among the Israelites.
Is this a fair characterization. Is Nietzsche correct? The article
goes on to say:
.... The Christian God even came to earth and allowed himself to be
crucified. He loves the poor and weak. Indeed, weakness ineluctably
draws forth his love. Jewish and Christian theologians speak of
"divine humility".
To what extent is this statement false? Who among Christians and Jews
says `my God is bigger than your God'? Is the notion of "divine
humility" widespread, or is it understood to be purely a matter of
hypocrisy? How does the US differ from Germany and France?
Not so Allah, the beneficent, the merciful. "For Islam, the notion
that man's failings more powerfully awake God's love than man's merits
is an absurd, indeed an impossible thought. Allah has pity upon human
weaknesses, but the idea that he loves weakness more than strength is
a form of divine humility that is foreign to the God of Mohammed,"
wrote the Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig.
Is this true? Or is this a misleading characterization of Sunni or
Shia theology?
Here comes the political implications:
_Imitatio dei_ may explain why Americans and Muslims seek quite
different attributes in their political leaders. More important
than strength and intelligence in the character of an American
presidential candidate is humility. Whatever one thinks of
President George W Bush, he cultivates the same sort of folksy
image that served former president Jimmy Carter so well. In this
regard one thinks of Bill Clinton, who hid his intellectual
arrogance so effectively, or Ronald Reagan, who cloaked his
ideological fervor in self-deprecating humor.
More than anything else, Americans want their leaders to listen to
them. A president had better be a better listener than a talker. That
is what Americans expect from their God, after all, and all the more
so from a president who is a mere human.
The sort of leader who evoked adulation in the Arab world, eg, a Gamal
Abdel Nasser, produces only revulsion among Americans. ....
Is the theological-political connection right? Is it fair to say that
many people do wish to behave with the same qualities as their God?
If so, and if the qualities are as stated, does this predefine the
attributes that Americans seek in their presidents, on the one hand,
and that Eqyptians and others seek in their leaders, on the other?
To what extent are people living in France and Germany different,
although nominally or actually Christian?
To what extent are the divisions among Jews, Christians, and Moslems
important; or is this something that conjoins Protestants of all types
with Catholics, so long as they are American, and separates them from
their co-religionists in France and Germany, and separates them from
Moslems who are as far apart themselves as Protestants and Catholics
were during the European religious wars?
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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