Sanders' Religion Thread, Begun @ LC Forum Options

[Sanders]

e-Dog and I have decided to re-constitute this from LC. It is a thread about the 3 major religions of the world. The goal was to follow the path of each from their common origins to the present day. We (a number of LC posters and I) got as far as the begining of the First Crusade while the thread was active.

What becomes of this thread when all the copying is done is not clear. It may be just a read-only thread for the Religion topic. Or it may be left open to posting, so we can finish the journey.

[Guest_librarian_*]

Posted by: Sanders Jul 30 2006, 07:18 AM

OK, I've fallen behind. I haven't read the last few posts yet but I'll post this before I get even more behind while I read them...

I don't want to bring polemics into this debate, but if you allow me, I would counter every argument he has against Islam....

Let's not. - what I'm trying to say to usediscernment isn't whether he's right or wrong about the Muslim God being HIS God or not, it's that telling someone else that what they believe is wrong is counterproductive. I have to respect undiscernment and allow HIM to believe whatever he wants. If we're lucky, some people will learn that Islam is not so different from Judaeo-Christian religions - but you'll never teach anyone anything by arguing about it, you just make people defend their positions more strongly. Let it go. No one wins these battles, unless they chose not to fight them.

If anyone can explain it to me, how'd all the jews wind up in Egypt? I figured out that Jacob and his other sons went to Egypt during a drought, but they didn't stay, right? They had to "populate" the tribes, right? These were the only jews on the planet, this little family, right? Moses was from the tribe of Levi (separated from the story of Joseph in Egypt by about 3 or 400 years? ), how'd he wind up born in Egypt? Why are all these jews flocking to Egypt to be slaves? Did the Pharos come and capture them? And when Moses leads them all back, all the stories give the impression that the promised land is empty of jews. Is this true? Where'd they all go? I know they weren't scattered by the Assyrian invasion, that doesn't happen for another 800 years or so, after Solomon and all of that... How strong is the Jewish argument that they were given this land by God if they kept packing up and leaving? Or did they not leave, were Moses' jews with their 10 commandments just a small part of the jewish population after that?? Forgive me for being daft and asking stupid questions, - but I bet most people don't know the answers to them. I could look it up, but I'm sure there are plenty of posters that could explain it easily...

Onegai

(Onegai is Japanese - it means 'please', kind of. More like, "I humbly beg you to be good to me" but it doesn't come off wierd like that. More like sayin, "cool?")