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, 10:49 AM

the israelis and muslims are not fighting over religion ... they're fighting over land ... religion is just a cover for the violence. and its sickening.

too many points to make ... blah ... i do see truth in what you're saying ... but its layered with many other truths.

BAH its too complicated ... lets all just party and get knickered!    (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)

I intend to go out and get knickered myself in a little bit. But before I do, I figured it out. The families of Jacob's sons all moved to Egypt during the drought, just as WaterBender said. Including the son's wive's and families there were 70 of them. The land wasn't metted out to the 12 tribes until AFTER they returned from Egypt.

Everyone knows the story of Moses, the jews carrying around the ark of the covenant in the desert for 40 years, no need to go into that (?). Finally the Israelites, (numbering 3 million??) entered Canaan - they weren't unaopposed. This is the book of Joshua - containing:

(1.) The history of the conquest of the land (1-12). (2.) The allotment of the land to the different tribes, with the appointment of cities of refuge, the provision for the Levites (13-22), and the dismissal of the eastern tribes to their homes. This section has been compared to the Domesday Book of the Norman conquest. (3.) The farewell addresses of Joshua, with an account of his death (23, 24)

Joshua 3:10 - 'Joshua said, "Hereby you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite out from before you.'

And then they had a war. ("In Canaan there were "seven nations greater and mightier" than Israel (Deuteronomy 7:1, NKJV) that had to be dispossessed and destroyed")

From a 'Crash course in Jewish History',

At this time the so-called Promised Land is bounded by the Egyptian empire to the south and the Assyrian empire to the north. But it is not ruled by either of them. In fact, there is no one power ruling this section of land, rather it is settled by seven Canaanite tribes who inhabit 31 fortified city-states scattered all over the map, each ruled by its own "king."

(Jericho is one of these city-states, so is Ai, so is Jerusalem, where Canaanite tribesmen called Jebusites dwell.)

...Before they enter the land, the Jewish people send an envoy to the Canaanites with the message, "God, the Creator of the Universe has promised this land to our forefathers. We are now here to claim our inheritance, and we ask you to leave peacefully."

Needless to say most of the Canaanites don't.

Meanwhile, Joshua has clear instructions from God that if the Canaanites don't get out, the Jews must wipe them out...

Then it looks like a number of stories of the Israelites being punished for screwing up and rewarded for loyalty, the story of (chronilogically speaking) Samson and Delilah, the prophet Samuel and his chosing Saul to be king - leading to this from the same 'Crash Course' that sort of blew me away...

Saul reigns from 879 to 877 BCE. He's king for only two years and he dies a tragic death. Indeed, his brief reign in itself is tragic, and it has to do with a fatal mistake he makes early on....

One of the key commandments that the Jewish people are given upon entering the Land of Israel is "to wipe out Amalek."

Amalek is the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people in history. This is the people that symbolize evil, and there is a commandment in the Bible to wipe them off the face of the earth, because their pathological hatred for Jews is so great, if they have a chance they will wipe the Jews off the face of the earth.

Amalek's major ambition is to rid the world of the Jews and their moral influence and return the planet to idolatry, paganism, and barbarism.

Since this is a cosmic war between good and evil which cannot be settled with treaties, God commands the Jews to destroy Amalek -- the entire nation, down to the last cow.

Say what !??

Saul has the opportunity to do so. He wages war against Amalek as commanded and wins, but when it comes to fulfilling the decree he falters. The cows are spared, and Agag, the king of the Amalekites, is spared also.

IDEOLOGY OF AMALEK

To this day, history continues to struggle with the consequences of Saul's mistake.

Again, say WHAT??

Agag fathers a child before he is killed by the Prophet Samuel, and then the nation of Amalek goes underground.

Today, we have no way of identifying the descendants of Amalek, but we do know that the Amalekite ideology lives on. There has been more than one occasion when people have arisen bent on exterminating the Jews.

Obviously this is just some guy writing words. But it shows how old the current conflict really extends (Saul reigned from 879 to 877 BC).