Question about New Testament (with OT)

[annemehr]

Annemehr wrote:
> > In many ways they agree, and in some ways they disagree.  >
>

Naama replied: 
> This view of religions mostly agreeing is a bit naive, IMO. I 
think 
> that it is engendered by limiting the point of view to the recent 
> occidental religions. But Judaism, Christianity and Islam have a 
> common cultural background*, so it is no wonder that they are 
similar 
> in many ways. 
> In fact, when you widen your view and look at other religions, you 
> find extremely diverse beliefs and customs. For instance, did you 
> know that in Zoroastrianism (the ancient Iranian religion) incest 
was 
> a *virtue*? Or, think of the horrific Thugs -the Kali cult whose 
form 
> of worship was a drawn out murder. Or, think of Borneo, where head 
> hunting is still practised (I think). Think of the Celts and human 
> sacrifice. Think of fertility rites and cultic orgies (including 
> forms of cannibalism) in ancient Greek. 
>

Annemehr:
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply any amount of agreement or 
disagreement, just the fact that there would be *some* overlap.  The 
examples you cite are practices rather than the underlying beliefs, 
and I don't actually know enough about these religions to comment.  
I do know a bit more about Shintoism and Hinduism (just a bit), but 
from what I read I still can find some ideas in common with my own 
religion.  Talking about practices being widely divergent between 
religions, I find those of ancient Judaism as recorded in the OT to 
be very different from what I do as a modern Catholic, yet I find 
the underlying belief systems to be very similar, and that's what I 
was talking about.  Even human sacrifice (something even Abraham was 
recorded as being willing to do) can arise from the belief that we 
owe something to God -- a belief that's common to many religions 
even if the particular practice is not. 

Annemehr wrote:
> > People who are serious about their religion think that their 
pail 
> > has the most sand and least of the other stuff.


Naama's reply: 
> Well, when the pail comes with an engraved notice on it: Here be 
the 
> one and only complete and final Word of God (as do Judaism, 
> Christianity and Islam), the people holding this pail are 
obligated 
> to disregard the content of other pails. Built-in intolerance, you 
> know. 
>

Annemehr:
I think you are going a bit too far here.  Although I don't know any 
Muslims well enough to say, I do know plenty of Christians and Jews 
who have no problem studying other religions.  Just because someone 
believes their religion to be the truest does *not* imply 
intolerance of other people, it only opens up the *possibility* of 
falling into that error.  You'd be perfectly safe from committing 
religious intolerance if you believed one religion was just as true 
as another, but as there are points of disagreement among them all, 
you'd be reduced to some sort of "lowest common denominator" or else 
no religion at all.  Many of us can not believe *that*.
 

Naama: 
> * Let's be frank here. Islam and Christianity both begun as Jewish 
> heresies. The root to the Jew hatred in both can be found in the 
> peevish sense of insult that the Jews as a whole refused to adopt 
the 
> new extension. 

Annemehr:
Heh, well I prefer to think of them as "Jewish *offshoots*", but 
otherwise, agreed. ;)

I do still think my analogy, though flawed (as any would be, I 
suppose), is still a useful way to look at the state we are in 
regarding knowledge of God.

Thanks for replying!

Annemehr