So my god says…
Published October 22nd, 2006 in SocietyWas watching the National Geographics about the life of Prophet Muhammad and the story of the rise of Islam. One of the story is about the betrayal of some Jews towards Prophet Muhammad. No wonder Jews have such a hard time all these while. On one end, some fundamentalist Christians have been branding Jews as bad because of the so-called betrayal by Judas. On the other end, some of the Muslims considered all Jews as dishonest and bad because of their betrayal Prophet Muhammad. With a combined population of the both Muslims and Christians, no wonder there is so much conflicts between all these religions.
Funny it seems, all 3 conflicting religions rises from the same Abrahamic roots. All talk about their Gods, but everyone seems to think that their God is the right one. Actually, I don’t understand why would Christians hate Jews. Without Judas, there is no way for Christ to go through torture and be resurrected, unless he banged himself on the cross, and its the resurrection that forms the basic faith of the Christians. I wonder where the Christian faith would be without a resurrection? Hence, Judas is the key person who made it possible for the faith to exist. Also they forget that the original faith was to liberated the Jews and Christ was a Jew himself. Talking about slapping oneself.
In the story of the betrayal of Muhammad by the Jews, yes, those Jews were finally sacked, all the men killed and women and children made slaves. However, it seems like many people also conveniently forgot that the Jews who did not betray Muhammad was allowed to live peaceful and freely, without troubles. So it seems like the Muhammad was indeed more objective than many of the extremists out there, he did not target an entire community or race or religion, just those who did him injustice.
Most of us would be aware that the British after conquering those holy lands ceded Israel to the Jews. Now, it is claimed by the Jews that those piece of the land is God given and hence, they are the rightful owner of that land. Now if such arguments were to hold up in court, then I would hope that the natives in Australia, South America, and USA could take back ALL their lands that was endowed to them by their Gods also.
Over the history, countries and lands have been conquered, expanded and annexed. I guess one have to accept such realities of life, whether its recent event or not. If not, every country will have to go back to their lands and start dividing the country up back to the “original” owners. Of course, the question now is who is the “original” owners? How far back in time do you want to go?
Unfortunately, due to the effects of the power Western mass media, a lot of us may have the opinion that Israel should be ceded to the Jews. However, in order to take this position, one have to believe in the God of the Jews. In other words, one have believe that God does exists and that that God gave land to the Jews. Firstly, we don’t know if God do exists (but Buddhism do have an explanation for it). Secondly to take that position, it means that one would have to exclude all other religions as false religions. This means that we have to impose the view of the Jewish God and its teachings onto the rest of world. Would this mean that only people of the Abrahamic faith can claim that land belongs to them because of the God?
If the British did ceded that land to the Jews for its godly truth and the rest of the world supports it being that, can other religions like Hindus now claim that Brahma gave them some land and requests it back from the current landowners? Of course not, as I have already argued, for the world to view the ceding land to the Jews is right, it will necessarily include the believe that any other religions is false. Hence, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoist and even Islamism would be consider false.
It would seem hypocritical for one to say they believe what one religion says is truth, while simultaneously say the same of the other religions. Its unfortunately that most of the religions are exclusive in nature, that is either your belief or you are wrong. Of course, some religions with multi-pantheon faith have little troubles accepting all other religions under their faith. Like how Hinduism have absorbed Buddha into their league, making Buddha one of the manifestation of Vishnu.
Its difficult for people who believes in god to see it the way as I see it. As I have said, most religions are exclusive in nature, followers are trained on to be ethnocentric in outlook and thus those who are already in the faith will find it hard to find it in themselves to ask this question of validity, but to accept it as a convention truth.
I think there is too much focus on one incident, or specific events (such as betrayal) ; in the history of the Jewish diaspora, the Jews both rapidly integrated into their host cultures (ie. German as can be seen from the Yiddish tongue) - yet they kept amongst themselves, attracting suspicion. Probably because of their diaspora they were much more ambitious than the common average peasant back then (who were fed stuff of “be guai guai and don’t step out of your role or face God’s wrath”, unlike the Jews), so even Jewish peasants in medieval society had a good chance of becoming bankers or doctors.
Christians in Muslim societies would tend to form their own cliques (after the retaking of the Holy Land), and similarly for Muslims in Christian societies (ie. Muslims in Spain after the Spanish Reconquista). There are of course the Hui Muslims in Chinese societies, who faced persecution by the Qing Dynasty - earning the wrath of the Hui, who began to form rebel bands and contributed to the already massive anti-Qing sentiment. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the “Ma clique” - a clique of Muslim warlords - arose and posed a strong challenge not only the Nationalist central government of Chiang Kai-Shek, but also the Communist Party of China, and the Japanese. They chose to ally with the Soviets, but the Soviets eventually became suspicious of them (under the whole Stalinist paranoia of persecuting the “rootless cosmopolitans”, ie. the Jews et al.)
To me, it’s the tragedy of non-interaction and lack of cultural diffusion.
hmm.. seems like u’re saying the only reason why the holy land was ceded to the jews was cos God said it was theirs. but tts not the case. it was more so because of ‘repatration’ to the jewish community for the persecution they suffered during the holocaust during WW2, and due to the strong jewish lobby in america. wouldnt u agree? thus, it would be wrong to say that to have the holy land ceded to the jews, one would haf to believe in an Abrahamic God. it could simply be the interactions of events in the world that led to the ceding of the holy land to the jews.
ps: i’m just a kid so pls dun be too harsh when criticising my comment. no idea what it’l do to my developing psyche. haha. n yea i’m just a kid so what i say might be factually wrong. pardon me. =)
Hi synonymous, I do not disagree with you. I believe its a sense of guilt and the pressures of the Jews that the British ceded Israel from occupied land of the Arabs. However, what “evidence” would you feel would need to be presented in the court of law in order to justify this action of the British to the Jews? After all, the Jews have not owned those land for at least 500 years.
If the world courts were to rule in the favor that because the Jews were the “original” owners of the land, you can imagine what precedence this will give the natives in the US, South Americas and Australia.
well. that would be an iffy issue at best. however, the fact of the matter is, in reality, many things need not be justified in a court of law. based on my limited scope and knowledge of the world(i am just a kid!!!), i do not think there is any clear laws, international or otherwise, set with regard to ownership of land based on “he who inhabited it first”. because if that was the case, we should be seeing the majority of indigeneous populations in the americas australia or anywhere else forming the land owning class. yet they do not, instead, they are in the stereotypical case, sidelined in a country that is ran by 3rd or 4th generation migrants.
and, if the land was to be ceded to “he who first inhabited”, then i say we give the world back to the animals and plants. now thats one heckuva launch pad for a full force green revolution.
and if such a law of “he who first inhabited” was to be established in international courts, it would be pretty interesting to see the q of ethnicities lining up to take their share of the pie called singapore. now TT would be an interesting sight, but not necessarily an entirely pleasing prospect.
ps: i’m just a kid so pls dun be too harsh when criticising my comment. no idea what it’l do to my developing psyche. haha. n yea i’m just a kid so what i say might be factually wrong. pardon me. =)
Ah… okay before we all go off the tangents, let me remind myself of my initial thoughts. I was wondering what logic would the world body need to use for them to continually support the occupation of Israel by the Jews as ceded by the British, whereas most of the Arab world probably don’t support the occupation.
Now, when I say most of the world body, I am incline to believe that its most of the Western/Christian based world body. The rest of the countries are too powerless and fearful not to agree, except maybe china.
So my thoughts were what criteria would the world body use to justify this occupation? Why this particular piece of land (of course, because its requested by the Jews), why not other pieces of land (obvious it doesn’t work for them)? And in agreeing to this piece of land, on what principles or logic (maybe not logical) would this be justified?
Hence, my thoughts…
Hi, just want to clarify something about Judas. Just to set things straight, I’m a Christian. I notice that there are people who put the spotlight on Judas and give him credit for the birth of the Christian faith. Yes, the basis of Christianity is on the resurrection of Jesus, but this is not the only basis. Other basis includes the claims of Jesus about God and His recorded miracles of his life.
In light of the “Judas’ Gospel”, christians believe that Judas’ acts of malicity is the fulfillment of prophesies long made by prophets before Jesus was even born, so that Jesus will die on the cross and so on. So, the crux of Christianity is not based on Judas’ acts.
I would like to applaud you for your objective approach to the topic of a Jewish land. You have been sensitive in approaching the issue.
Just wanted to post this to share about the Judas issue and hope to clarify it from the Christian’s perspective. Lastly, we don’t hate Jews. Our bible contains the old and new testaments but the Jews has only the old testament as they do not believe in Jesus being the prophesized messiah. Hence a difference in beliefs may have cause lots of attrition in history between Jews and Christian, at least I don’t see it this way. I see it as a difference in beliefs.
If there is anything to clarify or comment, feel free to message me. Like I said, I just wanted to share some info not “flame” your blog entry.
Hi Kai,
Basically I asked this question: “Will Christian still be what it is without the resurrection? What if Jesus died on the cross and was never resurrected? What if he live till a ripe old age, have children and died naturally.?
I think for some, I know not how many, resurrection is the key to their faith. Thus for them, Judas becomes the figure the ensures this key was delivered to their faith. But then again, not all Christian think like that.
On the issue of hating Jews, no, I don’t mean every Christian hate Jews, however many factions within Christian/Catholicism do have such ideas. It was Martin Luther, the “founder” of modern protestant movement, who wrote the book “On the Jews and their Lies” that was considered the first work of modern antisemitism. And it was based on this book that the Nazi used to discriminate against the Jews.
There are still fundamentalist movements that hold this view, unfortunately.
“It was Martin Luther, the “founder” of modern protestant movement, who wrote the book “On the Jews and their Lies” that was considered the first work of modern antisemitism.”
The key difference is that it is attacking the Judaic religion, not the Jewish race. There is a key difference. Luther welcomed Jewish converts to Christianity, just not non-Christians.
Unfortunately, race and religion seems to be very tightly bounded in Judaism and most casual observer would not differentiate between them.
Many Jews do not follow Judaism. Many adherents to Judaism are not Semites by race (see that part of the OT which lists the procedure for accepting an alien into the community).