Deliver Us from Religious Clergies!

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To answer some comments on my previous post, I’m absolutely NOT subtly or openly urging people to become Muslims. Even as I’m not suggesting we should all become Jews or Christians. But if “enough people” (whatever that number must be) embraced the three religions’ COMBINED revelations about God and the Messiah He promised to send us, they could end the Religious War that is currently emerging throughout the world, in which militant Muslims seek to cleanse the earth of "infidels" (another name for “unbelievers”). Still, there remains the sad thought that no one with the slightest knowledge of religious history can reasonably expect “believers” to bring peace on earth!

To make “real peace” among themselves, members of all three religions would each have to alter some portion of their own manmade beliefs. But, in a typical example of “religious unity,” Muslims, Christians and Jews, alike, have always been unwilling to alter any part of their own beliefs! So, each embraces their own clergy’s interpretations of their own Sacred Book — interpretations that have provoked hatreds and wars throughout their shared religious history. And those are the same interpretations that are now driving us into a “shared” nuclear war.

Of course, so many self-centered Christians are so convinced they will be “whisked away” before violence consumes the rest of the world that they have no incentive to alter their own understanding. And stubborn Jews are so accustomed to being persecuted and ostracized, they have long since closed their ears and their minds to the beliefs of “outsiders.” And self-satisfied Muslims believe, so thoroughly, that the whole world will someday be “Islamic”— in whatever way they define “Islam” — they can scarcely bring themselves to denounce the violence their “extremist” members are wreaking. After all, what the “fanatics” are doing could be “God’s Will.”

So, here we are with each religious family too convinced their understanding is too right to be altered. Each convinced the others should change. Each “deep-down” resigned to enduring whatever happens or gladly anticipating their own “deliverance.” And each convinced that all they can do is urge their fellowmen to “convert” or urge them to practice “tolerance” — as though “believers” have ever proven truly tolerant of other beliefs for more than an occasional public minute!

All the while, Jews need to recognize the world’s Messiah, rejected by their presumptuous clergy, because Jesus did not do what they expected the Messiah to do for them -- as though the Messiah had to perform his propheised acts on their schedule! And Christians need to recognize Abraham’s One and Only unseen God, revealed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, which introduced Him to the world. Instead, Christians are taught by their brazen clergy to say "God" but mean "Jesus," instead of revering the God to Whom Jesus prayed! And Muslims need to recognize that they have not become God’s “chosen people,” whose “Holy Land” has been usurped by Jewish “infidels” supported by Christian “infidels,” as their egotistical clergy declares!

Christians and Muslims: Two Peas in a Pod

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During one of Muhammad’s personal conversations, preserved by his Companions, he revealed his accurate perception of the future. Muhammad warned his people that they would follow the same degenerate path tread by Christians and Jews: “Ye will follow them that were before you span by span and cubit by cubit until if they went down the hole of a poisonous reptile ye would follow them down.” (“Muhammad, his life based on the earliest sources”, Martin Lings.)

In keeping with Muhammad’s prediction, Christians and Muslims share a history of poisonous pride and deadly arrogance. For example, they’ve each proclaimed themselves “the only true believers” on earth; they’ve repeatedly engaged in Religious Wars to destroy each other; they’ve persecuted “outsiders” who resist their Christian or Muslim “saviors”; and most certainly, they each anticipate their own exclusivity in Heaven! (The list could include far more historical parallels, and if you’d like to mention them, please do.)

Actually, the Hebrews, as the first monotheists, were the first to behave in ways that bore no resemblance to their Prophets’ teachings. For instance, more than a few Hebrew kings openly practiced idolatry, and many Israelites welcomed those kings. Under their reign, people were free to worship the gods of Syria, which were known to enjoy watching humans mate on hilltops! Such “heathen” practices eventually got the Jews expelled from their promised Holy Land. Ever since, the Jews have worshiped God, Alone, firmly believing, as Moses said, that He will forgive them and fulfill His promises to them. Among the unfulfilled promises is the seldom mentioned prophecy that someday the Jews will become “…a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth” (Zeph. 3:20), the same “peoples” who have arrogantly scorned the exiled Jews!


Shortly after the Jews’ exile, Christians began to argue about their own religious leaders and rules. But, when Christians strongly disagreed, they divided into sects that killed each other — as some were still doing in recent history, even as Muslim sects are still killing each other. Moreover, from early in their mutual history, Christians and Muslims engaged in crusades to conquer the Holy Land, which they each arrogantly proclaimed was theirs, alone!

In more recent history, uncountable Christians were supporters of the Nazi Holocaust, to eradicate Jews and other “inferior people” — a most “unChristian” endeavor, strongly supported by uncountable Muslims. And today, “militant Muslims” are determined to “drive the Jews into the sea,” or “wipe Israel off the map,” as the current ruler of Iran likes to describe his goal.

Through the Koran, Muhammad tells Muslims who are wise enough to listen: “...men have divided themselves into factions, each rejoicing in its own doctrines. Leave them in their error…” (The Believers 23:53–54), and wait for God to “…judge their disputes on the day of resurrection” (The Cow 2:113). Moreover, Muhammad reminds believers “…to endure with fortitude and to forgive is a duty incumbent on all” (Counsel 42:43).

Obviously, countless Muslims haven’t followed Muhammad’s teachings, any more than countless Christians have “turned the other cheek” to their “evil” enemies (Matt. 5:39). But, ironically, the Jews have constantly “turned the other cheek” to their persecutors and some have even expressed forgiveness of them, while they’ve silently refrained from arguing with Christians and Muslims and have never been known to kill their fellow Jews whose religious practices differ from their own. So, it can be said that the Jews practice Christianity and Islam, while Christians and Muslims appear to be two peas in a pod!