Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Convert or Kill the "Infidels"

Iraq violence: IS bombing kills 125 Ramadan shoppers in Baghdad



Submitted by Homer:  Sunday July 3, 2016 – 7:30 AM CDT

Just saw in the news of another bombing where nearly 100 people were killed and nearly 200 injured by ISIS in Bagdad. There was a post on Facebook Friday which discussed a possibility as to why certain Muslim groups feel it is necessary to convert or kill “infidels” or unbelievers of Islam or other Muslims who do not accept their interpretation of the Qur’an. Below is that facebook post.

When anyone makes a post on FB, there is a question in the box which asks, “What’s on your mind?” The following has been on my mind for sometime but may not be received well by some folks. However, it is something I have considered for several years. Since September 11, 2001 thoughts have entered my mind about why radical Islamic terrorists would want to conquer the world. Where did Mohammed get the idea that all people on earth should convert to Islam and kill all infidels / unbelievers? Several months ago, I told my sister and brother-in-law my reasoning and a possible answer to that question.
Back in the latter 70’s I took several courses at a local community college in North Carolina where I lived; courses such as “Religion in Modern Society” - “Old Testament” – “New Testament” and “Religions of the World” along with other courses such as trigonometry, psychology, golf, etc. One of the final requirements of each course concerning religion was to write a summary about the course and what was learned. Those papers were kept through the years and were found in a box a few weeks ago. Written in one of those papers was found a possible answer to the question above concerning Mohammed and Islam. Below are four excerpts of what was written nearly 40 years ago, the details of which I had not remembered until those papers were found.
  1. Mohammed was born and raised in the city of Mecca. . . . a prosperous trade center & peoples of many different customs & traditions . . . . It was also the site of many of the pagan Arab tribes [&] shrines. [Mohammed] had the opportunity to observe . . . religious practices of the pagans as well as the Jews and Christians. He came to dislike the idol worship of the Arabs and [developed] a great admiration for the one God concept of the Jews and Christians.
  2. Mohammed insisted that he was not divine – but just a prophet or spokesman for the one God, Allah.
  3. The merchants of Mecca were outraged at [Mohammed’s teaching]. . . . it began to hurt the trade because Mohammed spoke against idol worship & paganism. All the while promoting Allah. [Similar reaction to Paul by Demetrius and the silversmiths as outlined in Acts 19:23-28.]
  4. . . . Mohammed became not only a religious leader but also a great political leader. He was a firm but fair leader, with a proper combination of justice and mercy

Note: The word Allah is very similar to the Hebrew word, אלהּ, transliterated to English as Eloah, the singular form of what we call God; the plural form being אלהים, transliterated as Elohim, the Hebrew word used the vast majority of the time for the term God in the Old Testament (OT). Since there are no vowels in Hebrew as in English, vowel sounds may become subject to cultural tradition, language enunciation and spelling such as the Islamic name Yusef, the Hebrew name Yosef and the English name Joseph. Could Mohammed have used the writings of the OT to base his teaching?
 [As an interesting comparison about Yusef in the Qur’an and Yosef in the OT, check out the following link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_in_Islam ] However, what about all the killings by radical Islamic terrorists? Where and how did they get this idea? I have been asked the following question many times through the years by my two sons, ‘How and/or why does a supposed loving God condemn so many people to death because they don’t understand the way of God?’ I had, for many years, difficulty in answering this question. I would generally respond with something like, ‘I don’t know, but God will handle it.’ Could there be more to this dilemma than is apparent by reading the Bible as a literal, historical book. There are many killings recorded in the OT. Generally, these killings are caused by “God” or by those instructed by “God” to kill the “heathen” men, women, children and their animals. Is it possible that the words which are read by many have a meaning other than literal? Could these acts of death have a more personal, allegorical meaning other than the literal killing of people? [BTW, “heathen” is not necessarily bad. It simply means a nation or group of folk different than one’s own.] It is written that Jesus spoke in parables and said in Luke 8:10, To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables, that seeing they might not see, and hearing, they might not understand.”  Note: the phrase “might not” is used rather than the phrase, will not; there is a big difference. Also, Luke 8:10 is a general quote from Isaiah 6:9 in the OT.
 It is also written that “parables” and “dark sayings” are used in the OT.  Could it be that those “dark sayings” are written for us to consider with a possible hidden meaning? (“dark sayings” means difficult to understand, not evil sayings) Is it possible that all the killings in the OT is allegory and meant for us as individuals to “kill” or eliminate the wrong thoughts and actions we have which are contrary to the way of our creator, the source of all that exists? This possibility may be something to consider. If Mohammed used the OT as a base for his Qur’an, (which I am suggesting) did he take the writings of the OT as literal, or did he understand an allegorical meaning? Or - do his followers take Mohammed’s writings as literal, the way most people understand the OT, without considering a possible allegorical (hidden?) meaning. Personally, I don’t know about Mohammed’s thoughts. It is extremely apparent what his radical, literal thinking, followers think.
 By happenstance I came across the following two part video (in one link) and was viewed for the first time shortly after the vast majority of the comments above were written. (The information about the name Yusef, Yoseph & Joseph was added.) Some of the comments, by both participants, may be worthy of consideration while others, maybe not so much. However, it was found to be a most interesting discussion before an audience, between Richard Dawkins and a Muslim journalist. Based on the accents of each and the audience, the discussion probably took place in England and was published on Jun 21, 2016.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0jA6VsivBE
 
One additional consideration to the above post. The New Testament is generally a book of how to live a life of peace and harmony. Did Mohammed realize this as well and separate the Qur'an in two parts similar to the Bible? If so, that might explain the difference between what is considered, by some Muslems, a Qur'an of peace and harmony while others consider it a book of absolute conversion to Islam or suffer the consequences. I admit this is conjecture on my part on this point.




16 comments:

  1. I have to disagree about Allah and Eloah. Allah and Allat originated as titles of male and female Canaanite high gods Al-ilah (male) and Al-ilat (female). "Al" being the definitive factor meaning "the", "il" being the reference to deity with "ah" or "at" being the gender suffix. These titles originally came from the Babylonian Ba-ilah and Ba-ilat which started out as titles of Tammuz and Semiramis. The god that Muhammad originally worshiped was named "Hubal" which was the "Allah" of Muhammad's tribe, but other tribes and groups worshiped their own high or chief god as Allah that Muhammad chose the title of Allah as the "name" of the god of his cult to sucker as many as would accept his doctrine counting on the idea that since they all served "Allah" they were all the same god.

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  2. Thank you for this post. We need to talk about this.

    Before I get into the topic I would like to admit my views on this matter of Al Qaeda like Extremism are a bit different.

    The following is informed by the 2009 book, Al Qaeda in its Own Words. Edited by Kepel and Milelli.

    In my opinion one reading the Quran or early Islamic writings no one is not going to find Al Qaeda Extremism in there. Rather Al Qaeda Extremism is something created in modern times.

    Al Qaeda Extremism was built on ideas taught by Sayyid Qutb and Abdullah Azzam. Their ideas were later twisted by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into the vile concoction of hatred that led to the recent bombing which murdered 131 innocent people in Baghdad.

    Qutb denounced much of the modern world as a form of "ignorance" comparing much of modern society to the world before Islam. And if one will say things like that this insinuates that it is necessary to make the world not like that anymore.

    Then came the war in Afghanistan which began in 1978. Some within the Arab world decided to go to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and the Communist regime then in power. One preacher who encouraged people to go there was Abdullah Azzam. He proclaimed the war in Afghanistan to be a defensive jihad that all Muslims were religiously required to go and fight there.

    The murderers, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, built on these ideas and applied these ideas against the United States. Various conflicts were misrepresented as "evidence" that the United States was waging a "war against Islam" against the Muslim world as a whole. This, of course, is nonsense. But it was a terribly seductive idea for some people. They declared war on the United States.

    As far as I understand it Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were not fixated on the Shia. But it would be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who would inject a frightening hatred of Shia Muslims into this toxic ideology. He set up shop in Iraq and decided to turn people against the Shia within Iraq to advance his armed insurgency to gain power. He taught his followers to hate and loath the Shia Iraqis. Even though he was killed in 2006 his anti-Shia hatred continues to be taught and acted upon in his organization. This hatred he taught led to this terrible bombing that has killed 131 innocent people.

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  3. The death toll has now been raised to over 200. Just terrible.

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  4. 10:14

    Oh please 10:14.
    Allah is the same as the Hebrew El.

    Unknowingly hwa used the word allah in his conversation with mubarak when he handed him the first 100.000 dollare installment for the sadat project. Unknowingly in the sense that hwa of course believed in multiple god beings and allah is one as the hebrew god.

    Islam is a derivative of the church of god that fled to arabia after the fall of jerusalem.
    Muhammed was in frequent contact with the Jews, Ebionites, and later writers plagiarized from the Syriac orthodoxy on the figure of Maria who is rather prominent in the Quran to prove Jesus the prophets humanity. Which Christianity was still battling about. Of course Jesus could not be God, that would be blasphemy. And God becoming a 100% man and die would be blasphemy too. You know the story. But to draw ancient babylonia into a relgion that originated around 600 is nuts. Just look closer at the christian churches and jews who fled jerusalem and started living in Arabia. Look at Muhammeds early life. And study the oldest and largest and most important christian areas until 1200. That would be the middle eastern orthodox churches now soon to be eridicated forever as the last christians are fleeing the middle east unfortunately.

    nck

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  5. This is certainly not my source since I only draw from the best of institutions but I'll copy an easy read for those interested on how the "Church of God" (early christianity) influenced the rise of a religion called "submit." (Err I mean Islam)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites

    nck

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  6. The original posting is inaccurate too or lets say perhaps only 1% accurate.
    First of all the Quran is a song or an oral tradition. It was not devised as a book.
    Second Muhammed identified both Jews and Christians as people of the book, although Christians were a funny lot declaring their God died and consists of three etc. Muhammed only claimed to be the last Revelator based on the first traditions. He "perfected" the other earlier revelations.

    This original facebook poster seems to think Islam is something completely alien to Christianity and Judaism while it claims to be the perfection of the earlier one.
    Therefore all the killing and murdering is not different from the earlier revelations and customs of the time and place in which they originated.

    My take would be that an enlightened person of every generation could produce a more perfect revelation, since in general man has produced an incredible access to knowledge built philophical systems that seem to work for modern man. For instance the word laptop and car are in non of the earlier revelations. But I have to deal with them every day.

    The problem is when people go back to the original text and leave out all newer and better interpretations. Then we are back to the times of random killing at the behest of the God in our image. This goes for all religions. To single out Islam is just looking at a tree that is currently in your way but not see the forest. (and record of all other religions, except of course you small town community church which today is doing fine and good works (in the area once inhabited by natives driven into oblivion with the excuse of the bible in one hand and of course progress in the other.)

    nck

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  7. And just a few hours later Medina gets a bomb.

    Terrorists have no religion, and all religions have something that terrorists can draw on since our culture has evolved in something bettern than the past. (Or at least something that fits these times better. I guess most tenets had some use one in the past (like the killing of adversaries) and some enlightened tenets even apply today.

    nck

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  8. Terrorists and those who fight them would do well to listen to the Uriah Heep song "Lady in Black". Also, read the Wikipedia article on the song, to get the meaning. There is a powerful message in that song, and it has to do with a method of resolving issues by refusing to participate in bad cycles, thus breaking them.

    BB

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  9. BB

    There is wisdom in art and humor.
    Terrorists have neither.

    nck

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  10. Tammuz and Semiramis? Put Hislop away, he's been debunked repeatedly for the past century or so.

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  11. Nck. You obviously have no knowledge of Mesopotamian history. Everything I said about Allah (Al-ilah) is acknowledged from over 100 years of archeology. The only way to deny what I showed you is to go over to the middle east and destroy every cuneiform tablet and wipe out every inscription having been recorded.

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  12. Mesopotamia,

    Yes yes, I know they are all the same, linguistically, I am not denying the lingo.

    I was saying the Hislopian Gods have nothing to do with the religion that was put together 600 AD as a last revelation or improvement on the revelations to the Jews and Christians by the prophets Moses and Jesus.

    No need to get hislopian semiramis involved in 600 AD. Go visit the British Museum or something.

    Terrible thing they are destroying that evidence. I've seen a lot of them before they were blown up, travelled extensively through what they now call the Caliphate.

    nck

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  13. And I'll repeat.

    The connection between Islam and the Worldwide Church of God is 80% closer than between Islam and Tammus and Semiramis.

    Go study Medina 550 AD.

    nck

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  14. The entire Jewish religion is Jerusalemite propaganda focussing on central worship and control at the temple of Jerusalem where the new King sat.

    That is the reason why the older version or original version of that religion is surpressed in the bible by the temple scribes. They villify the snake on the pole and other hebrew customs as pagan while even Moses in the older version of the religion was having the snake as a symbol.

    And I could go on and on how the bible was constructed by Central Command in Jerusalem villifying the ancient rites on the High Places which in fact constituted the basic version of the latter.

    Reading the bible is like reading a British History book. The British never lost a sea battle, their empire was benign and all the workers in the cities in England lived in pastures green.

    I love it that way, but it is not the true state of affairs.

    nck

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  15. Anon @ 10:14 wrote:
    “I have to disagree about Allah and Eloah.”


    This is the reasoning for my comparison Of Eloah and Allah. There are also other names and words listed in the Bible which start with the Hebrew letter Aleph (א) as does the word Eloah, but with an “a” sound. My thought is; we as English speaking people have chosen to use an “E” as the first letter for Eloah H433, אלוהּ. I am no Hebrew scholar, but I ask this. Could the word have been Aloah rather than Eloah. Also with my limited understanding of the Hebrew alphabet, the vowel “o” in Eloah is not among the Hebrew letters. How did it get into the English transliteration? Without the “o” could the word be Elah or Alah?

    As a side note, אלהים, transliterated as Elohim, which has as a root word H410 אל 'êl , which is defined as strength and might, not “God” as we find in the Bible. Also, Elohim is used to describe Abraham, a wrestling match, thunder and hail, judges and a city, not just what is referred to as “God.”

    I am emphatic about not agreeing with what I was taught concerning the Bible for the first 64 years of my life, over 50 of those years being aware of and a part of the ACOG. The last 11 years have been spent searching for a better understanding of what the Bible is about, even though I remained with UCG until 2-1/2 years ago. I remained, not for the teaching which I eventually found to be in gross error, but because of the people I had truly begun to care greatly about. I honestly think the Bible is absolutely filled with parables, allegory, metaphors and difficult things to understand. Maybe, just maybe, Mohammed understood the same and he carried them on to the Qur’an.


    I also strongly consider that the OT is about us as individuals (using allegory as a method) not some wandering group of nomads in the dessert. Likewise, the NT is about us as individuals gaining a right and proper attitude about the creator/source of all that exists and our fellow human beings. Even “Paul” (whoever he was) wrote that at least the story of Abraham, Sara, and Hagar was an allegory: Gal 4: 22-26. There is no “God” as described in the OT. The word “God” is not a valid word or concept of the source or force that created it all. The word is not a translation or even a transliteration of the words El, Eloah, or Elohim, just as “Lord” or “LORD” is not a translation or transliteration of the Hebrew words they represent; just as the word “church” is not a translation or transliteration of the Greek word it represents; just as “heresy” is not a translation, but it is a transliteration which has been given a negative meaning by religion which is other than what its Greek definition is; i.e., choice. Not a right or wrong choice; simply choice; just as “Calvary” is not even a Greek word, but Latin meaning skull. Just as “Lucifer” is not a Hebrew or Aramaic name, but a Latin word. How did Latin get into the book we revere as sacred and “inspired by God?” If I am wrong, just send me direct to hell, without passing “Go.” But of course, IMO, there is no “hell” and there is no “Satan.” The English word “Satan” is a transliteration of the Hebrew word שׂטן H7854 śâṭân saw-tawn' which simply means adversary.


    If we choose to use non-defined words, as traditional religion teaches, then we will not understand the meaning of what has been written. Actually, that is what started me on my quest for better understanding, as did the Bereans in Acts 17: 10-11. My goal is to have a better understanding of what was written by understanding the meanings of the words written, not what is traditionally taught. Even Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of the time. Is religion so different today?


    Has anyone considered the links I listed in the original comment? In the second the Muslim journalist states he believes, literally, Mohammed rode to heaven on a winged horse. If that is literal and if the bible is literal, then we must truly believe Jesus is going to return from heaven riding a white horse. Personally, I think both are allegory.

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  16. Thanks for sharing all the sites here. :)

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