From: oueichek@imag.fr (Ibaa Oueichek)
Subject: Re: Developement of religious strata Judaism and Christianity (related to Islam)
Organization: Institut Imag, Grenoble, France
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 10:38:04 GMT

ilyess@ECE.Concordia.CA (Ilyess Bdira) writes:

>>In terms of Christianity, its sole mission was to spread the teachings of
>>Jesus of Nazreth peacefuly. Christianity is by nature secular and did not
>>require that political figures be responsible for the religious affairs of
>>the masses.

>GIVE ME A BREAK!
>Is that modern day christianity? well that is a new religion that
>started to be preached in modern times, in some places it still is
>not recognized (Serbia, Latin America, Coptic Egypt, Greece, Poland and
>others.)

  Excuse-me, why did you site Serbia ?. I'm very skeptical about this, because
you've already accused "Christian" Serbs of practicing ethnic cleansing. FYI,
the Serb Chruch has expreamed several times that they OPPOSE firmly this policy,
but they have NO POWER. If it wasn't your intention then i'm sorry for being
that touchy, but several Muslims posted provokative messages about "loving
Xtians" killing innocent Muslims in Bosnia and i'm really fed up with this
garbage (Would you please elaborate a little bit about this paragraph, and how
you distinguish about "modern day" Christianity and "old day Christianity"). 
  Now, i HATE debating religion, but i feel obliged to do it. I'm a 
"conservative" Christian, i wish the state where i live has some moral values
to be respected. You know quite well that most of these values are commun among
Christians and Muslims. But it can understand very well that there are limits
for that, and that MY moral isn't necessarily that of others. I see secularism
as a compromise among the sensitivites of a country's people, certainly not
as a goal per se, but as a mean to insure dignity and respect to all the 
inhabitants of a country. I refuse the concept of an Islamic state (or a 
confessional system of any other kind) because it draws strict boundaries among
people through their religion. They don't have the same rights and obligations,
and that's definitly a bad thing. Don't tell me that i "can practice my religion
in my community" because i consider the church the last instance to have the
right to legalize for me. I'm bounded by my religion because i believe in it,
definitly not because there's a stamp on my civil register which says that i'm
a Christian. The problem of supporters of confessional systems is they have
a model of classification (in our case, it's Christians, Muslims, and Jews)
and noone is allowed to be out of this classification, and that's a real 
problem. Especially in an era when we have plenty of different beliefs and
opinions (even inside those classes themselves). I'm not speaking about 
"sharing the faith with" someone else, but about elaborating a law which will
take in consideration that this someone IS a 100% human like you and me. And
that he's certainly not a "son of pig". And that a "Christian human" isn't
by no way more or less "human" than a Muslims or atheist human. Most of us are
of religion X because we were born like that, and later we learned that it was 
"good for us".
  If you think that it's our food or drink or clothing which are (even to 1%) 
responsable of the mess inwhich we are then i think the discussion is useless.
To be brief :-), i agree that any reasonable system shouldn't and can't ignore
the values of the population. But in no way this system should be absolutist
(read : "inspired by G-D"), because people change a lot, and this is a fact
that can't be denied.
>
>>
>>
>>Some scholar, he beleived the Qur'an saying that Jesus was a prophet then
>>turns around and calls his teachings and message "Propaganda". I wonder if
>>the God of Islam is the same God of the other religions?.

> It is the translation that is saying that, not him. He never spoke English,
>and his original word probably was DAAwa (preaching) which the tranlator
>(Probably a westerner) translated as propaganda.
>I advise everybody to take all of this Muqaddimah translation with
>a lot of salt (not only one grain). In this area of humanities, honesty
>is a very rare commodity, let alone objectivity.
  I think we should take the original Muqaddimah also with a lot of salt. And
i think before quoting a reference about others belief (like Mr Hermi did),
someone would at least check if it's true, and respect the sensibility of other
readers. It's really offensive to write that our faith "blackens the pages" and
it's all disbelief. I wonder what's the interest of posting such a stuff if 
it's not to offend. I don't care what Muslims think about my faith, as long as
they leave me alone and they can understand that G-D created us equal, and it's
up to him to judge, not to any of these yoyos polluting this forum with their
heresy.
>>

  I wish everyone on soc.culture.arabic a merry christmas and a happy new
year (not original, i know). The last one was (very) tough for us, although
not as bad as 91. Hopefully peace will be established, and our Palestinian
bretheren will finally be recognized and respected as they should be (and
for the skeptical people, this wish includes the 415 Palestinians deported
with any trial).