RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272685/scholar-religions-says-allah-more-merciful-god-robert-spencer

The Western intelligentsia’s capacity for self-flagellation and self-hatred seems to be endless. Jack Miles, Religion News Service tell us, is “author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘God: A Biography’ and a retired professor of religion at the University of California Irvine, now offers an erudite and highly readable close reading of Allah’s real nature.”

Miles’ “erudite” take on Allah is that the god of the Qur’an is “more merciful” and “more moral” than the God of the Bible. Miles is, of course, being feted and celebrated for this in all the right places by all the right people, those who know that teaching the people of Western Europe and North America to despise their own culture and heritage, and to love that of Islam, is a good and noble endeavor.

Miles’ claims, however, are completely wrong. In the first place, there is the evidence of present-day reality. There have been well over 30,000 jihad terror attacks worldwide since 9/11; virtually all of them carried out by Muslims acting upon Qur’anic dictates, many of them screaming “Allahu akbar.” There have been no terror attacks committed by Jews screaming the Shema or Christians screaming “Jesus is Lord.” No doubt Christians have behaved violently in the name of Christ throughout the history of Christianity, but in doing so they never invoked the violent passages of the Bible as justification for their acts.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Is-Jerusalem-a-sacred-Islamic-City-578560

Jerusalem is home to around 400,000 Muslims, but is it a sacred city according to Islam?

This is a question the majority of Muslims within the political and academic world try to avoid, simply because it opens a rather uncomfortable discussion. In fact, a Muslim asking such a question could face serious consequences; such as society doubting in his/her faith.Until 2014, I was an Islamist who abhorred Jewish people and was open to waging war against them. Today, however, I am friends with many Jewish faith leaders. This transition wasn’t political, it was rather theological. In brief, I started to question certain claims taught to me by my teachers and Muslim community. I began by asking myself the question, does Jerusalem really belong to Islam and Muslims?

To answer this vitally important question, we need to inquire how cities become sacred according to Islam.

Sacred cities in Islam
Throughout human history, every religion has been associated with an area that has been sanctified, respected and revered. Islam is no different. There are tens of sacred cities in Islam, such as Mecca, Medina, Qum, Karbala and Najaf – due to clear verses of the Koran acknowledging their glory or sayings of Prophet Mohammad assuring Muslims of their exaltation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-hinduism-has-persisted-for-4-000-years-11547770953

The word “Hindu” denotes more than a set of theological beliefs. In many languages, French and Persian among them, the word for Indian is Hindu. Originally foreigners used it when referring to the people beyond the Indus River, which is now in Islamic Pakistan. In fact, the word Hindu did not exist in any Indian language until its use by outsiders gave Indians a term for self-definition. Many Hindus, in other words, call themselves by a label that they didn’t invent but adopted cheerfully.

“Hinduism,” then, is the name that foreigners first applied to what they saw as the indigenous religion of India. It embraces an eclectic range of doctrines and practices—from pantheism to agnosticism, from faith in reincarnation to belief in the caste system. Yet none of these constitutes an obligatory credo for a Hindu. We have no compulsory dogmas.

The religion is predicated on the idea that the eternal wisdom of the ages and of divinity cannot be confined to a single sacred book. While others might look to the heavens to find God, the Hindu looks within himself. There is no Hindu pope, no Hindu Vatican, no Hindu catechism, not even a Hindu Sunday. Hinduism does not oblige the adherent to demonstrate his faith by any visible sign. Instead Hinduism offers a smorgasbord of options to the worshiper: of divinities to adore and to pray to, of rituals to observe, of customs and practices to honor, of fasts to keep. Hinduism allows believers to stretch their imaginations to personal notions of the creative Godhead.

The Hindu texts operate from a platform of skepticism, not a springboard of certitude. The 3,500-year-old Rig Veda—in its creation hymn, “Nasadiya Sukta”—wonders about the mysteries of creation. It concludes, “In the highest heaven, only He knows—or perhaps He does not know.” Not even what one might think of as the most basic tenet of any religion, a belief in the existence of God, is a prerequisite: Agnosticism is a key principle of at least one major school of Hindu philosophy.

1. The Jewish Arbor Day, Tu Bishvat (ט”ו בשבט) highlights human gratitude for the creation of the fruit-bearing trees. Jewish tradition stipulates a one-sentence-blessing before consuming any fruit.

2. The centrality of trees is reflected by the date of Tu Bishvat, which is during the week when Jews commemorate the receipt of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), including the Ten Commandments (Exodus chapters 13-17).

3. Tu Bishvat (the 15th day of the month of Shvat – full moon, just like the holidays of Passover, Tabernacles, Purim) is one of the four Jewish New Years:

*The first day of the Jewish month of Nissan – the month of Passover, the Exodus from Egypt and the birth of the Jewish people.

*The first day of the Jewish month of Elul – the tithing of cattle during the days of the ancient Temple.

*The first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei – Rosh Hashanah.

*Tu Bishvat, the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shvat (January 21, 2019), whose zodiac is Aquarius (water bucket in Hebrew, דלי), is the New Year of the trees, highlighting the rejuvenation of trees. The cold, rainy season is winding down, sap starts to rise and fruit begins to ripen. Israel’s Legislature (the Knesset) was established on Tu Bishvat 1949.

https://www.jewishlinknj.com/features/28717-atrocities-revealed-by-the-vatican
Part XIII

The previously inadequate reporting by the American press of the plight of European Jewry improved somewhat in 1940. On January 23, The New York Times reported that Vatican radio had denounced the atrocities committed against the Polish people. The papal radio station stated it was receiving almost daily reports from Warsaw, Cracow, Pomerania, Poznan and Silesia about the “destitution, destruction and infamy of every description.”

The report that Jews and Poles were being moved into hermetically sealed ghettos that were inadequate to sustain the millions destined to live there was especially disconcerting. The Vatican concluded this was “one more grievous affront to the moral conscience of mankind, one more contemptuous insult to the law of nations.” There could be no doubt that these accounts were accurate, because they came from unimpeachable sources.

In an editorial on the following day, the Times explained its previous reluctance to report atrocity stories: “All we have heard until now have been unofficial reports of such horrors that we chose to disbelieve them as ‘exaggerated.’” Now that the Vatican “has spoken with authority that cannot be questioned; and has confirmed the worst intimations of terror which comes out of the Polish darkness.”

What the Times did not explain is why these unofficial reports and those supplied by the JTA could not have been independently investigated all along.

In The Terrible Secret, historian Walter Laqueur explained the reluctance in Britain, the US, and even in Germany and among Jews to accept the news from Poland. Many individuals remembered the propaganda campaigns of the First World War, when each side charged the other with wanton brutality. The Germans were accused of burning down villages, cutting off breasts and tongues, making soap from dead soldiers (a myth that found its way into the press during the Second World War as well, only with Jewish bodies being used instead) and other unspeakable crimes. The press duly reported the atrocities, but at the end of the war, it became clear they had been duped; many of the stories had either been made up or were greatly exaggerated.

In Buried by The Times, Laurel Leff, a seasoned professional journalist, found that editors who were young reporters during World War I were extremely skeptical of atrocity stories. After having witnessed how each side used false reports of atrocities to advance their cause during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), this experience only reinforced their distrust of such allegations.