Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!

Submitted by Abu Nudnik (Canada), Oct 5, 2006 at 21:59

Again you've missed the point. Arabs believe they are derived from Abraham and what you think is, frankly, irrelevant to them. There are some 1.2 billion Muslims who will not bow at your feet. Nor, obviously, should we bow at theirs and that is the one point of agreement we have.

The rest of your post is off-topic supercessionist chauvinism reminding me of Toynbee's dishonesty in saying what a pity it was Marcion didn't succeed in removing the Old Testament from the canon because there isn't enough material upon which to establish a body of Christian law! I'll say! The New Testament is, in fact, powerfully antinomian ("If it hadn't been for the law I never would have known sin"). In fact, the entire structure of the New Testament is a drama in which the law itself is put on trial and found wanting. With an attitude like Paul's, a body of law is out of the question and the fact that Christian nations have had to go back to the Old Testament for their laws is is the skeleton clinking in the Christian closet. It is not so very different from Muslim's embarrassment over their backwardness or those folks from certain rural areas down South who, living in, say, New York, keep mud in their bureaus to snack on.

You say if a Jew doesn't keep kosher he is living in a state of sin and therefore his range of behaviour must be greatly expanded so as to allow him to live in grace rather than sin. The Christian woman doesn't have to wear the burka, hallelujah!—but according to you, she mustn't wear too revealing a miniskirt either!. The difference between you and the Taliban appears to be one of degree, not of kind. And would you really be the judge to condemn her to sin? And what about the murderer, the arsonist, the child molester? Is it only because there are laws against such practices that they are sinful?

It seems unfair the pope should be attacked for saying what he says to his flock while twisted imams daily flaunt the most repulsive and hateful opinions and goad their flocks to horrible acts of violence. But complaining about it seems a little un-Christian to me, Maggie. After all, isn't it by being last that one becomes first?

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