Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
| The Trinity called Judaism, Christianity and Islam Posted: 10 Jul 2013 04:13 PM PDT The common belief is that there are three religions in the Abrahamic faiths. Of course, if you were to compare the three religions, today, that statement would be true. And herein lies the problem. You cannot compare the three religions according to what they look like today. You need to go back to the time those religions first existed in medieval times to do your comparison study. NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
I closed my previous article with: "Okay, absorb all this for the meantime (and I know the Muslims, plus probably the Christians as well, are going to scream and curse me for this) and in the next article we shall talk about whether we really do have three Abrahamic religions or was there only one." Now, some of you may ask: why are we discussing the three Abrahamic faiths and not any of the other religions? Well, first of all, this is because the Muslims and the Christians in Malaysia are quarrelling over all sorts of things (today itself there are three issues in the press), as they are all over the world. The Muslims view the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Christian crusade against Islam (not a war against terrorism). The '911' tragedy in New York is seen as Islam's retaliation against Christianity (or 'The Great Satan', the US). And so on. Secondly, both the Christians and the Muslims believe that some time in the future we are going to see a great world war that will destroy the world and trigger the end of the world. And this Great War is going to be between religion and evil and will be led by Jesus Christ who will come back to earth to lead humankind. Hence it is crucial that we understand what many call 'the Clash of Civilisations' or the great divide between Judeo-Christianity and Islam and how this whole thing came about -- plus whether it will ever end or whether it will continue till the end of time (or most likely be the cause of the end of time). In short, in case many of you have not yet noticed, I am NOT talking about religion -- although it appears like I am. I am talking about politics. And in this case I am talking about Political Islam versus Political Judeo-Christianity. Let me rephrase that. The Judeo-Christians and the Muslims are not fighting over dogma. On this point they have agreed to disagree. They are fighting over supremacy. Hence this is about politics and not about religion. Many Malaysians resent Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy), and for good reason. But what difference is Ketuanan Judeo-Christianity or Ketuanan Islam? And this, basically, is what is going on and what has been happening for 1,500-2,000 years. Okay, at this point, some of you are going to argue that while Political Islam does exist, there is no such thing as Political Judeo-Christianity. Judeo-Christianity is about love. It is about peace. It is about hate the sin but love the sinner. It is about love your neighbour even if he is a Muslim. Hence Political Judeo-Christianity does not exist while Political Islam does. Christianity was not spread at the point of the sword while Islam was. Islam was propagated by a 'convert-or-die' policy while Christianity was spread through missionary work and plenty of love thrown in. That is sheer propaganda and you are wrong on all counts. To understand the great divide you must first dwell in depth into the study of comparative religion. And to do this you must not be clouded by any religious beliefs or dogma. And this is why 'committed' Jews, Christians or Muslims cannot do this. Committed Jews, Christians and Muslims will be biased and influenced by their religious beliefs. So we need 'independent' people to do this study. However, 'independent' people would mean those not bound to any of the three Abrahamic faiths. But then Muslims will not accept the views of these people who they call 'orientalist' -- and orientalist is used as a negative word here. They will only accept the work of fellow-Muslims. But then Muslims will work backwards -- if you know what I mean. They will research to prove their doctrine correct rather than work independent of their doctrine. In other words, they have already decided on the answer. So now they try to come out with a formula to prove that their answer is correct -- rather than come out with the formula first and see what answer they obtain at the end of the whole exercise. And that is why religionists work with a closed mind and will refuse to open their minds to the possibility that the answer may be something else entirely and contrary to popular belief. The common belief is that there are three religions in the Abrahamic faiths. Of course, if you were to compare the three religions, today, that statement would be true. And herein lies the problem. You cannot compare the three religions according to what they look like today. You need to go back to the time those religions first existed in medieval times to do your comparison study. And if you do that then the three religions would look exactly the same -- or almost. Hence you will see one religion, not three. But then we do have three religions, you may say. Ah, yes, but are they three 'independent' or separate religions or are they what you can regard as three 'sects' of the same religion? (I have used 'sects' and not sects, if you know what that means). And this is the focus of my series of articles this week: to explore how three sects of the same religion mutated into three separate religions that are now at odds with one another. However, as I said, we are not talking about religion. We are talking about politics. And, because of politics, the one religion was turned into three. Let me put it another way. Are Umno, Semangat 46 and PKR three different political parties or in reality three 'branches' of the same party? Are PAS, Hamim and Berjasa three political parties or in reality three 'branches' of the same party? The answer you will give to those questions will depend on your perception. In that same spirit, are Judaism, Christianity and Islam three 'political' religions or in reality three 'branches' of the same 'political' religion? Again, the answer you will give to this question will depend on your perception. What I am trying to say is, if you look at the three Abrahamic faiths as political movements rather than as religions (such as Hinduism or Buddhism), then things begin to make sense -- or you will begin the understand the reason for all this chaos. We shall continue this discussion in the next episode of this series of articles. Oh, and one last thing, my 'theory' may not quite meet the approval of the religionists who will call me a religious deviant.
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