Christian vs. Muslim

An old roommate shoots out his ideas on Congress and the tensions with Syria. His brother chimes in with a very hefty misunderstanding of what religion is like across the globe. You'll figure out who's who:

JL: Irony of ironies... Everyone hates that congress is up on the Hill not doing a damn thing except soaking up a paycheck, until it comes to Syria. Now everyone is thrilled that it looks like they'll decide to do nothing.

This world gets crazier by the minute.

• 5 people like this.
• HDGM: So does that mean u want to go kill people in Syria?

  September 12 at 3:43pm via mobile · Like
• JL: I think they way that everything suddenly seems backwards is just ridiculous. And just because the general population tends to agree with them on this one issue, I like to remind people that our Congress generally sucks at the moment and deserves to be fired.

  September 12 at 5:34pm · Edited · Like

  
  

  BL:  I've come to realize that the situation in the middle east is not what most people think it is. What we are looking at in Syria is less of a civil war and more of a tribal war. A war between two violent and murdurous tribes no less.. Standing back and doing nothing is not going to mean that fewer people die. But we can't just get rid of the problem. I think the strategy is to keep them fighting amoungst themselves so that they don't gain to much power and organization and start attacking everyone else. This would at least explain why the president would have such a strong hand in trying to prevent chemical weapons use which would turn the tide significantly toward the assad regime. 
• 
  There isn't going to be an end to this... not for a very long time..

  September 13 at 1:45pm · Like · 1
• JL: I agree, but instead of two tribes, it's multiple. The jihadist groups are multi-various. The FSA has military groups that are semi-autonomous. The Kurds have set up an autonomous region of the Turkey/Iraq border that they administer and try to keep out the jihadists groups, the there's the minority groups (Christian, Alawite, and Shia) that make up part of Assad's base of support only because they've been driven away from the other groups. Then there's the 6 million+ refugees that have fled the fighting to neighboring countries that are still waiting to return. 
  
  Syria is a very complicated situation. Even this potential removal of chemical weapons is going to be a nightmare. I've been part of NATO inspections conducted with Russian inspectors, and they literally have to open any building that might be large enough to hold any sort of weapon system or military equipment. They count hummvees, old display tanks that are out of use, and and any sort of offensive weaponry. They have a list of everything that's supposed to be there and they account for it all and are allowed to go looking aroudn to make sure we don't have anything extra. It's a pain. 
  
  If the UN approves this removal, there needs to be an accurate account of the weapons and locations. The hand offs need to be supervised and confirmed that none are missing along the way and adequate protection will need to be given to inspector and transportation teams in the midst of a civil war where Al-Qaeda might just attack because they see a target of opportunity and a way to get chemical weapons for themselves. 
  
  THEN, if any chemical weapons are used, this "removal" would provide a smoke screen for the Assad forces to say that they gave everything away so it must have been the rebels who used them even if it wasn't. It's a giant mess that's going to effect the world stage for the next 20 years at least.

  September 13 at 2:34pm · Edited · Like
• TS: Civil/tribal. Is there a difference?

  September 13 at 3:43pm via mobile · Like · 1
• JL: Only in the fact that one has a large, well established army, easier access to resources, and international allies and the other doesn't.

  September 13 at 3:46pm · Like
• TS: Not really sure that's the definition.

  September 13 at 3:46pm via mobile · Like
• JL: Eh, that's the situation. I figured tribal war is something like we saw in Darfur with cross border raids done by state sponsored violence on both sides.

  September 13 at 3:48pm · Like
• JL: You know, when you consider Hezbollah Shias fighting for Assad and Saudi/Jordan backed Sunni rebels fighting against the Syrian government, it really is a crazy mix of civil/tribal/religious war.

  September 13 at 3:54pm · Edited · Unlike · 1
• ME: I don't think anyone (sane) is celebrating how awesome congress is... I think they are just relieved and happy that they listened to their constituents for once. I'd actually say that is rather status quo.

  September 13 at 4:23pm via mobile · Unlike · 2
• TS: Yeah. No shit. "Diplomacy"?

  September 13 at 9:18pm via mobile · Like
• BL: There is a big difference between a civil war and a tribal war. A civil war occurs because someone is fighting for something. A civil war might happen because the people fighting are trying to get representation for example. A tribal war however is not about justice or representation or survival. A tribal war is about killing the other tribe(Jihad) and expanding your own(forced conversion). It is however human nature to divide on issues, so even if one tribe takes control for a little while and establish a temporary 'peace', a division in that tribe will occur and war will begin again. So war shall always be almost continuous in Islamic countries...

  23 hours ago · Edited · Like
• BL: and no, true diplomacy is not possible with a people who hold that you must eventually either convert or die.

  23 hours ago · Like · 1
• BL: There is nothing 'civil' about it.

  23 hours ago · Like
• TS: So the Crusades were a tribal war?

  23 hours ago · Like
• TS:  And obviously no one in the US thinks this could be a religious war. No one in the US thinks that Islam is the worst religion ever, even though those people in the US worship the same damn God/Allah. And no one in those Islamic countries care about survival. They thrive on killing and more killing. Who wants peace? Man, that response makes it seem like you really know the "enemy".

  23 hours ago · Like
• BL: I'm not sure what you are saying. There really needs to be a sarcasm font. 
  
  You think that everyone realizes that the war in Syria is a religious war. You think that everyone in the US thinks that Islam is the worst religion on earth despite the fact that Christians speak of the same God (which we don't by the way). You rightly think that muslims care about living and that their goal is not simply to kill. You think no one wants peace. You think that I am arrogant. 
  
  Did I get that right?

  21 hours ago · Like
• TS: I think that you're vastly blanketing an entire people, many of whom probably care more about living than killing. To me it's borderline racism. 
  
  Yahweh is/was a Semitic rain deity. Allah is/was a semitic rain deity. The only difference is the Levant area being spoken about. 
  
  I think there's a lot of history and not a lot of land, but a little bit of diplomacy over an extended period of time can do a lot better than war after war (eye for an eye).

  21 hours ago · Like
• TS: Not to mention, why then do both the Bible and Qur'an have similar heroes? Moses, etc. The difference only comes later when Jesus and Muhammad get on board. http://en.wikipedia.org/...

  20 hours ago · Edited · Like
• BL: I only intended to say that Islam predisposes people to violence, not that all Muslims are violent. 
  
  Yahweh was not a rain deity. You are probably thinking of Baal. I would imagine that a muslim would be quite angry with you for saying that about Allah as well. anyways... 'Allah' just means 'God' in their language. Even so, we still speak of a VERY different God. To show this, consider the Mormons. They speak the same names as Catholics, "God" "Jesus" "Moses", But they mean something very different when they say those words. When they say 'God the father' they mean a man of flesh and blood. When they speak about moses they speak of a man who came to america... In a similar way islam is very different from Christianity despite sometimes using the same names..

  19 hours ago · Like
• BL: I would not promote war over diplomacy.. But there is a limit to what diplomacy can do. We are not going to stop their wars by talking nicely.

  19 hours ago · Like
• TS: I would think that from an outsider view, the same could be said about Christians. One only needs to look at history. I bet there are plenty of Muslims with your same opinion on Christians. It's how this ridiculous cycle of hate propagation continues.

  
  Ba'al was also a rain deity. That's why Elijah and accompanying priests had a "storm-off" against Ba'al's priests in I Kings.
  
  I think the Mormon example is perfect. Mormons draw from the Old and New Testament to create their own religion, whereas Catholics and Muslims drew from the Old Testament to create their own religions.
  
  And I'm pretty sure you're wrong about Moses/Mormon. It was Lehi who came to America and who later battled with the Nephites. This post-dated Moses. Mormons do refer to Brigham Young as the "American Moses", but they also feature the Egyptian Moses in their beliefs.
  

  19 hours ago · Edited · Like
• TS: And yeah. Money does a lot of talking. If Russia can do something about it, I'd be all for it. Baby steps.

  19 hours ago · Like
• BL: My goal was to understand what was occurring in the middle east. For that, it hardly matters what Muslims think about Christians as Christians play a very small role in these events. Further, a comparison to Christians is unhelpful as no Christians are currently stuck in the same cycle of war that Muslim countries are.
  
  The only purpose that saying that I worship a rain god could serve is to try to upset. I don't really know how we got on that.. and I don't really care because.. your fishing. For the record, this would seem a little more sane if you tried to say he was a fire god.

  3 hours ago · Like
• TS: Well, if that was the goal then maybe you should think of them as people, as a living, dynamic culture, and not as some easily-defined, "they're all the same" group of people, when you should know full well that there are just as many sane Muslims over there as there are sane Christians here. And just as over here the less informed, very Bible-fearing, very loud Fundamentalist Christians with right-wing biased media back are often the ones making all the news, making the rest of us hang our heads in same. But yet we all know that's not really what most Christians are like.
  
  Christians are actually playing a huge part in these events. Many of them want to bomb Syria to "set things right". This is very likely just a simple war over resources (land and oil) with the scapegoat of religion as 99% of wars tend to be. There are also very many conflicts and civil wars in Christian countries, but they tend to just be called wars, as we're a bit biased on that front. You can look to Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, etc. as a few examples.
  
  Well, the reason to mention Yahweh as a rain god was to point out that the two religions, Christianity and Islam are actually very similar. The problem is that you have constructed for yourself this small box that you're unwilling to look outside. My intent was not in incite anger but to inform. Read a little bit about the history of your religion. If you choose to believe it, it would seem like the smart thing to do. It's also good to research a bit more about other religions, because as you've demonstrated here, you know little to nothing about them. Then once again you can see just how similar these two religions are. Go read a bit about Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David and Goliath, etc, etc. in the Qur'an. Because. It's in there.
  
  Christians and Muslims worship the same God with a very slight variant. If the Catholics hadn't done such of good job of being able to combine the Old Testament in with the New Testament a one Doctrine, one could say that the deviation from Judaism to Catholicism is just about as much as Catholicism to Islam. Somebody comes along in several generations and caters a religion to their own time. And people buy it.
  
  And when you say fire god is more appropriate, I can see why you'd think that, but also realize that with storms come lightning. Looking into it deeper it seems Yahweh, or "Elohim" was the sky deity, as was Allah, making them more powerful than just the storm deity Ba'al, as their powers would encompass more than just the clouds.
  
  See here for where Yahweh is also named Elohim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
  
  See here for a listing of the Proto-Semitic pantheon, with particular interest in the sky god:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Semitic_religion...
  
  This blog contemplates the idea of Yahweh being a rain/sky deity: http://worldreligion.hubpages.com/...
  
  Not to mention, as we see Yahweh now as ruler over all of nature, he's an amalgamation of all other deities, but at the time he was just the one that had the higher status and was able to eliminate all gods before him. This is likely because rain in a desert is a hot commodity. It's also a bit like Chaac Mo'ol, the rain deity in Maya religion, who had a much elevated status because of his ability to bring life to the fields. 
  
  Also, the notion of monotheism in this instance came out of Egypt with Akhenaten where (Tut)Moses (II) ran with it, pushing for the worship of just a single deity even though most people of the time were aware of the pantheon and had recently been worshiping them. The religion simplified things, although Catholicism, when formed, chose to create a loophole by creating an order of "saints" which isn't actually a deity, but close to it. It's a nice way though of remembering the history of a people, much like the stories told in the Bible.
  
  There are also instances of remnant lower deities in the Old Testament. If you'd like I'd elucidate them for you, but I have a feeling that much like your previous comment, you probably don't' have much of a concern in knowing.