Soja

I consider myself a somewhat non-violent person but not fully because I eat meat except on Fridays, a remnant of my Catholic upbringing in an American family of Irish origin.

I am fully aware of the horrible pain inflicted on animals as they are butchered, yet I eat meat.

Jesus ate meat and therefore like me he was not a non-violent man.

That he had a whip in the temple proves he was ready to use it and that makes him a violent man.

Had he been a non-violent man he would have not allowed the pigs to run into the river and drown themselves. You will admit that the excuse for the devil in them is silly, not befitting thinking humans and especially unsuitable for a man who passed himself off as the Son of God.

lepidopteryx: "Interfaith marriages can not only survive, but thrive, but only if both parties are willing to refrain from attempts to convert the other."

This part of your post makes sense.

But for someone else, because I hate marriage and all that it represents.

The success or failure of interfaith marriages depends on the individuals involved, as does the success or failure of same-faith marriages.

My ex was Christian, and knew shortly after we began dating that I was not. He knew the whole time we were living together that I was not, and he knew that I was raising my daughter as an agnostic, exposing her to as many different religious ideas as possible, and leaving it up to her to choose her own path.
I should have heard the alarm bells when he got angry after I joined a UU church without consulting him while we were engaged. He wanted us to choose a Methodist church to join together, and raise my daughter as a Methodist. I suggested that he find a Methodist church he liked, and go without me and my daughter. For him, attending the same church was a deal-breaker, so he joined the UU church, and griped about it the whole time we were married. When I came to the realization that my beliefs were more Pagan than anything else, and began identifying myself as a Pagan, he hit the ceiling. My insistence on calling myself Pagan, and my refusal to pretend to be Christian for the benefit of his family, were two of the many factors that led to our divorce.

When my husband and I met, the subject of religion came up on our first date. I told him I was Pagan, and that if my religion was going to be problematic for him, then there was no point in a second cup of coffee, much less a second date. He said that, as far as he was concerned, it was up to each person to creater his or her own relationship to the Divine. He didn't really understand my Path at first, and had a lot of the common misconceptions people have about Paganism, but the more we talked about our respective paths, the more we came to realize that we have more similarities than differences. He participates in my practices to the extent that he feels comfortable doing so, I participate in his to the extent that I feel comfortable doing so, and we give each other space for those aspects that we don't share.

Interfaith marriages can not only survive, but thrive, but only if both parties are willing to refrain from attempts to convert the other.
As for children, I didn't try to raise my daughter in my own faith - I gave her as much information as I could, and let her decide for herself.

Islam is not any different from Judaism and Christianity in its intolerance. The older versions of Semitic belief have evolved more. Whether Islam will evolve remains to be seen.

Yay. People who believe in magic found love. Whoopie.

The question for you Mr. Patel is: Could Brian the Jew have married your Muslim sister or cousin with an Imam and a rabi officiating. The answer as you well know is a resounding NO.

In Islam, Muslim women are not allowed to marry outside their faith, while Muslim men can marry a Christian or a Jew. The treatment of a Muslim woman as a possession that cannot be relinquished and Christian/Jewish women as possessions to be acquired by Muslim men, is the problem. This is where your sociological reflection should lead you.

Next time you attend an interfaith wedding where the woman is Muslim and the marriage is sanctioned by an officiating shiekh/imam as well a priest or a rabi, please let us know.

The question for you Mr. Patel is: Could Brian the Jew have married your Muslim sister or cousin with an Imam and a rabi officiating. The answer as you well know is a resounding NO.

In Islam, Muslim women are not allowed to marry outside their faith, while Muslim men can marry a Christian or a Jew. The treatment of a Muslim woman as a possession that cannot be relinquished and Christian/Jewish women as possessions to be acquired by Muslim men, is the problem. This is where your sociological reflection should lead you.

Next time you attend an interfaith wedding where the woman is Muslim and the marriage is sanctioned by an officiating shiekh/imam as well a priest or a rabi, please let us know.

Anonymous:

For Soja from Australia

In another thread you stated that Jesus, the most non-violent of men, ate meat.

How can a man who ate meat obtained from the carcasses of animals on who pain was inflicted before they died be non-violent?

Jesus also used violence to drive out money changers at a temple and also pushed hundred of pigs into the river killing them, accusing them of being possessed by the devil?

How can such a man have been a non-violent man?

July 19, 2008 5:27 PM

================================

I take it that the above queries arise from a Hindu, since apart from Christians, Jews and Muslims eat meat.

First let me repost my comments on the other thread:

Dear Ms Arora

From what I remember of Indian customs (I left India in Dec 1987) only Hindu Brahmins are vegetarians. I understand that in Gujarat even most Hindu non-Brahmins are vegetarians because of the strong Jain influence. In the South, Hindu non-Brahmins who do eat meat refrain from eating beef and pork. However the lowest Hindu caste eats any kind of meat. In North East India Hindus are known to eat all kinds of meat, as also gypsies everywhere.

I'm not sure if I got this one right (Deb Chatterjee could correct me) Bengalis eat fish and still consider themselves vegetarian.

To my knowledge there are three schools of Hindu thought regarding eating. First, meat is considered rajasic and supposedly gives the mind a different kind of outward bound energy, not conducive to meditation, hence meat is generally prohibited for those aspiring for higher spiritual levels. Second: one could be a vegetarian and still be violent person, hence food in itself does not lead to virtue. Third: When one is spiritualIy advanced, food has no impact on one's temperament. E.g. Jesus. He ate meat and yet was non-violent to the extreme.

Reluctance to eat meat in Hinduism may also be due to belief in reincarnation, since Hinduism generally associates only animals with reincarnation; not plants or fish.

A strictly vegan diet is not recommended since there is likely to be some deficiency of Vitamin B12.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on why you choose to be a vegetarian. Of course you are right, people who have no idea of the vast vegetarian Indian cuisine mistakenly imagine all Indian vegetarians must live on bland boiled vegetables. Even those of us who eat meat after all eat more vegetables than meat.

July 18, 2008 12:11 AM

===============
Deb

Thank you for the additional information about Bengali Brahmins. I agree it would take active Brahmins in India to get rid of the evils of the caste system. If they don't, I strongly recommend mass conversion of lower caste Hindus to other religions which have no caste system...

A word about consumption of meat: it is generally known that too much meat is consumed in the West. The way animals are raised for meat and the way they are treated is not laudable. I liked the idea of kosher meat as described by Rabbi Waskow in his essay recently. We should treat the animals better and eat only as much meat as is absolutely essential for optimum health.

July 18, 2008 9:59 PM

=========================

Before I attempt to answer you question about Jesus, let me mention that only Hindu Brahmins are vegetarians. Deb Chatterjee has confirmed Bengali Brahmins however eat meat. The question then is are all non-Brahmin Hindus and Bengali Brahmins violent Hindus because they eat meat?

Some basic differences between Hinduism and Christianity should be explained.

1. Christianity does not believe in reincarnation, so there is no question of considering an animal a reincarnated human being. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism on the other hand does. So non-Brahmin Hindus and Bengali Brahmins are in big trouble for eating meat aren't they?

Christianity, like Judaism, including Islam, does not believe animals have souls like human beings do. The God of the Bible gave the human beings the right over the earth and everything in it, including the animals. So very early on in the Bible it is mentioned that animals were eaten for food. Vegetables don't grow plentifully in every part of the earth you know. So many human beings would starve to death if they were not allowed to eat meat. The concept of kosher meat in Judaism (Christianity is an extension of Judaism) is that animals not be treated badly and the killing is as quick as possible not to cause any unnecessary pain.

So if the spiritual understanding of the religion allows for eating meat because animals are not endowed with souls and there is no reincarnation where is the problem? It is the meat eating Hindu-Buddhist-Jain who has/should have a religious problem.

Even plants are endowed with life, so strictly speaking unless we eat rocks we are likely to be eating what has life.

Jesus ate meat and he was non-violent. Read His life as recorded by eye witnesses and you can confirm that.

Jesus DROVE out money changers from the temple by turning over their money filled tables and using a whip. There is no mention that he actually whipped them. Even if he did it was no more than righteous anger at businessmen turning a place of worship into a marketplace. It is no more than a Hindu pujari who would drive out vendors from a temple courtyard; it is no more than an angry mother who would whip her child for doing something really really terrible.

You have got the incident of the pigs wrong. Jesus drove out many demons from a man. The demons before they came out of the man requested that they be allowed to go into the pigs and Jesus agreed. The demon possessed pigs then charged into the lake and died. Jesus did not push the pigs into the lake.

Was the two instances example of Jesus' violence? I suggest you read the New Testament for yourself to find out how exactly Jesus lived and why He is known as a non-violent man. He never carried a weapon, He did not defend Himself when He was beaten or when He was condemned to death even though He was completely innocent. Nobody could bring any real accusation against Him although He had been closely watched all the time. His only "crime" was that He called Himself the Son of God.

How many founders of religions have called themselves the Son of God, have lived a blameless life as Jesus did - spent time only preaching and healing people all the time - was killed with false allegations and had disciples who claimed He rose from the dead? All the disciples, except one, had to die for their beliefs. For over three hundred years Christian faith also brought with it a death sentence from Roman pagan rulers. Yet Christians did not give up their faith. How many religions do you know that was built on the blood of martyrs for over three hundred years, and disciples and followers were willing to travel to far corners of the earth to spread their faith in spite of all the difficulties they endured? (Please do not dump European colonization with Christian missionaries. India was a British colony for two HUNDRED years and yet there are only 2% Christians, and all of them are the work of Apostle Thomas in 52 AD in Kerala and mass conversion by a Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier, in Goa and Kerala, long before the British arrived.)

Christianity is based on a historical Incarnation of God. Jesus is an incarnation who promises forgiveness of sins and freedom from reincarnation. There is no caste system in Christianity for all are considered children of God. Brahman is referred to as heavenly Father.

So this very long post is for the blogger I presume is a Hindu. Is is to prove why I am not a Hindu and I am a Christian by conviction.

If you wish to verify why I call Jesus non-violent, I suggest you read the New Testament. It is freely available on the Internet. The New International Version is very good and is a recent translation by an international team from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek text.

Here some important passages you could read if you are curious or interested:

Sermon on the Mount (which by the way even Mahatma Gandhi and Vivekananda and other Hindu saints have praised)

Gospel of Matthew chapters 5 - 7

http://www.ibs.org/bible/verse/index.php?q=Matthew5&niv=yes&submit=Lookup

Message of Jesus at Last Supper

Gospel of John chapters 14-17

http://www.ibs.org/bible/verse/index.php?q=John14&niv=yes&submit=Lookup

Read also Letter of James and 1 John

Ianwar, " hope , Mr. Patel , that you will take the lead instead of glossing over or ignoring the obvious defects in Islam. If not you will lose your audience and that seems to be happening already"

there is that threat again, if you do not do such and such you will suffer a loss.

if that is your idea of having a relatioship with someone then don't bother. no one wants to be threatened with "i will make you pay for that action by taking something away or threatening to leave you" because the person does something that you do not approve of.

Eboo

Reconciliation between varying faiths can come about only if all, including us Muslims, take a hard and critical look at the faith we practice or profess to belong to, and then go about admitting the defects in the faith, and then go about boldly trying to reform the faith and thus make it a better faith for future generations.

The task should be easier for us as Islam came into being in the light of history with relatively good documentation of what happened and it should be easier for us to reform our faith.

The first step would be to acknowledge that the Quran is a work of men and start from there. By making this admission we will gain the respect of non-Muslims.

I hope , Mr. Patel , that you will take the lead instead of glossing over or ignoring the obvious defects in Islam. If not you will lose your audience and that seems to be happening already.

I agree with you about veils at weddings.

The problem is that after the wedding the veil is lifted, and the infatuation disappears in the tears of unresolved resentments and conflicts.

I'm sorry I'm not as romantic as you are, but the divorce statistics are what they are.

If the couple was not religious, then they might have more easily had a civil ceremony.

If they are both religious and could not resolve religious attachments before the wedding, then they will certainly emerge when children come.

Then it will be the children who will suffer most of all if religious divisions result in unresolved resentments and conflict.

I am not speaking against interfaith marriage at all.

I believe that people in our society will always marry whom they believe they love.

I am speaking to the resolution of conflicts so that the romantic part of marriage doesn't melt away in cries of, "But I thought you meant...."

Oh, and perhaps they will not want children, in which case the consequences of religious difference are more minimal.

However, from a religious perspective, I'm still not sure what the rabbi and priest were celebrating, unless romance over rode their religious perspectives.

Quite possible of course....

Just my opinion only....

"Looking at my life
I see that only Love
Has been my soul’s companion
From deep inside
My soul cries out:
Do not wait, surrender
For the sake of Love."

The person who wrote this needs a reality check!

"I am curious. Does washingtonpost pay Eboo to write this stuff?"

I am curious. In all your experience, what marriage is improved by outside religious hostility?

Does it result in what you would like?

Eboo would have needed to worry if this had been a Hindu-Muslim wedding. Eboo, dude, this is America. I have a hundred friends of interfaith communities in perfectly happy marriages, not one of them involving a Muslims. The one Hindu-Muslim marriage appears to be going fine only because she converted to Islam.

About the Iftar fasting story you cite, wait till the Catholics suggest Catholicism as an alternative to Islam.

I am curious. Does washingtonpost pay Eboo to write this stuff?

" Saul of Tarsus:

"What were the priest and the rabbi celebrating at the wedding?"

Something invisible to you, apparently.

Actually, it's my understanding that's what the veils are for.

Georgiasson

You are blowing against the wind. Eboo does not have the intellectual depth and courage to tackle difficult questions.

For Soja from Australia

In another thread you stated that Jesus, the most non-violent of men, ate meat.

How can a man who ate meat obtained from the carcasses of animals on who pain was inflicted before they died be non-violent?

Jesus also used violence to drive out money changers at a temple and also pushed hundred of pigs into the river killing them, accusing them of being possessed by the devil?

How can such a man have been a non-violent man?

As a practicing Roman Catholic, I deplore the
fact that much of Catholic canon law and Catholic liturgical practices have little to do with the the dogmmatic values of the Church but are rather
a means to preserve clericalism and control by the clergy over the laity. Regretably, this not only drives many people out of the Catholic Church,but worse, into a numbed limbo of not participating in any Church. Mixed marriages are a fact of life and human nature and love will always trump any institution which defies it, be it communism or Catholicism. My hope is that the Holy Spirit will move our clergy in the right direction. The Holy Spirit often moves with glacial speed,but inexerably it moves forward, always forward to lead us to our teleological destiny. Catholics, be of stout heart, and persevere. Do not let anyone human force drive you out of the Church. God Bless Eboo Patel

norman ravitch: "Marriage, however celebrated, is a doomed institution. First, romantic love came in to disrupt what was a social-financial arrangement. Then easy divorce came in to undermine what was left. Finally the fad of gay marriage is so ridiculous that it destroys the very concept of marriage."

You are right......I hate marriage and all it represents.

What were the priest and the rabbi celebrating at the wedding?

Were they celebrating that neither the man nor the woman were particularly attached to their own faith to make a decision about what kind of religious ceremony the would have?

Were they celebrating that both partners were so attached to their respective faiths that in the future there would be a battle about what faith the children would be brought up in?

Were they celebrating the fact that the religious differences between Catholicism and Judaism are so small that no decision about religion needed to be made before the wedding, so let's dance?

Or were they celebrating the fact the love conquers all and that religion doesn't make a hell of a difference at all?

Heck the divorce rate is 40-50% so I'm told. If they can't work out important differences after they are married they can always get divorced!

Marriage, however celebrated, is a doomed institution. First, romantic love came in to disrupt what was a social-financial arrangement. Then easy divorce came in to undermine what was left. Finally the fad of gay marriage is so ridiculous that it destroys the very concept of marriage.

the success of my reality and marriage are stronger than the failures of your imagination amh

Thank you, Eboo,for this wonderful praise of the genius shown by a handful of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant males on a small slither of land on the North American continent over 200 years ago in establishing a Republic in which inter-faith marriages can occur. Our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. In can only hope that increasing bumbers of Muslims learn to speak English, learn more about the culture established by those WASPs, and help their countries become more like mine.

What an excellent opportunity for me, whose forefathers fought for that Republic's creation, to pose my five questions about the Islam's compatibility with the ideals of those Founding Fathers. I keep posting them only because neither you nor any other Muslim has ever dared answer them.

I would like to ask Muslims what the most authoritative voices of Islam would say in answer to the five questions posed below.

1.Does Islam allow for the separation of church and state?
2.Does Islam allow for the full legal equality of women?
3.Does Islam allow for religious pluralism? For example, if a Muslim male married a Christian female, would the husband and wife be able to say to their children, “We will attend the mosque on Friday and the church on Sunday and consider ourselves a bi-religious family. When each of you is 18 years old, you will be free to choose. You can continue of bilateral approach; or, you can choose one religion over the other; or, you can choose another religion altogether.”
4.What does Islam say (according to the above authoritative voices) should be the fate of heretics? For example, if a member of the Egyptian soccer team got up tomorrow morning and announced he was converting from Islam to Christianity and changing his name from Mohammad Ali to Cassius Clay, what do the authoritative voices of Islam say should be his fate?
5.Does Islam allow for the publication of a scholarly book alleging that Mohammad was a fraud?

(Alternatively, instead of posing the questions to the authoritative voices of Islam, you might ask your Muslim interlocutor to imagine the question was, “What would Islamic textbooks used in the teaching of Muslim students in America say in answer to the following questions?”)

Re Roomi:
I am tired of the mention of Roomi and the posting of his poetry. To me he, along with al Ghazali, had done more to hinder the Enlightment Age and extinguish the early sparks of religious reform in the Muslim world than anyone else. At the time when the thinkers and scientists such as Al Razi and and Aviecenna , along with other members of the Muatazallah school of thought, were calling for giving primacy to reason over blind faith, the Asharria school of thought headed by Roomi and Ghazalli were arguing against reason. Al Ghazalli scoffed at the scientists who tried to explain the connection between the brain and the moving of a hand by ruling that ”a hand moves for no other reason that Allah wants it to move.” Unfortunately for the Muslims and the rest of the world the Asharria “philosophy” dominated over a thousand years ago and became the prevalent school till this day.

It seems that Christian-Jewish marriages are much more successful than Muslim-Christian marriages. Most of Christian- Muslim marriages are between Muslim men and Christian women from the West. The vast majority of such marriages end up in divorce. It is due mainly to the fact that Muslim men are culturally predisposed to be autocratic in dealing with their wives; something that self respecting women do not take to kindly.That does not necessarily mean that all such marriages fail, especially if the women are willing to play the part of glorified maids. Yet even so, some men , who are mostly first generation immigrants, divorce their aging wives and go back to their country of origin and marry a 14 old cousins who in many cases are younger than the youngest of their children and bring them back to live with them in the West. A few decades ago , Muslim men from the Middle East used to live here in the West while their wives and children stayed behind in their native country.

I've been married 10 years to a Catholic and still consider myself a Jew. We have three small children and are working on the issue of raising them in a way we can both be comfortable with. We had an interfaith wedding with both a rabbi and priest (incidentally the Catholic religion handles this better than the Jewish community). What we have always felt is that respect for each other and our beliefs is key, but also it is important to have the same view of religion in one's life. If we both feel that religion has a place in our lives and I can respect my husband's views and he mine, it makes little difference if the details are different.

My wife and I had an interfaith Jewish/Baptist wedding just over 25 years ago. It was not a first wedding for either of us, so the issue of religion of the children did not arise.

Rabbis were in short supply in rural New Hampshire, but a close Jewish friend (whose son was a rabbi) was adept enough at Hebrew and Aramaic to co-officiate with the (American Baptist) pastor whose church housed the ceremony - the first time a hupah (Jewish wedding canopy) had been erected in that church!

We are both intensely interested in religion and simply merged interests - we are very active both in a church and a synagogue - actually a Reform Temple, since it will accept my wife as a member - our church doesn't officially list me as a member, but accepts me as a very active one who just isn't quite on the books.

And in recent years, since retirement, we have also become very active in our neighborhood Mosque. It resembles an orthodox Jewish synagogue far more than a Reform one, but has accepted us well and our presence has both helped promote some joint activities and allowed us to help avoid potential conflicts in the community.

An essay I've written on an earlier mosque visit appears at

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0505/p18s02-hfes.html

Our good friends include at least one "Muslim and Methodist" couple, so we have seen that it can work. Obviously, we strongly encourage further interfaith activities, while recognizing that the problem of "what religion will the children be?" is a real one.

Eboo wrote (finally the truth came out):

"There are no doubt significant challenges with interfaith marriages. What tradition to raise the children in? How to stay involved with your own faith community while your partner is participating in another?"

Which means you are trying to save your own back. That is, you are leaving open the possibility of condemning a Muslim and non-Muslim "interfaith" marriage on equal terms, because Islam orders all its followers to marry "believing men and women", even if they are "People of The Book".

How clever Eboo ! Keep up such good work !

Mr. Patel,
many religions, including Catholic and Judaisms are compatable with democracy, where we are all equal under the laws. Women equal to men, believers equal to nonbelievers. Not so in the Muslim religion.