Jesus Mortal |
|
 |
 |
|||||
Muhammad Historians know more about Muhammad (c. 600) than about the founder of any other major world religion. He claimed to have been given divine revelations naming him the seventh and greatest of the seven great prophets. As the revelations rolled in, he wrote them down in the Quran. He prohibited idolatry, preached charity, and led conquering armies across Arabia. As for Jesus, he took the virgin-born Nazarene as the sixth of the seven greatest prophets, whom the Jews culpably rejected, and whose teachings had been distorted by the Christians. As Muhammad has been the most reviled historical figure in the western imagination for hundreds of years, it pays to set the record straight and state clearly that Muhammad wasn’t a demon-possessed pedophile whose satanic religion has won countless souls for the devil. He’s not suffering in hell even as we speak, his body cut nearly in two from the head down. In all likelihood, however, angels never actually washed the sin out of his heart as he claimed, and he wasn’t perfect. There is the unfortunate incident in which he massacred the men of a Jewish clan and enslaved the women and kids, but the victims’ sin was plotting against him, not just being Jewish. His hatred of Jews was just an exacerbating factor. More commonly Muhammad forced only pagans to submit, allowing Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to maintain their own ways, albeit as social inferiors. He was a warlord, but he was merciful in victory. Islam spread not just by the menacing armies of fatalistic Muslims but also by the promise of fair treatment to those who accepted Muhammad as their prophet. Using Muhammad’s example, the caliphs that followed Muhammad ushered in a golden age of civilization that lasted for centuries.
We have a winner Muhammad is the holy man that Jews and Christians can only dream about. He’s a historical figure, so that’s beats Moses right off the bat. Moses’ five books are also so ancient that they can come across as dated. Muhammad was able to incorporate all sorts of attractive modern concepts that were beyond Moses’ ken, such as Satan, original sin, hellfire, seven heavens, and new-and-improved angels. Unlike Jesus, Muhammad spelled everything out in written form and died a winner, leaving a movement that would eventually bring prosperity and justice to a lot of people for a long time. That beats Jesus, the dead guy who conquered the world only in name. Jesus’ followers are stuck fighting it out over their haphazard scriptures, written, assembled, and edited by various people with competing motives. Muslims get the single-author Quran.
Golden rule and shari’a Muhammad was way more clear and specific than Jesus about law, religion, the afterlife, pretty much everything. Jesus was a hard nut to crack. His parables were enigmatic. The kingdom of God is like dirty leaven? Say what? Muhammad, on the other hand, wrote his own holy book to make himself clear. That’s way better than leaving it up to evangelists coming along a generation or two later. Jesus’ ethic was relative, based on the golden rule and general admonitions. Muhammad’s ethic was absolute, based on laws and instructions. Jesus’ wishy-washy instructions were soon interpreted all sorts of ways, and Christianity struggled through centuries of heresies and schisms. Without a clear code, the Christian church expanded its power to match the ambitions of its successive bishops, especially the patriarchs. Muhammad’s law, on the other hand, established a lasting and far-reaching peace, enabling the establishment of a prosperous and intellectually progressive culture, inheriting Hellenistic learning and taking it one better. A thousand years ago, the Christians were barbarians, and the Muslim _ummah_ was the height of civilization. Then the Christians sort of got back on track, picking up lost, ancient knowledge from the literate and intellectual Muslims. Dark-ages Europe could leap frog forward on this influx of learning: Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, etc. In addition to all this newfound wisdom, the Europeans still had Jesus’ relativistic ethic. As society’s level of humanity and civilization increased, the golden rule floated up with it. Europeans established more and more civilized practices over the centuries, and the golden rule could always ask for relatively more. For the followers of Muhammad, however, the law was absolute and it could be satisfied. Once it was in place, there was never any particular need to improve it. In fact, any “improvement,” such as treating women better, could only be seen as a unholy alteration to God’s plan. Unlike Jesus’ relative ethic, Muslim law stayed in place. Fast forward to the year 2000. The Christian and post-Christian nations have abolished slavery, advanced women’s rights, established broad democracy, and raised liberty as a standard. At this point, shari’a, a legal system that once established peace and prosperity, that once set a standard for justice and humanity, has become relatively backward. In a land like Somalia, it is preferable to barbarism, but by the standards of the modern world it is medieval. The relativist golden rule is slow out the gate but it keeps plugging away indefinitely. An absolutist ethic is strong at launch but has a hard time getting over itself when social progress outpaces it.
Muhammad and Joseph Smith Unless one is afraid of the answer, one may well wonder whether Muhammad was making this stuff up. Did he really experience archangel Gabriel, or his nighttime ascent to the presence of God, or the revelation of the Quran, etc? In terms of historical plausibility, odds are he was making up at least part of it. Unlike that of Jesus, the divine revelation that Muhammad preached was extremely self-serving, with himself as the greatest prophet. He claimed divine visions and spiritual authority the likes of which Jesus never did. It’s possible that Muhammad really did see an angel so big it blotted out the sky, but that’s the sort of story often told by con artists and psychotics. David Koresh talked like he was the chosen one, and it’s not clear how much of his act was fraud and how much was delusion. But Muhammad was by no means a delusional cult leader. He’s a lot more like Joseph Smith, who founded the Latter-Day Saints movement. Muhammad was even more successful than Smith, triumphing after a long, difficult career. Still, we don’t need to conclude that Muhammad was a total faker. He may well have experienced some visions that he took as true, and his vice may have been nothing more than the human tendency to interpret, remember, and recount one’s experience in one’s own favor. In any event, the point is moot. As Jesus said, you’ll know them by their fruits. Muhammad united the Arabs, established a precedent of peacemaking and justice, and gave the world a monotheism that people can buy into without worshiping Jesus or being born Jewish. In that category, Joseph Smith is no Muhammad.
Read comments or make a comment here. |
|||||
contents table of contents you're already looking at it introduction for the inquisitive reader biographical overview who he was and wasn't
afterlife not Jesus' concern animal sacrifice bloodless religion apocalypse did Jesus preach hellfire? baptism sin wash for Jesus and others beatitudes Jesus' words and others' words beloved disciple witness for the un-gospel bible scripture old and new bishop the unjesus body focus on the physical Buddha Jesus' close kin charity key Christian virtue and legacy of Jesus The Da Vinci Code secret (and false) messages divorce women's status dreams convenient literary device Elijah Jewish prophet with his own second coming equality ancient source of modern egalitarianism exorcist Jesus and demons failure reinterpreting Jesus as a failure faith from trust to blind belief father Jesus on titles of honor Francis of Assisi the most Christlike Christian Gandhi the 20th century's most Christly holy man Galilee Jesus' inauspicious homeland gentiles Jesus' inadvertent audience god how Jesus became god golden rule key to Jesus' success gospels competing accounts heaven from sky to spiritual home hell revenge fantasy humanism Jesus' legacy inerrant Christian treatment of scripture Thomas Jefferson ethics of Jesus Jewish guilt Christian libel John's gospel the un-gospel John the baptist, see John the washer John the washer Jesus' apocalyptic mentor Judaism libeled religion of Jesus kingdom of god what Jesus promised Lao Tzu poet of the cosmic way logos jesus as the word of god C. S. Lewis famous, flawed trilemma little drummer boy Luke beats Matthew logos Jesus as the divine word LORD Yahweh transitioning to the one god of all Luke's gospel the all-around best gospel Mark's gospel the gospel that lost its point Mary of Magdala women, visions, and sex massacre of the innocents bloodshed starts early Matthew's gospel best gospel for church reading Mormon, see Joseph Smith Moses Jewish lawgiver Muhammad a prophet who got it right mystery Orpheus and transubstantiation oppression origin of Jesus' compassion The Passion of the Christ Luke as buzzkill Paul revealer of the revealer private and public public Jesus and secret Christ relativism the secret power of the golden rule sacrifice Jesus' death and Christian sacrament Albert Schweitzer Jesus as a failure sheol dark pit of death show Jesus' deeds as put-ons slavery abolished by Jesus' efforts Joseph Smith flesh-and-blood Jesus Socrates secular Jesus son of god on close terms with the man upstairs soul, see body synoptics three gospels that agree temple center of Jewish religion trinity unifying and divisive doctrinre vision, see dreams Yahweh, see LORD Zoroaster Persian dualistic holy man
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|