Islam and Protestantism
January 21, 2013 at 8:22 pm
(This post was last modified: January 21, 2013 at 8:29 pm by DeistPaladin.)
Same Problem. Different Religion.
This post is a follow up to my previous post on the "Muslim Jesus: Great Prophet?"
It seems Islam has a similar theological problem to Protestantism and offers a strikingly similar rationalization.
When your religion is the Johnny-come-lately to the dance, you need to find some way to not be immediately dismissed as a heretic, a label that can prove not only fatal to your credibility but, in the right climate, your worldly self as well. Credibility is everything in religion; you're marketing a product with no evidence to the credulous. So what's a party crasher to do?
The established prom king, in this case, Catholicism, has the benefit of appealing to tradition. After all, they've got the pedigree of a lineage of apostles that stretch back to the poster boy, JC himself. True, much of that "history" is, in fact, fanciful folklore heavily massaged with a healthy dose of pseudo-epigraphy, interpolation and outright fabrication but, hey, razzle-dazzle is what counts in the dance of religion and the pontiff offers a slick package (and not just to the cute altar boy).
Well, don't just sit there on the sidelines Luther, Muhammad, Calvin, Smith, et al. You can cut in to the prom king's spotlight with a little show of your own, however crude it may be in comparison.
Step one in the dance is to accuse the established star of corruption and falling away from the purity standard set by the poster boy himself. Fact is, that's easy enough since corruption in religion is not just common but one of the perks.
Step two, and this is the important part since you're not really looking to reform but rather to usurp, as any good religion must, is you have to invent a nostalgic fantasy of a better, simpler time for the church, one in which the True Teachings ™ of the poster boy were heeded and the church itself was a Pure Manifestation ™ of those teachings. Hence you are not really usurping or rebelling but rather taking the True Believers ™ back to the good old days. With a little finesse and heavy reliance on the human tendency to romanticize the past, you can suddenly turn the golden boy into the party crashing cad and you righteously wear the crown now, as poster boy would have surely wanted.
Protestants indulge in a fantasy of a Pure True Christian Church ™ established by Jesus before the Romans could corrupt it. Muslims imagine a Muslim Jesus who preached a completely different message, one compatible with Muhammad's authority as a prophet, one that was True and Pure in its monotheism (monotheism © Islam), before everything changed under the heretic Paul.
Same dance. Different dancer.
Neither fantasy has any evidence to suggest it was ever part of history or anything other than the imaginations of theologians, any more than the Catholic re-write of its history has any basis in reality, but that's show biz.
***Edited to insert hyperlink to other thread.***
This post is a follow up to my previous post on the "Muslim Jesus: Great Prophet?"
It seems Islam has a similar theological problem to Protestantism and offers a strikingly similar rationalization.
When your religion is the Johnny-come-lately to the dance, you need to find some way to not be immediately dismissed as a heretic, a label that can prove not only fatal to your credibility but, in the right climate, your worldly self as well. Credibility is everything in religion; you're marketing a product with no evidence to the credulous. So what's a party crasher to do?
The established prom king, in this case, Catholicism, has the benefit of appealing to tradition. After all, they've got the pedigree of a lineage of apostles that stretch back to the poster boy, JC himself. True, much of that "history" is, in fact, fanciful folklore heavily massaged with a healthy dose of pseudo-epigraphy, interpolation and outright fabrication but, hey, razzle-dazzle is what counts in the dance of religion and the pontiff offers a slick package (and not just to the cute altar boy).
Well, don't just sit there on the sidelines Luther, Muhammad, Calvin, Smith, et al. You can cut in to the prom king's spotlight with a little show of your own, however crude it may be in comparison.
Step one in the dance is to accuse the established star of corruption and falling away from the purity standard set by the poster boy himself. Fact is, that's easy enough since corruption in religion is not just common but one of the perks.
Step two, and this is the important part since you're not really looking to reform but rather to usurp, as any good religion must, is you have to invent a nostalgic fantasy of a better, simpler time for the church, one in which the True Teachings ™ of the poster boy were heeded and the church itself was a Pure Manifestation ™ of those teachings. Hence you are not really usurping or rebelling but rather taking the True Believers ™ back to the good old days. With a little finesse and heavy reliance on the human tendency to romanticize the past, you can suddenly turn the golden boy into the party crashing cad and you righteously wear the crown now, as poster boy would have surely wanted.
Protestants indulge in a fantasy of a Pure True Christian Church ™ established by Jesus before the Romans could corrupt it. Muslims imagine a Muslim Jesus who preached a completely different message, one compatible with Muhammad's authority as a prophet, one that was True and Pure in its monotheism (monotheism © Islam), before everything changed under the heretic Paul.
Same dance. Different dancer.
Neither fantasy has any evidence to suggest it was ever part of history or anything other than the imaginations of theologians, any more than the Catholic re-write of its history has any basis in reality, but that's show biz.
***Edited to insert hyperlink to other thread.***
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
