The Search for Converts

[Leonardo17]

Please repeat your sentence than. Did you mean God hated the hoors and baby killers?
As in “He caused them to be the way they are just to be able to punish them?”
If so, No. We all have our circumstances. But we also have means of overcoming these circumstances. Although there are verses that are prone to be interpreted in that way, I don’t believe in that sort of Fatalism. Did you Will Smith’s “King Richard” movie for instance?
The message is that you can be in the ghetto. But (I believe) God can still give you the means of overcoming this situation and making Tennis history for instance.
Was that you point?

[The Grand Nudger]

No, Leo. It was not. My point was that god..whether he makes people with hard hearts or deosn't...seems like you guys can't make up your mind there, has clearly hateful plans for groups of people it plainly identifies.

When god tells you this, do you doubt him?

[Leonardo17]

- Well, yes and no. There is for instance a prominent scholar who is saying that the Jews have committed a huge crime by murdering a prophet, and that the Arabs have committed a huge crime by distorting the existing religion and betraying the legacy of a prophet by murdering his son-in-law who was going to be the spiritual leader of the Muslim community. And that scholar is asserting that God has plans of punishment for these groups of people as a whole for doing what they have done.
Now I don’t like the idea that whole societies can be cursed this way. It seems like a form of racism almost. But what I believe in is that, if a society willingly makes some choices that are already known to wrong out of pure arrogance or ignorance, than there has to be a consequence for these societies. The story of Noah’s flood, the story of Sodom and Gomora are such examples. There are some sections in the Kuran that I happened to read that are very clear on this. Just as there is a karma for individuals, there is a karma for societies or groups of individuals (that appear as a result of concrete / visible and consistent negative action – Negative, meaning although they have been warned by God, these people kept perpetrating their negative behavior / like in the Story of Ramses and Moses in which Ramses has such an Ego and grandiosity complex, that he refuses to bend to the will of God, despite all the concrete events that are happening to himself and his whole nation-). This is something that I heard of from a mystic also.
But I like Arabs by the way. I even lived in Syria in the end of the 90’s and I still believe in the spirit of friendship that comes from our common history, and I am saying this despite my hatred for the Syrian regime which I see as being corrupt and completely evil in nature. Also, one of my childhood doctors was a Jew. So I have no such issues.
But on the other hand, I am also not sure if the generalized political misfortune of the entire middle-eastern region can only be explained with “a lack of modernism” or “The people being entirely uneducated and primitive” (That’s my point of view and I am not an expert ).
Indians and Pakistani’s have also suffered imperialism. They are also ignorant and primitive. But they are not constantly being ruled by despotic, oppressive and dogmatic religious dictatorships. And in terms of number they are even more populous than all the Arab countries put together (as far as I know). And they are not in a constant state of war either. The war between Arabs and Jews is nearing ¾ of a century. Considering all the land that the Arabs already have, how is it possible that a peaceful solution couldn’t be found during all these years? (and these two people are linguistically and culturally related to one another, so I see this whole conflict as something that is not really “normal” in many ways).
   So it might be superstition, but there are scholars who will support this theory. I would prefer not to say a lot on this issue.

[The Grand Nudger]

A king had an ego...so, obviously, the solution was to kill everyone's kids. I wouldn't share too much of that theory either.

That would be exactly the sort of thing I was wondering about, though. God says or does some hateful shit..and..for the believer, I guess that puts you in the position of having to try to justify the indefensible...if you believe that god really does hateful shit.

[Leonardo17]

I am not sure if the whole story is an allegory (like the stories in the Bhagavad Gita) or a real, historical event.
But to me it’s the perfect picture of the human Ego. The Ego is just like Satan in the story of creation. It rebels, it refuses, it disagrees, it doesn’t bend, no matter what. It sacrifices children, nations, even itself, it is so proud, it sees itself as something so great / so limitless / so unchallengeable, not even by God. “Who is God in comparison with the great personality of Ramses? Who is he? Does Ramses bend to God? – No. God Should bend to the God of Gods, to the King of Kings.”
That is the true subject of this story and it is the story of all of us.
Ex: “What is science? What is reason? If I said the earth is flat, it has to be flat. If I said that doing this or that is a religious obligation (even if the book itself and history says otherwise) than you must do it. Or Else you will suffer the consequence. If I say something is true, the whole media will follow me. Or else I’ll take your body, melt it into acid, and mix it to the Marmora Sea through the Turkish sewer system. If I say I am to be the president, what are the elections that were held in one of the greatest democracies in the world? I am greater than elections. I decide what elections are. If I say they are invalid, than they must be absolutely invalid (I am talking about what is about to happen in Brazil of course)”
Again, this is one of the main subjects in spirituality. So you shouldn’t think of all of us as maniacs who are obsessed with female bodies and some other outdated beliefs and practices. There are some of us who are truly making efforts that are related to their inner nature with the aim of being able to obtain some true / visible results in their daily lives.
There are idiots in every group. That doesn’t mean all of us are idiots

[The Grand Nudger]

...so kill the kids. Holy, holy, holy.