Perspectives of a Christian fundamentalist ex - third (Final)

This is the last in a three-part series entitled "The Perspectives of a Former Fundamentalist Christian." If you're interested in reading the first two posts, here are their titles: As a Fundamentalist Christian, This I Was Taught to Believe - Part One and Perspectives of a Former Fundamentalist Christian - Part Two.

In the last post, I indicated that many within the church have misinterpreted the meaning of John 14:6 where Jesus said, "I am the way...no man comes to the Father except through me." There is another way to understand these words that is more in keeping with his understanding of himself and the human/divine connection that was his joy to know, just as it was for other spiritual masters.

Those who have a problem with this alternative understanding-which, not surprisingly, is almost exclusively fundamentalist Christians-usually ask another question of me: "Don't your views of Jesus undermine his authority and that of the Bible? And, my response is, "They do not for me. Do they for you?"

If so, then you will likely disagree with all of my perspectives, cling to your beliefs, and so feel the need to vigorously defend your beliefs by whatever means possible. I understand this reaction, as I lived this way for decades myself.

As a former fundamentalist Christian, I felt the need to defend my beliefs almost continually. While I thought I was being a good "Christian apologist," defending the faith against heretics and disbelievers, I realize now that all I was really defending was a threatened little ego-(that very "self" Jesus counseled us to deny - Matt. 16:24) with it's belief system. Someone has rightly said, "Beliefs are a cover-up for insecurity; you only ever believe in the things you're not certain about." I had many religious beliefs or, more accurately, the ego in me held tightly to many beliefs and so found an illusory and passing sense of identity in them. Like a starving person might grasp a bowl of rice, I (the ego) not only held to these beliefs but I feared they might be discredited, dismissed, or worse, disproven. So, I guarded, debated, and defended my beliefs against any perceived enemy. That is to say, the ego in me was busy making others wrong by making its-self right. Consequently, I had little time for genuine inner exploration and reflection. Although I had questions and doubts, I dismissed those, at least for as long as I could.

Then, one day, I awakened. Life will give you whatever experience is necessary to awaken you to the Divine presence. I've written about this extensively in my book. One of the results of this spiritual awakening was a detachment from the ego self with its belief system. I know now that attachment to anything will cause you to suffer. So, there's a sense in which, to borrow the words of Gerry Spence, I was liberated-liberated "to have a mind that was opened by wonder instead of one closed by belief." Only when you feel the need to argue and insist your beliefs are "right"-by which you really mean the beliefs of others are wrong-do you create inner conflict that then manifests itself as outer conflict. That is, you create an "us" against "them" world, a "We're right; You're wrong!" environment which is humanly untenable. This would explain virtually all human conflicts.

Our planet may be small but it is large enough to sustain a variety of perspectives. Branches on a tree don't have to all have to look the same in order to draw nourishment from the same vine. So, my perspective today-indeed my deepest passion-is to stay open, to be reflective, and to keep seeking truth. Or, as the philosopher Andre' Gide put it, I desire to "seek the truth while doubting those (and, that would include myself) who think they have found it." "Truth," said Democritus, "is at the bottom of the abyss; and the abyss is bottomless."

I take Jesus and his teachings very seriously. More so than I ever did in those days when I ran around trying to save Jesus from the liberals and disbelievers and convert the world to my way (or "our" way) of thinking and believing. Today, I am committed to following Jesus. I trust his teachings. As a follower of his way of knowing the Divine, I am living a much more conscious, compassionate, and charitable life.

"What do you believe about the Bible?" is another question I'm frequently asked.

The Bible is my primary source of Divine inspiration, spiritual insight, and practical wisdom. It is not a book of magic to me, however. I do not presume it fell out of the sky perfectly written, free of error, bound in leather, and in the language of King James. Instead, it is to me a collection of sacred stories and spiritual teachings that span several hundred centuries of Jewish and Christian history. Consequently, there is no passage that can be read or interpreted apart from its cultural, political, social, and religious context.

I used to think that by saying things like "If the Bible says it, I believe it" I was expressing my faith in and devotion to the "good book." I now realize that I only said those things as a way of dismissing the questions I had about the Bible, particularly the inequities and contradictions that are abundant throughout it. In other words, by dismissing the questions I had about the Bible, as well as the ones it generates itself, I deceived myself into thinking I was honoring the Bible, even revering it. In truth, I was living a lie and, as a consequence, could not have done more to dishonor the Bible. I was making a mistake many sincere Christians still make today. My actions were insane and they went on for many years. Gratefully, the awakening ended the madness.

The Bible is the story of the Jewish/Christian quest to know God. But, it is not the sole sacred text that records this human longing. Other peoples and cultures have their own sacred writings. All sacred texts point toward the same spiritual quest as well as to the same spiritual Truth. The difference is only in emphasis, understanding, culture and tradition.

I have watched, even participated, as every branch of the Christian church has debated, disagreed, and eventually divided over what it or its denomination was going to "say" about the Bible. Most of these maddening conflicts have swirled around such words as "authoritative," "inerrant," "infallible," and so forth. My own perspective is this: the Bible, just as other sacred texts, is infinitely more than anything I, or anyone else, could ever say about it. In fact, if what we "say" about the Bible becomes more important than what the Bible, or any other sacred text, says to us...well...what could be more insane than this?

I seek to embrace spiritual truth wherever I find it. While the Bible is still my primary source of spiritual inspiration, I find insight into living through the writings of Lao Tzu, the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas, and so forth. In fact, I recently set up a website as a place where the spiritual wisdom from all of the spiritual traditions might be shared and embraced. Truth is truth wherever it is found. And, it is "the truth," said Jesus, "that will free you" (Jn. 8:32).

"In which Christian denomination do you hold membership?"

Only two officially; but, I have attraction to and interest in all of the Christian communions, as well as several eastern religions.

I grew up a Baptist-more precisely, a Southern Baptist. I did not know it at the time but there are as many Baptists as there are flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. But today, I regard myself as the product of many Christian traditions. All of them add value and a distinctive flavor to the complexity that is my Christian experience. Recently, for example, I joined the Roman Catholic Church. But, I neither abandoned my Baptist faith nor my membership in a local Baptist church. So, today, I actually hold membership in both a Protestant and a Catholic church. Someone heard me acknowledge this recently in a speech I was giving, and they responded, "But you can't do that?"

"Says who?" I asked. I'm not sure it will ever happen but, before I leave this planet, I've contemplated joining the Methodists, too, as well as the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the Unity Church, and some others as well. I enjoy visiting and worshipping with people of other religions, too.

Why? My perspective is this: There is infinitely more that unites us than divides us. I so admire Buddhism and Hinduism and, lately, the mysticism of Islam expressed in the writings of Rumi, the Sufi poet, I might seek to join these other great religious traditions sometime, too. None of this takes away from my Christian commitment to live the way of Christ. To the contrary, these associations have added richness and diversity to my spiritual walk with God.

If any of this feels threatening to you, my suggestion is that you explore your feelings. As for me, I am committed to what the 17th Carmelite monk, Brother Lawrence, called, "the practice of the presence of God." And, some of the religions of the world, I'm discovering, have insights in how to do this that have strengthened my Christian walk. In short, I regard myself as a Christ-follower by choice, a multi-denominationalist by interest, and an ardent practitioner of the spiritual practices found within many eastern religions. All of this helps me in what I describe as "the sacred art of knowing God."

"You use the words 'Post-Christian world.' What do you mean by this?"

When I was young, all of my neighbors were Christian. Even those who were not regular churchgoers regarded themselves as Christian. Furthermore, virtually everyone thought of America as a "Christian" nation. In school, I read that America was a "melting pot." But, the pot of stew in our little world had only white, Protestant, potatoes with a few Catholics here and there.

Today, however, my little world-your little world, too-has changed. Your neighbor might be a Christian. But, it just as possible, perhaps even probable, that the neighbor is a Jew or a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Hindu, an agnostic or atheist. What does this mean? If America is to survive-indeed, if humanity is to survive-religious people must actually start practicing the very things their faith professes - love, peace, and acceptance of all-those like you and those different from you.

There have been few conflicts throughout history, down to and including the present national and international conflicts, that have not been religiously motivated. This insanity will have to end if humanity is to survive. Unfortunately, there are some fundamentalist Christians who actually believe the world is not only getting worse, but they believe history is headed toward a great showdown and there is actually no stopping it. They hold to a belief system they call the Rapture that was first popularized by Hal Lindsey in his Late Great Planet Earth and most recently by Jerry Jenkins and Timothy LaHaye in their Left Behind series of novels. In their belief system, the Rapture is a way of escaping what they deem is an unavoidable escalation of wickedness in the world.

This is a belief system not unlike one finds among Muslim radicals. Both believe the world is doomed to destruction. Consequently, the fundamentalist Christians, on one hand, withdraw from the world and cling to the Rapture as a means of ultimately escaping the world they cannot forgive and have failed to redeem. On the other hand, instead of withdrawing, Islamic radicals come forward, kill themselves with suicide bombs, and so escape to an illusory Paradise where mythical rewards as virgins await them. Both approaches are destructive belief systems and fundamentally at odds with the teachings of their spiritual masters-Jesus and Muhammad, respectively. The Dalai Lama is right: "Until there is peace among the religions, there will be no peace in the world."

What do you believe is wrong with Christianity?

Wrong question. "There's nothing wrong with Christianity," as G. K. Chesterton once noted. "There's everything wrong with Christians." For all the good that most of them do, it is the Christians who are often the source of human division, destruction, and planetary suffering. Whether with bombs that maim and destroy or belief systems that rapture the Christians while leaving others behind, they repeatedly label, judge, and seek to discredit, if not destroy, their perceived enemies.

My perspective is that there is room enough for everyone on this planet. But, until Christians actually live as Jesus lived, treat others, but especially their enemies, with forgiveness, openness, and respect, even as Christ did, human division and suffering will continue. Instead of "being in the world but not of it," as Jesus taught (John 17:15-16), Christians will be neither in the world nor of any benefit to it. And, my own perspective is: That's a consequence neither I nor any other genuine follower of Christ really wants.

I've put up an entire post on my blog about this (and written a whole book about this and other matters related to the spiritual life), and I'd love to share some of the things I've learned with you. To get started, visit my blog at http://stevemcswain.com/blog.

Three reasons why what religious Crisis always occurs in Nigeria

Religious crisis in Nigeria dates to the early 1970s and to date still persist. The ancient city of Kano is known for the pyramid of peanuts in the 1980s, it is one of the most volatile spot where there have been religious crisis in Nigeria. At that time, a man named Gideon Akaluka created a provocative gesture when he tore the Holy Koran in public. The Islamic fundamentalist instantly declared a fatwa on him and were a step further, when they burst into the prison and took away Gideon Akaluka. His head was cut off and they marched in the streets of Kano. This singular Act instigated a religious revolt that claimed the lives of many Christians and Muslims.

What may be responsible for the continuous religious crisis in Nigeria, especially in the northern part of the country?

Intolerance

The birth of the movement Pentecostal in Nigeria in the early 1980s came with some negative effects in Northern Nigeria. They weren't careful enough respect for the culture and the religion of Muslims, but rather was about winning souls and preaching the word of God with zeal and fearlessness. The churches traditional - Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and Catholics were a little tactical in their religious activities, and there lived amicably between its Muslim counterpart. The arrival of the Pentecostal movement changed the whole Assembly however, as Muslims upset its aggressive approach to evangelism and prayers. The tension created soon led to a religious crisis. On the other hand, Muslims were not willing to respect the opinion of the other. They felt Christians want to christianize his Muslim brothers and were ready to resist with his blood.

Economic issues

In the northern part of Nigeria, Christians are economically backward as Muslims have taken all the available business openings. This has created much tension between Christians and his Muslim counterpart. The distribution of wealth is uneven, because it favours Muslims over Christians. This has given rise to continuous clashes between these two religious main entities, as they try to gain importance in the scheme of things. The anger and bitterness of being deceived remains a primary factor in the minds of Christians.

Policy

This is also a factor that has warmed the system already loaded between Christians and Muslims. It is a fact that some notable politicians know they have sponsored some Muslims wrong in the creation of disturbance which soon degenerated into a massive war between the two bodies that lead to the deaths of innocent souls. These politicians have used the crisis to score cheap political points, insisting that the security situation in those places, called a State of emergency. This was the exact state of Plateau stage more than one year ago. A curfew was imposed in the State, and Christians fled their homes for fear of being attacked by the aggrieved Muslims. It was so serious that the Federal Government had to deploy the army to maintain order and peace.
The issue of religious violence has always been a periodic decimal in the history of Nigeria, but the Government has continuously paid lip service to find a lasting solution to this important issue. He has always called for tolerance, peace and unity among all religious groups, but the situation has not changed significantly.

Sadjere Clement is an author, a motivational speaker and an expert in sales / marketing information product. It came via phone at + 2348052790262
He is the owner of http://www.grelohi.com a Web site free article directory

The Makah religion - three Ramadan day

En este tercer día del Ramadán, estoy eligiendo centrarse en la segunda parte del primer pilar del Islam, Al que es creer en las corazón y testificar a través de discurso y acciones que "Dios no existe digna de culto salvo Alá, y Mahoma es su último profeta y mensajero.

Cuando Alá es explicado claramente significa el creador de todas las cosas que sabemos y no sé como simplemente a ser un nombre árabe que significa sólo Dios en inglés, la mayoría personas familiarizadas con el Al Islam tengan ningún problema coincidiendo con la primera parte de esta declaración. Sin embargo, la segunda parte es lo que estas mismas personas encuentran sumamente problemáticas. ¿Lo que hace que Muhammad (la paz sea con él) tan único? ¿Por qué debe ser incluyó en esta declaración? ¿Por qué no Abraham o Jesús (la paz sea con ambos)? Normalmente todas estas preguntas son frecuentes cuando se pronunció la sentencia anterior.

Por lo general uno debe entender que el énfasis en la creencia en un Dios sin socios o socios es que la palabra uno significa un mensaje solos y que hay sólo una forma de un solo Dios quiere ser adorado. ¿Una vez que el culto a un solo Dios quien es libre de cualquier associates es claro, entonces la pregunta se convierte en cómo llega una persona sabe que Dios?

La respuesta está en dos partes. En primer lugar por darse cuenta de que Alá no asociados, podemos entender sus directivas para la humanidad por tanto lo que dice sobre sí mismo en las escrituras divinamente reveladas que ha permanecido inédito y libre de manipulaciones de la humanidad desde su tiempo original de la revelación. La segunda manera es entender lo que él ha revelado sobre sí mismo a cualquiera o todos sus mensajeros proféticos elegidos. Dado que estamos enfocados en el concepto particular de uno analizado anteriormente, sabemos que todos sus profetas elegidos tenían que han declarado un mensaje similar, con sin contradicciones entre cualquiera de ellos, como esto introduciría más de un mensaje. A continuación, algunos preguntan, si Alá es como todo lo indica en el Qu'ran, todo poderoso, etc. sabiendo, todos, entonces ¿por qué él elegiría profetas para transmitir su mensaje al hombre? La razón de esto es porque Alá dice en el Corán que "el más misericordioso es sobre el trono (él) establecido". Corán 20:5 y "Alta él está por encima de lo que se asocian con él". Corán 16:3.

Dado que Alá no es parte de su creación, es apropiado para que él elegir a los miembros de su creación para mostrar a la humanidad la una forma de adorar a este único Dios, Alá. Con el tiempo diferentes comunidades tenían diferentes profetas incluyendo pero no limitado a Adam, Noah, David, Jesus y finalmente Muhammad (la paz sea con todos ellos). Una característica principal de un verdadero profeta fue que nunca cometido ningún pecado. Un pecado significa cualquier cosa que se hizo mientras que tener pleno conocimiento y la comprensión que era contra las órdenes de Alá. Este es uno de los factores más importantes de definición, porque si esta norma no fue establecida por Alá, cualquiera incluyendo a estafadores, delincuentes y proxenetas religiosas sería poder reclamar a ellos mismos como profetas, hablando en nombre de Alá y fácilmente llevar a gente en falsedad. Dado que las acciones de una persona son la única forma de hombre tiene que determinar la sinceridad, la dedicación y el compromiso uno otras, razones por que nadie enseñar a otros cómo abstenerse de pecados y perfeccionar su culto de este uno Dios, basado en sus revelaciones debe ser capaz de hacer lo mismo.

Debido a esto todos los profetas son respetados y venerados. De ahí la designación de la paz sea con él. Por lo tanto, no está en las características de cualquier verdadero profeta o mensajero de Alá para cometer actos de incesto, adulterio o intoxicado borrachera. Muhammad (la paz sea con él) es mencionado como el segundo semestre de esta declaración anterior en orden para el hombre reconocer que fue el último profeta y mensajero en una cadena de otros que pasa el testigo de ese mismo mensaje y patrón de adoración a él. Cuando uno hace esta declaración, ellos están reconociendo no sólo este entendimiento, pero expresando una intención para tratar de alcanzar el nivel de teoría siempre lo que es correcto y abstenerse de lo que está mal basada en sus revelaciones y comandos.

©-Amir Makin. Todos los derechos reservados en todo el mundo.

Amir Makin es un activista, orador y autor del libro musulmán digno coránico herramientas necesarias para superar la opresión y el imperialismo en orden a la justicia del Instituto.

http://www.aicpublications.com/featuredbook.html

Three Departments Of Islam

Islam is the largest religion and is growing day by day (Alhamdulillah). Rasulullah (Sallallaho Alaihe Wasallam), said: "Islam is to testify that there is no God but Alá and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, to perform the prayers, pay the Zakaat to fast in Ramadan and make the pilgrimage to the House if you are able to do so".

Imaan (belief), Salah (prayer), fast, Zakaat and pilgrimage to the House (of Allah Ta' wing) also referred to as the five pillars of Islam. These are the compulsory duties of a Muslim to carry out these activities.

Islam is basically divided into three main categories. Everything goes when Hazrat Ibrahim (A.S) and his son Hazrat Ismail (A.S) were building the House of Allah and were praying. Koran speaks of his prayer: "our Lord!" Send including an own Messenger who shall rehearse Thy signs instruct them in Scripture and wisdom and sanctify them: because you are the sorrow of might, the wise. "

Hazrat Ibrahim prayed to Allah (SWT) to send a Messenger to this man that does three things:

call them to Allah (SWT), preaching
instruct in Scripture and wisdom
the last is to sanctify them

In fact this payer was for Rasulullah (Sallallaho Alaihe Wasallam). Allah Ta' wing kept his promise and sent to his beloved messenger Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) for the guidance and direction of this man.

Rasulullah (Sallallaho Alaihe Wasallam) used to do all these things; I used to call people to Allaah Ta' wing. He was who broke the distance, race and color barriers saying "La Ilaha ill Alá Muhammadur Rasool Allah (God does not exist only Alá, Muhammad is the Rasool (Messenger) of Allah)". Sun, Earth of the Moon, stars, trees, all they are the signs of Allah (SWT). Rasulullah (Sallallaho Alaihe Wasallam) used to recite the Koran Ayats and convince people about the oneness of Allah, that this was the first work of Hazrat Muhammad (SAW).

The second Department of Islam is learning the wisdom of Islam through writing. There were 72 people called Ashab-e-Suffa. Used to learn the Koran and the Hadith of Rasulullah (Sallallaho Alaihe Wasallam) in Masjid-e-Nabwi.

The third and final Department of Islam is to purify the souls. Rasulullah (Sallallaho Alaihe Wasallam) used to purify the souls of the Sahaba (R.A). After the departure of Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) of this world, the sahabs keeps working in these three departments but then there was a serious weakness in all departments.

Many Muslims placed in the race of energy crisis which is against the teachings of the Koran. When Muslims began to Jihad for money, they began to learn the Koran of wealth and there was khankas (Khankah is a place where scholars of Islam purify the souls of his followers) only to "generate business", began the fall of Muslims.

(All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the kingdoms; and prayers and peace of Allah be our Prophet Muhammad and all his family and companions).

If you want to read more articles on Islam and the Koran, you can find all here: Recitation of the Qur'an is an Islamic school online that offers the Koran teaching of online services. The school also teaches the Koran recitation and reading of the Quran with translation.

Meet History's Three Gorgon Sisters Christianity, Islam and Judaism

My favorite nickname for Christianity is Medusa; Islam, Sthenno and Judaism, Euryale. Meet the three Gorgon sisters whom some prefer to refer to as the "Abrahamic" religions.Whatever you choose to call them, these three daughters of the Patriarch Abraham share the distinction, among the religions of mankind, of smugly held but mutually conflicting claims of a unique and exclusive universalism; the wellspring of much misery and suffering in human history.

Who were the Gorgons? The Gorgons are from Greek mythology: three ugly winged daemons; Medusa, Sthenno and Euryale. Vase paintings by ancient Greek artists portray the "ladies" as winged daemons with serpent-locks of hair and fierce looking ugly faces. They were identified as sea daemons of reefs which lurked treacherously submerged and posed a deadly threat to ancient mariners. Many are familiar with the story of Therseus whom King Polydektes of Seriphos gave the task of bringing back the head of the eldest of the Gorgons, Medusa. Armed with a sword, a winged boot and a polished shield, Therseus killed Medusa and returned, unscathed, with her head after being hotly pursued by the other two sisters.

Big sister Medusa(Christianity) has, among scholars of the history of religions, the special reputation of having shed more blood and perpetrated crimes against humanity than any other single religion in all history, more even than the crimes of her little sisters Sthenno and Euryale combined. The obsession of Christianity with destroying heretics has been the single driving force of her blood drenched history. The founder of Christianity is reported to have prophesied concerning Medusa: "I come not to bring peace to the world but a sword." And a sword, indeed; a great sword has Medusa been to a hapless humanity.

The tendency of Christians to look upon anyone with a set of beliefs, even only subtly different from theirs, with deep suspicion and disapproval, lies at the root of her historical obsession with the heretic. "If anyone come to me but hate not his father and his mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yea even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

The Spanish Inquisitions represented the height of the paranoid obsession of Christianity with dissenters. The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established by the Monarchs of Spain to defend Catholic orthodoxy. A reign of cold terror began in which Jews, Muslims and others were forced, at the pain of death, to adopt the "orthodox" christian religion. An estimated 2,000 people were executed by the Tribunal between 1480 and 1530. A total of about 49,000 trials were conducted between 1560 and 1700 which included sub-categories of offenses as blasphemy, sodomy, bigamy, freemasonry and witchcraft.

Regardless of what Christians may think, the Muslims were not the "bad guys" in the three centuries of the wars of the Crusades, which some have described as the worst period of madness in human history before modern times. Unnumbered millions perished in war, by disease, pestilence and famine. Jerusalem had come into the hands of the Muslims by A.D. 637. It is noteworthy that Islamic civilization had reached a splendidly high standard of material and cultural sophistication relative to the semi-barbaric condition into which Western Europe had sunk in the Dark Ages. The Muslim Caliphs, in their wars of conquest in the Middle-East, were generally humane and avoided unnecessary destruction and bloodshed, preferring instead to preserve the splendor of the civilizations they conquered for their own benefit. They granted Christians freedom of worship and association throughout their empire. The Western European troops which came to the Middle-East, during the Crusades, were on the contrary little better than a wild herd of savages; crude, rude and uncultured hordes spreading death and destruction where ever they went.

Lured by the wildly exaggerated legends of the opulence, riches and wealth of the East, the Christian leaders exploited the ignorance, poverty and superstition of the masses to whip up religious sentiments and mobilize their people for major military expeditions to the Middle-East. Massacre, plunder, arson, rape, debauchery on a magnitude never before witnessed in history led to the synonymity of the word "Christian," in the Arabic language with the word "barbarian." Such was the savagery of the Europeans of the Dark Ages that they resorted openly, and without hesitation, to cannibalism in times of food shortage during their Crusade expeditions. Generally, the Crusaders, on getting to the "Holy Land," tended to forget their original "spiritual" motives for the military expedition, and soon became absorbed with relatively secular preoccupations as looting and pillaging on a large scale. After a particularly gruesome orgy of bloodletting in one of the Crusades, the fighters in ecstatic religious fervor prayed to God, thanking him for their victory and afterward resumed the gruesome butchery from where they left off. The incident involving King Richard at Acres remains among the most infamous of incidents in all the crusades. After the capture of Jerusalem, Saladin the Muslim Caliph had agreed to pay a large amount in gold in exchange for prisoners. But a minor irritation led to the massacre of hundreds of the prisoners before the city walls on a Friday after Assumption.

The centuries of the Crusades also witnessed the peaking of anti-Semitic sentiments in Europe. The history of the enmity of Medusa and her little sister Euryale is a very long one. Jews have been murdered in Europe as Jesus killers for centuries before Hitler. Given the magnitude of the butchery, it is, indeed, a marvel that Hitler found enough Jews left in Europe to populate his extermination camps! There had been a longstanding tradition in Europe of abducting Jewish children from their parents to prevent them from falling into the heresy of their parents. The Jews were particularly bitterly persecuted in Spain. They were freely massacred in thousands in the cities of of Germany. Such was the magnitude of the butchery that it is reported that on a single occasion of bloodletting the corpses of Jews choked the river Rhine, and the river itself flowed freely with their blood for days.

So much for big sister Medusa; now for a little of the second sister Sthenno (Islam). While it is true that Sthenno has so far been unable to match her sister's monstrosities, yet she has been a gory monster in her own right. The history of her relative tolerance of her two sisters Medusa and Euryale has certainly not been without blemish. It is noteworthy that the career of the founder of Islam, Mohammed, had a lot in common with the career of the bandit king David of Israel, both being "principled men" who found the sword a convenient means for survival.

While it is understandable that most of the early wars of Islam were fought in deference to the imperative of survival, the history of Islam shows a gradual development of the Jihad doctrine from war as pro-active self-defense to a deliberate policy of aggressive expansion. One may locate the full circle of transformation at sometime in the Caliphates of Abu Bakr and Umar, in the seventh century, when Islam began with a series of conquests in Persia, Iraq and Syria. Islam is unique amongst the three Abrahamic religions for having used imperial warfare as the primary means for "evangelization."

In the earlier days of Muslim expansion, the Moslems were not insistent on converting conquered peoples to Islam. A people could avoid being attacked by paying a jizya tax, or otherwise, a zakat tax if they agreed to convert to Islam. However, with the onset of Islamic expansion outside Arabia, around 633 A.D, we witness a shift, beginning with the Blood Canal war, to the notorious Allah-or-the-Sword policy, though to the credit of Muslims they generally refrained from pillaging and massacre when a city surrendered voluntarily. One might point out, to the credit of Sthenno's big sister Medusa, that the continued expansion of Sthenno's power beyond the Arabian Peninsula made a final conflict between the two inevitable. The Crusades might, from a different perspective, be looked upon as a pro-active response to long term Muslim threat.

Little sister Euryale is relatively the tamest of the three sisters, yet the notorious Gorgon family trait of a delusion of unique blessedness and special relationship with God stemmed from her. A lot has been said and written about the "Chosen People of God," syndrome of Judaism. The dominant trait of Judaism is its intensely narcissistic ethno-centrism in which the world's people are ominously divided into two categories: Jew and unclean Gentile. The fact is that ethno-centrism is the seed of the racism tree.The intense ethno-centric narcissism of the Jews bordering on racism is revealed glaringly in the New Testament scriptures. We are told, in the New Testament scriptures, that pious Jews would have nothing to do with Gentiles, especially Samaritans, these being "unclean." On a poignant occasion a woman( a Syro-Phoenician lady) petitioned Jesus on behalf of her sick child. Jesus' response, regardless of how Jesus himself might have meant it, reflected the attitude of Jews to the "Gentiles" who lived around them. Jesus objected to attending to a Gentile "dog." The woman responded wittily: "Even dogs eat crumbs fallen from the master's table."

The three monster sisters converge in the Middle-East, in modern history, in a bloody struggle that has claimed more than its fair share of the world's attention and resources. The policy of the United States in the Middle East is, unfortunately, stoked by the conservative Christian lobby which subscribes to the notion of Israel as the "Chosen People of God," and thus favored by God over the Arab children of the "bondswoman." The Arabs, of course, have their own version of the biblical story which relegates the Jewish ancestor to a subordinate status.

Old sibling prejudices and quarrels die-hard. One thing is certain, however, the final resolution of the Middle-East conflict will not come until the cultural-religious philosophy in which each Gorgon holds an unwavering conviction of her special blessedness, in conflict with those of her other sisters, is finally abandoned

The Writer John Thomas Didymus is the author of "Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. JohThomas Didymus." ( http://www.resurrectionconspiracy.com/ ) If you have found this article interesting you are invited to read the article: "Incest Symbolic Mystical Motif in Golgotha Crucifixion" on his blog: http://johnthomasdidymus.blogspot.com/2010/08/incest-symbolic-mystical-motif-in.html