> y'all need to read the prophets, who are often quite concerned with
> social justice, at least as much as jesus ever was. try isaiah and
> amos, both of whom lay into israel for leaving behind the poor, the
> widow, and the orphan while the rich par-tay. isaiah is especially
> emphatic on the hollowness and hypocrisy of israel's offering of
> proper sacrifices while they behave so improperly in their "normal"
> lives. ecclesiastes (not a prophetic book) is basically all about how,
> when we die, that's all there is, so we need to stick together and
> help each other out while we're alive.
Yes, but weren't prophets like Isaiah the dissenters of their time? Certainly when you look at Christianity (which I know a lot more about than I do about Judaism and Islam), the folks who preach nonviolence and compassion are almost always the dissenters and heretics, and more often than not end up either being ignored, mocked, or persecuted.
There seems to have been a strong drive in all of these religions to take over or found states and empires (in the case of Judaism, a drive that was thwarted, of course, between the ancient world and the latter half of the 20th century), and when they have been identified with states, they have necessarily been cruel and violent, because states have to be so in order to survive (except when they are lucky enough to be protected by big, cruel and violent states). When they have supported the status quo, and most of the time they do, they have repeated countless variations on the famous slogan of the Albigensian Crusade: "Kill them all; God will know His own!"
Of course, there has also been an undercurrent of nonviolence in them, as expressed by people like Isaiah, de las Casas, and even Jesus himself in some parts of the Gospels (or at least, the writers of the Gospels put peaceful words in his mouth). But it has never been the dominant teachings of these religions, except when their leaders have felt the need to say something hypocritical.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil. Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.
-- Sir John Vanbrugh: The Provok’d Wife (1697), I.i.