Newark Mayor Cory Booker's Course on World Religions (In Hebrew and English)

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Samoys of MD 1:01PM October 03, 2009

While I disagree that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were designed to foster many divergent faiths that are not Christian, I do concede that the founding fathers were smart enough to know that just being a Christian does not mean you will act according to good moral conscience.

It is not your profession of being a follower of Christ, but your obedience to his laws that makes you Christian.

Many people know the story of the good Samaritan, who helped a man who had been robbed, wounded, and left for dead, while the Levite (who served in Jehovah's temple) and the priest (who also served in the temple), walked on by. The fact is that the Samaritan was considered unclean by the Jews, but he acted more as a Christian than did those who professed to be serving God.

Just because there are religious hypocrites is no reason to condemn the Lord himself as the cause of it. By the way, I find it astonishing that most Christians will call Jesus Christ "Lord" but fail to notice that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Abraham, by the way, was and is a Christian. Any theology that says otherwise is not doing its homework. (Luke 16)

Theologians need to back off of their studied interest in seeming erudite and actually read the Bible with a mind and heart open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

By the way, all this talk about how God is against women is poppycock. Read the Old Testament and you will find that God actually made laws to protect women's right of inheritance -- and also to protect them from being wrongly accused of fornication or adultery, as well as to protect them from being cast off without provision in a divorce. All of our just laws that we have today are based on Biblical principles. Before you start making wild statements to the contrary, read up on the founding fathers and how they carefully crafted a nation that would adhere to Christian morality.

George Washington said: "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors."

kgdmwork of CA 1:22PM August 11, 2009

Yes, Ruth was a descendant of questionable circumstances. However, it proves that just about anyone can come to know God no matter their history or background. According to Jewish law, incest did not include marrying your cousin. Therefore, no incest occured among Noah's grandchildren.

Laws against incest were made to make Israel holy or set apart from the other nations. A brother and a sister marrying each other meets God's requirements since both are obviously heterosexual. But why did He make up these laws then? Well, in ancient Egypt some of the deities married their siblings and as did the kings and queens of Egypt. The ancient Israelites would have known this when they were given the Law. Also, relationships in Canaan were odd and most definitely sinful like sons sleeping with their father's wives when he was still alive (adultery) , men sleeping with two women (either sisters or mother and daughter) which was polygamy, etc. God did not want His people acting like the other nations, so He created the Laws against incest. Also, He did not want them to experience the genetic problems the Egyptians were having because of incest. Do I recommend it? Nope. Mainly because of the genetic problems that would most likely occur, and because it goes against the law of the land. Not to mention the awkwardness of it all.

What evidence do you have of early inheritance laws based on women? Most, if not all ancient civilizations were based on men being the leaders of the government and family, as is seen in many Middle Eastern cultures and not just Israel.

You offer no supporting evidence that God is fictious and was invented. All you have given are rants and ravings of a man desparately wanting attention.

Mating was not the original sin but eating of the forbidden fruit. I remember your arguments about this, each just as desparate and as questionable as you. Where does it say Adam hated being a father?

The Holy Spirit did not walk away, for He is omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-10). Again, no proof or evidence is provided for supporting the claim that Jesus is not real.

Yes, Christ did not wish to die on the cross, but He submitted Himself to the Father so that salvation and redemption could be given to all of humanity. But He did not just die, but rose again.

Women the sole source of fisheries? Herds? Flocks? Do you understand that this is not biblical?

I have already told you, people do not teach little children things that they could not understand or comprehend. Instead we tell them things that have simpler messages such as don't disobey your parents, don't lie, don't hit people, etc. As they mature both mentally and spiritually, then they will learn that things like the burning of children to Baal, homosexuality, murder, etc are in the Bible and what we are to learn from these stories. But we do not teach these things to little children who are incapable of coming to terms with such things.

Dr. Shade of NC 10:49AM August 10, 2009

Bible writers wanted to change early inheritance laws based on females, so they invented religious myth to switch tradition and made themselves "A Man's World." They invented a male god, who VERY IMPORTANTLY HAD NO MOTHER. That fictitious god "created a man made of mud and a woman made of bone." God told them to mate and fill the world. When they did, he called their mating "Original Sin." He then CURSED MOTHERHOOD--so babies are not "a gift from God." He kicked the pair out of Eden and made Adam work so hard that he came to loathe being a father. Along came baby Jesus with the Holy Spirit being the original walkaway dad. So Joseph was stuck with raising that odd fictional character. Then God killed Jesus on the cross and made Christ a willing suicide. What messages do children get from all of this? Female bodies are the sole source of increase of human populations, herds, flocks and fisheries, but Christianity belittles females.

auradawnveirs of CA 8:31PM August 09, 2009

After reading the comment about Ruth as ancestor of Jesus, I recalled that Moab was a son of one of Lot's two incested daughters. That's not a very respectable family tree. But all descendants of Adam and Eve had to come from incest, because God made only the one breeding pair in Eden. Then there was more incest because the Flood left only a father and three sons as the male breeding stock on the Ark. Why so much incest? I still say the need now is to end the race for tithes because it does make believers crowd most nations with too many consumers. Most water tables are sunk low and are not being refilled. Global warming is not a "Leftist conspiracy," glaciers are melting and emphysema threatens everyone who lived in Los Angeles County for the past fifty years. That means the lung sacs, like little grapes, are not clear and cannot take in as much oxygen as needed.

auradv of CA 11:15PM August 08, 2009

While it is true different faiths have small nuggets of truth, this does not mean they are equal or should be viewed equally. Most religions accept Jesus as a good teacher or possibly a prophet, but not God or the only Way, Truth, and Life. If we based our search for a true religion on the actions of the followers, then all religions have problems because at least a few of their worshippers have done harm to those who are not believers. I am Christian, not because I know of many kind and caring Christians, but because of Jesus and His teachings. Many teachings given in the Bible do not please me, but that was not their purpose. So do not think that I chose Christianity because it suited me or that it's tenets fit my desires.

By the by, Christianity is not hateful towards women. Yes, in the OT, God has women being inferior to man socially and legally. However, women have made admirable appearances when men fail. Tamar was seen as being more righteous than the patriarch Judah. The Hebrew midwives disobeyed the king of Egypt out of their fear for God and were blessed in having children. Deborah a prophetess was a highly favored judge of Israel. Jael, a Canaanite, killed a king who was an enemy to Israel. Rahab the prostitute (or possibly an innkeeper) hid the Israelite spies and was protected when Jericho was overtaken. Ruth, a Moabite, is seen as a faithful friend, daughter-in-law, and the female ancestor of Jesus. Hannah, who was barren, was blessed by giving birth to the judge and prophet Samuel to be her firstborn. I could continue on with Esther, Mary, Lydia, and many others, but hopefully you get the point.

Dr. Shade of NC 5:15PM August 07, 2009

this man for apparently realizing that the essence of faith is in being very generous with real actions to treat other people well, in believing that such behavior is never naive or stupid (no matter what else is going on), and that little else matters in religion if you won't act it out with love.

But while we all can and should be respectful of people of other faiths, I think a person who claims Christianity needs to also claim Jesus specifically---since He is the main source of this kind of teaching. I didn't hear that from Booker.

We either have a Messiah or we don't. We either believe that Jesus is who He said He was or we don't. As for the idea of some other unforetold "Prophet" (Mohammed) coming along 600 years later to re-define the whole thing as Islam with the writing of the Quran, a Christian stops being a Christian if he buys that---no matter what church he continues to physically attend.

Now, is this intended to suggest that Christians should hate Muslims or Jews? Of course not. You cannpt be a Christian and hate whole groups of people. But neither do you acquiesce to the idea that the three religions spawned after the Old Testament times are somehow similar. They are not.

Muser of NM 3:30PM August 07, 2009

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God & Country

Dan Gilgoff covers religion for U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, and is a former politics editor at beliefnet. E-mail Dan at godandcountry@usnews.com.

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