Daleth

Sorry Bumblebee, I didn't mean to jump in shouting "Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!" or something like that. The 3 major sects are what you've listed.

The one I thought was "Progressive" is in fact Reconstructionist. You can read about them here . They are definitely agreed to be a 4th sect, though less common.

The Hassids (or Chassidim, more properly) are a clearly visible group - they are the ultra-orthodox. Most people who are orthodox jews do not wear all black, hats, long beards. They look like they ought to be the oldest of the sects, but they are not. They are sometimes not considered a separate sect from Orthodox, but they would not pray in the same synogogues as regular Orthodox Jews (most orthodox, you wouldn't know it at a glance), so I'd call them a sect. Maybe I'd be wrong.

The Chassidim live in insular communities (to the extent that those communities have their own accents) and are like the Menonites of Judaism. I once lived in the basement of a Chasidic family for a few months. My friend and I were standing outside talking about Animaniacs, and one of the (many) young children of the family asked us what we were talking about. He was about 7. I said, "A cartoon." He made a disgusted face and replied, "Cartoon! I saw it once. I don't like it."

The Lubovitchers (whom I also mentioned in my post above) are sort of a cult-like outgrowth of the Chassidic movement. They are the ones who thought their Rabbi was Messiach.

I mentioned Jews for Jesus above because we were saying that people are the religion they say they are. No jewish sect would call Jews for Jesus another sect. But they would call themselves that. I'm sure they have their own domain. I'm not looking it up. It would give me a headache.

I also included the Ethiopian Jews. I'm sure they practice a form of Orthodox Judaism, but come from a completely different culture which must make it different. It took Israel a long time to decide whether the law of return applied to them. (It does.) So I'd call them a sect as well.

None of this actually matters to me. I was just trying to be more complete. However I'm not sure using this argument helps your case against R-BAC. It comes up time and again in Israel... The Orthodox majority wants to make the law of return apply only to Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox people. I think they never succeed in changing the law for the sake of numbers. If they deny that Reform, Conservative, and Reconsructionists are Jews, they lose the majority of their Jewish Diaspora support. We may have to score R-BAC a point on this one. Many Orthodox Jews do feel others are not "real Jews" and nobody at all thinks Jews for Jesus are "real Jews." And if you look at how long the debate went on over the Ethiopians... I'm not sure the man is wrong here. Sorry.

Daleth

Bumble Bee Tuna

Point taken. I suppose when it comes to Judaism, RBAC's point holds. I don't think it does for Islam, however.

RBAC: It's really a gross oversimplification to say that all 3 worship the same God. Not really the case at all. Unfortunately for you, the Koran is considered the EXACT Word of God, so you can't cherry pick that...and the Koran AFAIK is very clear that only Muslims will get to Heaven. Your salvation plan will not work. It would more likely go:

"You were supposed to call me Allah. Instead, you worshipped a false God! Now I shall punish you and send you to the eternal burning pits of Hell!".

Anyway, I'm just seeing if there's actual meat behind your alleged rational reasons for believing...and of course, there isn't.

-B

Rational BAC

Well Bumble Bee-------

If I can cherry pick from the Bible and consider it a man made work that God in His infinite wisdom decided to stay the hell out of inspiring, then-----------

--------I sure in hell can do that with the Qu'ran, can't I?

I think that it is the same God myself, -----I don't give a crap what the Muslims think.

I am not that knowledgeable about Islam. Something about Jesus being a prophet. But Muhommed being also a prophet, just continuing that Abrahamic tradition.

OK with me. Fundies believe that divine inspiration ended with the Bible. I don't. Muhommed may be a prophet. OK with me.

Will have to actually read what the little basstard had to say someday.

I think that the only thing that really is supposed to stop me from adding on to my Christian beliefs are the last verses of Revelations. Since I believe that Revelations was the result of some dude eating a few too many funny mushrooms in the 1st century-----------that does not particularly stop me.

Back to you---------

Bumble Bee Tuna

well the Muslim belief is that everyone else was just a prophet, and their messages were written down by faulty people, but Mohammed is THE prophet, and his message, the Koran, was spoken and orally memorized exactly, and written down, thus all Muslims believe the Koran to be the eaxct word of Allah. It is literally God speaking through Mohammed. Not at all like the Bible. So no, you could not cherry pick it without rejecting that, which is of course central to its message. To reject that is to directly call Mohammed a liar.

-B

Rational BAC

I am sure that Muhammed thought he was THE prophet, but it is up to me to decide if he was or not. I don't think he was. Just an add-on at best. Not real familiar with the Qu'ran but an awful lot of what I have seen of it is just plain hogwash-------very similar to the OT.


I really do not care what the Muslims think about Muhammed. I only care what I think about Muhammed. Very strange person actually. Probably a prophet, but a very flawed one. Like most prophets. (with the exception of Jesus --IMHO --------allowing for the fact that we do not really know for sure what Jesus actually said. But that is OK ----just the general ideas are enough. )

And that is all I do even with the purported sayings of Jesus. ------------ Just get a general idea of what He was all about.

Jacobus Altus

Shake:

I'm sure your 'Dad' is correct in that his pendulum metaphor applies to many aspects of our social interactions, in particular those considered economic, and those tending to an affinity to a geometric point or line, and notably those employing negative feedback: like gravity as a force on a pendulum.

From history though, some social endeavors also seem to have yielded real social progress, way beyond cyclic deviation form some norm: like the abolition of slavery, and the discrediting of the devine right of kings.

I don't see slavery returning to the civilized world ever. And that appears to be a progressive, one-way societal transition in all of our history, and a proved objection to the social pendulum metaphor.

The ARIS survey (considered with its earlier comparator, NRIS?) shows a steep decline in the partial population of self-identified Christians in the US. This is, in my view, a measure indicating one of these socially progressive, 'non-pendulumatic', trends.

As I read it from a statistical standpoint, the ARIS survey is many times (50x?) more accurate than Gallup polls.

Best, Jacobus Altus

Mageth

2. Sunni and Shi'a.

You could add Sufi (mystical Islam) and Wahhabi (a Sunni puritanical movement, the dominant form in Saudi Arabia) to the list.