I was driving my wife to work tonight and we had a discussion starting with the war between Israel and Palestine. She asked me who I thought were worse, Jews or Muslims, in terms of their religion, culture, and relation to Christians and the Church. We talked about the pros and cons of each group, and I couldn’t determine the answer. She thought Muslims were worse.
Muslims waged war against Christians and Christian Europe. In the Middle East, if a Muslim converts to Christianity they risk being killed. There are many crazy verses in the Koran about killing the unbeliever, hating your enemy, a distant unknowable God, and the like. The most radical forms of Islam are a real political and cultural threat to the West. Groups like Hamas represent that.
But at the same time, they are partly right. The American military industrial complex has been effectively attempting to conquer their part of the world for oil and money, while demonizing their own violations of human rights. They don’t have a right to terrorism, but they do have a right to fight back. And while terrorism is crazy and wrong, they’re resorting to that because they don’t have much other effective means to fight back. Muslims in their Koran believe in Christ as the Messiah, in the virginity of Mary, and the second coming of Christ, which makes them closer to Christianity than the Jews.
But, the Jews still have a special role in salvation history that the Muslims do not. They once were the Chosen People. God loved them in a special way. He still does in so far as the book of the Apocalypse says that Christ will not come again until the Jews convert. God has a special desire for their salvation in a way that is different than all other races. If a people have a common religion, language, and culture, then the geographical area they inhabit they have a right to occupy and rule over. Christians are called in a special way to pray for the conversion of the Jews, and in my opinion it seems obvious we should support the rights of Jews to the state of Israel.
However, Jews rejected Christ. Those who represented the Jewish people, the Sanhedrin, killed Christ, so in that sense the Jews killed Christ who was God. Therefore, the Church traditionally is right in accusing the Jews of deicide. In the Old Testament, God made covenants and then the Jews ultimately broke them. He sent His Son as the final covenant, which they ultimately rejected by killing Christ, placing them in a special way as enemies of God until they come back to Him by accepting Christ as the Messiah. So it is true that Judaism has become one of the main enemies of Christ and His Church, including Christendom.
So I don’t know which group is worse. If I have to choose, I’d guess God favors the Jews over Muslims, that they are the lesser of two evils. They follow the Old Testament which is 100% true, whereas Muslims misrepresent the New Testament and believe in the Koran that is full of absurdities. They are most politically oriented against the Christian West and a military threat. That’s about as far a my understanding goes.
Anyway, I have some more thoughts on the subject of Theism vs. Atheism. I watched more debates yesterday and today, working through how I myself would answer the question or debate the opposition.
The atheist debater typically wants to tear down the idea of God, religion, and Christianity. Their supporters have the same hatefulness. The theist and Christian apologist typically falls into the trap of trying to reason logically with the atheist with classical arguments. I think part of that strategy is to address those one the other side listening to the debate who are sitting on the fence.
I listened to a debate with Christopher Hitchens (RIP), who obviously was consumed with hatred of Christianity and the idea of the Christian God. He was consumed by extreme cynicism which most of these atheist debaters are as well. They form really their own network across the world, effectively their own anti-religion religion, with people like Hitchens being their leaders.
So I think it is critical to cut through all their hatred by maintaining civility, but presenting arguments in fresh and interesting ways. That is a very hard task, but it goes with the territory of trying to get an atheist to openly consider something about theism to be credible.
Atheists rely mainly on science. But in science you don’t always result in certainties but probabilities or best explanations. We have to stop trying to get the atheist in the debate or exchange to arrive at absolute certainty in the existence of God, which they on their own can arrive at later, but to compel them to consider the possibility of the theistic explanations of reality. Showing friendship and respect, and a new way of looking at the questions, with new information, can serve to move them at least a little bit in the right direction, which plants a seed. I think that’s usually going to be the best immediate outcome after these exchanges, realistically speaking.
I would discuss certain miracles, especially the garment of the Our Lady of Guadalupe image. I would focus on the image having no physical substance causing it to appear on the cloth.
They no doubt would say that is not proof of a supernatural cause. I would respond by defining what a miracle is, and the kind of evidence that would verify it, to the point we both basically agree on terms and methods. I would not hold out the proposition it is a miracle, but that considering all the facts, it is a reasonable explanation that there is no natural process ot cause for the image, but that there must therefore be a cause outside of nature. If they can’t even admit that is a possibility, then I would challenge them to consider the fruitfulness or utility of arguing whether or not a certain phenomenon or occurrence is a miracle if they are already closed to the possibility of miracles or a supernatural dimension.
It’s a worthy work to confront atheism and agnosticism considering how many people in the West are turning that way, especially young people. It takes a brave soul to do the deep dive on the most controversial questions and directly confront their errors.
Anyways, I wish you all a good week.