Mookie4ever wrote:This is news to me. Why do people want to burn the Quran? We believe in the same God and have many of the same prophets etc in our religious texts.
So I guess that I have 2 questions: What's the deal with burning it? and wouldn't this be blasphemy to Christians as well?
I think we know why someone wants to burn a Quran. It pisses someone else off. Durr. As for the similarities between the reglitions, I can tell you why there’s a big riff between the them despite the sharing the same God. In short, the historical difference between the religions is that they each come from one of Abraham's sons: one of whom who is supposedly born of fear and selfishness, and the other who was born from faith and trust.
Ishmael was the first son born to Abraham. He was conceived when his first wife, Sarah (who was supposedly quite old), gave in to the fear of not being able to bear children for Abraham. Despite having been promised a son through Sarah, Abraham also gave into fear and slept with Hagar. Together, they had a son they named Ishmael. Hagar would eventually butt heads with Sarah over Ishmael and run off into the wilderness with him, but an angel came to her and told her to return home. She did return, but Abraham would continue to be pressured by both his wife and God. Eventually, he obeyed God and banished Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. There, they were said to have been saved by another angel. Ishmael was written as very rough and rowdy man who would eventually find a lot of success through conflict. His many sons took over a great deal of land, and his blood line is said to have produced Muhammad.
Thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael, God fulfilled a lifelong promise to Abraham and gave him a son through Sarah, named Isaac. God would eventually test Abraham's faith by telling him to sacrifice Isaac. Right as Abraham raised his knife to kill his son, an angel stopped the execution and a ram appeared to be used in place of Isaac. This builds the basis for Abraham’s faith and Isaac’s supposed respect for God. Isaac’s blood line would eventually produce Jesus.
Based on these stories, Jews and Christians often hold Ishmael and all descended from him to be products of human fear and selfishness. On the other hand, they consider all descendants of Isaac to be the product of faith and God’s steadfastness to his people. So Islam came from Muhammed, who came from Ishmael, who came from human fear and selfishness. Christianity came from Jesus, who came from Isaac, who came from faith and steadfastness from God. Therein lies the crucial divide.
Now that’s obviously the Jewish/Christian point of view I’m by no means putting that out there as the actual course of events. It's even arguable whether or not Jews/Christians view this correctly. On one hand, God ordered the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael while later calling Isaac Abraham's only son. However, an angel twice saved Hagar and Ishmael as they were dying in the wilderness. You would assume that angel was sent by God, unless you choose to believe the archangel was a fallen archangel*, like Lucifer.
But that's not really why I went through the trouble of typing that out. I wrote all that a) to describe how two groups of people can come from the same principle starting points and end up at two, very different places, and b) so that all of you can harass me about it later.
* - Those who believe in angels write that only the archangels - Gabriel, Michael, & Lucifer - were given free will. All others are basically slaves to God. So if you believe that an angel saved Hagar and Ishmael in spite of God, then you probably believe the angel was one of the archangels capable of making that choice. And if you believe that, then you almost certainly believe that anything from Ishmael is against God's will.
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by Tavish » Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:05 am 
