Posted by SLS on March 16, 2005, at 9:21:28
In reply to Re: the original question » SLS, posted by Dinah on March 16, 2005, at 8:07:21
Hi Dinah.
Thanks for the additional insight.
> To me, the faith board rules seem pretty simple. You aren't allowed to claim exlusivity.
Sounds simple enough.
> So you can't say there is only one God, or only one right path to God, only one right religion.
>
> You are allowed to say that you believe in God, but restating a statement that there is only one right way to believe as a belief is not sufficient.That must be extremely difficult and frustrating for some people.
> You can say that for me and my people this is what we believe WE need to do, but you can't say that for me and my people this is what we believe *everyone* has to do.
I see.
> This may require that certain aspects of a person's faith shouldn't be expressed on the Faith board.
> It's the exclusivity that is the problem area.> As regards "chosen people", I think it would be against Faith board rules to say we are *the* (only) Chosen People. But my understanding of the concept is that the concept does not necessarily mean that.
I can talk to my brother about this. He is a rabbi.
> But the concept as I've read it is that the Abraham and his descendents were chosen by God to enter into a specific covenant with Him that required various specific responsibilities on the part of the people and various promises on the part of God.
Not all of Abraham's decendents were to become Jewish and thus be chosen once more by God to receive the Law at Mt. Sinai. Isaac's two sons, Jacob and Esau went their separate ways; the decendents of Esau to become the Arab Nation; the decendents of Jacob to become the Jewish Nation. The Jews were thus chosen twice.
> It does not necessarily follow that they believe that they are the only chosen people or that God did not make other specific or general covenants with other people and or peoples.
I believe it does.
> I've read lovely writings on the subject where Judaism is described as a communal covenant with God while Christianity involves individual personal covenants with God.
That is interesting. I don't know if I agree with this or not. I tend to disagree having participated in orthodox Shabbos services, but I am nonetheless a lover of the New Testament, despite not believing in its most fundamental assertion.
So "Chosen" doesn't imply superiority.
It does imply something that is exclusionary. But that really is not the issue here. I think you covered the issue quite well at the beginning of your post.
I chose my example of Jews as being the Chosen People to point out to Lou that this assertion is no less exclusionary than that of Jesus being the Christ through which singularly comes salvation and the passage to the Kingdom of God. If my analogy was flawed or ignorant of religious doctrines, I apologize.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:470029
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050219/msgs/471615.html