| Rabbi Gopin: Yes, we should study the texts of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism as a part of searching for peace. But we must also be *honest* in our appraisal of what we find. It will be useless to conclude our study with: "Anyone can look for fragments to be used rhetorically against *the other*; that there are, for example, `harsh statements` in the Talmud which "balance off" against harsh statements in the Hadith." That is a false syllogism, as Maimonides, an Aristotalian, has stated. For in fact, the "fitna" beliefs of Sunni and Shia, that all Jews will be destroyed by Muslim warfare before the Day of Judgement, will *never* fade, so long as those *texts* have authority. You know, as well as I, that Judaism does not have an eschatology that is genocidal, as do Muslims and Christians. Philology of religious texts based on Aristotelian realism? Yes. Postmodern anti-realism and the purposeful obfuscation of "the other" for the personal narcissism of being loved as a peace-maker? No. |
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