Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The Muslim Sense of Humor

At PJMedia, Goldman explains why Muslims seem to lack the humor gene: 

The answer is that radically different deities are in question. Judaism begins with a covenant between God and human beings–Abraham and his descendants–that is a partnership in which God is normally, but not always, the senior partner. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks observes, the Jewish sages of antiquity envisioned Moses acting as a judge for God, permitting God to annul his earlier vow to destroy the Jewish people after the sin of the Golden Calf. This is unimaginable in Islam, just as unimaginable as the Christian God who humbles himself on the cross. 
I first came to a glimmer of this understanding thirty years ago in a conversation with a Nation of Islam convert who asked, "How can you believe the Great God could become a man?"  My answer was to speak about the kenosis of the Logos from Philippians 2:5-11. 

Despite the claims of many, I do not believe the God I worship is the same as that of the Mohammedans.  I would say, too, that there is a deep divide that separates the nature and purpose of revelation in the Judeo-Christian tradition from that of Islam.  Yahweh seeks to reveal Himself that He might relate to us, to know and to be known.  Allah seems to demand obedience that his cosmic order might be maintained.  Back to Goldman:

As Franz Rosenzweig observed, the actions of God are indistinguishable from naive observation of the natural world. They simply are the way things are, and for no other reason than it is Allah’s whim that they be that way ... the way things are, to Muslims, includes the sedimentary layers of centuries of tribal practice ...To slight Mohammed, and by extension Allah, means the ruin of the way things are, the dissolution of the ties that hold society together. To question the way things are is to inspire social chaos.

Finally, Goldman concludes with an observation that is similar to what I was thinking as I wrote Monday's post:

The organizers of the Garland, Texas exhibition of Mohammed caricatures–the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and the anti-jihad campaigners Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer–have proven their point: To placate Muslims in their resistance to modernity would require the West to give up being the West. 

2 comments:

  1. Yahweh seeks to reveal Himself that He might relate to us, to know and to be known. Allah seems to demand obedience that his cosmic order might be maintained.

    Loveless, that's Islam's problem in one word.

    Anyhow, who is letting these people in? Ok, maybe the FBI is tracking them but wouldn't it be better to have none to track, then, I don't know, 100,000?

    Well, stopping immigration is not going to happen. Might hurt somebody's feelings. So we destroy the country to keep feelings from being hurt. I just feel so powerless in this matter.

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  2. Excellent observations. It makes sense that the strict, fundamental (without the fun) worship of a tyrannical, bloodthirsty allah would produce no joy or humility. Only rage and pride.

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