shawn said:
The never ending "carrot or stick" card.
yes. nothing about the consequence in human life. i do not believe the messianic age will or can be brought about through the shedding of blood.
Amica said:
But from what I have read on the prophecies, the Gog is to be against the people in the land of Israel. To call Bush Gog is confusing then, if the Jews are to believe Gog to be against them. Unless, 'people in the land of Isreal' includes others besides the Jews?
messianic prophecy is a notoriously difficult area and interpreting it is fraught with difficulty - the only hard-and-fast rule there is is that the people who think they know exactly what it all means are invariably wrong; this includes many of our religious scholars if history is anything to go by - just look at the shabbetai tzvi debacle of the C17th.
you see, the subtext here for these sorts of people is that you're either with us or against us (and it's not even a subtext for the bushes of this world) and, obviously, G!D Is on our "side" - whatever our "side" actually is. this, for me, is just sucking up to the powerful and that has never been a good strategy for us. on the other hand, i doubt that bush really understands the religious implications of this from the perspective of those who gave him the scroll - if he did, he would almost certainly object. remember, this is the same bush that claimed that G!D told him that the palestinians need a state.
On the other hand, it is believed that Gog would gather armies from all sides of the Earth. And certainly this Gog (Bush) did, when he proclaimed: "You are either with us, or against us." Of course, in his case, the people he started a war against is Muslims as all his concentration was on warring with Muslim states.
i am astonished, amica, that people are still flogging this "war against muslims" meme, it is patent rubbish. the american muslim communities don't support such a view - the vast majority of muslims don't support it; the only people who do are those who - for reasons of their own - want the "ummah" to be a monolithic bloc with one - hardline fundamentalist - agenda, the likes of jamaat-i-islami, hizb-ut-tahrir and other salafist and khalifist groups. if you want to find out more about this, please come over and visit the blog i write on, which was set up by a group of extremely sensible, bright, reasonable muslims, in most cases ex-members of fundamentalist groups - (
The Spittoon | Heresy is another word for freedom of thought ) do not be sucked in by the rhetoric which dumps all the responsibility on external groups (of whom we jews are the commonest target of blame). these people do not want peace and tolerance like you - they aim to turn every society into saudi arabia; this is not the islam of bosnia and sufism.
Anyway, why would Jewish chief rabbis call him Gog? And the West Magog?
because they've been sucked into this millenarian end-of-days worldview based on incorrect interpretation of biblical prophecy!
If Jews and Muslims worked together perhaps they would be able to reach an agreement as both people consider the site sacred.
i don't see why not. if only everyone was as reasonable as you.
Considering that the Muslims did not destroy the temple of Solomon pbuh, then I believe it is unfair to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque.
it is also unfair to attempt to destroy historical traces of the jewish link to the Temple mount as the waqf have almost certainly been doing. i note, incidentally, that the Temple mount faithful group propose not to destroy the mosque (which i think would be catastrophically stupid) but to relocate it. i wonder if this is at all feasible, as opposed to my preferred options of a) waiting until the messiah actually shows up or b) incorporating the mosque in a redeveloped structure, in line with the prophecy that G!D's house will be a house of worship for "all nations" - i've seen at least one architectural plan on the web for doing so. have a read of this:
Can 3rd Temple be built without destroying Dome of the Rock? | Jewish Features | Jerusalem Post
b'shalom
bananabrain
