Wednesday, April 16, 2014

"he came to Nazareth" - Two Conflicting Religions


Tokyo


Two Conflicting Religions

The Holocaust is one of the most important incidents in the human history.

It was apparently triggered by a religious conflict between Christianity and Judaism, since Judaists never admitted that Christ Jesus was God, which was the most critical basis for Christianity.  But first of all, Judaists did not think even that Christ Jesus was a messiah or a holy savior.
Judaism generally views Jesus as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history.[1] Jesus is viewed as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging, of all false messiahs.[2] However, since the mainstream Jewish belief is that the Messiah has not yet come and that the Messianic Age is not yet present, the total rejection of Jesus as either messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism. At the heart of Judaism are the Torah, its commandments, the Tanakh, and ethical monotheism such as in the Shema — all of which predated Jesus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism%27s_view_of_Jesus
Judaists were telling as a matter of fact to Christians that Christians were fools to regard a man who could not be even a messiah as God.  It was a big insult to Christians.  So, Christians and the Vatican before WWII had a motivation to attack Judaists as they had had it even before the rise of Hitler for the preceding 1900 years.
The conception of God in Judaism is strictly monotheistic. God is an absolute one, indivisible and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Jewish tradition teaches that the true aspect of God is incomprehensible and unknowable, and that it is only God's revealed aspect that brought the universe into existence, and interacts with mankind and the world. In Judaism, the one God of Israel is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is the guide of the world, delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the 613 Mitzvot at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Judaism
Put extremely, it is impossible for a Christian, a Christian priest, or a Pope to live with a Judaist as a neighbor.  If they live as neighbors while trying to show superiority against another, they will all the time discuss divine nature of Christ Jesus.  And they will never accept a view of the other party.

However this relationship is not equal.  The Christian must be hurt more than the Judaist.  The God for the Christian is called a mere man by the Judaist, while the God of  the Judaist is regarded as God for the Christian in another form.  It is not fair at all for the Christian.  It is like a stone a Judaist throws away is treated as a jewel by a Christian.  It is a big insult to the Christian.

If Christians followed its theory that Christ Jesus is God and whoever does not believe will be punished, they would drive Judaists out of their community.  So, in a community where Christians are majority and hold power, Judaists would not loudly express their religious view.  And as long as Judaists do not provoke powerful Christians around them, they would be safe.  But even if Judaists kept very low-key attitudes, they could face a danger of being attacked by Christians who consider this matter in a very strict manner or in an extreme way.  Hitler and Nazis brought about this extreme and dangerous situation to Judaists in Germany and other parts of Europe in and before WWII.  
Hitler, the Christian 
Hitler not only got brought up as a Catholic Christian, but he expressed his Christian views into adulthood, including his period as Chancellor of the German Third Reich. One only need read Mein Kampf to see the extent of his Biblical beliefs. The German populace knew well about Hitler's book and it became a best-seller second only to the Bible. Furthermore, Hitler expressed his Christian feelings even more intensely in his speeches and proclamations throughout his power reign.
Although Hitler did not attend church regularly and later criticized the Church for their rejection of his reformation of a unified German Church, at no time did Hitler criticize God or Jesus. He always maintained an honor and belief in Jesus. This alone put him as a Christian believer. But Hitler went beyond just belief in Jesus; he devoted his entire political life to deeds aimed at creating a race of people in the pure image of God.

Some claim that Hitler lied when promoting religion, for political reasons (without citing a shred of evidence), but nothing in the historical record indicates this, nor would there appear any reason for him to do so. Even if he lied in Mein Kampf, why would he continue to consider himself a Christian after he held absolute German power? Why spend so much valuable resources to rid Germany of Jews if not from some profound justification? Hate of Jews alone cannot explain it. The hate must stem from some source and the historical record shows that anti-Judaism had long lived in the minds of Christians ever since Paul separated his community of believers from the law and people of Judaism. 
Just as revealingly, not only did Hitler present his religious beliefs in his speeches, but his own private notes reveal the influence of the Bible, long before he came into power. In one of his notes, he describes the Bible as the monumental history of mankind and used the old testament race laws as the foundation for his views against the Jews, which later turned into the Nazi Nuremberg race laws [Maser, p.282]
Hitler must have found that he could claim that Judaists despised and insulted Christians by calling the God of Christians as a mere man.  The supreme existence for Christians, Christ Jesus, was just a fellow man among Judaists.  So, Christians were put under all the Judaiasts, Hitler must have thought.   Accordingly Hitler hated Judaists as enemies of his religion he believed to be true Christianity or something like that.

So, the core of the Holocaust is why Judaists did not reasonably understand the danger of living surrounded by Christians.  The two conflicting religions should not be exercised in one community where religion is respected so much, no matter how large the community is like Germany before WWII.

But, as so many Judaists are now living peacefully and richly in the US, Christianity and Judaism in the US might not be the two conflicting religions any more there.



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Luk 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.