Journal of April 2, 2005

Saturday, April 2, 2005 1:33 PM This idea of Abraham and the slaying of his son is becoming increasingly appealing to me as a challenge to all religions, Christianity included: to refuse to utilize a divine command as a justification for committing an immoral act.

The Muslims somehow seem to try to get around this in a purely (and really silly linguistic) mode by declaring that all divine commands are ipso facto moral, i.e., moral is the term for what comes out of the mouth or written word of God, e.g., "slay your innocent son."

1:35 PM The living word versus the written and/or spoken word. That is the question.

The Muslims do not have a living word, but only the spoken word which has told us about a written word sitting before God himself and a written word before man (paper Koran). [Now this written word is given a sort of life by people seriously intending to comply with and conform to the written word of God in their living.]

1:38 PM Thought. Surely Allah, in order to have made his communication without failure, would not have had to put an intermediary reader and reciter, Gabriel and Mohammed, into the picture. That seems curious and rather limited (and I am not satisfied with “Allah knows best” [which is really a cop out to opt for immaturity and self imposed tutelage].

I think that Smith had a better idea than Mohammed, and one Mohammed could simply not pulled off because he didn’t know how to read and write. Otherwise he would have himself seen and read the holy books as Smith did.

2:38 PM Well, I have written and sent the following letter (which I have here edited slightly) to my very courteous Muslim expert and correspondant:

Dear Mr. B.

First of all I think you for your kind help in my search of the mind of the Muslim.

I approach you today with unusual sincerity and with a lack of animosity. I have decided in my own mind that if the entire world totally became either Muslim or Mormon it would be in either case a horrifying end to the freedom of man. And so in a way what is going on is a struggle between free man on one side (as I perceive things) and slave man on the other, and where two ghosts, as it were, the Muslim and the Mormon, seek to animate the otherwise inanimate object, like a zombie. I am essentially indifferent between these two stories, each being a catastrophy if it should hypmotize and dominate the world. This is my take, in my own sincerity and without needing at the moment to make a like assessment of much of what is called Christianity (but which I can do).

Now in that frame of reference let me please tell you from the stand point of artistry, the Mormon god does a better job than the Muslim Allah. This is an objective claim, as you will most certainly agree with, when you camouflaged the details (of the revelation) and look at the matter from the stand point of artistry.

Mohammed wants to put before the eyes of man the very same text of a book which is before the eyes of God. That's it. Now the best and most convincing way would be to bring the book down from heaven and show it to Mohammed and have Mohammed copy it out in pen and ink, and compare them, etc., and thus present this amazing miracle before the eyes of men for them to accept as true. But that would be impossible because Mohammed did not know how to read and write. And so we have Allah deliberating choosing an illiterate man in order that his own communication will not be as perfect as it could be (and for which reason we need not speculate on now). Thus the Allah "who knows best" has deliberately chosen a man (Mohammed) such that the transmission cannot be certified with absolute perfection, due to the interference of the angel and the Prophet and the scribes.

Now this idea, of course, arises through the genius, we might say, of Joseph Smith who was a mere boy, but who knew how to read and write, who actually got his hands on this book that Mohammed is talking about (like a detective I put myself in the thinking of the Mormon storyteller) and was able to actually copy it (albeit be means of some magical glasses that could translate it into English or Arabic or according to who ever would read it--these glasses came with the book). A book of pure gold. Others have seen it and have testified to it. It is back again in front of the throne God where he will later allow you to compare your own scripture with it in order for you to see that Smith was right about what he saw and transcribed.

Hence, like a detective I don't know how you (as a Muslim) are going to beat out the Mormons on the story of the certification of the scriptures. Mohammed had to get into the reading and recitation and reading back and letting the angel read it and make corrections, etc., etc.,, and the original fragments have "somehow" mysteriously disappeared (like Smith's golden plates)! That will not stand up in the mind of the unbiased person when compared with a story where the book comes down and is copied (too bad it was not in English, let us say, and so a tracing could be made, like people do of gravestone inscriptions) and then the book itself is seen (but not read) by others.

Now I will be so bold, Mr. B, to suggest that if I were God I would do something different, namely I would just put the book into the heart and make up of the human and then have a perfect person actually live in the world (a miracle, to be sure) and for people then to spy that book in their souls when they spied this man in his living perfection; and so where there is simply no need for anyone to tell anyone what it is that God requires, for it would be written in the hearts of all. As I am sure you know I am very, very taken by Genesis 3:22, (before the garble). The Christians, and especially the Paulians, maintain that this book in their hearts consists of the three loves of Christ, so-called, and that Jesus expected everyone to be able to apply the book in their lives, without need of any guardian or guide.

Now I honestly think, as someone who is not biased toward Islam or Mormonism, and have a dear relative who is a Jack Mormon (having left the faith and what I think the Christians may call "backslider" but this does not affect my judgment as a detective), I honestly think the Mormons have you Muslims beat. And the thing about their story is that God can keep giving the revelations through newer prophets and so things stay very up to date with what the story is. I.e., the story continues and goes on and on.* The Muslims, however, have no complaint against them, for the Muslims also have their reformulation and what is accepted one day is not the next. Well, welcome to Mormonland!

[* Sometimes polygamy is the word, and then this changes later with changing circumstances and polygamy is out. At first blacks are out, but now blacks are in. I understand that Mohammed's recitation was something like that. For a while you bow to Jerusalem and then Mecca is the direction. Wine is in, and then later wine is out.]

I know this does not prove that Mohammed's story is phony and Smith's is genuine, but it does show that Smith did a better job than Mohammed (and Smith's religion is growing by leaps and bounds), and I think the only that thing the Muslims can really say against it is this: Allah knows best. But that could also be working against them; perhaps Allah knows best and has now introduced Mormonism to replace Islam??

If you give this any serious consideration, Mr. B, I would really like to know how you decide to stay a Muslim as opposed to opting for the Mormons. I would really like to see your thinking on that. Compare having 70 virgins forever in paradise (as Muslim) with being a god yourself with more than 70 virgins (as a Mormon)? That's what the Mormons tell me.

By the way, Mr. B, please let me know if you can discover some Arabian language translation of the mountain and earth quaking verses what can make some sense in English.

I wish you well.

Sincerely,

3:19 PM The greater task deals with Abraham. All men, without exception, as members of the human race, are required to filter all divine revelations through the prism of morality. Kant expresses it best [with my comments in brackets]:

"If God should really speak to man, man could still never know that it were God speaking. It is quite impossible for man to apprehend the infinite by his senses [like hearing, seeing, feeling, etc.], nor distinguish it from sensible beings [whether it is a devil, another person, or even his own hallucination], and recognize it as such [as though, for example, the sky were a giant dome, the work of an super human artist]. But in some cases man can be sure the voice he hears is not God’s. For if the voice commands him to do something contrary to moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion [or deception?].*"

Then there is the footnote (my own translation and this is from Kant's Conflict Among The Faculties):

“* For example the myth of the sacrifice that Abraham wanted to make based on the divine command, the slaughter and the fire offering of his only son (the poor lad also had to carry the wood in his ignorance). Even if the voices were to resound from a visible heaven, Abraham should have answered the alleged divine voices by saying, ‘that I should not kill my good son is clear to me; but that you, who appears to me, be God, that is not at all clear and can also never become clear.’”

Kant really lays the gauntlet down to all the abrahamic religions with this one, and he must be answered.

There are two distinct stories. First the story of the Jews.

Jewish Rendition. Abraham has faith in the voices he calls the voice of God, and leaves his home. He is promised a great lineage through his ancient wife Sarah. When he is about 100 this promised son is born and is named Isaac. An earlier son and concubine, Ishmael and Hagar, were turned out and left to fend for themselves earlier at the insistence of Sarah. Abraham may have heard that they were cared for. But in any case he knew the voices were true because the promised son was born. Now Abraham is called to sacrifice his Isaac and seeks to do so, but is stopped by an angel who tells him to offer a ram instead.

Now it seems at first glance that Abraham has violated Kant's rule and thus has committed an immoral act by even believing that the voice telling him to kill his son was the voice of God. It could have been an imitation by Satan for all Abraham knew. He knew it was wrong to kill, and yet he decided to act on the command of this voice and to seek sincerely to slay his promised son.

The justification offered by this Christian on behalf of Abraham is to liken him to the apprentice to the magician who assists in what seems a deadly act, but who knows that it is only an act, i.e., a trick, but he doesn’t know how the magician does it. Based on the miracle of the validation of the promise of the heritage, Abraham had every reason to bank on the rest of the promise, namely that Isaac would live to be old enough to have sons, and so he was convinced that nothing would happen to his son. Not that he might be killed and then brought back to life, but that no matter how hard he tried he, Abraham, would not be able to harm his son. And so he is like Balder at whom his friends hurled spears and arrows, being assured by Balder’s mother that all things in the world had promised never to harm Balder, i.e., and so without even a smidgen (?) of moral impropriety.

Now if a man today justified his killing of his own son in that frame of mind would not be guilty of malice and ill intention but rather would be considered a lunatic and to be committed to an asylum. And so while it is wrong for Abraham or any man to interpret the intention of God in this way, Abraham has committed no sin and so has not violated the rule in its spirit, for he had special information that the boy would never be harmed in any way.

With regard to a certification of the acceptance by Christianity of Kant’s rule especially in the iconic example as cited by John (5, I think) where Jesus deliberately violates a revealed law, presumably of God, in order to accomplish a moral act, and so all revelation in the Christian spirit has to be interpreted morally. This means that no command can be considered as divine and also at the same time as rightly understood if it seems to call for the violation of a human right, e.g., that the innocent be slain.

Muslim Rendition. I am not able to judge yet of the Muslim story because I am not as aware of all the details. As I understand Abraham has a dream where God tells him to kill Ishmael. Abraham tells of his dream to Ishmael and Ishmael volunteers to go along and be sacrificed to the God of this dream. But then he is stopped and a ram is substituted at the last minute.

I don’t see how the willing suicide, if you will, of Ishmael can save Abraham from the charge of believing that God had commanded the killing of an innocent person. Perhaps if Ishmael wanted to be a willing sacrifice (like Jesus later) and Abraham them was merely carrying out the wishes of Ishmael, this would get him off the hook, but I think the Muslims have it that everything has to be done because it was commanded of God, and not due to someone’s free will. But I am not sure it will work to save Abraham that another, innocent person, took the story at face value, namely that God was ordering the slaying of an innocent person, no matter the disposition of that innocent person.

And so I may change later, but presently I think the Muslims will have a difficult time with this, and I think this may also be profound, for I don’t think the Muslim has any inhibition about the morality of an act and rather hide behind the thought that another word for “God’s revelation” is “morality” and so where bowing and giving to the poor are merely “good business” and where both are “moral” acts.*

[* Actually the more compelling understanding from the standpoint of the Muslim (= one who submits) is this: Ishmael realizes that Abraham has a guidance or communication from God and he, in his fanatical devotion, is going to do just that, kill Ishmael. Ishamael is no fool and he knows that the reward of compliance and submission is utter delight in the sensuous gardens of Allah's paradise, and so he goes along with Abraham and submits to the guidance that Abraham should kill Ishmael. And so Ishmael joins Abraham in his fanaticism and essentially commits murder with Abraham, only it is himself whom he murders. This then becomes the iconic foundation of the Muslim faith, Abraham and Ishmael eager to comply with Allah's communication by committing murder and suicide. In the Andraec book I am reading on the life of Mohammed one believing brother tells another, unbelieving brother, "I would kill you immediately if Mohammed told me to." (Added 4/7/05 6:58 AM]

3:47 PM The only fall back position for the Islamic now is the amazing Koran but which has to face competition from the sequencing of the Hebrew scriptures which comes up with amazing results also.