rushdie's point is good

Submitted by rw (United States), Oct 9, 2017 at 08:19

Dear Daniel,

... Rushdie's point is a very good one. The Jewish and Christian faiths are full of narrative because they are rooted into historical fact. The Jewish scriptures recount in particular the story of the Exodus because this is the foundational fact of Israel as a nation and of their understanding of God as a God who sets free from slavery. The Christian scriptures likewise focus in particular on the death and resurrection of Jesus; as Paul puts it, "If Christ is not risen from the dead, then our preaching is empty and your faith is in vain". Hence the narrative, and one might add amazingly skillful story-telling. The Koran by contrast presents ideas which are not rooted into historical events, hence no need for narrative, so that all that is found of that nature is the unfortunate Mohammed's garbled versions of stories he heard at third hand.

With these matter there are truth issues.

We live in a world engulfed in a cultural morass of relativism. But there are truth claims to consider. Is it true that God delivered Israel from Egypt in the way described in Exodus? If not, one should be heartily opposed to this set of fantastic lies (they would be lies, not merely fiction, because they are presented as factual.) Did Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead? If not, one should be utterly committed to opposing such falsehood. Was the unfortunate Mohammed in fact a prophet of God? If not, and he wasn't, this arrant nonsense should be exposed, and the billion people held captive within the islamic system freed from it!

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