Impressions and interpretations

And this is the single most crucial element in the difference between the two religions. If you accept the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ that would mean the Bible is right and the Qur’an is wrong. If you reject the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ that would mean the Qur’an is right and the Bible is wrong.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Most religionists (a religionist means a person who has faith in something: also called acceptor, submitter, adherent, apostle, canonist, convert, devotee, disciple, doctrinaire, dogmatist, follower, freak, orthodox, prophet, proselyte, religious person, supporter, upholder, zealot, etc.) think that religion is an exact science.

It is not. There is nothing precise in religion. Religion is subject to impressions and interpretations.

Hence, to the layman, they need to take the word of a scholar, priest, imam, etc., to interpret what their religion is trying to teach you because just by reading the ‘holy books’ you can’t always understand what the message is supposed to be.

And herein lies the problem. You need to trust the skills and knowledge of your ‘teacher’. And your teacher will look at things from his or her viewpoint -- which may not always be right because people are unavoidably influenced by ‘external factors’ such as upbringing, society norms, cultural background, etc.

And this means you can never get a ‘pure’ impression and interpretation. Invariably, all impressions and interpretations will get ‘tainted’ to a certain degree.

This is further complicated by the belief that some ‘holy books’ contain ‘hidden messages’, which are beyond the comprehension of the ‘lower level’ religious adherent. For example, Muslims believe that only the Sufis can grasp the ‘higher’ or ‘hidden messages’ in Islam. The layman Muslim, which would be the majority of the Muslims, cannot grasp this ‘higher level’ understanding of Islam.

So who then really knows Islam? Not you and I, the 99% or so of the Muslims. Only the 1% or less of the Muslims who are truly enlightened can understand Islam. The rest of us just have to accept the word of the ‘learned man’ and trust this person and follow this person’s advise.

It was once the same for Christianity. In the past it was a crime to translate the Bible into your mother tongue. The Bible had to be in Latin so you needed to learn Latin to know the Bible. And, like in Islam’s case, since less than 1% of Christians read Latin, that means 99% or so of the Christians did not understand what the Bible was really saying. You had to trust the impressions and interpretations of your priest.

But then the Bible was not originally in Latin (or Greek). It was in Aramaic. So if you want to really understand the Bible you had to get your hands on the Aramaic version of the Bible and learn Aramaic to be able to read it.

How many Christians speak Aramaic and have an Aramaic copy of the Bible? So you need to get your hands on the translated version of the Bible instead and hope that whoever translated it got it right.

But then the message in most of the ‘holy books’ (the Qur’an included) is not always literal. There is much that is allegorical as well. Did the person who translated this original version of the ‘holy book’ understand which part is literal and which part is allegorical?

And herein lies the second problem.

Let me give you an example. Let us look at Genesis 3:15.

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (King James Version)

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (New International Version) 

How would you interpret this verse? Is it literal or allegorical? If I were to take it literally I would say this refers to God making the snake the enemy of humankind because of what the snake did to Eve: tricked her into convincing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. People will kill snakes while snakes will strike people as punishment.

But is that all there is to this message: about snakes and people being enemies? Is there instead maybe an allegorical message here?

Another very crucial point to note is: was it not Satan that tricked Eve? In that case why is the snake being punished when it was actually Satan, masquerading as a snake, who committed the crime? How can a just God punish the snake for the evil deed of Satan? This does not give the compassionate God a good image, does it?

So you see, much of what we know and what we believe is based on ‘guidance’. In short, we have been taught by certain people what we should believe based on these people’s understanding of what it was supposed to mean. Are these people right? As what religionists would say: only God knows.

You may think you know your religion. In fact, you may even think you know more than me. But what is it that you know? You only know what someone told you. But you do not know whether this someone is right. You believe this person is right. And belief does not make it right or a fact. Belief is still just that, belief.

In law, hearsay is not evidence. In religion, hearsay is everything. Can you send someone to jail or sentence that person to death based on hearsay? You would be outraged if that happens. But you are not outraged when someone tells you a story about an event that happened, say, 3,500 years ago, based on hearsay.

How many ‘holy books’ do you read? And which ‘holy books’ are those? Do you know that there are more ‘holy books’ in existence than you are not aware of? And you do not read these ‘holy books’ because they are classified as Apocryphal. But who agreed on this classification?

It is the same with Islam. We have the Qur’an and then we have the Hadith. There are about 700,000 Hadith but less than 7,000 are accepted as authentic and the rest as apocrypha. Some sects accept only 500 and others none at all.

Again, Islam and Christianity walk down the same path.

If you were to read the Bible and the Qur’an you will find much overlap and agreement in belief. The glaring difference would be in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ is the foundation of Christianity. Islam rejects this in total so this means Islam rejects the foundation of Christianity.

And this is the single most crucial element in the difference between the two religions. If you accept the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ that would mean the Bible is right and the Qur’an is wrong. If you reject the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ that would mean the Qur’an is right and the Bible is wrong.

And this whole thing comes about because of the issue of sin and the punishment for sin. Without the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ then the matter of sin can never be resolved.

In Islam, you commit both good and bad deeds and God will look at the balance between the two. You receive sin for the bad deeds and blessings for the good deeds. If you clock up more positives than negatives then you get to go to heaven. So you need to make sure your account is in black and not in red.

In Christianity, you commit only good deeds. Even the smallest bad deed (say like calling someone ‘stupid’) is a sin that will not escape punishment. Hence you can commit 1,000,000 good deeds but if you commit even one bad deed you will still get sent to hell, unlike in Islam.

In other words, in Islam, the door to heaven is still open to you if you can try to do a bit more good than bad (say 51% good versus 49% bad). In Christianity, the door to heaven will always remain closed even if you do 99.9% good and just 0.1% bad. No sin can be forgiven never mind how good you are.

Now, Christianity believes we are all born sinners (while Islam says we are born pure like a white cloth). That means every single person is going to end up in hell. Not a single person is going to heaven. But then God sent Jesus to die on the cross so that he can ‘underwrite’ all our sins. Hence, without the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, heaven will be entirely empty and every single person will be in hell.

And this, basically, is the fundamental difference between the two faiths involving the way or road to heaven. And that is why Christianity and Islam have been fighting for ‘world domination’ for more than 1,000 years. It is all about the differences of opinion in how we get to heaven.

And while they battle it out to decide who has the correct version and who has the wrong version in how we get to heaven, they make life on earth a living hell for the rest of us.

To conclude, you could say that Islam is about balance while Christianity is about absolute. But then that is my impression and interpretation of things and is subject to opinion.