LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
ok... I see this topic and I really really feel I shouldn't post here but w/e... can't help it. To start off a little personal history. My father was born Jewish but to a non-religious family my mother was born Catholic into a religious family, they met in college and married shortly after college. Soon after they where married they started looking into Judaism, my father started to become religious and my mother started the conversion process. I was born about halfway through this process and as my mother was not yet Jewish I too was not considered Jewish (according to Jewish law you're only Jewish if your mother was). In the end I was converted along with my mother and was raised as an Orthodox Jew. At about age 12 my parents decided to move to Israel, mainly as it's our ancestral homeland (in more ways than one, I can trace my lineage on my father's side to some of the original Jewish settlers in Israel). When I turned 13 (Bar-Mitzvah age, basically the first Jewish coming of age ceremony when you become responsible to do certain things each day) imagine my surprise when I was asked by certain Rabbis if I wanted to be Jewish. Apparently as I was converted at a very young age I have to confirm that I want to become Jewish once I hit 13 (and may have to go through a similar process when I hit 21 [fun fact: Judaism is the only religion which never actively seeks converts and during the conversion process there are actually several attempts to dissuade you from the process]). Of course as I was raised an Orthodox Jew I said yes and now looking back I stand by my decision. At the moment religion is a very difficult subject for me as usually I'm a see it to believe it person and religion in general always used to seem like a "do it because that's the way it's always been done" type thing. However there is a program called the Aish Hatorah Discovery Seminar which actually brings valid points on how Judaism differs from other religions by being grounded in facts and science instead of grounded purely in leaps of faith (I highly reccomend this program to anyone interested at all in religion in general or even just to e-mail some of the lecturers with questions or arguments). I was sent to one of these seminars as part of my schools "kids who seem to not give a shit" program but actually really enjoyed it. My religious view is: I do believe there is a God (however you want to call it, a higher power), I do believe Judaism is the true religion, however I have personal issues and doubts with the way some people currently observe it that affect the way I feel about modern Judaism (nothing to do with Reform or Conservative "Jews").
As for other religions... well living in Israel (religious melting pot of the world) I know all sorts of people who believe different things but as the most relevant here is Islam... I do have a few Arab friends and from what I understand about the Islamic religion (both from conversations with them and from the many documentaries available) it is at it's heart an extremely violent religion. Most religious Muslims practice a very watered down version of Islam, similar to most Christians (Church on special occasions and Christmas) but as Islam is a stricter and harsher religion to start with the watered down version seems from the outside to be very..., for lack of a better word, stringent. Sadly though the people who observe the closest to the original Islamic that you can get are the terrorist and suicide bombers. The most holy thing a Muslim can do is sacrifice himself to kill an "infidel".
If you want any links or sources, or want to discuss something privately... Just PM.
Apologies for the wall of text, gz if you make it through alive. That's means you could probably pass 3rd grade English !! (beep beep****sarcasm detected...)
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by raw114
well hinduism is very Veeery complicated religion, and I have no time to talk about it in here. Some of their ideas are just stupid, but some are really great. 
Bookmarks