Justice, Love and Unity

So I’m tired and I probably shouldn’t be writing this, but the more I think about it the more I can’t stop thinkingh about it, so what usually is the solution for me in this case is to write this stuff down, that way it is out of my head and on paper and I usually stop thinking about it then, let’s give a little background before getting into it though, first, when I was in decatur, I had a realization that to me, divinity and reality come through clearest for me in christiany, why is this, I ask, I think it’s because for me, love comes through clearest in christ, everything he did seemed to be about love, and faith of course, that is the constant theme that will run throughout this writing, anyways, so me and jan or jan and I were talking the other day and we talked about her sufi meeting with nouredeen I think is his name and she was talking about how much of a non-unity feeling she walked away from the meeting with, which really got me thinking, considering that is the one charactersistics I usually associate with sufi’s is unity, jan also says sidi is always talking about the unity, I think I was reading something on islam, islam and religious pluralism, or maybe transcendent unity and they said that the thing in islam about the godhead is the unity of the Godhead, whearas in christianity, it’s a trinity. I remember maher’s being is article and him basically saying that there are 3 constituents of unity, but basically saying unity was the ultimate metaphysical and meta=ethical principel of the universe, so all of the muslims I have meet and respect seem to be stressing unity to me, and when I think about the islamic religion and about muhammad and all that stuff, what strikes me is not the miracle of the quran, but the miracle of how basically because of the inspiration of one person, the whole constinent of arabia was united under one religion, basically, of course, you will always have your divergencies, but it can be argued, muhammad single handidly brought arabia, and thereby the world for that matter, into the middle ages. Where would europe be without averroes, avicenna, ibn khaldun, etc? where would those people be without muhammad? And of course, were would any of us be without the greeks and the hebrews, the two cornerstones of ‘western’ civilization. But I guess my point is, that in islam, that is the miracle for me, unity, the unity that muhammad brought to pagan arabia, the unity that maher is talking about, the unity of the godhead, the unity of the pilgrammage to mecca which I probably cannot even begin to understand but what struck malcolm x and changed his life thereafter, and the unity of the prophets, making no distinction between them, they are all but honored servants. But it is incomplete, and the reason it is incomplete is because of my girlfriend sitting in bed, half asleep, asking me what I’m typing about. What I mean by this is that my girlfriend symbolizes christianity and the clearest thing to come through in christianity is love. I’m not saying it’s not there in islam, because it is, surely allah is mericful, forgiving, compassionate, but at least for me, love comes through clearest through the person of christ and not the person of muhammad. But I guess my point is that without love and unity in either religion, those religions are incomplete. Is there unity in christianity? You tell me, how many different denominations within protestantism alone are there? How many different denominations where there when christianity itself started so many years ago? Christianity has never been a unified religion and maybe never will, but my argumetn is that is why it needs islam. That is most certainly one thing that we can learn from islam, us so called christians in the ‘west’, the unity of God, the Godhead. It’s supposed to come through in christianity through the triune god, but the very nature of god being triune seems to undercut the idea of unity from the very start. I don’t know, maybe for some, it helps the idea of unity, the unity of three in one, but for me at least, islam does a much better job of exemplifying and showing and being clearer about unity than christianity does. And on the other side of the coin, christianity does a much better job of exemplifying and showing and being clear about love than islam is. It just is, I don’t’ think that there is any question at all about this. I’m sure muhammad was a good example of love, but I believe that jesus was the archetype, the prototype, of what love is supposed to and should be and I think that islam is lacking this in it’s religion and is therefore, incomplete. Think about what muhammad’s main focus was, I think it was unity, I think jesus main focus was love, and I think that both religions are incomplete until they somehow meld or amalgamate these two ideals together to become the true abrahamic monotheism that god meant this ONE RELIGION to be. On the same note, I think that the old testament symbolizes another one of these virtues that the other two are not missing, but still seem to fall short in, that virtue is of course faith, which is the foundation which all of the three religions have, indeed, father abraham, had many sons, many sons had father abraham, I am one of them and so are you, so let’s just praise the lord, I think that is all that needs to be said about that, but what did the jews great prophet do, the torah, the exodus, he freed slaves from oppression, what is freedom, true freedom is justice, I believe that is what the islamic world and I would say even christians are lacking, the sense of justice that flows not just from moses and the torah, but from the entire old testament. This reminds me of jim wallis who is always talking about the old testament prophets emphasis on justice, justice, justice, speaking truth to power, all of the prophets did this in their own way, but isn’t this the essence of the exodus story, moses went to an unjust pharoah, demanded justice, which meant freedom for the enslaved peoples, the pharoah woudn’t give it to them, so god freed the enslaved egyptians himself and thus proved that he was a just god who keeps his promises. Again, I’m not saying that any of these religions don’t have these virtues, indeed, all three have faith, but what I’m saying is that I think that they are all incomplete because they lack what the other two have in spades, Justice, Love, and Unity, maybe this is why they were also put in that order, because somehow, justice flows into love which will eventually lead to unity. So what I’m saying is that all of the particular abrahamic monotheisms are incomplete in the virtues I have cited above and they will only be the true religion when they synthesize in order to compensate for virtues that they are puposefully lacking because I think it was in god’s providence that the day would come when this needed to be done, when humanity was ready for true unity, true love, true justice, which can only be had when all three are maximized by coming together as one, one god, one love, one law. That is the true religion, it is judeo-christian-islam, or faith, justice, love, unity, and of course, freedom, the truth will make you free, this is the truth, justice, love and unity are the truth, we must believe in them to be free, I guess that is all I have to say on the suject. That is why I will never be able to accept one of these completely if it means rejecting two of the other ones and why I cannot accept one completely even if I don’t have to reject the two others ones, because by accepting one, I am basically going against unity, remember, they are all honored servants. But this doesn’t in any way go against jesus divinity, which is hard to explain, but read schuon chapter two and you will understand. Here we go, what did jesus stand for, love, if jesus is god, then love is god, duh, everybody knows that, but what I want to argue is that it was necessary for jesus to be god and for christians to associate jesus with god in order to get the idea of the divinity of love across to his audience, that is why he was sent, to be the exemplar of love. Similarly, in the quran, muhammad bashes this idea and speaks against allah taking a son and says no partners will be attributed to allah and then makes a statement which unifies the prophets under the same heading, honored servants. This was done in order to preserve the unity of god and thus, the central message of islam, that being unity. If jesus was not god in christianity, then his message, that of love and the divinization of love by attaching it to god through jesus, would not have been maximized the way it was supposed to be. Love wouldn’t flow as clearly through christ if christ was not turned into god and made one with him, thus, making love one with god. Similarly, this very same thing had to be denied in islam in order to make the unity of god shine strong and be completely exemplified through islam. If these denial of partners with god, even jesus, was not done, then Unity woudn’t flow as clearly through islam as it does now. That is why these religions look like they do and seem to deny each other, because christianity was created and formed in order to exemplify love the best way possible and islam was created and formed to exemplify unity the best way possible and in order to do this most effectively, in christianity, jesus as love incarnate had to be turned into God to divinize love so love would show most clearly through christianity, but this very same thing had to be denied in islam so that Unity could shine through clearest itself and thus divinized, turned into the main characteristic of God so that God could be linked in an inexorable (? Is that even a word and if it is did I use it the right way) unbreakable way to Unity. Do you understand what I’m saying. I don’t know exactly how judaism fits into this equation that I have created here, but maybe in the jews rejection of jesus we see them upholding their own standards of justice, which was the law, jesus came to fulfill the law but we see him breaking it on many occassions, by jewish standards, maybe if they would have accepted jesus that would have undermined their showing the world Justice because they would have been breaking their own law which was Justice to them. I will have to do more research into this, but I think it may have some validity to it. I don’t’ know how it relates to islam, but the two are so damn similar anyways maybe it doesn’t really need to relate to it. I will have to think more about all of this, but I guess since christ symbolized love and islam symbolized unity by judaism accepting any of these would have undermined it’s own commitment to justice. I don’t see this as clearly as I see the above distinction, but I think it is there nonetheless. And of course, I get to the third page and my writing turns cold, I don’t know why I can only write three pages of material and it seems never more and mostly never less. I don’t know who you are reader who is most comfortable with three pages, but I cannot write more or less for your sake, so I hope you appreciate my inability to not have a 3 page writing, because I really have nothing else to say. I do wish I had a cigarette, but I have the 2 week flu and that wouldn’t be good for me anyways. I wonder if I will send this to jan and or alex, I don’t’ know, maybe, maybe I will, get their opinion on it. We’ll see.