Hyposonic wrote:
<P =Msonormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Calibri">No offense Angela I find your post enlightening but also sad. With such a great being who possess unimaginable power we are still arguing about who is chosen. Why does God bless a certain people and not others? To me the Bible smells of ethnocentrism in my opinion.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN> |
I think there is a difference between blessings and supremacy. Those who are obedient to God earn rewards in this life and in the next. Sometimes those blessings are so great that they follow the family.
Father Abraham had two sons, each of those two sons have expanded to millions and millions of people. People who don't even know they are descended of Father Abraham.
Now, there is a saying in the Book of Mormon over and over again "Wherefore, if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day.'
Blessings are not permanent...they can be taken away if you fall from Grace. In the Book of Mormon, the children of Nephi are told that as long as they keep the commandments they will prosper, but if they fall, they will dwindle. Thus, when they fell into wickedness they were destroyed.
Abraham's blessings were that his sons would build great nations and be blessed, but if those children, Israeli or Arab fail to obey God, they don't receive those blessings.
Its not about racism. Prophets have been blessed over and over, but is it not the truth that with few exceptions most of the Prophets are of the line of Abraham. I mean, I would not be shocked in the least if Muhammed (pbuh) was a direct descendant of Ishmael.
However, does this mean that an Indonesian cannot earn blessings. No, of course not. He has the ability just like everyone else. God is not a racist. He created us all. The Bible however, does smack of racism. I will not deny that. The Bible has sexism all through it too. Books labelled heresy by the early church talked about early Christian teachers being women and referred to Mary Magdalene, Martha and the Other Mary as disciples with the same status as the men. But, when the writings were gathered to the "official" collection known as the Bible, it was by men. And we all know that humans are fallible.
None of this changes the fact that in the Talmud, Bible and Quran, the blessings are described has being on the descendants of Abraham and Isaac. 37:113 in the Quran, but I recently read this whole chapter and the blessings are described for other prophets too.
"The Chosen" is an arrogant claim. We are all called and chosen of God. Its our responsibily to answer that call and deserve to be chosen.