Tim Blair

After reading some other questions posed to the Imam I wonder how these people cope every day with making decisions about their lives. (It is against the Muslim religion to charge interest, it is considered usury - I don't think they pay taxes, either, which may explain why so many Muslims live as poor peasants.)

Usury is not permitted by the Christian religion either, which is why money lenders were traditionally Jewish.

And god hates shrimp.

Now if they can only find an authority for e-mailing a suicide bomb.

Michael, I'm a Christian, but I give it up to ya for finding that site. I haven't laughed like that in a while. A classic.

Probably getting a bit off topic, but I'm fairly certain most of the 'Christian' injunctions against usury are in the Old Testament, as indeed are the requirements not to eat shrimp. Along with the 'nasty' stuff that most people quote when they want to indicate their disdain of the Bible.

The quotes about usury must be taken in context... they often refer to not charging interest to a *poor* brother, not charging excessive interest and so forth. As for 'Jewish money lending practices' (which of course, by definition, Jews are guided only by the Old Testament rather than the New...) they could quite easily be justified by Deuteronomy 23, where it basically says you can charge foreigners what you want, as long as you don't charge your own brother.

There's a strong argument that those food laws were quite specific because of, for example, the well known prevalence of parasites in pork in unclean conditions (and quite coincidentally, I am eating pork for tea as I write!). The Bible makes a big deal of eating healthily, and that probably explains a lot of the injunctions against certain foods which were very understandable for that time in Israel's history. cf 'body is a temple' stuff elsewhere in the Bible.

To my somewhat limited understanding, the coming of Jesus (and hence the New Testament) reflected a new covenant with ALL of mankind (not just Israel) for all time. Yes, Jesus did say something along the lines of 'don't think that I come to abolish the Law' (meaning, abolish the Old Testament) but of course he actually did... cf how an eye for an eye was transmuted to resist not evil.

But open to further enlightenment? Cheers.

"Probably getting a bit off topic, but I'm fairly certain most of the 'Christian' injunctions against usury are in the Old Testament
..."

This is true.

Makes me laugh when I hear people (misguided) defend our Capitalistic system using the Bible. Or, people who claim to live their lives by the Entire Bible.

They usually leave out many of the dietary and monetary laws .. especially the law of the Jubilee year (all debts erased once every 50 years).

Note: I'm a Christian who sees no problem with living in a Capitalistic system. Not saying that I think all things about Capitalism are great, it's just that I don't claim this system is blessed from the Bible.

"and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best"

That's an adorable line!

Allah Ta'ala bo-ballah
Banana-fana-fo-fallah...

As our Christian brothers say, love the line, hate the "song".