On 12/30/2010 12:11 PM, wrote:
On Dec 30, 6:39 am, Ben wrote:
On 12/30/2010 2:59 AM, Brian Smith wrote:



"Ben wrote in message
...
On 12/29/2010 3:20 PM, Helroy wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

snip
I wonder where Rahul and Mohammed are? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Most likely India.

Well, Rahul IS a popular name in India, but Mohammed is as uncommon as the
small Muslim minority there. It was Mohammed's name that left me guessing
as to country of origin... Ben

Muslims make up about 13.4% of India's population and given that India now
has about 1.2 billion people it's not like there wouldn't be millions of
Mohammed's in India. India has the third largest Muslim population in the
world.

Brian

Aha! Thank you. The decades of fighting with Pakistan over Kashmir led
me to the false conclusion that Muslims were a smaller minority. Why
can't we all get along? ... Ben

Hi Ben...I not sure how serious you are about an answer to your
question of why can't we all get along. This is so far off topic, but
I wondered that myself, so I some research a few years back. The three
Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are strong
monotheistic religions and being so makes them think that their view
of the Ultimate One is only true view even though the three religions
evolved from the descendants of the same source--Abraham. However,
compared to Judaism, Christianity and Islam are new religions, with
Christianity being an offshoot of Judaism beginning around the 1st
century.

Ironically prior the 3rd century (Islam came much later about the 7th
or 8th Century), there were many flavors of monotheism, most notably
the Christian Gnostics who believed that mainstream Christians
worshiped a minor god and the Gnostics themselves worships the one
true God. The Christian Gnostics claimed to have a secret knowledge
of the one true God. To confuse things even more, two early Church
fathers, Clement and Origen were Platonists with a strong mystical
orientation. Origen works were later condemn as heresy and his works
burned by the early Church in the 5th century.

Prior to the rise of Christianity in the third and fourth centuries,
mainstream religions in the Roman empire got along without fighting
one another. After the emergence of orthodox Christianity in the 4th
and 5th centuries, people began to lose their lives over the issue of
religions.

When Islam was found around the 8th century things even got more
heated. There is some idea that Muhammad was actually a Christian
monk before he had a revelation from God that led to Islam.

There is so much that has gotten lost in history.

Sorry for the off topic!

Larry



Yep, and millions of lives have been lost due to the actions of the
followers of their own true and wonderfully benevolent gods. There is
some irony here somewhere... Ben