Posted by Dawud on July 01, 2101 at 23:28:58:

In Reply to: Re: Converting from "newer" religions to "older" posted by anon on July 01, 2101 at 21:12:12:

By "radical" I just mean, a lot of change happening very quickly. For example, in the last century or so the Babi/Baha'i strain of the Islamic tradition has changed a whole lot, while the rump 12-er Shi'i strain has changed only moderately. (Fear not, "radical" doesn't have to involve bomb-throwing.) Hence the "Family Feud" between them! (Ugh! Sorry.)

Christians might well feel they have more in common with Judaism than with Islam. To begin with there's the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament, which Islam reformulates. And I understand one of the things some rabbis look for--to make sure it's not a motivation for conversion--is Christians who want to become Jewish because that's what Jesus was. (In my view that's misleading. Judaism as we know it, centered around rabbis and synagogues rather than a temple cult and popular spirituality, is MORE RECENT than Christianity as we know it, and both are different from what Jesus would have experienced or founded.)

Just because Islam or the Baha'is recognize Jesus etc. does not necessarily let them partake of the elements of other religions that attract people. For instance, the Baha'is have taken almost nothing from Buddhism except the name. Similarly Jewish tradition gets distorted into something with a founder or two (Abraham, Moses, maybe Adam or Enoch) that should have switched gears with Jesus, rather than a more or less continuous tradition of prophetic inspiration.

Sometimes when you add something to a religion, its followers see the result as watering down the religion. Regular Christians reject the Qur'an for much the same reason that they reject the Book of Mormon--because both of them go in directions that are foreign to traditional Christianity as they understand it. You could argue the point, but it's not something that can ever be objectively decided without using a Star Trek tricorder (one of whose three functions is to essentialize religions...and the Price of essentializing Is never Right!).

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