Simple guides to the Abrahamic faiths.
Cassiel C. MacAvity
Borrowing from elsewhere and then filling in the rest . . . .
https://corthodoxy.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/abrahamic-religion-as-a-trilogy is that original location, and also see below.
Think of the Abrahamic faiths as a series of movies.
The Torah is the first one, and the Christian Testament the sequel.
Then the Qu'ran comes out, and it retcons the last one like it never happened. There's still Jesus, but he's not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn't shown up yet.
Jews like the first movie but ignore the sequels.
Christians think you need to watch the first two, but the third movie doesn't count.
The Muslims think the third one was the best.
Mormons liked the second one so much, they started writing fanfiction that doesn't fit with ANY of the series canon.
A bit in parallel, there is the Pure Land Buddhism movie, easily called Buddhianity. In Buddhianity, we see that second movie appear to wander 2.500 miles to the east and get exotic. The movie script does some assorted plot changes and a complete change of character names, but overall, is definitely using the same basic script of that second movie.
After the Mormons, the Christian Scientists turned up.
For the Christian Scientists, all of the previous movies are just fictional fakes, and the actual movie is a documentary.
And finally, so far, there are the various and assorted forms of Satanism --- because, after all, just like the Muslims, the Mormons, and the Christian Scientists, Satanism is not a subsect of a non Abrahamic faith, so it is very definitely yet another very standard Abrahamic faith, complete with all the inter and intragenerational bickering.
For the Satanists, none of the movies are valid: Instead of a movie, what one does is free form, improvised, live theatre.
There is another set of observations . . . . that have been floating about somewhere, probably online elsewhere as well, by some point, noted by someone . . . at some point . . . :
Roman Catholics are Eastern Orthodox who flunked Greek.
Episcopalians/Anglicans are Roman Catholics who flunked Latin.
Presbyterians are Episcopalians with less money.
Methodists are Baptists who are allergic to water.
Pentacostals are theatre majors who flunked theatre and failed at stand up comedy.
Four great truths of the Abrahamic faiths:
1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's Chosen People.
2. Jews and Muslims do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
3. Eastern Orthodox and Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian church.
4. Muslims, Mormons, and Southern Baptists do not recognize fellow members of their respective faiths when together in a liquor store.
Ecumenical:
Regarding the open and public acknowledgment of the existence of both of the faiths; Lutheranism and Calvinism.
A copy of the original movie version:
Abrahamic Religion as a Trilogy
Joel at The Chruch of Jesus Christ posted this brilliant analogy, "How to Explain the Religions of Abraham to the Hollywood Generation":
Think of it like a movie. The Torah is the first one, and the New Testament the sequel. Then the Qu'ran comes out, and it retcons the last one like it never happened. There's still Jesus, but he's not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn't shown up yet.
Jews like the first movie but ignored the sequels. Christians think you need to watch the first two, but the third movie doesn't count. The Moslems think the third one was the best, and Mormons liked the second one so much, they started writing fanfiction that doesn't fit with ANY of the series canon.
Home/Index
© Cassiel C. MacAvity