Re: How many Christians are there in America?

On May 6, 11:05=A0am, Old Toby <tobiasburmeis...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
> > I would have said that Muslims have a better claim to be Jews than to
be=

> > Christians, since they reject the divinity of Jesus. On the other
hand,
> > they believe in only one God and they accept the Jewish prophets as
> > legit. My impression is that Mohammed started out regarding himself as
a=

> > Jewish prophet and abandoned that only because the local Jewish tribes
> > wouldn't accept him as such.
>
> But they also believe Jesus is* the Messiah, IIRC. =A0

No, they don't. They believe he was a great prophet and they have some
ideas about the crucifiction that would curl the average Christian's
hair. But they don't believe he was the Messiah.

And they hold that
> the Koran is a perfect rendering of God's will, while the Torah is
> corrupted. =A0Neither of these is very Jewish.

That's true.

>
> More to the point, most Muslims are not of any traceable Jewish descent,
> nor have they converted to Judaism. =A0Judaism isn't defined by belief:
> one can agree 100% with Orthodox Jewish teaching and still not be a Jew
> (or disagree 100% and be a Jew).

One can also disagree with the Orthodox on what being a Jew means. But
I never thought Muslims were Jews. Some percentage of Palestinian
Muslims have Jewish ancestors. And it is probably a surprisingly large
percentage. Maybe the Law of Return should be based on genomics.

--
Will in New Haven