Excerpts

When I decided to write this book, my intention was not to undermine faith. I recognized that tens of thousands of years ago man already felt the need to construct a representation of a higher power to which he would willingly submit. Believing in something collective and unifying is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. This book is not an attempt to contradict this notion, but rather to develop a deeper understanding of it.

My aim is to offer renewed scrutiny and focus on the continuing legacy of fear and hatred among the world's three Abrahamic faiths. Shouldn't fear alone be enough to create cohesion among the faithful? Fear of the unknown, of the other, of solitude, of helplessness, of pain, or of death? Hatred is not a natural instinct. Hatred is taught, encouraged, and directed.

The Bible is replete with instances of God sowing revenge, enmity, murder, and random killings. The Jewish God is a vengeful, terrible God, who repeatedly condones cruelty toward humanity. Unhappy with his creation, he ruthlessly drowns every human being and creature except for Noah, his family, and a pair of animals from each species.

Sometime later, he condemns two communities Sodom and Gomorrah-to terrible deaths by fire and brimstone. And this is only the beginning of the biblical carnage.

Christianity did not invent evil; it improved on Judaism's atrocities, inflicting violence and painful death upon hundreds of millions-Jews, fellow Christians and others alike--when they did not agree with its edicts. Its dogma does not, however, demand that all Jews be destroyed. Instead, the Christian ideal calls for the Jews' continued existence so that they may witness the second coming of Christ and recognize Jesus as their Messiah.

Islam has further outdone and expanded upon the evil already in progress. Its sacred text, the Hadith, states that the Day of Judgment will not come "until the Muslims fight and kill all the Jews and as to the Jews that hide behind trees and rocks, these trees and rocks will cry out O Muslim, slave of Allah, a Jew is hiding behind me, come and kill him."

How much longer will the leaders of the Abrahamic-based religions believe that they can continue to mislead the faithful who are ever better educated -and in this information age- better informed?

The major Eastern religions and philosophies--Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and others-continue to thrive in peace. …

Needless to say, the Bible is here to stay. The survival of the Abrahamic religions will only be possible if kinder, more enlightened interpretations and fundamental reforms are adopted.

Use a text section to describe your values, show more info, summarize a topic, or tell a story. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore.

Without any form of cohesion, the Jews of present and future generations may well lose sight of the beauty contained in their own beings--instead, falling prey to divisive minutiae. They must then ask themselves: if the Jews become incapable of holding a space for collective pride amongst themselves, how will they be able to draw meaning from their pasts? If the intra-faith dialogue, or lack thereof, continues as before, then the Jews are destined to lose sight of their biblical promise to improve the world.

This book is not merely a catalog of the prejudice and scapegoating that the Jews have faced since time immemorial. Woven into the fabric of each event described here are those qualities that have allowed the Jews to successfully face these challenges and persevere.

A lack of unity does not only threaten Jewish cohesion; it also threatens the present and future good that the Jews can-and should-do. At the end of the day, this may be the greatest risk of all.

Should the Jews lose a war, it would be their last. It would mean their destruction. No Jewish leader has ever said or even thought that the Palestinians should be physically destroyed. The Jewish moral code would never allow hurting innocent people. The Jews want to survive. The Christians and the Muslims want the Jews under the sole of their sandals or dead. Does anyone wonder why the lews need, demand, must have, and will only feel safe in their own country with defensible borders?

The United Nations was once a ray of hope for Jews everywhere.

Now, most believe that the United Nations is going the way of the League of Nations-into oblivion. Corrupt itself and tolerant of corrupt, cruel, totalitarian regimes, the UN has -if it ever had-no ethical or moral foundation. The Catholics and the Muslims have beacons and lighthouses; The Jews do not. Millennia have taught that no one-not an individual nor an organization, not even the politically unstable, physically fractured, religiously divided, and military-dependent Israel- has the Jews'