In a recent post, Treppenwitz shared his conviction that Islam “is a modern, made up religion that flies in the face of all historical evidence, not to mention is incapable of coexisting with other faiths.”
Not surprisingly, there were some ruffled feathers in the wake of Trep’s disclosure. The ruffled individual asked for clarification about what makes Islam “made-up” and Judaism “authentic.” No one else responded, so I wrote out my own thoughts on the matter in a comment:
My rule of thumb regarding religion is as follows: 1) beware any religion whose main revelatory experiences were by lone individuals; 2) beware any religion that views everyone else as the enemy, the Infidel, or says everyone else must convert or die/burn in hell; 3) beware any religion that encourages suffering, poverty, fatalism, or martyrdom; 4) beware any religion that has two standards of justice, one for believers and another for everyone else; and 5) beware any religion where belief is more important than behavior, scholarship, personal responsibility, and the sanctity of life. (Kind of narrows it down, don’t it?)
While I vigorously defend anyone’s right to follow the religion of their choice, I have personally never understood the appeal of Christianity or Islam. Without getting into hair-splitting detail, they have seemed to me to be punitive in nature, unforgiving of dissent, war-mongering, and theologically insubstantial. The image of Christians torturing Jews to get them to convert or burning one another for heresy, of Muslims slaughtering Jews for sport, and Christians and Muslims clashing over possession of Jerusalem, killed any interest I could have had in them long ago. I know there’s much more to each of them than these sordid chapters of their histories, but I’m just not that into it.
When I decided to give Judaism a serious crack, I couldn’t help but be impressed. Don’t have to be Jewish to have a portion in the world to come? Check. Value of human life same for non-Jews as for Jews? Check. Primary importance on behavior rather than faith? Check. Belief that poverty, disease, unhappiness and suffering are bad? Check. Belief that we are responsible for our own behavior, and have the power to change ourselves and the world for good? Check.
Guess I’m set.
Shimshonit 
Overall, I agree with what you say above. But many of the elements you criticise are nevertheless part of Jewish tradition, and some people decry the more lenient paths as following Western civilization over ‘Torah True” values.
Value of human life same for non-Jews as for Jews?
As late as the time of the Mishneh Berurah, many great poskim forbade violating Shabbat to save a non-Jews life. The legal mechanism for allowing it is that we are afraid of retaliation if we don’t save them rather than basing it on any implicit value to the life of a non-Jew. Rejoicing in one’s enemy’s death is prohibited if the enemy was a Jew but permitted if he is a non-Jew.
Primary importance on behaviour rather than faith? Most poskim will say any educated Jew who does not believe in the 13 ikkarim has no share in the world to come. A big part of the conversion crisis is based on the idea that the ger did not accept the yoke of heaven.
Belief that poverty, disease, unhappiness and suffering are bad. Much more true than not, but in the modern era many rabbis believe that poverty is an acceptable cost for the isolation necessary to maintain a torah true lifestyle. Also, Pirke Avot says
This is the way of Torah:
You eat bread with salt and “drink water by measure” (Ezek 4:11);
You sleep on the ground and live a life of pain and you toil with the Torah.
If you do this: “You shall be happy and it will be well with you” (Ps 138:2).
“You shall be happy…” : in this world;
“and it will be well with you”: in the world to come.
Larry: Thanks for your comments. Your knowledge of the sources is probably better than mine, and I know there are subtleties about saving the life of a Jew, but the midrash on the Exodus has Hashem chiding the angels for rejoicing at the destruction of the Egyptians, and many Jews interpret that (correctly or not) to mean that Jews also should not gloat at others’ misfortune. That’s what I was referring to. While I’m aware of the importance of Maimonides’s Thirteen Principles, practically speaking, most Jews are more interested in how you conduct yourself than the nature of your beliefs. (And the conversion crisis, in many cases, rests on much more frivolous accusations than not accepting these ikkarim.) And it is also written (sorry I can’t recall where exactly) that Jews are supposed to work, not sit all day and learn at others’ expense (an issue that affects Israelis more than Americans). I see that isolationism and acceptance of poverty as minhag, so to speak, rather than halacha.
Well, as I’m living in a country with a long catholic tradition
(which, by the way, does NOT mean that the majority of the people follow the Church’s ideas.. actually, as weird as it always appears to foreigners, only a tiny minority here is formed by church-goers and people living a “catholic” lifestyle)
I have to disagree about two points:
the theological insubstantiality of Christianism, and the value of life for christians and non-christians alike.
Actually a big portion of the catholic “palatability”, for those who feels that, stands in its universality (well, it means something that “katholikos” means universal in greek).
I don’t want to go any lenght about relations between pristine Christianism and the ideas of Hillel and Gamliel, anyway, the christian (and especially Orthodox and Catholic christian) idea is the salvation is for everyone; i.e., every human life has the very same value.
But it was also this universal ideal of salvation that lead to forced conversions (an enormous number, here in Italy: if someone says that every italian has a jew ancestor, would not be far from the truth), religion wars etc.
But then again, christian theology is extraordinarily subtle and varied, such that also a non-catholic like me should admire from a purely intellectual point of view.
The ideas of Faith being more important than behavoir is typically Protestant, and as you know it was one of the causes of the distinction between protestants and catholics:
for the catholics, it’s faith AND behavior that lead together to salvation, but according to them also people of good behavior, that for sound reasons had not the possibility to appreciate the “right faith”, would be saved nonetheless;
this means also that catholicism has a single standard of justice, for believers and non believers alike.
Well, I guess I sound like the catholics’ lawyer here, but I believe that things must be put in right perspective in order to have a serious and interesting talk. ;)
Ciao!!