When you hear someone espousing the importance of Judeo-Christian ethics, what exactly does that mean? The term “Judeo-Christian” seems like it’s become a synonym for “Western” or more specifically, “post-industrial American,” but really, how accurate is that?
Gene Expression posts that it’s a totally bogus term, since Judaism has a heckuva lot more in common with Islam that it does with modern Christianity. A moderate Muslim, Mr. Gene Expression throws down a highly informed history of the split between Orthodox and Reform Judaism and how abandoning much of the legalities of the Talmud allowed Jews to participate more fully in Western culture while retaining their religious and cultural identities. He predicts “there is a strong chance that in this century we will see a ‘Reform Islam’ coalesce in the West which is analogous to Reform Judaism, an adherence to a minimalist Koranically inspired religion which gives short-shrift to the relevance of the Hadiths in the modern world. In this way, there will be a dyad of Judeo-Christian-Islamic and Judeo-Islamic.”
Ultimately, he admits, it’s just about language, but unexpectantly subjective subject matter for a science blog, eh?