Famous Rebels of the World

Nowadays we hear of ridiculous, narrow-minded attitudes on the part of governmental leaders, who discriminate against citizens based on their religion, or distinguish themselves from other politicians or leaders of foreign nations who might be different people who go to churches unlike their own.

Unlike modern terrorists, Mohammed was not bent on rejecting Christians. He admired their faith and believed Jesus to have been a great prophet.

While Christians and Jews seem at odds many times (the Bible itself blaming the manipulations of the chief priests for Jesus' death sentence) it's obvious that Jesus himself believed completely in the Jewish faith. He often cited the Mosaic law and restricted his preaching almost exclusively to his fellow Jews.

Martin Luther, who led the Protestant departure from the Catholic church, was himself a devoted Catholic priest. He had no argument with his own Christian faith, but just the corrupt habits that had grown up into the church over the years.

It's possible that these three were more reformers than rebels.

While every faith has its own set of rituals and special beliefs, the common faith in God is the same. The more things change the more they are still the same seems to describe the differences across the primary religions followed by most people in the world today.

Mohammed had a tremendous respect for his predecessor Jesus. Mohammed had faith in the Old Testament Hebrew leader, Moses. So did Jesus and Martin Luther.

So why all the fighting? It's been proven that most homicides take place between family members or people who knew each other very well. We also note that politicians of the same political party seem more vicious in their verbal attacks against each other, when vying for the nomination for president, than later on when they compete against the other party's nominee. Fights between husbands and wives are so common that comedians have fertile ground for joking.

The same principle seems true in religion. Probably two devoutly religious people will get into a heated argument before either would bother to fight so emotionally with an atheist who is far distant on the spectrum of opinion. The more similar people are, the worse the fight.

Mohammed, Jesus, and Martin Luther never fought with each other verbally because they lived at different times (7th Century, 1st Century, and 16th Century). Being such great people, they wouldn't have fought anyway. It's a safe bet they would have supported and admired each other for the tremendous in God they all shared.