This week in REAL antisemitism

"no absolutes", except the starvation of innocent children. You and the other Islamophobic bigots on this board ABSOLUTELY support this particular form of genocide.
“Islamophobia” is a weird word. It implies criticism of Islam is irrational. Islam, like all religions should be rigorously critiqued and criticized.
 
Even if they are well read, Christians have a hard time understanding Judaism since it’s a whole culture that is very difficult from Christian culture and the Jewish religion is studied via debate and argument not absolutes.
I think Judaism was well understood. What isn't understood as much is that Christianity was the majority religion in the Middle East for around 300 years, clearly, and arguably close to 400–600 years if you include the transitional centuries afterward, when Christians were still the plurality in many provinces under early Islamic rule, which didn't occur until the 7th Century.
 
Hel_Books said:
Perhaps you do know more about Judaism than Christopher Hitchens, perhaps not. He was a very well-read man. His arguments in God is not Great are quite cogent. For example, his discussion of religion imposing rules that are impossible to follow and then punishing those who fail to measure up has an excellent example in the commandment forbidding "coveting" (envy). Imagine being punished for wishing you owned an expensive pair of shoes, like she does! As for Jesus being the Messiah (or not), obviously Jews and Christians, reading the same scripture, find different answers to that conundrum. I'd just as soon ignore their pointless arguments.

Even if they are well read, Christians have a hard time understanding Judaism since it’s a whole culture that is very difficult from Christian culture and the Jewish religion is studied via debate and argument not absolutes.
On the other hand, there are plenty of Jewish people who haven't studied their religion very much, just as there are "Christmas and Easter Catholics" and Moslems whose faith is limited to bend-over-display-rump-to-heaven-agree-with-imam. Hitchens gives a cogent explanation for how Religion Poisons Everything that I don't hear anyone disputing except by saying, "Oh, he's not a <fill in the blank with your chosen religion> so he doesn't understand how my faith is different from the others!"
 
On the other hand, there are plenty of Jewish people who haven't studied their religion very much, just as there are "Christmas and Easter Catholics" and Moslems whose faith is limited to bend-over-display-rump-to-heaven-agree-with-imam. Hitchens gives a cogent explanation for how Religion Poisons Everything that I don't hear anyone disputing except by saying, "Oh, he's not a <fill in the blank with your chosen religion> so he doesn't understand how my faith is different from the others!"
Judaism differs from Islam and Christianity in that it’s an ethnicity. Most of Judaism is just Jews following our traditions. We even wrote a song about it. There’s no penalty for not following them, no underlying hypostasis, no expectation for non-Jews to adopt them. Hitchens would know this if he actually bothered to learn about Jews instead of just lumping us in with the Muslims and Christians.
 
Judaism differs from Islam and Christianity in that it’s an ethnicity. Most of Judaism is just Jews following our traditions. We even wrote a song about it. There’s no penalty for not following them, no underlying hypostasis, no expectation for non-Jews to adopt them. Hitchens would know this if he actually bothered to learn about Jews instead of just lumping us in with the Muslims and Christians.
There is also a different value system which applies only to Jews and isn’t expected of gentiles. These values are even instilled in non observant Jews (ie those non practicing and born of a Jewish mother.)
 
Judaism differs from Islam and Christianity in that it’s an ethnicity. Most of Judaism is just Jews following our traditions. We even wrote a song about it. There’s no penalty for not following them, no underlying hypostasis, no expectation for non-Jews to adopt them. Hitchens would know this if he actually bothered to learn about Jews instead of just lumping us in with the Muslims and Christians.
Now you're just being silly. This "ethnicity" stuff is like saying Christianity in the United States is an "ethnicity" because a lot of people hunt easter eggs and give presents on the Winter Solstice without thinking too much about the Sermon on the Mount or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

What did Hitchens say that you disagree with anyway?
 
Now you're just being silly. This "ethnicity" stuff is like saying Christianity in the United States is an "ethnicity" because a lot of people hunt easter eggs and give presents on the Winter Solstice without thinking too much about the Sermon on the Mount or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

What did Hitchens say that you disagree with anyway?
You are not understanding Being Jewish at all. Outside of Israel, Jews grow up in an alien culture, they are different from the day they are born, the way babies and children are raised and so on.
Hitches didn’t have a clue because he looked at Judaism as just another religion, it’s not. It’s a group of people who are connected by mitochondrial DNA, history, values, culture and tradition and that even before the actual religious aspects. They live differently than gentiles 24/7 not by choice but because that is what they know.
Why is Israel supplying food and water to the Gazans? Because they are Jews and to let them starve would be wrong by Jewish ethics, the same reason they supply water to other middle Eastern countries like Jordon which is 60% Palestinians.
Why did Israel hire Gazan workers despite their history with them? Because it is part of Judaism.
This is just a couple small examples.
Education- Jews will sacrifice whatever they need to do their children get the best education possible. This means going without new cars, nice houses, whatever. They do this because as Jews this is one of their responsibilities as parents. They will do whatever they can so their children don’t have to work while in university so they can concentrate on studying. If a Jewish child is unable to find work, they will create a family business to employ that child.
Then there is civil rights, in the 60s most of the civil right works who came from the north and went to help get out the vote in the south were Jewish. This is part of being Jewish, being aware and supportive of other people’s rights. If the 3 civil Rights workers who were killed in Mississippi that was document in the film Mississippi burning, 2 of them were Jewish and 1 was black. At least one of them left to Mississippi with full support of his wife and family, knowing the risks.
None of the above has to do directly with religion or Torah. However after 3000+ years some of Deuteronomy might have gotten instilled in the culture.
These are a small fracture of what it is to be culturally Jewish.
 
Hel_Books said:
Now you're just being silly. This "ethnicity" stuff is like saying Christianity in the United States is an "ethnicity" because a lot of people hunt easter eggs and give presents on the Winter Solstice without thinking too much about the Sermon on the Mount or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

What did Hitchens say that you disagree with anyway?

You are not understanding Being Jewish at all. Outside of Israel, Jews grow up in an alien culture, they are different from the day they are born, the way babies and children are raised and so on.
Hitches didn’t have a clue because he looked at Judaism as just another religion,
Again, I ask what did Hitchens say that you disagree with?
 
Again, I ask what did Hitchens say that you disagree with?
I already told you.
Of course atheism isn't some magic path. I wasn't claiming it is.

But the path of religion is . . . I'll quote Christopher Hitchen again:

“There are, indeed, several ways in which religion is not just amoral, but positively immoral. And these faults and crimes are not be found in the behavior of its adherents (which can sometimes be exemplary) but in its original precepts. These include:

1.) Presenting a false picture of the world to the innocent and the credulous.
2.) The doctrine of blood sacrifice.
3.) The doctrine of atonement.
4.) The doctrine of eternal reward and / or punishment.
5.) The imposition of impossible tasks and rules.”
None of Hitchens’ five precepts apply to Judaism.
 
Again, I ask what did Hitchens say that you disagree with?
I already told you.
Of course atheism isn't some magic path. I wasn't claiming it is.

But the path of religion is . . . I'll quote Christopher Hitchen again:

“There are, indeed, several ways in which religion is not just amoral, but positively immoral. And these faults and crimes are not be found in the behavior of its adherents (which can sometimes be exemplary) but in its original precepts. These include:

1.) Presenting a false picture of the world to the innocent and the credulous.
2.) The doctrine of blood sacrifice.
3.) The doctrine of atonement.
4.) The doctrine of eternal reward and / or punishment.
5.) The imposition of impossible tasks and rules.”

None of Hitchens’ five precepts apply to Judaism.
I posted Hitchens' reasoning on that subject earlier. Here it is again:

Christopher Hitchens wrote a well-researched book God is not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, in which he discussed all of these points. Judaism, like all religions, presents a false picture of the world, from the Noachian flood to the story of the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs (now known to archaeologists to be incorrect). As for "living in a community of other Jews," well, it appears the stresses and strains of Orthodox vs Conservative vs Reform are a result of the very "rules" each group reads into scripture. For the second point, Hitchens reminds us, "The curse of Abraham continues to poison Hebron, but the religious warrant for blood sacrifice poisons our entire civilization." Hebron, where Abraham was buried, was the site of the 1929 massacre of Jews by Muslims and the 1994 massacre of Muslims by a Jew. The two "Abrahamic" religions engaging in "blood sacrifice." Atonement is more of a Christian thing, but Hitchens was discussing all religions, which may differ in their details. Nevertheless, don't the Jews believe in a Messiah who is predicted to do what Jesus was claimed to have done, atone for all our sins? As for an afterlife, I believe there are differences of opinion among Jewish scholars, but surely the Jewish god punishes sinners, if not in the afterlife then in the here-and-now (Elisha, for example, torn apart by she-bears). The impossible rules are those that, for instance, forbid one from "coveting." Punishing someone for stealing is reasonable. Punishing someone for "impure thoughts" is bogus. It's a mechanism for making people feel they are evil merely for having fairly innocuous thoughts that they cannot suppress. Orwell spoke of "thoughtcrime," but he wasn't the inventor of the idea!

Is there anything above that you disagree with?
 
I posted Hitchens' reasoning on that subject earlier. Here it is again:

Christopher Hitchens wrote a well-researched book God is not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, in which he discussed all of these points. Judaism, like all religions, presents a false picture of the world, from the Noachian flood to the story of the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs (now known to archaeologists to be incorrect). As for "living in a community of other Jews," well, it appears the stresses and strains of Orthodox vs Conservative vs Reform are a result of the very "rules" each group reads into scripture. For the second point, Hitchens reminds us, "The curse of Abraham continues to poison Hebron, but the religious warrant for blood sacrifice poisons our entire civilization." Hebron, where Abraham was buried, was the site of the 1929 massacre of Jews by Muslims and the 1994 massacre of Muslims by a Jew. The two "Abrahamic" religions engaging in "blood sacrifice." Atonement is more of a Christian thing, but Hitchens was discussing all religions, which may differ in their details. Nevertheless, don't the Jews believe in a Messiah who is predicted to do what Jesus was claimed to have done, atone for all our sins? As for an afterlife, I believe there are differences of opinion among Jewish scholars, but surely the Jewish god punishes sinners, if not in the afterlife then in the here-and-now (Elisha, for example, torn apart by she-bears). The impossible rules are those that, for instance, forbid one from "coveting." Punishing someone for stealing is reasonable. Punishing someone for "impure thoughts" is bogus. It's a mechanism for making people feel they are evil merely for having fairly innocuous thoughts that they cannot suppress. Orwell spoke of "thoughtcrime," but he wasn't the inventor of the idea!

Is there anything above that you disagree with?
Goldstein's 1994 attack in Hebron was denounced by Jews worldwide. Hitchens uses the common antisemitic tactic of making all Jews liable for the evil actions of one of us. He does this so he can paint the Jews as engaging in "blood sacrifice". The Jewish Messiah is a Jew who will usher in global peace and prosperity and rebuild the ruined temple in Jerusalem. There's nothing about atonement, and obviously Jesus didn't qualify.

Hashem doesn't punish sinners in the afterlife. There is no punishment for violating the mitzvot, including those against coveting. What you (and Hitchens) are missing is that Judaism isn't transactional like Christianity, where good deeds get rewarded in the afterlife and bad deeds are punished. Jews follow the rules because why not? Goodness is its own reward.

All these errors could have been avoided if Hitchens had just sat down and chatted with a rabbi.
 
I posted Hitchens' reasoning on that subject earlier. Here it is again:

Christopher Hitchens wrote a well-researched book God is not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, in which he discussed all of these points. Judaism, like all religions, presents a false picture of the world, from the Noachian flood to the story of the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs (now known to archaeologists to be incorrect). As for "living in a community of other Jews," well, it appears the stresses and strains of Orthodox vs Conservative vs Reform are a result of the very "rules" each group reads into scripture. For the second point, Hitchens reminds us, "The curse of Abraham continues to poison Hebron, but the religious warrant for blood sacrifice poisons our entire civilization." Hebron, where Abraham was buried, was the site of the 1929 massacre of Jews by Muslims and the 1994 massacre of Muslims by a Jew. The two "Abrahamic" religions engaging in "blood sacrifice." Atonement is more of a Christian thing, but Hitchens was discussing all religions, which may differ in their details. Nevertheless, don't the Jews believe in a Messiah who is predicted to do what Jesus was claimed to have done, atone for all our sins? As for an afterlife, I believe there are differences of opinion among Jewish scholars, but surely the Jewish god punishes sinners, if not in the afterlife then in the here-and-now (Elisha, for example, torn apart by she-bears). The impossible rules are those that, for instance, forbid one from "coveting." Punishing someone for stealing is reasonable. Punishing someone for "impure thoughts" is bogus. It's a mechanism for making people feel they are evil merely for having fairly innocuous thoughts that they cannot suppress. Orwell spoke of "thoughtcrime," but he wasn't the inventor of the idea!

Is there anything above that you disagree with?
so you agree that we must nuke GAZA
 
Oh really?

You've called both me (and Zohran Mamdani) an "antisemite" on a number of occasions.

Yet when others use the term, you lecture them that "only a Jew" can call someone antisemitic.

And now......you're not a Jew but an "atheist"?

How curious.

The Literotica The Joke Is On You I'm Totally Not A Jew Club membership increases!
  • Lazaran
  • BrightShinyGirl
  • JustPlainJeff
  • HelBrook
you can never become a Jew. they should see your black heart
 
Hel_Books said:
I posted Hitchens' reasoning on that subject earlier. Here it is again:

Christopher Hitchens wrote a well-researched book God is not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, in which he discussed all of these points. Judaism, like all religions, presents a false picture of the world, from the Noachian flood to the story of the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs (now known to archaeologists to be incorrect). As for "living in a community of other Jews," well, it appears the stresses and strains of Orthodox vs Conservative vs Reform are a result of the very "rules" each group reads into scripture. For the second point, Hitchens reminds us, "The curse of Abraham continues to poison Hebron, but the religious warrant for blood sacrifice poisons our entire civilization." Hebron, where Abraham was buried, was the site of the 1929 massacre of Jews by Muslims and the 1994 massacre of Muslims by a Jew. The two "Abrahamic" religions engaging in "blood sacrifice." Atonement is more of a Christian thing, but Hitchens was discussing all religions, which may differ in their details. Nevertheless, don't the Jews believe in a Messiah who is predicted to do what Jesus was claimed to have done, atone for all our sins? As for an afterlife, I believe there are differences of opinion among Jewish scholars, but surely the Jewish god punishes sinners, if not in the afterlife then in the here-and-now (Elisha, for example, torn apart by she-bears). The impossible rules are those that, for instance, forbid one from "coveting." Punishing someone for stealing is reasonable. Punishing someone for "impure thoughts" is bogus. It's a mechanism for making people feel they are evil merely for having fairly innocuous thoughts that they cannot suppress. Orwell spoke of "thoughtcrime," but he wasn't the inventor of the idea!

Is there anything above that you disagree with?

Goldstein's 1994 attack in Hebron was denounced by Jews worldwide. Hitchens uses the common antisemitic tactic of making all Jews liable for the evil actions of one of us. He does this so he can paint the Jews as engaging in "blood sacrifice". The Jewish Messiah is a Jew who will usher in global peace and prosperity and rebuild the ruined temple in Jerusalem. There's nothing about atonement, and obviously Jesus didn't qualify.

Hashem doesn't punish sinners in the afterlife. There is no punishment for violating the mitzvot, including those against coveting. What you (and Hitchens) are missing is that Judaism isn't transactional like Christianity, where good deeds get rewarded in the afterlife and bad deeds are punished. Jews follow the rules because why not? Goodness is its own reward.

All these errors could have been avoided if Hitchens had just sat down and chatted with a rabbi.
Hitchens isn't saying that "all Jews" are liable for the actions of some Jews. He's saying religion entices "some" of the believers into actions any sane person would consider abhorrent, from the peri'ah metsitsah to the massacres of unbelievers.

All this clever talk about how Judaism is somehow "different" and not so much of a problem as "other" religions is just blowing smoke. Blowing smoke about "coveting" for example. Your scripture forbids it. That's item 5 in Hitchens' list:
5.) The imposition of impossible tasks and rules.

I suggest you read Hitchens' book.
 
So should Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar be looking over their shoulders, worried that you might be there with an assault rifle, ready to "take" them out?

Are you a man or a snowflake?
Only you and your kind believe in murder. I say we deport Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Gaza as they are ugly, nasty skanks
 
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