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Israel question (pg. 5)
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| Alccode |
Warning: off-topic post.
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e) You've been posting here for what, 3 days? Don't pretend that you know all of us and our political viewpoints in full.
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And being here for longer than 3 days makes you an "authority"? Everyone has to start somewhere. That does not mean they are "unqualified" or don't know what they're talking about. Please let go of the elitism. :)
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Man, I really don't like what you post in this forum. Very, very arrogant person you are when it comes to politics.
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DigiNut, I read igottaknow's original post and found no sign of arrogance. I read it again, just to make sure I didn't miss anything. The only thing that wasn't entirely accurate was, "most of the people who post here on a regular bases are pro-Israeli extremists". Most people who post here aren't "pro-Israel extremists", but they do exist. A few come to mind immediately. I'm sure this is what he meant.
The fact of the matter is that you are the one who is seemingly arrogant, in this thread at least:
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
Stopped reading right there. |
So despite what your own personal inclinations might be, you have no right to personally attack someone for voicing a question, especially in the Political Discussion forum (despite what the general trend seems to be :toothless).
I have to commend igottaknow for cool-headedly glossing over this personal attack.
Now... all of you, please continue with the actual discussion at hand... haha :eyespop: :crazy: |
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| igottaknow |
| quote: | Originally posted by anuneventrade
I too, was raised Jewish. However, my beliefs are not with Judaism. Simply because your entire family believes in one thing does not mean that you in turn, must also believe in the same thing. |
I think the whole idea of what it means to be Jewish is very nebulous. On the one hand you and Diginut say you were raised Jewish and now don't practice Judaism, so you don't consider yourself Jewish. On the other hand its also been said (I forgot by who) that Jewish ness is defined by your culture and genealogy, so you are Jewish whether or not you practice Judaism because its in your blood. I for example was raised Catholic and now I don't practice it anymore. It would be disingenuous of me to presume that I could change who I am by simply stopping to practice my faith or believing what I was taught. It's like a black person who wakes up one morning and decides he no longer is black. |
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| Alccode |
| quote: | Originally posted by igottaknow
I for example was raised Catholic and now I don't practice it anymore. It would be disingenuous of me to presume that I could change who I am by simply stopping to practice my faith or believing what I was taught. It's like a black person who wakes up one morning and decides he no longer is black. |
That's different. A black person is black by nature. Precisely because he can't simply wake up and decide not to be black, means that being black is a part of who he is.
On the other hand, you CAN decide to wake up one day and not be Catholic. Precisely because you are capable of "simply stopping" practicing your faith means that your faith is not a part of you; it's something extra that's been grafted onto you. This applies to Judaism as well. |
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| igottaknow |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alccode
That's different. A black person is black by nature. Precisely because he can't simply wake up and decide not to be black, means that being black is a part of who he is. |
I was just using that as a dramatic analogy; obviously you can't change your race by thought. My point is that how you were raised determines to large extent who you are. While I don't practice the rituals of Catholicism, a lot of the concepts are deeply ingrained in me, and still affect the way I view the world. To deny that the faith I was taught has no influence is silly. Back to the topic of the thread, 99% of people who are ardent defenders of Israel are Jewish or have been raised Jewish, even if they don't practice Judaism today. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by igottaknow
I think the whole idea of what it means to be Jewish is very nebulous. On the one hand you and Diginut say you were raised Jewish and now don't practice Judaism, so you don't consider yourself Jewish. On the other hand its also been said (I forgot by who) that Jewish ness is defined by your culture and genealogy, so you are Jewish whether or not you practice Judaism because its in your blood. I for example was raised Catholic and now I don't practice it anymore. It would be disingenuous of me to presume that I could change who I am by simply stopping to practice my faith or believing what I was taught. It's like a black person who wakes up one morning and decides he no longer is black. |
Did you read my post, though? The point is that the genealogy is in itself based on a religious belief... we have no evidence of there being a real "Jewish" genealogy and in fact it wouldn't make sense at all in some cases (like when both your parents converted to Judaism?). It's just a belief, like any other belief.
I really think I explained all of this earlier so please read my posts at the top of this page.
Incidentally, using a false analogy for the sake of drama doesn't really prove anything. It's not even true that all Blacks believe they share a common lineage, let alone thinking they could change their skin colour.
Surely, if a Jew got baptised and was "officially" converted to Christianity, you would not still consider her/him to be a Jew? So what's the difference between that person and the one who rejects religion entirely and chooses to be an atheist? I'd say that the vast majority of Christians in the world had Jewish ancestors thousands of years ago, but you don't call them Jewish.
I also am not impressed by your generalization of 99% of defenders of Israel being born or raised Jewish. Where did you get that statistic? Prove it! Stop trying to defend your position by making generalizations about the people who oppose it. |
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| Cyrus King |
| quote: | Originally posted by Flotser
there are tons of historical proves that jews from different parts of the world are all originally from Israel & Middle East.
but another very interesting thing is....i'm not an expert, but there are many reaserches showing DNA relation between Jews, or for example between the "Cohen's"(a common jew family name) around the world. other show DNA relations between jews around the world and Mid-East society.
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html |
Im sorry
I just dont find that convincing enough
I think a polish Jew is the exact same as a chirstian Pol. There is hardly a genetic difference in this respect becuase they are the same race, but just have different faiths.
Also, its hard for me to beleive that these traits signify "jewishness" when in fact, there must have been some time where throughout the centuries someone converted.
In Eastern Europe, there was a time period when an influx of Jews started to exponentially grow and that wasnt becuase they were producing more children, that was theoritically impossible to beleive seeing the growth rate was higher than the birh rate.
So therefore, i beleive many eastern European people converted in the middle ages during the rule of the Khazars in Khazaria along with the mixed race marriages between eatern euros. |
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| biznology |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
Spanish Inquisition? But anyway, it's early in the morning and I'm not going to google for a timeline of persecution, but let's for the sake of argument assume that you're right and that all the persecution happened between the 19th-21st centuries (again, this is just hypothetical, for the sake of argument):
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That isnt what I said, though perhaps I inferred something else, as the prime reason and materialization for Israel came in the 20th Century, after WWII. That is where most people draw evidence for the need for a Jewish state.
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Even so, you haven't presented any evidence of other religions being persecuted anywhere before the 19th century. You're merely *assuming* that it happened in order to trivialize the persecution of the Jews. Show me evidence that any historical religion has been persecuted as much in the past 2000 years as the Jews have in the past 150 years and you may have a case for me to listen to. And incidents involving one religion performing a mass conversion or slaughter of EVERY other religion don't count, because I'm referring to incidents that specifically target ONE religion.
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My main goal for posting here in the Political Forum is just to trivialize the persecution of the Jews! You got me! Damn now I can just go out and say the Holocaust never happened!
-end sarcasm-
What?
Why would you assume something like that just for the sake of argument? I am just trying to discuss the issue, while you apparently want it to be a zero-sum game. Why am I not allowed to question the true amount of persecution worldwide amongst other religions if you yourself cannot provide proof that Jews have been the most persecuted? Again, I think in every part of the world, every 'group' however that is labelled has been persecuted in some way or another.
One clear example materialzed in 1992 Bosnia where the beliefs of Croats and Serbians (both 'Christian' if there is to be no specifics here) turned not against each other, but to their collective history and Bosnians, Muslims with supposedly 'ancient', Turkish roots for extermination. Yet those people were largely similar to the Croats and Serbs, they simply chose to convert at some point under the Ottoman Empire - they didnt come in to maraud against the other two groups.
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Cyrus asked how a Moroccan Jew is the same as an Eastern European Jew. Again, I've stated that it is because they feel they share a common lineage, and it is entirely possible that they do (and obviously, by this definition, they would share some genetic characteristics too, although it's immaterial in this case what characteristics those are).
But in the absence of sound medical evidence linking my genealogy to that of Jews 50000 miles away, I personally see that "lineage" belief as stemming from the religion itself, and since I'm an atheist, I don't believe in any of this. I'm maybe 1/16th Polish and 1/32 German too, but those figures are both immaterial to me and I wouldn't call myself either one.
So can I realistically be called Jewish even though I don't hold any Judaic beliefs and don't share any particular cultural values with those of Jews around me (any moreso than I share values with the Christians and Hindus and Arabs around me)? I would have to say no. Do I get "labelled" as Jewish because my parents were Jewish? If my parents were police offers does that make me a police officer? Jews believe that race comes from the mother and that if their mother was Jewish, so are they - how does this apply to me if I've systematically rejected the entire religion?
Again, I will say that the only place I can remember the "by blood" classification being popular is in Nazi Germany, where they said that if your grandfather was Jewish, so were you, regardless of who you were or what you believed or even what your parents were. |
Jus Sanguinis still lives on in the German citizenship today. It didnt die out with Nazi Germany, and its just an opposite form of citizenship from the more 'ideal' justaposition of France's civil citizenship.
It may not be used to persecute Jews, yet I dont really see why this is referenced again and again as the main persecution of Jews when Soviet Russia killed just as many. And remains a harshly judgemental society towards Jewish people. |
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| igottaknow |
| But Cyrus, you can't prove they didn't all have the same jewish soul :p |
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| Cyrus King |
| quote: | Originally posted by igottaknow
But Cyrus, you can't prove they didn't all have the same jewish soul :p |
looooooooool |
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| anuneventrade |
| quote: | Originally posted by igottaknow
I think the whole idea of what it means to be Jewish is very nebulous. On the one hand you and Diginut say you were raised Jewish and now don't practice Judaism, so you don't consider yourself Jewish. On the other hand its also been said (I forgot by who) that Jewish ness is defined by your culture and genealogy, so you are Jewish whether or not you practice Judaism because its in your blood. I for example was raised Catholic and now I don't practice it anymore. It would be disingenuous of me to presume that I could change who I am by simply stopping to practice my faith or believing what I was taught. It's like a black person who wakes up one morning and decides he no longer is black. |
The whole point of religion and faiths is to believe what you feel in your heart. You cannot be *forced* to be one type of religion. DigiNut and I saw face to face as we grew up the faith of Judaism, and rejected it. Neither of us thought that what we really felt was true laid along the lines of Judaism. So we quit practising. He found out he's agnostic, I on the other hand am something completely different.
You have to realize, that throughout history people converted to different religions, this is what made different religions. I've had plenty of people tell me that by birth I'm still Jewish and because I was raised Jewish, I have to be Jewish. This is not true.
Cyrus King, you make a good point about the fact that there isn't any actual genetic differences between a christian Polish person and a Jewish Polish person. |
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| igottaknow |
| quote: | Originally posted by anuneventrade
The whole point of religion and faiths is to believe what you feel in your heart. You cannot be *forced* to be one type of religion. DigiNut and I saw face to face as we grew up the faith of Judaism, and rejected it. Neither of us thought that what we really felt was true laid along the lines of Judaism. So we quit practising. He found out he's agnostic, I on the other hand am something completely different. |
I'm not saying you can't decide not to follow the faith you were raised to believe. I don't think it’s an outlandish idea that how we're raised affects our outlook on the world. In this case I'm saying that passionately support for Israel isn't something you stumble upon, it comes from being raised Jewish. Is that so hard to accept that people who vehemently defend and support Israel, a Jewish State, would be Jewish or raised Jewish? |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by biznology
Why would you assume something like that just for the sake of argument? I am just trying to discuss the issue, while you apparently want it to be a zero-sum game. Why am I not allowed to question the true amount of persecution worldwide amongst other religions if you yourself cannot provide proof that Jews have been the most persecuted? Again, I think in every part of the world, every 'group' however that is labelled has been persecuted in some way or another. |
I don't understand the difficulty of this. You yourself conceded that the Jews have been highly persecuted from the 19th to 21st centuries. I am merely asking you to provide evidence of your belief that other religions have [potentially] been equally persecuted throughout history. That's all - I'm not arguing with your right to question my statement, just asking you to present some sort of evidence that would support your objection. Otherwise, it's just speculation, is it not?
| quote: | | Jus Sanguinis still lives on in the German citizenship today. It didnt die out with Nazi Germany, and its just an opposite form of citizenship from the more 'ideal' justaposition of France's civil citizenship. |
You yourself refer to it as a form of citizenship - if that is the way they handle citizenship then that is up to them, but it cannot be equally applied to a globally scattered group of people who share nothing but a religion or perhaps a set of values.
I think Cyrus King is closest to the wavelength that I'm on here. The only difference I see between a Jewish American and a Christian American is their religion. If they want to believe, as part of their religion, that other members of their religion share similarities beyond this - if they want to accept this on faith without any real evidence - then that's fine, I respect that faith, even though I personally think it's silly. But it's a spiritual belief and you can't tell them that it's false any moreso than you can tell them that there is no God.
I keep trying to explain this - I don't consider Jews to be a race or an ethnic group. I am merely trying to explain the nature of why so many Jews call themselves one. It's based upon faith and belief and shared values, that's all. |
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