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Jesus is king:
Corporate media has nothing to do with conveying actual news and everything to do with using its platform to construct a narrative bearing little resemblance to reality–at least not yet. The reality is not to be discovered, it is to be fabricated.
Americans still love Christians, but they like Jews, too:
Well over a decade ago, a post entitled “Hispanic deluge bad news for Jews” ran here. As the post covered, it is foreign-born Hispanics who are relatively hostile towards Jews. Native-born Hispanics assimilate to the pro-Jewish aspects of American culture.
This battery of questions was presented for the first time in 2018, the most recent iteration of the survey. The respondent pool is thus consistent across all religious groups under evaluation. Though every group puts Christianity at the top and Islam at the bottom of the Abrahamic faiths, blacks put Jews further below Christians and closer to Muslims than members of other races do.
Few surprises regarding Muslims, though they are still viewed considerably more favorably than atheists are:
Hinduism and Buddhism are historically and culturally Asian. The latter has been appropriated by a contingent of Westerners, the former less so:
The Asian samples for these questions are small, in the thirties, so take their results as merely suggestive (albeit as expected).
Theism of all kinds beats atheism. Ever notice the conspicuous absence of an atheistic symbol on those gauche Coexist bumper stickers? Wiccans are represented. Godless heathens are not:
White liberals are modestly more favorably disposed to Jews and Buddhists than to Christians, but the preference for Christians over Muslims is… problematic:
White conservatives are as pro-Jewish as white liberals:
AIPAC isn’t a bipartisan organization by accident.
GSS variables used: CHRISTNS, MUSLIMS, HINDUS, BUDDHSTS, JEWS, ATHEISTS, RACECEN1(1)(2)(4-10), HISPANIC(1)(2-50), PARTYID(0-1)(2-4,7)(5-6), POLVIEWS(1-3)(5-7)
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I was under the impression that philo-Semitism rose, reached a peak, and is now on a decline in America. Is that a mistaken notion?
That said, my Boomer parents had a mix of positive and negative views about Jews, which I don't think I've ever heard anyone of my generation voice, except online. I feel like people of my generation are much less likely to have strong views on Jews one way or the other.
I’ve got a number of comments (so, good post, A.E.!), starting with the Moslem graph. It took me a minute to get the point of NET positive – more on this in another comment – so I just want to warn others (Talha!) about misinterpreting that red
barhorizontal line. That doesn’t mean R’s HATE HATE HATE Moslems, just that the average is neither positive nor negative. I don’t want Mr. Talha and friends voting D for the rest of their lives, or the end of this country, which will come first.Seriously, to explain this, there has been an over 20-year long (since pre-9/11) period in which all the narratives paint Moslems as the bad guys. That’s part of the reason for the low bars. The D’s want to signal their virtue and support the “Diversity is our Strength” crap, which is indicated in all these graphs. Of course, it’s mostly BS, as this coalition of the fringes (TM-Sailer) includes the gay pride and tranny pushers which the Moslems (rightfully, especially with respect to the latter) will not tolerate one bit.
I would agree with the (mostly) R’s that Islam is a religion that would completely change the country were it to get big. Many people such as myself, may not care for much of Islam besides the conservatism, regarding sex roles in particular, but we don’t hate the adherents. It’s just that this is one religion that, can not coexist(TM) as a significant minority with a Constitutional Republic… I mean, if we had one again.
I am the opposite. My only problem with Islam is the sex roles. Specifically modesty for women.Replies: @AnonStarter
Regarding the graphs themselves:
A) You’re gonna HATE HATE HATE me for this one, A.E., as you may rightfully ask WTH do you want here!? Of course it’s nice to see the graphs start at 0 (vertically), but, after I noted that the bars could go from -100% to +100%, it’d be nice if for comparison’s sake, they started at the lowest number that you have in all the data: ~ -25% or so? Or, just -100% to 100%, but that would squish most of the data, making it hard to read. Or, just leave them alone – I only mentioned this because it took me a bit to see that they could be negative at all.
I had to do some math in my head to see what the -19% (R’s attitude toward atheists) means: P will be a positive attitude, and N a negative attitude. P + N = 100%, P – N = -19%. Subtract the equations, and you get 2N = 119%, add ’em, you get 2P = 81% (or sub back in), so 59.5% with a negative attitude and 40.5% with a positive attitude. Even that’s not so bad. People are pretty tolerant in general and really don’t need bumper stickers to tell them to be more tolerant.
B) That damn yellow bar. I know, not your fault again, you work with the data you got. It’s just that in the particular case of religion, especially the Moslem graph, the difference between Asians of various types means EVERYTHING. Pakistan is in Asia. Their proportional share of the yellow will be maxed out. India’s and China’s share will be much lower.
In addition to positive or negative feelings, respondents could also answer that their feelings were neutral.
I wonder how Asians perceive the word “atheist.”
I can see it possibly encompassing mainstream religions (?) over there, where they don’t believe in a God, or gods, but nevertheless maintain traditions or have ceremonies, or else have informal animist beliefs.
Over here, I think atheism is generally thought of as something militant and revolutionary. Maybe, it is because of a few bad actors, but nevertheless that seems to be the perception.
Oh yippie, another religion/atheism debate. It’s starting to remind me of Japanese holdouts abandoned without communication on isolated Pacific islands. Somebody should tell them that the war’s over. Everybody lost. But action bias dies hard. It’s not uncommon for cancer patients, upon being told that medicine can do nothing, to turn to homeopathy, even when they had no inclination to psuedoscientific beliefs previously. Why? Well, you gotta do something, right? Anyone with half a brain can see that the real right, we’re losing. Idiots might think we’re winning because look at Trump’s tweet it totally triggered the libs, but people of even mild intelligence know that’s crap. So they want to “do something” and that means opening that dusty old book their granddad gave them and trying to navigate the poor writing.
I’ll start us off in the debate:
1. “Well, if people don’t believe in our irrational nonsense, they’ll believe in their irrational nonsense, we’ll get blue hair and transgenderism. Just compare Democrat-voters to Republican voters (N=2) and ignore the entire rest of the world.”
2. “Look at how based and red-pilled the church is in opposing homosexuality and transgenderism. Just ignore all the pro-immigration and “antiracist” stuff. Opposition to homosexuality must be at the center of our struggle!”
3. “Look at how the church is defending traditional gender roles!” [Read: the church wants men to continue to follow traditional gender roles, and women only when it’s convenient for them to do so.]
Atheists function as an Emmanuel Goldstein figure for the American right. They allow mainstream conservatives to direct the anger they have about mass immigration, thottery, and f@ggotry onto an acceptable target, one they won’t be de-platformed for attacking. In terms of actual behavior, they’d be far more worried if their daughter brought home a Black or a Muslim than a fedora-wearing atheist.
What about agnostics? I would imagine that an enormous chunk of the population is for all practical purposes agnostic. Possibly even the majority, if people were really honest with themselves.
I'll start us off in the debate:
1. "Well, if people don't believe in our irrational nonsense, they'll believe in their irrational nonsense, we'll get blue hair and transgenderism. Just compare Democrat-voters to Republican voters (N=2) and ignore the entire rest of the world."
2. "Look at how based and red-pilled the church is in opposing homosexuality and transgenderism. Just ignore all the pro-immigration and "antiracist" stuff. Opposition to homosexuality must be at the center of our struggle!"
3. "Look at how the church is defending traditional gender roles!" [Read: the church wants men to continue to follow traditional gender roles, and women only when it's convenient for them to do so.]Replies: @Curmudgeon
The Christian Churches were infiltrated a century ago. They have rotted from within. One could even argue Christianity has been all downhill since Thomas Aquinas died and didn`t complete Summa Theologiae.
I do recall that, particularly while growing up in the 90s, I used to hear Christians (usually Protestant, not necessarily Evangelical) say things like “Jews are God’s chosen people!” I even remember internalizing this thought at some point in my childhood. Now I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say this. Maybe my circles have changed some, but not that much.
That said, my Boomer parents had a mix of positive and negative views about Jews, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone of my generation voice, except online. I feel like people of my generation are much less likely to have strong views on Jews one way or the other.
What to make then of the fact that many (most?) Jews are really atheist (excluding the Haredim)?
Is perhaps the hate on atheists actually a hate by proxy on secular/militant Jews?
Otherwise it’s hard to explain the hate on atheists, unless it’s simply that religious people don’t ike unbelievers (and that most militant atheists are actually pretty annoying).
As for the love of Asians for Jews, they likely see Jews as the elite and they want to emulate them.
The love of Christians for Jews is likely because of protestantism (I bet Catholics have a slightly less positive view)
Re Asians, there was an article in either The Forward or the Jerusalem Post, years ago, to the effect that Chinese were very pro-Jewish because they liked the idea of making lots of money, and they had observed that Jews tended to be very good at that.
-- Party approval of U.S./European Judaism
-- Party approval of Israeli Judaism
One has to suspect that the Populist GOP drop off for Jews 50% vs. Christians 84% is due to the U.S. contingent of "non-observant Jews". SJW Globalist voices, such as Bernie Sanders and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, create less favorable GOP responses.
PEACE 😇Replies: @Fran Taubman
But I wonder how many ordinary people are sophisticated enough to notice that?
The problem with Jews in the West today is that they're not Jewish enough.
The other problem is that when Jews do reject their Jewish religious and cultural traditions they do so in spectacular fashion.
That seems to be the problem to a certain extent with Moslems and Hindus as well - when they abandon their religious and cultural traditions they tend to become strident and obnoxious SJWs.
Being a practical agnostic is not, IMO, inconsistent with the other identities.
I think people see agnosticism as more a condition than a bloc of people sharing a worldview.
Surveys give us a wildly exaggerated idea of how many Christians there really are in the modern world. That may have an effect on people's attitudes towards Christians (either positively or negatively), since they're often assuming that Christians are a huge proportion of the population (possibly a majority) when in fact they're a small minority.
This may lead some people to claim to view Christians positively because they think Christians are too numerous to risk offending, or it may lead some people to view Christians negatively since they assume that Christians have a lot more power than they actually have.
I don't think the AQ (Agnostic Question) can be glibly dismissed.
Whenever it came to filling out census forms and other official forms my parents used to dutifully record themselves as Christians. They did this all their lives. They were in fact such extreme agnostics as to be entirely indistinguishable from atheists. So for many decades official statistics and surveys have been painting an entirely false picture of religion in the West.
As to worldview, it's difficult to say what the worldview of most agnostics is since mot surveys entirely ignore their existence.Replies: @Sparkon, @West reanimator
barhorizontal line. That doesn't mean R's HATE HATE HATE Moslems, just that the average is neither positive nor negative. I don't want Mr. Talha and friends voting D for the rest of their lives, or the end of this country, which will come first.Seriously, to explain this, there has been an over 20-year long (since pre-9/11) period in which all the narratives paint Moslems as the bad guys. That's part of the reason for the low bars. The D's want to signal their virtue and support the "Diversity is our Strength" crap, which is indicated in all these graphs. Of course, it's mostly BS, as this coalition of the fringes (TM-Sailer) includes the gay pride and tranny pushers which the Moslems (rightfully, especially with respect to the latter) will not tolerate one bit.
I would agree with the (mostly) R's that Islam is a religion that would completely change the country were it to get big. Many people such as myself, may not care for much of Islam besides the conservatism, regarding sex roles in particular, but we don't hate the adherents. It's just that this is one religion that, can not coexist(TM) as a significant minority with a Constitutional Republic... I mean, if we had one again.Replies: @Jay Fink, @AnonStarter
“Many people such as myself, may not care for much of Islam besides the conservatism, regarding sex roles in particular”.
I am the opposite. My only problem with Islam is the sex roles. Specifically modesty for women.
Is perhaps the hate on atheists actually a hate by proxy on secular/militant Jews?
Otherwise it's hard to explain the hate on atheists, unless it's simply that religious people don't ike unbelievers (and that most militant atheists are actually pretty annoying).
As for the love of Asians for Jews, they likely see Jews as the elite and they want to emulate them.
The love of Christians for Jews is likely because of protestantism (I bet Catholics have a slightly less positive view)Replies: @Charlotte, @A123, @dfordoom, @Audacious Epigone, @Al Liguori
I used to read Jewish newspapers a lot; that taught me that many American Jews don’t see a contradiction between being an atheist and practicing the Jewish religion, much less being an ethnic Jew. However, that attitude is very hard for Christians to comprehend, and I doubt many Christians are even aware of it. I think the Christian dislike of atheists is derived from the most visible ones being, as you say, “pretty annoying,” and often high-profile apostates as well.
Re Asians, there was an article in either The Forward or the Jerusalem Post, years ago, to the effect that Chinese were very pro-Jewish because they liked the idea of making lots of money, and they had observed that Jews tended to be very good at that.
Is perhaps the hate on atheists actually a hate by proxy on secular/militant Jews?
Otherwise it's hard to explain the hate on atheists, unless it's simply that religious people don't ike unbelievers (and that most militant atheists are actually pretty annoying).
As for the love of Asians for Jews, they likely see Jews as the elite and they want to emulate them.
The love of Christians for Jews is likely because of protestantism (I bet Catholics have a slightly less positive view)Replies: @Charlotte, @A123, @dfordoom, @Audacious Epigone, @Al Liguori
It is too bad that the survey did not ask separate questions for:
— Party approval of U.S./European Judaism
— Party approval of Israeli Judaism
One has to suspect that the Populist GOP drop off for Jews 50% vs. Christians 84% is due to the U.S. contingent of “non-observant Jews”. SJW Globalist voices, such as Bernie Sanders and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, create less favorable GOP responses.
PEACE 😇
I had the same thought. For example, I bet a lot Chinese see Taoists and Confucians as “a-theist”, though Westerners would probably not categorize that way. But maybe somebody with more Far Eastern contact can say for sure.
In my experience, this “contingent of Westerners” is mostly middle aged+ white women with less-than-idyllic personal histories. Of those, many (most?) are Jewish. Actual dyed-in-the-wool born Buddhists bemusedly tolerate them, but don’t mistake them for real Buddhists.
barhorizontal line. That doesn't mean R's HATE HATE HATE Moslems, just that the average is neither positive nor negative. I don't want Mr. Talha and friends voting D for the rest of their lives, or the end of this country, which will come first.Seriously, to explain this, there has been an over 20-year long (since pre-9/11) period in which all the narratives paint Moslems as the bad guys. That's part of the reason for the low bars. The D's want to signal their virtue and support the "Diversity is our Strength" crap, which is indicated in all these graphs. Of course, it's mostly BS, as this coalition of the fringes (TM-Sailer) includes the gay pride and tranny pushers which the Moslems (rightfully, especially with respect to the latter) will not tolerate one bit.
I would agree with the (mostly) R's that Islam is a religion that would completely change the country were it to get big. Many people such as myself, may not care for much of Islam besides the conservatism, regarding sex roles in particular, but we don't hate the adherents. It's just that this is one religion that, can not coexist(TM) as a significant minority with a Constitutional Republic... I mean, if we had one again.Replies: @Jay Fink, @AnonStarter
It’s just that this is one religion that, can not coexist(TM) as a significant minority with a Constitutional Republic… I mean, if we had one again.
This view is based on a crucial presumption, namely, that the movers and shakers of the increasing Muslim population will necessarily move to implement Islam in such a way that is not consonant with federal constitutional republicanism. But such needn’t be the case.
One factor that would serve to forestall inclination toward an Abbasid style of government would be indigenous American ownership of Islam as the religion that gave birth to said republicanism in Medina. The most significant factor that made realization of it difficult was the necessity of the early Muslim polity’s constant defense against parties that sought its demise from the onset. Yet within one generation, where Islam held sway over erstwhile hostile terrain, we find evidence of its implementation — a heretofore unknown establishment of rights for those living under the aegis of the shari’ah.
Within another generation, it’s gone, the religion now an instrument of pretense and imperial ambition, the landscape occasionally revived by one bearer of water or another, yet yielding to a succession of increasingly fallow ground however much of the world the Muslims appear to claim for themselves.
The fatalistic vision of an ascendant Muslim America shuttering distilleries, closing beaches, and restricting web access is one that does not account for historical precedents in Islam for the protection of individual and collective liberty, likely due to unfamiliarity or unwillingness to become familiar with the totality of the subject at hand. If Americans insist on this vision, it’s likely to result in mutual antagonism between them and Muslims. If they’re willing to see an alternative path to precipitating and preserving comity with Muslims, then let’s start emphasizing the federalism that is the hallmark of Islam.
Is perhaps the hate on atheists actually a hate by proxy on secular/militant Jews?
Otherwise it's hard to explain the hate on atheists, unless it's simply that religious people don't ike unbelievers (and that most militant atheists are actually pretty annoying).
As for the love of Asians for Jews, they likely see Jews as the elite and they want to emulate them.
The love of Christians for Jews is likely because of protestantism (I bet Catholics have a slightly less positive view)Replies: @Charlotte, @A123, @dfordoom, @Audacious Epigone, @Al Liguori
That’s an interesting point. While I don’t buy the idea that Jews are responsible for all our problems it is certainly true that there are a lot of Jews involved in promoting globalism, political correctnessa and Wokeism. But the Jews that actually cause problems are invariably not only atheists, they are Jews who have actively rejected their entire Jewish religious and cultural tradition.
But I wonder how many ordinary people are sophisticated enough to notice that?
The problem with Jews in the West today is that they’re not Jewish enough.
The other problem is that when Jews do reject their Jewish religious and cultural traditions they do so in spectacular fashion.
That seems to be the problem to a certain extent with Moslems and Hindus as well – when they abandon their religious and cultural traditions they tend to become strident and obnoxious SJWs.
There may be some truth in that, but it does mean that surveys on religion are generally meaningless because a large proportion of people who identify as Christians are not Christians in any meaningful sense. Most agnostics are in practice atheists, they’re just slightly less bigoted atheists. But they are functionally atheists.
Surveys give us a wildly exaggerated idea of how many Christians there really are in the modern world. That may have an effect on people’s attitudes towards Christians (either positively or negatively), since they’re often assuming that Christians are a huge proportion of the population (possibly a majority) when in fact they’re a small minority.
This may lead some people to claim to view Christians positively because they think Christians are too numerous to risk offending, or it may lead some people to view Christians negatively since they assume that Christians have a lot more power than they actually have.
I don’t think the AQ (Agnostic Question) can be glibly dismissed.
Whenever it came to filling out census forms and other official forms my parents used to dutifully record themselves as Christians. They did this all their lives. They were in fact such extreme agnostics as to be entirely indistinguishable from atheists. So for many decades official statistics and surveys have been painting an entirely false picture of religion in the West.
As to worldview, it’s difficult to say what the worldview of most agnostics is since mot surveys entirely ignore their existence.
You’re really living up to your name with that comment! 😉
I am the opposite. My only problem with Islam is the sex roles. Specifically modesty for women.Replies: @AnonStarter
My only problem with Islam is the sex roles. Specifically modesty for women.
You should know that modesty is also enjoined upon Muslim men: facial hair, modest attire, and head covering known as a kufi, or skullcap. That’s the male veil. Muslim men are explicitly instructed to “lower their gaze and guard their modesty.”
In practice, few of any faith tradition do this, but that is the direction of God to faithful men.
But since you’re not Muslim, why worry about it? Muslims are explicitly prohibited from compelling non-Muslims to abide by their imperatives.
lol @taqqiya.Replies: @AnonStarter
So asian-americans are the most open-minded group in the US, followed by black-americans. While white-americans are by far the least.
Muslims are explicitly prohibited from compelling non-Muslims to abide by their imperatives.
lol @taqqiya.
Conservatives dislike atheists, because atheists make them feel stupid and underconfident.
I would also posit that atheists are more masculine than religious males and that this intimidates conservatives:
https://www.psypost.org/2018/06/higher-levels-testosterone-dhea-predict-weaker-religious-ties-among-older-men-51374
The union of religious males and religious females would appear to be sex queered:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Cf3vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT44
So atheist Chads stoke the ire of the gender-bending religious coalition of rot.
That's a problem that has been recognised by some Christians - that Christianity no longer attracts normal heterosexual men. Normal heterosexual men, to a large extent, no longer see Christianity as offering them anything.
Christianity has been increasingly feminised and homosexualised.Replies: @advancedatheist
Off-topic but incredibly important:
The correlation between COVID-19 and humidity is massively confirmed in a new study (N=40,000), still in preprints. Just posted 3 days ago.
51 authors on this study, across 27 different institutions. Who ever heard of that many authors and institutions for one paper?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.11.20147157v2.full.pdf
It may have seemed that Florida and Texas and Brazil completely exploded the hypothesis that COVID-19 is seasonal.
Not at all!
It turns out that COVID-19 severity and mortality is perhaps more than 10 times lower under conditions of high humidity. We have seen this in Florida, Texas and Singapore versus late winter in New York, Michigan and Europe. The difference in the mortality rate was massive, an order of magnitude or more.
The link again:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.11.20147157v2.full.pdf
It seems clear that ambient humidity is the most important and effective treatment of COVID-19 that exists in the world. If something can cause a 10-fold decrease in disease severity, it is better than any other treatment for COVID-19 that exists by a fairly enormous margin. A vaccine might be better but it is doesn’t exist yet.
And its nearly free to everyone. A humidifier in your bedroom, or a boiling pot on the stove.
Also, this means a rip-roaring death rate is coming back to cold-places this winter, unless this knowledge breaks through.
It was known that hospitals in New York were doing a terrible job keeping patients alive in March, much worse than being sent home. How much of this was due to the dry, sterile conditions of a New York hospital in winter?
New York had something like a 10% death rate in March. By comparison Singapore reported 26 deaths and over 44,000 confirmed infections — less than 0.1% mortality rate.
Surveys give us a wildly exaggerated idea of how many Christians there really are in the modern world. That may have an effect on people's attitudes towards Christians (either positively or negatively), since they're often assuming that Christians are a huge proportion of the population (possibly a majority) when in fact they're a small minority.
This may lead some people to claim to view Christians positively because they think Christians are too numerous to risk offending, or it may lead some people to view Christians negatively since they assume that Christians have a lot more power than they actually have.
I don't think the AQ (Agnostic Question) can be glibly dismissed.
Whenever it came to filling out census forms and other official forms my parents used to dutifully record themselves as Christians. They did this all their lives. They were in fact such extreme agnostics as to be entirely indistinguishable from atheists. So for many decades official statistics and surveys have been painting an entirely false picture of religion in the West.
As to worldview, it's difficult to say what the worldview of most agnostics is since mot surveys entirely ignore their existence.Replies: @Sparkon, @West reanimator
Source?
This agnostic — yours truly — is definitely not an atheist.
Extreme agnostics? Cue some canned laughter…
A moderate agnostic is someone who actually takes seriously the possibility that religion might be valid, but is not convinced.Replies: @advancedatheist
lol...
☮
It’ll be clearer with the fullness of time. Maybe the proportional power has been reduced, but the tools at its disposal are more powerful than ever.
https://jewishworldnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Anti-semitic-incidents.jpgReplies: @Athletic and Whitesplosive
Forget the hate, appreciate–that’s what I do!
In addition to positive or negative feelings, respondents could also answer that their feelings were neutral.
Is perhaps the hate on atheists actually a hate by proxy on secular/militant Jews?
Otherwise it's hard to explain the hate on atheists, unless it's simply that religious people don't ike unbelievers (and that most militant atheists are actually pretty annoying).
As for the love of Asians for Jews, they likely see Jews as the elite and they want to emulate them.
The love of Christians for Jews is likely because of protestantism (I bet Catholics have a slightly less positive view)Replies: @Charlotte, @A123, @dfordoom, @Audacious Epigone, @Al Liguori
In polls asking potential voters about who they’d be hesitant to vote for, “an atheist” always performs the worst–all other ‘sensitive’ hypothetical demographic groups do better.
lol @taqqiya.Replies: @AnonStarter
“Taqiyyah” is the stock response of anti-Islam parties who would rather Muslims not be able to speak for themselves. By declaring “false” any statement which doesn’t dovetail with their negative outlook of the faith, they hope to shut down discussion before it even begins.
That’s okay. Go ahead and try to make others think I’m being dishonest. I don’t want anyone to believe me simply because I said something. Investigate the orthodox position on compelling non-Muslims to become Muslim.
You’re more than welcome.
It was an interesting insight into the mind of someone who people here consider a moderate Muslim.
So let us grant that for the most part - although that also happens - Muslims do not forcibly convert others. But it is also official theological policy to strongly incentivise conversion by discriminating against non-Muslims and making their life conditions less attractive, wherever Muslims are in the majority - through the noble and enlightened institution of the Dhimmi. That it is official Muslim theology to establish Islam as the "alpha religion" wherever it holds sway, relegating everyone else to inferior status without the privileges and advantages that alpha status naturally entails.Replies: @AnonStarter
What no Satanists? It is a religion.
A growing one from what I see.
No numbers? Or is it a secret?
It needs to be noted that jews are ultimately not a religion but a race, nobody considers “jewish atheist” or “jewish Hindu” a contradiction, that can’t be said by “Christian atheist” or “Christian Hindu” in comparison. That being the case the people that did this survey were probably the type that sees the typical jew as the kindly old rabbi who wants to be left alone. Most jews are the secular fanatic leftist type, which makes them fit more into atheist group, which is probably the more correct poll on what most people think of jews (most people really do hate jews).
https://www.psypost.org/2018/06/higher-levels-testosterone-dhea-predict-weaker-religious-ties-among-older-men-51374The union of religious males and religious females would appear to be sex queered:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Cf3vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT44So atheist Chads stoke the ire of the gender-bending religious coalition of rot.Replies: @dfordoom
That’s actually quite possible.
I noticed years ago that Christianity seemed to attract a disproportionate number of men who could most kindly be described as ineffectual and socially inept, and decidedly non-masculine.
That’s a problem that has been recognised by some Christians – that Christianity no longer attracts normal heterosexual men. Normal heterosexual men, to a large extent, no longer see Christianity as offering them anything.
Christianity has been increasingly feminised and homosexualised.
An extreme agnostic is someone who is so very doubtful of the claims of religion that he is only a very small step away from being an out-and-out atheist. For all practical purposes such a person is pretty much an atheist.
A moderate agnostic is someone who actually takes seriously the possibility that religion might be valid, but is not convinced.
Surveys give us a wildly exaggerated idea of how many Christians there really are in the modern world. That may have an effect on people's attitudes towards Christians (either positively or negatively), since they're often assuming that Christians are a huge proportion of the population (possibly a majority) when in fact they're a small minority.
This may lead some people to claim to view Christians positively because they think Christians are too numerous to risk offending, or it may lead some people to view Christians negatively since they assume that Christians have a lot more power than they actually have.
I don't think the AQ (Agnostic Question) can be glibly dismissed.
Whenever it came to filling out census forms and other official forms my parents used to dutifully record themselves as Christians. They did this all their lives. They were in fact such extreme agnostics as to be entirely indistinguishable from atheists. So for many decades official statistics and surveys have been painting an entirely false picture of religion in the West.
As to worldview, it's difficult to say what the worldview of most agnostics is since mot surveys entirely ignore their existence.Replies: @Sparkon, @West reanimator
So, they’re about as meaningful as any other opinion survey, then. Laden with self-deception and conformism, as always.
A moderate agnostic is someone who actually takes seriously the possibility that religion might be valid, but is not convinced.Replies: @advancedatheist
Philosophers have long argued that the unintelligent common people need their folk religion to keep them in line, but that the smarter people who can absorb philosophical enlightenment usefully can live without religious belief. Spinoza came close to giving this game away, which explains why contemporary and later philosophers felt the need to disavow him, while they secretly studied his writings because they saw that he stumbled across a productive way of thinking about “god” that would make more sense than traditional views in early modernity.
It's the opposite of "useful", it's totally destructive mind poison that makes people useless.
That's a problem that has been recognised by some Christians - that Christianity no longer attracts normal heterosexual men. Normal heterosexual men, to a large extent, no longer see Christianity as offering them anything.
Christianity has been increasingly feminised and homosexualised.Replies: @advancedatheist
Perhaps we find it humiliating enough that we have to submit to living, powerful Jewish men in the here and now. This suggests the possibility that Christianity could start to look attractive to Chad again after Jewish dominance over society collapses.
Also as genuine religious fervour declined Christian churches became more like social clubs devoted to the Cult of Niceness. That appeals to women, but not to heterosexual men.
It's also possible that as religious belief declines you inevitably end up with heterosexual men being the first ones to give up on religion. Women seem to cling to religious belief more stubbornly than men.
So as the churches became more feminised and homosexualised they became even less attractive to heterosexual men. It became a vicious circle. You end up with churches of women, homosexuals and weak heterosexual men.
If Chad suddenly feels the need for religion he is more likely to turn to a masculine religion such as Islam. The one religion that masculine heterosexual men in general are not going to turn to is Christianity.Replies: @Cloudbuster, @Dumbo
I don’t think it has anything to do with the Jews. It’s an internal problem with Christianity. Partly it’s a result of the massive infiltration of homosexuals into the churches (especially the Catholic and Anglican/Episcopalian churches) which began in the early to mid 20th century. And the massive infiltration of feminists (many of them lesbians) into the churches.
Also as genuine religious fervour declined Christian churches became more like social clubs devoted to the Cult of Niceness. That appeals to women, but not to heterosexual men.
It’s also possible that as religious belief declines you inevitably end up with heterosexual men being the first ones to give up on religion. Women seem to cling to religious belief more stubbornly than men.
So as the churches became more feminised and homosexualised they became even less attractive to heterosexual men. It became a vicious circle. You end up with churches of women, homosexuals and weak heterosexual men.
If Chad suddenly feels the need for religion he is more likely to turn to a masculine religion such as Islam. The one religion that masculine heterosexual men in general are not going to turn to is Christianity.
Without conventional religious belief anyway. They may adopt vague quasi-religious beliefs like Deism. They may still vaguely identify with cultural Christianity and they may show up in surveys as Christians (making such surveys even more useless) but for all effective purposes they’ve abandoned Christianity.
Talha said on another thread that wherever Muslims are in the majority, they will create strong incentives to convert by discriminating against non-Muslims, and that Muslims have the right to do this because they conquered those territories or converted the majority. Talha said Muslims will make Islam the “alpha religion” (his words) anywhere it is in the majority, with all the special privileges and advantages we know alpha status entails.
It was an interesting insight into the mind of someone who people here consider a moderate Muslim.
So let us grant that for the most part – although that also happens – Muslims do not forcibly convert others. But it is also official theological policy to strongly incentivise conversion by discriminating against non-Muslims and making their life conditions less attractive, wherever Muslims are in the majority – through the noble and enlightened institution of the Dhimmi. That it is official Muslim theology to establish Islam as the “alpha religion” wherever it holds sway, relegating everyone else to inferior status without the privileges and advantages that alpha status naturally entails.
The source is hardly trustworthy, but the trend line seems consistent with other data:
I might believe a claimed upward trend in anti-semitism from a source that also showed an increase in anti-white hate crimes and didn't show a sharp spike in anti-black ones (i.e. it has to be actual crimes [no "racist" police calls, poop swastikas, or "nooses" attached to the garage door], and also not just fiddling with definitions so that anything with a supposed white perp and black/jewish victim is a priori a "hate crime").Replies: @Not Only Wrathful
Agnostic extremists…
lol…
☮
Also as genuine religious fervour declined Christian churches became more like social clubs devoted to the Cult of Niceness. That appeals to women, but not to heterosexual men.
It's also possible that as religious belief declines you inevitably end up with heterosexual men being the first ones to give up on religion. Women seem to cling to religious belief more stubbornly than men.
So as the churches became more feminised and homosexualised they became even less attractive to heterosexual men. It became a vicious circle. You end up with churches of women, homosexuals and weak heterosexual men.
If Chad suddenly feels the need for religion he is more likely to turn to a masculine religion such as Islam. The one religion that masculine heterosexual men in general are not going to turn to is Christianity.Replies: @Cloudbuster, @Dumbo
I don’t have any data on this, but it doesn’t really feel right to me from my rural perspective. The rural men in churches around me seem like fairly normal, masculine types — our basketball coach last year was also a pastor in a local church. The guys are hunters, outdoorsmen, interested in sports and racing. Pretty traditional masculine pursuits.
IslamoGloboHomo has contaminated an number of urban areas, damaging the local churches. However, it is not winning converts to SJW Islam.
The solution is for Protestant churches to return to their traditional Christian values. It may be too late to save Catholicism. The selection of Pope Muhammad Francis the Submissive as their leader, places them on a path of submission to IslamoHomo.
PEACE 😇Replies: @Al Liguori, @Fran Taubman
https://jewishworldnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Anti-semitic-incidents.jpgReplies: @Athletic and Whitesplosive
Recall that it’s in their interest to be seen as increasingly being a victim. Probably just as much (in all likelihood much more) about loosening criteria for an incident as it is about an increase in actual incidents.
I might believe a claimed upward trend in anti-semitism from a source that also showed an increase in anti-white hate crimes and didn’t show a sharp spike in anti-black ones (i.e. it has to be actual crimes [no “racist” police calls, poop swastikas, or “nooses” attached to the garage door], and also not just fiddling with definitions so that anything with a supposed white perp and black/jewish victim is a priori a “hate crime”).
Or perhaps there were more in the past and I didn't notice them?
Philosopher’s have long argued that it was phlogiston escaping from an object as it burned that created fire, who cares? Their argument is stupid and obviously wrong. Doing away with “folk” religion (like the one articulated at the “folk” council of Nicaea?) has led to the irreligious “intellectuals” who now worship at the altar of sexual perversion and self ethnic annihilation. Enlightenment philosophy is about as “useful” as tits on a boar and has come closer and closer to sending us into an intellectual dark age the more ascendant it has become.
It’s the opposite of “useful”, it’s totally destructive mind poison that makes people useless.
As a de-churched, but still Christian, urbanite… this seems correct.
IslamoGloboHomo has contaminated an number of urban areas, damaging the local churches. However, it is not winning converts to SJW Islam.
The solution is for Protestant churches to return to their traditional Christian values. It may be too late to save Catholicism. The selection of Pope Muhammad Francis the Submissive as their leader, places them on a path of submission to IslamoHomo.
PEACE 😇
[2] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-rebbe-explains-hasidic-stratagem-of.html
[3] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-francis-through-heschel.html
[4] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-hermeneutics-of-talmudic-alchemical.html
[5] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/06/francis-kabbalistic-gnostic-god-man.html
[6] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/01/francis-hasidic-concept-of-god-of.html
[7] https://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2016/07/elie-wiesel-pope-francis-rich-orthodox.html
[8] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-many-books-on-talmudic-judaism-does.html
[9] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2019/03/francis-hasid-god-is-purifying-church.html
[10] https://novusordowatch.org/2017/04/francis-christ-made-himself-devil/
[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20181215213659/https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/03/25/woman-knows-read-pope-francis/
[12] https://novusordowatch.org/2013/03/bergoglio-celebrated-hanukkah-with-jews/
[13] among many, https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-holocaust-is-keystone-of-francis.html
[14] https://novusordowatch.org/francis/
http://judaism.is/images/anti-pope-francis-menorah.jpgReplies: @Audacious Epigone
I am going to venture some explanations for the survey results. First, I think it is important to keep in mind that the typical respondent, Jane Q. Public, is likely to have a much less sophisticated understanding any of these religious categories than those of us in the UR commentariat. Let’s be careful about projecting our level of understanding onto them, i.e. let’s not succumb to high IQ Dunning-Krugerism.
Given the large-scale ignorance of the public, I think the typical response will reflect a combination of personal self-identification and the perception of whether the group being evaluated is friendly, hostile or alien to their in-group, with the perception of the out-group strongly influenced by the media the respondent tends to consume.
Something to consider, as well, is that the survey asks about attitudes towards the people who hold the religious affiliation, and not towards the belief systems. I can say that for me, this distinction is not irrelevant. For example, I don’t care for Islam, but I have net positive feelings towards the “Muslims” I have interacted with in my life (moderate and educated ones). Conversely, I think the message of the NT is beautiful, but I find the typical “Christian” in America to be repulsive. But, given the lack of nuanced thinking typical of the average person, this is probably not a very important distinction for most survey participants.
So, with these factors in mind, let’s analyze:
1) Hindus and Buddhists: in contrast to the other religions, and outside Asians, the average is rather negative and uniform. This likely reflects the ignorance that most Americans have of these religions and the perception that they are alien to the West. The negative attitude of the R-team is probably just superficial ‘Murican hostility to the unknown.
2) Christians: to be honest, I was initially surprised by the general positivity to Christians across groups. But I think this reflects the opposite of what is driving the Hindu/Buddhist results, namely, normalcy bias. Another factor is that given the sheer number of variants of Christianity in the US, most people can think of Christians that they enjoy the company of. R-team folks think the Fred Phelps-adjacent folks, Blue-Team folks think the friendly old gay Catholic next door.
3) Muslims: the high variation in responses across groups is, sadly, indicative of the cacophonic incoherence of the differing media narratives directed towards liberal versus conservative audiences. If one expected the world to be coherent, the results would seem inexplicable. Islam, of all the major religions, is closest to the worldview of conservative Protestant Christians in the US. A naïve individual might be tempted to say that the hostility of the R-team Christians might reflect the difference between the warlike spirit of Islam and the turn the other cheek message of Iesus Nazarenus (aka Isa the Prophet in the Koran), but no. The conservative Christians in the US are much more likely to embrace the Islam-adjacent attitude expressed 20 years ago by Coulter: “let’s invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Rather, the hostility reflects the legacy of normie-right politics and media in the US, both essentially subsidiaries of Likud. Similarly, the relatively positive attitude of the Blue-team, pro-Burqa feminism, is inexplicable in a rational world. It simply reflects the shallow narrative of neo-liberal media: native = bad, alien = good.
4) Jews: Frankly, I am surprised by the moderately-low attitude across groups. My sense is that public opinion is generally philo-semetic (at least when I step away from my computer). But, again, the 50/50 split across groups (57% Blue team vs. 50% Red team difference is probably stat insig.) likely reflects the different types of Jews that groups tend to sympathize with. I imagine that the typical Blue team individual loves Jews like Maddow, Blitzer, Tapper, etc, while having no great love for Ben Shapiro and Netanyahu types. Vice versa for Red-team. As I think Gilad has said, it’s almost like the different factions of Jews are at war with each other while assembling different goy armies to fight it out.
5) Atheists: I am rather surprised by the negative attitude of Democrats. The cultural Zeitgeist that I inhabit is atheist in my estimation; I know few people who are proud theists, and many who are hostile to religion. But perhaps the chaos of the world around us is making the sterile materialism of atheism less attractive. I was born in the early ‘80s (for context), and despite going through catechism as a pre-adolescent, I was a strong atheist from around 16 to my late 20s. But in the last few years I have embraced a theist-leaning agnosticism and find the passionate intensity of the atheists distasteful in comparison to the lack of conviction of the doubters.
To wrap it up, I’ll take the survey:
Christians/Christianity: -1/+1
Muslims/Islam: -0.5/-1
Hindus/Hinduism: neutral – too ignorant to decide.
Buddhists/ism: +0.5/+0.5
Atheists/ism: -0.5/+0.5
Jews/Judaism: Bless their hearts – as my kinfolk in Alabama might say.
they also know atheists have higher iq.
Also as genuine religious fervour declined Christian churches became more like social clubs devoted to the Cult of Niceness. That appeals to women, but not to heterosexual men.
It's also possible that as religious belief declines you inevitably end up with heterosexual men being the first ones to give up on religion. Women seem to cling to religious belief more stubbornly than men.
So as the churches became more feminised and homosexualised they became even less attractive to heterosexual men. It became a vicious circle. You end up with churches of women, homosexuals and weak heterosexual men.
If Chad suddenly feels the need for religion he is more likely to turn to a masculine religion such as Islam. The one religion that masculine heterosexual men in general are not going to turn to is Christianity.Replies: @Cloudbuster, @Dumbo
If white people want to remain white, a return to Christianity or even to Euro-paganism is better than Islam, which will further “brown” and darken Europeans, chad or not chad. Also there’s nothing “alpha” about being conquered by Arabs and Africans. Christianity is European, its founding text was written in Greek. The Koran is Arabic imperialism.
And a return to Christianity represents a turning back to the past that may seem superficially attractive but the past is gone. You can't go backwards. Christianity has failed to meet the challenges presented by modernism, liberalism, capitalism and the rising tide of materialism and it has surrendered abjectly to feminism and the homosexual agenda.
Why return to a failed religion? That would be a sign of surrender.
For Europeans maybe some kind of neo-paganism might perhaps work. That might also seem like embracing the past but in fact the paganism of the ancient and early medieval world is as dead as a doornail. Nobody is going to be building temples to Apollo or sacrificing sheep to Zeus. The kind of paganism that we see today is actually a completely different very modern religion that was pretty much invented from the ground up in the early 20th century. It is itself, in a way, a product of modernism.
I'm not really an advocate of neo-paganism but I'd certainly choose it in preference to Christianity.Replies: @Wency
That may be so, but my point was that I don’t see any realistic prospect of the masculine heterosexual men who have deserted Christianity returning to that faith.
And a return to Christianity represents a turning back to the past that may seem superficially attractive but the past is gone. You can’t go backwards. Christianity has failed to meet the challenges presented by modernism, liberalism, capitalism and the rising tide of materialism and it has surrendered abjectly to feminism and the homosexual agenda.
Why return to a failed religion? That would be a sign of surrender.
For Europeans maybe some kind of neo-paganism might perhaps work. That might also seem like embracing the past but in fact the paganism of the ancient and early medieval world is as dead as a doornail. Nobody is going to be building temples to Apollo or sacrificing sheep to Zeus. The kind of paganism that we see today is actually a completely different very modern religion that was pretty much invented from the ground up in the early 20th century. It is itself, in a way, a product of modernism.
I’m not really an advocate of neo-paganism but I’d certainly choose it in preference to Christianity.
Religions that remain nominally polytheist, such as Hinduism, still have a tendency to develop a monotheistic or perhaps pantheist layer for the educated class. Because as much as some educated people might revolt against Bible stories, people REALLY revolt against stories about the gazillion gods and their personalities and interactions with one another, unless it's just all they've ever known. That's also why you can't really spread these faiths beyond their traditional base.
You exaggerate the death of Christianity. The liberal churches are hemorrhaging members, while conservative churches hold steady. It's the only bastion of social conservatism left in the West. As a whole it's in decline, but all the West is in decline. The church has weathered civilizational collapse before, and I expect it to do so again, in some form or fashion.
And the biggest practical appeal of Christianity for a masculine man is that it's where all the best women are, and the women outnumber the men. That doesn't mean every Christian gal is wife material, but as far as wives go, I'll bet on the average churchgoing single woman over the secular alternative in any town in America.
It was an interesting insight into the mind of someone who people here consider a moderate Muslim.
So let us grant that for the most part - although that also happens - Muslims do not forcibly convert others. But it is also official theological policy to strongly incentivise conversion by discriminating against non-Muslims and making their life conditions less attractive, wherever Muslims are in the majority - through the noble and enlightened institution of the Dhimmi. That it is official Muslim theology to establish Islam as the "alpha religion" wherever it holds sway, relegating everyone else to inferior status without the privileges and advantages that alpha status naturally entails.Replies: @AnonStarter
Talha said on another thread that wherever Muslims are in the majority, they will create strong incentives to convert by discriminating against non-Muslims, and that Muslims have the right to do this because they conquered those territories or converted the majority. Talha said Muslims will make Islam the “alpha religion” (his words) anywhere it is in the majority, with all the special privileges and advantages we know alpha status entails.
Yes, well, among many other distortions of my own words, you’ve also said that I claimed “Judaism is based upon a lie,” so we’ll have to consider the integrity of your previous statements when approaching the words you attribute both to Talha and myself.
But it is also official theological policy to strongly incentivise conversion by discriminating against non-Muslims and making their life conditions less attractive, wherever Muslims are in the majority – through the noble and enlightened institution of the Dhimmi.
No, there is no such “official theological policy.”
That, over the course of 1,300+ years, in a range of territory extending from Gibraltar to Indonesia, we may find instances where Muslim administrators transgressed the limits of the shari’ah should hardly come as a surprise, but Islam is not defined by such individuals. Islam’s criteria are The Qur’an and The Prophet, which don’t necessitate such policy at all, and history provides copious examples of this, the model being Medina, where Muhammad established a federal constitutional republic in which Jews enjoyed complete religious liberty. There’s no evidence they suffered discrimination or deprivation of rights therein until they allied themselves with the Quraish, who sought to destroy the Muslim polity.
But all of this is quite beside the point.
If you actually hold that Islam needs to mature and you believe it will — as you’ve stated on countless occasions — then regardless of how you imagine Islamic history, you should appreciate my earlier counsel to encourage the federalism that is the hallmark of Islam. Advancing a fatalistic vision of the faith as irremediably oppressive rather belies your customary well-wishes for its adherents’ progress, no?
Islam is here to stay and it’s growing every day. Better to seek a path to comity with it than not.
He's also on record saying that non-Muslims would be severely limited in their ability to secure top political positions in any Muslim-led system.
Do you deny you said Judaism falsified its history and sacred literature, and that this is the official Muslim position?
I did not say that Muslims denied religious minorities religious rights - I said they enact political, financial, and social discrimination against such minorities. The institution of the Dhimmi is theologically mandated.
Federalism is not the hallmark of Islam by any stretch of the imagination - religious tolerance under Islamic political, financial, and social supremacy is the ideal Islamic system - when it functions ideally, which it frequently does not. So half the time even this sorry ideal of second class citizenship is not realized.
I do believe Islam will either die or mature - the one thing it will not remain is the primitive system it is now. Denying what it has been until now, and still is, is not going to help the maturation process, and it will not help people defend themselves against what Islam is today.
The maturation process is an internal process for you Muslims. I can only wish you well from the outside - eventually, your constant internal violence will either destroy you or you'll grow up. I personally hope the latter, but it's up to you. In the meantime we must be clear eyed about what you are and contain you - without hate or anger, but simply as reality. Its nothing personal at all. You are what you are, and cannot help it. But we must be honest about it.
As for conversions, you are primarily attracting people with cluster-B personality disorders - like Kevin Barrett and yourself and all the ISIS volunteers. This will only add to the volatility of your civilization.
I seriously entertain the idea that Islam is in a situation analogous to Christianity in the beginning of the 20th century, and in 100 years will no longer be a serious world religion.Replies: @AnonStarter, @nebulafox
And a return to Christianity represents a turning back to the past that may seem superficially attractive but the past is gone. You can't go backwards. Christianity has failed to meet the challenges presented by modernism, liberalism, capitalism and the rising tide of materialism and it has surrendered abjectly to feminism and the homosexual agenda.
Why return to a failed religion? That would be a sign of surrender.
For Europeans maybe some kind of neo-paganism might perhaps work. That might also seem like embracing the past but in fact the paganism of the ancient and early medieval world is as dead as a doornail. Nobody is going to be building temples to Apollo or sacrificing sheep to Zeus. The kind of paganism that we see today is actually a completely different very modern religion that was pretty much invented from the ground up in the early 20th century. It is itself, in a way, a product of modernism.
I'm not really an advocate of neo-paganism but I'd certainly choose it in preference to Christianity.Replies: @Wency
If neo-Paganism were at all viable, it would still be monotheistic, just some sort of neo-Platonism, with a bunch of stupid gods affixed for the peasants who want them. That’s what Julian the Apostate was pushing, because it was the only form of Paganism that was viable to push. In practice, it looks like Unitarianism, but with some embarrassing nonsense about Zeus or Odin.
Religions that remain nominally polytheist, such as Hinduism, still have a tendency to develop a monotheistic or perhaps pantheist layer for the educated class. Because as much as some educated people might revolt against Bible stories, people REALLY revolt against stories about the gazillion gods and their personalities and interactions with one another, unless it’s just all they’ve ever known. That’s also why you can’t really spread these faiths beyond their traditional base.
You exaggerate the death of Christianity. The liberal churches are hemorrhaging members, while conservative churches hold steady. It’s the only bastion of social conservatism left in the West. As a whole it’s in decline, but all the West is in decline. The church has weathered civilizational collapse before, and I expect it to do so again, in some form or fashion.
And the biggest practical appeal of Christianity for a masculine man is that it’s where all the best women are, and the women outnumber the men. That doesn’t mean every Christian gal is wife material, but as far as wives go, I’ll bet on the average churchgoing single woman over the secular alternative in any town in America.
Well, ok lets see what Talha said –
https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/american-taliban-is-smashing-historic-heritage-a-meritorious-act/#comment-3996169
He’s also on record saying that non-Muslims would be severely limited in their ability to secure top political positions in any Muslim-led system.
Do you deny you said Judaism falsified its history and sacred literature, and that this is the official Muslim position?
I did not say that Muslims denied religious minorities religious rights – I said they enact political, financial, and social discrimination against such minorities. The institution of the Dhimmi is theologically mandated.
Federalism is not the hallmark of Islam by any stretch of the imagination – religious tolerance under Islamic political, financial, and social supremacy is the ideal Islamic system – when it functions ideally, which it frequently does not. So half the time even this sorry ideal of second class citizenship is not realized.
I do believe Islam will either die or mature – the one thing it will not remain is the primitive system it is now. Denying what it has been until now, and still is, is not going to help the maturation process, and it will not help people defend themselves against what Islam is today.
The maturation process is an internal process for you Muslims. I can only wish you well from the outside – eventually, your constant internal violence will either destroy you or you’ll grow up. I personally hope the latter, but it’s up to you. In the meantime we must be clear eyed about what you are and contain you – without hate or anger, but simply as reality. Its nothing personal at all. You are what you are, and cannot help it. But we must be honest about it.
As for conversions, you are primarily attracting people with cluster-B personality disorders – like Kevin Barrett and yourself and all the ISIS volunteers. This will only add to the volatility of your civilization.
I seriously entertain the idea that Islam is in a situation analogous to Christianity in the beginning of the 20th century, and in 100 years will no longer be a serious world religion.
He's also on record saying that non-Muslims would be severely limited in their ability to secure top political positions in any Muslim-led system.
Do you deny you said Judaism falsified its history and sacred literature, and that this is the official Muslim position?
I did not say that Muslims denied religious minorities religious rights - I said they enact political, financial, and social discrimination against such minorities. The institution of the Dhimmi is theologically mandated.
Federalism is not the hallmark of Islam by any stretch of the imagination - religious tolerance under Islamic political, financial, and social supremacy is the ideal Islamic system - when it functions ideally, which it frequently does not. So half the time even this sorry ideal of second class citizenship is not realized.
I do believe Islam will either die or mature - the one thing it will not remain is the primitive system it is now. Denying what it has been until now, and still is, is not going to help the maturation process, and it will not help people defend themselves against what Islam is today.
The maturation process is an internal process for you Muslims. I can only wish you well from the outside - eventually, your constant internal violence will either destroy you or you'll grow up. I personally hope the latter, but it's up to you. In the meantime we must be clear eyed about what you are and contain you - without hate or anger, but simply as reality. Its nothing personal at all. You are what you are, and cannot help it. But we must be honest about it.
As for conversions, you are primarily attracting people with cluster-B personality disorders - like Kevin Barrett and yourself and all the ISIS volunteers. This will only add to the volatility of your civilization.
I seriously entertain the idea that Islam is in a situation analogous to Christianity in the beginning of the 20th century, and in 100 years will no longer be a serious world religion.Replies: @AnonStarter, @nebulafox
[laughing]
Thanks for the free psychoanalysis. Now onto more substantive matters …
Here’s the full quote from Talha:
By omitting the entirety of the quote, you attempt to make one cited cause of Islam’s ascendancy identical with the method of incentivizing, but the fact that Talha also mentions preachers and scholars lays your falsification bare.
Every religion incentivizes conversions and its adherents also endeavor to make it the superior religion wherever it is established. Were you familiar with The Qur’an, you’d know about its myriad exhortations to People of the Book which provide incentive to embrace Islam. Indeed, there is great benefit in the brotherhood of Islam and Muslims do encourage others to enjoy it, but not by coercive means.
He’s also on record saying that non-Muslims would be severely limited in their ability to secure top political positions in any Muslim-led system.
This ignores the fact that, with very limited provisions, Islamic government allows Jews, Christians and others to administrate their affairs by their own criterion. The Prophet told Jews who sought his counsel on matters of jurisprudence to consult their own book and adjudicated disputes among them not by The Qur’an, but by The Torah.
That’s federalism, in a nutshell. Dr. Mark Cohen mentions that, by and large, medieval Jews did not desire assimilation in a non-Jewish milieu. As such, they generally appreciated the autonomy they had in dar al-Islam.
Do you deny you said Judaism falsified its history and sacred literature, and that this is the official Muslim position?
Yes, I do; but, to be clear, this is not the same as saying “Judaism is based on a lie,” which is an exact quote of your words.
More precisely, I described the Islamic perspective of the Children of Israel’s history, making quite clear that the faithful of Israel were, by definition, Muslim. As such, it would be impossible for me to say that their religion was based on a lie.
Judaism itself cannot falsify anything, but the “lying pens of the Scribes” specifically referenced in the Book of Jeremiah [Chapter 8, Verse 8] certainly can. Your problem appears to be with the record of your own history.
I did not say that Muslims denied religious minorities religious rights – I said they enact political, financial, and social discrimination against such minorities.
Even so, you haven’t provided any evidence of this “theologically mandated” discrimination in Medina, which, as I said, is the model to which all Muslims aspire. That said discrimination may have occurred after the fact tells us about the people who engaged in it, not about Islam itself.
Anyhow, the skies are clear in my neck of the woods. No urban light pollution to conceal the unfathomable tapestry of constellations beneath which I’m ever humbled on evenings such as these.
Thank God.
The institution of the Dhimmi establishes discrimination and second class status.
To be fair, Christians did the same and worse. Eastern faiths seem more tolerant.
But Christianity leveled up and no longer does that. No one has anything to fear from Christians these days, except perhaps too much niceness. I've never argued Islam was always worse - just that it has not gone through a necessary phase of development, and has remained primitive and incompatible with the modern world.
I will argue that Islam was imperialistic and expansionist from the beginning, and that this is a core element of its identity.
None of this is to moralize - just to be clear that Islam today is constitutionally incapable of living at peace with neighbors without attempting to dominate them until it sublimates it's aggressive tendencies - and it's insecurities and weakness. We have to know what we are dealing with.
I don't know anything about the conditions in Medina - all I know is the historical pattern. Perhaps this instance you mention can serve as the nucleus for charting a new course for Islam - if what you say is accurate.
I am sure Islam, complex as it is, contains the seeds for its own transformation - it is a question of what to emphasize, and what to deemphasize. As an outsider, I can only hope you make the right choice.Replies: @AnonStarter
>>plonk!<<
I might believe a claimed upward trend in anti-semitism from a source that also showed an increase in anti-white hate crimes and didn't show a sharp spike in anti-black ones (i.e. it has to be actual crimes [no "racist" police calls, poop swastikas, or "nooses" attached to the garage door], and also not just fiddling with definitions so that anything with a supposed white perp and black/jewish victim is a priori a "hate crime").Replies: @Not Only Wrathful
Given the recent shootings in Pittsburgh, New Jersey and San Diego, I feel safe inferring that his graph reflects a real trend.
Or perhaps there were more in the past and I didn’t notice them?
He's also on record saying that non-Muslims would be severely limited in their ability to secure top political positions in any Muslim-led system.
Do you deny you said Judaism falsified its history and sacred literature, and that this is the official Muslim position?
I did not say that Muslims denied religious minorities religious rights - I said they enact political, financial, and social discrimination against such minorities. The institution of the Dhimmi is theologically mandated.
Federalism is not the hallmark of Islam by any stretch of the imagination - religious tolerance under Islamic political, financial, and social supremacy is the ideal Islamic system - when it functions ideally, which it frequently does not. So half the time even this sorry ideal of second class citizenship is not realized.
I do believe Islam will either die or mature - the one thing it will not remain is the primitive system it is now. Denying what it has been until now, and still is, is not going to help the maturation process, and it will not help people defend themselves against what Islam is today.
The maturation process is an internal process for you Muslims. I can only wish you well from the outside - eventually, your constant internal violence will either destroy you or you'll grow up. I personally hope the latter, but it's up to you. In the meantime we must be clear eyed about what you are and contain you - without hate or anger, but simply as reality. Its nothing personal at all. You are what you are, and cannot help it. But we must be honest about it.
As for conversions, you are primarily attracting people with cluster-B personality disorders - like Kevin Barrett and yourself and all the ISIS volunteers. This will only add to the volatility of your civilization.
I seriously entertain the idea that Islam is in a situation analogous to Christianity in the beginning of the 20th century, and in 100 years will no longer be a serious world religion.Replies: @AnonStarter, @nebulafox
>He’s also on record saying that non-Muslims would be severely limited in their ability to secure top political positions in any Muslim-led system.
And like any political system, it needs to accommodate itself to reality. One reason Indonesia’s military/intel establishment has a “Turkish” style attitude toward the increased trends of religion in politics is because religious minorities are often disproporationately involved in the economy (Christian/Taoist Chinese, Hindu Balinese) or in the military (Catholic Massakarese).
>I do believe Islam will either die or mature – the one thing it will not remain is the primitive system it is now. Denying what it has been until now, and still is, is not going to help the maturation process, and it will not help people defend themselves against what Islam is today.
I’m far from an Islam apologist, bu while I don’t exactly deny your point, this is hyperbole. The Islamic World is a huge place with people ranging from West African to Southeast Asian. Race, economics, and culture matter just as much as religion.
What is true is that the post-1979 wave of orthodoxy spread by globalization is in large part a reaction to modernity… and a struggle that the West has absolutely no interest in, unless the vibrations hit our shores. The last thing we should do is fuel jihadi arguments about Western conspiracies.
>I seriously entertain the idea that Islam is in a situation analogous to Christianity in the beginning of the 20th century, and in 100 years will no longer be a serious world religion.
It’s more like the 17th Century.
In the Islamic World, atheists and closet skeptics do exist, particularly among the young and well-educated. They don’t advertise it and there aren’t as many, but they are there. What’s genuinely *different* about them vs. their Western analogues is that they accept the conventional narratives about Islam-how it came to be, what it means-in a way you’d only associate with the most conservative Christians in the United States. Christian Europeans were similar prior to the last century or two: even people who rejected Christianity did not reject the conventional backstory to it.
There’s also the question of what “religious” means. I’ve known several Muslim dudes that did not consider themselves at all “pious” in the context and by the standards of their native cultures. But had to reevaluate that when they arrived in the US and were considered such because they didn’t do things they took for granted at home, like drinking or eating pork or retaining a belief in God. Some became more religious, others embraced full on skepticism, depending on the personality.
But I think aggression - expansion, conquest - is a core idea of Islam in its current iteration - Islam version 1.0 if you will. I'm not being moralistic here - conquest was a core idea of ancient empires, and its silly to judge other times by our own standards.
There have been periods - interregnums - where conquest took a momentary back seat to art and culture - but it must be pointed out that Islam was supreme and unchallenged during these times. Modernity underscored Islam's final and irreversible descent into second-class political, ecenomic, and military status - that was a challenge that struck at the core of its self-definition.
Unfortunately, you can't turn aggression on and off like a water faucet - the same aggression that makes them unable to tolerate Israel, makes one Islamic faction unleash horrific violence to gain supremacy over another faction.
And as outward expansion is thwarted by Islamic failure to modernize and become peer competitors to Israel and the West, Islam is cannibalizing itself. It has no choice - a force has to find an outlet.
That's why Islam can either devour itself or learn to sublimate its violent tendencies - an Islam 2.0 if you will. I used to be sanguine that Islam would inevitably "level up" - but increasingly I think it may devour itself, like Europe did. And the fact that converts to Islam seem to be aggressive and unstable types with problematic personalities - like Kevin Barrett - does not bode well for the long term ability of Islam to redefine itself along more stable lines.
Islam may simply not be able to sustain an identity that goes beyond being the "alpha religion" in political and military terms - which is rather childish and immature, but in our globalised multi-polar world, essential to getting along with others, a skill notably absent among Muslims, who inevitably quarrel with literally every neighbor they live next to, anywhere in the world, and of course, even more so among themselves.
Analogies between Islam and Christian Europe in its various stages are necessarily imprecise, and I agree that 17th century European attitudes may be found as well - which is interesting, because Islam began its decline in the 17th century, after the Siege of Vienna - but my overall assessment places Islam in the late 19th and early 20th century in European terms, where the challenges of modernity are unleashing tremendous internal forces that can either be sublimated or lead to self-destruction.
As I see it, the main challenge for Islam is to learn to redefine itself as not the "alpha religion", in Talha's very apt phrase, with all the insecurity and threatened self-esteem implied by that term, taken as it is from an online community known for an immature preoccupation with questions of status.Replies: @Mr. Rational, @nebulafox
It’s not mistaken. Unlike in Europe, I don’t think most of New America hates Jews, exactly: some ethnic groups like the Chinese admire them. What they lack is the over-the-top Judeophilia of Gentile legacy whites, based in a particularly American version of Protestant Christianity. This means they are willing to label Jews for what they are in reality: a particularly affluent white group. This cuts to the root of American Jewish self-perception as a leader of oppressed peoples, regardless of how ludicrous that is.
The gerontocratic nature of American politics obscures this. You’ve still got guys like Schumer who are unable to understand why Israel does not behave like a European country because he has a demographic vision of the place 50 years out of date.
That’s probably true. Indonesian Islam is notably milder than the Arab variant.
But I think aggression – expansion, conquest – is a core idea of Islam in its current iteration – Islam version 1.0 if you will. I’m not being moralistic here – conquest was a core idea of ancient empires, and its silly to judge other times by our own standards.
There have been periods – interregnums – where conquest took a momentary back seat to art and culture – but it must be pointed out that Islam was supreme and unchallenged during these times. Modernity underscored Islam’s final and irreversible descent into second-class political, ecenomic, and military status – that was a challenge that struck at the core of its self-definition.
Unfortunately, you can’t turn aggression on and off like a water faucet – the same aggression that makes them unable to tolerate Israel, makes one Islamic faction unleash horrific violence to gain supremacy over another faction.
And as outward expansion is thwarted by Islamic failure to modernize and become peer competitors to Israel and the West, Islam is cannibalizing itself. It has no choice – a force has to find an outlet.
That’s why Islam can either devour itself or learn to sublimate its violent tendencies – an Islam 2.0 if you will. I used to be sanguine that Islam would inevitably “level up” – but increasingly I think it may devour itself, like Europe did. And the fact that converts to Islam seem to be aggressive and unstable types with problematic personalities – like Kevin Barrett – does not bode well for the long term ability of Islam to redefine itself along more stable lines.
Islam may simply not be able to sustain an identity that goes beyond being the “alpha religion” in political and military terms – which is rather childish and immature, but in our globalised multi-polar world, essential to getting along with others, a skill notably absent among Muslims, who inevitably quarrel with literally every neighbor they live next to, anywhere in the world, and of course, even more so among themselves.
Analogies between Islam and Christian Europe in its various stages are necessarily imprecise, and I agree that 17th century European attitudes may be found as well – which is interesting, because Islam began its decline in the 17th century, after the Siege of Vienna – but my overall assessment places Islam in the late 19th and early 20th century in European terms, where the challenges of modernity are unleashing tremendous internal forces that can either be sublimated or lead to self-destruction.
As I see it, the main challenge for Islam is to learn to redefine itself as not the “alpha religion”, in Talha’s very apt phrase, with all the insecurity and threatened self-esteem implied by that term, taken as it is from an online community known for an immature preoccupation with questions of status.
The only problem the WIERDOs (Westernized, Industrialized, Educated, Rich, Democratic, Outbred) have is their tolerance for parasites.It has long been noted that "Islam has bloody borders". That's why the Rohingya (ethnic Bengalis) are being pushed out of Myanmar; the locals are sick and tired of them.
Not every religion incentivizes conversion through political and economic discrimination – most do it through preaching the spiritual benefits of adopting the religion.
The institution of the Dhimmi establishes discrimination and second class status.
To be fair, Christians did the same and worse. Eastern faiths seem more tolerant.
But Christianity leveled up and no longer does that. No one has anything to fear from Christians these days, except perhaps too much niceness. I’ve never argued Islam was always worse – just that it has not gone through a necessary phase of development, and has remained primitive and incompatible with the modern world.
I will argue that Islam was imperialistic and expansionist from the beginning, and that this is a core element of its identity.
None of this is to moralize – just to be clear that Islam today is constitutionally incapable of living at peace with neighbors without attempting to dominate them until it sublimates it’s aggressive tendencies – and it’s insecurities and weakness. We have to know what we are dealing with.
I don’t know anything about the conditions in Medina – all I know is the historical pattern. Perhaps this instance you mention can serve as the nucleus for charting a new course for Islam – if what you say is accurate.
I am sure Islam, complex as it is, contains the seeds for its own transformation – it is a question of what to emphasize, and what to deemphasize. As an outsider, I can only hope you make the right choice.
2) recognition of the Prophet as "Shiloh," or the Messenger of the Covenant, prophesied in Scripture; and
3) unavoidable military campaigns engaged as a result of Sassanid and Byzantine aggression.The latter cause necessitated protracted conflict, as would be expected when engaging the imperial powers in question. Whether or not the campaigns of later generations were warranted can be subject to scrutiny, though I think you'll find that many of the earliest ones were undertaken at the behest of parties suffering under one or another oppressive regime.But all of this was due to the exigencies of the age; you would do well to familiarize yourself with the Risale-i Nur of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, who stated in no uncertain terms that, in our time, martial jihad must be supplanted with spiritual jihad. His following is the largest among Turkish Muslims and has expanded to Central Asia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Europe and America.Incidentally, he also states that Israel accomplished what it did as a result of its religiosity. I don't think you'll find that to be a commonly held opinion among most of the world, let alone Muslims.Replies: @AnonStarter
What is true is that the post-1979 wave of orthodoxy spread by globalization is in large part a reaction to modernity…
It predates ’79 by many decades.
With the official abolition of Ottoman government in the twenties, Turkey witnessed a brutal crackdown on orthodoxy: Arabic, mosque construction, Hajj, Islamic attire, all of it forbidden. Turkey was the only modern nation to enforce use of a new alphabet in an attempt to forcibly westernize it. Even non-violent dissidents were hanged.
One who survived and lived his remaining years either in prison or under house arrest was Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, whose legacy lives on in the Risale-i Nur (Letters of Light), the most widely read text in Turkey, second only to The Qur’an. Said Nursi explicitly disavowed politics, focusing instead upon personal and local restoration of Islam as a direct relationship with God.
The example of Said Nursi is instructive: even apolitical, non-violent efforts to revive Islam were met with violent suppression from secular authorities. It was somewhat similar with Hasan al-Banna, whose movement also began as an apolitical grass roots organization. Other Muslim countries have their own analogues.
The point is that the resurgence of orthodoxy cannot be properly understood without knowledge of such details. We can’t blame the west per se, though from the perspective of one living in these countries, it’s easy to enough to understand why such brutality would be associated with western influence. Virtually all authorities responsible for it were educated in the west and worked to institute a western ethos. The effects of this are readily apparent to this day.
and a struggle that the West has absolutely no interest in, unless the vibrations hit our shores.
Thank you for so saying.
Yes, as a born-and-raised American, I can confirm this. The average American has absolutely no interest in what goes on in overseas unless it impacts them directly, and the upheavals of the millennial Muslim world are no exception.
In spite of the American government’s support for Israel’s apartheid regime, the fatwa attributed to bin Laden which presumed to make lawful the bloodshed of American civilians for action about which they remained largely oblivious and ambivalent is absolutely null and void, having no basis in the shari’ah.
The last thing we should do is fuel jihadi arguments about Western conspiracies.
You do realize who is making the comments? 🙂
Ah, another one for the ignore list.
>>plonk!<<
But I think aggression - expansion, conquest - is a core idea of Islam in its current iteration - Islam version 1.0 if you will. I'm not being moralistic here - conquest was a core idea of ancient empires, and its silly to judge other times by our own standards.
There have been periods - interregnums - where conquest took a momentary back seat to art and culture - but it must be pointed out that Islam was supreme and unchallenged during these times. Modernity underscored Islam's final and irreversible descent into second-class political, ecenomic, and military status - that was a challenge that struck at the core of its self-definition.
Unfortunately, you can't turn aggression on and off like a water faucet - the same aggression that makes them unable to tolerate Israel, makes one Islamic faction unleash horrific violence to gain supremacy over another faction.
And as outward expansion is thwarted by Islamic failure to modernize and become peer competitors to Israel and the West, Islam is cannibalizing itself. It has no choice - a force has to find an outlet.
That's why Islam can either devour itself or learn to sublimate its violent tendencies - an Islam 2.0 if you will. I used to be sanguine that Islam would inevitably "level up" - but increasingly I think it may devour itself, like Europe did. And the fact that converts to Islam seem to be aggressive and unstable types with problematic personalities - like Kevin Barrett - does not bode well for the long term ability of Islam to redefine itself along more stable lines.
Islam may simply not be able to sustain an identity that goes beyond being the "alpha religion" in political and military terms - which is rather childish and immature, but in our globalised multi-polar world, essential to getting along with others, a skill notably absent among Muslims, who inevitably quarrel with literally every neighbor they live next to, anywhere in the world, and of course, even more so among themselves.
Analogies between Islam and Christian Europe in its various stages are necessarily imprecise, and I agree that 17th century European attitudes may be found as well - which is interesting, because Islam began its decline in the 17th century, after the Siege of Vienna - but my overall assessment places Islam in the late 19th and early 20th century in European terms, where the challenges of modernity are unleashing tremendous internal forces that can either be sublimated or lead to self-destruction.
As I see it, the main challenge for Islam is to learn to redefine itself as not the "alpha religion", in Talha's very apt phrase, with all the insecurity and threatened self-esteem implied by that term, taken as it is from an online community known for an immature preoccupation with questions of status.Replies: @Mr. Rational, @nebulafox
Islam’s emphasis on inbreeding to cement family/clan loyalty leads to high rates of genetic defects and generally reduced IQ. Such populations are permanently stuck in third-world status except where they can parasitize their betters.
The only problem the WIERDOs (Westernized, Industrialized, Educated, Rich, Democratic, Outbred) have is their tolerance for parasites.
It has long been noted that “Islam has bloody borders”. That’s why the Rohingya (ethnic Bengalis) are being pushed out of Myanmar; the locals are sick and tired of them.
>It predates ’79 by many decades.
I think the basis for a revival of conservative pan-Islamic identity stretches back further, but the twin events of the GM incident and the Iranian Revolution were what turned it into a truly global phenomenon. I don’t want to dismiss what happened in Turkey, but Turkey is something of a unique case in that it is far more connected to Europe than the rest of the Muslim World, for obvious historical reasons: for several centuries, it was itself a European power. For several decades before Ataturk, the sultanate had been desperately trying to domestically overhaul and modernize, not too differently from what its enemy Tsarist Russia was doing. Ataturk didn’t come out of nowhere: I don’t think he could have gone in such a radical direction if he was emerging from some ex-colony.
Egypt, by contrast, is a much better example of a post-colonial Islamic country going through a government dominated by secularists, with Islamic identity becoming much more popular in part due to their failures. More anecdotally, prior to ’79, Malay women almost never wore hijabs, whether in KL or Singapore. Now they are universal, and Malaysia/Indonesia is probably the best example of a localized brand of Islam becoming more orthodox with rising wealth and connectedness to the rest of the world. This isn’t to say that local culture is being overwritten, but it does accomodate itself. (Malays are *very* careful to make sure that their traditional shamans and witch doctors are “halal”. 😉 )
>Other Muslim countries have their own analogues.
Darul Islam in 1950s Indonesia is one I know about: Suharto developed his deep distaste for Islamic radicals during that conflict. But the Islamic goals of the group were also innately tied into the ethnic conflicts unique to Indonesia, without the kind of global outlook you see today, and I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the case in other Muslim countries. Granted, Indonesia is far off, so I could be wrong here.
> The average American has absolutely no interest in what goes on in overseas unless it impacts them directly, and the upheavals of the millennial Muslim world are no exception.
That, and Islam is the faith of over a billion people over vastly different cultures and races. To some extent, drawing generalities is stupid.
(My main beef with Western left-wingers when they equate far-right, nativist movements to jihadist ones is that the latter have a degree of global reach that the former just don’t, outside of MSM mental fantasies. Beyond that, though, I think they appeal to the same kind of person, and it is always worth mentioning that Muslim countries are the ones who suffer hardest from them.)
>In spite of the American government’s support for Israel’s apartheid regime,
In apartheid South Africa, blacks and whites would not be born in the same hospitals as Jews and Arabs are. However raw the deal a Palestinians are getting, it’s just not the same.
I wish the USA would not so cravenly cave into what Israel wants, as my comment history should show. As a real American nationalist, not the phony GOP kind who cries about “Judeo-Christianity” while ignoring Palestinian Christians, I believe that American interests come first and foremost, and that Israel is a foreign country like any other. But the reality is they won their wars, played their foreign policy hand well, and they are in the dominant bargaining position. South Africa was almost totally isolated by the 1980s. There is no analogue, practically or morally. Much better comparison is Northern Ireland, IMO.
But I think aggression - expansion, conquest - is a core idea of Islam in its current iteration - Islam version 1.0 if you will. I'm not being moralistic here - conquest was a core idea of ancient empires, and its silly to judge other times by our own standards.
There have been periods - interregnums - where conquest took a momentary back seat to art and culture - but it must be pointed out that Islam was supreme and unchallenged during these times. Modernity underscored Islam's final and irreversible descent into second-class political, ecenomic, and military status - that was a challenge that struck at the core of its self-definition.
Unfortunately, you can't turn aggression on and off like a water faucet - the same aggression that makes them unable to tolerate Israel, makes one Islamic faction unleash horrific violence to gain supremacy over another faction.
And as outward expansion is thwarted by Islamic failure to modernize and become peer competitors to Israel and the West, Islam is cannibalizing itself. It has no choice - a force has to find an outlet.
That's why Islam can either devour itself or learn to sublimate its violent tendencies - an Islam 2.0 if you will. I used to be sanguine that Islam would inevitably "level up" - but increasingly I think it may devour itself, like Europe did. And the fact that converts to Islam seem to be aggressive and unstable types with problematic personalities - like Kevin Barrett - does not bode well for the long term ability of Islam to redefine itself along more stable lines.
Islam may simply not be able to sustain an identity that goes beyond being the "alpha religion" in political and military terms - which is rather childish and immature, but in our globalised multi-polar world, essential to getting along with others, a skill notably absent among Muslims, who inevitably quarrel with literally every neighbor they live next to, anywhere in the world, and of course, even more so among themselves.
Analogies between Islam and Christian Europe in its various stages are necessarily imprecise, and I agree that 17th century European attitudes may be found as well - which is interesting, because Islam began its decline in the 17th century, after the Siege of Vienna - but my overall assessment places Islam in the late 19th and early 20th century in European terms, where the challenges of modernity are unleashing tremendous internal forces that can either be sublimated or lead to self-destruction.
As I see it, the main challenge for Islam is to learn to redefine itself as not the "alpha religion", in Talha's very apt phrase, with all the insecurity and threatened self-esteem implied by that term, taken as it is from an online community known for an immature preoccupation with questions of status.Replies: @Mr. Rational, @nebulafox
>That’s probably true. Indonesian Islam is notably milder than the Arab variant.
Foreigners often confuse “Javanese” for “Indonesian”. Javanese Islam does indeed have a heterodox flavor to it, rooted in the culture: and one that is being eroded by urbanization, since it is tied in deeply the village environment. Other ethnic groups have their own brands of the religion. Notoriously conservative Aceh-where the locals are supposedly descended from Arab colonists-fought a long, hard, and violent struggle to secede until the New Order fell and centralization was reversed. Aceh-and Brunei-are no less conservative than what you’d see in the Gulf.
>But I think aggression – expansion, conquest – is a core idea of Islam in its current iteration – Islam version 1.0 if you will. I’m not being moralistic here – conquest was a core idea of ancient empires, and its silly to judge other times by our own standards.
I agree that Islam has always approached religious rivals from a triumphalist perspective and Western bien-pensant attempts to explain this away fall flat. Islamic dominated societies are domestically characterized by exclusion of heretics or religious minorities, unless the latter are too important to not be given some concessions, and even that’s been or is being eroded in Malaysia and Indonesia. I just don’t think this translates into their interaction with the rest of the world. Whether in the Middle Ages or during the Reformation, even explicitly Islamic empires have had to deal with Realpolitik. Just as France was more concerned with the HRE than Ottoman Turkey, the Seljuks and Fatamids were more concerned with each other than Byzantium, let alone Rome. People are, in the end, just people responding to local circumstances rather than acting according to a millenarian plan. This is a deeply held personal view of mine, I don’t claim it is authoritative.
The rest of your post, it’s honestly beyond my level and I have code to crunch, so I’m going to bow out. All I’ll do is reiterate my point: whatever goes on in the Islamic World domestically is best left to play out naturally, given the inevitable PR that would result from active Western encouragement of secular tendencies.
I think you have a good point about realpolitik – we see today Islamist countries like Iran and Turkey betray their religion and form alliances with China, which is forcefully de-converting Muslims.
That’s astonishing. Its like if Israel had warm and cordial relations with a country that was putting large numbers of Jews in camps to force them to abandon Judaism!
But I have no doubt that Muslims can be compelled to bow to realities and cooperate with others if they must, just that they have a strong tendency to fight with others everywhere – and among themselves. I mean, why exactly are Muslims fighting Buddhists in Thailand? And Catholics in the Philippines?
But anyways thanks for your comment and good points about Indonesia.
The institution of the Dhimmi establishes discrimination and second class status.
To be fair, Christians did the same and worse. Eastern faiths seem more tolerant.
But Christianity leveled up and no longer does that. No one has anything to fear from Christians these days, except perhaps too much niceness. I've never argued Islam was always worse - just that it has not gone through a necessary phase of development, and has remained primitive and incompatible with the modern world.
I will argue that Islam was imperialistic and expansionist from the beginning, and that this is a core element of its identity.
None of this is to moralize - just to be clear that Islam today is constitutionally incapable of living at peace with neighbors without attempting to dominate them until it sublimates it's aggressive tendencies - and it's insecurities and weakness. We have to know what we are dealing with.
I don't know anything about the conditions in Medina - all I know is the historical pattern. Perhaps this instance you mention can serve as the nucleus for charting a new course for Islam - if what you say is accurate.
I am sure Islam, complex as it is, contains the seeds for its own transformation - it is a question of what to emphasize, and what to deemphasize. As an outsider, I can only hope you make the right choice.Replies: @AnonStarter
We’ve had this discussion before, Aaron, and we’ve also confirmed that yours is the neo-lachyrmose perspective of Bat Ye’or long discredited as polemic by most scholars in the field of Islamic history. It isn’t that Ye’or is inaccurate per se, it’s that she cherry-picks the worst examples and presents a collection of them as if this represented the normative situation of non-Muslims living under Islamic rule. It’s not an objective study.
The fact remains that there is no mandate for political and economic discrimination against non-Muslims in order to incentivize conversion. You once pointed to The Qur’an 9: 29 to justify this claim, and I explained that the verse is not only an imperative restricted to necessary war, but that the final conditional clause orders affirmation of the enemies’ concession, not institutionalized discrimination.
I’ve also made clear that there are Islamic prophecies of God’s removing His knowledge from the Arabs themselves, a demise that came to pass as early as the period of the Abbasid reign. As such, it’s certainly possible to find exegesis of 9: 29 that contrasts with what I’ve written. In spite of this, the preponderance of scholarship does not hold that life was as oppressive for non-Muslims under the shari’ah as you would have us believe. This consensus isn’t due to political correctness, since even liberal scholars freely transmit the record of inequities; it’s because the comprehensive record of history objectively yields that conclusion.
As for Islam’s beginning, the Meccan period (the first 13 years) is characterized primarily by severe persecution and disfranchisement of Muslims. Not long after arriving in Medina, the Prophet established what we can confidently call a federal constitutional republic, one in which the Jews of Medina enjoyed full religious liberty. The incentive to become Muslim was found not only in the model of political administration, but in the conduct of Muslims. Just as the disciples of Moses had been, they were a “light unto the nations.” That’s what it means to “become the alpha religion.” You yourself become the hujjah, the proof.
In the early years of Islam, expansion occurred as a result of
1) its equitable political administration, which appealed to many who languished under the yoke of Sassanid and Byzantine taxation;
2) recognition of the Prophet as “Shiloh,” or the Messenger of the Covenant, prophesied in Scripture; and
3) unavoidable military campaigns engaged as a result of Sassanid and Byzantine aggression.
The latter cause necessitated protracted conflict, as would be expected when engaging the imperial powers in question. Whether or not the campaigns of later generations were warranted can be subject to scrutiny, though I think you’ll find that many of the earliest ones were undertaken at the behest of parties suffering under one or another oppressive regime.
But all of this was due to the exigencies of the age; you would do well to familiarize yourself with the Risale-i Nur of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, who stated in no uncertain terms that, in our time, martial jihad must be supplanted with spiritual jihad. His following is the largest among Turkish Muslims and has expanded to Central Asia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Europe and America.
Incidentally, he also states that Israel accomplished what it did as a result of its religiosity. I don’t think you’ll find that to be a commonly held opinion among most of the world, let alone Muslims.
2) recognition of the Prophet as "Shiloh," or the Messenger of the Covenant, prophesied in Scripture; and
3) unavoidable military campaigns engaged as a result of Sassanid and Byzantine aggression.The latter cause necessitated protracted conflict, as would be expected when engaging the imperial powers in question. Whether or not the campaigns of later generations were warranted can be subject to scrutiny, though I think you'll find that many of the earliest ones were undertaken at the behest of parties suffering under one or another oppressive regime.But all of this was due to the exigencies of the age; you would do well to familiarize yourself with the Risale-i Nur of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, who stated in no uncertain terms that, in our time, martial jihad must be supplanted with spiritual jihad. His following is the largest among Turkish Muslims and has expanded to Central Asia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Europe and America.Incidentally, he also states that Israel accomplished what it did as a result of its religiosity. I don't think you'll find that to be a commonly held opinion among most of the world, let alone Muslims.Replies: @AnonStarter
Ugh. “lachrymose.”
Ataturk didn’t come out of nowhere: I don’t think he could have gone in such a radical direction if he was emerging from some ex-colony.
He didn’t come out of nowhere, yet the preceding efforts of the sultan to modernize the Ottoman state did not envision the extreme departure from Islam that M. Kemal and his coteries realized. Ataturk originally premised some key elements of his own prospectus for new administration upon Islamic source material. This proved to be a skillful deception that many Turks would soon regret, though enough of them had already bought into it to keep him firmly ensconced in power.
Malays are *very* careful to make sure that their traditional shamans and witch doctors are “halal”. 😉
“White magic” is what they call it — the antidote to the black variety.
Beyond that, though, I think they appeal to the same kind of person, and it is always worth mentioning that Muslim countries are the ones who suffer hardest from them.
Indeed, they do. Thank you for noticing.
There is no analogue, practically or morally.
The term originally means “separation,” which also connotes discrimination. No, it isn’t identical in Palestine, but that’s beside the point. Some may think it’s time for Palestinians to concede defeat, yet we can see the result of the PLO’s concessions to date: Israeli land theft and property destruction continues apace, the PA is still a non-entity for all its efforts at détente, and now they’re facing obsolescence.
Being in the dominant bargaining position is one thing. Exploiting that position to grind someone’s nose in the dust is quite another.
All in all, I enjoy your correspondence. Much appreciated.
-- Party approval of U.S./European Judaism
-- Party approval of Israeli Judaism
One has to suspect that the Populist GOP drop off for Jews 50% vs. Christians 84% is due to the U.S. contingent of "non-observant Jews". SJW Globalist voices, such as Bernie Sanders and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, create less favorable GOP responses.
PEACE 😇Replies: @Fran Taubman
Been meaning to ask you, were banned from Gilad Atzmon’s site? Never see you there. I am pretty alone since Aaron was banned.
His recent articles have been very dull, and he attracts some of the worst trolls on the site. More interesting discussions take place elsewhere.
PEACE 😇
Well for sure if the Muslims were running the show that would be the end of gay rights.
To the best of my knowledge I am not banned.
His recent articles have been very dull, and he attracts some of the worst trolls on the site. More interesting discussions take place elsewhere.
PEACE 😇
The main point of Islam is that it is not just a religion, it is a political (socialist) system, where the majority protect the weak. It is a religious duty to look out for the Umah, so a homogenous religion is essential. Everyone abides by Islamic rules of Sharia. Islam cannot coexist with capitalism, democracy or mixed religions. It is strictly a monolithic entity and relies on authoritative rulers and rules that the proletariat agree upon as a religious duty. Homosexuality would be banned in any Islamic run country. Wealth is frowned upon unless you are a king or tribal leader in which case the wealth and women are yours for the asking Ibn Saud had 22 consorts over 100 children and 45 sons.
Islam is an an Arabian religion, where tribes are ruled by leaders. Impossible for Islam to survive under a capitalist democracy. Virtually impossible. So it does not matter how many Muslims there are in the world, the arc of progress moves forward not backward. No religion is going to last that is authoritative when we have moved past dictators and tribal leaders as religious rulers. That is the current human condition. We are not going backwards. There are no more Alpha religions. There is just religious preferences.
Islam is basically done as a potent civilization. Oh, it will continue to exist and may even grow in numbers of primarily low quality people, but it simply can't adapt to changing conditions. It just lacks the flexibility. And what is rigid is dead. Its core ideas cannot adapt. It will never be dynamic and powerful and creative again.
It had a good run till around the 1600s. That's about a thousand years - similar to Byzantium. That's not bad for a primitive desert tribe of Arabs. There was much good in its heyday.
But nothing lasts forever - especially nothing that cannot change.Replies: @Colin Wright
Islam is an an Arabian religion, where tribes are ruled by leaders. Impossible for Islam to survive under a capitalist democracy. Virtually impossible. So it does not matter how many Muslims there are in the world, the arc of progress moves forward not backward. No religion is going to last that is authoritative when we have moved past dictators and tribal leaders as religious rulers. That is the current human condition. We are not going backwards. There are no more Alpha religions. There is just religious preferences.Replies: @Al Liguori, @AaronB, @Colin Wright
The main point of Judaism is that it is a Master Race creed http://judaism/who-is-human.html with a political arm, Zionism, that acts out the genocidal and misanthropic precepts of Judaism. http://judaism.is/perpetrators.html http://judaism.is/genocide.html
As is thoroughly evident in the Jewish theocracy, halakah (a Jewish version of sharia) and the 620 Noahide Laws dominate. http://judaism.is/noahide-deceit.html Homosexuality and pedophilia are encouraged under talmudic law. Serial child sex slavers find a haven in Israel. http://judaism.is/pedophilia-and-sodomy.html
Is perhaps the hate on atheists actually a hate by proxy on secular/militant Jews?
Otherwise it's hard to explain the hate on atheists, unless it's simply that religious people don't ike unbelievers (and that most militant atheists are actually pretty annoying).
As for the love of Asians for Jews, they likely see Jews as the elite and they want to emulate them.
The love of Christians for Jews is likely because of protestantism (I bet Catholics have a slightly less positive view)Replies: @Charlotte, @A123, @dfordoom, @Audacious Epigone, @Al Liguori
The official teaching (Magisterium) http://judaism.is/the-church-on-the-jews.html has not changed and cannot be changed, but has been subverted in practice by the Novus Ordo (“New Order”). Examples of such subversion abound: http://judaism.is/dishonorable-mentions.html
IslamoGloboHomo has contaminated an number of urban areas, damaging the local churches. However, it is not winning converts to SJW Islam.
The solution is for Protestant churches to return to their traditional Christian values. It may be too late to save Catholicism. The selection of Pope Muhammad Francis the Submissive as their leader, places them on a path of submission to IslamoHomo.
PEACE 😇Replies: @Al Liguori, @Fran Taubman
“Pope Muhammad Francis the Submissive”??? Tell us another funny one! While Jorge loves everything except Catholicism and practicing Catholics, those of us with two eyes that see observe that first and foremost Jorge is pimping for the Jews, not Catholic at all. In defiance of 2,000 years of infallible unchangeable Magisterium,[1] Jorge teaches the Talmudic formula: Yeridah Tzorech Aliyah (“descent for sake of ascent”),[2] parrots the ideas of Heschel,[3] Levinas,[4] Buber,[5] a dead rebbe from the Steppes,[6] emulates the rabbis and Wiesel in “defeating” God,[7] incessantly swaps spit with the rabbis including his BFF Skorka,[8] revels that ‘God is purifying the church with sin,’[9] blasphemes Jesus[10] and the Holy Trinity,[11] practices mortally sinful[1] Jewish rites,[12] pimps the HoloHoax,[13] etc.[14]
[1] http://judaism.is/the-church-on-the-jews.html#council
[2] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-rebbe-explains-hasidic-stratagem-of.html
[3] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-francis-through-heschel.html
[4] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-hermeneutics-of-talmudic-alchemical.html
[5] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/06/francis-kabbalistic-gnostic-god-man.html
[6] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/01/francis-hasidic-concept-of-god-of.html
[7] https://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2016/07/elie-wiesel-pope-francis-rich-orthodox.html
[8] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-many-books-on-talmudic-judaism-does.html
[9] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2019/03/francis-hasid-god-is-purifying-church.html
[10] https://novusordowatch.org/2017/04/francis-christ-made-himself-devil/
[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20181215213659/https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/03/25/woman-knows-read-pope-francis/
[12] https://novusordowatch.org/2013/03/bergoglio-celebrated-hanukkah-with-jews/
[13] among many, https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-holocaust-is-keystone-of-francis.html
[14] https://novusordowatch.org/francis/
IslamoGloboHomo has contaminated an number of urban areas, damaging the local churches. However, it is not winning converts to SJW Islam.
The solution is for Protestant churches to return to their traditional Christian values. It may be too late to save Catholicism. The selection of Pope Muhammad Francis the Submissive as their leader, places them on a path of submission to IslamoHomo.
PEACE 😇Replies: @Al Liguori, @Fran Taubman
Warning about Al, He is a total sociopath look at his website. S-C-A-R-Y. He wants to prosecute Jews for Usury. Look up Maurice Pinay.
[2] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-rebbe-explains-hasidic-stratagem-of.html
[3] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-francis-through-heschel.html
[4] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-hermeneutics-of-talmudic-alchemical.html
[5] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/06/francis-kabbalistic-gnostic-god-man.html
[6] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/01/francis-hasidic-concept-of-god-of.html
[7] https://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2016/07/elie-wiesel-pope-francis-rich-orthodox.html
[8] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-many-books-on-talmudic-judaism-does.html
[9] https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2019/03/francis-hasid-god-is-purifying-church.html
[10] https://novusordowatch.org/2017/04/francis-christ-made-himself-devil/
[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20181215213659/https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/03/25/woman-knows-read-pope-francis/
[12] https://novusordowatch.org/2013/03/bergoglio-celebrated-hanukkah-with-jews/
[13] among many, https://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-holocaust-is-keystone-of-francis.html
[14] https://novusordowatch.org/francis/
http://judaism.is/images/anti-pope-francis-menorah.jpgReplies: @Audacious Epigone
Under the general prohibition against spamming, please refrain from the wall of links. Perhaps that information could be marshaled elsewhere and then linked to from here to the extent that it is germane to the comment thread.
A123 made an absurd implication about the “Pope” being “Pope Muhammad Francis the Submissive.” In view of that, it hardly seems “off-topic” to bury A123 with the extensive and incontrovertible evidence that Jorge is pimping for the rabbis. http://judaism.is/st.-francis-on-francis.html
Islam is an an Arabian religion, where tribes are ruled by leaders. Impossible for Islam to survive under a capitalist democracy. Virtually impossible. So it does not matter how many Muslims there are in the world, the arc of progress moves forward not backward. No religion is going to last that is authoritative when we have moved past dictators and tribal leaders as religious rulers. That is the current human condition. We are not going backwards. There are no more Alpha religions. There is just religious preferences.Replies: @Al Liguori, @AaronB, @Colin Wright
Pretty much.
Islam is basically done as a potent civilization. Oh, it will continue to exist and may even grow in numbers of primarily low quality people, but it simply can’t adapt to changing conditions. It just lacks the flexibility. And what is rigid is dead. Its core ideas cannot adapt. It will never be dynamic and powerful and creative again.
It had a good run till around the 1600s. That’s about a thousand years – similar to Byzantium. That’s not bad for a primitive desert tribe of Arabs. There was much good in its heyday.
But nothing lasts forever – especially nothing that cannot change.
...still -- as I say -- a step up from Fran. Let's see your slider or something. At least it won't be a guaranteed gopher ball....how do you do it? I mean, how come all the Zionists are always the stupid Jews? Don't you start to run out?Replies: @AaronB
Islam is an an Arabian religion, where tribes are ruled by leaders. Impossible for Islam to survive under a capitalist democracy. Virtually impossible. So it does not matter how many Muslims there are in the world, the arc of progress moves forward not backward. No religion is going to last that is authoritative when we have moved past dictators and tribal leaders as religious rulers. That is the current human condition. We are not going backwards. There are no more Alpha religions. There is just religious preferences.Replies: @Al Liguori, @AaronB, @Colin Wright
‘…Islam cannot coexist with capitalism, democracy or mixed religions. It is strictly a monolithic entity and relies on authoritative rulers and rules that the proletariat agree upon as a religious duty. Homosexuality would be banned in any Islamic run country. Wealth is frowned upon unless you are a king or tribal leader in which case the wealth and women are yours for the asking Ibn Saud had 22 consorts over 100 children and 45 sons…’
You’re just regurgitating the bile you licked up at one of the Islamophobic sites you get your thoughts from.
Polygamy is not recognized in Turkey. Malaysia has a perfectly successful capitalist economy. Until the Serbs invaded it, Bosnia had large Muslim, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox populations. Egypt still has a large Christian population; as does Syria. Malaysia doesn’t demand that its Indian or Chinese populations practice Islam. Democracy — for better or worse — is currently being practiced in Turkey and Tunisia. Iran’s political system has genuine elements of democracy. Democracy would be being practiced in Egypt if Israel and Saudi Arabia hadn’t orchestrated a coup.
Your ‘views’ on Islam are simply rank and ignorant bigotry. The worst of it is that you appear to be genuinely horrified and outraged that anyone might express anything that smacks of antisemitism — yet you turn right around and calmly abuse other faiths even more outrageously.
I like the truth and facts. The truth being that Jews and Israel are no worse or better then any other country and Jews as a people including Zionist are like all other peoples in the world fighting for the rights of Jews for self determination and dignity. Just like Malaysia and other peoples and countries in the world.
Your ‘views’ on Islam are simply rank and ignorant bigotry. The worst of it is that you appear to be genuinely horrified and outraged that anyone might express anything that smacks of antisemitism — yet you turn right around and calmly abuse other faiths even more outrageouslyF***k off with your BS, lies and invective.Replies: @Colin Wright, @Al Liguori
I speak the truth as I know and research. You are so full of invective and hatred, you would not know the truth if it hit you over the head. I do not understand why you refuse to research facts, before you speak, or if you just do not care and are more interested in name calling and invective then the facts. Lets just deal with the facts.
I was speaking about Islam in Arabia, but okay lets look at other areas. Who cares about Polygamy? That is scarcely the point. Malaysia might be capitalistic but it is very regressive in relgious obedience and recognition of other religions and relies on dictator rules of Sultans in areas which are all about Islamic Shiria. Why don’t you read before you shoot from the hip? It is difficult if not impossible to practice another religion other then Islam in Malaysia. Here are some excerpts from Wiki on Malaysia. Feel free to correct my grammar if it helps your poor self image.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Malaysia
So funny to me that a man with your advanced vocabulary cannot see the hypocritical nature of accusing Israel of being an apartheid racist regime. And yet in Malaysia you cannot practice or even mention Judaism or Jewish ideas. I know Jews that have visited Malaysia that say it is dangerous to admit you are Jewish. Gosh Colin what do you think of that?
What a wonderful country.
Egypt:
You have this all backwards, maybe because you are backwards. Like when you pointed out on Gilads post look Fran Israel has killed 10000 Palestinians when the statistics (in a pro Palestinian propaganda issue) was from the year 2000, which is 20 years. You do the math.
The Muslim Brotherhood was voted into Egypt in a democratic process, with Morsi at the head. But the Muslim Brotherhood is a non democratic institution and Morsi began to suspend the parliament and all democratic oversight. Morsi was seizing control with the sole purpose of setting up an Islamic dictatorship, that is why he was overthrown. Sort of a now or never. IT WAS THE MILITARY THAT overthrew Morsi in a coup, not Israel and not Saudi Arabia. The Military has always been the authority over Egypt it was when Mubarak was the leader. Mubarak and Al Sisi serve the military and come from the military. Morsi was going to suspend all that. Feel free to correct my grammar it it makes you feel more like a man.
I do not mind anti semitism at all. I mind lies and fake Jew porn of gore and dead bodies with quotations referring to sexual excitement by Jews over the murder, death and torture of other humans. I mind the distortion of truths and the use of abusive tactics and propaganda memes to lie about Jews and Judaism. You particularly lie about Israel insisting that they have killed thousands of pregnant women and children etc.
I like the truth and facts. The truth being that Jews and Israel are no worse or better then any other country and Jews as a people including Zionist are like all other peoples in the world fighting for the rights of Jews for self determination and dignity. Just like Malaysia and other peoples and countries in the world.
Your ‘views’ on Islam are simply rank and ignorant bigotry. The worst of it is that you appear to be genuinely horrified and outraged that anyone might express anything that smacks of antisemitism — yet you turn right around and calmly abuse other faiths even more outrageously
F***k off with your BS, lies and invective.
More of that famed Fran restraint, courtesy, and intellectual heft.
...and to think that people are rude to her. Moderator!
‘… And yet in Malaysia you cannot practice or even mention Judaism or Jewish ideas. I know Jews that have visited Malaysia that say it is dangerous to admit you are Jewish. Gosh Colin what do you think of that?’
I think we should immediately stop giving Malaysia three billion dollars a year in arms. I also think we should stop blocking criticism of her in the UN. Finally, I think we should revisit our role in creating that horrible, horrible state.
Anything else?
You know, Fran, the great thing about ‘debating’ you is that I never have to think.
Now, if it’s that swine Aaron, I need to look the bait over and spot the hook first. If it’s Lot (don’t blush, Lot) on occasion I even have to think.
But you? It’s effortless.
Keep pitching, Fran. It’s fun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aidWow!!And Afghanistan is on top of the list with 5 billion.I dunno Colin I guess it is effortless when you never really deal with the information that is presented to you. Nice trick. Oh and we give Malaysia money also. I know it is just a walk in the park debating me. Like is Beria Jewish Colin? Oh oh it was the other one with the Jewish sounding name. I remember you told Ron
"After paddling around, I came to to the conclusion that he was not Jewish"Do you paddle around often Colin? Where do you paddle to?Replies: @Al Liguori
I like the truth and facts. The truth being that Jews and Israel are no worse or better then any other country and Jews as a people including Zionist are like all other peoples in the world fighting for the rights of Jews for self determination and dignity. Just like Malaysia and other peoples and countries in the world.
Your ‘views’ on Islam are simply rank and ignorant bigotry. The worst of it is that you appear to be genuinely horrified and outraged that anyone might express anything that smacks of antisemitism — yet you turn right around and calmly abuse other faiths even more outrageouslyF***k off with your BS, lies and invective.Replies: @Colin Wright, @Al Liguori
‘F***k off with your BS, lies and invective.’
More of that famed Fran restraint, courtesy, and intellectual heft.
…and to think that people are rude to her. Moderator!
Islam is basically done as a potent civilization. Oh, it will continue to exist and may even grow in numbers of primarily low quality people, but it simply can't adapt to changing conditions. It just lacks the flexibility. And what is rigid is dead. Its core ideas cannot adapt. It will never be dynamic and powerful and creative again.
It had a good run till around the 1600s. That's about a thousand years - similar to Byzantium. That's not bad for a primitive desert tribe of Arabs. There was much good in its heyday.
But nothing lasts forever - especially nothing that cannot change.Replies: @Colin Wright
‘… Pretty much.
Islam is basically done as a potent civilization…’
Lol.
What’s your prognosis for Judaism? Thinking about what you’ve seen here in the states, of course.
…still — as I say — a step up from Fran. Let’s see your slider or something. At least it won’t be a guaranteed gopher ball.
…how do you do it? I mean, how come all the Zionists are always the stupid Jews? Don’t you start to run out?
Judaism pulled off the very tricky feat of going from a land-based nationalism to retaining a sense of nationhood in exile to returning to a land based nationalism when conditions permitted. At some points of its history it emphasized legalism, at other points mysticism. An agricultural, warrior based way of life was replaced by a scholarship, finance based way of life, and back again in modern times.
Another country that has remained vital and alive by transforming is Japan - it went from a feudal warrior society to a European style colonial society to a mercantile society while remaining recognizably Japanese.
Islam has obviously failed to meet the challenge of modernity, and it's very late in the day. The trick was for Islam to sublimate its aggressive energies. When Japan lost the war, it sublimated its aggression into economic and cultural activities - and won a very different kind of war. When Israel was defeated by the Romans, it sublimated its aggressive energies into finance and scholarship and spirituality - and defeated the Romans in a very different way.
As I said before, water must find a the path of least resistance - or an open path. Islam is like a person banging his head on a door when he can just walk around it. Islam has not yet found a way to walk around the old door that has been shut in their face.
In my conversations with Talha and AnonStarter, they have been proud that Islam does not adapt and change. This is the language of death - it appears superficially strong, but is weak. Lao Tzu says what is alive is supple and flexible, and what is dead is rigid. Israel accepted a tiny fraction of its original dream of Palestine and this flexibility ended up getting it much more than it bargained for. The Palestinians proudly and rigidly rejected any compromise - and are on the verge of losing everything.
Muslims are still trying to win the "old" kind of war when that is over. Physical conquest and political supremacy is still their focus when that is no longer possible. They have not learned to sublimate their energies and find new channels.
Every one else has. China. Japan. So it may not be possible for Islam, we have to admit at this point. Or at least, it may first have to destroy itself before it can reinvent itself, which appears likely. And that is a process underway.
In the meantime, Muslims seem to be focusing on growing their numbers, as if it wants to become another Africa - large but ineffectual and dysfunctional.Replies: @Colin Wright, @Fran Taubman
I think we should immediately stop giving Malaysia three billion dollars a year in arms. I also think we should stop blocking criticism of her in the UN. Finally, I think we should revisit our role in creating that horrible, horrible state.Anything else?You know, Fran, the great thing about 'debating' you is that I never have to think. Now, if it's that swine Aaron, I need to look the bait over and spot the hook first. If it's Lot (don't blush, Lot) on occasion I even have to think.But you? It's effortless.Keep pitching, Fran. It's fun.Replies: @Fran Taubman
Did you know that you can look up a list of foreign aid the US gives to various countries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
Wow!!
And Afghanistan is on top of the list with 5 billion.
I dunno Colin I guess it is effortless when you never really deal with the information that is presented to you. Nice trick. Oh and we give Malaysia money also. I know it is just a walk in the park debating me. Like is Beria Jewish Colin? Oh oh it was the other one with the Jewish sounding name. I remember you told Ron
“After paddling around, I came to to the conclusion that he was not Jewish”
Do you paddle around often Colin? Where do you paddle to?
http://judaism.is/images/percent%20communists%20jewish.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aidWow!!And Afghanistan is on top of the list with 5 billion.I dunno Colin I guess it is effortless when you never really deal with the information that is presented to you. Nice trick. Oh and we give Malaysia money also. I know it is just a walk in the park debating me. Like is Beria Jewish Colin? Oh oh it was the other one with the Jewish sounding name. I remember you told Ron
"After paddling around, I came to to the conclusion that he was not Jewish"Do you paddle around often Colin? Where do you paddle to?Replies: @Al Liguori
Beria is identified as Jewish in The Plot Against the Church by Vatican Archivists under their collective pseudonym of “Maurice Pinay,” explicitly so on page 473 and by inference on page 37. In The Plot Against the Church’s extensive lists of Bolshevist officials, non-Jews are explicitly identified as such. In cases of disputed tribal membership, the evidence is weighed. The Jews lied about Lenin and Stalin's Jewish roots for decades. And, even is Beria was a sick Gentile, the Jewish disproportion still puts the deaths of at least 60 million Gentiles on their heads. Prosecution, punishment, and reparations. http://judaism.is/perpetrators.html
http://judaism.is/images/percent%20communists%20jewish.jpg
I like the truth and facts. The truth being that Jews and Israel are no worse or better then any other country and Jews as a people including Zionist are like all other peoples in the world fighting for the rights of Jews for self determination and dignity. Just like Malaysia and other peoples and countries in the world.
Your ‘views’ on Islam are simply rank and ignorant bigotry. The worst of it is that you appear to be genuinely horrified and outraged that anyone might express anything that smacks of antisemitism — yet you turn right around and calmly abuse other faiths even more outrageouslyF***k off with your BS, lies and invective.Replies: @Colin Wright, @Al Liguori
Ha, ha, ha…. Lying to Gentiles is among the many types of lies encouraged by your fake “ORAL” Torah. http://judaism.is/torah-encourages-lies.html You know, “ORAL” as in “ORAL” circumcision, mezizah b’peh. http://judaism.is/pedophilia-and-sodomy.html#mezizah
More “whataboutism” from you. “But, Momala, all the kids are killing Palestinians.”
Added to the long list of your “always respectful” [another lie] posts:
...still -- as I say -- a step up from Fran. Let's see your slider or something. At least it won't be a guaranteed gopher ball....how do you do it? I mean, how come all the Zionists are always the stupid Jews? Don't you start to run out?Replies: @AaronB
Judaism has constantly adapted and changed.
Judaism pulled off the very tricky feat of going from a land-based nationalism to retaining a sense of nationhood in exile to returning to a land based nationalism when conditions permitted. At some points of its history it emphasized legalism, at other points mysticism. An agricultural, warrior based way of life was replaced by a scholarship, finance based way of life, and back again in modern times.
Another country that has remained vital and alive by transforming is Japan – it went from a feudal warrior society to a European style colonial society to a mercantile society while remaining recognizably Japanese.
Islam has obviously failed to meet the challenge of modernity, and it’s very late in the day. The trick was for Islam to sublimate its aggressive energies. When Japan lost the war, it sublimated its aggression into economic and cultural activities – and won a very different kind of war. When Israel was defeated by the Romans, it sublimated its aggressive energies into finance and scholarship and spirituality – and defeated the Romans in a very different way.
As I said before, water must find a the path of least resistance – or an open path. Islam is like a person banging his head on a door when he can just walk around it. Islam has not yet found a way to walk around the old door that has been shut in their face.
In my conversations with Talha and AnonStarter, they have been proud that Islam does not adapt and change. This is the language of death – it appears superficially strong, but is weak. Lao Tzu says what is alive is supple and flexible, and what is dead is rigid. Israel accepted a tiny fraction of its original dream of Palestine and this flexibility ended up getting it much more than it bargained for. The Palestinians proudly and rigidly rejected any compromise – and are on the verge of losing everything.
Muslims are still trying to win the “old” kind of war when that is over. Physical conquest and political supremacy is still their focus when that is no longer possible. They have not learned to sublimate their energies and find new channels.
Every one else has. China. Japan. So it may not be possible for Islam, we have to admit at this point. Or at least, it may first have to destroy itself before it can reinvent itself, which appears likely. And that is a process underway.
In the meantime, Muslims seem to be focusing on growing their numbers, as if it wants to become another Africa – large but ineffectual and dysfunctional.
There are three claims here; that Jews had a land-based nationalism to begin with, that they retained a sense of nationhood in exile, and that they 'returned' to a land-based nationalism when conditions permitted.
The first claim is at best a half-truth: Judaism first recognizably appeared as a primarily urban cult spread across the Persian empire; 'Jews' more or less simultaneously appeared in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. The actual inhabitants of rural Palestine tended to be derided as 'people of the land,' and the extent to which they identified with the urban Jews of Babylon, Jerusalem, Alexandria, et al is uncertain. Certainly one aspect of the Jesus story is the extent to which he clashed ideologically with the Temple Jews.
Moreover, the cult promptly spread outwards from its initial urban centers; not only was it never demonstrably confined to Palestine, it rapidly became less so with the passage of time. The Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War did not happen in Palestine; it was centered in Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus.
The second claim is also a half-truth: Sephardim did not identify with Ashkenazim, etc. If the Jewish nation 'in exile' (it had always been 'in exile') had a sense of nationhood, it was a very fractured one. Do you really think Yemeni Jews had much in common with or felt much in common with -- or were even aware of the existence of -- Polish Jews?
Two points have to be made about the last claim of 'the return' to a land. First, describing taking a land from another people who are descended from those who have always been there when you have never been there as a 'return' is an act of singular effrontery; my ancestors came to California, but at least they didn't have the gall to describe it as a 'return.'
Second, very few Jews with an authentic choice have ever emigrated to this land. For example, look up how many American Jews have ever emigrated to Israel; it's varied from a drip to a trickle. So if Jews don't even care to be in 'their' land, in what sense has Judaism become a 'land-based nationalism'?Replies: @Fran Taubman, @AaronB
Our points on Islam are spot on and proven over time in looking at the history of Israel. The Arabs just threw it all away on their own merrit. At the end their claim for land was less about nationality and more about defeating the Jews for supremacy. That in the end why they have lost. Their cause is a lie a big propaganda Islamic lie.
Judaism pulled off the very tricky feat of going from a land-based nationalism to retaining a sense of nationhood in exile to returning to a land based nationalism when conditions permitted. At some points of its history it emphasized legalism, at other points mysticism. An agricultural, warrior based way of life was replaced by a scholarship, finance based way of life, and back again in modern times.
Another country that has remained vital and alive by transforming is Japan - it went from a feudal warrior society to a European style colonial society to a mercantile society while remaining recognizably Japanese.
Islam has obviously failed to meet the challenge of modernity, and it's very late in the day. The trick was for Islam to sublimate its aggressive energies. When Japan lost the war, it sublimated its aggression into economic and cultural activities - and won a very different kind of war. When Israel was defeated by the Romans, it sublimated its aggressive energies into finance and scholarship and spirituality - and defeated the Romans in a very different way.
As I said before, water must find a the path of least resistance - or an open path. Islam is like a person banging his head on a door when he can just walk around it. Islam has not yet found a way to walk around the old door that has been shut in their face.
In my conversations with Talha and AnonStarter, they have been proud that Islam does not adapt and change. This is the language of death - it appears superficially strong, but is weak. Lao Tzu says what is alive is supple and flexible, and what is dead is rigid. Israel accepted a tiny fraction of its original dream of Palestine and this flexibility ended up getting it much more than it bargained for. The Palestinians proudly and rigidly rejected any compromise - and are on the verge of losing everything.
Muslims are still trying to win the "old" kind of war when that is over. Physical conquest and political supremacy is still their focus when that is no longer possible. They have not learned to sublimate their energies and find new channels.
Every one else has. China. Japan. So it may not be possible for Islam, we have to admit at this point. Or at least, it may first have to destroy itself before it can reinvent itself, which appears likely. And that is a process underway.
In the meantime, Muslims seem to be focusing on growing their numbers, as if it wants to become another Africa - large but ineffectual and dysfunctional.Replies: @Colin Wright, @Fran Taubman
‘Judaism pulled off the very tricky feat of going from a land-based nationalism to retaining a sense of nationhood in exile to returning to a land based nationalism when conditions permitted…’
There are three claims here; that Jews had a land-based nationalism to begin with, that they retained a sense of nationhood in exile, and that they ‘returned’ to a land-based nationalism when conditions permitted.
The first claim is at best a half-truth: Judaism first recognizably appeared as a primarily urban cult spread across the Persian empire; ‘Jews’ more or less simultaneously appeared in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. The actual inhabitants of rural Palestine tended to be derided as ‘people of the land,’ and the extent to which they identified with the urban Jews of Babylon, Jerusalem, Alexandria, et al is uncertain. Certainly one aspect of the Jesus story is the extent to which he clashed ideologically with the Temple Jews.
Moreover, the cult promptly spread outwards from its initial urban centers; not only was it never demonstrably confined to Palestine, it rapidly became less so with the passage of time. The Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War did not happen in Palestine; it was centered in Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus.
The second claim is also a half-truth: Sephardim did not identify with Ashkenazim, etc. If the Jewish nation ‘in exile’ (it had always been ‘in exile’) had a sense of nationhood, it was a very fractured one. Do you really think Yemeni Jews had much in common with or felt much in common with — or were even aware of the existence of — Polish Jews?
Two points have to be made about the last claim of ‘the return’ to a land. First, describing taking a land from another people who are descended from those who have always been there when you have never been there as a ‘return’ is an act of singular effrontery; my ancestors came to California, but at least they didn’t have the gall to describe it as a ‘return.’
Second, very few Jews with an authentic choice have ever emigrated to this land. For example, look up how many American Jews have ever emigrated to Israel; it’s varied from a drip to a trickle. So if Jews don’t even care to be in ‘their’ land, in what sense has Judaism become a ‘land-based nationalism’?
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/timeline-for-the-history-of-judaism. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/timeline-for-the-history-of-judaismhttps://flic.kr/p/2jsJFh7
The Jewish revolts against Greece and Rome show a land based nation rising up against foreign oppressors.
Yemeni Jews were corresponding with Maimonides, based in Egypt, who was in turn very influential among Ashkenazi Jews. All Jews anywhere in the world studied the exact same Talmud and practiced nearly all the same rituals and customs, often complex and full of minutiae - it's actually quite astonishing that they all got it right in the same way. Sephardic Jews who wrote in Arabic have been hugely influential in the Ashkenazi world, and vice versa.
I will concede that the return to a land based nationalism today has not been complete - far from it. Jews are human, and get accustomed to live in familiar places. This isn't unique to Jews - millions of Chinese and Indians and Muslims live in the West, yet no one uses that as a basis for denying them nationalism.
As for the Palestinians being the descendents of the original Jews, there is no way to ever prove this. What is certainly the case is that a substantial portion of them, if not the majority, are later invaders from Arabia and across the Levant, that the region was never an independent country with sealed borders and a homogeneous population but a province of an empire on a major trading route seeing a constant influx of newcomers and a constant outflow of people who no loyalty to the region following their economic fortunes, and there has been much mixed marriages. Today they are a heavily mixed population of predominantly Arabic origin.
Sephardic Jews, about 60% of the original population of Israel, have a much better claim to descend from the original Hebrews, while Ashkenazi Jews are a mixed group as we know, primarily Italian mothers with Middle Eastern fathers.
That does nothing to invalidate any claim. The descendent of an English king who married German and French is no less a legitimate heir.
What matters is the cultural continuity of a community. People descended from Jews who turn their backs on that community no longer participate in the rightful claims of this particular cultural community. The land of Israel, for everyone except Jews, was merely an interchangeable province in an empire and did not command any special allegiance. Beyond contingent circumstance, there was no particular reason a Muslim Palestinian needed to live in that particular province of the pan-Muslim empire - it was not necessary in order to realize or fulfill his cultural or religious rights and identity, which could be realized just as easily in any of the 22 Muslim states. Of course he had a material claim to his actual physical possesion, and no one denied that.
In the same way, Americans of English descent who left the English community behind cannot suddenly claim English land, nor can an American of German descent.
As long as Palestine was not a nation-state but a province of an empire, Jews had every right to buy land through the legal processes of the existing ruling power and settle on empty land through legitimate, legal channels. When the entire empire was breaking up, different groups were given different borders, all arbitrary - Jews had every right to be given their own borders, and rule themselves.
Your good buddy Talha goes on and on about he has every right to immigrate to America because he did so through legal channels - but says European Jews are interlopers, weirdly. But hey - I no longer expect honesty from that dude.
That they were denied this, is on the Muslims and Arabs fault - and everything that happened after.
The case for Israel can be analyzed on multiple interlocking levels - historical, cultural, political, moral, legal, and all support each other.
Anyways, after all that, none of this is really relevant to my point :)
Whatever the history - and however you want to practice revisionism - the Jewish self image did change dramatically as arrested to by their sacred writings and historical records.
And at least in modern times, we did see roughly half the world a Jews reinvent themselves as Israelis.
The Muslim self image, by their own account, has remained static. And they are proud of this.
Judaism pulled off the very tricky feat of going from a land-based nationalism to retaining a sense of nationhood in exile to returning to a land based nationalism when conditions permitted. At some points of its history it emphasized legalism, at other points mysticism. An agricultural, warrior based way of life was replaced by a scholarship, finance based way of life, and back again in modern times.
Another country that has remained vital and alive by transforming is Japan - it went from a feudal warrior society to a European style colonial society to a mercantile society while remaining recognizably Japanese.
Islam has obviously failed to meet the challenge of modernity, and it's very late in the day. The trick was for Islam to sublimate its aggressive energies. When Japan lost the war, it sublimated its aggression into economic and cultural activities - and won a very different kind of war. When Israel was defeated by the Romans, it sublimated its aggressive energies into finance and scholarship and spirituality - and defeated the Romans in a very different way.
As I said before, water must find a the path of least resistance - or an open path. Islam is like a person banging his head on a door when he can just walk around it. Islam has not yet found a way to walk around the old door that has been shut in their face.
In my conversations with Talha and AnonStarter, they have been proud that Islam does not adapt and change. This is the language of death - it appears superficially strong, but is weak. Lao Tzu says what is alive is supple and flexible, and what is dead is rigid. Israel accepted a tiny fraction of its original dream of Palestine and this flexibility ended up getting it much more than it bargained for. The Palestinians proudly and rigidly rejected any compromise - and are on the verge of losing everything.
Muslims are still trying to win the "old" kind of war when that is over. Physical conquest and political supremacy is still their focus when that is no longer possible. They have not learned to sublimate their energies and find new channels.
Every one else has. China. Japan. So it may not be possible for Islam, we have to admit at this point. Or at least, it may first have to destroy itself before it can reinvent itself, which appears likely. And that is a process underway.
In the meantime, Muslims seem to be focusing on growing their numbers, as if it wants to become another Africa - large but ineffectual and dysfunctional.Replies: @Colin Wright, @Fran Taubman
Excellent Aaron,
Colin is hopeless and he lacks the spirituality and sincerity how ever misplaced that AS and Tahla have. Colin is just walking around with a baseball bat looking to beat up people that do not agree with himand He has yet to explore the other point of view for validity and truth. He is a hater, absolutely clueless about Judaism and the brilliance and truth behind it.
Our points on Islam are spot on and proven over time in looking at the history of Israel. The Arabs just threw it all away on their own merrit. At the end their claim for land was less about nationality and more about defeating the Jews for supremacy. That in the end why they have lost. Their cause is a lie a big propaganda Islamic lie.
There are three claims here; that Jews had a land-based nationalism to begin with, that they retained a sense of nationhood in exile, and that they 'returned' to a land-based nationalism when conditions permitted.
The first claim is at best a half-truth: Judaism first recognizably appeared as a primarily urban cult spread across the Persian empire; 'Jews' more or less simultaneously appeared in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. The actual inhabitants of rural Palestine tended to be derided as 'people of the land,' and the extent to which they identified with the urban Jews of Babylon, Jerusalem, Alexandria, et al is uncertain. Certainly one aspect of the Jesus story is the extent to which he clashed ideologically with the Temple Jews.
Moreover, the cult promptly spread outwards from its initial urban centers; not only was it never demonstrably confined to Palestine, it rapidly became less so with the passage of time. The Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War did not happen in Palestine; it was centered in Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus.
The second claim is also a half-truth: Sephardim did not identify with Ashkenazim, etc. If the Jewish nation 'in exile' (it had always been 'in exile') had a sense of nationhood, it was a very fractured one. Do you really think Yemeni Jews had much in common with or felt much in common with -- or were even aware of the existence of -- Polish Jews?
Two points have to be made about the last claim of 'the return' to a land. First, describing taking a land from another people who are descended from those who have always been there when you have never been there as a 'return' is an act of singular effrontery; my ancestors came to California, but at least they didn't have the gall to describe it as a 'return.'
Second, very few Jews with an authentic choice have ever emigrated to this land. For example, look up how many American Jews have ever emigrated to Israel; it's varied from a drip to a trickle. So if Jews don't even care to be in 'their' land, in what sense has Judaism become a 'land-based nationalism'?Replies: @Fran Taubman, @AaronB
Is this some sort of joke? First this is not recognizable as any meaning full description of Judaism or the history of the ancient world. Which is settled history agreed upon by most scholars of history. I guess Colin Wrights history is outside the scope of settled historical facts. Get a life!! You missed some some important parts of the timeline. Judaism started out as twelve tribes, and became a monarch with the Kingdom of David and Solomon who built a temple that lasted for 400 years. Then the two kingdoms split into the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. Look at this timeline and get a life. It is a big big history. Also look at the time slot I enclosed just to guide you to some more meaningful comprehension of the breath and scope of the history of Judaism. We are not a cult.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/timeline-for-the-history-of-judaism.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/timeline-for-the-history-of-judaism
There are three claims here; that Jews had a land-based nationalism to begin with, that they retained a sense of nationhood in exile, and that they 'returned' to a land-based nationalism when conditions permitted.
The first claim is at best a half-truth: Judaism first recognizably appeared as a primarily urban cult spread across the Persian empire; 'Jews' more or less simultaneously appeared in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. The actual inhabitants of rural Palestine tended to be derided as 'people of the land,' and the extent to which they identified with the urban Jews of Babylon, Jerusalem, Alexandria, et al is uncertain. Certainly one aspect of the Jesus story is the extent to which he clashed ideologically with the Temple Jews.
Moreover, the cult promptly spread outwards from its initial urban centers; not only was it never demonstrably confined to Palestine, it rapidly became less so with the passage of time. The Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War did not happen in Palestine; it was centered in Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus.
The second claim is also a half-truth: Sephardim did not identify with Ashkenazim, etc. If the Jewish nation 'in exile' (it had always been 'in exile') had a sense of nationhood, it was a very fractured one. Do you really think Yemeni Jews had much in common with or felt much in common with -- or were even aware of the existence of -- Polish Jews?
Two points have to be made about the last claim of 'the return' to a land. First, describing taking a land from another people who are descended from those who have always been there when you have never been there as a 'return' is an act of singular effrontery; my ancestors came to California, but at least they didn't have the gall to describe it as a 'return.'
Second, very few Jews with an authentic choice have ever emigrated to this land. For example, look up how many American Jews have ever emigrated to Israel; it's varied from a drip to a trickle. So if Jews don't even care to be in 'their' land, in what sense has Judaism become a 'land-based nationalism'?Replies: @Fran Taubman, @AaronB
That doesn’t make any sense at all. Something like a third of Jewish law cannot be practiced outside the land of Israel. A significant portion of Torah law and ethical discussion pertain to agricultural practices and other issues pertaining to living in the land of Israel. The Talmud extensively discusses ethical and religious issues pertaining to the land. Several Jewish High Holidays revolve around the land. The sacrifices and other offering a Jews were supposed to bring to the Temple depended on agriculture and animal husbandry. The Jewish national epic is about a people conquering and living in a single piece of land, and living an agricultural life under a warrior/priest king.
The Jewish revolts against Greece and Rome show a land based nation rising up against foreign oppressors.
Yemeni Jews were corresponding with Maimonides, based in Egypt, who was in turn very influential among Ashkenazi Jews. All Jews anywhere in the world studied the exact same Talmud and practiced nearly all the same rituals and customs, often complex and full of minutiae – it’s actually quite astonishing that they all got it right in the same way. Sephardic Jews who wrote in Arabic have been hugely influential in the Ashkenazi world, and vice versa.
I will concede that the return to a land based nationalism today has not been complete – far from it. Jews are human, and get accustomed to live in familiar places. This isn’t unique to Jews – millions of Chinese and Indians and Muslims live in the West, yet no one uses that as a basis for denying them nationalism.
As for the Palestinians being the descendents of the original Jews, there is no way to ever prove this. What is certainly the case is that a substantial portion of them, if not the majority, are later invaders from Arabia and across the Levant, that the region was never an independent country with sealed borders and a homogeneous population but a province of an empire on a major trading route seeing a constant influx of newcomers and a constant outflow of people who no loyalty to the region following their economic fortunes, and there has been much mixed marriages. Today they are a heavily mixed population of predominantly Arabic origin.
Sephardic Jews, about 60% of the original population of Israel, have a much better claim to descend from the original Hebrews, while Ashkenazi Jews are a mixed group as we know, primarily Italian mothers with Middle Eastern fathers.
That does nothing to invalidate any claim. The descendent of an English king who married German and French is no less a legitimate heir.
What matters is the cultural continuity of a community. People descended from Jews who turn their backs on that community no longer participate in the rightful claims of this particular cultural community. The land of Israel, for everyone except Jews, was merely an interchangeable province in an empire and did not command any special allegiance. Beyond contingent circumstance, there was no particular reason a Muslim Palestinian needed to live in that particular province of the pan-Muslim empire – it was not necessary in order to realize or fulfill his cultural or religious rights and identity, which could be realized just as easily in any of the 22 Muslim states. Of course he had a material claim to his actual physical possesion, and no one denied that.
In the same way, Americans of English descent who left the English community behind cannot suddenly claim English land, nor can an American of German descent.
As long as Palestine was not a nation-state but a province of an empire, Jews had every right to buy land through the legal processes of the existing ruling power and settle on empty land through legitimate, legal channels. When the entire empire was breaking up, different groups were given different borders, all arbitrary – Jews had every right to be given their own borders, and rule themselves.
Your good buddy Talha goes on and on about he has every right to immigrate to America because he did so through legal channels – but says European Jews are interlopers, weirdly. But hey – I no longer expect honesty from that dude.
That they were denied this, is on the Muslims and Arabs fault – and everything that happened after.
The case for Israel can be analyzed on multiple interlocking levels – historical, cultural, political, moral, legal, and all support each other.
Anyways, after all that, none of this is really relevant to my point 🙂
Whatever the history – and however you want to practice revisionism – the Jewish self image did change dramatically as arrested to by their sacred writings and historical records.
And at least in modern times, we did see roughly half the world a Jews reinvent themselves as Israelis.
The Muslim self image, by their own account, has remained static. And they are proud of this.