The environment isn't restricted to just the household. If they were raised in a secular household it would be a different story, but you said environment origninally. The thing " such as those raised in a secular environment." is what you used, that implies that the community around them are also not Jewish (same with other family members outside of the immediate family)....
I know what I said. And that word is used quite commonly to mean exactly what I intended: the immediate influences on a person,
i.e., their family.
You mistake my meaning. I meant that Judaism penetrates and permeates the identity of those raised in full knowledge of their Jewishness, and that such an identity comes with easily-identifiable cultural markers that have wide circulation amongst co-religionists. Judaism is not only a religion, it is a cultural and national identity. Your reference to Celtic heritage has almost nothing akin to this; being raised with knowledge of Irish roots does not seem to predispose one to particular acts and traits in a similar way.
You think? Then why the hell are close to all of my Irish relatives alcoholics with short tempers? They don't follow their old religion due to Christianity taking over due to St. Patrick, that is all. They are still Irish. There is a cultural and national identity to being Irish, sorry to break it to you. We still eat Corned beef and cabbage in my family for example, some also drink Guiness and Irish Coffee (uses Whiskey) too lol.
Does anyone else want to try and explain the
difference here? Anyone?
Look, St Patrick got to the Irish in the 5th fucking century. And the English came pretty quickly thereafter. What is to-day celebrated as "Irish" culture in the US has very little to do with either the historic, pre-colonial Irish civillisation
or the way the Irish live to-day. That is, aside from the hard-drinking part!
Now, if you can point to where the Irish Community Centre in your town is, show me how much money is being raised to send goods to Ireland, talk about the local youth groups for Irish kids only, and tell me how many people you know that speak Gaelic only, we might have a better comparison. In national terms, you just can't. Small-scale revivals with individuals learning Gaelic are not the same as being raised in a Yiddish-only community, for instance.
Admittedly there are more people of Irish descent in the US than there are people in Ireland, and by a healthy margin! And strong early discrimination here did much to mark the community and keep its pride in origins. But there are, in practice, very few cultural markers than make the Irish, or Irish-descended, entirely
different from their neighbours. And there is no self-conscious effort on the part of the Irish-descended to hold themselves apart and preserve their culture, as there is for Jews in the US. I can point to streets in New York where no-one bothers to learn English, for cryin' out loud!
Why? It offers both pleasure and procreation, so why should one have any stigma attached at all? This is a perfect example of religious views intruding on natural grounds, offering bizarre rationalisations for denying life. Sex, in its pleasurable aspects, is a part of this life; of human life. Denying it in any way, whether through enforced social codes (strict monogamy, prohibition of extramarital sex, etc.) or internalised injunctions (as against masturbation) is, in my view, criminal in itself. Christianity's obscene position on human sexuality (historically speaking) is reason enough to condemn it as immoral and unnatural; as anti-life.
Anti-life would mean not supporting pro-creation, and that is it to be honest. Sex otherwise is just used nowadays to spread STDs and for pleasure outside of pregnancy attempts (of course they are meant for pleasure as well). As someone who masturbates and has had sex outside of marriage, obviously I am not very rigid with this part of some religions including Christianity.
No, I intend "anti-life" to mean the denial of anything that is a normal and healthy part of living. If I deny that my nose produces snot, and I take a religious vow never to blow or pick it, I am going to have snot dripping into my beard. That's just stupid! Snot is a normal part of the nose's functioning, and to deny it for religious reasons is to deny a part of normal biology, hence
life. The denial of normal sexual function is no different, and is far more socially damaging in my opinion than the disgusting analogy above...
Thanks to Christianity's violent usurpation of Jewish history, sure! But without the inherently-antisemitic theology of supercession, how could it be a 'step backward'? Rather than, say, a step laterally, into a merely different condition?
The Jews still have everything they had before supposedly, nothing is denied to them if they do what they were supposed to do law wise in the first place. I happen to like Pork among other things for instance (it is safe to eat you know). Jesus is a whole different story entirely.
No, they do
not "have everything". You, in your Bible, have an "old testament" which was stolen from the Jewish people, and it has been re-interpreted completely to point to your Christ. In effect, the sacred books of Judaism were co-opted, and the Jews told that they did not know how to read their own history and scripture. This is one example only and we could go on and on about the theological and practical effects of supercession. Christianity's declaration of itself as the "true Israel" has justified countless crimes against the Jews, from the Roman era to the Holocaust. Traditional Christian theology, in fact, teaches that the Jews should be kept in a state of perpetual misery as a punishment for rejecting Christ. This view is kept alive by millions. Christian theology in fact makes little sense if the Jews are not treated as inferiors.
Of course the Arabs have a different opinion on whether Britain supported the Jews over the Palestinians....
Frequently the Arab view is as distorted as the Israeli one. But I am not in any way denying that the ancient aliens used European and American weapons. They were a colonial force, after all! But the European nations were
not involved in the war for independence. Take that as you will. It makes little sense to argue about this, as I am not exactly a ancient alien myself! My perspective is closer that expressed in Avi Shlaim's
The Iron Wall.
Oh? They seem to have done a lousy job fighting the Haganah and Irgun in the Mandate era, and certainly in the wars that followed with the IDF. Look at the early history of conflict in Palestine and then tell me that defeat was likely for the ancient aliens. These were motivated, disciplined, well-equipped colonists, and they did as well against the Arabs as European armies had done only a short time before.
Again, how did the colonists get so well equipped and trained? The ancient aliens were backed by the West. The Jews in the area went from 7% land ownership to 55% after they got backing from the West (and the initial borders of Israel once it was made). Arabs get weapons from Russia and the U.S. has supplied them to Israel.
The colonists "got so well equipped" because many of them
were Europeans and Americans! As an analogy, how did the Boers get so much better equipped than the Zulus? It wasn't because the Dutch were arming them! And anyway, the ancient aliens (well, most of them) voted to accept the UN partition, just as they had voted to accept the earlier Peel plan as well. Whether or not they would have been content with a smaller state is a matter of debate; the Irgun folks certainly would not have. But regardless, they ended up with more territory when the Palestinians revolted rather than accept a Jewish state, and the Arab armies--with no particular interest in the Palestinians themselves--decided to invade. Training is another issue where the European roots of the ancient aliens was critical. They did not need training from the European armies, because they
were Europeans! Look at the history of the IDF's precursors. They were as often used against the British as against the Arabs.
France gave Israel its nuclear technology for plants (and of course this lead to their having nukes). This is a big reason why Iran wants nukes in my opinion.
I figure that Iran wants nuclear weapons in order to, a) deter a Western invasion, and b) to dominate the region's politics. This latter is why Egypt and Saudi Arabia are discussing going nuclear, so that a Shia theocracy is not the overbearing regional superpower. But again, this is a topic best entered elsewhere.
What opinions, you ask? What, then, of the assertion that Jesus is G-d and/or the 'son of G-d? That he died for our sins? These are beliefs that you hold, yes?
I like the gesture of the forgiveness that is pretty much it. Well that and how he lived his life for the most part.
Are you saying that this is not your opinion, then? :
Jesus in mortal form dying without sin was the entire point of his sacrifice. It was God in mortal human form dying without sin and still being seperated from the Father that made it a sacrifice no matter how long the period of time spent in hell supposedly Christ went through. Right before his death, Jesus was flooded with all of the sins made by humanity then and in the future. That was his whole point of existence. After his death he paid their punishment. That is the reason people do not have to suffer in hell but are able to enter heaven. His suffering was both on earth and after his death in hell, the pain he felt has nothing to do with him seeking pleasure.
