ALGOREisRICH wrote: But..as you suggest..let's dig a bit deeper. The Romans were not particularly tolerant of little upstarts of 'non' Roman culture becoming a threat.. just ask David F what happened to his own forebears on that score.

Dear ALGOREisRICH,

Yes, let’s dig deeper.

The Romans were generally quite tolerant. Other polytheistic religions such as Mithraism could practice their religion freely. The foreign gods were simply added to the Roman pantheon.

The Jewish revolt against the Romans was primarily agrarian. The Jewish farmers were possibly the best farmers in the Roman Empire. Rome wanted a supply of grain to feed their masses so they ordered the Jews to plant grain instead of varying the crops (Romans wanted a farming monoculture.) and forbad the periodic practice of land lying fallow. The farmers revolted since their land was being destroyed. It was a great disgrace for a Roman legion to lose their eagles to an enemy. It only happened twice – once against the Jews and once against the Germans. However, the Romans had nothing against Jews as a religious group. Josephus, a Jewish general, went over to the Romans but remained a Jew. He was accepted by the Romans as a historian.

Unfortunately Christianity arose. Not only did the Christians fail to help the Jews in their struggles to maintain themselves in Palestine, they even denied the right the right of the Jewish people to continue to exist. They claimed the Jewish Holy books as their own with the addition of the New Testament. They asserted that Jews did not understand their own Bible. Furthermore, the Christians said that God had abandoned the Jews, and that they, Christians, were the true Israel.

Rome became Christian and then persecuted both Jews and pagans. The Empire than adopted many anti-Jewish laws. Christians wanted complete market share. Churchmen discouraged social intercourse between Jews and Christians and banned intermarriage because the non-Jewish partner often became Jewish. Some churchmen called Jews and Judaism by the vilest names to keep Jews and Christians apart.

Jews fought the Romans, but pagan Romans were never as intolerant as Christians.

One thing implied by the good Chancellor was that some immigrants benefit the recipient nation, some see the opportunities and adapt and get in business, build wealth and integrate.

The difference is really typical IQ. Silly people argue about what IQ is, but the bottom line is that IQ is the acility to adapt. SOme migrant groups have higer IQ than others.

The Jews who had the money and widom to escape Europe around WWII were the smartest of the jews, and the jews are famously smart. At this time, every immigrant to the US sat an IQ test, so this stuff is known with certaintly.

The jews who came to the US were especially smart. And so also were the European immigrants escaping religious persecution in other periods. And so also are many of the White South Africans. And so on.

But many others sre the average, or the stupid of their race. The Dept of Immigration had stats on this back in 2001. (They don't have them anymore - with a Labour Government) For example, of the Afgan-born Australians in 2001 (before the Gulf war) 75% of them were welfare-dependant! THat's right... three quarters were on welfare! Meanwhile Chinese, SOuth African and German had a welfare dependancy rate of about 2.5%...

75% compared to 2.5%... Impressive difference!

Pity that our politically correct ALP government thinks that the truth needs to be kept secret from it's citizens!

mac, Pericles, BAYGON

I suggest that the following are the three essential rules for running a successful multicultural state.

1. Do not pander

2. Do no pander

3. Do no pander

Or, to put it more bluntly, if you want to cover your face that is your right. But if you have to give evidence in court you will remove your face covering.

No ifs.

No buts.

No special conditions.

Dear david f,

The English word culture comes from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate.
In 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohm compiled a list of 164 definitions of culture, however "culture" is used in 3 basic senses.

Excellent taste in Fine Arts.
An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning.
The shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes
an institution, organization or group.
Multi can be substituted with the word many.

I find your attitude expressed here very narrow and bigoted as you embrace the literal belief in random chance and reject intelligent design as a belief system. And also your belief that your way is the right way to skin the cat and reeks of pride, (Stinken Thinken).

Dear ALGOREisRICH,

You quote the Bible, but you know neither history nor the Bible. The Bible is neither a reliable scientific or history text nor, with its acceptance of slavery, the death penalty for violating the Sabbath and other archaic attitudes, an adequate guide for moral behaviour. Cherry picking quotes from the Bible is reasonable if you are having a dialogue with those who share your superstition. Most of us on OLO don’t. You know it and still keep quoting. You may do as you like, but I, and presumably others, do not in general regard that as meaningful argument.

The Bible is vital in the history of Jews and Christians. However, one is ignorant of that history if one relies on the Bible alone. Since the time of Jesus there has been almost two thousand years of history. Both Christians and Jews are very different now. From your posts I gather you know very little of that history.

Reading the Bible without knowing the commentary or the original language leaves you in ignorance. Eg Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

In the original Hebrew translated an ‘almah’ will conceive. Almah means a young woman. In the Greek translation almah was replaced by parthenos which means virgin, and that translation was kept in the King James Version. The prophesy of a virgin birth is merely the result of mistranslation.

There are many historians who have dealt with the period when your superstition originated. I have some of those books. Although the authors are familiar with the Bible they also rely on other writings for their history - The Dead Sea Scrolls, Roman archives, historians of the time such as Tacitus and Josephus, Cicero, Caesar and many others. Christianity is a religion, but literal belief in the Bible is superstition.

I don’t expect you to become a scholar, but I wish you would be aware of your ignorance. I am not a scholar either, but I am aware of my ignorance.

stevenlmeyer,

Yes,agreed,our liberties are being eroded by continous accommodation to Moslem intolerance in the name of 'inclusion',some cultures simply can't be included without self-destructive compromise on the part of the majority society. Lenin would have called the smug multiculturalists who are engineering this process, 'useful idiots'.

Here's multiculturalism at work in the UK, another 'no-go' area 'under construction'?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/london-borough-becomes-islamic-republic.html

david f,

'I am aware of my ignorance',well said, if only more people had the wisdom of Socrates.