Fracetlle:”These people believed the missionary when he told them that he was a representative of God, spreading the word of Jesus, they decided that he too would rise from the dead if crucified, and so, they committed their first murder. In the name of God of course.”

Well of course.

I love stories like that and it sounds really familiar, I guess anything that mirrors human behavior. I have all of Terry Pratchett’s Disc World books but I think I miss a lot that is probably a reference to life in Britain or its politics.

Have not read a sci fi book in probably 15 years though, they need concentration and I haven’t been able to concentrate in over a decade.[grin]

Can someone explain – are the Jews a Race and a Religion?

So when some of the Lebanese say to me “we are not Arab we are Christian” they are right?

Dear George,

I don't think Jesus would have endorsed Hitler, Stalin or Christianity. Paul was intolerant to Christians before the road to Damascus, and then he was intolerant of non-Christians. He might well have approved of Hitler. However, Marx could have approved of both Stalin and Hitler.

You wrote 'about the difference between anti-semitism (against the Jewish race) and anti-Judaism (against the Jewish religion)' There is no Jewish race. I am very blond (at least I used to be before my hair turned white), and my cousin married a nice Jewish girl who is also black. We come in different colours, are an ethnic group and a religion. "Hoo, boy, I'm being burned at the stake for my religion not my race. Whee!"

Wilhelm Marr invented the word, Antisemitism, in 1879 when he set up his League of Antisemites (Antisemiten-Liga), the first German organization committed specifically to combatting the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews and advocating their forced removal from the country. Hatred of Jews because of their ancestry started centuries earlier. After the expulsion or conversion of Jews and Muslims, the population of Portugal and Spain was all nominally Christian. However, many distrusted the recently-converted "New Christians," calling them as conversos or marranos if they were baptized Jews or descended from them, or Moriscos if they were baptized Muslims or descended from them. A commonly-leveled accusation was that the New Christians were false converts, secretly practicing their former religion as Crypto-Jews or Crypto-Muslims. Nevertheless, the concept of cleanliness of blood (Limpieza de sangre (in Spanish), Limpeza de sangue (in Portuguese), both meaning "cleanliness of ancestry") came to be more focused on ancestry than of personal religion. The first purity of blood statute appeared in Toledo, 1449. Initially the monarchy and the Church condemned these statutes. In 1496, Alexander VI approved a purity statute for the Hieronymite Order. From then on much of the Inquisition was focussed on marranos or moriscos or their descendents regardless of their commitment to Catholicism.

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Marx was a vicious antisemite and explicitly advocated a totalitarian state. In the manifesto he made plain that he had little regard for a free press, a representative legislature, an independent judiciary and all the other appurtenances that protect us from state tyranny. Marx had no more regard for the mechanisms that protect us from the arbitrary power of the state than the Nazi or Soviet dictatorships did. In the manifesto Marx specifically stated that the state should control all means of transportation and communication. He also stated that the property of emigrants or rebels should be confiscated. I live in Australia but get my US Social Security. A Marxist state would deny me that.

Bakunin who split from the First International in 1872 opposed the Marxist idea of dictatorship of the proletariat, a transitional state on the way to stateless communism. Once the role of government was taken out of the hands of the masses, a new class of experts, scientists and professional politicians would arise. This new elite would, Bakunin believed, be far more secure in its domination over the workers by means of the mystification and legitimacy granted by the claim to acting in accordance with scientific laws (a major claim by Marxists),

Bakunin's predictions as to the operation of Marxist states has been borne out of reality. The Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, and created a vast bureaucratic police state.

From Marx’s “On the Jewish Question”:

“We explain the tenacity of the Jew …. by the human basis of his religion – practical need, egoism.”

"Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism – huckstering and its preconditions – the Jew will have become impossible, ..."

"The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism."

If it weren’t for his ancestry Marx could have been a Nazi.

Philo:

I can’t attach meaning to ‘spiritual unity of the universe’ and ‘Godliness’. Explain how DNA was formed? I can't even prove the Reimann-Zeta conjecture. One big cause of environmental problems is the opposition to population control by some religions.

PP
>>"are the Jews a Race and a Religion?"<< Short answer.. no.

>>"So when some of the Lebanese say to me “we are not Arab we are Christian” they are right?" Short answer..Depends on their definitions.

However both Genetic Israelis and most Arabs are Semitic races. Although if you are anti Jew you are called anti-semitic but not if you're anti Palestinian. Then you're anti Arab. I guess it's all in your perspective and how precise you want to be.

david f,

"However, many distrusted the recently-converted 'New Christians,' calling them as conversos or marranos ..." - df

In the fifteenth century, when "converos" (converts)" and marranos (pigs) became upwardly mobile, they were persecuted and killed. It was hard to be a Jew under Isabella and Ferdinand. Alexander VI designated the Spanish monarchs "Catholic Kings" (I know Isabella ia women)for purifying Spain of the Jews.

I can't see Jesus, who was clearly a humanist, supporting the above cleansing. Moreover, Alexander's actions would seem to call into question the actions of the Vicar of Christ and the doctrine of infallibility under ex cathredra. The action of the Pope Alexanver VI, I posit, was a matter of religion and a morally wrong act. Alexander should have supported the Jews.

Among the converts, there was also a creole religion, wherein humanity is saved by the Law of Moses.

Although, to give some Christians positive recognition many brave Danish Christians protected the Jews from German Christians in WWII.

Piper

I adore Terry Pratchett too. And Douglas Adams may he R.I.P. And thanks to secular humanism we are free to read novels like this. While the religious are free to read their bibles, korans, torahs or whatever.

Also we are free not to rant on and on in a very boring fashion - not that I haven't learned a lot from some folks on OLO, but sometimes.... I'd rather go watch paint dry.

:)