Christianity

[Harbal]

Harbal, Belinda: Am I doing better or worse?

That all sounds reasonable enough, but I can't say whether it is accurate. I assume that it is.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I wonder why you write as you often do. If you were more explicit, more concise, more lucid, you would allow many more people to understand you and pay attention to you.

Would you present me — as a personal service — a recent paragraph that you feel should be written differently? If you do me that favor I’ll consider your proposal.

I have a different theory about why you find some expressions turgid. But perhaps I am wrong (?)

[Alexis Jacobi]

Good boy Alexis!

::: breaks out in sobs of relief :::

Oh thank you! THANK YOU!

[Alexis Jacobi]

Harbal, Belinda: Am I doing better or worse?

That all sounds reasonable enough, but I can't say whether it is accurate. I assume that it is.

Why just assume when solid knowledge exists?

If you seek to understand Christianity, it stands to reason that you’d need and even perhaps want to understand Judaism.

If you were to define your objectives what would they be?

(Lord knows I walked into this one . . .)

[Belinda]

I am still genuinely interested in this, why would an Orthodox Jew not consider that Jesus was Moshiach?

Numerous reasons. One, they do not conceive it possible that god could would or does incarnate into a human person. This idea is inherently Greek and pagan. To the orthodox but really to even marginal Jews the man Jesus was deluded about himself.

Two, Jesus opposed the entire construct that Judaism had become. He became an enemy of the state religion. He seemed to propose that ‘being a Jew’ in the established sense (i.e. seeing oneself as distinct and separate and exclusive) was counter to the will of god. Christian universalism was anathema to all that made a Jew a Jew.

Moshioch is not god incarnated into man but an exclusive savior of the (true) Jewish people with a specific historical mission: to reestablish in a final sense the original mission of the Jews as defined by the Prophets. This involves the reconstruction of the temple in Jerusalem and renewal of Judaic sacrificial rites. Planning for this is on-going now.

Jews who fall away from Orthodoxy in the strictest sense of Jewish mission, that is of gods mission for Jews (these are the same), thereby assimilate. Assimilation is death to that Jewish mission. So there is only one way to be a ‘real Jew’ and that is to re-assimilate with the belief and practice of genuine Jews (under god’s aegis).

Harbal, Belinda: Am I doing better or worse?

Good boy Alexis!

Discussing the state of Israel is plagued by accusations of hatred of Jews- and- Judaism. I come from the Jesus party who views right wing Israel as aggressive towards Palestinians, probably because Palestinians are victims of earlier victims, and Jesus was on the side of victims.
I know of no ethical justification for theft of land and resources. Zionism is superstition, and modern Israelis (unlike Muhammad) have not the excuse of not having known the European enlightenment.

[phyllo]

Discussing the state of Israel is plagued by accusations of hatred of Jews- and- Judaism. I come from the Jesus party who views right wing Israel as aggressive towards Palestinians, probably because Palestinians are victims of earlier victims, and Jesus was on the side of victims.
I know of no ethical justification for theft of land and resources. Zionism is superstition, and modern Israelis (unlike Muhammad) have not the excuse of not having known the European enlightenment.

Take your pick:

God gave Jews that land.

You can take any land that you have the power to control.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Discussing the state of Israel is plagued by accusations of hatred of Jews- and- Judaism. I come from the Jesus party who views right wing Israel as aggressive towards Palestinians, probably because Palestinians are victims of earlier victims, and Jesus was on the side of victims.

I know of no ethical justification for theft of land and resources. Zionism is superstition, and modern Israelis (unlike Muhammad) have not the excuse of not having known the European enlightenment.

Just ‘for the record’ the view you hold could not be held by a believing Jew or for that matter a believing Christian.

(I was going to write could not constellate in the mind of a believing Jew or Christian but with immense self-control I restrained myself).

::: wags tail gleefully :::

[Alexis Jacobi]

Take your pick:

God gave Jews that land.

You can take any land that you have the power to control.

Another option: god gave Jews tsouris.

You can take any land that you have the power to control.

Then it can also be contested, taken away.

Jewish history is not over. The bad news? Everyone is involved, like it or not, in the impending conflagration.

Its imminence is written into the script.

[tillingborn]

Everyone knows that the Darwinian model is that in a primordial soup material elements combined through natural magic and life, and life’s striving arose. That’s it. An ultimate explanation. Nothing more needed. No creating or designing god required — or no need to contemplate one. Eyes kept on ‘the ground’ as it were.

If that is what everyone knows as the Darwinian narrative/model, they are reading more into Darwin that he wrote. As the title of his book says, his theory was about the Origin of Species. Darwin understood perfectly well that his theory does not explain the origin of life, as he said "My theory leaves quite untouched the question of spontaneous generation."

But also: the ‘ears’ closed to any mystic-religious clap-trap. I.e. no longer believable religious/mythological explanations.

It is entirely possible to create mystic-religious clap-trap that is consistent with evolution. If you really must, you can pretend that mankind is a special case, that your god of choice created differently to every other creature, but if your religion insists that evolution is not a feature of life, clap-trap is all it is.

The Darwinian Narrative is as much about what it ceases to explain as it is what it explains.

As we have seen, it already explains more than Darwin ever attempted. Perhaps that's just ignorance, but in the case of Immanuel Can's "Evolutionism", it very much seems that the invalid inferences are deliberate and that "Evolutionism" is a creationist lie.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If that is what everyone knows as the Darwinian narrative/model, they are reading more into Darwin that he wrote. As the title of his book says, his theory was about the Origin of Species. Darwin understood perfectly well that his theory does not explain the origin of life, as he said "My theory leaves quite untouched the question of spontaneous generation."

Yet it is inevitable that explanation be given though right?

You can’t leave something like that hanging can you?

So Darwinism … evolved. (That is a feeble attempt at a joke btw).

[Harbal]

Why just assume when solid knowledge exists?

Well, in this instance, the subject (Judaism) isn't particularly interesting to me. What you said sounded plausible, and wouldn't really be doing much harm if it were untrue, so there seems no reason to question it.

If you seek to understand Christianity, it stands to reason that you’d need and even perhaps want to understand Judaism.

My interest in both is very casual, so I'm not motivated to put much effort into understanding them. I'm a lot more interested in the danger of extremism coming out of religion than I am in religion itself, but no more so than extemism that comes from political movements, or any other type.

If you were to define your objectives what would they be?

My main objective on this forum, or any other, is to go to bed smiling at as many funny interactions as possible that took place on it during the course of the day. I suppose a lesser, though more serious, objective would be to throw a spanner in the works of those promoting sinister agendas. Not that I'm under any illusion that I make much difference.

If you were asking about my objectives in life, I don't think I have any of significance. I'm a pretty aimless soul, but you may have already cottoned on to that.

(Lord knows I walked into this one . . .)

Not at all. Like most people, if I'm approached in a reasonable way, I try to respond reasonably.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Like most people, if I'm approached in a reasonable way, I try to respond reasonably.

Oh. Then I promise I’ll do better!

[phyllo]

My interest in both is very casual, so I'm not motivated to put much effort into understanding them. I'm a lot more interested in the danger of extremism coming out of religion than I am in religion itself, but no more so than extemism that comes from political movements, or any other type.

If you don't understand the religion, then how will you understand the extremism?

And if you don't understand the extremism, then how will you be able to understand the danger and respond to it?

[Harbal]

Like most people, if I'm approached in a reasonable way, I try to respond reasonably.

Oh. Then I promise I’ll do better!

No, you don't need to do anything on my account. I have no complaints about the way things are.

[Immanuel Can]

What is your story?

I don't believe you don't know the answers to those questions. If you didn't, it would mean you knew nothing about Darwin or evolution at all.

Again, you are not distinguishing between evolution and a theory about evolution,

There's no difference. Evolutionism IS a theory.

You don't get to summarily declare something a fact without providing sufficient warrant, and then claim it's scientific and nobody's allowed to question it. That's anti-scientific procedure. But it's the procedure of Evolutionism.