The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 9:26 pm What would you suggest as another designation for people who hate Jews merely for being Jews? We certainly need some word.

Putting aside long-enduring Judenhass for a moment, let’s examine the issue of our day that has everyone in a nomenclature swamp: the developing viewpoint that Israel, and ultra-Zionist American Jews who are owners of industries and importantly media and communication businesses, exercise “inordinate power and influence” over American government and American policies in the Middle East.

Let us suppose that very average citizen John “Goy” Doe hears about this and questions if it is right and good that “America’s sovereignty” has been — what is the right word? — taken over (?) by Israeli and Zionists interests and that the issue of “dual loyalty” seems a worthy issue to be concerned about. Let us suppose that John Doe makes mention of his concern. What happens at that point? (a rhetorical question obviously). I have observed that he is attacked viciously and the term used to describe him is “anti-Semite”.

How would you characterize the view and concern of citizen John Doe?

I do not, despite appearances, desire to side-track this thread (with the perennial topic [the God thing] that has been discussed for over a decade here!) into a rancorous political melee, so I will only mention the association that has been established between Christendom and Zionism that, I think, stands in some senses behind that tern Judeo-Christian. I.e. that America is a Judeo-Christian country (Dennis Praeger uses this term in this way). It is not hard to see that it is a term that is quite “problematic”.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 12:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 1:29 pmQuantum mechanics does not seem to imperil causality at all.

Then you don't understand quantum mechanics.

Good morning, Mr Boneman, how are you? I hope hale & hearty. Is it that quantum mechanics when properly understood overturns causation? Should it then be understood that we exist in an a-causal universe? Or is that too binary a way to look at the issue? (I admit to feeling a wee bit imperiled myself here! Also a bit dizzy )

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 9:26 pm This is why I speak of "traditionalism" rather than, say, the Orthodox, Hassidim, Reformed or Conservative. Then, of course, there are other sects...and secular Jews. I'm trying to find a single label to pick out those who are culturally, genetically or religiously Jewish, without any exclusionary narrowness. As you know, yiddishkeit is multivalent, in that way.

Well! You really like heading directly into the most controversial topics, don’t you! My view? The very topic is one that is effectively discouraged in polite society. What I mean is that the analysis of “What is a Jew” and even “What is Judaism?” is one that if Mr. Citizen John “Goy” Doe brings up is extremely frowned upon. And our citizen learns quickly enough that had better avoid the topic altogether.

I admit that I had always hoped that the total conversation could be had within a philosophical environment (such as PN or whatever it is called now). But I do not think it can nor is it wise to “provoke comment”.

Silence is Golden!

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 12:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 1:29 pmQuantum mechanics does not seem to imperil causality at all.

Then you don't understand quantum mechanics.

Maybe. In which case, you'll probably be able to inform me of just how it does that. It's not at all obvious.

Please, the floor is yours: go ahead and help me to understand your point.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:06 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 9:26 pm What would you suggest as another designation for people who hate Jews merely for being Jews? We certainly need some word.

Putting aside long-enduring Judenhass for a moment, let’s examine the issue of our day that has everyone in a nomenclature swamp: the developing viewpoint that Israel, and ultra-Zionist American Jews who are owners of industries and importantly media and communication businesses, exercise “inordinate power and influence” over American government and American policies in the Middle East.

Let us suppose that very average citizen John “Goy” Doe hears about this and questions if it is right and good that “America’s sovereignty” has been — what is the right word? — taken over (?) by Israeli and Zionists interests and that the issue of “dual loyalty” seems a worthy issue to be concerned about. Let us suppose that John Doe makes mention of his concern. What happens at that point? (a rhetorical question obviously). I have observed that he is attacked viciously and the term used to describe him is “anti-Semite”.

Well, your John Doe is confused. He's mistaken the actions of the State of Israel for Judaism. But they aren't, anymore than the actions of America are Americans, let alone Christianity. They're separate things.

But as you know, there's a real danger that the present policies of America will foment, among the naive, a spirit of anti-Americanism, or even, in some quarters, hatred of a so-called "Christian West," when no such thing exists. So hatred of individual Americans, or of Christians, can become based on the actions of a government they may not even have voted for. And there is a danger that the same sorts of naive and foolish folks will conflate the actions of the government in Israel with Judaism.

So anti-Israelism can tip over into anti-semitism, or anti-Israelism can even be sponsored by mere anti-semitism, if somebody confused Jewish people for the government in Israel. And we don't want to be as foolish as they are, and make the same assumption. Therefore, anti-semitism and opposition to Israeli governmental choices need to be clearly distinguished.

How would you characterize the view and concern of citizen John Doe?

Misguided and misinformed, if he is assuming that his antipathy to Israeli government policies excuses antisemitism, or that it implies antisemitism isn't a separate threat, and a very serious one. But maybe even malevolent, if the reason for his "view and concern" is that he wants all Jews should to be pushed into the Mediterranean, "from the river to the sea."

There's a dimension to anti-semitism we're not even recognizing here, too. And that is the spiritual dimension. There is the political, there is the racist, but there is also that.

AJ wrote:No Judea, no Halacha, no Jewish mission. It would all have occurred under very different terms and among intelligent beings we imagine but can’t really conceive of. This is why I place special emphasis on Logos and less emphasis on “Jesus” historically understood. I realize this is not strictly ‘kosher’ if you’ll permit the pun.

IC wrote:Now, that IS a flight of imagination. Not so much not-kosher as not a "have to" at all.

I suggest that the exercise is very useful. It can put into the limelight what is really being talked about when either Jewish Mission or Christian Mission are thought about. That is to say, when you reduce it to metaphysical principles and strip away “event” from the picture you are communicating.

So if you found yourself on another planet of biological beings doing what biological beings do, and let’s suppose it were similar to what humans do, you’d first have to have defined “ the problem” in abstract terms. Let me state it simply: the human problem, defined by Christianity, is essentially the recognition that humanity is biological and material and sensual and selfish (necessarily so).

What “Jesus Christ” means, again in essence, is that Man can, and should, become willing to sacrifice or to thwart animal proclivities and tendencies (grasping, needing, claiming, killing, possessing) for Higher Values and for Transcendent Values of a ‘metaphysical nature’.

I wonder if you agree with my encapsulation?

The Concept is eminently “logical” i.e. one of logos. The concept does not depend on the Story that is its vehicle. Does this make sense?

Now, jumping away from the philosophical underpinning, I say there are two quite different “missions”.

The Jewish or Hebrew Mission is distinct and different from the Christian Mission when examined carefully. The Jewish Mission is one dealing with the destiny and fate of one people in a fairly strict terrestrial sense. Thus, Israel has quintessential importance within the Jewish Mission so understood.

The Christian Mission, the Greco-Christian Mission, is in its essence of another order. Because it is “universalized”.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:27 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 9:26 pm This is why I speak of "traditionalism" rather than, say, the Orthodox, Hassidim, Reformed or Conservative. Then, of course, there are other sects...and secular Jews. I'm trying to find a single label to pick out those who are culturally, genetically or religiously Jewish, without any exclusionary narrowness. As you know, yiddishkeit is multivalent, in that way.

Well! You really like heading directly into the most controversial topics, don’t you! My view? The very topic is one that is effectively discouraged in polite society. What I mean is that the analysis of “What is a Jew” and even “What is Judaism?” is one that if Mr. Citizen John “Goy” Doe brings up is extremely frowned upon. And our citizen learns quickly enough that had better avoid the topic altogether.

Then our citizen is a coward. For it is a salient question, not merely for Jews themselves, but for those who hate them, and for all those goyim of goodwill who wish to oppose the hatred that is so often misdirected against Jews. The treating of "all Jews" as an undifferentiated mass empowers their enemies to blame all Jews for things done by a few bad individuals. That's not good.

I admit that I had always hoped that the total conversation could be had within a philosophical environment (such as PN or whatever it is called now). But I do not think it can nor is it wise to “provoke comment”.

I understand. The stakes are high for you. But then, in this matter, the stakes never seem to be low. I don't think that silence is an option, however. Again, the stakes are too high.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:55 pm

AJ wrote:No Judea, no Halacha, no Jewish mission. It would all have occurred under very different terms and among intelligent beings we imagine but can’t really conceive of. This is why I place special emphasis on Logos and less emphasis on “Jesus” historically understood. I realize this is not strictly ‘kosher’ if you’ll permit the pun.

IC wrote:Now, that IS a flight of imagination. Not so much not-kosher as not a "have to" at all.

I suggest that the exercise is very useful.

I don't see that it is. Pure imagination is impossible, and by definition, refers to things that simply have not happened. I'll take realism.

What “Jesus Christ” means, again in essence, is that Man can, and should, become willing to sacrifice or to thwart animal proclivities and tendencies (grasping, needing, claiming, killing, possessing) for Higher Values and for Transcendent Values of a ‘metaphysical nature’.

Well, that's not what Jesus Christ meant by it. Nor is it anything Christians understand by it. So what we have there is merely a case of an alien religion "co-opting" (or stealing and distorting) a term from Christianity, and attempting to use it to reinforce their own alien views. And that's pretty easy to show.

However, I wonder if you are aware of what "Christ" means. I wonder if you intended to use that term. For if you did, then you've put the refutation of that "symbolic" view you express right in your articulation of it.

"Christ" is the Greek word. The literal Hebrew translation is "Mashiach." Just so Jewish is Christianity.

The Jewish or Hebrew Mission is distinct and different from the Christian Mission when examined carefully. The Jewish Mission is one dealing with the destiny and fate of one people in a fairly strict terrestrial sense. Thus, Israel has quintessential importance within the Jewish Mission so understood.

The Christian Mission, the Greco-Christian Mission, is in its essence of another order. Because it is “universalized”.

The Christian view partly agrees with you. The Hebrew "mission" was national. But its goal was always universal. After all, God said to Abraham, "In you, all the nations of the Earth will be blessed." Thus, the fulfilment of that national mission was intended to be universal from the start, and an understanding of the Jewish mission as merely local or cultural would be a shortcoming, if not an outright denial, of the covenant with Abraham.

But when was this covenant promise to be fulfilled, and how? Abraham himself never saw it completed. So when and how was it intended to be fulfilled? Or do we then say that God's promise has failed, so that any universal mission of Israel has been abrogated, and Israel is now freed to become insular and indifferent to that mission?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:48 pm So anti-Israelism can tip over into anti-semitism, or anti-Israelism can even be sponsored by mere anti-semitism, if somebody confused Jewish people for the government in Israel.

Hold on! You are causing my head to spin! I gotta sit down, both hands on my knees. (Give me a sec). Ok, better.

Zionism has captured Judaism nearly completely. And Zionists worked very hard to associate the Zionist Project with the Hebrew or Jewish Project. For Israelis (many) and certainly for Zionists, the notion or the view that Zionist aims are “wrong” or do not jibe with Judaism-in-principle, is defined as anti-Semitism pure and simple. Full stop.

At the very least, IC, you have clearly laid out on the metaphorical table the very core or the controversy.

To the degree that Jewry defines itself in Zionist terms, is the degree that it lunges into an insuperable problem. A nest of problems that are (I think this) insuperable.

There is a 5% core of the Orthodox that never became Zionist and indeed opposed it and oppose it vocally now. But what of those who are merely ‘culturally Jewish” and effectively no longer have any significant connection to Orthodox practice (which defines Judaism)? What attitude should they have? When Zionism and Israelism became, essentially, the Jewish commitment?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 2:11 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:48 pm So anti-Israelism can tip over into anti-semitism, or anti-Israelism can even be sponsored by mere anti-semitism, if somebody confused Jewish people for the government in Israel.

Hold on! You are causing my head to spin! I gotta sit down, both hands on my knees. (Give me a sec). Ok, better.

It's actually very simple.

People can take issue with Israel for more than one reason. One is that they don't like Israel's present policies. And that's fine: many Jewish people feel the same. The other is that they hate Jews. That's not okay. And we might add that some people can hate Jews, and do it with absolutely no reference to Israel at all -- just as the Third Reich did, since there was not even any government of Israel to hate, in those days.

We must not confuse those. Because today, people do use the exceptions they take with the government of Israel's policies to justify a hatred of all Jews. And that's just not okay.

Zionism has captured Judaism nearly completely. And Zionists worked very hard to associate the Zionist Project with the Hebrew or Jewish Project. For Israelis (many) and certainly for Zionists, the notion or the view that Zionist aims are “wrong” or do not jibe with Judaism-in-principle, is defined as anti-Semitism pure and simple. Full stop.

Well, you're seeing it from the Jewish side, perhaps. I'm seeing it as a goy. You see a rising association in your community between Zionism and Judaism: fair enough. I see a rising excusing of goy anti-semitism by way of criticism of Israel's government and policies: also a real phenomenon, and I even see many Jewish people desperate to get on that same bandwagon; perhaps in the hope of managing to distinguish themselves from other Jews, so as not to incur the same antisemitism.

But that strategy failed in Nazi Germany. I fear it is destined once again to prove perfidious to those who adopt it. But for reasons that I think the Jewish people seem not really to understand yet.

What attitude should they have? When Zionism and Israelism became, essentially, the Jewish commitment?

Interestingly, embedded in your question is a suppositional definition of the very question you said was something on which we ought to be silent: i.e. who is a Jew? You say that Zionism is a "Jewish commitment": of which "Jews" do you speak, when you say that? And what makes it a "Jewish" kind of "commitment"? I'm very interested to know what conception of a Jew is sponsoring that question.

But to answer your question: Zion is a spiritual and eschatological name. To call Israel that is already to have declared a position on the inevitability of Israel, and of it's role as a "light to the nations" (Tanakh, Isaiah 42:6), and as the Abrahamic basis of "blessing" to "all the nations" (Torah, Gen. 22:18). If one doesn't believe in that, it would be called "Israel," perhaps, or "Palestine," but not "Zion."

So I wonder what role the Jewish (however you're defining it) community is foreseeing for itself.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:16 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 12:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 1:29 pmQuantum mechanics does not seem to imperil causality at all.

Then you don't understand quantum mechanics.

Good morning, Mr Boneman, how are you? I hope hale & hearty.

Thank you Gus, I am. I would ask how you are, but I don't really care.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:16 pmIs it that quantum mechanics when properly understood overturns causation? Should it then be understood that we exist in an a-causal universe? Or is that too binary a way to look at the issue?

Yes. You need to distinguish between the micro and macro. Mr Can is blabbing on like an undergraduate who has reached the part in Hume's Enquiry into Human Understanding where he lays out the problem of causation, believing an 18th century empiricist to be authoritative. Don't get me wrong, Hume is a great hero of mine. He is the author of one of my favourite philosophical jokes: religion is reliant on at least one miracle - that anyone believes it. I even made a pilgrimage to his mausoleum in Edinburgh; though I doubt I would have made the trip, were my daughter not studying Chinese at the University.
Talking of jokes, you have probably heard the one, often attributed to Einstein, that madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That quite neatly summarises causation on the macro level: if you perform the same experiment under the same conditions, you will get the same result - it is crazy to think otherwise. According to Mr Can, this is a miracle that only a supreme being could achieve. Such causality isn't always true at the quantum level; there's all sorts of crazy shit, superposition, uncertainty, wave function collapse. Probably the idea that more people are familiar with than the really bonkers stuff is radioactive decay, which is measured in half-life. The reason being that you can stare at an individual unstable nucleus, granted you would need very sharp vision, and there is no way to tell when it will decay; could be any time now, next week or even never; well, not never never, but long after this solar system is toast.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 1:16 pm(I admit to feeling a wee bit imperiled myself here! Also a bit dizzy )

Well, John Stewart Bell might object, but you can make up some hidden variables guff to plant your feet on. You would, in my view, be wiser to get used to being dizzy. As right, royal smarty-pants Niels Bohr said: "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 12:33 pm
Then you don't understand quantum mechanics... Mr Can is blabbing on like an undergraduate...

Ah. Scorn is such a great tool...when one has no answer.

Empty vessels make the most noise. 𐃥

Let's see if you can explain how quantum theory undermines faith in causality.

And then let's see you rescue science from the pit you dig.

Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 11:19 am

Fanman wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 3:54 pm

Well considered based on the frame of reference you commit to. My view is different.

Why is it that whenever we in the West refer to god it invariably defaults to its biblical description? Could it be it's the only one we're trained to believe as its true manifestation, while others are mentioned merely as a point of comparison replete with an implied separation between true and false?

There is the common theological version of god which exists exclusively through the subjectivity of faith yielding the experiences which prompt one to believe, this being more or less its "found version".

Then there is its metaphysical edition which has has very little relation to biblical lore. Instead it becomes a quest to discover the cosmic entrails of a hidden god directed more by its ambiguity within the cosmos than by any scriptural denotations and deformations which exist solely as subservient metaphors of a fixed belief system which inevitably remains static and dogmatic.

It is the seeking aspect within this latter narrative which transforms into an incremental influencer of consciousness wherein by minute degrees we close the gap, though never finalized, into a different order and definition of god, one which becomes evermore dynamic as it progresses.

Anyway, that's my view of a god quest, completely extraneous to any biblical deity whose identity and creation was constructed by humans as rendered by its history of which we have long ceased to be ignorant.

The god of scripture is not the lord of creation but a metaphoric personalization meant to exclude the impersonal which is usually a measure of distance between oneself and the mysteries one encounters.

Thank you for saying so; I appreciate it. Currently, I have no fixed position on the question ‘Does God exist?’ outside the idea that belief in any God epistemically distills to belief and faith.

When it comes to metaphysics, other than acknowledging the possibility of a metaphysical claim through a rigorous axiomatic or modal process of reasoning (usually using AI), I don’t venture into that area epistemically, as there's nothing literal to latch onto, so subjects can quickly turn into a 'Wonderland' type of circumstance if the standards of logic and coherence aren't high.

It's true that people often revert to the biblical God when considering the question of its existence, but I think that may distil to simple popularity rather than the cogency of the 'Yahweh concept' itself.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 2:49 pm Thank you Gus, I am. I would ask how you are, but I don't really care.

How terrible of you, Will. I genuinely wish you the best and think rather highly of you. Calling you Wilbur Boneman is tit-for-tat since you keep calling me “Gus” (from Gustav Bjornstrand).

Many of you act like girls! Men fight and insult even, and then everything is still cool …

Oh well, have it your way …

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 3:19 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 12:33 pm Then you don't understand quantum mechanics... Mr Can is blabbing on like an undergraduate...

Ah. Scorn is such a great tool...when one has no answer.

You are a child, Mr Can; pushing 70 but still to grow up. While you should cherish your innocence, you have yet to learn to treat people who challenge with respect.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 3:19 pmEmpty vessels make the most noise. 𐃥

29533 posts is quite a lot of noise, Mr Can.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 3:19 pmLet's see if you can explain how quantum theory undermines faith in causality.

You don't need me:

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 7:12 pmSo even the best human knowing (if we take science to be exactly that) is probabilistic, not absolute.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2026 3:19 pmAnd then let's see you rescue science from the pit you dig.

Again:

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2026 7:12 pmSo even the best human knowing (if we take science to be exactly that) is probabilistic, not absolute.