Sam Harris

Another contradiction brought to you by the Church of Contradictions. People should not be offended by Judaism or its members, BUT…..they are offended by everything outside of Judaism.

Jews are quickly “offended”

1. By any discussion of history that sheds an unfavorable light on the true history of the Judaism.
2. Someone else’s non compliance with their expectations for political beliefs.
3. Choosing to have an opinion that doesn’t tow the party line.
4. Setting boundaries, like “no I’m not going agree with your political agenda”.
5. Asking questions or confronting the history or doctrine of Judaism that is incorrect or doesn’t make sense.

Jews would ask that others not be “offended” by their peculiar religious observations, their unorthodox beliefs, the claim that they are GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE (that shouldn’t offend anyone) or that they have authority from God to judge you. No one is supposed to take offense to anything a Jew says or does, but they are “offended” by everything.

How convenient for them, just another way to blame the victim and claim they are the victims. Everyone’s being mean to them while they are so nice to others.

Cooper, after what is now 100 (mostly solipsistic) posts from you, (largely expressing an unhealthy fascination with Judaism in particular) one has to ask you (politely) to get to the fucking point. If we note that your fascination appears to have a vaguely anti-Semitic sort of spice on it, we will be giving you the ammunition to justify to yourself that criticism of Judaism is treated differently than is the case with other faiths. Possibly you get a small thrill out of your oblique sort of Jew-baiting, but if you examine the way members of other faiths treat criticism, you will find exactly the same sort of inordinate sensitivity in most fervent believers. In any event, there is something very creepy (though erudite) about your pattern of posting. Why don’t you take a step toward articulating this problem and focus with Judaism you really seem to have. Certainly some other monotheism would have emerged had it not been for the Abrahamic form. People are susceptible to woo, and if your issue is Middle East politics as it plays out in America, you should shit or get off the pot.

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

Nulono - 26 January 2009 11:58 PM

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

No he doesn’t.  He never GETS to “the point.”  Salt Creek nails it—this guy is yet another under-the-radar anti-Semite.

bigredfutbol - 14 April 2009 05:33 PM

Nulono - 26 January 2009 11:58 PM

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

No he doesn’t.  He never GETS to “the point.”  Salt Creek nails it—this guy is yet another under-the-radar anti-Semite.

Another good example of how Jews and Israelis are extended deference by our American culture. Even the mention of the word “Jew” provokes the predictable and automatic, but incorrect, anti-Semite charge. Shame on you.

Stay Well
Wotansson

Wotansson - 21 April 2009 01:28 PM

bigredfutbol - 14 April 2009 05:33 PM

Nulono - 26 January 2009 11:58 PM

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

No he doesn’t.  He never GETS to “the point.”  Salt Creek nails it—this guy is yet another under-the-radar anti-Semite.

Another good example of how Jews and Israelis are extended deference by our American culture. Even the mention of the word “Jew” provokes the predictable and automatic, but incorrect, anti-Semite charge. Shame on you.

Stay Well
Wotansson

Bite me.

bigredfutbol - 21 April 2009 02:09 PM

Wotansson - 21 April 2009 01:28 PM

bigredfutbol - 14 April 2009 05:33 PM

Nulono - 26 January 2009 11:58 PM

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

No he doesn’t.  He never GETS to “the point.”  Salt Creek nails it—this guy is yet another under-the-radar anti-Semite.

Another good example of how Jews and Israelis are extended deference by our American culture. Even the mention of the word “Jew” provokes the predictable and automatic, but incorrect, anti-Semite charge. Shame on you.

Stay Well
Wotansson

Bite me.

Well, if you looked anything like the image you present, I might consider your offer, but of course you don’t….and wait..is that a cigarette….hey sorry….I don’t bite smokers. They tend to taste like grandpa’s old ash tray where he deposited his cigar butts. Ugh.
Plus I don’t find under-the-radar morons very palatable anyway.

Stay Well
Wotansson

Wotansson - 21 April 2009 02:57 PM

bigredfutbol - 21 April 2009 02:09 PM

Wotansson - 21 April 2009 01:28 PM

bigredfutbol - 14 April 2009 05:33 PM

Nulono - 26 January 2009 11:58 PM

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

No he doesn’t.  He never GETS to “the point.”  Salt Creek nails it—this guy is yet another under-the-radar anti-Semite.

Another good example of how Jews and Israelis are extended deference by our American culture. Even the mention of the word “Jew” provokes the predictable and automatic, but incorrect, anti-Semite charge. Shame on you.

Stay Well
Wotansson

Bite me.

Well, if you looked anything like the image you present, I might consider your offer, but of course you don’t….and wait..is that a cigarette….hey sorry….I don’t bite smokers. They tend to taste like grandpa’s old ash tray where he deposited his cigar butts. Ugh.
Plus I don’t find under-the-radar morons very palatable anyway.

Stay Well
Wotansson

If you’re too dense to recognize the anti-Semitism implicit in the wording and approach of the original post, I can’t help you.  There was nothing resembling a reasoned, balanced, honest examination of, say, the excesses of the Israeli military, the injustice of the occupation or of the settler project.  No, this was just about what “the Jews” supposedly do and say and believe.  A lot of anecdotal, oblique attacks on a presumed, monolithic Jewry.

bigredfutbol - 21 April 2009 03:19 PM

Wotansson - 21 April 2009 02:57 PM

bigredfutbol - 21 April 2009 02:09 PM

Wotansson - 21 April 2009 01:28 PM

bigredfutbol - 14 April 2009 05:33 PM

Nulono - 26 January 2009 11:58 PM

He has a point. There’s no being anti-Muslim is much more bopular than being anti-Semitic. Just consider US Media’s take on the Gaza Strip.

No he doesn’t.  He never GETS to “the point.”  Salt Creek nails it—this guy is yet another under-the-radar anti-Semite.

Another good example of how Jews and Israelis are extended deference by our American culture. Even the mention of the word “Jew” provokes the predictable and automatic, but incorrect, anti-Semite charge. Shame on you.

Stay Well
Wotansson

Bite me.

Well, if you looked anything like the image you present, I might consider your offer, but of course you don’t….and wait..is that a cigarette….hey sorry….I don’t bite smokers. They tend to taste like grandpa’s old ash tray where he deposited his cigar butts. Ugh.
Plus I don’t find under-the-radar morons very palatable anyway.

Stay Well
Wotansson

If you’re too dense to recognize the anti-Semitism implicit in the wording and approach of the original post, I can’t help you.  There was nothing resembling a reasoned, balanced, honest examination of, say, the excesses of the Israeli military, the injustice of the occupation or of the settler project.  No, this was just about what “the Jews” supposedly do and say and believe.  A lot of anecdotal, oblique attacks on a presumed, monolithic Jewry.

I have gone over the root post again and again and find your anti-Semitism charges to be unfounded. This is simply a defensive fabrication of your own mind and bias. I do encourage you to actually read Sam’s books, especially the section dealing with enabling of religions via deferences. No religion should be afforded these deferrences and there are no exceptions. Objections to any and all religions and the social and political impact on the rest of us is more than fair game for exposure and criticism. What Jews, Christians and Muslims do, say and believe is the precise point. Thanks for the offer of help but it is you who requires the help. Heal thyself or stick to the “bite me” responses which are at least more honest.

Stay Well
Wotansson

When do we break out the sheets and Rebel flags?

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

Another contradiction brought to you by the Church of Contradictions. People should not be offended by Judaism or its members, BUT…..they are offended by everything outside of Judaism.

Jews are quickly “offended”

It’s easy to recognize a bigot with a bias; they begin a post with a generalization that cannot be supported scientifically.  Which Jews are you addressing here?  The ones in Israel?  Orthodox?  Conservatives?  Reformed?  Let’s review your uneducated posits and see if you have offered anything here besides ignorant speculation.

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

1. By any discussion of history that sheds an unfavorable light on the true history of the Judaism.

While Jewish history is steeped in xenophobia and fears of assimilation, one can not deny that as a people, Jews are very self-critical.  The Torah documents blunder after blunder and has supplied Christians over the centuries with fuel to justify their murder of Jews.

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

2. Someone else’s non compliance with their expectations for political beliefs.

You offer no examples of what you are attempting to communicate here.  As a nation or people, how do Jewish political ambitions differ from ours?

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

3. Choosing to have an opinion that doesn’t tow the party line.

There are millions of secular Jews who enjoy the national identity and culture without towing any line as to the religion.  You don’t know the first fact about the diversity of the wide category you reference as ‘Jews.’ 

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

4. Setting boundaries, like “no I’m not going agree with your political agenda”.

Is this the same babbling form your second point?

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

5. Asking questions or confronting the history or doctrine of Judaism that is incorrect or doesn’t make sense.

One of my good friends is an orthodox Rabbi…he consulted on a book I’m just finishing.  I held his feet to the fire about all the mythology in the Torah and he argues that we need to understand the larger lesson involved…then as friends we finish our lunch and share our childrens’ birthdays. 

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

Jews would ask that others not be “offended” by their peculiar religious observations, their unorthodox beliefs, the claim that they are GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE (that shouldn’t offend anyone) or that they have authority from God to judge you. No one is supposed to take offense to anything a Jew says or does, but they are “offended” by everything.

This is the brand of hyperbole Christians have used for centuries to justify anti-Semitism.  You are a bigot and anti-Semite. 

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

How convenient for them, just another way to blame the victim and claim they are the victims. Everyone’s being mean to them while they are so nice to others.

I would suggest you read some Jewish history (assuming you read) before you make such broad accusations and pretend you are qualified to address issues concerning a broad swath of real human beings.  Start with Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword and when you finish that try Johnson’s History of the Jews.  Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews and Jewish Wars are excellent histories of an ancient and storied people.

Jews have every right to be cautious after being raped, robbed, shunned, banned, segregated into ghettos,blamed, and slaughtered in genocides as a result of the Christian superstition.  For two millennium they have suffered.  Why, because a bunch of Greeks and sectarian Jews in the Diaspora created a mystery religion and stole the Jewish Epic and history as their own epistemology.  Cooper, you are simply helping these people continue this behavior.

LogicAndReason - 03 May 2009 12:28 PM

Jews have every right to be cautious after being raped, robbed, shunned, banned, segregated into ghettos,blamed, and slaughtered in genocides as a result of the Christian superstition.  For two millennium they have suffered.  Why, because a bunch of Greeks and sectarian Jews in the Diaspora created a mystery religion and stole the Jewish Epic and history as their own epistemology.  Cooper, you are simply helping these people continue this behavior.

The solution to anti-semitic tribalism is not to defend a specific tribalism. Regardless of your conceptions of the theft of someone’s “cultural heritage”, whatever the fuck that means, Cooper is gone. Elvis has left the building. Perhaps you are right to point out that the real core of Christianity is anti-semitism. That does nothing except to suggest the idea that some woo is not bullshit. Specifically, “ethnicity”.

You could not have been more sincerely patronizing even had you been conscious of the effort to do so. To note that Christianity is fundamentally anti-Semitic is not to validate any specific form of tribalism. All it does is recognize how much worse Christianity is than it thinks it is, and that’s probably all that needs to be said. Christianity may be a kind of tribalism based only on negation.

Please don’t construe my remarks as anything but a condemnation of using ethnic categories to pursue an argument.

Wotansson - 22 April 2009 01:15 PM

No religion should be afforded these deferrences and there are no exceptions. Objections to any and all religions and the social and political impact on the rest of us is more than fair game for exposure and criticism. What Jews, Christians and Muslims do, say and believe is the precise point.

While I agree about not exempting Judaism from criticism, Cooper’s post seems to treat all Jews as if they believe in the Jewish religion, or that they all share the same political agenda. Most of the Jews I know are secular, Jewish only in the ethnic and cultural senses.

Cooper - 26 January 2009 03:07 PM

their unorthodox beliefs

“Unorthodox” is no basis for criticizing any religion, because that implies some universally recognized rules or standards for religions. The concept of questioning religions involves the rejection of the concept of orthodoxy in the first place.

Jews in fact invaded Arab lands (what they believe to be so called promised land) after 1948. Not to mention Christians they are really getting on my nerves too. Every time they attend the march of the living in Auschwitz they make a lot of fuss if anyone of them is accidentally attacked by some fascist skin idiot(s). Then they hold the whole Polish nation responsible for what happened and accuse us of anti-Semitism. In fact overwhelming majority of Poles don’t care about them. It’s true that communists in Poland forced majority of Jews immigrate in 60’s, but before the World War II Poland was one of most tolerant country towards Jews in the world. 
I always get mad when they whine about Polish anti-Semitism.
In this I am at one with my Polish Christian brothers

Non-believer - 06 May 2009 11:35 AM

Jews in fact invaded Arab lands (what they believe to be so called promised land) after 1948. Not to mention Christians they are really getting on my nerves too. Every time they attend the march of the living in Auschwitz they make a lot of fuss if anyone of them is accidentally attacked by some fascist skin idiot(s). Then they hold the whole Polish nation responsible for what happened and accuse us of anti-Semitism. In fact overwhelming majority of Poles don’t care about them. It’s true that communists in Poland forced majority of Jews immigrate in 60’s, but before the World War II Poland was one of most tolerant country towards Jews in the world. 
I always get mad when they whine about Polish anti-Semitism.
In this I am at one with my Polish Christian brothers

I’ll bet Wotonsson won’t detect any anti-Semitism in this post, either.

bigredfutbol - 06 May 2009 02:45 PM

I’ll bet Wotonsson won’t detect any anti-Semitism in this post, either.

Don’t know who the man is, sounds like irony, but Jews do get hysterical when something happens to them and try immediately to associate it with anti-Semitism. When a Pole is beaten up by some foreigner, it’s an ordinary crime.  Have you ever heard of antii-Polonisme in such a case, I haven’t and I should have
Jews are both a nation and religion which is not the case as far as Poles are concerned, still I think the comparison is right, not exaggerated
See how strong jewish lobby is in the USA even though people who doubt or don’t believe in god certainly outnumber them having in fact no lobby at all
That’s not an accident, Jews do overplay using anti-Semitism card