Antisemitism: Subset-Superset Fallacy

Jews are a nation. Non practicing Jews are still Jews because they were born Jews and belong to the Jewish nation.

Christians are not a nation.

A Jew is a Jew, regardless of religious beliefs. Born a Jew, dies a Jew. As I said, we are a nation.

Well, families are not happy with members converting to other faith, or becoming atheists, so much is obvious, often severing all ties with the rebels. Yes, religions exploit human emotions and fears to keep sheep in the fold.

 

And there it is. Judaism is a nation that comes with a prescribed spiritual belief system. I have the same problem with all ethnic/tribal religions including Hindus.

At least the God of Islam and Christianity are gods that transcend petty nations and place more importance the fact that you are a well meaning human being regardless of where you are born. That's not me telling you to go join said religions, just that they are one step more enlightened in their theology.

 

Quite a few non-practicing Jews don't call themselves Jews. A lot of them have changed their names too. Contrary to 4 chan Jews don't really LOOK Jewish, at least Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannson and Kirk Douglas don't, so you can't tell, though few try hard to conceal it.

OTOH it's difficult to turn your back on your family entirely. Especially when the support of this family has been a really big part of your life.

Jews assimilating and becoming less Jewish is a big controversy, even among the non-practicing. Going by their upbringing it's really an integral part of their makeup, yet some see that whole idea as being antithetical to the principles they are supposed to be practicing. It may be one of those conflicts they seem to almost cultivate as being a people who thrive on intellectual challenges

 

That's interesting. Do we see the same kinds of trends among non practicing Christians, Hindus and Muslims?

Examples: an atheist from a Muslim background would still refrain from drinking alcohol and retain the name Muhammad because that's how they were raised. Or an ex Mormon would still avoid swearing because growing up it was strongly discouraged.

 

I am a non-practicing Catholic I rather look forward to Lent because of the fish fries held at St Casimir's every Friday.

 

Judaism is not a nation. Jews are.

The problem with our understanding of the world around us is that the human brain creates patterns to help organize and categorize knowledge. Once such pattern has been established, everything that doesn't fit is automatically rejected or twisted. This is one reason Jews and Judaism and the relationship between them are so hard to understand.

One way to avoid conflicts between patterns and reality is to admit that we don't have complete knowledge, leaving some wiggling space in the patterns for the new, the unknown, the weird. Other way is looking at human beings as individuals, not masses, as creators, not created, as rich sources of spirituality, culture, imagination, progress, instead of mere products of such sources. Then one can understand, and accept, that not all cultures must follow the same path, that we are blessed with a wealth of wonderfully different solutions for common human issues, that it's perfectly fine for one society to have totally different customs compared to all other societies, that we're not meant to think and act all alike.

Jews and Hindus are just manifestations - avatars, kind of - of our own brains capacities and limitations.

 

WHO exactly is claiming all Jews are bad?

 

Judaism teaches that all righteous gentiles - those who keep the seven laws of Noah - will enjoy eternal life in a perfect world. Unlike your enlightened Christianity and Islam, there are no eternal punishments and torture in hell for the sinners and the unbelievers, just eternal nothing. No fires and cauldrons of whatever. How very unenlightened.

 

I'm not going to defend one religion over another. Eternal torture is just as empty an assertion as priestly blood. Almost all religions have their serious shortcomings. For Judaism it just happens to be the idea of priestly blood creating an undeserving hierarchy via hereditary inheritance. Gentiles must look to the Jews for inspiration. No thanks.

Eternal torture for not accepting the blood sacrifice of a man I never knew from the ancient world? Also no thanks.

 

That's fabulous!

 

In my experience of seventy plus years Jewish people seem to be a lot more accepting of diversity and intelligent than Christians.