Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
1 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   rapture ready
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 32 of 128 (332742)
07-18-2006 1:23 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Faith
07-17-2006 11:33 PM


Re: Danger?
This IS a democratic republic, no? And majority rule is the foundation of it, no? Government of by and for the people, no?
tell that to the palestinians who voted for hamas, or the lebanese that voted for hezbollah. we're allowed to have our crazy fundamentalist leaders elected by the people, but you're not allowed to have yours.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 07-17-2006 11:33 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:05 AM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 34 of 128 (332747)
07-18-2006 2:06 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Faith
07-18-2006 2:05 AM


Re: Danger?
well, talk to buz wrt hezbollah holding lebanon hostage.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:05 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:08 AM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 36 of 128 (332750)
07-18-2006 2:10 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by Faith
07-18-2006 2:08 AM


Re: Danger?
and what should we do with them if they do, seeing as how hezbollah is commited to the destruction of israel?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:08 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:11 AM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 38 of 128 (332753)
07-18-2006 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by Faith
07-18-2006 2:11 AM


Re: Danger?
then what happens? does the war stop at some point?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:11 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:23 AM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 58 of 128 (332851)
07-18-2006 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Hyroglyphx
07-18-2006 10:19 AM


Re: Misconceptions
The reality is that being anti-zionist is the same thing as anti-semitism.
well, not neccessarily. first of all, semites are all the sons of shem, and that include arabs. and being hebrew-friendly doesn't require supporting every crazed zionist rant -- especially the ones that go off on the neighbours of zion.
i'm all in support of a solid and peaceful state of israel. but that doesn't mean that i can't think israel should stay out palestine or lebanon. i have a very deep respect for judaism in general, but that doesn't mean i have to support every extremist religious idea than any jewish person comes up with. are you going to call me an anti-semite too, for not supporting the modern zionist movement? i was quite amused when faith accused me of antisemitism -- lots of cognitive dissonance on that one. here i am signing all my posts in hebrew, and consistently arguing a jewish point of view on scripture, and i'm a jew-hater?
you can be anti-zionist without being anti-zion, or anti-israel, or anti-jew, or anti-semitic. i just happen to see the same kind of hate mongering in the zionist camps as i do in the fundamentalist islamic camps in palestine.
Its madness that Jews want to live in Israel? If you're from Boca Raton, I'd think that would be welcomed, being that South Florida has more Jews per capita than anywhere else on the planet.
somehow, that statistic does not suprise me.
but yes, right now it is madness that anyone wants to move to anywhere in the middle east. but the particular point that i think brenna was highlighting is that most jews here are not israeli -- it's not their homeland; it's their holyland. they feel the connection to land not because they come from there, but because it is sacred to their faith.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-18-2006 10:19 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-18-2006 12:25 PM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 88 of 128 (333090)
07-18-2006 8:54 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Hyroglyphx
07-18-2006 12:25 PM


Re: Misconceptions
Exactly, but try explaining that to a peoples who just discredit the Bible. You point to Genesis 10 and they have no idea what its talking about. But you and I both know that its customary that Semites in modern terms it refers to Jews. But yes, Arabs come from the line of Shem as well.
even culturally and in secular terminology, semitic people are everyone from the middle east. there are semitic jews, and non-semitic (ashkenazi, ethiopian, south african, sephardic, etc) jews. there are semitic muslims, and non-semitic muslims (asian).
Yes, very true. And I'm fully aware that Israel has its fair share of nutbags too. And I don't support them in any way. Half of the time I don't agree with any of Israels political idealogies. They are a nation just as polarized on the issues as America.
yes. i'll i'm saying is that the radical contigent are generally called "zionists," and one can be against them without being against zion, true zionism, or israel. because, really, the zionist movement is technically over, now that israel is a state and has an official hebrew language. as a point of interest (and i don't mean this as a condemnation at all), original zionism also established the only working system of communism in the world, the kibutzim. modern zionism is a little more imperialistic, and it's the imperialism that people don't like -- not the zionism.
But really, don't you think this coddling of only Palestine is incredibly unfair?
depends. do you think american indians should be allowed to have casinos? palestine had the land for the better part of 2,000 years. israel moved in, relocated the palestinians, and continues to make their lives generally bad (example in a bit). i think they have some cause to be pissed, yes. but i think it's also ridiculous for them to blame all of their problems on israel. and their methods are to be despised. the problem, to me, is that radical contingents of both israel and palestine sound exactly the same.
I mean, the media has succesfully painted this picture that Israelis tromp through the streets like a bunch of Stormtroopers bent on destruction. It looks an awful lot like to me that they are are, you know, trying to exist. And certain special interest groups feel that they are unfit to exist. That's bs.
well, they do stomp through the streets, don't they? they consider it neccessary for their own protection, and so they have imposed a military state and essentially martial law on palestine, or at least the region that directly borders israel proper. since palestine is entirely contained within their official border, they can do whatever they'd like in their own country.
like build a wall down the middle of it. the wall sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? check everyone who's coming through, etc. i agree, sounds good. the problem is that it's not one wall -- it's a network of walls, designed to divide the west bank in such a way so as to interrupt the daily lives of most palestinians. there are stories about people having to take 12 mile detours to cross the street. they figure, if they can stop palestinians from moving around, they can stop communication of terrorists. and they might be right. ...but at what point does palestine become one giant ghetto? this is the same logic that relocated the japanese on the west coast of this country in ww2, and frankly, the same logic that spawned concentration camps for the jews. this is not a slippery slope we should be going down.
At what point should Israel fight back? They aren't randomly attacking civilians.
they're bombing a residential area in lebanon right now. yes, that's WHY hizballah is there -- instant martyrs.
I couldn't count on my fingers or toes how many times Israel has been attacked and has done nothing except sit on their hands. And the only reason they do so is because the US and UK implore them too. Because we all know what's going to happen. Now its happening.
yes. well, there has to be a better way.
I don't know you well enough to call you an anti-semite. You don't give me that impression. You seem like a reasonable man/woman, unlike some of the other counterparts who are more of the malicious, ad hom'ish type who seem incapable of being reasoned with.
well, thank you. (man, btw). and no, i am certainly not anti-semitic. and actually, brenna isn't either, i'll vouch for her. she's just, well, she's kind of an asshole sometimes. she should be more careful and word things better. she's gotten in trouble for it before, and will get in trouble for it again.
you also have to remember that most of the jews we go to school with are not israeli jews, or even semitic jews, but spoiled boca ("diaspora at its finest") jews, generally coming here from new york. and really, their crazy opinions on the israel/palestine conflict tend to be a little... well nuts, and out of touch. not that there aren't crazy people from israel too; there are, but they get more credit for their opinions.
And no, I don't expect you to swallow some radical Zionist notion. But we forget so quickly that these arguments are just a spin-off of Nazi propaganda. Its the same thing, different era. We're just waiting for the next Kristalnacht.
well, what i think you probably mistakenly implied is what i'm often saying -- nazism greatly affected the european jews, the ones who returned to their homeland after the war to establish the state of israel. they are damned fearful of anything like that ever happening again, and really i don't blame them. that should NEVER happen again. but the problem is that the things that many of the more zionist members say are basically the same arguments of nazism. the nazis rounded up and tried to destroy the jews because they viewed them as a threat to their society. all i'm saying is that racism is racism, and we should be careful of the consequences.
Well, I guess I would generally agree if only everyone was able to establish what "Zionism" actually means. Here is Dictionary.com's version. I happen to believe this is what Zionism really means and agree with it.
-isms evolved. for instance, i'm rather anti-feminist. not because i'm against womens' rights (which i am ALL for) but because feminism has diverged from this focus, and is now largely sexist postmodern bullshit. same deal with zionism. i can be against radical and racist zionism, but be all for the original intent of it.
The Jews are the only people to ever retain their entire, or nearly their entire, heritage, culture, religion, speech, etc afterbeing dispersed.
not true. i speak more hebrew than most jews i know, and i'm not jewish. yes, really, i am continually suprised by this myself. (what do they teach kids in hebrew school?) sephardic jews traditionally speak ladino or spanish, european and american jews english, ashkenazi tend to speak at least some yiddish, and ethiopians, um, whatever language they speak in ethiopia.
Jews and their faith are practically homologous.
most of the jews here are secular, and i know a fair portion of the ones in israel are too. "jewish" also works as a cultural definiton, not neccessarily a religious one. the traditions are closely to the culture, yes, and come from the religion -- but that doesn't mean that cultural and religious jews are practically the same group.
For instance, a good friend I grew up with is a liberal Jew. There are many of them. He's in that limbo between God or no God, but for the most part he is secular. I asked him if he observes Jewish traditions. He conceded that he does. To which I replied, "But surely you are aware that Jewish tradition and the Torah go hand in hand. What meaning does Passover have apart from its religious symbolism?" He understood what I meant.
i know a lot of athiests that celebrate christmas too.
The point I'm trying to make is, Jews are a very unique peoples. They just are, right or wrong. There is no one earth like, right or wrong. And to be a Jew in their repatriated homeland must be very exciting for them. Instead of scoffing and mocking them, why aren't people celebrating that?
well, they're not really that unique, they're actually a lot like most other cultures in the area in a great many ways -- but if i didn't feel they were special, i wouldn't be learning hebrew.
After the Diaspora, Israel was scortched. It wasn't fertile land that it once or that is coming back today.
well, not exactly. rome burned jerusalem. not all of israel. but maybe i missed that day in school. *shrug*
But it never became the flourishing country that it was during the times the Jews inhabited it.
traditionally, the jews were sheep-herders and nomads in their early days. you gotta start somewhere. can you fault the ancient people who inhabited the land after the diaspora for not immediately establishing an empire? they did, eventually, though, didn't they?
And they met resistence for one reason only.... the Dome of the Rock; the 3rd most holy site in Islam. Ever since then its been escalating into the disaster that it is today.
i don't think that's the only site holy to islam in israel. i could be wrong, i don't know a whole lot about islam.
The reason is the Palestinians? What of the Palestinians? They've always been there!
actually, i should mention something somewhat ironic. deuteronomy and joshua mention driving the philistines/palestinians out of the promised land, and depict israel conquering them. but by all archaeological evidence available, it looks like the exodus and conquest of the holy land never actually happened -- the jews were really there first. all evidence regarding the philistines is that they moved to the area (from cyprus, iirc) well after joshua would have happened. i'm not sure how this affects claims to the land 2,500 years later. it doesn't seem to lend support either way.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-18-2006 12:25 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-18-2006 11:12 PM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 101 of 128 (333159)
07-19-2006 12:15 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by Hyroglyphx
07-18-2006 11:12 PM


Re: Misconceptions
Well, if I moved to the middle east it wouldn't make me a Semite because I come from the line of Japheth. But yes, I know what you're arriving at.
well, no. because you're not originally wrong there, ethnic-wise. originally, i suppose all jews are in fact semitic, but for some reason we (speaking in secular terms) divide the ethnic boundaries a little different, and do differentiate between different groups of jews and arabs.
While I don't personally like it and it irritates me that a group who's stated goals are preserving the enviornment, the passing on of Native American heritage, among other things, can fall so hard for the almighty mammon. But, they are allowed to have them so we must let them be until, or unless its amended. I just refuse to spend one cent in them.
well, it was really a moral question -- should we allow special considerations for groups we have grossly abused in the distant past? in the recent past? (two different questions). points for using "mamon" correctly, though.
What they don't have the right to do, {speaking about HAMAS, not your average citizen} is to attack and blame Israel for all of life's problems.
i agree. but if they seek independence, what methods do they have? and what methods does israel have to try to secure itself from their methods? it's just a bad situation all around. the solution, and one that BOTH sides recognized previously, was compromise. it's just that no one in the middle east wants to compromise and be someone else's fool.
I think Israel going into the West Bank and forcing Jews out of their own homes that they payed for, was more than a compromise... But it wasn't enough, was it?
i didn't udnerstand this until my (semitic) israeli teacher explained it to me. like i said above, no one wants to be anyone else's fool -- if you see someone trying to give you something, they're trying to trick you, and make a fool out of you. no one gives anyone anything for free. not parking spaces, not places in line at the bank, not their leftover lunch, nothing. and certainly not land. it's just customary that you don't take things people offer you for free, in the middle east. so when israel gives gaza to palestine, and relocates the israelis, what do the palestinians say? "take your land and shove it." that's why this conflict will be so hard to solve.
Because most unfortuantely, people like Hamas and the PLO can't be reasoned with. If you give them an inch, they'll demand a foot. If you concede to give them a foot, they'll want a meter, and so on. They just won't be satisfied until Israeli's are dead or living in Antarctica.
yeah, i dunno about that. antarctica, i mean. hamas and the plo aren't exactly mainstream political organizations -- it's a pity that enough people were dissatisfied enough with the former administration in palestine that they went and ELECTED hamas. i don't think anyone was more suprised than hamas themselves. the solution won't come in making hamas happy. it will come with making palestine happy. if palestine is happy, hamas will have no power, and no supporters.
Why shouldn't separate Palestine and Israel? Palestinans have made it clear that they want to be sovereign and Israel has made it clear that they want to be soveriegn. So, soverien they shall be. I guess its as asinine as asking why Canada and America have borders. Because we are separate countries.
but palestine and israel are not separate countries, are they? palestine is actually a portion of israel that considers itself a separate country -- but israel and the rest of the world does not. but yes, fine. separate israel and palestine. granted, even that's a little unfair, but it should be nothing more than a little hassle for the people who live in palestine and work in israel. they can put up with it, i think. but there's no good reason to divide up the communities on the "palestine" side, or destroy them to build the wall. and it won't stop terrorism in israel.
Well, I've never heard about that. I'm not doubting what you're saying, just that I've never heard that before. If that's the case, I think a compromise should be met to alleviate that annoyance.
yes, i agree. i think the above is an acceptable compromise.
and some people, myself included, feels that it was by Divine authority that it happened. But I'll try not to get into those aspects.
let's be totally honest for a second. doesn't that play into this? i mean, there is at least one group of jews supporting hamas for religious reasons.
But I have to wonder, if the Arab world is so concerned about the Palestinian plight, then why hasn't Syria, Jordan, Iraq, or whoever else offered to take the displaced refugees? I happen to believe that it works out to Islamo-fascist benefit to drive a wedge between Ishmael and Issac.
the zionists say it's because no one wants the palestinians. you're probably a lot closer to being right. though i suspect that the fact that the palestinians feel they have claim to the land (because, you know, they LIVE there) has something do with it too. and offered another piece of land, they probably wouldn't take it.
well, thank you. (man, btw). and no, i am certainly not anti-semitic.
I think the Hebrew font was a dead giveaway. LOL!
you'd think, right? some people here -- not so quick.
Ah, Brenna's a good girl. I've been on too many forums to know the difference between someone who can be reasoned with and someone who is a polemicist, i.e. someone who argues just to argue. Brenna can be reasoned with, even if we hardly see eye to eye.
we both certainly argue for the sake of argument. i feel that debate is a good path to enlightenment, for probing the validity of an argument. i'll often take devil's advocate positions for this reason. (i ALMOST argued with the hebrew font bit above saying "i type in english too, how do you know i'm not anti-caucasian?")
All the bratty, Americanized Jews that I know seem largely indifferent to what's going on over there. But that almost seems worse to me. Almost.
almost. a lot of the older ones here are somewhat indifferent. i think it's a college phenominon -- we're young and like to protest shit.
No one one race or creed or nation or state or city is immune to having nutjubs somewhere within its confines. Israeli's are no exception to the rule.
well, the great thing about it is, of course, that any argument against anything any israeli does can be easily turned into anti-semitism by the opponent. it's the basic "us or them" false dichtomy -- and it's no suprise that the same people espousing this view here are the ones who think we're either in support of bush doing whatever the hell he wants, or we're unamerican. same fallacy, different countries.
I find myself in opposition to feminism only because I feel that it detracts from femininity and inadvertently demonizes their own professed tenets. I think anything "radical" whether leftwing or rightwing is shockingly ignorant.
yes, i agree. i tend left myself, but the extreme left annoys me every bit as much as the extreme right. i'd love to go on about feminism and how i think it simply reinforces sexism, but it'd be a little TOO off topic here.
Alright, well there is Tiberian Hebrew and many other derivatives of Hebrew, as you pointed out, but I think the core of Jewishness has never been lost. With how many times they've been dispersed and how long those intervals were, its pretty amazing that they managed to keep it alive. The only other culture that might be comparable, are Gypsy's.
i'm not so sure. i think american jews are quite successfully integrated into secular/christian society here. i mean, yeah, they celebrate different holidays, but big deal. most don't believe in judaism much, or speak ANY hebrew at all, and generally have very little cultural identity apart from their american-ness. maybe that's more a quality of the american melting pot, though. eurpoean jes might be different.
Where is "here?" Or, there, rather...?
sorry, i thought i'd strongly implied that above. brenna and i both live in south florida, and go to school in boca raton.
Yeah, like I said, I know alot of secular Jews. But to me, their traditions are so rooted in Judaism that its hard for me to understand how they can separate the two into two entities.
well, i don't think you understand just how much is missing until you've seen orthodox traditions. the secular jews usually have passover and whatnot, but it's more about family than religion. most don't even go to temple.
Good point. However, Christmas is just a bastardization of Christianity, Norse pantheism, and Etruscan paganism.... Right down to the Christmas tree.
well, yeah. it just happens that passover is better rooted in the bible (chanukah, btw, is not). christmas, however, was still defined where it is in the calendar by a christian church, and several of the notable icons of the holiday (the star, angels, and st. nicholas) are all christian and religious in origin.
I think you are thinking of the......? Crap, i can't remember their names. The Edomites? No, I don't think that;s it. But they did drive away a peoples thousands of years ago. As well, they did fight against the Palestinans/Phillistines quite often. Themost famous story being David and Goliath. But it should be made known that the Palestinians today come from Arab stock, which migrated much later in history. The Biblical Phillistines, I believe, were most closely related to Assyrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Sumerians, which aren't Arab at all.
well, that wasn't the point. yes, there are stories, in the bible. the bible says joshua and the israelites marched into the holy land, and drove them out, and that david continued to hold them at bay. in the archaeology world, we have no evidence at all for king david even existing, and all of the evidence points to the philistines coming into the holy land as outsiders well after joshua. so the choices are: a) the jews stole the land from them, making the jews look bad, or b) the jewish faith is wrong about the promised land, but the palestinians have no claim to the land anyways. it's no win on both sides, really, either way you look at it.
anyways, the modern palestinians are indeed more arab than the biblical philistines. if they ARE related, it's likely because of intermarriage. as an example of the other side of things, there's a group of south african jews that is indeed originally semitic. this has been verified genetically because they tend to have the kohanim modal hyplotype, a chromosome unique to tribe of levi (the modern "cohen" family). yet they look south african -- very dark black skin, with african features. it's possible that intermarriage did something similar with the palestinians and the surrounding semitic peoples. but i doubt anyone can say for sure.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Hyroglyphx, posted 07-18-2006 11:12 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 114 of 128 (333600)
07-20-2006 1:23 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by ReverendDG
07-20-2006 1:20 AM


Re: Misconceptions
yeshu was killed ... on the night before passover and jesus was killed *on* passover
or the day after. depends which gospel you like.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by ReverendDG, posted 07-20-2006 1:20 AM ReverendDG has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by ReverendDG, posted 07-20-2006 1:28 AM arachnophilia has replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 120 of 128 (333810)
07-20-2006 6:50 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Faith
07-18-2006 2:23 AM


Re: Danger?
sorry, i missed this post.
Correction. I spoke unthinkingly. It doesn't call for war unless Hezbollah actually attacks or seriously threatens, as in this case they did. Otherwise their commitment to doing away with Israel simply calls for constant defensive vigilance, which is in fact generally the stance of Israel
that is very reasonable, and i agree.
i'm just not sure kidnapping constitutes a serious threat -- though this was not the only thing that provoked the war. hizballah has been launching rockets into various norther israeli cities. in which case, israel is probably justified in what they are doing.
What else can one do when you have committed terrorists against you? What would you suggest?
well, i suggested a few very counter-intuitive and jesus-inspired courses of action in the other thread. that would probably be a more appropriate place to continue this discussion, if you'd like...


This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Faith, posted 07-18-2006 2:23 AM Faith has not replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 124 of 128 (334073)
07-21-2006 4:09 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by ReverendDG
07-20-2006 1:28 AM


Re: Misconceptions
many people i have debated are on there, actually. sometimes, i run google searches for the bs they come up with -- and find them there!


This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by ReverendDG, posted 07-20-2006 1:28 AM ReverendDG has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by macaroniandcheese, posted 07-21-2006 7:47 PM arachnophilia has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024