Feb
22
Mormons think they can baptize dead people to retroactively make them Mormon, but I have bad news for Mormons, and believers of all kinds: everyone who dies becomes an atheist. It’s hard to believe in anything when you cease to exist.
Feb
22
 Opposing Views | Muslim Admits to Attacking Atheist; Muslim Judge Dismisses Case Opposing Views By Al Stefanelli The Pennsylvania State Director of American Atheists, Inc., Mr. Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade. Along with a Zombie Pope, Ernest was costumed as Zombie Muhammad. |
Feb
22
Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade.
Feb
22
 USA TODAY | Blacks say atheists were unseen civil rights heroes USA TODAY By Bob Mahoney, Religion News Service African Americans for Humanism have erected billboards in several cities featuring black icons, including Langston Hughes on this billboard in Atlanta, alongside African-American atheists. |
Feb
22
 Christian Post | Those Dangerous Middles: A Chat with Alain de Botton VICE That's basically the advice the writer and philosopher Alain de Botton offers in his new book Religion for Atheists. Today's conversation around atheism is marked by a fierceness that tends to rival the celestial ideology of nutcase extremists. Atheist Alain de Botton Insists Society Needs Guidance From Religion Alain de Botton's pastoral atheism |
Feb
22
 Los Angeles Times | Prayer banner: Atheist teen speaks out, lands $44000 scholarship Los Angeles Times By Rene Lynch A Rhode Island teen is learning that it pays to deny the existence of God: Prominent atheists plan to present Jessica Ahlquist with a scholarship of at least $44000 -- and possibly more. It seems they were impressed with the way Ahlquist, ... Teen Atheist Jessica Ahlquist Makes CNN Appearance Scholarship fund to atheist generates religious hate Teen atheist gets $40K scholarship |
Feb
22
Once again Rick Santorum's past comments about religious and cultural issues are coming back to bite him.
Feb
22
If Jesus was God, he would be all-knowing and all-good, according to traditional Christian understanding of the attributes of Jesus.
In Matthew 15:2, it is noted that Jesus' disciples did not wash there hands before eating. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find Jesus explaining to his followers or others the need to wash hands to avoid disease transmission.
Today we know about the germ theory of disease and the importance of simply washing our hands to avoid disease transmission. If Jesus truly was God with the above attributes, why do we not find Jesus presenting both of these concepts? Could it be that Jesus, if he was historic, was simply a human being with a following?
In Matthew 15:2, it is noted that Jesus' disciples did not wash there hands before eating. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find Jesus explaining to his followers or others the need to wash hands to avoid disease transmission.
Today we know about the germ theory of disease and the importance of simply washing our hands to avoid disease transmission. If Jesus truly was God with the above attributes, why do we not find Jesus presenting both of these concepts? Could it be that Jesus, if he was historic, was simply a human being with a following?
Feb
22
Judge rules against atheist attacked in costume by Muslim. February 22, 2012 at 2:02 pm Christina. Christina here� So, as the story goes, Ernie Perce of PA participated in a zombie walk on Halloween with The Atheists of Central ...
Feb
22
A follow up on this previous post . A Rhode Island teenager who battled her high school over the display of a prayer banner has received a $40000-plus scholarship from those who supported her efforts. Jessica Ahlquist, 16 ...
Feb
22
 ABC News | Teen atheist gets $40K scholarship Providence Eyewitness News By Courtney Caligiuri CRANSTON, RI (WPRI) - A national atheist group has increased its' support for the student at the center of the Cranston prayer banner controversy. The "American Humanist Association" has raised more than $40000 in scholarship ... Rhode Island Teen Atheist Gets $40K Scholarship Atheist awards teenager $40 000 scholarship because she stood up to school. Rhode Island Teen Gets $42K Scholarship From Atheist Organization After ... |
Feb
22
 The New Civil Rights Movement | Santorum Says Evolution Promotes Atheism; He's Probably Right Gather.com In 2008 Santorum told attendees at this little churchy thing that evolution promotes atheism. Well, he's wrong but he's also probably right. You see, most scientists in the world agree that the science of evolution is credible based on a wide degree of ... Santorum: Evolution Promotes Atheism, Creationism Is “Academic Freedom” |
Feb
22
New research is proving that humans are naturally pretty nice with "pro-social tendencies" and not as "nasty" as previously thought, according to a top primate-behavior expert.
Human children and most higher animals, such as primates and elephants, are "moral" because they need to cooperate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes.
Feb
22
One thing I always find remarkable when interacting with religious Jews is how racist they are. I don’t know which is more shocking: that a group so frequently singled out and persecuted has no problem dishing it out themselves, or that many of them don’t even see their bigoted views as racism.
While I could point out the tendency of Jews to call various outsiders by rather derogatory terms like shiksa, sheigetz, or shvartze (or other things that don’t begin with sh-), this isn’t universal… or even that big of a deal. They’re just words, and plenty of religious Jews aren’t like that, especially the younger generations.
However, a surprising amount of it apparently still runs rampant in closed Jewish communities. See, for example, this thread found by my wife on a forum of religious Jews discussing the origin of black people, and in particular the remarks made by Jude, the third comment on the page.
Individual racism of this sort aside, another thing that sets Jews apart as being so racist is their stance on “intermarriage.” If it was just Jews wanting to marry other Jews, it would be one thing (still racist, in my opinion, but not that big of a deal). However, it goes beyond one’s own personal choices in the Jewish community.
This “moral” opposition to other peoples’ intermarriage isn’t some hypothetical bigotry, it’s bigotry I have observed in every single religious Jew I ever discussed the matter with, and it is bigotry I have experienced firsthand. My wife’s parents wouldn’t meet me before our marriage, wouldn’t attend the wedding, and have only met me twice during our five year relationship… because I am not part of their race. Despite living further away, my wife has met my parents many times more than I have met hers.
It’s a common ignorance in Judaism: there is immense hostility towards Jews marrying non-Jews (coupled with a distrust of the non-religious and ethnically non-Jewish altogether). Generally, the more religious, the more hostility there seems to be. I haven’t noticed more than a “preference” for fellow Jews among the non-religious and less religious, while the more conservative/ orthodox will commonly disown family not only for marrying outside of the Jewish people, but sometimes for marrying outside the very specific Jewish tradition of the family.
It’s ridiculous, really. I have seen minor pressure in other contexts. I had Mexican friends whose mothers wanted them to marry a nice Mexican girl, and the same goes for Italians and Greeks, not to mention religious Catholics and Episcopalians. I also know many people from India feel pressure from their parents to marry an Indian. Even my Catholic mom asked me once to marry a Catholic girl and get married in the Catholic Church; I never dated a Catholic again.
However, I never see the vicious consequences in these other demographics that I see among religious Jews. There might be snide remarks, but that is a far cry from being written out of the will. The only times I have seen such open hostility for intermarriage was in a few families of rural whites in Indiana, who I suspect of being KKK members. That basically puts religious Jews on par with white-supremacists in my mind. I see Jews as being akin to rednecks in kippas.
It’s blatantly inappropriate to harbor such racial intolerance in this day and age. One Jewish apologist for this practice recently commented on my blog:
“I would care if my child married a gentile because I personally believe that Judaism deserves to survive. We as a people have been through so much, and to die out due to intermarriage rather than mass-murder or Nazis would be very ironic.”
What’s ironic is that trying to encourage your children to breed only among members of a group that calls itself “God’s Chosen People” sounds eerily like a “Master Race.” This pressure to marry within one’s race is what is really ironic, given the history of Jewish oppression at the hands of Nazis, which included being legally barred from marrying non-Jews. This commenter thinks Hitler wins if Jews marry non-Jews, and yet… Hitler seems to have liked the idea of Jews sticking to their own kind… it’s a strange and backwards argument, to be sure.
When Jews marry non-Jews, Jews don’t die out, they remain genetically diverse. As it is, Jewish populations harbor a handful of unusual genetic diseases that are the result of inbreeding. It’s not like a little new blood will hurt you guys. What’s more, it’s seems very antagonistic to those of us who want to accept Jews into our culture when they are openly hostile to their children marrying us dirty, dirty gentiles.
It’s insulting, it’s rude, it’s discourteous to everyone (Jews and goy alike), and it’s downright barbaric to hold such primitive, tribal stances regarding marriage. The Jewish community ought to be ashamed on this matter. This is a shonda on you and your people. Why is this sort of behavior acceptable?
It’s the same reason for their other great race problem.
Jews had a tough run of it in WWII… and for centuries prior… and that’s putting it mildly. It’s fair to say Jews experienced some of the worst cruelty in human history during the Holocaust. No one’s questioning the reality of the suffering of millions at the hands of the Nazis.
Jews may have gotten a free pass on being a little racist given their past, and if it was just about marriage and some Yiddish slang, I might not care. But ultimately, the greatest geopolitical atrocity since WWII has been the formation and violent expansion of Israel, and Jewish racism is at the heart of this matter. With the continuous war crime that is the Nation of Israel, Jews are accruing a huge moral deficit that not even the Holocaust will be able to cover.
In very few nations is apartheid still the law of the land. No other nation has a secret nuclear weapons program that goes unchecked. But perhaps most annoying to me, all of the atrocities Israel is responsible for are funded in part by American taxpayers. I’m funding your racism, and I want it to stop.
I’m not saying this stuff to bother anyone, I’m just trying to help. If you aren’t racist, if you have no problem with Jews marrying non-Jews, and if you oppose the oppression of the Palestinian people, then please know I’m not talking about you. I don’t hold a grudge against the Jewish people. I mean, come on… you guys killed Jesus. That makes you pretty cool in my book.
And before you get all offended, I’m doing this as a favor to Jews. I spend most of my time talking about Christianity, and I figured you guys deserved some attention. I asked my wife what she thought, and she couldn’t agree more. I mean… her father bought a gun because he was worried the blacks would riot.
That said, feel free to leave any comments or e-mail me (anythingbuttheist@gmail.com), since if there’s one thing I know about religious Jews (besides how unabashedly racist so many of them are), it’s that they love to tell people when they’re offended.
While I could point out the tendency of Jews to call various outsiders by rather derogatory terms like shiksa, sheigetz, or shvartze (or other things that don’t begin with sh-), this isn’t universal… or even that big of a deal. They’re just words, and plenty of religious Jews aren’t like that, especially the younger generations.
However, a surprising amount of it apparently still runs rampant in closed Jewish communities. See, for example, this thread found by my wife on a forum of religious Jews discussing the origin of black people, and in particular the remarks made by Jude, the third comment on the page.
Individual racism of this sort aside, another thing that sets Jews apart as being so racist is their stance on “intermarriage.” If it was just Jews wanting to marry other Jews, it would be one thing (still racist, in my opinion, but not that big of a deal). However, it goes beyond one’s own personal choices in the Jewish community.
This “moral” opposition to other peoples’ intermarriage isn’t some hypothetical bigotry, it’s bigotry I have observed in every single religious Jew I ever discussed the matter with, and it is bigotry I have experienced firsthand. My wife’s parents wouldn’t meet me before our marriage, wouldn’t attend the wedding, and have only met me twice during our five year relationship… because I am not part of their race. Despite living further away, my wife has met my parents many times more than I have met hers.
It’s a common ignorance in Judaism: there is immense hostility towards Jews marrying non-Jews (coupled with a distrust of the non-religious and ethnically non-Jewish altogether). Generally, the more religious, the more hostility there seems to be. I haven’t noticed more than a “preference” for fellow Jews among the non-religious and less religious, while the more conservative/ orthodox will commonly disown family not only for marrying outside of the Jewish people, but sometimes for marrying outside the very specific Jewish tradition of the family.
It’s ridiculous, really. I have seen minor pressure in other contexts. I had Mexican friends whose mothers wanted them to marry a nice Mexican girl, and the same goes for Italians and Greeks, not to mention religious Catholics and Episcopalians. I also know many people from India feel pressure from their parents to marry an Indian. Even my Catholic mom asked me once to marry a Catholic girl and get married in the Catholic Church; I never dated a Catholic again.
However, I never see the vicious consequences in these other demographics that I see among religious Jews. There might be snide remarks, but that is a far cry from being written out of the will. The only times I have seen such open hostility for intermarriage was in a few families of rural whites in Indiana, who I suspect of being KKK members. That basically puts religious Jews on par with white-supremacists in my mind. I see Jews as being akin to rednecks in kippas.
It’s blatantly inappropriate to harbor such racial intolerance in this day and age. One Jewish apologist for this practice recently commented on my blog:
“I would care if my child married a gentile because I personally believe that Judaism deserves to survive. We as a people have been through so much, and to die out due to intermarriage rather than mass-murder or Nazis would be very ironic.”
What’s ironic is that trying to encourage your children to breed only among members of a group that calls itself “God’s Chosen People” sounds eerily like a “Master Race.” This pressure to marry within one’s race is what is really ironic, given the history of Jewish oppression at the hands of Nazis, which included being legally barred from marrying non-Jews. This commenter thinks Hitler wins if Jews marry non-Jews, and yet… Hitler seems to have liked the idea of Jews sticking to their own kind… it’s a strange and backwards argument, to be sure.
When Jews marry non-Jews, Jews don’t die out, they remain genetically diverse. As it is, Jewish populations harbor a handful of unusual genetic diseases that are the result of inbreeding. It’s not like a little new blood will hurt you guys. What’s more, it’s seems very antagonistic to those of us who want to accept Jews into our culture when they are openly hostile to their children marrying us dirty, dirty gentiles.
It’s insulting, it’s rude, it’s discourteous to everyone (Jews and goy alike), and it’s downright barbaric to hold such primitive, tribal stances regarding marriage. The Jewish community ought to be ashamed on this matter. This is a shonda on you and your people. Why is this sort of behavior acceptable?
It’s the same reason for their other great race problem.
Jews had a tough run of it in WWII… and for centuries prior… and that’s putting it mildly. It’s fair to say Jews experienced some of the worst cruelty in human history during the Holocaust. No one’s questioning the reality of the suffering of millions at the hands of the Nazis.
Jews may have gotten a free pass on being a little racist given their past, and if it was just about marriage and some Yiddish slang, I might not care. But ultimately, the greatest geopolitical atrocity since WWII has been the formation and violent expansion of Israel, and Jewish racism is at the heart of this matter. With the continuous war crime that is the Nation of Israel, Jews are accruing a huge moral deficit that not even the Holocaust will be able to cover.
In very few nations is apartheid still the law of the land. No other nation has a secret nuclear weapons program that goes unchecked. But perhaps most annoying to me, all of the atrocities Israel is responsible for are funded in part by American taxpayers. I’m funding your racism, and I want it to stop.
I’m not saying this stuff to bother anyone, I’m just trying to help. If you aren’t racist, if you have no problem with Jews marrying non-Jews, and if you oppose the oppression of the Palestinian people, then please know I’m not talking about you. I don’t hold a grudge against the Jewish people. I mean, come on… you guys killed Jesus. That makes you pretty cool in my book.
And before you get all offended, I’m doing this as a favor to Jews. I spend most of my time talking about Christianity, and I figured you guys deserved some attention. I asked my wife what she thought, and she couldn’t agree more. I mean… her father bought a gun because he was worried the blacks would riot.
That said, feel free to leave any comments or e-mail me (anythingbuttheist@gmail.com), since if there’s one thing I know about religious Jews (besides how unabashedly racist so many of them are), it’s that they love to tell people when they’re offended.
Feb
22
One thing I always find remarkable when interacting with religious Jews is how racist they are. I don’t know which is more shocking: that a group so frequently singled out and persecuted has no problem dishing it out themselves, or that many of them don’t even see their bigoted views as racism.
While I could point out the tendency of Jews to call various outsiders by rather derogatory terms like shiksa, sheigetz, or shvartze (or other things that don’t begin with sh-), this isn’t universal… or even that big of a deal. They’re just words, and plenty of religious Jews aren’t like that, especially the younger generations.
However, a surprising amount of it apparently still runs rampant in closed Jewish communities. See, for example, this thread found by my wife on a forum of religious Jews discussing the origin of black people, and in particular the remarks made by Jude, the third comment on the page.
Individual racism of this sort aside, another thing that sets Jews apart as being so racist is their stance on “intermarriage.” If it was just Jews wanting to marry other Jews, it would be one thing (still racist, in my opinion, but not that big of a deal). However, it goes beyond one’s own personal choices in the Jewish community.
This “moral” opposition to other peoples’ intermarriage isn’t some hypothetical bigotry, it’s bigotry I have observed in every single religious Jew I ever discussed the matter with, and it is bigotry I have experienced firsthand. My wife’s parents wouldn’t meet me before our marriage, wouldn’t attend the wedding, and have only met me twice during our five year relationship… because I am not part of their race. Despite living further away, my wife has met my parents many times more than I have met hers.
It’s a common ignorance in Judaism: there is immense hostility towards Jews marrying non-Jews (coupled with a distrust of the non-religious and ethnically non-Jewish altogether). Generally, the more religious, the more hostility there seems to be. I haven’t noticed more than a “preference” for fellow Jews among the non-religious and less religious, while the more conservative/ orthodox will commonly disown family not only for marrying outside of the Jewish people, but sometimes for marrying outside the very specific Jewish tradition of the family.
It’s ridiculous, really. I have seen minor pressure in other contexts. I had Mexican friends whose mothers wanted them to marry a nice Mexican girl, and the same goes for Italians and Greeks, not to mention religious Catholics and Episcopalians. I also know many people from India feel pressure from their parents to marry an Indian. Even my Catholic mom asked me once to marry a Catholic girl and get married in the Catholic Church; I never dated a Catholic again.
However, I never see the vicious consequences in these other demographics that I see among religious Jews. There might be snide remarks, but that is a far cry from being written out of the will. The only times I have seen such open hostility for intermarriage was in a few families of rural whites in Indiana, who I suspect of being KKK members. That basically puts religious Jews on par with white-supremacists in my mind. I see Jews as being akin to rednecks in kippas.
It’s blatantly inappropriate to harbor such racial intolerance in this day and age. One Jewish apologist for this practice recently commented on my blog:
“I would care if my child married a gentile because I personally believe that Judaism deserves to survive. We as a people have been through so much, and to die out due to intermarriage rather than mass-murder or Nazis would be very ironic.”
What’s ironic is that trying to encourage your children to breed only among members of a group that calls itself “God’s Chosen People” sounds eerily like a “Master Race.” This pressure to marry within one’s race is what is really ironic, given the history of Jewish oppression at the hands of Nazis, which included being legally barred from marrying non-Jews. This commenter thinks Hitler wins if Jews marry non-Jews, and yet… Hitler seems to have liked the idea of Jews sticking to their own kind… it’s a strange and backwards argument, to be sure.
When Jews marry non-Jews, Jews don’t die out, they remain genetically diverse. As it is, Jewish populations harbor a handful of unusual genetic diseases that are the result of inbreeding. It’s not like a little new blood will hurt you guys. What’s more, it’s seems very antagonistic to those of us who want to accept Jews into our culture when they are openly hostile to their children marrying us dirty, dirty gentiles.
It’s insulting, it’s rude, it’s discourteous to everyone (Jews and goy alike), and it’s downright barbaric to hold such primitive, tribal stances regarding marriage. The Jewish community ought to be ashamed on this matter. This is a shonda on you and your people. Why is this sort of behavior acceptable?
It’s the same reason for their other great race problem.
Jews had a tough run of it in WWII… and for centuries prior… and that’s putting it mildly. It’s fair to say Jews experienced some of the worst cruelty in human history during the Holocaust. No one’s questioning the reality of the suffering of millions at the hands of the Nazis.
Jews may have gotten a free pass on being a little racist given their past, and if it was just about marriage and some Yiddish slang, I might not care. But ultimately, the greatest geopolitical atrocity since WWII has been the formation and violent expansion of Israel, and Jewish racism is at the heart of this matter. With the continuous war crime that is the Nation of Israel, Jews are accruing a huge moral deficit that not even the Holocaust will be able to cover.
In very few nations is apartheid still the law of the land. No other nation has a secret nuclear weapons program that goes unchecked. But perhaps most annoying to me, all of the atrocities Israel is responsible for are funded in part by American taxpayers. I’m funding your racism, and I want it to stop.
I’m not saying this stuff to bother anyone, I’m just trying to help. If you aren’t racist, if you have no problem with Jews marrying non-Jews, and if you oppose the oppression of the Palestinian people, then please know I’m not talking about you. I don’t hold a grudge against the Jewish people. I mean, come on… you guys killed Jesus. That makes you pretty cool in my book.
And before you get all offended, I’m doing this as a favor to Jews. I spend most of my time talking about Christianity, and I figured you guys deserved some attention. I asked my wife what she thought, and she couldn’t agree more. I mean… her father bought a gun because he was worried the blacks would riot.
That said, feel free to leave any comments or e-mail me (anythingbuttheist@gmail.com), since if there’s one thing I know about religious Jews (besides how unabashedly racist so many of them are), it’s that they love to tell people when they’re offended.
While I could point out the tendency of Jews to call various outsiders by rather derogatory terms like shiksa, sheigetz, or shvartze (or other things that don’t begin with sh-), this isn’t universal… or even that big of a deal. They’re just words, and plenty of religious Jews aren’t like that, especially the younger generations.
However, a surprising amount of it apparently still runs rampant in closed Jewish communities. See, for example, this thread found by my wife on a forum of religious Jews discussing the origin of black people, and in particular the remarks made by Jude, the third comment on the page.
Individual racism of this sort aside, another thing that sets Jews apart as being so racist is their stance on “intermarriage.” If it was just Jews wanting to marry other Jews, it would be one thing (still racist, in my opinion, but not that big of a deal). However, it goes beyond one’s own personal choices in the Jewish community.
This “moral” opposition to other peoples’ intermarriage isn’t some hypothetical bigotry, it’s bigotry I have observed in every single religious Jew I ever discussed the matter with, and it is bigotry I have experienced firsthand. My wife’s parents wouldn’t meet me before our marriage, wouldn’t attend the wedding, and have only met me twice during our five year relationship… because I am not part of their race. Despite living further away, my wife has met my parents many times more than I have met hers.
It’s a common ignorance in Judaism: there is immense hostility towards Jews marrying non-Jews (coupled with a distrust of the non-religious and ethnically non-Jewish altogether). Generally, the more religious, the more hostility there seems to be. I haven’t noticed more than a “preference” for fellow Jews among the non-religious and less religious, while the more conservative/ orthodox will commonly disown family not only for marrying outside of the Jewish people, but sometimes for marrying outside the very specific Jewish tradition of the family.
It’s ridiculous, really. I have seen minor pressure in other contexts. I had Mexican friends whose mothers wanted them to marry a nice Mexican girl, and the same goes for Italians and Greeks, not to mention religious Catholics and Episcopalians. I also know many people from India feel pressure from their parents to marry an Indian. Even my Catholic mom asked me once to marry a Catholic girl and get married in the Catholic Church; I never dated a Catholic again.
However, I never see the vicious consequences in these other demographics that I see among religious Jews. There might be snide remarks, but that is a far cry from being written out of the will. The only times I have seen such open hostility for intermarriage was in a few families of rural whites in Indiana, who I suspect of being KKK members. That basically puts religious Jews on par with white-supremacists in my mind. I see Jews as being akin to rednecks in kippas.
It’s blatantly inappropriate to harbor such racial intolerance in this day and age. One Jewish apologist for this practice recently commented on my blog:
“I would care if my child married a gentile because I personally believe that Judaism deserves to survive. We as a people have been through so much, and to die out due to intermarriage rather than mass-murder or Nazis would be very ironic.”
What’s ironic is that trying to encourage your children to breed only among members of a group that calls itself “God’s Chosen People” sounds eerily like a “Master Race.” This pressure to marry within one’s race is what is really ironic, given the history of Jewish oppression at the hands of Nazis, which included being legally barred from marrying non-Jews. This commenter thinks Hitler wins if Jews marry non-Jews, and yet… Hitler seems to have liked the idea of Jews sticking to their own kind… it’s a strange and backwards argument, to be sure.
When Jews marry non-Jews, Jews don’t die out, they remain genetically diverse. As it is, Jewish populations harbor a handful of unusual genetic diseases that are the result of inbreeding. It’s not like a little new blood will hurt you guys. What’s more, it’s seems very antagonistic to those of us who want to accept Jews into our culture when they are openly hostile to their children marrying us dirty, dirty gentiles.
It’s insulting, it’s rude, it’s discourteous to everyone (Jews and goy alike), and it’s downright barbaric to hold such primitive, tribal stances regarding marriage. The Jewish community ought to be ashamed on this matter. This is a shonda on you and your people. Why is this sort of behavior acceptable?
It’s the same reason for their other great race problem.
Jews had a tough run of it in WWII… and for centuries prior… and that’s putting it mildly. It’s fair to say Jews experienced some of the worst cruelty in human history during the Holocaust. No one’s questioning the reality of the suffering of millions at the hands of the Nazis.
Jews may have gotten a free pass on being a little racist given their past, and if it was just about marriage and some Yiddish slang, I might not care. But ultimately, the greatest geopolitical atrocity since WWII has been the formation and violent expansion of Israel, and Jewish racism is at the heart of this matter. With the continuous war crime that is the Nation of Israel, Jews are accruing a huge moral deficit that not even the Holocaust will be able to cover.
In very few nations is apartheid still the law of the land. No other nation has a secret nuclear weapons program that goes unchecked. But perhaps most annoying to me, all of the atrocities Israel is responsible for are funded in part by American taxpayers. I’m funding your racism, and I want it to stop.
I’m not saying this stuff to bother anyone, I’m just trying to help. If you aren’t racist, if you have no problem with Jews marrying non-Jews, and if you oppose the oppression of the Palestinian people, then please know I’m not talking about you. I don’t hold a grudge against the Jewish people. I mean, come on… you guys killed Jesus. That makes you pretty cool in my book.
And before you get all offended, I’m doing this as a favor to Jews. I spend most of my time talking about Christianity, and I figured you guys deserved some attention. I asked my wife what she thought, and she couldn’t agree more. I mean… her father bought a gun because he was worried the blacks would riot.
That said, feel free to leave any comments or e-mail me (anythingbuttheist@gmail.com), since if there’s one thing I know about religious Jews (besides how unabashedly racist so many of them are), it’s that they love to tell people when they’re offended.
Feb
22
Once again Rick Santorum's past comments about religious and cultural issues are coming back to bite him. This time, it's a comment he made in 2008.
Feb
22
[note: I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher]
Recently Oprah Winfrey, in her seemingly endless need to manufacture cursory and superficial religious themes, spent a day (24 full hours!!) with an Hasidic family. She aired the show on her failing network, declaring the Hasidic culture to be remarkable - indeed endorsing its apparent family focused, culturally rich and loving life style. One can pretty much surmise that had she spent 24 hours in the Central American jungle with Jim Jones’ cult that she’d have been similarly moved.
Coming from an ultra reformed Jewish family, I was always remotely aware of the orthodox Jewish (AKA Hasidic) community. But it wasn’t until reading “Unorthodox” that I realized how a people who have borne so much oppression and are oft thought of as educated, can themselves form a culture that is so utterly oppressive and bereft of respect for broadening the mind..
When one thinks of religious fanaticism, cultish fundamentalist Christianity and Islam typically come to mind. This book has broadened my perspective considerably. Deborah Feldman’s memoir is a journey though the mental, emotional and physical enslavement of a religious sect ensconced in ancient (and no so ancient) fundamentalist Judaism. It was a real eye opener. One can only wonder how anyone raised in such an insulated culture could retain the strength and courage to test the limits, and eventually break free.
The product of a mentally impaired Hasidic father, and a mother who abandoned her as a child, the author recounts her upbringing by ultra religious Hasidic grandparents who escaped the Holocaust... an event they attribute to God’s punishment for Jews leading secular lives and abandoning the unyielding constraints of Talmudic law.
The author’s mind and body and spirit are incessantly assaulted by demeaning modesty obsessed dress codes including head shaving and mandatory wigs, peculiar feminine hygienic laws, sexual repression, demonization of the secular world including the English language. Just harboring the concept of assimilation into American culture is considered a fall from grace, an unforgivable insult to God.
Cult like in its inflexibility, this culture practices self imposed alienation from anything outside their sect and section of
That anyone could find the courage to escape from the drabness of this religiously driven archaic medieval existence and emerge into the light to live as a modern, functioning, motivated, and well adjusted adult - is a tribute to human perseverance.
This is a fascinating account of personal triumph against the odds, albeit, there is some repetition and focus on otherwise mundane details. The writing style is unremarkable, the narrative is rather flat. It stirs the curiosity, not the emotion.
Note:
What’s of additional interest is the reaction to this book from the Hasidic community. I try to give my reviews fairly, unfettered by any personal agenda. I'm more often than not successful in doing so. Unfortunately, Amazon reviews have become a sort of peculiar battle ground where people feel compelled to state their cause and defend their ideology irrespective of the literary work's value, and whether or not the book was actually read. Some of the reviews I read are so inarticulate, so venomous, and so transparently agenda driven that it does more to discredit the reviewer and their cause, than the author and her book. “Unorthodox” was just released last week and is only garnering 2 ½ stars because of the Hasidic community’s campaign of outrage.
What you'll see there is a concerted and well orchestrated effort by the Hasidic community to punish one of their "wayward sheep" apostates, and defend their chosen lifestyle. It's a vindictiveness that comes from a victim mentality, an elitist perspective of ones group, and a need to mete out retribution to those who expose the least attractive traits of their sole focus in life. The Mormons, Muslims, Catholics and the Scientologists exemplify that mindset, why not the Hasidic community? If anything it tends to reinforce and give credibility to Feldman's memoir..
I rate it 3 ½ stars. (4 on amazon).
Feb
22
The New Civil Rights Movement | Santorum: Evolution Promotes Atheism, Creationism Is “Academic Freedom” The New Civil Rights Movement During the forum, Santorum said that the teaching of evolution is used to promote atheism. (At that same forum, Santorum called the Democratic Party the party of sex, a party that preyed on lust, and the party of Woodstock, which he called “the great ... Santorum Says Evolution Promotes Atheism; He's Probably Right |
