Everything you wanted to know about.. RELIGION

[So fist]

I believe the term you were searching for was "Social Darwinists" or possibly "Eugenicists".

Well if her evolutionary believers comment is a throwback to the Nazi's raced based ideology it would be a stretch to call the progenitors of those policies Darwinists of any cloth, since their beliefs had little to do with any science. Instead they were goofy notions based on rantings of Liebenfels, who discovered the truth of Aryan superiority by gazing at a knight's templar tombstone. It would be as funny as David Icke's nonsense if the whole thing didn't lead to such tragedy.

Nazi race based ideology is much more rooted in the nonsense of popular conspiracy based mysticism most of which are just German offshoots of madame Blavatsky's Theosophy. Blavatsky's own teachings about root races and sunken continents which form the basis of theosophy are not the product of any scholarly or scientific study. They were the musings of Blavatsky's imagination or if you would actually believe her, the scribbling from a magical Atlantean tome that no one other than madame Blavatsky had seen.

 

[Love]

Question for Christians:

What is the difference between and orthodox and Catholic, in terms of beliefs?

 

[silver wind]

Ok, hold it.
1. I was mentioning a historic fact.
2. I spoke of people, not of beliefs
3. I'm not implying, I'm saying clearly: yes, sadly, in certain periods in history the church had a goal to malign Jews. Past Muslim leaders made laws to humiliate Jews. Later came the Nazis and their racist ideas.
Those stereotypes are the result of propaganda, someone had to be behind it, for long periods of time, for several generations. It started from the Church, way before the 1940 in Germany.
There's no way around it, or did we Jews make it all up for fun? Did we invent stories of evil Jews using Christian kid's blood for Passover? Did we kill ourselves in great numbers so we can blame others later?
No one is a saint, including me. I'm not saying those beliefs are bad, I'm saying they served as a justification for bad actions in the past.
I wish I hadn't said 'Evolutionists' because those nazis distorted the evolution theory to their needs to fit their racist ideas.

 

[Incognitus]

Ok, hold it.
Did we invent stories of evil Jews using Christian kid's blood for Passover?

You know, there was a professor of medieval jewish history who suggested that this had it's route in some bizarre occultic ritual that was supposedly done by an obscure Ashkenazi cult in the heart of Eastern Europe a long time ago. Unfortunately, it's impossible to follow his thesis further because it was rejected for publication based on the content, and he's been hounded out of his job and excommunicated!

I can't for the life of me remember what his name was, and google isn't helping. Any one else hear of him? It was quite recent in the last five years or so I think.

I only wish I hadn't said 'Evolutionists' because those nazis distorted the evolution theory to their needs, to fit their racist ideas.

Actually the nazis detested evolutionist theory. They banned Darwin across Germany, and took a strongly religious approach to the origins of the universe. It's a common fallacy that the Nazis were closely connected or influenced by Evolutionism - see Captain Murphy's post above.

 

[silver wind]

Unfortunately, it's impossible to follow his thesis further because it was rejected for publication based on the content

We don't eat blood.
Ever heard of kosher meat?
We have a special way to kill the beast is so most of its blood will come out. Did you know we have to over-cook Liver, after putting it in salt for hours only to get all the blood out? We only eat certain animals: no pigs, etc, and certainly not humans.
Why would a Jewish cult decide to eat blood of a human in Passover, not only human but of a small Christian kid? I can't believe people today take these stories seriously.

 

[Jason]

If you ask me, that sounds like something an ancient tribe would do... I mean, there's a tribe that dig up the bones of their ancestors and chew on them or something daft, it was on "Ripleys Believe It Or Not"... seems odd, but meh.

Another tribe have this thing where they pull their hair out... with their bare hands, and eat it... I don't know WHY they do it, but whatever floats their boat, eh ?

Also, a question for "the jews";

What exactly is kosher meat, and why does your religion prohibit you from eating meats such as pork ?

 

[Incognitus]

Unfortunately, it's impossible to follow his thesis further because it was rejected for publication based on the content

We don't eat blood.
Ever heard of kosher meat?
We have a special way to kill the beast is so most of its blood will come out. Did you know we have to over-cook Liver, after putting it in salt for hours only to get all the blood out? We only eat certain animals: no pigs, etc, and certainly not humans.
Why would a Jewish cult decide to eat blood of a human in Passover, not only human but of a small Christian kid? I can't believe people today take these stories seriously.

Neither I or he said they were drinking the blood. It was mostly about grave-robbing and organ abductions for some obscure sacrifice or some-such. And he never claimed it was widespread, but the actions of a few Jewish hillbillies.

What exactly is kosher meat, and why does your religion prohibit you from eating meats such as pork ?

I read something very very interesting about this, I think it might have been in Hitchen's anti-god book - whilst we're on the subject of cannibalistic Jews ;P - apparently the prohibition may have come about because at some point people noticed that pigs, being a close relative of the human, not only displayed what anyone who spent any time around pigs would know as emotions... but also it may have been because they reportedly taste very similar to humans. :dead:



There's also another theory that it may have been added retroactively, as the pig was the basic luxury food of choice for the Philistines and the Romans. Indeed, several skeletons formally believe to have been Jewish rebels buried at Masada were discovered to have been buried with pig bones.

 

[So fist]

Silver, no one is questioning the holocaust, what's being questioned or criticized is your constant baiting. It may not be intentional but you are constantly making ill informed sweeping statements in an irresponsible manner. If you dislike being called out on it, you could start choosing your words more carefully.

Second I would argue that the stories of evil Jews doing anything is less a product of the R.C. Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church and more a product of the fact that Jews were a transient but distinct minority in a violent and largely ignorant Europe. All of which is not at all dissimilar to other minorities gripping similar to worse circumstances. In fact Jew persecution is under the church and kingdoms of Europe is quite similar to the Christian's own trials under Roman rule. There were times where Jews were widely persecuted, but there were also as many times where they were tolerated and blended into European society.

In Hebrew it's translated to 'people of Judah', aka Judaism, Jew. Judah is a single tribe out of 12 tribes of Israelites in the exodus. The other 11 were exiled from Israel during history. We don't know where they are today, probably because they mixed with the population of their new location. Our tradition says all the Jews today are descendants of the Judah tribe.

That's incorrect even from an Orthodox perspective. The tribe of Judah was one of a two of the twelve tribes with surviving records after the diaspora. They are joined by the Levites (tribe of Levi). Judah's records itself were incomplete and really only consisted of a few clans connected directly to David. Leaving the tribe of Levi to be the only original with substantial surviving records of lineage. They and David's house are not the sole progenitor's of modern jews though. You had all the returning Jews from the Babylonian exile and well non returning ones. All of them were classified by Ezra into ten distinct lineages with laws that dictated various social interactions the lineage groups may partake in.

The tribe of Judah was the largest tribe of the Hebrew kingdoms that controlled the area before the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and then Romans came. As a result the region took their tribal name and thus the patronym was applied by outsiders to all of the folks that lived in the land they knew as Judah or Judea.

 

[silver wind]

What exactly is kosher meat, and why does your religion prohibit you from eating meats such as pork ?

Some of the Judaism laws are 'human', in the sense we can easily understand the reason for them. Others are laws we don't know the reason for. They are both Godly laws.
We only eat certain animals, like cow, sheep, pigeon, chicken. We don't eat milk and its products within 6 hours from eating meat.
Some have tried to claim Kosher food is healthier: The slaughtering method was proved to prevent some diseases, meat takes long to digest so milk products taken afterwards cause infection in the digestion system, and so on.
Some claim the animals we eat are more pure, because they're herbivore or have a unique behavior which appears moral. However, it doesn't change anything. Even if we don't know the reason for a law we can't erase it from the bible or ignore it. It's the word of G-D and we must follow it.

@Incognitus
Who exactly tasted humans to compare the taste to pigs o.o
Those claims are ridiculos, I mean why does it have to be Jews? Weird cults have always been around, why blame us, with what proof?
@Captain Murphey
It's true the Levi tribe is also with us. That makes 2 tribes, and 10 missing.
I don't know about the Ezra period, but even if you're right they didn't all come back to Israel at that time.

 

[Ellie]

In Hebrew it's translated to 'people of Judah', aka Judaism, Jew. Judah is a single tribe out of 12 tribes of Israelites in the exodus. The other 11 were exiled from Israel during history. We don't know where they are today, probably because they mixed with the population of their new location. Our tradition says all the Jews today are descendants of the Judah tribe.

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but. Your tradition says all the Jews today are descendants ofthe Judah tribe.

Does this mean one can't choose to be Jewish, you have to be born Jewish? Does this mean, from your perception of God, your God will only let those descendants into heaven and no others? It seems horribly unfair, especially if it did turn out to be the true faith in the end.

 

[Incognitus]

@Incognitus
Who exactly tasted humans to compare the taste to pigs o.o
Those claims are ridiculos, I mean why does it have to be Jews? Weird cults have always been around, why blame us, with what proof?

Oh for god's sake. *facedesk*

I'm talking about a lot earlier than the so-called Age of Patriarchs. We're talking pre-Hittite here. It's a bit of know-how that's probably leaked across the Middle-East due to cultural osmosis.

Those claims are not 'ridiculous' per se. As you concede, weird cults have always been around: the fact that there can also be weird and bizarre Jewish cults is a matter of record. (*insert joke about Netanyahu here*)

I'll freely admit that, not knowing anything about medieval Judaism and not having access to this professor's work or paper, I can't run further with this story. I brought it up to illustrate that it may have had some basis in fact at one point, and was conflated with all Judaism at some point in the past - possibly after the earlier mentioned Russio-Jewo fracas.

 

[So fist]

Well Incognitus, I'd say a more likely candidate was the risk of food borne illness and parasites that comes with pre modern cookware pork. Pigs tendency to eat anything makes them a wonderful home to many nasty parasites including a roundworm that bores and eats away the host's muscle tissue. Such afflictions brought by unseen forces of course would likely be thought to be the work of god's wrath.

 

[Incognitus]

Well Incognitus, I'd say a more likely candidate was the risk of food borne illness and parasites that comes with pre modern cookware pork. Pigs tendency to eat anything makes them a wonderful home to many nasty parasites including a roundworm that bores and eats away the host's muscle tissue. Such afflictions brought by unseen forces of course would likely be thought to be the work of god's wrath.

Yes - that is one possible (and likely way it would have arisen) but the whole people-taste-like-pigs approach is a lot more interesting!

 

[So fist]

True.

 

[silver wind]

lol
Anyway, pig is only one of the animals we don't eat.
The pig as all other non-kosher animals, are animals which don't follow certain rules: they are not ruminants and don't have split hoofs.
Pig is different because it does follow the 2nd rule, while other non-kosher animals defy both rules*.

Spoiler

*This rule is for animals. Fish, birds, bugs have other specific rules to follow.
There are also 3 animals which, according to the bible, follow the 1st rule but not the second: rabbit, cony and camel.

We don't pick an animal and say- this isn't kosher, because(insert some pigs-taste-like-human idea), we say: it doesn't follow the rules--> it's not kosher. period.

Speaking of interesting,
1. Pig is the only animal to be split hoof but not ruminant, and I've heard it is impossible to create such animal in a lab by genetic experiments or inter-breeding.
2.How did the pig become a symbol to un-holy?
It is believed that the army which destroyed the 2nd temple at 70 AC had a boar (wild pig) as its symbol.

 

[Ellie]

Sorry for being impatient, but I asked earlier:

In Hebrew it's translated to 'people of Judah', aka Judaism, Jew. Judah is a single tribe out of 12 tribes of Israelites in the exodus. The other 11 were exiled from Israel during history. We don't know where they are today, probably because they mixed with the population of their new location. Our tradition says all the Jews today are descendants of the Judah tribe.

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but. Your tradition says all the Jews today are descendants ofthe Judah tribe.

Does this mean one can't choose to be Jewish, you have to be born Jewish? Does this mean, from your perception of God, your God will only let those descendants into heaven and no others? It seems horribly unfair, especially if it did turn out to be the true faith in the end.

 

[So fist]

Wyatt. Please read my post in response to this. Silverwind's response is completely incorrect in several ways. Also no you may convert to Judaism.

Torah doesn't really cover afterlife much at all. Most speculations on the matter are usually based on traditions of Mysticism, but divine judgment in most traditions is merit based. Being a Jew won't help you get in if you were say... Ted Bundy, and being a scientologist won't keep you out if you lived a virtuous, just and charitable life.

 

[Incognitus]

QUESTION: What are the defining features of a synagogue? The platonic synagogue, if you will.

AND do we have an rm2k tileset that contain those features?

(Not that I have an ulterior motive for asking this question or anything)

 

[silver wind]

@wyatt
I was referring to the majority of the jews. This also explains what captain Murphey says-there are few jews from other tribes, but the majority of the 10 tribes is missing until this day. The Levites were a small tribe, but I admit I was wrong for not mentioning them.
Obviously some of today's jews are non-jews who converted to Judaism at some point.

Judaism is not a missionary religion, we don't send missionaries to convert others. The converted jews are therefore very few. If someone wants to become a jew, we'll reject him* at first (to make sure he means it) but if he insists, he can join.
This is not because we're snobs but because we believe a jew always stays a jew, even if he is bathed to Christianity, etc. So once you convert, it's final and if he later changes his mind, it's very problematic. You see, we believe non-jews only have to keep 7 'orders' to get to heaven, while a jew have to keep 613 of them**. Therefore, a converted jew who changed his mind will cause himself troubles in the afterlife, so we try to prevent such events.
*Note: he= he/she
**actually, less than 316 because some orders only refer to males, or to a king, etc.

@Incognitus
I'm not sure what you mean by platonic. A synagogue is a building/room with chairs, a large closet covered in fabric(often red velvet with a crown symbol) containing the Torah, a small stage in the middle, some bookshelves with prayer books, and a second room/upper floor for the women. Often the windows are made from colorful glass and contain certain symbols. The 12 tribes each have their symbol: mandrake plant, lion, deer, scales, sailing ship, olive tree, sun/moon, wolf, donkey, bull, breastplate, army camp, and the city Nablus. Other symbols are a magen-david, a Torah, and moses holding the stone boards.
You can use a church tileset if you change the glass symbols.(and edit out every cross :p)

 

[Incognitus]

@Incognitus
I'm not sure what you mean by platonic. A synagogue is a building/room with chairs, a large closet covered in fabric(often red velvet with a crown symbol) containing the Torah, a small stage in the middle, some bookshelves with prayer books, and a second room/upper floor for the women. Often the windows are made from colorful glass and contain certain symbols. The 12 tribes each have their symbol: mandrake plant, lion, deer, scales, sailing ship, olive tree, sun/moon, wolf, donkey, bull, breastplate, army camp, and the city Nablus. Other symbols are a magen-david, a Torah, and moses holding the stone boards.
You can use a church tileset if you change the glass symbols.(and edit out every cross :p)

Yeah - was more interested in the outside. What features would make you look at a building or temple and recognize straightaway that it was a synagogue. You know, a bit more subtlety than pasting stars of david everywhere and sticking jews across the doorstep.