Religion is a curse on humanity.

Atheism hasn't exactly been a boon. See Robespierre, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro, and the demographic collapse of Western Europe and Russia.

Neither Theism or Atheism seem to have been great boons to humanity.

The people you cite did not commit their atrocities in the name of atheism; that is a false and inaccurate retort.

Dawkins' reply to this:

I have said in my book that Hitler is not at all atheist, as he was religiously biased against Jewish people. Stalin was following communism dogmatically. I have already said that none of us, in effect derive our morality from religion. Stalin, in fact, used the dogmatic communism as his source of morality - if we call it morality at all. Being atheist does not ask you to become dogmatic or communist, but only ask you not to believe in God. A person working in a Mafia group can also be an atheist although it will be illogical to say that atheism pushed him to the Mafia group. There are other colleagues working with him who are religious.

And in his review of Christopher Hitchen's new book:

If ever a man embodied evil it was Adolf Hitler. He never renounced his Roman Catholicism, and affirmed his Christianity throughout his life, but unlike, say, Torquemada or a typical crusader or conquistador, he did not do his horrible deeds in the name of Christianity. Another deeply evil man, Joseph Stalin, was probably an atheist but, again, he didn’t do evil because he was an atheist, any more than he, or Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, did evil because they had moustaches. Hitchens is especially good on the idiotic challenge “Stalin and Hitler were atheists, what d’you say to that?” – doubtless after plenty of practice. Stalin, Hitler and the others may not have been religious themselves, but they understood the ingrained religiosity of their subjects, and exploited it gratefully. Hitchens makes the point only briefly in the book, but he has enlarged upon it in later speeches and interviews:

For hundreds of years, millions of Russians had been told the head of state should be a man close to God, the Czar, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as absolute despot. If you’re Stalin, you shouldn’t be in the dictatorship business if you can’t exploit the pool of servility and docility that’s ready-made for you. The task of atheists is to raise people above that level of servility and credulity.

Alan, the semantic difference that you are covering yourself with is pretty thin. Many of the evils done "in the name" of religion merely used religion as a cover for more individual motivations. And Communist doctrine was pretty emphatically atheist so its use as a source of morality is not that far removed from "in the name of" atheism itself.

Tom,

Absolutely. To me that rather backs up the Christian concept of original sin. That is, original sin as a metaphor for the inherent tendency of humans and all we create to evil, which is not at all the same thing as saying we are born or are necessarily evil. I'm not a biblical literalist, but as I look around at what Howard Beal in Network called "this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in" I can't help but think the Christians are onto something.

Alan,

I don't have much to add to what Robin said. And I would be careful about basing too much on the religious opinions of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet and their ilk. They quite clearly have axes to grind, and their arguments tend to be incomplete, shallow, or downright specious.

#6 I tihnk you have a point there. It seems that whether a person is an atheist or theist, or a samaritan or whomever, these labels do not inform us whehter the person will act a sa good person. It's fair to say Hitler was a Christian; it is also fair to say that the german persons who tried to stop him, were also Christians. I got chhills from that network quote, had forgotten all about it. Thanks.

Mr. Perry #7:

No, Hitler was not a Christian. He might have said he was, he might even have gone to church, but he wasn't a Christian. Being a Christian is in deeds not words.

#8

Well then equally we then have to allow Muslims to say the 911 terrorists were not Muslim's. I see that as not only a self serving argument but deleterious to serious inquiry. Thanks.

Fletcher, Hitler was a christian if he said he was. That's what decides whether somebody is a christian or not. If you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you are a christian independent of what else you do.

The Pope could decide that Hitler was not a catholic. I read somewhere that the german bishops excommunicated all nazis in 1930. I don't have it exactly straight whether that means Hitler was no longer a catholic or whether that made him a special catholic, an excommunicated catholic. But being excommunicated from the catholic church doesn't make somebody stop being a christian.

I think the Pope gets to decide you aren't catholic even if you think you are. But you don't get to decide whether somebody else is christian when they think they are. You aren't the Pope of all christianity. Anybody's a christian who says they are. That's what it means to be a christian.

But I think your deeds say something about how good or bad a christian you are. It's arrogant of me to decide how good a christian somebody else is, but still I have decided that Hitler was a very very bad christian in deed.

Congratulations to the resident leftists for immediately seizing Joe's Rosh Hashanah post and turning it into a "all religions are evil!" slagfest.

WoC has finally reached bottom.

#11 I think you are missing about half the dialogue.

But the blog does have peopel too much talking baout each other and not enough talking about events, policies, ideas.

"Fletcher, Hitler was a christian if he said he was. That's what decides whether somebody is a christian or not. If you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you are a christian independent of what else you do."

What an interesting theory you have.

So, is a person is an atheist because they say that they are, regardless of what they do? Is everyone only what they label themselves, and regardless of how they label themselves they are that thing as validly as anything else simply because they labeled themselves?

As for Hitler's Christianity, there is far less evidence that Hitler was a Christian in any orthodox sense of the word than there is that founding American figures like Benjamin Franklin were Christians, and yet the same group that passionately will argue for Hitler's Christianity will passionately argue that Benjamin Franklin was an atheist. So color me unimpressed with the utility of these sorts of definitions or the consistancy with which you'll likely be willing to apply them.

You can cherry pick quotes about Hitler professing Christianity, much like any politician speaking to a nominally religious crowd would. But, I think you'll find that Hitler's profession of Christianity carried an interesting caveat. He would claim to be Christian, but then he would claim not to believe in that sort of Christianity which had been taught in the past, which he would claim was 'tainted' (by the Jews). Hilter openly found Christianity not at all war-like enough for his tastes and designs. And I think you'll find that when it came to proselytizing, Hitler was far more interested in setting up his own 'pure' Germanic religion based of pre-Christian Northern European beliefs than he was about promoting Catholicism or even Lutheranism. The longer the Nazi's are in power, the fewer Christian symbols you see, and the more Nazi-Wotanism you see.

It is tragic how quickly Hitler coopted the European church through flattery, bribery, and intimidation, but hardly surprising considering the decrepid state of the Europe church at the time (or now for that matter).

I have said in my book that Hitler is not at all atheist, as he was religiously biased against Jewish people.

Is this guy getting more brilliant by the minute, or what?

Hitler was not religiously biased against Jewish people, he was racially biased against Jewish people. Prof. Dawkins must write "Duh" on the blackboard one hundred times, and read a book about the Holocaust.

Stalin was following communism dogmatically. I have already said that none of us, in effect derive our morality from religion. Stalin, in fact, used the dogmatic communism as his source of morality - if we call it morality at all.

If Prof. Dawkins thinks that this mess of half-baked premises allows him to conclude that "Stalinism is not atheist", he must prove it by defeating my old logic teacher in a knife fight.

So, is a person is an atheist because they say that they are, regardless of what they do?

Yes, of course. "Atheist" is about what you believe. The main way for other people to find out what you believe about gods is from what you say. I suppose there are exceptions to that. Like, I knew a woman who was convinced a particular man practiced witchcraft because she was with him on new year's eve and at midnight he blew smoke into the four corners of the room. She was judging by the rituals he followed and not by what he said.

Is everyone only what they label themselves, and regardless of how they label themselves they are that thing as validly as anything else simply because they labeled themselves?

When it's about their professed beliefs, what else is there? When it's about their abilities, no.

If I say I'm an electrical engineer but I can't calculate resistance given voltage and amperage and I have no idea what impedance is, then that's pretty bad. And if I don't have the degree that makes a difference too.

I don't get to be a US Marine by saying I'm a Marine. And I can't pass as a freemason unless I know the secret handshake etc.

But if I commit tax evasion and get caught, and somebody says that means I'm not a christian? Because I'm not doing what Jesus said? The buddhist 5 commandments include no gossip, if you catch somebody gossiping is that proof they aren't buddhist?

If you say you're a certified network technician, the certification people can say if you're lying. If you say you're a catholic in good standing the catholic church can say. If you say you're a marine the Marine Corps can say. If you claim to be a christian or a deist or a freethinker or a gnostic or a cathar or a taoist etc, who can say better about you than you can? If you claim to be a capitalist or a libertarian or an anarchist or a communist, who knows what you believe better than you? (I guess for a capitalist they could ask to see your money, it's hard to practice capitalism when you're broke. But you can still believe in it.

J Thomas - logic and reason. If someone uses Christian language or appeals to Christianianity out one side of their mouth, and out the other adopts an ideology that is explicitly opposed to the Christian church and Christianity itself, the reasonable person concludes that ideology is trump, and the rest is lying. A bit of a shock, I know... Hitler actually lied sometimes. Who knew?

Beyond that, I will say two things about this thread:

1] It is an excellent demonstration of the points made in both of the quotes above. A terrible discussion of them, but an excellent demonstration.

2] Per Winds comments policy, folks who don't address the points and subject made in the post will find their comments deleted. If you hate religion, that's your personal issue. This thread isn't about that, so go work it out on your own time.

Joe, it is not any christian's responsibility to decide who besides himself is really a christian and who is not. For christians, doing that is perverse.

I get the impression that it's central in judaism to decide who's really jewish and who isn't, but that doesn't apply to me -- it works better for me to accept people as jewish when they say they are than to get into the conflict about who is really.

If someone uses Christian language or appeals to Christianianity out one side of their mouth, and out the other adopts an ideology that is explicitly opposed to the Christian church and Christianity itself, the reasonable person concludes that ideology is trump, and the rest is lying.

A christian might conclude that this person is a sinner, as are we all.

[Mike, I was serious in post #16. This is not a theism vs. atheism thread, nor will it be allowed to become so.]

J Thomas, your understanding of Judaism is severely limited. In such situations, it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

But you got one last reply - more than you deserved given the vast drift of your discussion from the point of the post, and its tone. Our readers can read and judge.

Open a subject unrelated to the point of this post again, and I promise you it will be your last opportunity to do so here.

Those are great quotes. It is worth following the first one and taking time on the story behind it. Or I found it worth my while anyway.

To understand this in a negative way - I mean by contrast and opposition, not in the sense of it being a bad way - I think it's worthwhile to contemplate the perspective of Doctor Manhattan (Jon Osterman) in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' great series Watchmen, still available in trade paperback. Gifted with apparently unlimited powers and scientific understanding, his perspective of a world in which each little collection of atoms blindly follows its course leaves him unavoidably contemplating a bounded timeline in which it is too late to change anything - it is all too late, will always be too late, has always been too late.

I thought the conversation was civil and interesting despite diverging from the original subject (as is often the case...not everyone thinks like the posters, nor should they).

Perhaps it is because I have lived in New York City for over TWO decades--and thus am a prisoner of myself (or it is it that I am a guard of myself)--but I am having trouble understanding the gist of the original post and even more trouble understanding Joe Katzman's attack against J Thomas in the subsequent thread. As far as I can tell, only one comment (#20 from Dave Blue) was directly related to the post. The first 9 comments were all on the same subject--off-topic, as far as I can tell--and had pretty well established a conversation by the time J Thomas came aboard with a comment in line with the previous 9. Why was he singled out so?

[JK: snip - which part of comment #16 was not clear? We are NOT going to continue discussions re: Hitler]

I guess I do not understand the "Jewish Rosh Hashanah holiday" because I do not understand the two quotes. I always thought it was a celebration of the beginning of a new year and you threw bread into the water as symbol of casting of your past sins. I'm willing to be educated on the subject but I'm afraid it's going to take more than the two quotes offered. Perhaps I'm just an unsalvagable doofus and, like J Thomas my "understanding of Judaism is severely limited." However, I have to disagree with the (unattibuted) quote of Twain. If you don't speak up and show your ignorance, how are you gonna learn? So let me raise my hand and say, "I don't get it."

Oh, very good. I will use this in my High Holidays prep next year. We certainly are the sum of our experiences, but also more than that. To the degree we exercise the choice/free will give us by the Creator, our futures are not bounded by that sum.

Folks,

Rosh Hashanah begins the holiest week of the Jewish year. It's the equivalent of Christmas and Easter rolled into one... and of course, a simple Google search would get you the basic briefing and tons more.

I expect much more from our comments section than we've generally received here - and in some cases, "red line" warnings are in order. Since "mark," at least, is unsure why...

It would appear that Alan is operating under a different definition of the word "civil" than the one I'm familiar with. In most places, walking up to someone on the holiest day of their religion and saying "religion is a curse on humanity," then following that up with further invective, corresponds to no definition of civility or couth.

I do not consider Alan's actions in any way civil or appropriate, but since he was no longer an active thread participant by the time I returned from services, I was going to take it up with him back-channel. Instead, see above - and I'd strongly recommend to Alan that he not pull a stunt like that here ever again.

With respect to J Thomas, let's see... holiest day of Jewish year, decides to use a thread about that holiday to use flawed arguments re: the religious orientation of Hitler, in order to support the idea that religion is dangerous. Then follows with sneers about Judaism based on very little understanding of the religion.

Nope, mark, can't imagine why he got a reaction, or was considered way out of line to the point of receiving a warning.

Sorry you don't appreciate or respect my opinion, Joe.

I've never understood why disagreeing with someone's religious beliefs should be any different than any of their other beliefs (political, e.g.), or why they should provoke such strong righteous indignation. if I'm not mistaken, you're the one who introduced the topic of religion into this space, not I.

FWIW, I didn't intend to say that religion was dangerous. I intended to say that it doesn't work to use a man's sins to decide he isn't a christian. Very few christians are sinless. I don't consider it a slur against christianity that there have been some spectacular christian sinners -- after all, we can't reliably guess how much worse they might have been without religion.

And I didn't think I was sneering at judaism. From my limited understanding it seemed to me that judaism is fundamentally different from christianity in this particular respect -- anybody who says they're christian is christian because they claim it, but it takes more than that to be jewish. I don't regard this as something to sneer at about judaism, it's a difference that I respect. That was my only comment about judaism in this thread.

I understood that this is a time for repentance, and reconciliation with those you've wronged. And making new years' resolutions. That doesn't begin to explain the quotes above.

My imagination gives me the idea that it's about forgiveness. When you keep beating up on yourself for past things you've done wrong, it reaches the point where it does no one any good. Better to offer reparations to those wronged, and offer charity to those who need it, and resolve to do better. Conscience and feelings of guilt have some use, but not to paralyze you indefinitely to no one's benefit.

But I may have completely missed the point.

Anyway, I apologise for offending you, and I assert that my intended meanings were not what you got from my writing.

Alan - it's a matter of courtesy. When I write about my son enlisting, it's personal and hence it would have been kind of discourteous for people to jump onto the politics of the war, or recruitment, etc. There are plenty of opportunities for that kind of free-form debate (as there should be).

When Joe is making a kind of homage to his faith, it's discourteous to leverage that into "religion is evil and causes millions ot kill each other" or similar. There's certainly an interesting discussion to have about the role of religion and faith in maintaining societies - is it positive or negative? Necessary in this era or not?

But when someone is professing their personal faith, it's rude to say "No, Virginia, there is no Santa Calus." ...for much the same reason.

Does that make more sense?

A.L.

J Thomas says, constructively:

"My imagination gives me the idea that it's about forgiveness. When you keep beating up on yourself for past things you've done wrong, it reaches the point where it does no one any good. Better to offer reparations to those wronged, and offer charity to those who need it, and resolve to do better. Conscience and feelings of guilt have some use, but not to paralyze you indefinitely to no one's benefit."

There are rabbinic sayings along those lines, likening excessive fixation on one sins being kind of like stirring filth with a stick. Doesn't transform the filth, and just involves you in it. With respect to the quotes, this, too, can be a form of prison where the inmate is the guard.

Instead, one must learn to recognize wrong for what it is, and Rosh Hashanah is definitely about that. The point after that is as you described, however - to change so it can be avoided in future. For instance, other rabbis have said true repentance is sealed when you have the opportunity to make that same mistake again ... and you do not.

With respect to "qualification" for Judaism, it isn't simple. There is a Jewish religion and a Jewish people. You can live a life with no religious content, but if your mother was Jewish then you belong to the Jewish people and are technically under its religious obligations. Ditto for anyone who undergoes the process of conversion - which involves learning the tenets of Judaism, and demonstrating one's knowledge to a Bet Din (religious judging council of at least 3). The point of that is to verify a choice made with "eyes wide open," and without any danger of recruiting pretense.

Once you are a member of the Jewish people, whether you fulfill most of those religious obligations is between you and G-d. Enemies of the Jews will also consider you Jewish - people have been persecuted and killed as Jews for having a Jewish grandparent.

To be a Jew in religious belief is another question... opinions vary, but most cluster around a few simple core tests. A believing Jew may be angry with G-d, struggle with G-d, or even question G-d's existence - but cannot deny G-d's existence (and subscribing to an ideology that explicitly does so, qualifies) without ceasing to be a believing Jew.

Because Jewish describes a people as well as a belief system, it can be more inclusive than creeds of belief. For instance, "Jewish Communist" is an oxymoron in that Communism by its nature explicitly rejects G-d and even Judaism - but as long as Communism isn't considered a religion, "Jewish Communist" can still be accurate (sort of) if the communist was born a Jew, and thus remained a member of the Jewish people.

Why would it matter if Communism was seen as a religion? Because on a more serious note, a Jew cannot worship other gods, or join another monotheistic religion (hence, Jews for Jesus is a religious fraud). Under Orthodox Halachic Law, individuals who do these things have a symbolic funeral service performed for them - they will not be harmed in any way, but this signifies their departure from the Jewish people as well as from the religion, and usually cuts them off from their Orthodox family members as well. They are no longer Jews, but something else - whatever they converted to. They made a choice, and that choice is respected in its full implications, even as it is mourned.

And of course, as a matter of simple logic, one cannot subscribe to an ideology or religion that explicitly rejects Judaism, and claim to be be a believing Jew. This isn't a matter of Jewish law, but of logic where one is saying "not-A and A" - and that cannot be so. Either the ideology is false in important respects, or the profession of Judaism is. In religious terms, the rejection may be a sin in itself. But so, too, is the lie; and the lie is a sin against both man for the deception, and against G-d for the sullying of G-d's name via a deliberate untruth. I'll add that having explicitly rejected the religion, one must logically undo this rejection first, in order to atone for any of this.

You are welcome to peruse historical sources to apply this basic logic to any case you care to name, both with respect to ideology and actions... but not in this thread.

On a milder note, one of the things we think about on Rosh Hashanah is whether we have implicitly put other things at the center of our universe, while claiming to be believing Jews. This does correspond broadly to the Christian concept of being a "sinner." Because this isn't about explicit endorsement of a rejecting ideology while lying about that fact, however, the element of deliberate lie is removed. As such, there is no apology to make to our fellow man, as there would be if a deliberate lie was involved. It is a different order and type of offense.

But there is a twofold apology to G-d for (a) missing the point of our existence; and (b) doing so while saying that we were following Judaism, and therefore causing others who see that to misunderstand [The Way].

I guess then I also don't understand what inspires someone to write about a deeply-held personal issue upon one has an inflexible stance in a forum that encourages open exchanges (or so I'm led to believe) from people who think differently and want to challenge those beliefs.

If you can't take mild criticism and disagreement, don't write about it in public. That is, unless you're doing so to test your ideas and beliefs in a public crucible of divergent opinion, in which case then I would say that you should develop a much thicker skin.

...upon which one has...

Thank you for posting this, Joe. One of the things that first attracted me to Winds was your Sufi Wisdom posts – it always seemed to be a good introspective balance with the more topical fare. I can’t say that I understand the Jewish Rosh Hashanah, but L'shanah tovah! (if I’m doing that right)

Alan,

Your core assumption is incorrect. I'll return your concept to you as:

"If you can't tell the difference between items encouraging criticism, and items about subjects where a more human approach is called for, don't participate in a public forum that demands a measure of civility and human decency."

This is an important question, and I need an answer from you: Do you grok that there is a difference, and what sorts of things might distinguish the two?

If not, I would suggest to you that blindness of that sort will cost you in other venues, too, both inside and outside of cyberspace. You might want to give A.L.'s concept serious and sincere thought before replying.

One of the things I find interesting is that Crow and Bear take order and stability for granted and look to change for improvement. Creation is auspicious, and it comes from nowhere, untroubled by anything else.

Again to illustrate what I mean by contrast: there are no nervous, unlucky previous days representing pre-creation, and no sense of celebration and relief that creation has gone well, and also no fear of primal chaos seeping back in future, to be repelled by divine order again.

Change is something that's for the better, and when things and people are what they are that's only what is expected and less than what you should dream of.

It's a very secure, very optimistic idea of being: this kind of being is given and then improved on, it is not wrested from chaos and nonexistence, defended against all threats and when damaged reasserted and recovered.

I think the Jewish High Holy Days are a vast statement of optimism regarding the nature of existence, including personal existence, and the prospects of the human condition.

(On the meta-chatter: I think thread hijacking is very rude, and putting down the original poster for objecting to thread hijacking is compounded rudeness, and the only reason I don't have more to say on that is that this just leads to getting caught up in the thread-derailing attacks.)

I don't think there is anything more human than confrontation, Joe. Without conflict, we woudn't even be here. My comments were civil in my judgment, as was the ensuing discussion. Furthermore, my posts did not comprise "invective" as you claim. Your perception seems to be tainted and prejudiced.

What I see is that you are far less thoughtful and analytical when it comes to doling out confrontational arguments or civility (Broadcasting "Facts don't mean anything to the Anti-War Crowd" in a post but then demuring from explaining, but exceedingly sensitive about receiving them. That is not an issue of civility or humanity, but of personality.

I remain unapologetic for my comments, especially in light of the fact that, so far as I see, you yourself are totally unrepentant for the insulting, argumentative and agressive Anti-Left opinions you post here.

Alan, it's apparent Joe is sensitive about his religion. And it was very rude to turn a discussion about the High Holy days into an argument about Hitler.

Suppose for the sake of argument that Joe made minor errors of judgement responding to that -- could you offer him some compassion?

Actually, J, Fred turned the discussion to fascist dicatators, not me, in an effort to trot out a tired and discredited line of argument. The best replies I could pull from the internet to these were quotes from Dawkins addressing this issue, which included Hitler as an example (different individual but same point against Fred's comment).

There's no denying the toxic power of the name "Hitler" among Jews, and for very good reason. I would not have used his name if I responded to Fred directly in my own words. Perhaps Fred avoided including him in his list for the same reason, although the spirit of his comments was along the same lines. Since I blockquoted the Dawkins comments, I presumed that all this would be clear to reasonable people. I guess not. My problem is that once religion and faith enter and righteous indignation follows, reason goes out the door. That's what's happening here.

Having seen the further comments from J Thomas and Alan, I rescind the latter portion of my comment #11.

I only thought WoC had reached bottom; I didn't realize these two would [be allowed to] continue digging.

Well, it's Sabbath 'til sundown. We'll see what transpires after that.

Alan,

I'm sorry you don't get the concept Armed Liberal just explained - but since you don't, you have demonstrated that you lack the basic civility and human decency required to be a participant in my threads.

In this, you share something with the folks who float 9/11 conspiracy theories despite abundant factual evidence, and who can indeed be fairly characterized as "not anti-war, just on the other side."

From now on, you are free to comment in any other author's threads here. But you're banned from mine in future... and you'll be on something of a short leash elsewhere.

I'm sorry that this is so, since subjects concerning science and religion have been dealt with in my posts before and will be again (vid. our SCI_TECH: Science category). No doubt there could have been some productive exchanges in appropriate venues.

Finally, fair warning: the way Winds works (as the comments policy explains), is that once a request of this nature is made, failure to abide by it will trigger an automatic ban from the site as a whole.

I would think if you bring Religion into a political discussion, you are asking for trouble.

Why don't we keep the Religion posts in a separate category like the SCI_TECH: Science category. That way anyone that wants to discuss it can go there and discuss it.

That's all fine. What, however, do you think about

[Snip.

Nikol, here's what I think: I think you are trying to see what you can get away with.

Are you looking for a ban? It's easy enough to do for folks like you who have no track record of substantive posts here: a bare link + drive-by + dragging thread off topic + willful action contrary to directions posted in thread by the entry's author.

I've elided your provocation and your links.

Do it again, you'll be banned from Winds.

--NM]

Hi Nikol. Regarding your post #41, I think three things.

1. That's a bare link. That's against the rules at Winds of Change.

To add a live URL, "Text to display":http://windsofchange.net/ (no spaces between) will show up as Text to display . Always use this for links - otherwise you will screw up the columns on our main blog page.

Would you like me to fix your link so it conforms to proper procedure?

[Note from NM: I edited your instructions to fool Movable Type into displaying the correct characters.]

2. I think the article you link to is a display of and an attempt to propagate bigotry.

3. To discuss this bigotry, and the consequences it has, and fixing it, would take us outside the scope of the thread. It would require another thread to discuss how the concept of "pagan" is used to stir up and institutionalize hostility not only against pagans but against other religions within the Jerusalem group (mainly Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and often against people and practices within the same religion as the person speaking.

So I'll just say this, in this comment: I don't think the game of "more anti-pagan than thou" is a different kind of game from "more anti-Jewish than thou".

Thanks for the fix-up, Nortius Maximus.

And for the intervention. I'm glad you're willing to moderate, because I'm not. I'd just ban people.

And yes, bare link plus drive-by plus no history of substantial contributions plus disregarding instructions by the seed post's author plus dismissing the topic of the thread with "That's all fine. What, however do you think about..." would be excellent justification for banning.

It's amazing people have taken this attitude to a nice post on an idea about the Jewish Rosh Hashanah holiday.

#16 from Joe Katzman

"... I will say two things about this thread:"

"1] It is an excellent demonstration of the points made in both of the quotes above. A terrible discussion of them, but an excellent demonstration."

"2] Per Winds comments policy, folks who don't address the points and subject made in the post will find their comments deleted."

Or appropriately edited. Thanks again, Nortius Maximus.

I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they've built, they've built their own prison. And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia, where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made, or to even see it as a prison.

For some reason New York is always given this rap. I can think of other places that give off a more credible aura of imprisonment and doom.

Joe,

I apologize for taking Alan's bait and continuing a direction you didn't want the thread to go in. It was just hard for me to let a statement that shallow and silly pass. Henceforth, I'll try to control myself. Re: the original post, I come from the deep South. I think I've known about three Jewish people well in my life, so I'm not terribly familiar with Judaism or Rosh Hashanah. Therefore, from where the sun now stands, I will comment no more on this thread but try to learn something.

Thanks, NM.

Fred - S'okay, live and learn. And your last comment demonstrates the spirit of Rosh Hashanah in a few dimensions - maybe you learned more than you thought.

For what it's worth, you did a good, reasoned, and civil job in the arguing. It's just that there are times to take the bait and argue, and there are times to point out to someone that they're simply outside the boundaries of appropriate for that thread rather than letting them hijack the thread.

One of the interesting things about Rosh Hashanah is that confessions are said in the plural "we". Now, Judaism doesn't back away from individual responsibility one bit. If you wronged someone in the past year, for instance, you can't ask G-d for forgiveness - you have to ask them personally. Check.

With that said, successfully cultivating a strong community of any kind does demand a certain understanding that it only works if we all make it work. Check.

Rosh Hashanah's reflection and resolution is supposed to help us all make it work better in future. Check.

See? The Spirit of High Holidays. Rinse, wash, repeat in other parts of one's life.

You have my apologies too, Joe.