quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think it's pretty obvious by now that Obama's State Department doesn't stand on ceremony. The dude bought the PM a DVD set and shook the queen's hand, for God's sake. So when he puts his feet up on a desk, I think we can be pretty sure he's thinking, "I'd like to put my feet up, because that's comfortable" and not examining it any further.
Whether this is a failure of his State Department or not is left as an exercise to the reader.
Fair's fair: When Bush made similar mistakes, eg invading Merkel's personal space, few people made excusing remarks about informality.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Lisa, suppose for a moment I invent a time machine, you use it to travel back to Sinai ca 1300 BC, and - oops - there are no two million Jews being dictated to by the Voice of God. You come back rather chastened. What is now your preferred solution for Israel?
For Jews to stop being Jewish. For the people who live in that area to do exactly what Ahmedinajad said in his speech. Have a referendum and live according to the results. I'd expect the international community to provide safe exit for those in danger of genocide, of course, but then, I think they should do that for Darfur, too.
Why? I know I've mentioned it before, but I don't think anything in all of history has caused more grief and division than "us" vs "them". If it weren't for the fact that God mandated this one division, I'd be against it as well. As it is, I'm still against any others. This one... well, I don't have to like it, but it is what it is. God has good reasons for it, I'm sure.
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I take it you mean "Stop keeping kosher and following the other Torah laws" rather than "Stop being descended in the female line from their female ancestors". Whether the Arabs would permit this redefinition is a bit of a problem. But that's true of any solution, it has to be imposed on the fanatics of either side.
Anyway, I'll get back to you when I have that time machine.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Lisa, suppose for a moment I invent a time machine, you use it to travel back to Sinai ca 1300 BC, and - oops - there are no two million Jews being dictated to by the Voice of God. You come back rather chastened. What is now your preferred solution for Israel?
For Jews to stop being Jewish. For the people who live in that area to do exactly what Ahmedinajad said in his speech. Have a referendum and live according to the results. I'd expect the international community to provide safe exit for those in danger of genocide, of course, but then, I think they should do that for Darfur, too.
Why? I know I've mentioned it before, but I don't think anything in all of history has caused more grief and division than "us" vs "them". If it weren't for the fact that God mandated this one division, I'd be against it as well. As it is, I'm still against any others. This one... well, I don't have to like it, but it is what it is. God has good reasons for it, I'm sure.
So you can understand why those of us who either don't believe in God or don't agree with your particular understanding of God don't like it.
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Sure. What's interesting is that those of you who either don't believe in God or don't agree with what Judaism knows about God have no understanding for those of us who do. Or so it seems, anyway.
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But you keep making these arguments in the apparent belief that they will convince people. You just agreed that your arguments are completely un-compelling for those not misled by your religion, so why do you keep stating them as though they will cause people to support your vision for Israel and for American policy?
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I take it you mean "Stop keeping kosher and following the other Torah laws" rather than "Stop being descended in the female line from their female ancestors". Whether the Arabs would permit this redefinition is a bit of a problem. But that's true of any solution, it has to be imposed on the fanatics of either side.
Actually, I more mean that in such a case, the appropriate thing would be to stop identifying as Jews at all. To stop identifying as "other". The only justification for it is that God said so.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Anyway, I'll get back to you when I have that time machine.
You do that. <grin> Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago, I think it was on Facebook, and she was asking people in general, when we'd go if we had a time machine and could only make one trip. You pegged my answer exactly.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Sure. What's interesting is that those of you who either don't believe in God or don't agree with what Judaism knows about God have no understanding for those of us who do. Or so it seems, anyway.
How, exactly, would one demonstrate such understanding?
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To be fair... Lisa's use of "what Judaism knows about God" (rather than "believes" or "teaches" or something) could be considered unnecessary, too; it seems less so to me, but YMMV.
(Edit) I think the difference might be that Lisa is talking about herself and others, where King is talking about wholly other, but that's a gut response that I haven't fully thought through.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: But you keep making these arguments in the apparent belief that they will convince people. You just agreed that your arguments are completely un-compelling for those not misled by your religion, so why do you keep stating them as though they will cause people to support your vision for Israel and for American policy?
It's worthwhile for you to at the very least understand why we're doing what we're doing, and how behavior like that shown by Obama is simply never going to work.
And who knows? The day may come when you're more receptive, and then you'll be able to think back on this and understand some things that you might otherwise not have understood.
I don't quite get why the views of my culture are "not to be spoken of". Clearly, speaking of them irks people here enough that they leap into name calling, and insist that I'm being uncivil by the mere stating of a view that doesn't jibe with the dominant culture here.
There is a logic here. Just because you disagree with one of the premises doesn't mean you can't follow it and recognize reality. I know Arabs who are as open about their cultural viewpoint as I'm being here, and I wish you did, too, because the Western-centricism, while to be expected in society at large, is something that I would have expected folks on Hatrack to be able to get past.
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Lisa, this whole thread is called "The Truth". Why and how do you expect KoM to consider anything he believes any less than "The Truth" if you do not?
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quote:It's worthwhile for you to at the very least understand why we're doing what we're doing, and how behavior like that shown by Obama is simply never going to work.
I agree that Obama's policy will never produce the result you want. I do not agree that this means it won't work.
quote:I don't quite get why the views of my culture are "not to be spoken of".
Not what I said. I asked why you keep making arguments based in premises nobody else shares. If you want to convince, would it not be better to go for the premises rather than the conclusions?
quote:There is a logic here. Just because you disagree with one of the premises doesn't mean you can't follow it and recognize reality.
I do agree with your logic. Since your premise is faulty, your logic has nothing to do with reality, except possibly the reality that the conflict will continue until one or both of the sides holding incompatible premises is wiped out. Notice that these sides are not "Arabs" and "Jews", but "extremist Arabs" and, so far as I can tell, "Lisa".
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quote:Originally posted by Papa Moose: To be fair... Lisa's use of "what Judaism knows about God" (rather than "believes" or "teaches" or something) could be considered unnecessary, too; it seems less so to me, but YMMV.
(Edit) I think the difference might be that Lisa is talking about herself and others, where King is talking about wholly other, but that's a gut response that I haven't fully thought through.
I agree. In fact, my first inclination was to write "Sure. What's interesting is that those of you who either don't believe in God or don't agree with what God says have no understanding for those of us who do. Or so it seems, anyway." That would have been uncivil, so I said it the way I did. I do that a lot, btw.
For the record, I didn't even notice KoM's "misled by". If I had, I probably would have pointed to it as unnecessary.
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Lisa, this whole thread is called "The Truth". Why and how do you expect KoM to consider anything he believes any less than "The Truth" if you do not?
Did you notice me snarking about "those misled by atheism"? And I'm aware of what he thinks. Should I not speak the truth to someone just because he isn't receptive? This is a forum. My replies to him are only partially for his benefit.
Also, the reason it's titled as it is is because that's the name of the video. I think it's appropriate, but that's the reason I gave it that name.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Notice that these sides are not "Arabs" and "Jews", but "extremist Arabs" and, so far as I can tell, "Lisa".
<laugh> Well, okay. You go right on thinking that. All I can tell you is that refusing to accept reality never makes reality go away.
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Ok, I exaggerate. But I do not think it is clear that "extremist Jews" is a larger faction either proportionately or absolutely than "extremist Arabs". And the point about how to argue convincingly stands in any case.
We both have a bit of a reputation around here, and I won't say mine is undeserved; but however rudely my arguments are couched, I attempt to drop down to the lowest premise I have in common with a theist, usually (although not in kmb's case) "beliefs should follow from evidence" and argue from there. But you just take your premises as given and restate your conclusions, again and again. I do not see what you hope to accomplish by this.
quote:For the record, I didn't even notice KoM's "misled by". If I had, I probably would have pointed to it as unnecessary.
This is exactly what others object to in your posts: Taking premises for granted. You consistently write from the premise that Judaism is true, now and forever. When I write from the premise that it is false, you consider that an un-necessary insult. I trust you'll agree that if Judaism is wrong, then the Jews are indeed being misled by their religion? To state this may be un-necessary, but if so, then likewise your "what Judaism knows" was equally un-necessary.
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Maybe this is too simplistic but in my mind it boils down to this: if you hold that the Jewish faith is true and you believe in the God of the Torah then pretty much everything he said in the video makes sense. You believe in the destiny of Israel and that God will fight its battles.
If on the other hand you don't believe in the Jewish faith then this video sounds kind of extreme and unreasonable. He basically says that God is on their side and that this is what God wants. His argument for pretty much everything is based on this.
So it makes sense that believers and nonbelievers would strongly disagree because in my mind it's an issue of faith or lack thereof.
As a side note I find it kind of funny that he accuses the United States of not supporting Israel. Has anyone taken a look at how much foreign aid the United States has given Israel?
I was going to go over, line by line, where the arguments fail to convince, make sense, or work for me.
I just don't want to spend the time doing that.
Instead let me break it down.
Lisa, your arguments are based on assumptions that most here do not share.
President Obama asks Israel to stop the growth of settlements, and you assume he wants to tear them all down.
President Obama wants dialogue with other Arab and Muslim countries, and you assume that he wants to do so over the corpse of Israel.
The insult that is played so much on, the showing of the soles of his feet at President Netanyahu is far from obvious. President Obama relaxed a bit while talking on the phone to the President of Israel. To me that shows a confidence in our relationships, and a friendship that doesn't demand formalities to maintain. Yet there are those who force it into an insult because that is what they want.
Yes, it appears that some want to be insulted by President Obama because then they have an excuse not to work for peace.
You said that you didn't want the US to bow down to Israel, but just do what's right. Yet if it is not what you define as right, then you make it sound like its a purposeful assault against you and Israel.
There appears to be this, "Us or them" dichotomy. There is a lot of talk about faith and belief. I am a follow of the third Tao. What that means is that I believe all dichotomies are false dichotomies. I believe that Israel is not a 0 Sum Game, that advances of Muslim countries, people, or groups must come at the cost to Israel, or that advances of Israel must come at a cost to Muslims or local non-Jewish people of any faith.
All of your plans, all of your arguments, all of your insults and fears boil down to this dichotomy, this 0-sum view of the world. You have to convince us that such a limit is in place, or we simply won't do what you think is right.
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I agree with pretty much all of that, Darth Mauve. Maybe a little heavy on assumptions of Lisa's assumptions and/or motives, but she'll clarify those that are murky I'm sure.
quote:Yes, it appears that some want to be insulted by President Obama because then they have an excuse not to work for peace.
However I'm not sure that's true. It doesn't give them an excuse to not work for peace, it gives them an excuse to deride the peace that Obama is aiming for, which they don't find acceptable. I firmly believe that everyone in Israel wants peace. Obviously Lisa wants peace. But what kind of peace? Peace where you live side by side in harmony? Peace when all your enemies are dead? Something in between?
You have the right feeling though, I think.
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quote: In fact, my first inclination was to write "Sure. What's interesting is that those of you who either don't believe in God or don't agree with what God says have no understanding for those of us who do. Or so it seems, anyway.
I'm curious about why you feel those who don't share your beliefs here have shown no understanding for you. Disagreement is not necessarily a sign that we don't understand.
I understand that certain extremist Muslims believe God has commanded them to attack and kill Israelis (among others). But even though I understand that they are doing this because they believe God has commanded it, I still find it morally abhorrent and will do every reasonable thing with in my power to oppose them. If one of them were here at hatrack, I would certainly try to persuade them that their beliefs were wrong and morally abhorrent.
I also understand that you believe that God wants you to have a Jewish nation in Israel that uses political and military power to discriminate between Jews and non-Jews. I think that using political and military power to enforce any religious idea is morally abhorrent and I will do every reasonable thing to oppose that.
To me the argument over whether or not Israel's actions are as abhorrent as the behavior of Islamic extremists is beside the point. The fact that murder is worse than theft doesn't make theft OK and doesn't mean I won't support prosecuting people for theft until all murders cease. Similarly, I will continue to oppose the racial and religious discrimination in Israel even though there are places on earth that are more egregiously violating human rights. Even you admit that you would find Israeli policy morally abhorrent if you did not believe God commanded it and did not have faith God had some reason for doing that. Certainly you can not then expect those of us who do not believe God has commanded will not disagree with your conclusions.
Yet when we do, you accuse of being the worst kind of anti-semites who would kill Jews for sport. I recognize that wasn't in this thread but it also wasn't a one time thing. You have very frequently called members of this forum monsters of one kind or another for disagreeing with you. Perhaps if you are now truly interested in civil discussion, an apology for past behavior would be in order.
[ June 17, 2009, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Really, Sam? Was I being uncivil?
Look, I really don't think you're trying to be directly incivil. I don't think KoM is ekeing out any high ground in this territory (especially as quoted). But look at the way it's phrased.
Envision why the phrasing "Actively refusing to accept reality" is going to be considered incivil where other ways of expressing your belief structure would not. It's as incivil as someone e-laughed at you and told you "Sure you can refuse to accept jesus christ as the true savior, but that's just you refusing to accept reality again <laughs>"
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Notice that these sides are not "Arabs" and "Jews", but "extremist Arabs" and, so far as I can tell, "Lisa".
<laugh> Well, okay. You go right on thinking that. All I can tell you is that refusing to accept reality never makes reality go away.
So it's back to the same shenanigans again, eh
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Really, Sam? Was I being uncivil?
It's hard for me to believe that you really don't recognize that accusing someone of refusing to accept reality is not civil.
Affirming that there are many Jews who share your positions and perhaps identifying a few of them, providing data or references to back that up would have been a polite and civil response as well as an excellent rhetorical tactic. If you had done that and KOM continued to insist you were the only one, then your response might have been considered justified and civilized. But sense you didn't you just came across as arrogant and flipant.
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An honest question for Lisa: I understand that, as a non-jew, judaism still has a role for me in the form of the Noahide Laws. Beyond those laws, which I understand I am violating by being a Christian, do I have any responsibility for seeing that the rest of God's will (as you see it) is done? In other words, if I'm not actively standing in the way of Israel operating as a Jewish state, is that all that is required of me?
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Great question, Jamio. I think that's all that's required of you as an individual. And technically, it's probably all that's required from other nations as well.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Laughing at people is definitely uncivil.
I can see where others might interpret it differently; but my own feeling in that exchange was that I was making a joke - it's so obvious that there are more extremist Jews than just Lisa - and thus Lisa was laughing with me, not at me.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Laughing at people is definitely uncivil.
I can see where others might interpret it differently; but my own feeling in that exchange was that I was making a joke - it's so obvious that there are more extremist Jews than just Lisa - and thus Lisa was laughing with me, not at me.
FWIW, that's how I took it and how I meant it. But there are certain people here who will take offense if I say "good morning".
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: But there are certain people here who will take offense if I say "good morning".
How dare you come on an American forum and say "Good Morning" when it's clearly evening in America and morning in Israel? Are you saying that only Israeli citizens are deserving of your morning greetings? You've got a lot of nerve, discriminating against me just because my parents taught me to celebrate morning 6 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.
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