(April 17, 2013 at 5:27 am)pocaracas Wrote: Aye, jews were forcibly converted in Portugal...
And they invented a special kind of sausage that made it look like they were eating pork, when, in fact, the sausage was made of bird (chicken/turkey) and/or rabbit meat, it's called alheira and is very good grilled... hmmmm...
Anyway, those people were called the new christians and eventually were integrated into standard christians. Portuguese jews are now very uncommon.

Thanks. I get the impression people think I am making this stuff up. I am not that creative.

Yahweh was so stupid he thought rabbits chewed their cud. That combined with some other taboo made them unclean.

And those who were sent back were the descendants of Berbers whose ancestors had converted to Judaism. They differed from their fellow Muslim north Africans in religion only.

One of these days I am going to dig into this and see when it got the entire popular BS about the Inquisition being solely a "poor us" Jewish thing.

Major Christian holidays bear resemblance to pagan traditions in two ways:

A "god" being born around the winter solstice.

A "dying and resurrecting god" being sacrificed in spring/summer.

Even if you take away the festival parts of Christmas and the eggs and rabbits part of Easter, which surely harken back to pagan bits, you still have those two major themes. These are common pagan themes.

The Jews were once polytheistic insofar as way back in the day there were tribes of people who used to worship polytheistic deities and eventually those tribes moved over to monotheism, probably still bearing some of the symbols they originally held for festivals.

But again, while those symbols are there, the holiday itself of Passover, if it once had something to do with a pagan festival, has fuck all to do with it now. The myth may have been invented after a "spring feast" but it certainly took it over to the point that the holiday isn't about the spring, it isn't about fertility, it isn't about anything at all except this false story of escaping Egyptians and wandering around in the desert. So I'm not sure what the fuck you're actually looking for.

I'm not trying to make this holiday out as something special because it "isn't" pagan. I'm just stating my opinion based on years of celebration of a holiday in which the only "spring" that was let into the house were the flowers I brought in. The rest was false reminisces on sorrows and tribulations. Trust Jews to figure out a way to feel like shit when everything is blooming.

If you want to find something with more 'pagan' roots, I suggest you find a holiday like Sukkot, which is a harvest feast, and not a holiday based on an event.

(April 18, 2013 at 9:27 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: Major Christian holidays bear resemblance to pagan traditions in two ways:

A "god" being born around the winter solstice.

A "dying and resurrecting god" being sacrificed in spring/summer.

Even if you take away the festival parts of Christmas and the eggs and rabbits part of Easter, which surely harken back to pagan bits, you still have those two major themes. These are common pagan themes.

The Jews were once polytheistic insofar as way back in the day there were tribes of people who used to worship polytheistic deities and eventually those tribes moved over to monotheism, probably still bearing some of the symbols they originally held for festivals.

Pardon but you need to extend your atheism to the Judean Yahweh cult and learn what they were really all about. There is mention of temple to Ashara next to the Atonine Barris (Barracks of Anthony, the HQ of the Roman garrison) which was described as being on what is now called the temple mount for no good reason. The Judeans were polytheists in Roman times. They were also not Galileans, Samaritans or Idumaens. Those three were forced to adopt the Judean Yahweh cult practices or die if they did not leave all their lands peacefully. Meaning Islam did not invent spreading by conquest.

There is no evidence of monotheism in the ancient world until the 'there is no god but god' thing from Islam. After that both Christians and Jews adopted the idea. Anyone who can find a clear statement of one and only one god prior to Islam is invited to present it. It is incredibly simple to write, there is only one god. No argumentation that something that sort of sounds like it really means that is acceptable. We have only one god it not the same as there is only one god.

Quote:But again, while those symbols are there, the holiday itself of Passover, if it once had something to do with a pagan festival, has fuck all to do with it now. The myth may have been invented after a "spring feast" but it certainly took it over to the point that the holiday isn't about the spring, it isn't about fertility, it isn't about anything at all except this false story of escaping Egyptians and wandering around in the desert. So I'm not sure what the fuck you're actually looking for.

I have read no one suggesting Seder is any more related to its original purpose than is present day Christmas to its original form. But the things celebrating it such as having a big ceremonial feast are quite common with vernal equinox celebrations. If I were guessing I would say the special types of food for Passover are also those that can be harvested earliest like radishes. If I remember correctly Spring is when the first lambs are slaughtered for the dinner table. Beginning to sound familiar?

And just so there is no demand for nearly identical parallels almost everything about Christmas celebrations appeared in the last couple centuries.

Quote:I'm not trying to make this holiday out as something special because it "isn't" pagan. I'm just stating my opinion based on years of celebration of a holiday in which the only "spring" that was let into the house were the flowers I brought in. The rest was false reminisces on

the end of

Quote:sorrows and tribulations. Trust Jews to figure out a way to feel like shit when everything is blooming.

The lachrymose view of history always gets in the way of reality. Consider the whining about persecution by European Christians. I note it is the only religion that survived contact with Christians. One should count ones blessings instead of damning what happened for their own stupidity in not converting.

Quote:If you want to find something with more 'pagan' roots, I suggest you find a holiday like Sukkot, which is a harvest feast, and not a holiday based on an event.

For that I would look to the one that starts by a rule similar to Ramadan and note both involved Venus and the moon. I would be similar to the present day Women of the Wall who keep getting arrested for praying at the Wailing Wall at the beginning of every lunar month. That is purely an Ashara/women's thing if anything is.

Quote:There is mention of temple to Ashara next to the Atonine Barris (Barracks of Anthony, the HQ of the Roman garrison)

Really? Where might that "mention" be?

(April 17, 2013 at 7:16 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Yahweh was so stupid he thought rabbits chewed their cud. That combined with some other taboo made them unclean.

Do you really believe that the Israelites were so stupid that they would believe a rabbit would chew the cud if it did not, you have some poor reasoning skills. This very thing should have been your first thought, that a people would not eat of a plentiful food source because the food laws given to Moses stated something they knew to be untrue. That indeed would be a strange thing. You want to apply today's science to yesterday's world, use that brain would you. The rabbit is not considered a ruminant today because it does not chew the cud as what is defined as ruminant in today's science. Yet the rabbit does chew the cud in a different way, and at one time the rabbit was considered a ruminant. In Hebrew to chew the cud means to "raise up what has been swallowed," the rabbit practices refection, which is to pass through what was eaten as partly digested pellets, the rabbit eats these pellets and they are digested to nourish the animal. The same process basically without the extra stomachs, the same results for the same reason.

A new low for you G-C. Apologetics over rabbit puke.

The Israelites were stupid because they fell for that absurd moses story hook, line and sinker. I'm sure you know the type. Similar idiots believe a dead jew came back to life.

(April 19, 2013 at 2:34 am)Godschild Wrote:

(April 17, 2013 at 7:16 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Yahweh was so stupid he thought rabbits chewed their cud. That combined with some other taboo made them unclean.

Do you really believe that the Israelites were so stupid that they would believe a rabbit would chew the cud if it did not, you have some poor reasoning skills. ...

As Israelites like the Munchkins are mythical creatures I think the issue is moot.

(April 19, 2013 at 6:59 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote:

(April 19, 2013 at 2:34 am)Godschild Wrote: Do you really believe that the Israelites were so stupid that they would believe a rabbit would chew the cud if it did not, you have some poor reasoning skills. ...

As Israelites like the Munchkins are mythical creatures I think the issue is moot.

Of coarse you do, you just got your butt kick around the block because you're to lazy to do research.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but rabbits do not regurgitate their food in order to chew it again, they pass it as feces and chew those.

(April 19, 2013 at 1:50 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:There is mention of temple to Ashara next to the Atonine Barris (Barracks of Anthony, the HQ of the Roman garrison)

Really? Where might that "mention" be?

I did get it wrong in using the Ashara spelling instead of the Astarte STRT spelling. BYT STRT, Temple of Astarte, aka Strato's Tower. And perhaps I should have said the original baris as it is not clear the names were the same. I have always assumed the name derived from Marc Antony.

The believer translation never answers the question who was Strato and why did he have so many towers?

This is not my material and I have bee remiss for a long time in including the original URL for credit.
Where was the Temple of Herod?
Specifically it is Josephus again.


In Herodian times, the site of Ashtereth's high place was dominated by an eight-sided tower called Strato's Tower (the name being a corruption of Astoreth, which was written as STRT in the unpointed Hebrew of the time). We know from Josephus that Strato's Tower lay to the north of the Temple and south of Baris. Later, a military fortress and tower, called the Akra, was built to the south of the Temple Mount by Antiochus after he destroyed the walls of the Temple. The Akra, a military installation, was offensive to the Jews because it afforded a view into the Temple area. It was therefore destroyed by Simon in the later Hasmonean period.

The Temple precinct
The Temple area had two major components, the so-called Court of the Gentiles that surrounded it and a sacred platform on which the Temple rested along with the walled Women's Court, Court of Israel, and Priest's Court. This Temple precinct was originally 500 cubits square and occupied only part of the Herodian Temple precinct, although it too was missing a notch in its northwestern corner where the pagan site of Asteroth lay. Josephus cites an old prophesy that if the Jews ever "squared the Temple", it would be destroyed, and he asserts that doing so was the cause of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. That is, Herod razed Strato's Tower and the old Baris fortress and built a new Baris (Baris Antonia) on the northeast corner of his enlarged Temple Mount. This made a nice, square sacred area around the Temple platform but violated God's injunction by incorporating the idolatrous site of pagan worship into its design.

(1) Baris Antonia was built to defend Mount Moriah against invasion from the north--the only easy route to the Temple. The east and west slopes were steep and the city lay to the south. The most defensible place for the location of the fortress was just south of the narrow constriction between the ravines that ran into the Kidron Valley on the east and the Valley of the Cheesemakers on the west. In fact, these two ridges were joined at the top by a man-made moat which would have made an attack on the Baris even more difficult. (The moat was noted in Wilson's survey of Jerusalem, so its position is known.) This is the arrangement described by Josephus. Had the Temple been located on the Sakhra (the Rock), then there would have been insufficient room for both Strato's Tower and the Baris to have fit between the Temple and the Moat. The northern placement favored by the Temple Mount Faithful leaves no room for even the defensive tower, Baris, to be situated between the Temple and the fosse.


Herod built a new temple to Astarte in Caesarea perhaps as a replacement.

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(April 19, 2013 at 8:27 am)Godschild Wrote:

(April 19, 2013 at 6:59 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: As Israelites like the Munchkins are mythical creatures I think the issue is moot.

Of coarse you do, you just got your butt kick around the block because you're to lazy to do research.

Face saving opinion from a believer. And the kicking has always been sufficient to satisfy the negative standards of believers.

But us rational people are still awaiting the first physical evidence of the existence of the biblical Israelites from the believers.

Believers have negative standards as unless there is an impossible proof of a negative they will continue to believe without physical evidence.

However I will give you a question from your point of view. Who but a mythical people could believe rabbits chew cud?

As for your unfamiliarity with rabbits they store food in their cheeks and chew it later when safe instead of regurgitation and rechewing. Are you proposing the two were considered different more than a few centuries ago?

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(April 19, 2013 at 9:05 am)Tonus Wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but rabbits do not regurgitate their food in order to chew it again, they pass it as feces and chew those.

Last I heard it is as above, eat fast any place and chew when safe. Safe is often little more that up on their haunches looking around for approaching danger.