Why Jews don't get a pass either.

[thesummerqueen]

Davka - you haven't heard some of the heinous shit they say about the "unclean times" even around a woman's period.

In conservative and reform Judaism, you're right - I was raised to believe that sex between consenting adults, preferably married - was a good and healthy thing. My mother was pretty terrible about those talks, but I was never shamed for it.

[Brian37]

It's not really like that - Jews refers to ethnicity and all the practices, but it doesn't mean every Jew engages in all customs. In simple terms however jew simply means that you're physically jewish.

"Jew" is not a race. "Muslim" is also not a race. That is like saying "Christianity is a race" Jew is a religion. It is a product of geographics or what someone sells you as a kid or you buy.

Our outward traits as far as skin tone and eye color or shape and hair color, are a result of evolution. Trace humans back far enough and all of us are related to primates.

Just so you know, there were humans living in that area prior to the Hebrew religion being invented. So to make that argument you'd have to claim the polytheistic Canaanites were a race too.

And even after the establishment of the Hebrew religion, that entire time there was mixing cross tribes and boarders.

Not even Native Americans can claim stake to being unique to the Americas. The polar ice allowed humans to travel to the Americas long before Columbus.

You do know there are in America a very tiny minority cult that call themselves "Hoteps" who believe that blacks are the master race and blame all our current ills on white European colonialism.

"Race" is also an artificial construct. It is used not that you can avoid it in any case. But even that allows humans to divide themselves and create social pecking orders when the reality is there is only one species.

Both Jews and Muslims move the goal post when you point out the elephant in the room. It is religion and when those who don't want to face that, turn it into a race as if your skin tone makes you a special species by proxy of genes in any case.

[thesummerqueen]

people whose origins are in Israel and their descendants, regardless of religion. But yeah a convert is Jewish, no doubt.

Israel doesn't just contain Jews, despite what they sometimes want to project. People from Israel could be Christian or Muslim or something else. What you have to understand is the differences between Semitic and Jewish.

[Dystopia]

I completely agree that race is socially constructed - In fact, I am unable to distinguish between a "Jew" and a white person, they look the same to me (According to the guys at stormfront I'm Jewish as well).

But I was discussing the etymology of the word - I hear the word thrown around to refer to a specific culture and ethnicity, usually regarding physical features (what we call race) and as a group of people - Usually to either praise or criticize (comments about jews being smart, or anti-semitic ones) - So it's not easy for me to know when it's a reference to religion or simply to "race"


--»So it's semitic the right word?

[thesummerqueen]

Rule of thumb: when someone makes a bigoted comment about "Jews" they're generally referring to it in a racial way.

[Brian37]

people whose origins are in Israel and their descendants, regardless of religion. But yeah a convert is Jewish, no doubt.

Israel doesn't just contain Jews, despite what they sometimes want to project. People from Israel could be Christian or Muslim or something else. What you have to understand is the differences between Semitic and Jewish.

No actually you do not. Both are claims of "I am better than you because of" making that distinction allows them to move the goal posts.

Race or religion and claiming special treatment by proxy of such still amounts to setting up social pecking orders. It is a comic book reflection of our real evolutionary group survival.

I will only say that the Hebrews were the first to successfully market a monotheistic God. No not the first attempt, but the first to be successfully marketed for that time. Christianity and Islam simply are splinter sects of the God of Abraham. But none of them are races.

[thesummerqueen]

Israel doesn't just contain Jews, despite what they sometimes want to project. People from Israel could be Christian or Muslim or something else. What you have to understand is the differences between Semitic and Jewish.

No actually you do not. Both are claims of "I am better than you because of" making that distinction allows them to move the goal posts.

Race or religion and claiming special treatment by proxy of such still amounts to setting up social pecking orders. It is a comic book reflection of our real evolutionary group survival.

I will only say that the Hebrews were the first to successfully market a monotheistic God. No not the first attempt, but the first to be successfully marketed for that time. Christianity and Islam simply are splinter sects of the God of Abraham. But none of them are races.

What are you talking about?

Semitic: a subfamily of Afroasiatic languages that includes Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Phoenician.

Jewish: of, relating to, or characteristic of the Jews or Judaism

There's no "better than" statement between defining those two terms.

---

Alright, fair enough. But people invariably use the word Jewish either to refer to Judaism (religion) or race so it's complicated for me to see trough word's intentions... In my case, the word jewish is thrown around to refer to the people whose origins are in Israel and their descendants, regardless of religion. But yeah a convert is Jewish, no doubt.

This is the statement I was referring to. Israel is a semitic country by virtue of the fact that it is populated by people who speak semitic languages. Out of those subsets come religious subsets. Calling everyone in Israel or from Israel Jewish is factually inaccurate. Where the hell did you get that I was somehow making a "better than" statement?

[Dystopia]

What are you talking about?

[thesummerqueen]

What are you talking about?

I'm responding to Brian's weird response.

[Davka]

What are you talking about?

I'm responding to Brian's weird response.

*waves hand frantically*
Oooh, ooh, I wanna respond too!






















Aardvark.