Keith

[stringvest]

As explained several times, Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a religion. There are lots of Jewish atheists: me, Stephen Fry, Einstein, Darren Aronofsky etc

 

Jewish ethnicity = Arab ethnicity. Except of course you mean that the bloodlines were separated at some point due to religious grounds.

[Strontium]

All bloodlines were separated at some point. Black people, White people, Oriental people. All have a common ancestor, though I'm sure you wouldn't argue that those races and ethnicities weren't distinct from each other.

[Bob]

woohooo... I've just eaten a proper nice ham salad baguette, although the raw onion was a bit harsh...

 

anyway, as well as eating said sandwich, i also have just managed to read this thread from beginning to end and have some, if not a whole heap, sympathy for SD. I dont know enough about too many things to say if everything he has said is either right or wrong, but i do know that i think his initial point was very fair and that he has been hounded for daring to say somthing that disagrees with rash in a religiously directed thread.

[rb14]

Wow. Reading this I'm glad I've been away really.

 

I'd like to make a few observations:

 

Rash

• You do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time calling SD either thick, stupid or Nazi. He is clearly none of those things and it does little to further your cause. Does it make you feel better?
  
• Your post asking what westerners were doing in the middle east was one of your particularly low points.
  
• Although I haven't read all twelve pages in depth, nowhere did I see you condemning the violence that is taking place in the name of Islam. Just so you understand, I utterly condemn the invasion of Iraq as I condemn the behaviour of Israel, the USA and UK. I think the UN is little more than a sanctioning body for the west.
  
• I particularly liked your "We are there to ensure we get oil and to protect Israel." I like that you say "we". I hate it when people put the blame for this disaster on Bush and the americans.
  

 

SD

• I'm with you most of the time. Most, if not all of your posts, I'm tempted to reply with a "what he said".
  
• You do yourself no favours in the post explaining Jewish ethnicity and including yourself in a list with Stephen Fry, Einstein, Darren Aronofsky etc. For example, here are some footballers: Me, Maradonna, Dalglish, Totti, Maldini. It's not hugely important, but it does come across as a little conceited.
  
• Tell me you're not a Lib Dem. Tell me I have misunderstood that. Please? Has anybody seen the parliamentary road to democracy?
  

That anybody could string the following words together to make a sentence almost defied belief until I saw the author:

Saddam had it coming, and the subsequent bloodshed is on his hands alone. I'm no Bush fan, but at least he had the courage of his convictions and did something rather than wait for the prevaricators of the UN to get their arses into gear. Saddam could have easily prevented the whole thing. he didn't. There is no-one else to blame for the mess we have now.

 

There is never an excuse for the murder of "innocent" people. Whilst I can understand the anger that muslims feel, I cannot get my head around the idea of standing on a tube train and detonating a bomb. It is the lowest of the low. Maybe not quite. Sawing the head off a living human. I cannot imagine. Make no mistake, the "west" commits appalling crimes and continue to do so, but when it comes to depravity, it's a bit player.

 

International political instability appears to be spiralling towards all-out war. Two clearly bright, intelligent people are unable to establish any common ground over twelve pages of posts. Any similarity between this thread and real life is purely coincidental.

[Stu Monty]

Which is what the Church said to Galileo.

 

Hilariously enough, they probably did. Douches.

[Elmyn Noos]

Wow. Reading this I'm glad I've been away really.

 

I'd like to make a few observations:

 

Rash

• You do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time calling SD either thick, stupid or Nazi. He is clearly none of those things and it does little to further your cause. Does it make you feel better?
  
• Your post asking what westerners were doing in the middle east was one of your particularly low points.
  
• Although I haven't read all twelve pages in depth, nowhere did I see you condemning the violence that is taking place in the name of Islam. Just so you understand, I utterly condemn the invasion of Iraq as I condemn the behaviour of Israel, the USA and UK. I think the UN is little more than a sanctioning body for the west.
  
• I particularly liked your "We are there to ensure we get oil and to protect Israel." I like that you say "we". I hate it when people put the blame for this disaster on Bush and the americans.
  

 

SD

• I'm with you most of the time. Most, if not all of your posts, I'm tempted to reply with a "what he said".
  
• You do yourself no favours in the post explaining Jewish ethnicity and including yourself in a list with Stephen Fry, Einstein, Darren Aronofsky etc. For example, here are some footballers: Me, Maradonna, Dalglish, Totti, Maldini. It's not hugely important, but it does come across as a little conceited.
  
• Tell me you're not a Lib Dem. Tell me I have misunderstood that. Please? Has anybody seen the parliamentary road to democracy?
  

That anybody could string the following words together to make a sentence almost defied belief until I saw the author:

Saddam had it coming, and the subsequent bloodshed is on his hands alone. I'm no Bush fan, but at least he had the courage of his convictions and did something rather than wait for the prevaricators of the UN to get their arses into gear. Saddam could have easily prevented the whole thing. he didn't. There is no-one else to blame for the mess we have now.

 

There is never an excuse for the murder of "innocent" people. Whilst I can understand the anger that muslims feel, I cannot get my head around the idea of standing on a tube train and detonating a bomb. It is the lowest of the low. Maybe not quite. Sawing the head off a living human. I cannot imagine. Make no mistake, the "west" commits appalling crimes and continue to do so, but when it comes to depravity, it's a bit player.

 

International political instability appears to be spiralling towards all-out war. Two clearly bright, intelligent people are unable to establish any common ground over twelve pages of posts. Any similarity between this thread and real life is purely coincidental.

 

You couldn't string those following words together to make a sentence, even given the brilliance of the author, which is what I'm assuming you meant. You could make a paragraph, which is what I did.

[rb14]

I'm not going to get into a slanging match with you emlyn. Maybe I shouldn't have included your paragraph. Perhaps I was being inflammatory. I find it difficult to be any other way when someone was, and still is in favour of the Iraq war.

 

I have seen you make some funny posts, but underneath, I think you're a bigot.

 

Consider this the last time I will communicate with you. I'm sure you're gutted.

[Elmyn Noos]

I'm not going to get into a slanging match with you emlyn. Maybe I shouldn't have included your paragraph. Perhaps I was being inflammatory. I find it difficult to be any other way when someone was, and still is in favour of the Iraq war.

 

I have seen you make some funny posts, but underneath, I think you're a bigot.

 

Consider this the last time I will communicate with you. I'm sure you're gutted.

 

Underneath you think I'm a bigot? Who the fuck are you, and what makes you think after ten fucking minutes on here that you are in any way qualified to comment on what you think I am "underneath"?

 

You are a sanctimonious prick. "There is never an excuse for the murder of innocent people". Maybe not in La La Land or BooHoo Town, but in the real world it is sadly unavoidable.

 

Don't presume to understand, or judge, me or my motives.

 

I wouldn't say I was gutted at your decision to have no further communication with me, although I do always pity people who feel they don't have the necessary intellectual capacity to even communicate with someone, especially someone with whom they so clearly vehemently disagree.

 

I'm assuming that is why you are still a virgin?

[hamstrung]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Einstein actually one of the few distinguised scientists at the time to believe in God?

 

I'm not saying he was a practicing Jew, but I'm pretty sure he believed in God.

 

Not if you believe the book that's on SD's avatar.

[Paul]

I'm not going to get into a slanging match with you emlyn. Maybe I shouldn't have included your paragraph. Perhaps I was being inflammatory. I find it difficult to be any other way when someone was, and still is in favour of the Iraq war.

 

I have seen you make some funny posts, but underneath, I think you're a bigot.

 

Consider this the last time I will communicate with you. I'm sure you're gutted.

 

It's always seemed to me that Noos is only a bigot on the surface.

[Dropkick]

I'm not going to get into a slanging match with you emlyn. Maybe I shouldn't have included your paragraph. Perhaps I was being inflammatory. I find it difficult to be any other way when someone was, and still is in favour of the Iraq war.

 

I have seen you make some funny posts, but underneath, I think you're a bigot.

 

Consider this the last time I will communicate with you. I'm sure you're gutted.

 

Arent we all.

[Strontium]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Einstein actually one of the few distinguised scientists at the time to believe in God?

 

I'm not saying he was a practicing Jew, but I'm pretty sure he believed in God.

 

Not if you believe the book that's on SD's avatar.

 

Indeed:

 

Much unfortunate confusion is caused by failure to distinguish what can be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion. Einstein sometimes invoked the name of God (and he is not the only atheistic scientist to do so), inviting misunderstanding by supernaturalists eager to misunderstand and claim so illustrious a thinker as their own. The dramatic (or was it mischievous?) ending of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, 'For then we should know the mind of God', is notoriously misconstrued. It has led people to believe, mistakenly of course, that Hawking is a religious man.

 

One of Einstein's most eagerly quoted remarks is 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.' But Einstein also said,

 

• It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
  

Does it seem that Einstein contradicted himself? That his words can be cherry-picked for quotes to support both sides of an argument? No. By 'religion' Einstein meant something entirely different from what is conventionally meant. As I continue to clarify the distinction between supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other, bear in mind that I am calling only supernatural gods delusional.

 

Here are some more quotations from Einstein, to give a flavour of Einsteinian religion.

 

• I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.
   
  
• I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
   
  
• The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.
  

[Jose Jones]

All bloodlines were separated at some point. Black people, White people, Oriental people. All have a common ancestor, though I'm sure you wouldn't argue that those races and ethnicities weren't distinct from each other.

 

I'm pretty sure someone did some DNA profile/Genetic test hoobyjoobiling of Israelis and Palestinians a couple of years ago and found they were completely as synchronised as a single population.

[stringvest]

I'm pretty sure someone did some DNA profile/Genetic test hoobyjoobiling of Israelis and Palestinians a couple of years ago and found they were completely as synchronised as a single population.

 

indeed they did. That's why I was encouraging SD out of the closet to say that the only thing that separates Jews and Arabs is their religion. The 'ethnic' differences - cultural, linguistic etc are all in the case of the Jews borne out of religion.

[Naz17]

All bloodlines were separated at some point. Black people, White people, Oriental people. All have a common ancestor, though I'm sure you wouldn't argue that those races and ethnicities weren't distinct from each other.

Adam and Eve?

[Strontium]

indeed they did. That's why I was encouraging SD out of the closet to say that the only thing that separates Jews and Arabs is their religion. The 'ethnic' differences - cultural, linguistic etc are all in the case of the Jews borne out of religion.

 

This may or may not be the case, but the fact remains that Jewish ethnicity is not the same thing as Arab ethnicity, and religion is not the only dividing factor between them. If it really were mere religion separating the two, then the Nazis would surely have wanted to exterminate the Arabs too instead of siding with so many of them?

 

 

Adam and Eve?

 

Most definitely not Adam and Eve.

[Remmie]

Highly offended that Eid Celebrations have been knocked on the head :(

Eid is back and this time it's personal!

[mattyq]

Jewish ethnicity is exactly the same as Arab ethnicity - this isn't difficult to understand.

They are both from the same part of the world - the Middle East. THe only thing different is the religion and the culture which has grown up around the religion.

[Strontium]

Jewish ethnicity is exactly the same as Arab ethnicity - this isn't difficult to understand.

 

No, it's just wrong. There's no denying that the two ethnic groups are relatively closely related on (at the very least) a genetic level, but that's somewhat different from sharing an ethnicity.

[Dirk]

Some people appear to be confounding race and ethnicity. They are related but different concepts.

[mattyq]

They're not closely related, they are exactly the same. They are the same ethnic group.

Dunno why you seem to struggle with this - it's pretty obvious.

Apparently, Jews are from the same source as Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. This group is slightly different to the bedouin arabs of the Saudi Peninsula

[mattyq]

http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/346genetics.html

[Dirk]

They're not closely related, they are exactly the same. They are the same ethnic group.

Dunno why you seem to struggle with this - it's pretty obvious.

Apparently, Jews are from the same source as Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. This group is slightly different to the bedouin arabs of the Saudi Peninsula

 

Race is not ethnicity. I am white gaelic. My race is caucasian, my ethnicity is gaelic. Xabi Alonso is white Spanish, his race is caucasian, his ethnicity is Spanish.

[BatChainPuller]

Race is not ethnicity. I am white gaelic. My race is caucasian, my ethnicity is gaelic. Xabi Alonso is white Spanish, his race is caucasian, his ethnicity is Spanish.

 

I don't think he'd be too impressed with that description.

[Dirk]

I don't think he'd be too impressed with that description.

 

Who? Xabi? Why not?