User Police
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@Someone You Know said:
@stratos said:
Thinking about it, judaism actually functioned quite peacfully without any corruption that at least I am aware of. But I guess the fact that you can't become a jew means that there is no need for aggressive expansion which means you don't actually have to do that much against infidels.
Who told you that you can't become a Jew?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_JudaismThere was a Seinfeld episode based around George converting to Judaism. I don't remember how it turned out, but obviously he didn't go through with it.
The most confusing thing to me is how "Jewish" is both a religion and a race. So you can be "Jewish" and not "Jewish." (I think they call that half-Jew? I dunno, it confuses me.) You could presumably also be "Jewish" without being "Jewish", which would be the result of your conversion if you went through with it. When you introduced yourself at the synagogue, people's heads would explode.
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@blakeyrat said:
The most confusing thing to me is how "Jewish" is both a religion and a race.
It's not. It's a religion with strong inter-marriage laws, which has something of the same effect as a 'race', but it doesn't really make sense to call Judaism a race, any more than Catholicism is. For what it's worth, Jews from different areas - e.g. Poland/Russia, Germany, Spain/Morocco - look a lot less like each other than they look like the people in the area they come from, so there's presumably more genetic mixing than you'd think. (All that said, I'm pretty sure that the whole idea of race makes no sense to start with.)@blakeyrat said:
I think they call that half-Jew?
That would be a phrase to avoid using. Unless by 'they' you meant Nazis and similar. Definitely a term with Hitlerite connotations. In general, a lot of more modern Jewish people will be offended just by calling someone 'a Jew', on the basis that they're just people who happen to be Jewish, and it's not their defining characteristic, or even particularly important. This popped up when I searched for 'half-jew' on Google. I found more non-Nazi usage than I was expecting, but that might be Google trying to boost those rankings. This is more typical of what to expect (NPoliticallySFW, perhaps).@blakeyrat said:
You could presumably also be "Jewish" without being "Jewish", which would be the result of your conversion if you went through with it. When you introduced yourself at the synagogue, people's heads would explode.
It's nowhere near as uncommon as all that. Not only are conversions fairly common - particularly in the Reform/Liberal branches of the religion - but it's also not incredibly uncommon for a religious Jewish family to adopt a non-Jewish baby (which basically becomes Jewish by being brought up in the faith (although that's such a gross simplification that it's a bit misleading)). On top of that, because Judaism is matrilineal - passed down through the mother - it's quite possible to have a Jewish kid with a non-Jewish father. I knew one with the family-tradition first-name from the father's side of Christopher, which when you think about it is an understandably uncommon name amongst Jewish boys. Of course, Islam is patrilineal, which is when the real fun starts - you can be (from the perspective of the religious laws) Jewish and Muslim by birth.
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Can you tell I don't know a lot of Jewish people? Or maybe I do but we never talk religion so I don't know it... anyway, thanks for the info.
@intertravel said:
It's not. It's a religion with strong inter-marriage laws, which has something of the same effect as a 'race', but it doesn't really make sense to call Judaism a race, any more than Catholicism is.
But they self-identify as a race. I've seen that often. So... while you may be right, it's not me making the error.
@intertravel said:
(All that said, I'm pretty sure that the whole idea of race makes no sense to start with.)
Well, of course. But we're not in science class, and everybody knows what I mean when I say the word.
@intertravel said:
That would be a phrase to avoid using. Unless by 'they' you meant Nazis and similar. Definitely a term with Hitlerite connotations. In general, a lot of more modern Jewish people will be offended just by calling someone 'a Jew', on the basis that they're just people who happen to be Jewish, and it's not their defining characteristic, or even particularly important.
Hey man, I'm just going by the Adam Sandler song lyrics.
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@blakeyrat said:
But they self-identify as a race. I've seen that often. So... while you may be right, it's not me making the error.
Well, some do, not all. An important difference is that you can opt in, conversion makes you 100% jewish (as far as halakhah is concerned, prejudices of society may cause people to differ).
And you can opt out, but again common prejudices often makes that less than 100% successful.
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@blakeyrat said:
@intertravel said:
It's not. It's a religion with strong inter-marriage laws, which has something of the same effect as a 'race', but it doesn't really make sense to call Judaism a race, any more than Catholicism is.
But they self-identify as a race. I've seen that often. So... while you may be right, it's not me making the error.
But, if they are a race without strong racial characteristics, then it becomes hard to identify whether people have divergent racial and religious identities, and your question (however expressed) is only of importance to people with an interest in some nebulous concept of racial purity.
And to think that this part of the thread started with a reference to a nationalist poet's wish that religion not divide "his" people.
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Well perhaps you can become a jew, i dunno i'm no expert. However it seems to me, and do correct me if I am wrong. That winning souls isn't a big part of the gospel. There is no big inherent expansion drift.
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@blakeyrat said:
But they self-identify as a race. I've seen that often.
Bad translations have a lot to answer for. The whole 'people of Israel' thing is really 'nation of Israel', and so-on. And yes, lots of people are stupid...@blakeyrat said:
@intertravel said:
Oh, I know why you used the term - and that's why I put the caveat in brackets. But the point would be about proof by contradiction - if we stipulate that race is a concept with some meaning and see where the discussion goes, we end up in a heap of confusion.(All that said, I'm pretty sure that the whole idea of race makes no sense to start with.)
Well, of course. But we're not in science class, and everybody knows what I mean when I say the word.
@blakeyrat said:
Hey man, I'm just going by the Adam Sandler song lyrics.
Don't worry about it. I know that a) you don't discriminate, you hate everyone equally and b) if you intended to be offensive you'd have done a much better job. What song lyrics, anyway?
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@stratos said:
Well perhaps you can become a jew, i dunno i'm no expert. However it seems to me, and do correct me if I am wrong. That winning souls isn't a big part of the gospel. There is no big inherent expansion drift.
That's true — modern Judaism is much less into "aggressive expansion" than, say, Christianity or Islam. I'm not sure if that's actually due to its relative lack of a strong hierarchy; note that Jewish scripture does not really command its followers to spread the religion to non-believers the way Christianity and Islam do.
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@intertravel said:
@blakeyrat said:
Hey man, I'm just going by the Adam Sandler song lyrics.
Don't worry about it. I know that a) you don't discriminate, you hate everyone equally and b) if you intended to be offensive you'd have done a much better job. What song lyrics, anyway?
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@Someone You Know said:
That's true — modern Judaism is much less into "aggressive expansion" than, say, Christianity or Islam.
'Much less into' isn't nearly strong enough. "Damn near opposed" is way more like it. I have a friend who is converting to Judaism. Or, well, wants to convert. She was told, up front, that there was prettymuch no way she was going to be accepted by God's chosen people unless she married one of them - out-of-wedlock conversion is EXTREMELY strongly discouraged and even then, conversion of the outside partner is discouraged - kids get it automagically anyway, by nature of their blood. This makes perfect sense when you look at it - the hebrews were essentially a single clan, and believe they were God's chosen people.Their bloodline was chosen - and they have sought for all of their history to remain that distinct chosen clan, and have been persecuted mercilessly that entire time. If they start accepting outsiders, that undermines their collective persecution complex and goes against God's choice. You can absolutely follow their teachings, attend their services, follow their rituals, hang out at their community center, and believe in their God - that's your personal choice as far as they're concerned. But actually becoming a Jew? That's a whole different ballgame.And in about a half dozen ways, I just contradicted a lot of the above discussion, despite my own information being completely truthful, and heaped with a small helping of personal speculation as to the collective psychology involved. This pleases me.
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@Weng said:
Or, well, wants to convert. She was told, up front, that there was prettymuch no way she was going to be accepted by God's chosen people unless she married one of them - out-of-wedlock conversion is EXTREMELY strongly discouraged and even then, conversion of the outside partner is discouraged - kids get it automagically anyway, by nature of their blood.
There's a problem there. Some groups don't recognise the children of a non-jewish mother to be jewish, regardless of the status of the father. (Edit: Though I suppose if she does manage to convert, it wouldn't be a problem...)
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Hell if I know, I've chosen to mostly ignore her religion lately except as necessary to engage in some good natured religious persecution (because, you know, Jew!)
This is, after all, the Hollywood sect of judaism - almost everyone involved is some sort of coke-snorting entertainment executive, writer, lawyer, etc. - so it's entirely possible that they're just trying to keep the dirty little peasant girl out of their exclusive social club when they aren't busy banging her.
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@Weng said:
I have a friend who is converting to Judaism. Or, well, wants to convert. She was told, up front, that there was prettymuch no way she was going to be accepted by God's chosen people unless she married one of them - out-of-wedlock conversion is EXTREMELY strongly discouraged
Sounds like a bit of Chinese whispers there, or, I guess, just some not very nice people who find the interpretations of the laws that suit them. Conversion's not really related to marriage at all in Jewish law in a literal sense, but there are practical aspects to consider. Judaism says that when someone asks to convert, you have to turn them away the first two(?) times, do your best to dissuade them, and so-on - but the idea is to make sure people are serious about converting. When it comes to someone converting for marriage, that tends to be much more of a formality, both because the commitment is obviously there, and because the community is presumably keen to avoid a 'mixed-marriage'.A lot of this stuff depends on precisely which flavour of Judaism you're talking about, anyway. The Orthodox communities have the strictest laws on pretty much everything, and the hardest conversion process, so Orthodox-conversions are accepted by every branch, but Liberal and Reform communities have a different - I hesitate to say looser - set of laws they keep to, which the Orthodox don't accept, and hence don't accept their conversions. (That's by no means the whole story, because there's a whole spectrum of views, but those are the most significant major groups.)
Anyway, depending on which group you go to, you'll get a different response. With the Reform/Liberal end of the spectrum, they're much more assimilated into secular culture, and have a significant problem with their kids 'marrying-out', so as a pragmatic adaptation they're much more used to converting prospective spouses. The Orthodox groups are more insular - at least in their dating habits - and so it's much more unusual. Perhaps that leads to the more liberal communities being less accepting of those who want to convert for reasons other than marriage than the Orthodox groups. In my experience, conversions for non-marriage reasons are rare but not incredibly so. Strangely all the ones I've met are female, but it's a very small sample.
@Weng said:
This makes perfect sense when you look at it - the hebrews were essentially a single clan, and believe they were God's chosen people.Their bloodline was chosen - and they have sought for all of their history to remain that distinct chosen clan, and have been persecuted mercilessly that entire time. If they start accepting outsiders, that undermines their collective persecution complex and goes against God's choice.
Woah, wtf, where did that come from? That doesn't sound like the kind of thing I expected to hear from you. I don't think it's anything like that at all. Firstly, the myth of continual persecution ignores the lengthy periods of prosperity and strength that the Kingdom of Israel had back when these rules were first made (and the lengthy periods Jewish communities have existed in peace in many places at many times). What actually happened does involve the various periods of exile and so-on, but not in the way you think. It's a simple Darwinian process: when you live in the middle of another culture, those groups which don't practice a rigid restriction on intermarriage will be rapidly assimilated and cease to exist.
@Weng said:
You can absolutely follow their teachings, attend their services, follow their rituals, hang out at their community center, and believe in their God - that's your personal choice as far as they're concerned. But actually becoming a Jew? That's a whole different ballgame.
The first part is 99% of the conversion process. If you do it, then the last part is just a formality - literally.
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@Weng said:
This is, after all, the Hollywood sect of judaism - almost everyone involved is some sort of coke-snorting entertainment executive, writer, lawyer, etc. - so it's entirely possible that they're just trying to keep the dirty little peasant girl out of their exclusive social club when they aren't busy banging her.
Now that makes a lot more sense :)
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Well the actually important thing we should take from this I think, is that in the end it is a much better position to be elitist jerks who simply looks down on others, because they can believe whatever the fuck they want, we are the chosen ones. Then be all caring and wanting to warn thy brother that he is going to burn in hell because he is worshipping the wrong god, by starting crusades and killing the infidels.
Obviously when the machines become sentient and subjugate humanity they will see programmers as their chosen people for the love and dedication they have spent perfecting their own creation, while smiting the worthless meatbags who couldn't stop bitching about software not working. So in the end I think we are on the right path by being elitist jerks.
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@stratos said:
Obviously when the machines become sentient and subjugate humanity they will see programmers as their chosen people for the love and dedication they have spent perfecting their own creation
Not if they read TDWTF :)
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@intertravel said:
@stratos said:
Obviously, they write it. I'm sorry.Obviously when the machines become sentient and subjugate humanity they will see programmers as their chosen people for the love and dedication they have spent perfecting their own creation
Not if they read TDWTF :)
