Knowing differently

Prof. Scmalz,

Fortunately where I teach, we have a very highly regarded expert in Rabbinic Judaism and we do address issues such as the portrayal of Jews and Judaism in the NT and by Church fathers. Christian anti-Semitism was and is something very real.

On another, let's try to keep things rather civil--sharp disagreement is good, but in cyberspace it's all too easily to forget that we're addressing real people!
____________________________
I am pleased with the news about your university, but in light of this, I am also surprised that the mere existence of Judaism, let alone antisemtism, has never figured in a single one of your essays.

As for civility, I quite agree. Let me point out that in civil discourse, it is customary to begin posts with salutations. On the foregoing, in fact, NB.

Let me also point out that the days of cringing, apologetic Jews, Jews who "educate" the willfully ignorant are slowly, after two thousand years coming to an end.

My last act of politeness to bigots preceded the brutal beating of my then seven-year-old daughter by a group of Catholic School girl thugs.

A couple of years ago, and then last year, young Jews wrote to me thanking me for my boldness. In this rhetorical strategy, I have been heavily influenced by the American Black Civil Rights Movement. We Jews have never confronted our oppressors. Facing them for what THEY are is long overdue.

Given your opening paragraph, I must say that I a am disappointed in your implicit blaming of the victim, not uncommon in Catholic history as you know. Perhaps, you ought to give Rabbinic Judaism another look.

Farnaz

PS. The current spelling is "antisemitism," for reasons you should know, but if not, I'd be happy to explain.

Fortunately where I teach, we have a very highly regarded expert in Rabbinic Judaism and we do address issues such as the portrayal of Jews and Judaism in the NT and by Church fathers. Christian anti-Semitism was and is something very real.

On another, let's try to keep things rather civil--sharp disagreement is good, but in cyberspace it's all too easily to forget that we're addressing real people!

Prof. Scmalz,

Erratum:

Meant to write: I made this point several times, spoke to the absence of any coverage of Rabbinic Judaism, the UTTER failure to note the PRESENCE of hate speech in NT and in the writings of the Church fathers, etc.

Sorry for the error--composed hastily!

Prof. Schmalz,

I wish that I could say I find it surprising that you do not mention Judaism, the religion that Catholicism purports to have replace, in your essay. I, too, taught at a Jesuit University, an enlightened one, and when I first started teaching there, I was astonished to find that Judaism was not even addressed. Rather the "OT" (sic) was viewed through the Catholic typological lens.

I made this point several times, spoke to the absence of any coverage of Rabbinic Judaism, the failure to note the utter absence of hate speech in NT and in the writings of the Church fathers, etc.

At first, this did not go over well, and I had known it would not. However, these folks knew who and what I was when they hired me, and I knew that I was a hot property, could leave at the end of my first year, and start working at another institution the following September.

Well, some of the Jesuits raised loud voices, while the religious lay Catholic professors remained silent. I persisted and wrote to the ranking Jesuit philosopher at the school. And he came down from the Mountain. I did not think he would.

Also an administrator, he demanded the creation of a Religious Studies Dept., the inclusion of living Judaism, as a religion in its own right IN the CURRICULUM, and, yes, acknowledgment of the millions of Jews murdered in the name of Catholicism. He quoted me in his opening salvo: Hitler quoted liberally from the New Testament.

He had spoken. He was upheld by the University PResident, a conservative Catholic. I was shocked.

I still am, and that was years ago. Since the death of that wise Jesuit, the great Jesuit University has slipped backwards. I recently heard a young Jesuit speaking of a promising student to a colleague, describing her, unfortunately, as "NOK." She is Latina, Catholic, but "Not Our Kind."

STill, that there was change shows that there is hope.

And I hope for you, Mr. Scmalz.

Secular,

As many have noted, your boring, bigoted trolling became tiresome long, long ago. Your lack of logic, hate, and resolute commitment to maintaining ignorance is similarly wearing. You have been given information, citations by yours truly and others, sources to consult that might, at least lessen, if not eliminate your entrenched stupidity.

I long stopped posting to you. I shall resume my earlier practice of correcting your distortions of sacred texts, but will no longer address any comments of yours to me, unless they are civil, demonstrate reflection, and some knowledge of that which you speak. I do not think I shall see such attributes in your typing within the foreseeable future. Suspect the same old ignorance sprinkled with bluster, ad hominem screeching, and name calling will continue apace from you.

Am still waiting for the age of Isaac when his "pond scum" father brought him to the binding.

Post it if you can find it in your scouring or don't. Do not address it to me, as I shall not reply.

Ms. Farnaz:
I am growing tired of you, as well as the rest of the folks on these threads. You have nothing to say where you are able to point the errors in my statements. The most I finally got out of you is I use a mistranslation of mistranslations and so on. That does not cut it. You claimed the whole sordid Avaram & Isaac was the sky-daddy finally deciding he does not need any more human sacrifices. When I pointed it is not mentioned in OT, you went off about mistranslations, blah, blah. First of all I don't buy that translators completely missed your claim "No need for human sacrifice any more". Even if I were to concede that point, it begs the question why did the skydaddy ever require human sacrifices or even condone it.

And what is your obsession with Isaac age when he was going to be killed. Is this have anything to do with MOs criteria for butchering the men of Banu Qurayza? Anyway who cares what Isaac's age, when his pond scum dad wanted to kill him.

Anyway i couldn't care less about your thought or your accusations, your novel interpretations of OT. You have no idea how little I care about what you think of any subject. I only hope that your students are not subjected to the your fertile interpretations of subjects you teach in your courses.

secular,

Meant to write:

Many Christians, especially Catholics, have never read the "OT." The NT is sold separately and many Christians have, what is known as Bible Study, and generally it involves the "NT"

These folks to not even carry the OT with them. Further they read it typologically. They are essentialists, the best of them. From typology to racism, the distance is half a block. Look at the world.

Btw., again, how old was the pond scum Isaac when he accompanied Abraham to the binding, OT scourer? Another think, perhaps of interest. The Tanakh is written primarily in Hebrew, with some Aramaic. Jews read it in its original language. Christians read translations from ancient Greek mistranslations.

This is pointless. You have the names of books and articles. Stop bloviating.

Secular,

Re: The "Fundamental Text"

Many Christians, especially Catholics, have never read the "OT." The NT is sold separately and many Christians have, what is known as Bible Study, and generally it involves the "OT."

The OT is viewed typologically in the NT, and it is typology that is responsible for much of the evil in the West. The Quoran is also typological to some extent. The Tanakh is not.

I do not rant against Roman Catholicism, and why you chose to pick on that particular religion I know not. The NT is filled with so much hate that Catholic theologians and Protestant theologians have been trying to amend it. I've posted many chapters and verses but you ignore them, because your read them through a Christian lens. Some Christians and some former Christians feel safe in attacking The OT, ditto some Catholics. However, threatening eternal damnation for refusing to believe, demanding that fathers kill disobedient sons, filling folks' heads with lies, wiping out people who don't feed you, and positing a Near Eastern God Maniac killer is not to be passed by.

This book brought to the West its inaugural racism.

Secular,

Re: "Mocking"

When you start accusing people of being Winnie Mandela, upon whom said people have posted, and calling them names, they will fight back.

That's how it goes in these here United States, and, frankly, even in Iran. And, yes, women fight back. Little girls do, too.

If you don't want to be mocked, or don't like name-calling, don't mock or call names.

Boohoo, for you. REally, you are insufferable. And I will post on the DAlit whenever I feel like it. If that bothers you, do something for THEM. Quit whining, and start learning and reading. You are reading the Christian OT. REading is interpretive. I give up. Who am I trying to talk to?!

Moron,

The Tanakh is interpretive. YOu are militantly ignorant, a true idiot. You "scoured" it, did you?

And Geenyoss, how old was the Isaac when his "pond scum" father "took him" to the binding?
If you "scoured," you should have found that in the debris, A. Hole.

Kindly do not confuse Abraham with a people enslaving three hundred million Dalit. That would be an error on your part, Dik Face.

Yours,

Farnaz Mansouri
Hater of the Willfully Stupid (among whom Secular figures prominently)

PS. Still awaiting NT pondscum. Must be some--I mean it was quoted from liberally by Hitler. And then you have all those Catholics and Protestants trying to rid it of its essentialist hatred. Jerk.

Know-It-All Geenyoss (L0L) and human equality champion, Gadkari. Where are your comments on the NT (sic). Btw., there is no "OT," Geenyoss.
______________________________________________

Very uplifting of you Ms. Farnaz. This last post of yours confirms to me my suspicions that you are a just a small person given to the base instincts of stereotyping people by their national or ethnic origins and mocking them for their supposed accents and throwing epithets and maligning people when you have nothing to point any errors in the person's arguments. In nearly 30 years it took an Iranian born immigrant with a chip on her shoulder to mock my ethnicity. Last time I was mocked was during the Iranian hostage crisis, by a few hoodlums, who had mistaken me for an Iranian, and called me a Camel Jock. When I pointed out the errors of their ways - that CJ was an epithet to be thrown at Arabs and not at Iranians, and that I was not even an Iranian - the humiliated boys apologized and ran away.

You have not pointed any errors in my post, all you do is make accusations. Actually you are a closet theist. You claim to be an atheist only so you can rant against RCC and Jesus. I mock the OT characters because OT is the foundational text for all the three Abrahamic faiths, heck four if you include Mormonism. If one destroys the foundation there isn't much for the big good-for-nothing edifices but to crumble.

Just a small teachable moment for you, on how to point out errors in the other person's claims. You keep making this silly claim, "Oh, and Geenyoss, how old was Isaac when Abraham "took him" to the binding, which should have ended human sacrifice for all time? (But see the NT [sic])"

I just scoured through the OT from KJV, and really scoured it with my "Ultra Edit 32" there is nothing NADA supporting your claim. There is a lot of gibberish about his seed multiplying blah, blah. But not a word on "being done with human sacrifices" from genesis 22:10 - 22:19. I don't want you showing some other secondary text by some later day interpreter, telling me what I should read into it. The angel or god could have added your claim in plain text, just as he mouthed eloquence about multiplying, blah, blah.

All I can say about you, is you are nothing but a $3 bill, and a windbag.

MC, even with only the one question (one out of thirty-two) wrong, validity is lost. The results are meaningless. They could toss the results for the one question and reanalyze, but that would not satisfy most experts, as you probably know, and should not satisfy Pew.

Know-It-All Geenyoss (L0L) and human equality champion, Gadkari. Where are your comments on the NT (sic). Btw., there is no "OT," Geenyoss.

Oh, and Geenyoss, how old was Isaac when Abraham "took him" to the binding, which should have ended human sacrifice for all time? (But see the NT [sic])

UKBA posted two important sources to which I referred your know nothing self (militantly ignorant and proud of it), along with a third. The "NT" (sic)?

Well, I took the WaPo quiz and answered re religion in the Consitution "nothing", got that one wrong (although I was right, it does say nothing) with a score of 80% and was told by WaPo I had failed, which is a double fault--80% is usually a 'pass'.

If the rest of the quiz is like that then its 'findings' are suspect.

Anyway, the core of the Catholic faith is the creed which we say every Mass and Catholics will know. Similarly for the Real Presence, subsitute "body and blood" and Catholics will know that too. Similarly they'll know the sacraments necessary to practice their faith: Communion especially, but also confession now known in liberal parishes like the one MS attends as "reconciliation" but in orthodox parishes still as "confession". They'll be exposed to Latin in the latter as well.

The Immaculate Conception is not the key to the faith. Christ is. So is the Mass. So is the Church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

Professor Know-it-all, the title of Mr. Wolpe's thread is "THE IGNORANT CANNOT BE PIOUS". In that context my comment was elaborating that ignorant are the prime candidates for piety. I was merely stating that only the ignorant can be find anything remotely admirable about the Avram character from OT. and it is only the ignorant would be gullible enough to buy into the delusional claims of religions, hence be pious. In fact the survey that underlies all these thread shows that. Besides, Mr. Wolpe has left his thread very open ended. In fact on another thread of that bigot Mr. Thomas, I talked about that drunken sloven Job character. What is your issue that I comment about OT Characters or are there any factual errors in my claims, or that I do not buy into any of the rationalizations? is it not true that Avram character as narrated in Genesis did not pimp his wife out to the Pharaoh and the to King Abimelech? or is it not true that he knew (OT terminology for fornication) his slave girl? Is it not true that the spineless wonder then threw her away, along with her child? In this last one he was definitely competing with Rama in so far as throwing women out, one his concubine, the other his wife. Pot calling kettle black may not be that hypocritical Professor Know-it-all, especially if the pot was made of red clay. There you go.

Oh, Mr. Geenyoss, did you pay attention to the contents of the thread upon which you posted this:

"Mr. Wolpe, you be glad that the believer sect is ignorant. If they weren't then you would have even fewer numbers of ignorants, the implication is that believer sect will be even smaller. Clearly who in his/her right mind would think a fellow who pimped his wife not once but twice and made of like a bandit and then was willing to sacrifice his one child and cast away his elder child and the woman who bore him, anything but pond-scum. Yet bible tells them to honor this pond-scum as a father of not one but three religions. Only an ignorant will buy into this horse manure. Any well read and informed will see that pond-scum for what he is POND-SCUM. So you are better off that the believers are ignorant."

Now, talking about, "pond scum," Mr. Know-It-All Geenyoss, could it be that the pot is calling the kettle black? Again? Merely a question, Gadkari.

Sorry my salutations in the previous post are wrong. It should read "Mr. Schmalz" and not "Mrs Schmalz". Sorry Mr. Schmalz

Mrs Schmalz wrote, "Myth, in my field, is taken to be a particular kind of narrative and doesn't have negative connotations."

Definition: A traditional sacred story, typically revolving around the activities of gods and heroes, which purports to explain a natural phenomenon or cultural practice.

In other words a myth is a fairy tale. If it does not carry negative connotations, perhaps it should, even in your field. But then your field is persuading the gullible to believe in all these myths to be facts so no wonder it does not carry negative baggage. That is not good enough.

Then you went on to say, "But I would think it's especially important to figure out why people believe things that others find irrational".

In general people are credulous only to the myths they have been brainwashed into them from the childhood. Of course all other myths are taken to be exactly what they are fairy tales. In case of ancient egyptian or greek myths they are treated by everyone as fairy tales. Why is that? Those myths aren't fundamentally lacking in merit any more than the Yweh myth, Allah myth, of Jesus myth or Krishna myth etc, etc. For Pete's sake there are some believers , few million, in the Joseph Smith's horse manure too. There is nothing to figure out one is fed the horse poop from child hood and are never objectively taught nor really read those decrypt tomes, that's is the reason.

You go on to ask, "So is there a point to studying religion even though one doesn't believe it?" Yes only in the interim, so as to put the religion/theology departments in the schools of higher learning out of business, by showing all that nonsense has no redeeming social value nor economic value to the society at large. Besides the theology departments we need to study them till we also put the leeches of the society (i.e. priests and charlatans of that ilk) out of business. Then they can be read just as we read greek or egyptian mythology. But alas none of the abrahamic mythologies have such colorful stories, to hold anyones fascination. They are just tomes of vile decrypt admonishments after drab admonishments. Few stories that there are, are also in the same drab style. So in the long run there is no reason to study them.

Thank you for your response.

Oh Ms. Professor Know-it-all-Farnaz have you paid attention to the title of the thread? The title of the thread is "KNOWING DIFFERENTLY". This to my simple mind unlike yours - the supremely sophisticated mind - means different interpretations of the basic nonsense, that is religion. So I was commenting from that context. However, if you - the most sophisticate - feel that it calls for the commentary on the other stupidities of the other faiths - be my guest and you are welcome to comment. For you, I observed, every thread is a blank canvass and you get your paint brushes out without regard to the background already on the canvass. However, for me, the simple unsophisticate like me, courtesy demands that I should not talk about Al chemistry when the topic is about astrology. Physics may be alright, but most definitely not Al chemistry to start it off. So Professor-know-it-all why don't you start talking about the pond-scum. May be then I will join you to mouth eloquence about pond-scum and even child molestations, and all the topics you have come to be known as the ultimate authority.

PS-Mea Culpa

I have a congenital typo problem--it's Ineffabilis Deus. I got thiniking about "infallibility" (hence infabilis in the original posting).

For the record: I'm pretty easy on spelling with my students
Mat

Myth, in my field, is taken to be a particular kind of narrative and doesn't have negative connotations.

But I would think it's especially important to figure out why people believe things that others find irrational.

So is there a point to studying religion even though one doesn't believe it?

Thanks for your post.
Mat

Secular,

What? No "pond scum"? You read the NT and no "pond scum"? A deity so monstrous as to hold all humanity hostage for the sins committed by Adam and Eve (LOL)? A loathsome God, who sends his son to earth to be tortured to death at the hands of human? Not "pond scum"? The Ultimate Child Murderer? The Human Sacrificer? Not "pond scum"?

MR Schmalz, I don't subscribe to the view that I need to know the nuances of various delusional beliefs of different beliefs, be they be the quaint Hindu rituals or teh catholic ritual of turning wine and bread into blood and body of your mythical being Jesus. these are all just myths. there is nothing profound about them.