[Vindictus]

As for giving us a desert, like I said, in the Bronze Age, it wasn't as dry. They called it the Fertile Crescent for a reason.

That's not how deserts work.

[Rushy]

I am still impatiently awaiting a battle between the just forces of the Levee and the evil and greedy zionist forces of the Yaakov.

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

VINDICTUS, remember, you ARE as stupid as you look. Weather patterns change in 4500 years, dipshit.

[Pete Svarrior]

English to this day contains the largest vocabulary of pretty much any language in existence. Denying this is plain stupid.

Well... "denying" this would be acknowledging simple facts.

[Rushy]

Hungarian is the most likely candidate for having the most words. They have well over 1 million unique (as in unique ideas. e.g. push, pushed, and pushing is not considered three unique words, they're only one word) with roughly 20% of Hungarian being untranslatable because other languages don't have words to cover their ideas. As for English itself, it is the third most spoken language in the world. Both Mandarin and Spanish take precedence over it. The only reason English is prevalent at all in the world is actually the USA's economic domination. If you want to make money, you want to do business with the US, and that normally includes learning English.

I'm actually surprised Yaakov isn't trying to argue that Hebrew is the bestest language ever.

[Vindictus]

VINDICTUS, remember, you ARE as stupid as you look. Weather patterns change in 4500 years, dipshit.

Paradise doesn't turn into a desert in 4500 years. It's humorous that Israel still insists on squabbling over such a crappy place to live.

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

 Regarding Hebrew, it may be the L'shan HaKodesh (the Holy Tongue). Some Orthodox even say it was the language of Creation. Whatever its benefits or lack thereof on a religious level, as a secular language, it has nothing in particular to recommend itself per se.

VINDICTUS, aside from being as stupid as you look, and putting words in my mouth, remember. You ARE the weakest link.

Basque is another one, as is Khmer, with an insane number of words. But nevertheless, I had always heard that English had every other language beat simply for the number of foreign words it has embraced.

[sandokhan]

I am still impatiently awaiting a battle between the just forces of the Levee and the evil and greedy zionist forces of the Yaakov.

I am here.

What debate?


yaakov wrote:

Do refer to "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" for a clever forgery of a book that supposedly laid out the plan for Jews to take over the world. The book was actually composed by the Okhrana, the Czarist Secret Police, toward the end of the 19th Century. That is where that got started, though.

No, Okhrana did not do it.

It is a work copied from The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (by Maurice Joly), no matter what others say (http://www.savethemales.ca/maurice_joly_plagiarized_proto.html ):

https://archive.org/stream/truthaboutthepro00londiala#page/n0/mode/2up


And even Maurice Joly copied the Dialogues from Jacob Venedy's work Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Rousseau:

http://mailstar.net/toolkit.html

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

QUOTE: "Sources for the Protocols
The Protocols is a fabricated document purporting to be factual. It was originally produced in Russia between 1897 and 1903, possibly by Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the Paris office of the Russian Secret Police, and unknown others.[3][4]

Source material for the forgery consisted jointly of Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu or Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, an 1864 political satire by Maurice Joly[5] and a chapter from Biarritz, an 1868 novel by the antisemitic German novelist Hermann Goedsche, which had been translated into Russian in 1872.[6]

A major source for the Protocols was Der Judenstaat by Theodor Herzl although, paradoxically, early Russian editions of the Protocols assert that they did not come from a Zionist organization.[7] The text, which nowhere advocates for Zionism, resembles a parody of Herzl's ideas.[8]" {Wikipedia}

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

So, where were we? What else is up for discussion? NOT counting the crap about "Nobody cares" And locking the thread, the conversation has been fine! Quite fine! What else is up next?

[Lemon]

Is one still Jewish if only by heritage (i.e. Jewish parents)? I don't practice at all and I wouldn't consider myself Jewish but other people do.

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

LEMON, one is still halakhically Jewish (Jewish according to Jewish Law) unless one changes one's religion (ie becomes a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, etc). Simply not believing in God does not make one not a Jew. In the eyes of the religious authorities, one might be a "bad" Jew, but one is still a Jew.

As far as non-Jews go, that depends. Certainly some anti-Semite assholes will consider you a Jew no matter what you do. Edith Stein was Roman Catholic nun who died in Auschwitz because she was an ethnically Jewish person, irrespective of the fact that she had converted to the Catholic Church many years before the Nazis were even heard of.

As a Jew, you still have the Right of Return. You can still go to Israel and claim citizenship there if you so desire, unless you change your religion and become a non-Jew. In this case, you would no longer have the Right of Return.

[Rama Set]

Lots of Catholics were killed in the holocaust, but mostly for dissidence.

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

Rama Set, you are quite correct, of course, but in her case, she died for being a Jew.

[DuckDodgers]

Wouldn't that lends credence to a Jewish bloodline and not just a religion?

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

Well, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, Judaism is a Civilisation. I would encourage you to read the book "Judaism as a Civilization" by Mordecai M. Kaplan, the seminal work on the subject. There is no doubt that Jews comprise an ethno-religious group. We are similar to Latinos in that we can and do come from any race. But Jews by Birth have DNA that they share with each other that they do not share with non-Jews. Obviously, Jews by Choice do not have those DNA markers. But usually they marry other Jews, and their children acquire those markers.

[DuckDodgers]

What happens to a birth Jew when they no longer believe in the religion? Are they no longer a Jew?

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

 One is still halakhically Jewish (Jewish according to Jewish Law) unless one changes one's religion (ie becomes a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, etc). Simply not believing in God does not make one not a Jew. In the eyes of the religious authorities, one might be a "bad" Jew, but one is still a Jew.

As far as non-Jews go, that depends. Certainly some anti-Semite assholes will consider you a Jew no matter what you do. Edith Stein was Roman Catholic nun who died in Auschwitz because she was an ethnically Jewish person, irrespective of the fact that she had converted to the Catholic Church many years before the Nazis were even heard of.

As a Jew, you still have the Right of Return. You can still go to Israel and claim citizenship there if you so desire, unless you change your religion and become a non-Jew. In this case, you would no longer have the Right of Return.

[DuckDodgers]

That repost didn't answer my question. Is a Jew by birth still a Jew if they no longer believe in Judaism?

[Yaakov ben Avraham]

Yes, a Jew by birth is still considered a Jew if they reject the religion. The only way that they are no longer classified as a Jew is if they actively join a non-Jewish religion. In this case, they would obviously be ethnically Jewish. Their DNA doesn't change. But they would lose all rights within the Jewish community, and that includes any rights that the State of Israel extends to Jews, including the Right of Return.

Although they are obviously still an ethnic Jew, for all intents and purposes, they are treated as whatever they have decided to be (a Hindu, or Christian, or Muslim, or whatever). Essentially, they are treated as a non-Jew. And the State of Israel treats them as such for legal purposes.

On the other hand, if a Jew by Birth becomes an atheist, he remains a Jew ethnically and culturally, and continues to be so regarded within the Jewish community. Although the religious authorities may consider him a "bad" Jew, he IS still a Jew in both the ethnic and cultural sense of the word, and this is also recognised for legal purposes by the State of Israel, where he retains his Jewish identity, and is still allowed the Right of Return, and any other rights that Israel extends to Jews.

Its all rather complicated, and gets into the VERY complicated question of "who is a Jew?". And trying to answer that question thoroughly would keep us here for about the next six weeks. If you like, I can attempt to discuss that with you. Just say the word. But I daresay my wife will be coming home from work shortly, so I must buzz off for a bit. I'll be on a bit longer, and then be back later or tomorrow.