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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: February 11, 2015, 12:56:05 PM »

MATHSMAN, what does any one person contribute? What have you offered the world lately?

 Re: Jerusalem Syndrome, it is a noted psychiatric illness that has affected people. There is a hospital in Jerusalem dedicated strictly to its treatment, that accepts no other patients.

Re: the question of Jewish sensitivity toward anti-Semitism, that is sometimes true. Then again, if you had been beaten around for 2,000 years, you probably would be a bit sensitive also. And who cares what Muslims think about anything?

I'm not bright enough to offer the world anything of significance; but I am wise enough to know that just because I am a member of a class, a group, a race, a nation, a religion or any collection of human beings, I should not regard the collection's achievements as something I can boast about. Empty boasts are the products of nasty little supremacists.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: February 11, 2015, 09:46:50 AM »

Cartago delenda est. Of course, if you hate Jews so much, we'll gladly take back our contributions to Western Civilisation, and leave you all a bunch of Greek god worshiping boy loving pedophiles. Since that was basically standard in Greece, and became the standard in Rome, we'll gladly leave you all. Without our contributions, you would all still be humping your boys, and considering it the norm, and considering women to be "misbegotten males", as Aristotle put it.

And of course, since you love your Muslims so much, we'll gladly take back the Salk vaccine, and the other benefits Jews and Israel have conferred on the West. Oh, Mr. Hawking, we'll take back that talk machine you use, since you hate Israel so much, and it was invented there. That will shut you up, and we won't have to listen to your stupidity.

You can have Muslims, and the blessings they have conferred on the West, which, other than for about two centuries in the Middle Ages, have  amounted to better ways to blow people up. Oh, and we'll make sure that the Ottoman Empire's order NOT to allow the printing press in 1455 when it arrived there, well, we'll make sure that is guaranteed to be obeyed throughout the West. The printing press wasn't allowed until the 19th Century, which is why so many Muslims are illiterate and stupid even today. We'll just spread that around, since you are so fond of the "Religion of Peace".

And since 20% of all Nobel Prizes have been won by 2% of the population (namely, Jews), we'll just take all the advances that have been given to the world by Jews and go home, and keep them to ourselves. We'll let you have the savagery of Islam.  Let's see, about 1 billion Muslims have won exactly 2 Nobel Prizes. One in Literature in the late '60's, and one in Peace this last year. Such a stellar record! Christians have got the rest.

Of course, I am sure that if you added a few categories, like "How to Make a Better IED", or "How to Raise a Suicide Bomber", or "How to Train Terrorists in Hamas Training Camps for Children", why, the Muslims would probably become leaders of the pack in earning Nobel Prizes!

And of course, the reason Christians are what they are is because of us. the first 2/3 of the Christian Bible is the so-called "Old Testament", ie, the Jewish Bible. If it were not for us, Christianity would not exist. So, that is another thing we can take credit for. Their accomplishments are basically ours.

Hell, even Islam ultimately derives itself from Abraham of the Torah. So any good that comes out of Islam is a result of us. Any bad is a result of them perverting it.

But we are more than happy to take our contributions to civilisation and go. You are welcome to become a bunch of boy-ass humping pedophilic decadent pigs. Enjoy watching your civilisation collapse within a hundred years without us.

CARTAGO DELENDA EST.

Yaakov, may I ask what you have contributed to western civilisation? It seems like you're taking credit for the achievements of others.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: February 10, 2015, 02:20:40 PM »

Then, you, my friend, will one day see yourself forced into Sharia. Enjoy. Either that or the rest of us will have to save your sorry butt. Don't worry. We will do your job for you, since you are too incompetent to do it yourself. We will incinerate the filthy animals ourselves.

How will you do that, Yaakov?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 06, 2014, 01:53:48 PM »

Explain how the universe is NOT like a watch. As a former bookie, I can tell you myself, in spite of what people stupidly say in this forum, the odds of the Earth alone (forget about the rest of the universe) being built with just the right amount of chemicals and what-not to support life is so-far from likely that its stupid. I mean, you couldn't get a bookie to offer odds on that.

According to an article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences there are 8.8 billion earth-sized planets in the 'Goldilocks' zone around planets in our galaxy alone. What are the odds that ours is the only one with life?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 06, 2014, 09:43:56 AM »

I can imagine a perfect universe.  One which there is no greater universe.  Therefore it is an eternal, uncreated universe.

Or it could mean you are a god.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Anselm's Ontological Ham Sandwiches

« on: November 05, 2014, 03:26:51 PM »

Only then I could conceive of a being greater than either of those. You see, you ultimately get to one, greatest.

Wouldn't this being be constrained by the limits of human imagination? An omniscient, omnipotent being limited by a puny human? To quote Disney's Aladdin: Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 04, 2014, 02:41:19 PM »

and how can I get that damn boogie man to stop bothering my son?

First, check the wardrobe.
Second, check under the bed.
Third, set a trap with milk and biscuits.
Fourth, whilst he is gorging on the milk and biscuits, beat the whatsit out of him with a baseball or cricket bat depending on your sporting disposition.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 04, 2014, 01:57:20 PM »

Yes, actually. The average American, at least, reads at no higher than the Eighth Grade level. The average newspaper here is written at that level, with the New York Times doing a bit better at the 12th Grade level. Having been a Professor before, I know this shit.

And if you look at the language called Basic English, they manage to reduce the vocabulary to 800 words.

Professor David Crystal, author of amongst others, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, has this to say about estimating the average size of a person's vocabulary.

An easier question to answer, he maintains, is the size of the average person's vocabulary.

He suggests taking a sample of about 20 or 30 pages from a medium-sized dictionary, one which contains about 100,000 entries or 1,000 to 1,500 pages.

Tick off the ones you know and count them. Then multiply that by the number of pages and you will discover how many words you know. Most people vastly underestimate their total.
 
"Most people know half the words - about 50,000 - easily. A reasonably educated person about 75,000 and a really cool, smart person well, maybe all of them but that is rather unusual.

"An ordinary person, one who has not been to university say, would know about 35,000 quite easily."

Professor Crystal knows his shit as well and his shit seems to be different from yours. The question is who should I believe?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 04, 2014, 01:20:56 PM »

I should have said, half of the words we use in common speech. As for the word "meme' now appearing in dictionaries, so does the word "ain't". And remember, ours is a society that bows to political pressure faster than just about any other. God forbid we piss off the atheist.

Ain't should appear in dictionaries: it is a proper English word. It has a spelling and a definition.
I don't understand the pertinence of your comment about society to the inclusion or exclusion of words in dictionaries; I always thought it was down to the use and occurrences of the words. This link seems to back up my assertion:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-do-you-decide-whether-a-new-word-should-be-included-in-an-oxford-dictionary

Shakespeare invented approximately 1700 words. Given that some of them may now have fallen by the wayside, are you saying that common speech has a lexicon of just 3400 words?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 04, 2014, 01:00:24 PM »

I am well aware that Shakespeare invented about half (yes, half) the language we speak. But for Dawkins to do it, particularly to define something which he has no proof exists, makes him look as stupid as he perceives religious people to be, since they supposedly commit that same error, according to him. Have you read what he means by the word "meme"?

"An element of a culture or system of behaviour that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.

<origin> 1970s: from Greek mimema 'that which is imitated', on the pattern of gene."

Source: New Oxford American Dictionary

At least with Shakespeare, he wasn't coming up with ideas that didn't actually exist.

So, what's the God meme that Dawkins talks about in the "God Delusion"? How do people imitate it? Or how does it get imitated? How does it reproduce itself?  See? You can't even use the word intelligently in English, and yet, some sorry dumb bastard has actually accepted it into the language. Well, I guess that is what happens when you have a language that isn't governed by an Academy, unlike most languages, which are.

Simple arithmetic suggests Shakespeare did not invent half of the words we have today: I'll use the 171,476 words defined in the Oxford English Dictionary and compare that figure with the 31,534 different words Shakespeare used. Could it be you've heard that Shakespeare invented half the words we use today and have passed on that idea to others? An example of a meme perhaps?

The very fact that meme is defined in reputable dictionaries suggests that it is now part of the language. Words aren't placed in dictionaries by sorry dumb bastards but by lexicographers whose expertise in language certainly exceeds mine so I will bow to their superior knowledge.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: November 04, 2014, 09:01:27 AM »

The man invented a word and even a definition for it! If that isn't arrogance, what is? I mean, seriously, how does some asshole actually try to come up with a new word in the language to justify his perverted philosophy? And every atheist in this room has proven to me that they do indeed consider themselves the greatest thing since peanut butter and sliced fucking bread. I have never seen more stuck up, pompous, arrogant people in my life.

Lewis Carroll invented the word 'chortle'. Is he an arsehole? The 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary has entries for 171,476 words; did these words spring in to existence in one natural explosion of language or were they coined, one after the other, by succeeding generations of writers, readers and speakers?

To label Dawkins an arsehole is one person's opinion; to present as evidence for his arseholeness ( I may have just invented this word) the fact that he invented a word is just silly. For one who prides himself on the quality of his thinking you've scored an own goal.

Just look at this:

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html

Shakespeare, the ultimate arsehole.

Edited for link after Beardo's excellent post.