re: #209 buzzsawmonkey

I don’t know what kind of “routine anti-Christian crap” you are referring to.

If you are referring to things which express that they do not believe in Christianity—well, surprise surprise. Since Jews don’t believe the way Christians do, there will inevitably be “anti-Christian” sentiments expressed if/when the two religions are compared. That is no more remarkable than a Christian expressing a desire for Jews to accept Jesus; while “anti-Jewish,” this is not intended as an expression of hatred.

If you are referring to blanket statements that non-Jews in general, and/or Christians in particular, are antisemitic, this is an unfortunate and overbroad blanket statement—but the history of the Jewish people and of Christian/Jewish interaction does certainly contain plenty of evidence for it. American Christians, as a group, tend to be far more philo-semitic than Christians in historical Christendom, i.e., Europe; there are any number of historical reasons for this which are too lengthy to go into now. But certainly there is a long history of religiously-driven antisemitism in Europe, the memory of which is still reasonably lively even a couple of generations removed from the European experience. There are, of course, also examples of Christian antisemitism in the US, but this is far less deep, and has always been far less virulent, than its European counterpart.

If you are referring to blanked condemnations of “conservative Christians,” you are dealing not so much with a Jewish phenomenon, but with a liberal bigotry against religion in general which, though it is grafted onto the residual memory of Christian antisemitism, owes far more to liberal biases than to anything identifiable with Jews or Judaism.

The routine anti-Christian crap I’ve experienced in my family (and within other Jewish families) I refer to has nothing to do w/Jewish theology vs Christian theology per se; nor does it have to do w/distorted Liberalism per se - it has to do w/mundane ignorance and bigotry stemming from the usual culprits: false pride and ignorance.

What!? Jewish people are capable of bigotry? Why yes, buzzsaw, they are. And that sentiment is reflected in many of the posts on this site (made of course, not only by Jews, but by people from all sorts of persuasions, including uninformed Catholics). Opinions which rely on ignorance concerning the motivations of the Pope, acting on behalf of the Catholic Church.

The Pope has revoked the excommunication of a man who was never a Catholic Bishop, was not excommunicated for his anti-Semitic slurs (he would have been, had he been making them in his capacity as Catholic priest) but was excommunicated for his anti-Catholic beliefs (which led to a Church schism) and is being allowed back into the Church as a priest w/out an office of priesthood. I repeat: I believe the Pope did this in order to neutralize the anti-Semitic power that this false Christian denomination was accruing and I think his plan will be effective.

There are Jews (as I write) sitting in Temple services who commit, for instance, incest with their children. My hateful relatives go to services w/impunity on the High Holy Days, along with a bunch of other imperfect human beings. Pragmatically, I’d prefer they sit w/the Lord and at least be exposed to a chance they will repent and mend their ways then to be thrown out on their asses which would effectively reduce their chances of dealing w/reality in, shall we say, more beneficial ways.