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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Saint Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was a Jewish Pharisee. And of course Jesus was a Jewish teacher. So according to the Church's own history, the messiah and apostle to the gentiles were indeed "Elders of Zion": a Pharisee and the King of the Jews. They did convince the gentiles to accept the proposition that the only real god is the Jewish tribal god Yahweh, and that all who reject him suffer eternal torture, and that he chose Jews as his Chosen People and made his son born of the Jews.

Paul claims to be a Pharisee, I tend to doubt it because what he actually wrote is wildly different from what the Tanak actually says. There’s really no precedent in the Hebrew Bible for a dying rising god, human sacrifice for sins, or ritual cannibalism. He also gets very basic things wrong. The Passover lamb has nothing to do with a sin offering.

The other thing odd about Paul’s claims is that he’s claiming to have been taught by one of the most famous Rabbis of the era, Gamaliel. This is a really wild claim to make. It would be like some random guy claiming to have learned physics at the feet of Einstein, yet not understand very basic first year physics. The two don’t fit together.

It would be like some random guy claiming to have learned physics at the feet of Einstein

If he was actually a Pharisee then he would have been taught in Jerusalem by the Rabbi there. It's like accusing someone who went to grad school in the University of Chicago in the 80's for economics of pretending they were taught by Milton Friedman or Robert Lucas. Of course they were taught by them, how could they not be?

He specifically claimed to have been taught by Gamaliel. It wasn’t just attending a university.

(https://biblehub.com/acts/22-3.htm) “ I, indeed, am a man, a Jew, having been born in Tarsus of Cilicia, and brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, having been taught according to the exactness of a law of the fathers, being zealous of God, as all you are today.”

That’s not really attending the same school. That’s having someone as your teacher.

In my example it was also having that famous person as your teacher. Your advisor even. I don't see what's absurd about a Pharisee having another Pharisee as a teacher. Some people must have been taught by Gamaliel. Why not Paul?

He gets very basic Jewish theology wrong. There’s absolutely nothing in the Jewish Bible that suggests a human sacrifice for sins. The lambs killed during Passover were not sin offerings. These are pretty basic things to get wrong.

There’s absolutely nothing in the Jewish Bible that suggests a human sacrifice for sins.

And? He was raised a Pharisees, then has his literal 'Road to Damascus' incident and adopts the Christian belief in Jesus' sacrifice for our sins.

The lambs killed during Passover were not sin offerings.

No, but Jesus' death was in Christian belief. The lamb is just a parallel to Christs' sacrifice. The claim he is like the sacrificial lamb can easily be explained as a parallel coming from them both being sacrifices, not that the lamb was a way to remove sin from people (if it was why would Jesus' sacrifice be needed when we could already sacrifice a lamb?).

Jesus is the sacrifice that creates a new covenant. This parallels the creation of the old covenant in Egypt where lambs were sacrificed. Paul is very explicit that the new covenant parallels the old one that began in Egypt.

I think both religions are jokes, but you are misrepresenting Paul here.

"Christianity is a Jew religion" is not a new take, I know it's very popular with the neo-Nazi movement, and you're still ignoring the 2000 years of history since. Note that I am neither Christian nor Jewish; I'm just pointing out that you're crafting a narrative to fit your ideology about Da Joos and their sneaky cultural infiltration that ignores a lot of history and what is actually believed by Christians and Jews today.

It's your own ideology that is motivating you to downplay the implications of Gentiles accepting the Torah as divine Truth. You maybe watch something like this on the Glenn Beck show and think "how quaint, that's religion for you!" but your ideology is the one that blinds you to the bigger picture. You accuse me of pathological obsession with Jews but then refuse to acknowledge the actual worship of Jews and Israel by Christians for what it is.

I agree with you that Christianity is obviously in some ways a distinctly Jewish religion (so is Islam), but how much does this really matter for your antisemitism? After all, devout Christians and Muslims have massacred and pogromed and expelled Jews for thousands of years, it's clear that Christianity does not actually 'inoculate' Europeans against antisemitism, and in fact in many cases only enhanced antisemitism by adding the additional charge of killing God to the list of charges put to the Jews.

Jews would be in a much better place if Christianity genuinely led to philosemitism, but it did not and has not in any Christian society. If anything, Christian philosemitism was itself largely a consequence of enlightenment secularism and humanism, Catholic police toward Jews didn't change thoroughly until Vatican II, ie. more than a century after most European countries, including (almost all of) Germany, emancipated the Jews.

After all, devout Christians and Muslims have massacred and pogromed and expelled Jews for thousands of years, it's clear that Christianity does not actually 'inoculate' Europeans against antisemitism

I don't think this is clear at all. Christians allowed Jews to live among them for millennia (a very unusual arrangement, and it's not at all clear Jews would have allowed the same if the situation were reversed), Jews love to complain about their treatment, but a more fair perspective would acknowledge that there's been a peculiar symbiosis from the beginning the seems inexorably linked with Christianity.

Jews would be in a much better place if Christianity genuinely led to philosemitism

Wouldn't you agree that society today is genuinely philosemitic? If so, then Christianity has led here.

But it doesn't matter for "my antisemitism" as much as it matters for the Christian's antisemitism. Christian antisemitism is completely incoherent. You hate Jews but you acknowledge the Jewish covenant and that they are a race of god-creators? There is a deep contradiction there, Christians can never properly understand their position relative to Jews while believing in that religion. This does manifest as philosemitism and as other phenomenon like, "Jews having a favorable of -40 for Evangelical Christians while Evangelical Christians are +39 towards Jews", those Christians are the living embodiment of the "greatest ally" meme, and it's absolutely tied to their religion.

Christianity is a fake opposition to Judaism, it's a controlled opposition even - remember what Jesus said, don't resist evil people and pray for people who persecute you... As much of a veneer of antisemitism as it can present, it cannot escape that fact it worships a Jew as a god and acknowledges the Jews as the earthly representatives of the one true god of the universe. I do think internalizing that mythos has played a significant role in Jewish/Gentile relations.

It's your own ideology that is motivating you to downplay the implications of Gentiles accepting the Torah as divine Truth.

Really? What is my ideology (besides "Nah, I don't think Jews are lizard people")?

Nothing you are saying is unfamiliar or new, I am well-versed in the neo-Nazi "Christians are just simping for Da Joos" rhetoric. Christians aren't actually a monolithic group any more than Jews are.

Really? What is my ideology (besides "Nah, I don't think Jews are lizard people")?

Take your pick, if there's one thing that every mainstream ideology has in common, from Marxism to libertarianism and everything in between, it's that you do not and cannot engage in anthropological analysis that puts Jews under the microscope. To do so makes you mentally deranged at best and evil at worst. That's no coincidence either.

So, for example, if you engage in a sober-headed analysis relating the Jewish origins of Christianity to modern-day relations, in any other terms than endorsement of a "Judeo-Christian" commonality or denunciation of Christian anti-Semitism, then you are going to be hated by absolutely every ideology that is anywhere near the mainstream. The only two groups of people who do that are radical Rightists or radical Jews, although the former engage in that sort of analysis as a criticism and the latter through a triumphalist lens.

It is said that the Aztecs believed the conquistadors were representatives of Quetzalcoatl, which is a claim that often promotes pushback especially today:

It is wise, in general, to be sceptical about stories that represent non-European peoples, in conflicts with Westerners, as superstitious or cowed by the white man’s apparent superiority. Such stories are often attempts to justify conquests and empires by making subject-peoples look feeble-minded or self-condemned to subordination by their own convictions of inferiority.

Those are pretty strong terms, but nobody will bat an eye when a Jew goes on Glenn Beck's show and says "God says [the Jews] are my witnesses on Earth, the promise, you're my witnesses on Earth. Well destroy the witnesses then you don't have God" and nobody bats an eye because his audience believes that.

I find it believable that the Aztecs believed the Spaniards to be envoys of Quetzalcoatl. We know for a fact that billions of Gentiles affirm the Jewish covenant, that Jews are/were the singularly chosen envoys of the one true God, and that can't be chalked up to White Supremacy... It's not only the Far Right that recognizes this, but it is only the far Right that recognizes this fact and provides a measure of criticism for its implications.

This is all to say, you don't have to be ideologically motivated to relate Christianity to the conversion of billions of gentiles to worship the God of Israel, you have to be ideologically motivated to claim there's no "there" there.

Marxism

Are you serious? Marx wrote On the Jewish Question, which is definitely an anthropological analysis that puts Jews under the microscope. And plenty of modern far left organizations seem more concerned with bashing Israel then they do anything else. The BDS movement is far leftist not far rightist.

That's definitely true, I will clarify that I meant the post-WWII Overton Window of ideology. It all agrees with what I have described. Obviously pre-WWII (and even early post-WWII thinkers who were eventually purged) did not follow this rule that everyone in good standing follows today.

Take your pick, if there's one thing that every mainstream ideology has in common, from Marxism to libertarianism and everything in between, it's that you do not and cannot engage in anthropological analysis that puts Jews under the microscope

Sure I can. The problem is, I've read all your theories about why Jews are "special" and should be treated as uniquely inimical. I can do anthropological analysis as well as you can. I find your analyses unconvincing. It's not because I have some mental block put there by Da Joos. It's because I think you're wrong and illogical, and your entire ideology is JewishChinese robbers all the way down.

Those are pretty strong terms, but nobody will bat an eye when a Jew goes on Glenn Beck's show and says "God says [the Jews] are my witnesses on Earth, the promise, you're my witnesses on Earth. Well destroy the witnesses then you don't have God" and nobody bats an eye because his audience believes that.

Why should anyone bat an eye, any more than they bat an eye at "Without Jesus, there is no hope"? Sure, I listen to that speech and roll my eyes. "Religion, how quaint," as you put it. And it's no different than any other zealot spouting off about his religious beliefs.

you have to be ideologically motivated to claim there's no "there" there

No, that's not how it works. You are the one claiming there is a "there" (hostile Jews waging tribal warfare against everyone else since the beginning of time) there. That's your ideology. You're just engaging in your own form of religious weakmanning, like the Christian who claims obviously we all know God is real and Jesus is Lord, and anyone who claims otherwise is just lying to himself and letting Satan whisper lies in his ear. You need to prove your case, not insist it's just obviously obvious and it's only Jew-ideologies keeping us from seeing it.

You need to prove your case

I have proven my case by showing that Christians worship the Jewish god of Israel and believe in the Jewish covenant - that God chose them among all the nations, and those Christians were converted by a Jewish messiah and a Jewish apostle, and believe in the Jewish bible and accept the Hebrew histories as divine truth... That is all insurmountable evidence that Christianity is indeed a Jewish religion, a fact which you denied, and you have presented no evidence for your claim that it is something other than a Jewish religion fundamentally, which worships a Jew as an actual god in a religious form that was established by a Jew who was an apostle to the Gentiles. You have just taken the "point and sputter" approach by talking about Elders of Zion and ZOG without presenting evidence that Christianity is not a Jewish religion.

And it's no different than any other zealot spouting off about his religious beliefs.

It is fundamentally different, the content of these beliefs actually matters, it's not just all the same. It actually impacts the way we view the world and engage with others around us. It impacts how we view ourselves and how we view and treat others.

I have proven my case by showing that Christians worship the Jewish god of Israel and believe in the Jewish covenant

No, you've pointed out that Christianity was originally a Jewish splinter sect (which is like pointing out that Rome once ruled Gaul - were you under the impression that this is secret knowledge?), and you are claiming that they "worship the God of Israel and believe in the Jewish covenant."

I don't know how familiar you actually are with Christianity - if you have ever been a Christian, or only studied it from a hostile white nationalist ZOG-hating perspective - but the question of whether Jews and Christians worship the same god, and whether the Jewish covenant was replaced by the new covenant represented by Jesus Christ is a whole thing with lots of exegesis around it. These are issues that seminarians debate and books are written about, and have been since basically the first century A.D. Suffice it to say that some Christians do take the position you describe, that "Judeo-Christianity" is a thing and the Jews are God's Chosen People, and some very much do not.

That is all insurmountable evidence that Christianity is indeed a Jewish religion, a fact which you denied

No. What I said is that Christianity was originally a Jewish splinter sect. Is it a "Jewish religion"? In the same sense that Islam is a "Judeo-Christian" religion (Islam claims that the Torah and the Bible are both valid holy books which are completed by the Quran). They obviously share history and many of the same holy books. But I am pretty sure what you mean by "Jewish religion" is something other than that - something more in keeping with your ongoing narrative about Jews sneakily subverting and manipulating everything they come in contact with. Do I deny that Christianity is a massive historical Jewish psy-op, in other words? Well, yes, I do find that unlikely.

which worships a Jew as an actual god in a religious form that was established by a Jew who was an apostle to the Gentiles. You have just taken the "point and sputter" approach by talking about Elders of Zion and ZOG without presenting evidence that Christianity is not a Jewish religion.

I may be pointing, but I am not sputtering. For all your indignation that I pull off your lampshade by talking about ZOG and the Elders of Zion and neo-Nazis, you never deny that this is where you are coming from, which is why I am so persistent in putting them on the table in plain sight. Your tactics could as fairly be described as "Look, squirrel!" when people drill in on your specific claims. Yes, Christians worship a Messiah who was a Jew. That is... not something that has ever been in dispute. The neo-Nazi interpretation of this is "Christians worship a Jew, like the Greeks worshipped Zeus!" You might try actually looking at how Christians see it, they have probably spent more time than you have thinking about this. Of course I don't really care about Christian theology per se, but you seem to think you are sharing some shocking truth about the Jewish Origins of Christianity, and I can't tell if you are being disingenuous or are just genuinely unaware that this is old (very, very old) news and ten different Christian denominations will have ten or twelve different things to say about "Are you a Jewish religion?"

It is fundamentally different, the content of these beliefs actually matters, it's not just all the same. It actually impacts the way we view the world and engage with others around us. It impacts how we view ourselves and how we view and treat others.

And again, this is no different from any other zealot spouting off about his religious beliefs. Yes, what Jews say, what Christians say, what Muslims say, what atheists say, actually impacts the way we view the world and engage with others around us.

And? Where is the big reveal about Jews and how they're different?

you are claiming that they "worship the God of Israel and believe in the Jewish covenant."

I am actually stunned, you think it's some controversy to say that they worship the God of Israel and affirm the claims of the covenant described in the Hebrew bible? From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, "the first to hear the Word of God." The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."

They absolutely do worship the same god, how is this even a controversy? They acknowledge the Torah as being true!

I have the most exposure to Catholic doctrine and Southern Evangelical culture, and the latter is more rabidly pro-Jew than Catholics, and Catholics according to doctrine absolutely believe they worship the same god.

Why can't you just bite the bullet and admit that this is true? That's what I don't understand. How is it even controversial to claim Christians worship the God of Israel? Their Holy text lays this out verbatim, they affirm the Hebrew bible as being true...

For all your indignation that I pull off your lampshade by talking about ZOG and the Elders of Zion and neo-Nazis, you never deny that this is where you are coming from

I don't deny it because it's just ad hominem and I don't like to let people try to derail the conversation by trying to manipulate denunciations from their interlocutors. I didn't talk about ZOG, or the Elders of Zion, or neo-Nazis, I talked about Jesus and Paul and the Old Testament. You started talking about those things to try to discredit me and derail the conversation, me ignoring your attempt to do this does not constitute a non-denial, it's called being ignored for bringing nothing to the conversation.

I talk about how Christians worship the Jewish god and then you go on about Neo-Nazis. You're the one who's ideologically motivated, I'm calling a spade a spade.

I can't tell if you are being disingenuous or are just genuinely unaware that this is old (very, very old) news and ten different Christian denominations will have ten or twelve different things to say about "Are you a Jewish religion?"

They are a Jewish religion, it doesn't matter whether it's old news or new news, it matters that this fact is true and important. It also doesn't matter if they have ten or twelve answers, the only coherent answer is "yes." They do worship a Jewish god, their own holy texts that they hold as being true lays this out verbatim. They worship the King of the Jews. Obviously it's controversial if people like you are keen to deny it flat in the face of all the evidence.

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Christian Zionism is popular in America, but it is not actually a tenent of Christianity. It is not supported by Catholicism, and it is not supportable from scripture. It's quite pernicious, I'll give you that.