Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Why don't Palestinians just convert to Judaism? Most of their ancestors used to be Jews and it would gain them the right to return to Israel, where they could live much better lives. If the answer is that they are devout Muslims and Christians, then do we need to save them from their own irrationality by either somehow getting them to convert anyway or by forcing Israel to give in to their demands so that they don't suffer the consequences of their bad choices?
If this happened at a mass scale, would Israel not allow it? I suppose they would doubt their sincerity and make it more difficult to just convert so that you can move to Israel.
Is this just hard to coordinate on a mass scale? Invidual Palestinians may not want to convert and immigrate and leave their communities. But that still leaves open the question of how bad things must really be if they don't do it anyway. Israel may be an ethno-state, but I think it's the only country in the world that anyone can immigrate to if they're sufficiently motivated to convert to a belief system.
This is how Christians felt toward Jews for many centuries (forced conversion or expulsion) and it is widely considered to have been a Very Bad Thing. But also, this “irrational” belief is what enables them to exert their will to survive despite reduced quality of life. Can you imagine 21st century Americans behaving like the Palestinians if the Chinese decided to occupy their nation? I can’t. Their “irrational” faith along with its privilege of martyr status and expectation of post-life reward have actually resulted in a evolutionarily rational decision: fighting zero-sum against an arguably ethnic supremacist enemy. Religion has coincidentally allowed them to pursue their evolutionary motive with greater rationality.
If you asked me this question four years ago, I would’ve replied the exact opposite. In elementary school, we were still taught the version of the story of the American Revolution with Paul Revere’s Ride and No Taxation Without Representation and free men casting off the yoke of Albion. I thus always went through life assuming that Americans, even 21st-century ones, were freedom-loving enough to respond violently if necessary to any infringement upon our fundamental rights as outlined in the Constitution and its amendments. Oh boy, was 2020 a wake-up call. I like to believe that those fabled Americans still exist in states redder than mine, but I can’t say that I have the same faith anymore.
Anyway. Sorry for the unrelated blogpost; you just triggered a little thought.
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