Reply #15: Not so much "chosen" as "drafted" or perhaps "helped into a covenant..." [View All]

[Ian David]

A true salesman doesn't "sell" you something. They "help you acquire" or "assist you in finding."

Gawd helped the Jews "acquire a covenant" with he/she/it.

It's interesting that Gawd had a consort. I'd never heard that before.

Personally, I think once someone conceived of the idea of an all-powerful jealous, vengeful Deity that wants to be obeyed, all religions went down-hill.

Once there was a priesthood-class that could say, "There is a reward for you in the next world, but you can not have it unless..." that was the day human civilization began to die.

Yes, society has actually progressed since then. Not because of it, but despite it. The same way a child with terminal cancer may still grow-up and graduate from college, a society hijacked by the jealous-gawd-meme is still pathological and terminal.

Still, I admire those infected by the gawd-meme who try to inoculate others against its more lethal components. I think that many of the words of Jesus (many of those words attributed to him certainly came from other Jewish thinkers of his era) were just such an attempt-- love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek-- to try and repair some of the damage that revealed-religion was doing to the world.

It is interesting to note that mainstream Jews and especially secular Jews (I myself am a Jewish Humanist) are as a demographic about the most progressive and liberal of any.

Somewhere I read that something like 85% of American Jews are in favor of gay marriage, for example.

As someone who has been out in the trenches talking to the public on the issue of gay marriage, it is always extremely painful (and still surprising) that there are deeply religious Jews who can look at The Holocaust and not see the same lessons that I do. I have had one Lubavitcher tell me that gay people should be put to death like it says in "The" bible. Those are the ones who would cheer the trains as they haul gays off to the camps, and then be surprised and angry when someone taps on their shoulders and says, "You're papers, please?"

For the most part though, you'd be hard-pressed to find mainstream Jews opposed to civil rights in the greater secular society outside their own communities.

But there are slow-learners, small-minds, and bigots in every community.