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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 21, 2021 22:14:33 GMT
Best title I could think of. First post: an excellent book I read several years ago. My Jesus Year by Benyamin Cohen. I put it in my church library after I read it (what I frequently do with books I think are appropriate for such). www.myjesusyear.com/Don't want to spoil it. His wife is a convert to Judaism, which is not an easy thing to do. Primarily because rabbis generally tell people asking to do it to go away and don't come back. If they keep coming back, sometimes the rabbis will relent. His wife kept coming back. (She was single at the time.) Benyamin's family lived on the site of the synagogue where the father was a rabbi. If I remember correctly, the father started the synagogue in his personal residence. I think it was across the street from the church where the little girl that would one day marry Ben attended. The book is very well written and, IMO, funny without being irreverent. I have some good Will D. Campbell stuff I'll put here from time to time, too. |
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Post by Mercy for All on Nov 21, 2021 22:20:28 GMT
Best title I could think of. First post: an excellent book I read several years ago. My Jesus Year by Benyamin Cohen. I put it in my church library after I read it (what I frequently do with books I think are appropriate for such). www.myjesusyear.com/Don't want to spoil it. His wife is a convert to Judaism, which is not an easy thing to do. Primarily because rabbis generally tell people asking to do it to go away and don't come back. If they keep coming back, sometimes the rabbis will relent. His wife kept coming back. (She was single at the time.) Benyamin's family lived on the site of the synagogue where the father was a rabbi. If I remember correctly, the father started the synagogue in his personal residence. I think it was across the street from the church where the little girl that would one day marry Ben attended. The book is very well written and, IMO, funny without being irreverent. I have some good Will D. Campbell stuff I'll put here from time to time, too. Reminds me of "The Year of Living Biblically." Entertaining read. www.amazon.ca/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible/dp/0743291484/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=year+of+living+biblically&qid=1637533200&sr=8-1 |
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 21, 2021 22:29:54 GMT
Best title I could think of. First post: an excellent book I read several years ago. My Jesus Year by Benyamin Cohen. I put it in my church library after I read it (what I frequently do with books I think are appropriate for such). www.myjesusyear.com/Don't want to spoil it. His wife is a convert to Judaism, which is not an easy thing to do. Primarily because rabbis generally tell people asking to do it to go away and don't come back. If they keep coming back, sometimes the rabbis will relent. His wife kept coming back. (She was single at the time.) Benyamin's family lived on the site of the synagogue where the father was a rabbi. If I remember correctly, the father started the synagogue in his personal residence. I think it was across the street from the church where the little girl that would one day marry Ben attended. The book is very well written and, IMO, funny without being irreverent. I have some good Will D. Campbell stuff I'll put here from time to time, too. Reminds me of "The Year of Living Biblically." Entertaining read. www.amazon.ca/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible/dp/0743291484/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=year+of+living+biblically&qid=1637533200&sr=8-1on the way from abebooks.com. a dime over 4 bucks including tax and shipping for a very good used copy. in books, very good is almost like new. author sounds like a good one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Jacobsexcerpt from the wiki: In 2005 Jacobs out-sourced his life to India such that personal assistants would do everything for him from answering his e-mails, reading his children good-night stories, and arguing with his wife. Jacobs wrote about it in an Esquire article called "My Outsourced Life" (2005) edited again to add: found the Esquire article. Had to sign up to some free site which will entitle them to send me unsolicited e-mails that I will mark as "spam" but figured it'd be worth it. It was. The article kills. |
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 21, 2021 23:01:21 GMT
One thing this thread has made me remember is this term "secular Jew." There is no corrollary to that term in the Southern Baptist Convention. It takes work to be a Jew, even a secular Jew (I think), but all it takes to be a Southern Baptist is trotting the aisle at the close of any service. Secular Baptist? Just doesn't work.
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Post by Mercy for All on Nov 22, 2021 2:47:48 GMT
One thing this thread has made me remember is this term "secular Jew." There is no corrollary to that term in the Southern Baptist Convention. It takes work to be a Jew, even a secular Jew (I think), but all it takes to be a Southern Baptist is trotting the aisle at the close of any service. Secular Baptist? Just doesn't work. "Non-practicing Christian" is (to me) like "non-practicing vegetarian." |
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Post by Running Deer on Nov 22, 2021 3:40:44 GMT
The "Who is a Jew?" question is really complicated. Jews are a people, not just a religion. A person does not stop being a Jew because they stop going to synagogue. They don't stop being Jews if they don't believe in God! It's really not like being a Methodist.
The main reason is that Judaism is not a universalist religion. In Judaism, God made a special deal with a specific nation, a deal he did not make with anyone else. God deals with Gentiles in other ways, and no one needs to convert to Judaism to be righteous before God. That's why Jews turn away converts: you don't have to do this! Go worship God and live justly; you'll be fine.
Christianity is different. Jesus claims to be the way, truth, and life. The earliest-surviving Christian creed, no more than 30 years after Jesus's death, declared that all things should bow before Jesus and confess him as Lord. Most Christians throughout history prayed for the entire world to convert, and hundreds of millions of Christians still do, including most of them on this board. Christianity specifically rejected making itself a people, or an adjunct of the Jewish people, and threw open the doors to the whole world.
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 22, 2021 3:48:15 GMT
you might be interested in this article: www.banknoteden.com/TMFOM/Russia.htmlabout this piece of paper money and others like it: click on the pic and you'll get a larger version Attachments:
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 22, 2021 3:59:18 GMT
But in one way, it is kind of like being a Methodist in that a non-Jew can become one, and when one has done that, one is no different than one who was born a Jew. Except in ultra-orthodox groups, maybe.
And it seems to me that all of the things Jews are commanded to do relate to worship of the God of Abraham, the Creator of all things. It would seem silly to do that for an entity one does not believe exists, not that people don't do silly things all the time. I guess if one enjoys the fellowship that goes along with it it would not seem silly, though, because I know of a few who claim to be Christian that I seriously doubt would recognize Jesus if He walked up to them and hit them upside the head with a rubber mallet.
But they DO all claim to believe in Jesus. They just give very little evidence of it.
For one to embrace the history and customs and rites of Judaism while denying a belief in the One who made them what they are seems kinda counterintuitive.
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Post by Mercy for All on Nov 22, 2021 14:04:09 GMT
The "Who is a Jew?" question is really complicated. Jews are a people, not just a religion. A person does not stop being a Jew because they stop going to synagogue. They don't stop being Jews if they don't believe in God! It's really not like being a Methodist. The main reason is that Judaism is not a universalist religion. In Judaism, God made a special deal with a specific nation, a deal he did not make with anyone else. God deals with Gentiles in other ways, and no one needs to convert to Judaism to be righteous before God. That's why Jews turn away converts: you don't have to do this! Go worship God and live justly; you'll be fine. Christianity is different. Jesus claims to be the way, truth, and life. The earliest-surviving Christian creed, no more than 30 years after Jesus's death, declared that all things should bow before Jesus and confess him as Lord. Most Christians throughout history prayed for the entire world to convert, and hundreds of millions of Christians still do, including most of them on this board. Christianity specifically rejected making itself a people, or an adjunct of the Jewish people, and threw open the doors to the whole world. Yes...it could almost be a culture<->religion spectrum. A friend of mine became a Christian and his Sikh family was aghast that he was rejecting his culture, because the two were entwined—he would claim that he did not abandon his culture. "Judaism" can refer to ethnicity, religion, or both. Moishe3rd, our ultra-orthodox Jew who posted regularly for a while on our previous iteration was not ethnically Jewish. So you can "become a Jew," but not ethnically. Islam is not an ethnicity but it does ten to have a mono-cultural expression (e.g., the Qur'an cannot be accurately interpreted in any language other than Arabic, and in the country with the highest population of Muslims, Indonesia in the South Pacific, Muslims tend to dress like middle easterners). Christianity is (or should be) "transcultural." Any intent to force a single particular cultural expression (e.g., like our European/North American styles of worship, or the Latin liturgy) is simply wrong (despite some of the well-intentioned but misguided missions efforts of the past). |
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Post by Mercy for All on Nov 22, 2021 14:11:31 GMT
But in one way, it is kind of like being a Methodist in that a non-Jew can become one, and when one has done that, one is no different than one who was born a Jew. Except in ultra-orthodox groups, maybe. And it seems to me that all of the things Jews are commanded to do relate to worship of the God of Abraham, the Creator of all things. It would seem silly to do that for an entity one does not believe exists, not that people don't do silly things all the time. I guess if one enjoys the fellowship that goes along with it it would not seem silly, though, because I know of a few who claim to be Christian that I seriously doubt would recognize Jesus if He walked up to them and hit them upside the head with a rubber mallet. But they DO all claim to believe in Jesus. They just give very little evidence of it. For one to embrace the history and customs and rites of Judaism while denying a belief in the One who made them what they are seems kinda counterintuitive. Whatever evidence is given demonstrates what kind of Jesus they believe in or what kind of belief they have in Jesus. I believe sometimes there is a legitimate belief there that is crowded out by cultural concerns. |
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Post by Running Deer on Nov 22, 2021 23:36:42 GMT
But in one way, it is kind of like being a Methodist in that a non-Jew can become one, and when one has done that, one is no different than one who was born a Jew. Except in ultra-orthodox groups, maybe. That's right. Jewishness is not solely an ethnicity. You can also stop being a Jew if you convert to another religion. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2021 20:28:36 GMT
Best title I could think of. First post: an excellent book I read several years ago. My Jesus Year by Benyamin Cohen. I put it in my church library after I read it (what I frequently do with books I think are appropriate for such). www.myjesusyear.com/Don't want to spoil it. His wife is a convert to Judaism, which is not an easy thing to do. Primarily because rabbis generally tell people asking to do it to go away and don't come back. If they keep coming back, sometimes the rabbis will relent. His wife kept coming back. (She was single at the time.) Benyamin's family lived on the site of the synagogue where the father was a rabbi. If I remember correctly, the father started the synagogue in his personal residence. I think it was across the street from the church where the little girl that would one day marry Ben attended. The book is very well written and, IMO, funny without being irreverent. I have some good Will D. Campbell stuff I'll put here from time to time, too. For one thing there are several types of judaism, some are easier to convert to than others, but being an imbecile you wouldn't know that, would you? |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2021 20:34:13 GMT
One thing this thread has made me remember is this term "secular Jew." There is no corrollary to that term in the Southern Baptist Convention. It takes work to be a Jew, even a secular Jew (I think), but all it takes to be a Southern Baptist is trotting the aisle at the close of any service. Secular Baptist? Just doesn't work. "Non-practicing Christian" is (to me) like "non-practicing vegetarian." What if you practice solo? |
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 24, 2021 1:42:34 GMT
I think Woody Allen must be an atheist Jew. This saying is attributed to him, anyway: "Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on the weekend."
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Post by Mercy for All on Nov 24, 2021 2:42:51 GMT
I think Woody Allen must be an atheist Jew. This saying is attributed to him, anyway: "Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on the weekend." Woody Allen was supposed to have said, "I'll believe God exists when he opens a Swiss bank account in my name with a million dollars in it." The reality is, if that actually happened, Allen would look for another cause. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2021 6:05:53 GMT
I think Woody Allen must be an atheist Jew. This saying is attributed to him, anyway: "Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on the weekend." ...The reality is, if that actually happened, Allen would look for another cause. You have an interesting take on "reality"... |
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 24, 2021 15:36:22 GMT
...The reality is, if that actually happened, Allen would look for another cause. You have an interesting take on "reality"... he sure does. a very realistic one, too. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2021 16:58:29 GMT
You have an interesting take on "reality"... he sure does. a very realistic one, too. You're fucked in the head, aren't you? |
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Post by elmerfudd on Nov 25, 2021 1:26:19 GMT
from the "stuff I ran up on while looking for something else" department. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddhacopy and paste from the wiki: The Oakland Buddha is a statue of a Buddha placed in a traffic median in Oakland, California in 2009. The statue was placed by neighborhood resident Dan Stevenson who was upset about the frequent use of the median for illegal dumping. Stevenson attached the statue to the median using epoxy and rebar to deter theft of the figure. The city's Public Works Department initially stated that it would remove the statue after receiving a complaint about it, but backed off its plans to do so after receiving substantial opposition. After its installation, local Vietnamese residents made the statue into a Buddhist shrine for daily worship services. Following the installation of the statue and its conversion into a shrine, Oakland police stated that criminal activity in the area, including dumping, graffiti, drug dealing, and prostitution, had dropped by 82% as of 2014. The Oakland Police Department stated that since the statue was made into a shrine and daily worship began in 2012, crime had fallen in the neighborhood by 82% by 2014, though Oakland PD noted that they could not definitively state that the shrine is the cause. Stevenson stated that he receives visits both from worshippers at the shrine, who sometimes offer him gifts, and by tourists curious about it. |
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Post by Mercy for All on Nov 25, 2021 1:39:19 GMT
from the "stuff I ran up on while looking for something else" department. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddhacopy and paste from the wiki: The Oakland Buddha is a statue of a Buddha placed in a traffic median in Oakland, California in 2009. The statue was placed by neighborhood resident Dan Stevenson who was upset about the frequent use of the median for illegal dumping. Stevenson attached the statue to the median using epoxy and rebar to deter theft of the figure. The city's Public Works Department initially stated that it would remove the statue after receiving a complaint about it, but backed off its plans to do so after receiving substantial opposition. After its installation, local Vietnamese residents made the statue into a Buddhist shrine for daily worship services. Following the installation of the statue and its conversion into a shrine, Oakland police stated that criminal activity in the area, including dumping, graffiti, drug dealing, and prostitution, had dropped by 82% as of 2014. The Oakland Police Department stated that since the statue was made into a shrine and daily worship began in 2012, crime had fallen in the neighborhood by 82% by 2014, though Oakland PD noted that they could not definitively state that the shrine is the cause. Stevenson stated that he receives visits both from worshippers at the shrine, who sometimes offer him gifts, and by tourists curious about it. Certainly there would be more general presence around it which would deter would-be criminals. |
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