We need some Jews here!

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FaithofAbraham said:
Maybe you could just address what I said. What is the evidence that Jews place more emphasis on right actions not right beliefs? Nobody does anything unless they first believe something about it. This is just another fable promoted to further distance Judaism from Christianity to try to make them appear to be mutually exclusive.
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Wasn’t Abraham found to be righteous by God “before” he believed “in” God?
 
2ndGen said:
Wasn’t Abraham found to be righteous by God “before” he believed “in” God?
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I don’t know, this is one first mention of it:

Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Good deeds count for sure, but if you reject the God that is counting then what are they? Like filthy rags, not really good for anything.
 
2ndGen said:
You mean, that depends on what the definition of “is” is?

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
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'Fraid so!

The more time I’ve spent on Christian boards, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that we often mean very different things when using the same words. For example, if ‘God’ is highly abstract (as in Judaism) as opposed to ‘reified’ (through a man/God) as in Christianity the question of what one means when one uses the term ‘belief’ may be quite different really and the ‘importance’ of that ‘belief’ another thing altogether.

You can’t understand Judaism by seeing it as Christianity without Jesus any more than we can understand Christianity as Judaism plus Jesus.
 
Kaninchen said:
'Fraid so!

The more time I’ve spent on Christian boards, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that we often mean very different things when using the same words. For example, if ‘God’ is highly abstract (as in Judaism) as opposed to ‘reified’ (through a man/God) as in Christianity the question of what one means when one uses the term ‘belief’ may be quite different really and the ‘importance’ of that ‘belief’ another thing altogether.

You can’t understand Judaism by seeing it as Christianity without Jesus any more than we can understand Christianity as Judaism plus Jesus.
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This just sounds like an excuse for atheism. Everyone knows that there is a simple idea of the God of Israel, a spirit that created and controls everything.

Seems to me this little idea is only made abstract and unknowable for so many Jews because they just don’t believe in it.
 
FaithofAbraham said:
Maybe you could just address what I said. What is the evidence that Jews place more emphasis on right actions not right beliefs? Nobody does anything unless they first believe something about it. This is just another fable promoted to further distance Judaism from Christianity to try to make them appear to be mutually exclusive.
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No one said Jews were better than Christians. Well, no one except you. Judaism focuses more on what we do here rather than what to expect after we die. Whether you believe Jews practice what they preach is irrelevant to Kaninan’s (sp?) post. And the reason you keep hearing this from Jews is because it is true.
 
Valke2 said:
No one said Jews were better than Christians. Well, no one except you. Judaism focuses more on what we do here rather than what to expect after we die. Whether you believe Jews practice what they preach is irrelevant to Kaninan’s (sp?) post. And the reason you keep hearing this from Jews is because it is true.
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I think that’s a bit of a cop out the entire religion is centered around the belief that Jews are better than the gentiles. It is so ingrained in your religion that you can’t seperate it now. This is why Jews were so hated, wherever they went they would not integrate, they would not talk to, eat with, allow their daughters to marry any of the people whose country they were living in. In plain speak they simply thought they were much better and God prefered them, they thought gentiles were dogs and filthy. They were the first supremicists. It’s not hard to imagine why this drew such drastic overreactions. Community is nececssary for surrvival, if one group places themselves above the community, people (especially people who see through the eyes of a superstitious villager) will view them with much suspicion.

And this goes on today when I lived in Brooklyn I walked through Borough park into a Motherhood Maternity and the saleswomen would not even acknowledge my wifes existence as she spoke to them. Living upstate now near Kuris Joel they are equally unfriendly and seperatists. And guess what people don’t like them, not because they’re Jews, but because they are incredibly unfriendly. They’re unfriendly because that is what their religion calls for, we are mere dogs to them, and beneath even talking to.
 
Valke2 said:
No one said Jews were better than Christians. Well, no one except you. Judaism focuses more on what we do here rather than what to expect after we die. Whether you believe Jews practice what they preach is irrelevant to Kaninan’s (sp?) post. And the reason you keep hearing this from Jews is because it is true.
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“Judaism focuses more on what we do here rather than what to expect after we die.”

Sure you do, because you expect to leave behind a good life after you die.

You are just contradicting yourself in a scramble to be different from Christians, seen it a million times.
 
lukewarm said:
I think that’s a bit of a cop out the entire religion is centered around the belief that Jews are better than the gentiles. It is so ingrained in your religion that you can’t seperate it now. This is why Jews were so hated, wherever they went they would not integrate, they would not talk to, eat with, allow their daughters to marry any of the people whose country they were living in. In plain speak they simply thought they were much better and God prefered them, they thought gentiles were dogs and filthy. They were the first supremicists. It’s not hard to imagine why this drew such drastic overreactions. Community is nececssary for surrvival, if one group places themselves above the community, people (especially people who see through the eyes of a superstitious villager) will view them with much suspicion.

And this goes on today when I lived in Brooklyn I walked through Borough park into a Motherhood Maternity and the saleswomen would not even acknowledge my wifes existence as she spoke to them. Living upstate now near Kuris Joel they are equally unfriendly and seperatists. And guess what people don’t like them, not because they’re Jews, but because they are incredibly unfriendly. They’re unfriendly because that is what their religion calls for, we are mere dogs to them, and beneath even talking to.
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Now, don’t hold back now, tell us all what you really think about us naughty, naughty Jews. 😃
 
If it were for my beliefs about a certain Jew, I’d be Jewish, and probably Orthodox.

My understanding of the history is that there was a struggle between the various sects of Judaism back 2000 years ago and that pharisitical Judaism won out, and became the Orthodox of today.

I’ve studied with a reform, a conservative, and orthodox rabbi, as well as an Chabad Rabbi in Nashville TN. Yep, if I converted it would be Orthodox, and I might even go the Chabad route.

I have immense respect for the Jewish people, and my study with the Rabbis has made my understanding of what Jesus said and did much more complete. You can be Christian without understanding Judaism, but the experience is much richer with context.
 
Yerusalyim said:
If it were for my beliefs about a certain Jew, I’d be Jewish, and probably Orthodox.

My understanding of the history is that there was a struggle between the various sects of Judaism back 2000 years ago and that pharisitical Judaism won out, and became the Orthodox of today.

I’ve studied with a reform, a conservative, and orthodox rabbi, as well as an Chabad Rabbi in Nashville TN. Yep, if I converted it would be Orthodox, and I might even go the Chabad route.

I have immense respect for the Jewish people, and my study with the Rabbis has made my understanding of what Jesus said and did much more complete. You can be Christian without understanding Judaism, but the experience is much richer with context.
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I agree, I might like to be Jewish if I could commit myself to observing all Torah, and if it allowed Jesus. I am pretty harsh with Judaism though I respect a lot of Jews and their teachings, especially those on Torah.org, it’s one of my favorite websites.
 
2ndGen said:
I tried looking for Jewish forums, but didn’t have any luck.

I’ve joined one group in hopes to invite some of them here to let them speak for themselves on topics involving Jews.

If you are a Jew and you are here, we need you to educate us.
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I wonder if you’re starting to get any kind of impression as to why few Jews post here?
 
Kaninchen said:
I wonder if you’re starting to get any kind of impression as to why few Jews post here?
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None at all.

I expect they never thought to defend their faith or to share it or to learn from other religions.

Think about it, whatever “tone” there exist here is mostly due to ignorance…why? Because there is no Jewish presence here to correct us.

And we’d need at least 2 from each sect to get a reasonable impression.

It’d be nice if they were here to educate us.

Silence teaches nothing.
 
2ndGen said:
None at all.

I expect they never thought to defend their faith or to share it or to learn from other religions.

Think about it, whatever “tone” there exist here is mostly due to ignorance…why? Because there is no Jewish presence here to correct us.

And we’d need at least 2 from each sect to get a reasonable impression.

It’d be nice if they were here to educate us.

Silence teaches nothing.
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Ah, I see that we have completely different perceptions of the dynamics here - interesting in itself, I expect.

I have to say that I tend not to have much interest in ‘defending’ my religion - explaining aspects of it from time to time is one thing, ‘defending’ it quite another. It may be that, if one has no interest in making converts or dissuading others from their religious beliefs, conversation may be quite different from situations where one imagines that some eternal outcome is at stake.

**
 
FaithofAbraham said:
Maybe you could just address what I said. What is the evidence that Jews place more emphasis on right actions not right beliefs? Nobody does anything unless they first believe something about it. This is just another fable promoted to further distance Judaism from Christianity to try to make them appear to be mutually exclusive.
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Not that I agree with what I am about to say, and not that I want to derail this thread, but I’ve seen similar claims made about Islam. I know of people who claim it is more important to do the stuff than what you beleive. Again, not something that I adhear to…
 
ralphinal said:
Not that I agree with what I am about to say, and not that I want to derail this thread, but I’ve seen similar claims made about Islam. I know of people who claim it is more important to do the stuff than what you beleive. Again, not something that I adhear to…
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Yeah but why would you reasonably do anything if you didn’t believe it was the right thing to do? Beliefs are beliefs, and I would guess most every action starts with one.

So we’re not really talking about faith over works, since we all are doing works whether it’s proselytizing as Christians, praying 5 times a day as Muslims, or keeping meat from dairy as Jews.

But it’s more about difference of faith and what you most put that faith into.

Edit: So what I’m saying is, that Jews have just as much faith and belief as Christians do, but they divert more of it away from God and into other things. So this claim of valuing works over faith is misleading. It’s rather, valuing one type of faith over another.
 
Kaninchen said:
Rather depends on what one means by the words ‘belief’ and ‘God’, I expect, there seems no denying that there seem to be rather great differences between the Jewish and Christian appreciations of ‘God’ - together with us being much more centered on ‘correctness’ of activity and Christians much more centered on ‘correctness’ of belief.

I think that we may seem somewhat ‘atheistic’ to Christians in the way that Christians may seem rather ‘idolatrous’ (no, I don’t mean statues) to us - neither is the case but seen from each other’s paradigms they appear to be.
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right, and the authors larger point was that Judaism does not insist on regulating the subjective thoughts, emotions etc of it’s adherants as does Christianity and Islam.

I don’t think it’s so much as Christians viewing Jews as “atheistic” as much as, unfortunatly, beleiving that Jews are just “Christian light”, ignoring the complex and fascinating body of Jewish thought which exists quite indipendently of Christianity.
 
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