Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Karen Johnson (talk | contribs) at 04:16, 17 June 2002 (moving info from the RK page in the main namespace...). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

[this contains the contents of the 'RK' page from the main wikipedia space... it is a near duplicate of the user page, but with enough differences that I'm not going to take it on myself to alter them. RK you might want to make an archive page for some of this stuff.~KJ

RK, could I make a format suggestion? when you're responding to a single Talk segment (e.g., Palestine, your responses to SKissane), it's easier to follow if you go to the end of what you're responding to and do it in one segment (indented is best! that's really obvious - just start your first line with a colon and it'll indent) or indent a response after each of the other person's paragraphs. I personally practice the former, since it doesn't do as much violence to the flow of that person's written statement. I agree with you about the points of millenial-old variants of Judaism; we can CALL them Judaism, but the one that lasted is it. I have similar problems with people equating Gnostic sects and the Catholic church, myself. --MichaelTinkler

RK, may I request an article on Sunni and Shiite, or whatever the appropriate terms might be? There is already an article on Sunni, but I think it is pretty bad.

Might I also suggest using a longer user name, in case someone goes looking for articles about radial keratotomy? --Lee Daniel Crocker

Why do you frequently write "Yasir Arafat"? Doing a search on Google, the spelling "Yasser Arafat" gives 186,000 hits, but "Yasir Arafat" only 18,000. I suggest we use the more common spelling. -- SJK

RK, was it you who wrote on talk:Polygamy?, "Ashkenazi Jews kept polygamy as an option until around the year 1000 CE, even though it wasn't widely practiced before then. After that time, it was outlawed."

Some of us are interested in this. Can you give more info? And any idea what the Sephardim thought on this issue? Thanks.

RK: I agree with you that the Messiah in Judaism and in Christianity are quite different characters. But is the Jewish Messiah purely a national liberator? Of course Jews never interpreted the Messiah in such a strongly universalist way and as such a cosmic figure as Christians do, but I have trouble believing that they only ever thought of him as a purely national saviour, without any relevance to the world at large. And although he wasn't thought of as God or anything like that, I doubt he was thought of either as a purely natural figure -- a human being, yes, but one which had been granted divine authority (meaning the authority was divine, not that he was divine.) -- SJK

Jews believed that the messiah would only be a national leader and liberator. In biblical times, he was seen as a strictly national figure. However, Jews of that era certainly saw their entire people as having religious relevance to the world at large, but this was a national/collective relevance. The role of any one man - even the King - was limited. And the Tanach's (Old Testament) biblical concept of a messiah was that of a king, and probably warriot and scholar. This king would be granted divine authority, but not in the way that Christians see Jesus as having authority. The messiah, quite literally, would be a descendent of King David, and would have precisely the same status as David. Later, post-biblical views of the messiah differed from this. In the Mishnah and Talmud the messiah is said to have more of a humanistic role for the world, and would be able to peform miracles, just as Moses and the early prophets did.-- RK.

RK: In which case I'd say that the Christian and Jewish views of the Messiah are not totally different. Elements of the Christian view of the Messiah can be seen in the Mishnaic/Talmudic view. I'd think it would be more accurate to say that Christians took certain aspects of the Jewish view of the Messiah, emphasised these aspects over other aspects, and then took these aspects to their conclusion (i.e. as one's view of the Messiah becomes more and more global and other-worldly, the belief that the Messiah is God becomes easier.) -- SJK

As you know I have been following the discussion on Christian anti-semitism and versus in the Bible with much interest and concern. I'd like to share one concern with you, although I do not want it to become a diversion from the main issue. In on of your comments you write that it is absolutely false that anti-semitism is about race. I disagree. In Germany in the 1400s if a Jew converted to Christianity -- and if the conversion were sincere, and the convert a devout Christian -- that person would no longer be persecuted by authorities. In contrast, in Germany in 1940, the child of converts, even were he a pious Christian, would still be classified as Jewish and sent to a Concentration camp. I personally do not believe that race is a valid scientific/biological category, but it was nevertheless this concept that was used to justify Jew-hatred in the 18-1900s. - SR

I agree; it looks like you are saying here that one form of anti-Semitism is the racial form. (i.e. the belief that Jews are a race.) RK

I DO think that Jews became victims of anti-semitism in many ways because of a long history of Christian anti-Judaism dating from Roman times. I do think there is a relationship between what non-Jews think of Jews as a "race" and what they think about "Judaism" as a religion (just as I think there is a relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish culture). And I think it is important to call attention to this and I think the article on Christian anti-semitism is important. But I do think there are serious theoretical and practical reasons for distinguishing between prejudice against Judaism and prejudice against the Jewish race. However much the two have overlapped, the phenomena is too complex to reduce one to the other. -- SR

RK -- I am too tired to make the necessary changes myself with any confidence that I wouldn't be making things worse. BUT I have to point out one thing about your most recent (and I think very good) addition to the Arab Anti-Semitism page: Not all Arabs are Muslims (and not all Muslims are Arabs). No doubt, a good deal of Arab anti-Semitism is justified through the Koran, plus the Koran provides a very important historical source. But not only is it important to point out that this book will incite non-Arabs (I think Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, and few if any are Arabs, and alas anti-Semitism is a problem there) -- I think it is REALLY important not to suggest that you (or Misplaced Pages) thinks that "Arabs" and "Muslims" are the same. I do not know if the easiets thing is to have a separate entry, "Anti-Semitism in the Koran," or to rewrite your contribution so it is clear that the Koran is one source of anti-Semitism for many but not all Arabs... SR

I was just thinking the same thing. Many Arabs are Christians (2%, 5%, more?) , a tiny percent are are of the druze faith (though they rarely refer to themselves as Arabs). In the western world a small number of Arabs are likely Unitarians, deists, humanists and atheists. And as you point out, a large number of Muslims are not Arab. Perhaps the current title of the entry should be re-titled "Islamic anti-Semitism"? I will not change the name of the entry today, to see if any other useful name suggestions come up. RK

RK I appreciate your addition ((to the entry on Karl Marx)) but I modified it. First, I moved it to open the section on criticisms of Marx. But I also rewrote it. I think it is an improvement, and hope you don't think I am just being possessive of the article -- you make an important point. I hope that in changing it I did not violate your intention, or undermine it. SR

Its an improvement. I really know very little about Marxism; all I can say is that its proponents only really seem to make their case by attacking straw-men. They look at the worst possible abuses, and claim there are only two choices - an anarchized form of unregulated capitalism, or a Marxist paradise. Frankly, I think their absolute belief in the divine truth of their arguments, combined with fanaticism and straw-men arguments against other systems, reveals that they are not atheists, nor are they merely proposing an alternate economic model. Marx, in fact, is a new Buddha, if not a god, and Marxism is a geunine religion in every sense of the word. After all, he is judged by his most devout followers as being infallible, and his texts are treated much like religious texts. This is how Marxism is discussed in "The Concise Encyclopaedia of Living Faiths", Ed. R. C. Zaehner, Beacon Press, 1959. See the last chapter "A New Buddha and a new Tao". Jugian philosophy is also identified as becoming a religious, rather than a scientific, philosophy. If I understand correctly, many others also have pointed out that the followers of Marxism, in practice, took on the behavioural characterisitics of adherents to a faith system.

I am glad you think it is an improvement. FYI what you state above is one reason why many people, including myself, do not like the word "Marxist." I think you are right that there are some people who treat "marxism" like a religion -- in fact, this was encouraged in many ways by Stalin (both in and out of the USSR). I do not think Marx himself encouraged this. Moreover, there are a tremendous number of people todoy who have been influenced by Marx (theoretically or politically) but who are by no means dogmatic. A number of people reject some of what Marx wrote while appealing to other things that he wrote. Are they Marxists? Orthodox (i.e. dogmatic) marxists would say no. And I think that's just one reason that the word "marxism" is of little value. Few physicists today are strict Newtonians, yet most still rely on a good deal of what he did, and admire him. I think you can find plenty of similar examples with students of Marx. SR

RK thanks for the invite to work on what will surely be an immportant article. For the moment, I would be happy if you wanted to cut and past things I wrote in the talk section of other articles. I am a little too tired right now to think of how to begin such an article, especially out of context. I think it raises huge issues beyond specifically religious tolerism, and I hope it goes in those directions. In the matter of polltiics and civil-rights, how would the US government protect the rigths of people who do not believe in civil rights, for example. I know Stanley Fish has written on this and I am sure many other socila nd political theorists of whom i am ignorant; I really hope so poplitical theorists -- political scientists/philosophers/lawyers also contribute to this. I look forward to watching it grow, and contributing when I know I have something valuable to add, SR

RK, I have embedded my responses to your responses to my initial comments on the pluralism article inthe Talk section of that article. I hope you find what I wrote useful -- and I have to apologize, because although I am expressing some strong opinions I still don't feewl ready actually to make changes in the article. I am sorry that this puts something of a burden on you, but I do appreciate what you have been doing, SR

Hi RK, I don't want to clutter up or involute the relikgious pluralism talk page more, so let me just reply to your most recent comments with a couple of quick points: You ask, "SR, You write "What I mean is this: to me, this account of Judaism makes Judaism (at least according to some people at one time) non-pluralistic." In what way do you mean this? Judaism in many eras didn't grant other religions the same respect that it gave itself (and I think often for good reason)." I guess this goes to my point that we need to distinguish between a variety of pluralisms. To me, the strongest pluralism is entirely relativist (there is no absolute truth, all truth-claims are relative). I think this is different from people who claim "my system is better than yours, but yours still has some validity (especially when if converges with what I think!). And I think this second position is different from those like the one I was responding to, like "only Judaism was true." This seems to me to be inherently non-pluralist, but I will now admit that one could perhaps come up with a kind of pluralism that will make room for this statement and competing statments like "only Christianity was true" or "only Islam was true." I think it would take more work than the first kind of pluralism! Again, I am asking you to do more work, but I wish you could explore these three (or are there more?) kinds of pluralism, both abstractly, and as they may or may not be found in different varieties of Judaism.

One other point I want to make -- I am no Wittgenstein expert, but I do not think he backed down from his position. But I do think a lot of people misinterpreted his position, thinking that the word "game" necessarily means it is trivial. The Roman gladiators played games in which they died, and today people make and lose fortunes over games. I think Wittgenstein meant something else by "game," I think he meant it in the sense that there were rules that determined what constituted an intelligible (let alone effective) action. Thus, the rules for football and soccer are different -- in soccer you just cannot hold the ball and run with it, if you did you would be penalized and some people would think you were just nuts. But I think LW understood that different language games could have very very serious consequences.

I do think you and I agree on a lot of things; I hope you take most of my comments not as criticisms (I don't think you do) but as suggestions about things you could clarify or expand on in the article. Perhaps you think some of the things you have written in response to me on the talk page is evident in the article itself. A main point of my comments is that I think some points are in the article, but could be made more explictly or developed. Anyway, good job! SR