I was going to respond to this IN the thread, but perhaps dedicating a day to it will put this stupid subject to bed.Look at the post below with the Moslem cartoons. I posted anti-Moslem cartoons in response to Moslems making threats about cartoons. I called them “impotent barbarians” and, to prove my point, told them where I would be and when, just in case they wanted to murder me. I knew there would be nothing — that’s what I mean by impotent — and I was right.I posted a picture of the Pope (comparing him to Palpatine) to point out that I can insult Christians all day long and not get death threats. It was intended again to show the barbaric attitude of Moslems compared to Christians.That’s all.Some on this blog are giving me grief about not posting an anti-jewish picture too. There are two reasons I did not. One is I don’t have any such pictures readily available, and the other is it would have been redundant — my point had been made, or so I thought.As to any favoritism I have to Jews, Hindus, or Bhuddists, please let me set the record straight. If they are not a threat to American civil liberties, I have no problem with them unless their activities are extreme. They all have their wars, but they are not a problem HERE (Hint: AMERICAN Atheists). If you find a problem with any religious leader threatening our way of life, let me know. But I’m not going to go out of my way to insult the Jews (or anyone else) just because I ALSO insulted the Christians and the Moslems who deserve it. That’s ridiculous.YES, I call myself a Jewish Atheist, like Herb Silverman, Carl Silverman, Dennis Horvitz, Ken Bronstein, Guy Shapiro, and many many other prominent Atheist activists. I observe one Jewish holiday -Passover- where I go to my mother’s home and we eat ourselves stupid. How many of you go to Mom’s for Xmas? I openly critized Joe Lieberman’s “Vote for me I’m an Orthodox Jew now” pandering and voted for Nader because of him (including writing an opinion letter published in the USA Today, as some bloggers will remember). I shamed Israel when they moved settlers into disputed areas (effectively creating human shields out of children, which really pisses me off). I also gave this year’s Chinn Scholarship to a fantastic young Atheist who spends much of his time trying to stop US funds from going to Israel from a Church/State Separation perspective.So PLEASE — PUT UP OR SHUT UP. Here’s your chance. Got a reason to say I favor Jews (or Hindus or Buddhists)? Give it here, and I’ll address it. If you’re just bitching because of my background or what I call myself (not because of my actions), vent here and risk exposing your own bigotry to your peers.
Comment from: phreedm
Wow…sorry guys. I guess putting Dave on the spot caused him to suddenly become overly sensitive.
Faux pity from a faux christian. How appropriate!
I do find it interesting to see the hypocrisy involved with someone who cannot defend any of the irrational, unfounded, unsourced allegations he pouts on this blog thinking that others might be overly sensitive if they don’t respond to the pathetic dribble spewing from their vacuous pie=hole.
Maybe after you’ve been explaining and supporting all of the crap you spew here for a few years, then you might have the right to dare to ask this question. As it is, maybe you should stop with the gratuitous insults to the host of the web site, and start with the rational discussion of issues once in a while.
You hypocritical, cowardly, blasphemous, religiously insane Putsch fellating Republican’t.
Bernarda
Hmm. I have been giving to AA for many years and Dave is a spokesperson for AA. I am obliged to criticize Dave when I think he is displaying favoritism to a particular religion that is no less destructive than the rest.
(: tom
“Please stop trying to claim your nonsense has any relation to reality without any proof that your fantasies are real, and especially before you start trying to claim that what others are claiming to be true is not, without any proof to back up your statements.”
Do you own the copyright on that line?
Mind if I use it?
What — we never spoke about Zionism, which yes I wholeheartedly reject (and always have). I meant it when I wrote that I didn’t care if the money granted to Israel went to some other state in the area that gave us a better political position.
I also hold no allegiance whatsoever to anyone of any race/religion that has done wrong, and the Jews you mentioned are certainly no exception.
Dontno, if you say that, then you have to include everyone that calls themselves American, Italian, or black. Sorry. Gotta disagree.
Ber, nothing here is personal. Criticism was solicited in this post. All is fair.
Dave
Thanks for the reasonable post.
Practically speaking I think we were discussing Zionism. I just was not using the term for the reason I stated.
Do you think Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams and Feith are Zionists? Do you reject Zionism?
I really don’t know what you were trying to say i this sentence:
Dontno asserted:
On this basis he attacks my holding to any kind of Jewish identity, saying that I am giving up individuality for a group mentality. To which I responded that any group fits that description.
I don’t know if the Jews to whom you referred are Zionists. They could just be war-mongoring assholes who “happen to be Jewish”.
And once again, for the record, I have never been a Zionist, and hold no allegiance to Israel except as it benefits the USA. I’m just an Atheist — who “happens to be Jewish”
Dave
Thank you for your perspective.
I agree with Dontno that “cultural collectivism” is a problem. Unlike Italians and blacks (your examples) jewish religion is intertwined with the notion of jewish ethnicity making the “cultural collectivism” of the jews a “religious collectivism” as well. This fact should then be of concern to AA since AA’s mission is concerned primarily with religion not culture.
Dave:
Here’s why it’s different for Jews. I’ve heard countless individuals describe themselves as Jewish atheists. Never have I heard someone describe himself as an Italian atheist, Greek atheist, or Portuguese atheist. Why do Jews find it so necessary to qualify their atheism with an ethnic/cultural distinction? Why do they find it so necessary to define themselves with the Jewish title?
That reasoning is in the context of atheism. In the context of simply defining oneself with regards to a collective, there’s a slight difference between say Italians and Jews/blacks/other minorities. Yes, all these groups are guilty of cultural collectivism, but the Jewish version represents a more thorough definition of oneself because it constitutes a very small minority group. Italian and other European cultures have been adopted as mainstream in America. So an Italian who eats spaghetti and ravioli and uses terms found often in Rocky is not engaging in behavior that diverges excessively from mainstream American culture. Jewish traditions (and stereotypical black behavior and speech patterns) is far removed from the mainstream. By defining oneself as Jewish, you willfully disassociate much of who you are away from the mainstream, thus engaging in isolation. Thus, you allow yourself and others to easily define you as simply belonging to a small group rather than the unique person that you probably are. This knee jerk definition of minorities is not only unwarranted (assuming culture itself is entirely arbitrary), but often leads to racial and ethnic conflict.
I’d love to hear others’ views on this topic.
To be clear (again) I only call myself a Jewish Atheist when pressed. 95% of the time I just use Atheist.
This specific thread dealt with my apparent favoritism to jews, allegedly because of that 5% of the time when I use the Jewish qualifier.
dontno:
They’ve got a new invention out. It’s called GOOGLE. Try running a search on those items.
An hysterical comment, in lieu of the title of the blog: A Free Service for Atheists from American Atheists.
I’ve met Portuguese atheists online. There are groups all over Europe. I think there’s an Irish Atheist group. Try googling that. There’s groups of atheists all over the states: surely, you’ll not try to disqualify their using their state names in the title?
KA
I think you are deliberately missing Dontno’s point. When someone says they are a jewish atheist the intent of the phrase (in my experience) is to say “I am jewish BUT I am an atheist”. When someone says that they are an Irish atheist the intent is to say “I am irish AND I am an atheist”.
@ what:
Agreed.
KA:
When someone says Jewish atheist, they’re using Jewish as an ethnicity. I’ve never heard an American of Italian ethnicity say they are an Italian atheist. It’s not an analogous situation to the Jewish atheist if they’re a citizen of Italy (as in American atheists as well).
I just don’t understand why Jewish atheists consistently make mention of their ethnicity in the context of atheist discussions. I almost never know the ethnicity of atheists online, unless they’re Jewish and in that case, it’ll definitely be mentioned.
Dave
These aren’t just your run-of-the-mill war mongers. These are the principal propagandists that sold us this invasion and occupation of Iraq.
What, “I think you are deliberately missing Dontno’s point.”
You have understood almost everything about that poster.
Comment from: NotSoFast
Do you own the copyright on that line?
Mind if I use it?
I shameless appropriate any meme that I think might be good for the general population to get inside their melons. Streal all you want.
Here’s one of my current faves:
…just make sure you check the spelling first…
What:
No, I’m not.
Dontno:
It is an ethnicity. It’s also a race. (Look up the term ‘race’ as well.)
The science dictionary defines it thusly:
Identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group’s customs, beliefs, and language.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=ethnicity&gwp=16
“and observance of that group’s customs, beliefs, and language”
In other words, godly types who believe in some holy book and its superstitions. Even belief in corporal mutilation of infants like circumcision.
For nearly 2,000 years jews did not speak Hebrew. It was only the advent of zionism that made it a new language.
It is a simple fact that Jews are not as much of a threat to atheism as Christians or Muslims are today. That being said we give millions of dollars to a Jewish state that funds specifically religious things. As for the example of people not being hurt by Judaism, look at some of the not so recent activities by the ADL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_defamation_league
As for the Jewish Atheist I take offense when people say once a jew always a jew. I was brainwashed into being jewish when I was a child and have since distanced myself from the faith. I in no way consider myself to be a jew in any sense of the word.
Concerning political/religious cartoons, Dave is always more than willing to go out of his way to insult Christianity and Islam but safeguard and protect Judaism and Zionism.
He denies this, but as we can see in the 09/04/07 Post:
“Some things never change”
http://www.atheists.org/nogodblog/
index.php/2007/09/04/
some_things_never_change#comments
Dave attacks any criticism of Israel and Zionism as being “Anti-Semitic” in typical jew fashion. Dave claims he doesn’t favor Judaism, however, he always does just that with hostility and venom, whether he realizes it or not. Could be an unconscious action due to a life of being brainwashed by Judaism and it being a reflex to point the finger and scream “anti-semite”, “Holocaust denier”, “Hitler”, etc whenever somebody doesn’t treat judaism and Israel like a sacred cow.
If Dave wants cartoons about zionist jews, he can just google “Latuff” or goto:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/
article.php?pg=11&ar=176
And just because Dave can name some other deluded so-called atheists who are still suffering from jewish brainwashing and still believe they are a race all their own, the Europeans, Africans, Hispanics, Asians, MiddleEasterners, etc who believe in Judaism does not mean anything other than we have the names of atheists openly deluded by jewish dogma. Some of them being rabid zionists.
Makes as much sense as an Amish turned Atheist calling himself a Xian Atheist, because of his “Xian culture” which he also believes to be a race and supports a pure Xian state and killing innocent people to get it.
Dave openly admits “celebrating” jewish holidays in his writings, including Passover, which he nows claims is just eating at his moms house comparing it to Xmas dinner.
Well, eating a Xmas dinner is alot different than going to Temple or taking part in religious rituals at a home in celebration of the mass murder of non-jewish infants and demonzing those arab egyptians.
Want another example of Dave’s favoritism of judaism and jewish loyalty, goto the 07/09/07 blog post: “Pope — how low can you go??”
http://www.atheists.org/nogodblog/
index.php/2007/07/09/pope_how_low_can_you_go
#comments
Or 02/08/06, “Muslims Kill… Again”
02/25/07, “When stupid ignorant people elect stupid ignorant congressmen” supporting Israel’s ADL
06/21/05, “What kind of Atheist are you?”
05/01/05, “Jewish Atheism”
or Daves absurd, faith-based writing “A Jewish Atheist”
And if Dave believes that the jewish lobby, such as AIPAC and the US faith based funding of Israels faith based ethnic cleansing campaign of Palestine is of no importance or having any impact on Americans, he better start making some requests for a clue.
Dave should realize that a religious group trying to use the government to convert citizens is not the only threat to civil liberties. The jews don’t want converts, they want influence and control and special rights and privileges, especially the zionists and done with discretion. Unlike the “in your face” tactics of the xians. Look at how the ADL infiltrates almost all levels of schools and government. After all, they believe themselves to be the master race, er.. chosen people, a very strict country club that wants to keep all the goyim out, unless they work as the help.