Re: Downloading and uploading


Richard Schultz wrote:
In article <1181123415.161923.68590@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Michael Schaffer <ms1000@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

: You are obviously getting desperate for ways to avoiding my first
: question - what do you think about adhering to a mythology which
: celebrates conquest and genocide?

Since I do not adhere to such a mythology, your question is based
on a false premise and thus has no meaningful answer.

So you do not work for the university which defines itself like this?

"The founders of Bar-Ilan established the university as an academic
institute that attributes the uniqueness of the Jewish people to the
sacred Jewish principles and values it lives by."

So you do not think you belong to an "unique" and "sacred" people and
you do not believe in the mythological texts these claims are founded
on? Now I am confused. What about your signature then?

: In fact, it is fairly clear from the historical evidence (I mean,
: actual evidence, not mythological texts) as laid out by, among many
: others, Finkelstein (and with whose views I explicitly said I agree)

Of course, you have no basis for judging whether his views are correct
or not, so your agreeing with them is pretty much irrelevant.

Do you really call yourself a scientist? That would be an insult to
any real scientists. The real scientific mind does not need to take
refuge in blabla like this. You have no way of knowing how well
informed I am about the subject or not, all you could do is reply to
concrete points. Yet you know that there are a lot of people who hold
the same views, and they are based on scientific research. Which
doesn't make them absolute truths. But if that is all you can think
of, it is already all too obvious that you are desperate because you
know you can not counter these points.

: that there was not just one, but in fact, two Israelite states even
: *before* the time of the Persians (you may want to look up when that
: was). Namely Israel and Judah. It appears that at least Israel had
: reached full statehood by around 900BCE, certainly during the reign of
: Omri and Ahab.

I am well aware of this.

: Although the biblical texts portray both as "the most
: evil of all kings", they have left far more evidence of the actual
: existence of their kingdom than David and Solomon.

There is no logical connection between the two parts of your sentence.
The usual context in which the archaeological evidence for the existence
of Omri and Ahab is brought up is to contrast the Bible's portrayal of
them as evil with the evidence *not* in the Bible that they were in fact
fairly successful kings by the usual historical standards.

Sure there is a connection. The Bible celebrates a "magnificent"
kingdom of which there is next to no trace. While it "puts down"
another, clearly historical, kingdom. For the very obvious political
and ideological reasons that it wants to explain why the kingdom of
Israel under Omri and Ahab was bad while the mythological united
kingdom centered around Judah and the worship of the "one God" was
(mostly) good - therefore only the alleged successors of that
allegedly (mostly) good united kingdom have a real and "divine" claim
to leadership over "God's chosen people". That is glaringly obvious.

: Actually, the first
: Israel was already *gone* again by the time of the first Persian Empire.

The point that I was trying to make was that the historical connection
between the Jewish people and the land of Israel is no myth.

Nobody ever said that. But the claim that the land was assigned to
them by "God" is clearly mythological. And not at all uncommon. There
are countless similar mythological complexes from cultures all over
the world. Actually, that is not at all "divine". It is very basic and
primitive "human".

: But there is no evidence for the historicity of the exodus and
: conquest stories, as well as the "united monarchy" which apparently,
: was an invention of later times with a clear theological and political
: agenda.

The idea that there was never a "united monarchy" is one opinion, and one
with which not all archaeologists agree. AFAIK, it is an opinion with which
most archaeologists do *not* agree.

Most agree with that simply because there is no evidence for that one
kingdom *at all* - there are no clearly assignable archaeological
traces, no written evidence from that united monarchy - which couldn't
have functioned on the alleged scale without a complex byreaucracy
which should have left tons of written evidence (like every single
other comparable culture in the general region) - no mentioning of it
in other contemporary cultures - excavations in Israel have shown that
it didn't have the economic basis to entertain such a kingdom - while
there is plenty of evidence that its representation in the Bible is
clearly a politically motivated and consciously falsified
representation - and it also happens that the manicured "historial"
record presented there more or less perfectly fits the political
realities of the time (late 7th c BCE) in which a majority of scholars
assume these texts were originally edited.

: Nor is the Jewish religion the only mythology which celbrates these
: things and tries to give them a "divine" spin. That is very common,
: too. The point here is that I think it's a little out of place today
: to celebrate these things in a "religious tradition".

What evidence do you have that these things are "celebrated" in
contemporary Judaism?

Tons and megatons. Everybody knows that these texts are part of that
religious tradition. A very central part of it.

: There is really no difference between that and NS ideology.

Ooh, I've been Godwinized.

: The only "excuse" would be
: that those texts are ancient while the NS ideology was a fairly recent
: invention (of decidedly archaic character, though).

Speaking of mythologies, I notice that you've bought into the myth that
the Nazi ideology was forced by a dictatorship upon an unwilling populace.
That probably makes you feel good, however distant from historical reality
it might be.

It's not. It was clearly installed in 1933 and mostly vanished after
1945. In fact, most of the people didn't give a shit about the
ideologies - including the Jews. They didn't hate them. They simply
didn't care. But they didn't have much of a choice either. Do people
in Israel have a choice? I hear they don't have much of a choice
either. I hear that most Israelis just want to live in peace, but
religious fundamentalists (like you) won't have that.
And the modern German state is not founded on mythological claims that
the land was "promised by God" - completely unlike the place you live
in.

: But that excuse
: doesn't work if you insist on celebrating these contents even today,
: all the more so if you take them as mythological justification for
: current territorial claims.

This is known in the business as a "straw man." I see from the experimental
evidence that the ability to blithely go on when you have already been warned
that you do not know what you are talking about is something that brings
comfort to millions. It's an ability that I sometimes envy in people like you.

Thanks for "warning" me. That desire to decide what others know and
don't know and are supposed to know and don't know is a clear mark of
the fundamentalist that you often display.
Remember, my upbringing in Germany, learning about the extremist
dictatorship and the mechanisms behind it make it easy for me to spot
people like you from a mile away.

:> I assume that
:> you would be rather proud to know that I never really thought that you were
:> an anti-Semite, but that your latest posts have made me start wondering.
:
: Really? That surprises me. The inflationary use of the term by you
: makes it hard to tell when you mean it and when don't.

Okay, now I mean it. Your insistence on repeating canards the falsity
of which has already been explained to you becomes increasingly diffcult
to explain except as a manifestation of anti-Semitism on your part.

OK, now the reality of the biblical texts is "canrds" again. I see.

:> :> Remind us of which group of people are entitled to automatic German
:> :> citizenship, and which ones cannot get it no matter how long they have
:> :> actually lived there.
:> :
:> : Anybody can theoretically get German citizenship.
:>
:> Try reading what I wrote and then answering the question that I asked.
:
: I already did. I am not an immigration attorney. I never had to deal
: with that because I somehow always had German citizenship. Although
: until the reunifiation, I only had a "preliminary" passport because of
: the special status "West" Berlin had, but that's a completely
: different subject. But I know anybody can get German citizenship if he
: fufills the legal requirements (basically, I think that applies to
: citizenship of any state), and those can be a number of situations.
: Basically, anybody can get citizenship who has lived in Germany for 8
: years or so, if he did not get into too much trouble with the law. So
: there is no group of people which generally can not get it.

Which group of people are (or at least were) entitled *automatically*
to German citizenship? What part of that question is too difficult for
you to understand?

What percentage of the Turkish Gastarbeiter (a) apply for German citizenship
(b) are granted it? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'd
be interested in learning about it.

Don't know either. I know some who are citizens, some who don't.
Legally, they can all become citizens if they want.
In the meantime, the German army does not fire rockets from attack
helicopters into areas where the Turks live.

:> And yes, anyone living in Israel is
:> entitled to the full protection of the law. The Occupied Territories
:> are precisely that, and are not considered by the government of Israel to
:> be part of Israel (except for the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, which
:> were annexed).

Note that this statement received no response.

:> :> You should read the Book of Ruth sometime and the commentaries (going
:> :> back some two millenia at least) on it.

:> : I have!

:> I doubt that very seriously. But you can prove me wrong -- how do the
:> traditional Jewish commentators reconcile Ruth's conversion with the
:> clear Biblical pronouncement that a Moabite "may not enter the congregation
:> of the Lord"?

: Quiz time now? I haven't read those commentaries.

Then why did you say that you had?

: And they are totally irrelevant in this context anyway.

They are not, since they pretty much refute just about everything that you
have had to say on the subject of Judaism.

: As is that portion of the texts
: which is tiny in contrast to the extensive celebrations of conquest
: and genocide under "divine" direction.

As far as I know, the descriptions of conquest are pretty much limited
to the books of Numbers, Joshua, Judges, and parts of Samuel. There is
only one ethnic group whose complete extirpation is described as a
divine commandment. Did you not know that?

Don't remember if they were only after one group, but they are really
fixated on their Canaanites. There is also a clearly recognizeable
reason behind that, if we follow the historical evidence and assume
that the Israelites who developed their identity as an ethnic and
religious group n the central areas of modern-day Israel separate from
the Canaanites in the coastal regions, and who moved into the vacuum
created by the destruction of the Canaanite culture (which we don't
really know how it was brought about, but apparently not by the
invasion of a people which was already there). Apparently, they felt
the need to set themselves apart from these, but at the same time, had
to make compromises to accomodate the realities, including the reality
of completely foreign groups which had bee settled there, including by
the Assyrians.

"Only one ethnic group whose complete extirpation is described as a
divine commandment" - does that make it better? Does that mean that if
the Nazis had been only after the Jews, instead of after Jews as well
as communists, gypsies, and other ethnic, religious or ideological
groups, that would have been OK? Like "everybody gets their one free
genocide"?

That is pretty interesting.

:> : But what does that have to do with the conquest of the
:> : promised land and the extermination of the population?
:>
:> I'd be interested in where you read that the population was "exterminated."
:
: Mostly in "Judges", there are even lists of who destroyed which
: Canaanite cities and managed to exterminate the people living there,
: as well as who failed to fulfill "God's command" to cleanse the earth
: of all Canaanites, and repeated statements of "God's" displeasure with
: those "failures".

Where exactly does God command anyone to "cleanse the earth of all
Canaanites"?

You tell me. You confirmed that just a few paragraphs above.

Oops.

:> But tell me -- which conquest happened first, that of Israel/Judea by
:> the Israelites, or that of Germany by the Germans?
:
: Neither. This may be very hard for you to understand, with your
: decidedly simplistic view of history. I can see why it is easier to
: believe in mythological texts which make it all so easy. That guy had
: these sons, and all those tribes are descended from them, that son was
: like that, that's why all these people are like that, and these tribes
: were chosen by "God", and these not, so that's why some are good and
: some are bad.

You have this wonderful penchant for constructing straw men. It sure beats
responding to the content of my posts. Although the archaeological
evidence is decidedly unclear on just exactly what happened in Israel/Judea
during the late Bronze Age, it is clear that there was a time before which
the Hebrews/Israelites were not in control, and after which they were.
Even if you do not believe any of the various theories that explain this
change as having occurred violently, you cannot deny the existence of
this change. Similarly, there was a time when the natives of what is
now Germany were not Germans. It is also possible to estimate the relative
time at which these two changes occurred. One of them clearly happened
before the other. Can you guess which one?

I don't guess about history. I inform myself. From what we know for
certain about history, we know that there were two Jewish states by
around 900BCE. When the first German state was established (as a
state) is a little vague, some would count the Burgundian kingdom and
other roughly contemporary states as the first, but I think it makes
more sense to regard the creation of the first empire in AD800 as a
more key date. But how much does that have to do with modern Germany?
Hard to say. There is a clear continuity there, and to times much moe
ancient than that, but at the same time, people, cultures, and
boundaries change all the time.
That applies to all cultures, inluding, of course, the "chosen"
people. So the fact that there were Jewish kingdoms around 900BCE
doesn't have much to do with the modern followers of that religion.
It also has to be kept in mind that according to the bible itself, at
least one of those states, coincidentally, the one which appears to
have been the far more important one, weren't "real Jews" anyway, but
"evil sinners" who followed "wrong gods".
None of the following states in the area had much staying power
though, with or without the "right God". Which shows us once again
that that is all mythology - political realities steer the tides of
history, not "divine choices".

:> It really is in there (some of what you say) -- but modern Judaism's
:> understanding of those texts, and how we relate to them today, are not
:> as you say they are, and the way you read (or misread) those texts is
:> indistinguishable from the way that anti-Semites traditionally have.
:
: Ah, the old "cold buffet" approach. You help yourself to those parts
: of the religious tradition which seem to fit your purposes, and you
: insist these are divine revelations, while other parts are ignored and
: toned down.

Ah, the old "I'm going to make this up as I go along" approach.

:> : Does that have anything to do with Tel Aviv University? You didn't
:> : explain that remark.

:> Nor will I -- if you don't understand it, then you have no place making
:> random statements about what "religious fanatics" are likely to do to
:> an archaeologist with a radical theory.

: How the hell am I supposed to know what you mean by strange remarks
: about Tel Aviv University?

You are supposed to know something about modern Israeli society in order
to know what the religious fanatics are likely to do and not do. If
you don't know anything about the true nature of the religious/secular
tensions in Israel, then you have no business commenting on them.

That's why I *asked* you about it. You try to avoid giving a clear
answer. But that in itself, and your frequent diversions as well as
the allusions to "radical" theories by "fanatics" like Finkelstein -
in fact, very well centered and widely accepted theories - and cryptic
remarks like "if it comes from Tel Aviv, that explains it" clearly
reveal where you are coming from. In fact, you are the radical here
whose views are clearly archaic and based on mythology rather than
reality, and on the need to use that mythology selectively for your
own agenda.

In other words, religious and ideological agendas vs. scientific
reason.

: Apparently, there seems to be some rivalry
: going on there, probably between them and your university which looks
: pretty fundamentalist from the website. So, you are the good guys and
: the University of Tel Aviv people are the bad guys? Are they not "real
: Jews"? Do you wish for them to somehow "disappear"? I wouldn't be
: surprised.

<plonk>

-----
Richard Schultz schultr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"You don't even have a clue about which clue you're missing."

.

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