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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skipper who wrote (13740)	11/20/1997 8:13:00 PM
From: James R. Barrett	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

>>"It really comes down to the totally arrogant, distasteful, and dangerous idea of being "God's chosen people", and secondarily, to attaching any importance to the maintenance of a religious tradition."<< A big Amen to that Skipper. The Arab Muslims also believe that they are "God's chosen people". Maybe that's why they are bitter enemies. The ironic part is that Jews and Arabs come from the same ancient tribes of the Middle East which makes them fairly close blood relatives. It amazes me how religion can destroy the human brain as easily as a bullet to the frontal lobes. Jim

To: Skipper who wrote (13740)	11/20/1997 8:13:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Respond to of 108807

Skipper, 1) Religion aside for a moment, it'll always be a question of numbers. A basic proinciple of economics is that there ain't enough to make everyone happy. How the undersupply gets distributed...is the rest of all the textbooks. And scale was one of the planks of Christine's premise. Big disasters. 2) Okay, major generalization. I do remember that the Jewish folklore and literature (most of it in German from before the war) upon which I glancingly browsed as a kid - the protagonist was typically either a subsistence shopkeeper or a mendicant Schnorrer. The established bourgeois were there, but as a minor background element. So I'm probably carrying a bias into the discussion. But there is a selection issue. I wasn;t trying to say European Jews were a nomadic group. I was looking at a subset. I'm sure Israel was a frontier, a place to start over especially for Eurpoe's less fortunate Jews. The middle class had more to lose by uprooting their families. At least initially, before Israel got established and more attractive to wage earners. None of the above is really serious. I'm batting around loose ideas, and a well-argued rebuttal gets me to critically review my stance. Attaching importance to the maintenance of a religious tradition. That's most of us I'm sure! I'll wager a Diet Coke that over half this planet's population, if asked, would fall back on religious teaching as the final anchor of their personal set of ethics. The "invested capital" is waay to ponderous to change anytime soon. Later Alex