So what are we supposed to make of Maciel Giertych, anti-Darwinist loon and one of the interview subjects in Expelled, who is also an anti-Jewish bigot who characterizes Jews as “those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah”?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
“If Giertych is shown as an “evil anti-Semite” how do they deal with the fact that he is anti-Darwinian Christian who signed the DI’s own statement. If he is shown as an opponent of Darwinism, how do they reconcile what with his unabashed anti-Semitism.”
Jumpin’ Jeezus, that shouldn’t faze ’em for a moment. I mean, anyone who can believe that there’s any truth (worth having) exclusively in the holy bile book is a nut job anyway. If they already believe in a magic monster spirit man running their lives, & interested in judging them, they can believe any other illogical crap.
Maciej. J as in Skatje. (And ci as in Italian.)
Maciej. J as in Skatje. (And ci as in Italian.)
who characterizes Jews as “those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah”?
That sounds like a pretty damn accurate characterization of what most Jews believe about Jesus. Out of all the things he said about Jews, you could have pointed to something a little bit worse.
Imagine evolanders using out of context “quote mining” and mischaracterizing someone’s statements…oh how could that be……add another dishonest tactic to the sewer people’s methods.
April 18th… The New Independence Day for America.
Keith, I’ve made your bed. Come this way.
Re. Giertych, I take it his interview has been expelled from EXPELLED? Can’t have any Nazi-sympathising creationists confusing the poor audience, can we?
I hate to break it to you Keith, but you probably won’t be able to leave your mom’s basement for The New Independence Day.
What, we’re morlocks now? Aw, I don’t like the morlocks, they’re boring :( Can I be in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants instead? I promise to still live in a sewer.
Oops. Maybe he took the Pogrom thing too seriously.
From Sean P. Means of The Salt Lake Tribune:
Every semi-knowledgeable moviegoer and reader of movie criticism knows what the words “not screened for critics” means: The movie is a dog.
“Not screened for critics” means a movie is so terrible that the studio will take its chances, deprive itself of free publicity, and go without release-date reviews. Considering the garbage the studios will show us critics ahead of time (such as the gruesomely lurid “Street Kings” or the laughably stupid “10,000 B.C.”), to keep a movie away from critics is usually a sign that things are really, really bad.
What is the significance of april 18th, not to seem like too much of a child, but this is all I could find
http://www.poopreport.com/Peace
“those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah”
I think you might find that that is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be Jewish.
By their own will, [Jews] prefer to live a separate life, in apartheid from the surrounding communities. They form their own communes (kahals), they govern themselves by their own rules and they take care to maintain also a spatial separateness.
In 2005 I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city of Prague and took a guided tour of the city. Part of the tour included the old Jewish quarters where Jews were forced to live – they were allowed out of this walled enclave to work but had to be back behind the wall by sundown. Over the past 1700 years forced Jewish segregation, and worse, has been the direct result of their being characterized by Christians as “those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah.” I’m sure PZ is well aware that to a Christian there is no worse quote.
I think the right response is this:
There are multiple causes for the holocaust, from anti-semitism, to economics and philosophy.
However, it is Darwin, and ONLY Darwin, who invented a time machine to go back in time to kill Jesus Christ, thus setting the Jews up for centuries of mistrust and hatred.
I think as reasonable adults, we can acknowledge multiple inputs and still pin the blame on Darwin as the primary cause of the Holocaust, Communism, apartheid, and baby cancer.
Cross-posted from Stranger Fruit
Giertych is not only an anti-semite, but in his own small way a holocaust denier. To be specific, he denies that Gentile Poles carried out the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941, in which several hundred Polish Jews were murdered, many being burned alive, despite convincing historical evidence to the contrary. When Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, participated in a commemoration ceremony at Jedwanbe in July 2001, Giertych accused him of bowing to Jewish interest groups. He has denounced Nazism, but is a great admirer of Franco, making a speech on this theme in the European Parliament.
mkuriluk:
I think April 18 is when Expelled hits theatres. Although, if that really is what dear Keith means by the “New Independence Day of America”… Oh boy. What a sad life the lad must lead.
(Nice, though, that the release of the excrement coincides with Poop for Peace Day. Thanks for that.)
ha. clever right?
Fittingly, on “Poop for Peace Day”, a Piece of Poop will be Expelled from Ben Stein’s anus.
Nick Gotts:
Giertych is not only an anti-semite, but in his own small way a holocaust denier.
Shorter Giertych: The Holocaust never happened and Darwin was responsible for it.
Todd
Over the past 1700 years forced Jewish segregation, and worse, has been the direct result of their being characterized by Christians as “those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah.”
I think it’s been a direct result of orthodox communities being an annoying pain in the ass no matter who or where they are. And, yes, that’s an oversimplification, and applies less to the modern era than the past. But minorities have historically not done well. Tribalism will always find some excuse, and I think we need to be careful to distinguish a true cause from ad-hoc justification.
And the main charge levelled against Jews was that the rabbi’s conspired against Jesus and a crowd of Jews elected to let Jesus die and release some other schmoe instead. But the fact that Jesus was himself a Jew executed by a mob doesn’t phaze the people buying styrofoam “Christians #1” mittens for their next pogrom.
anti-Jewish bigot who characterizes Jews as “those who did not recognise [sic] Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah”?
Even the Jews would agree with that characterization. The Jewish community today DIDN’T in fact recognize him as the Messiah — just like you don’t. Whether one thinks their opinion is right or wrong is something else entirely. How you get from an accurate description of their belief system to bigotry and antisemitism analogous to Hitler eludes me.
Just because you find somebody’s position incorrect and tragic doesn’t make you a bigot or a murderer. You, for instance, consider the creationist position wrong, and you consider many creationists “dishonest.” But are you firing up the ovens?
Witty, but probably not accurate with respect to Giertych – I said “in his own small way” because it’s independent Polish contributions to the genocide, like Jedwabne, that he denies. As an extreme Polish nationalist he’s both anti-semitic and anti-German! However, your summary would certainly do for some US far-right groups.
Keith, I know you’re a fool, but on this occasion five minutes with Google researching Giertych would have sufficed to prevent you demonstrating it once again. Find out about the “League of Polish Families”, for which Giertych was the Polish presidential candidate. I’ve been following its activities for years in the British anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. It even took its name from a pre-WWII anti-semitic party.
Does the Excruciating herd have any feet left to shoot?
ungtss:
Just because you find somebody’s position incorrect and tragic doesn’t make you a bigot or a murderer.
The death of Jesus is a very personal and emotional issue for Christians. People claim to have a very close personal relationship with Jesus — even a friendship. So when a few hundred thousand people think you, or your people, conspired to let their best friend ever die it is no longer an intellectual dispute, but a blood feud.
Taken out of that context, though, “jews didn’t accept jesus” does seem perfectly harmless, I agree. It is, strictly speaking, accurate. Just as it would be accurate to say, “Black men sure seem to spend a lot of time in jail.” Strictly speaking that’s true. But it can still be part of (and a justification for) racism.
Nick Gotts:
Shorter Giertych: Only the despicable Germans would do something as evil as try to kill all the Jews, for which I, a superior Pole, would like to thank them.
Ungtss said:
How you get from an accurate description of their belief system to bigotry and antisemitism analogous to Hitler eludes me.
Well, you could start by following the link in the original post. There you will find statements like:
Several people seem to be treating the quoted sentence as if it is supposed to be the reason why this man is called a bigot. This might be hard, but on the interwebs, when a word in underlined and of a different color, it is usually a link, which will take you to another page. In this case, it points to the rationale for calling him a bigot.
I know, this internet stuff is complicated, you’ll get used to it though.
Yet, such a swindler, acting within the law, has in fact no moral respect for any law.
And this coming from a Catholic? Hilarious.
inkadu, #13: I think as reasonable adults, we can acknowledge multiple inputs and still pin the blame on Darwin as the primary cause of the Holocaust, Communism, apartheid, and baby cancer.
It amazes me that Darwin seems to get a free ride on the baby cancer issue. Even Ben Stein is afraid to go after him there. And when I told the doctors at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute that they should investigate the Darwin/baby cancer link, you know what? They literally EXPELLED me from the building.
I think the whole problem is materialism. By that I mean the kind of materialism that says that material things exist; that material things have properties; and that these properties can be measured and analyzed, and that they behave in ways that are governed by physical principles. How asinine! How do these materialists explain it when my dog starts flying through the air and speaking Urdu? How do they explain the way objects in my yard appear, disappear, and transmogrify into space-aliens? How can anyone believe in materialism when it is so blindingly clear that material things do NOT exist and do NOT behave in ways that can be predicted in accordance with physical principles? I mean, sheesh! It requires more faith to believe that than to believe in Odin, Master of All Things.
Barry
inkadu, #13: I think as reasonable adults, we can acknowledge multiple inputs and still pin the blame on Darwin as the primary cause of the Holocaust, Communism, apartheid, and baby cancer.
It amazes me that Darwin seems to get a free ride on the baby cancer issue. Even Ben Stein is afraid to go after him there. And when I told the doctors at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute that they should investigate the Darwin/baby cancer link, you know what? They literally EXPELLED me from the building.
I think the whole problem is materialism. By that I mean the kind of materialism that says that material things exist; that material things have properties; and that these properties can be measured and analyzed, and that they behave in ways that are governed by physical principles. How asinine! How do these materialists explain it when my dog starts flying through the air and speaking Urdu? How do they explain the way objects in my yard appear, disappear, and transmogrify into space-aliens? How can anyone believe in materialism when it is so blindingly clear that material things do NOT exist and do NOT behave in ways that can be predicted in accordance with physical principles? I mean, sheesh! It requires more faith to believe that than to believe in Odin, Master of All Things.
Barry
Between Giertych saying in Creation magazine that evolution is the same as “macroevolution,” which requires the creation of new “genetic information” that artificial selection can’t produce:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/genetics.asp
… and Dr. Egnor saying that artificial selection is “intelligent design”:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/03/mr_dunfords_knot.html
… that means that the Nazis, who were intelligent agents pursuing a teleological program to improve the “Aryan race” by artificial selection, were actually practicing intelligent design!
Intelligent Design is evil!
Let’s wait a few days till the movie is released to confirm that Maciel Giertych is in the print that goes to theaters. Then we’ll hammer this point and throw it in their faces every chance we get.
Guy is a typical antisemite. Poland always had a pervasive antisemitic attitude, although never as murderous as their Teutonic neighbors. The Jews lived apart and didn’t assimilate because they were forced to do so and heavily discriminated against.
I don’t know why he even brings up the Jews in 2008. The Polish Jewish community was almost completely killed during WWII and the few left emigrated to the US and Israel after the war. Out of a population of 39 million, there is now maybe 10,000 Jews left, many of them passing as gentiles.
Ack! Apologies for the annoying double post…and for the apology post…
Barry
Between Giertych saying in Creation magazine that evolution is the same as “macroevolution,” which requires the creation of new “genetic information” that artificial selection can’t produce:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/genetics.asp
… and Dr. Egnor saying that artificial selection is “intelligent design”:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/03/mr_dunfords_knot.html
… that means that the Nazis, who were intelligent agents pursuing a teleological program to improve the “Aryan race” by artificial selection, were actually practicing intelligent design!
Intelligent Design is evil!
Between Giertych saying in Creation magazine that evolution is the same as “macroevolution,” which requires the creation of new “genetic information” that artificial selection can’t produce:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/genetics.asp
… and Dr. Egnor saying that artificial selection is “intelligent design”:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/03/mr_dunfords_knot.html
… that means that the Nazis, who were intelligent agents pursuing a teleological program to improve the “Aryan race” by artificial selection, were actually practicing intelligent design!
Intelligent Design is evil!
Sorry also about multiple posts, I kept getting a “500 error”. Opps.
Barry Trask:
I think the whole problem is materialism. By that I mean the kind of materialism that says that material things exist; that material things have properties; and that these properties can be measured and analyzed, and that they behave in ways that are governed by physical principles.
I agree. But how do we protect the children from this insiduous idea? The mere EXISTENCE of matter is a threat to the faith of the youth, because all the evil thoughts you listed can come about by natural observation. I suggest we blind children at birth as a good start. They can still feel things, but we can always switch things on them when they’re not holding on to them. “Your stuffed teddy just turned into a bicycle,” we will tell them, and their spirits will be set free. Hallelujah.
RE #23 inkadu – Absolutely on target this time!
“who characterizes Jews as “those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah”?”
That is really more of an accurate definition than a slander. Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah. The man is bigoted, by the quotes in stranger fruit, but the quote you cited in an of itself is not.
inkadu
Tribalism will always find some excuse, and I think we need to be careful to distinguish a true cause from ad-hoc justification.
It is indeed an over-simplification to equate every aspect of Jewish persecution to their religious beliefs, as opposed to their being a minority group, but often their status of a minority group was established and maintained primarily for religious reasons. For example, the Western social stereotype of the Jews as a “money lender” was a direct result of Jews being denied certain jobs by the early Christian church. This, combined with laws designed to keep Jews segregated such as marriage restrictions, forced quartering, etc. makes it difficult to quantify as just a case of tribalism.
And the main charge levelled against Jews was that the rabbi’s conspired against Jesus and a crowd of Jews elected to let Jesus die and release some other schmoe instead.
A valid point from a theological perspective but keep in mind that “It is those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah” is a direct quote from Giertych. So why doesn’t Giertych use your argument? Probably because the Jewish counter-argument is a simple “Perhaps, but I wasn’t the one who killed Jesus so why are you attacking me?” Once faced with this counter point the only one left to the Christian is the one adopted by Giertych. Keep in mind that the “you killed Jesus” argument won’t work against non-Jews, but not accepting Jesus as the messiah works against everyone which, for a modern Christian, would appear to make the stronger argument (but, of course, isn’t much of an argument at all).
Never mind Darwin and the Holocaust, when are the Wright brothers going to get the blame for 9/11?
Oh, come on, Dennis! The Wrights were innocent victims of DaVinciism!
You’ve got to love God. Either you accept that his infinite love is accessed solely through the belief that Jesus was not only his son but himself, or you’re damned for all eternity.
inkadu, #36: “The mere EXISTENCE of matter is a threat to the faith of the youth, because all the evil thoughts you listed can come about by natural observation. I suggest we blind children at birth as a good start. They can still feel things, but we can always switch things on them when they’re not holding on to them. “Your stuffed teddy just turned into a bicycle,” we will tell them, and their spirits will be set free.”
Sir, I have to say that this is the most wonderful, uplifting, and Christ-like post I have ever seen on the internets. For years I had been puzzled, and troubled, by the Nazarene’s suggestion that if one’s eye is offensive, it’s a good practice to just rip the sucker out. This had seemed both unwise and a bit icky (not to mention medically dangerous, given the surgical standards of the time). But now I see that what he really meant was that materialism is offensive; that sensory perception is the devil’s way of steering us toward materialism; and that true faith requires that we reject sensory perception and all of the insidious consequences which flow therefrom.
I have a new mission beginning today. I shall blind myself, and lead others who will also blind themselves. And if we fall in a ditch–well, we will deny that we have fallen in a ditch, and start working on how to numb our other senses to prevent Satan from making us think we have fallen in a ditch.
And all this time, to think I thought Odin was a better god than the Nazarene! C.S. Lewis could never convince me, but you have done so in the most magnificent and eye-opening (if, under the circumstances, only temporarily so) way, and have saved my soul. You, sir, are the greatest theologian that has ever lived, and I am humble to post in your presence.
Barry
I’m sorry, but I’m not buying the antisemitism. I think this is taking it too far. Your primary objection, if I might infer, is the term RECOGNIZE. They don’t “recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah.” By this you feel Giertych is stating that Jewish people do not accept a fundamental truth. But so what? This is theology. The Jewish people do NOT accept JC as a messiah. What’s the big deal? It’s one religion arguing against another religion. Why does criticism of one religion by another equal antisemitism? Most religions are pretty much anti every religion that’s not theirs. This criticism really seems to be scraping the barrel.
I had a friend just give me a great idea. We were discussing how we can go watch Expelled but not support the movie. What he suggested is that when you go in, ask the front counter if you can buy a ticket for a random movie and just sit in on Expelled. That way you are not giving money to Expelled but are able to see the movie. The local movie theatres might not really care and it can go on for quite awhile before anyone really finds out. Sounds like an idea if you ask me….
I had a friend just give me a great idea. We were discussing how we can go watch Expelled but not support the movie. What he suggested is that when you go in, ask the front counter if you can buy a ticket for a random movie and just sit in on Expelled. That way you are not giving money to Expelled but are able to see the movie. The local movie theatres might not really care and it can go on for quite awhile before anyone really finds out. Sounds like an idea if you ask me….
In a desperate attempt to fly this thread even more off-topic, there was an interesting (albeit short) article The Grauniad yesterday, Da Vinci’s mother was a slave, Italian study claims.
inkadu:
Taken out of that context, though, “jews didn’t accept jesus” does seem perfectly harmless, I agree. It is, strictly speaking, accurate. Just as it would be accurate to say, “Black men sure seem to spend a lot of time in jail.” Strictly speaking that’s true. But it can still be part of (and a justification for) racism.
Certainly it can be. But it’s neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for racism. I may acknowledge that the Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and not be racist; and I may be racist without caring whether or not the Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah.
Sdej:
The exploitation of rules, of imprecisely written laws, of gaps in them, of their multitude and inconsistencies, activities on the verge of legality, tax evasion techniques, all formally within the law but unethical, derive from the rabbinical casuistry, from the mentality of deriving ethics from the written law. Yet, such a swindler, acting within the law, has in fact no moral respect for any law.
Again, this statement is neither necessary nor sufficient to support attacks on Jews because they are Jews. Firstly, it’s limited to a particular state of mind within a particular school within Judaism. One might equally say “Theocracy stems from the religious mentality of deriving ethics from alleged divine revelation which may be molded at will.” That doesn’t mean “Run out and kill the Christians.” It means, “hey, I think these two lines of thinking are linked.”
Compare this to PZ’s statement in his next post about one particular sect:
I think “fundamentalist” has become a synonym for “misogynistic pedophile”.
Now that’s bigotry.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this Giertych is making some unfair and unwarranted generalizations. But the statements cited against him do not hold a CANDLE to the statements made on this blog.
blah blah blah… boo hoo… waa waaaaaa.
So boring. So insipid. SO CONCERNED.
“The death of Jesus is a very personal and emotional issue for Christians. People claim to have a very close personal relationship with Jesus — even a friendship. So when a few hundred thousand people think you, or your people, conspired to let their best friend ever die it is no longer an intellectual dispute, but a blood feud.”
inkadu, I have some very strong, less than positive things that come to mind when I read a statement like this, but in the interest of discourse I’ll put the above statement in pragmatic perspective and explain why those initial thoughts came into my head. You stated in your post that an explanation for the two millenia of anti-semitism was that the hatred is a “blood feud” resulting from the crucifixion of Jesus and the feelings of loss and resentment that emanates from that event.
That logic of that statement is seriously flawed. The first reason is that you used the phrase “blood feud” to describe the sometimes deadly conflicts between Jews and Christians that occurred with the crucifixion of Jesus as its catalyst. This is a mildly flawed statement because any historian will tell you that most of the major manifestations of anti-semitic violence in our history only used the crucifixion of Christ as an inflammatory catalyst for these outbursts of violence, with the Jews being – instead of enemies in a two-thousand year blood feud – mere scapegoats for tyrants and dictators to advance their own previously held desires for hegemony and lust for wealth and power. This is not simply an isolated opinion, as you will find a hard time finding someone who would even hint at the implication that Hitler would commit so many resources to the exacting of revenge over a Christian “blood feud,” especially since the elimination of the Jews in German-controlled areas and lands beyond during that period greatly benefited Hitler in many other areas than mere satisfaction in having his revenge. I believe more people would attribute his actions to pure, unadulterated racism and cold, calculating political manipulation.
The following is a basic restatement of your original post, with most of the details removed and presented in generic form. You may argue if you want that this restatement changes your meaning, but unless a majority of the people on this site agree with you, I will stand behind my opinion that it does not:
Christians have reacted the way they have (displayed malicious, and often murderous anti-semitism) in history because the Jewish priests that condemned Jesus to die in effect murdered a very close, personal friend of theirs. I give this apology for anti-semitism about as much credence as I would give someone who walked up to me and said that they hated me because my Catholic ancestors murdered their great-great-etc.. grandfather during the Spanish Inquisition. While it should evoke sympathy for the victim and implore our generation to make sure we keep such injustices in the past, it definitely does not entitle him to murder me. And if he did, I hope that he would be prosecuted and punished for his crime instead of having some apologist imply that I somehow brought it on myself by simply being a descendant of some terrible human beings.
The very reason this line of logic fails is because while Christians do, in fact, have very real emotional bonds – bonds that really do impress me and induce an amount of respect on a purely philosophical level – to the creator and savior within their religious faith, they IN NO WAY have ever physically met, conversed, been influenced by, or in any other way have or ever had a real, corporeal involvement with the man named Jesus Christ. (I mean that in only the tangible sense of the word ‘real,’ but you’ll no doubt use that above statement an excuse to lambast me for implying Christians somehow don’t have genuine feelings of connection. I assure you that not only did I formerly have a genuine belief and connection when I was a practicing Catholic, but I still have loved ones who maintain that emotional and spiritual connection to this day, so any such criticism will immediately be off base – just so you know.)
That is DEFINITELY NOT to say that religious believers do not have a real, genuine emotional connection with what their belief holds top be their creator, but for today’s society to even come to the table to hear an argument such as yours – anger and a feud that somehow explains mass murder and violence – the offended person in question has to have had a significant relationship with the person wronged in order to even minimally explicate someone’s resort to violence and murder.
And besides, isn’t the fashionable idea within creationism and intelligent design right now that evolution and “Darwinism” was the major driving force behind the horrors of the Holocaust, as the movie you are so persistently thumping for clearly states? It seems as if apologists are still reaching for reasons to excuse Christian brutality in the past two thousand years when they should be honestly facing and correcting the brutality, tyranny, and greed for both power and wealth of our ancestors. If we can somehow do this candidly, even if it is on a fragmented and piecemeal basis, we will be giving ourselves the chance to do what our ancestors could never do – bring people together and improve EVERYONE’s quality of life instead of that of just one group, race or class.
The problem arises when you realize that neither these ancestors or their current day apologists and disciples care to improve any situation but their own and that of those who subscribe to their own narrow system of beliefs. Any departure from that system results in vehement complaints and sharp insults, and if a recantation of the departure from doctrine is not given, excommunication or some form of it surely follows, based on charges of heresy, blasphemy, or some other contrived crime.
This is exactly why no sane and competent scientist would ever allow a religious precept to invade their scientific endeavors, even if they believe themselves in some form of religious faith. Science, because it is founded in observing nature and extrapolating concepts to explain its operation, mandates that if substantial contrary evidence rears its head, the scientist must discard his erroneous beliefs and go where the observations and data leads. Conversely, organized religions – specifically individual denominations of faith – operate on the premise that a denomination’s doctrine contains the ultimate truth concerning the origin, progression, and future of our existence. This puts it in diametric opposition with science at the most basic of levels.
So please, the next time you try to post a justification for something as horrible as the Christian history of violent anti-semitism, be sure that you do so in a manner that hold a little more water than what you did above. All it takes is a little thought and effort, and if you do that, you’ll find that more people will take you seriously and engage in debate with you. (Although I somehow doubt that open debate and honest discourse are your motives, given the way you’ve presented your argument thus far.)
I would highly suggest that you read all of a post before you criticize it. The part you are jumping over is merely a small part of the criticism of Maciel Giertych. They reading this.
By their own will, [Jews] prefer to live a separate life, in apartheid from the surrounding communities. They form their own communes (kahals), they govern themselves by their own rules and they take care to maintain also a spatial separateness. They form the ghettos themselves, as districts in which they live together, comparable to the Chinatowns in the USA. It was only Hitler’s Germany that created the concept of forced separation, of a closed ghetto from which Jews were not allowed to leave.
Jews are not pioneers. They do not go conquering the wild world or overpowering the hazards of nature. They settle among other civilisations, preferably among the rich. They tend to migrate from poorer to richer lands.They do so always as a group, immediately forming their own separate community.
While it is true that there are some sects of Jews who choose to try to live seperately from the rest of society, that is merely a minority. Throughout European history, Jews were forced into those ghettos. And that reason was anti-semitism. Maciel Giertych is passing the reasons for the mistreatment of Jews onto the Jews themselves. That is the definition of “scraping the bottom of the barrel”.
And the next time you ask what is the big deal about Jews denying that Jesus is the messiah, please keep in mind blood libel. Usually with claims of not accepting Jesus were the charges of murdering the messiah and blood libel.
(Please forgive if this someone else also responded to this claim. My connection conked out for about an hour.)
Oh yes, it is such bigotry to call out a sect for its egregious abuse of children. Ungtss, go shove your false equivalence where the sun doesn’t shine.
The irony meter has once again been pegged by the high minded ethical concerns of the turd herd emerging from the sewer to castigate a person in the opposing camp largely without merit. His deconstruction of the evolution theory from a genetic perspective is the real problem, not his socio-anthropological views.
Here we have a band of bottom dwellers and sewer rats who idoloize the pig of the north minnesota fats , alias assistant chief blasphemer to doggins the vile.
I don’t think the fake ticket or anonymous ticket will work
for the evopigs because the attendents have been paid extra to toss anyone who smells like a sheep or has white rat feces in their hair.
April 18th ..The Great Awakening
bS- if you read some of my other posts right here on this very thread, you’ll see we are essentially in agreement. “you people killed jesus,” is an effective emotional propaganda tool, even if it’s not the root cause of a pogrom, which, i agree, have a lot to do with politics and economic conditions at the time.
BUT it doesn’t help that christians make a big deal about the suffering of jesus; it’s a real focus of catholicism. passion plays lead to a lot of strong feelings, from sorrow to gratitude to anger. there is a dimension of anti-semitism that springs directly from christianity that goes far beyond what christians would feel towards that of, say, hindus or buddhists.
I’m also a bit puzzled by refusal to accept that historical grievances can even theoretically fuel hatred. While I don’t care who your grandfather tortured, Serbians and Croatians are at each others throats for wars and crimes committed centuries ago. Ditto for Sunni and Shia. 9/11 is probably going to fuel anti-Islamic sentiment in some quarters of the United States for at least a century. Historical group identification can be decisive, even if it’s entirely fictional — I’ve even talked to pagans who stupidly hate Christians for supposedly torturing their witchy forebears. Yes, there are larger currents in history, but the specific flotsam of specific ideas and texts do have an impact.
How does what he said make him an “anti-Jewish bigot”? It does look like he overgeneralized Jewish people by saying they move into wealthy civilizations and form communities there, for example, but that hardly makes him an anti-Jewish bigot.
First just a nitpick: that’s Maciej.
And second, the fact that this man is a father of our ex- Minister of Education really scares the hell out of me.
Just goes to show that Americans are not alone in having to deal with stupid religious people in their government.
Keith:
I don’t think the fake ticket or anonymous ticket will work
for the evopigs because the attendents have been paid extra to toss anyone who smells like a sheep or has white rat feces in their hair.
Is distinguishing the feces of white rats from brown a new DI initiative? Keep us informed.
Also, speaking of DI initiatives, I think baby cancer needs to be further investigated. Cancer cells think that reproducing is what is important, even if kills the organism. Where could they have gotten that idea from, if not from reading Darwin? Can cells read? Or do they absorb information from the brain? How did Darwin’s dangerous idea infect cells? The recent increase in cancer rates seems to follow the the increase of the spread of Darwin’s ideas. Is there a connection? E-mail me for the full grant proposal. I’m asking for only $10,000 to research this.
Barry – Thank you! It is nice to be recognized as the theological giant that I am in my own mind. It’s almost as fulfilling as holding the Distinguished Chair of Religious Ethics at a Catholic University. While I think it’s great for other people to poke their own eyes out, I think there needs to be a class of people to keep evil material objects out of the hands of the blind. It is to that role to which I feel called.
How does what he said make him an “anti-Jewish bigot”? It does look like he overgeneralized Jewish people by saying they move into wealthy civilizations and form communities there, for example, but that hardly makes him an anti-Jewish bigot.
Absolutely! Parasites are an important part of any eco-system.
Rey Fox:
Oh yes, it is such bigotry to call out a sect for its egregious abuse of children. Ungtss, go shove your false equivalence where the sun doesn’t shine.
The good PZ did not call out a particular sect. He said “I think “fundamentalist” has become a synonym for “misogynistic pedophile””
He’s equating all fundamentalists with this particular sect of misogynistic pedophiles. That’s an enormous, bigoted overgeneralization. Like after you hear that a white man robbed a bank, you say “I’m beginning to think that all white men are crooks!”
And all this immediately after a post accusing another person of bigotry for pointing out the obvious fact that religious Jews today do not believe Jesus was the Messiah.
Ah, sheer genius.
Does this mean Mexican immigrants are Jewish? Do they come to the USA for good rye bread and delicatesins?
Guy is an idiot. There are German, Polish, Swiss, Scandinavian, Chinese, What Have You communities all over America. Chances are most people on this thread have ancestors that came from one such.
That sentence in itself is NOT the evidence that Giertych is an anti-semitic bigot. FTFL.
inkadu,
I apologize for being less than informed about your previous posts. I wasn’t trying to completely discredit the influence history has over the grievances that manifest themselves in pogroms or other bloody retaliations, I was only trying to state the case that they shouldn’t be used as justifications for unjust and retaliatory acts by the descendants of the antagonsists. I – along with most of us, I assume – have occasionally allowed my emotions to get the better of me and spoken or acted outside of my normal philosophical bounds, but I wish we could get to a point in discourse where we could rationally discount these ancient grudges as a society and move into a reconciliation of some sort.
As contrite as I am about misrepresenting your views in my post, I am equally encouraged by your willingness to talk about the issue with me instead of writing me off as someone who makes it a habit. I appreciate it, and I hope that I come across many more on these boards with your mindset.
** Just to add to my last post, in the part where I wrote:
“…I was only trying to state the case that they shouldn’t be used as justifications for unjust and retaliatory acts by the descendants of the antagonsists.”
It occurred to me that a better way to put it would be to say that such we as a society shouldn’t ACCEPT such justifications. People will always be – and always should be – free to express their feelings about what and why things happen, but the day we stop accepting the contrived and intentionally inflammatory explanations by examining situations with a clear mind and deciding what reasons have stand-alone merit (free from manipulation, propaganda, and scape-goating), we’ll be in a much better place, I think.
Nick Gotts:
And all this immediately after a post accusing another person of bigotry for pointing out the obvious fact that religious Jews today do not believe Jesus was the Messiah. – ungtss, #59
That sentence in itself is NOT the evidence that Giertych is an anti-semitic bigot. FTFL.
Well first off, that’s all PZ drew off the other article, as though he found it to be of great significance. But what else makes this dude a bigot? His (accurate) observation that Jews tend to voluntarily form independent subcultures wherever they go? Perhaps his (limited) criticism of legalism within the Rabbinic tradition?
Did the man ever say anything comparable to PZ’s “fundamentalist is a synonym for misogynistic pedophile?”
bS: No problem. We’re all looking for fights on the interwebs. It’s more fun that way. Cheers.
The interview is posted on youtube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dhLlPbxNU-A (by a creationist, so don’t waste time writing a comment he’ll probably erase it anyway)
Interestingly enough, Giertych is presented as a population geneticist, although as far as could check he is specialised in dendrology (and they forget to mention he’s part of a far right antisemitic political party, the League of Polish Families)
I love the Lord Privy Seal for “radiation” at 00:42. Real helpful, guys.
I take the position of Lny Bruce.
Bruce always wondered as a kid, did the Jews kill Christ or not. One day, his cousin Morty called him and told him that he had found a note down in his cellar which looked quite old.
The note read:
We did it
signed
Hymie
Actually saying that the Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah does not make one an “anti-Jewish bigot” merely accurate. If he had said ” The Jews rejected Jesus as messiah and thus should be exterminated” then perhaps you mighh have grounds for your comment. Otherwise it is just more illogical BS in the same vein as the ID’ists.
Not just that one sentence of course… follow the LINK.
but here’s some blasphemy for you,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robandsteph/2341324353/in/set-72157604141332486/
On the website with Giertych’s interview, they also have a bunch of other clips, including the plagiarized animation of inside the cell and a bit of interview with PZ himself. It’s here:
http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=category&category_id=778
The clips pretty much answered every question I ever had about evolution and creationism…I was left with only one remaining question: what about the PYGMIES and the DWARFS?!!
This form of guilt by association evos are proposing is very puzzling in the light of recent evidence that most rabid evolutionists have badgers for parents, yet no one is against animal rights on the ID team.
Re #64 – ungtss. Read my 14. The LPF is also virulently anti-gay, having systematically tried to identify homosexuality with pedophilia, worked for bans on gay rights marches and attempted to get the mere attempt to change the definition of marriage criminal; and it wants to ban abortion even to save the mother’s life. Your comments as a whole clearly demonstrate at the least complete ignorance of European and particularly Polish politics.
“If he had said ” The Jews rejected Jesus as messiah and thus should be exterminated” then perhaps you mighh have grounds for your comment. Otherwise it is just more illogical BS in the same vein as the ID’ists.”
Posted by: Ray | April 13, 2008 7:15 PM
Amen Ray… It’s another example of the twisting of language by people who know full well what they are doing. If they were truly ignorant of the truth and wanted the answer, it would only take once to truly convince them, especially in this case when all that is necessary is to make the distinction you made.
Discussion becomes extremely difficult and unproductive when only one side is willing to talk openly and without distortion.
Giertych is a notorious antisemite. Who has spouted a lot of racist nonsense for years. The Jews have pointed this out themselves. Below is a PR from Jewish Antidefamation League.
The creos are lying as usual. The Jesus is not a Messiah quote was just a leadin, Gierych has published a huge amount of antisemitic garbage.
blockquote>adl.org:
Racist Pamphlet Shows Anti-Semitism In Poland Is ‘Alive And Well’
New York, NY, February 16, 2007 … The publication of an anti-Semitic and racist diatribe by a leading Polish member of the European Parliament shows that “anti-Semitism is alive and well in Poland,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said today.
“Civilization at War in Europe,” a pamphlet published by European Parliament member Maciej Giertych, accuses Jews of “jealously nurturing their chosenness” and suggesting that Jews are a “tragic community … who did not recognize Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah.” Giertych’s son, Roman Giertych, leads the far-right League of Polish Families (LPF) and is Poland’s Education Minister.
“Maciej Giertych’s pamphlet is anti-Semitic and racist from beginning to end,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, who was born in Poland and is a Holocaust survivor. “It shows that anti-Semitism is not only alive and well in Poland, but is viewed by some as a commodity to be exported to the rest of Europe — a commodity of hate.
“As Poland knows too well from its history, when anti-Semitism is permitted to flourish, democracy and freedom are at risk,” added Mr. Foxman. “It is shameful that members of the parties in the governing coalition in Poland, and in the European parliament, continue to stand silent as their fellow parliamentarians give voice to anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry.”
The Giertych pamphlet, published February 14 and made available on his Web site, contains outright anti-Semitic assertions and rehashes age-old stereotypes, such as the claim that the Jewish religion encourages dishonesty in business dealings. The pamphlet also makes false claims about Jewish history by suggesting, for example, that until the advent of the Nazis, Jews voluntarily lived in ghettoes. Credible scholarship recognizes that the ghetto was enforced on European Jewry.
I brought up Giertych on the Expelled website’s blog.
http://expelledthemovie.com/blog/2008/04/11/expelled-from-expelled-2/#comment-11960
Maciej Giertych is a member of the League of Polish Families, and his son, Roman Giertych, heads the party. The LPF organises nasty anti-gay demonstrations, but in the USA is promoted by sites like WND as a “pro-family” organisation. Roman is also the honorary chair of the “All Polish Youth”, a neo-Nazi group, although when a video emerged of its Nazi-flag wearing Roman affected to be shocked. The video also showed Maciej’s assistant Leokadia Zwiazek enthusiastically taking part, and he was forced to dismss her. I have more here.
As if that’s a surprise. I think that finding a leader of a fascist organisation that isn’t a theist is going to be hard.
[sarcasm]Oh come on, Giertych and Stein aren’t too hard to figure out. They want good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, not this new horrible Darwinian version.
It was paradise before Darwin, with pogroms, collective blood guilt for deicide among the Jews, repressive laws, that whole bit. Well anyway, it kept people religious and blaming each other.
Now it’s hell, with personal responsibility, Jews leaving Judaism (don’t forget, some few of the fanatical Jews found secularization of Jews to be a decided drawback to the decline in anti-Semitism), Xians leaving Xianity, freedom, science not under the thumb of the clerics, apocalypse. Really, to many religious folk this is all terribly bad, since following religion is the imperative, the “prime directive.”
And the damn Nazis? Didn’t help anything, really. No, we need anti-Semitism, just the old kind, what Giertych recommends. Scare both Xians and Jews into the holy houses, just like they used to be. A little blood spilled? Ah, what has that ever mattered to good old-fashioned religion?[/sarcasm]
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
The good PZ did not call out a particular sect. He said “I think “fundamentalist” has become a synonym for “misogynistic pedophile””
Well… [checks history, news, writings and speeches and behaviors of Fundamentalists], huh. Whaddya know – it has.
And?
Thorn: “I think that finding a leader of a fascist organisation that isn’t a theist is going to be hard”
Really? Then you aren’t looking hard enough on the dogmatic left! Hmmm…Dworkin is Dead….but MacKinnon, et al are still alive…and Hillary’s base politic sure does know a thing or two about newspeak, and prison growth maintainance…go look over at Feministing.com, there surely are a few good candidates for jackboots.
Hillary’s base politic sure does know a thing or two about newspeak, and prison growth maintainance
And Hillary Clinton is indeed a long-time, possibly life-long, theist and fairly vocal about it – and the newspeak is coming from her campaign, not the “base politic” (by which I presume you mean a large chunk of the voters who are sick to death of the predations of the Bush II regime). And “MacKinnon, et al” don’t even have a hundredth-part the power of the lying hate-mongering anti-American right. And, highly questionable as they are, don’t come anywhere near the same level of soulless evil.
And exercises in “Oh yeah? Well, you are, too!” are a poor substitute for facts and logic. But are unsurprising.
Re #81 Napoleon MacKinnon. “Fascist” does not mean “someone I disapprove of”. The original fascist party was Mussolini’s, so it only makes any sort of sense to apply the term either to those who use it of themselves, or of those whose ideology is similar. This ideology can be summarised as: strong state, anti-democratic “leader principle”, extreme nationalism, and glorification of inequality and conflict. Historically, these went with belief in the desirability of strongly differentiated sex roles, with men being the bosses; although the roles of Mussolini’s granddaughter and Le Pen’s daughter in their respective parties suggests some revision of this aspect.
Eric: “don’t even have a hundredth-part the power of the lying hate-mongering anti-American right”
No, the newspeak isn’t just a right wing thing at all, as both sides have their patented biases, and actually work quite well together–as in the case of Hillary et al and the Bush regime, which has worked quite succesfully with them on creating a police focused state of affairs here at home.Kind of like the husband and wife of global imperialism, so are Right Wing Religious Patriarchy and Left Wing Matriarchal soldier states (ahem)
Evidence? Well, depends on who manufacturs it, or plants it, as the old saw goes. In the case of MacKinnon et all, it was the inflated stats on men as violence prone that overlooked women as violence initiators, and the stats that defined rape as being perped by ‘those with penis’ rather than the matrilocal fear mongering that created good candidates for Iraq duty–in the early years of WAWA,prison growth etc.
“never let your left hand know what your right iis doing”…I sure hate religion, but that ol saw is right on: the R was getting the MacKinnon hand job, and paying for it in welfare checks back then, banking future soldier hours…
mosy on over to feminsheisting.com and take a look at what males they are pandering to now: it is exactly like watching chimp females skulk behind the bushes with lesser males today in order to challenge higher ranked males tomorrow. The males that interact there? Bonobo raised–they like their aunties lovin’ touch…
Nick: thanks for that focused comment. I prefer to look from a more updated eye at the issue of the jackboots: Urfascism
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
A simple example of this as the MacKinnon/Hillaryian fascism
is the exploitation of difference, and the framing of discussion thus:” For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare.”
The early sloganeering of the femist was exactly along these lines, as we heard that having sex with men is ‘trafficking with the enemy”, etc. Dworkins famous statement( which I seem to recall she disreputably disavowed), posited the jackboot as a high heeld shoe, in a mans mouth…
For instance “For Ur-Fascism[…] individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will.”
This reminds me of some of those Internationalist fems who used to say “whose money is it anyways? It is everybodies money…” etc ( locally Phyllis Kahn types, the forme Sheila Wellstone, etc…and then that horribly misogynistic phrase “for women and children”…a society conceived without men; “selective populism”… “Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction.”
aka: Eve Ensler, and V-day.
Re #85 Mr. MacKinnon,
Thank you for that incoherent and illiterate jumble of non sequiturs and neologisms. The message I take from it is that you hate and fear women. In your own interest, and that of the women you may otherwise victimise, I urge you to get help.
This form of guilt by association evos are proposing is very puzzling in the light of recent evidence that most rabid evolutionists have badgers for parents, yet no one is against animal rights on the ID team.
hey, Keith-
did you know that Ken Ham likes to have sex with piglets?
no wonder the “ID team” (could that circus tent GET any larger) is all for “animal rights”.