The Gush Etzion Regional Council has acknowledged ritualistic child abuse allegations within its communities following investigations and survivor testimonies, shaking Israel's religious-Zionist sector.
Yes, you should be honest with us. I note that you did not actually supply either the “branches of Judaism” nor the specific doctrine you claim supports this. So if it’s doctrinal, name it. That’s a simple enough ask.
Jewish people and Jewish doctrine are two different things, just as Christian people and Christian doctrine are two different things.
You’ve showed me an example of Jewish inhumanity, that’s great. Before I posted this comment, I posted another one all about that with linked examples on a grand scale.
All this is utterly meaningless in terms of describing doctrine, not just for Judaism but for every faith.
For every Jewish cruelty or inhumanity you show me, I can show you endless Christian and even atheist cruelty and inhumanity. The bounds of cruelty exceed doctrine and apply to the humans underneath; the doctrine is only relevant insofar as it directly supports the act or is twisted to serve as justification for obviously immoral and even amoral acts.
If what you posted were common only to Jews everywhere, you might have something. But they don’t. Organized pedophilia has been found everywhere, as have people who claim to be adherents of benevolent religion and then turn around and act in ways even that religion labels as abhorrent.
People take doctrine and twist it to their own ends. It doesn’t mean the doctrine is bad (or good); it just means people who do evil also lie to justify their evil deeds, and that happens everywhere, inside religion and outside of it.
When I first wrote the comment to which you are responding now, I thought the question was about the Israeli war atrocities being committed against Palestinians and I wrote my comment from that point of view; in that I was in error.
Yes, you should be honest with us. I note that you did not actually supply either the “branches of Judaism” nor the specific doctrine you claim supports this. So if it’s doctrinal, name it. That’s a simple enough ask.
Ok, I think you know but I will play. The Jews of the New York incident above were hasidic jews, chabad-lubavich in particular.
Can we say that all sects that think that their people are the “best” “chosen” “above” “special” is wrong and we should NOT tolerate them?
Jewish people and Jewish doctrine are two different things, just as Christian people and Christian doctrine are two different things.
Yes they are different things and we can condemn both of them if immoral. Why are we talking about christians now?
For every Jewish cruelty or inhumanity you show me, I can show you endless Christian and even atheist cruelty and inhumanity. The bounds of cruelty exceed doctrine and apply to the humans underneath; the doctrine is only relevant insofar as it directly supports the act or is twisted to serve as justification for obviously immoral and even amoral acts.
Again, this is not a dick race. And yes, every religion and every person can be cruel and inhumane but in the year of our lord 2026 we are witnessing a total out of control ultra religious cult committing genocide with ZERO repercussions and managing an international blackmail paedophilic and human trafficking ring with the most powerful people in the world, including the current sitting US president.
So excuse me if I don’t go checking the Buddhism doctrine to find dirt on them, doesn’t seem urgent now.
Let me ask you a question then. Can you name another holy book used as a religious law that contains so much disgusting abhorrent behaviour as the Talmud?
Ok, I think you know but I will play. The Jews of the New York incident above were hasidic jews, chabad-lubavich in particular.
No, I really did not know. Thank you for naming them. I will read more about them.
Can we say that all sects that think that their people are the “best” “chosen” “above” “special” is wrong
YES.
and we should NOT tolerate them?
Hmmm. For myself, I already avoid all religion, especially of the Abrahamic sort. But you’re talking about tolerating people, and that’s kind of a different story for me: I do not engage with the overly religious to begin with, for multiple reasons. (I quite like pagans, though.)
But if someone is of a particular creed and I don’t know about it, they are obviously well-behaved enough to keep that to themselves. I would say that such people, even as members of sects who think themselves above the rest of us – because remember, not all are there by choice or even because they actually believe – are fine by me.
Or to put it another way, if they are not shoving their personal elitist self-belief in my face via shows of entitlement or shitty behavior, I don’t care what faith they hold.
Why are we talking about christians now?
As an illustration that there is no difference whatsoever between belief systems when the real problem is evil behavior, perpetrated by humans. When you’re sprayed by a skunk, do you really give a shit how wide the stripe down its back?
Also, I left Christianity many years ago, but before that I was deep into it for decades and studied a lot, so it’s always where I start when I think about religions filled with self-righteous pricks who twist dogma and doctrine to justify evil.
in the year of our lord 2026
Not my lord. I’d rather have tertiary syphilis, thanks.
we are witnessing a total out of control ultra religious cult committing genocide with ZERO repercussions and managing an international blackmail paedophilic and human trafficking ring with the most powerful people in the world, including the current sitting US president.
All of that is 100% true, inasmuch as I myself know or would argue. But now that you’ve responded, I’m pretty sure our difference lies in your willingness (or my unwillingness, take your pick) to extrapolate outwards from the personal identity of the perpetrators of those great evils to tar vast swathes of humans with the same brush by simple virtue of membership. That’s not my thing. I see an asshole, I don’t go looking past their shit to see if other assholes match.
At the deepest level that is, at best, a self-protective behavior and outlook, and you’ll see it the most when people have personally been eviscerated by evil in the name of a god.
For myself I have focused more on getting the myth of Christianity out of my system, but I have no judgement for those who are seared by the ongoing abuses and control of organized religion, especially if they grew up in or around that.
Let me ask you a question then. Can you name another holy book used as a religious law that contains so much disgusting abhorrent behaviour as the Talmud?
That is an excellent question, and the truth is that I do not know, because my knowledge of the Talmud is superficial at best. Coming from Christianity, and such gems as the early fathers, such as Tertullian who thought women do not have souls, I’d say if you put them side by side they’d probably end up within spitting range of each other. I usually did not go into the source language for the repulsive bits, because that’s not what I was in it for, but they are certainly there. The Quran is also not a shining example of how to behave toward certain members of society, so we’re back to the whole Abrahamic thing.
what fucking religion has a book like this?!
That’s not religion, that’s self-delusion. My question for you would be whether that particular line, and those like it, are still being used to justify the foul and horrific sexual use of children, and by whom. If it is and they are, they should be lined up and shot, NOT for their religion but for their unholy use of the bodies of innocent children, AND their abhorrent use of religion to justify and self-excuse those vast evils. (If that’s the actual belief and practice of the sect you mentioned by name, then I genuinely did not know and I will stand corrected.)
You’ve clearly thought this through (which is more than I can say for the usual fare here, so thank you) and we’re not disagreeing on facts, as far as I can tell. It’s the context in which I personally hold those facts contrasted with the personal context in which you hold those facts, and I would not take my own position out further than I have. People do tremendous evil. For myself, I think all religions have some measure of repugnant shit, especially the Abrahamic variety.
Yet if someone holds a personal faith that lifts them up, lifts those around them up, that helps them to live in a hard and brutal world, then I personally won’t tar them with the same brush that I absolutely reserve in full force for the perpetrators of those evils you named. But you gotta do you, and that’s not just a blithe, easy statement. This is something I had to fight through to clarity for myself, it took years, and I expect anyone deeply fucked by religion has to do the same. Maybe that’s you as well.
So honestly, if I were to ask you one thing it would be this: look at your position, what you’ve written, and ask yourself what the end result is in terms of lifting yourself and your inner world up in such a way that you are no longer crushed by the evils you see around you, and which you may have even suffered yourself. Or to put it another way, “If I decide this is how I want my worldview to be, will the way in which I am viewing the vast evil around me advance my well-being or improve my life in any way?” When I left Christianity after decades, that was what I had to ask myself. It was quite possibly one of the most important questions I have ever been asked. So that’s what I am asking you as well: not for public discussion, but for you to consider privately, over time, along with the well-stated facts of your case.
I appreciate your thoughtful response, and if I have provided offense in any way, I apologize. That’s not my goal, and I hope that is self-apparent.
EDITED TO ADD that I looked up that sect, Chabad-Lubavitch, and beyond the mattress thing being discredited I honestly did not find any mention of pedophilia in regard to that sect. Trump and Putin both apparently love them, though, which is not in their favor. I will continue to look. If you want to toss me some links I will read them.
Chabad are mostly notable for being less insular than most Orthodox sects, doing a lot of outreach to secular/Reform/Conservative Jews, and thus ending up as one of the big names in overseas funding for Zionism in the modern day. They’re really the mainstream face of Orthodox Judaism, and the fucked up abuse scandals in Israel have tended to come from fringe, Messianic sects that the state’s Rabbinate and larger organizations like Chabad can at least pretend to distance themselves from.
As for the Talmud, it’s weird how much it tends to get played up in antisemitic narratives, because in my (very limited) experience it is really, incredibly dry and mostly boring. It’s like reading Reddit comments on every page of the scriptures, where 5 incredibly pedantic nerds are arguing over what exactly counts as a fork, or what a story about a wage dispute is supposed to say about contract law and social hierarchy. There’s a predictably authoritarian “just listen to your boss and your rabbi” bent to the morals it extracts, but at the end of the day it’s a couple thousand pages of mundane, day-to-day legal doctrine. Anyone can learn Talmud, it’s just a lot of effort, and like a lot of difficult religious texts, it mostly ends up being a source local authority figures can pull out to settle arguments in their favor.
Mmm, some practices are doctrinal in some branches of Judaism. Just read a comment below.
Did we forgot about this?
If we want to seriously talk about religions and what is and is not acceptable in our society we need to be honest with ourselves.
Yes, you should be honest with us. I note that you did not actually supply either the “branches of Judaism” nor the specific doctrine you claim supports this. So if it’s doctrinal, name it. That’s a simple enough ask.
Jewish people and Jewish doctrine are two different things, just as Christian people and Christian doctrine are two different things.
You’ve showed me an example of Jewish inhumanity, that’s great. Before I posted this comment, I posted another one all about that with linked examples on a grand scale.
All this is utterly meaningless in terms of describing doctrine, not just for Judaism but for every faith.
For every Jewish cruelty or inhumanity you show me, I can show you endless Christian and even atheist cruelty and inhumanity. The bounds of cruelty exceed doctrine and apply to the humans underneath; the doctrine is only relevant insofar as it directly supports the act or is twisted to serve as justification for obviously immoral and even amoral acts.
If what you posted were common only to Jews everywhere, you might have something. But they don’t. Organized pedophilia has been found everywhere, as have people who claim to be adherents of benevolent religion and then turn around and act in ways even that religion labels as abhorrent.
People take doctrine and twist it to their own ends. It doesn’t mean the doctrine is bad (or good); it just means people who do evil also lie to justify their evil deeds, and that happens everywhere, inside religion and outside of it.
When I first wrote the comment to which you are responding now, I thought the question was about the Israeli war atrocities being committed against Palestinians and I wrote my comment from that point of view; in that I was in error.
Ok, I think you know but I will play. The Jews of the New York incident above were hasidic jews, chabad-lubavich in particular.
Can we say that all sects that think that their people are the “best” “chosen” “above” “special” is wrong and we should NOT tolerate them?
Yes they are different things and we can condemn both of them if immoral. Why are we talking about christians now?
Again, this is not a dick race. And yes, every religion and every person can be cruel and inhumane but in the year of our lord 2026 we are witnessing a total out of control ultra religious cult committing genocide with ZERO repercussions and managing an international blackmail paedophilic and human trafficking ring with the most powerful people in the world, including the current sitting US president.
So excuse me if I don’t go checking the Buddhism doctrine to find dirt on them, doesn’t seem urgent now.
Let me ask you a question then. Can you name another holy book used as a religious law that contains so much disgusting abhorrent behaviour as the Talmud?
Reading the Talmud
what fucking religion has a book like this?!
No, I really did not know. Thank you for naming them. I will read more about them.
YES.
Hmmm. For myself, I already avoid all religion, especially of the Abrahamic sort. But you’re talking about tolerating people, and that’s kind of a different story for me: I do not engage with the overly religious to begin with, for multiple reasons. (I quite like pagans, though.)
But if someone is of a particular creed and I don’t know about it, they are obviously well-behaved enough to keep that to themselves. I would say that such people, even as members of sects who think themselves above the rest of us – because remember, not all are there by choice or even because they actually believe – are fine by me.
Or to put it another way, if they are not shoving their personal elitist self-belief in my face via shows of entitlement or shitty behavior, I don’t care what faith they hold.
As an illustration that there is no difference whatsoever between belief systems when the real problem is evil behavior, perpetrated by humans. When you’re sprayed by a skunk, do you really give a shit how wide the stripe down its back?
Also, I left Christianity many years ago, but before that I was deep into it for decades and studied a lot, so it’s always where I start when I think about religions filled with self-righteous pricks who twist dogma and doctrine to justify evil.
Not my lord. I’d rather have tertiary syphilis, thanks.
All of that is 100% true, inasmuch as I myself know or would argue. But now that you’ve responded, I’m pretty sure our difference lies in your willingness (or my unwillingness, take your pick) to extrapolate outwards from the personal identity of the perpetrators of those great evils to tar vast swathes of humans with the same brush by simple virtue of membership. That’s not my thing. I see an asshole, I don’t go looking past their shit to see if other assholes match.
At the deepest level that is, at best, a self-protective behavior and outlook, and you’ll see it the most when people have personally been eviscerated by evil in the name of a god.
For myself I have focused more on getting the myth of Christianity out of my system, but I have no judgement for those who are seared by the ongoing abuses and control of organized religion, especially if they grew up in or around that.
That is an excellent question, and the truth is that I do not know, because my knowledge of the Talmud is superficial at best. Coming from Christianity, and such gems as the early fathers, such as Tertullian who thought women do not have souls, I’d say if you put them side by side they’d probably end up within spitting range of each other. I usually did not go into the source language for the repulsive bits, because that’s not what I was in it for, but they are certainly there. The Quran is also not a shining example of how to behave toward certain members of society, so we’re back to the whole Abrahamic thing.
That’s not religion, that’s self-delusion. My question for you would be whether that particular line, and those like it, are still being used to justify the foul and horrific sexual use of children, and by whom. If it is and they are, they should be lined up and shot, NOT for their religion but for their unholy use of the bodies of innocent children, AND their abhorrent use of religion to justify and self-excuse those vast evils. (If that’s the actual belief and practice of the sect you mentioned by name, then I genuinely did not know and I will stand corrected.)
You’ve clearly thought this through (which is more than I can say for the usual fare here, so thank you) and we’re not disagreeing on facts, as far as I can tell. It’s the context in which I personally hold those facts contrasted with the personal context in which you hold those facts, and I would not take my own position out further than I have. People do tremendous evil. For myself, I think all religions have some measure of repugnant shit, especially the Abrahamic variety.
Yet if someone holds a personal faith that lifts them up, lifts those around them up, that helps them to live in a hard and brutal world, then I personally won’t tar them with the same brush that I absolutely reserve in full force for the perpetrators of those evils you named. But you gotta do you, and that’s not just a blithe, easy statement. This is something I had to fight through to clarity for myself, it took years, and I expect anyone deeply fucked by religion has to do the same. Maybe that’s you as well.
So honestly, if I were to ask you one thing it would be this: look at your position, what you’ve written, and ask yourself what the end result is in terms of lifting yourself and your inner world up in such a way that you are no longer crushed by the evils you see around you, and which you may have even suffered yourself. Or to put it another way, “If I decide this is how I want my worldview to be, will the way in which I am viewing the vast evil around me advance my well-being or improve my life in any way?” When I left Christianity after decades, that was what I had to ask myself. It was quite possibly one of the most important questions I have ever been asked. So that’s what I am asking you as well: not for public discussion, but for you to consider privately, over time, along with the well-stated facts of your case.
I appreciate your thoughtful response, and if I have provided offense in any way, I apologize. That’s not my goal, and I hope that is self-apparent.
EDITED TO ADD that I looked up that sect, Chabad-Lubavitch, and beyond the mattress thing being discredited I honestly did not find any mention of pedophilia in regard to that sect. Trump and Putin both apparently love them, though, which is not in their favor. I will continue to look. If you want to toss me some links I will read them.
Chabad are mostly notable for being less insular than most Orthodox sects, doing a lot of outreach to secular/Reform/Conservative Jews, and thus ending up as one of the big names in overseas funding for Zionism in the modern day. They’re really the mainstream face of Orthodox Judaism, and the fucked up abuse scandals in Israel have tended to come from fringe, Messianic sects that the state’s Rabbinate and larger organizations like Chabad can at least pretend to distance themselves from.
As for the Talmud, it’s weird how much it tends to get played up in antisemitic narratives, because in my (very limited) experience it is really, incredibly dry and mostly boring. It’s like reading Reddit comments on every page of the scriptures, where 5 incredibly pedantic nerds are arguing over what exactly counts as a fork, or what a story about a wage dispute is supposed to say about contract law and social hierarchy. There’s a predictably authoritarian “just listen to your boss and your rabbi” bent to the morals it extracts, but at the end of the day it’s a couple thousand pages of mundane, day-to-day legal doctrine. Anyone can learn Talmud, it’s just a lot of effort, and like a lot of difficult religious texts, it mostly ends up being a source local authority figures can pull out to settle arguments in their favor.