Views about Chris Hitchens, please!

[Robert]

Errata, I'm afraid that your god - or anyone's god - does not seem to concern himself at all with human beings, their hopes or their sufferings. Whether or not he exists is a philosophical question. But his existence, if such be the case, seems to have no connection with us whatsoever.

[Errata]

So he wrote a good book, so what? The fact is that the dude spent the latter part of his life insulting people who did not accept his narrow point of view. Sorry if you think its shocking that I think people like that ultimately pay a price for doing that. I would suggest Dawkins drop his arrogance, look to what happened to Hitchens, and wise up
Jordan

I hope that my god is a little more elevated than the spoiled brat who punches his playmate in the nose for calling him a "stupidhead".

My cousin believed in god, and she died of breast cancer at the age of 36. Am I supposed to believe that the god she loved and served was punishing her for some imagined slight, or should I believe that cancer happens?

[Ally]

ROFLMAO. The irony being, Jordan there is entirely incapable of understanding the irony of what he just posted.

My god, insulting people who don't believe as you do? Kind of pales in comparison to wishing them a painful death, don't it? A narrow point of view? Indeed.

Wise up, indeed.

[ChainzCooper]

Hi Jordan,

I'm struggling to follow your logic because your previous post (the fill in the blanks post) did seem to suggest that because Hitchens wrote a book about why he is an atheist, he therefore succumbed to cancer. Now, it seems, it is karma that he succumbed - 'some people get what they deserve' - as you put it. This seems to be a very odd statement from someone who has argued so passionately for freedom of speech and democracy in other threads.

Hitchens didn't JUST write about being an atheism. He also wrote a very good book called 'Why Orwell Matters' and several other very readable books. I do not think he was 'always completely negative or bad to others' and i think his cancer was probably the result of being a smoker rather than a bad person.

Regards

Julie

So he wrote a good book, so what? The fact is that the dude spent the latter part of his life insulting people who did not accept his narrow point of view. Sorry if you think its shocking that I think people like that ultimately pay a price for doing that. I would suggest Dawkins drop his arrogance, look to what happened to Hitchens, and wise up
Jordan

[Errata]

I don't think so, Mike.
She's become Jewish in some christian traditions, that's true, but the only sources we have told us she was a pagan ruler from the Sidamo region (she led a pagan reaction against "northern christianity"). That we know from the "History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria", but it seems to be confirmed by various muslim/arab sources.
From memory, there is also an Ethiopian muslim source, a chronology in fact, that refers to a pagan queen in southern Ethiopia fin the 11th century, before the conversion of the region to islam.

There was a Jewish queen named Judith. She was the daughter of Isaac and Leah. She was given to marriage to an Egyptian prince, and then two of her brothers slipped into the city and killed all the men, even those who had been circumcised and converted to Judaism. She cursed Isaac and her brothers for their betrayal. And that is the last she is seen. Likely not the same Queen.

[Errata]

You obviously don't understand what you're talking about.

When I said "Jewish tribes of Medina", I alluded to the fact that the Prophet of Islam himself ordered them to be beheaded (600 hundreds males beheaded the same day, while the women and children were sold as slaves).

See the difference ?
If you don't, I don't care.

Never knew Jesus went to Poland to kill Jews.

You're ignorant and ridiculous.

And what is worse, you have confessed being more or less happy when Copts are killed in their own country. Disgusting.

I understand fine. You don't.

The actual god of the Jews and Christians ordered the slaughter of the Midianites, who had taken in Moses during his exile. Killed the firstborn son of every Egyptian with his own hand, down to innocent babies in cradles.

The infallible voice of god on earth, the Pope, ordered three crusades, stating that the slaughter of the infidel would guarantee a place a heaven. He ordered the death and banishment of Jews from Catholic nations. And his declarations are the largest contributing factor to the fastest spread of AIDS on the globe.

What makes all of that okay, and the slaughter of Jews in Medina not okay? At least Muhammad was a prophet, a flawed man who did something terrible. His god didn't do it. Not the way ours did. Not the way the head of gods church on earth did.

In case you were unaware of the difference, which seems strange to me, Muhammad was not a god. Jesus was a god. Jesus was god, or is god, or half a god, whatever. Muhammad was a man. No one ever implies otherwise.

Jesus did not go to Poland to kill Jews. His followers did. Allah did not go to Medina to kill Jews. His followers did. Every religion has the potential for violence. Every religion has committed, and still commits great acts of violence. A Christian can be just as sure of his own righteousness in killing as any Muslim. It's not the religions. It's the people.

Jews can follow the example of Noah, and see great evil and disaster, yet say nothing. Or we can follow the example of Abraham, who fought his own god for the lives of people he had never met. It's a choice. Christians can follow the example of Jesus, or they can follow the precepts of his church. Rarely do the two meet. It's a choice. Muslims can follow the example of Muhammad the peacemaker, who stopped a war between the major tribes of Mecca. Or they can follow the example of Muhammad the warrior, who slaughtered unbelievers. It's a choice.

And I didn't confess to being more or less happy with the death of Copts. I like Copts a lot. I like them a lot better than I like Baptists. I confessed to being human. Because sometimes I think that everybody is so stupid and so lacking in imagination that they have to actually suffer what they put others through in order to understand that it isn't okay. Because everyone takes a little bit of pleasure in anything that has even a hint of poetic justice. And every time I hear Christians crying out about how terrible it is that their people (who by the way most of them would completely dismiss Copts as barbarians and pagans) are suffering at the hands of others, I want to say "Good you recognize that it's evil. So STOP DOING IT TO OTHER PEOPLE." And I have said it. and you know what they say?

"But it's completely different."

No it isn't. THAT'S what you don't understand.

[Errata]

You're talking about the Falashas. They asked to be airlifted to Israel in the 70s, and many were. I don't believe they were evicted. Much like everyone else there, they wanted to get out of the poverty and strife of Ethiopia. They did, in fact conquer the Aksumites, destroyed many monasteries and sacked the capital city of Aksum. They controlled the northern part of Ethiopia from about 350 -1650 if my memory is correct. It's interesting that these people through connections to Solomon, and through Sheba remained Jewish even when Coptic Christian beliefs were being spread simultaneously in the land.

Falasha is a derogatory term, in case you were unaware. They call themselves Ezra Elawi I think. I may have spelled it wrong. The Ethiopians here say that they were thrown by a junta, fled to the Sudan, and well, clearly that didn't work out.

They had some street cred for a little while from being the "Lost tribe", but then they found an even more remote community of Jews more likely to be a lost tribe, so that stopped being a point of pride.

Ethiopian Jews are by far the most aggressive Jews I have ever met, and the most.. I don't know... proud? Haughty? It's like stuck up, but it's not a negative thing. It's like that look you're mom gives you when you are doing something stupid you know you shouldn't be doing, and she knows you know, so why the hell are you doing it? kinda thing. The Holocaust is written on the heart of every European Jew, whether they lived through it or not. It's like a shadow, a touch of fear, a little paranoia, a little loss of faith in the goodness of mankind. Like former POWs or survivors of massive natural disasters. Like we're haunted by it. Ethiopian Jews don't have it. They do not tread lightly. The stride boldly into the world whether it's a good idea or not, and I admire that. And maybe a lot of that comes from conquerors instead of conquered. Maybe because life in Ethiopia can be so brutal and so short. And I certainly do not approve of any damage they may have caused through brutality, war and strife. But I will say that their boldness is refreshing, and a lot of what we need as a people.

[DVV]

....and this queen was called "Badit".... hence the Jewish Gudit of later chronicles, perhaps.

[DVV]

And queen Judith was Jewish and she teamed up with another group of people from what I understand.
Mike

I don't think so, Mike.
She's become Jewish in some christian traditions, that's true, but the only sources we have told us she was a pagan ruler from the Sidamo region (she led a pagan reaction against "northern christianity"). That we know from the "History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria", but it seems to be confirmed by various muslim/arab sources.
From memory, there is also an Ethiopian muslim source, a chronology in fact, that refers to a pagan queen in southern Ethiopia fin the 11th century, before the conversion of the region to islam.

[The Good Michael]

Thanks Mike.

You're welcome. It's all confusing stuff because the oldest books in Ethiopia that discuss such stuff were written only about 500 years ago and in Ge'ez. The languages of Ethiopia of Amharic and Tigryna (sp?) are Semitic which at least shows a common linguistic origin with people of the Middle East. I think the languages came from Ethiopia/Sudan and went north and east because of the antiquity of mankind there, but who knows really? If you try and research anything written by the Beta Israel community, it's all cut and dried that they are a lost tribe. If you ask the Ethiopian Orthodox community, they have their own myths. Half a dozen....

Mike

[Robert]

Thanks Mike.

[DVV]

It would be nice to get back to Egela.
Mike

Oh, so much.

[The Good Michael]

Are the Falashas the people the Israeli government airlifted a few years ago, and took to Israel? There was some criticism that the Israelis only took the Jews, nobody else. I don't want to get into that - my point is, the Falashas underwent DNA testing and were shown not to be ethnically Jewish. Or am i confusing them with another tribe?

That's the group, Robert. I think it's what Errata is referring to. There was an earlier group that clung to legends of Solomon and Sheba called... Beatas(?) as I mentioned. They could be related. They were ethnically Aksumites.

Mike

[Robert]

Are the Falashas the people the Israeli government airlifted a few years ago, and took to Israel? There was some criticism that the Israelis only took the Jews, nobody else. I don't want to get into that - my point is, the Falashas underwent DNA testing and were shown not to be ethnically Jewish. Or am i confusing them with another tribe?

[The Good Michael]

Actually, Mike, the origin of the Falashas is still hotly debated. Of course there were Jews in Ethiopia and Yemen in the Aksumite period - but they weren't "falshas". Then, in the 10th century, we have Queen Gudit, who is said to have burnt many churches. But was she pagan or jewish ?
The most likely theory, in my uncertain opinion, is that the people we call Falashas were originally Christians. They would be the result of a sort of christian heresy who, in the Ethiopian context (obsessed with the Old Testament, on the basis of the Salomon/Sheba legend, as you have pointed out), ceased to accept the New Testament.
Fact is that they use the same version of the Bible as Christian Ethiopians and ignore the Talmud.

They were called Beetas or Beatas or something. Sorry, the Falashas were what Errata was speaking of. I didn't clarify that these were two groups possibly. And queen Judith was Jewish and she teamed up with another group of people from what I understand. Yes this was heretical as well. I had a brilliant conversation with a deacon at the Church of St. Mary there in Addis over such things. Afterwards we had a great meal of Tibbs (my spelling). I just applied for a job there. It would be nice to get back to Egela.

Mike