Originally Posted by Strider

I take some offense to that seeing as I'm Jewish.

Originally Posted by Beer

Yeah, I know. But that is karma for you. At least, in ancestral terms.
Since i'm not Jewish, i'm not sure: have Jews condemned the genocide? Or is it something of a neccessary evil?

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

Yes, I'm afraid this is true. And it has a VERY long history.

It is a widely held theory in paleoanthropology that Homo Sapiens may have helped our 'cousins' the Neanderthals into extinction. It is obviously a hard habit to break from.

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

I strongly disagree.

First of all, there are two basic kinds of 'hate'.

One of them is the most common one, it is the flipside of 'love' - it is the kind of hate one can only have with one you loved (or could have loved) - an ex-lover, ex-wife, ex-husband, or some other close personal relationship. This kind of hate is always personal and usually private. I don't think we can ever explain, understand, prevent or mitigate this kind of hate because it is irrational, highly emotional and deeply subjectively personal.

The other kind of 'hate' is what is applied in a non-personal way. It is not based on any personal relationship at all, rather it is applied to people that one may have never met or seen and may live on the other side of the planet. It is hatred by 'classification'. This kind of hatred can generally be explained, it can be generally understood and it can be generally mitigated against because it is not entirely irrational and it is generally understood to be a product of socio-cultural influences that vary from place to place and from time to time. Most often, it is manufactured by and for the benefit of the ruling elites.

Ergo, not all hatred is arbitrary. Lots of it is manufactured and thus can (theoretically) be understood and addressed.

Originally Posted by hairballxavier

I think "dehumanization" may be the word you are looking for.

Originally Posted by Josepha

Not sure exactly what the status is on atrocities committed during early biblical times - aka - the bronze age. Are there any other bronze age atrocities that anyone should be condemning? Is anyone else alive today responsible for what their people may have done in the past - like are all Catholics alive today to be hated for the massacre of the Huguenots and the Inquisition, as well as pogroms, forced conversions and outright massacres?


Enquiring minds want to know - before your antipsychotic kicks in.

Originally Posted by metalted

of course you are so deluded as to think pagan peoples are all more pure then monothiestic peoples.

Originally Posted by Dilettante

Yes, yes, and yes, I'd say.

Jewish culture has always placed great value on being distinct and not assimilating. Unfortunately, conquering/ruling powers tend not to like distinct cultures living in their domain: it rocks the boat. They'd much rather everyone assiminlate into one big homogeneous culture. So there is pressure to make people do that and naturally this can sometimes lead to persecution.

Then there's just the natural desire to mistrust and abuse people who are different from us. Jewish culture tends not to hide its difference, but to sometimes even take pride in them. That makes them a target for those looking for a scape-goat; if you need someone to blame then your best bet is to pick a group that stands out as different and "other" from "everyone else".

In Europe is was especially easy to nail the Jews because 1) they weren't Christians and didn't pretend to be (and everyone else was or did) and 2) They could do things Christian society wasn't supposed to do (like lend money for interest). That can make them targets for resentment.

Originally Posted by Non Sequitur

beer, I'm with ted on this one. Pagan societies are no more innocent than the monotheistic ones. Perhaps we should say that people mess up in all societies.

Originally Posted by enigma2

I don't think that is fully correct. It is my understanding that many German-Jews considered themselves the most assimilated in Europe. Some didn't even view themselves as Jewish but as Germans. However, this didn't stop the Nazis from using them as political scape-goats and later murdering them.

Originally Posted by timj219

This was also true of many spanihsh jews who were deported or burned in the inquisition.