#Jews are the eternal scapegoat | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

misskriemhilds · 10 months ago

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the jewishness of eternity from reverse: 1999, and why this is important to me

first and foremost: i doubt that any of the jewishness of eternity from reverse: 1999 was intentional on bluepoch's part. this is personal interpretation, and i am not trying to insinuate that it was intentional of the game developers. but nevertheless, i find eternity's character to be deeply comforting and resonant with me, specifically with regards to my own viewpoint as a young woman who is american jewish.

let us begin with her backstory:

at the end of the 19th century, torches constantly lit up the night sky of exeter, a frontier town in the usa. the door of her store was closed. in a dimly lit room, on the shelves stood many candy jars. the last young buyer of these candies had been sent to that crowded, shabby cemetery (if you prefer to call it that) three months ago. too many farms had been destroyed in the civil war, and plague was not the only terrible thing to develop from the ashes: fear of an unknown future also gradually turned into madness. the candies were taken down. instead, the store owners now stock their shelves with garlic necklaces and bottles of holy water. more and more vampires were brought to trial, and the seed of suspicion grew in everyone's mind. the once-friendly residents became ruthless intruders and broke into the woman's house, despite the help she had provided them. but they found nothing in her house. it seemed to have been long abandoned. the floor was covered with dead shellfish, under which there were marks of dried blue blood. peace didn't come back to the town of exeter until the day when everyone heard about a disease called tuberculosis.

now, i retroactively found out that this aspect of her backstory was likely inspired by the mercy brown vampire incident, which i haven't researched all that thoroughly. what i want to emphasize in this context is that these trials in eternity's backstory were specifically a result of post-civil war paranoia causing exeter's townspeople to suspect others of being vampires causing misfortune.

it is important to stress that while not every portrayal of vampire characters in fiction are antisemitic portrayals, vampires being used as antisemitic caricatures is not uncommon. similarly, while jewish people have not necessarily been subject to the same legal discrimination or systemic oppression in the u.s. as much as other minorities (that said, it wasn't non-existent, and jewish people were definitely subject to systemic oppression and worse legal discrimination in other countries outside of the u.s.) it is not uncommon for us to be used as scapegoats when disaster strikes. that's why so many conspiracy theories have antisemitic routes; it's harder to acknowledge and analyze the complicated reasons as to why things in the world suck than it is to pin it on a more tangible scapegoat - more often than not, the jews.

i think with eternity from reverse: 1999, that definitely holds the same weight here. whether or not she is officially a vampire is a bit murky (to be honest, i'd say if she is then she's doing the vampire equivalent of keeping kosher by consuming the flesh of sea creatures, even if i'm pretty sure stuff like whales or jellyfish are officially considered treyf), but she was persecuted for being different.

in this jewish reading: it did not matter that she was one of "the good jews", it did not matter the kindness she had shown to exeter's people in the past, when their circumstances took a turn for the worse their memories of antisemitic imagery and myth they had subconsciously absorbed from all the fairytales they read flared to life and they realized how nice and easy it would be to get rid of all their problems if they directed it at the jewish woman residing in their little town.

surely, if the vampire - the witch, the jew, died - then their troubles would be gone, right?

on a broader, less concrete extent regarding eternity i'd also like to bring up her tagline when we first meet her - the one that all r:1999 characters have regarding their age and their ethnic background.

the exhibit was later displayed all over america.

i think this could definitely be a general reference to eternity's immortality. after all, if you've suddenly got all the time in the world you might as well tour your home country and hit the highlights, right?

from a jewish perspective, i think this feels very resonant with the experience of american-jewish diaspora. there are oftentimes when people like us are desperately searching for a place to call home and when we think we've found it, social antisemitism starts spiking up. we want a place to call home - not necessarily as a people, but definitely in the context of being jewish - and even in america where we've been here since its conception as a country, we're not even sure if we can find a place to call home.

and in a jewish context, eternity spends over a century in search of somewhere to call home. her traveling all across the usa takes on a more deliberate context - moving out of areas as soon as you realize maybe the spikes in antisemitism in your place of residence aren't going to pass as quickly as you'd like, and moving out as soon as you can because you have the luxury to. she looks for somewhere she can call home, but this there anywhere that can act as a true home for someone like her?

"there are no chill jews," is something we jewish people like to half-joke about from time to time; that is something that i certainly read into with eternity's voice lines. in particular: "my immortality allows me to be well-informed. no matter the dead or alive, you can have your answer from me as long as the pay is adequate. but just like anyone with a clear mind won’t touch a hot potato, i suggest you keep your little nose clean."

the reason there are no chill jews is because a lot of said "chill jews" died. as soon as our ancestors realized, "alright, people hate us and are using us as scapegoats, let's get the hell out of here" they left. that's how they survived. eternity's immortality allows her to be "well-informed", in a jewish reading, about how she is perceived as a jewish woman throughout time and across the usa. thanks to her old age, she has learned to be vigilant about this, and to keep watch so she can resume her life - maybe she'd have no reason to worry about death, being immortal, but at the same time it would be nice to just live and breathe in peace as a jewish woman. as she says in her voice line when you touch her head, "...what really matters is a good mind and a clear view of the time."

(as an aside, my dear friend @kingoffiends commented in our dms that eternity's voicelines remind him of his very frum grandmother from her phrasing and tone alone. this is only somewhat relevant but i thought i should put it here regardless.)

but not all is doom and gloom with eternity, even with the pains of immortality.

to quote rabbi lord jonathan sacks from his book studies in spirituality: "in judaism joy is the supreme religious emotion. here we are, in a world filled with beauty. every breath we breathe is the spirit of god within us. around us is the love that moves the sun and all the stars. we are here because someone wanted us to be. the soul that celebrates, sings."

where is the joy in eternity?

well, for all of the worst parts of immortality she has still been handed the opportunity to live forever. and eternity will live as happily as she will damn well please. though not all is sunshine and rainbows in her life, she delights in 29-inch crt tvs where she can wind down with a nice glass of warm milk before bed, and takes delight in the progression of technology as time has gone on. "...let's just call it a toast and watch a vampire movie in bed." if she has forever to live, then she might as well take delight in all the small joys she can find.

(while wealthy jewish people do have stereotypical or antisemitic connotations, as a jewish person i'd like to say that i'm definitely self-aware of that when approaching her character. while she is wealthy she is not malicious, and her "read the fine print" approach to the products of the sea for yourself shop seem to be more a result of playful mischief rather than any outright malice. she's got a sort of hershele of ostropol energy to her, if you will.)

all in all, it's so very jewish of her - and it's why her character, in a jewish context, is so resonant with me. there's something very comforting that this is a woman who has lived forever, longer than i have. she may not be real, but for all of the persecution and loss she has suffered throughout life, she is determined to find happiness in even the smallest things. that sort of fortitude and determination to forge her own joy is very meaningful to me as someone jewish, and it's why i approach her as being like me.

eternity may not be real - hell, she's likely not even officially intended to be jewish. but there's such a firm theme of sorrow and joy to her character in a jewish context, and to have even a fictional character who embodies those experiences of mine is why i hold her so close to my heart.

#rambling #reverse: 1999 #eternity reverse 1999 #jewish headcanons #reverse 1999 #r1999 #r:1999

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numbknee · 2 years ago

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Why do you think Kyman gets so much hate? I can understand some things about what people don’t like about it but some of the things they say, the harassment is so out of pocket. Especially on Tik Tok! It is like a battle ground out there and they all will shoot you down immediately if you SAY anything. I just wanna love Kyman without it seeming like a punishment 😭😭

Dude I totally feel you. It's so much easier to live and let live so I don't understand how these ppl have the energy to be so aggressively hurtful all the time. This has been said before ad nauseum but for god's sake, it's JUST a fucking tv show. I'm too old for this shit.

(longer explanation under the cut! like... extremely long lol I'm so sorry my thoughts about this have been building up for a while 😅)

I think the extremely aggressive kyman hate is a symptom of growing poor media literacy and the larger "purity culture" trend that's been present online for a while now. It's very reminiscent of American Evangelicalism or Puritanism, where members of the church have to follow a very specific set of rules for behaving and thinking and if you deviate from those rules in the slightest, you're shot down immediately by the community and shamed for being sinful and blasphemous, all to keep you on the "righteous path" and avoid burning in hell for eternity. This is why so many puritanical christians in the US hate themselves for doing what most of the world sees as normal behavior, and simultaneously force that self-hating worldview onto others to "save" them. (For example see this video by FD Signifier on youtube explaining how hardcore religious ppl/conservatives are doomed to be bad in bed because they see sex as "evil" when in reality it's a normal part of human behavior 😬 It's long but very good).

Though, it's important to note that ppl who think this way may not even be christian themselves, but the behavior is so pervasive in american culture that you absorb it even if you're not a puritanical christian. (for example, to quote Ian Danskin, athiests may think "I don't believe in god, but the god I don't believe in is Jehovah). Tons of the first generation of white USAmericans were exiled British puritans who were kicked out of their home country for essentially being self-righteous assholes and trying to force their shit worldview on everyone else lmao. And I think because so many online spaces are so USAmerican-centric, people from all over the world have started adopting that purity culture as well.

Now, South Park is extremely popular (duh). It's been around for decades so it has a ton of fans both old and new. Unfortunately a lot of new fans, especially young people, follow the show for very different reasons than the average normie/not-terminally-online viewer does. They take the characters out of their original context, use them like dolls to make their own stories and fan content, and ignore all the other blatantly controversial shit that's been going on in the show since day 1 (which is why so many exclusively make blasé creek fanworks imo). They want to keep their thoughts "pure" and only engage with content that's approved by the puritanical online community

It's extremely fitting but also sad that Cartman is the scapegoat for everything wrong with South Park, both in the show and in the real world. Either ppl don't want to acknowledge he exists, or ppl latch onto him and project all of that puritanical hatred toward him or anyone that likes his character. Hell, even I'M guilty of this kind of thinking before I watched the show and understood Cartman's character better.

Kyman in particular is a target BECAUSE it involves Cartman, but also because people boil it down to shipping a nazi with a jew which, at the surface level, seems horrible! But if you've ever actually WATCHED the goddamn show, you know that is an extremely reductive and inaccurate interpretation of their characters. It's horribly poor media literacy. These ppl CANNOT seem to comprehend that you can enjoy watching a character who's a "bad person" without condoning their actions, and that enjoying the shipping dynamic of such characters DOES NOT make you a bad person by proxy.

A huge role of fiction as media is to explore ideas that may be harmful in the real world in a safe way because... *gasp* it's imaginary!! It makes you think and experience emotions you may not have the opportunity for otherwise! However, in the eyes of puritans, the fact you're even thinking about something like that makes you a sinner. It's a thought crime, which is why they consider us mentally "sick" for shipping kyman. So, they send hate at the drop of a hat and publicly vilify kyman shippers to reinforce that behavior with each other, all to say "Hey look at me!!! I'm a Good Person! see how much of a Good Person I am??? I'm gonna go to HEAVEN, and YOU'RE going to HELL". Like I said before, it's not that they necessarily believe in heaven or hell, but that's the general root of the behavior. It's performative puritan dog-piling. Also, because they haven't even fucking watched the whole show, they conveniently ignore all the other horrible shit the show portrays because random kyman shippers online are easy targets while Matt & Trey are gajillionaires who are essentially un-cancellable for things they do on the show at this point because, to quote Trey: For anyone to go up and go "Did you see this thing on South Park? That was really offensive" someone's gonna be like "Dude shut up 😒 that's just South Park".

Geez man this got super fucking long lmao. But my advice is to please take care of yourself because, and this super cliché to say, but FUCK the haters dude 🖕🖕🖕 You're engaging with media that brings you joy and exploring interesting ideas with a community of awesome artists/writers/meta-analysts and more. This is supposed to be FUN!! Anyone who tries to take that away from you or shame you into stopping is a fucking immature, holier-than-thou asshole who needs to get a fucking life. The block button is your friend, so use it early and often. You have the power to curate your own online space, and you shouldn't subject yourself to dealing with these dickheads (this is a big reason why I don't have a tiktok lol)

Good luck dude, and keep on shipping kyman 😎🤘❤️💚

#ask #anon #kyman #jesus h christ this is so long ajsfklsdf rip #lots of thoughts to get off my chest. yeesh #my post

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nerianasims · 9 months ago

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The person -- people, really, but this was one post -- talking about siding with Hamas because well what kind of conditions do extremist groups form in hm?

First, all conditions. But if you mean powerful groups, times of social upheaval. The KKK formed to contest the social upheaval of slavery being outlawed and Black people getting rights in the American South. Also they blamed the eternal scapegoat (Jews.) The Nazi party formed because Germany was a mess after WWI, and the Nazis blamed the eternal scapegoat (Jews.) The Islamic Brotherhood which destroyed Iran rose out of violence and upheaval, led by (male) college students, and blamed the eternal scapegoat (Jews.) Russian Communism -- WWI, scapegoat Jews (continuation of czarist scapegoat Jews.)

Extremist groups are not a good thing. There were plenty of hippies who were violent and vile too -- remember the Manson family? Lots of cults like that at the time, actually, it's just most of them murdered people other than movie stars and therefore aren't as remembered. Some still exist. Lots of hippies in Scientology at the time. Did you ever go clear?

#hamas is a death cult #cults are not your blorbos for crying out loud #Jim Jones murdered most of his followers but some of them were the ones doing the shooting and I'm starting to see who those people would b

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emptymanuscript · 1 year ago

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Not a Nazi stochastic terrorism dog whistle at all. *eyeroll* This is the equivalent of sticking your pinkies in your mouth to whistle and then yelling, “hey,” instead.

I think the eternal shocker for me is that Trump’s approval rating is as high as it is among Jews. Subtlety just isn’t his thing. I suppose it’s just means that a quarter of us are Nazis as long as you don’t use the word.

I feel like Mother Night had it right.

I have stuck deep in my head that first image of Frankie Faison as Robert Sterling Wilson, the Black Fuhrer of Harlem, all dressed up in his fancy Nazi uniform and smiling brightly because he knows his mere presence upends what people think is reality.

Anyone can be a Nazi.

Even a Jew. It’s an ethic not an ethnicity. A Jewish Nazi just has a different group of people they think they should scapegoat as the source of all the world’s problems and so they’re absolutely justified in exterminating that group.

Trump’s not a Nazi because he is literally a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. He’s a Nazi because he believes people can be broken up into “good” and “bad” by basic traits and he’s just fine harming the “bad” people for the “greater good” which is somehow always a synonym for his own benefit. And he’s very content for the arc of history to favor his outlook, no matter how that looks. He would never personally look me in the eye and push me in an oven. He’s far too much of a coward. But if, having said this, someone happened to proudly take these words a little too seriously so that they looked me in the eye and pushed me in the oven for him, that would be ok.

Oh, he would deny culpability and say there were fine people on both sides. After all, Jared Kushner is an excellent “good” Jew. There are great Jews. Trump loves the Jews. It’s just that there are some “bad” Jews like me who happen to be both Jewish and “Woke.”

It’s so sad that the “some” happens to be the significant statistical majority. It would be so much easier, too, if you could tell just by looking at someone if they were “woke” or not. Of course, Trump can tell. All he has to do is look them in the eye - cue scene of Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan having something in his eye, could you have a look, is it still there - and he knows. I mean we all know what bad Jews look like, right? They’re just so good at hiding and blending in. Why if they didn’t have identifying bumper stickers, they might be able to hide inside a decent neighborhood. Right inside YOUR neighborhood. They might feel welcome to talk to you. To talk to your CHILDREN. To put their heathen Mosque, sorry Synagogue, but you know how all those non-Church Churches just look the same. You would have to see with the eyes of God… or Trump to really tell. That’s why I say kill ‘em all and let God sort it out.

I mean that’s easiest, right? Just one simple policy. Kill the “bad” people until they’re all gone or they’ve all finally gotten “reality” and turned “good.” Of course you have to be ever vigilant about that. It’s easy for someone to just pretend to be one of the “good” ones. They could hide in plain sight. Infiltrate. You gotta watch for them. Weed them out. Make guides to help others how to spot them. I mean, if you didn’t carefully analyze it, why, a man might pass as a woman and seduce YOU into being a Woke Jew. Because we all know that’s what they really want: us. To be like us and do to us what we need to do with them. They’ll hunt us down and weed us out and seduce us with false promises and then throw us in the ovens when we let our guard down.

Le Sigh. So much hate. I’m always profoundly disappointed to realize, once again, that of all the people who should know better, my own people just haven’t learned the lesson of our experiences. 27%. Ugh -_-. That number is too high. Way too high. History and experience should have taught Jewish Americans not to be Nazis. Not to trust demagoguery, despotism, and destructive rhetoric. We should have learned to distrust the destroyers. We should be honor students, not barely passing. Though, perhaps that’s me making the same fundamental error as the Nazis. There’s nothing intrinsically “good” or “bad” about a people. Not even my own. History’s most basic lesson is that a people, any people, as a general group is a terrible definition for how any given individual will act. It would just be easier if we could generalize better.

I wonder when someone will act on this post of Trump’s. The high holy days are going to make it easy to target Jews. Lots of people gathered in easily identifiable places.

Fucking Trump.

-_-

#trump #politics #racism #antisemitism #anti islam #stochastic terrorism #bitter naval gazing

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supersexyactioncomics · 2 years ago

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I find it funny that its visually a lil incoherent but the artist just had to summarize his politics in a single picture. Like its all there - this is all there is to american christofascism.

White people are good. Black/indigenous people are bad. White people are only white if there a purebreed ergo "race mixing" is very bad. "Races" are fundamentally in conflict with one another. White people have a divine right to conquer the americas so there's going to need to be a lot of white people. This is the fundamental axiom there politics are built on.

We need to control our white woman so they produce a bountiful crop of pure white babies so we don't get outbred or "diluted" out of existence. This both means we cant let white women freely choose partners (or be allowed to choose not to have a partner: this is the source not just of american christofascist misogyny but also homophobia, transphobia, and acephobia. Compulsory procreation.) but also we have to be very paranoid about sexual violence or seduction (but only when the perp is non white)

We've denigrated women and PoC so much at this point its impossible to ascribe them agency anymore so there has to be a mastermind behind why your daughter makes decisions you don't like or why PoC are organizing for their rights. So lets pick the old eternal scapegoat and say the Jews are secretly orchestrating the whole affair. Jews exist in a superpositioned state of both being pathetic racial inferiors and terrifying all powerful race chads with infinite IQ and psychic powers. They need to simultaneously be responsible for all the cracks in our ideology but still be defeatable.

We are very afraid poor whites might realize they have a lot more in common with the people we denigrate than rich descendants of plantation owners so we are deathly afraid of communism. Its fine tho we can just blame the jews for this one too but its important that we build in the poor a reflexive disdain for communism because if allowed to think about it for 5 seconds they might realize it's in their best interest.

Its all just one horrific hydra. But without unpacking it it just seems like a random grab bag of "things they don't like".

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unwelcome-ozian · 3 years ago

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Hello, it’s the person that asked about god & satan being friends/working together. I mean more so if you know of any specific cults/groups/ideologies(or Freemason groups) that believed that there had to be a scapegoat & satan agreed to be seen as “evil” for the sake of the bigger plan & so god & satan have always had the same ideals. Like there had to be someone to take the blame for evil because it couldn’t be god since he’s supposed to be good. But satans actually still a “good guy” & isn’t evil. Basically satans secretly good & is helping god & still listening to god’s instructions while taking the blame(of his own choice) for all things evil even though he isn’t the one who created or did those things. Satan = good but is believed to be bad. God = bad but believed to be good. They’re more seen as complicated beings that do both good & bad things for the better & the sake of bigger plan but they’re also working together to accomplish that bigger plan to better the world & are on friendly terms. They aren’t seen as equals but are almost seen as equals, satan just has to listen to god, listen to his instruction, & do whatever he says. I hope that makes more sense, if not let me know & I’ll try to give more information. Also thank you for your help & thank you to the other anon who helped!

Satan’s first appearance wasn’t in Christianity. He began as the Zoroastrian Devil figure of Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, which opposed the Zoroastrian creator god and tempted humans. Satan, as a totally evil being, is nowhere to be found in the Jewish Bible. He evolved during the height of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (beginning c. 550 BCE) and was adopted by Jews living under Persian rule at the time.

The Romantics of the 17th century recast Satan as an admirable and magnetic rebel, an anti-hero defying God’s authoritarianism. John Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost” is the text for establishing this interpretation. Paradise Lost, tells the story of Satan's fall from grace. While earlier religious texts condemned Satan's motivations, Milton's Satan is a sympathetic figure, embodying the rebellious sentiments of 17th-century Republicanism. For some Enlightenment and Romantic artists, he was a noble rebel locked in a fight against God’s tyrannical authority.

William Godwin’s “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice” later gave Milton’s depiction political legitimacy.

The last half of the 19th century saw a resurgence in the view of Satan as an anti-hero. This was in part due to works like Italian poet Giosuè Carducci’s, “Hymn To Satan” and William Blake’s illustrations for Paradise Lost in 1888.

Theosophical Society founder Madame Blavatsky wrote about Satan as a commendable insurgent offering humans wisdom.

Satan was also used in writings from socialist leaders like Mikhail Bakunin, “But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.”

Aleister Crowley viewed Satan symbolically. His 1913 poem “A Hymn to Lucifer” celebrated the Devil as the provider of soul and rebellion to the universe.

There are many belief systems and groups that believe Satan is good.

#answers to questions #Satanism #Lucifer #Aleister Crowley

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chevalierlagarce · 3 years ago

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not done ranting about evangelical christianity so let’s go for other small rants so maybe I'll be able to make my brain shut up tonight -->

1. Blind faith is dumb and dangerous. Pushing the ideas that the ability to self reflect/to define/to conceptualize/ to criticize are all things that were made by the devil in an attempt to weaken your faith just tell me that you need to work on your religious beliefs a little more. Many religion pushes a more intellectual approach to faith and religious text and they still have followers... if you need your followers to trust you blindly and to never question what you’re saying there’s a problem...

2. The concept of the Devil and demons is just not something I can get myself to believe in. Even when it isn’t being used as a scapegoats I don’t believe that there’s a little guy out there out to get you... Like bad stuffs just happen sometimes doesn’t mean Satan is behind it.

3. Fundamentalism is dangerous in every religion not just Islam...

4. There’s many way to connect to the Divine and prayer is only one of them. If it isn’t the one that work the best for you, you should find other ways to

5. Atheism deserve so much better... like those atheists that never took the time to deconstruct evangelical christianity are so annoying. It’s fine not to believe in God but disrespecting people for doing so by telling them that they are dumb just tell me that you’re working with the same framework as evangelicals that you always claim to dislike.

6. The way we define religion should be changed. I know that it is virtually impossible to have a definition that include every religions but I think that we should try to have one that is a bit more open (I know that many people are doing just that but like but like whatever)

7. The rapture is an excuse to never try to actually help as every humanitarian crisis and natural disasters just bring us closer to it. It allows you to just sit and stand by as you believe that the end is near.

8. There’s no way to believe in the anti-christ without being antisemitic

9. Letting go of the idea of the original sin is so liberating and does wonder for your self-esteem.

10. A lot of christians seem to have forgotten that at first the belief of who was supposed to get into hell or heaven had nothing to do with whether or not hey believed in Jesus but everything to do with the way one acted and if they were a good person or not.

11. There’s many argument that can be made about the idea that hell (as in eternal torture and punishment) doesn’t exist (in the christian cannon I’m not sure for other religions such as Islam)

12. I see religion as a way to understand the world, connect to other people and a guide on how to act. But that doesn’t mean that it is necessary to have a religion to be able to understand the world. There’s many approaches to that and as long as you’re trying your best to be a good person then you’re doing what really matters.

13. Being antisemitic in the name of freeing Palestine isn’t doing any good to Palestinians and is pretty much useless. If you’re totally against the idea of a Jewish state there then maybe the best thing to do would be to fight antisemitism in your community to make it a safer place for Jews. (idk why I put it in this rant but who cares)

14. Perpetuating the idea of a good N.T God and a bad O.T God is antisemitic and a lot of so called “progressive” christians seems to do it...

15. Christians obsessions with the Hebrew language is weird like stop trying to deform it to justify your weird theories...

16. There’s no such things as a Torah observant christians leave jewish text alone

17. Messianics jews are not a thing you’re just evangelical christians who appropriate jewish traditions...

18. There’s not one universal truth is an idea I always will defend

19. Sometimes I low-key wished I had been jewish and I know I can always convert but the amount of deconstruction I still have to do is immense... plus im still weirdly scared that I'll end up a somewhat progressive christians and I don’t want to waste a Rabbi’s time (plus I'm a black “woman” who is also queer so I already have enough on my plate)

20. Religion trauma expresses itself in the weirdest way possible and I always forget that I kinda suffer from it until it becomes to unbearable to ignore lol

#rant #Religion #The Rapture #exvangelical #evangecalism #atheism #theology

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slyandthefamilybook · 1 year ago

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sorry you found my tone to be rude, but you have to understand that it's frustrating trying to correct someone who consistently doesn't read what you say

In a post about why people hate Jews, you mention that even Jews are capable of being bad people. This isn't what I'm talking about. Hating individual Jews for the actions they personally commit is one thing. I don't care if someone hates Bibi, or me, or Adam Sandler. Hating Jews is an entirely different beast. I'm frustrated with you because as a Jew I'm attempting to explain something that Jews have been discussing for millennia, yet you, a non-Jew, dismiss my theory out of hand. Repeatedly.

You acknowledge that hating Jews for surviving is "absurd", and I agree. It is absurd and irrational. Hating Jews, or any other group as a whole is absurd and irrational. The lack of logic behind bigotry is precisely why posts like mine exploring it are necessary. Before fighting a disease you first have to know what it is. If Jew-hatred were just the result of Jews being bad people sometimes, it would be a simple fix. Maybe not easy, but simple. But that's not why people hate Jews and you know it. It's something deeper. There's a reason we're the eternal scapegoat. There's a reason people accuse us of things they don't accuse any other minority of. I'm just one Jew with 1.5 opinions. The original post was my opinion. It's not fact, but it seems from the reactions it's gotten that a lot of other Jews agree with me. You'll excuse me if I don't take seriously the criticism of someone who blows their top when being corrected. Yes, you are tone-policing me, and lampshading it doesn't make it any less problematic

My post isn't about why people discriminate against Jews, or why they're prejudiced against us. It's about why people hate Jews, which is something I was careful to say both in my post and my response. Antisemitism takes many forms. Some of them are economic, some of them are social, all of them are absurd. Hating Jews is a specific kind of antisemitism, one I wish to explore. If you don't want to be part of that exploration and walk hand-in-hand with me toward an understanding, then I suggest you remove yourself from the conversation

Why do people hate Jews? Simply put, because we're still here. Jews are one of the oldest continuously existing indigenous groups. We've survived persecution from such ancient empires as Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. We've survived while their mighty walls crumbled to dust and their lives were lost to mythology. We've survived expulsions from practically every country in Europe, most of the countries in Central Asia, and even a few in Africa.

Everything we are is in defiance of every nation on Earth.

We pride ourselves on our communal spirit. We care for each other. We're self-sustaining. We ensure our own existence. Against all odds, we're still here, and we will still be here after whatever hardships we're currently facing. Our oppression has hardened our skin, reinforced our bones. You cannot kill us. Every time you try, it only makes us stronger

It's circular reasoning. People hate the Jews because it's been the thing to do for millennia. "109 countries can't be wrong!" They hate us because we've been hated, they oppress us because we've been oppressed. The irony is the more they try to kill us, the harder we'll fight for survival. The more they try to exterminate us, the more they guarantee our longevity. We will outlive them

#you will not be getting another reply. I've said my piece

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church-history · 3 years ago

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Pius XII - WWII Hero, Nazi Collaborator, or Silent Bystander?

False accusations

Pius XII, Pope from 1939 to 1958, “rescued more Jews than all the Allies combined.”

During and after World War II, and again upon his death in 1958, Pope Pius XII was praised by secular and Jewish leaders for his efforts to save Jews from the Nazi-induced Holocaust. During the last forty years, however, many people, including some Catholics, have accused the Pope of “silence” and even of criminal negligence, saying he could have said and done much more to lessen the genocide that claimed millions of Jews.

These attacks against Pius XII require a false rewriting of history that does not survive honest scrutiny. Because of a defamatory work of fiction, “The Deputy”, written in 1963 by a little-known German Protestant playwright, Rolf Hochhuth, Pius XII's wartime record has been unjustly tarnished. In this play, the main protagonist, the young Jesuit Riccardo Fontana, says: “A Vicar of Christ who sees these things before his eyes and still remains silent because of state policies, who delays even one day... such a pope is a criminal.” (Ironically, as a boy, Hochhuth was a member of the Hitler Youth, and his father, an officer in the German Army.)

Pre-eminent Jews defend Pius XII

Ever since the play by Hochhuth was staged, it has become part of conventional folklore to blame Pope Pius XII for being "silent" during the Holocaust. But that is certainly not what many were saying at the time, including the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, and many others — all of whom applauded the efforts of Pius XII to do what he could to save Jews. Mainly by providing false birth certificates, religious disguises, and safe keeping in cloistered monasteries and convents, the Pope oversaw efforts that helped save hundreds of thousands of Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps.

The Israeli diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide concluded his careful review of Pius XII's wartime activities with the following words: “The Catholic Church, under the pontificate of Pius XII, was instrumental in saving the lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.” He went on to add that this “figure far exceeds those saved by all other Churches and rescue organizations combined.” After recounting statements of appreciation from a variety of preeminent Jewish spokespersons, he noted. “No Pope in history has been thanked more heartily by Jews.”

At the Eichmann Nazi War Crimes Trial in 1961, Jewish scholar Jeno Levai testified that the Bishops of the Catholic Church “intervened again and again on the instructions of the Pope.” In 1968, he wrote that “the one person (Pius XII) who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences, is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others.” In “The Secret War Against the Jews” in 1994, Jewish writers John Loftus and Mark Aarons write that “Pope Pius XII probably rescued more Jews than all the Allies combined.”

The Pope's efforts did not go unrecognized by Jewish authorities, even during the War. The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, sent the Pope a personal message of thanks on February 28, 1944, in which he said: “The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world.”

In September 1945, Dr. Joseph Nathan —who represented the Hebrew Commission —stated: “Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who, executing the directives of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brothers and, with great abnegation, hastened to help them, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed.”

Dr. A. Leo Kubowitzki, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, came to present “to the Holy Father, in the name of the Union of Israelitic Communities, warmest thanks for the efforts of the Catholic Church on behalf of Jews throughout Europe during the war.”

In 1958, at the death of Pope Pius XII, Golda Meir, then Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, delivered a eulogy on behalf of the nation of Israel to the United Nations, stating: “We share the grief of the world over the death of His Holiness Pius XII. During a generation of wars and dissensions, he affirmed the high ideals of peace and compassion. During the 10 years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims. The life of our time has been enriched by a voice which expressed the great moral truths above the tumults of daily conflicts. We grieve over the loss of a great defender of peace.”

Never were the Jews and the Vatican so close as during World War II. The Vatican was the only place on the continent where they had any friends. The great Jewish physicist, Albert Einstein, who himself barely escaped annihilation at Nazi hands, stated in Time Magazine (December 23, 1940): “Being a lover of freedom, when the Nazi Revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, but the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers... they too were mute. Only the Church,” Einstein concluded, “stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth... I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel great affection and admiration... and am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly.”

Israele Anton Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome during the German occupation, wrote: “Volumes could be written on the multiform works of Pius XII, and the countless priests, religious and laity who stood with him throughout the world during the war.”

“No hero,” he said, “in all of history was more militant, more fought against, none more heroic, than Pius XII in pursuing the works of true charity... and thus on behalf of all the suffering children of God. What the Vatican did will be indelibly and eternally engraved in our hearts... Priests and even high prelates did things that will forever be an honor to Catholicism.”

Zolli was so moved by the Pope's efforts that he became a devoted friend of Pius XII. He eventually converted to the Catholic Faith, and took for his baptismal name, in 1945, Eugenio, in honor of Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII). Rabbi Zolli's daughter, the psychiatrist Myriam Zolli, has issued a strong defense of Pius XII. She said the Pope was in steady contact with her father, and he worked diligently to save Jews from persecution. In an interview in the Italian daily Il Giornale, she recalled her father's prediction that Pope Pius XII would become a scapegoat for the West's silence in the face of the Holocaust. She concluded that “the world's Jewish community owes him a great debt.”

Pius XII did speak out

As a papal envoy to Germany from 1917 to 1929, Vatican Secretary of State in the 1930's, and Pope during World War II, Pius XII established a clear record of supporting the Jewish people against the Nazis. Lapide wrote: “Of the 44 speeches which the Nuncio Pacelli had made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least 40 contained attacks on Nazism or condemnations of Hitler's doctrines.” By their own testimony, the Nazis knew they had an enemy, and Jewish leaders, a faithful ally in Pius XII. To maximize church efforts and minimize Nazi backlash, Pius XII modified his tactics during the war, but his pro-Jewish efforts continued unabated.

As Cardinal Pacelli, he drafted the famous papal encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (which means “with burning anxiety” i.e. about the Nazi threat to racial minorities and specifically the Jews), which denounced Nazi paganism, racism and anti-semitism. The document was smuggled into Germany in March, 1937, and read from all Catholic pulpits. The day after Pacelli's election as Pope (March 3, 1939), the Nazi newspaper, Berliner Morganpost, stated its position clearly: “The election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism.”

In his 1942 Christmas message, Pius XII denounced the growing Holocaust. He cried out for the “hundreds of thousands who without any fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction."

The New York Times editorial (Dec. 25, 1942) was specific: “The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all.” The Pope's Christmas message was also interpreted in the Gestapo report: “In a manner never known before... the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order [Nazism]. It is true, the Pope does not refer to the National Socialists in Germany by name, but his speech is one long attack on everything we stand for. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews.”

Pius XII followed the Dutch Roman Catholic hierarchy's plan to name the Jews explicitly in their condemnation of Nazi deportations, and he intended to issue a similar statement himself. The Nazis threatened to arrest more Jews. The Dutch Reformed Church agreed not to protest openly, but the Roman Catholic hierarchy issued, in May 1943, their famous protest against the deportations. The Nazis then launched an all-out offensive against Jews (except those who had converted to the Dutch Protestant Reformed Church). Ironically, it was the Dutch hierarchy's letter of open condemnation which led to the arrest and execution of Saint Edith Stein, the Jewish Roman Catholic nun and philosopher.

The news of the increased persecution reached Pius XII. His own protest was due to go into L'Osservatore Romano (the Vatican newspaper) that very evening, but he had the draft burnt saying, “If the protest of the Dutch Bishops has cost the lives of 40,000 people, my intervention would take at least 200,000 people to their deaths.” Such was the result of openly naming the Jews; more death from vain gestures. There is no doubt that if Pius XII had made such a vain gesture, instead of saving more Jewish lives, he would then have been open to the criticism of having made the situation of Jews worse by vain and inopportune public statements. Those who now criticise him for not saying enough would then have attacked him for saying too much.

The Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide sums it up: “The saddest and most thought-provoking conclusion is that whilst the Catholic clergy of Holland protested more loudly, expressly and frequently against Jewish persecutions than the religious hierarchy of any other Nazi-occupied country, more Jews – some 11,000 or 79% of the total – were deported from Holland; more than anywhere else in the West.”

Thereafter, Pius XII adopted his policy of not naming the Jews explicitly. This was partly because of his experience of the diplomatic “deafness” of the allied governments, and partly because of his knowledge and experience of the increased persecution of Jews which followed the condemnatory statements made by the religious authorities. He devoted himself instead to the covert rescue operation to save Jewish lives.

Pius XII did act

The real question is, therefore, not what did the Pope say, but what did the Pope do? Actions speak louder than words. Papal policy in Nazi Europe was directed with an eye to local conditions. Hitler described himself as “a complete pagan”, and he regarded the Catholic Church as his greatest enemy, which he would destroy when he had the opportunity. Prince Sapicha, the Cardinal of Cracow in Poland, told the Pope, perfectly accurately, that if there were open public denunciations, Catholics and Jews would be massacred in Poland. It was better to try and rescue as many as possible through the religious houses, and allow the opposition army to build up.

Thousands of Jews — the figures run from 4,000 to 7,000 — were hidden, fed, clothed, and bedded in the 180 known places of refuge in Vatican City, churches and basilicas, Church administrative buildings, and parish houses. Unknown numbers of Jews were sheltered in Castel Gandolfo, the site of the Pope's summer residence, private homes, hospitals, and nursing institutions, and the Pope took personal responsibility for the care of the children of Jews deported from Italy.

Later, after the war was over, Pius XII received a large delegation of Roman Jews in the Vatican, and ordered that the Imperial Steps be opened for them to enter by. These steps were usually reserved for crowned Heads of State. The Pope received them in the Sistine Chapel and, seeing that his Jewish visitors felt uncomfortable in that place, he came down from his throne and warmly welcomed them, telling them to feel completely at home, saying, “I am only the Vicar of Christ, but you are His very kith and kin.” Such was his great love for the Jewish people, augmented by his knowledge of their terrible sufferings.

As Italian historian Monica Biffi wrote: “It is a real ‘cold war’ that Pius XII waged against Hitler.” One understands that in May, 1952, Pius XII was able to say: “What could we have done that we did not do?” Angelic pastor, master of truth, Pius XII has been a great Pope, filled with courage and wisdom; a Pope who is the glory of the Church, to whom we owe our admiration, our gratitude, and our prayer.

source: https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/roman-catholic-church/item/pius-xii-and-the-jews-during-world-war-ii

#catholic #jewish #Christian #Protestant #wwII #WWII History #Catholic History #Pope Pius XII #october 9th #holocaust

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renardtrickster · 4 years ago

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"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times."

I respect this idea as much as I respect the people who espouse or defend this sentiment. Which is to say, not at all. I believe that you are not smart to hold this position, and to hold this position you must not be smart.

For one, this is a Motte and Bailey. Two arguments, one non-controversial and easy to defend, the other controversial and hard to defend, but you only need to defend Motte, not Bailey. The Motte is that "strength" means "doing what's good for society". Adversity builds character, and "strong" men full of character create nurturing environments, free of adversity. But in those adversity free environments, one doesn't need to build character, so people will naturally be selfish and lazy, creating environments that are bad, full of adversity. So the argument is that misery adversity builds character, and without it you'll just be a little bitch. Which I already find shaky, both because this is extremely pessimistic, and because I can already see the harm equating suffering to personal development can and will (and did) bring. But me aside, some people can easily justify it, either through "I suffered and I came out alright" anecdotes while ignoring the people who broke in the process, harping on the "decline of the west" mythos and blaming it on the relative prosperity the 2000s and 2010s have brought, or some other dumb stuff. But that's just the Motte. The Bailey is that "strength" means "military strength". War creates a strong army, which will use its power to bring peace. But under peace, the soft-bellied pacifists will try to limit the military's power, inevitably leading to war. And this take is extremely controversial because as it turns out, a lot of people dislike Forever Wars. And it's hard to defend, because it misrepresents so much. When people want to limit the military's power, they typically want to military to only be used for defense and to please stop grinding up poor people for the imperialism machine, not for us specifically to have no militaries while every other country does (it would be cool if no armies existed ever though). And it states that pacifism and strong anti-military sentiment are borne out of peace instead of people recognizing a futile and seemingly endless war. As well as arguing that the state of not having an overfunded army invites war, instead of war being started for other reasons.

The other reason why I hate this line is because it's yet another installment of Conservatives Regurgitate Fascist Talking Points, my least favorite reality TV show. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany appealed to the people by promising a "return to greatness", that their nation used to be a great and noble one, but fell into hardship, and by killing a lot of people we would reclaim our heritage once again! Of course, if they were so strong, why did they fall? We need to glorify the past, but because we are in the awful present, we imply the past had fault that led them here. The answer they came up with is, of course, Jewsdidit. But the other scapegoat was decadence. They got too comfortable, and allowed themselves to be overrun by weakness and degeneracy, like pacifism, equality, identity outside of "I belong to this nation", distrust and disillusionment with tradition and authority, as well as Jews. That's where the "decline of the west/western civilization being destroyed" myth began, by the way. And that's also where WEAK MEN STRONG TIME HARD TIMES GOOD TIMES comes into play. The fall of our GREAT NATION was because of GOOD TIMES by those evil UNDESIRABLES I mean WEAK MEN, creating HARD TIMES, which begets you, the STRONG MEN (and it is essential that you buy that we are in HARD TIMES, or that would make you WEAK MEN). And if you want the GOOD TIMES to come back again (trust me it won't create WEAK MEN again bro just trust me), you'll have to become strong. And that means fighting (and dying) in war, killing a lot of people, and living for the state. We need STRONG MEN willing to kill and die for the cause, and we need a strong military so we can take as much as we want and kill as much as we want.

There's other things to mention, of course. The concept of "hard times" and "good times" is impossible to quantify and is almost always post-hoc rationalization and nostalgia. "Hard times" will absolutely never be creating "strong" men if the times are so hard they all die. "Good times" are good, sure, but for whom? Or more importantly, that the quote has a gaping logical pothole. Hard times create strong men, which create good times, but this leads to weak men and hard times. Ergo, problems come in when we reach good times, so the best way to keep your Eternal Empire going is to never achieve good times, or in other words, to ensure times are always hard. This doesn't have a lot of good implications for the people conserving hard times, or for the poor saps living under it, and ties back into fascism (more specifically, the authoritarian aspects will surely keep life hard, and fascism loves war because it's a purifying force that purges undesirables and turns boys into men). But I feel like I've made my point. This is an idiot idea espoused and kept alive by idiots.

#oh no renardie is posting #infoxicated

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freebiblestudies · 3 years ago

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Back To Basics Lesson 24: What Jesus Is Doing Right Now

Jesus died on the cross for the sins of humanity over 2,000 years ago. He promised He would come back one day for His people. Why hasn’t Jesus returned yet? What has He been doing all this time after the cross? Let’s find out in today’s lesson.

Let’s read together Psalm 77:13 and Exodus 25:8-9.

God commanded Moses and the Israelites to build an earthly sanctuary. It was not merely some tent in the wilderness, it was patterned after the heavenly sanctuary. God’s entire plan of salvation for humanity is symbolized in the sanctuary and its services.

Let’s read together Exodus 27:1-8; Leviticus 1:1-17; John 1:29; Ephesians 5:2; and 1 Peter 1:19.

The sacrifice at the altar of burnt offering symbolized Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. While the cross is essential to the salvation of humanity, it is not the end of the story. If it were, then there would be no need for a sanctuary. There would just be a courtyard with the altar of sacrifice in the middle.

(Please review the Bible study series on the sanctuary for more detailed information.)

Let’s read together Leviticus 16:1-34.

The Day of Atonement was a solemn annual event for the people of Israel. Throughout the year, sinners confessed and repented of their sins as they made animal sacrifices. The sins of the people were symbolically transferred to the sanctuary through the blood of these sacrifices. On the Day of Atonement, the sanctuary was cleansed of all these sins.

Two goats were utilized for this purpose. The first goat, known as the Lord’s goat, was sacrificed and its blood was used to cleanse the sanctuary (verses 8-9, 15-19). While the high priest did this work, the people were to make a final confession of their sins (verses 29-34).

The second goat, known as the scapegoat, symbolically bore the sins from the sanctuary. It was led away from the people and the sanctuary to die in the wilderness (verses 10, 20-22).

Let’s read together Isaiah 59:2; John 1:29, John 3:16; Hebrews 9:11-28; and Hebrews 10:10.

Our sins separate us from God. The sacrifice of the Lord’s goat pointed towards Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice for humanity on the cross. We can choose to die in our sins separated from God or we can choose salvation in Jesus Christ.

Let’s read together John 1:29; Matthew 27:50-51; Mark 15:37-38; and Hebrews 10:19-22.

When Jesus died on the cross, there was no longer any need for animal sacrifices. The sacrificial system of the earthly sanctuary had been done away. Jesus’ blood is all we need to cleanse us of our sins.

Let’s read together Daniel 7:9-14; Acts 1:4-11; and Hebrews 1:3

After the cross, Jesus was glorified by God the Father and given an eternal kingdom.

Let’s read together Romans 6:23; 1 John 2:1; Hebrews 2:16-17; 4:14-16; 7:25; and 8:1-5.

After the cross, Jesus became our High Priest and went into the sanctuary to minister on our behalf. Unlike human priests, Jesus is perfect, having overcome all sin. Nevertheless, Jesus can still sympathize with us in all our pain, trials of life, and struggles with temptation. Even now, Jesus intercedes on our behalf, applying His precious blood to cover our sins when we pray to Him.

If Christ’s sacrifice at the cross is enough, then what is He doing now in the heavenly sanctuary? Why hasn’t He come back for us already?

Let’s read together Exodus 25:8-9; Ecclesiastes 12:14; and 1 John 1:9.

Jesus cleansed us of our confessed sins and now He has a responsibility to get rid of sin. Remember, the earthly sanctuary was patterned after the heavenly sanctuary. Therefore, the heavenly sanctuary needs to be cleansed. This began in 1844.

Let’s read together Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6; Daniel 8:14; Daniel 9:25; 1 Peter 4:17; and Revelation 10:9-11.

A group of Bible believers in the 1800s studied the time prophecies of Daniel chapters 8 and 9. They determined the beginning of the prophecy began in 457 BC when King Artaxerxes gave the Jews permission to return and rebuild Jerusalem. They also determined one prophetic day equals one literal year. Therefore, they concluded the 2,300 days prophecy in Daniel 8 began in 457 BC and would end in 1844. They believed Jesus’ second coming would occur in September or October of 1844 based on the reckoning of the Jewish calendar.

Let’s read together Revelation 10:9-11.

These believers were bitterly disappointed when Jesus did not return in the fall of 1844. While they got the dates of the prophecy correct, they got the event wrong. The cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary began in 1844.

So, what does this mean?

Let’s read together Job 16:19; Daniel 7:9-10; Isaiah 64:6; Zechariah 3:1-4; 1 Peter 4:17; 1 John 2:1; Revelation 3:5; 12:10; and 20:12.

While the heavenly sanctuary is being cleansed, an investigative judgment began simulataneously in 1844. All of humanity will be individually judged and Satan stands as our accuser. Our own righteousness alone is not enough to save us. However, Jesus is our advocate and judge. If we accept Him as our Lord and Savior, our sins are blotted out with His precious blood. We will be deemed righteous in God’s eyes. We do not have to fear judgment with Jesus on our side!

So, what happens next?

Let’s read together Revelation 22:11-12 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

We do not know when the investigative judgment will end, but when it does and the heavenly sanctuary has been cleansed, Jesus will come back to earth for His people. Jesus’ second coming will happen! He will finally return for us!

Friend, can you see what Jesus is doing right now? He is advocating for us during this investigative judgment and the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. Accept Jesus and trust in him. He will return again.

#bible study #back to basics #heavenly sanctuary #tabernacle #holy place #investigative judgment #psalm 77:13

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nevermindirah · 4 years ago

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Ok it's Jewish Booker o'clock, I can no longer stop myself, let's do this!

Why Jewish Booker? Dude was born in Marseilles in 1770, which happens to be a FASCINATING time and place in Jewish history, and it adds ridiculous layers to his character (without excusing a damn thing). Alternately just because I think he’s neat :)

Jewish Booker headcanons that make me happy:

not to be all "real Jews do X" but Jews fuck with candles hard. Book of Nile thrives on old/modern analog/digital giggles. Booker lighting Shabbat candles, lighting yarzeit (memorial) candles for his wife and sons (sob), lighting a menorah, lighting candles just because he's feeling emotional even though it's not chag (a holiday) or a yarzeit and Nile thinks he's trying to be sexy but he's really just in his feelings. just like. so many candles.

maybe Booker was the person who punched Richard Spencer at Trump's inauguration, just bringing back that time somebody punched a famous neonazi in the street and said neonazi has all but stopped appearing in public after a few rounds of public punching

were the Old Guard in Charlottesville in 2017? how many times has Booker the Blond Jew infiltrated North American white nationalist / Klan type activities and then stolen their weapons and/or killed them? likewise there's plenty of horrifying white nationalist shit happening across Europe this century, how many Pim Fortuyn types has he been involved in taking down? (I Am Of Course Not Endorsing Violence TM ;) ;) )

SINGING. Mattias Schoenaerts sings in Away From the Madding Crowd but it's church shit, sigh, anyway he has a nice voice. a lot of Jewish prayer is sung/chanted (depending on when/where you are and the gender rules of the community you're in) and there’s been a lot of innovation to Jewish singing in Booker’s lifetime, and I just want Nile to overhear him singing to himself on Friday afternoons

Nile Freeman was four years old when The Prince of Egypt came out, she grew up on that shit, she would want to introduce her new family to that shit. Please join me in picturing Booker, Nicky, Joe, and Andy all shouting "that's not how it happened!!" throughout this beautiful nightmare of a movie with lovely animation and songs but where white people voice most of the Egyptian and Jewish characters, because Booker Nicky and Joe's religious texts all frame the Exodus story a little differently and Andy was probably there when it happened (except for how it didn't actually happen it's an important story but it's just a story pls just let me giggle about Andy being super old)

Read below the cut for sad Jewish Booker headcanons, French Jewish history (mostly sad), context on antisemitism (enraging/sad), and all the way to the very end for a himbo joke.

Jewish Booker headcanons, I made myself sad edition:

he is a forger. who was alive. in 1939. visas. VISAS. V I S A S. how many of us did he save? how many more could he have saved if he didn't sleep that night? how heavily does that weigh?

how do we think he BECAME a forger? most likely he was doing what he needed to do to support his family, which gets extra poignant if he was also trying to help his people, forging documents as well as money even during his mortal life

Booker raised Catholic by crypto-Jews adds ANOTHER layer to the forgery thing, no shit he'd get good at falsifying paperwork and coming up with plausible cover stories

do we know how Booker made it back home after his first death in 1812? his route between the Russian Empire and Provence in 1812 would've been a patchwork of laws about Jews, in case starvation and frostbite weren't enough for him to have to deal with, he's blond and could maybe get away with pretending not to be Jewish if he had to, alternately maybe synagogues and yeshivot took him in on his way home

the structural and sometimes-interpersonal dynamics of antisemitism cause many individual Jews to experience feelings of teetering on the fence between a valued member of a not-exclusively-Jewish community and a scapegoat/outcast/problem. HOLY SHIT BOOKER. "what do you know of all these years alone" is the most Jewish loneliness-in-a-crowd shit I've ever heard. fear that we're not wanted, or only wanted so long as we're useful — that's something that basically all people struggle with under capitalism, but it's especially poignant for many Jews because of the particular way antisemitism operates. (NOTE this can tip from a legit Jewish Booker reading to woobification of the sad white man who couldn't possibly be held responsible for his own actions because he's so sad, which, NOPE. it's very understandable for him to feel left out and misunderstood and not as wanted, as the youngest and not part of an immortal couple and maybe Jewish, but NONE OF THIS excuses his betrayal.)

Crusaders murdered a lot of Jews on their way to the ~holy land~. how many of Booker's people did Nicky kill on his way to kill Joe's people? has Booker ever actually talked to either of them about it?

I read this really beautiful fic about Joe needing to circumcise himself after getting run over by a cart (ouch) — this is a hell of a thing for Joe and Booker to have in common

just generally Jewish Booker adds more layers to him and Joe so clearly being such close friends, ugh that look Joe gives him when they're leaving the bar at the end of the movie, and I very much do not mean this in a gross Arab-Israeli-conflict way because Joe is Amazigh not Arab and Booker is Jewish not Israeli (and also a lot of Jews are Arabs) (but most importantly there's no ~eternal conflict~ between Muslims and Jews) (more about OP Is Not A Zionist below)

like, the UK and France (and to a certain extent Italy) carved up the former Ottoman Empire after WWI; among other things, the UK took Palestine, and they could've worked on eradicating European antisemitism so Jews wouldn't have to leave but instead they used their control of Palestine to encourage Zionist emigration of Jews out of Europe, and France took what is now Iraq, which has some pretty direct implications for US military involvement in that country in Nile's lifetime; France colonized Tunisia in the late 19th century and still held it during the Vichy era which means Tunisian Jews were subject to Nazi anti-Jewish laws which is just layers upon layers of colonial racist Islamophobic and antisemitic nightmares for Joe and Booker to live through

to be crystal clear before anybody gets ooh Muslim-Jewish conflict up in here, antisemitism is an invention of European Christians that they imported to the places they colonized, the European colonial powers encouraged Zionism because it was easier for them to encourage Jews to leave Europe and set us up as middle agents between the colonial powers and the ~scary brown people~, the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim governments historically have had a second-class citizenship category for non-Muslims that rankles my American first amendment freedom of religion sensibility but was very much not targeting Jews specifically, and these two men who've lived for a long-ass time through many varieties of geopolitical awfulness (and alongside a certain unwashed Crusader who has since learned his lesson) would have Things To Say about how our current mainstream discourses frame these things

getting off my soapbox and back to this action movie I'm trying to talk about, the ANGST of Booker's exile, which is simultaneously a very valid decision for Andy Joe and Nicky to make, an extremely long time for Nile who is only 26 years old to be separated from the one person on the planet in a position to really understand the crisis she's going through, and holy shit expelling a Jew from your group when he's already been expelled from mortality and his family and being expelled from places and continually having to start over somewhere new is THE curse of surviving through antisemitism, OUCH MY FEELINGS

Some French Jewish history:

France, like basically all of Europe, periodically expelled its Jews, but Provence (where Marseilles is) wasn't legally part of France during the expulsions up through 1398 so Provence had a continuous active Jewish community; about 3,000 Iberian Jewish refugees ended up in Provence after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s

the 1498 expulsion of French Jews DID apply to Provence but many "converted" to Christianity and reestablished a Jewish community when enforcement of the expulsion chilled out (which was in the government's interest because they were really into taxing Jews at higher rates, so much so that they taxed "new Christians" at higher rates once they realized expelling Jews meant they wouldn't be around to overtax, ffs) — by the mid-18th century Provence had notable communities of Jews and crypto-Jews (forced converts and their descendants who still kept some Jewish practices in secret)

Booker would've been 21 when revolutionary France granted equal legal rights to Jews in 1791 — his mortal life and first century of immortality happens to line up almost perfectly with the timeline of legal emancipation of Jews across Europe

the American and French Revolutions happened pretty much concurrently and took different approaches to religious freedom that make Book of Nile with Jewish Booker and canon Christian Nile extra interesting — French emancipation, at least from my American sensibility, is about secularism and religion not "interfering" (hence French Islamophobic shittiness about banning hijabs), whereas American religious freedom is more of "the government can't stop me from trying to evangelize / religiously harass people at my school/workplace/etc" — to be clear I think both countries' approaches to religious "freedom" are hegemonic as shit and have devastating flaws, but they're different models that emerged at the same time in Booker's youth and Christianity is clearly a source of emotional support for Nile and there's so much to explore here

Napoleon tried to ~liberate~ the Jews of places he conquered for his dumbass French Empire, but liberation from ghettos came with strings attached (like banning us from some of the only jobs we'd been legally allowed to have for centuries, and liberating us for the stated purpose of getting us to assimilate and stop being Jews) and many places that were briefly part of the French Empire reinstated their antisemitic laws after Napoleon was gone, can you imagine being a French Jew forced to fight and die in Russian winter for that jackass and then have to trudge back through a dozen countries whose antisemitism was all riled up by French interference?

Some facts about antisemitism:

antisemitism operates differently than many other oppressions, it doesn't economically oppress the target group in the same way as antiblackness or misogyny or ableism etc — the purpose of antisemitism is to create a scapegoat to blame when European peasants are mad at the king / the church / the people actually in charge, and structural antisemitism encourages a system where some Jews become visibly successful so that those individuals and our whole community are easier to make into scapegoats

one of the historical roots of antisemitism is stuff in the Christian Bible about moneylending as sinful — Jews in medieval Europe were often barred from owning land and Christians barred from moneylending, so some Jews found work in finance and some of us became very visibly successful for working with money — a few individual Jews running a particular bank or finding success as jewelry dealers turns into "Jews control global financial systems" scapegoating — a more recent example of this is the participation of nonblack Jews in white flight and the role of Jewish landlords doing the visible dirty work of non-Jewish institutions in American antiblack housing discrimination, Nile grew up on the South Side of Chicago and would have seen some shit along these lines and might repeat hurtful ideas out of a lack of knowledge, here's Ta Nahesi Coates on some of these dynamics

Booker canonically being a forger (specifically of coins in the comics?) needs a little extra care to avoid antisemitic tropes about Jews and money, I will happily answer good-faith asks about this if you want to check on something for a fic/etc

antisemitism in the United States where I live in October 2020 isn't institutional in the sense of targeting Jews for police violence or anything like that. it IS systemic, however, for example in all the antisemitic conspiracy theories the Trump administration and several other Republicans peddle (ie QAnon), and in how the Trump administration points to support for Israel as if that means support for Jews (it doesn't, it's evangelical Christians who push the US government to support the Israeli government because they think Jews need to be in the ~holy land~ for Jesus to come back that's literally why the United States funds Israel at the level it does). antisemitism also gets weaponized to encourage white Jews (those of us of European descent, who in the United States are definitely white because the foundation of US racism is slavery and antiblackness as well as anti-indigenous genocide, maybe European Jews aren't included in whiteness everywhere but we definitely are where I live) to side with white supremacy instead of building solidarity with other marginalized people (ie a lot of mainstream Jewish groups shit on the Movement for Black Lives because of its solidarity with Palestinians)

the Nation of Islam has a major presence in Chicago and its leader Louis Farrakhan who lives in Chicago has long spread a variety of antisemitic as well as homophobic bullshit but there are genuine good reasons many Black people find meaning/support in the Nation of Islam and Nile would've grown up with that mess in the air around her, this is a good take from a Black Jew about the nuance of all that

the way the Old Guard comics draw Yusuf al Kaysani is HOLY SHIT ANTISEMITISM BATMAN I hate it please summarize the comics for me because I DO NOT WANT to look at that unnecessarily caricatured nose why the fuck did they do that human noses are beautiful there is absolutely no need to draw Joe like a Nazi would

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is a local NYC group that recently developed a fantastic resource for understanding and fighting antisemitism (pdf) 11/10 strongly recommend

Zionism disclaimer: A lot of Jews feel strongly that we need a Jewish-majority country in order to be safe from antisemitism. I strongly disagree with this idea on its merits (Jews disagree about who is a Jew and making Jewish status a government/immigration matter means some of us are going to get left out; also non-Jews aren't fundamentally dangerous and separatism isn't going to end antisemitism) but I have a lot of empathy for the very valid fear that leads a lot of my people to Zionism. Whether I want a Jewish-majority country or not, what Israel has done and continues to do to Palestinians is a deal breaker. Emotions run very high on this subject — I spend a lot of my not-Tumblr life talking to other Jews about Zionism and I'd rather not have this Jewish Booker headcanons post become yet another place where fellow Jews yell at me in bad faith. Block me if you need to, you're not going to change my mind. Call me self-hating if you want, I know I love us.

Racism in fandom disclaimer: I feel weird about increasing the volume of meta about Booker in this fandom. Nile Freeman is the main character and deserves lots of attention and adoration from the fandom — and she deserves emotional support from as many friends and orgasms from as many partners as she wants. I think Jewish Booker makes her friendship and potential romantic relationship with him even more interesting, hence this post. Ship what you ship, but be aware of the racist impact of focusing your fandom activity on, for example, shipping two white men while ignoring awesome characters of color especially the canon man of color one of those white dudes has already been with for a millennium. Please and thanks don't use my post for shenanigans like sidelining Joe so you can ship Booker with Nicky.

Oh and a non-disclaimer fun fact, Matthias Schoenaerts was born in Antwerp which apparently has one of the largest Jewish communities still remaining in Europe?? ~Jewish Booker headcanons intensify~

In conclusion: Jewish Booker! Just because it's fun! It exponentially increases the angst of his mortal lifetime and it puts his first century of immortality smack in the middle of the most intense changes to Jewish life since the fall of the Second Temple (aforementioned emancipation, also founding of Reform Judaism, the Haskalah, Zionism, and then of course the Holocaust). It makes his relationships with Nile, Joe, and Nicky more interesting and potentially angstier and with more intense commonalities and tenderness about their differences. It's very common for Jews to not believe in God (this confuses the shit out of a lot of Christians) and this would probably have further endeared him to Andy.

One more thing: Booker as golem. (A golem is basically an earthenware robot of Jewish folklore.) He's tall and blond and the most Steve Rogers-looking of all of them and from the Himbeaux region of France. THE trope of Book of Nile is he will do WHATEVER Nile wants or needs him to do. I was today years old when I learned that Modern Hebrew speakers use golem figuratively to mean "mindless lunk" and I'm choosing to squint and read that as "hot kind and dumb as rocks" because it amuses me.

#sebastien le livre #tog meta #jewish booker #book of nile #i couldn't stop myself #antisemitism #genocide cw #antiblackness #european imperialism #us imperialism #antizionism #hi i'm an antizionist jew no i don't really wanna talk about it #except i just did #jewish things #jewish history #tog #mine

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