Comments on: Hitchens: Hanukkah like, totally sucks.

By: FamouslyUnknown

FamouslyUnknown — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:03:08 +0000

“The fault, dear Brutish, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings” Let’s give the boot to the Brute in an intelligent way.

We become and act, the way we believe. What we believe may have little to do with the original facts and context of the belief-triggering situation, and more to do with what we love, hate, desire, and need.

The basic principles which we honor in our lives guide us through the muck and mire of our changing society. The fact that there are clashes over the meaning of those basic principles ought to wake us up to the need to think deeply and widely and highly about their significance and purpose.

How would YOU apply the principles stated in the 2nd paragraph of our Declaration of Independencem and in the Preamble to the Constitution, to:
– just and humane immigration policy
– defending ourselves at home and others abroad against murderous tyrants
– humane medical treatment for the neediest poor and/or the most defenseless among us
– promote private charitable donations and clarify the benefits for the nation as a whole for helping the needy to learn to help themselves — thereby justifying more government assistance beyond the simply humane.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:12:01 +0000

Putting aside the (excuse me for the tref reference) ham-handed responses, the essay itself makes a good point. Hitchens is absolutely correct that, if the Hellenistic culture had won out, monotheism might have perished, and we’d all be flying rocket jets and wearing togas and lucite sandals right now, in a utopian paradise of philosophical, secular wisdom. Instead, monotheism won out, and we have breaking heretics on the wheel, Meir Kahane, 9/11, and the ceaseless screaming horror-show of religion.
Or something. But Bender is right, that when we’re all sitting around the brisket and candles, it’s not about the tragedy of our origins that we’re praying, it is about our family and our community. And smarty-pants like myself are just being hostile and superior when we point out the mythic, ahistorical, origins of the Passover story or the tyrrany (even under others’ tyrrany) of the Maccabees.

By: TheHolyFatman

TheHolyFatman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:58:03 +0000

Bender….did you hear about the recent resolution in the house? Total bullshit if you ask me….

By: Irving

Irving — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:00:58 +0000

hahaha Hitchens is like any other pseudo-historian thinker, glossing over the facts that don’t fit. That’s goyim history :)

By: luaphacim

luaphacim — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:38:09 +0000

Glad to hear you finally found a menorah in this city of goyim. :-)

By: Evil Bender

Evil Bender — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:25:22 +0000

Actually, given Hitchen’s neocon Imperialist agenda, I suspect he would say exactly that–probably finding a way to gloss over the Christian roots of the “manifest destiny” idea.

But you’re absolutely right. Rephrased in that context, it really highlights how stupid his argument really is.

By: Spartacus

Spartacus — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:17:24 +0000

Yeah, I’m a really big fan of the way those Seleucids “weaned” people off their “ancient and cruel” faiths. It’s definitely more cruel to be Jewish than to conquer nations and alter their traditional beliefs, right? It’s “weaning” when you threaten to take the lives of anyone unwilling to alter their beliefs to fit in with your political regime, right? Can you imagine anyone saying the things he is saying about Jews in antiquity with regards to Native American traditions being trampled by “mainfest destiny?” It’s a very similar situation. What a load of crap.