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How dare you talk about God's chosen ones! LOL!!! [msn.com]

IAJO163 8 Feb 2
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the word "chosen" isn't even IN this article. so whom are you addressing with your "how dare you"? there is no such expression as "god's chosen ones." jews are sometimes referred to as "the chosen people" because of the part of the hebrew bible in which god offers abraham the choice of entering into a covenant with him. this means that "choosing people" would be an equally accurate description. it has nothing to do with being better, superior, going to heaven instead of anyone else (judaism doesn't actually deal with heaven, at least not in the christian sense, although individual jews have sort of absorbed the christian vision without knowing it). judaism doesn't say jews are superior. it says jews have extra obligations. i am not defending religion or any kind of theism, but i am also not happy when people have false views about judaism and even about jews -- or any religion, or group, or people, for that matter. it is no less offensive, and no truer, than thinking all muslims are terrorists, or that all christians are westboro assholes (or that atheists eat babies).

meanwhile, the article isn't about that! so that's your comment, something mocking about jews, instead of something about the actual issues involved in the israeli/palestinian conflict, or about the attitudes of various elected officials?

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So serious. Lighten up and note the sarcasm.

@IAJO163 i stand by every word i said. by the way, it is not proper to tell people who take the time and make the effort to respond thoughtfully to a nonsarcastic article to lighten up, just because you mistakenly think you commented with effective sarcasm.

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@genessa I posted LOL!!! It's not my fault that you can't see the humor in it. Please continue to agree/disagree with my posts as that is what I like about this site. People speak their minds honestly.😉

@IAJO163 yes we do. and i do not see the humor in antisemitism, even expressed in a joking manner... maybe especially expressed in a joking manner. you are correct. i do not see the humor in what you said, and of course the article itself was not sarcastic or satirical, not meant to be humorous.

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@genessa Living in a country as diverse as the U.S. and looking back on the experiences that made me who I am today. I don't have much room to be serious because it's been all used up.

@IAJO163 not being serious is one thing. being offensive is another, and saying something is a joke doesn't change it. the article wasn't a joke but even so it's okay to have a humorous reaction to it.... if the humorous reaction isn't bigoted, which yours was.

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@genessa Bigoted? Far from it. I will let you think what you will because I guess I'm already in the doghouse with you over this. Apparently you're the only one in the room who has a problem with it so ...

@IAJO163 yep. i appear to be the only one in the room with a problem with it, and that must mean i'm wrong, right? whatEVER.

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I often wonder if the phrase "God's chosen ones" started of a whole lot of trouble.

The odd thing about it is that chosen usually indicates being somehow special but the history of the Bible is about a people who behaved so badly in spite of being chosen that they had to be severely punished time and time again for their behaviour.

it would if it was actually a phrase. it's not. "the chosen people" is. see my explanation above. i don't think it is what caused the trouble, though, even though it is so much misunderstood.

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@genessa I am sorry but I do not understand the explanation in the first long comment that you posted. Because the phrase chosen one's does exist I feel it is up to Jews to explain where it went wrong in our terms.
Surely if a god (any of them) is all powerful and all helpful there would be no call to choose anyone provided they are patient.

@Mcflewster no it doesn't. it's the chosen people. and i AM a jew, and i just DID explain. and your last sentence shows me you're right, that you did not understand what i said. please read it again. i DID explain. keep in mind that i am an atheist, but i am also jewish and i understand what was and wasn't said.

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@genessa I respect your position and sorry to be a trouble to you but it is not the jews that you have to convince. You are still talking as if there was definitely a god and that the bible is infallible. There must have been some other reason why the phrase was used - perhaps a purely political sound bite . Please help us on this site get a better understanding than historical theism of why the phrase was used so that we might properly fix the harm that it did - peacefully. Pure sibling rivalry in a family actually does harm.

@Mcflewster no i'm not. i'm talking about judaism, which exists, not god, which doesn't. historical theism is why the phrase i said -- the chosen people -- was used. the phrase god's chosen ones isn't even a thing. i don't think the phrase that actually IS a thing did any more or less harm than any other aspect of any religion. that's an assumption based, like everything you said about ME, on facts not in evidence. and there is no sibling rivalry happening here. i was correcting a misapprehension. you want me to explain it in a different context and i explained it in its proper context already. i neither said nor implied that there were any gods, not anything about the bible whatsoever except to refer to the story from which the phrase (the correct phrase) is derived. i'm not going to turn it into something it's not.

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@genessa I am only trying to improve my image of the jews. I wish you well

@Mcflewster if you want to improve your image of the jews, with regard to this particular post, understand that jews do not refer to themselves as "god's chosen ones." maybe someone does. i wouldn't know. jews don't. we sometimes say "the chosen people" because of the part of the bible where abrahama and god make a covenant. one must assume in that story that if abraham said no for some reason, god would've asked someone else lol. it's fiction, but that's where that idea comes from. chosen for a covenant. not chosen as in better, not chosen as in superior, not chosen as in only jews go to heaven, not any of that. just chosen for the covenant, which means a promise, not anything else. not what people assume it means. not something to diss jews about.

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@genessa I do really feel for the plight of the jews and had hoped that you could throw some light on why the phrase arose. It looks like only jews can solve it because everyone involved is so sensitive about the use of a single word or phrase. It is not the only word or phrase that has to be changed but admitting that it might have been incorrectly said would be a start.

@Mcflewster solve what?

i already said TWICE how the use of the phrase "chosen people" came up. (i don't know how the phrase "god's chosen ones" came up; that's not a known phrase. the poster uses it but i've never seen it before.) it came up in the story of abraham in the torah. god chooses to offer a deal to the jews, through abraham. abraham accepts the deal, or covenant. so it's both sides choosing to accept the pact. that's IT. nothing else. just that. i can't say it more clearly or succinctly. that's the whole shebang. as for the plight of the jews, which plight do you mean? believe it or not, judaism isn't focused on any plights! rofl! again, i remind you, i know a lot about judaism, not all there is to know, but rather a lot, as a jew, but i AM an atheist. when i talk about a biblical story, i talk about it as a biblical story, nothing more. lots of phrases in common use come from fiction.

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I wonder how well the idea of boycotting as an expression of free speech will be received?

Silence is an expression of free speech.

I guess it's a contradiction, also being no speech at all.

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