Amos,
Oh my goodness, I had to stop reading after the second paragraph – do I know of any other great Jewish minds besides Einstein and Spinoza?? Are you somehow implying that the belief in a deity somehow predisposes someone to greater intelligence, and in your implication that Christ is the ultimate factor in determining a person’s greatness and IQ?

Obviously you have the typical prejudices of a Catholic (oh and HOW Christian of you and such a beautiful expression of your unconditional love) and it is no surprise to me that you have little or any knowledge of the vast contributions Jewish men and women have made to the advance of science, philosophy and to the world with their intellect, despite their lack of belief in a false Moshiach. Here are the nobel Laureates in the past century. It should be noted that from 1901 –1995 that of the 663 Laureates, 140 were Jewish or of Jewish decent. Oh and one prominent Jew who has most certainly contributed to the health of your entire family and mine would be Jonas Salk, the man responsible for the polio vaccine, and maybe that guy who discovered penicillin. Then a few famous philosophers, such as Philo Judaeus, Moses Maimonides and Moses Mendelsohn, not to mention Spinoza or the enormous contribution EINSTEIN has made … and it is of little consequence that both Newton and Plato studied Kabblah. Saul Bellows, the 1976 Nobel Literature Prize Winner was the only man to receive honorary degress from both Harvard and Yale in the same year. Amazing the FEW intelligent minds I could among the Jews!
Chemistry· 1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer · 1906 - Henri Moissan · 1910 - Otto Wallach · 1915 - Richard Willstaetter · 1918 - Fritz Haber · 1943 - George Charles de Hevesy · 1961 - Melvin Calvin · 1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz · 1972 - William Howard Stein · 1979 - Herbert Charles Brown · 1980 - Paul Berg · 1980 - Walter Gilbert · 1981 - Roald Hoffmann · 1982 - Aaron Klug · 1985 - Albert A. Hauptman · 1985 - Jerome Karle · 1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach · 1988 - Robert Huber · 1989 - Sidney Altman · 1992 - Rudolph Marcus Economics· 1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson · 1971 - Simon Kuznets · 1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow · 1975 - Leonid Kantorovich · 1976 - Milton Friedman · 1978 - Herbert A. Simon · 1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein · 1985 - Franco Modigliani · 1987 - Robert M. Solow · 1990 - Harry Markowitz · 1990 - Merton Miller · 1992 - Gary Becker · 1993 - Robert Fogel
Literature· 1910 - Paul Heyse · 1927 - Henri Bergson · 1958 - Boris Pasternak · 1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon · 1966 - Nelly Sachs · 1976 - Saul Bellow · 1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer · 1981 - Elias Canetti · 1987 - Joseph Brodsky · 1991 - Nadine Gordimer World Peace· 1911 - Alfred Fried · 1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser · 1968 - Rene Cassin · 1973 - Henry Kissinger · 1978 - Menachem Begin · 1986 - Elie Wiesel · 1994 - Shimon Peres · 1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
As to your comment about ART – let’s examine the facts – the Roman Catholic Church held absolute power for centuries. Paid LOTS of money to have their artwork commissioned, monopolized this market and so many others and burnt, pillaged and destroyed everyone else’s works of art and literature that were considered heretical or simply NOT Catholic. I can only imagine enormous loss suffered went the Library in Alexandria was destroyed and who was that destroyed by? Was it the Church or some of it’s followers? This certainly does not bode well for your argument! I cannot even begin to answer the remainder of your post, nor can I stand to debate with such ignorant bigots such as yourself.

As soon as I think I may have found a possible redeeming characteristic in a Catholic or a Christian, it always comes back to this. I simply want to vomit.

Brighid

I wonder how many advances in the sciences, in technology, medicine, art and philosophy were lost forever by the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust by those very people, who thought very much like you, that their Judaism somehow predisposed them to a "lesser" intellectual and genetic status then the wonderfully superior Christian/non-Jew white man?

Sieg Heil!

Brighid

Sorry, I was never a WASP. Were you?

Sorry, I knew that there were more but did not know you knew them all. Besides those you cited they must have had some good piano players too, I am sure.

Amos

DRFSeven. You have a rich sense of irony. I love it. Point taken.

AMOS,

I am oblivious as to what possible meaning a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Princess)status would have to the discussion at hand, except as an attempt to insult me in some sort of way. As to my ethnic heritage I am Irish of pagan decent, Polish and American Indian and the royalty in my family comes from my Cherokee ancestors. I simply make it a point to attempt to educate myself a little bit better. I could present you with many more important Jewish men and women who have without a doubt contributed to the quality of your life, whether you realize that direct contribution or not. It is specifically because my Catholic upbringing taught me such a narrow view of the world and it’s religions that I chose to move beyond my inherited prejudices, experience the world and learn a little bit more about those whom I must share this Earth with. Does it surprise you that a white woman would know these things or that I have respect for others not of my racial heritage or religious background?

It is also because my grandfather was a prisoner in the death camps of Nazi Germany, from which he later escaped, the legacy of his story and the horrors perpetrated on the Jews, the handicapped, homosexuals, the Poles and every one else who suffered at the hands of the SS that such things are of paramount importance to me. Not to mention that almost my entire Sioux and Cherokee ancestry was wiped out by the same thinking that they were “savages, sub-human, without souls and inferior” to the Christian white man.
Mr. Christian, espouser of unconditional love, who is to walk in the humble shoes of Christ – try a little humility and reverence. Are we not suppose to honor our mothers and fathers and if I am not mistaken – Catholicism is the child of Judaism and maybe, just maybe you should be a little more conscientious to the religion and people who are the ancestors of your Christ. Not to mention all the other children of this earth, who as you believe, all come from your god. I find it very ironic that Christianity espouses “UNCONDITIONAL” love, but demands belief (therefore a condition) in Christ in order to have the fullness of love and truth from god, and that some of it’s true followers (Catholics as you say) can be so full of arrogance and the idea of their supreme superiority because of a single belief, in a borrowed sun god remade from the mythical remnants of Mithras, Dionysus, Bacchus, and Osiris! Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!

“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
Albert Einstein

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
Albert Einstein

“My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.”
George Santayana

Brighid, you are absolutly admirable and it shows that your education serves you well and you represent education equally well. I fail to understand why you drag the holocaust into this because all I did was give much credit to Judaism as a true religion but more rigid and sluggish than Catholicism. Instead of recognizing my point you start slinging mud as to why this is etc. etc. which is not part of the argument at all. I am not interested in defending the history of the Church nor will I ever call atheist, Jews, Buddhists or protestants wrong as individuals. Life is a journey, I understand very well, and we cannot be wrong as such but only our opinion can be wrong. This, I would call unconditional love without slobber.

You might have noticed elsewhere that my idea of salvation is the convergeance of our twain mind of which I understand the most intricate detail. Based on this do I refer to art and the great minds in the history of the Church to prove my point. That is when the shit hit the fan and so we arrived at the end of our story.

Amos

OK, I don't get it. If Jesus died to take away our sins, why do we need to repent???

Isn't there something in "The Golden Bough" regarding the whole idea of the scapegoat, sacrifiece, lamb, blood, etc?

Hi freemonkey, you have to understand that "Jesus died to take away our sins" is a protestant daydream because Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow him. Indeed, Jesus died for the sins of his world and told us to do the same and I don't think he meant that since he showed us how do it the implication was that we do not have to. To take away our sins is simply a matter of "faith finding understanding" (beyond Kierkegaard) because only knowledge frees. The sins of our world are needed to color our heaven because they will be our richess in heaven. The recall of the (our) apostels into the 'upper' room means exactly that (our apostels are our eidetic images). So yes, they will be transformed into good works if and when we follow in his footsteps, drink of the cup he drank and die with him and rise with him. It is not that difficult because it is all metaphysical. It is however the best kept secret for good reason because it only works as a secret ("salvation comes as a thief in the night").

To repent is also a protestant daydream because it short circuits the entire salvation event since the very I that does the repenting must itself be repented (sacrificed or surrendered). In Catholicism the sacrament of confession has just the opposite effect because here the sinner receive absolution [without atonement] for the price of 'tree hail Mary's' (or two if your peers are watching you . . . )." This sinner is likely to back for more because it is easy enough to clear your conscience that convicted you of sin. Of course, this was one of Luther's objections because, he, too, had short circuited his own salvation. So in the end, confession can work as a courage builder with the hope that the integrity of our inner man (Joseph was an "upright" sinner) will do the convicting when we seek justification (Gal.2:17). Maybe I should point out that the "two edged sword" as I just explained works in every aspect of Catholicism.

Sorry I do not know "The Golden Bough."

Amos


[This message has been edited by Amos123 (edited May 11, 2001).]

I was surprised to see no mention in the thread of Satan in relation to sin. What about the war between angels and devils in Revelation, the temptation of Jesus? That's part of the Christian story.