leejo

A Few More Little Facts

I think he paints a bit too rosy a picture of the life of the captured Hez. Otherwise, good points.

TheFeniX

I like Ben Stein a lot, but I don't really care for this statement. So, because African's haven't suffered as much as Jew's, we should have differing views of "torture."

I'm not inclined to care as much about the suffering of a religious choice as that of something a person cannot change. If they're suffering so much, why not just renounce the part of their lives that makes them suffer? People can't renounce skin color.

I'm always confused about the Jewish faith anyways. Why do they consider themselves a separate race? And what gives them the physical characteristics (or stereotypes) that they have? Is it a property of inbreeding?

Ben seems to be focusing on the religious side of the situation. I'm looking at it more from a nationalistic view. Two waring nations rather than two waring religious groups.

NOTE: I'm not anti-semetic or anything (which is sad I even need to say this), but I'm really just curious about why a belief system can be confused with a race of people.

__________________

leejo

With Jews, it's both. One may convert to Judaism or one may be born into the Jewish race, who claim descent from Jacob.

Many races have this tight link between racial and religious identity. To do otherwise is a pretty recent and modern fashion, isn't it?

TheFeniX

They claim, or they know? Do that have valid information on their decendancy? Or is it another form of belief system?

I'm not sure about that.

Religious devotion seems to be more of a cultural thing, unless we're going to define race down further than skin color. Out of every ethnic group there are many varied religious beliefs. Hell, even same races can't get along with one another (Irish Catholics vs Protestants).

__________________

Wulfyn

I like how he tries to take a swipe at China for their willingness to sell arms to anyone. Genius.

__________________

Calvin

For the longest time, Jewish people only married other Jewish people. This practice, along with the fact that people don't tend to convert to Judaism very often (except for the jokes), allowed for a kind of isolated ethnic community of Jews to arise. In addition, as somebody else has mentioned, the Jewish culture dominated many aspects of their life, and gave them a distinct cultural identity. They aren't really a "race", but races are determined by social attitudes more than any hard science, anyway.

__________________
|TG-33rd|Calvin