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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Clarification indeed!
Message-ID: <1163@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 14:19:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1163
Posted: Fri Jul  5 14:19:52 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 16:23:48 EDT
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Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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>...                                                   In addition, while
>I will not harm him, I believe that he is harming me (unlike Rich who
>states that his actions are totally private and do not harm me, but then
>Rich does not agree that his actions have the consequences I believe
>they do). First of all, there is the harm done to the soul of the Jewish
>people, second his actions delay the coming of the Meshiach (Messiah),
>and third (this applies to non-Jewish homosexuals as well, but mainly in
>the land of Israel) acts of abomination cause retaliation by God against
>the land.  [AVI FELDBLUM]

What is this "soul" of the Jewish people?  Where is your objective evidence
about the "coming of the Meshiach"?  Until you can provide such evidence
about such things, you have no basis for complaining about harm, and your
basis for discriminating against other people is nil.  Your beliefs are
your beliefs.  If you have enough prove of their veracity to convince
other people to agree with them, fine.  If you don't, then leave those who
disagree alone.  As Yosi Hoshen said in his response to you, Jews are not
specially exempt.  If you can justify your own intolerance based on a book
whose veracity you cannot prove, why shouldn't others, like the Nazis,
or the fundamentalist Christians, be able to "justify" intolerance of YOU?
If you can't come up with a good answer to that one (beyond the usual
"Don't you dare compare Jews to Nazis!!!!!"), then you have no basis for
justifying your intolerance.

As Yosi further said in his response:

| Christians can use a logic similar to yours.  They can say that
| since you as a Jew do not accept Jesus as your personal savior, you
| delay the second coming of Christ, thus, causing a great harm to
| all the inhabitants of this planet.  By not accepting Jesus you
| may cause retaliation by God against the entire world, and not just 
| against one country.

What *IS* the difference between the two different examples of intolerance,
other than that one is done by Christians and the other by Jews?  Are Jews
"allowed" to be intolerant and everyone else not?

| There are segments in the Jewish orthodox community that exhibit tolerance 
| levels that can be  viewed as Khumenism Jewish style.  They tend
| to forget a very important Jewish  principle of tolerance,
|    "Al ta'a'se l'chavercha ma she'sanu aleicha",  
| which can be translated to, "Don't do to your friend (implying
| another person) what you detest"  [more from YOSI HOSHEN]

Otherwise translated as "Do unto others..." or the "Golden Rule" or "Your
rights end where they interfere with mine" or "Your right to swing your fist
ends at my nose", and so on.  People like Samet have derided notions of
"absolute tolerance".  Absolute tolerance is itself a self-contradiction:
you can't be tolerant of those who are intolerant and who claim that you are
being intolerant of their intolerance and then take it out on you.  We're
not talking about absolute tolerance.  We're talking about MAXIMAL tolerance,
offering the most possible freedom to the most people.  If you can't get behind
that, perhaps you don't belong in a world with other people.
-- 
Like a turban (HEY!), worn for the very first time...
			Rich Rosen   ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr