Why Aren't The Jewish Religious texts edited to remove Racist and hate passages?

reply to post by Dr Expired


I appreciate dontreally for being honest.

We had a good discussion due to him.

I believe that every human has innate goodness. It gets hidden by wrong education, and association. But if somebody shines the light, it starts to dig itself out of the rubble.

I pray for everybody who participated in this discussion. May God help us to a better world.

"Pagan" is patently a derogatory term for a religion other than the religion of the person using the term.

In fact it is so derogatory that it insinuates that the pagan religion is not really a religion at all.

Can we say that there is a hierarchy of types of religions from the perspective of those west of Iran and east of Alaska?

Monotheism
Polytheism
Paganism
Animistic Religions

Not that logic has a seat at the table of religion but is there any logic to justify rating religions?

How and why should a monotheistic religion be thought in anyway superior to a polytheistic religion?

Back to the original post - instead of asking why one religion should not be censored maybe we should ask where did the idea come from to censor religions in the first place?

Is it an act of hate to force another group to change its religious texts?

reply to post by BRAVO949

"Pagan" is patently a derogatory term for a religion other than the religion of the person using the term.

In fact it is so derogatory that it insinuates that the pagan religion is not really a religion at all.

The terms that have been labeled "derogatory" are simply terms that have been labeled as "politically correct".

Somebody always does that in an attempt to cover any possibility of exposure, and limit argument.

The stigma created always points away from any question of vailidity for whatever agenda is being instilled on a general public.

reply to post by BRAVO949


Hi Bravo !

Just a few things to add to your posts [which are fairly on target by the way !] ref the term PAGANVS

The Latin term 'paganus' literally means 'of the village, of the towns' i.e. rural people not from the larger metropolitcan capitol cities - referring to those 'in the outskirts-countryside' who retained the old worship and the religions of the old gods i.e. remained true to their own 'ancestral faith' whenever there was a change of a 'state-religion' (e.g. Christianity) which as it grew became something more 'politically expedient and acceptable' i.e. by the existing ruling politico-economic classes who dictate such things as state religions......

We see this pattern literally all over the world and throughout all human history - i.e. where 'larger-city dwellers' are fairly quick to change or adapt to new imported religions of the ruling classes whereas those still living in the outskirts are, well, more conservative, holding on to older belief systems etc.

Take for examplee the uppermost northern Scottish islands which were are so utterly remote andd 'cut off' from the mainstream changes in religion especialy during the middle ages (when Scotland converted to catholicism than later to Protestantism, at least officially !) that the northern Scottish islanders (untouched by proselytes and 'converters') still worshipped the Goddess (i.e. were 'pagani', of the towns practicing the Old Religion(s) which were called 'WitcheCraffte' etc. where still 'original pagan' Wicca exist in large numbers even to this day...

Of course you know all of this already - I just wanted to elucidate a few others on this threadlet who might be mite confused is all !!

the hebrews weren't monotheists in the truest sense of the word.. originally, they knew there were other gods, in fact, moses says as much when he recounts the oral histories of their forefathers in deutoronomy. the text is discussing the events at babel, and describes how 70 nations were created and divided at the babel event, between 70 sons of god.

being retrospective as regards moses' commentary, it refers to the people who would become israel, later in the timeline, being watched over by michael the archangel. so clearly, this text is not only describing the angels, in particular the sons of god or even archangels, being given authority over the nations, but also that jehovah set michael the archangel for israel. it doesn't mention which angels were the leaders of other nations, only michael, because the bible/torah is the history of the lineage of the people of israel and in the case of the bible, the history of the lineage of yeshua from the house of judah

these angels/sons of god/archangels were frequently called elohiym/gods. as a result, it's disengenious to suggest that the hebrews were monotheistic in knowledge, even if they only followed "jehovah" "yahweh," they were still aware of the other elohiym. how could they not be?

However - the people who were supposed to accept one god and stick with that concept did not in fact do that.

"The people" drifted back and forth from recognising the one god to accpeting many gods.

At this point, there are no original people who stayed with the program since the time of Moses and every single "Jew" alive today is the descendeant of a convert.

There is a powerful myth that claims that Judaism represents and unbroken chain between now and Moses but that is just a pure myth.

DNA studies put the final nail in that coffin.

"Jewish" women across the world have no genetic link with each other.

Woman had always been brought into the culture from the outside.

Originally posted by undo
the hebrews weren't monotheists in the truest sense of the word.. originally, they knew there were other gods, in fact, moses says as much when he recounts the oral histories of their forefathers in deutoronomy. the text is discussing the events at babel, and describes how 70 nations were created and divided at the babel event, between 70 sons of god.

being retrospective as regards moses' commentary, it refers to the people who would become israel, later in the timeline, being watched over by michael the archangel. so clearly, this text is not only describing the angels, in particular the sons of god or even archangels, being given authority over the nations, but also that jehovah set michael the archangel for israel. it doesn't mention which angels were the leaders of other nations, only michael, because the bible/torah is the history of the lineage of the people of israel and in the case of the bible, the history of the lineage of yeshua from the house of judah

these angels/sons of god/archangels were frequently called elohiym/gods. as a result, it's disengenious to suggest that the hebrews were monotheistic in knowledge, even if they only followed "jehovah" "yahweh," they were still aware of the other elohiym. how could they not be?

edit on 11-10-2011 by undo because: (no reason given)

reply to post by BRAVO949


Actually it makes sense, if jews descended from a priestly class. The women should be diverse, but men should show lineage clearly - in a society where succession is from father to son.

It is like Brahmins in India, who could marry a girl from any class. So the lineage can be determined from male side only.

Just like all religious texts, they can't just edit out stuff that's bad...because then they'd have to question their entire belief system. It's like a house of cards, pull one card, and the whole thing will likely come down

reply to post by MrXYZ


Not true.

The problem with religions is that original thoughts or books have been added on for generations, sometimes so much that original thought is hardly visible.

It is quite possible to remove the additions.

Your argument holds if the core itself is rotten. Then nothing can be done.

reply to post by BRAVO949

There is a powerful myth that claims that Judaism represents and unbroken chain between now and Moses but that is just a pure myth.

DNA studies put the final nail in that coffin.

"Jewish" women across the world have no genetic link with each other.

Woman had always been brought into the culture from the outside.

No wonder a main theme of Orthodox Judaism says children of "Jewish" women are automatticaly "Jewish".

Perhaps another Chubby Checker version of The Twist

Originally posted by vedatruth
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

Not true.

The problem with religions is that original thoughts or books have been added on for generations, sometimes so much that original thought is hardly visible.

It is quite possible to remove the additions.

Your argument holds if the core itself is rotten. Then nothing can be done.

Well, ancient religious texts (such as the bible) condone rape, genocide, and slavery. Those weren't "additions", they formed part of the original texts. And they won't edit those out because that would force people to question the entire thing. After all, how can a "good belief system" have elements that condone rape and murder?

reply to post by MrXYZ


There is one critical difference between Christianity and Judaism - Christianity is based on word of just one man - Jesus Christ. Judaism is a result of a culture, and the religion is attributed to multiple people. So it is much easier to reform.

A religion either fades away or rediscovers itself. If a religion is true, it should re-discover itself. Otherwise so many belief systems on earth have dis-appeared. Religions die just like people do.

reply to post by vedatruth


Hi Veda

You wrote:

QUOTE '...Christianity is based on the word of one man, Jesus Christ

UNQUOTE

Actually, this is patently UN- TRUE. In actual fact, most modern day 'Christianities' out there in the wild being practiced to-day by 'Christians' are actually 'Pauline Christiains' i.e. loosely based on the theological Greek--speaking Weltanschauung of Shaoul of Tarsus (aka Paul) , a man who never met R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (Gk. 'Iesous') in the flesh, but only in dreams and visions, sort of like my cook....

Also we have very few actual Galilean Aramaic 'words' of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef preserved in the 'canonical' council approved Greek gospels ('according to Matthew...', 'according to Mark' , 'accordiing to Luke' etc. whoever they were) apart from random words e.g. 'Abba !' (lit. 'Daddy !!') and a few excorsicm spells (e.g. 'talitha qumi' or 'ephraphtha !!' ) etc. and the canonical Greek 'council approved' gospels are all written in 'more politically correct' late 1st century koine Greek, not the original 'seditionistic' Galilean Aramaic which only apparently existed in an oral form (with little written in actual writing until much later than the events they purport to portray)

So...to make a VERY long story short... one cannot make any kind of claim that 'Christianity' is somehow magically based on the 'word of one man' - it flies in the face of all the known facts of the case...

In fact, trying to reconstruct the Galilean Aramaic 'ipsissima verba' of R. Yeshosha bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (Gk. Iesous) would be a lot like trying to re-construct the PIG from the SAUSAGE - too many parts of the beast was pre-digested beyond all recognition and when scholars DO manage to re-construct a phrase or two (often the fall back into POETRY when the koine Greek phrases are translated back in their 'mother tongue' word for word, curiously !) in most cases the political overtones of the original 'Sitz im Leben' (original 'setting in life') stand out to show the man more of a terrorist/seditionist (especially in view of the uncomfortable fact of his being a 'Daviddic-Messianic Pretender' who armed his own disciples with broadswords (see 'Luke' chapter 22:35ff) during THE Insurrection (see 'Mark' chapter 15:6ff) against the Roman occuipation c. 36 CE during the 100th anniversary of the Roman invasion of Pompey in 63 BCE)

Now...don't tell me you didn't know any of this !!!

reply to post by Sigismundus


You are saying the Greeks jumped on the popularity of Jesus Christ and politicized his thought, just a few decades after his passing.

I am no expert of Christianity. My statement is based on the fact that Jesus is considered 'son of God' while others like Paul are considered 'saints'. I have no idea how much weight a 'saint' carries in theology compared to the 'son'.

As far as I understand, Judaism is more like a belief system with many prominent personalities, but no 'son of God'.

The 'gods' or 'mortal gods' is an Egyptian construct. People fail to understand the importance of ancient Egypt in context of knowledge and thought. Egypt has influenced religion in ancient India just like religion in ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

Why? Because Egypt was a well-settled society with well organized economic and social systems in the ancient world. People like order far more than they like God. So Egyptian lifestyle had an impact everywhere.

I just realized yesterday that 'tandoor' and 'naan' (wheat bread) have come to India from Egypt. Wheat itself may have come to India from Egypt, as Indians were rice eaters 5000 years back.

What you know as Christianity and Islam today are based on a mix of ideas of religions of the west and the east. Christianity is definitely influenced by Buddhism, whileas Islam is definitely influenced by Vedic religion. However the main body of the belief systems of these two religions are based on local customs, which have come from Judaic and Egyptian societies.

I may catch some flak for this one but oh well... The fact is the chosen ones really are not the chosen ones of God.... No no no it's really rather simple really they are the chosen ones of Satan. The Jew is descended from the bloodlines of Cain. The Zionist Jew does not know good. They are of the Satan seed. The Talmudic view point is of an evil one. if you believe this to be bullish/t take a look around you. Evil runs this world unfortunately. The continuous killings of the innocent Palestinians, the attack of the USS Liberty in international waters, the control over the entire banking system, the complete and utter control over the entire propaganda machine including the music industry.

Originally posted by Enemyc0mbatant
I may catch some flak for this one but oh well... The fact is the chosen ones really are not the chosen ones of God.... No no no it's really rather simple really they are the chosen ones of Satan. The Jew is descended from the bloodlines of Cain. The Zionist Jew does not know good. They are of the Satan seed. The Talmudic view point is of an evil one. if you believe this to be bullish/t take a look around you. Evil runs this world unfortunately. The continuous killings of the innocent Palestinians, the attack of the USS Liberty in international waters, the control over the entire banking system, the complete and utter control over the entire propaganda machine including the music industry.

the name "Satan" doesn't appear in the biblical texts until the days of King David. to the hebrews it meant "adversary." If you read sitchin's info on it, he claimed that they switched back and forth between enlil and enki. enlil epitomized the judgemental side of jehovah/yahweh and enki epitomized the forgiving, saving, enlightening side of jehovah/yahweh. if enlil thought we should remain clueless, submissive, slaves, enki thought the opposite and upgraded homo sapians to be intelligent, adventerous and strong-willed. so earlier texts characterize enki as the guy who messed up the whole thing, et. al, the serpent in the garden. yet later, enlil was characterized as the adversary and enki was the good guy again. this has gone back and forth for thousands of years.

my theory, which shares some similarity to sitchin's, is that the first adam were male and female clones. and that what enki did was to give the clones the ability to procreate, have passion in order to inspire procreation, and that this part of his history is mixed in with enlil's reaction to this modification. enlil was pissed. he didn't want head strong, intelligent, procreative slaves. he wanted docile, submissive slaves created via cloning, so the population growth could be controlled. enki's decision to give us procreative abilities, ended with enlil insisting that our dna be nerfed so that we would grow old and die, like the rest of the animal kingdom, thereby allowing the population growth to curtail itself.

this suggests that our original cloned state, when tweaked to be procreative, was still self-repairing, eternal bodies, which enlil didn't want. he saw the whole thing as lacking foresight, but enki knew what he was doing and did it to protest enlil's view of the clones (which was pretty abysmal). he and enlil have been fighting with each other for literally, thousands of years.

reply to post by undo


It is unfortunate that you believe in the story of adam and eve.

There is no 'satan' as there is no 'god'. The real God is only one who always stays hidden, and never shows up in any form on Earth.

A human can be good or evil, according to qualities.

Sanskrit literature mentions 'sur' and 'asur' and battle between them. 'sur' and 'asur' are merely races of people inhabiting a part of the Earth. Confused readers have made 'sur' gods, and 'asur' evil. A reader can read far more than the author intended. What can author do about it.

'Dev' is a learned person in Sanskrit. 'Dev' is used in context of accomplished people of society like Priests, King, Engineers, Doctors etc. There is a verse in Ramayan when people take out a procession (in joy) after sons are born to the king. This procession is described as led by 'dev' playing 'dundubhi'. Dundubhi is a musical instrument. Did gods came down to Earth and participated in a procession when Shri Rama was born? Confused people think so. But the use of 'dev' in Ramayan time was always in the context of prominent citizens.

'apsara' is taken as celestial dancers. 'apsara' is actually just a dancer, who is a beautiful woman.

I am pointing this out to you, so that you understand that it is not easy to undestand the writing of the ancient people without understanding socio-economic condtions of their time, and the way they used language. We cannot use our prejudices for their time.

Authors like Sitchin mislead people because they are creating fairytales from meagre historical knowledge.

Priests may have made up story of 'adam and eve' because they could not explain the basic question 'what is the origin of man?' This question is still troubling Western societies, as they are still searching for it.

reply to post by vedatruth


actually, i believe, because moses was raised as an egyptian, that his input and stance on older creation data, is based on the words used by the egyptians. in other words, adam was egyptian atum. atum was the god of creation in egyptian texts. the confusion came in when the translators did not realize the source of the reference. the people of atum, were cloned in the image of atum. and atum, like elohiym, is a plural word. so in effect, the atum were a race of people cloned in the image of the atum gods/goddesses, for the purpose of servitude. the original language of the adam verse, reveals that adam was also a plural word and that originally, the adam were a race of male and female clones created in the images of the elohiym (the adam).

translators only have so much data to work with and languages are so very specific at times and other times, so generalized, you have to do alot of comparative analysis to arrive at the truth. this is why when the text said the adam, they were a bit confused. i think moses tried to correct that from happening by calling the atum gods, elohiym, a word that derives from sumer, and calling the clones, atum. he knew what it meant, but he wanted to be sure everyone else realized, that even though they had the same name, one was the cloner, and the other was the clone named after the cloner.

eve doesn't come along till later, and she's just there to indicate the change from being non procreative clones to being procreative clones and then procreative clones with their dna nerfed

Atum was considered to be the first god, having created himself



yeeeeep. translators had a few problems with the concept, as you can see.

atum created atum. atum cloned himself.

reply to post by undo


I appreciate your effort to understand ancient texts.

All I am saying is that things like 'cloning' should be discarded when trying to understand ancient events.

It is possible that some ETs came and settled down on Earth. It is also possible that some people left Earth and populated some other planet. It is also possible that large disasters took place on Earth due to earthquakes, floods, disease, meteors, or solar storms.

But two things - cloning, and human gods - are not possible.

A human CANNOT be cloned. Period. I have no idea what they did with animals, but it is impossible to clone a human. A human body is extra-ordinarily complex due to power of discretion, which is not there in animals.

A new race can be created by a mix of ET race and an existing human race. This is the natural way which is called 'varna-sankar' in Sanskrit. 'varna-sankar' is a mixed child of two races of humans. It is called a 'dosh' or defect in Vedic society, and such a child is not accepted for a high position in State service.

I can assure you many stories of ancient world are fabricated, just to separate royalty from other people. The Egyptian Pheroah was no different from other Egyptians, but was made distinct by myths and physical appearance. Ancient people knew plastic surgery and other methods to change physical appearance. Egyptians was a race of dark people - in fact darker than people of India. Many dark people in India are descendants of Egyptians and look very luch like Pheroah's pictures.

Egyptian race is very old on Earth. Egyptian language has changed several times in their history. They retained the pictorial notation, but the notation and words changed. We are fortunate in case of Sanskrit as it has always been written in the same way since time immemorial. This is the reason Vedic 'dharm' is called 'Sanatan Dharm' or a religion that never changes.