"I think we should throw those books in a fire"

[tabibito]

Honestly at this point you sound kind of like some Christian apologists (a few on this site) who try to insist that slavery in the bible wasn't slavery because it 'wasn't the same' as slavery in the Americas/Europe during the slave trade. That's literally how stupid you sound right now.

Slavery in the first century and earlier included what we know of as slavery. The difficulty for early writers was that the range of conditions that the term covered was much broader. There was a hierarchy in slavery which had some ranks of slaves with higher status than free men. It also included the equivalent of prison chain gangs, people who sold themselves into slavery to avoid the penalties for defaulting on debt, and people who sold themselves into slavery (essentially as indentured labourers) because it was a fast track to Roman citizenship: though the latter was progressively less likely with time. I think it was discontinued entirely by the end of the second century.
Paul's criticism of slavery was restricted to people who took captives for sale as slaves, which is pretty much the practice that we know of as slavery.

[tabibito]

That's the thing though, racism doesn't require one to classify 'all light-skinned people as inferior' or 'all dark-skinned people as inferior'. Such extremes are not required for racism to be extant.

Sorry my dude, racism has existed since humans had the capacity to differentiate between groups. Honestly possibly even back to the time when multiple species of humans were all extant on the planet at the same time and interacted.

If I remember rightly, my first comment to H_A on this issue was a statement that anti-Semitism long predated Christianity.

I have said that racism existed in times past, but that there is nothing to suggest that it was a blanket racism based on skin colour, i.e. racist attitudes toward everyone of a particular colour or group of colours - that attitude is relatively new. I can't say when it began, but suspect that it was during or shortly after the industrial revolution.

The origins of racism are complex. Even identifying exactly what constitutes racism is difficult. What is the baseline for racism start and what distinguishes it from faithism?
H_A rightly says that it is a complex issue, and then declares that it has a simple single cause.
She slates the blame for antisemitism to Luther, which is true enough (to a limited degree) in Germany. Not that his is the sole cause, but she again boils it down to a simple cause. Luther's polemics against the Jews were based in religious differences, not in ethnicity, and he had much the same attitude toward any group that did not accept his version of Christianity.

[tabibito]

Anti-Semitism as we understand it today did not exist in the ancient world.

Are you saying that the Jews were not distrusted and vilified because they were Jews, by any other racial groups, prior to Christianity?

And note - Christians did not choose to leave the synagogues, they were evicted. Also note: the earliest conflicts were not about race, but about religious differences. The claim that the early church was racist in its attitude toward Jews is utterly false.

[rogue06]

Not the tropes against the Jews. Martin Luther was very popular during the Reich years. The Nazis did not need to lie about him or invent things he had written. It was there for all to read. He had articulated centuries of theological anti-Semitism into an especially dangerous and virulent composition.

Luther's vehement hatred of the Jews is not denied, but it wasn't just Lutherans who were anti-Semitic. What Luther said would hardly be convincing among those who saw him as a heretic or who didn't care what any religious person thought.

I am not interested in you riding a hobbyhorse around the nursery table.

I have no doubt that you find it necessary to characterize my post in that manner in order to rationalize your avoidance.

The exchange was about anti-Semitism as we understand it today. And the roots of that anti-Semitism lie within early Christianity.

I realise that many Christians find this fact unpleasant but there it is.

The irony of such an incredibly overly simplistic description of a complex issue is not lost on any one oh hypocrite.

[Gondwanaland]

Not as we understand it today. Nor, unlike the Christian world, was anti-Judaism preached and taught across the entire ancient world.

Again, that the term 'anti-semitism' and did not exist in the ancient world and the 'concept' was not recognized by the people of the day, does not magically make the clear anti-semitism that occurred, not historical fact.

Like I said in another post, you sound as dumb as the Christian apologists who insist that slavery in the Bible isn't 'troo' slavery.

[CivilDiscourse]

Not as we understand it today.

Explain what you mean by that. What do you think makes it meaningfully different?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Sorry, but it did. That the term 'anti-semitism' did not exist in the ancient world, does not magically make the clear anti-semitism not historical fact

Not as we understand it today. Nor, unlike the Christian world, was anti-Judaism preached and taught across the entire ancient world.

[Gondwanaland]

I do not affect to be an expert on US politics.

Nor did rogue 'affect to be an expert', you braindead hypocritical twit.

[Gondwanaland]

Anti-Semitism as we understand it today did not exist in the ancient world.

Sorry, but it did. That the term 'anti-semitism' did not exist in the ancient world, does not magically make the clear anti-semitism not historical fact. You've been schooled on this in the past and you still continue in your ignorance.


Honestly at this point you sound kind of like some Christian apologists (a few on this site) who try to insist that slavery in the bible wasn't slavery because it 'wasn't the same' as slavery in the Americas/Europe during the slave trade. That's literally how stupid you sound right now.

[Cow Poke]

I do not affect to be an expert on US politics.

Who cares what you "affect" --- you stick your nose in our business continuously without any actual knowledge or qualficiation.

Furthermore what "qualifications" apart from living in the USA do you have? Are you an accredited expert on the Constitution, jurisprudence, US political history? Where precisely are your qualifications?

I'm not playing your stupid little diversionary game.

[Gondwanaland]

What qualifies you to "be an expert" on US politics, social issues, and such?

She can't even get basic history of her own country straight!

[Gondwanaland]

You made that same comment sometime earlier, but without a more extensive context it is not clearly racism based on skin colour - there doesn't seem to be any attempt to classify all light-skinned people as inferior, and the "almost certainly" stops short of claiming that the writer was certainly a dark skinned individual. Even if those factors were proven, the single example does not establish the existence a general practice.

That's the thing though, racism doesn't require one to classify 'all light-skinned people as inferior' or 'all dark-skinned people as inferior'. Such extremes are not required for racism to be extant.

Sorry my dude, racism has existed since humans had the capacity to differentiate between groups. Honestly possibly even back to the time when multiple species of humans were all extant on the planet at the same time and interacted.

[Gondwanaland]

Given your previous comment, I would beg to differ.

Perhaps begging for a working brain would help you more.

[Gondwanaland]

You are falling into the same error of assuming that these events were all perpetrated by anti-Semites against innocent Jews. They were not.

Maybe best not to make such statements, as a German especially. Makes you look like you want to do some heil-ing.

[Gondwanaland]

Beware tabibito! You may find @Civil Discourse accusing you of "simple" or even "simplistic answers"!

However, the reasons behind those events are complicated.

The reasons behind most events are complicated. That doesn't make anti-semitism magically not anti-semitism just because it is not convenient for your little fantasy.