From "Zionism is Racism" to "Judaism is Racism"

[pjaminet]

David, It ought to be clear how most Christians will react. We are all in the same boat. Recently California has compelled Christian adoption agencies to serve homosexual couples, and Catholic dioceses to pay for employee abortions. It is a fundamental element of Christian ethics that we are to withhold our cooperation from wicked people and sinful acts, but the thrust of leftist politics is to force everyone to accept and associate with the wicked and sinful.

We will recover freedom of association and disassociation, and freedom generally, or we will lose it all.

You are right moreover that retreating to purely private funding is no solution. The ascent of socialism will squeeze the private sector until there are no funds to be had; and once private sector activities are rare, they will be outlawed, required to conform to public sector norms.

[Spengler]

From "Zionism is Racism" to "Judaism is Racism" on the Spengler Blog


by David P. Goldman


A British court has ruled that the fundamental premise of Judaism--that Jews are physical descendants of Abraham--is inherently racist, and that the only determinant of religious membership can be belief. Warns Rabbi Lord Sacks, Britain's chief rabbi:

"An English court has declared this rule racist, and since this is an essential element of Jewish law, it is in effect declaring Judaism racist. To be told now that Judaism is racist is distressing. To confuse religion and race is a mistake."

 In short, the British court imposes non-Jewish criteria on Judaism which, if pursued to their logical conclusion, would erase Judaism as a religion. We are still quite far from that, but this is an attack on the integrity of the Jewish people and their religion without precedent in the postwar period.

What disgusts me the most about this is that Britain's Reform Jews sought the intervention of the courts with the explicit intent of destroying a foundational principle of Judaism. It is one thing to to argue against tradition; it is quite another to solicit the civil courts to determine that a principle one opposes is "racist." For this, Britain's Reform leaders deserve condemnation.

As reported by today's New York TImes, here are the facts:

“This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history,” said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. “It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates.”

The case began when a 12-year-old boy, an observant Jew whose father is Jewish and whose mother is a Jewish convert, applied to the school, JFS. Founded in 1732 as the Jews’ Free School, it is a centerpiece of North London’s Jewish community. It has around 1,900 students, but it gets far more applicants than it accepts.

Britain has nearly 7,000 publicly financed religious schools, representing Judaism as well as the Church of England, Catholicism and Islam, among others. Under a 2006 law, the schools can in busy years give preference to applicants within their own faiths, using criteria laid down by a designated religious authority.

By many standards, the JFS applicant, identified in court papers as “M,” is Jewish. But not in the eyes of the school, which defines Judaism under the Orthodox definition set out by Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. Because M’s mother converted in a progressive, not an Orthodox, synagogue, the school said, she was not a Jew — nor was her son. It turned down his application.

That would have been the end of it. But M’s family sued, saying that the school had discriminated against him. They lost, but the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal this summer.

In an explosive decision, the court concluded that basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism — whether one’s mother is Jewish — was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,” the court wrote, “makes it no less and no more unlawful.”

The case rested on whether the school’s test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not. The court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M’s mother rather than whether M considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism.

“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. It added that while it was fair that Jewish schools should give preference to Jewish children, the admissions criteria must depend not on family ties, but “on faith, however defined.”

The same reasoning would apply to a Christian school that “refused to admit a child on the ground that, albeit practicing Christians, the child’s family were of Jewish origin,” the court said.

The trouble is that the UK government pays for more than thirty Jewish schools, and therefore has standing to say who gets in and who doesn't. It is not clear to me, though, that simply withdrawing from the state system and creating a school system funded entirely with private contributions. Once a legal principal is accepted that the basic premise of the Jewish religion is racist (despite the fact that Israel is full of black Jews), the thin end of the wedge is in. Once a court in a (formerly) civilized country has linked "Judaism" and "racism," Pandora's Box is open.

The school has appealed to Britain's Supreme Court, as the Jewish Chronicle reports from London:

The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling on the JFS admissions dispute before the end of the year.

In the court’s most high-profile case since it opened last month, nine judges will decide whether Jewish schools can allocate places according to whether a child’s parent is Jewish.

JFS has contested a Court of Appeal decision made on behalf of a boy who had originally been rejected because the Chief Rabbi does not recognise his mother’s non-Orthodox conversion.

The Court of Appeal ruled that using parental descent to decide places is racial discrimination because it is based on ethnic origin — but JFS, backed by the United Synagogue, says this is a question of religious status, not race.

Both the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the British Humanist Association supported the Court of Appeal in submissions made to the Supreme Court.

But the Appeal Court decision was challenged by both the Board of Deputies and the government.

The Board, representing the “cross-denominational interests” of the community “as a whole”, said: “The court should…interpret the provisions of the Race Relations Act in a way that does not interfere with…the rights of those who belong to a religion to define its own membership test.”

But the court was also made aware of the individual positions of non-Orthodox movements.

In a memo to the Board presented to the court, Reform chairman Stephen Moss explained why it backed the Board’s intervention. “The Movement for Reform Judaism,” he wrote, “regards the wider, long-term implications of a definition of Jewish status based on descent and conversion being labelled ‘racist’… as damaging and potentially disastrous for the Jewish community”.

I do not know what the full implications of this measure are, and will try to obtain better legal opinions. The fact that JFS is a publicly-funded school gives the government more standing than otherwise it would have, although it would seem that the same sort of complaint can be made under American anti-discrimination law.

Judaism has nothing to do with race--there are Jews of every race--but it does have to do with family. Jews are members of Abraham's family. Not only tradition, but a great deal of DNA evidence support this claim. To insist that Jews adopt the criterion of "belief" for membership is to rule that God must act in accordance with a human court's notion of the permissible range of God's behavior. No wonder the Reform Jews and the British Humanist Association support this.

It will be interesting to see how Christians respond to this. Some Christians, to be sure, rankle at the idea that the election of Abraham's family continued after the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and will watch the proceedings with silent satisfaction--I can imagine the grin on the face of Bishop N.T. Wright, for example. Others will observe that salvation for Christians means no more or less than adoption into Israel; it is Israel that is saved, and the individual Christian is saved by the miracle that makes adoption possible (the blood-sacrifice of Jesus Christ). If there is no election of Israel to begin with, no miracle is required for the adoption of Christians, and therefore Jesus' sacrifice was--how to put it?--somewhat less than absolutely necessary.

[charleston]

it is a depressing and unrelenting assault on the Jewish people

http://www.aish.com/print/?contentID=68495827&section=/jw/me

The Big Lie: Moslems, Jerusalem and Archaeology, Part 1
by Rabbi Leibel Reznick
The Arab onslaught to erase the Jewish people's historical connection with the Temple Mount.

In his 1925 autobiography, Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler wrote that people would assume that an outrageous lie must be true because no one would have the audacity to have made it up. Later, that propaganda technique evolved into: If a big lie is repeated enough times it will become widely accepted as truth.

This bit of Nazi propaganda is being used today by the Palestinians. Their Big Lie is preached from the pulpits of the mosques and in the classrooms of their madrasas -- and more and more of the untutored masses are believing it.

What is the Palestinian Big Lie? Palestinian Authority Mufti Ikrama Sabri was quoted in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam (November 22, 1997) as saying that the Western Wall is part of the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Jews have no connection with it. The same newspaper (July 18, 1997) reported that Hamad Yusef, head of the Institution for the Rejuvenation of the Palestinian Heritage, referred to the "false historical claim of the Jews in the holy city, a claim which they were unable to prove in all of the (archaeological) excavations conducted by foreign groups for the past hundred years."

In other words, the Jewish people have no historical connection with the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall, or with any part of old Jerusalem. No archaeological evidence has ever shown otherwise. So they claim.

The absurd assertions continue. Islamic Movement chief Raed Salah stated in 2006, "We remind, for the thousandth time, that the entire Al-Aksa mosque [on the Temple Mount], including all of its area and alleys above the ground and under it, is exclusive and absolute Muslim property and no one else has any rights to even one grain of earth in it."

Sheikh Yusef Kardawi, one of the most influential Muslim clerics, denies that the Jews of old ever lived in Jerusalem and that they are nothing more than invaders from Europe who seized Arab land in the 20th century.

The Palestinian Minister of Muslim Affairs, Sheikh Yusef Salameh, embellishes the ridiculous claims with absurdity: The Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount was built 40 years after the construction of the mosque in Mecca by Adam, the first man. The former Jordanian Minister of Muslim Affairs, Abed al-Salaam al-Abadi refers to the Muslim prophet Abraham as the builder of the Al-Aksa Mosque 4,000 years ago. Egyptian archaeologist Abed al-Rahim Rihan Barakat writes, "The myth of the fabricated [Jewish] Temple is the greatest crime of historical forgery.(Source: Nadav Shragai, "In the Beginning was Al-Aqsa," Haaretz, November 27, 2005.)

The Saudi royal family , the Palestinian archaeologist Dr. Dimitri Baramki, Sheikh Kardawi, and a multitude of Syrian clerics all identify the ancient Jebusites (from whom King David bought the Temple Mount, see Samuel II, chapter 24) as an ancient Arab tribe that wandered from the Arabian peninsula, together with the Canaanites, around 3,000 years BCE and therefore predated the Jewish presence in the land.(Source: Nadav Shragai, "Christian Zionists See US Devastation as 'A Home for a Home'," September 13, 2005.)

On August 27, 2009 the Jerusalem Post reported that the Palestinian Authority's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, boasted that there was no evidence to back up claims that Jews had ever lived in Jerusalem or that the Temple ever existed. Israeli archeologists, he said, have "admitted" that Jerusalem was never inhabited by Jews.

This assault on the traditional connection between the Jewish people and their holy city of Jerusalem continues on a daily basis. It is not possible to convince those who believe such foolish assertions otherwise. As Albert Einstein said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe.”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22849

In one of those ironies of questionable scholarship, just as a battle over a Barnard scholar’s book about Israeli archeology had inflamed her application for tenure, heavy equipment was tearing away at the ancient crown of Jerusalem’s 36-acre Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. Nadia Abu El-Haj's book, Facts on the Ground: Archeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, questions the historical existence of a Jewish link to Israel, and her provocative claims have caused a fractious debate about her qualifications for tenure as a Barnard professor of anthropology.

[...]

At the heart of this . . . is a monstrous lie,” says Professor of Classics at Cal State Fresno, Bruce Thornton, “the airbrushing of Jews from the history of Jerusalem, an Orwellian rewriting of history started by the Arabs and abetted by some politicized Western scholars.” That is the core problem with Facts on the Ground: that it is not a scholarly attempt to shed light on the rich archeological history of the Levant at all. Instead, it is ideology parading as scholarship; it is the work of a dilettante who is not an archeologist, based her study on a walking tour, never visited a dig, reads no Hebrew, and used anonymous sources and anecdotal evidence as the foundation of her research to craft what Haaretz columnist Nadav Shragai called a “tissue of lies” about Israeli archeologists, who, perhaps lacking the political motivations that so clearly subsume El-Haj’s own work, actually uncovered the authentic “facts on the ground” that shape the uninterrupted 3000-year Jewish presence in the land that became Israel.

She, Nadia Abu El-Haj, got tenure, by the way

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4255

this is not only a naked assault on the JEwish people, it is a frontal attack on the what we consider academic scholarship..

the moslems are attempting to replace the collective history of the Judeo Christian culture, with their own created (lies) narrative.

[Michael]

The ruling would apply equally to an Independent School (Race Relations Act 1976 (c. 74) s 17)

It is unlawful, in relation to an educational establishment falling within column 1 of the following table, for a person indicated in relation to the establishment in column 2 (the “responsible body") to discriminate against a person—.
(a)in the terms on which it offers to admit him to the establishment as a pupil; or.
(b)by refusing or deliberately omitting to accept an application for his admission to the establishment as a pupil; or.
(c)where he is a pupil of the establishment—.
(i)in the way it affords him access to any benefits, facilities or services, or by refusing or deliberately omitting to afford him access to them; or.
(ii)by excluding him from the establishment or subjecting him to any other detriment.

Column 1 includes an independent school.

Section 3 of the Act defines "Racial Grounds" and "Racial Group," as follows

1)In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—.
“racial grounds" means any of the following grounds, namely colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins;
“racial group" means a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins, and references to a person’s racial group refer to any racial group into which he falls.
(2)The fact that a racial group comprises two or more distinct racial groups does not prevent it from constituting a particular racial group for the purposes of this Act.

As the Act defines discrimination on racial grounds as including grounds of ethnic origin, as well as colour or race, Jews and Sikhs have been able to obtain protection against discrimination under the Act. In Mandla v Dowell-Lee [1983] 2 AC 548, it was said that ethnic groups possess both a long shared history and a cultural tradition of their own, which they regard as characterising them as a distinct community. Using this, and similar definitions, (the Act contains none)the courts, going back to the Race Relations Act 1965, have found Jews and Sikhs to be an ethnic group, but not Muslims or Hindus.

As the Court of Appeal noted, in this case,

" One of the great evils against which the successive Race Relations Acts have been directed is the evil of anti-Semitism."

That, in my submission is part of the problem the Supreme Court will now have to face. The 1965 Act and its successors made racial discrimination and incitement to racial hatred unlawful. It was silent as to religion. The courts were anxious to extend the protection of the Act to Jews. Anti-semites played right into their hands, by insisting the Jews were a "race," and could hardly reverse their position, when charged with inciting racial hatred. Of course, as the law now stands, religious Jews would be protected by the new legislation on incitement to religious hatred, but secular Jews, arguably, would not. The fact remains that the courts' well-meaning attempts to protect Jews against discrimination has made this unfortunate ruling, not only possible, but, probably, inevitable.

Here is a link to a note on the case from the Solicitors Journal, which is the best I could find in the legal periodicals.

http://tinyurl.com/ylxxoy5
or
http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/story. ... getsession

A deeply disturbing case.

As a footnote, the Shops Act 1959, which forbad Sunday trading, allowed Jewish-owned businesses to close on Saturday and open on Sunday. It wisely provided that the certificate of the secretary of a synagogue or of the British Board of Deputies should be conclusive evidence that a person was Jewish, thus withdrawing an invidious question from the courts. Whether paliament will enact similar legislation for faith-based schools remains to be seen.

[CognitiveDistoibance]

It will be interesting to see how Christians respond to this.
...
Others will observe that salvation for Christians means no more or less than adoption into Israel; it is Israel that is saved, and the individual Christian is saved by the miracle that makes adoption possible (the blood-sacrifice of Jesus Christ). If there is no election of Israel to begin with, no miracle is required for the adoption of Christians, and therefore Jesus' sacrifice was--how to put it?--somewhat less than absolutely necessary.

I'm sorry if others observe such, but I believe it means a bit more than that. To illustrate, allow me to twist your last sentence a bit:

If there is another means of entry into Israel--such as conversion to Judaism, no miracle is required for the adoption of would be Christians, and therefore Jesus' sacrifice was--how to put it?--somewhat less than absolutely necessary.

That is not at all to deny that I don't believe I've been adopted into Israel. But perhaps there is, among other things, a separate election going on. Otherwise, as you say (or imply), Jesus' sacrifice was indeed gratuitous.

[Marcus]

. . It will be interesting to see how Christians respond to this. Some Christians, to be sure, rankle at the idea that the election of Abraham's family continued after the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and will watch the proceedings with silent satisfaction--I can imagine the grin on the face of Bishop N.T. Wright, for example. Others will observe that salvation for Christians means no more or less than adoption into Israel; it is Israel that is saved, and the individual Christian is saved by the miracle that makes adoption possible (the blood-sacrifice of Jesus Christ). If there is no election of Israel to begin with, no miracle is required for the adoption of Christians, and therefore Jesus' sacrifice was--how to put it?--somewhat less than absolutely necessary.

I must admit some confusion over this subject. How, if it's possible to convert to Judaism, which it is, could Jews possibly be defined as the physical descendants of Abraham? It would seem to me that by now the DNA line would be so compromised as to preclude such a possibility. Or am I missing something?

Second, I've never been settled in my mind about what exactly is a Jew? Race? Belief? Nor have I been able to comfortably equate Zionism with Judaism. Still pondering all that . .

Finally, by my reckoning anyway, all the elect comprise "Israel," before Christ and after, Jew and Gentile alike. Election, if you will, was going on long before Abraham appeared on the scene. The Jews remain "chosen" but how that works out or will work out in time is beyond me. As I see it, there is a difference between being "chosen" (for whatever purpose) and being "elect," which is to be "saved.'

[AzariLoveIran]

As reported by today's New York TImes, here are the facts:
“This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history,” said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. “It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates.”

Well , Mr. Spengler , I debated this yr ago and was told to stop the nonsense

Now British court confirms what I was saying . .

Jews is a religion and not a people . .

Hebrew tribe disappeared long long ago (into Persian empire, probably many present Iranians have Jewish decent) . . present Jews are CONVERTS, meaning they accepted Judaism FAITH . . like any other religion . . why deny this ?? nothing wrong with this, actually that makes Judaism much more interesting as a faith. This not even against interest of Israel, in contrary.

How could this be in Israel's interest ??

Well , if the condition of mother being a Jew to be a Jew is lifted , then all Palestinians could convert en mass to Judaism . . and . . Bingo . . we have the "greater Israel" . .

Yes Mr. Sprengler . . a little flexibility and it is a Win Win . .

[samwise]

There seem to be 3 operative terms: "belief," "faith," "religion" here. Any (all?) of these three concepts must be invoked to protect the action from the charge of discrimination.

The problem is that all terms are defined within post-Enlightenment Christianity. "Faith" has no role in non-Christian religions: it is a specifically Christian concept--one "has faith" in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead; one "believes" in Christ, etc.

Furthermore, "faith" was appropriated by Enlightenment thought to marginalize Christianity: it being now "just" a faith, and not based on reason, as were, allegedly, the truths of the Enlightenment. So to define any religion as preeminently "a faith" is to accept willy-nilly the Enlightenment's evaluation of what a religious community is.

"Belief" has a minor role in Judaism and Islam, but both are preeminently (as discussed at length on this forum) religions of law, not belief. Some renderings of Islam articulate "five pillars of belief" that parallel the "five pillars of practice," but it is not clear that that articulation is part of Islam's self-understanding. Even if it is, it is not belief in something (the uniquely Christian concept of belief/faith: belief "in" Christ), but belief about something (the concepts implicit in the affirmation that "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet").

Finally, the very concept "religion" is a post-Enlightenment category. It is an arbitrarily constructed genus, of which Christianity was (for the Enlightenment) the initially observed species, and thus, the prime exemplar. "Religion" allows scholarship ("science": Wissenschaft) to devour non-"scientific" communities within its gaping maw, and define them according to its strictures. It is a pseudo-discipline: one that allows we professors of religion to know whereof we profess.

In short: the decision of the court necessarily requires that one accepts that transcendent reason that includes and interprets all other phenomena. We must accept the worldview of the Enlightenment as incorporating, as providing the meta-rational grounds, all other worldviews.

[Spengler]

DNA tests are pretty conclusive that the Kohanim (priestly) caste among Jews have a common ancestor who lived around 2,100 BC. If ever there were genetic markers establishing the continuity of a people, they are present among the Jews. Everything else is prejudical blather.

How does one convert to Judaism?

According to Rabbi Prof. Michael Wyschogrod, a miracle occurs: the convert becomes a physical descendant of Abraham and Sarah. He adds that as miracles should occur infrequently, conversion should not be too common.

[AzariLoveIran]

There seem to be 3 operative terms: "belief," "faith," "religion" here. Any (all?) of these three concepts must be invoked to protect the action from the charge of discrimination.

In short: the decision of the court necessarily requires that one accepts that transcendent reason that includes and interprets all other phenomena. We must accept the worldview of the Enlightenment as incorporating, as providing the meta-rational grounds, all other worldviews.

Samwise .. congratulation . . have to admit this first time I read so intelligent analysis on this board, at least something that I relate to & understand & agree. Though I agnostic, but agree fully with your analysis . .

DNA tests are pretty conclusive that the Kohanim (priestly) caste among Jews have a common ancestor who lived around 2,100 BC. If ever there were genetic markers establishing the continuity of a people, they are present among the Jews. Everything else is prejudical blather.

How does one convert to Judaism?

According to Rabbi Prof. Michael Wyschogrod, a miracle occurs: the convert becomes a physical descendant of Abraham and Sarah. He adds that as miracles should occur infrequently, conversion should not be too common.

Hehehe .. that was a good one . . when nothing else works, miracle will do the job . .

BTW, Kohanim is Iranian word, have good Iranian friend Kohanim . . bet Iranians have more Jewish markers than the Tatar Khazari (Kingdom of Khazar converted to Judaism for political reason, Zero Jewish markers, Hello Liberman) or Ashkenazia ??

.

[Ibrahim]

Judaism has nothing to do with race--there are Jews of every race--but it does have to do with family. Jews are members of Abraham's family. Not only tradition, but a great deal of DNA evidence support this claim.

This is contradictory. Either being Jewish is a matter of DNA or it is not.


It is up to Jews if they want to make religious membership a matter of ethnicity as well, but I personally think doing so is a mistake. It isn't the role of British courts to dictate to Jews what being Jewish means, but they may accidentally be making a useful point in this case. Adoption is as valid a means of joining a family as birth, and references to DNA are not necessary.

[Marcus]

DNA tests are pretty conclusive that the Kohanim (priestly) caste among Jews have a common ancestor who lived around 2,100 BC. If ever there were genetic markers establishing the continuity of a people, they are present among the Jews. Everything else is prejudical blather. . .

Studies of Jewish Populations

Advanced genetic testing, including Y-DNA and mtDNA haplotyping, of modern Jewish communities around the world, has helped to determine which of the communities are likely to descend from the Israelites and which are not, as well as to establish the degrees of separation between the groups. Important studies archived here include the University College London study of 2002, Ariella Oppenheim's study of 2001, Ariella Oppenheim's study of 2000, Michael Hammer's study of 2000, Doron Behar's study of 2008, and others.
Key findings:

The main ethnic element of Ashkenazim (German and Eastern European Jews), Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews), Mizrakhim (Middle Eastern Jews), Juhurim (Mountain Jews of the Caucasus), Italqim (Italian Jews), and most other modern Jewish populations of the world is Israelite. The Israelite haplotypes fall into Y-DNA haplogroups J and E.
Ashkenazim also descend, in a smaller way, from European peoples such as Slavs and Khazars. The non-Israelite Y-DNA haplogroups include Q (typically Central Asian) and R1a1 (typically Eastern European).
Dutch Jews from the Netherlands also descend from northwestern Europeans.
Sephardim also descend, in a smaller way, from various non-Israelite peoples.
Georgian Jews (Gruzinim) are a mix of Georgians and Israelites.
Yemenite Jews (Temanim) are a mix of Yemenite Arabs and Israelites.
Moroccan Jews, Algerian Jews, and Tunisian Jews are mainly Israelites.
Libyan Jews are mainly Israelites who may have mixed somewhat with Berbers.
Ethiopian Jews are almost exclusively Ethiopian, with little or no Israelite ancestry.
Bene Israel Jews and Cochin Jews of India have much Indian ancestry in their mtDNA.
Palestinian Arabs are probably partly Israelite.

[AzariLoveIran]

You 4got the Azari Jews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diOSrb911Kw

[CognitiveDistoibance]

...
The problem is that all terms are defined within post-Enlightenment Christianity. "Faith" has no role in non-Christian religions: it is a specifically Christian concept--one "has faith" in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead; one "believes" in Christ, etc.
...

I dunno... I thought the pattern for this faith thingy was some chap named Abraham.

[Marcus]

...
The problem is that all terms are defined within post-Enlightenment Christianity. "Faith" has no role in non-Christian religions: it is a specifically Christian concept--one "has faith" in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead; one "believes" in Christ, etc.
...

I dunno... I thought the pattern for this faith thingy was some chap named Abraham.

In the Christian view, the "pattern" for faith is nothing more than believing God, specifically the God who raised Jesus. Abraham, as did many more before him, believed God—the God who raised Jesus—and it was counted to him as righteousness.

The devil believes in God; we believe God. Big difference . .