Only religion seems to have the power to give deranged nutbags credibility and influence in government. Latest case in point: Israel, where the Kadima Party has to negotiate with Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef to form a coalition…and the rabbi is one of those insane ultra-orthodox wackaloons who, in a rational world, would be some old coot shaking his fist from his porch, avoided by others in his neighborhood, and with absolutely no influence at all.
But no, because he claims the voices in his head are a god talking to him, he gets to be consulted on affairs of state. A short taste of the wisdom of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef:
Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef has describ[ed] the Holocaust as God’s retribution against the reincarnated souls of Jewish sinners. He said Katrina was punishment for godlessness in New Orleans and U.S. support for the Gaza pullout. And he once said that “walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
For this kind of advice, he also gets to wear fancy robes and a special hat. I think that’s enough of a reward; let them wear elaborate ceremonial dresses, but keep them out of government.
I’ve walked between 2 women before. Do I get a Hat?
Because he feels like riding them?
(Yes, I know I shouldn’t have. Sorry.)
“walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
Now if that had been yaks instead of donkeys or camels, I could understand; a whole load of yak yak.
But this guy really sounds like all the other Abrahamic religion nutjobs.
Being Mrs. Yosef must be a real treat.
I come from a very, very reformed Jewish background (now 100% athiest, and consider myself a humanistic Jew), and these people have always pissed me off. They do not serve in the Israeli military, deny the authenticity of the state of Israel (because it was not founded by the Messiah), and many, many of them live off welfare. Yet – they have a stranglehold on many aspects of daily life for the majority of secular and/or reformed Jews that make up the bulk of Israel’s population.
However, before we can say “hmm, those silly Israelies….” we need to look at our own situation here in the states, because it is not that different. An analysis of where Federal money is spent, and where it is raised shows that Dumbfuckistan is feeding off the tit of goodless liberals. It seems to be a character trait of the deranged.
Regards,
David
References:
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:oVaV6kr1WWIJ:psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/hweisberg/conference/lacy-osuconf.pdf+red+blue+state+federal+expenditures&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/211080_sciglianomoney.html
a whole load of yak yak.
Yeah, go ahead and make fun of a religious nutjob’s sexism while making an old, sexist joke yourself.
Sure, the stereotype that women are all annoyingly talkative isn’t nearly as offensive as comparing women to camels, but it’s still offensive.
I have to expect that walking between donkeys or camels wouldn’t smell nearly as good as walking between two women.
Kutsuwamushi, it was a joke, based upon a pun. Don’t be so sensitive, for your own sake.
I like the idea of all the religious wackaloons wearing dresses. Just like the fish symbols on the backs of cars, it lets us know there’s an irrationality zone ahead. Perhaps we should, as a planet, begin building the inevitable ark necessary to save us all from global warming. We should put all these very important people on the first spacecraft to leave.
Sometimes I wonder how many of Douglas’s ideas were just satire.
Kutsuwamushi, I should’ve added, I’ll be walking between two women this afternoon, & I’m looking forward to it. (My wife & a daughter.)
I acknowledge that women are probably, according to recent evidence, not significantly more talkative than men.
*shakes fist* Get off my lawn! Pesky kids.
What a delightful fellow.
You don’T wanna walk between two chicks? Come on. Boobs to the left, boobs to the right! Isn’t that sounding great?
I had to get a PhD before I got my fancy robe and hat. Do you mean all I had to really do was start speaking the right kind of drivel? Shit.
I suspect that for Rabbi Yosef, walking between two women would be like walking between two donkeys, or two camels.
Either way he risks a kicking, or being spat upon.
What about the boob in the middle?
Thanks, two shows a night 8 and 11 pm. Try the calimari it’s great.
that’s the kicker, ain’t it? the only reason he ain’t just another old coot is his special hat and, more significantly, his thousands of groupies, lackeys and thugs, who’ve made it their mission to keep him happy. unfortunately, wackaloons tend to travel in packs.
“walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
Some of the girls in the mid west feel that walking between two guys is like walking between two stallions
I just figured out why this incongruous comparison. Donkeys and camels are considered unclean. Presumably he considers women unclean because, like donkeys and camels, they either don’t chew the cud or don’t have cloven hooves.
Apparently another time he said “A man walking between two women is like a man walking between two goats” but refused to explain himself. Goats are kosher according to most authorities, so maybe it’s just that the rabbi doesn’t like animals or women much and fails to distinguish between any of them.
Yarrr, but does he talk like a pirate? Special hat? Bah, just give me me trusty ol’ tricorn and a cutlass, yarrrrrrrrr!
Many of the people who insist that religion brings some significant and important moral factor to the table are quick to dismiss this guy — and those like him — as unrepresentative of religious morality. Silly atheists, don’t know how to potluck. We’re only picking out the bad religious morality, and ignoring the nice mainstream stuff we’d agree with. There’s lots of that.
If atheists can agree with religionists on morals, though, then it’s because the morals make sense using secular reasoning. You don’t need to bring religion to the table at all; it adds nothing. So if religion is serving up something special and unique which you couldn’t get otherwise, then yes indeed THIS is the sort of thing it’s got to be bringing. It has to be carrying a casserole that doesn’t appeal to the tastes of modern people who’ve been raised within the secular values of the enlightenment.
If it doesn’t smell funny, or smell bad, then you can’t know it’s really the product of religion, and not just secular ethics in a fancy dish.
And this guy’s moral perspective is one nice, steaming, stinking heap of fetid dingo kidneys. Or, ethnic metaphor of your choice.
… and if this particular coot can’t tell the difference between a woman and an camel or a donkey, it’d be wise to keep him away from any farm animals.
Hmm. Is it all right if you lie down between etc.?
CD
Hm.
The definition of psychological projection:
Res ipsa loquitur.
It says nothing to me….
nobody,
Do you actually think PZ Myers feels that walking between two women is the same as walking between two donkeys or camels? Because that’s the only way your comment makes any sense.
Res ipsa loquitur.
PZ, looks as though you might have attracted an ultra-Orthodox troll.
And this guy’s moral perspective is one nice, steaming, stinking heap of fetid dingo kidneys. Or, ethnic metaphor of your choice.
Couldn’t be dingo; they ain’t kosher.
In fact, a shortening of my last comment is probably more to the point:
nobody,
Do you actually think?
Nobody,
Are you implying that PZ has no influence and is avoided?
Are you stupid or something?
Let me rephrase that: Are you implying that PZ’s rational approach to things is only influential because we live in an irrational world?
“res ipsa loquitur” means: “The thing speaks for itself.”
Nothing more be said.
Richard Harris #3:
That immediately brought this song to my mind.
And while I’m on the “great obscure songs” topic, you’re not by any chance anything to do with this one are you?
I don’t even understand what kind of a derogatory thing he’s trying to say. Maybe it’s just “Women are like camels”, but in that case why do you need two of them, and why does it matter where you are in relation to them? HELP ME MY GURL BRANE IS CONFUSED.
*spits high velocity half-digested desert vegetation at Ovadiah Yosef*
“walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
… Can you tell that this guy has never been laid.
Nobody’s crush on PZ is so adorable.
More needs to be said, since the remark was open to interpretation.
I think ‘Nobody’ was trying to imply that PZ’s rants against religious loonies are just like the rants of the religious loonies themselves. Both sides are lunatics who only get attention for being lunatics. His/her argument is that, at some level, PZ realizes that he’s an extremist — this is why he hates extremism in such an extreme way.
I think Nobody is confusing passion with irrational extremist dogmatism. The “rude” language involved in passionate expression does not automatically indicate irrationality, extremism, or dogmatism. Not all rants are equal.
Wait, do two donkeys fight if you walk between them? Is he making some kind of “spiteful wimmins is always competing for menz attention” gag?
(And should I stop wasting precious thinkpower on the gibberings of a demented fuckwit? That’s a far easier question.)
Uh, um … was he making some kind of disguised sodomy joke? I can never tell with religious nutbags. Can you?
Duh.
Obviously something more needs to be said since you are the only one who seems to have any idea what you are talking about. Unless, of course, you don’t care that we don’t understand you, in which case, I’ll ignore it as meaningless.
Which is all fine and dandy except your little stunt is way off the mark.
So, no.
So, nobody, please clarify. I thought you were commenting on the good Rabbi’s projection of his own sexual urges – normal in humans, but he was taught to hate them – onto women.
Cryptic and ambiguous comments really aren’t obvious to others who aren’t following your thoughts. I read my own posts sometimes a day or two later and realize that it’s not at all obvious to others what I meant.
Long time lurker from the wonderful country of England, first time poster. I have to say PZ, I agree with pretty much everything you say, but why oh why do you always pick on the wonderful Christians and never pick on any of the other religions, like Judaism for example? Is it because you’re a bigot? Oh wait, hang on a minute…
My hat is much, much better
http://www.blogger.com/profile/00975695604400974378
What do you think?
Yeah well you won’t criticise Islam ‘cos you’d get bombed…..wait….DAMN!
Yeah well you won’t criticise Judaism ‘cos you’d get labelled an anti-semite…..DAMN!
Yeah well you’re just biased against abrahamic religions. We never see you take on sikhs, buddhists, hindus, thorists, zeusians….
COWARD!!!!
[/comedy fatwah envy]
Louis
Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t have those wonderful secularist laws that we do in America. I really wish they did, but, then again, I really wish that our government out here would follow them.
This guy is more or less the Jewish version of Pat Robertson, and they wield similar influence over similarly insane voting blocks.
And we wonder why there’s no peace in the middle east.
I hadn’t realized that the shas party has grown powerful enough for anyone to need them for a coalition. They hold 12 seats in a 120 seat parliament, and one of the four deputy prime ministers is the current party leader. Scary!
Walking between two camels is like a ball and chain.
Walking between two camels is like a ball and chain.
Sometimes the pleasure ain’t worth the strain.
It’s a long old grind, and it tires your mind.
Walkin’ between two camels is tearing me apart.
Walkin’ between two camels is tearing me apart.
One’s spittin’ on me, the other’s cut a fart.
It’s a long old grind, and it tires your mind.
It is all fun and games for you guys, but this idiot influences many of the israeli government decisions and affects a lot of the aspects of everyday life here, so for us it is not so funny.
due to bozos like him, there is no public transport on saturdays, you cannot get married, divorced or get burried in Israel, except through religious institutions, which means that you have to undergo lengthy humiliations and at the end leave a hefty sum of cash in the hands of a sweaty religious clerk. Not to say the problems you encounter if you are not jewish and happen to be married to a jew, problems that continue to haunt your children and your children’s children forever.
But on the bright side, it was my encounter with idiots like him that has pushed me from bland agnosticism to the rational hands of atheism and that is happening with manhy israelis today as well. Hell, there is a Brights chapter being open here.
so there is use for monkeys like him. He cannot keep his trap shut and that, more than anything, turns people away from his idiotic religion
nobody belongs to the same troll subspecies as salt: (s)he thinks that if (s)he makes a comment, and no-one else understands it, that shows how clever (s)he is.
Wrong, nobody: failure to make yourself understood is a sign of stupidity, not intelligence.
The antipathy that some religions have against women has always confused me. Between women and men, I would say the vast majority of women are cleaner than men (although, they do seem to have an advantage by not sweating as much and not having such gross quantities of body hair). Even still, his fascination with the act of walking between two of something is just baffling. Is there a proximity that those two women must have for it to count? Must they be within a couple metres of each other? There are so many details that are unclarified…
I couldn’t help looking it up. Apparently he thinks a man shouldn’t walk between two animals as they can drain all knowledge of the Torah out of you with their powerful infectious stupidity.
Evidently I must be careful with my cats or who knows what might eeow meow owyow meow yow.
Neyne, do you happen to know where the chapter is? I assume somewhere in Tel Aviv, because it’d be firebombed by hareidis in Yerushalayim. I’m going to be spending the next 6 months or so there, so it might be nice to know where they’re located. Thanks!
Where I live, there’s an entire Village (i.e., a government body that’s a subset of a Town, which is a larger government body) of folks like this. They are the only ones who are allowed to live in the Village, except for a few of the richest, who have live-in servants (mostly older women from Poland or the Ukraine). They recently were given $10 million in state and federal funds to build a “women’s health center” that only members of the sect can use.
The secret? Bloc voting. The religious leaders tell the followers who to vote for, and they do, in proportions that Kim Jong-Il would envy.
And here’s what it’s like if you leave the village.
so for us it is not so funny.
No need to feel singled out. It seems to me we’re giving him the same mocking treatment as we do our own home-grown influential nutjobs, regardless of what “home-grown” means for each of us.
Maybe I’m wrong; there is such a thing as reincarnation and it’s happened in Israel. Jerry Fallwell has come back from the great beyond and is now inhabiting the body of a Rabbi. I sincerely hope this Rabbi gets the opportunity to walk between two women in the future and the two women show the dear Rabbi the difference between women and camels by ripping his testicles off.
Seriously? They think that? Good freaking grief. What kind of world do these people live in? Has anyone ever, I don’t know, put it to the test?
Scientific method, people. It’s not just about lab coats, microscopes and safety goggles.
Is it just me, or is anyone else smelling a problem with the idea of Kadima negotiating with a guy who can’t tell an animal from a female human being, given that Kadima’s new leader (and, perhaps, future Prime Minister) is Tzipi Livni?
Alright alright, you totally beat me there. :P
hey richardbank, i left you a comment on your blog (from your username) so shoot me an email and I’ll send you the contact info
How that hats thing works –
LOL! I’m in Pharyngula!
PZ, I’m an Israeli all my life and you have simply no IDEA what kind of a religious nut job Yosef is. He once promoted a Ha’lacha (Jewish law) that it is forbidden to pick your nose on Yom Shabat (Saturdays, that is) because it is considered “work” and thus is blasphemous. This wanker also had the gall to publicly announce that Israeli soldiers died because they weren’t god-faring enough. Considering the fact that a huge majority of the sector he speaks of don’t even serve in the fucking military (having served myself, you can see I’m a bit bitter about that) – he’s got quite some Hutzpah, um, I mean, nerve! (P.S, I wasn’t in combat, but I did give away 3 years of my life for the sake of my country’s survival. Something ultra-orthodox don’t do in Israel because they’re legally allowed to study Torah instead.)
I love how the right wing says we need to support Israel because it is a democracy in the middle east just like ours. It is obviously, not just like ours. It is much more like Iran. Even so, the two idiot candidates running for President in our country think they had to vet themselves with AIPAC so maybe we are much more like them in some ways than we think we are. And certainly more than we ought to be.
neyne:
” Hell, there is a Brights chapter being open here.”
Woot?! Where? Please tell me it’s somewhere in Gush-Dan!
And how does the guy fit his stories of denkeys and camels, with the fact that the person he’s negociating with is a woman ?
I’m sorry for spamming, but this is the first time I remember Pharyngula having a post on Israel –
oldfart:
You obviously never been to Israel or know the first thing about it apart from what newstations tell you – do you have any idea what they would do to a person like me in Iran? I’m an atheist who vocally expresses his disbelief. I would be decapitated. Nothing less.
Israel has a lot of problems with religion, but the majority of Israelis are secular Jews, a population indistinguishable from atheists apart for some bizarre traditions and some religious habits that’s been hammered down for millenia.
To your favor, I would say that most Israelis are probably creationists or apathetic agnostics, but that’s because our educational system sucks. We spend the vast majority of our national budget on the military, since, well, if we didn’t have a huge military, I wouldn’t be able to sit in my comfy, air-conditioned room to write you this on account of being dead.
But it’s nothing like Iran. We have sometimes quite amazing freedom of speech and freedom of belief here. I just wish there’d be less Jewish whackjobs in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) :/
I grew up under the tutelage of “great rabbanim” like this. He is not unique. To understand how people can fill every moment of their days with petty superstition, read Shalom Auslander’s hilarious memoir Foreskin’s Lament.
Unfortunately, Judaism is highly resistant to intellectual anti-biotics. Despite being an active atheist, I haven’t yet encountered another atheist who was raised as an Orthodox Jew (except one clergy member who remains in the closet). Even Auslander can’t seem to shake his faith (though he does think that Yahweh is an Almighty Prick). Are any of you out there?
The religious party in Israel has always wielded power as a swing coalition party. They oppose peace treaties and send other people’s children to fight for Greater Israel. Funny looking hats is the least of their offenses.
The other thing that empowers kooks like this: parliamentary systems with 50-some-odd parties.
Hear Hear Freidenker! Israel is a first-world democracy, complete with freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom to assemble and stage peaceful protest. If you tried to exercise any of those rights in Iran you’d most likely be jailed, fined, and/or executed. Admittedly, it has it’s fair share of religious wackaloons, but it’s hardly alone in that regard.
Come on — where are the folks claiming that Yosef’s been misquoted and we just don’t understand Israeli culture? I mean, it ain’t no fun without them…
richbank: Israel is a first-world democracy, complete with freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom to assemble and stage peaceful protest. If you tried to exercise any of those rights in Iran you’d most likely be jailed, fined, and/or executed
My understanding is that it doesn’t work that way in Iran, as exemplified by student protests a few years ago. They don’t use the state to quash peaceful assembly – they bring out religious bikers to beat the protesters with chains.
Which, I guess, is much much worse than using riot police armed with teargas and batons against those who leave the approved “free speech zone”, as we have in the US.
I guess.
The guy is a Holocaust rationalizer and 98.3% of the comments focus on the camels quote? Weird. I must have been away too long, PZ.
HOLLY: Morning, Dave. I’ve finished your translation.
LISTER: Who’s Cloister? Is it me?
HOLLY: Yes, Dave. The Cats have made you their God.
LISTER: Hey! Working class kid makes good!
HOLLY: Your plan to buy a farm on Fiji and open up a hot dog and doughnut diner has become their image of heaven.
LISTER: What?
HOLLY: “And Cloister spake, `Lo, I shall lead you to Fyushal, and there we shall open a temple of food, wherein shall be sausages and doughnuts and all manner of bountiful things.
HOLLY: “`Yea, even individual sachets of mustard. And those who serve shall have hats of great majesty, yea, though they be made of coloured cardboard and have humorous arrows through the top.'”
LISTER: Does it say what happened to the rest of the Cats?
HOLLY: Holy wars. There were thousands of years of fighting, Dave, between the two factions.
LISTER: What two factions?
HOLLY: Well, the ones who believed the hats should be red, and the ones who believed the hats should be blue.
LISTER: Do you mean they had a war over whether the doughnut diner hats were red or blue?
HOLLY: Yeah. Most of them were killed fighting about that. It’s daft really, innit?
LISTER: You’re not kidding. They were supposed to be green.
#70:
Uh yeah, my thoughts too.
Being a holocaust rationalizer, as well as claiming natural disasters are god punishing whatever the believer doesn’t like, are just par for the course.
The camels quote, on the other hand, is just baffling.
And he once said that “walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
I think he meant two camel toes!!!!
“walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
Y’know, I think any guy could tell you that.
Except out here, walking between two women is like walking between two Cat D-9s. Same difference, really.
boo
But I did put it to the test. I walk, even sleep, between two animals all the time. And it is true! I know nothing about the Torah. What’s even worse, I don’t even remember a time when I knew about the Torah. That’s how powerful the Torah-knowledge-draining powers are of animals are!
David,
Frum upbringing => atheist bioloy phd student
“And he once said that “walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
So is walking between two female donkeys or between two female camels a double whammy?
No, they cancel each other out. Double negatives and all. Like when a black cat walks under a ladder.
It must be a misunderstanding. He is a very old man in a black skirt and the fancy headwear that the Turkish Sultan used to award to the non-Muslim religious dignataries of the Empire. He always had a serious speech defect and now that he is senile, his words cannot be recognized and no one really knows what he is talking about. He has had several CV events and only his favourite son is able to translate him, so he says. PZ is right that the political impact of his opinions is enormous, but no one knows for sure what are his opinions although his followers all pretend to follow him. The man, so I think, has been brain-dead for the last 30 years, and the fact is being hidden from the public by his family and court, and his political party. This phenomenon is not unknown with other dead or semi dead Oriental rulers, like say Kim Il Sung.
If he were talking about Bactrian camels, I could understand…
Not dromedarys, though.
That’d be weird.
“walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.” – Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef
Come on people, what’s sexist about that? He’s clearly making a statement about monogamy. If you cheat on your wife, you’ll be bumped to death between the dual lives of a wife on one side and a mistress on the other – a lot like being stuck between two camels. It’s called metaphor. He uses camels because being caught between camels is unpleasant, not because women are like camels.
That said, he’s still a lunatic.
Yeah, the two party system here in the US has really stopped the wackloons. No worry about religious nuts shutting down science and women’s health, nope, never.
David:
I had a frum upbringing in NY, went to yeshiva for elementary through high school, and am now an atheist undergrad biology student. I know a whole bunch of people like me, but we’re often not “out”.
He thinks donkeys and camels go in the same category as women?
Keep him away from the stables… x.x
tsg: “No, they cancel each other out. Double negatives and all. Like when a black cat walks under a ladder.”
Oh. That makes sense.
But what about ONE donkey and ONE camel? Do they have to be in pairs or something? These are things I need to know to prevent a major faux pas at a ranch someday or something.
Keep him away from the stables…
I’ll keep an eye out for him.
….Erm, um…. x.x
LOL! Seeing the comments here about Israel is just HILLARIOUS! It’s so funny to see pharyngulites take a casual swing at Israeli religious kooks!
I think most people here would be interested in a serious comparison with the US, though. I follow both Israeli and American “culture-wars” because I do not only live in Israel, I also live behind a keyboard.
The Israeli government is an amalgam of about 30+ political parties (!!!) – but only 4-5 of them are in any meaningful way religious. This country was built with two underlying principles -socialism and democracy. The socialism had since died out almost completely, but we’re VERY anal about our democracy. At least when outspoken. We’re up to our armpits in corrupt politicians, but compared to our Arabian counterparts – we’re a model country. We have a thing called “The state’s critic” – which criticises EVERYTHING in the country every year. It’s the Israeli politician’s nightmare. Also, our politicians get a lot of fire from the fairly powerful judicial system.
As democracies go, we’re really a very impressive one, considering the fact that we’re a small country of citizen-soldiers with the constant threat of total annihilation.
There is some religious oppression in here, but in very swallowable dosages: we can’t use public transportation (with exceptions) on Saturdays being the most nasty example. But on the whole, it’s just like one large neighborhood with all kinds of shenanigans that if known, can easily be endured.
In places like Syria and Iran, people who oppose the government can simply disappear. In Israel people protest all the time and unlike America – we don’t disperse our protestors with batons and tear-gas. Although we do use very strong violence (sometimes horrible violence) against Palestinians… But that’s a complex issue – these guys tend to protest with firearms while using children as human shields. You’d have to be a die-hard cynic to live here.
I must say that some of the bigotry that America allows is the kind of bigotry that our religous nutjobs can only dream of – I guess that a huge, wealthy nation like the US can afford such mega-wankers.
P.S – Yosef is an EXTREMELY influential figure in Israel. He’s basically the mouthpiece of a few hundred thousand Israelis, even more – this is not a small number -Israel in its entirety composes of a bit less than 6 million people! (Inclduding Israeli Arabs!)
The fact that he’s dressed funny is just a relic of the time the exiled Jews used to live in places like Morrocco, Algeria, etc. The Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel would probably, in mannerism and appearance – appear to be of indistinct European descent.
Zzzzz… Yosef is a JOKE. So glad you’re proud of his influence.
You’re confusing bigotry with freedom of speech.
[…] freedom of speech. Zzzzz…
@Steve_C: You’re plainly just confused, period.
It’s always interesting reading comments from people describing other countries. All too often it seems astonishing that such things go on even today in the 21st century.
And then the sobering realization that right here in America all those people who get together in the mega churches and raise their arms and sway side to side and weep tears for Jesus and gladly give up the authority over their lives and think contraception is murder and their god causes hurricanes and the antichrist is coming soon…number in the millions and wield much power.
Good, does that mean you’ll shut the fuck up now?
Oh and the walking between two women thing? The Japanese call that ryote bana, a flower in each hand, equally sexist but definitely a bit nicer (in a creepy oji-san kinda way).
“walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
gimme some of that sweet inter-species erotica!!!! whooo whoooo
I just wanted to highlight the story that Cliff (#52) linked to, about the Hasidic Jewish community in Kiryas Joel, New York:
Escape From the Holy Shtetl
A great read, but also truly disturbing. They make Scientologists look completely sane!
Yegads, I’m not the only Israeli Pharygulite!
Anyway, non of the posts mentioned that he’s not only a religious wackjob, he’s risen to political power because of ethnic considerations – telling Morroccan Jews that the Ashkenazi Jews in Israel are discriminating against them. It’s kinda like the black vote in the US.
Freidenker #89:
How can you call it swalloable doses? I used that line on my girlfriend once on a BJ!
It all adds up to terrible oppression, if you ask me – many small doses make a walloping cupful of you-know-what.
And the people being most oppressed are the ultra-orthodox congergationists themselves, especially now that their leaders denied them the chance to study about science, arithmetic, and civics in school.
BTW, its called a comptroller, not critic.
DocWazoo:
“How can you call it swalloable doses? I used that line on my girlfriend once on a BJ!”
This is why it’s important to get blown on Shabat!
I am quite shocked to find other Israeli pharyngulites, too – yip-yip. Where’r you from?
Actually, the Ha’redim are a bit different than what they used to be – although I still consider them to be the crackpottiest of all Jewish sectors.
I totally wish to second what you wrote about Yosef – the Sefardim (Jews originally from Africa and also Arabian lands) have always felt inferior to the Ashkenazi Jews who usually immigrated earlier and thus were more well-founded by the time the Sefardim immigrated. The Sefardim are now united under powerful sectorial parties that do little than promote political-religous agendas that are actively anti-democratic. They’re simply a very annoying reality we must live with.
Lately, Shas (the Israeli political party that Yosef is the “spiritual leader” of) promoted a bill that allows censorship and control over the contents people view in their private internet connection – so far this bill’s been denied, but the fact that they actually had the nerve to push such a bill forward is something I find mind-boggling – a bill such as this WOULD make Israel like Iran.
I hate that party and I hate everything it represents – it represents a desire of a Jewish sector to put the entire Jewish people back into the exiled ignorant minority we once were. Ugh.
I’m not confused. I also wasn’t very clear either.
Which, incidentally, is basically what happens to the word Scheiße in southeastern dialects like mine. Let’s play a round of nomen est omen.
What I seized on immediately: “reincarnated souls of Jewish sinners”? Um, I thought none of the Abrahamic religions believed in reincarnation — Christianity doesn’t, and none of the Jewish or Islamic people I’ve known ever talked about it.
Is this guy preaching ordinary Orthodox Judaism, or some new age variant?
I agree with MH.
Cliff @ 52 provides a link to a fascinating view of life in a Jewish cult. Fascinating as in deeply disturbing.
So many of those misogynist and backwards things we fault the Muslims and Mormons for are right there and almost identical. One would think that their beliefs had evolved from a common ancestor.
I infer that the dear rabbi doesn’t want to see women because they will distract him from his efforts to get to heaven by his continuous contemplation of G_d.
If stupidity were indeed contagious, as he is alleged to believe, then its a good thing he keeps away from donkeys and camels. Animals have good uses for their intelligence.
Long, long, long-time lurker, first time poster, I’m only up to comment 50-something, Miss Prism, you have made me lolz over and over again!
Lllauurra@ 17″ Some of the girls in the mid west feel that walking between two guys is like walking between two stallions”
Suggestion: Catherine The Great – halloween is just around the corner. You’d totally win the costume contest.
That’s the downside of proportional representation. These very small parties are often in the catbird seat, so the bigger parties let them have their way on some issue, even though the whole country would defeat them on that issue if it were put up to a national vote.
If Israel also had a means of direct legislation by the whole people, like California’s ballot initiatives, that would go a long way to solving these problems.
-jcr
Freidenker – I’m near Haifa.
As for Kiryas Joel – There are many similar communities in Israel, I’m afraid, and I would not want to be a woman in one of those, their repression is severe. Rabi Yosef’s congregations are slightly different – they seem to be slightly less pious but heavier on the ignorance.
Willian #101 – Jewish mysticism, Kabalah etc. certainly talks about reincarnation. Just yesterday an orthodox woman told me I too am punished for Original Sin because my soul was in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve! And she was dead serious, too! LOL
OK, then. I didn’t know that.
Now there’s a thought – wouldn’t it be wonderful if every religious fruitcake dressed up like a Dr. Suess character so we could spot (and thus avoid) them from a mile away?
Now the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars.
The stars weren’t so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But because they had stars, all the Star-bellied Sneetches
would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”
To that I say fuck all the star-bellied Sneetches!
“Walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.”
He means, if he went out walking between 2 women, he may as well be walking between 2 donkeys or camels, because like them, the women (in his opinion) are mindless animals and incapable of providing intelligent company and conversation that he could have if he were walking instead with fellow human beings (male of course).
Freidenker
You mean endured like this?
I’m so glad I don’t live in your neighbourhood!
It’s a little sickening to read Freidenker’s apologistic remarks about the “democracy” in Israel and to object to Israel being compared to Iran. He sorta reminds me of an old-time southerner talking about “democracy” in the south at the time of lynchings, poll taxes, and other racism as if that racism did not exist. And it didn’t IF you were white. Apparently Freidenker thinks that the “democracy” in Israel applies to all citizens of Israel equally. Instead it applies or is applied only to Jewish citizens of Israel. If you do not believe so, go ahead and lead a demonstration for equal rights for Arabs in Israel. Or join a demonstration against the predatory settler faction in Israel. But, whatever you do, don’t stand in front of a bulldozer.
BTW, I stated earlier that Israel was more like Iran than like the US. I did not say that Israel was exactly like Iran. Israel is a self-proclaimed JEWISH STATE. I don’t know Israel’s Constitution by heart (or at all, really) but I doubt it contains a separation of church and state clause. Iran is a self-proclaimed MUSLIM STATE. I doubt it has a separation clause either. In that rather critical sense, Israel is much more like Iran than like the US.
Oldfart,
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
During the last independence day, in the middle of Tel Aviv, there was a demonstration to symbolize the mourning of the foundation of the state of Israel. It was mostly Arab students who are enjoying the best university system in the middle east and yet have the nerve to protest its existence.
Do you think that non-Muslim people of Iran can make such a protest in Iran? Can they even demonstrate to protest milder subjects such as Iranian policies?
Israel doesn’t separate state and religion. But neither does the UK. Even any, the countries that do separate state from religion suffer more from the interfering of religion with secular government.
Should’ve been “if any” in that last paragraph..
Now we know that Jewish fundamentalists are just as judgemental, sanctimonious and odious as their Christian and Muslim counterparts. Can anyone say that they’re surprised?
Gee, the US constitution doesn’t have a separation of church and state clause, it has a no preference clause.
That’s why religions can creep back in public institutions everywhere, as long as it can’t be shown that the state favours a particular one.
The only way to separate is to say that the govt is forbidden to recognize any particular religion in any of its institutions (like in France). The rest is just window dressing.
Has anyone tried burying the government under sheer weight of numbers?
Get everyone you know to ‘start’ a new religion that’s just slightly different in some way from an existing religion. If you all just keep petitioning for recognition maybe they’ll just get sick of the whole business and just ditch all of them…
Kitty #109 “You mean endured like this? I’m so glad I don’t live in your neighbourhood!”
Wow, they really are just like the Taliban.
Israel does not have a constitution.
So there is no legitimate Government in Israel ? No elections ? No courts or judges ? How do laws get made in Israel ?
I am pretty sure it has all those things, which is what makes your comment a bit silly.
There’s at least one way in which Israel is like both the USA and Iran – and for that matter the UK: complete contempt for international law.
# 110,
Your comparision with the Jim Crow south is absurd.
Israel has some laws that only apply for Arabs, that much is true – military service is not compulsory for them (they can volunteer), and there exists some form of affirmative action for Arabs – but the claim that Israeli Arabs are disenfranchised is patently untrue. There are Arab parlamentarians, generals and judges at the supreme court in Israel: I don´t think non-whites were able to rise to such positions in the Jim Crow south, at least not after the end of reconstruction.
Since I don’t know much about Judaism I thought I should increase my knowledge, so I’ve just been reading the wikipedia page on the Jewish Sabbath; if you want to talk lunacy that’s a good place to start. I mean, I have to admire the ingenuity used to find ways around doing ‘work’ in order to get stuff done – like hiring non-Jews to do stuff like light fires, but it’s just mindboggling when you think about it.
Pls let me correct one mistake. Camels – although unhoofed – are kosher, ritually pure animals. Not that knowing that helps to make sense of Mr Joseph’s parable.
Israel has no constitution, and neither does the United Kingdom. If you don’t believe me, check it out on Wikipedia.
@silkworm
The UK doesn’t have a written constitution, but it does have an unwritten constitution made up of legal statutes, treaties and court judgements.
They most certainly are not.
Leviticus 11:4 — ‘Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you.
Now I know you are talking rubbish.
The UK does have a constitution. It just happens that much of it is not a written constitution.
So sorry, I do not believe you, for the simple reason you are wrong.
Israel and New Zealand likewise do not have a formal written constitution. Claims that neither of those countries has a constitution are also wrong.
Now I know you are talking rubbish.
With all due respect, the lunacy in Israel for listening and taking advice from the primitive idiot, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, is not different from many American Presidents who invite Christian leaders to advise them in the White House; it is not different from a minister conducting a Presidential Debate between Obama and McCain; it is not different from priests and ministers in American churches telling their flocks how to vote. What good the American Constitution does if the separation between church and state is just a slogan?
All that, of course, is in no defence of the Rabbi or the Israeli leaders who consult with him. They are just like American politicians who cater to a certain segment of the population who happened to be religious, ignorant idiots who prefer the words of God that come out of the mouth of a religious clown. Ovadia Yosef in Israel has his own Christian doubles in the US and Muslim doubles in the Arab world.
Secular education is the only solution for this “curse.”
BTW, Israel does not have a constitution!!!
Israel doesn’t have a constitution. It has some “Base laws” that are essentially unchangeable without a huge majority. It’s like a constitution only instead of declaring certain principles (which no one seem to agree upon completely) it sets the rules of government, courts etc. (i.e. There’s a “Base Law: The Government” law)
Neoconservatism?
JoJo in #113 wrote: Now we know that Jewish fundamentalists are just as judgemental, sanctimonious and odious as their Christian and Muslim counterparts. Can anyone say that they’re surprised?
After having read many posts in this blog I would have to say that the atheists are just as judgemental and sanctimouious and odious as their Christain and Muslim and Jewish counterparts.
Wow, Lluraa@131, that is just so witty and so original. But if you dislike us so much, why are you still here? We still have no answer to that.
Nick dear, i was not trying to be witty or original nor did I say that that I dislike you very much. I just said that u atheists are as bad as any religious fundementalists. It is evident in the answeres I have received.
Please tell us why. I’m interested.
Lluraa,http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fresh_thread.php .
Don’t “dear” me, halfwit. You have received brusque answers because you evidently have absolutely nothing to contribute to a rational discussion, and have simply come here to preach at us. That is just bloody rude – we don’t want it, we’re not interested in your ludicrous fantasies. There are theists who don’t preach at us 9or quickly learn not to) and do have something to contribute, and when they come here, most of us at least will treat them with courtesy. Look for Scott Hatfield’s contributions, for example, or more recently, SDG’s lengthy exchanges with Paul W, Sastra and me among others toward the end of
It is not judgemental to require someone to support their position, somethign you have to this point failed at miserably. You won’t even answer questions that are posed to you.
As Nick said you are here to “out preach” everyone. Another sign that you are only here seeking validation of your religion.
Frankly it’s very unbecoming.
I’m still interested in answers to all my questions, but last night you said you were going out “to party”.
Are you a Jack Mormon?
Isn’t that like saying someone is married even though they didn’t go through a formal ceremony and don’t have a formal marriage license? What else is a constitution if not a formal written document?
More like Iran than America — depends on the neighborhood, it appears. See this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast1
Not the best example you could have chosen, given the existence of common-law marriages in some places…
Touché.
Nick, HON, are you getting your non magical underwear all twisted and in a bunch or wedgie?
Just simply the set of rules used to run a country. However it seems that there are those like Silkworm who think countries like the UK have no such rules. I presume he thinks the UK is entirely devoid of any government or rule of law.
Those base laws ARE part of the Israeli constitution.
Some people here seem to have the weird (and quite frankly idiotic) idea that constitution are written documents.
This gets my blood boiling more than the entire McCain/Palin issue, but maybe that is because I am a (now exiled) Israeli myself. In fact, there was a party a couple of years back in Israeli which was even in Parliament which had “anti-religion” in their manifest. Unfortunately, they had little else, and weathered out after only one term. I do agree with many points made on this comment thread – the problem is mainly that the majority of the religious and ultra-religious community in Israel lives off the state by obtaining welfare and other benefits, without contributing (taxes, military, or civil services), while at the same time demanding to be a major part of the political decision-making process. Still, I hope that Livni will manage to build a coalition, as all other alternatives seem to me to be even worse than a coalition with the Shas and other orthodox party crackpots.
Lluraa,
You are a loathsome little creep. I’ve added you to my killfile, so I don’t have to endure your inanities any longer.
the israelis here that say that opression by the religious is bearable, are saying that mainly due to the fact that they are jewish and did not have to go through some of the obstacles that the non-jewish citizens have to go through.
Anyone who thinks that undigging bodies of soldiers (who got killed while fighting for Israel) from the jewish cemeteries in the middle of the night and reburying them outside the fence only due to the fact that their mother was not jewish, whoever thinks that is “bearable”, i cannot take his opinion on this issue seriously. Or throwing acid in the face of “unmodestly” clad women.
Honestly, the number of true secular, atheist, liberal people in Israel is close to 0. Just ask them what they think of “mixed marriages”. Some of my most liberal, open minded, secular friends have failed that test miserably. they are willing to forsake a relationship with otherwise perfect, seemingly soul mate only due to the religion of their forefathers or for the sake of “continuing the tradition”. and that is far from secular.
neyne:Honestly, the number of true secular, atheist, liberal people in Israel is close to 0.
I’d say closer to 50%-60%. I don’t know who you’re hanging out with, probably all the wrong people
The multi partisan system in Israel is to blame, the orthodox religious crowd are a small minority, but they get enough seats in the Knesset to allow for some of their key issues to be pushed through.
@royK I would say that your definition of secular / humanist / atheist and my definition of those things are pretty distant from each other.
One of the main principles that I value in secularism is non-willingness to judge or even consider racial/national/religious or any other aspects of a person that he/she are not responsible for when making my decisions regarding that person. So, for example if I find someone who I think is perfectly fitting to spend the rest of my life with, I will not care about the fact that her mother converted to Judaism through a reform process and not orthodox (just an example). The majority of the Israelis I have encountered (and I think I managed to get a whiff of many different profiles through the high-school, youth movement, army, university and finally now living in Jerusalem where the secular crowd is as ideological as you can get in Israel) will fail that test by either breaking off the relationship before it gets serious or make conscious efforts not to get into that kind of situation. I am sure that there are Israelis that will not behave in such way, but I have not met many.
That, of course, is silly, and this whole argument turns on a purely semantic point. Of course the UK (and Israel) have a set of traditions, various laws, cultural understanding, etc. that determine how the government works. But what they don’t have is all of that codified in one single document, a constitution. If you want to call the collection of all the traditions, laws, and understanding “a constitution”, I suppose that’s fine, but I don’t think there is any argument that the UK and Israel don’t have a written constitution.
And, at least for those most familiar with the American system, this is a bit weird, since it means that fundamental rights rely in part on “traditions” that may not explicitly recognize such rights, and because of that may be violated without the same level of recourse as would be found with a written document.
No is claiming that the UK has a written constitution, or at least not one that is fully written. There are some aspects that are written, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.
What some people are claiming is that UK does not have a constitution at all. If the UK did not have a constitution there would be no means of handling the accession following the death of the monarch for example. Nor would there be any way of handling elections, or indeed any rules that state when and how elections are held, no means of appointing judges, or collecting taxes. In short it would be a society with no rules, and no means of creating any rules. Since the UK clearly is not devoid of Government, the claim it does not have a constitution is a dishonest one. I think it tends be made by uneducated Americans.
at least for those most familiar with the American system, this is a bit weird, since it means that fundamental rights rely in part on “traditions” that may not explicitly recognize such rights, and because of that may be violated without the same level of recourse as would be found with a written document. – Tulse
Your written constitution has certainly proved its worth in protecting your rights over the last 8 years, eh?
I had to get a PhD before I got my fancy robe and hat. Do you mean all I had to really do was start speaking the right kind of drivel?
No, his credentials don’t come from his fancy robe & hat and I would wager that even with a PhD you haven’t 1/10 the genius of Ovadia Yosef. He is renowned for his encyclopedic mind and is largely responsible for putting the Sephardic world on the map vis a vis rabbinic scholarship.
But being a genius doesn’t exempt one from saying really, really stupid things, in either the secular/scientific and religious worlds. And Ovadia Yosef has spouted some doozers…
I agree with Zach. If only Ovadia Yosef was a man of science instead of a man of religion he would’ve been an amazing scholar. Unfortunately, talent only gets you so far. His choices led him to be an expert in nonsense.
If only Ovadia Yosef was a man of science instead of a man of religion he would’ve been an amazing scholar.
In the kingdom of blind, an one eyed man is a king.
And maybe he would have sucked. Maybe all he is good at is finding loopholes in the prehistoric rules so his flock can follow them to at least some extent in the 21 century, without needing to stone whoever gets caught gathering sticks on Saturday ? Maybe the concept of rational thought, prepared to scrutinize itself, scientific principles calling a theory valid only if a condition for its nullifying can be described, maybe all of these concepts would be as logical to him as rules of Niddah (family purity) are to me ?
Or maybe Karl Sagan would be an amazing psalm writer ?
I don’t buy that…
Neyne – I don’t understand your test. What do racial prejudices have to do with theism? These prejudices were bred into us from the first grade, and are sometimes hard to shake off.
@Doc
many things were bred into us and were hard to shake off, still we manage. homophobia for example. a model of a female body…..
i disagree that this is a matter of prejudice though. it is a conscious decision, not something that is done as an instinct. another argument supporting that is the fact that if you ask the majority of Israelis, they will not find anything wrong with this stand, nor would they like to let go of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about choosing a partner from your own cultural group, I am talking about getting into situation where you identify an otherwise perfect person for you, perfect in everything, “except” not being jewish. in my opinion that is opposed to secularism, humanism, atheism.
Or as some (albeit religious) radio host has put it once: “I would prefer an evil Jewish girl, than good hearted gentile for my son’s bride”. The majority of israelis I have encountered are not this extreme but can be found on this spectrum.
I am not utterly pessimistic though. things are getting better and there are some steps forward in the mentality of the people. I am just calling spade a spade.
these guys
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast1
need some of these
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/moredetails.aspx?productNo=110593258&pr=F&showbleed=false&colorNo=0&tab=1&Zoom=2
Tulse: And, at least for those most familiar with the American system, this is a bit weird, since it means that fundamental rights rely in part on “traditions” that may not explicitly recognize such rights, and because of that may be violated without the same level of recourse as would be found with a written document.
Have you read our constitution and compared it with the actual functioning of our political system? Our constitution is unwritten as well – the jargon is defined in the constitution, but it’s actual meaning depends on tradition.
Just read over the powers of the Presidency and Congress and compare to today’s de facto power. Compare the constitution to the Articles of Confederation – it’s basically an expansion on the latter, in no way creating a strong, centralized state with a massive presidential bureaucracy with vast regulatory (aka law-making) powers. Look at the Bill of Rights in that light; it didn’t mean then what it means today.
In many ways, a written constitution can be a danger. With an unwritten one, it is more difficult to delude oneself about the nature of a constitution, which is a constantly evolving body of basic law. Instead, one has the tendency to believe that one is following “The” constitution, and fail to see that all the words have changed meaning over the ensuing centuries. It’s like trying to read Chaucer by simply mapping cognates, and then thinking you have “translated” it.