Who is the most persecuted religion?

I am not being willfully disingenuous. Rather I am suggesting that they are the same.

The Jews were hated and feared because they were accused of being subversives who were dangerous to society had a barbaric religion and were plotting world domination.

The Muslims have the exact same accusations leveled against them.

Bigotry doesn't change much from era to era. Only the targets change.

This is the sequence of posts:





Now you're talking about Jews. Where the hell does that come from?

I cannot for a moment accept a claim that Jews were hated because they were viewed as subversives. Now you're just making **** up.

Setanta,

Sixty years ago, you could ask Arella's question about the Jews and it wouldn't raise an eyebrow. This is because sixty years ago hatred and suspicion of Jews was socially acceptable.

Asking these types of questions about Jews now is social unacceptable.

However, apparently now asking these types of questions about Muslims is fine.

Social acceptance of fear and suspicions of Muslims today is the same as social acceptance of fear and suspicion of Jews was 50 years ago.

I am hoping that we as a society will eventually learn to not tolerate bigotry toward anyone. Right now we seem to be just cycling through targets.

What do you mean "WHO" is the most persecuted religion? This threat title has bugged me since I first saw it. i wish we could edit!!! WHAT is what you should have said. Just a minor point, but obviously a really irritating one for me.


And wouldn't the answer to the corrected question be dependent on the time frame? When? Depends on when.

First, she didn't ask the question about Jews, she asked it about Muslims. So your apparently wilfull choice to ignore the sequence of posts shoots down your claim right there. Attempting to now backpeddle and link fear and suspicion of Muslims to fear and suspicion of Jews still doesn't authorize an attack on Arella Mae who asked the quite resonable question of whether or not you think Muslims are persecuted becasue of their religion or because they are seen as terrorists. Your remarks to her are completely unwarranted.

Quite apart from that, seeing Jews as "subversives" was just a justification after the fact. Jews have been hated for thousands of years. The Romans despised the Jews before christianity was even heard of. Making excuses after the fact for your hatred is hardly a plausible basis to explain the unreasoning hatred which has been expressed against Jews for more than 2000 years.

I intentionally told you I was serious about my question and I meant nothing derogatory by it. But, you decided to take it that way anyway, which tells me you really don't care what I think or what I have to say.

Setanta,

What's your dog in this fight?

Are you claiming that Muslims are not the targets of some pretty vicious bigotry in the US right now?

Or are you claiming that bigotry against Muslims is justified?

Allow me Setanta? He is not claiming either. He was telling you that my question about the Muslims was valid and HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE JEWS!

Setanta is one that will stand up for the truth of something even if he does not particularly care for the poster.

Your posts are littered with straw man fallacies. I don't dispute that Muslims are targets of bigotry. Nor have i said that that bigotry is justified. My "dog in the fight" is your completely irrational and vicious attack on Arella Mae for an innocent and reasonable question.

I'm beginning to wonder if you're capable of coherent, serial thought. If you want to take that as a personal attack, be my guest. It's intended that way.

Now, now . . . i don't dislike you . . . but your mule really pisses me off . . .

Fine Arella I get that. But understand this, the bigotry against Muslims really bothers me, as much as bigotry against Jews or anyone else.

Any suggestion that targets of bigotry are responsible for the hatred against them is a problem. It is like saying that bigotry against a certain group is acceptable.

I feel it is important to stand strongly against any idea that bigotry against anyone is acceptable.

Right now bigotry against Muslims is considered acceptable by many people. You hear it from politicians and from pundits and in many quarters you can say the most offensive things publicly against Muslims that you couldn't say against any other group.

Anyone who is serious about confronting bigotry in society will stand up against defamation of Muslims that is all too common in the US right now.

I didn't mean you didn't like me. But if you don't like JJ we have bigggggggggggggggg problems!

And just WHERE DID I SAY IT WAS ACCEPTABLE? I didn't and I never would. Maybe you should go back and read what actually was said?

He's got some kind of chip on his shoulder, and the straw man seems to be his stock in trade . . . my advice is to ignore him.

I think my question is a fair one.

Jews and Muslims have both been targets of vicious bigoted attacks although attacks on Jews are no longer socially acceptable.

I found the implication that Muslims are responsible for the hatred against them to be offensive. Part of this is that there is such a blatant trend of making hatred against Muslims socially acceptable.

If it is an appropriate question about Muslims who are facing bigotry, it should be appropriate about any of the targets of bigotry. Why should Muslims be treated differently than anyone else?

If you see no problem about asking the same question about Jews or any other targets of persecution, then I withdraw my objection (although it would still make me uncomfortable). But if questioning Muslims, the currently fashionable group to hate, is OK where other groups is not, then we have a real problem.

Another straw man--her question in no way implied that Muslims are responsible for the bigotry displayed toward them.

I think "Who" is better than "What" as most people tend to think of religious groups as a single entity, doesn't matter who a person is, or their personality, just what religion they belong too, i did put some thought into the wording. Maybe i should of made that more clear in the original post.

Setanta, back in the 1950's it was a very common expression by a good loyal American that the country had to be aware of the "Commie, Pinko, Jews."

Back in the early part of the 20th century, anarchism was popular amongst radicals, and some were Jewish.

If one was a White Southerner in the Jim Crow South, the New York Jew was considered subversive to the status quo in the South. Notice the names of those young men shot, during the days before school integration.

Now Jews are considered exploitative, since supposedly many would help Israel with U.S.A. resources, at the expense of what the U.S. might need. But that is just anti-Semitism, since American Jews are "allowed" to shoulder the image of manipulating the U.S., into a pro-Israel stance, when there are 60 million Evangelical voters that are more pro-Israel than many an American Jew. Also, I believe the pro-Israel stance of the U.S. is to make sure that for posterity (aka, "history") mother England does not look like a putz for allowing the state of Israel to come into existence. It would not be the first time the U.S. made sure that England did not have egg on its face for its decisions, I believe.

American Jews are just a convenient diversion from other folks that are the real behind the scenes manipulators, in my opinion. And, it is quite believable to many, since Jews often get educated, and many people have little contact or knowledge about Jews. While it may not be fashionable these days to be overtly anti-Semitic in most circles, I am only aware of the Catholic Church making concrete efforts to erase the anti-Semitism that still exists in western nations. Perhaps, because the Catholic Church has a long tradition of intellectualism, and the reasons to be anti-Semitic don't hold water to a thinking person?

Sorry, in my readings, the pagans just thought of Jews as a bunch of "odd-fellows." Actually, laughable, since who could believe only one God did all the work needed to effect a universe, according to the pagan mind.

It was Christianity that refocussed the outsider status of oddfellow Jews to actual hate, since they were there when Christ was crucified. So, even though Christ's followers were mostly Jews, and according to the New Testament "the multitudes rejoiced when Jesus entered Jerusalem," the fact that the high priests let Barabas go, made Jews, in the eyes of two millenia of illiterate Gentiles, the Christ Killers. And, the Church was very comfortable in effecting that moniker, since it allowed feudalism to manage Europe between the Prince/King/Bishop/peasants/Jews.