Theos-Talk Archives (June 2002 Message tt00158)

Morton: "A view, although I could be claimed wrong, is: To call 
something an 'act of war' like USA did, was just rethoric use, so to 
have an excuse to make ? USA warfare ? in OTHER countries 
(Afghanistan was the first country) acceptable to the public and 
other countries populations. (What evil will come next?) 

Regrettanly if someone mugs me in a dark alley that is an act of war, 
regardless of what someone else might like to call it.

Bart: "Yes ! Because they get tempted, or are ignorant of their own 
culture, or think that it is part of their culture to do certain 
western actions.

Or maybe it is just seductive. I listened to a rabbi one time 
commenting on how attractive some aspects of Arab culture are, 
especially the music. He lives in Palestine and is a fan of the 
music. Conservatives in Palestine who fear acculturation to their 
Arab neighbors worry about this, but nobody is compelling anyone to 
listen to it. A more striking example of this is that in ancient 
times because of the diaspora Jewish legal theories came to 
profoundly influence the legal systems of other nations, causing the 
Roman writer Seneca to bitch that "the vanquished have given laws to 
their conquerors." (Ref. Seneca, De Superstitione, 1.431) You cannot 
hermetically seal cultures anymore. Truth be told, you never could.

Bart: "The United States was built on the principle that the 
government has no rights; only the people have rights.

Unfortunately that principle got turned on its head after the death 
of Jefferson. However well intentioned it might have been, the Civil 
War was based on the idea that only the government has rights, and 
specifically that only the government centered in the District of 
Columbia has rights.

Bart: "That difference is probably key to why the Theosophical 
Society was started in the United States.

It was started in the US because Blavatsky went to New York to study 
spiritualism.

Bart: "On a Saturday. And NO Sanhedrin would meet on a Saturday. And 
the requirements for a death sentence are quite specific, and had 
nothing to do with any of the crimes that the failed messiah was 
supposed to have been accused. Of course, followers of that cult 
decided that my great?grandfather was the one who killed him, and 
killed my great?grandfather in a pogrom. 

You are right about European antiSemitism, but wrong about Saturday. 
JC was crucified on Friday morning, which meant he must have been 
condemned earlier in the week. The Romans had already stripped the 
Sanhedrin of the power to kill prisoners, which is why they remanded 
him to the Romans. It was the Romans who actually crucified him, and 
sedition was one of the crimes routinely punished by crucifixion, 
especially in Jewish communities because of the belief that "cruciied 
messiah" was an oxymoron. It was this oxymoron that made 
Christianity almost impossible to sell in Jewish communities (which 
was the intent of the Romans), and that was the historical reason it 
swiftly became a Gentile and not Jewish religion. Ironically, had it 
remained a Jewish sect it would surely have died out sometime in the 
first or second century as so many others did. It was the fact that 
the founder was crucified which started in motion the series of 
events which made it an important historical phenomenon. It is 
amazing how the most minor matters in history have repeatedly led to 
the most profound consequences. So before you do anything, however 
insignificant it might be, be careful. Nobody knows where it will 
all end.

Another irony is that his goal was to end the temple cult run by the 
Sadducees. The temple cult survived him, but was wiped out 
permanently in 70 by Titus, less than 40 years after his demise, thus 
clearing the way for the rise to dominance of rabbinic Judaism (i.e., 
the Pharisees). So oddly he got what he wanted but did not live to 
see it.

The Sadducees (who controlled the Sanhedrins) were unpopular, the 
Pharisees popular, so getting the Sadducees out of the way served the 
long term interest of the public, even though short term things were 
pretty crappy. (After the Bar Cochba rebellion Jews could not enter 
Jerusalem under pain of death.)