Church, state and doing what comes naturally

[jwcpgh]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "naamagatus" 
<naama_gat at h...> wrote:

<snip> I think there was some misunderstanding regarding my post. I 
don't think (and haven't said) that Christianity is tolerant. <snip> 
Of course Christianity is intolerant - as an exclusive religion 
(such as Judaism and Islam) it has to be. 

Laura:

Judaism is not intolerant.  We have always seen Judaism as a 
difficult commitment that not everyone will want to take on.  So our 
belief system allows for the possibility that people may not want to 
be Jews, but it encourages those people to abide by a basic set of 
ethical (as opposed to ritual)laws.  These are called the Noahide 
laws because they're set down in the story of Noah in Genesis.  

Judaism is a lot tougher on itself than on non-Jews.  The level of 
suspicion and animosity among the different branches is much more 
virulent than anything we feel towards non-Jews over religious 
issues.  (That is to distinguish Jewish feelings about Arab politics 
from feelings about Islam per se.) The ultra-Orthodox in Israel are 
well known for their propensity to resort to violence against people 
who they feel are violating the tenets of the religion-i.e., 
throwing rocks at people in cars on the Sabbath, throwing chairs at 
women trying to pray at the Western Wall.  

<snip> 
Naama:
> But it was the Christian view of the world, as divided into a 
> religious sphere and a secular sphere, that allowed the very 
> formulations of enlightenment thought. 

Laura:
Historically speaking, I'd have to say that the differentiation 
between the religious sphere and the secular one in Western 
development is somewhat spurious.  Even after the Enlightenment and 
the French Revolution, the countries of Europe would have 
unhesitatingly identified themselves as Christian.  The basic 
assumptions of the cultures, the legal systems, even the calendars 
were and are to this day based on Christian practices and beliefs.  
Understand that I'm not making a value judgment here, just an 
historical observation.  As Pip and Barb pointed out, we are 
continually reminded by current events that the government of the US 
as well as a good number of its citizens regard the United States as 
a Christian country.  Not surprising-the law of the land is that a 
creche is a secular symbol.  

Judaism and Islam are indeed comprehensive systems covering both 
the "sacred" and the "secular".  In classical Judaism, there is no 
difference.  All of life is governed by halacha, the rabbinic laws 
derived from our texts and our sages.  This worked fine as long as 
Jews were isolated from the rest of society and lived by ourselves.  
Once we were emancipated, starting with Napoleon, things began to 
fall apart.  Israel claims to be run by halacha but it isn't, any 
more so than fundamentalist Islamic countries are run by Islamic law 
as written.  They both act as they see fit and try to find text to 
justify their behavior after the fact.

Christianity was able to allow a division into secular and sacred 
realms because in reality the underlying framework was the same.  
Civil law was based on Christian beliefs.  But, as has been pointed 
out in this thread, when challenged, the dominant world view quickly 
asserted its control.  And it still does.

Speaking for myself, I find that I'm a lot less defensive about 
being Jewish than I was growing up, and a lot more comfortable with 
other belief systems.  I belonged for a while to a group that did 
interfaith panels in the community-it was me, a nun and a Muslim 
woman most of the time.  We got to be good friends and we each 
discovered that the more time we spent together doing these panels, 
the more we were committed to our own beliefs.  We loved finding 
both the similarities and the differences in what we believed, and 
we found that educating ourselves was the best way to feel secure in 
our beliefs.  Learning where we came from and why we do what we do 
allowed us to find out about each other's ways without feeling 
vulnerable or trying to "win the argument".  

Best wishes to everyone who celebrates Christmas for a happy, 
healthy and peaceful holiday!