Nexus of Thought: October 2023

Saturday, October 21, 2023

Hamas' terror is part of the Armed Jihad

Supporters of the Armed Jihad plus the myriad of fellow travelers will never condemn attacks on the Jews. In fact they rejoice in it. For them the attackers are doing the work of Allah with Jews and other non-believers being seen as less than human.

Hear it in their own words.

“ O brother believers, the criminals, the terrorists - are the Jews… They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands, and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them… The Jews are like a [gas] pedal - as long as you step on it with your foot, it doesn't move, but if you lift your foot from it, it hurts you and punishes you. This is the case of the Jews." Dr. Ahmed Abi Halabiya.

Quote source: October 13, 2000, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan Mosque in Gaza, PA Television.

Its getting worse...

As a Jew right now I am really concerned with our community's safety. The rhetoric being deployed against Israel has clearly morphed into an extremely toxic anti-semitism. The media isn't helping by its false equivalencies and advancement of unsubstantiated stories, that in time are revealed to be downright lies.

My beliefs

I believe ….

1.That there is a God who transcends space and time. (I call it God for want of a name although I personally prefer the Kabbalistic term Ein Sof).

2. That it is impossible to know the nature of God. It cannot be truly defined.

3. That the universe operates according to the Laws of Physics. Life evolved through a combination of natural selection, genetic drift and other selection pressures acting on a genome whose variation arose as a consequence of mutation.

4. That God can intervene but such intervention is undetectable and does not contravene the laws of physics. God is a subtle actor who presents no evidence of understandable design.

5. That an agnostic position on a personal God makes sense.

6. That revealed religion are merely man made attempts at trying to understand God and although some carry the wisdom of earlier thought they are all inherently flawed.

7. That humans need to develop their own moral code based on reason, logic and the collective thinking of what has worked in the past.

8. That some religious customs may serve a purpose with respect to group cohesion but they need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

9. That God is a minimalist in action but not necessarily a disinterested party.

10. That the afterlife is unknowable.

11. That skepticism and the scientific method are the best tools we have in understanding the world.