For Orthodox Jews--a Primer on Fundamentalist Protestants (Vanity; Jewish/Noachide ecumenical)

First, an apology for making this a cacused thread. I know that Fundamentalist Protestant FReepers will feel cheated at having their religious beliefs explained by one not of their number, but to leave the thread open would be to invite thousands and thousands of posts, each and every one of them quoting the "new testament" to "prove" this and that. While I am no longer a Fundamentalist Protestant or chr*stian of any kind, I nevertheless used to be one and feel competent to explain their beliefs to Orthodox Jews--especially when those beliefs are so misunderstood and misrepresented.

I also feel compelled to inform the reader that while I am no longer a Protestant or chr*stian of any kind I still very much consider myself to be a Fundamentalist, for two reasons. First, "fundamentalism" as I define the term is the equation of religious truth with actual truth (ie, facts) rather than with allegedly more "profound" non-factual truth (note that this does not at all preclude deep profound truths that lie beneath the surface, nor does it entail a rejection of an authoritative Oral Interpretive Tradition). Secondly, "Fundamentalist" is as much an ethno-cultural designation as a theological one, and this means I was born a "Fundamentalist" and will remain one until I die because I was born a poor Southern rural Anglo-American (ever heard a Black Biblical literalist called a "Fundamentalist?").

A very devout, very learned, and in fact very "fundamentalist" (non-Modern) Orthodox rabbi for whom I have the greatest respect has a video at his web site (otherwise I could not share this information) in which he says that no matter how pro-Israel or pro-Jewish Fundamentalist chr*stians may be, their friendship can never be fully accepted because they still believe that Jews "go to hell," which he interprets as the belief that Jews are "evil" and that Fundamentalist chr*stians must hate Jews if they believe such a thing. And I'm sorry, but this isn't true. Fundamentalist chr*stians do not believe that Jews are any more "evil" than any human being (including Fundamentalist chr*stians themselves) nor do they hate them. The fact is that, just as Fundamentalist chr*stians misunderstand Judaism because they impose their own worldview onto it, Orthodox Jews misunderstand the purpose of Fundamentalist chr*stianity, and that purpose is not to create good people or to suffuse the lower world with G-dliness. It is "to save souls."

In the Fundamentalist chr*stian worldview, every human being born into the world since the sin in the Garden is born "damned." He is born that way because thanks to "the Devil" he has something G-d never intended him to have--an evil inclination. You see, as they understand it, G-d, being good and perfect, simply cannot be responsible for the existence of evil or imperfection in any way whatsoever. In fact, He cannot abide it. His only option, compelled by His own holiness, is to "damn" every human being who is flawed and imperfect. Sounds harsh? Well, to you it does. To them it makes perfect sense. Get set for some real "multiculturalism," Reader!

Now every human being born into the world (though the Jewish mystical tradition disagrees here) has certainly been born with an evil inclination--a yetzer hara`. It is this, and not the actions to which it leads, that deserves "eternal damnation." The yetzer hara` is like a disease, and actual individual sins are like the symptoms of that disease. In any diseased population there will be some variety in the manifestation of symptoms. But the disease, along with its consequences, is present in all. This means that for the Fundamentalist Protestant (just as an example) both Joseph Stalin and Mother Teresa are equally worthy of damnation. The fact that the former manifested more symptoms--ie, more actual sins and acts of evil--has nothing to do with it. They both were born with the disease. Both deserved, and were destined, for "eternal damnation." Fundamentalist Protestants in no way hated Mother Teresa, nor did they consider her "evil" in the same sense that they consider Joseph Stalin to have been evil. But they insist that they both had the same "disease."

So if G-d did not create the yetzer hara`, who did? Their answer: "the Devil." Here G-d had created a world every bit as perfect, flawless, and sinless as Himself (being holy, He could have created no other kind) when along comes an evil supernatural counterpart and mucks the whole thing up. The world that was intended by G-d to be as perfect and sublime as Himself was now flawed and imperfect, and the Good G-d can respond to imperfection in only one way. Yes, like "Nomad" on that episode of "Star Trek." And a lack of personal sins or the presence of great personal holiness in this or that individual doesn't change a thing. Yes, so-and-so may have blessedly few symptoms, but the disease of imperfection is still present.

So G-d hit upon a wonderfully ingenious plan that would provide a loophole for each individual while still allowing Him to maintain His holiness by damning every single imperfect individual cursed with a yetzer hara`. [`Avodah zarah warning: read the following with caution] He would, chas vechalilah, incarnate Himself as a human being and then, chas vechalilah, vicariously damn Himself in the place of every single solitary human being who would ever live. This way He gets to maintain His holiness by damning every flawed, imperfect, sinful being (ie, every being with a yetzer hara`) while everyone has the opportunity to not actually experience this damnation personally. The catch: to take advantage of this loophole one must explicitly "accept" it. Every single solitary human being who does not explicitly accept this "gift of salvation" must, by G-d's holiness, be eternally damned. As for those who do accept it, they still deserve to be damned, but they can't go to "hell" because in G-d's eyes they're already there!

Sof davar hakol nishma`. Period. End of story. That's it, people. There are no commandments to observe and, actually, no "religion" to "practice." There is only this one-time-only acceptance of the "gift" and that's the end of the whole thing. It's not so much a "religion" as an innoculation program. The sole purpose for living for each and every Fundamentalist Protestant (unless they're Calvinists or universalists, and some are) is to help innoculate each and ever single human being. Now, from the perspective of Orthodox Judaism/Noachism this is horrifying, but these people do not have that perspective. It's a different religion, people. That means a different worldview and a different purpose. And to expect them remain chr*stians and not have this attitude is absolutely unreasonable and utterly impossible for them in good conscience. If they shared the Orthodox Jewish/Noachide worldview they wouldn't be chr*stians in the first place!

No, not to Judaism, but to the Noachide Laws, the true and only G-d-authorized religion for all non-Jewish humanity.

What is the root of this entire erroneous worldview? A denial of One G-d. A belief in an evil counterpart of G-d who spoiled G-d's perfect creation and in fact acted as a sort of co-creator, G-d forbid, in that he helped produce the world as it exists today. They don't understand that G-d, by His Blessed Will, intentionally created this lowest of all worlds with all its imperfections (even before the sin in the Garden). They have never heard of the first sin in history being committed by the ground before man was even created, or of the envy of the moon, or that HaShem Himself mandated a "sin offering" in His own behalf for having reduced the moon. They do not understand that G-d created the yetzer hara` and placed it within Adam before the commandment not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge had even been given. They do not understand that G-d Alone rules supreme and absolutely and that HaSatan is merely one of His angels doing his job, like all the others.

And why has no one ever told them these things? That's simple also. It's because they were too busy calling them "haters" and "bigots" and "intolerant" to do so. And when they weren't calling them that they were trying to make liberal chr*stians out of them. How many millions and millions of dollars have been spent on "museums of tolerance," "brotherhood" campaigns, or propaganda to convince Fundamentalist chr*stians that "all religions and all 'gxds' are equally valid?" (And how in the name of all that is reasonable can anyone who goes by the name of Jew propagandize for such a thing?) And so long as Fundamentalist chr*stians sincerely believe that G-d wants them to "save" every single human being they will continue to try to do so and nothing you can say or do will dissuade them. You may criminalize chr*stian proselyitism, but all you will do is make Fundamentalist chr*stians into criminals by doing so. What if the government outlawed circumcision or eating matztzot during Pesach or qeri'at shema`? Whom would you obey--men or G-d? Then why do you ask Fundamentalist chr*stians to behave differently? They will stop trying to "innoculate" the world for only one reason: because they know that G-d has not commanded this. Once they know that they are not presently objectively obeying G-d then they will be able to stop proselytizing with a clear conscience. Until then each and every one of them feels personally responsible for every single individual who dies "unsaved." Considering that fact, I think they display remarkable restraint. They actually deserve to be praised, not calumniated for their "intolerance."

I myself can personally testify as to how liberating learning the Truth can be. I had always believed that after "Satan" had (chas vechalilah!) "run G-d off His throne" that he had "taken over" as the "gxd of this world" and that ever since Adam "acquired" the yetzer hara` by eating the fruit that I and every single human being was born the property of "Satan." By nature, he was our "gxd." G-d, the One, A-mighty, Omnipotent G-d, the King of the Kings of the Kings, was no longer naturally G-d. He didn't become a person's G-d until they received their innoculation. Until that point "Satan,"and not G-d, was "gxd." No matter how much I loved and desired Him, no matter how much I prayed to Him, He was not my G-d and would never be my G-d until I had received my "innoculation" (the "assurance" of which I never had, which meant that I had not received the "innoculation" at all even after doing everything I was supposed to to receive it). Do you know how astounding it is to Fundamentalist chr*stians to see Jews calling G-d their Father and enjoying a relationship with Him without having to ever pass "from nature to grace?" The idea that every single human being already has a relationship with G-d merely because He is our Creator and L-rd, is absolutely incomprehensible to them. Yet they already have this relationship. And all they have yet to do is to acknowledge it and accept HaShem as their G-d to complete the process. No "innoculation" or "salvation experience" required.

Before closing bringing this vanity to a close I would like to address two other areas. The first is the difference between Fundamentalist Protestant and ancient liturgical chr*stians; the second is the issue of Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, promoting "tolerance" as the greatest virtue.

On the surface, Orthodox Jews will feel much less afraid of and much more comfortable with Catholic, Orthodox, Non-Chalcaedonian, and Non-Ephesine chr*stians. This is somewhat ironic considering that it is precisely these churches that have committed the vast majority of all chr*stian atrocities against the Jewish People. But they do not proselytize--in fact, are as opposed to Protestant missionaries as Jews are--(being, like Judaism, essentially ethnic religions, however "universal" they proclaim themselves to be), and they do not subscribe to the radical antinomian "loophole" soteriology I have elucidated above (since they hold that the world has been "redeemed" for two thousand years and every human being born since that time is born into a "redeemed" world and assumed to be somewhere on "the path of redemption" himself). However, this is not to their credit. Fundamentalist Protestants have taken the Pauline doctrine of the inadequacy of the "Law" (the Holy Torah) and have very logically and consistently applied it to all human effort. The more ancient versions of chr*stianity, on the other hand, have restricted Paul's critique of "the law" to the Holy Torah. It alone is useless. It alone has been replaced. Natural human efforts to the good are still valid and useful, and of course they claim that after abrogating the Torah (G-d forbid!!!) G-d immediately replaced it with the laws, ceremonials, and customs of chr*stianity (chr*stmas replacing Pesach, rosary beads replacing tefillin, etc.). However easier to get along with these chr*stians are (at least in the modern world), their animus to the Torah is much greater because it alone is rejected as "insufficient for salvation" ("salvation" not being its purpose to begin with). In rejecting all human effort--and very much rejecting traditional chr*stian law and ceremonial--Fundamentalist Protestants are acknowledging that no law could ever be greater than the Holy Torah. If it is (chas vechalilah!) "insufficient," then so is all human action. And contrariwise, if any human action had any merit at all, it would be obedience to the Holy Torah. It must also be remembered that Fundamentalist Protestant antinomianism and rejection of "unwritten tradition" was not formed in opposition to Judaism but to Catholicism.

Then of course there is the fact the that "tolerant" and "philo-Semitic" chr*stians whom most Jews prefer to the Fundamentalists almost always have a very low view of the Torah and deny that any authorititative Revelation has ever occurred in history, but that all claimants at such revelation are myths. Of course such people don't believe that Jews "go to hell." They don't believe anyone does! And yes they "respect" Judaism--but no more and no less than any other religion on the face of the earth, since they are all "equally valid." Why in the world would Orthodox Jews want to encourage such an erroneous attitude?

And this serves as a useful segueway to my final point, which is that Orthodox Jews have no business promoting "tolerance" in the first place, and for a very good reason: Orthodox Jews are Monotheists (indeed, the only true Monotheists), and Monotheism is the antithesis of "tolerance." A "monotheist" who advocates "tolerance" as the supreme virtue is like a square circle--a contradiction in terms. If it's tolerance you want, then I have the perfect solution for you: polytheism. It's the most tolerant religion in the world! The rabbi I mentioned at the beginning of this vanity points out in his videos that until chr*stianity arose there was no "anti-Semitism" in the modern sense of the word and that the ancient world, with some exceptions, was very "tolerant" of Jews. But the ancient world was polytheistic! Of course when non-Jews abandoned polytheism for a watered-down monotheism they became intolerant. Monotheism teaches that G-d is a Jealous G-d, not a "tolerant G-d!" For any Jew to proclaim in one breath that the essence of Judaism is undying warfare against polytheism and in the next that Judaism teaches tolerance of all other faiths is to flatly contradict oneself. If Jews want a tolerant world, Jews should drop Monotheism at once and become crusaders for the restoration of ancient polytheism.

I would like to make just one more point. It is often pointed out that Judaism teaches that "the righteous of the nations have a portion in the World To Come," but this is grossly misunderstood. The "righteous of the nations," objectively speaking, are observant Noachides, not "all good people regardless of what they believe." Once again, this is objectively speaking. Subjectively speaking, only G-d alone can judge the heart of each individual and know whether that person would be an observant Noachide if he understood this to be G-d's Will. However, speaking objectively again, all non-Jews are commanded to relinquish all false religions (including "monotheistic" ones like chr*stianity and islam) and accept and abide by the Seven Noachide Commandments and all their implications (with repentance always available for our failures, thank G-d!). So once again Judaism, while it does not and has never sought to make Jews out of all humanity (the Jews are a small chosen nation), are nevertheless commanded to "compel"--not "suggest," but compel--all mankind to abandon their false "gxds" and their idols and accept HaShem and His Laws. So much for "the righteous of the nations have a portion in the World To Come" making this unnecessary.

In closing, I apologize for my often blunt and corrective language in addressing Orthodox Jewish FReepers who for the most part are not guilty of the things I wish to correct, but as the case of the pious rabbi I mentioned illustrates, even the most understanding of Torah Jews do not truly understand the Fundamentalist Protestants because they do not share their worldview. I have elucidated that worldview to the best of my poor ability not to proselytize for it (G-d forbid!) but to make it better understood so that its adherents may be better apprised of their true duties to G-d and be liberated from all false and erroneous religious doctrines.

>They don’t understand that G-d, by His Blessed Will, intentionally created this lowest of all worlds with all its imperfections (even before the sin in the Garden). They have never heard of the first sin in history being committed by the ground before man was even created, or of the envy of the moon, or that HaShem Himself mandated a “sin offering” in His own behalf for having reduced the moon. They do not understand that G-d created the yetzer hara` and placed it within Adam before the commandment not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge had even been given.<

Thank God they are “Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.” (Titus 1:14)

From the Babylonian Talmud comes these warnings about demons, sex, and epileptic children (most from http://www.seekgod.ca/embracnotal.htm)

Gittin 70a “On coming from a privy (outdoor toilet) a man should not have sexual intercourse till he has waited long enough to walk half a mile, because the demon of the privy is with him for that time; if he does, his children will be epileptic.”

Gittin 69a To heal his flesh a Jew should take dust that lies within the shadow of an outdoor toilet, mix with honey and eat it.

Gittin 69b. To heal the disease of pleurisy (”catarrh”) a Jew should “take the excrement of a white dog and knead it with balsam, but if he can possibly avoid it he should not eat the dog’s excrement as it loosens the limbs. (Michael A. Hoffman II & Alan R. Critchley)

b. Erubuin 18b: Rabbi Jeremia ben Eleazer said, “During those years (after their expulsion from the Garden) in which Adam, the first man Was separated from Eve, he became the father of ghouls and demons and lilin.” Rabbi Meir said, “Adam, the first man, being very pious and finding that he has caused death to come into the world, sat fasting for 130 years, and separated himself from his wife for 130 years, and wore fig vines for 130 years. His fathering of evil spirits, referred to here, came as a result of wet dreams.”

Shab. 151b states:

” One may not sleep alone in a house, for Lilith takes hold of whoever sleeps alone in the house.”

Baba Bathra 73-b continues with:

Rabba bar bar Hana said, “I once saw Hormin, a son of Lilith, running on the battlements of Mahoza…. When the demonic government heard of it, they killed him [for showing himself].”

Yebamoth 63a. States that Adam had sexual intercourse with all the animals in the Garden of Eden.

God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam-being already like a twenty-year-old man-felt jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: ‘Every creature but I has a proper matel’, and prayed God would remedy this injustice. Gen. Rab. 17.4; B. Yebamot 632.

More on lilith here: http://gnosis.org/lilith.htm

Chullin 59b exists as a discussion about a giant deer and a giant lion which are both originated in a mythical forest called “Dvei Ilai”. The deer is called “keresh”. The lion, called “tigris”, is said to be so big that there is space of 9 feet between the lobes of his lung. The Roman Caesar Hadrian once asked a Rabbi to show him this lion, since every lion can be killed, but the Rabbi refused and pointed out that this is not a normal lion. The Roman Caesar insisted, so the Rabbi called for the lion of “Dvei Ilai”. He roared once from a distance of 400 amot and all the city walls of Rome tumbled down.

Sanhedrin 90a

mishnah. all Israel have a portion in the world to come,29 for it is written, thy people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever,death is not real (385, 388)

“Sanhedrin 90a. Those who read the New Testament (”uncanonical books”) will have no portion in the world to come.” http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_90.html

I try not to comment on religious threads, but I’m sure ZC will engage you. I obviously don’t accept the Christian concept of original sin, and don’t know what the Rabbi’s case is regarding Christians. While I understand the concept if the conclusion is that support for Israel shouldn’t be accepted from Christians I doubt I would agree, but if it’s on the web a link might be interesting to read. IMO that’s a secular rather than religious issue.

Please forgive this tardy reply.

The purpose of my vanity was not a political issue at all (Fundamentalist chr*stians who support Israel), but to deal with the fact that such people find themselves partly in two religions and fully belonging to neither. As a result they have a deep and sincere love for Jews and Israel that even apparently the most "fundamentalist" Orthodox Jew simply cannot understand or appreciate. For this reason I sought, as best as my poor ability could allow, to explain Fundamentalist Protestant theology to Orthodox Jews so they would see that FP's "harsh" views about the damnation of all "non-chr*stians" ("non-chr*stians" meaning all those who never received the "vaccination," not necessarily those who practice chr*stianity or are part of chr*stian culture) are actually, from their perspective, quite logical and held without a shred of hatred for anyone.

I no longer share the chr*stian religious views of Fundamentalist Protestants but ethnoculturally I shall always be one of them, and I am very hurt and disappointed that the FP understanding of a "lost" world out of which only certain individuals (those who take advantage of the "vaccination") are saved is so misunderstood by even the most traditional Orthodox Jews as "hatred."

Unfortunately, even the most right wing Orthodox Jews sound like liberals when they talk about chr*stianity. Let's face it, for right wing Jews, chr*stianity is communism (the Ultimate Enemy). The obsession with chr*stian "intolerance" and its soteriology--however "harsh" it may be--is standing in the way of cooperation between the two groups on important common goals.

Having once been a Fundamentalist Protestant I simply do not and cannot share the antipathy Jews have for their religious beliefs. (They think I'm going to "hell?" Big whoop!) That Orthodox Jews who are even to the Right of Fundamentalist Protestants on some issues (the truth of midrashim, geocentrism, etc.) continue to line up with the Left because of an antipathy to chr*stian soteriology is short-sighted doing incredible damage to our common causes.

Wake up, Israel. It doesn't matter where members of false religions think you're going after you die. Stop obsessing on it while the world is burning down around you. That is my message. I am sorry if I failed to communicate it properly.

I think there are a couple of 'views' in this. One are those Jews that just want to 'be' tolerant. Whatever religion anyone wants to practice is ok with them. Then there are those that don't try to convert anyone and don't want anyone trying to convert them and to them chr*stianity IS the ultimate enemy.

Having said that, in one of my previous posts I posted an excerpt from the council of Nicea with very derogatory comments about Jews. After having seen that I had asked my mom if she recalled any of the priests or nuns expressing those types of views when she was going to the catholic schools and she told me 'yes'.

There are probably several generations that got raised with that type of mindset.

For the most part, as an adult I haven't heard people say that Jews were more evil than others, but, I have heard people say that the Jews were cursed because they were hard headed and too stubborn to accept j*sus.

I'm pretty sure that you have already read 'The Path of the Righteous Gentile', but here are a couple of excerpts for those that haven't:

16. It is idolatry to consume a food or a drink with the idea that it is the substance of a god and that the person consuming them is therefore assimilating the substance of the god into his own being. (Note: The Children of Noah have historically fallen into idolatrous practices because of a lack of discernment between Elokah and Elokut, God and Godliness. One can say that all of creation is Godly because it all contains God's life force, but to say that anything of creation is God is idolatry.)

27. The three chief idolatrous images in the world are:

a. The dragon, which is a derivative of the primordial serpent.[32]

b. A full figure of a man offering the beholder something from the palm of his hand.[33] (This image is commonly found today in front of certain churches.)[34]

c. A woman nursing an infant. This is the idolatrous perversion of Eve, the mother of all mankind. It became the symbol of the queen of heaven and is an image that still pervades numerous cultures and religions.[35]

(Note: There is an idolatrous group in Jerusalem that brings tourists to its house of worship. The door leading to the room where the idol is kept is extremely low so that anyone entering the room has to bend down to enter, thus forcing each tourist who enters to appear as if he or she were bowing to the idol.)

There's more of course, some pertaining to priests wearing crosses, but, I think we can see why some people might just choose to avoid as much contact as possible.

Understood. But these same people will get involved with liberal chr*stians and Roman Catholics. For some reason the most Biblically-oriented and perhaps least idolatrous of all chr*stians are alone not to be touched with a ten foot pole.

I'm not so sure that they are. As I mentioned earlier I think there are multiple factions and probably more than the two I mentioned and I suppose their 'lines' may blur depending on the issue at hand.

I see little reason for continuing the argument, but I am referring to Jews--including, unfortunately, Orthodox Jews--whose only concern in "tolerance"--a characteristic not in line with the basis of Monotheism to begin with. Such people will cooperate with and heap praises on the most idolatrous and most anti-Biblical chr*stians for no other reason than that they don't believe they are "going to hell" and don't proselytize. One would think that after all Jews have been through the past two millenia a tract under a windshield wiper or a drawled "er you SAVED???" would rank way down on the "things I never want to happen" list.

There are some 'chr*stians' that don't consider other factions part of 'chr*stianity' and condemn them to hell.

Those "intolerant" factions of chr*stianity are much more consistent than the "tolerant" ones. What's the point of "overthrowing" the Torah (G-d forbid!) if you're not going to require everyone to convert to the religion that "overthrew" it (G-d forbid!)?

First of all, we don't know what they are thinking. We can only go by their actions. I don't see it as much different that those that claim to be devout chr*stians but vote for or align themselves with pro abort candidates or other views that are denounced in the Hebrew Scriptures.

I guess that is why we are each responsible for our own souls. You can't make somebody feel or think something that is not in their heart/soul.

G-d knows who His children are and will deal with the others in due time.

No amount of finger pointing is going to matter. G-d is the One and He will decide who did what right and who didn't. jmo

Who was Jesus Christ? How do you describe his character and nature?

I'll take a try at this.

We are told that j*sus is a prophet: Matthew 13: 57, Matthew 21:11, Matthew 21:46, Luke 13:33, Luke 24:19, John 6:14, Acts3:22, Acts 7:37

We are told that j*sus is a MAN: John 8:40, Act 2:22

We are explicitly told that he is a man, and a prophet. j*sus never explicitly says that he is G-d. Why do people accept vague verses over explicit statements?

If there were ever a place for him to explicitly state that he was G-d, it would have been in John 8:40, but he doesn't, because he was not G-d.

John 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God:

Some theories suggest that j*sus was a compilation of several people over time. If he did exist, then he was most likely a prophet, a G-dfearing man sent by G-d to try and get Jews/Israelites that were assimilated into other cultures through capitivity and marriage and gone after the false religions of other cultures with their various traditions, and bring them back to the religion that G-d gave humanity after the flood and reiterated at Sinai. The very religion that j*sus was taught, lived by and tried to teach to others.

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