# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 249
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5263 "2025-06-22T17:17:36Z")
Unsolicited advice duly noted - and ignored. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5264 "2025-06-22T17:19:48Z")
Well, in that case, what is the long lost true meaning of anti-Semite? Please, dig deeper! ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5265 "2025-06-22T17:24:59Z")
A person who harbors hatred toward Jews - I don’t. The problem, as I see it, is that Israel’s supporters - Jewish, Evangelicals, or other - have weaponized the word to mean criticism of Israel. I realize many will say that some criticism of Israel is ‘over the top’, but that comes with the territory when my tax dollars help underwrite genocide - and now illegal war, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5266 "2025-06-22T17:29:16Z")
> [@natureboy](#): > > The problem, as I see it, is that Israel’s supporters - Jewish, Evangelicals, or other - have weaponized the word to mean criticism of Israel. Yes, they have and you attacking “God’s chosen people” as your stand-in for Israel is giving them the ammunition they need to do it. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5267 "2025-06-22T17:35:25Z")
Zionists backing Israel’s brutal genocide and illegal wars (and getting us sucked into a much broader and more disastrous war in their service) don’t really care what we say or how we say it; they will find their reasons and justifications to satisfy their bloodlust, and they will viciously slander those who oppose them. The only people who care are hypersensitivity word nannies like you all, and I think that, fortunately, most people are beyond done with this shit. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5268 "2025-06-22T17:54:08Z")
Your comments yesterday were flat out Jew Hatred. No, I’m not hypersensitive. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5269 "2025-06-22T17:58:49Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > you attacking “God’s chosen people” as your stand-in for Israel I read it as he was parodying some of the U.S. defense of Israeli aggression. > [@natureboy](#): > > Did we or did we not have a US Senator in an interview this week talk about a duty to protect Israel? Because God or something? Surely he’s not the only Senator/Congressman, either. > **[Ted Cruz cites Genesis 12:3 as 'personal motivation' for supporting Israel in...](https://www.christianpost.com/news/ted-cruz-cites-genesis-123-for-support-of-israel.html)** > > Tucker Carlson and Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas, exploded in a fiery exchange over theology, foreign policy and national priorities in a Wednesday interview after Cruz appeared to equate biblical Israel ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5270 "2025-06-22T18:03:00Z")
You may or may not hate Jews, but you did use anti-semitic tropes (like the “God’s chosen people” nonsense); it’s entirely possible to criticize the state of Israel and its government without using such tropes. I’ve done it many times (here’s an example – the present government of Israel is, functionally speaking, by its actions and policies in the West Bank and Gaza, an ally of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, as well as far-right extremist settlers like Daniella Weiss, in the “forever bloodshed” party, taking no significant action to advance the cause of long-term peace and security but much action to continue and even escalate the status-quo level of vitriol and violence in the region). You should take heed and remove those sorts of tropes and language from your criticism. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5271 "2025-06-22T18:50:43Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > but you did use anti-semitic tropes (like the “God’s chosen people” nonsense); Not to derail a well deserved pitting, but it is MY people - the Catholics - who are god’s chosen people. Just ask Peter, Jesus’s fav disciple. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5272 "2025-06-22T19:08:15Z")
I feel like the story of Catholicism is that initially God chose the Jews, and then he sent his son to spread his grace to all people, in a catholic (small c) away. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5273 "2025-06-22T19:10:50Z")
I’m atheist, but my family would all-caps “CATHOLIC” if they could. My uncle, for example, is a high ranking Jesuit. ETA, I think I get what you mean by small-caps “catholic”; it is just not a descriptive I ever use. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5274 "2025-06-22T20:40:59Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I read it as he was parodying some of the U.S. defense of Israeli aggression. So did I. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5275 "2025-06-22T21:40:37Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > It was just that quote. I’m not very familiar with poster, and i found it shocking and uncomfortable. Ditto. (I’m also a secular Jew.) The poster’s saying they’re told they mustn’t ever criticize Jews, while claiming this interferes with their ability to criticize people favoring current Israeli government behavior. The two groups are not the same. The heavyhanded repeated emphasis on “chosen people” makes it worse. (FWIW, what the Jews were supposed to have been chosen for was to follow the specific set of religious commandmants. Not to be uncriticizable.) > [@Miller](#): > > It’s certainly _logically_ possible for a person to hate “all Israelis” without hating “all Jews.” But let’s be real: in the Venn diagram of those two populations, the “hates all Israelis” circle is entirely inside the “hates all Jews” circle And it probably means “all Jewish Israelis”. It probably doesn’t include Muslim and Christian and other non-Jewish Israelis. Or else the person who hates “all Israelis” either doesn’t know such people exist, or assumes they’re not actually Israelis. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > it’s entirely possible to criticize the state of Israel and its government without using such tropes Yup. It’s done all the time. Including by Israeli Jews. There have been quite a few public demonstrations. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5276 "2025-06-22T22:42:24Z")
> [@natureboy](#): > > I think context matters - I was pretty clearly referring to Israel and supporters of Israel. I mean, yeah, it’s a Jewish state, as it was conceived and created (through violence, I would add). I can’t change facts, no matter how much you want me to. I wasn’t referring to all Jews the world over. “God’s chosen people” doesn’t refer to Israel and supporters of Israel. It refers to Jews. If you don’t want people to think you’re referring to all Jews the world over, you should avoid doing so. And you can perfectly well call out what Israel is doing, just not in a breaking news thread, and not in a way that seems to be aimed at another poster. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5277 "2025-06-22T23:05:34Z")
I’ve already covered this. Not doing it again. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5278 "2025-06-22T23:06:17Z")
Thank you ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5279 "2025-06-22T23:22:10Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > > > The idea of Jews being God’s chosen people is an article of religious faith, just like the resurrection of Jesus. > > The idea of anything being an “article of religious faith” in the Christian sense is fundamentally foreign to Judaism. Okay, this seems like a technical point, and further exploration may be a hijack, but if you feel like it, I would be interested to read a summary of the difference(s) between the kinds of religious faith of, say, Moses and Isaac, as distinct from, say, Peter and Paul, and how that difference pertains to my point. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5280 "2025-06-22T23:35:27Z")
Judaism is primarily about what you do, and Jews rarely care about what people believe. I know Orthodox Jews who don’t believe in God. They don’t go around announcing it at synagogue, but they make no secret of it. They say their prayers, and keep kosher, and keep the Sabbath, and are fully accepted by other Orthodox Jews. So there’s no such thing as an “article of faith” to Jews the way there is to Christians. And we never talk about “faith”. We talk about religious practice. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5281 "2025-06-22T23:51:57Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > So there’s no such thing as an “article of faith” to Jews the way there is to Christians. And we never talk about “faith”. We talk about religious practice. Christians have a dichotomy of Faith and Good Works. Jews have a similar dichotomy in the Four Species of Sukkot, and one part of the dichotomy does correspond to “Good Works”; but the other side of the coin isn’t _faith_, it’s _Torah study_. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/5282 "2025-06-23T02:30:32Z")
Thank you for the explanation (as far as it goes, I still have a lot of questions, I guess I need to do some reading about this). I think the general discussion about natureboy has passed well beyond my original objection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=248) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=250)