There is NO SUCH THING as the Holy Land

[mopaul]

god NEVER gave any land to anyone, ever.

[Connie_Corleone]

1. Some "Holy Land"...

It's about one of the most violent areas in the world.

[aquart]

2. Speak for yourself. I got a covenant.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

22. Unless it's a legal one, that and $3.00 will get you a coffee at Starbucks

[autorank]

3. Amen

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Actually, it's the Promised Land

and if god promised the me a scrap of desert without any oil in a sea of oil, I think I would go shopping for a new god. The god of the Jews apparently wasn't doing them any favors.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. "I know we're the chosen people,

but couldn't you once choose someone else?"

'Tevye' - Shalom Aleichem

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. You see Moses slurs, he really intended to say CANADA

but all he came up with was Ca'Naan

[jobycom]

5. No, god was too busy giving America to the white people.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. What about Holy Mineral Rights?

[toey]

14. my first thought was...

Holy mineral rights, batman! lol

[wtbymark]

7. The only thing 'holy' is my jeans (nt)

[Village Idiot]

8. Hmmmmmm... Deuteronomy, anyone?

Deut 7:1 "When the Lord brings you into the Promised Land, as he soon will, he will destroy the following seven nations, all greater and mightier than you are: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites.

Deut 9:1 "O Israel, listen! Today you are to cross the Jordan River and begin to dispossess the nations on the other side. Those nations are much greater and more powerful than you are! They live in high walled cities. Among them are the famed Anak giants, against whom none can stand! 3 But the Lord your God will go before you as a devouring fire to destroy them, so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out.

Deut 9:5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deut 11:23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. 24 Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea. 25 No man will be able to stand against you. The LORD your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.

Deuteronomy 17:1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and bigger than you-- 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

On edit...darn - "Deuteronomy" is HARD to spell!!!

[I concur]

12. Weren't the Children of Israel supposed...

...perform a "Herron," IOW utterly destroy (men, women, children, animals) all before them to purify the land? Instead, booty was taken. Conquered men were enslaved, women became concubines for the victors.

[Jacobin]

18. That doesn't read like a land deed to me.

It reads like some gibberish from 2000 years ago, edited by monks, changed by Anglo Kings, and now bound in gold for people to worship in an unthinking way.

"Religion--It's What's Wrong With the World"

[aquart]

23. Land deed? Filed in what county courthouse?

You're actually comparing apples and oranges. International law functions differently from national law.

[bryant69]

9. OK.

But, in my humble opinion, a more accurate descripition would be to say that all land is holy.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Lexingtonian]

11. All of the Earth

contains the Holy. Our work is to discover, and recover, that...which lies within us more than externally, actually. But both parts are necessary.

For some of us, human memory ties one particular discovery/recovery/struggle with that to a little strip of land on the edges of the Arabian desert. In and on the edges of the desert- the Wilderness- is where people feel the problem most acutely, historically have the least in the way of distractions from it.

It's easy to discount the problem when you start from an assumption of materialism, or that people only act according to material needs/concerns. Distinct from the 'Israeli'/'Palestinian' competion for the land, to peoples of the West and Middle East the problem of The Holy Land is an argument about the form and content of human Imagination and all we know about it from experience, theory, and its own reports.

The issue at stake in The Holy Land is not God. At stake is the idea of bound-ness to the infinite power and humanly deep connection to the organized Dream of Man that appears to lie beyond the individual imagination. The power Within that ultimately gives the world meaning and order to the individual mind. The thing that, when lived, we (used to) call Covenant in its daily aspect and Creative Imagination in its rarer aspect.

And if you are careful about it, Biblically the Israelites are only 'given' the land on condition of living to be an exemplary people, i.e. stewardship, and the condition is later fully explained as becoming a 'people of priests'. Priests don't treat land as extensions of their egos or ids, as farmers and real estate owners do. Priests treat land as Earth on lease from God and only the parts of Earth really matter to which great events of spiritual importance- compelling portions of collective memory- attach. The Biblical claim is one of the mass of land being arbitrary in ownership etc so long as the difficulties don't hamstring or morally compromise the social project and even the holy sites, strictly speaking, aren't owned by anyone in a material sense. The Biblical charter is for a society and a societal ideal, not a colonial project. Despite peoples' historical misreading of it as something closer to their petty desires, just as Republicans imagine the federal Constitution to still be the Confederate one.

[Jacobin]

13. THANK YOU

I'm sick of theocracies, theocrats, and any whack job druid freakazoid who plays politics with his mysticism

[Endangered Specie]

15. Youd think that a people who were brutally massacred

because they were in the way of the promised land of another group (leibensraum) would not take it upon themselves to oppress others using a remarkably similiar superior/inferior viewpoint.

Well, actually, that happens all the time in human history... not much has really changed.

[ohio_liberal]

17. Ah, that is good, very good

Do you mind if I use that in an ongoing discussion?

[Endangered Specie]

21. No problem with me...

the oppressed becoming the oppressor is one of the most common themes in history, right up there with genocide (so much for "never again").

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. War: A Force taht Gives us Meaning

that should be required readying to understand the psycology.

Taht said for some of us never again has meaning, and we are doing all we can to stop it AGAIN, becaseu of Family History... I finally understood why when I read that book.

[ohio_liberal]

16. This confuses the hell out of me

I'm not a follower of the Bible. My fundie Democrat neighbor (Yes, there actually are Fundie Democrats!) believes very strongly that the Israelites are the chosen ones, and anything that Israel does to it's neighbors is A-OK because the 'Holy Land' belongs to them. I haven't actually talked much about it to her, but I believe she also feels that God smiles on the USA because we help Israel.

It doesn't make a bit of sense to me. And believe me I've tried to understand it.

[mopaul]

20. don't try to make sense of it, it's pointless

odd how the human mind works

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Ok let me quote, or rather paraphrase

Teive the Milkman, "If you chose us Oh Lord, how about choosing somebody else for a little while?"


(Fidler on the Roof: that line is missed by anybody but Jews)

[dave29]

19. property in general is without merit

it is only little pieces of paper we give value, and "civilization" that allows us to pretend we are masters of the dirt we stand on

[OrlandoGator]

27. Bullshit! It's a theme park in Orlando!

http://www.theholylandexperience.com/

[Ladyhawk]

28. Hot damn! Do they pass out AK-47's and plastic explosives? n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. I thought I had seen it all

their store is even scarier than ... the park itself... the fourth Reight, true title for sale...

[OrlandoGator]

30. The best part is the Roman centurions who play with your kids.

You know, like the ones who tortured Jesus to death.

[Moderator]

31. Locking

Flamebait.

DU Moderator