Is Israel the West?

[Idolater]

Some pertinent threads

Support Israel?

Right Divider sent me this link (thank you): https://graceambassadors.com/prophecy/conflict-in-israel-and-gods-blessing "This imbalanced response by America’s churches is largely due to a failure to rightly divide the word of God. Israel is mentioned over 2,600 times in the Bible, and it is...

theologyonline.com

Hamas or Israel?

It's been a world-wide divisive subject and I haven't seen much talk about it here at TOL. Protests and riots have broken out over it. So I'll say right up front that if Hamas and Israel go to war I will be cheering for Israel to dislodge Hamas as quickly as they can.

theologyonline.com

Israel (the modern country)

In the news this morning 😥 https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-latest-hamas-fighters-on-the-ground-after-5-000-rockets-fired-jerusalem-attacks-gaza-strip-targets-and-calls-up-reserves-12978800

theologyonline.com

Israel is the West according to American foreign policy, which is why we're warring with Iran rn. But almost none of our allies are helping, which means Israel is NOT the West to them. So which is right? America? or basically Europe? Are we leading? or is Europe leading, and Americans are just naive country bumpkins?

I actually think it's a question worth asking, because is Israel rn or in the future going to be, a true Western civilization and society? or is it going to be like India and Muslim countries, where there is no separation between the religious and the secular (a separation which only developed outta the Latin Western Church)? This is a defining feature of the modern Christian West.

India is Hindu, and Israel would be a Jewish state, not ethnically, but religiously, if it's not the West. But if Israel defends a separation between the secular and the religious, then I think it counts as Western, and our engagement with them against Iran is justified.

 

[Idolater]

Because they're thinking about, "Is Israel the West?" If not—then what are we doing? But if so? Then as Congressman Crenshaw said, this war with Iran was inevitable. Iran's most definitely NOT the West, and it's been clamoring for war with Israel for decades, licking its chops. It was bound to come to war at some point, and President Trump decided, better to take care of the festering problem now.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Israel is the West according to American foreign policy, which is why we're warring with Iran rn. But almost none of our allies are helping, which means Israel is NOT the West to them. So which is right? America? or basically Europe? Are we leading? or is Europe leading, and Americans are just naive country bumpkins?

Politics isn't real. That being said, Europe's take on foreign policy will never align 1 to 1 with American foreign policy, because America is in no danger of a ground invasion and it never has been. Germany is running the show in the EU, and it's only about a 12 hour drive from Berlin to the front line in Ukraine. I think most Americans do not realize that. Yet it is the Europeans who are the "naive country bumpkins" these days. Most of them couldn't even tell you what is going on in their own country. The men spend their breaktimes at work, mostly talking about other peoples hair.

I actually think it's a question worth asking, because is Israel rn or in the future going to be, a true Western civilization and society? or is it going to be like India and Muslim countries, where there is no separation between the religious and the secular (a separation which only developed outta the Latin Western Church)? This is a defining feature of the modern Christian West.

You can forget about the "modern Christian West". The modern Christian West has failed. While Christians in Iran were fighting in the streets, Americans were busy trying to figure out if they should cut the genitals off of their own male children and turn them in to girls. We dropped the ball, but it's not too late for us to help the Christians in the East pick it up and run with it. And don't forget about Africa.

 

[Idolater]

Israel and the Christian West:

Polygamy is outlawed.
Rape is outlawed.
Murder is outlawed.
Slavery is outlawed.
Incest is outlawed.
There is a secular domain separate from any spiritual domain.
Pedophilia is outlawed.
Autocracy is outlawed.
Totalitarianism is outlawed.

Europe should be treating Israel like it's part of the Christian West because Israel is part of the Christian West. This list is not exhaustive. In fact I invite anyone to come and post other overlaps between the Christian West and Israel, which doesn't overlap with Islamism and whatever's going to happen in India as it continues the slow moving disaster of its decolonization back into the dark ages.

 

[Clete]

Israel and the Christian West:

Polygamy is outlawed.
Rape is outlawed.
Murder is outlawed.
Slavery is outlawed.
Incest is outlawed.
There is a secular domain separate from any spiritual domain.
Pedophilia is outlawed.
Autocracy is outlawed.
Totalitarianism is outlawed.

Europe should be treating Israel like it's part of the Christian West because Israel is part of the Christian West. This list is not exhaustive. In fact I invite anyone to come and post other overlaps between the Christian West and Israel, which doesn't overlap with Islamism and whatever's going to happen in India as it continues the slow moving disaster of its decolonization back into the dark ages.

This feels to me like a rather weird, forced and artificial distinction. Israel is not our ally because they are "western" but because their geopolitical interests align with our own. The sociopolitical similarities you've listed have to do with a shared history and worldview (a biblical worldview). This happens to coincide with a "Western" disposition but the point is that the "western" distinction came long after the biblical one. The degree to which nation states ally with one another isn't entirely disassociated with common geographical location (e.g. "the west) but it isn't even close to the deciding factor as WWI and WWII prove decisively. The major deciding factor, is worldview. The degree to which a society is based on a biblical worldview, is the degree to which it is likely to ally itself with other societies with similar worldview, and vise versa.

Incidentally, the most important distinction between the worldview of "the east" and "the west" has to do with individualism vs. communalism. In eastern societies one's family, race, tribe, religious sect and/or nationality define the individual. Whereas in western societies, the individual is the fundamental morally accountable unit, with rights and responsibilities that exist apart from any group identity. This distinction touches EVERYTHING else, which is why the left relentlessly attacks on that front. Everything they think or see or feel is interpreted through the filter of the collective. "The collective" can be almost anything, by the way. It's "Mother Russia" in Soviet Russia, or "das Volk" under Hitler's Germany or simply Islam in places like Iran.

This is why the left doesn't typically attack religion head on because once the individual is subordinated to the collective, it doesn't matter what defines that collective whether it be religion, race, class, nation, ideology or whatever. Once the individual is subordinated, the system becomes interchangeable. Change the banner, keep the structure. Change the name, keep the logic. Change the ideology, keep the outcome.

Thus, the reason Israel is hated by the rest of "the east" isn't because it's "western" but because it isn't Islamic. It isn't part of their collective and can never be so because their particular collective has as part of its defining characteristics, the required destruction of Israel and all that ally with her.

 

[Idolater]

Israel and the Christian West:

[Polygamy is outlawed. Rape is outlawed. Murder is outlawed. Slavery is outlawed. Incest is outlawed. There is a secular domain separate from any spiritual domain. Pedophilia is outlawed. Autocracy is outlawed. Totalitarianism is outlawed.]

Europe should be treating Israel like it's part of the Christian West because Israel is part of the Christian West.

Israel are ... Jewish Christians iow. I weighed putting the term in quotes, but I don't think that would clarify. They're Jewish people, in ethnicity, in religion/theology. But [they're] Christian in their values.

They're dormant Christians, to be sure, in that they don't believe in Christ, and don't go to Church, and many also don't really value all of Christian chastity (beyond the pertinent laws listed above). But, they do believe other distinctively and exclusively Christian values (the above being a limited list of these), and that's all we need for enduring World peace, and to be their strong allies.

They want to reserve their national sovereignty rather than surrender it like we Americans all have (our home states are not sovereign under our Constitution), which is what Canada, Japan, Australia, all of Europe, etc., all prefer to do, to the American Constitution. That can work, as long as those Christian values are there, and in Israel Christian values are there.

This list is not exhaustive. In fact I invite anyone to come and post other overlaps between the Christian West and Israel, which doesn't overlap with Islamism and whatever's going to happen in [India,] as it continues the slow moving disaster of its decolonization back into the dark ages.

Could India and Islamism also acquire and hold these values, like Japan and Taiwan have, without first converting to Christ? Apparently there are verifiable Western (Christian) Muslims who hold Christian (Western) values. Could this phenomenon spread?

 

[Right Divider]

Israel are ... Jewish Christians iow.

Where did you get that idea?

They're Jewish people, in ethnicity, in religion/theology. But their Christian in their values.

Where did you get that idea?

 

[Nick M]

Tucker Carlson is not on the right. I can give you names if you need help. He never has been, never will be.

 

[Nick M]

Where did you get that idea?

Very few are persuaded in terms of street interviews I see over there. As a percentage. The method is good, the blindness is not. Often Isaiah 53 is read. Often they say "That sounds like Jesus" "We don't believe the New Testament". Or something similar. I'll post 2 videos off the top of my head. They need to keep doing it.

I would call Israel western culture. Their gay pride parades are as bad as ours.

 

[Idolater]

Where did you get [the idea that Israel are Jewish Christians and that they're Christian in their values]?

I said they're dormant Christians, maybe "Honorary Christians" is a better term ( @VladtheDestroyer ), but they're not activated for Christ; except that "in Israel Christian values are there."

Murder
Rape
Slavery
Incest
Pedophilia
Polygamy
Human trafficking
Forced marriage
Cruel punishment
Autocracy and Totalitarianism

All these are bad and outlawed IN ISRAEL. These all being recognized as crimes, along with recognizing a secular domain separate from the spiritual domain, are all Christian values, and they exist in Israel.

Where did you get that idea?

I've been studying where we even got the idea of human rights for a while now, and it turns out, it all comes outta Christianity and the Church. And it's more than just human rights, it's all the above enumerated things, and more. That all comes from Christ, from the Church, from Christianity. The World was changed, and the modern nation of Israel was changed too.

(In spite of themselves. Unknowingly. They've deeply imbibed from the Christian spring. So they're not Christians, but they're not exactly brutish pagans either.)

 

[Idolater]

Very few are persuaded in terms of street interviews I see over there. As a percentage. The method is good, the blindness is not. Often Isaiah 53 is read. Often they say "That sounds like Jesus" "We don't believe the New Testament". Or something similar. I'll post 2 videos off the top of my head. They need to keep doing it.

You have to actually pull down their strongholds, you have to cast down what they think and believe, you have to kidnap their ideas and make them obey Christ. It's not enough to preach the Gospel to them, you have to dismantle and destroy what they hold dear.

I would call Israel western culture. Their gay pride parades are as bad as ours.

I don't want to say that it proves it, but it really does. Not because they don't outlaw faggotry, but because everybody can be a faggot in Israel, not just the rich and powerful, they were the only ones who got to be faggots in pagan antiquity, only if you were rich enough to own slave boys could you be a faggot in those days. Now, in the liberal, Christianized West, anybody gets to be a faggot. Equal rights for faggots in the West, and it's because of the West inheriting its values from Christ. It doesn't mean Christ approves of faggotry, He absolutely does not. But He also doesn't approve of only the very rich getting to be faggots either, and he doesn't approve of throwing faggots off tall buildings either. Those are Western values, that comes from Him.

He is the king of the World, so it makes sense that His values are going to show themselves.

 

[Right Divider]

I said they're dormant Christians, maybe "Honorary Christians" is a better term ( @VladtheDestroyer ), but they're not activated for Christ; except that "in Israel Christian values are there."

Murder
Rape
Slavery
Incest
Pedophilia
Polygamy
Human trafficking
Forced marriage
Cruel punishment
Autocracy and Totalitarianism

All these are bad and outlawed IN ISRAEL. These all being recognized as crimes, along with recognizing a secular domain separate from the spiritual domain, are all Christian values, and they exist in Israel.

So you're conflating nominal "Christian values" with "being Christian"... Typical confusion.

With your total lack of reasoning skills, I can see why you fall for the RCC.

 

[Idolater]

Tucker Carlson is not on the right. I can give you names if you need help. He never has been, never will be.

Tucker Carlson earns his money creating content. He gets more money when he gets more engagement. All content creators are in the same boat. Some like Tucker Carlson are leading the charge in following his audience wherever they might lead, especially and only if they lead him to more and more engagement because it translates to more and more money for him.

But there is a sin called coveting, and it means to sin in order that you get what you really really want. It means you want something, which is fine and OK, such as wanting more money, but it means you are willing to sin to get it. That's what coveting is, that's why coveting is in the Ten Commandments.

I'm not saying Tucker Carlson is coveting. I'm saying that's a temptation for content creators. We have a name for the coveters among content creators, they are the ones who produce smut. I don't see Tucker Carlson producing smut, so I can't say Tucker Carlson is coveting with much certitude. Maybe, maybe not, but only I think he can know that. Content creators who produce smut are definitely coveting though, even if they don't know it.

 

[Idolater]

This feels to me like a rather weird, forced and artificial distinction. Israel is not our ally because they are "western" but because their geopolitical interests align with our own.

But that's because they're Western.

The sociopolitical similarities you've listed have to do with a shared history and worldview (a biblical worldview). This happens to coincide with a "Western" disposition but the point is that the "western" distinction came long after the biblical one. The degree to which nation states ally with one another isn't entirely disassociated with common geographical location (e.g. "the west) but it isn't even close to the deciding factor as WWI and WWII prove decisively. The major deciding factor, is worldview. The degree to which a society is based on a biblical worldview, is the degree to which it is likely to ally itself with other societies with similar worldview, and vise versa.

You're just wanting to call what I call 'Christian', 'Biblical', and the reason you're doing it is strictly to contend with me, it's a stipulative definition, stipulating is a logical error. I'm calling our Western values Christian because they came outta Christ and the Church and Christianity, and not outta Israel or anything that preceded Israel. iow "Judeo-Christian" values is not a thing, there's just Christian values, and they are the hallmark of Western nations, like the United States and western Europe, but also yes, Australia, New Zealand, and even Japan and Taiwan and South Korea, so when I say West I just mean it the way everybody always means West, it doesn't necessarily mean you're in the actual West. And Israel is kind of right in the middle anyway, being in west Asia or as we call it the near or Middle East.

Incidentally, the most important distinction between the worldview of "the east" and "the west" has to do with individualism vs. communalism. In eastern societies one's family, race, tribe, religious sect and/or nationality define the individual. Whereas in western societies, the individual is the fundamental morally accountable unit, with rights and responsibilities that exist apart from any group identity. This distinction touches EVERYTHING else, which is why the left relentlessly attacks on that front. Everything they think or see or feel is interpreted through the filter of the collective. "The collective" can be almost anything, by the way. It's "Mother Russia" in Soviet Russia, or "das Volk" under Hitler's Germany or simply Islam in places like Iran.

Collectivism is really downstream of Christianity. You have to already have Christian values in place, such as codified rights, before collectivism can get a foothold. Before Christian values transform a culture and society into something we all would recognize and feel safe in, survival and avoiding becoming a slave and being a rape victim are your top priorities, you don't have time to try to organize a workers revolt or any such silly thing like that. Life was brutal before Christianity.

This is why the left doesn't typically attack religion head on because once the individual is subordinated to the collective, it doesn't matter what defines that collective whether it be religion, race, class, nation, ideology or whatever. Once the individual is subordinated, the system becomes interchangeable. Change the banner, keep the structure. Change the name, keep the logic. Change the ideology, keep the outcome.

Again the idea of subordinating the individual means at first the individual was sovereign. That is such a Christian idea. Individuals were nothing before the Church changed everything and invented the individual (Siedentop). This is the starting point in your argument, but it's only the conclusion of a Christianized and Churchified West. You're just skipping by that part and taking it for granted.

Thus, the reason Israel is hated by the rest of "the east" isn't because it's "western" but because it isn't Islamic. It isn't part of their collective and can never be so because their particular collective has as part of its defining characteristics, the required destruction of Israel and all that ally with her.

I believe I know some Western (dormant or honorary Christian) Muslims, who hold Christian values dear, even though they don't know they inherited these values from the Church and Jesus. So I distinguish between Islam and Islamism, the latter is a political ideology, and it is brutal and pagan, and not Western at all. Islamism and whatever's going on in India, which is trying to shed its Christian-donated values, and China, are all in some form against our values in the West.

 

[Idolater]

[Murder, Rape, Slavery, Incest, Pedophilia, Polygamy, Human trafficking, Forced marriage, Cruel punishment, Autocracy and Totalitarianism.

These all being recognized as crimes, along with recognizing a secular domain separate from the spiritual domain, are all Christian values, and they exist in Israel.]

The people who are against supporting Israel in our foreign policy all criticize our foreign policy as treating Israel like "the 51st State," but the reality is that ALL the West are the 51st State. We're going to treat the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Australia, and Israel etc. the same. Where any of them are in peril, we're going to come to their aid.

 

[Clete]

But that's because they're Western.

Way to ignore what I said. Brilliant!

You're just wanting to call what I call 'Christian', 'Biblical', and the reason you're doing it is strictly to contend with me,

Don't flatter yourself. My reasons have to do with accuracy. Jew are NOT Christian - period. Any third grade child can tell you that.

it's a stipulative definition, stipulating is a logical error.

You're stupid.

I'm calling our Western values Christian because they came outta Christ and the Church and Christianity, and not outta Israel or anything that preceded Israel.

Ignorant and stupid.

iow "Judeo-Christian" values is not a thing, there's just Christian values,

You don't get to redefine widely used words with totally intuitive and common meanings just because you want to.

and they are the hallmark of Western nations,

No, they absolutely are NOT!

Maybe try reading an actual history book or maybe just do a Google search before coming on here and displaying your ignorance for all to see.

like the United States and western Europe, but also yes, Australia, New Zealand, and even Japan and Taiwan and South Korea, so when I say West I just mean it the way everybody always means West, it doesn't necessarily mean you're in the actual West.

You are THE singular moron on planet Earth that would refer to Japan and Taiwan and South Korea as "the west". Those countries by themselves are enough to disprove your entire thesis!

And Israel is kind of right in the middle anyway, being in west Asia or as we call it the near or Middle East.

Thank you for conceding the whole entire point! Their alliance with the U.S. is not based on geography, nor has it ever been nor could it ever be.

Collectivism is really downstream of Christianity.

Blasphemy!

You have to already have Christian values in place, such as codified rights, before collectivism can get a foothold.

Okay, that's enough. I'm not reading another word. You're a waste of time.

Good bye.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

The people who are against supporting Israel in our foreign policy all criticize our foreign policy as treating Israel like "the 51st State," but the reality is that ALL the West are the 51st State. We're going to treat the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Australia, and Israel etc. the same. Where any of them are in peril, we're going to come to their aid.

Perhaps a better way of doing this would be for the US to deal directly with the Christian Church in each of these countries instead of their pagan/antichristian elected officials? If Israel wants millitary assistance from the US, we don't necessarily have to deal directly with Netanyahu, for example. We could offer our help through a church elder in Israel instead. This would help lift the Christian Church, while preserving the sovereignty of these nations at the same time as they would still be free to accept or offer or not.

Surly we could all agree with that?

 

[Nick M]

Tucker Carlson are leading the charge in following his audience

The audience changes when you do this.

 

[Nick M]

It's not enough to preach the Gospel to them

Just so you know, Paul is referring to Israel's rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ directly. It is the words of God directly that are to be used.

17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.