“The Jewish people”

[Matthew]

reporting such things, as in the above posts, constitutes the crime of hate-speech, for which cause the Euphrosynos Cafe could be both shut down and charged with heavy fines or the site's owners and operators could even potentially be awarded jail terms

If this is true Symeon, why do the authorities not shut down the sites where these things are freely available already or put the owners of those sites in jail?

There is no statute of limitations on these violations of law. Politically, governments have often written into law things that are only enforced when the society has been brought to the place where they will not revolt when the laws are enforced.

For example, the bible in Canada is legally hate speech because it contains texts that are considered to incite hatred against homosexuals. The commandment to stone homosexuals in the old testament, and in the new where St Paul calls homosexuals depraved and worthy of DEATH:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold [back] the truth in unrighteousness... Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves... For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which is meet.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are WORTHY OF DEATH, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" (Rom. 1:18, 24, 26-32).

Just because they don't bang down your door and cuff you within 24 hours doesn't mean they are not ever going to use this to shut a website down, or fine them out of existence, or even impose prison sentence and convict people running this forum of being supporters of disseminating hate speech. In any case, we are not allowed to post such long quotes and NadirGeneralPractioner is posting. Jonathan told me not to do that in the past. I assume we all have to obey that.

[NadirGP]

Nadir,

It's one thing to write about this from a worldly perspective, but when you list the saints and what they wrote as if they are hating the Jews then you are out of line. They spoke out for the sake of truth, but not with hatred. How can God accept them as saints if they have hatred in their hearts? That's the first thing that keeps us far from God. They were writing or speaking in their time, but we read it in our time and it's a different effect. You need to read it in the context of what was happening at the time. That's the problem with people who try to interpret writings with their own views, their interpretations are always wrong.

And this thread is for Orthodox discussions, not political polemics. If you're looking for a sympathetic ear of hatred then it doesn't belong in these threads.

joasia,

I posted what the Church Fathers say about the Jews, just as they come in print in the books and from the internet. There is no hatred there, as you said there is, nor is in myself. You read them – and me - wrongly, because you are projecting on the Fathers of Church what is not there.

[Maria]

This is the Controversial Political and Social Issues, so political and controversial issues can be discussed here.

In fact, this is a very good place for such discussions as they are private and can be educational and fruitful. However, we must remember to discuss the truth in love.

Instead of condemning Nadir for his viewpoints, help him understand why St. John Chrysostom and other Church Fathers wrote what they did. What was happening politically, socially, and religiously that caused them to make their remarks?

My understanding was that it was a thread for the true Orthodox members at the time that it was created; things that could be discussed privately. I didn't think non-Orthodox would be given free reign. And I'm not condemning him...I'm voicing my Orthodox opinion. He makes the holy saints sound like hate-mongers and that I will not accept. He's viewing things with his own perspective and I don't agree with it.

Yes, this thread is for True Orthodox to interact with Nadir, and while he created this thread, it becomes our E Cafe thread, so no one should dominate it.

Certainly Nadir is viewing things from his own perspective as he is not a member of a True Orthodox jurisdiction. Therefore, it our responsibility to voice our concerns and prove to him that St. John Chrysostom was not anti-Semitic (that is a new political term anyway).

[NadirGP]

If you want to talk to me, in a decent way, of course, and not in way you are doing to me now, that is, as a troll,

Why would you say that? She's been here longer than you. You've posted only for a month.

Joasia,

So because Lydia has longer standing with this forum she is allowed to give me name of bigot; but I am not allowed to say she is a troll – after she labels me a bigot, merely because I publish the truth.
Now, tell me, is this all about trying to have this thread locked?

[Maria]

Lydia wrote:

Well said, Symeon, I agree with you whole-heartedly.
I think it is pointless to confront such bigotry. That the sources which Nadir references have been thoroughly discredited doesn't seem to matter. Shahak fabricated much of his "information." And for a Roman Catholic to rely on the judgment of a homosexual, atheist and convicted libeler as Gore Vidal is simply shameful.

Lydia,
Apart from Gore Vidal – who is not even the real author of the book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3,000 Years, but Israel Shahak is – are also Arthur Koestler, Benjamin H. Freedman, Harold Wallace Rosenthal, Israel Adam Shamir, and Jack Berstein to be dismissed only because, all of them told things that you and Symeon don’t like to hear?

As for ‘Shahak fabricated much of his "information."’ Documentation, please.
Who is the bigot here, you or them?
Nadir

Nadir, calm down.

Lydia did not call you a bigot. This is what she said, "I think it is pointless to confront such bigotry."
An ad hominem attacks the member. She was attacking what she perceives to be bigotry in the material you had copied.

Your question, "Who is the bigot here, you or them?" is also not an ad hominem as it is a question, not a declarative statement.

However, we all must be careful when posting not to imply that someone is a bigot.

Maria
E. Cafe Moderator

[Maria]

If you want to talk to me, in a decent way, of course, and not in way you are doing to me now, that is, as a troll,

Why would you say that? She's been here longer than you. You've posted only for a month.

Joasia,

So because Lydia has longer standing with this forum she is allowed to give me name of bigot; but I am not allowed to say she is a troll – after she labels me a bigot, merely because I publish the truth.
Now, tell me, is this all about trying to have this thread locked?

No one is allowed to call another either a "troll" or a "bigot." Those are fighting terms and ad hominems.

Little children, love one another.

[Matthew]

Here is what our Holy Father among the Saints, Saint Isaac the Syrian would say to admonish us in well doing rather than this unedifying discussion that does NOT honour God:

Blessed is the man who has kept well this good seed once it has fallen into his soul, and has given it increase, and has not lost it by scattering it in vain concerns and in the distractions of transient and fleeting things! But to our God be glory unto the ages. Amen.

---conclusion of Homily 49, p.240; The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, HTM Press, 1984.