Yes Shirush I do object to being called a dumbass, and if my wife read the post she would haul off and bop you one, and believe me you do not want to mess with her, even less mess with her mother.

I know that in the local society I can be charged with sexual harassment if I say good morning to the secretary, but I don't see the connection between that and the behaviour of homo-sexuals (Benny Hill, Elton John, Cliff Richard, Oscar Wilde, Alan Turing?).  It is obvious that they arrange these parades simply to annoy those who are stupid enough to be annoyed by homosexuality.  If we accepted - by we I mean everyone, including religous nuts - homosexuality as just another unusual human trait, there wouldn't be gay parades, and the word gay would still mean "to be happy", fruits would grow only on trees, queer would equal odd,  fairies would belong in fairy tales, and a poof would be a leather seat shaped like a sack. "They only do it to annoy because they know it teases".  

I take ir back, I know you are not a religious, ethnic, or nationalist bigot, but I wouldn't have expected that kind of intolerance from an atheist.

 

What do you mean, you've never heard of Alan Turing?  All he did was invent modern computers.

As for the messianic beliefs.... sorry to let you know, but Judaism is congruent to the belief in the messiah, it was the first to create such an archetype and is the reason that the Jews didn't accept Jesus and assimilate b/c of its belief in a messiah that wasn't Jesus. The idea,  that those that have faith in the Torah are synonymous with crazy speaks of a secular fanaticism that is as ignorant as the fundamentalists you seek to repute.

I disagree. There's no mention of a Messiah anywhere in the Torah. The word ???? , which means "annointed" is used there to describe the Kings, as it was the custom in those days to spread some olive oil on a new king's body, WWF style, to make him look better for the TV cameras, or something like that.

The Messiah as we know it appears to be the brilliant invention (or Indian import) of the no less brilliant economist sent by King Cyrus of Persia to manage and supervise the re-building of the Temple and the re-establishment of a Jewish entity in the ME. There was much work to do, the conditions were harsh, the opposition fierce, and there was a pressing need to motivate the dispirited returnees and to give them hope of a brighter future.
This was around the 8^th century BC. The charismatic leader/prophet was Ezra, and the talented manager from Persia was Nehemyia.

It is therefore ALSO perfectly congruent with Judaism NOT to believe in any Messiah.
There is a body of messianic literature in Judaism, which any Jew is allowed to consider as folklore and storytelling, instead of interpreting every tradition as dogma as is customary in the sclerotized,  exctinctionistic circles of the (Modern) Orthodox.
Also, no Jew should be excused for overlooking the dangers of messianism: are'nt Shabtai Zvi, or what happened to the Jews every single time they (thought they) had gotten themselves a messiah, sufficiently convincing historical lessons for the Jews to be ever wary of eschatology?

Therefore, there is a good reason for the idea that faithful means crazy: we've seen their kind before on numerous occasions throughout at least 25 centuries of history, and this time we do not want to die because of their insanity, and are prepared to do something about it.

The yarn about Jews not accepting Jesus as a Messiah is also untrue: the first Christians were Jews in Eretz Israel. This has now been confirmed by archeology with the 2^nd century findings at Meggido.

 The secularists are right in one area though. Israel is of
necessity a warlike country and the exemptions from conscription are an
intolerable rift. Orthadox in Israel don't make a good light unto the
goyim that way. Now the  problems of superstrict  Kosher put
a kink in  logistics  but they are not insurmountable. 
The  exemption is an archaic concession meant to tie local
Orthadox to the Yishuv and it is past time it goes.

The obvious way is to allow them to serve in their own units as. As I
remember there is a battalion of Hassidics that does just that-and
endures both military and religious discipline at once, God bless them.
 

It isn't a surprise that you chose to take on the one point of religion in all the myriad of points I made. Religion, obviously being the one point that is most likely to get lost in translation. But if this is where we must contend for truth than let it be.

Yes, Jesus was Jewish, and yes saul is paul, and the earliest of followers were Jewish.... BUT, christianity did not become a significant belief in Jewish society at the time, it was a fringe society on the last breath of a Jewish nation-state. Christianity found its popularity as i'm sure you know in Europe and specifically when constantine converted. The point i was trying to make is that Jewish society in general-then as it does today rejected the notion of Jesus being the messiah. This single feature is what kept Jews in the beginning from mass conversion  as well as in the last 2000 yrs since. That singular belief in which the Jews fundamentally rejects jesus as a messiah. The reason this was mentioned in the above post was that the me

I agree that given Israel's current existential threats, there should be no differentiating between Jews in army service. If this means Israel do more of their haredi units that satisfy the dictates of a religous community do it...but they should serve, that should be non-negotiable.

Though what you must know is that there is huge segment of the army where religous jews serve. They are called if i get this right "bnei akiva" and they are disproportionately represented today in the IDF. I read it in haaretz, that this years class of new IDF officers the majority are religous. They are also make up a disproportionate number of the special forces. It used to be the Kibbutzniks but now its the b'nei akiva that produce Israel's best crop of soldiers. It is just the one segment of the religous community known as haredi that absurdly have and use this reprieve (tal law).