Battar I specifically said that the term "omnipotence"
is defined so as to exclude contradictions. That conclusion was reached
by scholastics hundreds of years ago. Why repeat an asked and answered?
And why do so by boring me with an old chestnut used by professors
to bully inexperienced students?  Show some imagination,  I have already
heard that one before.

If you noticed, the title of this thread is Jewish Soveriegnty... When you quantify Christian power, Islamic power you are discussing religions, and though you are not mistaken that Jewish law has a God component you are not mistaken, but with Jews their is also a national aspect that the above mentions faiths do not have. It is this national aspect which has aroused the new Jew hate of this era. For two thousand years the jews were hated for their faith, today it is anti zionism, it is about Jewish soveriegnty.  You speak of Israel and the IDF as the consummation of power, but the acquisition of power cannot substitute for the exerting of it. What the Jewish generations of 48' bequeathed is not enough.  It seems to me that when it comes to exerting the power,  the Jewish state is hesitant, confused and  unsure when it does exert its power. This is evidenced in the Palestinian aggression, acceptance of the unethical land for peace equation, its refusal to finish its enemy in war, its slavish accordance to US influence etc.

Obviously this starts with the Jewish culture itself that is the midst of a nascent national consciousness that has been out of practice for two millenia. More clearly Jewish culture has been powerless for a long long time and it is just beginning to understand the meaning of power. In the meantime we readily observe a bunch of dilitante leaders making foolish decisions and creating a harsher reality on the ground.

As to your question of what such power is supposed to achieve, well that is the essential question, for me a Jewish guardianship would stand for Jewish interests, what those interests and purposes can be understood by looking at Jewish history, and the beliefs and values that have girded this people throughout human history. In my opinion the Jews have been a beacon of progress in history, Marlon Brando wrote it best in his autobiography
that 'One of the great mysteries that has always puzzled me is how
Jews, who account for such a tiny fraction of the world's population,
have been able to achieve so much and excel in so many different fields
- science, music, medicine, literature, arts, business and more....They
are an amazing people. Imagine the persecution they endured over the
centuries: pogroms, temple burnings, Cossack raids, uprootings of
families, their dispersal to the winds and the Holocaust. Yet their
culture survived and Jews became by far the most accomplished people
per capita that the world has ever produced.'

As we started with sovereignty I think it right we should conclude that sovereignty is the concept of responsibility, and implicit in the definition of responsibility is the idea of having a degree of power in which such a responsibility rests. Now that there is an IDF it has awakened a new prejudice, that is about denying Israel of exerting its power and in the extreme, against the very idea that Jews should have any power whatsoever. This means that Israel now has to grow up and learn how to exert the power it has enherited from the generations previous that successfully acquired it because this new spirit infused in Jewish Hate is starting to rear its ugly head.

As for Kahane I will just say that he has been proven remarkably accurate in his published writings into what would be if Israel continued in its path...

Jastayme,

                 I had always thought that good and evil are subjective, not universal concepts like gravity or the electromagnetic energy. The philosophical arguments and discussions on the subject of god are endles and repetitive and there are some very interesting books detailing these arguments - on both sides - but from a wider perspective, it is worth asking WHY there are philosphical arguments at all.  There is no such discussion about physics or electricity or other empirical and physical subjects, are there?  Scientific discussion of god seems impossible. I think that points out that god is more of an abstract ideal than hard fact. I'm nt saying that abstract ideals don't have their place (but not in my home).

 

Are those who disfavour the Jewish state speaking out of actual irritation with the idea, or are they just trying to look favorable to their Moslem neighbors or trade partners? Pepsi cola didn't boycott Israel for decades because they didn't like Jews - they did it because the Moslem nations were a bigger market and boycotting Israel scored marketing points.

And of course, he Moslems don't like us because they don't like anyone who doesn't pray to mohammad.

 

As for Marlon Brandos' quote about the achievements of the Jewish people, you might like to take as an example the lists of Nobel prize winners. The percentage of Nobel prize winners who are Jewish is far in excess of their relative percentage in the population but if you look at the biographies of these great people you will note that almost all of the Jewish prize-winners were acually atheists from Jewish families.

I'm not sure that proves anything.

Science is the Human accumulated, organized, systemized knowledge gained through observation and objective experimentation; and also the methodology Humans use to find and organize that knowledge. 

 

That is my basic working defintion.

 

Science ceases to be science; when it becomes religion. You never should accept something a scientist says, because he says so. Demand proof. If he is a good scientist, then he will supply his best evidence for his hypothesis, argue his case and let his peers [you included] assess the evidence and decide for yourself; if his case has merit. 

 

In fact for it to be good science, a good scientist will expect your skepticism and your best attempt [negation] to disprove his case.

 

This is something which I see that you, Battar, and Shrirrush try to apply in this discussion in this thread and which I hope that I apply as well.

 

As for philosophy, I try to steer clear of  "angels on the head of a pin discussions" except when it poses an interesting thought experiment to me in trying to establish test conditions for the posed problem. [CREF above].  

 

Herald   

Science is the Human accumulated, organized, systemized knowledge gained through observation and objective experimentation; and also the methodology Humans use to find and organize that knowledge. 

 

That is my basic working defintion.

 

Science ceases to be science; when it becomes religion. You never should accept something a scientist says, because he says so. Demand proof. If he is a good scientist, then he will supply his best evidence for his hypothesis, argue his case and let his peers [you included] assess the evidence and decide for yourself; if his case has merit. 

 

In fact for it to be good science, a good scientist will expect your skepticism and your best attempt [negation] to disprove his case.

 

This is something which I see that you, Battar, and Shrirrush try to apply in this discussion in this thread and which I hope that I apply as well.

 

As for philosophy, I try to steer clear of  "angels on the head of a pin discussions" except when it poses an interesting thought experiment to me in trying to establish test conditions for the posed problem. [CREF above].  

 

Herald   

It is possible to make accurate predictions without being nice. Almost everyone is right about something. Battar is right about that at least-picking on non-Jewish residents is not nice. It is also not Kosher by the way.

I'm not an adherent to kahane, but his idea's deserve respect at least more so then yossi beilin. I'm just curious have you ever read any of Kahane's books??? I ask this b/c most people when they talk about kahane only know the demagoguery that the Israeli media hyped up. And as we know with the Israeli media political agenda's are much more important then reporting the news unvarnished. I have ventured to read his books and far from him being the racist maniac that everyone thinks he was, he made some devestating and apt analysis of Israel/palestinians/ Israeli-Arab's....

Like I said I don't affiliate with Kahane, one reason being that he was reactionary to the secular elite that re-established Israel, but I will not take my cue's from the Israeli propoganda machine that denounced him, blackballed him and undemocratically silenced him as racist and a xenophobe.... these epithets are simply incorrect, fallacious and more then anything else fatuous. If you are so convinced of his detestable beliefs, pick up one of his books and see for yourself instead of taking your place in the telephone game (chinese whispers to some other people). Truth is the only important thing to me, so if I am to be swept up in the tide of Kahanist propoganda on the SP so be it, but facts are facts. He was not a racist in any sense of that definition!