Three Orthodox rabbis — Mendel Epstein (shown right), Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, and Martin Wolmark — are under arrest this week for allegedly plotting kidnappings and beatings of Jewish men to get them to consent to religious divorces. They allegedly hired out to women who wanted a religious divorce but saw nothing immoral about kidnapping and beating their husbands to achieve it. So far a total of four people have been arrested.
Orthodox rules allow only a man to initiate a divorce. Accordingly, men can demand large sums of money to secure a “get.” The rabbis allegedly demanded tens of thousands of dollars to kidnap and beat husbands to get them to consent to divorces. This included the use of electric cattle prods, plastic bags over heads and other forms of torture.
What is astonishing is that the means of obtaining a moral divorce is entirely immaterial to these people. It is quite an industry for Rabbis who can operate a cattle prod. One report states that Epstein could make $100,000 for a single “get.”
Epstein is quoted as the man with the cattle prod, explaining ““If it can get a bull that weighs 5 tons to move. . . you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute, the guy will know.”
Source: NBC
P Smith says: “Please explain how christians and jews are any better than muslims when it comes to violence.”
I could spend days explaining why there is absolutely no comparison between the conduct of Muslims and the conduct of Christians and Jews. But time is short, life is short, and there are simply too many ultracretins to respond to, but I will make an exception in your case–but covering only the basics of reality. We’ll try to make this a learning exercise for you. Before spewing garbage, do some research.
See if you can find instances of Christians or Jews horrifically killing others, pouring acid on victims faces, and so forth. Go ahead. I’ll wait…………..
Having trouble, huh?
Okay, now try to find examples of Muslims horrifically killing others, pouring acid on victims faces, and so forth. Don’t stop at one or two. Keep collecting as many as you can. I’ll wait………..
The fact is you can find hundreds and hundreds of such documented and reported stories.
Fact: There IS a difference, except when a broad-brush is handed over to a submoron or just a plain old liar.
Please allow me, Ralph, to use your own words to characterize this most recent load of BS utterance. Obviously our previous exchanges have taught you nothing, for you are so excitedly, and so wrongly, jumping up to seize any chance you think you have to frame Muslims as evil:
Fact: There IS NO difference, except when a broad-brush is handed over to a submoron or just a plain old liar.
Po @minutebol –
You were doing fine until you repeated a lie that others have told you. Hitler was not an atheist, he was a strident believer in a “god” and “jesus”, something he repeatedly said in Mein Kampf and in speeches.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
On the other hand, you would be hard pressed to find any atheists who deny that Stalin was one. Even atheists who know that Stalin attended a seminary as a boy and studied to be a priest don’t deny it.
I then stand corrected about the atheism of Hitler, though i could have picked someone else as an example. it ultimately doesn’t invalidate my argument.
Just for my own edification, did Hitler’s belief in God and Jesus play a role in his ideology?
Get outta here…..
Gene H.
“These rabbi’s are not men of God. They are merely felons.”
Please don’t repeat that lie. Saying those thugs ” are not men of god” is as false as saying James Kopp, Eric Roeder and the KKK “aren’t christians”, or saying Osama bin Laden “wasn’t a true muslim”. What’s next, those perpetrating the organized violence and murder of muslims in Burma “aren’t TRUE buddhists”?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/myanmar-violence-buddhists-muslims.html
] But according to accounts from the police officer, Lt. Col Kyaw Tint,
] and a villager who witnessed some of the fighting, the violence
] followed a disturbingly familiar pattern: sword-wielding Buddhist
] mobs rampaging through Muslim neighborhoods.
]
] “All the people who were found dead were from the Muslim
] community,” Colonel Kyaw Tint said.
“Religions of peace”? Religions of pieces (i.e. body parts) is more like it.
Just because a theist does something unethical, just because the majority disagree with him, just because a criminal’s acts are embarrassing, it doesn’t stop someone from belonging to a particular religion. Actions have no bearing on whether they are religious, only beliefs. If an atheist were to say, “Stalin wasn’t a TRUE atheist!” he’d be tarred and feathered (not that you could find an atheist who would say it…), yet the religious feel no compunction about denying their own when embarrassing stories emerge.
A christian is someone who believes in the fable of jesus, a jew is someone who practices judaism, and a muslim is someone who claims to follow obey the pineapple, etc. ad nauseum. There is no other basis for determining who is or isn’t religious, who belongs to a particular religion.
I see your point, P Smith. One is as one does, and the community cannot pick and choose who belongs or doesn’t belong: good, you belong, bad, you don’t.
I think though that when we make that distinction between who is or isn’t Christian, Muslim, Jewish, we are trying to distinguish between the tenets of the religion and the actual practice/ malpractice of the religion.
Many of us are quick to blame the whole of a religion based on the actions of some of its adherents, and by whole I mean, the book, the prophets, the saints, the culture (s), the rituals and the God. It is a mistake, because between what the religion calls for and what the flock practices, is a huge gap that adherents fill at different rates of ability and understanding.
If we use atheism as a comparative entity, or even constitutionalism (the belief in the constitution as the highest, non-changing, perfect directive), we see that although the systems are similar (holy book or philosophy, higher authorities who interpret it for the masses…), atheism is not blamed wholesale for the action of some.
Sure we can finger the crusades, but what about Stalin, or Hitler? Why aren’t we deeming atheism evil on the action of those two?
I agree with you that to blame any single religion for those structural issues is to be either ignorant or hypocritical. All religions are based on the same model, the same system/structure, and share the same message: take care of His, his and yours. The options are therefore thus:
1- Separate the message from its application: acknowledge the value of the holy books and blame the flock for its failing to actualize those standards
2- Wrap the message with the practice and claim that the books themselves are deficient and the message is not worthwhile.
Which is it?
Please explain how christians and jews are any better than muslims when it comes to violence.
If these people – especially those getting married – were smart enough to drop all religion, this problem and incident wouldn’t exist.