Yeah sick people wanting to be well really has a lot of demand elasticity. 🙄

I mean, I was. But absolutely no one was listening.

Yours are a pretty close match to mine.

Yeah, funny how he doesn't mention Ehud Barak's efforts to change the 'deal'.

Gosh this reminds me so much of how Russia talks about negotiations with Ukraine right now. "Look, we'll only take 30% of your country, it's the best deal you'll get. What, you don't agree? Rejectionist!"

Also the first part, as you describe it, I think would be extremely difficult or rare to actually achieve even in a very progressive Christian context. But as a not-Christian-anymore person, it's interesting enough to me.

Sounds fine to me, especially the last part. I would say your suggestion is somewhat at odds with what some others have said or suggested in this thread, i.e. that the texts are slander or that Christians should not speak about them.

It's rather Russian of them.

My mind went to what the founding fathers would say and came up with "Sounds a bit like what our fraternal societies do, without the secret ritual, but you're saying it would be open to the public and women and blacks? That would be shocking and immoral but not like any religion we've heard of."

Here it is with alt text. (Via Android, not proofread.)

This would be perfect if it weren't a screenshot from a Nazi website that lacks alt text.

Let me try to rephrase the issue ...
When Christians encounter the Pharisees in their own holy texts, would you prefer them to treat it as historical fact and focus on the identity of the characters, or to treat the stories as parables about the proper role of (their own) religious authorities?

Oh man, if only that were true!

The whole reason Jews are understandably triggered by this discussion is that for too many Christians their faith involves believing in the Gospels as the (true, factual) Word of God, and thus they believe in its portrayal of the Pharisees as historical fact.

I acknowledged it from the start ("apparently I'm weird") and am being pilloried in this thread for merely suggesting that it's possible for Christians to practice their faith differently.

Lol, I hope you feel better having insulted me, not to mention (it seems to me) an extremely broad swath of academic inquiry.

For the record, I would characterize devout Christian metaphysics much the same as Jewish ones. I mentioned I was raised Christian, not that I am one.

tbc, I belong to both of these faiths as a matter of heritage, and neither as a matter of belief.

Again, that is just the flip side of Jews feeling their faith is under attack when Christians mention the Pharisees allegorically. It's intractable as long as you accept certain faith premises from one or both faiths ... which is why I do not. To me it's just stories from 2000 years ago.

The metaphysics here is that you attach a lot reality and significance to differing 2000 year old accounts, which I do not.

I agree that you were not discussing your metaphysics. You've been expecting me to take them for granted. ('blessed sages of memory' and other things that do not compell my intuition).

Well, I daresay there may be some descriptive vs normative confusion here.