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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

Firstly, if the article is accurate, it still separates private from public spaces. An omnipotent and omniscient God would have made the rules anticipating good faith interpretations in different times and cultures.

It still means accepting a restriction. I am Christian so do not think the same way about religious law, but if I was asked to come up with a defence of this idea, I would argue it fulfils the purpose of the rule - e.g. people still cannot pop into a office. I am sure someone who knows Jewish law could come up with a much stronger argument, but I just want to make the point you should not assume it is bad faith workaround

The article also says there is a 100 pages on this in the Talmud so that implies there has been a lot of discussion and argument about this.

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>I am Christian so do not think the same way about religious law

Judaism isn't Christianity any more than Islam is.

Trying to apply Christian norms to Jewish practices usually ends up in a pogrom when Christians realize that Judaism isn't Christianity.

And just in case I hadn't said this enough: Judaism isn't Christianity.

I have no idea why the right in America has run with the whole "Judaeo-Christian Western Culture" bullshit when Christianity was founded from the start on not being Judaism and making a clean break with it. You might as well say Cristiano-Islamic culture since there was about as much impact on Western thought by Islam as there was by Judaism.

> Judaism isn't Christianity any more than Islam is

All three share common beliefs and values. Christians and Jews worship the same God.

Islam IS closely related to Judaism and Christianity and the Quran explicitly states Muslims worship the same God.

> Trying to apply Christian norms to Jewish practices usually ends up in a pogrom when Christians realize that Judaism isn't Christianity.

BS. Thinking about where we agree and where we disagree leads to greater understanding. Pogroms are motivated by ethnic differences and othering people, not by theology, religious law, or anything thoughtful.

> I have no idea why the right in America has run with the whole "Judaeo-Christian Western Culture"

Is it a right wing concept? The term seems far more widely used to me than that. They see correct to me, because western culture (that of the left, as well as the right!) is a product of Christianity, which is an offshoot of Judaism, so you cannot ignore the Jewish influence.

> when Christianity was founded from the start on not being Judaism and making a clean break with it.

It was far from a clean break, and the intention was not a clean break. There was much argument (see Acts) in early Christianity about which Jewish practices to follow. Christians use Jewish scriptures and prayers and symbolism. The first Christians were Jews, and they would not even have considered themselves converts at that point, just those who followed the promised (to Jews!) messiah.

> You might as well say Cristiano-Islamic culture since there was about as much impact on Western thought by Islam as there was by Judaism.

Not true because Judaism and Christian culture had a greater and longer lasting history of geographical and cultural overlap than Christianity and Islam.

On the other hand, all three religions have a lot in common.

> Islam IS closely related to Judaism and Christianity and the Quran explicitly states Muslims worship the same God.

This is like saying that Windows and GNU/Linux are closely related because they both run on PCs, and were both (Windows originally) written in C (thus worship the same "foundations"). :-)

> Christians use Jewish scriptures and prayers and symbolism.

Quite some applications have become ported from Windows to GNU/Linux or vice versa. There is also Wine. Also keep in mind that there exist people who use gcc to compile Windows applications.

> This is like saying that Windows and GNU/Linux are closely related because they both run on PCs, and were both (Windows originally) written in C

A better analogy would be its like saying BSD and MacOS (the current version) are closely related because they share lots of common code.

You should read what the Quran says about Jesus or Mary or the Jewish prophets. Seriously, read what the Quran and the New Testament (and church documents like the Catholic Catechism) have to say about this.

I think the best analogies of the relationships between the religions is:

1. Christianity (claims) to be an updated and enhanced fork of Judaism

2. Islam (claims) to be a bug fixed fork of Judaism with some code from Christianity merged in.

> Quite some applications have become ported from Windows to GNU/Linux or vice versa.

We are not talking about optional bits, we are talking about things of fundamental importance.

More like GNU/Linux and Android. Also Windows is C++, NT kernel.

Historically, the NT kernel was written in C. That C++ is also allowed in the NT kernel is a rather recent change.

how about judeo-islamic then? there's at least as much overlap there as with Judaism and Christianity

I think it depends on historical period and region. There were times when there were very strong Christian presence and influences on Islamic culture in places like North Africa, Syria, Anatolia etc. where Christianity had been the majority religion before Arab and Turkish conquests. I assume Zoroastrian influences in Persia.

It is absolutely not a "clean break". While Judaism and Christianity are distinct, they are related in that Christianity builds on the Hebrew Scriptures. I think perhaps the best imagery for their relationship is Romans 11 and the olive tree. That takes some studying to fully understand though.

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