Hello everybody.
As you know my last video was a reply to Ben Shapiro and he kept repeating the same phrase.
“Judeo-Christian Values” And I decided that this concept is worth taking a look at.
So, I started up YouTube to see what some of the online opinion havers think it means.
So that’s what this video will be.
A summery and possibly mockery of the ideas held by people who talk about Judaeo-Christian
values unironically.
The first video I would like to highlight is the video titled “What is JUDEO-CHRISTIAN?”.
It also has two other titles, presumably to be found more easily.
Advice from me to you.
YouTube has said that you only need to write one title and you can put the alternative
search terms in the description.
Your video is just as visible.
This video goes over the very basics.
Judeo-Christianity refers to the common traditions between Judaism and Christianity.
That is because the old testament from Christianity is Jewish scripture as well which creates
common traditions and a shared history.
Islam is excluded from this despite being related in the same way.
More about that later.
That video mainly goes into the etymology.
That means they mostly explain where the word came from.
When it was used by who for what reason and so on.
The part we care about is that the idea of promoting the United States as a Judeo-Christian
nation started in the 1940s.
This was as a movement to counter anti-Semitism by highlighting the similarities between the
two religions.
This coincided with the rise of Zionism which says that Jewish people should live in Israel.
Christian Zionism was on the rise in the USA at the same time.
This was motivated by different reasons, among them many very devout Christians believed
in the prophecy that the Christian end of the world, the rapture could only happen if
Jewish people retuned to Israel.
There are better reasons to support Zionism, for example the holocaust.
The reason so many Jewish people died was because no country wanted to accept Jewish
refugees from Nazi Germany because there was no Jewish state.
They were a minority wherever they lived.
So, the establishment of a Jewish state which would always grant refuge to persecuted Jewish
people makes a lot of sense.
Of course, that sounds good in theory until someone designates that a piece of land now
belongs to someone else and everyone who was there before has to leave now.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is really complicated and worth another video.
Essentially this Jewish state is in large part dependent on foreign support, especially
from the united states because all states around it don’t like it.
So the rise of the idea of Judaeo-Christian values made Zionism a more common position
in the united states which is why the US still sends money to Israel every year.
Among other things.
The idea of Judaeo-Christian values is very convenient for some people.
Especially intensely religious Jewish people who want to have some sort of career as conservative
politicians.
Can you imagine a political opinion haver, let’s say Ben Shapiro, getting on a stage
in the united states and telling the people that they need to follow his Jewish religious
values?
No of course not.
The united states is a majority Christian country.
But on the other hand, as a religious jew he can’t just get on a stage and promote
Christian values because that would just seem fake to the audience.
So, this concept of Judaeo-Christian values is very convenient to him because it allows
him to spread his religious values AND keep intensely religious Christians on his side.
That is my theory on why Ben Shapiro uses that concept.
And I have to say I get that.
Obviously, I oppose the idea of basing any policy in what you think some god wants but
I understand it as an attempt to create a sort of unity of religious Jews and Christians
against Atheists.
Also, ben gets enough antisemitic shit as it is so I get his attempt at combining Christianity
and his religion.
That being covered I think it’s time we have a look at what those values even are.
A possible example might be Zionism because of the shared history of the term Judaeo-Christian
values and Zionism but I’ve not found a single person saying that Zionism is a Judeo-Christian
value.
So, let’s have a look at something I actually found someone say.
This is from FOCLOnline, it has a person called Richard Weikart in it.
They explain that “the judeo Christian worldview is the thing that gives us the reason to think
that human life has value.“
They go on to explain that that means that Christians and Jews oppose things like Abortion
and Euthenasia which is the fancy word for assisted suicide.
I will avoid the topic of abortion for now and focus on the “no assisted suicide”
bit.
Because even though that may sound nice and compassionate that’s actually a pretty bad
position to hold.
Basically, assisted suicide means that people who have a deadly condition which they can
not recover from and make the decision that they don’t want to die a slow painful death
from that condition but that they would prefer euthanasia, should be given medically assisted
suicide.
The German high court recently decided that euthanasia must be made available to terminally
ill patients because forcing them to die slowly is not constitutional.
That is because the German constitution says that human dignity is unimpeachable.
And I am going to say that I support euthanasia in cases like that.
Terminally ill patients who have the full capacity to make that kind of decision should
have that option.
But apparently Judaeo-Christian values means making people like that suffer by taking those
options from them and waiting until their terminal illness kills them slowly, or even
worse they attempt suicide on their own, which is bad because every single non-medical suicide
method is horrifying, painful and not 100% successful.
To force people into that is just cruel.
And, to briefly touch upon that abortion topic again.
It is notable that what they call a pro life position should more accurately called a pro
state-forced pregnancy position.
That means if you oppose abortion you are committed to giving the state the power to
take over the body of whoever has a womb and force them to remain pregnant if they happened
to get pregnant by some way.
So Judeo-Christian value 1: State forced pregnancy and making terminally ill people suffer longer
are good.
The next clip I found is from EU parliament.
The man speaking is Nigel Farage.
You may know him from that one time he led the United Kingdom straight off a cliff called
Brexit.
He is mainly talking about that time a French newspaper called Charlie Hebdo was attacked
by 2 gunmen for making fun of religion.
Farage used that to Segway into his political agenda.
He actually makes a good point.
He says a reason that these gunmen where radicalized against European newspapers was because of
the foreign policy of many of the European countries.
“Just think about foreign policy.
From Afghanistan, through Iraq, through Lybia, even the attempt to arm the rebels in Syria.
All this was done, we where told, to make our streets safer.
And in fact what we’ve done is to stir up very deep resentment within much of the muslim
community.”
Now I don’t really agree with the use of the word “muslim community” there.
That kind of suggests like all of those countries are some sort of unitary muslim village.
He later extends this idea of a “muslim community” to every immigrant and refugee
who is not judeo-christian so that took a wrong turn.
He then says we must be more brave and courageous in standing up for our judeo-christian culture.
The only thing he mentioned, before he trailed off to pretending that 1.8 Billion muslims
somehow make up one homogenous community, was that he didn’t like the foreign policy
European nations have been taking part in.
So, Judaeo-Christian value 2: “Don’t invade the middle east” and that’s something
I agree with.
Provided that’s what he meant.
His points weren’t completely clear to be honest.
Speaking of not clear: Donald J Trump.
The president of the united states of America.
In this clip he says they are defending Judeo-Christian values again.
And in the next breath he says that they are glad to be saying merry Christmas again.
Now this is a pointless American conservative culture war.
Basically recently to be more inclusive towards people who don’t celebrate Christmas people
started saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas” and for reasons I
will never comprehend literally everything is co-opted by politics in the US so conservatives
say merry Christmas and non-conservatives say happy holidays.
So I guess Christmas is a Judaeo-Christian value.
Or at least saying merry Christmas is.
Can you see the problem?
Do you see how Christmas may not necessarily map onto the concept of JUDEO-Christian values?
Yea that is right.
From a religious perspective Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas.
So, to say merry Christmas would be exclusive to Jewish people while saying happy holidays
would be inclusive.
Obviously, there are plenty of non-Christians who celebrate Christmas for cultural reasons,
like I do, but Christmas is and always will be a Christian holiday.
And to deliberately say merry Christmas rather than the inclusive version means that this
apparent Judeo-Christian value exclude Jewish people.
Judeo-Christian value number 3: Wait what?
Jewish people?
Who cares about those.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Our next clip is by Jordan B Peterson.
You know, the man who started his career by spreading lies about Canadian hate crime legislation.
The video is titled “Sam Harris is Judeo-Christian”.
I am less concerned about Sam Harris, even though Peterson’s conclusion is very interesting.
I am more interested in what comes before that.
Peterson argues against moral relativism and for Judaeo-Christian values.
Moral relativism just means that you don’t believe in the idea of an absolute way to
be good or right.
This is in contrast to what Peterson names as Judeo-Christian values.
He says that Judaeo-Christian values are what gives you the information of what is good
and right.
And that way is god.
Do what god says and you will always be a good person.
And if you don’t believe in god, let’s say like me.
Then Peterson explains how he thinks you would act.
He explains that with moral relativism you: “you don’t take care of yourself.
And you become vengeful and cruel and you take it out on the people around you and none
of that’s good so you suffer and so does everyone around you” he also explains how
he believes moral relativism makes you interact with other people: “You lie to them you
cheat you steal you enter into impulsive relationships with them.
They don’t trust you.
That doesn’t go anywhere.
They don’t like you.
You end up alone at best and incarcerated at worst”.
So, we can see Peterson clearly has some strong opinions on moral relativism.
There are many things I could say to counter the things he said but I’ll leave that to
other videos.
What I want to focus on, is what Judaeo-Christian values are.
And curiously it seems.
At least to Peterson.
Judeo-Christian values are the opposite of moral relativism.
He says Judeo-Christians believe that everyone has a spark of divinity in them which makes
them respect each other.
Also, if you respect other people you are Judaeo-Christian.
Peterson said so.
That’s how it works.
If you are capable of normal human relationships you are religious.
Judeo Christian value 4: Judeo-Christian values are when you respect people and believe in
moral absolutism.
The next video is made by PragerU.
In case you don’t know.
Prager University is not a university but just a very conservative propaganda channel
paid for by oil billionaires.
The video is titled “Why has the west been so successful”.
It’s mostly about making up reasons for why white people are better than others.
They explain that the reason “the west” whatever that is, has been so successful was
because of a combination of Judaeo-Christian values and ancient Greek reason.
From a historical perspective it is interesting that they seem to think that Europe is so
rich because of some books and ignores the very complicated historical and geographic
reasons why Europe was in a position to conquer the entire world and enslave and plunder the
rest of the world.
It almost seems like they try to ignore that.
But a Marxist analysis of human history would be a topic for another time.
Maybe comment if you want to see that.
Anyway, Ben Shapiro who happens to be the host in this video explains that Judaeo-Christian
values are “the beliefs that a good god created an ordered universe.
And that this god demands moral behaviour from his paramount creation, man.”, This
is pretty much the same thing Jordan Peterson said.
There is a god and this god is how we know what’s right and wrong.
And this is the point at which I’d like to ask you, what is it that god thinks is
right?
And how do you know?
And this is the point at which I lie back and watch the show.
Because to say something like “God decides what is moral and right” you would first
have to prove that god exists, that god really says what you say and why we should listen
to god.
People have tried to do that, but philosophers nowadays are very atheist for a reason.
There just aren’t many ways you can even go about proving the existence of a god, neither
scientifically nor philosophically.
But let’s say we assume the existence of a god.
How do we know what they have to say?
After all the Bible and Jewish holy scriptures were all written by humans.
And on top of that at least 2000 years ago.
So how do we even know if what that book says comes from god, and even if it does, does
god still hold the same positions 2000 years later?
I’ve changed roughly all of my opinions in the past 5 years, would we expect an all-powerful
being not to ever change their mind?
All of these are questions for the few religious people who will defend judeo-christian values
in the comments.
My point is that all holy scripture was ultimately written by people, not a god.
Because god lacks the physical form to hold a pen.
So really when we say “the word of god” we just mean that some guy at least 2000 years
ago wrote it down.
Judeo-Christian value 5: Someone wrote down something and I believe that this must be
the absolute truth because the cover says that it was written by god even though that’s
clearly not possible.
The next video is titled “Compassionate Capitalism: A Judeo-Christian Value”.
That’s the title of a book by this guy and that video is amazing.
He explains that capitalism is the system god wanted and that actually the bible is
all about promoting capitalism.
He explains that capitalism was founded in Christianity.
Somehow.
I can really only recommend you watch that one.
Link in the description.
I could make a whole reply video to this alone, but this video is already being delayed so
I won’t.
Judeo-Christian Value 6: Capitalism is totally supported in the bible what are you talking
about?
Jesus opposing wealth?
I cherry picked a different quote, which means I am right.
This was the final clip about judeo-Christian values I picked for today.
I would now like to have a look at the question.
Why is Islam excluded here?
Like, everything Judaism and Christianity have in common is shared by Islam to some
extent.
Why isn’t it judeo-christian-islamic values?
I asked myself that after watching a video titled “Why is Islam not "Judeo-Christian"?”.
The uploader points out that in many ways you can look at Christian and Jewish beliefs
as extremes with Islam usually being in between.
For example there are very strict rules about what religious Jews may eat, there are basically
no restriction on what Christians may eat and Islam is in between, there are way less
rules than in Judaism about what and how to eat but there are still restrictions, most
notably not eating pork.
This extends to many things, most importantly, at least from a Christian perspective, the
view of Jesus.
As you know in Judaism they don’t really care about Jesus, Christians on the other
hand say he is god, and the son of god.
It’s complicated.
And in Islam Jesus is seen as a prophet.
Which is in between seeing him as god or seeing him as unimportant.
As Saajid points out.
Islam has more in common with Christianity and Judaism than they have in common with
each other.
So, from a religious point of view the concept of Judaeo-Christian values doesn’t even
make sense.
The idea of judeo-islam or islamo-christianity would make way more sense when looked at through
a religious lens.
But I think that that would be a mistake.
As the top comment under Saajid’s video states.
“Judeo-Christian” is not a religious term.
It’s a political one.
One designed to create a deliberate us versus them narrative.
With the religious Christians and Jews on one side and the atheists and other religions,
though mainly islam, on the other side.
Perhaps in the past it was really intended as a way to unify Christianity and Judaism
to reduce anti-Semitism among Christians but that’s not how it’s used nowadays.
It is used to say “our values” without saying which values.
And this is a tell tale sign of a right wing dog whistle.
They say something everyone can somehow agree with and don’t say what they mean.
That way everyone can interpret something different into it.
That’s how the right wing recruits.
Dennis Prager says “Judeo-Christian values” and anyone who is somewhat Cristian can interpret
anything they like in there.
State forced pregnancy?
Sure.
Loving all human beings unconditionally?
Sure.
Being homophobic?
Sure.
Being racist?
Sure.
All of that can be seen as Judaeo-Christian.
And that’s what makes it so hard to pin point what Judaeo-Christian values are.
Because the official answer is, it’s the belief in a good god, and the dog whistle
says whatever people want to hear.
I think that’s all had to say about that.
Thanks for watching.
C ya.
I would like to thank my patreons for being patreons and I would like to especially thank
Darius the Berd, Noah, Aaron J Peton, Hikaru, Hurdington Gurdington, Jenarchist 77, Joie,
Morally conflicted tortoise, Tyler Dang, klarstrup and sphaere for their generous donations.