| Cyber Wolf |
05-09-2012 04:30 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sundae
(Post 810764)
Given that Jewish religion passes down a family line, I think it's not unreasonable to class Jews as a race.
Could be wrong there and won't argue if someone contradicts me factually.
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That would suggest that race can be defined by social tradition and opted out of. If a family has been Baptist or Buddhist or atheist since before records were kept, it doesn't make them a race. And people can't opt out of what their ancestors gave them... change/hide/alter, yes, but it'll show up in their kids.
I'd be more accepting of Jews as their own race if the argument was based in how the followers of Judaism bred, for lack of a better term. For a very long time, Jews primarily married and bore children with other Jews, excluding people of other physiological types, and they were all concentrated in a relatively small area. They didn't really migrate much of anywhere unless they were exiled from somewhere and then they kept to each other, rather than mix too much with the locals of wherever they ended up. Lots of years of combining the same lines will concentrate features and create a look that 'breeds true', like in show animals. Given that, I can see how the Jewish 'race' can be considered a true race. In their case, it wouldn't be because they're from a certain place, it'd be because they excluded outside influence in their lines.
The biggest exceptions of those would be the those of the sects that gave rise to Christianity and then ultimately set out to make everyone else Christians too. That freed them from taking only Jewish spouses. They could go up to anyone, convince/make them convert if they weren't Christian already and they'd be in a bona fide Christian union, if necessary. |
