Garnel

I've come to the conclusion that Garnel has been commenting on XGH's blog for years using a multitude of different names. As the unofficial "Garnel expert" I do my best to unmask him every time he tries posting under different names. I'm getting really tired of his shenanigans. See some of the comments here, and the later ones here for more.

I think this man is easily the greatest troll in the history of the Jewish internets. He is by far the best at his game, and as far as I know, he's the only one who does it. What I don't know is why you people allow him to get away with this crap for so many years with nary a peep. Sheesh. What I do know is this: if an OTDer tried this shit, he'd be busted in minutes. How could this go on for so many years with NOBODY doing ANYTHING? It's mamish unbelievable.

I'll keep you posted.

Check out the new anti-JP blog

Link

Garnel Admits he's a Kofer

Garnel admits he's a kofer, while sucking up to some rabbi. See the first comment here. Okay, he doesn't admit it for sure, he says "maybe" ("Maybe I'm just a fellow kofer b'ikkar"). It's refreshing to see a little honesty from him for a change. Maybe it's a sign of things to come?

On Garnel

"Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business." --Jesse Ventura

In honor of Pride Week

I know I'm a little late with this, but I had to chime in.

See this article, about rabbis and imams uniting to fight against gay rights. Isn't it something when religious "leaders" take a break from inciting hate to kill each other out to band together against their common enemy, the Left, and the Liberals. Shame on all of them, and their enablers. Despicable pigs.

Here's one post from the J-blogosphere discussing Pride Week. As can be expected from a frum blog, most of the comments are horrific. This comment though (#12) really pissed me off. The commenter starts off by saying "I’m exceedingly liberal when it comes to gay rights" and then compares a gay parade in Jerusalem to "dancing on Simchas Torah in front of a Ku Klux Klan rally." There is no hope for tolerance in a frum community. Here is some of that comment. Again, it shocked me not in how extreme it was, but in how ordinary it appeared.

"I’m exceedingly liberal (albeit closeted) when it comes to gay rights. Gay marriage? Fine. Gay representatives in elected office? Wonderful.

What I don’t understand is this incessant need to go out of their way to make a point. Tel Aviv is incredibly LGBT friendly and they have a pride parade there. Toronto has a pride parade in the gay neighborhood on Jarvis Street, and so do so very many other cities that have pride parades.

Let’s pretend for just a second. Forget for a moment that Yerushalayim is a holy city. Are the residents there comfortable with homosexuality? No. Is there a large population of homosexuals, bisexuals or transgendered in the city? No. It’s for exactly the same reason that you wouldn’t march down Montgomery, Alabama’s streets waving rainbow flags and wearing leather chaps with tighty whities or dance on Simchas Torah in front of a Ku Klux Klan rally – use a bit of common sense and accept that in some places, there’s not going to be a change in how people perceive you."

Garnel on his problems with Orthodoxy

"The problem from "out here" is that quite often we see public policy being decided in bizarre ways. For example, the banning of the Lipa Schmeltzer concert a couple of years ago. It turned out that most of the signatories to the ban had either no idea what they were signing or had been lied to as to the true nature of the concert. Yet without investigation they signed on to a piece of paper that almost ruined the poor guy's life.

Consider the Sliffkin controversy. Without commenting on the merit of his work, I would note that the ban against him was signed by rabbonim who never read his book.

Rav Eliashiv, shlita, is reputed to have said that if he has to spend time clarifying what he did and did not say he'd have no time to do anything else.

What is an am haaretz like myself supposed to conclude from this?"

From here.

Quotes

I was reading The Quotable Atheist, a book full of kefirische quotes. Here are some from Friedrich Nietzsche that I liked:

Are we not straying through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space... God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that they are not even superficial.

God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers—at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!

This alone is morality: Thou shalt not know.

The man of belief is necessarily a dependent man… He does not belong to himself, but to the author of the idea he believes.

The only excuse for God is that He doesn’t exist.

Out of terror, the type has been willed, cultivated and attained: the domestic animal, the herd animal…the Christian.

Two great European narcotics: alcohol and Christianity.

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity…the one immortal blemish on the human race.

Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in ‘another’ or ‘better’ life…The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

The last Christian died on the cross. (225)