Topic: Hyperdox Herman

[JamesR]

All right guys, so I was thinking. Since we have cradle Christopher, Helpmeet Helena and the classic Hyperdox Herman, I was thinking that we should get more creative and develop a meme for different Orthodox jurisdictions and their stereotypes. I was thinking of perhaps an extremely laid back, liberal Greek Priest based off of the stereotype of the Greeks being really liberal and careless in the American diaspora. I think it would be funny. For example, 'Refuses to give Liturgy in Non-Greek Language, Gives Eucharist to Roman Catholics and Anglicans.' or something along those lines. Also, how about an extremely grouchy and traditional old Russian lady from the ROCOR? For example, 'Is a very godly person, beats teenager with cane for coughing at Liturgy.' or something?

[dzheremi]

[ZealousZeal]

I just woke up my dog. I think that means you win!

[dzheremi]

Oops. Sorry, dog.

[ironchapman]

I would just like to point out that, while looking up info on Br. Nathanael, I discovered that even the guys at Stormfront think he's weird (not linking here, but you can google him or I will send you the link via PM).

When they think a guy ranting about "Jewry" weird, a person's gotta be a little messed up.

[Luckster]

When they think a guy ranting about "Jewry" weird, a person's gotta be a little messed up.

I bet he doesn't visit Jewish doctors, so we should give him credit for adhering to the Canons.

[Timon]

I just woke up my dog. I think that means you win!

I have a snuggie. Its amazing.

[dzheremi]

And Yashua loves it. Maybe the Internet Essenes will write a hymn for it. "Amaaaazing snuggie, how warm you areeee..."

[Peter J]

Should start a new thread "Swami Smith" or something.

Lama Sanglug said that the funniest joke comes from the tedium of meditation.

[That person]

I would just like to point out that, while looking up info on Br. Nathanael, I discovered that even the guys at Stormfront think he's weird (not linking here, but you can google him or I will send you the link via PM).

When they think a guy ranting about "Jewry" weird, a person's gotta be a little messed up.

Looked up some Stormfront discussions about him. He has some plenty of supporters, but most of his detractors point to his Jewish heritage as proof he can't be trusted. So crazy people dislike a crazy man's craziness for crazy reasons. Who knew?

[Ortho_cat]

I just woke up my dog. I think that means you win!

I have a snuggie. Its amazing.

sounds like you are ready for the next step in snuginess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdY7Adc1LRM

[Timon]

I just woke up my dog. I think that means you win!

I have a snuggie. Its amazing.

sounds like you are ready for the next step in snuginess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdY7Adc1LRM

HAHAHA!!! thats amazing.

[Paisius]

[Ortho_cat]

what's this guy's name??

[amartin]

I'm sorry to inform you but that is not a digital camera. The quality looks like it's from the 90's. I am sure this holy man got it at Goodwill.

[Agabus]

what's this guy's name??

Nazariah

[Paisius]

I'm sorry to inform you but that is not a digital camera. The quality looks like it's from the 90's. I am sure this holy man got it at Goodwill.

So we are slowly piecing together the tenets of your faith. So far we've got.....

1) Never tell jokes or laugh
2) Never wear ties or tuck your shirt in
3) Buy everything from Goodwill


Is that a good start?

[That person]

what's this guy's name??

Monotheist Martin?

[Paisius]

Monotheist Martin?

Swami Sam? 

[dzheremi]

1) Never tell jokes or laugh
2) Never wear ties or tuck your shirt in
3) Buy everything from Goodwill


Is that a good start?

Just what the world needs...more humorless, self-righteous hippies dressed up like Obi Wan Kenobi. At least if they were allowed to laugh they could laugh at themselves for pictures like that one...

[JamesR]

Judaic Jordan:

Is happy to see the restoration of people in the land of 'his ancestors' in Israel

...Is 7th generation, pale white European

[Agabus]

Herman:

-Imitate me

-just as I also imitate Elder Ephraim.

[Quinault]

Judaic Jordan:

Is happy to see the restoration of people in the land of 'his ancestors' in Israel

...Is 7th generation, pale white European

This actually doesn't make any sense. Skin color is not indicative of how Jewish a person is. Judaism is a faith, not an ethnicity.

Not to mention there has been, and continues to be enough Jew-bashing by Orthodox Christians already. Holy week anyone?

[mike]

This actually doesn't make any sense. Skin color is not indicative of how Jewish a person is. Judaism is a faith, not an ethnicity.

You seem not to have heard of theories how Khazars took the control over Judaism in the VIII-IXth century and marginalized the role of the ethnic Jews (whose descendants are now Palestinians Muslims mostly). Now the Khazar descendants are called Askhenazi Jews (in contrast to the original Jews) and they rule the world and everything and they are not real Jews.

[Quinault]

It still makes zero sense, theories or not.

[Quinault]

Similarly it would make zero sense in my area to make ethnic jokes about Muslims. I think half the Muslims I see in my town are white. The people in my neighborhood that "look Muslim" are typically Ethiopian Orthodox.

[Νεκτάριος]

Similarly it would make zero sense in my area to make ethnic jokes about Muslims. I think half the Muslims I see in my town are white. The people in my neighborhood that "look Muslim" are typically Ethiopian Orthodox.

It all depends on the area.  In the former USSR being Jewish is definitely considered an ethnicity more than a religion in mainstream thought.  The irony is that even deeply anti-semetic people are magically finding Jewish roots so than can move to Israel.  I even know of people who are practicing Orthodox but consider themselves to be ethnically Jewish. 

[dzheremi]

Similarly it would make zero sense in my area to make ethnic jokes about Muslims. I think half the Muslims I see in my town are white. The people in my neighborhood that "look Muslim" are typically Ethiopian Orthodox.

Wow...don't let them hear you say that.

And Arabs are, according to racialist theories and categories (which are BS, but I guess you have to have something to fill in on college admission forms and the census), white people.

I have had the experience of having an obviously very white/European Jewess who I know argue very much for her "Semitism"  based on her Jewishness, so it would seem that actual Jews disagree with you that being Jewish is only a faith, not an ethnicity (though I have also known Jews who openly admit that they are Eastern European or German, not holding on to any Semitic pretensions). It seems like when it comes to race and Jews, it is treated like most people: Whatever language your parents or grandparents (however far back you need to take it to prove that you are whatever you want to present yourself as) spoke is what you are. By this logic, I'm a Mexican, but also a Greenlander, and Portuguese, and several other things.

None of this matters, of course, because if we buy into it then the Jews have only been Semites (again...) since at most the days of Ben Yehuda (who was born in what is today Belarus in the 1850s), and the majority are some flavor of European.

Hmmm...well, most of them ARE some flavor of European (even though in Israel about 60% are of Mizrahi origin, there are many more Jews in the USA than in Israel, so that doesn't tell you much; of course the Mizrahim would come to Israel instead of NYC -- it's a shorter trip). Maybe the idea that language = ethnicity is not so off in this case. This way Jews can be "authentically" Semitic as they want to be, so long as they recognize the reality that for most of them their Semitism is a thin veneer only at most about 150 years old...just like their reconstructed "Israel" is only about 60 years old...

[Aindriú]

And Arabs are, according to racialist theories and categories (which are BS, but I guess you have to have something to fill in on college admission forms and the census), white people.

Not Arabs. You're thinking of Persians.

[witega]

I have had the experience of having an obviously very white/European Jewess who I know argue very much for her "Semitism"  based on her Jewishness, so it would seem that actual Jews disagree with you that being Jewish is only a faith, not an ethnicity

Given that one of the central tenets Judaism (at least in any vaguely traditional form) is the existence of a 'chosen people', this is always more complicated than 'it's a faith, not an ethnicity' because the faith itself teaches that it's both. Converting to Judaism means actually joining the ethnicity--it's not like Greek/Russian/Coptic/Ethiopian Orthodox where one should be able to separate the ethnic adjective from the religioius noun. In reality, there are ethnic Jews who are not religiously Jewish, and religious Jews who are not ethnically Jewish--but ideally the two types of Jewishness are supposed to be co-terminous.

[ilyazhito]

I think that there should be ROCOR Roman, an ultra-Orthodox ROCOR dude, possibly Patriarchal Paul for the Russian Orthodox Church . IT would be funny to see the jurisdictional hangups, but we would have to remember to not be excessive.

[primuspilus]

Old Calendar Ollie?

[mike]

OCA Oscar

[dzheremi]

And Arabs are, according to racialist theories and categories (which are BS, but I guess you have to have something to fill in on college admission forms and the census), white people.

Not Arabs. You're thinking of Persians.

Nope, I'm thinking of Arabs. Check out census forms sometime. Not only are Arabs counted as white, they are actually counted as white by their own request, though of course this is a political calculation, not an affirmation of reality. All racial matters are a political calculation on some level.

[dzheremi]

I have had the experience of having an obviously very white/European Jewess who I know argue very much for her "Semitism"  based on her Jewishness, so it would seem that actual Jews disagree with you that being Jewish is only a faith, not an ethnicity

Given that one of the central tenets Judaism (at least in any vaguely traditional form) is the existence of a 'chosen people', this is always more complicated than 'it's a faith, not an ethnicity' because the faith itself teaches that it's both. Converting to Judaism means actually joining the ethnicity--it's not like Greek/Russian/Coptic/Ethiopian Orthodox where one should be able to separate the ethnic adjective from the religioius noun. In reality, there are ethnic Jews who are not religiously Jewish, and religious Jews who are not ethnically Jewish--but ideally the two types of Jewishness are supposed to be co-terminous.

Agreed, Witega. My point was essentially this. Jewishness is an ethnicity, no matter how much it doesn't really fit with the histories of the people who claim it. They essentially converted to an ethnicity in the process of adopting a faith. Bizarre.

[primuspilus]

I have had the experience of having an obviously very white/European Jewess who I know argue very much for her "Semitism"  based on her Jewishness, so it would seem that actual Jews disagree with you that being Jewish is only a faith, not an ethnicity

Given that one of the central tenets Judaism (at least in any vaguely traditional form) is the existence of a 'chosen people', this is always more complicated than 'it's a faith, not an ethnicity' because the faith itself teaches that it's both. Converting to Judaism means actually joining the ethnicity--it's not like Greek/Russian/Coptic/Ethiopian Orthodox where one should be able to separate the ethnic adjective from the religioius noun. In reality, there are ethnic Jews who are not religiously Jewish, and religious Jews who are not ethnically Jewish--but ideally the two types of Jewishness are supposed to be co-terminous.

Agreed, Witega. My point was essentially this. Jewishness is an ethnicity, no matter how much it doesn't really fit with the histories of the people who claim it. They essentially converted to an ethnicity in the process of adopting a faith. Bizarre.

Which is why you can have people consider themselves a good jew and be an atheist.

PP

[dzheremi]

Absolutely. I don't know the religious activity of the Jewish woman I know who insists on her Semitism, but as an undergraduate I had a Jewish friend of Ukranian and German origins who did not take himself as any kind of Semite. He was also a practicing Zen Buddhist, whose Judaism as far as he claimed it consisted of visiting the kosher deli near campus on a semi-regular basis. He also happily ate pepperoni pizza on days when we would meet to study outside of the deli.

I do not understand the Jews. It seems like the Jews don't even understand the Jews.

[akimori makoto]

And Arabs are, according to racialist theories and categories (which are BS, but I guess you have to have something to fill in on college admission forms and the census), white people.

Not Arabs. You're thinking of Persians.

Nope, I'm thinking of Arabs. Check out census forms sometime. Not only are Arabs counted as white, they are actually counted as white by their own request, though of course this is a political calculation, not an affirmation of reality. All racial matters are a political calculation on some level.

I always hesitate to tick the "white" box in those sorts of forms and I am way whiter than most Arabs.

I think your last sentence is very true.

[Quinault]

Similarly it would make zero sense in my area to make ethnic jokes about Muslims. I think half the Muslims I see in my town are white. The people in my neighborhood that "look Muslim" are typically Ethiopian Orthodox.

Wow...don't let them hear you say that.

What I mean is that the clothing of Ethiopian Orthodox women in particular "looks Muslim" to the average non-Muslim in America. So these people "look Muslim" to many people that have hang-ups about Muslims. Basically just because a woman is wearing a covering doesn't mean she is Muslim. I feel bad for them because they are treated badly by Muslim haters and treated worse by the Muslims.

Seattle has a ton of Ethiopian immigrants. My neighborhood in particular has a lot of Ethiopian people. We live close to an Ethiopian Orthodox church. Go a couple miles south and there are a ton of Muslims, there is a large mosque in that area. (So many Muslims that my husband and our children were nearly lynched at a local park recently because our youngest daughter was proudly wearing her beautiful baptismal cross out and proud. The Muslims in our area are for the most part NOT friendly or kind to anyone appearing to be Christian) Seattle is at best a melting pot. But it is increasingly becoming Muslim due to conversions.

[orthonorm]

Not to mention there has been, and continues to be enough Jew-bashing by Orthodox Christians already. Holy week anyone?

No kidding.

[dzheremi]

Similarly it would make zero sense in my area to make ethnic jokes about Muslims. I think half the Muslims I see in my town are white. The people in my neighborhood that "look Muslim" are typically Ethiopian Orthodox.

Wow...don't let them hear you say that.

What I mean is that the clothing of Ethiopian Orthodox women in particular "looks Muslim" to the average non-Muslim in America. So these people "look Muslim" to many people that have hang-ups about Muslims. Basically just because a woman is wearing a covering doesn't mean she is Muslim. I feel bad for them because they are treated badly by Muslim haters and treated worse by the Muslims.

I know what you mean. My home area has a sizable Habesha community and whenever I'm home I like to go to their restaurant. The comments I've heard in there...yikes...even though there is giant framed photo of the St. George's Church at Lalibela hanging on the wall, and the owners serve beer (including St. George beer!), and some of the older Ethiopian women who come in even have the cross facial tattoo (!), stupid white people will still whisper to each other wondering why there are all these "Muslims" in the place with their headcoverings or long robes (I think they have the white shawl confused with the niqab or something). It's insanity.

[Hiwot]

Similarly it would make zero sense in my area to make ethnic jokes about Muslims. I think half the Muslims I see in my town are white. The people in my neighborhood that "look Muslim" are typically Ethiopian Orthodox.

Wow...don't let them hear you say that.

What I mean is that the clothing of Ethiopian Orthodox women in particular "looks Muslim" to the average non-Muslim in America. So these people "look Muslim" to many people that have hang-ups about Muslims. Basically just because a woman is wearing a covering doesn't mean she is Muslim. I feel bad for them because they are treated badly by Muslim haters and treated worse by the Muslims.

I know what you mean. My home area has a sizable Habesha community and whenever I'm home I like to go to their restaurant. The comments I've heard in there...yikes...even though there is giant framed photo of the St. George's Church at Lalibela hanging on the wall, and the owners serve beer (including St. George beer!), and some of the older Ethiopian women who come in even have the cross facial tattoo (!), stupid white people will still whisper to each other wondering why there are all these "Muslims" in the place with their headcoverings or long robes (I think they have the white shawl confused with the niqab or something). It's insanity.

LOL  you guys are killing me.

 this reminds me ,I cant wait to see the Dictator.it might have some goofy stuff but so far the trailers have been awesome. I had thought 'you dont mess with the zohan' to be both goofy and hilarious, but this one seems like its gonna top it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gqM0IVhWOo

[dzheremi]

I don't know why that reminded you of that movie, Hiwot, but it looks pretty silly. I wonder if I could get someone to from church to go with me. They're sometimes sensitive about their Egyptianness/Middle Easternness, so it would be interesting to see their reaction.

[Hiwot]

I don't know why that reminded you of that movie, Hiwot, but it looks pretty silly. I wonder if I could get someone to from church to go with me. They're sometimes sensitive about their Egyptianness/Middle Easternness, so it would be interesting to see their reaction.

hehehe, have you seen those people's faces in the chopper , dude is dressed up head to toe with the flag, and tells them we love amerikkkhaa, the couple are like ' yeah right!' then the guys talk in Arabic about going to see the statue of Liberty and fire works, and you know what it sounded like when he said boom boom, and they shake hands. sometimes I see that look on people's faces when we hang out with some girls who like to wear their shawls and talk in Amharic. its funny sometimes.

yeah its delightfuly silly. some of the jokes are kind of an insider ones for people from that part of the world. like ' i believe in free speech etc.. and equality to women...' he couldnt finish it was too much of a lie even by his standards to include with a straight face, in what is sold to the west.

[dzheremi]

Huh. That's weird. I don't know why anyone would be concerned about Amharic...even if all Arabic speakers were terrorists by default, it sounds pretty different than Arabic.

Here in Albuquerque, we had the opposite situation with an Ethiopian girl who used to attend the church. She's since moved away (and I didn't even get Amharic lessons like she said she'd give me! Heh. Oh well.), but she used to get into big arguments with some of the people from church because she supported Barrack Obama and they don't. One of the men said "He's a Muslim! His middle name is Hussein!" and she said "that's not fair! Your name is Raafat! That sounds 'Muslim', too!" That was really, really not the right thing to say. The man gave her a very loud, angry Arabic lesson right there, for free. "You don't know anything! Shut up! It is Arabic for Rafael, and you call me a MUSLIM?! You are stupid!" She then, much less confidently than before, explained that no Ethiopians have Arabic names unless they are Muslims, so for Amhara and other Christian people, almost ANY Arabic name sounds Muslim...I don't know how true that is, but I thought it was funny. Because of my educational background, people at church often ask me to explain words to them (usually in English, but not always), so she asked me "So, Christians will have Arab names too? And it's okay?"

*facepalm*

While we were eating together in a COPTIC CHURCH, surrounded by people who have Arabic names, she asked that! Hahaha. God bless her. What a sweet lady...but yes, I had to explain that just like it's okay to have George and John and Marcus, names like Khalil, Raafat, and Tawfiq are okay, too. It seemed weird to be explaining this, as a non-Semitic person, to a native Amharic speaker, but it happened. Go figure.