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Just another religious kook with a chip on his shoulder and a degree from an obscure, theological college. Go peddle this stuff at the Committee for Social Thought at U of Chicago and see how far you get. It's not just that you misrepresent the ideas of those you misunderstand, but that your conclusions about these ideas are so far off that they are practically risible, what Nietzsche would call a cultural philistine. Thankfully, I'm a nonbeliever, and, even under the worst of possible scenarios, will not be spending an afterlife with religious nuts.

My my. What happened to Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected?

I'm sorry, but values are subjective. The Commandments of G-d or objective. Without G-d you have nothing but subjective individual or societal/cultural hang-ups. And that is not a misrepresentation. Without G-d all "morality" is subjective. Why don't you just admit that in your worldview objectivity is impossible?

The Seleucids were hardly Greeks, let alone Athenians; the great Greek city-states were long gone. The Maccabees were too busy fighting among themselves to ever accomplish much; they did however attract the attention of another powerful source of western civilization, the Romans, and Titus built a very fine monument to commemorate the end of Jewish squabbling.

And the Romans are dead and gone and the Jews are still squabbling (and in their original homeland, after an exile of 2000 years thanks to those same "civilized" Romans). What a coincidence! Kinda like how the universe came to be.

I recommend you leave FR and hang out with the anarcho-Nazis at "Liberty Forum."

BTW, you are aware that Nietzsche sucks, right?

BTW, what are you doing in a thread on the ACLU? You think it's too "chr*stian," or you think it's part of the Jewish assault on "western civilization," perhaps?

(1) Nietzschean accusations of cultural philistinism are laughable on their face.

Not only because he himself adopted the attitude toward the God of Israel that the original Philistines adopted, but because his own cultural tastes were driven by personal animosities rather than by any coherent aesthetic criteria.

Anyone who declares the New Testament and the late works of Wagner as "worthless" or "trash" is poorly positioned to describe anyone else as a philistine.

(2) The Seleucids may not have been pure ethnic Athenians, but the culture they promoted was Athenian and they were educated in the Athenian manner.

(3) The Maccabbees defeated the largest empire in the world and were in turn defeated by an even more powerful successor empire.

Their success in achieving and maintaining their autonomy is nothing short of remarkable.

(4) If you are a "nonbeliever" then you have nothing to offer except complete moral relativism. You argue from a position you can't even absolutely defend.

But the God of Israel is not relative. He is true yesterday and today, now and for eternity. His eternal fidelity is the reason why there are still Jews around today to obey His Torah.

Neither you or I have ever met an actual Seleucid or an actual Philistine - remember that.