Posted by MadMaxSDP on August 23, 2001 at 00:28:59:
In Reply to: Ancient Greek culture and Byzantium! posted by Nikos on August 15, 2001 at 13:41:29:
First time here so ill get to the point.
Objectivly you are greek if you are of greek decent. Now if someone of greek descent changes to a different religion ethnicly he is greek. However culturly, socialy, and philosophicly he is not. To be greek you must adopt the greek way of life which is christian, and or highly philisophical. Now for a muslim Greek this does not work because the muslim religion abhors anything that does not relate to the koran, and yes this is the case and many a muslim leader even acknowledges there is no place for deductive philosophy when dealing with there religion.
Now for the others, Greek jew, greek catholic, etc etc, they are also not greek. For the catholics greeks, they are more roman/italian than greek. Enough said there iconologic ideals are lacking and there day to day life is seperated from ours. You will never see a catholic Greek, attend a horiatico pazari.
Now if you are a jew by definition you must be hebrew. It is clear that Orthodox jews reject the notion that you can be jewish if you are not from a direct line of decent from teh "chosen people" That means that african jews, greek jews, italian jews, whatever are not jewish by strict accordance to the religion but only by there own subjective notion of what a jew is. So they are not jewish according to the true jews. Therefore they are in denial. Im sorry but this is a fool proof conclusion from teh definition of what jewish is.
Ofcourse to be culturaly greek and be able to brag about it you must be A) of greek decent and b) greek orthodox. there is no such think as a greek muslim but ther eis a muslim greek, a greek has converted.
Remember there is a difference of cultural greek and ethnic greek. You cannot compare a russian german to a greek muslim that is comparing two ethnicitys to an ethnicity and a religion. So if you live in greece and you are muslim i feel deeply for you, because you live a life of false duality.
Also do not confuse mythology with religion. The greeks were the first culture to seperate belief from faith from reason and had it not been for that there would be no french or english kingdoms and there would be no america and there would be nothing exept repetetive civilizations such as the egyptions. Many people do not know this but the egyptian civilization was spread over 2k yeasrs. In 100 years the greeks accomplished almost 10 thousand times as much philosophicly, scientificly, and moraly. Infact there is evidence that the greeks were capable of advanced mechanics, ie primitive trains, and factories. The science was there they just never applied themselves too it. Luckily for us they applied themselves to philosophy and religions.