"Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys -- a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught.
The brown monkey's instinct to kill is correct; such men aredangerous to all monkey customs."
-Kettle Belly Baldwin in Gulf from Assignment in Eternity (Robert Heinlein)
Sunday, February 06, 2005
What Do We Want?
"So please explain to me what it is that you all want? So you realized that there is no God and the reasonings you were told are lies..so now what? You are in lost. You don't believe but yet you need to follow and comply because there is no way out. I just want to understand what it is that you want!?....Do you really want to live your life a sham? Lying to everyone while secretly doing what you please? Does that turn you on? I just do not get it. What is the difference if you just dont do any work on Shabbos if you are not going public. PLEASE explain to me what is the lifestyle you want!!!"
What do we want? Ultimately what we want is for Judaism to be true. Or maybe I should speak for myself when I say that. The problem is that it is not or at least as far as anyone can prove or even argue successfully.
But we also don't want to be goyim (again, speaking for myself). Not that goyim are in any way inferior, but that we are Jews and that is our heritage and that doesn't change if the metaphysics or theology is faulty. Some people stay because of family ties or because they like the community. Also reasons which I share.
So we are obviously conflicted. Which life do we want? I'm not sure.That's a judgement call that each person in our situation must make for himself. But you fail to understand the basics here because you think our desire for a preferential "lifestyle" is what drives us to doubt. But more often it is doubt that drives people to adopt a different lifestyle.
What do we want? Ultimately what we want is for Judaism to be true. Or maybe I should speak for myself when I say that. The problem is that it is not or at least as far as anyone can prove or even argue successfully.
But we also don't want to be goyim (again, speaking for myself). Not that goyim are in any way inferior, but that we are Jews and that is our heritage and that doesn't change if the metaphysics or theology is faulty. Some people stay because of family ties or because they like the community. Also reasons which I share.
So we are obviously conflicted. Which life do we want? I'm not sure.That's a judgement call that each person in our situation must make for himself. But you fail to understand the basics here because you think our desire for a preferential "lifestyle" is what drives us to doubt. But more often it is doubt that drives people to adopt a different lifestyle.
Hammurabi and the Torah
Here are anumber of examples showing the similarity of Biblical laws to the Code of Hammurabi which was written centuries before Moses ever was thought to write.
Exodus 21:2 : "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing."Similarly, Code of Hammurabi, section 117: "If a man become involved in debt, and give his wife, his son or his daughter for silver or for labor, they shall serve three years in the house of their purchaser or bondmaster: in the fourth year they shall regain their freedom."
Exodus 21:15 : "And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death." Compare Code of Hammurabi, section 195: "If a son strike his father, his hand shall be cut off."
Exodus 21:18 f.: "And if men contend, and one smite the other with astone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed; if he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed." Compare Code of Hammurabi, section 206: "If a man strike another man in a noisy dispute and wound him, that man shall swear, 'I did not strike him knowingly'; and he shall pay for the physician."
Exodus 21:22 : "If men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow; he shall surely be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine." Compare Code of Hammurabi, section 209: "If a man strike a free woman and cause her fruit to depart, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her fruit."
Exodus 21:24 : "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." Compare Code of Hammurabi, section 196: "If a man destroy the eye of a free man, his eye shall be destroyed." section 197: "Ifhe break the bone of a free man, his bone shall be broken." section 200: "If a man knock out the teeth of a man of the same rank, his teeth shall be knocked out."
Exodus 21:28-32 : "If an ox gore a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox was wont to gore in time past, and it hath been testified to its owner, and he hath not kept it in, but it hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. .... If the oxgore a man-servant or a maid-servant, there shall be given unto their master 30 shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned."Compare Code of Hammurabi, sections 250 ff.: "If an ox, while going along the street, gore a man and cause his death, no claims of any kind can be made. If a man's ox be addicted to goring and have manifested to him his failing, that it is addicted to goring, and, nevertheless, he have neither blunted his horns, nor fastened up his ox; then if his ox gore a free man and cause his death, he shall give 30 shekels of silver. If it be a man's slave, he shall give 20 shekels of silver."
Some are more similar than others but I think the resemblance is obvious. These laws of the Torah don't seem so unique anymore. Indeed, many of them seem quite derivative from older sources. I don't think they were copied from Hammurabi, but they do share a common source.
For more information see here.
Dating Tanach
In the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) there are used two very interesting words. "Pardes" in 2:5 and "Pitgam" in 8:11. "Pardes" is also seen in the book of Song Of Songs (Shir HaShirim) 4:13. Why are these words interesting? Because they are words borrowed from the Persian language.
Here is the etymology of the word "pardes": it is derived from the Old Persian "pairidaeza" which can be broken down in Farsi into pairi (around) and daeza (wall). It describes an enclosed garden. The word has even been found in the ancient scripture Avesta of the Zoroastrian faith. It is the source of the English word "paradise."
How could Solomon have known of and used Persian words if Persia had never come in contact with Israel during the proposed time of Solomon's lifetime? The use of these foreign words in these books necessarily pushes the writing of the texts several centuries after Solomon's death until at least when Israel comes under Persian rule.
So did Solomon write these books? It seems doubtful.
Here is the etymology of the word "pardes": it is derived from the Old Persian "pairidaeza" which can be broken down in Farsi into pairi (around) and daeza (wall). It describes an enclosed garden. The word has even been found in the ancient scripture Avesta of the Zoroastrian faith. It is the source of the English word "paradise."
How could Solomon have known of and used Persian words if Persia had never come in contact with Israel during the proposed time of Solomon's lifetime? The use of these foreign words in these books necessarily pushes the writing of the texts several centuries after Solomon's death until at least when Israel comes under Persian rule.
So did Solomon write these books? It seems doubtful.
Henotheism: No Other Gods Before Me
Henotheism is the idea that people believe that all sorts of gods are real and have power, but that they only recognize one of those gods as their God to whom they worship. The following are a number of questions for the regular Bible-believing montheist to try and explain the apparent henotheistic origins of Israelite beliefs as recorded in Tanach:
Doesn't it seem awfully strange that the Israelites are equating theroles of God to them and Chemosh to the Moabites as to what each god's power would allow them to possess land? (Judges 11:24)
Why does David say that he is being told to worship other gods by having to take refuge out of Israel but in Philistine territory? (1Samuel 26:19)
Why did the forces of Israel turn back from defeating Moab in Moabite territory after the Moabite king offered his own son up to Chemosh? (2 Kings 3:27)
Why did Na'aman need two mule loads of dirt from Israel to serve God in Syria? (2 Kings 5:17) Because if God only has power over the land of Israel then the only way for Na'aman to worship him was to have some of that same dirt.
Why does Jeremiah say that the exiled Israelites will have to serve other gods? (Jeremiah 16:13)
Doesn't it seem awfully strange that the Israelites are equating theroles of God to them and Chemosh to the Moabites as to what each god's power would allow them to possess land? (Judges 11:24)
Why does David say that he is being told to worship other gods by having to take refuge out of Israel but in Philistine territory? (1Samuel 26:19)
Why did the forces of Israel turn back from defeating Moab in Moabite territory after the Moabite king offered his own son up to Chemosh? (2 Kings 3:27)
Why did Na'aman need two mule loads of dirt from Israel to serve God in Syria? (2 Kings 5:17) Because if God only has power over the land of Israel then the only way for Na'aman to worship him was to have some of that same dirt.
Why does Jeremiah say that the exiled Israelites will have to serve other gods? (Jeremiah 16:13)
Elishah ben Abuyah
According to the Talmud there was a very knowledgeable Torah scholar named Elishah ben Abuyah who turned heretical. Some scholars say he was a Gnostic, others say Sadducee, and still others see him as an Epicurean. His turnover was so unpalatable for the rabbis of the Talmud didn't call him by name but they called him "Acher," the other one.
I like to think of him as a man who used reason over faith (I'm not the only one) and so could not bring himself to fall in place within rabbinic norms. This intellectual primacy was what caused the rabbis to defame his name and create legends about his birth and reasons for heresy.
For more information see here.
I like to think of him as a man who used reason over faith (I'm not the only one) and so could not bring himself to fall in place within rabbinic norms. This intellectual primacy was what caused the rabbis to defame his name and create legends about his birth and reasons for heresy.
For more information see here.
The Meaning Behind the Yarmulkah
It's weird, that six inches of circular material on my head means so much. People from every side of society have their own ideas about what it implies.
To the religious Jew on a weekday afternoon it means I'm available to fill a minyan for mincha. I get asked every few weeks. To another guy I know from school, it means I'm a religious zionist (kippa seruga) but really my mom just likes crocheting them. To some other people it means they can tell me racist jokes, those shfartsa's y'know. To this guy in the museum is means that I can't know or believe anything about evolution.
All it means to me is that I'm Jewish and proud of it.
To the religious Jew on a weekday afternoon it means I'm available to fill a minyan for mincha. I get asked every few weeks. To another guy I know from school, it means I'm a religious zionist (kippa seruga) but really my mom just likes crocheting them. To some other people it means they can tell me racist jokes, those shfartsa's y'know. To this guy in the museum is means that I can't know or believe anything about evolution.
All it means to me is that I'm Jewish and proud of it.
Visit to the American Museum of Natural History
I went to the American Museum of Natural History on January 6th. A wonderful establishment and I recommend it to everyone.
I went with a friend of mine. He's religious, wears a black hat on shabbos, goes to shir a few nights a week. He's also a math major in college and appreciates and knows science to some degree. A full on Modern Orthodox Jew.
So we're going through the 4th floor which has halls depicting the evolution of vertebrates. Starts at the jawless fishes goes throughlungfishes and dinosaurs and whatnot, ends with modern mammals. And as we go through I'm explaining to him some of the more interesting facts and tidbits from what I know. Interrelationships, points ofdivergence, stuff like that. We're looking at one of the skeletons and one of the "Fossil Explainers" comes by. Those are the guys in red aprons with big buttons on their chests. Volunteers.
So he asks if we have any questions. I figure I can pretty much cover anything my friend asks so I ask the guy, in a joking way, what my friend asked me a second before about this long-necked skeleton. "How many vertebrae does it have?" He's a little surprised and says, "Oh, you can count them."
But that was a bad move. Instead of just saying "No thanks" we get into this whole conversation between the three of us. He starts talking about how he "knows" we don't accept all this (evolution) and gives us a sheet that explains cladograms. My friend pipes up with a usual Modern Orthodox approach, "Well, with this you jus thave to compartmentalize between the two worldviews." And the guy responds with a quote from Thomas Aquinas that two truths cannot contradict. And my friend responds (quite well actually) that it's similar to the division between Quantum Theory and Relativity. Both are right, but we don't know exactly how to combine them. The guy gives up and says that physics is out of his league.
I'm standing there the whole time, not saying anything because my friend doesn't really know what I think about all this. We've spoken about evolution before and I've told him what I think about it, in great detail, but also strategically without bringing the subject of God into it. I really don't know what he thinks I think but I prefer not giving him fodder.
I just wonder what the Fossil Explainer would have said if I told him what I wanted to tell him. I'm an atheist and a biology major! Don't judge people from what they look like. Sometimes I wonder when I see guys in full Muslim wear...what are they thinking? I also saw a couple of Chassidic guys with full beards and in full costume walking down the Big Bang ramp. As you walk down you follow the history of the universe from the Big Bang billions of years ago to the present. They were in deep conversation. I really would've loved to hear what they were saying.
I went with a friend of mine. He's religious, wears a black hat on shabbos, goes to shir a few nights a week. He's also a math major in college and appreciates and knows science to some degree. A full on Modern Orthodox Jew.
So we're going through the 4th floor which has halls depicting the evolution of vertebrates. Starts at the jawless fishes goes throughlungfishes and dinosaurs and whatnot, ends with modern mammals. And as we go through I'm explaining to him some of the more interesting facts and tidbits from what I know. Interrelationships, points ofdivergence, stuff like that. We're looking at one of the skeletons and one of the "Fossil Explainers" comes by. Those are the guys in red aprons with big buttons on their chests. Volunteers.
So he asks if we have any questions. I figure I can pretty much cover anything my friend asks so I ask the guy, in a joking way, what my friend asked me a second before about this long-necked skeleton. "How many vertebrae does it have?" He's a little surprised and says, "Oh, you can count them."
But that was a bad move. Instead of just saying "No thanks" we get into this whole conversation between the three of us. He starts talking about how he "knows" we don't accept all this (evolution) and gives us a sheet that explains cladograms. My friend pipes up with a usual Modern Orthodox approach, "Well, with this you jus thave to compartmentalize between the two worldviews." And the guy responds with a quote from Thomas Aquinas that two truths cannot contradict. And my friend responds (quite well actually) that it's similar to the division between Quantum Theory and Relativity. Both are right, but we don't know exactly how to combine them. The guy gives up and says that physics is out of his league.
I'm standing there the whole time, not saying anything because my friend doesn't really know what I think about all this. We've spoken about evolution before and I've told him what I think about it, in great detail, but also strategically without bringing the subject of God into it. I really don't know what he thinks I think but I prefer not giving him fodder.
I just wonder what the Fossil Explainer would have said if I told him what I wanted to tell him. I'm an atheist and a biology major! Don't judge people from what they look like. Sometimes I wonder when I see guys in full Muslim wear...what are they thinking? I also saw a couple of Chassidic guys with full beards and in full costume walking down the Big Bang ramp. As you walk down you follow the history of the universe from the Big Bang billions of years ago to the present. They were in deep conversation. I really would've loved to hear what they were saying.
Games to Play
Not too long ago I used to play a fun little game with some of my friends. It's really simple. I used to say, "I am God." And they'd say, "Stop fooling around." So I'd respond, "Prove me wrong."
And of course they couldn't.
Maybe they'd ask me to show them a miracle, I'd say that I would never lower myself to please them. After all, I'm God.
Maybe they'd ask me a question that I couldn't know the answer to, so I could say of course I know, but how dare you test the Lord?
How can you be in human form? Can't I, the omnipotent, do anything?
I would say to them, stop being so stiff-necked. Ignore all those apparent inconsistencies, either you have faith or you don't. If you don't though, I might just have to send you to hell. You're choice though.
In my way I backhandedly was showing them the fallacy of ad hoc assertions. If someone is going to make excuses upon excuses for all the apparent inconsistencies, then you'll never be able to convince them otherwise. How, indeed, can you prove anyone's conceptions of God wrong if they're willing to take such ad hoc suggestions for every point you make?
PS. I'm God. Prove me wrong.
And of course they couldn't.
Maybe they'd ask me to show them a miracle, I'd say that I would never lower myself to please them. After all, I'm God.
Maybe they'd ask me a question that I couldn't know the answer to, so I could say of course I know, but how dare you test the Lord?
How can you be in human form? Can't I, the omnipotent, do anything?
I would say to them, stop being so stiff-necked. Ignore all those apparent inconsistencies, either you have faith or you don't. If you don't though, I might just have to send you to hell. You're choice though.
In my way I backhandedly was showing them the fallacy of ad hoc assertions. If someone is going to make excuses upon excuses for all the apparent inconsistencies, then you'll never be able to convince them otherwise. How, indeed, can you prove anyone's conceptions of God wrong if they're willing to take such ad hoc suggestions for every point you make?
PS. I'm God. Prove me wrong.
Reductionist Approach
This was an article sent to me via a friend of mine and her rabbi:
One Soul's Adventure: Spiritual Growth Through Halacha
Read it before reading my comments about it.
I thought this article was unique because the first part of his life is rather similar to my own, minus the Catholicism and fighting about Church. Though even that is a significant difference because as a child I was very religious.
He has a few flaws in his reasoning. He sees that science can be thwarted by the bias of scientists and thus comes to see it as nothing more than a belief system as valid as any other. But how can that be true? You don't see other belief systems making vaccines and sending people to the Moon.
And the fact that Chromsky revealed Skinner's bias is part and parcel of the correcting nature of science. Any one scientist or group of scientists can have inherent bias, they're only human after all. But everything they write must go through peer review and is going to be criticized for every fault and bias in them. And eventually, like Skinner, their bias will be revealed.
He also writes: "If a single bioelectrical impulse traveling along aneuron in a petri dish is not a moral action, then the same must betrue of human thought and behavior -- merely a complex system of such impulses. From this perspective, "right" and "wrong" are meaningless, and God is denied."
But the flaw in logic here is that he says the complex system of the human brain and mind is nothing more than the sum of its parts. But that's wrong. Systems like the brain have emergent properties that individual neurons can't have. Having "merely a complex system of such impulses" makes a new entity different from its constituents.
As the brain allows us a sense of identity and of pain, morality comes down to the simple avoidance of suffering. Because if we all care for the other's suffering, we won't suffer ourselves. A rising tide lifts up all ships. This hardly makes morality meaningless, it just makes it not need the handiwork of God.
"There were too many instances in which reason clearly indicated acourse of action, but I acted in another way, the "right" way. If morals were the outcome of reason, how could reason and morals demand a contradictory course of action?"
Because that feeling of what is right or wrong is just as reliable as an emotion. One may feel sad for a person being executed, but if he's a rabid murderer that emotion is out of place. People "feel"differently about different things. Some people think cannibalism is morally acceptable, some verily do not. How about homosexuality? How do people "feel" about that?
Sometimes feelings of morality can go against reason, not because they're coming from a higher reason, but because they are the stuff of emotions.
"Liberated from the confines of rationalism..."
This is my favorite quote. That's like being liberated from the confines of those silly fences on top of really tall buildings. Where are you escaping to? Of course critical thinking and rationalism confines and directs one's considerations, that's its greatest strength.
One Soul's Adventure: Spiritual Growth Through Halacha
Read it before reading my comments about it.
I thought this article was unique because the first part of his life is rather similar to my own, minus the Catholicism and fighting about Church. Though even that is a significant difference because as a child I was very religious.
He has a few flaws in his reasoning. He sees that science can be thwarted by the bias of scientists and thus comes to see it as nothing more than a belief system as valid as any other. But how can that be true? You don't see other belief systems making vaccines and sending people to the Moon.
And the fact that Chromsky revealed Skinner's bias is part and parcel of the correcting nature of science. Any one scientist or group of scientists can have inherent bias, they're only human after all. But everything they write must go through peer review and is going to be criticized for every fault and bias in them. And eventually, like Skinner, their bias will be revealed.
He also writes: "If a single bioelectrical impulse traveling along aneuron in a petri dish is not a moral action, then the same must betrue of human thought and behavior -- merely a complex system of such impulses. From this perspective, "right" and "wrong" are meaningless, and God is denied."
But the flaw in logic here is that he says the complex system of the human brain and mind is nothing more than the sum of its parts. But that's wrong. Systems like the brain have emergent properties that individual neurons can't have. Having "merely a complex system of such impulses" makes a new entity different from its constituents.
As the brain allows us a sense of identity and of pain, morality comes down to the simple avoidance of suffering. Because if we all care for the other's suffering, we won't suffer ourselves. A rising tide lifts up all ships. This hardly makes morality meaningless, it just makes it not need the handiwork of God.
"There were too many instances in which reason clearly indicated acourse of action, but I acted in another way, the "right" way. If morals were the outcome of reason, how could reason and morals demand a contradictory course of action?"
Because that feeling of what is right or wrong is just as reliable as an emotion. One may feel sad for a person being executed, but if he's a rabid murderer that emotion is out of place. People "feel"differently about different things. Some people think cannibalism is morally acceptable, some verily do not. How about homosexuality? How do people "feel" about that?
Sometimes feelings of morality can go against reason, not because they're coming from a higher reason, but because they are the stuff of emotions.
"Liberated from the confines of rationalism..."
This is my favorite quote. That's like being liberated from the confines of those silly fences on top of really tall buildings. Where are you escaping to? Of course critical thinking and rationalism confines and directs one's considerations, that's its greatest strength.
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