From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 6:19 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
So- the Christian reasoning is that Jesus being the messiah backs up his divinity even if the fact that he was messiah would rule out any sort of divinity. That's weird.
I knew about the chair being reserved for Elijah thing, but didn't know that with some groups it is physically mounted to the wall. Is there any reason why the schools of thought are so staunchly differing?
Oh- speaking of the "protesting at soldiers' funerals," I actually saw the WBC in person about a week ago (it slowed up traffic something awful due to the police cars protecting them blocking the road). What, specifically, do you think about them? I mean obviously they're... er, different shall we say. But given your knowledge of religion, I'm interested to hear your take-- if you don't mind the random divergence from the conversation.
Are there any Christians with beliefs more akin to Conservative or Orthodox Judaism when it comes to the author of the Bible-- i.e. the first books written by divinity? Or is it more of an all-or-nothing opinion-- everything was only divinely inspired or that it's all the direct words?
I do notice a stylistic difference between, say, Gen. and Deu. For those who do not believe the first four are literally divinely written, is this explained by just a different (human) author, or are there other reasonings?
Yeah, the "Jews for Jesus" thing. I've heard of that before, but don't know much about it. Seems really strange to me.
Proselytizing is quite annoying, not to mention counter-intuitive, at least in my opinion. For every convert you make, how many more people do you irritate and make turn away from something they may have been simply luke-warm on before? Is it only a Christian phenomenon for the most part? I've only seen it with Christianity, but with where I'm from, I only know Christians and Jews so it's a relatively limited sample.
Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that the "Gentiles" Jesus preached to/interacted with were actually--somewhat--Jews.
That not only seems like circular reasoning, but especially shaky circular reasoning to boot. Given that the messiah's not supposed to be a deity and all, at least according to Judaism--the religion from which Christianity branched.
I definitely follow the whole logic behind the not-quite-dead-yet "resurrection." And, as with the ancients' views on miracles and such, I can understand the thoughts behind those witnessing it seeing it as divine zombie-ism. Or immortality, y'know whatever. One thing I don't follow though-- you said that this is documented as having happened to other crucified Jews. So why weren't they considered divine and immortal? Why only Jesus? 'Cause his friends said so?
So what I'm getting is that the importance of the ascension might very well have been a big misunderstanding?
Also, with your descriptions of new disciples' faux Jesus-sightings, I can't help but think of those hillbillies who believe Elvis is still alive and swear they've seen him.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 10:55 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
The schools of thought on Elijah's chair are not diametrically opposed to one another in that it's not wrong to mount a chair nor is it wrong to leave it in the corner. They're just differing opinions on the same concept (how to keep people from sitting in the chair). As with all things in Judaism, if you ask two Jews for their opinions on one thing, you'll get four opinions.
Christian logic is that Jesus filled all of the requirements of the Hebrew Moshiach. They don't often tell you HOW or what the requirements ARE. They just say "He fulfilled all of the requirements." Bunch of sheep. Those who do read their Bibles cite a bunch of verses randomly hand picked as being signs of the Moshiach. We're told of a young woman giving birth to a baby we should name Immanuel which means "He who is with Gd" (Is 7:14 - though my Hebrew scriptures provides a Talmud reference that talks about a great military ruler who will overthrow Babylon and save Judah, not to the Moshiach), in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2 - though it should be noted that Bethlehem is NOT mentioned in my Hebrew scriptures anywhere in ch. 5, and in my Christian Bible, it is Gd talking to a nation of Israel who is wandering from Gd and needs a military leader to come back to the House of Israel), his crucifixion (Psalms 22:14 - though again we do not have foretelling but David crying out against his OWN torture in this book in the Hebrew scriptures; same with the Christian Bible. The psalms were songs David wrote during his oppression), his resurrection (Psalm 16:10, but again, more of David's crying in both versions).
So while Gd outlined Moshiach very clearly in Jeremiah's prophetic (and oftentimes totally depressing) writings, Christians pulled from David's writings on military battles and his own oppression as proof that this man who SAID he was Gd and the Messiah was their personal Lord and Savior. The summation I can gather having pulled all three of my scriptural references down (An Artscroll Tanach - which provides the Talmud references, A JPS Tanakh - a more authentic translation of the actual Hebrew, and My NIV Bible - The go-to Christian standard Bible these days) is that a bunch of events happened and in order to validate the claims that Jesus was who he said he was, they started cherry picking scriptures that aren't often read in synagogue. MOSTLY from what I can gather in my Artscroll about Micah and Isaiah is that they were foretelling David's arrival on the scene (and set as Gd talking to Jacob/Israel, who is David's grandfather through Judah and Ruth, which is probably why "one will rise up from Judah and save his people", Micah ch 5) and not Moshiach, though one could argue that David is as close to a Moshiach as we Jews have right now, which is why he's such a BIG freaking deal to us.
The summation of the christian argument for Jesus as the messiah is that #1 - He said he was Gd, and he said he was the Messiah. #2 - His life and times were foretold in a bunch of ambiguous scriptures that the Jews themselves believed were about King David (though this argument doesn't come into play with the early Christians all that often, and you'll see that in Paul's writings - while he SAYS Jesus is the Moshiach, he never refers back to scripture all that often as proof. Peter does a few times, but Paul is REAL careful with no using King David's story as Jesus'; we see it spewed as fact as Christianity starts to grow as a separate religion from Judaism) And #3 - Jesus did a whole bunch of miraculous things that are further proof that he was not like you or me and thus holy. Like float off into an abyss.
As to being like Orthodoxy and Conservatism, I think you'll find a wide variety of opinions on who wrote the Bible and how it was thought up. By and large, most of them (Jews and Christians) believe that the Bible was written down by a man and inspired by Gd. Now, some people will get all up in arms about WHICH translation is correct: King James, NIV, etc. Jehovah's Witnesses are very clear that THEIR version (the New World Translation) is the most accurate. Mormons believe the KJV (yes that is the same KJV used by the Latin rites) is the right version. WBC believes their NIV is the right one. And the Amish read Martin Luther's German translation but they don't claim it is the CORRECT one, as that would lead to pride. There's a LOT of argument over WHICH version is right but the thing they all agree on is that the ORIGINAL scripts (written in Hebrew and Greek) are the most wholly accurate and without error. But they all pretty much believe that Gd was talking in the ear of a man who was writing it down. That basically lines up with Conservative thinking.
I don't know of too many groups who OFFICIALLY declare that the Torah or any other part of the Bible was the official hand of Gd written by Gd Herself. I know the Orthodox Jews hold that the first four books were written by Gd herself and handed down at Sinai but that over the years many men have rewritten this down and things get lost (like the proper way to pronounce YVHV, which is the proper name of Gd - note, the Hebrew scriptures are written without vowels. Vowels are implied and learned from the teacher). Fun fact for the day: Jehovah's Witnesses took the vowels for "Adonai" (the Lord) and mixed them into YVHV to come up with Jehovah. It's not an accurate translation of the word.
It's never an all-or-nothing thing to believe the scriptures were either ALL written by Gd or NONE written by Gd. Orthodox Jews are very careful to state that TORAH is written by Gd. The mistranslation in that statement is that ALL of the Old Testament was written by Gd. That's not what we argue. We argue that Torah - the first five books, more specifically the first FOUR - were written by Gd. Tanakh, the complete Hebrew scriptures (encompassing Torah, Nevi'im - the writings, and Kethuv'im - the prophets) are a mix, with Nevi'im and Kethuv'im being written by men. But since a lot of non-Jews call the ENTIRE Old Testament "the Torah" it leads to a lot of gaps in communication. I saw a lot of non-Jews wander into my Orthodox shul and ask the Rabbi if he believes the Torah was written by men or Gd. He would smile big and say "Torah is written by Gd." And then smirk. I have never seen the logic in this other than it seems to be a holier-than-thou act of pride to answer a direct question that you KNOW is misinformed to start with and not explain HOW it is misinformed. Maybe he gets tired of answering the same question all the time. Regardless, nothing in Judaism is all-or-nothing. Even with mitzvos, there are about 200 mitzvos that we simply cannot do because muslims built a temple on our Holy Temple and now we cannot properly worship there. But so you're Jewish... you can't do ALL of the remaining Mitzvos in one day. You can do some, but not all of them. Your goal is to do as many as humanly possible. Not in a day but over the course of your lifetime. Likewise, it's not an all or nothing gig that either the Hebrew scriptures were ALL written by Gd or NONE of it was written by Gd. Deuteronomy is very clear that "these are the words of Moses." Obviously not of Gd. In Psalms, it routinely says "A psalm of David". Gd =/= David. Judaism is this heavy vat of grey area. But that comes again from how it is not a FAITH but a RELIGION, and how it is ACTIONS rather than BELIEFS that make or break your status as a Jew. We're not concerned with what happens after this world. We're only concerned about our mark while we're here. The rest is up to Gd.
As to WBC. I really think that their leader is going to be blinked out of existence at the end of his life and I think that church is going to Deify him when he dies. I feel this an awful shame because they will be creating a false Gd out of their leader, which goes against the Noachide laws. Their position on Jews is that we killed Jesus so they hate all Jews and The Chosen People are all going to hell. From talking with the granddaughter of the leader, there is simply no hope at all ever for a Jew. Once you are born a Jew, you will die a Jew and go to hell for killing Jesus, regardless of whether or not you try to accept Christ in the 11th hour. I tried to infiltrate them via the net once and was blocked immediately after they found out I was a Jew. Even though I expressed sincere (*snort*) regrets for the "sins of my father" I was told that there is no way for me to EVER get into heaven. It was at that moment that I realized that they were not interested in SAVING people or converting people or getting people up to heaven, like they CLAIM, but in reminding them that they're all damned and there's nothing they can do about it. After some hard prayer on the subject, I decided simply to do as Jesus did... forgive them for they know not what they do. The last time they came to town, some Jews and I went to protest. I picked up a bunch of flowers and passed out the flowers to the WBC. I said simply, "I forgive you" as I handed them each a flower. Half of them threw the flower to the ground when I said "I forgive you" but some of them stopped and stared at me for a moment. And then I moved on with my life. My Jewish friends were totally pissed at me because I'm the dog you WANT on your side in a religious fight with Christians. But in that moment, I knew that MY Gd would not have wanted me adding jet fuel to their fire of hate. Gd would have wanted me to love them, to show them I love them, and to forgive them. That's how I feel about WBC. I'm a Jew first. All other things come second to that. And as a Jew, I'm commanded to love everyone, even those that don't love me back. In a picture I saw posted to the newspaper, at least three of them were holding flowers WITH their signs. And in that moment, I knew I healed the world a little.
Jews don't proselytize. Our official position is based on attraction rather than promotion. We lead good wholesome Torah observant lives, and we hope that - with the light of Torah raging on inside of us - that others see it. Which is why we don't hang Christmas lights and the only light burning for public display on Hanukkah is that of the Hannukiah - it is a symbol that NO light is greater than the light of Gd and Torah. And we face the Hanukkiah in a window looking out at the street so that others might see the Light of Torah burning in this home and be drawn to it. Kabbalah states that the only people who will be drawn to the light of Torah are fellow Jews who are lost, and it is a mitzvah to help the lost Jew find their way home.
Jews for Jesus, though, is not affiliated with any Jewish stream, and even the Messianic Jews have rejected Jews for Jesus as being a part of them. Back in the 50's this Jew converted to Christianity and became a Baptist minister. He decided to focus his outreach at getting Jews to become Christians because the messiah will never come back until all Jews hear the truth. The BIG difference between his ministry and Evangelical Christian ministries is that some of their program is in Yiddish and Hebrew, they celebrate Christian versions of Jewish holidays, and they don't recognize that Judaism is a valid faith, believing instead that Judaism was rendered complete with the addition of Jesus Christ. MOST of Christianity considers Judaism to be one path out of many paths to finding Gd and is okay with it existing. What splits the Hebrew Christians (of which Jews for Jesus is affiliated) from the Messianic Jews is that Hebrew Christians do not find Halacha to be binding. Messianic Jews do.
Now it PAINS me to call them Messianic Jews, because anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as his/her personal Lord and Savior is a Christian and not a Jew. And any Jew who accepts Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior is not a Jew either. But there is a clear distinction between the Hebrew Christians and the Messianic Jews in that Messianic Jews do not proselytize the way that Hebrew Christians do. I think here is where we note that the GOAL of Christianity is to bring the word of Jesus to the most remote corners of the world so that you have the chance to hear about and potentially reject Christ as a savior. I think it's pretty naive of us to think there is anyone on the face of the earth (minus the North Koreans) who has NOT heard of Jesus Christ by now. But in their arrogance, they patrol around trying to "win souls for Jesus." I once had a Christian missionary (a very pretty black woman) stop by my door on Shabbat and invite me to church with her. I said very simply "Oh thank you but I'm Jewish." Without missing a beat she said, "Oh it's okay! We accept all races." -______-
Finally - the other Jews who were "suspension shocked" weren't born to a virgin in Bethlehem, then were turned on by their own people only to suffer great persecution, and didn't float off into space. It's one thing to be a rebel rouser. Jesus was definitely a rebel rouser. But when you're just another loud mouthed Jew talking shit about the emperor who gets strung up on a cross during a 10 year military siege... you apparently don't make the history books until you float off into space. Jesus had one thing going for him - press. He was written about a LOT in his day. This would be like you and me and Bill O'Reilly all standing on street corners preaching about how Obama is a dick and we should take him and his communist regime down. You and I might ALSO get strung up on a cross, and resurrect after "dying" on the cross, but Bill O'Reilly makes the papers when it happens.
Formerly an online journal. Now just space for apologies.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Musings on Religion: Pt 8
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 7:16 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh, right on. I knew a fair amount of background on Jesus, but you're still definitely teaching me stuff.
Now the first point--Jesus is the messiah--confuses me a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the messiah still is not a god, right? So, going off the Judaic background of the concept of a messiah Jesus couldn't be entirely divine if he was messiah, right? I mean, obviously the messiah'll be a great guy and all, but not another deity (as the Christian line of argument implies)... I think. Or do I just not know enough about the idea of the messiah?
I never got the Jesus-rising-from-the-dead story that I heard every year in church. Everything on Christianity was presented in something of a rather logical way (though there is some of that circular reasoning, of course), and then Easter comes 'round and suddenly it's all ghost story time. Presented as fact, not parable or other such thing. Confused me so much, though as a kid I didn't really ask questions on the matter. So they quite possibly could've been stoned. Makes sense I guess. Wait, it's backed up by Paul's claims? Not telling us that the divine said anything on the Jesus matter, just one random man who knew the guy and later liked to write some letters... okay then.
I knew Jesus didn't fit all criteria for being messiah, but thank you for outlining that for me. So, 3/10 for Jesus.
If Jesus is supposed to be the messiah, why is there the complicated resurrection story when not having him raised from the dead would better have suited the case for his being the messiah?
Uh-huh. So when Jesus was on Earth his dad was like missing a leg or something? Yeah... I still have a hard time coming close to believing the Trinity thing.
Actually, I asked someone to explain it to me the other day. The answer I was given was: 3 parts of one god. Okay, knew that, so I asked it be explained to me in detail. Again the response "it's simple, 3 but one!" After a short while I just gave up as it was getting absolutely nowhere.
Do you know if there is any particular reason why certain O.T. books were even included in the Christian Bible? For example, they kept parts outlining Jewish dietary laws. Then it's all "just kidding, eat whatever, don't need to keep Kosher" later on. What's the purpose of such inclusions?
Oh, yeah no problem, you're certainly teaching me loads about Judaism and Christianity. I feel like I should research at least a bit into Islam though. I'll have to look into it some time later.
So, drama clearly existed in biblical times too, eh? Certainly an interesting story, but first impression, it reminds me of modern day who's-sleeping-with-whom family fight thing.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 2:22 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
According to Judaism, Moshiach is not a Gd, he is not PART of Gd, he has no more Gd part to him than any other man or woman born (in the sense that we're all "children of Gd" and all of us have a divine spark in us). The only thing Gdly about him is that he leads a Gd-centered life, reveres Gd, and teaches Gd's word. And really that could be ANY person on the face of this earth, which is why at every Jewish brit milah (or bris) you will see a random chair sitting in the corner that NOBODY can sit in - that is Elijah's chair to sit in if THIS boy happens to be Moshiach. In some traditions the chair is mounted to the wall to prevent people from sitting in it. I know my ex-fiance and I talked frequently about whether or not to mount the chair, as I come from the tradition that does and he came from the tradition that does not.
You also have to keep in mind that VERY FEW Christians hold that the New Testament was written by Gd. There are SOME who do (and they protest soldier's funerals and such), but by and large, Christianity (including Catholicism) holds that the Bible is "The Inspired Word of Gd" (and many Bibles say this on their cover page) where "inspired word" means that Gd was speaking to a man and a man was writing it all down. (Orthodox) Jews are different in that we believe the first four books of the Torah (and nothing else) were ACTUALLY written by Gd and handed down at Sinai on tablets made of Sapphire (that, by the way, floated down the mountain on their own) and that is why Halacha is completely and totally binding. Conservative Judaism holds that Moses went up to the mountain and Gd dictated it to him, which means that MOST of Halacha is binding but is adapting and changing. Reform Judaism thinks Moses thought it all up on his own and that's why Halacha is not binding in our present day. For my own tastes, having read the whole entire Bible three times, and Torah at least 7 more, I personally don't feel like Genesis through Numbers could have been written by the same man who wrote Deuteronomy all on his own. They don't make the same bit of sense nor is the language used the same. The rest of Tanakh (the Hebrew scriptures) was very clearly written by Men, because it makes sense in human logic OR the book clearly states that there was a human author involved (as is the case with Deuteronomy), and nobody in Judaism would argue against that point (though they might argue "divinely inspired" or not). But those first four books are kind of beastly to read and a lot of time it doesn't make a damn bit of sense. But the way that Christians ACT about their holy scriptures (especially new Christians in very charismatic denominations) makes outsiders a lot of times think that they themselves believe The Bible was indeed written by Gd. Officially though, it's the INSPIRED word of Gd.
Given that, it makes total sense that a good 90% of the NT was written by Peter and Paul. Some Christians will even openly admit that Peter and Paul were writing about Jesus from the ends of their lives (though they might tack on the "FROM JAIL/OPPRESSION" bit that has been refuted by Biblical scholars the world over), nearly 60-some odd years after the Resurrection. Many Christians that I know will also freely tell you that Peter and Paul were writing to the Jews in the NT, though some will say so with an evil undertone, as if all Jews should listen and believe or Jesus will never come back (Shall we discuss Jews for Jesus and their Baptist roots??), and some will shrug their shoulders after that assertion and say he never meant to form a NEW religion but rather provide an alternate path back to "The One True Gd" for the lost sheep of Israel. These Christians leave themselves WIDE OPEN for attack on the logical fallacy of that statement (because by this assertion, they're ALL wrong and they should instead convert to Judaism) but I've never found the humor in bashing a person's chosen path to Gd and badgering them into religious conversion. Judaism is not big on conversion. We have a process for it, and we gladly welcome the true convert, but we don't proselytize nor do we advocate that all people should join us.
If we buy the NT as a historical document, something detailing a man's deeds akin to a journal, we notice that Jesus never preached to the non-Jews. He only preached TO Jews. All those scragglers he had dinner with? Merely apostate Jews. Still Jews but apostates. He never preached to the Romans, and specifically commanded his troops to ONLY preach to Jews (Mat 10:5, Mat 15:24, and one could argue that Mat 28:19 was referring to the 12 tribes of Israel and not ALL the world). It's also important to note (you'll hear this argument a lot) that the Samarian woman described in John 4 was actually half Jewish (patrilineal descent). Jesus (as described in the gospels) was big on snapping up the half Jews and using them to further his mission. He frequently called them "The lost sheep of Israel" because while they weren't LEGALLY (remember, Jewish Law here, not civilian law) Jewish - which is a covenant passed down from the mother - they still had a Jewish spark in them and Jesus wanted them returned to the House of Israel. He talks about this a couple of times. He also goes after the fathers of such people a couple of times to bring THEM back into the Jewish fold. But again... nobody reads their Bible.
The complicated story of the Resurrection happened to prove Jesus was divine and thus not like you or I but also worthy of worship. It serves as an irrefutable point made by Christianity that their prophet was more than just another mortal prophet, but theirs was immortal and thus Divine because only Gd is immortal, and him BEING immortal and divine makes him the messiah. Here again we see the circular reasoning. How do we know he's Gd? He's the messiah. What makes him the messiah? He's immortal. How is he immortal? He died for 3 days, came back, told us he's Gd, and then floated away into space. So how again does this make him Gd?
See where I'm going.
Here's the thing about crucifixion though - it takes DAYS to kill a man, if not a solid week. You don't just bleed out up on the cross. You hang up there for a few days, stark naked, defecating and urinating all up in the public sphere. If you're LUCKY, the Romans didn't bash your legs all up to shit which gives you a blood clot and makes you die faster. And we know Jesus did not have his legs bashed all to hell because he was walking around showing his passion and crucifixion wounds to people. If they'd bashed his legs all to shit, those would still be bashed all to shit at the Resurrection.
According to Paul's retelling of the crucifixion (in I Corinthians), Jesus was only up there from 9am to 3pm, which is why he was tucked away in a hole quietly as it was coming up on Shabbat and you cannot bury the dead on Shabbat (plus we have laws about how we need to get people who were hung into the ground before night fall). So for 6 hours he hung up on a post, a death that modern researchers have proven would take DAYS unless you shatter both of the femurs and induce a pulmonary embolism.
For my tastes, I like science here. I like the 2003 study done by two scientists who state Jesus LIKELY went into "Suspension Shock", which would have rendered him totally unconscious and given the knowledge that they totally rushed through getting him DOWN so they could bury him before Shabbat, I'm inclined to think the man passed out cold and remained out cold until put vertical in the cave, where he woke up. But given as this whole thing happened on Passover (the last supper was a second night feast, as one of the gospels mentions Jesus going to a feast the night before the last supper), we have to kind of time frame him here. I imagine it took at least one full day to arrest him and get him ready for his 9am crucifixion. So he's arrested immediately following the second night of Passover supper, we're still in Day 2 of an 8 day holiday. You figure they have to do the whole "who punishes" him thing, which takes a day - day 3. Then we have the Passion - Day 4. Then the crucifixion on Day 5, which is ALSO on Shabbat. Since we're in Israel, Passover is only 7 days long, and the last two days are holidays, though one is on Shabbat so we've basically got three days of doing nothing.
That - to me - translates to Jesus being unconscious and we all mourned him but we had 2-3 hours to get him off the cross (an arduous process, don't you think?) and into a cave. Then he pops awake, spends a day or so moving the rock that's keeping him IN the cave, and goes on having his spiritual re-awakening.
Then he floats away.
And I have no answer for that last part.
What I DO know is that historical accounts of the Siege of Jerusalem (written by Josephus and Seneca the Younger) indicate that it wasn't a RARE phenomenon for a crucified person to magically wake up a few hours after being pulled off of the cross and then somehow mysteriously die of their own accord while being treated for their injuries (which was described by modern researchers as being by pulmonary embolism stemming from the Romans bashing their legs all to shit to hasten death). Both Josephus and Seneca the Younger record MANY instances of this exact event happening with crucified Jews, who were quick to be yanked down off of the cross (per Jewish Law on how you have to bury someone who dies by hanging by sunset).
The crucifixion? Fine. I'll buy that he was crucified, went through lots of torture, and died. That shit is even documented by historians of the time.
But what gets weird about the Bible is that The Ascension is kind of this vague concept until Paul starts writing angry letters to people in an effort to badger them into conversion. In Matthew, he just kind of wanders off saying stuff and presumably dies behind a rock out of view. Luke says "he left them and returned to heaven." Mark says "He was taken up to heaven." And John says he kept wandering around preaching to people until he presumably died a normal death (though that throws Paul out of whack because if Jesus had lived another 30 years, Paul wouldn't be writing about him the way he does). I mean the Gospels are all really VAGUE about the Ascension and to me it reads as though he just simply died again, not that his corporal being floated off into space. But Paul kind went a little nuts being so horribly oppressed as a Christian and in Acts and Romans he talks of Jesus floating off into the abyss. So really the Bible is clear that he was dead - we think - but then not dead. And then wandered around for a couple of hours or maybe a couple of days to a couple of years. Then died again. And is buried somewhere. Probably. But Paul says he's in an abyss at the right side of Gd.
It's a huge leap of faith, the Ascension. Everything leading up to that point in Jesus' life I can buy, maybe not as DIVINE but I can definitely buy a good chunk of it. But after that point, I'm sketchy. But it's a HUGE part of Christianity - this belief that his whole body flew up to heaven. In some streams, it's a required article of faith to believe that shit happened.
Scholars think that this became a bigger deal than it was intended (via Paul's letters) as a way to stop all the new disciples from saying, "I SAW HIM!" You did not. He's dead. In a cloud somewhere. HIS WHOLE BODY IS THERE TOO SO YOU DID NOT SEE HIM. GTFO. (there's also the knowledge we have the Josephus say the disciples stole his body after he died the second time and hid him so nobody else could see him)
I love a good game of telephone, don't you?
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 7:16 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh, right on. I knew a fair amount of background on Jesus, but you're still definitely teaching me stuff.
Now the first point--Jesus is the messiah--confuses me a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the messiah still is not a god, right? So, going off the Judaic background of the concept of a messiah Jesus couldn't be entirely divine if he was messiah, right? I mean, obviously the messiah'll be a great guy and all, but not another deity (as the Christian line of argument implies)... I think. Or do I just not know enough about the idea of the messiah?
I never got the Jesus-rising-from-the-dead story that I heard every year in church. Everything on Christianity was presented in something of a rather logical way (though there is some of that circular reasoning, of course), and then Easter comes 'round and suddenly it's all ghost story time. Presented as fact, not parable or other such thing. Confused me so much, though as a kid I didn't really ask questions on the matter. So they quite possibly could've been stoned. Makes sense I guess. Wait, it's backed up by Paul's claims? Not telling us that the divine said anything on the Jesus matter, just one random man who knew the guy and later liked to write some letters... okay then.
I knew Jesus didn't fit all criteria for being messiah, but thank you for outlining that for me. So, 3/10 for Jesus.
If Jesus is supposed to be the messiah, why is there the complicated resurrection story when not having him raised from the dead would better have suited the case for his being the messiah?
Uh-huh. So when Jesus was on Earth his dad was like missing a leg or something? Yeah... I still have a hard time coming close to believing the Trinity thing.
Actually, I asked someone to explain it to me the other day. The answer I was given was: 3 parts of one god. Okay, knew that, so I asked it be explained to me in detail. Again the response "it's simple, 3 but one!" After a short while I just gave up as it was getting absolutely nowhere.
Do you know if there is any particular reason why certain O.T. books were even included in the Christian Bible? For example, they kept parts outlining Jewish dietary laws. Then it's all "just kidding, eat whatever, don't need to keep Kosher" later on. What's the purpose of such inclusions?
Oh, yeah no problem, you're certainly teaching me loads about Judaism and Christianity. I feel like I should research at least a bit into Islam though. I'll have to look into it some time later.
So, drama clearly existed in biblical times too, eh? Certainly an interesting story, but first impression, it reminds me of modern day who's-sleeping-with-whom family fight thing.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 2:22 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
According to Judaism, Moshiach is not a Gd, he is not PART of Gd, he has no more Gd part to him than any other man or woman born (in the sense that we're all "children of Gd" and all of us have a divine spark in us). The only thing Gdly about him is that he leads a Gd-centered life, reveres Gd, and teaches Gd's word. And really that could be ANY person on the face of this earth, which is why at every Jewish brit milah (or bris) you will see a random chair sitting in the corner that NOBODY can sit in - that is Elijah's chair to sit in if THIS boy happens to be Moshiach. In some traditions the chair is mounted to the wall to prevent people from sitting in it. I know my ex-fiance and I talked frequently about whether or not to mount the chair, as I come from the tradition that does and he came from the tradition that does not.
You also have to keep in mind that VERY FEW Christians hold that the New Testament was written by Gd. There are SOME who do (and they protest soldier's funerals and such), but by and large, Christianity (including Catholicism) holds that the Bible is "The Inspired Word of Gd" (and many Bibles say this on their cover page) where "inspired word" means that Gd was speaking to a man and a man was writing it all down. (Orthodox) Jews are different in that we believe the first four books of the Torah (and nothing else) were ACTUALLY written by Gd and handed down at Sinai on tablets made of Sapphire (that, by the way, floated down the mountain on their own) and that is why Halacha is completely and totally binding. Conservative Judaism holds that Moses went up to the mountain and Gd dictated it to him, which means that MOST of Halacha is binding but is adapting and changing. Reform Judaism thinks Moses thought it all up on his own and that's why Halacha is not binding in our present day. For my own tastes, having read the whole entire Bible three times, and Torah at least 7 more, I personally don't feel like Genesis through Numbers could have been written by the same man who wrote Deuteronomy all on his own. They don't make the same bit of sense nor is the language used the same. The rest of Tanakh (the Hebrew scriptures) was very clearly written by Men, because it makes sense in human logic OR the book clearly states that there was a human author involved (as is the case with Deuteronomy), and nobody in Judaism would argue against that point (though they might argue "divinely inspired" or not). But those first four books are kind of beastly to read and a lot of time it doesn't make a damn bit of sense. But the way that Christians ACT about their holy scriptures (especially new Christians in very charismatic denominations) makes outsiders a lot of times think that they themselves believe The Bible was indeed written by Gd. Officially though, it's the INSPIRED word of Gd.
Given that, it makes total sense that a good 90% of the NT was written by Peter and Paul. Some Christians will even openly admit that Peter and Paul were writing about Jesus from the ends of their lives (though they might tack on the "FROM JAIL/OPPRESSION" bit that has been refuted by Biblical scholars the world over), nearly 60-some odd years after the Resurrection. Many Christians that I know will also freely tell you that Peter and Paul were writing to the Jews in the NT, though some will say so with an evil undertone, as if all Jews should listen and believe or Jesus will never come back (Shall we discuss Jews for Jesus and their Baptist roots??), and some will shrug their shoulders after that assertion and say he never meant to form a NEW religion but rather provide an alternate path back to "The One True Gd" for the lost sheep of Israel. These Christians leave themselves WIDE OPEN for attack on the logical fallacy of that statement (because by this assertion, they're ALL wrong and they should instead convert to Judaism) but I've never found the humor in bashing a person's chosen path to Gd and badgering them into religious conversion. Judaism is not big on conversion. We have a process for it, and we gladly welcome the true convert, but we don't proselytize nor do we advocate that all people should join us.
If we buy the NT as a historical document, something detailing a man's deeds akin to a journal, we notice that Jesus never preached to the non-Jews. He only preached TO Jews. All those scragglers he had dinner with? Merely apostate Jews. Still Jews but apostates. He never preached to the Romans, and specifically commanded his troops to ONLY preach to Jews (Mat 10:5, Mat 15:24, and one could argue that Mat 28:19 was referring to the 12 tribes of Israel and not ALL the world). It's also important to note (you'll hear this argument a lot) that the Samarian woman described in John 4 was actually half Jewish (patrilineal descent). Jesus (as described in the gospels) was big on snapping up the half Jews and using them to further his mission. He frequently called them "The lost sheep of Israel" because while they weren't LEGALLY (remember, Jewish Law here, not civilian law) Jewish - which is a covenant passed down from the mother - they still had a Jewish spark in them and Jesus wanted them returned to the House of Israel. He talks about this a couple of times. He also goes after the fathers of such people a couple of times to bring THEM back into the Jewish fold. But again... nobody reads their Bible.
The complicated story of the Resurrection happened to prove Jesus was divine and thus not like you or I but also worthy of worship. It serves as an irrefutable point made by Christianity that their prophet was more than just another mortal prophet, but theirs was immortal and thus Divine because only Gd is immortal, and him BEING immortal and divine makes him the messiah. Here again we see the circular reasoning. How do we know he's Gd? He's the messiah. What makes him the messiah? He's immortal. How is he immortal? He died for 3 days, came back, told us he's Gd, and then floated away into space. So how again does this make him Gd?
See where I'm going.
Here's the thing about crucifixion though - it takes DAYS to kill a man, if not a solid week. You don't just bleed out up on the cross. You hang up there for a few days, stark naked, defecating and urinating all up in the public sphere. If you're LUCKY, the Romans didn't bash your legs all up to shit which gives you a blood clot and makes you die faster. And we know Jesus did not have his legs bashed all to hell because he was walking around showing his passion and crucifixion wounds to people. If they'd bashed his legs all to shit, those would still be bashed all to shit at the Resurrection.
According to Paul's retelling of the crucifixion (in I Corinthians), Jesus was only up there from 9am to 3pm, which is why he was tucked away in a hole quietly as it was coming up on Shabbat and you cannot bury the dead on Shabbat (plus we have laws about how we need to get people who were hung into the ground before night fall). So for 6 hours he hung up on a post, a death that modern researchers have proven would take DAYS unless you shatter both of the femurs and induce a pulmonary embolism.
For my tastes, I like science here. I like the 2003 study done by two scientists who state Jesus LIKELY went into "Suspension Shock", which would have rendered him totally unconscious and given the knowledge that they totally rushed through getting him DOWN so they could bury him before Shabbat, I'm inclined to think the man passed out cold and remained out cold until put vertical in the cave, where he woke up. But given as this whole thing happened on Passover (the last supper was a second night feast, as one of the gospels mentions Jesus going to a feast the night before the last supper), we have to kind of time frame him here. I imagine it took at least one full day to arrest him and get him ready for his 9am crucifixion. So he's arrested immediately following the second night of Passover supper, we're still in Day 2 of an 8 day holiday. You figure they have to do the whole "who punishes" him thing, which takes a day - day 3. Then we have the Passion - Day 4. Then the crucifixion on Day 5, which is ALSO on Shabbat. Since we're in Israel, Passover is only 7 days long, and the last two days are holidays, though one is on Shabbat so we've basically got three days of doing nothing.
That - to me - translates to Jesus being unconscious and we all mourned him but we had 2-3 hours to get him off the cross (an arduous process, don't you think?) and into a cave. Then he pops awake, spends a day or so moving the rock that's keeping him IN the cave, and goes on having his spiritual re-awakening.
Then he floats away.
And I have no answer for that last part.
What I DO know is that historical accounts of the Siege of Jerusalem (written by Josephus and Seneca the Younger) indicate that it wasn't a RARE phenomenon for a crucified person to magically wake up a few hours after being pulled off of the cross and then somehow mysteriously die of their own accord while being treated for their injuries (which was described by modern researchers as being by pulmonary embolism stemming from the Romans bashing their legs all to shit to hasten death). Both Josephus and Seneca the Younger record MANY instances of this exact event happening with crucified Jews, who were quick to be yanked down off of the cross (per Jewish Law on how you have to bury someone who dies by hanging by sunset).
The crucifixion? Fine. I'll buy that he was crucified, went through lots of torture, and died. That shit is even documented by historians of the time.
But what gets weird about the Bible is that The Ascension is kind of this vague concept until Paul starts writing angry letters to people in an effort to badger them into conversion. In Matthew, he just kind of wanders off saying stuff and presumably dies behind a rock out of view. Luke says "he left them and returned to heaven." Mark says "He was taken up to heaven." And John says he kept wandering around preaching to people until he presumably died a normal death (though that throws Paul out of whack because if Jesus had lived another 30 years, Paul wouldn't be writing about him the way he does). I mean the Gospels are all really VAGUE about the Ascension and to me it reads as though he just simply died again, not that his corporal being floated off into space. But Paul kind went a little nuts being so horribly oppressed as a Christian and in Acts and Romans he talks of Jesus floating off into the abyss. So really the Bible is clear that he was dead - we think - but then not dead. And then wandered around for a couple of hours or maybe a couple of days to a couple of years. Then died again. And is buried somewhere. Probably. But Paul says he's in an abyss at the right side of Gd.
It's a huge leap of faith, the Ascension. Everything leading up to that point in Jesus' life I can buy, maybe not as DIVINE but I can definitely buy a good chunk of it. But after that point, I'm sketchy. But it's a HUGE part of Christianity - this belief that his whole body flew up to heaven. In some streams, it's a required article of faith to believe that shit happened.
Scholars think that this became a bigger deal than it was intended (via Paul's letters) as a way to stop all the new disciples from saying, "I SAW HIM!" You did not. He's dead. In a cloud somewhere. HIS WHOLE BODY IS THERE TOO SO YOU DID NOT SEE HIM. GTFO. (there's also the knowledge we have the Josephus say the disciples stole his body after he died the second time and hid him so nobody else could see him)
I love a good game of telephone, don't you?
Friday, May 4, 2012
Musings on Religion: Pt 7
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:05 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Ah, ok then on the miracles. But what then, going off of Catholicism, separates Jesus from any other saint other than the fact that he himself claimed he was different? Just takin' his word for it? I mean, I know faith is important and all, but is there any clear reasoning as to Jesus's divinity?
I'm still having trouble with the whole Jesus not being another god thing. You've explained it sufficiently enough, but I think it's that damn Trinity idea tripping me up. Jesus is different from the 'regular' Christian god, yet because he is divine and because it's a monotheistic religion, it seems like fudging the definitions a bit to consolidate the two ideas. There's a father and son, but the same person. I just can't... two clearly different Biblical characters but the same deity.
Catholicism has so much roundaboutness to it. Not only is there a strict hierarchy of religious authorities within the Church (Pope, Bishops, Priests, etc.), the layman is even farther separated from his god by talking through saints as well. Seriously, it seems like Catholics way over-complicate. Why do you need all that separation? I much prefer the Quaker approach of just pray.
With the Islam thing--I thought that, perhaps, images of prophets were also not allowed. Regardless, you do make a fair point that what does it even matter if a Christian/Jew/atheist/Scientologist draws their prophet? I really don't know as much about Islam as I probably should, though.
No, no, no, you're in no way getting me to reject the faith. Trust me, if any religious discussion I've had has done me in, it's been with Christians. I've only fairly recently began really thinking about Christianity. Prior, I was somewhere between Christianity and agnosticism and didn't bother to move forward from there. I've been merely Christian-ish for years. Now I'm actually reflecting and trying to figure stuff out.
That interpretation of the story of Job makes more sense. I'll definitely still need to look into it, as it is still such a weird sort of story. Job still seems to have gotten the shitty end of things. But at least the way you explains it beats the previous reasoning I've gotten with is pretty much--things suck, but still worship this jerk of a higher power because faith.
So if Jesus was quoting Jewish texts, though admittedly some more obscure ones, it still goes back to the question of his divinity. Why go through the trouble of an extension of god that uses with such quotation and repetition? Yeah, there were some new ideas too, but why the old ones? And why the continued misinterpretations, thousands of years on, claiming he spoke in tongues or whatever?
That book definitely seems interesting. I'll have to read it after I finish the Bible proper. I knew that there were lost books, but again, I'm only fairly recently looking into all this stuff, so there's a decent amount for me to cover.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 6:31 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
I actually did some homework for you to find out why Christians claim Jesus to be of Divine origin. My head hit the table a couple of times with their circular reasoning but basically their ideas can be surmised in 3 arguments: #1 - He was the Messiah (which he wasn't but I'll get into that), #2 - He was resurrected from the dead (we've beaten up this horse - was he REALLY dead? Or do you just THINK he was dead? And it should be noted here that it's common Anthropological knowledge that all of the 12 disciples spent MOST of their time with Jesus totally stoned on Cannabis Oil, which frequently causes hallucinations and is how we have the walking on water trick. Fun Fact: Joan of arc had her visions discredited when she was de-throned as a saint because she was high on mushrooms the whole time. Christians should be bigger on hallucinogens than they are, given their history of drug use.), and #3 - The council of Nicene merged Jesus with a popular Greco-Roman legend (Hercules) in order to make it more palatable to the masses. Now I want to point out that all three of these arguments are made and debated by Christians who seem to think he satisfies the first two but they scoff at the third one, even though it's probably got more truth to it than they know. (*cough* Horus *coughcough*) MAINLY they claim that because Paul said he was divine (in the rest of the NT), that means it's truth. Because Paul wasn't a liar. (insert circular reasoning here)
Now why is he not the Messiah. Let's first start here. According to Jewish scriptures, the Moshiach, will be a number of things - divine is not one of them.
#1 - He must be a Jew born of the line of David (Also, Jeremiah says Moshiach is male - though that is up for debate among the Jewish sects). This means he needs male seed to be considered Moshiach. well if we refer back to Vatican II, we assert that Jesus was probably born of either Mary's Uncle or Joseph's seed. If we're assuming Joseph to be the father, we run into a hang up here. MAINLY that the gospels can never seem to agree on where Joseph came from. Two of the three that mention his lineage trace it back to David's BROTHER who was told by Gd that he would never have an heir to the throne of Gd. But fine. I will give Jesus a free pass on the lineage argument.
Here's more free points for Jesus. He's a charismatic leader, who inspires others to follow him (#2). He's also scholarly in Torah and observant in it's laws(#3). This is where all that knowledge of the apocrypha came in handy for him. It allowed Jesus to reach out to the Gnostics on their playing field and convert them into his fold.
Here's where Jesus fails. Moshiach is a great military leader who leads Israel on to win many war battles (#4), and a fair and righteous judge (#5). He returns worship to the Temple in Jerusalem (#6), he returns all Jews to Israel (#7), he mints his own money and establishes Israel as the center for all world commerce (#8), and he establishes a reign of world peace (#9) before dying a normal human death (#10). No resurrection, no free pass into heaven after collecting the keys of hell. He simply lives and dies as a normal Jewish leader.
But because Jesus SAID he is the Moshiach and because Peter and Paul agreed, it's so.
As to the Trinity, all I can say is that they believe Jesus to be Gd's leg or something. If Gd was a corporeal being, Gd would have an arm (The holy spirit) and a leg (Jesus). So worshiping Jesus is worshiping Gd since they're the same thing. And all the saints are Gd's secretaries, who all sit outside Her office, type memos, and take messages. But Jesus is in the office. Because Gd is a CEO and Jesus is Gd's leg.
Christianity on the whole largely states that, while technically their Gd is the same as that of Abraham and Moses, it's not REALLY the same Gd because their's is all about the loving and peace and the OT Gd was all about war and destruction. And to that I really can't argue. My Gd is real. Yours is a zombie created in large part to a bunch of stoned disciples. Or rather a Lich (Quote from Reddit: which is created when a powerful magician or king, striving for eternal life, uses spells or rituals to bind his soul to his animated corpse and thereby achieving immortality. Litches are depicted as being clearly cadaverous, their bodies still bearing the wounds they received before their death. Litches often have the power of necromancy, which allows them to bring the dead back to life.). But zombie is easier to explain to naive Christians.
I honestly don't know a whole lot about Islam either, my dear. You want to ask me about Mormonism, I'm right there (as I have done *extensive* research on the LDS church and the FLDS sects). You want to know about the Amish, I'm game for that too. Scientology, 7th day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses... all religions I know inside and out. Many I joined for a brief period - however superficial - to get the story for my Anthro of Religion degree (I specialized in fringe religious sects). Judaism? Well yeah I can talk all day about Judaism. I can even give you a total family tree of all of the Jewish sects and why they hate each other. Christianity? Well if you're asking Evangelical, Mainstream, and Catholicism, I know quite a bit. But as to the family tree of all denominations and why they hate each other? Not a clue. Best to ask senoy. But Islam? The extent of my knowledge on Islam is that there are two main sects: Sunni and Shi'ite. But I can't tell you why they hate each other or why they do anything other than why they wear a Hijab, pray to Mecca and how they determine if something is halaal (as I accept halaal food as being kosher given the extensive knowledge I have on the customs, though this is apparently a bit of a stray from the normative in Jewish thought). I literally know DICK about Islam other than I know my local Halaal butcher is named Ali and he likes to give me free pitas with my falafel.
Random story about Job. So according to Torah we have an instance of Jacob and his MASSIVE brood being somewhere in the land of the canninites and his daughter, Dinah, goes off into town and lays with the crown prince, who then decides he will marry her. Now in the three lines we're given in Torah is that she was raped. But Talmud says she willingly laid with the prince because she was in love with him and wanted to marry him and sleeping with him was the only way she'd ever get Jacob to agree to it. So Jacob's sons go to the prince and tell him that he has to be circumcised in order to join the people and marry Dinah. Three day into healing, the brothers storm the city and kill everyone. When Jacob hears about this, he's floored and a might bit pissed because this is very obviously an act of war on the Cannanites. The boys say simply "Should he treat our sister as a harlot?" Apparently Jacob (as is said in Talmud) was so upset about this that he cried. But Dinah was still lingering about. She would no longer bring in the virgin price and had nobody willing to pay it, especially since the prince knocked her up with Saul. So he married her off to Job. Dinah was Job's first wife. She and Job had Asenath, who would go on to become Joseph's wife. They buried her in Caanan.
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:05 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Ah, ok then on the miracles. But what then, going off of Catholicism, separates Jesus from any other saint other than the fact that he himself claimed he was different? Just takin' his word for it? I mean, I know faith is important and all, but is there any clear reasoning as to Jesus's divinity?
I'm still having trouble with the whole Jesus not being another god thing. You've explained it sufficiently enough, but I think it's that damn Trinity idea tripping me up. Jesus is different from the 'regular' Christian god, yet because he is divine and because it's a monotheistic religion, it seems like fudging the definitions a bit to consolidate the two ideas. There's a father and son, but the same person. I just can't... two clearly different Biblical characters but the same deity.
Catholicism has so much roundaboutness to it. Not only is there a strict hierarchy of religious authorities within the Church (Pope, Bishops, Priests, etc.), the layman is even farther separated from his god by talking through saints as well. Seriously, it seems like Catholics way over-complicate. Why do you need all that separation? I much prefer the Quaker approach of just pray.
With the Islam thing--I thought that, perhaps, images of prophets were also not allowed. Regardless, you do make a fair point that what does it even matter if a Christian/Jew/atheist/Scientologist draws their prophet? I really don't know as much about Islam as I probably should, though.
No, no, no, you're in no way getting me to reject the faith. Trust me, if any religious discussion I've had has done me in, it's been with Christians. I've only fairly recently began really thinking about Christianity. Prior, I was somewhere between Christianity and agnosticism and didn't bother to move forward from there. I've been merely Christian-ish for years. Now I'm actually reflecting and trying to figure stuff out.
That interpretation of the story of Job makes more sense. I'll definitely still need to look into it, as it is still such a weird sort of story. Job still seems to have gotten the shitty end of things. But at least the way you explains it beats the previous reasoning I've gotten with is pretty much--things suck, but still worship this jerk of a higher power because faith.
So if Jesus was quoting Jewish texts, though admittedly some more obscure ones, it still goes back to the question of his divinity. Why go through the trouble of an extension of god that uses with such quotation and repetition? Yeah, there were some new ideas too, but why the old ones? And why the continued misinterpretations, thousands of years on, claiming he spoke in tongues or whatever?
That book definitely seems interesting. I'll have to read it after I finish the Bible proper. I knew that there were lost books, but again, I'm only fairly recently looking into all this stuff, so there's a decent amount for me to cover.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 6:31 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
I actually did some homework for you to find out why Christians claim Jesus to be of Divine origin. My head hit the table a couple of times with their circular reasoning but basically their ideas can be surmised in 3 arguments: #1 - He was the Messiah (which he wasn't but I'll get into that), #2 - He was resurrected from the dead (we've beaten up this horse - was he REALLY dead? Or do you just THINK he was dead? And it should be noted here that it's common Anthropological knowledge that all of the 12 disciples spent MOST of their time with Jesus totally stoned on Cannabis Oil, which frequently causes hallucinations and is how we have the walking on water trick. Fun Fact: Joan of arc had her visions discredited when she was de-throned as a saint because she was high on mushrooms the whole time. Christians should be bigger on hallucinogens than they are, given their history of drug use.), and #3 - The council of Nicene merged Jesus with a popular Greco-Roman legend (Hercules) in order to make it more palatable to the masses. Now I want to point out that all three of these arguments are made and debated by Christians who seem to think he satisfies the first two but they scoff at the third one, even though it's probably got more truth to it than they know. (*cough* Horus *coughcough*) MAINLY they claim that because Paul said he was divine (in the rest of the NT), that means it's truth. Because Paul wasn't a liar. (insert circular reasoning here)
Now why is he not the Messiah. Let's first start here. According to Jewish scriptures, the Moshiach, will be a number of things - divine is not one of them.
#1 - He must be a Jew born of the line of David (Also, Jeremiah says Moshiach is male - though that is up for debate among the Jewish sects). This means he needs male seed to be considered Moshiach. well if we refer back to Vatican II, we assert that Jesus was probably born of either Mary's Uncle or Joseph's seed. If we're assuming Joseph to be the father, we run into a hang up here. MAINLY that the gospels can never seem to agree on where Joseph came from. Two of the three that mention his lineage trace it back to David's BROTHER who was told by Gd that he would never have an heir to the throne of Gd. But fine. I will give Jesus a free pass on the lineage argument.
Here's more free points for Jesus. He's a charismatic leader, who inspires others to follow him (#2). He's also scholarly in Torah and observant in it's laws(#3). This is where all that knowledge of the apocrypha came in handy for him. It allowed Jesus to reach out to the Gnostics on their playing field and convert them into his fold.
Here's where Jesus fails. Moshiach is a great military leader who leads Israel on to win many war battles (#4), and a fair and righteous judge (#5). He returns worship to the Temple in Jerusalem (#6), he returns all Jews to Israel (#7), he mints his own money and establishes Israel as the center for all world commerce (#8), and he establishes a reign of world peace (#9) before dying a normal human death (#10). No resurrection, no free pass into heaven after collecting the keys of hell. He simply lives and dies as a normal Jewish leader.
But because Jesus SAID he is the Moshiach and because Peter and Paul agreed, it's so.
As to the Trinity, all I can say is that they believe Jesus to be Gd's leg or something. If Gd was a corporeal being, Gd would have an arm (The holy spirit) and a leg (Jesus). So worshiping Jesus is worshiping Gd since they're the same thing. And all the saints are Gd's secretaries, who all sit outside Her office, type memos, and take messages. But Jesus is in the office. Because Gd is a CEO and Jesus is Gd's leg.
Christianity on the whole largely states that, while technically their Gd is the same as that of Abraham and Moses, it's not REALLY the same Gd because their's is all about the loving and peace and the OT Gd was all about war and destruction. And to that I really can't argue. My Gd is real. Yours is a zombie created in large part to a bunch of stoned disciples. Or rather a Lich (Quote from Reddit: which is created when a powerful magician or king, striving for eternal life, uses spells or rituals to bind his soul to his animated corpse and thereby achieving immortality. Litches are depicted as being clearly cadaverous, their bodies still bearing the wounds they received before their death. Litches often have the power of necromancy, which allows them to bring the dead back to life.). But zombie is easier to explain to naive Christians.
I honestly don't know a whole lot about Islam either, my dear. You want to ask me about Mormonism, I'm right there (as I have done *extensive* research on the LDS church and the FLDS sects). You want to know about the Amish, I'm game for that too. Scientology, 7th day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses... all religions I know inside and out. Many I joined for a brief period - however superficial - to get the story for my Anthro of Religion degree (I specialized in fringe religious sects). Judaism? Well yeah I can talk all day about Judaism. I can even give you a total family tree of all of the Jewish sects and why they hate each other. Christianity? Well if you're asking Evangelical, Mainstream, and Catholicism, I know quite a bit. But as to the family tree of all denominations and why they hate each other? Not a clue. Best to ask senoy. But Islam? The extent of my knowledge on Islam is that there are two main sects: Sunni and Shi'ite. But I can't tell you why they hate each other or why they do anything other than why they wear a Hijab, pray to Mecca and how they determine if something is halaal (as I accept halaal food as being kosher given the extensive knowledge I have on the customs, though this is apparently a bit of a stray from the normative in Jewish thought). I literally know DICK about Islam other than I know my local Halaal butcher is named Ali and he likes to give me free pitas with my falafel.
Random story about Job. So according to Torah we have an instance of Jacob and his MASSIVE brood being somewhere in the land of the canninites and his daughter, Dinah, goes off into town and lays with the crown prince, who then decides he will marry her. Now in the three lines we're given in Torah is that she was raped. But Talmud says she willingly laid with the prince because she was in love with him and wanted to marry him and sleeping with him was the only way she'd ever get Jacob to agree to it. So Jacob's sons go to the prince and tell him that he has to be circumcised in order to join the people and marry Dinah. Three day into healing, the brothers storm the city and kill everyone. When Jacob hears about this, he's floored and a might bit pissed because this is very obviously an act of war on the Cannanites. The boys say simply "Should he treat our sister as a harlot?" Apparently Jacob (as is said in Talmud) was so upset about this that he cried. But Dinah was still lingering about. She would no longer bring in the virgin price and had nobody willing to pay it, especially since the prince knocked her up with Saul. So he married her off to Job. Dinah was Job's first wife. She and Job had Asenath, who would go on to become Joseph's wife. They buried her in Caanan.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Musings on Religion: Pt 6
From: S
To: Orthodoxia
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:58 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
So, given that miracles can, for the most part, be scientifically explained, they weren't technically miracles--at least not in the Christian sense. But because of the outline of the cure for such skin diseases in Lev. there was perhaps the possibility of some divine influence it seems. Or, on the other hand, the cure was stumbled upon and, lacking a reasonable explanation of with the knowledge of the time, it was assumed that this must have been some sort of divine influence.
I'm still struggling with the Jesus/miracles thing though. It might be because I haven't made it to the New Testament yet--not by a long shot with the sluggish pace I'm going at currently. Since healing--or miracles, depending on which term seems most fitting--was not entirely unheard of, what makes Jesus so special in his curing the sick? Is it just Christians' overstatement because Jesus is held in such high regard, or was anything new or different about Jesus's miraculous acts?
Holocaust survival. Babies.. now that's the sort of miracles I can get. It's completely amazing, of course-- to the point that when procreation and such stuff was first described to me in a biology class, I struggled with the material because of the craziness of it all. But to me that's more of a concrete miracle. The Jesus-y sorts of miracles seem somewhat iffy considering the time period and such.
So, Christians are supposed to follow the Noachide laws... But the first Noachide law, the one on idolatry, seems to go against the Christian belief in Jesus. Isn't recognizing Jesus's divinity in a way worshiping two gods?
Yeah, your part about Christians not reading the Bible through because things would fall apart--definitely understand that one. The more I read it and the more I discuss things the less I follow it. It is just not going well for me, Christianity-wise at least. I don't know what I am, but this stuff isn't quite clicking right.
Strange note on that point: when I attended church as a kid, I never had to read anything in its entirety apart from the Gospels. But I do remember having to memorize the books of the Old Testament. Or maybe it was just the first dozen O.T. books. Something involving simple memorization like that. Looking back, what in the world was I to gain from knowing that Deu. comes after Lev.?
I haven't gotten to Job yet. Which makes sense as to why I was confused--I'm here reading Genesis and it's all ok, no evil Satan guy yet. Then get through some more chapters... still no Satan. So really it's just random like that? And suddenly-- Satan! Huh, well then.
I haven't read the book of Job, but I've been told the story before. And the story's always painted in such a way that it's about Job's devotion, when really it is more like is these two guys having, as you said, "a friendly wager with you about who can fuck up this man's world more." The story of Job always bothered me a bit. It's like a childish rivalry conducted to the misery of some poor random dude.
So basically, some versions of the Christian Bible include a mistranslation of Isaiah's words in order to validate Satan? Charming...
For the record, the CEV Bible I'm reading actually says "King of Babylon." So at least that's accurate.
So the concept of Satan in a way helps to simplify things down, basically. A black and white sense of "good" and "evil" rather than the frankly far more logical view that things are never like that, never that simple.
I like that idea of the yetzer hara sort of animalistic impulse rather than the cut/dry, watered-down good v. bad.
The point you made about evangelicals and seeing themselves as oppressed--it seems like this is because of their background worshiping Jesus, yeah? A martyr complex of sorts: one of their gods (wait, is it plural or not? It's a monotheistic religion, but the Trinity... I give up, whatever). Anyways, proper diction aside, their holy guy got killed as an oppressed religious scape-goat, so it seems like this has just carried on. Obviously religious oppression is not an entirely Christian hardship--Jews, Muslims, etc. have historically been killed for their beliefs as well--so that can't explain everything.
Christianity is confusing.
Absolutely no problem that you didn't get to everything. I'm sure I'm asking a lot of questions and you're being wonderfully thorough in your answers.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 6:41 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
There are a great many liberal Christians who contend that only six of the 137 miracles listed in the gospels as performed by Jesus could indeed be considered miracles; the rest were in large part psychosomatic illnesses or parlor tricks. However it's important to note that the Catholic Church only requires three miracles be performed to be considered for sainthood. And I think you'll piece together those tidbits of knowledge.
As to idolatry, the thing to remember here is interpretation. To any other outsider, the Catholic Church is FULL of idolatry yet they claim to be free from it. How is this possible? Well for one, according to Christianity, Jesus is Gd. He is PART of the divine that we are supposed to worship. So worshiping him is the same as worshiping Gd. It's also important to note that "no graven images" is only a Jewish commandment and not a Noachide one. So drawing pictures of Jesus, of Gd, of Heaven and Hell, of Satan, is not qualified under this law (though the 10 commandments list "no graven images" as one of their commandments). It could also stand to reason (though I've yet to hear this argument made by anyone besides me) that drawing pictures of Adam, Eve, Jesus, the disciples, and saints are really just drawing pictures of people. And we could take a picture of another person without it being a graven image (though the Amish believe that all pictures of people are bad because we are spirits of Gd and taking our pictures makes a graven image of something Gdly). But then it stands to reason that Jesus was not Gd, he was just a man, and that's why it's okay to draw pictures of him. Because nowhere in the Torah is it okay to make a graven image of Gd or anything Gdly and worship it. We Jews don't even draw pictures of angels because of that damn law.
Fun fact - No graven Images is also an Islamic law, which is why they get hysterical when you draw a picture of Mohammed. Though I don't know why. As long as you're not Muslim, you should be able to draw pictures of exalted Muslim people because you are not bound by Muslim law. Jews don't run around trying to burn up pictures of Moses. And it's made quite clear in the qu'ran that Mohammed was indeed a man (their testimony of faith - or Shandah - states "There is only one Gd and Mohammed was his messenger"), and just a prophet. It stands to reason that if the Muslims get so uppity about THAT ONE prophet, they should also be burning down places that have drawings of Moses and Jesus too but they don't. Very selective bunch those ones.
Back to Catholic idolatry - there's also the prayers to the saints and holier-than-thou ones which a lot of people view as worship but, to them, it's kind of like asking Gd's secretary to take a message for you.
Now me personally, I could never figure out WHY Gd needed a MAN to come to earth, live as a normal dude, and DIE to save all of mankind. Are we really that far beyond reproach that we now need Gd's secretary to hand deliver messages? Frankly, I'll just walk into the office all the same. And I once heard a preacher (Creflo Dollar) talk about prayer and say that NOBODY comes into his office unannounced, ever under any circumstances... except his little children. And that's how we are to Gd. EVERYONE ELSE make an appointment, but as my child, you can just walk in any time you like. That's another of the many reasons why I finally rejected Christianity. I didn't need a man to die for me so that I could talk to Gd again. Gd talks to me all the time. The only person who could possibly burn or repair that bridge between me and Gd was me. But some people NEED that death to act as a bridge to talk to Gd and I get that. But I didn't. I have a very nice bridge myself thankyouverymuch.
I don't mean to use these discussions to turn you off from Christianity. For my own tastes, I like logic. I like logic a LOT. And nothing about Christianity is logical to me. Nothing about Islam is logical to me either. Judaism - to me - is logical. And where it's not logical, it never tries to fill the gap with circular reasoning or contradictory statements. It just says "it is what it is" and moves on.
Now as to Job - Job is a better read when you read the book in Torah, get pissed off at Gd, and then pick up Talmud to read what the rabbis said about it there. In the book, Gd is holding his Monday team meeting and Satan (yes, his Hebrew name is Satan - but in Hebrew that word just means "adversary" or "prosecutor" and in Jewish translations, "Satan" is replaced with "The Prosecutor") shows up like 15 minutes late. Gd is all "You don't look too good Satan" and Satan is all "I've been wandering earth for like a long ass time." Gd is like "YOU LIKE WHAT I DID THERE! Look at Job!! He is teh awesome!" Satan is all "Well yeah. You blessed him. Of course he blesses you." Gd is like "You don't think he'd bless me if I sent a pox on him?" Satan is all "No I don't." Gd is like "Fine. Go send a pox on him." So Satan does what he's told and returns. Gd is all "See! He still praises me!! I am wonderful!" Satan goes "Your pox was too small." Gd goes "WHAT! A BIGGER POX THEN!" And Satan goes back.
So this goes on and on for a couple of chapters when finally Satan goes "Srsly Gd? I think he's had enough." And Gd goes, "Yeah. You're right. I totally shouldn't have done that." And Satan goes "Yeah." And then Job goes on to lead a happy life once again.
Now it SOUNDS like we have this prideful arrogant Gd who is all "I'LL SHOW YOU" and that's what pisses all of us off when we first read Job. The Christians use it as a point of reference that even the righteous shall suffer. But Talmud is kind of poignant here in that it points out this is not a test of JOB'S faith but one of SATAN'S faith. Gd's telling Satan to go be this totally fucked up dude and Satan isn't thrilled about this idea. Then Gd gives him the task of basically "breaking the barrel but not spilling any wine" to see if Satan would say "Eff you Gd!" And Satan does not. As such, he's still an angel in good graces. And he never again appears in the Torah. The rabbis talk of Satan as being like the prostitute hired by the King to tempt the son but secretly prays inside that the son will pass and Talmud is VERY sympathetic to his plight in Job. Like Michael, Gabriel, and Elijah, he is just another of Gd's many angels.
Then it comes back to Job. Mamonides explains that Job's friends represent the various adversaries to Judaism and that the sum total is that reason (rather than passion) will always win out in Gd's eyes. As soon as you apply logic, will you find bountiful blessings. In the beginning, Job was pious but he never reflected on his faith nor did he question it. He just did what he was told and Gd blessed him. Towards the end though, he was VERY aware of reason and logic in his righteousness and was then rewarded with twice as much opulence as before. We Jews are told Job so that we are reminded to ALWAYS question, always analyze, and always think a mitzvah through before doing it. Don't just do it for habit. Do it because you have reasoned that this is logical.
THAT is why I became Jewish. Logic. Always question. Dig deep.
The further I dig into Judaism, the more questions I ask, the more research I do, the LESS I see the logic in Christianity and the MORE I see the logic of Judaism.
Back to Jesus speaking of the apocrypha and modern Christianity calling it miraculous. The point you hit when you can say that what he preached was simply knowledge of Torah and apocrypha is when you read the actual texts he was quoting (HERE is help - you'll love the part where Adam and Eve commit suicide 3 times, and the part where Jesus kills his playmate for mocking him only to be spanked by Joseph and told to resurrect the boy). Sometimes he would quote what we now know to be Talmud. Sometimes it would be a lost book. VERY RARELY did he say anything of his own accord. He wouldn't have gained followers (nevermind Jewish followers) if he was just spouting off shit he heard from a burning bush. We (as a Jewish people) were LONG past that whole concept in time. When he talked of having the power of exorcism learned from Solomon, he spoke of a part in the the Gnostic gospel "The Apocalypse of Adam" where it was said that Solomon was so awesome that he would spend days awake in the Temple just summoning and exorcising demons to pass the time, and that he had total control over all demons. THAT was well known to Jews at the time as the Gnostic texts were told at that time, and were probably only written down a couple hundred years before Christ.
The reason these books aren't taught is that these Gnostic Gospels, Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagints, and so on are not canon. They're apocryphal texts. There is no way to verify the age they claim to be and since, many times, they offered a WEIRD portrait of what we know as canon, they were excluded from official doctrine. Having read the book I linked you to as a teenager, I can honestly say that Talmud makes a lot more sense, as the writers of the Talmud many times referenced stories that are not in the Hebrew scriptures, but ARE in the Gnostic gospels.
Also, in my early religious career, I was also required to memorize the names of the first five books of the Bible. Then when I converted, I had to memorize their Hebrew names. Fun fact, each Hebrew word for the book is the first word of the book. B'reishit (Genesis) = "The beginning", Sh'mot (Exodus) = The names", Va-Yikra (Leviticus) = "He called", B'Midbar (Numbers) = "the wilderness", and De'varim (Deuteronomy) = "the words" or "the book" as this was the only book NOT written by Gd.
To: Orthodoxia
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:58 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
So, given that miracles can, for the most part, be scientifically explained, they weren't technically miracles--at least not in the Christian sense. But because of the outline of the cure for such skin diseases in Lev. there was perhaps the possibility of some divine influence it seems. Or, on the other hand, the cure was stumbled upon and, lacking a reasonable explanation of with the knowledge of the time, it was assumed that this must have been some sort of divine influence.
I'm still struggling with the Jesus/miracles thing though. It might be because I haven't made it to the New Testament yet--not by a long shot with the sluggish pace I'm going at currently. Since healing--or miracles, depending on which term seems most fitting--was not entirely unheard of, what makes Jesus so special in his curing the sick? Is it just Christians' overstatement because Jesus is held in such high regard, or was anything new or different about Jesus's miraculous acts?
Holocaust survival. Babies.. now that's the sort of miracles I can get. It's completely amazing, of course-- to the point that when procreation and such stuff was first described to me in a biology class, I struggled with the material because of the craziness of it all. But to me that's more of a concrete miracle. The Jesus-y sorts of miracles seem somewhat iffy considering the time period and such.
So, Christians are supposed to follow the Noachide laws... But the first Noachide law, the one on idolatry, seems to go against the Christian belief in Jesus. Isn't recognizing Jesus's divinity in a way worshiping two gods?
Yeah, your part about Christians not reading the Bible through because things would fall apart--definitely understand that one. The more I read it and the more I discuss things the less I follow it. It is just not going well for me, Christianity-wise at least. I don't know what I am, but this stuff isn't quite clicking right.
Strange note on that point: when I attended church as a kid, I never had to read anything in its entirety apart from the Gospels. But I do remember having to memorize the books of the Old Testament. Or maybe it was just the first dozen O.T. books. Something involving simple memorization like that. Looking back, what in the world was I to gain from knowing that Deu. comes after Lev.?
I haven't gotten to Job yet. Which makes sense as to why I was confused--I'm here reading Genesis and it's all ok, no evil Satan guy yet. Then get through some more chapters... still no Satan. So really it's just random like that? And suddenly-- Satan! Huh, well then.
I haven't read the book of Job, but I've been told the story before. And the story's always painted in such a way that it's about Job's devotion, when really it is more like is these two guys having, as you said, "a friendly wager with you about who can fuck up this man's world more." The story of Job always bothered me a bit. It's like a childish rivalry conducted to the misery of some poor random dude.
So basically, some versions of the Christian Bible include a mistranslation of Isaiah's words in order to validate Satan? Charming...
For the record, the CEV Bible I'm reading actually says "King of Babylon." So at least that's accurate.
So the concept of Satan in a way helps to simplify things down, basically. A black and white sense of "good" and "evil" rather than the frankly far more logical view that things are never like that, never that simple.
I like that idea of the yetzer hara sort of animalistic impulse rather than the cut/dry, watered-down good v. bad.
The point you made about evangelicals and seeing themselves as oppressed--it seems like this is because of their background worshiping Jesus, yeah? A martyr complex of sorts: one of their gods (wait, is it plural or not? It's a monotheistic religion, but the Trinity... I give up, whatever). Anyways, proper diction aside, their holy guy got killed as an oppressed religious scape-goat, so it seems like this has just carried on. Obviously religious oppression is not an entirely Christian hardship--Jews, Muslims, etc. have historically been killed for their beliefs as well--so that can't explain everything.
Christianity is confusing.
Absolutely no problem that you didn't get to everything. I'm sure I'm asking a lot of questions and you're being wonderfully thorough in your answers.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 6:41 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
There are a great many liberal Christians who contend that only six of the 137 miracles listed in the gospels as performed by Jesus could indeed be considered miracles; the rest were in large part psychosomatic illnesses or parlor tricks. However it's important to note that the Catholic Church only requires three miracles be performed to be considered for sainthood. And I think you'll piece together those tidbits of knowledge.
As to idolatry, the thing to remember here is interpretation. To any other outsider, the Catholic Church is FULL of idolatry yet they claim to be free from it. How is this possible? Well for one, according to Christianity, Jesus is Gd. He is PART of the divine that we are supposed to worship. So worshiping him is the same as worshiping Gd. It's also important to note that "no graven images" is only a Jewish commandment and not a Noachide one. So drawing pictures of Jesus, of Gd, of Heaven and Hell, of Satan, is not qualified under this law (though the 10 commandments list "no graven images" as one of their commandments). It could also stand to reason (though I've yet to hear this argument made by anyone besides me) that drawing pictures of Adam, Eve, Jesus, the disciples, and saints are really just drawing pictures of people. And we could take a picture of another person without it being a graven image (though the Amish believe that all pictures of people are bad because we are spirits of Gd and taking our pictures makes a graven image of something Gdly). But then it stands to reason that Jesus was not Gd, he was just a man, and that's why it's okay to draw pictures of him. Because nowhere in the Torah is it okay to make a graven image of Gd or anything Gdly and worship it. We Jews don't even draw pictures of angels because of that damn law.
Fun fact - No graven Images is also an Islamic law, which is why they get hysterical when you draw a picture of Mohammed. Though I don't know why. As long as you're not Muslim, you should be able to draw pictures of exalted Muslim people because you are not bound by Muslim law. Jews don't run around trying to burn up pictures of Moses. And it's made quite clear in the qu'ran that Mohammed was indeed a man (their testimony of faith - or Shandah - states "There is only one Gd and Mohammed was his messenger"), and just a prophet. It stands to reason that if the Muslims get so uppity about THAT ONE prophet, they should also be burning down places that have drawings of Moses and Jesus too but they don't. Very selective bunch those ones.
Back to Catholic idolatry - there's also the prayers to the saints and holier-than-thou ones which a lot of people view as worship but, to them, it's kind of like asking Gd's secretary to take a message for you.
Now me personally, I could never figure out WHY Gd needed a MAN to come to earth, live as a normal dude, and DIE to save all of mankind. Are we really that far beyond reproach that we now need Gd's secretary to hand deliver messages? Frankly, I'll just walk into the office all the same. And I once heard a preacher (Creflo Dollar) talk about prayer and say that NOBODY comes into his office unannounced, ever under any circumstances... except his little children. And that's how we are to Gd. EVERYONE ELSE make an appointment, but as my child, you can just walk in any time you like. That's another of the many reasons why I finally rejected Christianity. I didn't need a man to die for me so that I could talk to Gd again. Gd talks to me all the time. The only person who could possibly burn or repair that bridge between me and Gd was me. But some people NEED that death to act as a bridge to talk to Gd and I get that. But I didn't. I have a very nice bridge myself thankyouverymuch.
I don't mean to use these discussions to turn you off from Christianity. For my own tastes, I like logic. I like logic a LOT. And nothing about Christianity is logical to me. Nothing about Islam is logical to me either. Judaism - to me - is logical. And where it's not logical, it never tries to fill the gap with circular reasoning or contradictory statements. It just says "it is what it is" and moves on.
Now as to Job - Job is a better read when you read the book in Torah, get pissed off at Gd, and then pick up Talmud to read what the rabbis said about it there. In the book, Gd is holding his Monday team meeting and Satan (yes, his Hebrew name is Satan - but in Hebrew that word just means "adversary" or "prosecutor" and in Jewish translations, "Satan" is replaced with "The Prosecutor") shows up like 15 minutes late. Gd is all "You don't look too good Satan" and Satan is all "I've been wandering earth for like a long ass time." Gd is like "YOU LIKE WHAT I DID THERE! Look at Job!! He is teh awesome!" Satan is all "Well yeah. You blessed him. Of course he blesses you." Gd is like "You don't think he'd bless me if I sent a pox on him?" Satan is all "No I don't." Gd is like "Fine. Go send a pox on him." So Satan does what he's told and returns. Gd is all "See! He still praises me!! I am wonderful!" Satan goes "Your pox was too small." Gd goes "WHAT! A BIGGER POX THEN!" And Satan goes back.
So this goes on and on for a couple of chapters when finally Satan goes "Srsly Gd? I think he's had enough." And Gd goes, "Yeah. You're right. I totally shouldn't have done that." And Satan goes "Yeah." And then Job goes on to lead a happy life once again.
Now it SOUNDS like we have this prideful arrogant Gd who is all "I'LL SHOW YOU" and that's what pisses all of us off when we first read Job. The Christians use it as a point of reference that even the righteous shall suffer. But Talmud is kind of poignant here in that it points out this is not a test of JOB'S faith but one of SATAN'S faith. Gd's telling Satan to go be this totally fucked up dude and Satan isn't thrilled about this idea. Then Gd gives him the task of basically "breaking the barrel but not spilling any wine" to see if Satan would say "Eff you Gd!" And Satan does not. As such, he's still an angel in good graces. And he never again appears in the Torah. The rabbis talk of Satan as being like the prostitute hired by the King to tempt the son but secretly prays inside that the son will pass and Talmud is VERY sympathetic to his plight in Job. Like Michael, Gabriel, and Elijah, he is just another of Gd's many angels.
Then it comes back to Job. Mamonides explains that Job's friends represent the various adversaries to Judaism and that the sum total is that reason (rather than passion) will always win out in Gd's eyes. As soon as you apply logic, will you find bountiful blessings. In the beginning, Job was pious but he never reflected on his faith nor did he question it. He just did what he was told and Gd blessed him. Towards the end though, he was VERY aware of reason and logic in his righteousness and was then rewarded with twice as much opulence as before. We Jews are told Job so that we are reminded to ALWAYS question, always analyze, and always think a mitzvah through before doing it. Don't just do it for habit. Do it because you have reasoned that this is logical.
THAT is why I became Jewish. Logic. Always question. Dig deep.
The further I dig into Judaism, the more questions I ask, the more research I do, the LESS I see the logic in Christianity and the MORE I see the logic of Judaism.
Back to Jesus speaking of the apocrypha and modern Christianity calling it miraculous. The point you hit when you can say that what he preached was simply knowledge of Torah and apocrypha is when you read the actual texts he was quoting (HERE is help - you'll love the part where Adam and Eve commit suicide 3 times, and the part where Jesus kills his playmate for mocking him only to be spanked by Joseph and told to resurrect the boy). Sometimes he would quote what we now know to be Talmud. Sometimes it would be a lost book. VERY RARELY did he say anything of his own accord. He wouldn't have gained followers (nevermind Jewish followers) if he was just spouting off shit he heard from a burning bush. We (as a Jewish people) were LONG past that whole concept in time. When he talked of having the power of exorcism learned from Solomon, he spoke of a part in the the Gnostic gospel "The Apocalypse of Adam" where it was said that Solomon was so awesome that he would spend days awake in the Temple just summoning and exorcising demons to pass the time, and that he had total control over all demons. THAT was well known to Jews at the time as the Gnostic texts were told at that time, and were probably only written down a couple hundred years before Christ.
The reason these books aren't taught is that these Gnostic Gospels, Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagints, and so on are not canon. They're apocryphal texts. There is no way to verify the age they claim to be and since, many times, they offered a WEIRD portrait of what we know as canon, they were excluded from official doctrine. Having read the book I linked you to as a teenager, I can honestly say that Talmud makes a lot more sense, as the writers of the Talmud many times referenced stories that are not in the Hebrew scriptures, but ARE in the Gnostic gospels.
Also, in my early religious career, I was also required to memorize the names of the first five books of the Bible. Then when I converted, I had to memorize their Hebrew names. Fun fact, each Hebrew word for the book is the first word of the book. B'reishit (Genesis) = "The beginning", Sh'mot (Exodus) = The names", Va-Yikra (Leviticus) = "He called", B'Midbar (Numbers) = "the wilderness", and De'varim (Deuteronomy) = "the words" or "the book" as this was the only book NOT written by Gd.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Musings on Religion: Pt 5
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 7:31 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Dissociative Identity Disorder. hahaha- Worship this deity- it's perfect except for the whole mental disorder where s/he sometimes doesn't know who s/he is. That just seems so strange to me. And yet, a fairly accurate representation of at least some explanations of the Trinity.
The whole "magic tricks" thing is what really brings into question the biblical miracles. With the limited knowledge of science 2000 years ago, a helluva lot of now explainable things defied the human knowledge and reason of the period. That said, what do you think of the more medical miracles of Jesus (healing lepers, giving sight to the blind, etc.)? I don't know enough biblical background to really know if these seem to be miracles, if there's a logical explanation, or what.
Huh, that's really interesting--the parallels between Jesus & Horus. I've studied some about the Egyptian gods (I was a weird kid, fascinated with mythology from a young age), but it's been a while so not surprising that I'm rusty. I'm definitely going to look into that, read the two stories back-to-back.
So, do you know if there's any reason why some Christians, some Catholics included, still stress the 10 commandments given that the 7 new ones were introduced? Is it just a lack of knowledge of their own religion?
And do you know much about the Christian devil? That's another Christian concept that's strange to me.
Why would Christians say that Jesus was speaking through divinity or in tongues when it can be proved that it was just from simple studying? It seems misleading which isn't exactly a good thing. Is there a reason why Christians so thoroughly ignore the Psalms of Solomon? Or, again, is it a lack of knowledge on the matter that sort of continued on until it got to the "he spoke in tongues!" point?
Agreed on the death matter.
I had more issues with death as a kid--again, weird kid: I was like 10 and worrying over death--but now it's not as much of a big deal. The way I see it, no matter what happens or what you believe will happen after death, there's no way to avoid it. So you can make yourself miserable troubling over it or you can go on with life. Life is ephemeral. So why waste time with ideas impossible to reconcile? You can think about it, sure, but letting it bother you is ultimately useless stressing.
It seems to me that a lot of the big atheist arguments for the flaws of religion can be used for atheism as much for religion, anyways. I even get finding it really damn hard to believe. But hardline atheism seems to me like another, albeit really strange, belief.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:27 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Somewhere in my travels and studies I came across someone who wanted to completely refute Christianity by proving the "miracles" weren't actually "miracles" but instead works of science and a lack of knowledge on behalf of the followers. After listening to that man, I remember thinking to myself about all the little "miracles" in both Torah and the Bible and really not buying into a single one of them. But thankfully, I'm Jewish and I don't have to buy into miracles nor do I have to use them as the basis for why I believe Judaism is the only religion doing it right.
Leprosy, as it is written in the Bible, was actually a form of psoriasis which can be cured with exposure to sunlight and rubbing oil on the skin. It wasn't leprosy as we know it today where your hand just randomly falls off (and even if it was, transportation to sanitary conditions and antibiotics will cure THAT leprosy). There's even a cure for it in Leviticus (so if we go with my prior belief, Gd handed down this cure) and it's repeated in Kings II but, again, Christianity is banking on you not reading your Bible.
I personally think Moses was a schizophrenic with heat exhaustion. But that's me. I don't think this NEGATES him from being a wunderkind who defined the Jewish people but the burning bush has always made me question the sanity of a man who chooses to lead a revolt against a stronghold dictator like Pharaoh based on what a flaming bush said. Was it Gd? Coulda been. Might have been. But I like logic. And what's logical to me is that he was wandering the desert too long and got hallucinations and delusions of grandeur.
That's not to say ALL miracles are acts of mental illness and lack of scientific knowledge. I feel like every Jew who escaped the Holocaust lived a miracle. Every shabbat candle that burned in Krakow was a miracle. Every time a baby is born is a miracle. Even though we have reduced the science of procreation down to a single celled organism and know how it plays out, the fact that that cell knows exactly how to divide and become a separate being, independent of the womb, is totally mind blowing for me. It all just depends on your perspective and for me, the miracle wasn't turning water to wine. The miracle of Jesus was reminding the Jewish people to love each other, be kind to each other, to listen, to reflect, to bring it all home to Gd. The blasphemy, for me, is when he claimed that HE was Gd.
The devil is a bit easier to explain than why Christianity disavowed the 7 Noachide laws in favor of the 10 commandments. When you peruse Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, the one thing you're going to notice is a lot of banal laws about stupid shit. It doesn't kick into story again until we're out to the Five books of Moses. I know of one Parshat (Weekly Torah reading) that is only about what materials you need to build an Ark of the Covenant. If it hadn't been a Bar Mitzvah weekend, I'd have slept through that shit and never bothered to note that you need 12 dolphin skins to encase the Torah, and beams that were about 60 feet long to carry it. I mean it's some boring stuff up in there. Another fact that's often overlooked is that the commandments are said twice in Torah: Once by Gd (in Exodus) and once by Moses (in Deuteronomy). And they're not in the same order. The opinion I have heard on this is that Moses felt that certain commandments were more important than the others so he rearranged them. There's also a flip-flop between "honor thy father and thy mother" and "honor thy mother and thy father" to prove that NEITHER parent (and thus neither gender) was more important than the other. In Biblical times, women were the focus on the religion, as they continue to be. Women are exalted and more special than men are in Judaism.
The 7 Noachide laws are as follows:
1 - Thou shalt not commit idolatry. There is but one Gd and we are commanded to ONLY worship that one Gd.
2 - Don't commit Incest or Adultery.
3 - Don't Murder
4 - Don't curse the name of Gd ("Besides honoring and respecting G-d, we learn from this precept that our speech must be sanctified, as that is the distinctive sign which separated man from the animals.")
5 - Don't steal.
6 - Don't eat the flesh of a living animal (which teaches us not to be cruel to animals)
7 - Mankind needs to establish courts and systems of justice to enforce the 6 laws and other such laws that are good for humanity.
I mean it's kind of a no brainer, if you ask me. And these laws were established in Genesis and reiterated in Jubilees.
I just really don't honestly think too many Christians have READ the Bible though or they'd all have serious crises of faith and the whole religion would just fall apart at the seams. I think they all say "oh I read my Bible" and to a degree they read PARTS of it, like a verse here, a paragraph there, MAYBE all four of the gospels if you're lucky. But nobody sits down with the Bible and READS it for real like a book. I don't even think too many religious leaders do either. I think they get a list of scriptures in preacher man school and just run with it. I've YET to see a preacher man read a scripture in context and I know I hear similar sermons every time I go into a church. It annoys the hell out of me because, as a Jew, we read the WHOLE TORAH - even the boring parts - every single year and we study it and argue it and read the accompanying literature. That's why we have the holiday of Simchat Torah. To celebrate that we're starting it over again. Hooray! Another year of reading about how many dolphin skins to affix to the Tabernacle. Yay. (/sarcasm)
The devil is a bit easier. Christians are like football fans. There's the home team (Gd, Jesus and whoever else they thought was awesome) and their arch rival (Satan). What fails my logic is WHY Satan is the source of all the evil in the world when Torah is explicitly clear that Gd is the source of all evil. And all the good too but also all of the evil. I mean, Gd says this, over and over and over... "I will create evil upon you." But then suddenly in Job, this random sideliner pops out onto the playing field and stats raining down hell fire and all of a sudden HE is the source of all evil. Have you ever read the Book of Job? Fascinating read. What struck me MOST about Job was how Gd talked to Satan like they were FRIENDS. If you're my arch nemisis who is running around fucking shit up and I created you, I'm gonna smite the fuck out of you - not have a pleasant conversation and make a friendly wager with you about who can fuck up this man's world more. That's just what I would do here. I would SMITE. THEE. Gd created Lucifer. Lucifer was Gd's most favored angel. Then Lucifer wanted to have free will like Adam and was kicked out of heaven to rule hell and be in a constant tug-of-war, hateful relationship with Gd over humanity. Where did THIS shit come from? Apocrapha. It's not canon until Paul gets involved and starts claiming Satan as the source of all evil WAY into the New Testament. All through the Old Testament you see Lucifer pop up and do Gd's bidding - EVEN IN JOB, where he's basically the prosecutor of Gd's court.
For the record, when Isaiah is screaming about "the Morning Star" he's not talking to Lucifer but the king of Babylon, who as we all know was a ruthless dictator. Lucifer is totally still in Gd's good graces, all the way through scripture. Now YOUR version of the Bible might list Isaiah 14:3-5 as saying "Lucifer" or "Satan" but my Hebrew scripture has "The Morning Star" and other than Satan wandering around aimlessly in Job, there is ZERO mention of him being the prince of darkness. That idea came with Christianity.
Why they needed a devil seems easy enough. It's good vs. evil all up in Christianity. Ever notice how Evangelicals always seem to feel oppressed and like their religion is under attack when IN FACT they're in the majority? Same logic applies to Satan. They needed a fall guy. They HAD to be the good side and on this good side over here is Gd and Jesus. And over THERE on the BAD side is Satan and your yetzer hara (evil impulse).
Now in Judaism, your Yetzer Hara is a gift from Gd from creation, not some little man with a pitchfork all up in your ear. In the creation story, Gd says "we shall make Adom (which means person) in our image." Judaism believes Gd was talking to the animals when She said this. First off, man was not created and then came woman. The person created, Adom, was both male and female, as Gd is both male and female. But Adom was lonely because there was no other Adom to see, so Gd separated them AT THE SIDE (note: not the rib, at the side) so that they could see each other and named them Adamah (earth) and Chava (life). When Adom was created, Gd had already created the animals so Gd said to them "We shall make Adom in our image." This means that each person has both a spiritual, Gdly side (the yetzer ha'tov), and an animalistic side (the yetzer hara) to them. This was totally intentional. And through mitzvos, we pull our yetzer hara more in line with our yetzer ha'tov. Like eating. Eating is an animalistic act. It is a yetzer hara. But when we say the proper blessings over foods that are holy, we change the animal act into a holy one. Judaism doesn't believe in this epic good vs. evil cage match to the death. Gd creates all the good. God also creates all of the bad - including Lucifer, including the serpent in the garden, including all of it. But what is viewed or called "evil" in Judaism is not always "evil" in the Good vs. Evil Christian sense. It's just what it is.
I know I didn't get to your questions on Jesus reciting apocryphal texts, but I am totally beat after a long monday and I'm gonna curl up in front of the TV. I'll hit it next go around.
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 7:31 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Dissociative Identity Disorder. hahaha- Worship this deity- it's perfect except for the whole mental disorder where s/he sometimes doesn't know who s/he is. That just seems so strange to me. And yet, a fairly accurate representation of at least some explanations of the Trinity.
The whole "magic tricks" thing is what really brings into question the biblical miracles. With the limited knowledge of science 2000 years ago, a helluva lot of now explainable things defied the human knowledge and reason of the period. That said, what do you think of the more medical miracles of Jesus (healing lepers, giving sight to the blind, etc.)? I don't know enough biblical background to really know if these seem to be miracles, if there's a logical explanation, or what.
Huh, that's really interesting--the parallels between Jesus & Horus. I've studied some about the Egyptian gods (I was a weird kid, fascinated with mythology from a young age), but it's been a while so not surprising that I'm rusty. I'm definitely going to look into that, read the two stories back-to-back.
So, do you know if there's any reason why some Christians, some Catholics included, still stress the 10 commandments given that the 7 new ones were introduced? Is it just a lack of knowledge of their own religion?
And do you know much about the Christian devil? That's another Christian concept that's strange to me.
Why would Christians say that Jesus was speaking through divinity or in tongues when it can be proved that it was just from simple studying? It seems misleading which isn't exactly a good thing. Is there a reason why Christians so thoroughly ignore the Psalms of Solomon? Or, again, is it a lack of knowledge on the matter that sort of continued on until it got to the "he spoke in tongues!" point?
Agreed on the death matter.
I had more issues with death as a kid--again, weird kid: I was like 10 and worrying over death--but now it's not as much of a big deal. The way I see it, no matter what happens or what you believe will happen after death, there's no way to avoid it. So you can make yourself miserable troubling over it or you can go on with life. Life is ephemeral. So why waste time with ideas impossible to reconcile? You can think about it, sure, but letting it bother you is ultimately useless stressing.
It seems to me that a lot of the big atheist arguments for the flaws of religion can be used for atheism as much for religion, anyways. I even get finding it really damn hard to believe. But hardline atheism seems to me like another, albeit really strange, belief.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:27 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Somewhere in my travels and studies I came across someone who wanted to completely refute Christianity by proving the "miracles" weren't actually "miracles" but instead works of science and a lack of knowledge on behalf of the followers. After listening to that man, I remember thinking to myself about all the little "miracles" in both Torah and the Bible and really not buying into a single one of them. But thankfully, I'm Jewish and I don't have to buy into miracles nor do I have to use them as the basis for why I believe Judaism is the only religion doing it right.
Leprosy, as it is written in the Bible, was actually a form of psoriasis which can be cured with exposure to sunlight and rubbing oil on the skin. It wasn't leprosy as we know it today where your hand just randomly falls off (and even if it was, transportation to sanitary conditions and antibiotics will cure THAT leprosy). There's even a cure for it in Leviticus (so if we go with my prior belief, Gd handed down this cure) and it's repeated in Kings II but, again, Christianity is banking on you not reading your Bible.
I personally think Moses was a schizophrenic with heat exhaustion. But that's me. I don't think this NEGATES him from being a wunderkind who defined the Jewish people but the burning bush has always made me question the sanity of a man who chooses to lead a revolt against a stronghold dictator like Pharaoh based on what a flaming bush said. Was it Gd? Coulda been. Might have been. But I like logic. And what's logical to me is that he was wandering the desert too long and got hallucinations and delusions of grandeur.
That's not to say ALL miracles are acts of mental illness and lack of scientific knowledge. I feel like every Jew who escaped the Holocaust lived a miracle. Every shabbat candle that burned in Krakow was a miracle. Every time a baby is born is a miracle. Even though we have reduced the science of procreation down to a single celled organism and know how it plays out, the fact that that cell knows exactly how to divide and become a separate being, independent of the womb, is totally mind blowing for me. It all just depends on your perspective and for me, the miracle wasn't turning water to wine. The miracle of Jesus was reminding the Jewish people to love each other, be kind to each other, to listen, to reflect, to bring it all home to Gd. The blasphemy, for me, is when he claimed that HE was Gd.
The devil is a bit easier to explain than why Christianity disavowed the 7 Noachide laws in favor of the 10 commandments. When you peruse Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, the one thing you're going to notice is a lot of banal laws about stupid shit. It doesn't kick into story again until we're out to the Five books of Moses. I know of one Parshat (Weekly Torah reading) that is only about what materials you need to build an Ark of the Covenant. If it hadn't been a Bar Mitzvah weekend, I'd have slept through that shit and never bothered to note that you need 12 dolphin skins to encase the Torah, and beams that were about 60 feet long to carry it. I mean it's some boring stuff up in there. Another fact that's often overlooked is that the commandments are said twice in Torah: Once by Gd (in Exodus) and once by Moses (in Deuteronomy). And they're not in the same order. The opinion I have heard on this is that Moses felt that certain commandments were more important than the others so he rearranged them. There's also a flip-flop between "honor thy father and thy mother" and "honor thy mother and thy father" to prove that NEITHER parent (and thus neither gender) was more important than the other. In Biblical times, women were the focus on the religion, as they continue to be. Women are exalted and more special than men are in Judaism.
The 7 Noachide laws are as follows:
1 - Thou shalt not commit idolatry. There is but one Gd and we are commanded to ONLY worship that one Gd.
2 - Don't commit Incest or Adultery.
3 - Don't Murder
4 - Don't curse the name of Gd ("Besides honoring and respecting G-d, we learn from this precept that our speech must be sanctified, as that is the distinctive sign which separated man from the animals.")
5 - Don't steal.
6 - Don't eat the flesh of a living animal (which teaches us not to be cruel to animals)
7 - Mankind needs to establish courts and systems of justice to enforce the 6 laws and other such laws that are good for humanity.
I mean it's kind of a no brainer, if you ask me. And these laws were established in Genesis and reiterated in Jubilees.
I just really don't honestly think too many Christians have READ the Bible though or they'd all have serious crises of faith and the whole religion would just fall apart at the seams. I think they all say "oh I read my Bible" and to a degree they read PARTS of it, like a verse here, a paragraph there, MAYBE all four of the gospels if you're lucky. But nobody sits down with the Bible and READS it for real like a book. I don't even think too many religious leaders do either. I think they get a list of scriptures in preacher man school and just run with it. I've YET to see a preacher man read a scripture in context and I know I hear similar sermons every time I go into a church. It annoys the hell out of me because, as a Jew, we read the WHOLE TORAH - even the boring parts - every single year and we study it and argue it and read the accompanying literature. That's why we have the holiday of Simchat Torah. To celebrate that we're starting it over again. Hooray! Another year of reading about how many dolphin skins to affix to the Tabernacle. Yay. (/sarcasm)
The devil is a bit easier. Christians are like football fans. There's the home team (Gd, Jesus and whoever else they thought was awesome) and their arch rival (Satan). What fails my logic is WHY Satan is the source of all the evil in the world when Torah is explicitly clear that Gd is the source of all evil. And all the good too but also all of the evil. I mean, Gd says this, over and over and over... "I will create evil upon you." But then suddenly in Job, this random sideliner pops out onto the playing field and stats raining down hell fire and all of a sudden HE is the source of all evil. Have you ever read the Book of Job? Fascinating read. What struck me MOST about Job was how Gd talked to Satan like they were FRIENDS. If you're my arch nemisis who is running around fucking shit up and I created you, I'm gonna smite the fuck out of you - not have a pleasant conversation and make a friendly wager with you about who can fuck up this man's world more. That's just what I would do here. I would SMITE. THEE. Gd created Lucifer. Lucifer was Gd's most favored angel. Then Lucifer wanted to have free will like Adam and was kicked out of heaven to rule hell and be in a constant tug-of-war, hateful relationship with Gd over humanity. Where did THIS shit come from? Apocrapha. It's not canon until Paul gets involved and starts claiming Satan as the source of all evil WAY into the New Testament. All through the Old Testament you see Lucifer pop up and do Gd's bidding - EVEN IN JOB, where he's basically the prosecutor of Gd's court.
For the record, when Isaiah is screaming about "the Morning Star" he's not talking to Lucifer but the king of Babylon, who as we all know was a ruthless dictator. Lucifer is totally still in Gd's good graces, all the way through scripture. Now YOUR version of the Bible might list Isaiah 14:3-5 as saying "Lucifer" or "Satan" but my Hebrew scripture has "The Morning Star" and other than Satan wandering around aimlessly in Job, there is ZERO mention of him being the prince of darkness. That idea came with Christianity.
Why they needed a devil seems easy enough. It's good vs. evil all up in Christianity. Ever notice how Evangelicals always seem to feel oppressed and like their religion is under attack when IN FACT they're in the majority? Same logic applies to Satan. They needed a fall guy. They HAD to be the good side and on this good side over here is Gd and Jesus. And over THERE on the BAD side is Satan and your yetzer hara (evil impulse).
Now in Judaism, your Yetzer Hara is a gift from Gd from creation, not some little man with a pitchfork all up in your ear. In the creation story, Gd says "we shall make Adom (which means person) in our image." Judaism believes Gd was talking to the animals when She said this. First off, man was not created and then came woman. The person created, Adom, was both male and female, as Gd is both male and female. But Adom was lonely because there was no other Adom to see, so Gd separated them AT THE SIDE (note: not the rib, at the side) so that they could see each other and named them Adamah (earth) and Chava (life). When Adom was created, Gd had already created the animals so Gd said to them "We shall make Adom in our image." This means that each person has both a spiritual, Gdly side (the yetzer ha'tov), and an animalistic side (the yetzer hara) to them. This was totally intentional. And through mitzvos, we pull our yetzer hara more in line with our yetzer ha'tov. Like eating. Eating is an animalistic act. It is a yetzer hara. But when we say the proper blessings over foods that are holy, we change the animal act into a holy one. Judaism doesn't believe in this epic good vs. evil cage match to the death. Gd creates all the good. God also creates all of the bad - including Lucifer, including the serpent in the garden, including all of it. But what is viewed or called "evil" in Judaism is not always "evil" in the Good vs. Evil Christian sense. It's just what it is.
I know I didn't get to your questions on Jesus reciting apocryphal texts, but I am totally beat after a long monday and I'm gonna curl up in front of the TV. I'll hit it next go around.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Musings on Religion: Pt 4
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:10 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Same here. I'm liking it a lot.
I have a hard time accepting the divinity of Jesus. The whole Christian concept of the Trinity confounds me. It seems like it's never been sufficiently explained to me.
Ah, right on. I get what you're saying about the letters. Agreed that they're taken to seriously. They are by no means unimportant, but they're in no way divine either.
What exactly does the Book of Jubilees cover? Being around mainly Protestant Christianity, I haven't been properly exposed to it.
Quakerism is much more personal than other Christian denominations. There often isn't a set pastor or "leader" at meetings. The meetings involve an hour mostly comprised of silent prayer. If someone feelings like standing up and saying something, s/he will. I know that some will incorporate hymns, but I've never been to one that has had hymns during the meeting. No loss, as I'm not much a fan of singing, even if I am within the group.
Quakers will discuss religion outside of the meeting, but meetings themselves are much more personally reflective.
Yes, I'm trying to work on the faith thing. I know I'll never have the sort of hard certainty that I see in my, say, Catholic or Mormon friends.
I like the idea of a parent more than a genie. And, technically in Christianity, it should be more parent figure, it seems. Constantly they talk about "our Father" etc. But at the same time, you get the people that want the genie you spoke of. Same thing with challenges. Some Christians believe that struggles are the Lord challenging you. Christian prayer and the variations of such are just... I dunno. I can't quite figure it out. Praying for menial things is weird. I understand, perhaps, the draw of it, but when you really consider it--do you think your supreme deity cares if y'know, the Royals win the World Series? Menial prayer topics in general bother me a bit, but praying about friggin' sports annoys me so much. How absolutely trite.
I think it is impossible to be certain about death. Even if there was some sort of divine document outlining what happens, people would question and debate, even if it was tiny details. It seems human nature to wonder about the unknown of life and death/afterlife is the ultimate unknown. So if it was outlined, it strikes me that people would be more focused on it not just because they are told of it, but because there'd still be questions. Probably more questions. People would be focused not only on the unknown aspects of death, which will always exist, but the somewhat known as well.
The cleansing makes sense. Eternal punishment is utterly useless. While some people might revel in the idea of Hitler suffering on and on forever, what good is there in that, really? No more Hitler seems much simpler and less overkill. I hated having to read Dante's Inferno in my AP Literature class. First, it was simply depressing. But secondly and chiefly, the morbid description of the disgusting eternal punishments. Even good people who were not Christians were in Hell. Not suffering too much, but still damned. Ancients from the pre-Christian time were forever damned due to being born a bit too early. This useless eternal suffering. And some of my classmates--all of them Catholic, I think--believed it too. They were too thick-headed to even listen to my reasoning--not trying to convert them to my way of thinking, simply offering a different perspective... y'know, the whole point of academic discussion. They told me I was wrong. I'm sorry, didn't know I could be definitively wrong about such metaphysical matters.
Agnosticism makes sense to me but atheism doesn't. So: you find it impossible to have faith in a deity, therefore you have this sure-of-yourself faith in nothing? Skepticism makes sense, denial doesn't.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:57 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
I have a catholic friend who majored in philosophy once try to explain how Gd, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost were the same person and yet NOT the same person at the same time but his logic blew my freshman head off and to this day I have no idea what he said. I don't think I have ever heard an explanation on the Holy Trinity that wasn't just circular reasoning or told me to imagine Gd had Dissociative Identity Disorder. And to be honest, one of the biggest draws towards Judaism, in my early exposure to it, was that I didn't have to buy into mortals being divine - just divinely inspired. And I definitely didn't have to see magic tricks as miracles. I have seen poor people turn water into wine. It's not that hard. And the Resurrection you only have to buy if you buy that he was DEFINITELY dead, which a lot of people weren't when they were buried in those days. For me and my science mind - there are just too many loopholes and parlor tricks going on with Jesus for me to buy him as divine.
Vatican II asserts that Jesus was probably born of human seed - it was Mary who was the immaculate conception, which is how she got to be holy enough to be pregnant with Gd's son. Now when I heard that, my head fell off. I've always thought Catholics were the big proponents of Mary being a virgin. They're not. Not OFFICIALLY anyway. Official Vatican II statements are that Mary was just young, not a virgin, and Jesus was probably born of a male's seed.
That I can buy into. Because if we look into Mary's history as outlined in the gospels, KNOWING what I know of Temple Era Judaism (which is what I practice), it stands to reason that Mary was probably (though maybe not voluntarily) getting it on with her uncle - Elizabeth's husband.
Now Vatican II also covered Dante's Inferno as well by stating that all of the pre-Jesus people who were in hell were met with Jesus during those three days he was dead and released from hell when Jesus took the keys. Alright. I can buy that too. Kind of presumptuous but let's assume Jesus was the right hand of Gd. If he was, that makes more sense.
However what Christians don't count on are that you have even read your Bible because if you make it through the Tenakh you find that Elijah was scuttled off to be Gd's right hand man in 2 Kings ch 2. Kind of throws Jesus under the bus right there. In theory, John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated but there again it makes no sense when lined up with Judaism because our savior will be announced by Elijah and his trumpet. John had no trumpet and he did no announcing at Jesus' bris.
The more I dug into my religious anthropology degree, the less I was able to buy Christianity. The whole story of Jesus is exactly the same as the story of the Egyptian Gd, Horus.
The Book of Jubilees is basically a repeat of Genesis but with random little details pitched in, like the 7 Noachide laws (which Gd sent to replace the 10 commandments for non-Jews). It also covers more in depth about the angel hierarchy, who are the important angels, what is their purpose, and it's where Lucifer fell from grace (fun that it's not ACTUALLY in the Hebrew scriptures, wouldn't you say? That is because there is no Devil in Judaism, Gd creates all evil, and Lucifer remains Gd's most favored angel). At the end there's some stuff about the messiah and the messianic age too.
The reason it was pitched probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was written so late in history. MOST of the pseudepigraphia books were written between 200 BC and 200 AD so it was hit or miss as to whether they became canon or not. Hebrews is a good example of a book that the Jews rejected for their text but the Christians picked up for theirs. Believe it or not, I know a lot of Orthodox Jews who have read pseudepigraphic books - namely the Book of Adam and Eve and the Psalms of Solomon. Jesus frequently quoted the Psalms of Solomon in his rants to the people of Jerusalem, proving that he had a solid working knowledge of our literature. But nobody figures that out because it's not in a holy text so they just randomly say that Jesus was speaking miracles. Or in tongues if you're Pentecostal. How could he have known that if not because Gd told him! Because he read it in a book. Same way all Jews learn shit about our forefathers - in a book.
The only way to know FOR SURE what happens when we die is to die. And people don't usually come back from that state of being. Not often anyway, and not when they're far enough in to know exactly what happens. So for me, I don't worry about it. I do my good deeds here on earth and hope I leave enough of a footprint that people will miss me when I'm gone. And what happens after? I dunno. Not up to me I suppose. Somehow, oddly, I'm okay with that.
Totally agree about atheism mind you. It's one thing to be unsure and waiting for proof. That I get. But to be so absolutely POSITIVELY sure that there is nothing further up than the top of your head just strikes me as naive and immature. And it PAINS me when people take aim at Christianity and call it an attack on all religion. It's totally not. You don't even know the first thing about Judaism or Islam or Paganism or anything BUT what the standard American knows about Christianity based on our collective consciousness. "A belief in Gd makes no sense." Really? Because, to me, your LACK of belief or even a lack of openness to the idea that there's something out there bigger than you out there are makes no sense.
And to that I say simply....
... aliens. :P
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:10 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Same here. I'm liking it a lot.
I have a hard time accepting the divinity of Jesus. The whole Christian concept of the Trinity confounds me. It seems like it's never been sufficiently explained to me.
Ah, right on. I get what you're saying about the letters. Agreed that they're taken to seriously. They are by no means unimportant, but they're in no way divine either.
What exactly does the Book of Jubilees cover? Being around mainly Protestant Christianity, I haven't been properly exposed to it.
Quakerism is much more personal than other Christian denominations. There often isn't a set pastor or "leader" at meetings. The meetings involve an hour mostly comprised of silent prayer. If someone feelings like standing up and saying something, s/he will. I know that some will incorporate hymns, but I've never been to one that has had hymns during the meeting. No loss, as I'm not much a fan of singing, even if I am within the group.
Quakers will discuss religion outside of the meeting, but meetings themselves are much more personally reflective.
Yes, I'm trying to work on the faith thing. I know I'll never have the sort of hard certainty that I see in my, say, Catholic or Mormon friends.
I like the idea of a parent more than a genie. And, technically in Christianity, it should be more parent figure, it seems. Constantly they talk about "our Father" etc. But at the same time, you get the people that want the genie you spoke of. Same thing with challenges. Some Christians believe that struggles are the Lord challenging you. Christian prayer and the variations of such are just... I dunno. I can't quite figure it out. Praying for menial things is weird. I understand, perhaps, the draw of it, but when you really consider it--do you think your supreme deity cares if y'know, the Royals win the World Series? Menial prayer topics in general bother me a bit, but praying about friggin' sports annoys me so much. How absolutely trite.
I think it is impossible to be certain about death. Even if there was some sort of divine document outlining what happens, people would question and debate, even if it was tiny details. It seems human nature to wonder about the unknown of life and death/afterlife is the ultimate unknown. So if it was outlined, it strikes me that people would be more focused on it not just because they are told of it, but because there'd still be questions. Probably more questions. People would be focused not only on the unknown aspects of death, which will always exist, but the somewhat known as well.
The cleansing makes sense. Eternal punishment is utterly useless. While some people might revel in the idea of Hitler suffering on and on forever, what good is there in that, really? No more Hitler seems much simpler and less overkill. I hated having to read Dante's Inferno in my AP Literature class. First, it was simply depressing. But secondly and chiefly, the morbid description of the disgusting eternal punishments. Even good people who were not Christians were in Hell. Not suffering too much, but still damned. Ancients from the pre-Christian time were forever damned due to being born a bit too early. This useless eternal suffering. And some of my classmates--all of them Catholic, I think--believed it too. They were too thick-headed to even listen to my reasoning--not trying to convert them to my way of thinking, simply offering a different perspective... y'know, the whole point of academic discussion. They told me I was wrong. I'm sorry, didn't know I could be definitively wrong about such metaphysical matters.
Agnosticism makes sense to me but atheism doesn't. So: you find it impossible to have faith in a deity, therefore you have this sure-of-yourself faith in nothing? Skepticism makes sense, denial doesn't.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:57 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
I have a catholic friend who majored in philosophy once try to explain how Gd, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost were the same person and yet NOT the same person at the same time but his logic blew my freshman head off and to this day I have no idea what he said. I don't think I have ever heard an explanation on the Holy Trinity that wasn't just circular reasoning or told me to imagine Gd had Dissociative Identity Disorder. And to be honest, one of the biggest draws towards Judaism, in my early exposure to it, was that I didn't have to buy into mortals being divine - just divinely inspired. And I definitely didn't have to see magic tricks as miracles. I have seen poor people turn water into wine. It's not that hard. And the Resurrection you only have to buy if you buy that he was DEFINITELY dead, which a lot of people weren't when they were buried in those days. For me and my science mind - there are just too many loopholes and parlor tricks going on with Jesus for me to buy him as divine.
Vatican II asserts that Jesus was probably born of human seed - it was Mary who was the immaculate conception, which is how she got to be holy enough to be pregnant with Gd's son. Now when I heard that, my head fell off. I've always thought Catholics were the big proponents of Mary being a virgin. They're not. Not OFFICIALLY anyway. Official Vatican II statements are that Mary was just young, not a virgin, and Jesus was probably born of a male's seed.
That I can buy into. Because if we look into Mary's history as outlined in the gospels, KNOWING what I know of Temple Era Judaism (which is what I practice), it stands to reason that Mary was probably (though maybe not voluntarily) getting it on with her uncle - Elizabeth's husband.
Now Vatican II also covered Dante's Inferno as well by stating that all of the pre-Jesus people who were in hell were met with Jesus during those three days he was dead and released from hell when Jesus took the keys. Alright. I can buy that too. Kind of presumptuous but let's assume Jesus was the right hand of Gd. If he was, that makes more sense.
However what Christians don't count on are that you have even read your Bible because if you make it through the Tenakh you find that Elijah was scuttled off to be Gd's right hand man in 2 Kings ch 2. Kind of throws Jesus under the bus right there. In theory, John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated but there again it makes no sense when lined up with Judaism because our savior will be announced by Elijah and his trumpet. John had no trumpet and he did no announcing at Jesus' bris.
The more I dug into my religious anthropology degree, the less I was able to buy Christianity. The whole story of Jesus is exactly the same as the story of the Egyptian Gd, Horus.
The Book of Jubilees is basically a repeat of Genesis but with random little details pitched in, like the 7 Noachide laws (which Gd sent to replace the 10 commandments for non-Jews). It also covers more in depth about the angel hierarchy, who are the important angels, what is their purpose, and it's where Lucifer fell from grace (fun that it's not ACTUALLY in the Hebrew scriptures, wouldn't you say? That is because there is no Devil in Judaism, Gd creates all evil, and Lucifer remains Gd's most favored angel). At the end there's some stuff about the messiah and the messianic age too.
The reason it was pitched probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was written so late in history. MOST of the pseudepigraphia books were written between 200 BC and 200 AD so it was hit or miss as to whether they became canon or not. Hebrews is a good example of a book that the Jews rejected for their text but the Christians picked up for theirs. Believe it or not, I know a lot of Orthodox Jews who have read pseudepigraphic books - namely the Book of Adam and Eve and the Psalms of Solomon. Jesus frequently quoted the Psalms of Solomon in his rants to the people of Jerusalem, proving that he had a solid working knowledge of our literature. But nobody figures that out because it's not in a holy text so they just randomly say that Jesus was speaking miracles. Or in tongues if you're Pentecostal. How could he have known that if not because Gd told him! Because he read it in a book. Same way all Jews learn shit about our forefathers - in a book.
The only way to know FOR SURE what happens when we die is to die. And people don't usually come back from that state of being. Not often anyway, and not when they're far enough in to know exactly what happens. So for me, I don't worry about it. I do my good deeds here on earth and hope I leave enough of a footprint that people will miss me when I'm gone. And what happens after? I dunno. Not up to me I suppose. Somehow, oddly, I'm okay with that.
Totally agree about atheism mind you. It's one thing to be unsure and waiting for proof. That I get. But to be so absolutely POSITIVELY sure that there is nothing further up than the top of your head just strikes me as naive and immature. And it PAINS me when people take aim at Christianity and call it an attack on all religion. It's totally not. You don't even know the first thing about Judaism or Islam or Paganism or anything BUT what the standard American knows about Christianity based on our collective consciousness. "A belief in Gd makes no sense." Really? Because, to me, your LACK of belief or even a lack of openness to the idea that there's something out there bigger than you out there are makes no sense.
And to that I say simply....
... aliens. :P
Musings on religion: Pt 3
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:07 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh that totally makes sense. The differentiation of religion and faith. Faith, I think, is what I'm having issues with. And faith does matter considering the Catholic/Quaker/Presbyterian upbringing I've had. Well I've got a few more big qualms with Catholicism, but I'm only technically Catholic on basis of my baptism as an infant.
Wow, I definitely like the Jewish idea of sin more than the fire-'n-brimstone, damned-for-eternity bull that (some) Christian churches will give you.
See, Christian praying I have a problem with. Which obviously causes issues, as you have stated the importance of it in the Christian faith. Not in every denomination, Quakerism is a notable exception. But with a lot of Christian churches, praying is a semi-public, group thing. People will even bring prayer requests and it goes through a pastor/priest who leads everyone to pray for so-and-so's request. Yet Jesus talked about how prayer was a private thing. Outside of Quakerism, prayer has always felt awkward to me because, on the one side there is the sense of community, but on the other there's the whole introspection and private nature supposed to go with Christian prayer. Friends meetings are the only sort of service I've found that can really reconcile that for me.
That distinction between killing and murdering makes sense.
So really, Jesus wasn't--or wasn't just, depending on beliefs--a martyr in the symbolic sense of "dying for your sins," but also in a more literal sense in that this guy was way too outspoken and further threatening the lives of fellow Jews. Good guy but too mouthy and not divine, yeah?
The views on hierarchy are similar to what I believe/agree with. I lost all interest in Catholic mass as soon as I was old enough to really think about religion. Going through priests and bishops and cardinals and a pope (I think I may have missed a step or so in that ranking) really bothered me. Certainty in matters of faith an religion seems foolish to me as well, not to mention the certainty in a hierarchy.
Also, this is a more Christian question again--hey, I grew up around a lot of Christians from a lot of really different denominations. But anyways, what is up with Paul's letters and stuff? I mean, it's not divine writing, it's not telling the story of Jesus, it's not really interpretation and commentary. Yet people quote those letters and take them seriously--they are in the holy book even, I guess. But what makes them so special? Why not, say, Andrew's scribblings to people chatting about the years he hung out with Jesus?
Though I understand perfectly well, especially given the oddly specific nature of my question, if you answer is just "I dunno, I'm not a Christian."
Well, hell. At least Jews are willing to say "Gd said so" when it comes to dietary laws rather than attempting to explain it with nonsensical arguments more confusing than the original question.
The not breeding dogs thing is really interesting. Back in biblical times, I doubt it was bad--outside of divine law--to breed dogs for profit, but if you consider it now, there's certainly a dark side to breeding. My state is particularly bad about puppy mills and I know that at some, some terrible things go down, not to mention near-retarded dogs as the result of so much inbreeding. I'm just drawing bizarre connections, but strange coincidence, that.
I think you're making my faith in Christianity shakier than it already was. Not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose.
I think there'll always be a bit of me that's Quaker, but damn.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:50 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh I so look forward to these letters now. This is a good discussion. :)
You have basically summed up my feelings on Jesus: Good guy but too mouthy and not any more divine than you or I are. While I could insert a diatribe on prophets in the modern age, I'll save that for another email.
How do I feel about Paul's letters... well as I feel about much of the Tanakh (Torah, Nev'im - the writings - and Kethuvim - the prophets): Other than the first four books of the Torah (note: Deuteronomy was written by Moses, and says so in the first verse), everything else was written by men. As such, I never take it too seriously. That to me is a fundamental problem with Christianity: they took the writings of a man and ran with it as if it was written by Gd. If it WAS written by Gd, it would be as cryptic as Torah is but it's not. It makes mortal man logic because it was written by a mortal man. "Divinely Inspired" is not the same as "Written by Gd". I happen to think Harry Potter was "Divinely Inspired" but I wouldn't start a religion based on "the Order of the Phoenix". I also find it interesting that the Book of Jubilees is not incorporated into Protestant versions of the Bible, that the Gospel of Mary Magdelene and the gospel of Judas were also pitched by the Nicene council. Jews acknowledge the forgotten books of Eden as apocryphal texts and it is POSSIBLE to read the Psalms of Solomon in certain Yeshivas.
I will admit that I have a VERY limited knowledge of the Quakers so I can't speak to them or their belief structure as a whole. Senoy has a good grasp on their history better than I and RC is currently a practicing Quaker. However I come from a staunchly Catholic grandmother, have several Mormon friends, and used to be an Evangelical Christian in the same vein of Billy Graham.
Faith is a rough one and I honestly don't have any advice on how to deepen your faith. It's such an individual concept and from what I know of my Gd, She really doesn't give a darn how you classify your faith, who helped you get to faith, just that you have a belief in Her and want a relationship with Her.
My qualms with Catholicism stem from the C&E Catholics who think they know it all and spread these weird concepts around as Vatican doctrine. As I have a couple of friends who went to Catholic seminary (one dropped out, ran off to be a hedonist for a few years, and is happily married now), I've been able to really dig into the meat of Vatican II and find out that the priests I grew up with really didn't know heir ass from a hole in the ground when it came to the official church doctrine. I also find it amusing that there was a poll in Italy in 2008 where they asked the Catholics who they pray to and Jesus was #7 on the list. You'd think that the son of Gd would be prayed to more often but nope!
Prayer is weird because there is no format to Christian prayer. You basically say "Lord Jesus we ask of you to do this menial human thing for us and we pray for your guidance" and whatever else they want to tack on. To me that has always been presumptuous. Why are you assuming you need relief from this situation or that you know best what you need right now? Maybe this is your challenge. You prayed for strength; these are the weights to make you stronger. What do you do when you want to build muscle at the gym to be stronger? You add weights. it kind of appalls me because there is no structure and people seem to abuse it in order to get what they want. Prayers in Judaism are very different. Most of us who have been around the Jewish Gd a lot understand that you can never pray to smite people. And beyond the basic blessings, you'll see little old Jewish ladies spend their Shabbat prayers recapping Gd on the lives of their relatives. For us, Gd is not this distant genie who grants wishes but more of a parent figure and we commune with Gd as such.
A lot of the views on sin go back to the Jewish belief on the afterlife ("Olam ha'ba" lit. the World to come). Now there is no one clear doctrine on what happens after death. Gd never says in Torah what happens after you die. The ideas of the afterlife (in both Judaism and Christianity) are purely a man-made construct. Now this is because of one glaring reason (in Judaism, at least): Gd didn't want you all hyperfocused on what happens when you die. You're going to be okay. You're my child and I love you. Don't worry about it. You worry about RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, where you are. Most of our mitzvos are not commanded because we will go to hell and burn in fire if we don't do all of them. They're general "good deeds." A good chunk of them deal with how to humanely treat animals, how to be nice to your fellow man, how to work volunteer work to rebuild the world, and so on. At the end of the day, Gd tells our prophet Jeremiah that Moshiach (the Hebrew messiah) will not come until the Jews have built Olam Ha'Ba on earth. Until we are at peace and love one another completely and treat each other well, our Moshiach is JUST out of reach.
That doesn't stop Jews from pondering what happens after you die though, as it wouldn't stop any person from pondering a life cycle event they find so perplexing. The prevailing opinion is that all people - Jew and goy - die. We go up to Ghenna, just outside of the pearly gates, and the angels use fire to cleanse our souls of all of our misdeeds. This takes up to 12 months but only 12 months if you're REALLY a horrible human being. During that time you are shown two videotapes (or maybe Gd has upgraded to Blu ray now LOL) of your life: One with all the things you did RIGHT, and one of all the things you did WRONG. Non Jews have 7 laws to follow, Jews have 613. Now, my OWN addition to this is that Gd only care if you ate a cheeseburger but were you good to the world. After you're cleansed, you go on through the pearly gates where you are in Gd's audience. If you are a Jew, you are sent back at some point to allow you to complete all of the 613 mitzvos. There's no clear doctrine on what happens to non-Jews, but an argument I heard recently is that they are sent back until they figure out how to get to Judaism and observe all the mitzvos.
Now here is where people get up in arms... Hitler. Amon Goethe. TRULY evil people.
The argument I hear about that one is that Gd is always making new souls. All day long Gd is making new souls for new people. There is no finite number of souls created and Heaven is not over crowded because souls are always being sent back. In the case of Hitler, it's said that he went to Ghenna and after his 12 months there, he was simply blinked out of existence and a new soul was created to replace him. See, Gd doesn't make mistakes and everyone starts out with the same blank slate. But there's free will and a lot of it, so if you make choices on earth that permanently disfigure your soul, Gd just erases you and starts over. No pain. No torture. You just simply cease to be.
If you spend your whole life in violent revolt of Gd but are generally a good person, when you pass through the gates, the presence of Gd tortures you a little. This is why we strive to do mitzvos - it prepares us for the symphony of Gd's presence. That's why I always feel so sad for people who are violently opposed to a belief in Gd. I just can't understand it. Gd is there, everywhere. In the eyes of a child, in the purr of a cat, in the blow of the wind, in the tap of rainfall. I dunno... it just bothers me.
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:07 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh that totally makes sense. The differentiation of religion and faith. Faith, I think, is what I'm having issues with. And faith does matter considering the Catholic/Quaker/Presbyterian upbringing I've had. Well I've got a few more big qualms with Catholicism, but I'm only technically Catholic on basis of my baptism as an infant.
Wow, I definitely like the Jewish idea of sin more than the fire-'n-brimstone, damned-for-eternity bull that (some) Christian churches will give you.
See, Christian praying I have a problem with. Which obviously causes issues, as you have stated the importance of it in the Christian faith. Not in every denomination, Quakerism is a notable exception. But with a lot of Christian churches, praying is a semi-public, group thing. People will even bring prayer requests and it goes through a pastor/priest who leads everyone to pray for so-and-so's request. Yet Jesus talked about how prayer was a private thing. Outside of Quakerism, prayer has always felt awkward to me because, on the one side there is the sense of community, but on the other there's the whole introspection and private nature supposed to go with Christian prayer. Friends meetings are the only sort of service I've found that can really reconcile that for me.
That distinction between killing and murdering makes sense.
So really, Jesus wasn't--or wasn't just, depending on beliefs--a martyr in the symbolic sense of "dying for your sins," but also in a more literal sense in that this guy was way too outspoken and further threatening the lives of fellow Jews. Good guy but too mouthy and not divine, yeah?
The views on hierarchy are similar to what I believe/agree with. I lost all interest in Catholic mass as soon as I was old enough to really think about religion. Going through priests and bishops and cardinals and a pope (I think I may have missed a step or so in that ranking) really bothered me. Certainty in matters of faith an religion seems foolish to me as well, not to mention the certainty in a hierarchy.
Also, this is a more Christian question again--hey, I grew up around a lot of Christians from a lot of really different denominations. But anyways, what is up with Paul's letters and stuff? I mean, it's not divine writing, it's not telling the story of Jesus, it's not really interpretation and commentary. Yet people quote those letters and take them seriously--they are in the holy book even, I guess. But what makes them so special? Why not, say, Andrew's scribblings to people chatting about the years he hung out with Jesus?
Though I understand perfectly well, especially given the oddly specific nature of my question, if you answer is just "I dunno, I'm not a Christian."
Well, hell. At least Jews are willing to say "Gd said so" when it comes to dietary laws rather than attempting to explain it with nonsensical arguments more confusing than the original question.
The not breeding dogs thing is really interesting. Back in biblical times, I doubt it was bad--outside of divine law--to breed dogs for profit, but if you consider it now, there's certainly a dark side to breeding. My state is particularly bad about puppy mills and I know that at some, some terrible things go down, not to mention near-retarded dogs as the result of so much inbreeding. I'm just drawing bizarre connections, but strange coincidence, that.
I think you're making my faith in Christianity shakier than it already was. Not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose.
I think there'll always be a bit of me that's Quaker, but damn.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:50 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh I so look forward to these letters now. This is a good discussion. :)
You have basically summed up my feelings on Jesus: Good guy but too mouthy and not any more divine than you or I are. While I could insert a diatribe on prophets in the modern age, I'll save that for another email.
How do I feel about Paul's letters... well as I feel about much of the Tanakh (Torah, Nev'im - the writings - and Kethuvim - the prophets): Other than the first four books of the Torah (note: Deuteronomy was written by Moses, and says so in the first verse), everything else was written by men. As such, I never take it too seriously. That to me is a fundamental problem with Christianity: they took the writings of a man and ran with it as if it was written by Gd. If it WAS written by Gd, it would be as cryptic as Torah is but it's not. It makes mortal man logic because it was written by a mortal man. "Divinely Inspired" is not the same as "Written by Gd". I happen to think Harry Potter was "Divinely Inspired" but I wouldn't start a religion based on "the Order of the Phoenix". I also find it interesting that the Book of Jubilees is not incorporated into Protestant versions of the Bible, that the Gospel of Mary Magdelene and the gospel of Judas were also pitched by the Nicene council. Jews acknowledge the forgotten books of Eden as apocryphal texts and it is POSSIBLE to read the Psalms of Solomon in certain Yeshivas.
I will admit that I have a VERY limited knowledge of the Quakers so I can't speak to them or their belief structure as a whole. Senoy has a good grasp on their history better than I and RC is currently a practicing Quaker. However I come from a staunchly Catholic grandmother, have several Mormon friends, and used to be an Evangelical Christian in the same vein of Billy Graham.
Faith is a rough one and I honestly don't have any advice on how to deepen your faith. It's such an individual concept and from what I know of my Gd, She really doesn't give a darn how you classify your faith, who helped you get to faith, just that you have a belief in Her and want a relationship with Her.
My qualms with Catholicism stem from the C&E Catholics who think they know it all and spread these weird concepts around as Vatican doctrine. As I have a couple of friends who went to Catholic seminary (one dropped out, ran off to be a hedonist for a few years, and is happily married now), I've been able to really dig into the meat of Vatican II and find out that the priests I grew up with really didn't know heir ass from a hole in the ground when it came to the official church doctrine. I also find it amusing that there was a poll in Italy in 2008 where they asked the Catholics who they pray to and Jesus was #7 on the list. You'd think that the son of Gd would be prayed to more often but nope!
Prayer is weird because there is no format to Christian prayer. You basically say "Lord Jesus we ask of you to do this menial human thing for us and we pray for your guidance" and whatever else they want to tack on. To me that has always been presumptuous. Why are you assuming you need relief from this situation or that you know best what you need right now? Maybe this is your challenge. You prayed for strength; these are the weights to make you stronger. What do you do when you want to build muscle at the gym to be stronger? You add weights. it kind of appalls me because there is no structure and people seem to abuse it in order to get what they want. Prayers in Judaism are very different. Most of us who have been around the Jewish Gd a lot understand that you can never pray to smite people. And beyond the basic blessings, you'll see little old Jewish ladies spend their Shabbat prayers recapping Gd on the lives of their relatives. For us, Gd is not this distant genie who grants wishes but more of a parent figure and we commune with Gd as such.
A lot of the views on sin go back to the Jewish belief on the afterlife ("Olam ha'ba" lit. the World to come). Now there is no one clear doctrine on what happens after death. Gd never says in Torah what happens after you die. The ideas of the afterlife (in both Judaism and Christianity) are purely a man-made construct. Now this is because of one glaring reason (in Judaism, at least): Gd didn't want you all hyperfocused on what happens when you die. You're going to be okay. You're my child and I love you. Don't worry about it. You worry about RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, where you are. Most of our mitzvos are not commanded because we will go to hell and burn in fire if we don't do all of them. They're general "good deeds." A good chunk of them deal with how to humanely treat animals, how to be nice to your fellow man, how to work volunteer work to rebuild the world, and so on. At the end of the day, Gd tells our prophet Jeremiah that Moshiach (the Hebrew messiah) will not come until the Jews have built Olam Ha'Ba on earth. Until we are at peace and love one another completely and treat each other well, our Moshiach is JUST out of reach.
That doesn't stop Jews from pondering what happens after you die though, as it wouldn't stop any person from pondering a life cycle event they find so perplexing. The prevailing opinion is that all people - Jew and goy - die. We go up to Ghenna, just outside of the pearly gates, and the angels use fire to cleanse our souls of all of our misdeeds. This takes up to 12 months but only 12 months if you're REALLY a horrible human being. During that time you are shown two videotapes (or maybe Gd has upgraded to Blu ray now LOL) of your life: One with all the things you did RIGHT, and one of all the things you did WRONG. Non Jews have 7 laws to follow, Jews have 613. Now, my OWN addition to this is that Gd only care if you ate a cheeseburger but were you good to the world. After you're cleansed, you go on through the pearly gates where you are in Gd's audience. If you are a Jew, you are sent back at some point to allow you to complete all of the 613 mitzvos. There's no clear doctrine on what happens to non-Jews, but an argument I heard recently is that they are sent back until they figure out how to get to Judaism and observe all the mitzvos.
Now here is where people get up in arms... Hitler. Amon Goethe. TRULY evil people.
The argument I hear about that one is that Gd is always making new souls. All day long Gd is making new souls for new people. There is no finite number of souls created and Heaven is not over crowded because souls are always being sent back. In the case of Hitler, it's said that he went to Ghenna and after his 12 months there, he was simply blinked out of existence and a new soul was created to replace him. See, Gd doesn't make mistakes and everyone starts out with the same blank slate. But there's free will and a lot of it, so if you make choices on earth that permanently disfigure your soul, Gd just erases you and starts over. No pain. No torture. You just simply cease to be.
If you spend your whole life in violent revolt of Gd but are generally a good person, when you pass through the gates, the presence of Gd tortures you a little. This is why we strive to do mitzvos - it prepares us for the symphony of Gd's presence. That's why I always feel so sad for people who are violently opposed to a belief in Gd. I just can't understand it. Gd is there, everywhere. In the eyes of a child, in the purr of a cat, in the blow of the wind, in the tap of rainfall. I dunno... it just bothers me.
Musings on Religion Pt: 2
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:25 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Ah, sorry to hear about your work b.s.
I really like your first point. In particular the part that "it is impossible to know Gd entirely, but possible to have a direct relationship." Lack of certainty (on a lot of religious matters) is something I'm kind of dealing with right now, so I dig on that concept of a deep relationship without being sure of entirely everything.
So, what are your specific views on Jesus? Obviously, as a Jew, you do not believe he had any sort of divinity. But as a historical figure or a prophet (depending on which you'd view as a more correct term for him), what do you think of his ideas? Do you respect his ideas, or find some trouble in them?
I'm actually in the midst of reading the Christian Bible right now. Unfortunately, between work, school, and reading multiple books at once (terrible habit, that), it's been rather slow-goings. I've yet to really get in the thick of it, so I'm yet to truly figure out what I think about it. That's an interesting take on the importance of the Torah, the point about the cryptic nature of it. Normally--at least in my experiences--people "explain" why they believe their holy book through a terrible cyclical argument about their book being holy because it is the word of their deity who they know is divine because of their holy book. You actually have some deep reasoning behind it.
So, because I know more Christians than people of other faiths, I know that with Christianity there's a bit of an argument about judging sin. Some claim that some sins are worse than others, while the other side argues that "ranking" of sin is Dantean silliness. Drawing from that, do you believe any mitzvos are more important to follow? Or is simply trying to keep all 613 mitzvos as best you can in general more important?
Religious law v. civil law is another point of yours I agree on. It seems a simple concept, but obviously isn't to some. I feel like, in the U.S., religious arguments rather muck stuff up. Given that a) we have freedom of religion and no official state religion and b) there are a wide variety of faiths throughout the country, you can't make effective political arguments based on religion--though some seem damn determined to do so.
Interfaith marriage ceremonies simply confuse me. That is, ceremonies that include aspects of one or both religions. I understand perhaps loving someone not of the same faith, but having that wedding incorporate religion... that's just illogical.
Yes, that sounds like crappy inter-politics. Certainly obviously human problems. It seems like the divider and such you were talking about--and disagreed with. People over-complicating and causing issues.
No, no, not too much. You're quite well spoken on the matter. Very interesting.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 9:00 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
The thing to keep in mind, especially when looking at Judaism and Islam from an American viewpoint is that Americans all seem to think that Judaism = Christianity - Jesus and Islam = Christianity + Mohammed. We're never ENTIRELY too clear on how these are fundamentally different but I would venture to argue that Christianity is not a religion (which is just a series of rituals ascribed to a higher power) but instead simply a FAITH. Yes there are rituals, but the sum total of Christianity is that if you believe Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior, who died on the cross for your sins, you're a Christian. You don't ever have to DO anything to prove you're a Christian. You just simply are because you believe.
Judaism (and to a large degree Islam as well) is a totally different concept. Theoretically you don't have to believe in ANYTHING to be Jewish. I personally find that concept bizarre but there is a subset of Orthodox Judaism called the "Orthoprax" who are essentially Atheist Orthodox Jews. And other than the belief that Mohammed was a prophet and wrote the qu'ran, TECHNICALLY you don't have to believe in Gd there either. My big huge problem is that you lose the translation of the Mitzvos when you drop Gd out of the equation. Why avoid shellfish and pork if you aren't trying to be closer to Gd? Why do any of them matter without Gd? But that is a right afforded all of humanity, Jewish and Goy alike, and while I find myself deeply saddened to hear that they're violently refusing to believe in a higher power.
But here's where Judaism stems off of Christianity: It is a religion of DOING, rather than one of BELIEVING. You do Jewish things, eat Jewish foods, commune with Jewish people, pray to a Jewish Gd in Jewish places, and you're living a good Jewish life. Nobody asks you if your faith wavers or gives a shit about your personal relationship with Gd. It's irrelevant to the larger question. If your faith is wavering, do more mitzvos! If you're not feeling Gd's presence, go to Jewish places! Be around more Jews! Read more Torah! The reason we DO mitzvos is to deepen our personal relationship with Gd and for us, Gd comes AFTER mitzvos. First you do Mitzvos, then comes Gd. And if you're doing mitzvos and there's still no Gd, do more. And if there's still no Gd... well, do more. Nobody in the Jewish community does all 613 mitzvos all time perfectly. There's always more work to be done. And if all else fails and you're really struggling, go volunteer. That's a mitzvah. You probably forgot about that one! DO MITZVOS!
None of the mitzvos are more important or less important than the others. All 613 are equally important and it is considered a pleasure to do one, which is why you will see a Jew bristle when you call it a "commandment." We Jews USUALLY tell other people that "Mitzvah" means "Good Deed" and to some large degree, that's the truth. But the word LITERALLY means commandment. Sin is a commonly misinterpreted word when it goes from the Hebrew scriptures to the Greek to the arabic. A "sin" is not a black mark on your permanent record. It is simply missing the mark. Maybe you kept kosher all year but you said the wrong bracha (blessing) over the food once. You have sinned. But it's okay. On The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) Gd shows up and we make note of our errors and start over from scratch. Now this doesn't work to ALL sins... sometimes we commit a sin against another human being. We use the month leading UP to Yom Kippur (the month of Elul) as a time to reflect on the year past and apologize to people we have wronged.
With Christianity, when your faith falters, they pray. They tell you to pray. And pray more. But there's no DOING anything really and your faith faltering shows you that have a defect of character. Just go to church, talk to other Christians, read your Bible, and pray a lot. Jews are like "Go out into the world and do shit. Look for Gd in the small crevices instead of a grand gesture." Jesus said that "actions are like dirty rags to the father" but Moses (who wrote the fifth book of the Torah, by the way) said otherwise. The 613 mitzvos are USUALLY just good deeds in general - pay your debts, don't rip people off, be honest, be faithful, do good in the world - but they're mostly designed to help us be more like Gd.
See, Gd is a very loving and compassionate Gd. She's not as angry, hateful, bitter, and mean as she's portrayed in "The Old Testament." The Gd of Torah is a totally different Gd. When Joshua was conquering cities, Gd specifically commanded him to only kill the men who stood in the way and do not loot the city "for all that lies within belongs to Adonai your Gd." when there were Israelites looting and killing and raping women, Gd commanded they be stoned to death. However in nine times out of ten, when the Israelites were storming some strong hold, Gd was very clear that they needed to have their heads on their shoulders about it. The whole "Thou shalt not kill" verse is WAY thrown out of proportion. The actual word means "murder" not kill. All of the generations of man following Noah were allowed to kill because this is how we got meat. We also did a lot of killing our own because they were being bad Jews and spreading the cancer of dissension among the people.
Being an observant Jew, I now see Jesus' last week alive in a whole new light. First of all, Jesus was alive in a period where the Romans felt threatened by Judaism and randomly crucified Jews. 125k Jews were crucified during the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. Not just Jesus.
So what I see happening in the gospels are one uppity Jew trying to instill FAITH into our religion. I don't think this is a BAD idea (and one that was put into place by our most prized scholar Mamonides in the 1300s) and I rather like what Jesus himself said, most of the time (that shit about stoning your parents if they refuse to follow him bugs the ever living crap out of me though). A lot of what Jesus said was scholarly and righteous. He made mention several times that he was never looking to create a new religion but to help his fellow Jews find their way back.
So then the Sanhedrin convenes because this uppity Jew is getting press and we're all in the middle of being horribly oppressed by the Romans so we're a little on edge. I kinda liken this to the Holocaust. I can't even imagine if there was an uppity Jew wandering around preaching out against Hitler. But the fact is, it was a very similar genocide going on at the time. We pull him in front of our courts and ask him questions. He answers with shit that just flies in the face of Judaism (like that he's Gd and answers to no man) and has no desire to repent and go back to being a good Jew who keeps his head down. Then the Sanhedrin views him as a direct threat to our safety and well being as a whole. So we sell him out. We were gonna stone him ourselves but it was Pesach and there are laws about working on a holiday. So we turned him over to the Romans, who crucified him - as they crucified 125,000 other Jews.
I think that no matter what had happened at the Sanhedrin, he would have been crucified by the Romans.
As to how I feel about him... I think he was a righteous man - a tzaddik. I think he was knowledgeable in Torah and spoke of a loving, compassionate Gd, kinda like the one I know. But he in no way shape or form matches the messiah outlined in the Torah, starting with the fact that Jesus was never a great military leader, he never minted money, and there's no world peace where Israel is at the center of business and commerce.
As to the certainty - that's one thing I like about Judaism. It's okay to have no idea what the fuck is going on. We're not EXPECTED to know what the fuck is going on. There are men who have spent their whole LIVES studying Torah, Talmud, Kabbalah, Mishnah, Gemara, and all of our other resources of knowledge and still have no fucking idea what is going on. Rabbi doesn't mean "expert." It means "teacher" and my Rabbi's all say that the fact their synagogue can run without them proves that they're doing their jobs. Judaism doesn't have leaders. Just people who may know a little more than you. We're all equals. There's no hierarchy. I frequently challenge my Rabbi with shit I have read and sometimes change HIS opinions on how Torah is interpreted. If you don't like what Rabbi A says, go ask Rabbi B. Though I will say one thing: much of my learning takes place with men who are not classified as Rabbis but rather just people (men and women) who know an answer to a question. The running gag is that if you ask 2 Jews the same question, you'll get four answers. And really, at the end of the day, you just go with the opinion you like best. Unless it is CLEARLY laid out in Torah (hence written by Gd), everything else is commentary and opinions.
People try too hard to make something nonsensical make sense and that's where you get the circular reasoning you find in Christianity. I will admit that some of the shit outlined in Torah is a bit on the ridiculous side (the laws about rape are a few) but almost all of the laws make SOME sense when put into perspective. About the only rules I can't argue the logic of are the dietary laws. Those ones don't have a reason behind them. Just "Gd said so." I get to listen to a lot of non-Jews try to rationalize this by using the "pork was an unclean meat because of disease" or "Jews were pig farmers and they got more money not eating pork" (which is illogical because Gd said in Torah that we are not to make profit on pigs) or whatever but the true reason is just simply that Gd said "this is how to eat holy and all this shit over here is not holy" so we eat holy. I personally imagine that Gd is very fond of pigs and keeps them as pets the way we do with dogs (as we Jews are allowed to have pigs as pets, we just can't eat them or make money off of them). That's my own personal rationale though. Nobody would argue the logic of it if Gd said "don't eat dogs" which technically she DID say as well (the official law is that you cannot eat any four legged animal that does not have a cloven hoof or chew it's cud - i.e. have multiple stomachs). But everyone points at pigs like it was CLEARLY outlined "no pigs. everything else, but no pigs" It's not. I can't eat a rabbit any more than I can eat a pig, and if we want to go into the kosher/not-kosher fishes you'll start to see the most RANDOM shit. On that same note, Jews are forbidden in Torah from breeding dogs and profiting from their sale. It's really a very weird law but it has nothing to do with pork meat making you sick anymore than dog meat would make you sick. Fun fact - there's a sect of Judaism that won't eat turkey because it wasn't clearly outlined as "yes you can eat that" in Torah. MOST Jews eat turkey, and most orthodox authorities say it's kosher, but there's a sect in Israel that wants nothing to do with turkey.
I think that about covers it! Talk to you soon.
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:25 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Ah, sorry to hear about your work b.s.
I really like your first point. In particular the part that "it is impossible to know Gd entirely, but possible to have a direct relationship." Lack of certainty (on a lot of religious matters) is something I'm kind of dealing with right now, so I dig on that concept of a deep relationship without being sure of entirely everything.
So, what are your specific views on Jesus? Obviously, as a Jew, you do not believe he had any sort of divinity. But as a historical figure or a prophet (depending on which you'd view as a more correct term for him), what do you think of his ideas? Do you respect his ideas, or find some trouble in them?
I'm actually in the midst of reading the Christian Bible right now. Unfortunately, between work, school, and reading multiple books at once (terrible habit, that), it's been rather slow-goings. I've yet to really get in the thick of it, so I'm yet to truly figure out what I think about it. That's an interesting take on the importance of the Torah, the point about the cryptic nature of it. Normally--at least in my experiences--people "explain" why they believe their holy book through a terrible cyclical argument about their book being holy because it is the word of their deity who they know is divine because of their holy book. You actually have some deep reasoning behind it.
So, because I know more Christians than people of other faiths, I know that with Christianity there's a bit of an argument about judging sin. Some claim that some sins are worse than others, while the other side argues that "ranking" of sin is Dantean silliness. Drawing from that, do you believe any mitzvos are more important to follow? Or is simply trying to keep all 613 mitzvos as best you can in general more important?
Religious law v. civil law is another point of yours I agree on. It seems a simple concept, but obviously isn't to some. I feel like, in the U.S., religious arguments rather muck stuff up. Given that a) we have freedom of religion and no official state religion and b) there are a wide variety of faiths throughout the country, you can't make effective political arguments based on religion--though some seem damn determined to do so.
Interfaith marriage ceremonies simply confuse me. That is, ceremonies that include aspects of one or both religions. I understand perhaps loving someone not of the same faith, but having that wedding incorporate religion... that's just illogical.
Yes, that sounds like crappy inter-politics. Certainly obviously human problems. It seems like the divider and such you were talking about--and disagreed with. People over-complicating and causing issues.
No, no, not too much. You're quite well spoken on the matter. Very interesting.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 9:00 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
The thing to keep in mind, especially when looking at Judaism and Islam from an American viewpoint is that Americans all seem to think that Judaism = Christianity - Jesus and Islam = Christianity + Mohammed. We're never ENTIRELY too clear on how these are fundamentally different but I would venture to argue that Christianity is not a religion (which is just a series of rituals ascribed to a higher power) but instead simply a FAITH. Yes there are rituals, but the sum total of Christianity is that if you believe Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior, who died on the cross for your sins, you're a Christian. You don't ever have to DO anything to prove you're a Christian. You just simply are because you believe.
Judaism (and to a large degree Islam as well) is a totally different concept. Theoretically you don't have to believe in ANYTHING to be Jewish. I personally find that concept bizarre but there is a subset of Orthodox Judaism called the "Orthoprax" who are essentially Atheist Orthodox Jews. And other than the belief that Mohammed was a prophet and wrote the qu'ran, TECHNICALLY you don't have to believe in Gd there either. My big huge problem is that you lose the translation of the Mitzvos when you drop Gd out of the equation. Why avoid shellfish and pork if you aren't trying to be closer to Gd? Why do any of them matter without Gd? But that is a right afforded all of humanity, Jewish and Goy alike, and while I find myself deeply saddened to hear that they're violently refusing to believe in a higher power.
But here's where Judaism stems off of Christianity: It is a religion of DOING, rather than one of BELIEVING. You do Jewish things, eat Jewish foods, commune with Jewish people, pray to a Jewish Gd in Jewish places, and you're living a good Jewish life. Nobody asks you if your faith wavers or gives a shit about your personal relationship with Gd. It's irrelevant to the larger question. If your faith is wavering, do more mitzvos! If you're not feeling Gd's presence, go to Jewish places! Be around more Jews! Read more Torah! The reason we DO mitzvos is to deepen our personal relationship with Gd and for us, Gd comes AFTER mitzvos. First you do Mitzvos, then comes Gd. And if you're doing mitzvos and there's still no Gd, do more. And if there's still no Gd... well, do more. Nobody in the Jewish community does all 613 mitzvos all time perfectly. There's always more work to be done. And if all else fails and you're really struggling, go volunteer. That's a mitzvah. You probably forgot about that one! DO MITZVOS!
None of the mitzvos are more important or less important than the others. All 613 are equally important and it is considered a pleasure to do one, which is why you will see a Jew bristle when you call it a "commandment." We Jews USUALLY tell other people that "Mitzvah" means "Good Deed" and to some large degree, that's the truth. But the word LITERALLY means commandment. Sin is a commonly misinterpreted word when it goes from the Hebrew scriptures to the Greek to the arabic. A "sin" is not a black mark on your permanent record. It is simply missing the mark. Maybe you kept kosher all year but you said the wrong bracha (blessing) over the food once. You have sinned. But it's okay. On The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) Gd shows up and we make note of our errors and start over from scratch. Now this doesn't work to ALL sins... sometimes we commit a sin against another human being. We use the month leading UP to Yom Kippur (the month of Elul) as a time to reflect on the year past and apologize to people we have wronged.
With Christianity, when your faith falters, they pray. They tell you to pray. And pray more. But there's no DOING anything really and your faith faltering shows you that have a defect of character. Just go to church, talk to other Christians, read your Bible, and pray a lot. Jews are like "Go out into the world and do shit. Look for Gd in the small crevices instead of a grand gesture." Jesus said that "actions are like dirty rags to the father" but Moses (who wrote the fifth book of the Torah, by the way) said otherwise. The 613 mitzvos are USUALLY just good deeds in general - pay your debts, don't rip people off, be honest, be faithful, do good in the world - but they're mostly designed to help us be more like Gd.
See, Gd is a very loving and compassionate Gd. She's not as angry, hateful, bitter, and mean as she's portrayed in "The Old Testament." The Gd of Torah is a totally different Gd. When Joshua was conquering cities, Gd specifically commanded him to only kill the men who stood in the way and do not loot the city "for all that lies within belongs to Adonai your Gd." when there were Israelites looting and killing and raping women, Gd commanded they be stoned to death. However in nine times out of ten, when the Israelites were storming some strong hold, Gd was very clear that they needed to have their heads on their shoulders about it. The whole "Thou shalt not kill" verse is WAY thrown out of proportion. The actual word means "murder" not kill. All of the generations of man following Noah were allowed to kill because this is how we got meat. We also did a lot of killing our own because they were being bad Jews and spreading the cancer of dissension among the people.
Being an observant Jew, I now see Jesus' last week alive in a whole new light. First of all, Jesus was alive in a period where the Romans felt threatened by Judaism and randomly crucified Jews. 125k Jews were crucified during the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. Not just Jesus.
So what I see happening in the gospels are one uppity Jew trying to instill FAITH into our religion. I don't think this is a BAD idea (and one that was put into place by our most prized scholar Mamonides in the 1300s) and I rather like what Jesus himself said, most of the time (that shit about stoning your parents if they refuse to follow him bugs the ever living crap out of me though). A lot of what Jesus said was scholarly and righteous. He made mention several times that he was never looking to create a new religion but to help his fellow Jews find their way back.
So then the Sanhedrin convenes because this uppity Jew is getting press and we're all in the middle of being horribly oppressed by the Romans so we're a little on edge. I kinda liken this to the Holocaust. I can't even imagine if there was an uppity Jew wandering around preaching out against Hitler. But the fact is, it was a very similar genocide going on at the time. We pull him in front of our courts and ask him questions. He answers with shit that just flies in the face of Judaism (like that he's Gd and answers to no man) and has no desire to repent and go back to being a good Jew who keeps his head down. Then the Sanhedrin views him as a direct threat to our safety and well being as a whole. So we sell him out. We were gonna stone him ourselves but it was Pesach and there are laws about working on a holiday. So we turned him over to the Romans, who crucified him - as they crucified 125,000 other Jews.
I think that no matter what had happened at the Sanhedrin, he would have been crucified by the Romans.
As to how I feel about him... I think he was a righteous man - a tzaddik. I think he was knowledgeable in Torah and spoke of a loving, compassionate Gd, kinda like the one I know. But he in no way shape or form matches the messiah outlined in the Torah, starting with the fact that Jesus was never a great military leader, he never minted money, and there's no world peace where Israel is at the center of business and commerce.
As to the certainty - that's one thing I like about Judaism. It's okay to have no idea what the fuck is going on. We're not EXPECTED to know what the fuck is going on. There are men who have spent their whole LIVES studying Torah, Talmud, Kabbalah, Mishnah, Gemara, and all of our other resources of knowledge and still have no fucking idea what is going on. Rabbi doesn't mean "expert." It means "teacher" and my Rabbi's all say that the fact their synagogue can run without them proves that they're doing their jobs. Judaism doesn't have leaders. Just people who may know a little more than you. We're all equals. There's no hierarchy. I frequently challenge my Rabbi with shit I have read and sometimes change HIS opinions on how Torah is interpreted. If you don't like what Rabbi A says, go ask Rabbi B. Though I will say one thing: much of my learning takes place with men who are not classified as Rabbis but rather just people (men and women) who know an answer to a question. The running gag is that if you ask 2 Jews the same question, you'll get four answers. And really, at the end of the day, you just go with the opinion you like best. Unless it is CLEARLY laid out in Torah (hence written by Gd), everything else is commentary and opinions.
People try too hard to make something nonsensical make sense and that's where you get the circular reasoning you find in Christianity. I will admit that some of the shit outlined in Torah is a bit on the ridiculous side (the laws about rape are a few) but almost all of the laws make SOME sense when put into perspective. About the only rules I can't argue the logic of are the dietary laws. Those ones don't have a reason behind them. Just "Gd said so." I get to listen to a lot of non-Jews try to rationalize this by using the "pork was an unclean meat because of disease" or "Jews were pig farmers and they got more money not eating pork" (which is illogical because Gd said in Torah that we are not to make profit on pigs) or whatever but the true reason is just simply that Gd said "this is how to eat holy and all this shit over here is not holy" so we eat holy. I personally imagine that Gd is very fond of pigs and keeps them as pets the way we do with dogs (as we Jews are allowed to have pigs as pets, we just can't eat them or make money off of them). That's my own personal rationale though. Nobody would argue the logic of it if Gd said "don't eat dogs" which technically she DID say as well (the official law is that you cannot eat any four legged animal that does not have a cloven hoof or chew it's cud - i.e. have multiple stomachs). But everyone points at pigs like it was CLEARLY outlined "no pigs. everything else, but no pigs" It's not. I can't eat a rabbit any more than I can eat a pig, and if we want to go into the kosher/not-kosher fishes you'll start to see the most RANDOM shit. On that same note, Jews are forbidden in Torah from breeding dogs and profiting from their sale. It's really a very weird law but it has nothing to do with pork meat making you sick anymore than dog meat would make you sick. Fun fact - there's a sect of Judaism that won't eat turkey because it wasn't clearly outlined as "yes you can eat that" in Torah. MOST Jews eat turkey, and most orthodox authorities say it's kosher, but there's a sect in Israel that wants nothing to do with turkey.
I think that about covers it! Talk to you soon.
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