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.
Formerly an online journal. Now just space for apologies.
Monday, April 30, 2012
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.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Musings on Religion: Pt 1
From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:39 pm
Subject: religion and stuff
Ok, 2nd try at getting the PM to send. Apologies for the delay.
First, just to set this out there, my weekend is a little busy because I have work. Replies may be slightly sporadic.
Now, more to the point:
I suppose, to get this started on a somewhat open question, what are your personal views when it comes to religion? Any very strictly held beliefs? Anything you entirely disagree with 100%?
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:09 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
what a broad question. I had a great answer for you this morning but then my boss fucked with my spreadsheet after Lumburg'ing me into working on Shabbos and now I'm all frazzled.
There are a couple of things that first formulated my decision to be a religious Jew.
#1 - There is only one Gd. Gd is both male and female (not one or the other). It is impossible to know Gd entirely but it is possible to have a direct relationship with Gd. I prefer to use feminine pronouns MOSTLY because the Gd I know is a mothering spirit and our Torah teaches us that Gd's presence as felt during prayers and when communing with Gd is the female side, the shekhina.
#2 - Jesus was just a man, not a holier-than-thou being. Mohammed had some really bullshit ideas that probably did not come from Gd.
#3 - After reading the Christian Bible, I decided that very little of it was true, almost all of it was written by a man, and the men who wrote it had a vendetta. After YEARS in study with more religious Jews, I came to the assertion that Torah was true and written by Gd, and everything else was written by men. (Note: I did not even come into my Orthodox conversion believing Torah was the True written word of Gd. That came years LATER.) I came to the belief because I found Torah to be so entirely cryptic and beyond human understanding that it couldn't have been written by mortal men who had mortal logic. If it were, I'd understand it. But since I don't, it reasons to argue that it wasn't written by people who had human logic. As such, Torah needed something to help us translate and that is what Talmud is. Talmud is the educated opinion of a bunch of men trying to figure out what Torah says.
Everything else that I believe goes back to those three fundamental beliefs. Why do I keep mitzvos (commandments - in Judaism, there are 613 mitzvos)? Because I believe in Gd's commandments as outlined in Torah. I believe that mitzvos help me to become a more spiritual being the way Gd wants me to be and strengthen my relationship with Her.
Are there things I argue with? Sometimes. It's kind of a necessity of Judaism to argue what the Torah says all the freaking time. It also goes back to the Torah + Talmud argument. We don't know what Gd meant. We can pray on it and hope for divine inspiration (and I regularly commune with Gd about the meaning of Torah), we can ask someone more learned than we are, and we can read opinions posted by other people. But we'll never TRULY know.
I also draw a clear line between religious law (halacha) and civil law. Like on gay marriage. As an American citizen, I support gays having the right to marry. But I would not want to see a gay marriage performed in a synagogue using our marriage ritual because it doesn't make sense. If gays want to come up with a NEW religious ceremony, I'm all for it. But not while they want to steal the one mandated for hetero relationships. Though, that being said, I would RATHER attend the wedding of two Jewish men than that of a Jew and a non-Jew because even though neither are binding according to halacha, the gay wedding is at least keeping with the spirit of our laws. I absolutely refuse to attend interfaith weddings (unless they're not having Jewish stuff at their wedding) and I don't make this a secret. To me that is an abomination and I will not support it.
There are a lot of things about Judaism that I disagree with but none of them are Gd's commandments. They're usually man's interpretation of the commandment, the fences around the Torah. Like, in an Orthodox synagogue, women are separated from men. They use the reasoning that men are animals who will only lust and not pray when a woman is present or that women are holier to they need to be in the balcony to be closer to Gd. Whatever. The only use of the Mechitza (the divider) in Temple times was during ritual slaughter to protect the women's spirituality (which is naturally loving) from being exposed to the horror of slaughter. The rest of the time, everyone prayed together and it was fine. That divider is a recent invention. So I disagree with that. I also don't like that Orthodoxy won't let women approach the Torah to read. It's another new law created by men to try putting a fence around the Torah. My Torah doesn't need a fence. My Torah is just fine the way it is. Maybe YOU need to work more on your relationship with Gd if your Torah needs a fence because mine works just fine without one.
I also get seriously annoyed when mortal men try to take Gd's power away from Her. Like when my conversion was overturned because the rabbi was a joke. Who are you to say I wasn't a true convert? Who are you to then tell me I'm NOT Jewish and my conversion is no good because someone on my Beit Din (religious council) was a douche nozzle? Fuck that noise. So I reconverted and I reconverted at a Conservative synagogue. To SOME Jews, I am not Jewish because I have a liberal conversion. To the Jews who have inquired, it was above board and kosher so the issue is resolved and put to bed. According to Halacha, NOBODY is even allowed to ASK if I'm a convert. Once my conversion is done with, I'm the same as any born Jew, and better even because I am a convert.
This guy at my synagogue is getting uppity about conversions and talking about we should go back to Abrahamic conversions where you just say you're a Jew and start living as a Jew and you're a Jew. I disagree. Torah (and Gd) outlined who is a Jew - those born to Jewish mothers or those who live among the Jews, meet a Beit Din, and immerse in Mikveh. It's a ritual. Judaism is full of them. That is the definition of religion is a series of rituals ascribed to a higher power.
Have I fried you enough yet? LOL
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:39 pm
Subject: religion and stuff
Ok, 2nd try at getting the PM to send. Apologies for the delay.
First, just to set this out there, my weekend is a little busy because I have work. Replies may be slightly sporadic.
Now, more to the point:
I suppose, to get this started on a somewhat open question, what are your personal views when it comes to religion? Any very strictly held beliefs? Anything you entirely disagree with 100%?
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:09 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
what a broad question. I had a great answer for you this morning but then my boss fucked with my spreadsheet after Lumburg'ing me into working on Shabbos and now I'm all frazzled.
There are a couple of things that first formulated my decision to be a religious Jew.
#1 - There is only one Gd. Gd is both male and female (not one or the other). It is impossible to know Gd entirely but it is possible to have a direct relationship with Gd. I prefer to use feminine pronouns MOSTLY because the Gd I know is a mothering spirit and our Torah teaches us that Gd's presence as felt during prayers and when communing with Gd is the female side, the shekhina.
#2 - Jesus was just a man, not a holier-than-thou being. Mohammed had some really bullshit ideas that probably did not come from Gd.
#3 - After reading the Christian Bible, I decided that very little of it was true, almost all of it was written by a man, and the men who wrote it had a vendetta. After YEARS in study with more religious Jews, I came to the assertion that Torah was true and written by Gd, and everything else was written by men. (Note: I did not even come into my Orthodox conversion believing Torah was the True written word of Gd. That came years LATER.) I came to the belief because I found Torah to be so entirely cryptic and beyond human understanding that it couldn't have been written by mortal men who had mortal logic. If it were, I'd understand it. But since I don't, it reasons to argue that it wasn't written by people who had human logic. As such, Torah needed something to help us translate and that is what Talmud is. Talmud is the educated opinion of a bunch of men trying to figure out what Torah says.
Everything else that I believe goes back to those three fundamental beliefs. Why do I keep mitzvos (commandments - in Judaism, there are 613 mitzvos)? Because I believe in Gd's commandments as outlined in Torah. I believe that mitzvos help me to become a more spiritual being the way Gd wants me to be and strengthen my relationship with Her.
Are there things I argue with? Sometimes. It's kind of a necessity of Judaism to argue what the Torah says all the freaking time. It also goes back to the Torah + Talmud argument. We don't know what Gd meant. We can pray on it and hope for divine inspiration (and I regularly commune with Gd about the meaning of Torah), we can ask someone more learned than we are, and we can read opinions posted by other people. But we'll never TRULY know.
I also draw a clear line between religious law (halacha) and civil law. Like on gay marriage. As an American citizen, I support gays having the right to marry. But I would not want to see a gay marriage performed in a synagogue using our marriage ritual because it doesn't make sense. If gays want to come up with a NEW religious ceremony, I'm all for it. But not while they want to steal the one mandated for hetero relationships. Though, that being said, I would RATHER attend the wedding of two Jewish men than that of a Jew and a non-Jew because even though neither are binding according to halacha, the gay wedding is at least keeping with the spirit of our laws. I absolutely refuse to attend interfaith weddings (unless they're not having Jewish stuff at their wedding) and I don't make this a secret. To me that is an abomination and I will not support it.
There are a lot of things about Judaism that I disagree with but none of them are Gd's commandments. They're usually man's interpretation of the commandment, the fences around the Torah. Like, in an Orthodox synagogue, women are separated from men. They use the reasoning that men are animals who will only lust and not pray when a woman is present or that women are holier to they need to be in the balcony to be closer to Gd. Whatever. The only use of the Mechitza (the divider) in Temple times was during ritual slaughter to protect the women's spirituality (which is naturally loving) from being exposed to the horror of slaughter. The rest of the time, everyone prayed together and it was fine. That divider is a recent invention. So I disagree with that. I also don't like that Orthodoxy won't let women approach the Torah to read. It's another new law created by men to try putting a fence around the Torah. My Torah doesn't need a fence. My Torah is just fine the way it is. Maybe YOU need to work more on your relationship with Gd if your Torah needs a fence because mine works just fine without one.
I also get seriously annoyed when mortal men try to take Gd's power away from Her. Like when my conversion was overturned because the rabbi was a joke. Who are you to say I wasn't a true convert? Who are you to then tell me I'm NOT Jewish and my conversion is no good because someone on my Beit Din (religious council) was a douche nozzle? Fuck that noise. So I reconverted and I reconverted at a Conservative synagogue. To SOME Jews, I am not Jewish because I have a liberal conversion. To the Jews who have inquired, it was above board and kosher so the issue is resolved and put to bed. According to Halacha, NOBODY is even allowed to ASK if I'm a convert. Once my conversion is done with, I'm the same as any born Jew, and better even because I am a convert.
This guy at my synagogue is getting uppity about conversions and talking about we should go back to Abrahamic conversions where you just say you're a Jew and start living as a Jew and you're a Jew. I disagree. Torah (and Gd) outlined who is a Jew - those born to Jewish mothers or those who live among the Jews, meet a Beit Din, and immerse in Mikveh. It's a ritual. Judaism is full of them. That is the definition of religion is a series of rituals ascribed to a higher power.
Have I fried you enough yet? LOL
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