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Judaism [W:141]

Paralogic said:
From a social perspective, adhering to beneficial beliefs of a religion, like the Christian "love your neighbor" for example, and abandoning anti-social, aggressive beliefs like the Christian "you'll all burn in eternal hell if you don't believe like me", that would not be a bad thing.

But from a reality perspective, abandoning specific tenets, beliefs or claims due to convenience or preference only serves to verify that the religion is only the result of human imagination, wishful thinking or emotional gratification and has nothing to do with reality.
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I had a discussion with an orthodox friend a few days ago about this very matter. It started off with me making the same point. He said that this doesn't happen in Judaism. "If that's true" I asked "why don't you kill me?". "huh?" he replied, and to his great chagrin I produced a text by Maimonides saying that murdering heretics is a great "mitzvah". This discussion went on with me producing more and more examples of tenets and commandments he (and all orthodox Jews, for that matter) doesn't follow. He eventually broke down and admitted that he doesn't have an explanation to this and he needs to ask his rabbi (who, I'm sure, will come up with some sort of explanation which will satisfy him until our next argument).
In any case, I wasn't protecting the intellectual coherence of this philosophy, just pointing out that it is preferrable to the alternative.
 
quantumechanic said:
He eventually broke down and admitted that he doesn't have an explanation to this and he needs to ask his rabbi (who, I'm sure, will come up with some sort of explanation which will satisfy him until our next argument).
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Who, I'm sure, will give him a variation of the Christian tenet: "believe, and don't question" or some kind of similar edict.

From the little I know about Judaism, it's true that it does not explicitly claim anti-social, violent and aggressive intentions at the level Christianity does, but all the roots of the Christian religion come from Judaism. The Christian Old Testament and its damning of non-believers to eternal Christian hell, which the New Testament never disavows, comes from even earlier traditional Judaic beliefs which are still there today, although in much covered up and muffled states.

All of that comes from Sumerian religions too, but that's another point.
 
quantumechanic said:
Sure, good idea.
I grew up in an orthodox neighberhood in a (mostly) orthodox city and went to an orthodox school. It was quite some time before I met anyone who disagreed with my indoctrinated thoughts, longer until I understood that there were Jews who didn't follow the faith for philosophical reasons (I'd thought they were just too lazy to adhere to all the rules and restrictions of orthodox Judaism) and even longer than that before I started to doubt my indoctrinated ideas myself.
At first, when thoughts like "how do I know that the 'talmud' is the word of god?" started occuring to me I chastised myself for having them. At first I tried sharing my doubts with my parents, teachers or friends but quickly gave that up when, in the best case scenario, they let me talk to some rabbi (who was supposed to have all the answers to my questions, but I usually just ended up with more) and in the worst case started treating me like I was a leper.
What followed was a difficult period where I tried suppressing these heretical thoughts, and kept telling myself that I was being tested, and failing, but the thoughts and questions persisted. Inidentally, I get really annoyed at people who accuse me of leaving the faith because of laziness since it was, hands down, the most difficult and traumatic event of my life, but back to the story...
So, during this difficult period of guilt and conflict I came across a short story by Isaac Asimov called "The Last Question". In the story (skip to the next paragraph if this sort of thing bores you) mankind builds increasingly powerful computers, and in every several generations asks the computer if it is possible to increase the entropy of the universe (thus preventing the end of the universe by the "big crunch") and in every generation the computer gives the same answer: "insufficient data for meaningful answer". Thus pass the generations until, to prevent their extinction by the end of the universe, humanity decides to unite itself with the ultimate computer, the AC. Just before the last human unites with the AC, he, one last time, asks the AC if it is possible to increase the entropy of the universe and once again recieves the answer: "insufficient data for meaningful answer". The last human unites with the AC, the universe collapses, and for several millenia the AC ponders the question until it finally finds the answer to the question, but with no one to report it to, decides to reveal it by reversing entropy. The story ends with the words "and the AC said 'let there be light' and there was light".
So, there I am with my doubts and general feelings of crap, and I finish this story, and... it's like something suddenly just... clicked. It finally occured to me that you just can't know. You can't know if god exists. If he does exist, you can't know what, or who, he is. You can't know if he cares about you, if he actually stands behind this or that religion or holy book... you simply can't know anything about religion is true, and I finally understood that I simply can't believe in something I can't know is true.
From there it was pretty much a downhill race. I had some difficult moments (some harsh, like fighting with my dad about going to temple, and some downright comical, like being scared of dying the week after the first time I violated the sabbath) and I wasn't sure what I was going to end up as but in the end of the process it turned out that what I believed in was atheism. It was ok though, by then I was content with just being... myself.
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That's the problem with "truths", many keep changing on us as we gain more knowledge. Like for instance the Earth not be flat. A lot of changes have happened so technically you can't KNOW if a lot of things are true. To our current knowledge they are true.
 
American said:
That's the problem with "truths", many keep changing on us as we gain more knowledge. Like for instance the Earth not be flat. A lot of changes have happened so technically you can't KNOW if a lot of things are true. To our current knowledge they are true.
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I respectfully disagree.
Ever since we started basing our conception of the truth on the scientific method, the shifts in what we perceived as truth were negligent.
Using your own example as a model, we didn't actually know that the earth was flat, we just assumed that to be true utlizing the age-old method of just-assume-stuff-you-heard-is-true-unless-you-positively-know-it-not-to-be. On the other hand, when we shifted our opinion to that of the world being spherical (ellipsoidical, if anyone wants to get argumentative), that was based on real knowledge, and so, was actually true.
Truth, in my eyes, simply isn't that slippery. You either have enough evidence to know something is true (or enough to know it is true with a high degree of certainty), in which case it's reasonable to accept it as truth, or you don't.
 
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quantumechanic said:
In religious contexts, people tend to be autocratic, so the idea of religious leaders appointing someone to interpret their rulings is completely unique, in my experience. It is also the hallmark of a religious leader who actually gave some thought to constructing a religious context which will adapt to the changes in human societies. Personally, considering that most people think that religions are synonymous with moral philosophies, I think it stands to reason that a religion will only be as "good" as its capability of adapting itself to the morals of the society it is applied in. In other words, a religion should be shaped by the people who are its followers. When a religion does the reverse - shapes its followers - it is doomed to stagnate and hold its followers back from improving as a society.

Can you expound some more about the universal house of justice? Is it a standing body? If not, how often do they convene? How often do they issue rules? What kinds of rules do they issue?

Regardless, that was a very interesting read, thanks for that.
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Well, most important, the Universal House of Justice is limited by the Baha'i scriptures, which include the divine revelation by Baha'u'llah, its specifications and interpretations by his son Abdul-Baha and the instructions and explanations by Shoghi Effendi, who directed the faith before the Universal House was established.

So the Universal House cannot abrogate explicit rules written down in the holy scriptures. It makes administrative decisions, issues guidelines about how to apply the rules and commandments to specific situations in different countries, issues political statements and it coordinates the expansion of the faith and social/charity efforts and projects.

As there is no clergy, and individual quest for the truth is an important commandment, no Baha'i's interpretation of the holy scriptures is more binding or better than that of another. But the guidelines issued by the UHJ are binding, but they can change over time, as explained above. But the UHJ does not issue complex theological statements, as far as I know.

Below the global institution of the Universal House of Justice, there are the national Spiritual Assemblies, one for every national state. They elect the nine members of the UHJ. Many nation and region specific decisions are taken by them.

The believers elect both the regional and National Spiritual Assemblies (all of them consist of nine members) once per year, IIRC, while the national Spiritual Assemblies elect the UHJ every five years.


I don't think I can give a clear definition of what kind of guidelines the UHJ and NSA's are making, just give a few examples: For example, these institutions advise the believers in countries with political conflicts how to live their faith, like for example in Iran or Egypt (not blatantly taking sides, not using violence, but still using certain means to strife for an improvement of the situation of the believers).

Another example I looked into is the matter of homosexuality, because it's one of the few teachings I do not understand, and I have my problems with, as close friends of mine are homosexual. Baha'u'llah's revelation clearly says marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and sex outside of marriage is illegal, but count as adultery. Shoghi Effendi later specified this means homosexual acts are clearly not allowed. But the holy scripture is not very specific what that means in detail.

The National Spiritual Assembly in the USA then issued a document that says the believer shall weight the ban on homosexual acts (not of homosexual feelings!) against the commandment of opposing oppression and not forget that badmouthing and discrimination of people, including homosexuals, is not less of a violation of the divine commandments. Hence while homosexual believers must be encouraged to either choose abstinence or try to change their sexual orientation, homosexual people must be treated with the same friendliness and respect as any other human being, and Baha'i shall join homosexuals in their strife for justice in case governments deny them basic civil or human rights because of their sexual orientation (while, of course, same-sex marriage is not considered a civil or human right). On political questions that conflict with the holy commandments, such as the strife for same-sex marriage, Baha'i shall take a neutral position.

That's an example I've looked into, to demonstrate how these guidelines and binding interpretations of the Baha'i institutions work.
 
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