Freethinking Upstart

Communication

2009-06-10T09:08:00.000-04:00

Many of my recent posts have been the "stream of consciousness" variety. I found this really awesome writing tool called DarkRoom. When I saw the screenshots on the download page, I was highly skeptical. It looks like something out of the Matrix. But I sat down and started writing with this program and my thoughts just flowed. It was pretty close to magic. I don't know how it works, and I don't think I fully understand why it works (something to do with no distractions and better focus) but it does.

The one downfall that I did notice is that I write at a lower educational level. My writing is more how I think and talk, which is naturally not as academic as I'd like to pretend to be.

The point that I've been leading up to, is something that I've been thinking a lot about recently. I think this style of writing, exacerbates something that I've noticed recently. It started out when I started reading PoMo writings and Colonial Philosophy in general. The subject comes up again in some books that I've been reading on NLP, Magic and Mentalism, and other Psychology books. Let's put that aside for now though.

It's a constant source of surprise to me how people understand my writings and I wonder if others feel the same way about the way their readers understand their writings. The Rambam comes to mind. I can't think of the exact quote offhand but something about, "If God's writings can be misunderstood, then mine certainly can." I try to be clever in my writing, I try to make it an interesting reading experience. I make subtle hints, and inside jokes that only I could possibly get, wondering if anyone out there will pick up on them. There's generally a sense of playfulness and/or sarcasm behind the words of my blog posts.

As I've written before, I don't believe in the magic of a rational mind, wherein all rational people will surely understand things the same way, if they use the equally magical tools of reason and logic. Of course there can be consistency to a point, but life in general and it's specifics are far too complex, and our minds are far to complex and varied to think that we could possibly answer the worlds problems if we would all just think "rationally."

That said, there will naturally be variances of opinion when humans try to understand something, in our case, writing. NLP talks about maps and territories. It works under the premise that there is a something called a territory, what others might call reality but that we all have our own maps that we superimpose on the territory. These maps are shaped by our beliefs and values which have effects on how we view the territory. I find this to be a useful metaphor. The way we view the world is effected on so many levels by so many factors such as our psychological and philosophical dispositions.

I had more to say, but this has gone on too long already. In summary thus far, try DarkRoom, my writing has been easier but less sophisticated, and your readers will interpret your writings, these interpretations being effected by their beliefs, values, etc.

Asking a different question.

2009-06-05T19:15:00.001-04:00

Some people ask what the meaning of life is.

Some people ask how they are going to make it through the day and they are referring to different things when they ask that.

Some people ask how they can better themselves.

Some people ask how they can better treat their fellow humans.

Some people want a philosophical answer, others want practical advice and still others want to hear it straight from the mouth of God.

Some people say there are philosophical underpinnings to these questions, others say it has to do with our psychology which is a result of our genes or our culture and upbringinging or some combo of those ingredients, others still say this is our soul crying out for a connection with its source.

Just pointing that out.

Anyone Else?

2009-06-02T16:12:00.004-04:00

The latest outrage from a popular Habad Rabbi.

Here, and here, then condemned here, here, here, and here and probably a bunch of other places.

Lack of thoughts on Meaning

2009-06-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

Alot of people think about meaning, morality, and spirituality.

I used to think about spirituality. That was when I was a firm believer. I thought about being connected to God, doing actions and thinking thoughts that would increase that connection. This was not supported by most of my rebbeim who saw that connection to God comes through learning Gemara b'iyun. I tried to combine the two, but I still tried to take my time during Amidah and turn at least parts of it into a deep meditation. Sometimes I had very interesting experiences.

Then, as I started to become more skeptical, morality began to take over the background of my thoughts. I wrote about this recently.

But I've never had time to think about meaning or purpose. I just wrote about what I think the purpose of life was, but I've never put much thought into it. Meaning seems so silly to me. I suppose I believe in the Taoist or Zen understanding of Meaning, namely just experiencing the moment. Meaning is inherently retroactive. If you are just living in the moment, you have no time to search for meaning. The moment you look for meaning, you are reflecting on your past, something that I don't make any time to do. I don't enjoy reminiscing and I don't feel the need to give my past experiences meaning.

If someone came to me looking for meaning, I'd tell them to read Frankl's book. I've read it a couple times... mostly on Tisha B'Av. That's about the only time I think about meaning and that's only because Frankl's book is sufficiently depressing to be read on such a tragic day in Jewish history, albeit with a positive outlook.

To be perfectly honest, meaning has no meaning to me. At this stage of my life, I'm too busy working, learning about different stuff that interests me at this point in time, working out, finding a girl, reading blogs, keeping in touch with people via facebook, twitter, texts, etc. that I have no time to think, "What is the meaning of it all?" The question just seems so absurd to me. I'm not sure if this makes me partly socio-pathic or just really lucky. Is existential angst akin to a psychological disorder or a feeling that any thinking human being feels.

Thanks to Mark (aka AcherHaKoton) for inspiring this post. To read his great post click here.

Judaism IS the One True Religion

2009-05-28T09:23:00.000-04:00

Based on my last post, if you take the two axioms as a given:

1) Knowing the purpose of life is a mark of Truth

2) Being first at something makes you the one and only, all other's being mere imitations,

Then Judaism, which knows the purpose of life (that is, to be fruitful and multiply) and was the first one to figure it out (God told us on our first day of existence) is the one True religion.

Ahh, but Genesis is mostly myth, you might argue. Meh, it's not a kashe. Its still our myth and we still made it up first. Ahh, but God spoke to the first humans before Judaism really came into the picture. Still not a kashe. Haraya that the Torah (aka the book with the secret to the purpose in life) was offered to the umos haolam first and since they all rejected it, it became distinctly Jewish. Like it says in the Medrash, God looked into the Torah and Created the world and if nobody would have accepted it, the world would have reverted to tohu uvohu. Its because if the humans wouldn't have accepted the purpose in life, then there taka wouldn't have been any life. And without life you have what? Tohu vavohu!

Hatzair Hakoton,
Freethinking Upstart

May we soon see that the purpose of life will soon put us out of a purpose if we keep pursuing our purpose uninhibited, with the coming of Mashiach Tzidkeynu, b'mhera!

Purpose of life

2009-05-28T08:29:00.001-04:00

I was just thinking about nihilism and the purpose of life.

There is a purpose to life and God told us what it is, only to be discovered by Charles Darwin thousands of years later. It is (drum roll please)...

P'ru u'vru... Be fruitful and multiply.

Think about it. Tell me what you think.

#$&%!

2009-05-22T00:57:00.003-04:00

I just got back from a gathering with frum people.

I can understand why some skeptics are particularly vitriolic towards them.

Generalizing is bad, but it's oh so hard not to do.

As he was speaking, I could begin to feel my blood boil. It started out slow, and of course I disagreed with most of what he was saying. I kept thinking, "Bullshit, Cough, Cough," to myself. But this is religion. It gives these people meaning. Who the hell am I to take this away from them?

Then the subject switched to politics. The conspiracy theories about Obama started surfacing. I had heard rumors that there were those that believed these sorts of things, but I guess I didn't really believe it. Someone seemed to start to compare Obama to Hitler, and I finally started to speak up. "Wait, wait, wait," I started to say. I'd been getting more and more frustrated by what people were saying as the night grew on. Fortunately, I had a nice buzz going on, so my reaction time was slow. He interrupted me, "Just listen to my point! I'm not comparing Obama to Hitler."

"OK."

"So all these people, Hitler, Stalin, they all convinced people with their words."

Forget it, I thought to myself. It's pointless.

But then the conversation got more and more conspiratorial, and more and more racist. My body started to betray me. I closed up. My arms folded. I put my head down, trying to resist speaking out, all the while trying to convince myself that I should stand up and say something. For God's sake! WTF are these people thinking?

I realized I was being irrational. "It's much better to face these kinds of things, with a sense of poise and rationality."

But I was surely going to avoid these gatherings like the plague. I can't have myself realizing that there are billions of people that believe ancient writings were dictated by a supernatural superhuman-like being, that Obama has something up his sleeve, and that, by whispering the right words at the right time the redemption of humanity is somehow effected. No. It's much better to crawl back in my liberal hole and look at all the benefits these beliefs offer to people. Yes. Now that's much better.

My advice to those that associate with RW and/or Religious fanatics, STOP! GET AWAY! You will eventually go mad, or become very bitter. Heck, you probably already are.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled writings from a young man, highly influenced by liberal academia. One that looks benevolently on religion and even the more extreme religious people. Who am I to judge? I mean, come on! Religion, even religious belief, has a lot of good stuff to offer. Sure, it's not for me but neither is country music and I don't see anyone decrying that! Whew... That feels much better.

*Disclaimer: This post is reactionary. I just needed to vent. That loud music on the ride home didn't do the trick. But some coooool lyrical jazz almost did. If it weren't for those long comercial breaks, this post might have never been.*

Reflections on My Year of Blogging

2009-04-28T07:24:00.000-04:00

This blog started because I thought I was a very holy "secular humanist" and cared more about what matters, i.e. the well being of humans, and less about silly arguments on the existence of God or Divine Revalation. XGH deleted some of my comments, so I started my own blog. I was itching to start my own blog for awhile. I thought I had something interesting to say... Boy was I mistaken... So this blog was off to a reactionary start.

At the time, RJM was commenting and blogging on some of the blogs I was reading, particularly on XGH's now defunct extreme reincarnation. I had heard that he was the "Go To Rabbi" for skeptics. He actually dignified them with conversation. I thought I was smart, and wanted to talk to a Rabbi about skepticism and the incredibility of Orthodox Jewish beliefs. Looking back, it's embarrassing. How amazingly arrogant? I thought I was immune to bias and credulity because I was a skeptic and believers were Divinely blinded to the obvious truth. I remember being shocked time and again that Rabbi Maroof couldn't see it.

There were a few posts about arguments against religious beliefs. Again, since I was a skeptic, I was an expert on religious claims and able to see through their smoke and mirrors. What a joke!? After reading "The God Delusion" and a bunch of articles from "Talk Reason," I was an expert in my own right, duty bound to show believers (said scathingly, with only a slight effort to hide it) the crookedness of their ways. Of course, I’d done more research on the subject than that but I’m no expert, not by a long shot. Secondly, this feeling that I need to spread the Gospel of James Randi and Michael Shermer far and wide is an interesting one. I don’t think it’s a traditionally Jewish one. According to some Midrashim Avraham did a little missionary work for the one true God but I’m sure you can put that into context and make better sense of it. Someone with better historical knowledge should correct me if I’m wrong but Jews haven’t done missionary work within or without for thousands of years until the Lubavitch movement and then the Kiruv Movement with Ohr Somayach and Aish. From the evolutionary standpoint, I don’t think this would make it into the category of a Good Trick as far as memes go, but I find this notion of spreading the gospel to be in bad taste. Sure, everyone talks to others about what they think is good, but many Christians, Skeptics, and Kiruv workers take it a bit too far.

Getting back to my roots as a holy "secular humanist" I decided to embark on "The Morality Project." But after reading a few books that touch on the subject from Evolutionary Biologists, I soon realized that I'd have to study philosophy to get the whole picture of morality. But of course that takes some real effort and thought. Why put effort into building new intellectual capital when you can destroy the intellectual capital that you already have? Needless to say, that Morality Project didn't get very far. I was in WAY over my head and was unwilling to do the real work to understand the various arguments from the various schools of philosophy.

There were a few posts on politics. I clearly didn't put much thought into them, mostly because I didn't have any thoughts on the subject to put into these posts. Like many in my demographic, this was my first interest in politics, due to the vibrancy and eloquence of Barack Obama. Some of the posts were more fan-boy-ish then others but the good thing was the entire ordeal sparked an interest in politics and I ended up learning a bit about the subject in general and read a bit about the President himself.

God was another subject I wrote about. I never went into the popular arguments like the ontological, teleological etc. because it was obvious to me that you had to have a definition of God before you could argue whether or not it existed. The God I believed in wrote the Bible and answered prayers, two things that I clearly didn't believe in and so my God no longer existed. The popular arguments didn't discuss the God in which I previously believed. A new definition of God was out of the question. In fact, I was rather opposed to coming to a better or at the very least different, understanding of God. Pantheism was attractive to me for a spill but it didn't last too long. Feelings of awe, reverence, and love toward a higher or greater something, even something as harmless as the Universe, were strongly related to the God I didn't believe in anymore, and plus, Pantheism is monistic, of which I'm a bit skeptical. Nowadays, God doesn't up in conversation much, so I don't have to give the idea a lot of thought. When it does come up, I just imagine what God would be like if there is one and continue the conversation as if God is. It makes life a lot easier, and I think it's all around a much more useful way to talk about God.

I wrote a lot about my handle switch in an earlier post, and I don't have much more to add to that so I'll be brief here. When I finally realized that Atheists weren't immoral scum, I decided that was the best position to hold. I soon became a typical atheist/skeptic of the I-know-nothing-which-is-more-then-you- know variety. This didn’t last long either. Turns out everyone else had the same feelings toward atheists that I had before I decided to be one. Perhaps the term Atheist could lose its stigma and be sanctified to be a term that smart people everywhere would want to call themselves but too much need to be done. It’s bad enough that atheists kvetch about strong and weak atheism. Weak atheism was the rational variety but who wants to be called weak? I mean, atheists are NOT Christians. They don’t believe Jesus when he says, “Blessed are the weak,” or “Blessed are those that tease you because of your really lame label.” At about the same time, I was losing interest in the whole concept of God so why bother with trying to come up with a label that describes your stance towards God.

I enjoyed reading religious literature, so I embarked on a trip through some of the Apocrypha, Gnostic writings and some of the rarer midrashic literature. I enjoyed this, but not for long. My attitude towards reading this genre was to further enforce my feelings of disgust towards religion in general. I was slowly starting to realize that this was an unhealthy way to live. Believing believers to be blind began baffling the brain. How could the overwhelming majority of humans on the planet not see the obvious objective truth? There had to be more to this discussion then truth claims.

At about this time, there was a general disdain in my tone towards philosophy. "Sophisticated Philosophy Bad, Simple Skepticism Good," was my credo as I moved away from reading about religious claims and moved towards schools of philosophy. In a way, this was in protest to a side of me that was highly impressed with evanstonjew, arama and a few others. There had to be something there but my simple mindset kept trying to squeeze everything into black and white truth claims.

After a conversation over at Holy Hyrax's blog with Chardal, my jumps to conclusions started getting a little more reluctant. I started talking about some of the benefits of religion. I started taking Philosophy a little more seriously. I started exploring some postmodern thought. The problem with this was that my intense ignorance began to overwhelm me. This slowed my writing down, but worse discouraged me from furthering my intellectual pursuits.

As I read through brief Histories of Philosophy, I began to realize that our hopes for finding Truth were in vain. It’s been more than 2000 years and the greatest minds have come up with elaborate theories only to be rejected or shlugged up by their students. This scenario is replayed over and over again throughout history. My thoughts about Truth were matching my thoughts about God.

With all my favorite subjects, namely religion, God, and Truth, gone or irrelevant I really had nothing to study, let alone write about. I enjoyed writing and loved the feedback that a blog provides. So I just wrote whatever popped into my mind, which wasn’t much by this time.

What bothers me the most now is something that I have written about a few times, something that evanstonjew pointed out. I keep watching Orthodox Judaism from my computer, reading frum (including Orthopraxnicks) and ex-frum blogs (like the Hedyot's), even commenting now and again. When I'm not sitting at my computer, I don't even think about it. I don't keep Shabbes or Kosher... those things don't even cross my mind. Most of the people I socialize with are either not Jewish or Jews that don't talk much about frumkeit. I haven't picked up a sefer in months. Yet, 30% of the blogs on my RSS reader are frum or ex-frum, and those are the ones I read the most religiously. Why do I keep lingering in cyberspace, having conversations about frumkeit?

evanstonjew mentioned a lack of intellectual capital. There's got to be more to it than that. Maybe it's the pintele Yid... Who knows?

With all reflections must come desires and goals for future. And it is also here that I am at a loss.

One of the things that I've come to realize from my bout with my vision of Orthodox Judaism and the philosophy that I've read, is that a theory of everything is an absurd notion. Looking back at Orthodox Jews, I realize that many don't really believe that they know the theory of everything and that it's encoded in the Torah. For some it might be there, but we'll never understand it. Lo alekha ham'lakha ligmor, or something along those lines. The point is not to know or pretend to know everything, but to struggle with it. But I can't persuade myself to believe that there is such a thing and therefore struggling for such a notion seems futile. This further discourages me from intellectual pursuits. For someone that grew up believing that I was constantly discovering pieces to a puzzle that somehow fit together, the conclusion that the pieces don't really fit, and even if they did, there's no way we could possibly recognize that they do, can be disheartening. Science gives the appearance of progress and may well be making progress. But even “rock-solid ” fields like Physics get complete overhauls from time to time (if that even exists…) There’s a distinct possibility that experiments at the LHC will send physics back to the drawing boards. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, that will give Physicists something to do for awhile. Plus, Scientists love coming up with theories that are bound to be completely destroyed. Is Science making progress? Well, in applications such as Medicine and Technology they surely are. People are living longer healthier lives and I don’t know how people survived before the invention of the BlackBerry. But at the theoretical level of science, it’s absurd to think that some intelligent primates that, on an evolutionary scale, are barely out of the primal grasslands could ever wrap their minds around the vast and mysterious universe (or is it subverse?) in all its quantum wonder? Our puny brains are too primitive, our language plagued with paradox and contingency. We were built to pass on our genes, not to put the Universe into a box. We've made it thus far because we were endowed with genes that have adapted for survival on this heartless planet, not because we are masters of it. There’s nothing in our DNA, as far as I know, that shows us to be gods, though we may fancy ourselves as such. In fact, we share 99% of our genes with mere mice.

This hasn't brought me to existential angst... yet. I've just put the whole notion out of my mind. I try to balance, "Eat, Drink and Be Merry" with "Tzedek Tirdof". The first is pretty self-explanatory. I'm not the hedonistic type, but I do enjoy a good time in moderation. I’m not into prishus. I define Tzedek as avoiding cruelty, taking time to pay attention to the people I care about, and in general being a good guy.

That’s a long way to travel in only a year! In the end, the main thing that you should know about me from this year of blogging is that I have a short attention span, I don’t have the patience to learn anything well, (why bother trying to master something transient and filled with flaws?) and if I’m into something now, it probably won’t last for more than a few months. It’s the story of my life.

More thoughts on the Hedyot's Interview

2009-04-02T17:07:00.001-04:00

This is continued from the previous post.

After realizing that Sara didn't write anywhere that she left Judaism in general or Orthodoxy in particular for the reasons I erroneously supposed, what I was going to write became completely irrelevant to Sara's interview. Blatant bias is a sneaky bastard, always hiding around the corner, and I try to be cautious about it, or at the very least be explicit that I realize that I have a strong bias. As an example of how I try to be upfront regarding my bias, I wrote that it was my gut reaction to be shocked and dismayed regarding Sara's choice of Catholicism.

What's even more revealing is that I was still quick to believe that her reasons for leaving were as trivial as XGH cartooned them. Sure, I realize that he was merely being comedic about the situation, and I might add, did a darn good job at it, but I thought that part was at least semi accurate. It wasn't. In fact it was completely wrong. But I was more then willing to believe that it was correct. I didn't even double check till I was about to write about it. Much of the comment discussion on the Hedyot's blog and XGH's surrounded around that point. Some were quick to point out that all those things that she supposedly left Judaism for were readily available within Judaism. In fact, many Jews have been notorious for being activists, and obviously pants etc are a non-issue for many stripes.

I was going to write about being progressive within Orthodoxy and pushing the limits. I was going to write about reasons to stay and push the boundaries of Orthodoxy or leave to another stripe that already has the boundaries you personally are comfortable with. Maybe I'll still write about that. But the wind is gone from the sails.

Thoughts on the Hedyot's Interview with Sara

2009-04-02T14:07:00.005-04:00

There was a bit of a raucous regarding the Hedyot's recent post with Sara. I, like many, couldn't help but forget everything else she wrote once I read that she's part of the Roman Catholic Church. Something within me, aka my gut reaction, was shocked and dismayed that a Jew would seemingly completely drop their Jewish identity, and not only that but eventually trade it in for one that could arguably be called historically antithetical to a Jewish identity. If she would have become a Quaker, I still might have been saddened, but I don't think I would have felt abysmally dismal. Those of you that are familiar with various different Christian theologies will understand why I chose Quaker.

But who care's about history? I think that most people do to some extent or another. Historical Narratives bind people together and shared experiences make people feel connected at a very deep and personal level. I've heard of experiments with moral psychology that show people are much more willing to help strangers, even after a short conversation. Call it right, wrong or indifferent, history matters. What about forgive and forget? I'm sure there are plenty of objections and rabbit trails this conversation could go down, but that's for another time and place.

Before I go on, I should say that I'm just about as ambivalent toward Catholicism as I am towards most other religious sects. If it works for you, makes you happy, gives you meaning and helps you avoid cruelty, then, by all means, be a good Catholic. I have several Catholic friends, (the kind that go to mass every other Christmas or Easter ;-) and we have great conversations about our respective religious and cultural backgrounds. I'm even of the persuasion now that many religious stripes are good for most people. And not in a condescending way, along the lines of, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." I honestly think that many religious stripes are tried and true to offer meaning, a skeleton of morality and many other benefits.

At the end of the day, I think that Sara is making a great life for herself. She's in law school and seems to be happily married. Who cares about the religious stripe she's chosen?

After re-reading the interview, I realized that she never says that she left Judaism and eventually joined Catholicism to, as XGH characterized, "... wear jeans or shorts in public, eat what you want, shake hands with men, and even use birth control (although frowned on by the church) and advocate for gay marriage, and not be shunned by your community or have to hide or fake many of your beliefs." She was merely pointing out some of the things she's more comfortable doing now as opposed to when she was a frum Beis Yaakov girl. That's a very significant difference. If you asked me some of the things that I enjoy, now that I'm not frum, I might mention the delicious variety of Cheeseburgers at the local bar. But that's obviously not one of the reasons that I left frumkeit.

I just came to this revelation, and it destroyed the rest of what I was going to write about. Maybe I'll write about it later... I even had to change the title of the post.

P.S. Comment moderation is off for the time being.

Modification

2009-03-29T14:24:00.002-04:00

After some thought and the encouragement of my noble readers, I'll leave it up, put on comment moderation, take off comment email notification, pull my email address from the site and maybe sometime in the future I'll find something to write about.

Be well.

Temporary Shutdown

2009-03-27T13:00:00.002-04:00

Dear Readers,

I will be shutting down this blog as it's just getting me spam comments and emails. I can't be bothered. I'll open it again if I ever get the bug to start writing and have something to write about. If you want a personal copy of any of my posts, you have till Sunday Night.

Thanks.

Work and Not Work

2009-02-15T09:53:00.003-05:00

I recently met a dude that makes a distinction between life and work, between working and living. I thought it an odd distinction. Don't we need to work to live or at least isn't working part of life? This same dude, will stop you dead in your tracks if you try to talk about work around him. For example, I was recently at a bar and a friend from work started talking to me about something that came up at work, and the guy says, "Woe! Time out... You guys get paid to talk about this at work. Lets take some time here and live a little." I started talking about another deal with another guy about 10 minutes later and the guy quickly cut that conversation off as well, saying something about life and living and not talking about work when you're supposed to be living. (For the record, this dude is great and went on to apologize for his reactions. My intention is not to make him look anything but positive.)

I used to make a similar distinction, but I called it Work and Not Work. Work was a necessary evil, and you did it for as little as you needed, the rest of your time being spent doing stuff you enjoy, whatever that may be. You had friends at work and friends from not work and only spent time with your friends at work when you were at work. There was a completely separate world with completely different people outside of work and never did you mix the two worlds.

But that's changed recently. Even though I've loved the place I work and the people there since the beginning, for a long time I was working under the assumption that I should keep my work life separate from my not work life. But I quickly started working more then the bare minimum of hours, and I'm gradually getting more comfortable socializing with the guys at work outside of work. That black and white distinction between work and not work has blurred and now I just live life, part of which is working. I don't try to keep my friends separate, or even draw to thick of a line between working and non-working hours.

So for all those that still have a job or haven't retired yet, do you believe in the work and not work dichotomy?

Hitbodedut

2009-02-08T22:48:00.000-05:00

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov talked a lot about talking to God in your own language. He felt it was the key to a vibrant relationship with God. I don't find talk about God to be fruitful for me, but I do find the practice of being by yourself and just talking your heart out to be therapeutic and a useful tool to working through your thoughts. I find this practice especially enjoyable when done in the meadows and forests. Unfortunately, the weather doesn't permit this, and its hard enough for me to make it to the gym, let alone setting aside time to meditate.

There are several types of meditation and I find this form to be the most relaxed and the easiest. I've always wanted to engage in Buddhist style meditation, but its so abstract and takes awhile till you feel like you're actually doing something.

The thing is, you feel insane at times, just sitting there, having animated conversations with yourself. Isn't talking to yourself the mark of a crazy man? But I figure that as long as no one sees me, and I'm not walking through the streets mumbling to myself, no one will know the difference.

Does anyone out there practice any serious form of meditation? Yeshivish Atheist mentioned it. Does he care to share some techniques and experiences?

Tu b'Shvat

2009-02-08T19:57:00.001-05:00

Not sure why, but I think that this is a cool holiday. It can't be too bad, as it is all about drinking wine and eating exotic fruits.

Tu b'shvat was made more significant because of the mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria. Mysticism has an odd attraction to me, even now. I don't believe in other worlds, though String theory, and some respectable philosophical traditions, seem to point to other dimensions that may be similar to that which mystical traditions hope for. But, like most things, I can't take it too seriously. Its fun to think about, nonetheless.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I like forests, and so having a Jewish holiday in their honor is nice. I'm not a tree hugger, (ok... Maybe just a little bit) but I do like trees. They can be so beautiful, and thinking about the potential of the mighty towering oak, contained in the acorn is inspiring and mind boggling. Its a comfortable metaphor that speaks to me. Though, there are other metaphors that might be more incredible, there's something about acorns and oaks that hits home.

So in honor of the trees, drink some wine and partake of their fruits and think of the beauty in having a delicious prepared food that's good for your health and brings delight to your taste buds. Oh, and plant one, or at least try to conserve them, as they are good for the environment which is quickly deteriorating. Not like I'll be doing any of that but it sounds responsible.

P.S. What do you think of the new layout?

Starting Anew

2009-02-05T19:39:00.007-05:00

Evanstonjew pointed out that many linger with Orthodoxy, even after they have forsaken many of the beliefs, because they lack intellectual capital in other subjects. I could go on and on about how I was robbed by my upbringing but that would go against the title and my desire to move on with life.

But beginnings are tough and investing in new intellectual capital takes time. I have interests in Rorty, and other western thinkers, some Taoist and Buddhist thought, but it's all very new for me. I LOVE jazz and take advantage of listening to it at nearly any chance I get. I'm a big fan of forests, mountains, and bodies of water. But I don't know much about these things and worse I don't have any one to talk to or share experiences with.

Occasionally I'll get into conversations with old friends about some sugia in the Gemara, or other Torah subject, and I'll get a glimpse of remembrance of the geshmak of lernen. At times like this I wonder if I'd regret forgetting the Torah that I've learned. But I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend the time necessary. I have a lot of new things that I'd like to learn... new subjects that I feel will better suit my new views on things and offer suited intellectual stimulation. All my friends were Orthodox Jews, mostly pretty Hareidi in belief, and they aren't the first candidates for a discussion on Rorty or Zen. Finding people that like to have these conversations isn't easy.

Then there's Judaism in general. Do I want to make something of it? Is it something that I'll do for the holidays and forget about it the rest of the time? Sometimes I feel an obligation to make something of Judaism, to take being a Jew seriously, but then I wonder if it's worth the trouble. Seeing Judaism as defined by anything other than Hareidi-ism is difficult for me. I recently started reading a few progressive Orthodox blogs. They are interesting, but I keep thinking, "That's not right... Rishon X or se'if y from the Shulchan Arukh clearly says not like that!" I enjoy Rabbi Rami's blog but he is cynical about a meaningful worthwhile Judaism surviving into the next few generations. I can't help but agree. I'm not sure Judaism the religion is or will be seen as anything but out of touch and folky to the majority of Jews, which is making an already waning Jewish Culture fade into obscurity or antiquity all the more quickly. Additionally, it's hard enough for me to socialize... Do I need the added stigma of taking Judaism seriously? Not that I'm embarrassed of being a Jew... Chalila! But I feel that if I do, I'll be limiting my social circle, and finding a comfortable social circle is hard enough. Not sure why I feel this way about Judaism and not philosophy or Zen but I do. I feel that if I'm fortunate to marry a good Jewish maidele, I'll be more motivated to stimulate my mind with Judaism and make it a motivating part of my life. Until then, I don't see Judaism becoming significantly more attractive.

My views on life are constantly evolving and I'm comfortable and happy about that. But I wish I could download all the important literature that's been written over that past couple thousand years into my brain while I sleep, so I could start thinking about it and writing about it. Beginnings

By the way, this is my one hundred and first post. Mamesh Hashgacha ;-)

Phone Blogging

2009-02-05T14:35:00.001-05:00

After putting up a test post from my phone, I got to thinking that maybe this will change the dynamics of this blog. Maybe I'll start doing some short blog posts with random thoughts and still go for some more thoughtful and longer posts a few times a month.

Do any of my fellow bloggers use this tool? Any tips, advice?

BTW, this post was also sent from my phone!

MM, OTD, Anger and Criticism

2009-02-03T16:37:00.003-05:00

This post was inspired by Material Maidel's and OTD's recent posts.

People that grew up in cults and escape tend to be angry at their former lifestyle, especially if they are still stuck in it or still have to have constant contact with it, because of family, friends etc. Those outside of that cult usually find such anger to be justified.

However, there comes a point where even many of the those outside the cult start to lose sympathy. The justification starts to get past it's expiration date and turns sour, making such anger, or other painful emotions, sound more and more childish, more and more like whining and immaturity. Your fellow escapees may put a longer expiration date on your feelings, but even some of them start to get frustrated, especially if they have found the courage and strength to move on, forget and/or make progress with their lives.

The expiration date on the justification of your feelings varies from person to person and from situation to situation.

Till now I've only written about justification for your feelings. There are other aspects, such as whether criticism is justified, what kinds of criticism are effective and for whom.

I'm for free speech, even if it isn't intelligent, even if it's coming from an angry guy in his early 20s, even if it's incessant and obnoxious. Like OTD says, "If you don't like it, don't read it."

Are criticisms effective? Effective on whom and what kind of effect? These are all very interesting questions that are worthwhile looking into. I don't think that my earlier militaristic style along the lines of "Fundies are ignorant fools that piss in their pants or stick their heads in the sand in the face of modern Science," is very effective in opening the minds of fundamentalists to criticisms of their faith. It may be effective as a sort of anger therapy for the author of the blog and fellow angry escapees but I feel that it's best to move on with life. The therapy starts to turn into bitch sessions and instead of venting your anger, it digs you deeper and deeper into an emotional ditch that gets harder and harder to escape from. Of course there are those that may be comfortable there. I don't think that's a healthy place to be, but maybe that's just me.

I think that a more conversational style of criticism is effective in getting people from other points of view to consider your own. Aggression tends to build stronger, more sound proof walls in communication. It tends to drain your arguments of positive effects and they tend to turn into self rationalizations and self justifications using the accuracy of your own imagination as the only axiom.

Comments on President Obama's Inaugural Address

2009-01-20T16:14:00.004-05:00

Read or watch it here.

President Obama is at times described as an idealist and at other times as a pragmatist. Not that Obama's speeches are at times Kantian and other times Deweyian... Rather, at times the President inspires his listeners and paints a glorious canvas of our potential American landscape and at other times he's more realistic, focusing on dealing with the very real problems that our nation faces. Both aspects can be seen throughout his inaugural address.

Here is an example of a paragraph where he uses both idealism and pragmatism jointly.

"They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met. [pragmatism] On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. [idealism]"

Another subject that the President discusses is service.

"For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. "

This is very encouraging as I fear that American pride in a job well done has severely diminished and in the words of Deuteronomy, we "have waxen fat." It would certainly be refreshing to see an era of service inspired by our new President.

Richard Rorty wrote about something he called "changing the conversation." When thought and languages evolve, often times the questions that bothered us melt away into history. Often confrontation changes to dialogue by simply changing the conversation. Facing off with skeptics, completely on their terms, will get you no place fast and so looking at things from another perspective, changing the way you talk about things can bring unforseen insights and answers to perrenial problems. That seems to be what President Obama is doing when he says the following: "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works..." He refuses to play the game of big vs. small government. By doing so, he avoids the stereotypes of a pervading Reagan philosophy and steers the conversation into new and promising territory.

He uses a similar tactic when he says, "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." By rejecting this dichotomy as false, he can go on to work out a balance between safety and ideals.

The President said,

"We will restore science to its rightful place..."

and later,

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers."

The atheists, agnostics, skeptics, scientists, and others should be happy. Our new president is a giant step in the opposite direction of George W. This president has a healthy respect for science and even acknowledged non-believers.

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. "

As the Preacher said, "A threefold cord is not quickly broken." I've written a lot recently about my appreciation for variety. Pluralism and mutual acceptance are among our greatest virtues and the President duly noted them.

When President Obama said, "... know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy," do you think he was referring at all to Hamas? (Someone else pointed this out to me and I think I agree that he was, at least implicitly.)

"This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. "

This is a fascinating theology, one I thought was foreign to Christianity. Especially in Calvanism, there is this notion of predetermination. I'm not a student of Christian Theology, but I thought that this and similar ideas were common. There are Jewish commentators that explain that when God said "Na'aseh"(Let us make) in Genesis, he was calling on his Creation to participate, and I've heard Jewish thought speak of the idea that we are partners with God, as it were. But I think that this statement takes it even further. The President is not saying that we are partners, but that God has handed over the job of shaping destiny, one that is uncertain at that. God is driving the world hands free and is either not knowledgeable, concerned, or responsible for it's outcome. (Look Mary, No Hands!) This smacks of deism. Perhaps the President has been reading a lot from our founding fathers. Whatever the case may be, the accusations of the anti-religious like "God made me do it [evil deeds]," and Steven Weinberg's quote, "But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion" in no way apply to President Obama's view on the matter.

Let's see what this guy can do. This speech has already influenced me. Since hearing it, I've been thinking about conserving energy and ways I can contribute to society. Hopefully, things will continue along these lines through his blog , tweets, and youtube addresses and people will be motivated to better things.

Update regarding Your's Truly

2009-01-20T14:09:00.007-05:00

The United States of America has just inaugurated President Barak Hussein Obama. I'm pretty stoked.

A few weeks ago, I thought I'd found her. I was looking forward to closing down this blog and continuing to write, but waiting on publishing my thoughts in a new, non-anonymous blog sometime after I became a very fortunate, old married man. But now I'm not so sure.

Most of the blogs that I enjoyed so much not so long ago seam horrifically drab. I'm changing the blogs and books I read. Maybe it's the new year...?

Looking back on my first comments and posts, my face makes Red Lights green with envy. I'm not that much older, but surely some angsty teenager wrote that rubbish. My sincerest apologies, dear readers, for wasting your time. My deepest gratitude, for sticking it out with me.

What's in store for this new year? I'm not sure. Writing has been especially difficult of late, even though I want to write now more then ever. Thoughts are so crammed in my head that there's no flow. I need to get some of them out into cyberspace. Maybe I just need to break the ice, and maybe then my thoughts will be able to flow again.

Myth, Truth, Ignorance, and Critical Thought

2008-12-27T21:39:00.004-05:00

The dialogue that's been going on here recently has been very interesting.

Believing in Myths (religious ones in our context) is not necessarily problematic, according to me. Unless these myths are causing significant harm, then who is to protest? I believe in freedom of thought and that includes believing that the earth is 5768 years old. Secondly, I don't believe there is a need to align everyone's beliefs with my own. As I've said, for the most part, I rather like the diversity. Thirdly, constantly mocking the beliefs of others certainly won't do any good, in fact it will probably do more harm. Those that are convinced by mocking, are rarely satisfied in their new lack of belief, and those it doesn't convince will find the mocker to be just some jerk who mocks the beliefs of others. Besides all that, the mocker generally ends more and more like the ones he is mocking only with different beliefs.

I've been using the term myth... that's generally what you call ancient or unpopular beliefs that are not considered as tenable. Pretty much everyone else's beliefs but your own are called myths. I used this term so as to assure the skeptics that I don't believe in the traditional OJ beliefs of TMS, etc. and that in a way, I'm on their side. On the same token, I wanted it to be known that I feel that many of their beliefs, in certain respects, are myths as well (e.g. that Science is, for all intents and purposes, God, and that with a little more Critical Thought, we can surely usher in the messianic age.)

Orthoprax preferred to use the term ignorance. This is a very difficult term to use nowadays in this context. In 21st Century America, it's hard to claim ignorance in regards to the claims of both science and religious fundamentalism. They are all readily available to all who wish to inquire. Surely my critics don't believe that, aside from the farthest extremes, those that believe in religious myths are the equivalent of a tinok sh'nishbah (a jewish child that was captured and never told of it's Jewish identity) with regards to the claims of science? Most people are not ignorant of the issues, they simply have a different view.

Jewish Sceptic and SOS mentioned that the beliefs of Orthodox Jews can indeed cause significant harm and in many cases I'm forced to agree with them. However, I don't want to make sweeping generalizations here or bring random not-so-nice quotes from the Rambam which few OJs are even aware of or subscribe to. I used to do that, and thank Goodness I saw the light. Even if there are those that profess to believe every word of the Torah b'miluehah, they generally find away to get out of uncomfortable halachot and VERY few actually act on these types of beliefs. Plus, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews that find inspiration for life and goodness in the belief that God wrote the Torah, etc. and would have a hard time finding life worthwhile without those beliefs. Just because there are a few that use these same beliefs to spread hate, will you blanketly rob the harmless to assure yourself that you're saving the few? And who is to say that you will be successful in convincing such a person with your powers of critical thought and that you won't in fact be fanning the flames of hatred? Some people are sociopaths and are better left alone or locked up.

SOS and others mentioned that most people wouldn't want to believe in their beliefs if they knew they were not true. This makes the assumption that everyone values or ought to value truth above all else. I highly doubt that most people value truth so highly, neither do I think they ought to. From the simple example of lying to your spouse about their good looks in the morning, to the more extreme example of not robbing the cancer-research-scientist of her inspiration in Elvis's return to rock and roll, I think we can see that at the very least, there are cases in which the truth should not be called upon.

Another point that Orthoprax brought up namely that Critical Thought should be popularized , I agree with in principle though I don't feel as strongly about it, nor do I feel that believing in myths and tolerating the myths of others is necessarrily at odds with it. I don't feel as strongly because I feel there are a large number of things that are more or equally important such as morality, politics, creative thought etc. It's not necessarily at odds because most people, including myself, believe ( or at least pretend to believe) in a fair number of myths. I pretend to believe in the Exodus when I celebrate Pesach with my family. Many others pretend to believe in Santa Claus when they track Santa on google maps or when they give their kids gifts signed "From Santa". There are countless other examples but I hope that I've proven this point.

I hope that my critics enjoyed this conversation as much as I have! Even if nobody agrees, at least I've given a different POV and shown that not all Jewish Skeptic Bloggers agree, and that's a good thing?

The "Struggle Against Ignorance"

2008-12-22T12:48:00.010-05:00

Continuing the conversation from the last couple of posts and the comment threads that followed thereafter, I want to address a point that the blogger "Orthoprax" mentioned.

OP (Orthoprax) and others were a little shocked and perhaps even disappointed that I was "in favor of obscurantism and ignorance." (A very important side point should be made about the choice of vocabulary that's been thrown around, even by yours truly, on this subject in particular... but more on that later.) But I feel that they are dramatizing or somehow mis-understanding the point I'm promoting.

I'm NOT a kiruv rabbi, trying to sell their version of Judaism. I'm NOT a Kannoi from Meah She'arim blackmailing residents into buying my brand of esrogim, the only kosher one, of course!

However, I don't feel that there is a reason to fight a war for Reason. I don't think Reason much cares. Reason is probably secure about it's identity and doesn't feel the need to be liked by all. 99.99% of the world makes on without it 99.99% of the time.

Please don't get me wrong... I believe in education, I believe in Science, I believe in freedom of inquiry and all that. But in regards to politics and policies on a personal and public level, ask yourself, "Do I have a moral obligation to align other's beliefs with my own?" (i.e. spread the value of scientific skepticism[or OJ or Christianity or Hinduism or Islam] using whatever practical methods available to me) Or maybe... just maybe... we can embrace diversity and democracy and allow others their guilty pleasures, so long as they aren't too terrible.

Surely not all myths are created equal and though Ignorance is Bliss, it's not always benign. But are we really in a constant struggle against ignorance? Or perhaps our wicked Western society has come to realize that totalitarianism is undesirable, even if it's got all the facts straight. Sure, we have our nutcases and extremists, and we disagree with 90% or more of the world, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Another issue that I'd like to weave into the mix, is that of dealing with those with whom you disagree. There are lots of options... Ignoring, dialogueing, conversing, debating, mocking, fighting, warring etc. The option you choose will need to be appropriate. You don't start a war with a whole country for no good reason. Similarly, you don't ignore someone who makes constant atempts at puncturing your vital organs. Mockery, bashing, and constant criticism can be fun and useful at times but it has an awful habit of changing the subjects into objects. (The Mocker becomes more like the mocked...)

In regards to Ignorance, much of it can be ignored. Most of the vital problems with ignorance are dealt with by our Genes (wouldn't do much good for our survival if they were completely ignorant now would it?). Most of the remainder are reined in by education and culture. In today's day and age, in free countries, are we honestly in a struggle against ignorance on any meaningful level?

I'm with Anonymous

2008-12-19T15:50:00.003-05:00

XGH is at it again.

After writing this post, a heated discussion ensued between two anonymous people, XGH and someone who went by "Anonymous." I found myself agreeing almost entirely with Anonymous.

XGH thinks the destruction is cool and Anonymous thinks that living beautiful lives enhanced by myths is cool.

But XGH values Truth above all else and with sadistic joy, runs to sacrifice the beliefs of his fellow man on it's altar. Does Truth care? That doesn't matter. Are there real live human beings that are currently holding their guts in their hands wondering what to do next, thanks to his zeal? Yep.

Remember back when the Godol made fun of the kannoim, because they ruined Noson's life?

I wonder how many whose lives are effectively ruined because of... oh well... Truth is a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before it.

There is only one Truth and XGH is it's prophet.

No one can come to the truth, but by XGH.

Why do I care? Hmm... That's a good question. I guess I'm kind of a hypocrite. How do you protest protesters? How do you convince people of perspectivism, without being written off as just one guy with a perspective?

Oh well... Let the record reflect. Fundie bashing is naughty (though it can be so damn funny!) Believing in myths... everybody does it... Scientists, Philosophers, Skeptics, Fundamentalists, Moderates, Conservatives, Liberals... So myths are probably ok, so long as they aren't harmful.

Of course, Kiruv is bad too. But that goes without saying.

Hello?

2008-12-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

Is there anybody out there?

Wait a second... she heard me? How 'd that work? Huh?

Is that my imagination playing tricks on me? How in hell could I ever tell?

Excuse me, mam, could you pinch me? Thanks... yeah, I felt that. Just making sure.

But... maybe... maybe that's just me again. I mean, if I can imagine people listening to me, then surely I can imagine someone pinching me. That should be pie.

Damn it!

Errr... Professor, how can I prove to myself that I exist?

You're just consciousness. You can't.

How come I can't fly like in the Matrix?

It doesn't work like that...

Huh? Why not?

Wait... how am I able to ask questions? How can I hear think these thoughts?

Wah? OK... I'm sorry I just don't get it.

The Courage to Believe

2008-12-08T17:13:00.004-05:00

People need something to believe.

Skeptics and Atheists try to destroy what most of the world believes.

Skepticism and Atheism offer no beliefs.

Destroying peoples' beliefs is generally immoral especially when you don't replace that which you've destroyed.

Therefore Skepticism and Atheism is generally immoral.

I need something to believe. In some ways, I wish it could be some version of Observant Judaism, for the simple reason that I have friends and family that believe in it (and lots of shidduchim offers). But I have a nasty feeling that that's pretty much impossible. Orthodox Judaism is pretty awful in my book and it's hard for me to imagine Judaism outside of Orthodoxy. I'm reading "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut. It's about believing in useful lies. I'm starting to wish I could do that.

Of course religion isn't the only thing to believe. There are lots of other things, but the skeptic in me finds pretty much everything pure vanity. "Hevel Havalim, hakol havel!" as the Preacher said.

Most Religious claims have been debunked time and again. Philosophy has been destroyed by the likes of Nietsche and Rorty. Science offers nothing but cold observations (not that many aren't turned on by that sort of thing. )

I could be like most skeptics and atheists and just decry religion and superstition. That seems to give fulfilment to 90% of them. But that's just lame. I mean, honestly!? What kind of losers spend significant portions of their life, pointing out what they perceive to be nonsense?

It's hard to find something to believe.

Movie Review: Expelled

2008-11-29T18:02:00.003-05:00

I just finished watching Ben Stein's Movie. My expectations for this movie were lower then low. After watching Dawkins and Myers discuss the movie, hearing all the rants, raves and protests from the atheists and skeptics community I expected it to be the worst film and at the same time the best propaganda film ever to be made.

If Dawkins and Myers are correct, and they were fooled into believing that the movie was something other then it turned out to be, then that is a damn shame. Others have pointed out all the flaws in the film but what follows is my personal opinion.

Ben Stein made constant analogies between what he called the "Darwinian Scientific Establishment" and Nazi Germany. He also had a huge segment that made Hitler and Darwin seem like Lovers in a plot to destroy all that is good in humanity.

However, the movie was very well produced and besides for looking dull, (which is Ben Stein's natural expression) I didn't feel like vomiting after watching it. I skipped most of the parts about Hitler, which was a sizeable amount of film, because I simply couldn't stomach it. I can't watch Holocaust films in general. He did a very good job of making Richard Dawkins look like perhaps the most intolerant fundametalist atheist alive. PZ Myers didn't look that bad but he was the lead off into the segment which showed the "Darwinian Scientific Establishment's" intolerance, hatred and will to destroy religion.

I couldn't help but compare this movie to Religulous and I hate to say it but Ben Stein made a much better film. The production was better, it was more moving and while it was poking jabs at Darwin, (a straw man, to say the least,) he made it seem that all he wanted was freedom and transparency in science. (Don't we all?) The only thing I got from Bill Maher was Religion is stupid and evil. No positive message.

Anyhow, the movie wasn't that bad, but if it has any effects, they will be horrific. Science will have to continue to fight against religion, a fight that shouldn't need to be fought. What makes this all the worse is that the most naive people, fundamentalists, both religious and atheistic, are making much ado about nothing. Neither feel any need for subtlety and interesting discussion.

What Matters Most

2008-11-26T21:18:00.002-05:00

I’ve been a seeker since 1999. Then, early this year and oh so mysteriously, I figured out that theism isn’t necessary to lead a good life, and that it’s actually a miracle that those with fundamentalist beliefs aren’t all insane, serial killers. There are very few fundamentalists that really believe, I mean the kind of belief that forces you to action, in the stuff that they say that they do. Thank Goodness! Most Humans have a conscience and some good common sense that keeps them in check, even when they say really believe the Bible or the Koran is the literal word of the Almighty God.

It was right after this realization that I decided to become a skeptic. No more professing to believe in anything that could come close to being portrayed as a lie or even an untruth. I didn’t want to be duped again… no, that had been happening all my life and there had to be a line drawn somewhere. So I started reading books on critical thought. Of course, religion of any sort was out of the question. I wanted to learn about “objective” stuff like science, logic and math. I’d read books by Dawkins and blogs by skeptics. This was where it was at. This is where the truth had been buried. I could know stuff and know that I knew it or at the very least , know what was not true. Does it get any better? I mean, scientific skepticism brought us out of the dark ages, cured diseases, helped us conquer the earth, explore the universe and all kinds of other wonderful stuff.

“Subjective” subjects, you know… like morality, the meaning of life, values, happiness, well being, literature, music, the arts, social, political and economic issues, well... that’s not really important. You can’t know any of that for sure, or at least you can’t prove it, like you can prove a syllogism or a mathematical equation. Everyone has an opinion and there’s no telling who is wrong or right, right?

But then I started reading philosophy, mostly because I couldn’t accept moral judgments being in the same league as judgments of food taste. Morality was just too damn important. It had to be objective like the other important things. You know… science, math and logic.

Thank Goodness I started reading philosophy, and probably more importantly, some history of philosophy. It helped me to realize that different subjects need to be discussed in different terms and that the most important things in life are often the most difficult to pin down.

XGH's New Sect

2008-11-10T08:45:00.003-05:00

My last post got a lot of positive responses... until XGH saw it.

You see I was under the impression that Orthopraxnicks wished to remain a part of the Orthodox Community in real life and just have secret clubs on blogs and other clandestine affairs in which they consider themselves Orthoprax. Even if they wanted to remain a part of Orthodoxy and just create another sub-sect of a sub-sect, my previous post would still be applicable. So to those, my previous post still applies. But...

It turns out that XGH wants nothing to do with "idiot fundies," as fundamentalism is "dangerous," and has even gone so far as to consider "giving up wearing a kipah, or maybe getting one with the word 'Orthoprax' on it." He tells people he's Orthoprax and seems to be working on starting Orthoprax communities. Somehow he thinks that Orthopraxy will remain compatible with Modern Orthodoxy but Modeh B'Miktsas pointed out something that even XGH recognizes as a problem.

As I wish to see more unity and not less, XGH's new sect is no good. But I'll have to write more about that later.

Orthopraxy

2008-11-09T11:00:00.003-05:00

For those that are still unfamiliar with the term, Orthopraxy has something to do with not believing in the dogmas or standard doctrines of Orthodoxy, yet, for various reasons, practicing the rituals and standards of Orthodoxy. It's applicable to a number of religions but for the sake of our discussion we will limit it to Orthodox Judaism.

The definition itself is subject to a lot of controversy. According to the illustrious DovBear, pretty much everyone is Orthoprax. I think that's suits Orthodox Judaism well, especially in the light of Marc Shapiro's book, "The Limits of Orthodox Theology." Defining Orthodoxy by the 13 Principles of Faith as Formulated by the Rambam, leaves you with very few ma'aminim (believers) and it's even questionable if the Rambam himself accepted the Principles of Faith the way your average Orthodox Jew believes them today.

Which brings me to my next point... There is, and I suspect there always has been, a difference in belief between the elders and the people. Because religion is typically defined by it's leaders, as opposed to democratically, the followers rarely have the same understanding of the religion that they follow as do or did it's leaders. And this is not just in matters of belief, but also in matters of practice. For example, most of the gedolim since time immemorial have said to learn through shas before you start doing pilpul but nobody does that. And so it is that many of the great thinkers of Judaism are considered heretical by their colleagues past or present. Though the Rambam's Principles of Faith have been accepted as those Doctrines which loosely sum up Orthodoxy, much of his thought is considered heretical today. The Moreh Nevuchim was banned and the book was never really able to lose it's stigma. In many Orthodox Circles the book is frowned upon, or at the very least it's readers are.

Despite all the differences of opinions throughout the ages on even the basics of Orthodox dogmas, or lack thereof (see R. Hirsh), in each time and place there have been beliefs that will render it's adherents heretics, at least in certain circles. Though the Orthodox Community is probably split into more sub-sects then ever in history, there are those, especially in the Hareidi Circles, that feel it necessary to brand certain beliefs as heretical. For recent examples, think of Rav Kook and Noson Slifkin. (I can't believe I just mentioned those two in such close proximity!)

However, if you keep your cards close to your chest, have a seder in learning, go to shul on Shabbos, live in a community that is modern or not-so-nosey, you can believe whatever you like and still be a part of the Orthodox Community. And now we have finally gotten to the point I've been wanting to make.

The label of Orthopraxy is divisive and unnecessary, especially when it's adherents are in the closet. Take James Kugel for example. His beliefs concerning the authorship of the Torah are far from the party line. Yet he has consistently protested those who wish to cut him out of the Orthodox community by giving him the ominous and heretical label of Orthoprax. If he is successful in his protests and insists on being Orthodox he will surely be more successful in expanding the limits of Orthodox Theology and allowing for more pluralism within Orthodoxy itself. That would be absolutely terrific.

The authors of blogs like Orthoprax and Modern Orthoprax feel that there is meaning and value to the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. Yet they have given their blogs and this "movement" a name which divides them and puts them at odds with the community in which they wish to remain a part. Surely they don't wish to start their own gated communities with "Kofrim Only" signs posted.

I have a few ideas as to why there are those that reject and those that embrace Orthopraxy as a label. Take a liberal like DovBear. He doesn't like the term one bit and I think that's because he's a liberal that is open to a lot of different ideas (despite his snarkiness towards GOP Jews). Pluralism trumps right opinions. XGH on the other hand is a fundmentalist at heart, though he has been showing some huge improvements of late. He recently supported the gedolim's ban on sexy sheitels and Intellifundies used to really bother him. People having right opinions and the Truth have a very high value to this man, and even though he knows that "Truth" has little value to many people, he holds of black and white distinctions between facts and Truth, things of that nature and values and meaning. A guy like this will embrace the label Orthoprax because pluralism isn't such a high value to him. Being right, even if it means being separate, is more important. XGH would likely support set doctrines that would define Orthopraxy even though the movement was birthed out of rejection of other doctrines.

Besides for a few extremists like Jacob Stein, the Orthodox Community is not suggesting witch hunts to discover who amongst them adheres to the party line. And so it is that the label Orthopraxy is counter productive. Slowly, slowly, pluralism can spread even within Orthodox Judaism. There's no need to jump the gun and hang yourself. My advice to those that are satisfied with the Orthodox Lifestyle but dissatisfied with some or all of the 13 principles of faith, is to be patient, talk to your Rabbis, talk to your chavrusas, but there is no need to be confrontational or to rock the boat, especially on silly issues like the authorship of the Torah. And there is certainly no need to label yourself a heretic. It's counterproductive.

Have you voted yet?

2008-11-04T07:25:00.002-05:00

THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING READING THIS BLOG!

VOTE OBAMA/BIDEN!

or vote for someone else but VOTE!

News

2008-11-03T21:59:00.001-05:00

Barack Obama's Grandmother died. This is truly tragic. Just 24 hours away from witnessing her grandson become elected president of the United States of America.

There is a new blogger. Check out the Yeshivish Atheist.

Paranoid RW Jews and Christians

2008-10-31T09:56:00.004-04:00

I can't understand them. I can't.

It's hard enough for me to try to understand conservatives as it is. I purposely go out of my way to listen to Christian Radio now and again, to read blogs from Conservatives, and listen to Conservative Talk Radio. I don't want to get stuck in a moral matrix in which I'm surrounded by like-minded people so much that I can no longer understand others' POV. It's hard and I get frustrated but that makes me want to try all the more. However, when they bring religion into the mess, it goes from difficult to impossible.

See this post by Harry Maryles. Then watch this clip. To me, it's pure paranoia. Can someone explain this to me?

Choteh uMachti

2008-10-19T22:15:00.002-04:00

Who is having the bigger overall effect of a choteh umachti, Hirhurim or Mis-Nagid? It seems obvious, now doesn't it? Clearly, the cantankerous "frum" atheist Mis-Nagid is the proverbial Yeravam ben Nevat of the blogosphere. You may be able to see the comparison of our favorite retired kofer, Mis-Nagid, to a cow worshipper, but Gil Student, the epitome of what modern, sophisticated, straight and true Orthodox Judaism stands for?! How could I possibly even think of such a thing?

Well it wasn't my idea. I really wish I could take credit for it but I do wish to bring the redemption closer and so I will give unto Caesar (here, an anonymous commentator on Hirhurim) that which is Caesar's. But allow me to provide something of a backdrop.

Now look, as Barack Obama would say, there is more then one way to skin a cat, my friends, as John McCain would say. If you wish to influence and persuade people, you can come runnin' at 'em, guns a blazin', as John McCain would, or you could whisper softly in their ear, as Barack Obama would. There is a time and place for everything and sometimes a hatchet is required while other times a scalpel would be better suited for the job. Yet there is another way to persuade someone, and this time it's unintentional. You can introduce someone to your opponents view and try to show how and where it's wrong. If your arguments are weak, or better yet, if they are socio-economically and psychologically unattractive to the person, then you've just defeated your purpose.

Mashal l'mah davar domeh? A plumber, let's call him Joe, makes over $250,000 dollars a year. He is looking to vote in the upcoming election. An Obama supporter comes up to Joe, thinking he makes $125,000 a year, like most plumbers, and says "Joe, under Obama your taxes will go down! McCain wants to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% and nothing for the middle class like yourself." But Joe, a Democrat by default, fits in to Obama's wealthy American tax bracket and has now been convinced to vote for McCain so he doesn't have to pay more taxes.

Gil Student is that Obama supporter and Joe is the average reader of Hirhurim. The documentary hypothesis, logical argumentation for belief in God, and other general, somewhat heretical, secular ideas are like tax policies. I think it's safe to assume that most Hirhurim readers, or at the very least, a significant group, are run of the mill Orthodox Jews with little to no subjection to secular perspectives on religious subjects, especially those free from YU or similar filtering. Gil writes about some subjects that are controversial in the world of Orthodox Judaism, thereby introducing them to these ideas but by doing so, I would like to suggest that he is convincing more people to vote for McCain, or rather, adopt non-Orthodox ways of thinking.

Here is the quote that inspired this post, edited [brackets mine] for brevity and clarity.

"I'm sure you'd rather not post on the DH [documentary hypothesis and other similar subjects] at all... Every post you do... on it probably introduces more people to it than it convinces against it. I mean, this post contains a link to a book on it, something that will spawn more than few sales...

Furthermore, I'll bet most readers don't find your counterarguments any more convincing than you do..."

In summary, I'm accusing Gil Student of being a choteh umachti b'shogeg. The more he tries to prove his point, the more he persuades his readers in the opposite direction. Mis-Nagid couldn't hope to subtly sow the seeds of skepticism so splendidly.

_______

Overall, I would like to point out that it seems one can be most influential by gentling prodding people from the inside of the group, rather then shouting at them from the outside. Take for another example, the recent retiree XGH. Surely XGH was more effective at convincing people of heresy when he was "Godol HaDor" than when he switched to being XGH. By then, most of his readers knew that he had gone off the deep end. You can attract more flies with spoon of honey then a barrel of vinegar.

_______

Update: XGH is back... again.

Movie Review: Religulous

2008-10-05T15:15:00.002-04:00

UBER-LAME!

Now that's out of the way, there were two good parts in this 100 min. film. In one part he loses patience with a Neturei Karta Rabbi and basically walks out on him. Mad Props. Even Bill Maher has his standards.

Second he shmoozes with this Father/Priest/Cardinal (I can't keep track of Catholic titles), by the Vatican. This man was very open and honest about his religion, unapologetic, and gave me a hearty laugh. He was my favorite person in the whole movie.

Bill Maher is an idiot. He can be funny at times but he is utterly clueless about religion. This movie is comparable to someone like Ben Stein making a movie about Evolution... Oh... wait, he did that. Lameness she'b'lameness. (Translation: The epitome of lameness).

My 8 year old cousin could have pieced together a better presented documentary with Windows Movie Maker.

If you aren't a believer there is somewhat of a chiyuv (obligation) to see it but don't waste the $10 to see it in the theatre like I did.

Oh... and at the end he attempts a moving diatribe against religion to convince his watchers religion is irrational and evil. It made me cringe with disgust. My advice to Bill... Don't quit your day job. You suck at movies about religion.

Palin, The Hockey Mom

2008-10-03T08:52:00.005-04:00

Was it just me, or was Palin unapologetically playing up her folksiness? Here are some quotes that might have been attractive if they weren't coming from a VP candidate.

"And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."

"Oh, yeah, it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider. And someone just not used to the way you guys operate."

"Say it ain't so, Joe...Now doggone it, let's look ahead..."

"Darn right it was the predator lenders..."

She said "Maverick" six times before Biden shut her up on that detail. She said "reform" 13 times. She mentioned Energy about 28 times.

The General in Afghanistan's name is McKiernan, not McClellan.

Palin was creeping me out with her lack of blinking and constant smile.

However, on the whole, I think she "succeeded beyond our wildest imaginations." She successfully dodged every question she couldn't or wouldn't answer and kept drumming away on her talking points. I was hoping for a gaffe heap from Biden and hours of run-on, nonsensical sentences from Palin but both played by the "Harm None" rule. Booooorrriiiinnng.

A Democrat Fights Back?

2008-09-15T22:30:00.002-04:00

I can't believe it! Obama strikes back with an ad calling shenanigans on the Republican sleaze campaign. Repent all ye sinners, for The End of Days is near!

Disillusionment

2008-09-11T08:01:00.003-04:00

Religion was my world. But then it turned out to be something other then I had imagined it. Then Truth became my God and my imagination of Truth was nearly as illusory as God. Then politics wooed me and I thought for a moment that politics was about debating political issues, but the sophists had it right. It's about convincing people to vote for you no matter how dirty, misleading, contradictory or war hungry.

Anybody know of anything else I can be enthused by, only to be disillusioned shortly after?

Canada Anybody?

2008-09-07T22:53:00.002-04:00

Palin err... McCain is leading in the polls. Seems I was totally off with this Palin pick. I guess I didn't realize the Republicans were such sex addicts. (For those who don't get it, that line was a parody on Jacob Stein)

If this keeps up and the American people decide that Palin err... McCain is who they want for president, anybody know of a good job and a cheap apartment in Canada? Or maybe I should make aliyah?

Newly Discovered Jewish Skeptic Blogs

2008-09-04T16:05:00.002-04:00

I hate being out of the loop! Click, and Click.

I hope to update my list soon. Any others, please let me know.

Random Politics

2008-09-02T16:56:00.006-04:00

I don't know what John McCain was thinking picking Sarah Palin. He looks uber hypocritical for picking on Obama's "lack of experience" now. Her "family values" will be scoffed at by the media because of her 17 year old daughter's pregnancy outside of marriage. She doesn't seem to add anything to the ticket but youngness (something he previously scoffed at) and femininity, neither of which are convincing reasons to vote for a person. The GOP ticket hasn't had it's bounce from the convention yet and I wonder if it will come at all.

The DNC was terrific. I still haven't watched all the speeches but what I saw I liked. Obama's speeches are less inspiring and more serious. His hair is getting greyer by the day it seems. Biden has his pros and cons.

Sarah Palin makes me dislike McCain even more. She is FAR too conservative. She wants Creationism taught in science class. She's pro-life. BTW, I hate that term. It makes any position other then that which regards the fetus as a human with equal rights from the moment of conception seem like a murderer. What bothers me more is that many Frum Jews purport to be Pro-life and that is NOT the halachic position. See the Tzitz Eliezer for an old Yerushalmi's view on the matter. If somebody knows the exact source please put it in the comments. Needless to say he's very lenient on the matter. He was a well known Rabbi at the hospitals in Jerusalem and of all the frum opinions that I've heard on the matter, I respected his the most. Please note that I'm not well versed on the matter, politically, scientifically, or halachicly. I think that abortion should be curtailed as much as possible (who doesn't?) but that it should be left as an option in certain cases.

Obama continues to impress me and has done it yet again, this time in regards to science. Click to read more.

I'm a skeptic of Obama's financial plans but for those that subscribe to the liberal spenders and the frugal conservatives stereotype, click.

Immoral, Irrational Atheists

2008-08-28T09:48:00.007-04:00

It keeps popping up everywhere as I trounce around the blogs and the comment threads. There are many believers that honestly believe that atheists have little to no reason to be moral and are therefore less trustworthy. There is also this idea that atheists are somehow backwards in their thinking as well. If they would only think clearly, surely they could see the obvious truth of God's existence and his moral mandates. On the one hand it's comical because there are many atheists that think similarly about believers. On the other hand it's devastating because there is so much distrust and misunderstanding on both sides of the fence.

Atheists have had a bad name since time immemorial. The Psalmist calls the atheist a fool. Heresy has been a taboo since the beginning of our species because as I see it, heresy is just an extension of the in/out group. If the group believes in God and someone doesn't then that someone is out. And so it is today. If you believe in God, and for many it doesn't seem to matter how you define God, you're in. If not, then you're out.

The thing is, from the tone of many of the anti-religious books that have come out recently, atheists don't have too high of an opinion of believers either. They recall with magnified detail all the horrific and devastating tragedies that have been wrought in the name of God. They decry the suppression of scientific progress at the hands of religious fundamentalism. Much time and effort is spent debunking the claims of pseudo-sciences like creationism and ID. All bumps in the road of human progress are blamed on the heavy hand of religious superstition.

It seems that when an atheists thinks "religious believer", they think of Kent Hovind wearing Torquemada's red devil suit and when a believer thinks "atheist", they think of Stalin pressing the button and watching smugly from his bunker 15 miles below the surface of the Earth as our planet explodes in a complete nuclear holocaust.

Even though our brain distinguishes different light wavelengths into colors, we seem to think of our fellow humans in black and white terms. We place each other in neat little boxes based on labels that we've given each other, whether or not the individual fits into them. If we would pay a little more attention to each other, we'd see that we aren't all fundamentalists. If we'd pay more attention to deeds then to particulars of belief, surely there would be less distrust and misunderstanding.

I think it's horrible to condone or praise wholesale human slaughter whether you did it because of your reading of the Bible or your reading of Karl Marx. I think you are terrific if you are kind to your family and respectful to others, whether you did so because that's what you think God wants from you or because such acts are in line with your personally chosen moral values.

Now I don't mean to downplay the differences too much. Creationism doesn't belong in science class for the simple reason that it's not science. The religious right can't argue for their values in the political realm by quoting from the Bible for the simple reason that doing so is fallacious argumentation. However, I find the atheists that are trying to take plaques of the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms and to remove "In God We Trust" from US currency, to be overly petty. There are other things that I find wrong that are on some atheists agenda, like trying to get rid of Christmas and marginalizing all religious believers, just because they're religious believers and not specifically marginalizing any fallacious arguments no matter what the source may be. There are a number of real political problems that need to be duked out in the public square. But there is a significant population, the large majority, of religious believers that aren't biblical literalists and suicide bombers and condemn such things. And there are a significant percentage of atheists that wouldn't dream of supporting, and willingly condemn, the likes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

In summary, while I think that there are real arguments that need to be duked out, assuming all religious believers are Kent Hovind or Kiruv Klowns and assuming all atheists are Stalin or Brian Sapient, isn't very accurate and isn't very helpful. And for the literalists out there, the examples I used were purposefully extreme, exaggerated stereotypes.

Round up

2008-08-26T16:49:00.003-04:00

XGH closed down... again.

These are the reports thus far.

Frum Heretic

Torat Ezra

Baal HaBos

serandez

I hope XGH finds happiness.

There are some newbies on the Jewish Skeptic blogosphere.

OffTheD

FrustratedOrthoJew

But me... I went to a simcha recently. Simchas are emotionally traumatic for me. It takes me about a week to recover.

I've been reading Richard Rorty. He is surprisingly convincing.

Truth Trumps? Two

2008-08-21T07:44:00.013-04:00

It seems that I wasn't very clear in my last post so I wanted to try to fix that a bit.

As I see it, knowledge of the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth is out of our reach as humans in the 21st century. There are still marvels and mysteries yet to be discovered, and I think that by definition, Truth, in this sense, is like God and ultimately unknowable.

What Truth is, I don't know if I could, or even if it's possible to at all, capture in words, yet we all use the word Truth, and we all know what we are talking about (or do we?). When we talk about Truth, it seems that we are talking about a combination of different things. We talk about our beliefs that match with Reality, we talk about ideas that are Good, and beliefs that have shown themselves to work, to help us cope with our perceptions of reality. We experience and then we try to sort these experiences out. We question, reason, "tetris-ize" into our other beliefs, give tentative answers and through this we come to know and believe certain truths. It seems that the sum total of what we know and believe from all of the aforementioned, we also call Truth, even though it seems that Truth is also used more broadly to include what only an all-knowing God could know.

Everybody wants to know Truth, many people think they are already the proud owners of Truth. Some of us have been programmed to believe that our particular system of belief is true and gives VIP access to Truth and of course personal contact information to the author of Truth, God himself.

But then some of us are privileged to have Truth poke it's horned head through our facade of what we believe is Truth. There are many different reactions at this point. Some of us follow it, others don't recognize it. Some of us see it but pile on the bullshit to varying degrees. Yet others bury their heads in the sand.

When this happens there are different emotional reactions. For some, Truth is our savior and we are madly in love, even if in some respects our previous lover's delusions brought us more happiness. We are comforted and satisfied to know that those delusions could only bring us a false and ultimately shallow happiness.

Our relationship with Truth is necessarily piecemeal and incomplete. Some of us want as much as we can get. Some of us feel obligated to sacrifice ourselves to this, and some go willingly as Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. The sacrifice is not always so great and others go willingly because they have little, if anything, to lose and so much to gain.

However, we are mere human beings. We have hundreds of interests, some of which may be in conflict with our search for Truth. How far down the rabbit whole are we obligated to go? The skeptic that questions his or her religion in search of Truth, though he or she may find freedom from the tyranny of religious ignorance or bullshit, at times finds him/herself in emotional distress. We've all had moments when Truth had forced itself upon us and made us feel uncomfortable. These moments can last for a long time and while in the midst of them, we wish with all our hearts that we had never taken our relationship with Truth this far. Truth can have tragic effects that extend throughout our lives and even to our human relationships. After all, aren't humans more important? Isn't our own happiness more important?

Now you may be thinking that the alternative is "Ignorance is Bliss" and surely that isn't good. But life is not so black and white. We aren't forced to make a choice between 100% Truth, no matter what, and complete and utter ignorance. Perhaps something a little less committal would be good for some people. For those of us that do not find Truth to be the end all, be all, Truth can be viewed as an obstacle to other interests. We aren't all ready, on multiple levels, to sacrifice everything for the sake of Truth. In fact it's quite clear that Truth, to varying extents, is bad for many of us.

In light of all this, does Truth Trump? Is it the Royal Flush in Spades that beats all other hands? Or perhaps Truth is not like this, and other hands are indeed more important.

Truth Trumps?

2008-08-20T11:07:00.001-04:00

I’ve been questioning the importance of seeking Truth.

In my humble opinion, being a good person is the most important thing for us social animals and happiness and well-being is the most important thing for us as individuals in this sea of humanity.

Taken to extremes, if you have an intelligent scientist that is constantly defecting in the moral game we play, it doesn’t really matter if he understands quantum physics, natural selection or all the mysteries of the universe for that matter, he’s still a shmuck and I wouldn’t want anything to do with the guy. On the other hand, we have a guy who believes in silly things like demons, angels, heaven and hell, and a 5768 year old universe, but is the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, donates time and money to the less fortunate, and takes care of his wife and kids. It’s quite clear which is the superior human being.

Now there are those that would argue that we have some kind of moral obligation to seek the truth. However, I question if this should come at the expense of other perhaps more practical and human needs, wants and desires.

XGH is a prime example. The poor guy is absolutely miserable now that he’s lost his faith. This could be but a passing storm but in the here and now, looking back, he’d probably rather be believing in the fairy tales of the Torah, and happy, personally and socially, than having the “satisfaction” of successfully debunking the Kuzari argument for the hundred millionth time. Now he knows the truth but at what expense?

Of course if we could have truth and happiness then there’s no question. But how much do you push for the truth? How much do we give in to Truth? At what price is it still worth the decrease in our happiness and wellbeing? Is Truth our god, that we must sacrifice our mind and body, our family and friends to it? In the beginning there was mutual consent but if we are now forced against our will, how is Truth any better than a rapist?

On My Mind

2008-08-19T13:16:00.002-04:00

Are all delusions bad?

What about illusions?

What's more important, truth or happiness?

Is it important to believe in something greater then yourself?

What's the best philosophy?

Why do people pick on religion and mysticism, but poetry, art and music command our respect?

Maybe religion, mysticism, and philosophy are just like poetry, art and music...

I like the idea of language games.

When you sense that you are reading this post, you don't doubt it. When you see the walls melting while on an acid trip, you realize later that you were hallucinating. When a mystic feels at one with the Universe, which sense experience is he having?

I haven't been able to come to any conclusions of note recently so I thought I'd just post these thoughts.

Red

2008-08-18T22:17:00.005-04:00

I've done some chazara recently on my thoughts from not too long ago.

How embarrassing!

I have a lot to learn...

There are so many ideas out there. So much too process. Science, Philosophy, Religion, Politics, Ethics, and more, all with lifetimes worth of study.

When I think of the 15 billion years or so that this universe has been in existence, then think of the tiny chunk of time that humans have graced (or terrorized?) this planet, then think of the time that humans started making something of themselves, then think of the how long it took us to get to the Enlightenment, then for Charles Darwin to be born and discover evolution, then my pitiful existence and all the time that it took me to get to this point, I feel very small and insignificant. Humans weren't developed to think about all this. We're just one step in the cosmic chain of existence, just one species amongst millions of life forms on this planet alone. In evolutionary time we've barely begun to stop swinging from the trees. Who knows how far other civilizations may have come by now?

If you take a "God's eye view" of space and time, then zoom in to our petty little arguments over say, the truth of a God given book, or taxing people that make more the $250,000 a year, it kind of makes you wonder.

And yet here we are, small biological machines, trying to survive and find happiness in that pursuit... trying to get as far from our biological roots as we can, trying to escape from the cruelty of Natural Selection, from the very evolutionary process that has given us our very existence. We spit in the face of our cosmic parents. Thanks Natural Selection, you've gotten us this far, but err... we don't really like you anymore. We want to be nice to the weak, not mercilessly destroy them like you've done since we crawled out of the primordial soup. We want to look ahead and plan our own existence, not give in to short term gains like you've done. Sure without you we'd have never gotten here, but you almost wiped us out awhile back and you don't give a damn about us anyhow. Piss off. Be happy with the rest of the life you've given birth to, that you've fashioned in your mindless cruelty. We want to create our own standards.

And Natural Selection just sits back and laughs. You pitiful fools. You can't change who you were born too. You can't just stop a ball from rolling that's got hundreds of millions of years of momentum.

Oh, but we can try and we can pretend. You gave us those very abilities.

Chief, Renaissance, Where are you?

2008-08-15T09:54:00.004-04:00

The Chief and Renaissance have disappeared without a trace. Their blogs are down. What happened? Where are you? Is everything OK? Did they up your dosage and steal your blog?

Words

2008-08-12T13:40:00.001-04:00

In my last post I suggested that God be used strictly in the theistic sense, for very the simple reason that this is how most common people, even most theologians, thus far in history have used the term God in this sense.

I read most of Paul Harrisson’s book on Pantheism last night and I’m on the verge of a recant! But I hope to write more about that later.

Many of you objected to this narrow usage of the word God and some mentioned that atheism is a problematic term as well. This is very true. The “New” atheists are trying to use the term in what I consider to be a more accurate, at least etymologically, to mean a lack of belief in a conscious, intervening God. However, this is not how the term was used historically. When Spinoza or Paine spoke of atheists, they had something else completely in mind.

Words are a tricky thing… Gay no longer means happy, it means homosexual. Dennet is trying to do a similar word high-jack with the term Bright. The new atheists are trying to change the historical understanding of atheism. Some Pantheists want to use God, though theists would consider their view heretical and horribly wrong.

So what’s the solution? I suppose for the sake of this blog, I’ll use the philosophers technique and simply clarify what I mean when using a word that may be confusing. What’s an effective solution for honesty and clarity, without cumbersome explanations, in daily conversations? Perhaps you just have to play it by ear. Any suggestions?

God

2008-08-10T18:17:00.003-04:00

Bruce recently did a post about God. He is another in a long list of people that are redefining God from the character of our various holy books and folk superstitions to something even atheists believe in. Bruce steers the God question in the direction of goodness.

Clarity is one of my highest values so naturally Bruce's God game won't do for me. But let us not single out Bruce. There are many bloggers that play this game as well.

XGH has tried dealing with God by making that word a reference to Meaning, Morality, and Spirituality.

B. Spinoza redefines God as Reality.

And other skeptical bloggers struggle with God. Some, like Orthoprax, have "given in" and now are quite willing to answer in the affirmative when asked the question, "Do you believe in God?"

What struck me as intriguing is what appears to be the uncontrollable human need to make something of the idea, belief, or even just the word "God." What is it that is so compelling, that makes the belief in God practically mandatory for normalcy? Why do people go through such great lengths to avoid the taboo that is an atheist? Even I will only hesitantly declare that I am an atheist. I'd much rather say something dishonest like "I believe in Einstein's God," even though I feel that using God in such a way is like calling the atmospheric discharge of electricity, Zeus.

But there are two values that come in to conflict for me, concerning God.

1) Clarity and Honesty
2) Social Cohesion and steering clear of confrontation

Fact of the matter is, many Americans think atheists are immoral scum. Everyone believes in God except people like Stalin and Mao, right? But it certainly won't do any good to continue to sweep the God question under the rug for all eternity, will it? Perhaps it is a good idea to simply allow the God notion to evolve as it has and continues, from the vindictive sky daddy to the unknowable abstract concept promoted by the your average monotheistic theologian. Now panentheism and other abstract and objectively meaningless understandings of God are being copied and spread amongst believers. Surely there is no need for ME to ruffle feathers. But what about clarity and honesty, my other beloved values? Don't they obligate me to ask for a definition? But is that even practical? Everytime I talk about God, must I clarify that and say... oh I don't know... the God that writes books and answers prayers. Even these things are being redefined in abstract and meaningless ways. God didn't actually write the bible per se. God was the inspiration that caused it's authors to strive for meaning, morality and spirituality through it's text. And God doesn't answer prayers or wreak supernatural miracles. Rather we gain insight into ourselves by the glory of nature and speaking out our minds to... well that doesn't really matter. It's the working things out by speaking that is what prayer is all about.

Now of course, some people believe that God is most accurately described in their particular terms, whatever they may be. They honestly don't see themselves as playing word games. I, of course, would rather do without the headache. I don't feel any attachment to God as a being, belief or word. I'd rather just talk about goodness, reality, meaning, morality, spirituality, and inspiration or whatever the next thing for which we use God to be a synonym.

Sequel, Summary, and Supplement

2008-07-31T23:49:00.002-04:00

I want to thank all those who were so kind to share their thoughts so extensively in my previous post, AgnosticWriter, Michael Fridman, e-kvetcher, B. Spinoza, The.Signifier, and Da Candy Man. I look forward to hearing more from you. Anyone else, don't be shy. You probably know far more than I do ;o)

I'd like to summarize what we've discussed and I've discovered through this conversation. Any comments on this too would be appreciated.

1) There can be passion and fervor outside of religion, (thank goodness!) inspired through art, poetry, oratory, music, athletics and dance, contemplation and study of the universe and human nature, culture, human interaction and social activism, mysticism and meditation, ideologies, and mass movements.

2) There can be religious experience and passion, even in a religious setting (i.e. UU ) without the dogmatism. Though I do find UU to be a HUGE step in the right direction, it's not for me as superstitious and primitive beliefs are not criticized. Though I am open and tolerant toward everyone no matter what their personal beliefs may be, I reserve the right to remain critical of the dogmatic, irrational, superstitious beliefs themselves.

3) Religion is multifaceted and very difficult to define. Different personalities will be drawn to different aspects. The facets of religion are in short: worldview, ideology, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, mysticism, community, social and political structure.

4) There may be dangers to a religious type of fervor. It seems that a healthy skepticism could keep this horse in reins. Perhaps these dangers should be fleshed out a bit more.

5) I am still a little fuzzy on the quantity and quality of this type of fervor that is available to the skeptic in particular. Will someone who once was motivated by religious belief be able to capture the same fervor once it is rejected? AW, mentioned this and I'd like some more clarity and suggestions.

6) Art, mysticism, and community seem to have reoccurred throughout. I am especially interested in mysticism. I'm wary of community because of the influence of group-think and social constraints. I like art but it's not "my thing," as they say. However, I do NOT mean to shut down these other parts of the conversation as I feel that discussing these ideas will keep me open and help me to understand and relate to others. (Always selfish, aren't I? ;-)

7) It has been suggested that mysticism transcends beyond culture, time and place in a particular way, perhaps better then or in ways unavailable to secularism, and to complete what may be an incomplete scientific, materialist worldview. Though I want this to be true, I am still very skeptical. It seems too vague and frankly, too good to be true. What is its relationship with science and what is it's function for the individual and humanity? I hope to get more clarity on this as well.

Finally somewhat summed up in AW's three questions,

1. (How) Can we reap the benefits of religion, without planting its lying seeds?

2. (How) Can we find deep engagement outside of religion?

3. (How) Can we find deep meaning/mission outside of religion?

Religion, the thing that anthropologists study, is a human universal and seemingly fills critical human needs and functions. I have no desire to fall back into it's superstition and false ideologies or in being a part of a particular religious community in the traditional sense. I wish to move beyond strict cultural\religious boundaries. Yet I do not wish to deny myself of any benefit or fulfillment that may be rescued from religion.

Just a triple bypass heart surgery is all. Join in the fun!

Can you have Religious Fervor without Religious Beliefs?

2008-07-29T20:34:00.005-04:00

Well can you?

Reading goes ever so slowly with me. I can't just read a book. Mulling it over and thinking about a book's ideas, reading tends to be a very emotional experience for me and thus a slow process. Unfortunately, this does little for my memory, as I forget almost as soon as my eyes leave the page. The reason I mention this is because often I feel what I can most accurately describe as religious euphoria while reading certain books. Not too long ago, I read Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" and my mind was blown and I was ecstatic so often while my eyes feasted on its pages. Not seldomly, the book would lie on my lap closed, with my finger in it so as not to lose my spot, as I shook my head, then stared blankly, reveling in exultation at the ideas to which I had just been introduced. This is a common experience for me, especially when reading books of the scientific milieu.

Orthoprax introduced me to pantheism and I was immediately enthralled. I read several articles about it and was especially keen on Paul Harrison's outlook on the matter. It seemed to be the gateway back into religious fervor and awe, without having to sign a bill of divorce to my newly beloved scientific skepticism. But emotionally, the scars were too fresh from the thorn of religious belief that had finally been removed from my side. I swiftly returned to my quest to make it known to whomever would listen that religious beliefs were false and bad for humanity. This quest was reactionary and all but futile. It does little good for my well being and is largely unnecessary, as my views on religious belief as evil and the recognition that there are millions of false beliefs polluting the consciousness of humanity, many of which are FAR worse, have been treated by time with temperance.

So the question that arises is that which the title of this post purports. Can you have Religious Fervor without Religious Beliefs? And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, can Religious Fervor be a co-wife with Scientific Skepticism? I have some thoughts of my own but I would like to hear what my readers have to say on these questions. Please comment uninhibitedly.

But What About...

2008-07-22T19:59:00.000-04:00

AgnosticWriter is probably my favorite commentator on the Jblogs. I really wish that he (or is it she?) would write his own blog. Here is a quote from him that I had to repost.

"A lot of skeptical dialogue focuses on debate and logic. And this is appropriate to some degree. But what many with more warm-hearted temperaments are seeking on some level and don't find there (as they may not have found in the Beis Medrash) is the soulful, the poetic, and the inspiring. Having a soulful/philosophical bent, I try to access that voice now and then, and cast some seeds into cyberspace."

Though I couldn't say for sure, it seems that many/most of the skeptical Jblogs and commentators are former yeshiva bochurim (rabbinical students), and I was one myself. We tend to view the blogs as our cyber beis medrash (house of study) and engage in long, strung out debates over excessively minor points. Also, as in the beis medrash, nobody really wants to know what the other person is saying except to shlug him up (prove him wrong).

What about the more/most subtle things in life? Though the yeshiva student may spend hours a day shvitzing over a blatt gemara (sweating it out over a page of the Talmud) but the in-between times are spent giving over shtickel toireh (inspiring words on the Torah.) It seems that in every yeshiva there was always that one guy talking to that one rebbe (at the very least) exchanging pshetluch (short words of Torah) in the hallways.

“Ah, did you see what the kli yakar says in this weeks parsha (weekly section of the Torah)?”

“It can’t be as good as the pshat I heard from the Ohr HaHaim!”

And who can forget the vorts and divrei Torah that we share, without fail, around the Shabbes table? Not to mention the songs, the shnapps and the local guy who is serving chulent and beer late into the night where you sing yet more songs and exchange yet more words of encouragement and inspiration.

But now that you’ve looked behind the curtain it all seems childish and quaint. I think I can hear the snickers in the background already. You know that you loved it and miss the days when you experienced the sublime feeling divine inspiration.

So what is to be done? How can we regain the soulful, the poetic and the inspiring?

It ain’t easy…

2008-07-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

I’m trying to break free from the “bash religion” scene and it's been a real struggle.

The only thing I know anything about is religion. It’s been my whole life’s passion, my whole life. Even though there are other blogs and other subjects that interest me, I can’t comment because I’m completely ignorant on the subject. Making blog posts is very difficult as well because if I want to do a post with a little thought, (something I admittedly haven’t done much of recently) then I have to do quite a bit of research first. But of course this takes effort and I find myself slipping back into my comfort zone of religion bashing.

It is my desire to break free, even though it’s difficult. I’m young and there is no need to get stuck in the rut of bashing my childhood religion for the rest of my life. Religion certainly gets a stranglehold on you. When you are in it doesn’t let you go, and if you manage to break free, then it leaves you so bitter that you feel this urge to rage at the machine for the rest of your life.

But life still goes on
I can't get used to living
without, living without
Living without you by my side
I don't want to live alone, hey
God knows, got to make it on my own
So baby can't you see
I've got to break free

I've got to break free
I want to break free, yeah
I want, I want, I want, I
want to break free
Ooh yeah
I want to break - yeah yeah

-Queen

Did you see the Dark Knight yet?

2008-07-18T12:21:00.002-04:00

What the hell are you waiting for?

Besides for being a friggin awesome film, there are MUCHO lessons in morality and moral psychology in this movie. But I don't want to spoil the movie for those who have yet to see it.

Dawkins, Weinberg talk about Orthopraxy

2008-07-16T20:36:00.002-04:00

OK so it's only for a minute or two but you have to hear this.

Starting at 1:57 and continuing for the next minute or two.

Update: I thoroughly enjoyed this talk and would recommend it if you have the time to sit for nearly an hour and a half. Most of the talk is about physics which is by far the most magnificent, awe-inspiring field of science. What I wanted to mention in particular was that in the 7th video of the series, both Dawkins and Weinberg get all soft and emotional about religion. I've heard Dennet do the same thing in some random interview that I can't recall right now. Dawkin's reveals his favorite book of the Bible, and it happens to be the only book of the Bible that I've read since I got out of yeshiva. But you'll have to watch it to find out.

Fake Capitalism

2008-07-16T08:08:00.003-04:00

There is a mantra that is developing in silence of my thoughts.

The government is evil.

Our formerly free country has enrolled us as slaves with all these taxes and what do they give us in return? Whatever it is, its not nearly what we are giving to them. Americans praise capitalism to high heavens, but can we say that we are really capitalists, with all these taxes?

Lechatchila, (as a first choice) I would go for something like laissez-faire capitalism, but that ain't gonna happen, at least not in America. But since we are already signing over our paychecks to the government anyhow, couldn't they give us a little something in return? Maybe a free education, or free health care? But of course as soon as that happens our education will get even worse and our relatively decent health care will plummet, from lack of competition. (There's always vouchers... but that's another can of worms.)

I hate that we allow our government to steal our hard earned money only to give us sardines in return and I especially hate that we stride the fence that divides capitalism from socialism. I mean pick one already. We are chasing the red herring of "capitalism" and meanwhile, we are being robbed.

A Little Secular Pragmatism

2008-07-15T22:38:00.000-04:00

The study of philosophy seems like a big waste of time to me. But everyone has some kind of philosophy. It gives a person a context to interface with the world. I think it is safe to assume that there is an objective reality and that we can understand it to some extent, but our understanding of objective reality is almost immediately translated, as it were, into our own subjective interpretations.

For all we know there are multiple universes, multiple dimensions. The reality that is perceived through our evolutionarily evolved senses often deceive us. But it is the recognition of human fallibility where the split occurs. Some reject the notion of reality and existence, others work with what we have and try to make the best of it using the best tools we have created, while others still stick with ancient mythology and religious texts to align their perceptions to.

There are pros and cons to each of these crudely outlined philosophies. On the one hand are the anti-realists, which may in fact be the most accurate when all things are considered but from that point of view, I see little difference between the illusion of reality and non-reality, the illusion of existence and non-existence etc. We are trapped in the illusion that our minds have created and our illusions can only have so much effect on reality, or our illusion of reality. On the other hand, to stick our heads in the sand, or the past, as it were, is to disallow ourselves the pleasures of the use of our best tools for understanding the world around us and the freedom to interpret freely conclusions that may come from them, all to the best of our abilities.

And so we are left with taking certain practical metaphysical assumptions. I think that they should be kept to a minimum and that they should be in line with our best tools for understanding reality. What these assumptions are, I currently don’t have the capability to elaborate on. I’m exploring some philosophical thought, to give meaning to what I assume and perhaps shine a little light to enable me to polish some of them and shed others, and to allow me the freedom of communicating with others at this level. Right now, it seems that some form of objectivism will fit the bill.

Whatever your particular philosophy maybe, what is most important is that we govern our relations to each other on a common ground. This is where I feel that a little secular pragmatism will do us well. In order to maintain cohesive relations, we have to put our differences, our personal beliefs aside and work together to find out what works. Exclusive religious claims or any other intolerant ideology will never allow for it. We must try to allow for as much individualism, or if desired collectivism, as possible. Recognizing our distinct humanness and our unique role in this vast universe, we should be able to make our state of consciousness happy and worthwhile.

Debating the issues and coming to a certain level of clarity can be enjoyable and very useful. But at the end of the day… it is tolerance that allows individuals to interact.

What's in a name?

2008-07-10T19:01:00.005-04:00

As I hope you all have noticed, I am no longer FedUp with religion.

What I hope you all are wondering is why? But you probably don't give a damn. I'll tell you anyhow.

In the beginning, that is at the start of the conscious awareness of my new relationship with religion, I felt fed up. I had been struggling to justify my beliefs in the claims of Orthodox Judaism for some time and when I finally realized that they were not only bogus but unnecessary I felt a feeling of fed-up-ness. I started commenting on XGH's blog almost immediately and used the alias fedup.

But like most reactionary feelings, this feeling started to wane. After a while I realized that I no longer actually felt fed up but I perpetuated that feeling by commenting under that alias. It's amazing how your actions can have an effect on your feelings.

Another thing you might have noticed is that I was having a hard time with my profile. I must have changed it half a dozen times and I've only been blogging for a few months.

I got a kick out of fulfilling the stereotype of the arrogant militant atheist. I'm really no such thing but it was fun. Now don't get me wrong. I was under the false impression that there were believers out there that I could have a discussion with and essentially get them to reject their outrageous beliefs or at the very least get them to admit that they believed them in faith, despite strong evidence in the other direction.

Back in late April, early May of this year, I had a go round with RJM. I had discussions with him for several reasons. His "If only you knew like I do... " claim is just laughable on its face. His, "When you show me solid proof of any ANE nation or culture that..." claim makes so many false assumptions about the ANE religion that became modern day Orthodox Judaism. I mean RJM believes that the Ancient Israelites rejected magic! No really! Sure, if you define magic as magic done by anyone but Moshe, Aaron, and all the Jewish Magicians afterwards then yeah Judaism rejected magic. But come on... Now of course I believe in magic as much as I believe in fairies, but let's call a spade a spade. They believed in magic. However the main reason I had my discussion with RJM was because I had never really "duked it out" with a Rabbi. I had seen that RJM had some respect amongst the bloggers and was willing to discuss things with skeptics like Orthoprax and Littlefoxling so I gave it a try myself. At the time, I felt I owed myself that discussion. I recently looked back at that discussion and I noticed more then a few mistakes and a few more holes I should have poked in RJM's arguments. The main thing is that I learned something from the experience and enjoyed it while it was happening.

In the meanwhile I got into a couple of discussion with HH, Daganev, and Yus. Oh and there was one really embarrassing one with mevaseretzion that I royally fucked up on. I bit off WAY more then I could chew but newbie skeptics tend to do that. They think that since they don't believe in religion therefore they know everything. HA! if that ain't a non sequitor... Yus and Daganev were frustrating but I remember enjoying discussions with Holy Hyrax.

I've already mentioned my discussions with evanstonjew, though I think they came out too negative in my last post. My conversations with ej have always been good. When I read ej I just think, "Wow, isn't ej cool?" No really... I think ej has an awesome writing style. Even if I can't always understand everything ej writes, it's still leaves me with the impression that ej is one cool cat. ej was the only one that could make me fill guilty about playing the militant atheist, but only in the kindest way and has helped me to get out of the mentality of "Let's go shoot clay pigeons for the rest of our lives!" only the clay pigeons are religious claims.

Then as I was preparing to make the change from FedUp to something else I was possessed by a demon to go try commenting on Hirhurim. Hind sight is 20/20 to be sure but why did I keep going back? I must have tried 3 times to get comments posted on his blog and they were almost indefinitely deleted. I said really vague stuff like, Aren't we being biased towards chazal? and Shouldn't we make a critical analysis at the claims of OJ to come to the best conclusion on the matter? But Gil accused me of missionizing... oh well. I guess we define the word differently.

I think it was shortly after that round about with Gil that I finally got it. Move on! You are WASTING your time trying to talk to people about things they refuse to hear.

And now as to why I've decided on Freethinking Upstart.

As I mentioned earlier in this post I was having problems with my profile. All these new labels that I felt the need to sort threw and place on myself. Atheist, Bright, Naturalist, Scientific Pantheist, yada yada yada. I don't like these types of labels especially the one "atheist" and after reading a bunch of the definitions given on the atheist meme by those that didn't consider themselves atheists, I was feeling even less comfortable with the label. It seems that atheism has never really shed it's poor conotations. Why the hell should I want to sanctify such a word? I mean it tells you absolutely nothing about a person. The word God is meaningless to almost everyone. The strong definition is what most people identify atheism with and I only ever considered myself a weak atheist. Plus, people like Jacob Stein and Vox Day are constantly creating myths about atheists and there is the ever present question, "Well weren't Stalin and Mao atheists?"

So anyhow, I wanted to communicate something with my name so I decided that it should be more of my attitude toward ideas. Freethinking seemed to fit. It's pretty vague but generally positive.

I chose Upstart because I'm young and stupid but I'm not afraid to speak up, even if I make a fool of myself. I just hope that someone will be kind enough to correct me when they see that I'm in error.

Postmodernism, Poetry, Religion and Ridiculousness

2008-07-09T20:25:00.003-04:00

While observing some of the more “sophisticated” debates between the moderate religious sector and the “new atheists” I’ve often wondered if all that the moderate religious leaders are arguing for is religion as poetry or do they still believe these “sophisticated” beliefs the same way that the religious right believes that the universe is 6-10 thousand years old.

Every now and again I get into discussions with PoMo believers, particularly with evanstonjew and more recently chardal. They tend to be very intelligent, very polite and understanding, though not without spice. Yet almost without exception, we end the conversation talking past each other. We come to an impasse, and from my POV they are essentially speaking another language. But this isn’t another language with which I could learn to communicate or at least so it seems. Oh no, for every time I try, and Lord knows I try, all I hear is Charlie Brown’s teacher. Their language is so abstract to my ears as to become completely meaningless. I find it ironic that Postmodernism talks so much about meaninglessness, abstract language, and irony.

From where I stand, here on planet earth in the year 2008, there is the real world that we can discover and understand using the scientific method and healthy skepticism and then there is how we humans interpret that information into our subjective existences, through music, language, culture and the arts in general. I feel that we should each choose, as it were, to interpret them in a subjectively meaningful way. While I feel free to look at the universe in a romantic sort of way, I realize that things are only that way when I have my glasses on, that my rosy painting is but an illusion and I am quite comfortable with it. However, never do I wish to forget about the indifferent objective reality of the universe and existence in general. My subjective interpretations of the universe and existence may not be meaningful for most other people, otherwise I'd try to market them and make some cash on my ideas. As a skeptic, I try to keep a one way street from objective to subjective. I derive inspiration and awe from the advancements that we are making in our understanding of the universe and human nature but I try keep my beliefs about objective reality free from bias and subjective interpretation.

I am highly optimistic and idealistic, so when I hear a pomo thinker say that life is absurd, I think they are absurd. What are they thinking? What planet do they live on? Life is so freaking awesome that I can’t think about it too much, for fear that my heart will explode in sheer delight. In the immortal words of the Psalmist [adapted by yours truly]

When I consider the universe,
The moon and the stars,
What is man that he was privileged to be mindful of it,
And the son of man that he should care about it?
Yet he has become a little lower than the gods,
He crowns himself with knowledge and wisdom!

With the advances of science, and by science I mean the entire enterprise of human reason and advancement, we have bought ourselves the time to contemplate the vast universe in both scientific and poetic ways, to contemplate the meaning of life, what we feel our purpose is, how to fulfill it, and how to make this world a better place. We no longer have to scratch in the dirt, filling our futile existence with mere survival. We can live longer, healthier and more fulfilled lives. If only our ancestors could see us now. No longer do we have to speculate about the dragons in the dark and shadowy corners of our existence. Gone are the days when we were controlled by our superstitions.

Now don't get me wrong. Though I revel in our progress and experience bliss at every falsehood slain, it is the mystery that is yet to be discovered, that flaming curiosity that engulfs our very being that can afford us perhaps even more pleasure then the satisfaction knowledge so lovingly bestows. The joy is in the journey as they say.

Meet Bruce

2008-07-08T21:02:00.003-04:00

Bruce is a conservative Jew. Don't worry guys, he's cool. Together we can DESTROY fundamentalism. I mean, why else would I plug a believer on my EVIL MILITANT ATHEIST blog? (I'm joking... relax... geez... you guys are so uptight)

Anyhow, Bruce is undertaking a project about the Torah and the Documentary Hypothesis. Ladies and Gentleman you are about to witness history in the making! So don't just sit back and watch the smart people like littlefoxling show off their high IQs and crystal critical thinking skillz. Join the damn discussion. Heck, if someone as stupid as I am can type a comment, then surely you can.

Oh and by the way you will want to click here, here, here, here, and here, and here is the general link to my favorite religious blog, to get yourself up to speed. Now go learn!

Some Articles of Interest on Morality

2008-07-08T13:46:00.003-04:00

here and here and here

From Overcoming Bias

PoMo and Morality

2008-07-08T12:46:00.004-04:00

For those of you that are interested in my views on morality and the discussion I was having with littlefoxling you are going to have to check out his blog and the comments there.

Also, turns out Daganev and Chardal are Post Modernist believers. Chardal and I got into a conversation on Holy Hyrax's blog. Check out the comments between Chardal and me starting here.

Though I can't help but laugh at the basic philosophical underpinnings of PoMo, it's certainly an improvement (practically speaking) on fundamentalism. I had no idea that there were so many believers that were PoMo... I find this oh so fascinating. It's like they are playing leap frog with philosophy. Medieval Philosophy and the Rambam? I can dig that. Enlightenment and the Haskala? No way! Post Modernism and Rav Kook and Rav Tzadok? Hells yeah! What's the common denominator? It fits my religion!

All this Post Modernism... I hope I don't have to get conversant in this nonsense.

Wisdom from the Mishna

2008-07-07T12:20:00.002-04:00

Mishnayoth Hagigah 2:1 "Whoever speculates about four things, it would have been better for him if he had not come into this world: what is above, what is below, what was before, and what will be afterwards."

You see? Epistemic Angst and Post Modernism is bad for you!

Subjective and Objective Morality

2008-07-02T16:51:00.008-04:00

Definition of Subjective

Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.

Definition of Objective

Of or having to do with a material object.
Having actual existence or reality.
Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.
Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

I think the question is not whether morality is subjective or not. Everything is subjective as soon as it is experienced or thought by a human being. The question is whether or not morality is or can be objective or not.

Morality obviously isn't a material object. However it could have an actual existence or reality in a platonic sense. There are no numbers that we can point to in the material sense; they exist in our minds in some kind of platonic reality. Morals may be the same way. I think that this can be argued from the mere fact that the average human being has an instinct that can be developed to understand morality, much as we have can understand numbers.

Can we say that abuse is objectively wrong, meaning that whether or not certain individuals feel that abuse is wrong, it is still factually wrong? How could we prove this?

Whether or not actions can be objectively wrong, all societies since the dawn of society have acted this way and we've made laws to ensure that people behave with in certain guidelines. All societies of note have discovered the silver rule (NOT doing to others that which they wouldn't want done to them [as opposed to the golden rule which is active and intrusive.]) Now this is not to say that everyone has had a correct understanding of humanity or even reality as to know with whom they should behave with the silver rule. We are gaining a better understanding of this as science and history brings us more and more clarity. As we understand ourselves and each other through the various means of science, language and other communication, history etc. we can know in more then just a subjective sense, dare I say it, an objective sense, how we ought to behave.

I don't think that one has to have the answers to all questions of morality to say that there is an objective morality. I don't know all the answers to every manipulation of numbers possible but that doesn't mean that there aren't objective answers to these questions.

I also don't think that an objective morality is binary. There may be more then one right course of action, and I don't think that this takes away from objective morality. It seems that all actions may be categorized as moral and immoral but that you can compare moral actions amongst themselves and say that that action X is moral but this is more moral. Much as you would say that 1>0.1 but 2>1 is also true. Different societies may interpret action X as being greater then action Y but objectively we can say that both X>Z and Y>Z though we may disagree at about the relation of X and Y. I don't feel confident about this and but if all else fails I think that this may pass for an argument for moral objectivity.

There is a struggle to get from ought to is but I don't think that it needs to be so complicated. If you want to find out x in x+x=2 then you ought to do the math and you ought to say x=1 because that is what it is. Similarly if you want to find out if action x is moral or immoral then there is an answer that you ought to give and therefore a way you ought to act if you wish to align yourself with the reality of morality. This is not to say that you are incapable of saying or even acting as if action x is moral even when in fact it is immoral. I could say x=3 even though in fact, in reality I’d be wrong.

Now the study of morality isn't as developed as mathematics. Mathematics is easy to study as there are no reasons for personal bias. I have nothing to gain if I say that 1+1=3, but as a white male in the deep south 150 years ago, I have a lot to gain by saying that enslaving blacks is perfectly ethical. But we cannot let personal bias hold us back and I don't see any reason to believe that we are enslaved to bias, so much so as to make us incapable of being morally objective. Is morality somehow intrinsically different then other objective fields of study that it must be categorized under the arts?

I honestly can’t see how morals could be comparable to a taste preference in the arts. We don’t say that it’s just the opinion of the Islamic suicide bombers to blow themselves up on buses filled with innocent civilians, as we might say that it is just your opinion that the Red Sox are the world’s greatest baseball team or that country music is god awful. I can’t see that any human being could compare the two. The fact is that humanity is not nihilistic. We lock up sociopaths because they are a threat to the reality of human society. We could never have become the dominant species of the planet if we thought that human behavior was just a matter of taste. We have a natural instinct to live and to live with other people. Only short sighted self destructive creatures are or can be nihilistic. Our very ability to see into the future in regards to human behavior, our capability for empathy, the inherent logic of zero sumness in almost all of human relations, the progress and spread of cosmopolitanism… all these point to objective moral facts.

Now some will argue that there are considerable differences across societies in regards to morality therefore it isn’t objective. However there have been arguments about everything and not everything is subjective. On the contrary, there has been a growing consensus concerning morality and this would point to moral objectivity.

Others will argue that since morality isn’t a material object it can’t be objective but neither are a lot of things that are objective like gravity, the speed of light, the origin of the universe, numbers, etc.

Some will argue that there has to be an objective law giver for morality to be objective. I don’t think that this works because no one would say this for gravity or numbers or any of the inherent laws of the universe. I mean if you want to say that then knock yourself out. I have no problems with positing something that authored the laws of the universe, I just think that this answers a question with a question and doesn’t help us out at all.

Others will say that we can’t figure out morality using science so therefore it’s subjective, but I say nonsense. We can use science to understand human nature (for example evolutionary psychology) and human relations (for example anthropology) and we can use those very important tools to find an objective morality.

There are many questions yet to be answered, and I’m not a moral philosopher. These are just my thoughts on the matter. Critiques are welcome.

In conclusion, when I speak of an objective morality I'm speaking of an ideal code of human behavior that is encoded, as it were, into the way things are, into nature, the Universe, reality. We can learn more and more about it as we study human nature and human relations.

My Adoring Fans

2008-07-01T22:47:00.003-04:00

Daganev said, "I don't know which is more disturbing...people like Fedup..."

and in response to one of my comments, "Yeah, thats what scares me most about these people."

Gadfly said, "You guys are scary."

Yus said, "You're an even bigger fool than I thought you were."

and here,"The only redeeming factor to your presence here is that you make the skeptics look bad."

and here, "You must love those anti-semitic sites."

Avrum68 said, "FedUp.. deserves a bit of an ass kicking."

and here "FedUp...you shit on things that people hold dear."

and "I place you in the "Jews for Jesus" camp. A group of people that should be exposed as frauds and no friend of the Jewish people."

There's been more but I thought that should get the point across. Don't you love em?

hat-tip to littlefoxling who gave me the idea to make a post out of all this love.

A Confession

2008-07-01T08:29:00.003-04:00

I use the word God in casual conversation.

I wouldn't tell anybody but a fellow atheist that I am an atheist in the real world.

I pretend to pray if I'm at a simcha or happen to be at some other gathering where people are praying. Most people space out during davening. I think about how ridiculous this whole thing is.

I go through the parsha on Shabbat sometimes, though I never go to shul.

Whenever people ask me about my beliefs, I try to steer the conversation elsewhere. I hate talking about my beliefs to people, partially because the pain of losing religion suddenly starts choke holding my memory and I wouldn't want that pain for anyone and partially because I know that most people think there is something wrong with you if you aren't religious or don't believe in God.

I used to be a Na Nach, Boreynunick, misnagid granick, yeshivishe, Hirshian, neturei karta, zionist, modernish, hareidi, Torah and Sciencenick, Emunah Peshutanick, leftist, conservative, heimishe, conservadoxish, bochur, baal habus all at he same time!

Ok, that last one was a lie.

How do I expect to spread the good news of free thought if I don't think freely in public? Oh well, I guess I'll have to save that for another lifetime. Or maybe I'll just use the internet to spread the gospel... This way you can read it if you like, but if you don't then you can always go check our Harry Maryles's blog or DovBear for some Kugel.

The thing about free thought is that it's free. People don't want things that are free. Honestly... when a person is locked up in a cage, and you suddenly give it freedom... If this person was told for his or her entire life, since this person was but a young child, that the outside world is an immoral, vacuous, free fall... If this person wanted to be locked up, then there is very little chance that he/she will want to walk out of the cage, or even if he does want to leave, he'll stay because this is who and what she's always known.

There's nothing wrong with that. If you were forced to be free, now that wouldn't be very free would it? Don't let anyone tell you differently.

But why keep your mind locked up? Why force your brain to believe things that aren't true? If your lifestyle is such that you like it the way it is, why won't you, at the very least, free your mind?

Arguments in favor of the Documentary Hypothesis

2008-06-30T21:17:00.004-04:00

There has been some renewed discussion, primarily on Hirhurim and the blog of XGH, about the documentary hypothesis. A lot of gibberish about bias in academia and religious folk being forced beyond their better interest into believing the nonsense its religion spews. So let us cut to the quick and bring some of the arguments in favor of the Documentary Hypothesis. I’m not a biblical scholar so I probably won’t be able to help much past this summary of arguments that I put together based on Friedman’s book “The Bible with Sources Revealed.” Littlefoxling has done a lot more work on this so see his blog for more info. Also there is a post by Bruce at threejews.net using the Bayes Theorem arguing in favor of the Documentary Hypothesis here and here. Apparently the Great and mysterious, Mis-Nagid had done a lot of work with the Documentary Hypothesis but his blog is defunct. So without further ado…

Linguistics- The language of the Torah is varied. Certain sections can be dated by styles of language that were used at different times. This can help to divide the Torah into sections by the style of the language that they use. The dates of these styles of linguistics are confirmed by texts other then the Torah such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and other documents discovered by archeology.
Terminology- Specific words and phrases are used disproportionately in certain sections of text. See here and here for examples. There are many others. These words and phrases help us to divide the text into separate documents.
Consistent Content-

Revelation of the name YHWH- The name YHWH was used earlier in the text and then suddenly revealed to Moshe in Exodus 6:2,3. Also certain names of God are used almost exclusively in certain sections of the Torah. These sections can be divided into separate sources.
Sacred Objects- The Mishkan is dealt with far more in certain sections and never in others. In some sections it is the staff of Moshe Rabeynu that performs miracles but in other's it is Aaron's. There are more examples.
Priestly Leadership- The Priests are the leaders of the people in certain sections. Prophets are the main men in other sections. In certain sections only descendants of Aaron are considered priests but in others all Levites are considered priests.
Numbers- Certain sections of the Torah are more concerned with numbers (age, then others.

Narrative flow- The Torah is very choppy and it repeats and contradicts itself. When divided into separate texts, each text has a better flow then when they remain as they are found in current text.
Connections to other parts of the Bible- Certain parts of the Torah seem to match the worldview and message of certain prophets as well as usage of terminologies and linguistics. Certain parts line up with the book of Yirmeyahu, others line up with Yehezqel, Hoshea and the "Court History" sections of the neviim rishonim (early prophets), especially Shmuel Bais, respectively.
Relationship to other sections and history- There are many, many examples of this. Certain sections of the Torah refer to geographical areas that were of particular interest to the south (Yehuda) and other sections speak about those of particular interest to the north (Yisrael.) Certain sections are of interest to the time of Hezkiyahu especially in regards to the division between Kohanim and Leviim, that according to Divrei HaYamim 31:2, were instituted by Hezkiyahu, and the centralization of the avodah at Har HaBayis. Other sections of the Torah seem to be connected to the glorious, revolutionary reign of Yoshiyahu. Certain sections of the Torah follow another group of passages, in sequence and differences are significant and point to a message with which certain sections of the Torah are concerned.
Convergence- A threefold strand is not quickly broken (Kohelet 4:12) and one with hundreds of connections all the more so. There are many doublets and hundreds of apparent contradictions, that different Rishonim have picked up on and answered according to the best of their knowledge and based on the assumptions that they bring to their commentary on the Torah. But when you divide the text into these separate sections not only do they have a better narrative flow, but their world view and message are coherent, there are almost no contradictions and all the rest of the arguments listed above fit together snugly when the Torah is divided into certain sections.

For more information, you’re going to have to actually study the stuff yourself. Now go learn!

A New Identity

2008-06-30T12:19:00.003-04:00

I need a new name for my online self. FedUp has become a self fulfilling prophecy for me, so I'm working on a new name. FedUp is making me stay a grumpy old man. I might even change the url. We shall see.

I've been having quite a few of those Eureka Moments. More to come.

Gratitude

2008-06-30T10:52:00.002-04:00

I am so grateful to humanity and it's awesome endeavors in science and reason, to the Universe and it's laws that have brought me into existence at this time, the greatest time in history to be alive. It has placed my lot in an affluent country in the 21st Century, where free inquiry has allowed me to find truth in places that were previously locked away by religious censorship. It has allowed me to rise early and stay up late, the freedom to educate myself and better my character. It has given us the technology and free market that give us modern housing and electricity, a free press, free public libraries, and plenty of free time to pursue the finer things in life. Gone are the days when we were forced to live in fear of wrathful invisible deities and their demands on humanity. Gone are the days when we must accept that evil is the will of the Master of the Universe. Gone are the days that we delude ourselves to think that our deities will save us from ourselves.

All we have is ourselves. We must fight for freedom, for justice, for peace. You and I are our only hope.

This post was inspired by the Jewish prayer upon leaving the house of study.

VENT!

2008-06-26T19:47:00.005-04:00

AHHHH!!!!

What is wrong with people? Am I crazy or is it the world?

Gil Student deleted my comments on his blog again today! And this time I was just asking questions, the type of questions that every yeshiva bochur should ask. They were VERY polite.

Why do people like to believe in lies? If OJ's claims about God and the Torah aren't true, wouldn't you want to know about it? Why do people want to believe in lies so badly that they refuse to even allow questions in regards to that subject?

Avrum68... Quite the character. What can I say about the man? He rants and raves about skeptic bloggers being anonymous, yet who is this anonymous Avrum? I'd be afraid if he should ever find me. From the tone of his comments, I think this man hates me with a passion. And all I do is ask questions and comment on blogs! I do NOT threaten. I ask questions. I do NOT obligate people. I offer critical thought. And for this I get hate?!

Daganev... I can't understand the guy. I try and I try, really I do. But then he starts saying stuff like "Quite the fundamentalist you are," and "Your comments really make me laugh and writhe in pain." Daganev is the type that doesn't agree with anyone, and whenever I tell him that, he starts saying I have a "digital childish mind." How do you have a conversation with someone that you can't make sense of and that insults you if you try?

Rabban Gamiel... I really feel bad about ignoring him but I can't understand what he says either!

Jacob Stein... OY! He's got perhaps the SICKEST view of the world I've ever heard of. He suggests cannibalism and supports genocide... Need I say more?

Yus, aka whatever name he feels like using at that time... Probably the meanest believer that I've ever come in contact with. This man hurls more insults faster then Baal could zap you with thunder bolts and with greater agility then Hermes. Ever confident that he's argued his side beyond refute, this man thinks that loyalty to ideas that probably aren't true is somehow something. But don't say that he said anything because you are definitely misrepresenting him and if not... well I better not say.

Rabbi Joshua Maroof... I think much more highly of him now that I've tried asking questions of other blogger Rabbis. Though I don't know how he could possibly make the claims that he does, he has my respect. He hasn't deleted my comments, even though I asked much more pungent questions to him then I did to Rabbi Gil. Three Cheers for RJM!

Anyhow... I think I'll let off the bans for this post. This post was an emotional reaction to feelings of frustration that I've had recently. Please, don't take anything said here personally.

Scientific Skepticism as a Religion

2008-06-25T16:32:00.002-04:00

Religion is made of up Theology, Mythology, and Virtue.

Tip o' the Hat to Michael Fridman for having an awesome blog with copious amounts of awesome links.

Note: This analogy is made with tongue firmly inserted into cheek.

Christian Political Sniping

2008-06-25T10:33:00.004-04:00

Earlier I posted Obama's now two year old speech about religion and politics. I was very impressed. You can read it here.

Recently James Dobson, big mucky muck in the Christian Right, has attacked Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution." Read about that here.

But now, another Christian named Jim Wallis, a left wing Evangelical leader, is shooting back at Dobson as being un-Christian. That you can read here.

All this sniping is entertaining but the moral of the story is, if Obama can bring his liberal Christianity to this country, we'll be taking a huge leap in the right direction. Tolerance, open mindedness, religion that translates itself to a language that everyone can speak. Change, in which we can believe. Yes. We. Can.

The God Problem

2008-06-24T10:54:00.003-04:00

Nowadays, when someone says that they believe in God you have no idea what the heck they are talking about. Do they mean a higher self, like the New Agers? Do they mean the sky God waiting to zap you, like the Catholics? Do they mean the God that cares if you have ice cream after your burger, like the Orthodox Jews? Or do they mean the It that set off the big bang, never to be heard from again, like Thomas Paine? Or do they mean the laws of the Universe, like Stephen Hawking?

When atheists get all riled up about God, generally they are referring to personal God, one that answers prayers and writes books as a guide for humanity, the one most people believe in.

When atheists get riled up by New Agers it's usually because of their pseudo-scientific methods of healing, like crystals, reiki, and their ideas about psychic powers.

Why do we get upset by these things? Because they are demonstrably false. Prayer doesn't work, and God's books for humanity are a sham. "Alternative Medicine" is like "Intelligent Design," a nice word for a crock of crocodile crap. If it don't work, then it don't work. If it's bunk then it's bunk.

Moving onto the re-definers of the word God... why? I mean if God is energy, or nature, or the laws of the universe, then why used the word God? It's terribly misleading. When most people use the word God, they mean the type that writes books and answers prayers. It's like changing the word Bible to mean the metaphorical book of the best science, ethics, and philosophy currently known to man.

So anyhow, if you believe in a metaphorical higher self, or some ultimate being that started the big bang, or if you like to look at the laws of the Universe, Nature and Energy in a poetic sense, do humanity a favor; don't call it God. It only causes confusion.

Unless of course you can convince everyone else to refer to their gods by their first names. Jews refer to YHWH, Christians to Jesus, Muslims to Allah, and everyone else's mythical all powerful beings by their proper names.

Atheist 10

2008-06-23T13:22:00.000-04:00

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?

Not believing in what you know isn't so.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

Yes. What a long, strange trip it's been.

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

Deceit.

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

Cognitive and Neuroscience, Evolutionary Psychology and any thing else to do with the mind.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

I'd make it integrated into the rest of society. Atheists shouldn't think of themselves as a separate group but as a part of a larger whole of humanity.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

I'm still a kid myself so I can't honestly answer that question. I'd imagine I would reach for the nearest bottle and after sobering up, try to reason with him or her.

Q7. What’s your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

"I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." I usually just laugh.

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

You know Dawkins scale of belief in God from 1-7? Well if you put Objective Morality on that scale I'd probably be at a 2 or 3. Most people I've talked to about this think I'm delusional. I think they are immoral degenerates. ;-)

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

Dawkins, though I don't know why. Dennet's a bore, Hitchens is a pompous ass, though I stand in awe and envy of his command of the English Language. I really like Harris, his vote for against labels and his vote for meditation.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Who is the most influential theist? Now or in all of history? I guess I'd pick God if he existed. Tough question... Mohammed? Jesus? Moses? The Pope? Bush? Osama? I can't answer this one.

My Atheistic Obsession with Morality

2008-06-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

"True morality, Gora says, is based entirely in the real world. “Because morality is a social necessity, the moment faith in god is banished, man’s gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious. Religious belief prevented the growth of a sense of realism. But atheism at once makes man realistic and alive to the needs of morality.” [55]"

Satan, Serpents and Gnostics

2008-06-23T07:32:00.000-04:00

This is another post in a series with the label "other bible."

As I continued in my journey through the leftover parts of the Bible, I ran into some rare sections of medrash (rabbinic mythology) that gave a novel and rather long creation myth story. I could have sworn that I had read most of this in the Meam Loez commentary on the Creation Myth of the Bible but the Meam Loez quoted some rare medrashim.

The sexism is steep in all these creation myths, but that is par for the course of ancient days. In this medrash, there is this character called Lilith that is given to Adam to wife. But Lilith is not the submissive help mate that a woman is supposed to be so she leaves and Adam is given Eve. According to the medrash, God tried to create a good, submissive wife for Adam but despite all his strivings, she still ended up being a typical woman, some of her faults only coming to fruition later on: Sarah the eavesdropper, Miriam the talebearer, Rachel the envious, and Dinah the gadabout.

But that was just a side note. What really stuck out to me was the character known as the serpent. This medrash says that he became an infidel because of his high intellect. Yes, you read that correctly. Smartness is bound to make you into an infidel, a heretic just like the serpent. Not only that, but after the smart serpent had seduced God's favorite creations to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (notice how knowledge is bad and prohibited yet again) when God goes to curse his creation he doesn't ask for excuses from the serpent. Before cursing Adam, he gets a chance to explain the situation and pass the blame onto his wife. Eve gets the same opportunity but according to this medrash, the smart serpent doesn't get this opportuinity. Why? Because infidels are good debaters. Yes, that's right. Infidels are smart and good debaters according to the medrash. This answers a lot of questions.

Enter the gnostics. The gnostis were a strange bunch. There were pagan, christian and jewish gnostics. They were a crazy mixture of buddhism, ancient persian religion and pagan, christian or jewish respectively.

I couldn't figure out if this was a universal gnostic myth or unique to one particular sect but the gnostics had a pantheon and the creator god Yahweh, was a loser god. Yes, he had the audacity to create a physical world. The other higher gods were disgusted by him because of his attempt to capture knowledge (gnosis) in the physical. The gnostics completely change the creation myth around. The serpent is the hero because he gets them to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So Yahweh, the almighty god in the Jewish myth is the loser in the gnostic versions. The serpent, the intelligent and good debater is evil according to this Jewish myth but the hero in the gnostic one. Maybe gnosticism isn't all that bad.

So anyhow, all you believers be forwarned. Don't get into debates with skeptics, who are the illegitamate offspring of the Evil Serpent. Just as God was unwilling to get into a debate, so too you, my faith-full friend, should be unwilling to debate. Just stick to curses.

Critical Thought? Puhlease!

2008-06-20T12:14:00.001-04:00

Americans are stupid. I’m sorry but it’s true.

Yeshiva guys are taught to “think” by learning tiny passages of Gemara for weeks and months. They ask whatever absurd questions come to mind and force interpretations based in their wild imaginations. They dissect Rashi, Tosafos, and then, with the aid of their kovetz meforshim, they dissect some more. It’s a huge mess, and the most stupid questions are thought of as the most genius. Yeshiva Bochurs are learning to think creatively, at best, insanely, at worst. Such a crying shame. I can’t tell you how many times I was told by my rebbeim, “You have to learn to think.” And of course the way to do this was by logging a 900 hours with Reb Chaim’s nonsense on the Rambam.

I remember I used to just learn Rambam straight, without even the Kesef Mishneh. People thought I was trying my hand at Brisker Chidushim but I was just learning Rambam for some relative clarity regarding halacha.

The main goal of a yeshiva guy is to think of chidushim and knock out kashes. It is constant creative\insane thinking, never coming to any conclusions, constant mental struggle with ancient texts and later interpretations that have little rhyme or reason.

What is very frustrating to me is that there are so many lies out there. You get out of religion only to find yourself surrounded by yet more lies which are in turn surrounded by more still. What is at the source of all this and how can you find the grains of truth amongst all the chaff of falsehood and deceit?

Each day, a realization is creeping over me like an oncoming storm. Every so often I feel a few scattered drops of rain and a glimpse of its truth drops like bird dung on my face.

I refuse to believe it, because I don’t want to.

Critical thinking should be a mandatory subject in every school, everywhere. It is a human being’s best protection against all the lies that are out there floating around like airborne viruses, lies, which range from harmless rumors to religious and political fraud.

But candy is good and the more you eat it the less you want real food. We are polluting our minds with ridiculous religion, political propaganda, and awful amusement. If someone suggests that you read a book, learn about science, or think critically, we are repulsed, as if there is a cultural taboo against intellectual pursuits. Scientists are Satan’s workers and academics are amoral and heartless. So how can a convincing case be made for critical thought? A dry statement of facts and statistics will not convince anyone. We are emotional animals.

Can we take critical thought and inject it with high fructose corn syrup to make it user friendly? Can we make an emotive movie that will make people want to think for themselves? Can we instill analytical lyrics into pop/rock and hip hop and rhythm and blues? How can we turn scientists and intellectuals into the celebrities of today? How can we make people care about being stupid? How can we demonize conscious ignorance and superstition? These are questions that bother me.

The Leftover Bible Series

2008-06-17T21:59:00.000-04:00

I'm reading a book called "The Other Bible" that has all the stuff that for some reason didn't make it into the Bible, Christian or Jewish. I'll be bringing some interesting tidbits along the way.

First off, though there are already 2 creation myths in Genesis, Creation myths were like the science fiction novels of ancient times, everyone that could write wrote one. II Enoch, The book of Jubilees, a bunch of gnostic texts and a whole pile more.

Secondly, angels are common characters. I can't keep track of them. They are on almost every page.

According to the book of Jubilees, Eve wasn't created till a week after Adam. The Jubilees adds that this is the reason for the length of a woman's tumah after giving birth. A week for a boy and two weeks for a girl. Also Adam and Eve worked in the Garden of Eden for 7 years, contrary to the Rabbinic version which had 'em kicked out in no time. Also the animals could talk the whole time they were in the Garden which alleviates the problem of only the snake talking in the Genesis report.

More to come!

Humans, Pain, and Altruism

2008-06-17T09:30:00.001-04:00

It's a biological fact. Humans have altruistic tendencies. They also tend to be selfish but we've learned to be selfish in altruistic ways, for the most part anyhow. We are better off if we let the goose lay the golden eggs. A dead goose doesn't do much good.

We seem to be attracted and addicted to pain. Whenever we see pain we feel this need to go do something about it, even though the short term logical thing to do would be to run the other way. I've noticed that the most narcissistic blogs, the most negative blogs and this includes dark sarcasm and satire, get the most hits. FailedMessiah, XGH, sixmonthmalkie, and more. These blogs get crazy amounts of comments and hits. Yesterday I had a post with the title Blogging Blues and I got the most hits I ever did.

I'm tempted to start a new blog, in which I stage to be a yeshiva guy going off the derekh, sort of relive those days but pretend its happening now. Maybe I'll get more hits.

Nah, that won't do.

I used to be sarcastic and satirical in a funny sort of way before I got all depressed about religion being bogus. Then I vowed to be a bull headed skeptic for the rest of my days, never to be fooled by delusions again. But it seems that there is a superstition gene in people. Every so often I get soft about moderate religion or new age. Not for myself of course, but maybe it ain't all that bad for other people. Then I catch myself and I renew my skeptical fervor for reason and science. I'm starting to sound bi-polar.

Hmm... I'm trying to work out some ideas for original material.

Blogging Blues

2008-06-16T14:11:00.001-04:00

I’ve only been following the Jblogs for about a year, and only started seriously commenting for the past three months. Already, I’m realizing that bloggers, including myself, are helplessly biased.

Most of my comments have been on XGH’s blog, because I thought, without critical analysis, that he is looking for an objective discussion of Judaism. He is not. And he’s said it himself, countless times, that he is helplessly biased towards Orthodox Judaism. His latest post “My New Theology” has finally gotten the point through to me. He is Modern Orthodox, just a little more intellectually honest then most.

I’ve finally come to realize that I do not want anything to do with Judaism, the religion. I don’t care to redefine God, Torah, etc in an attempt to make Orthodox Judaism, or any other religion, intellectually defensible. Jewish Culture, on the other hand, I find to be worthwhile, and doesn’t need to be intellectually defensible. It’s just how Jews express themselves socially. We have our holidays, music, jokes, art, humanitarian concerns etc. and these things are by definition subjective and based in our ancient mythology. Each culture has something to bring to the table and the Jewish one is by no means anything to scoff at.

However, this doesn’t mean that Jewish culture is the end all, be all. Many cultures have attributed greatly to society. The Greeks, Eastern cultures, Arab cultures, Christian Cultures and more have made this world a better place to live.

I’m seriously considering signing off, until I can find something original to add to the blog world. Being yet another skeptic blog that has two readers isn’t worth my time.

Expelled, No Reason Allowed.

2008-06-16T10:27:00.000-04:00

First it was XGH, deleting my comments on humanitarianism. Now, Gil Student who I had so much hope for has deleted my comment that made a plea for reason. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of trusting Gil that he wouldn't delete my comment, because it was very polite and unassuming, even congratulatory, so I can't show you exactly what I wrote. Oh well, so much for my hopes.

I guess believers, even moderate ones like Gil, still have something to be afraid of. It's a shame that people are so afraid of critical analysis and free inquiry. We are all slaves to some extent. I am a slave to freedom and truth. Other's are slaves to OJ's claims and an ancient text written by nobody knows who. All I'm saying is, choose your masters wisely. Life is short.

Congrats to Gil

2008-06-12T22:00:00.000-04:00

Gil Student is reviewing the book Bondage of the Mind and is allowing discussions to take place in the comment thread, though Jewish Atheist didn't get much thread time. All in all, I think that he's doing better then most OJ Rabbis in allowing semi- open discussion. He even let me join in the fun!

Wishing Gil all the best and hoping he will be as honest as possible, and maybe even become a skeptic himself!

Update:
Gil Student deleted my polite and unassuming comment on his latest post, Part III. Ouch! See my next post.

Why You Should Vote Republican

2008-06-12T21:32:00.001-04:00

Here's a fun movie.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jewish Skeptics History

2008-06-08T07:14:00.000-04:00

I have to be honest. I'm a new kofer, though I seemed to have been designed for it. I started reading XGH and Dovbear about a year ago and within a few months I was ignostic and then a few months later I became an atheist. And I was in yeshiva for most of the time???

I've read a bunch of archives, mostly from godolhador and the frum skeptics group. WOW! Mis-nagid was da man! But apparently he gives thanks to Hasidic Rebel as the real father of Jewish Skepticism on the web.

So anyhow, I realized that we are running out of believers to debate. Apparently, there were those back in the day that tried to follow the command in Avot that said, "Da mah lehashiv l'apikorus" (Know how to answer a heretic.) But now who is out there that can really answer the skeptics? Harry Maryles doesn't allow kefira on his blog. Gil admitted that OJ is based on faith and tradition and RJM is way too busy even though he says he has the answer.

Is it safe to say that the OJ should recognize the kofrim as a legitimate group? Do you think that OJ will ever allow free inquiry? Are there OJ Rabbis out there that actually addressing issues brought from critical thinking and skepticism?

Anyhow, I have a renewed interest in locking down my critical thinking skills. What I always wondered was, how are you supposed to know how to answer a heretic if you're not allowed to think about heresy? Hmmmmm...... maybe that's why most believers are so bad at defending their religion.

In other news... Though I will try my utmost to answer all comments, my posts will be sparing over the near future. I'm getting bored with this blog and I am too young and stupid to have anything to write about.

John McCain on the United States of Christianity

2008-06-07T21:52:00.001-04:00

Gotta love the separation of church and state of our politicians. I'm glad to know that McCain will uphold the separation of church and state. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ok, are you still willing to throw away your vote over the supposed superiority of McCain's support for Israel and experience, despite his theocratic views?

Hat tip to the Atheist Media Blog

Update

2008-06-02T10:24:00.001-04:00

Things are picking up at work recently and I'll be putting more hours in at the office. I've also been trying to put in more time with experts by reading books then with the bloggers. All this means less time to blog.The interest is still there but the passion is already waning. I'm over the initial shock by now. My evangelical urges are pretty much under control. Though the real threat to society is Islam, I find that there are plenty of books and blogs raising our conscious about that. The Orthodox Jewish community was a concern of mine but there are plenty of Centrist Orthodox sites like RJM's David Guttman's and Harry Maryles's. Though they still have some dangerous hashkofos, since it is highly doubtful that Orthodox Jewry will ever control political policies in Israel or elsewhere, there's really nothing to worry about. The divides and schisms in Orthodoxy will continue to grow. I see the Hareidim becoming more insular, more backwards and unfortunately the Jews are developing their own version of the Amish. Hopefully they will become less violent and destructive like the Amish. Then there are the settlers that are causing more harm and danger to innocents, both Jewish and Palestinian, then they could ever imagine. No, I'm NOT putting all the blame on the Jews for the complications in the Middle East.

I'm going to take some advice that evanstonjew gave to Harry Maryles and apply it to myself. Those that are interested to know the falsehoods and wickedness that are found in religion, particularly fundamentalist religion, the links are on the side. There are blogs, websites, and books a plenty that are bashing, trashing, and other wise taking apart religious belief and fundamentalism. I'd like to put the focus of my blog on happiness, ethics, meaning, mysticism, scientific advance, and overall well being and progress for the universe, our planet and in particular the human race, all without the supernatural or beliefs in the supernatural, using science and by that I mean "the entire enterprise of secular reason and knowledge, including history and philosophy."

In short, I want to focus on the good life for those with a naturalistic worldview. I have interests in Taoist thought and biases towards my people, the Jews. Oh, and every now and again I'll put up something promoting Obama.

Onward, toward a good life.

Skeptical Jew Listing

2008-05-27T19:31:00.008-04:00

1	http://abandoningeden.blogspot.com/
2	http://alsoachussid.blogspot.com/
3	http://anadder.com/
4	http://baalhabos.blogspot.com/
5	http://begreatfull.blogspot.com/
6	http://benavuyah.blogspot.com/
7	http://classikefira.blogspot.com Mis-Nagid and Godol Hador reruns
8	http://cyingerman.blogspot.com/
9	http://daasdiybur.blogspot.com/
10	http://daashedyot.blogspot.com/
11	http://deathintheballroom.blogspot.com/
12	http://dovbear.blogspot.com/ see posts by Tikun Olam
13	http://extremegh.blogspot.com/
14	http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/
15	http://findingherpath.blogspot.com/
16	http://frumheretic.blogspot.com/
17	http://hasidicrebel.blogspot.com/
18	http://hassid.blogspot.com/
19	http://heathenhassid.blogspot.com/
20	http://jewishatheist.blogspot.com/
21	http://jewishsceptic.blogspot.com/
22	http://kiruvawarenessnetwork.blogspot.com/
23	http://knowledgeproblems.blogspot.com/
24	http://littlefoxling.blogspot.com/
25	http://lubabnomore.blogspot.com/
26	http://mentalblog.com/
27	http://mishleishlomo.blogspot.com
28	http://mis-nagidarchive.blogspot.com/
29	http://modernorthoprax.blogspot.com
30	http://mushroomjew.blogspot.com/
31	http://nomodo.blogspot.com/
32	http://nyapikores.blogspot.com/
33	http://offthed.blogspot.com/
34	http://offthederech.blogspot.com/
35	http://ohrchadash.blogspot.com/
36	http://orthoprax.blogspot.com/
37	http://penned-in.blogspot.com/
38	http://rabbi-pinky.blogspot.com/
39	http://recoveringorthojew.blogspot.com/
40	http://safkanut.blogspot.com/
41	http://search-for-emes.blogspot.com/
42	http://sentimentalheretic.blogspot.com/
43	http://sitra-achra.blogspot.com/
44	http://sixmonthmalkie.blogspot.com/
45	http://talesofanangryjew.blogspot.com/
46	http://thecuckoos-nest.blogspot.com/
47	http://thejewishfreak.blogspot.com/
48	http://theshaigetz.blogspot.com/
49	http://thetreifahyid.blogspot.com/
50	http://twiceaheretic.blogspot.com/index.html
51	http://velvelchusid.blogspot.com/
52	http://yeshivishatheist.blogspot.com/

Steve Pinker and Morality

2008-05-27T16:15:00.000-04:00

Steve Pinker, my new favorite Jew. I first found out about him through anadder. How I found that blog, I can't remember. I had some ideas in my head that Steve Pinker has confirmed through scientific investigation. Like the decrease in violence, the lower ratio of deaths in WWII in comparison with other wars, and the most recent, a bare bones moral objectivity.

When I first decided to work on the "Morality Project" I didn't realize how little had been done on the scientific end. Religion had the copyright for thousands of years and the non-religious philosophy decided to take a pick at it over the past couple hundred years. It seems only in very recent years have biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists made any headway.

However, the work that I hoped to accomplish has already been done, far better then I ever could have hoped for, by Steve Pinker. He wrote an article that was featured in the NY Times this past January. You can read it here. I hope to digest and discuss that article over the next couple of weeks.

Unity, Science, and Religion

2008-05-27T16:05:00.000-04:00

Doesn't everyone want world peace? I hate to sound like I'm auditioning for the Miss America beauty pagent, or a one-too-many-acid-trips hippy but don't we?

Ever since my faith in God was removed, I've been all the more concerned about morality and unity. Gora, the noted Indian Atheist said, “Because morality is a social necessity, the moment faith in god is banished, man’s gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious. Religious belief prevented the growth of a sense of realism. But atheism at once makes man realistic and alive to the needs of morality.”

Sam Harris has spoken out against using the labels, like "atheist." I am forced to agree with him. The more labels, the more division. Labels point out our differences when the similarities are so much greater. I just don't believe in God or the divinity of any books. I have no reason to believe in the supernatural but there are many things that we can all agree on. It's our similarities, our common goals and aspirations that can bind us together.

This polarity, with the believers clinging to religious dogma, and the non-believers clinging to science will get us nowhere in the end. Few will cross over and the wall will just keep getting harder to cross .

It is only the unfounded, unevidenced dogma of religion that I reject. However, as Sam Harris said, "A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human happiness... Clearly it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world."

We are all connected by the mere fact that we are all humans experiencing this world. Ethics and Morality naturally lead one to go beyond yourself through spiritual experience. Feelings of love and unity greatly enhance contemplative arts which in turn enhance those feelings. Spiritual experience is an empirical fact. It has nothing to do with proving religious dogma and everything to do with enhancing and better understanding human experience. These experiences can be meaningful without the irrational dogmas that so often accompany them.

Perhaps it is here in the realm of unique human experience and spirituality, the point between religious dogma and the cold facts of science that we can find a common ground to build on.

I still reserve the right to criticize religious dogma, don't misunderstand me. Ultimately, religious dogma and superstition must be erased from mankind. It can only continue to divide us and hold us back from personal, social, and scientific progress. Inter-faith relationships are certainly admirable but appear to be mere band-aids covering an immeasurable gap. The graphic above can only work long term when those symbols represent a culture or historical point of view, not a dogma.

However, I'm writing this now because I've been reading "Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James as well as some articles about rational mysticism and religious experience from a psychological and scientific viewpoint. Kudos to arama, EJ, and the gang at XGH's blog for showing me the light. Empirical facts are undeniable. Admit to the truth when you see it.

Obama on Religion and Politics

2008-05-24T22:32:00.001-04:00

In which Fed Up gets Political

2008-05-22T20:43:00.001-04:00

McCain the Straight Talker! McCain seems like an alright guy but I wouldn't want him as my president. What I want to know is how the hell did he get a reputation for being a Straight Talker?

One thing everyone agrees on is Obama's thrilling oratory skills. He is truly a poet. But it's not just his hypnotic effect behind the microphone that has secured my vote. Obama is right on when it comes to the issues. I'm very proud to have voted for Obama in the primaries and I can't wait to do it again in the General Election. Obama for president 2008!

The Harm Principle

2008-05-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

I heard about the "Harm Principle" while reading some comments on some post on some blog from 2007 sometime. "The harm principle is articulated most clearly in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty." from Wikipedia. It is related to "The Ethic of Reciprocity." It piqued my interest and I started doing some research. The first thing I noticed is that it's something that has been around and advocated by the most influential religions from millienia ago. The Harm Principle takes up similar forms.

Confucius say, "Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?"
Analects XV.24, tr. David Hinton

Do not do unto others what angers you if done to you by others. -Isocrates 436-338 BCE

Hillel was challenged by a potential convert to Judaism to teach him the whole Torah while he stood on one leg. Hillel replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to others.”

Jesus said in Matthew 7:12, Luke 6.31 said, "In all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them."

This is the sum of duty: do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain. -The Mahabharata (Hindu)

Hurt not others with that which pains yourself. -Udana-Varga (Buddhist)

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his that which he desires for himself. -Hadith

He should not wish for others that which he doth not for himself, nor promise that which he doth not fulfil. -The Book of Certitude (Bahai)

"An it harm none, do what ye will." Wiccan Rede

Steve Pinker said,"...the inexorable logic of the golden rule: The more one knows and thinks about other living things, the harder it is to privilege one's own interests over theirs. The empathy escalator may also be powered by cosmopolitanism, in which journalism, memoir, and realistic fiction make the inner lives of other people, and the contingent nature of one's own station, more palpable—the feeling that "there but for fortune go I.""

Religions that ain't that Bad.

2008-05-21T10:31:00.000-04:00

Since I forecasted that I was going to write this post I've sort of regretted it. My problems with condoning subscribing to a religion are these

Being a free thinking atheist I've experienced it's glory.
I don't want to sound condescending, meaning I don't want to make it sound that everyone that is religious is just a sheep or otherwise giving in to social pressures.

So take this listing of religions that aren't that bad for what it's worth. Really, I wish everyone would be free thinking atheists. But if you want religion, though many would argue that these aren't really religions, I recommend these:

Secular Humanism. This has free inquiry in, so the possibility of getting dogmatic about human interests isn't all that great. Even if it does lead to being dogmatic about humanitarian concerns, there are far worse things.
Buddhism. This is a really simple life philosophy and the Buddha was agnostic or ignostic. Though some have been accused of worshiping the Buddha as a deity, this isn't what Buddhism is about at all. An all around fulfilling, serenity bringing, peaceful religion.
Reconstructionist and Humanitarian Judaism. Want modern, liberal, secular, Jewish Religion? These are for you.
Any Orthoprax religion. If you get around on the Jblogs then you probably know something about Jewish Orthopraxy. The plus is it rejects dogma, the minus is it still ecnourages some kind of observance of halacha, which means no Italian hoagies and no watching the ball game on the Sabbath.
New Age and Neo Paganism. These are definetly my least favorite. They have some pretty strange beliefs but they are pretty harmless. It promotes spirituality as part of overall wellbeing. Peaceful but wierd.

Moderate Religion where I would put Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy, Conservative Judaism, Liberal Christianity, even Moderate Islam, and all other moderate belief systems are agnostic theists and I can't recommend them. The people that subscribe to them are generally good people but they are known for compartmentalizing. I see this as bad for the mind.

Fundamentalist religions are among the worst evils in my book. STAY AWAY IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE AND THE LIFE OF ANYONE OUTSIDE YOUR SUB GROUP.

A MUST SEE!

2008-05-20T18:59:00.000-04:00

A Woman Speaks Her Mind.

Hat Tip: Smoo

A Longish Post

2008-05-18T15:04:00.000-04:00

Originally, the name of this post was going to be "Religions that ain' t that Bad" but one of the comments I had from Al Knight and after trying to understand the fascination that XGH and other's have with EvanstonJew I decided to write this preface.

When I say that I'm Fed Up with Religion, I am referring to a very specific definition of religion, the one with which I was born and raised. It includes, but is not limited to, the idea that there is some being above and beyond conception that created the universe. This same being is one and the only one yet he is highly jealous and will severely punish those that deny his existence or acknowledge the existence of other similar beings. He did not reveal himself to mankind and waited millennia for a man named Avram to figure out that he existed. Later, Avram's descendants were forced to Egypt by a famine that God sent, and endured over a hundred years of brutal slavery by the Egyptians. One of these descendants was named Moshe. He was miraculously saved and adopted by the princess of the evil empire of Egypt. As Moshe gets older, he realizes that he is kin to this slave nation and, after killing an Egyptian, flees to the desert. After a long absence, God reveals himself to Moshe in a burning bush and tells him to "Set my people free!" Well, ain't that nice! But God doesn't want his people to go without a significant show of power. Through Moshe and Aharon, God absolutely lays to waste the world power of the time through a series of ten plagues, which included killing women, children and animals. God was able to turn water to blood, bring fire and brimstone, but he couldn't get his people out of Egypt without Pharaoh’s permission. Finally, Pharaoh decides enough is enough and lets God's people go.

God lead them out of Egypt but apparently had a bad sense of direction because he sent them straight to a dead end, or so we thought. Pharaoh was missing his slaves already and decided to bring them back. The Ancient Hebrews were stuck between a rock and a hard place. But never fear, God split the Yam Suf and created a way where there was no way. Hurriedly, God's chosen people rushed through on dry ground and Pharoah's army, apparently unfazed by this miracle, followed right into the sea on dry ground. When the Ancient Hebrews got to the other side, God let the sea follow it's natural path thereby destroying what was left of the Egyptian Army.

49 days later, God decides to have us sign the contract that would bind us and our future generations till the end of time. This contract included 613 laws that included laws to commit genocide on the Amalekites, how to keep slaves, laws that did not allow husbands and wives to cohabitate or even touch each other during certain times, and asked us to slaughter animals to give him a sweet smell. This contract was delivered with some very awe-inspiring natural occurrences and Moshe told us the God gave us a sneak peek of 10 commandments of more that were to come. According to tradition, we accepted.

Now, the written Torah left some things unclear including how to keep some of these mitzvoth. So hundreds of years later, our spiritual leaders let us know that there was an Oral Torah that filled in the blanks and otherwise explained the written legacy that Moshe Rabeynu had left us. You thought you had 613 commandments? B b b Baby you just ain't seen nothing yet! Here's something you never should forget. But this Oral Torah was too complex to make it through yet another exile and the Oral Torah that was never to be written down was, by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and his students. Ladies and Gentleman I present to you the Mishna.

But the Mishna too, left a lot of unanswered questions and intentionally so. So a few hundred years later the Mishna was combined with an extremely complex commentary known as the Gemara, which formed the Talmud. Around this time, Jewish spiritual leadership was separated in Jerusalem and Babylon and so there were two Talmuds, the yerushalmi and the bavli, the latter coming later. Though the Talmud is filled with differing opinions, the leaders by locale informed their followers of the correct approach known as the Halacha.

It seems that the Torah's assumed shorthand influenced our writings because we never could or perhaps never wanted to write a book that expressed exactly what God wants from us. Differing opinions multiplied in worldwide Judaism from its philosophy to its law. However, in the 1200s, there was a brilliant thinker by the name of Moshe ben Maimon that attempted to set the record straight. The Rambam's effect on what is now Orthodox Judaism cannot be underestimated. Though he was, and is, argued on by just about everyone, this shows his influence; if you want to say something in Jewish Thought or Law, you have to contend with the Rambam.

Since the Rambam, there has been a plethora of books from thousands of authors each attempting to explain and interpret that contract we made with God on Mount Sinai. Yet, in Orthodox Judaism there is this concept of a living, yet unchanging and unquestionable mesorah (tradition) that goes all the way back to Moshe on the mountain.

It is this view and others like it, of God and what he wants from us that I am not only fed up with but vehemently oppose. Religious belief has made unfulfilled promises, exaggerated historical claims and unverifiable, unfalsifiable assumptions. It has stifled opposition and is self sustaining by forbidding and cutting off heresy. I no longer care to be part of Orthodox Judaism or any other movement that lies to itself about its fundamentals and doesn't allow for critical thinking. Those that are deceived themselves have deceived me and this is where I’ve drawn the line.

From the standpoint of science and reason, it is quite clear that Orthodox Judaism and any other fundamentalist religion is not true. However, Judaism is so much more then a dogma with cruel, outdated laws. There is a national history, legacy, culture and so much more. These, I do not want any Jew, or any person interested, to miss out on.

Returning now to the start of my post, there is a yet another sphere of religion known as religious experience. It is something that is empirically proven and of which there is no doubt; there is something very real being experienced, which from a subjective viewpoint may seem more real then anything science and reason can tell us. These experiences though, do not require us to lock up our minds and accept religion’s dogma with blind faith. Oh no, it is something that is open to all and would be better off with a certain detachment from its superstitious origins. I am referring to the numinous and to meditation. Though these experiences can certainly be of good, a certain measure of caution should be practiced.

There is something that religions give that atheism and free thought cannot give you and that is a ready-made historically tested way to live a fulfilled, meaningful life. Personally, I am uninterested in buying a such a guide to living life and I would encourage everyone everywhere to use the tool of free thought wherever life may lead them. I am very greatful for a healthy, young mind and I wish to use it to develop a tailored understanding of life and the universe. I’ll draw on truth where it can be found and try to apply it to my daily life. But for those that have social and familial reasons or simply a personal inclination, with this preface I will bring a listing of religions that aren’t that bad.

Food

2008-05-18T13:47:00.000-04:00

Survival. It's a shame that we have to focus on such basic instincts. Mark Bittman talks about what we need to eat in order to keep the earth and future generations alive.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

2008-05-17T22:07:00.000-04:00

As the name of my blog implies, I'm no fan of religion. However I do believe in Freedom of Religion and a huge majority of the earth's population subscribes to some kind of religion. I need to get along with my fellow humans.

In the real world, I am a very personable guy and I respect other's beliefs. I do not try to engage people in casual conversation to question their beliefs because this can be a very intimidating, embarrassing and otherwise uncomfortable feeling for all parties involved. What I do promote, though is peace among believers and non-believers and believers and believers, in other words ecumenism and inter-faith pluralism.

When you point out the similarities and common truths that can be found amongst religions in a positive light, this can be a highly enlightening experience, especially those that are commonly closed off to people of other faith. "They believe that too?" and "Wow, we have a similar religious practices!" This type of knowledge can bring peace and remove unconscious prejudices that in-groups have for out-groups.

When there is common ground, the wicked notion of heretic, apikorus, and kafir seems somehow unimportant or at the very least can open people to the idea of different strokes for different folks.

Up and Coming

2008-05-16T19:30:00.000-04:00

Posts in the near future.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along.
Religions that ain't that Bad.
The Harm Principle.

Hang in there folks. I'll be getting a round tuit soon.

Can Believers be Held Accountable for Immoral Behavior?

2008-05-15T22:14:00.000-04:00

When making moral judgments, the circumstances in which they were made have a significant effect. For example, if one lied to keep the peace, that lie may be acceptable but if one were to lie about having a contagious disease and this person was in constant contact with others, then this would certainly be unacceptable.

Another circumstance in which we are usually very forgiving is that of duress. If someone's life is being threatened or a person is threatened with torture, almost anything is permitted.

Those that believe in life after death, have the threat of hellfire over their head whenever this thought comes to his conscious. If a believer doesn't do his god's will then this person is under threat of hell. Should we excuse a believer's actions because of such a threat?

When thought of in this light, some have suggested that the belief in God and it's usual accompaniment of punishment or reward in the after life, is a psychological disorder, virus or disease. These are very strong words and seem terribly nasty towards a great majority of our planet's human population.

However, now, many years after the Age of Enlightenment, many of us have come to acknowledge that immoral and irresponsible behavior is inexcusable even when they have religious motivations. The terrorists of 9/11, the suicide bombings that happen too frequently in Israel , and terrorist activity around the world are condemned by the entire free world. Most if not all of these attacks were motivated by religious belief. We do not excuse the mother that let her child die because she refused to take her child to a doctor, preferring to pray to God.

Irrationality sometimes comes at a high price. Acceptance of intolerant ideas has cost us many lives.

To categorically condemn religious, dogmatic belief seems naive and intolerant. Hasn't religious irrationality motivated many people to do tremendous good?

There is a concept in Jewish Law known as "to sit and not do anything is better (shev v'al ta'aseh)." It comes in to play when one is faced with a dilema in Jewish Law to act or not to act. You may get tremendous benefits from doing the act but then again the loss could be just as great. The answer that is given at times is, "Just don't do anything!" Perhaps it would be best to apply this methodology to religious belief.

It's all about me

2008-05-15T09:01:00.000-04:00

I haven't made that much time for my morality project of late but here is a short post with the thoughts I've gathered thus far.

If we didn't care about ourselves then we'd die very young. Fortunately, we have very selfish genes and all they want to do (as far as we now know though there is something brewing on the horizon) is to live and to live on through their offspring.

When you think of selfish you think of the kid in kindergarten that stole all the toys at recess for himself. Now that he's grown up he's realized that that kind of attitude isn't going to get him very far in life (though unfortunately some never mature from that previous stage). If all we are is selfish genes then why do we share so nicely?

You can be more selfish when you work together with people. I can ensure my survival by working together with you and you and you etc. Evolution has ingrained groupishness into us and that group has expanded over the years. Family, clan, tribe, state, country, and hopefully in the near future global. We've come to realize that people are worth more to us alive then dead. Remember that parable about the goose and the golden eggs.

Just from a purely selfish standpoint it's better to get along with others.