Neil Gaiman www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com The World's End FLAME WARS rants about non-work things
www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com The World's End FLAME WARS rants about non-work things|
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working on his degree in brapping Member  |
if you want to be strict about it, the God of the Jews killed every single person who has ever lived, and will continue to do so, presumably, at least for the forseeable future. not sure it really counts as "genocide" if it's God that's doing it.
totally, totally untrue.
what? where are you getting this from? this is simply not the case.
define "advocated." it's true that anal sex between two men is considered a capital offense in Jewish law, but it's also the case that the requirements to obtain a conviction were so stringent that i don't see how it's possible anyone was ever executed for it.
again, also untrue. i suspect you're suffering from a very bad translation and a total lack of commentary. you can't just read the text and assume you know what it means -- you need to look at the Talmud to see how it was practiced historically and why. "an eye for an eye" doesn't mean what you probably think it does, either.
i really think you don't understand it as well as you think you do. no offense.
again based on a misconception. first of all, there's no "retroactive" finding of sources for scientific advances. there's just finding sources that resolves contradictions. if Judaism taught things, centuries ago, before science could come to any sort of discoveries whatsoever, that now jive with scientific findings or theories (the Big Bang, time dilation, the holographic principle, etc), then what makes that "retroactive"? Rambam, a thousand years ago, wrote that the literal interpretation of the Creation story is what you teach little kids; if and when they reach an intellectual level to be able to understand it, then you start teaching them the real stuff. as to the "fanwanks" and "twisting" -- there is a very specific method of interpretation, and how every "word or misspelling" is meant to be understood and in what context that i think it's a serious stretch to describe it as rabbis just making it say whatever they want it to. _______________________________________ WARNING: the preceding message is not to be taken personally. Keep away from children. *** Inactivist of the Radical Status Quo |
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Administrator/Colporteur Member  |
Jack, I don't know that I've read a more ill-informed post about a religion. I mean, really, you might as well state that Hindus follow the teachings of Buddha or that Christians are forbidden to drink alchohol and revere cats. First of all, you need to separate the Halakha from the Alaggha. I mean, not that it's easy to do, but in order to understand the distinction, you really need to. I'm still working on it myself.
If Judaism is to be judged based on the laws it began with, then our legal system should be judged based on the Code of Hammurabi - Judaism is a uniquely flexible religion, one that has grown and changed through the constant and consistent application of a rigorous process that has itself evolved and changed. __________ AJGraeme "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." -Barack Obama "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." - G.K. Chesterton |
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Member |
I was raised an orthodox Jew, and studied in yeshiva for a good portion of my life. Then, a while ago, I realized everything I had been taught was utter bullshit, and left. So, yes, I know what I am talking about, and it isn't a case of bad translation, or needing to study more. As for the scientific side of things, I have often seen rabbiem make stuff up and pass it off as truth, when they had no idea what they were talking about. Almost literally pulling biblical sources for science out of their asses. I have read books published by Jews in which the same thing was done. I can't remember encountering an argument for the compatibility between science and torah that seemed rational. I can remember learning about rabbis who found biblical sources for current science in their times, that we now regard as false. Also, if you study Talmud, or any of the rishonim, or achronim, you will find a great deal of superstition which anyone today would regard as false. Why are they (the sages) correct when it comes to science, but not to these other things?
As for my previous post, I may not have been very clear. However, I have sources, or with a little work could re-find the sources, for all of it. Cobalt, you say that women are not powerless. Have you researched the laws for divorce? How about ownership of property? Look up what the Talmud has to say about that, and tell me women have the rights they should in Judaism. You say the Jews didn't regard gentiles as property? The torah itself outlines the laws of involuntary slavery for gentiles. There is also a special set of rules regarding how a Jew may interact with gentiles, and almost every rule is to the detriment of the gentile. I could go on. Most of it still applies today. However, the Judaism practiced a few hundred years ago is not the Judaism practiced now. The Judaism practiced now, much like current Christianity, attempts to act politically correct, and tries to forget its darker past. Judaism is not the kind, benevolent, or rational religion it pretends to be. I'm sorry if what I have said has offended anyone, or if I seem misinformed. Neither was my intention. edited for possible offensiveness, and because I didn't see Dweller's post. This message has been edited. Last edited by: JackintheBox, |
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working on his degree in brapping Member |
oh, i see. you're an apostate. i don't mean that pejoratively. it's just that now i get where you're coming from. i know plenty of people who had bad experiences at terrible religious schools with incompetent teachers and got turned off everything too. i almost was one of them. but i subsequently had extremely good experiences with knowledgeable and kind teachers (after i got kicked out of that horrible day-school) who engaged me personally and intellectually and kept me from going off the path by answering my questions rather than dismissing them. i'm sorry you never met any of those people.
so i won't argue with you anymore, but i maintain that you are totally wrong about Judaism -- so that others reading this won't look at your posts and go "well, if even one of THEM says it's bullshit then it must be bullshit," because that's just not the reality of it. _______________________________________ WARNING: the preceding message is not to be taken personally. Keep away from children. *** Inactivist of the Radical Status Quo |
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has been eaten by a grue. Member  |
hi!  *waves*i do understand what you're saying, but it just sounds to me as though you're basing your entire philosophy or thought process or whatever on this simplification. i mean, it's your thought process, so help yourself; it just seems too rigid, even to me. you're not allowing yourself any space as a person if you try to reduce your mental life to the purely rational. as i understand it, science often makes leaps and bounds through intuitive, imaginative theorems. i mean, einstein was right about relativity before he could prove it decisively (or to the satisfaction of the rational scientific community), wasn't he? and galileo? i'm not really scientifically minded (which has perhaps already made itself abundantly clear), so i may be wrong, but it seems to me as though many of our very rational advances have also been those that have been the most destructive (witness the industrial revolution). i mean, darwin needed imagination to realize that there was a different way to understand the universe before he could have known to begin his research into evolution. right? ~ fLame Woosh ~ Elite Special Force Procrastinator, trained in High Arts of Extended Coffee Breaks and Master Linguist of the Water Cooler Conversation |
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has no member title Member  |
Jak, I think that you'll need to befriend yourself cautiously with the idea that a large part of your thinking *is* overshadowed by motives outside your scope of rational accountancy. Yes, even you.
 The things that motivate us and give us the necessary drive to act are very rarely rational in nature. The things that give us hope to strive against all odds, that give us patience to follow through with ridiculous ideas that end up being breakthrough inventions - they can't be replaced by rational thinking. The things that make us want to develop theories like the ones you are developing, and invest in arguments about them on an online forum and consider these investments well spent have nothing to do with ratio. Not only that, but some decisions are founded in motivations so deep you can't even access them. If you are saying that irrationality should not be practiced unchecked, then I think everyone agrees with you. But that doesn't mean to try to eviscerate part of your thinking. Some people try to quash anything irrational in their lives and end up quashing a good amount of creativity, motivation, success and attractivity. Other people like to clothe their fundamental irrationality, their drives and secret reasons, in sentences that ooze with completely plausible sounding rational theories and complex thinking. That's what you mentioned as "rationalising", and yes, deluding yourself into thinking your motivations are purely rational is not a good idea, either. The only way to stop irrationality from ruling your thinking is to *recognise* it, recognise whether it is motivating you to something good or something stupid, and then make decisions accordingly. The things that drive us are there for a reason and need to be given room but also to be kept in check by rationality. Denying their value would make you blind to yourself, delusional about your own motives, and semi-ineffective. This message has been edited. Last edited by: His Nodle Girl, __ ...has to eat terrible things in the name of justice. |
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Member |
I was looking at my previous posts, and have decided I overstepped myself. As His Noodle Girl pointed out, examining the motive behind actions is critical. My motives were not rational, and I would like to retract what I have said. I feel rather foolish outlining what I believe should guide a persons actions, and then violating it. If anyone asks, I will gladly delete my posts (on religion, the ones on rationality should be fine). You'll have to ask Cobalt to remove his quotes though, I can't do that.
And now for something completely different... Hi Apathy, Yes, science often is advanced through hunches and imagination. However, afterwards, the scientist has been able to provide proof, and back up whatever theorem his/her subconscious spat out with reason. Otherwise, the hunch doesn't become a theorem. When acting rationally, the imagination is not turned off any more than emotion should be. That is, there is room for both in a rational world view. As for the industrial revolution, I don't think thats a good example of a destructive rational advance. The thought processes that led the revolution to be so harsh were hardly rational. People are ends, not means, and for much of the industrial revolution, that rational idea was ignored. This appears to be one of the things that led to the "destruction" that occurred in that era, not the rational thinking that advanced the technology. |
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has been eaten by a grue. Member |
i suppose it all comes down to what one defines as rational. or, better yet, it depends on what one defines as the best and most rational end result. rationally, the industrial revolution was brilliant...if your end goal was to make money and you happened to own a factory or quarry or what-have-you. but, rationally, the industrial revolution was a failure if your end goal was the betterment of society as a whole.
as i like your definition of a rational end result, i'll go with it.  ~ fLame Woosh ~ Elite Special Force Procrastinator, trained in High Arts of Extended Coffee Breaks and Master Linguist of the Water Cooler Conversation |
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always wears a tie - just not around his neck Member  |
I would like to point out that irrationality has it's place, I would go insane if I didn't have my bouts of rational irrationality
Sometimes one needs to dance naked around a bonfire or whatever equivelant irrational activity one enjoys, the only rational outcome of that acivity is the expunging of emotional overload to bring ones mind back into a rational mode of thought. I think of it like the Star Trek Matter/Anti-Matter thing, a good balance provides a lot of power, anything else can lead to BOOM! Head of internal security of the Realm of Unproductivity and Procrastination, Catnip Master in the order of the Pineapple. |
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enlightened website user Member  |
I
ApplyI my tax refund to back taxes. How am i Isupposed to stimulate the economy if you don't let me have the money I owe you?!? (Ah, the pleasures of texting off a handheld; you never know what you'll get!) knew they would, the IRS decided to as I |
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enlightened website user Member |
"would you like to try that again, sir?"
"Bloody fucking please." "very good." yeah, so no tax return, no new camera purchase. bother. |
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has no member title Member |
that was an e.e.cummings rant.
__ ...has to eat terrible things in the name of justice. |
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mutant hedgehog worm Member  |
Quantum mechanics aside, science doesn't make as large a leaps and bounds as you are asuming. Darwin wasn't the first person to propose that life had evolved throughout time. He just was the first one to propose a mechanism for such change = natural selection. He was also not the only one at this time thinking of various mechanisms. Wallace was also researching similar ideas at the same time, and in some ways forced Darwin into publishing his book earlier than he might have wished. Todays scientists are normally highly specialised into a field of research. So you will postulate experiments to demonstrate an idea. But the idea's on today tend to be along the lines of "does this amino acid change the receptor on epithelial cells when they are induced by testosterone". Thats a completely bogus experimental idea by the way. But leaps usually aren't massively different to what everyone else is thinking about and researching. Science doesn't require leornardo Da'vinci's where their genuis isn't recognised or believed for centuries after their death. It might be intuitive based of taking your pool of knowlege learned and assessing it, but not nessisarily in creative ways. I mean the central tenent of geology is that younger rocks overlie older rocks, thats hardly a brain buster.  |
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Administrator/Colporteur Member |
Hal, I think that science reporting is a big part of the reason why people see science as still taking great leaps forward. A study makes a minor observation that doesn't really change much but requires further research and it's reported as, "Field of science turned upside down by new study!"
__________ AJGraeme "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." -Barack Obama "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." - G.K. Chesterton |
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has been eaten by a grue. Member |
quantum mechanics is very...cool. i find it fascinating, although i don't understand a quarter of it.
anyway, i didn't mean to ignore the day-in, day-out labor of the work for most people or to suggest that science requires unrecognized genius. these days, it seems we believe a new scientifically proven fact about the health benefits of eggs (forget those old scientifically proven facts about the health benefits of eggs) every couple years. y'know? the culture seems to have shifted in that regard. ~ fLame Woosh ~ Elite Special Force Procrastinator, trained in High Arts of Extended Coffee Breaks and Master Linguist of the Water Cooler Conversation |
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mutant hedgehog worm Member |
yes well my opinion of science reporting in the media is another of my rants!
I was watching a richard dawkins discussion regarding teaching and it amazes me what doesn't get taught in schools. Then again in tutoring at university i would occasionally come acros people in their first year of a science degree that didn't know how matter changed states! (solid>liquid>gas) I'm continually surprised by how many people don't understand basic concepts of our world. Education needs overhauling as does the media. I have yet to see one film to represent science in a positive or factual light. Actually ome of the worst offenders have been shockers like "the core" or "volcano". And though gattaca is a fantastic movie and its science is generally okay, it portrays a world where human nature overcomes the evil culture of scientific perfection. You know I wish the culture of the USA wasn't spreading the way it is. It doesn't produce the great documentaries with the likes of David Attenborough etc. Instead you get discovery chancel sensationalist hype! |
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mutant hedgehog worm Member |
hee, random coincedence:
I join twitter and add new scientist, the first twit that i read by them is regarding early tool use in human ancestors link weird |
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Melittosphex sapiens Member  |
Yegads! Even my seven-year-old - who is more Beavis-and-Butthead than Stephen Hawking - understands that! *********************** "In science, there are no universal truths, just views of the world that have yet to be shown to be false" - J Forshaw & B Cox. |
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Administrator/Colporteur Member |
The culture has, but the science remains unchanged. Reporting on nutrition is particularly sketchy. I talk to my family doctor about what he's read, read primary or as close to primary as I can get sources and try to make a sound decision not based on what I read in magazines. __________ AJGraeme "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." -Barack Obama "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." - G.K. Chesterton |
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Melittosphex sapiens Member |
Good lord! How can he possibly have the time to discuss this with you? I can't imagine mine being very forthcoming on this, although in all ways else he's an excellent and very accessible doctor. *********************** "In science, there are no universal truths, just views of the world that have yet to be shown to be false" - J Forshaw & B Cox. |
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Neil Gaiman www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com The World's End FLAME WARS rants about non-work things
www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com The World's End FLAME WARS rants about non-work things© YourCopy 2001