Question about Torah and Talmud

[kkawohl]

How can we change Muslim religious ideology to stop terrorism?

A fanatic passion to please God has been demonstrated throughout the Ages. We have seen vast destruction and useless killings by religious zealots that have followed us into the present century whereby even technology is unable to quell its tide. Muslims have been led to believe that they must expand Islam in order to please Allah/God. Since Judaism created the present perception of God, it is the duty of Judaism, the originator to bring rationality to a belief in Allah/God if Israel and Judaism wants to live in peace with Muslims.

If all the events that occurred as written in the Bible, Qur’an and Torah now, today, would humanity be as gullible now and accept all miracles and God as portrayed then? If the context entails incorrect exegeses and the vast tradition of hermeneutics and the translation is illogical, it is illogical whether it is by my interpretation or by any logic.

Mankind has progressed past a need for a God who desires and requires servitude. We can eliminate servitude and still have a closeness and love of God. It was man who placed restrictions on himself for the good of mankind and attributed this to God. Most of us now live in a lawful society. Now laws are proposed and enforced by governments. God does not, and never has meddled in our affairs.

If we take rationality completely out of context when establishing an association with present day problems between Jews, Christians and Muslims, we can come up with numerous solutions. Reality however dictates that if there were no distinctions between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, strife would be nonexistent. The major distinction is religion.

The best weapon against irrationality is logic. If logic is implemented in religion, eventually the inference of reasoning has to predominate and the illogical will be considered inferior and will ridicule itself out of existence. Today we have at our disposal the means whereby the media can reach even the farthest corners of our world.

How does one confront the passions of people with a logical entreaty to abandon faith? How does one convince a young man that his self-immolation in a bombing will not bring redemption from Allah to his soul and rewards to his people or honor to his family?

If logical reasoning lodges doubt into the mind of a martyr that his soul will be destroyed as a punishment for being the cause of cutting short another soul's ability to attain a bond with Allah/God, eventually the act of self-sacrifice ceases. This is the only effective way that man will eventually attain peace.

We can spend billions of dollars in an attempt to annihilate groups of people who have an adamant fanatical goal to destroy anyone who hinders the path of spreading their religion. They believe that this has been commanded by Allah. The end result will always be the same. The fanatics who are destroyed fuel the hatred of a new group with the same or an even fiercer fervor to die for their Allah if the need arises.

How do we solve this problem? The pen is mightier than the sword. To the illiterate, visual projections via film is the greatest tool. The media and film producers have always shied away from the possibility of offending religious organizations. A fear of the fundamentalists' wrath has even stifled the desire for the truth. Can the real truth be revealed? Will this end strife? Maybe not, but unless we try, we will never know; will we?

True logic is the science of inference and reasoning.
Kurt Kawohl

[I, Brian]

No matter where you look through history, there is conflict. Long before Christianity, Europe was savaged by war, long before Islam, the Middle-East was savaged by War; long before Judaism...well, that's getting pretty early - but there was almost certainly war.

Religion and politics have often been so terribly intertwined that to some they have become indistinguishable. But this applies to any religion.

For example, here in the UK we underwent various violent invasions: the Celts, the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings - not a single one motivated by monotheistic traditions, but polytheisic traditions. Whilst certain apologetic Neopagans will try and play down the extent of violence involved, the fact remains that these were not generally peaceful migrations - where people migrate into new and populated territory it almost never is.

[bananabrain]

I submit that after several thousand years of irrationality applicable to the Judeo-Christian antiquated fundamentalism their beliefs are still mostly based on superstitions and they are stuck in a inescapable chasm that is deeper than most holes.

*grin* stone him! stone him! obviously you have established that you speak with an authoritative opinion on these matters. deary me. the above statement rests on several assumptions, any one of which i find highly questionable:

a) that *you* get to define what is rational and irrational
b) that there is such a thing as "judeo-christian" (one of my bugbears. i tend to answer that there isn't, because there usually isn't much "judeo" involved)
c) that *you* get to define when something is "superstitious"
d) that the "j-c" chasm is "deeper" than most holes (a rhetorical point if ever i've seen one)

as brian says, quoting vast chunks of badly translated literal english doesn't prove you know anything about the Text in question, its context or use. furthermore:

My spirit has seen the face of God and if I'm lying I'm risking the survival of my soul...and I KNOW that my soul will be with God...God is spiritual and is the progressive and accumulative spiritual intelligence of the universe; of all the righteous souls who have passed into the spiritual realm. God does not and never has meddled in the tangible universe.

ahem. such certainty sounds rather more fundamentalist than the sort of stuff that i come out with. i don't *know* any of this stuff to the same degree that you appear to claim to know. belief is not the same thing as knowledge. you seem awfully certain that you know what G!D has Done or not Done.

you claim to be a rationalist. if that is really what you are, which seems somewhat dubious given the sort of stuff you claim to know, which cannot, of course, be rationally proved.

the "logic and rationality prove that G!D exist" is a really old argument. if they do, why aren't more logicians and rationalists convinced by these proofs? more to the point, how do you know what makes G!D "happy"? the only people i know who have this sort of certainty are people like osama bin laden, jerry falwell and the like.

if you want to select *one* of the above quotes from a jewish text, i am more than happy to study it with you when i have a moment, but please have the courtesy to avoid rushing to judgement - that is the mark of the bigot.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

*grin* stone him! stone him! if you want to select *one* of the above quotes from a jewish text, i am more than happy to study it with you when i have a moment,
b'shalom

bananabrain

Temporarily hold off on the stoning until it is deserved, if you please.

I accept your challenge. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Orthodox Jews believe God taught the Oral Torah to Moses, and he taught it to others, down to the present day. This tradition was maintained in oral form only until about the 2d century C.E., when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the Mishnah.

Moses is described as the only person who ever knew God face-to-face (Deut. 34:10) and mouth-to-mouth (Num. 12:8), which means that God spoke to Moses directly, in plain language, not through visions and dreams, as God communicated with other prophets.

I stated "My spirit has seen the face of God". I say, "God is spirit & our spirit is the only one capable of interacting with the spiritual existence".

Christians claim that Jesus physically talked to God & Muhammad physically received God's mesage.

Do you believe God spoke to Moses directly, in plain language, not through his spirit?

[bananabrain]

Orthodox Jews believe God taught the Oral Torah to Moses, and he taught it to others, down to the present day. This tradition was maintained in oral form only until about the 2d century C.E., when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the Mishnah.

you can assume that there's no need to repeat stuff like this for me.

Moses is described as the only person who ever knew God face-to-face (Deut. 34:10) and mouth-to-mouth (Num. 12:8), which means that God spoke to Moses directly, in plain language, not through visions and dreams, as God communicated with other prophets.

ok - the sages posit a hierarchy of prophetic experience. note that when they do so, they are talking only about prophecy in the jewish context, not referring to comparative prophetic experiences to validate it. (there are non-jewish prophets in the bible, incidentally, like balaam as well as people like the false prophets of baal who cop it at the hands of elijah) moses is at the top of this hierarchy of prophetic experience, followed by the prophets and patriarchs, followed by some of the great mystics. moses is described as hearing the teaching direct, as opposed to the other prophets who had visions or dreams or the sages and mystics who heard "batei qol", heavenly voices, or possessed ruakh ha'qodesh - literally the "holy spirit", but this is not what christians mean by that english phrase, but it means that they are on a higher level of spiritual development.

it is important to be clear that the phrase "face to face" (PeH EL-PeH) and so on do not denote physical relations or any kind of literal understanding. the standard commentary on this text, RaSh"I (C12th France) says:

"This 'vision' is a vision of speech, that G!D explains the *statement* to him with its "frontal view", rather than obliquely, or making it vague for him with riddles, in the manner that was said to Ezekiel, 'compose a riddle, etc..' One might be able to think that Moses was shown the vision of the Divine Presence. To teach us different, the Torah says, 'You shall not be able to see My face.'"

in other words, moses saw the *message*, not the face of G!D - rashi quotes the second half of that verse "and at an Image of G!D you shall gaze", reconciling it like this: "this is a view of the back, like the matter which is said, 'and you will see My back.'" (exodus 33:23)

the "mouth to mouth" statement is sometimes also interpreted to mean that moses separated himself from his wife in order to commune directly with the Shekhinah or Divine Presence in this manner, as it were. for this reason, there is a tradition that his actual death came about by the "kiss of the Shekhinah".

with all this said, there is nothing i have seen that indicates that G!D used "plain language", as you put it. we explain this through the idea that moses was the only prophet able to understand *all the implications* of the Divine Speech, in other words all the levels of both the Written and Oral Laws and that which exists within them in potentia. however, this is of course belief - extrapolated from the same laws by the principles of jewish exegesis and hermeneutics. the actual mechanics of what happened are, naturally, beyond our understanding.

it is also the position of our tradition that the "prophetic facility" ended with the destruction of the Temple, as did the "impulse to idolatry" as a category of Torah law. the rough always went with the smooth even then. however, there exists a large body of laws for recognising jewish prophecy should it ever reappear.

I stated "My spirit has seen the face of God". I say, "God is spirit & our spirit is the only one capable of interacting with the spiritual existence".

well, i dare say. the point is, we're on a website. i could tell you i was ten foot tall with wings if i felt like it. now, although this claim could be disproved visually, what your spirit gets up to in its own time cannot because of what philosophers call "privacy of experience". so arguing about the mechanics of what did or didn't happen is a bit of a waste of time IMHO. we are more interested in how people actually behave in real life.

b'shalom

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

well, i dare say. the point is, we're on a website. i could tell you i was ten foot tall with wings if i felt like it.

I nearly choked on Coca-Cola, reading that.

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

I nearly choked on Coca-Cola, reading that.

It is nice to know that you are so easily amused.

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

well, i dare say. the point is, we're on a website. i could tell you i was ten foot tall with wings if i felt like it. now, although this claim could be disproved visually, what your spirit gets up to in its own time cannot because of what philosophers call "privacy of experience". so arguing about the mechanics of what did or didn't happen is a bit of a waste of time IMHO. we are more interested in how people actually behave in real life.

b'shalom

Your explanation of God's interaction with Moses was enlightening...but tell me please, in your opinion, was God's interaction with Moses at all physical by either God or Moses or was this a "privacy of experience", a totally spiritual interaction?

Kurt

[bananabrain]

i don't know. the privacy of experience actually makes it difficult philosophically to argue that anyone else can possibly validate in even a mundane experience, let alone the most sublime interaction. so, to be quite honest, i don't see how my opinion has any bearing on what actually happened. the point is whether i choose to abide by the laws that came out of that encounter - and, more pertinently, how i choose to interpret them.

Since Judaism created the present perception of God, it is the duty of Judaism, the originator to bring rationality to a belief in Allah/God if Israel and Judaism wants to live in peace with Muslims.

er... i really don't follow the logic of this. suggesting that judaism should be used to bring "rationality" to islam is misunderstanding what both of them are about - and misunderstanding rationality, aside from being patronising and an essentially western chauvinism. rationality is not some kind of panacea, as you seem to think. there is no guarantee that rationality results in people behaving decently to each other. indeed, if you've seen "apocalypse now", it is arguable that kurtz' (and the viet cong's) approach to war is far more "rational" - it results in victory. quite apart from this, islam has a highly developed history of rationalism, if you've ever heard of ibn al-rushd (averroes) or ibn sina (avicenna). in fact, most of the major religious figures of both islam and judaism prior to 1492 including such jewish luminaries as maimonides were engaged in a strenuous - albeit less than totally unsuccessful - attempt to reconcile the rationality of aristotle and the greek philosophers with both jewish and islamic thought. so this is nothing new.

the arab-israeli conflict is not a religious war, of rationalists against fanatics; it is a tragedy of modernity. our faiths have all got "issues" from confronting the modern world and the problem of israel and palestine is simply a way to avoid dealing with them by abrogating responsibility. as long as the islamic world (and indeed the jewish one) can raise this as a "how can we deal with these problems when people are dying?" it will continue to torpedo any serious discussion.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

er... i really don't follow the logic of this. suggesting that judaism should be used to bring "rationality" to islam is misunderstanding what both of them are about - and misunderstanding rationality, aside from being patronising and an essentially western chauvinism. rationality is not some kind of panacea, as you seem to think. there is no guarantee that rationality results in people behaving decently to each other..... in fact, most of the major religious figures of both islam and judaism prior to 1492 including such jewish luminaries as maimonides were engaged in a strenuous - albeit less than totally unsuccessful - attempt to reconcile the rationality of aristotle and the greek philosophers with both jewish and islamic thought. so this is nothing new.

So why, IYO, 512 years later, is Jewish & Islamic rationality further apart? Has Judaism progresses and Islam regressed? Many radical Muslim clerics and Muslim fundamentalists still abide by verses in the Koran where Allah commands them to expand Islam by any means possible. This is causing problems in areas of Chechnya, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and other regions.

I repeat, IMHO, one can of course find a million reasons why religious rationality wouldn’t work, but consider this: If religious radicals would eventually (in 100 years?) be considered mentally deficient, would they eventually disappear? I know, the present system has existed for several thousand years & will not change easily, but every new development began with the first step. The best weapon against irrationality is logic. If logic is implemented in religion, eventually the inference of reasoning has to predominate and the illogical will be considered inferior and will ridicule itself out of existence.

Namaste,
Kurt

[I, Brian]

I don't know much about far eastern history and politics - but I can state pretty assuredly that the Chechnya situation is one of politics first - namely, that of Russia refusing to allow that republic independence from Moscow.

[Marco]

Reply to the Silly Lies on Holy Beautiful Great Talmud

[bananabrain]

So why, IYO, 512 years later, is Jewish & Islamic rationality further apart?

er.. the rationalists (and, more to the point, the moderates) still agree with each other. it's the extremists who are guilt-tripping the moderates into following them, or generally employing any means in their power to influence the religion as a whole. the only defence we have is to take the religion back into our own hands and refuse them a monopoly of interpretation. this does NOT, repeat NOT, mean "only accept rational religious interpretations", it means we must be REASONABLE. other jews are always whinging at me about how the mean old beardies run everything and make everyone else feel ignorant, to which i say "why the hell do you let them?" take up the power and knowledge for yourself and LEARN - don't cede them control of the territory. OWN your own religion and tradition - you have only yourself to blame if you let the extremists set the agenda and run the show. moderate muslims (and jews and christians) are finally starting to stand up and say in public what they've only said in private for reasons of solidarity - "YOU DON'T REPRESENT ME. I WILL SPEAK IN MY OWN NAME AND I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR REPRESENTING MY OWN OPINIONS."

every time i hear one of the lunatic fringe on the "today programme" in the morning (like today, when they let that maniac omar bakri muhammad on AGAIN) i am struck by how he speaks of "the muslims" as if they are all of one opinion - which he, incidentally, purports to represent - speaking over the heads of the oblivious journalists to the only people whose opinions he seeks to influence, members of the wider muslim community. nobody ever challenges him. oh, occasionally iqbal sacranie shows up and says "he doesn't represent us" but he never points out that OBM is simply not playing in the same game that the media are.

i think i am digressing again but i dare say you get my point.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

moderate muslims (and jews and christians) are finally starting to stand up and say in public what they've only said in private for reasons of solidarity - "YOU DON'T REPRESENT ME. I WILL SPEAK IN MY OWN NAME AND I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR REPRESENTING MY OWN OPINIONS."

...nobody ever challenges him. oh, occasionally iqbal sacranie shows up and says "he doesn't represent us" but he never points out that OBM is simply not playing in the same game that the media are.

i think i am digressing again but i dare say you get my point.

b'shalom

bananabrain

I agree. There is a very simple solution to the present conflict. If Muslims would urge their clerics to immediately publicly renounce and condemn ALL killings & it would stop, the entire world would support them and they would quickly achieve their goal of having their conflicts resolved.

Namaste,
Kurt