Is this the forum are there any Christians
12 Nov 2012, 12:53 pm
The Talmud thing gets me confused. Why would a rational person think some Rabbi from the dark ages could write down his opinions about Scripture which then mysteriously became superior to Scripture? The concept seems a little looney to us Goyn? lol. I had one nice Jew tell me they do not have to make animal sacrifices any longer because they make sacrifices in their hearts? That sounds a little lame too. If its incumbent to follow the Law of Moses..how come they dont follow it? Enquiring minds need to know this kinda stuff. Thanks. Let us pray for Peace of Jerusalem. They are tangling with Syrians right now according to TV anyway. Little spat over the Golan Heights as usual.
Christians should be allowed to evangelize, and us Jews should know the arguments, and even more important, be comfortable in our skins to live in a christian or secular society without feeling we have to compromise on our beliefs. We should be evangelizing ourselves. Not for people to join Judaism, but to adopt our ethics, which is all that God cares about.
The Tikun Olam would be accomplished if the bulk of mankind practiced the seven laws given to Noah.
As a matter of fact, if I were a new-comer to the planet earth and I had to adapt a covenant to get along, my first choice would be the Noah laws, not the 613 mitzvot. Judaism is too complicated for most people. It is even too complicated for most Jews.
ruveyn
Those are the laws that God will judge every non-jew by.
But our mission is still to be a priestly class amongst the nations, the intent being that those 7 laws given to Noah is just the beginning, of what will be a full-fledge ethics evangelizing on our part to the nations.
The original purpose of the biblical requirements for the Jews was to condition them into being God's vehicle on earth for the spread of ethics. The same practices that were meant to condition them has also made them a group who only keep to themselves... obviously not what God wanted. It was the Christians and later Islam who would take the old testament to the world, unfortunately.
I don't know how many "Do this, and it is as if you have kept all of my laws" there are in the book, but if people could just destroy false Gods or making a God out of so many things in their life, that would be a good start.
12 Nov 2012, 1:00 pm
That would be "goyim" (Hebrew plural meaning the Nations).
One of the 613 mitzvot is that we should do all the the Levites teach us to do. Since the scholars of standing receives their smichot (a laying on of handing indicating ordination) the later generation of rabbis got the authority given to the Levites. What they taught has the same authority as scripture. In addition, Moshe (Moses) came down from the mountain not only with the tablets of the Law but oral instruction from G-D on how to apply the law. The Oral instruction was extended to "put a fence around Torah" so that the Torah laws should not be transgressed.
You will not understand this fully. To understand it you have to live as a Jew. It's kind of an Inside Thing.
ruveyn
12 Nov 2012, 6:23 pm
Ok gotcha thanks. Sounds like yall got the Rabbis sorta like the Catholics got their Popes..laying on of hands. Biblical procedure for the ordination of preachers too. Got to get the Presbytery to lay hands on you on that deal too.
That would be "goyim" (Hebrew plural meaning the Nations).
One of the 613 mitzvot is that we should do all the the Levites teach us to do. Since the scholars of standing receives their smichot (a laying on of handing indicating ordination) the later generation of rabbis got the authority given to the Levites. What they taught has the same authority as scripture. In addition, Moshe (Moses) came down from the mountain not only with the tablets of the Law but oral instruction from G-D on how to apply the law. The Oral instruction was extended to "put a fence around Torah" so that the Torah laws should not be transgressed.
You will not understand this fully. To understand it you have to live as a Jew. It's kind of an Inside Thing.
ruveyn
MarketAndChurch
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12 Nov 2012, 7:38 pm
Practicing Ritual
Because it was for a specific group of Jews in a specific time.
There are divergences within Judaism as to whether to interpret the rituals in the text as symbolic or intrinsic. There is a large body of us who see it as symbolic, and that the principles that are taught are what matters, and then there are those who believe that rituals are intrinsic, similar to a catholic who believes that the bread they consume turns into meat, or the Jew who believes there is something inherently wrong with pork. I've already spoken about practicing ritual as a way to pass on values and preserve memory. Liberal Jews think they can have the values without the ritual, Conservative Jews over emphasize the intrinsic-ness of ritual and often then loose the meaning they were meant to pass on. It has to be a middle road in Jewish life, preserving the practices, and understanding the values behind them.
Syria
The Golan Heights is something I wish Israel didn't have, but its not their fault, they acquired it fair and square from conquering armies from Syria, and those morons in the backwater of humanity will stop at nothing until civilization and the progress that civility brings is driven out of their midst.
Maimonides
The 13 principles of maimonides were developed by maimonides because the question he asked was are there fundamental Jewish beliefs that span the centuries that define us as Jews, and, are there basic requirements of the Torah that we are required to keep...
There are certain things that include you as a Jew, and there are certain things that define you as something else. Having jewish values is not enough, and being a Christian Jew or a Jew for Jesus is not a disqualifier either. Ethnicity is not enough, but secularism or anything else is not exclusionary, either.
Maimonides is not above the Torah. He clarifies what makes a Jew a Jew as far as religious life is concerned. Even in his time he was mocked and not taken seriously by many of the rabbi's of his time. What Maimonides did was clarify what defines us as a people.
Pair this with the understanding in Judaism that we are not the only people who God may or could have revealed himself to, and that we accept that maybe other faiths may reveal truths of God that in no way conflict with our understanding of him, and it becomes far more understandable. Much of the best understanding of God that I have comes from you Christians, and Muslims.
Catholics have the Vatican, the Vatican can easily declare dogma without consulting anyone. We don't have Jerusalem to do that. We have our works from the past, and our intellect that it challenges. That is what has shaped Maimonides, and what will shape future Maimonides.
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12 Nov 2012, 7:43 pm
That would be "goyim" (Hebrew plural meaning the Nations).
One of the 613 mitzvot is that we should do all the the Levites teach us to do. Since the scholars of standing receives their smichot (a laying on of handing indicating ordination) the later generation of rabbis got the authority given to the Levites. What they taught has the same authority as scripture. In addition, Moshe (Moses) came down from the mountain not only with the tablets of the Law but oral instruction from G-D on how to apply the law. The Oral instruction was extended to "put a fence around Torah" so that the Torah laws should not be transgressed.
You will not understand this fully. To understand it you have to live as a Jew. It's kind of an Inside Thing.
ruveyn
I agree. And I would add that Liberal Jews drop the laws because they have a more "evolved" and "complex" view of the world. Conservative Jews add to it to make themselves feel more pious. Moses's demand was a very simple one but it sees it does not satisfy either group in Jewish life.
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12 Nov 2012, 7:57 pm
Very informative. Thanks. Us goyim always glad to hear what old Rambam has to say..lol. Yall pick out some catchy affectionate nics for those guys. I had a brief love affair with studying up on the Jewish Mystics the Kabblah etc. Some of that stuff is hard to put down..sorta like a good interesting sci-fi book. Can be a bit spooky. Me and my house loves all folks with a special place in our heart for Jewish folks. Keep us posted on your adventures and what is afoot in Israel. We get a magazine or two from over there. The Jerusalem Post Christian edition I think it is. You ever read that? Lot of good stuff in there.
Practicing Ritual
Because it was for a specific group of Jews in a specific time.
There are divergences within Judaism as to whether to interpret the rituals in the text as symbolic or intrinsic. There is a large body of us who see it as symbolic, and that the principles that are taught are what matters, and then there are those who believe that rituals are intrinsic, similar to a catholic who believes that the bread they consume turns into meat, or the Jew who believes there is something inherently wrong with pork. I've already spoken about practicing ritual as a way to pass on values and preserve memory. Liberal Jews think they can have the values without the ritual, Conservative Jews over emphasize the intrinsic-ness of ritual and often then loose the meaning they were meant to pass on. It has to be a middle road in Jewish life, preserving the practices, and understanding the values behind them.
Syria
The Golan Heights is something I wish Israel didn't have, but its not their fault, they acquired it fair and square from conquering armies from Syria, and those morons in the backwater of humanity will stop at nothing until civilization and the progress that civility brings is driven out of their midst.
Maimonides
The 13 principles of maimonides were developed by maimonides because the question he asked was are there fundamental Jewish beliefs that span the centuries that define us as Jews, and, are there basic requirements of the Torah that we are required to keep...
There are certain things that include you as a Jew, and there are certain things that define you as something else. Having jewish values is not enough, and being a Christian Jew or a Jew for Jesus is not a disqualifier either. Ethnicity is not enough, but secularism or anything else is not exclusionary, either.
Maimonides is not above the Torah. He clarifies what makes a Jew a Jew as far as religious life is concerned. Even in his time he was mocked and not taken seriously by many of the rabbi's of his time. What Maimonides did was clarify what defines us as a people.
Pair this with the understanding in Judaism that we are not the only people who God may or could have revealed himself to, and that we accept that maybe other faiths may reveal truths of God that in no way conflict with our understanding of him, and it becomes far more understandable. Much of the best understanding of God that I have comes from you Christians, and Muslims.
Catholics have the Vatican, the Vatican can easily declare dogma without consulting anyone. We don't have Jerusalem to do that. We have our works from the past, and our intellect that it challenges. That is what has shaped Maimonides, and what will shape future Maimonides.
13 Nov 2012, 1:49 am
I love the way anyone with religion really believes that ethics are derived from their religious texts. What a load of BS.
Ethics are a philosophical evolving process and religion is not, religion does not evolve because it grounds its self in very old and badly written books.
I (an atheist) have ethics, which are probably the same as the vast majority of people on this earth.
A test for anyone who believes their ethics comes from religion. Ethic are effectively a list of rules, which the most important ones can be found in law and these laws help to create a stable society for the vast majority.
Religion has lists of things you cannot/must not do (Ethics?), some are laws (Ethics again?) Yes, those of you with religion are now jumping ahead and saying yes these ethics come from our "good books"!
If you read your "good books" you will find rules, if you believe your ethics come from these texts then you should not disagree with any of these rules because you think they are ethical.
In the Torah, the penalty for a son persistently disobeying his parents is death. Is this ethical?
The Bible (as in the Torah) penalty for cursing your parents, death again. Is this ethical?
The Quran (as in the Bible & Torah) converting to another religion, you guessed it DEATH.
None of the above are ethical, in my opinion and from a civilized modern society. As a modern society we would not stone people for having an affair, working on a Sunday or being homosexual. These "good books" all prescribe such punishments.
If you go to China you will find ethics similar to the rest of the world but they had no real religion and I would argue that their ethics are derived from cultural practices and their use of Confucian philosophy. Similarly you can see the same ethics within tribes from Africa and the Brazilian rain forest and again no religion.
Your religious texts are the twisted uneducated views of a bunch of nomadic Arabs who lived in tents and believed in magic and that the earth was flat, while in China they were drinking tea and talking philosophy.
So for anyone to argue that their religion has defined our ethics is quite simply deluded and has no real grasp of Anthropology.
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13 Nov 2012, 4:36 am
Ethics are a philosophical evolving process and religion is not, religion does not evolve because it grounds its self in very old and badly written books.
I (an atheist) have ethics, which are probably the same as the vast majority of people on this earth.
A test for anyone who believes their ethics comes from religion. Ethic are effectively a list of rules, which the most important ones can be found in law and these laws help to create a stable society for the vast majority.
Religion has lists of things you cannot/must not do (Ethics?), some are laws (Ethics again?) Yes, those of you with religion are now jumping ahead and saying yes these ethics come from our "good books"!
If you read your "good books" you will find rules, if you believe your ethics come from these texts then you should not disagree with any of these rules because you think they are ethical.
In the Torah, the penalty for a son persistently disobeying his parents is death. Is this ethical?
The Bible (as in the Torah) penalty for cursing your parents, death again. Is this ethical?
The Quran (as in the Bible & Torah) converting to another religion, you guessed it DEATH.
None of the above are ethical, in my opinion and from a civilized modern society. As a modern society we would not stone people for having an affair, working on a Sunday or being homosexual. These "good books" all prescribe such punishments.
If you go to China you will find ethics similar to the rest of the world but they had no real religion and I would argue that their ethics are derived from cultural practices and their use of Confucian philosophy. Similarly you can see the same ethics within tribes from Africa and the Brazilian rain forest and again no religion.
Your religious texts are the twisted uneducated views of a bunch of nomadic Arabs who lived in tents and believed in magic and that the earth was flat, while in China they were drinking tea and talking philosophy.
So for anyone to argue that their religion has defined our ethics is quite simply deluded and has no real grasp of Anthropology.
Human Nature
Judaism and many different religions don't have to evolve because the state of man is still the same. You are not an intrinsically progressive creature, from, say, Stalin, or Moses. If we are speaking to the human condition as it is, it has remained the same, and our instruction manuel for how to live an ethical life will remain relevant until that is not a fact.
An Advancement In Childerns' Rights
That one about the sons cursing their parents is not a good example for your case. It was a liberator of children, and a great advancement for child's rights in the ancient world. To this day in 2012, there are places on earth where the understanding is that you "own" your children. Not only does one own a child, but if that backwater of humanity most likely believes in blood guilt, clanism, and familism, your name is all that exists, and if your child, a nobody, kills your neighbor's child, your neighbor killed your child. Child, Wife, Sister, House, Horse, Sheep, all of lesser value and easily swappable in the ancient world all the way up until maybe 50 years ago, and even then, to this day, much of the world's population still operates under that way of thinking.
A Child who cursed their parent was taken to the court, and the court then ordered the stoning of the child. What it did was genius: Removed The Right To Kill A Child From Parental Authority. It was the father then, and it is the father today, who is always most likely to kill a child, for honor or whatever. The court removed that right from the parents, and if the mother objected, it was over. No children killed. What happened in real life is not only did children honor their parents, but their parents could simply tell them what their punishment for cursing them is and that would be the end of the issue. If a father killed a child for cursing him, that is murder, and he would be stoned. I'll explain further tomorrow.
False Gods
The converting away from God's religion is not applicable to Jews today. And... when it was instituted, it was only for Jews living in the holy land, who tried to take Jews away to false Gods. It was an epic battle to establish monotheism. If you didn't want to be part of that, there millions of local tribes, and entire nations you can leave and go and reside in. But if you live in Israel, as they are establishing a movement that will affect human history forever, a little diversity training here and there will not do the job.
Stoning
Stoning was always used as to show the severity of the crime it was attached to. You can say all the things you want about how bad murder is, but if you let people off easy for committing it, no one will take you seriously.
You can't be serious if you say the bible hasn't defined the ethics of the West for the last 1500 years...
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14 Nov 2012, 1:45 am
A reponse worthy of any regious appologist but I'm affraid you have shown that you're "cherry picking" to fit human nature within a religion.
Judaism is about 3'000 years old, modern Man is about about 50'000 years old, so using your logic that man is not a "intrinsically progressive creature" is a flawed concept. After all man progressed (in it's loosest sense) to inventing Judaism, although he took 47'000 yrs to get round to it.
You akin Stalin (a real person) and an atheist who did bad things in the name of communism (I like your attempt to discredit atheists with that old chesnut) to Moses (not a real person) who you beleive is the author of your Torah. Using pseudohistory to propose our ethics is "special pleading" and beleiving there is an "instruction manual", numbers 31:13-18 from which your teachings are derived are the rablings of a "detestable villain".
"And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves"
The above does not sound very ethical but this from a "law giver" who punishes 3000 people for idol worshipping with death before he passed that law to his people, again not ethical but religion is full of inaccuraces.
The advancemnet of childrens rights was wholely a northern european concept first seen in the 18th century and has no grounds in any religion. While I would agree that there are still countries that have poor childrens rights, those countries use religion to justify their backward thinking.
I would agree that the bible (religion) for 1500 yrs has played a major part in defining our ethics & morals, but not because they were right and thats why most have been cast aside.
Ethics will continue to evolve as man breaks his chains with religion and comes to realise that all that he has been told by religion is the most unethical & unmoral points any human could have imagined. Mans ethics improve the further you move away from the "promised land" both in the geographical and pyshological sense.
Natural forces created our universe 13.75 billion years ago, life began 3.6 billion years ago, modern rational thinking man appeared 50'000 years ago and religion about 6000 years ago. The universe continues to expand, life continues to grow, man continues to evolve and religion is already on the decline.
The more we understand our beginnings the less we need myths to fill in the blanks.
"The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life." — Sigmund Freud
Born a Jew, died an Atheist and contributed more the our ethical understanding than any Rabbi.
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14 Nov 2012, 4:12 am
Judaism is about 3'000 years old, modern Man is about about 50'000 years old, so using your logic that man is not a "intrinsically progressive creature" is a flawed concept. After all man progressed (in it's loosest sense) to inventing Judaism, although he took 47'000 yrs to get round to it.
You akin Stalin (a real person) and an atheist who did bad things in the name of communism (I like your attempt to discredit atheists with that old chesnut) to Moses (not a real person) who you beleive is the author of your Torah. Using pseudohistory to propose our ethics is "special pleading" and beleiving there is an "instruction manual", numbers 31:13-18 from which your teachings are derived are the rablings of a "detestable villain".
"And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves"
The above does not sound very ethical but this from a "law giver" who punishes 3000 people for idol worshipping with death before he passed that law to his people, again not ethical but religion is full of inaccuraces.
The advancemnet of childrens rights was wholely a northern european concept first seen in the 18th century and has no grounds in any religion. While I would agree that there are still countries that have poor childrens rights, those countries use religion to justify their backward thinking.
I would agree that the bible (religion) for 1500 yrs has played a major part in defining our ethics & morals, but not because they were right and thats why most have been cast aside.
Ethics will continue to evolve as man breaks his chains with religion and comes to realise that all that he has been told by religion is the most unethical & unmoral points any human could have imagined. Mans ethics improve the further you move away from the "promised land" both in the geographical and pyshological sense.
Natural forces created our universe 13.75 billion years ago, life began 3.6 billion years ago, modern rational thinking man appeared 50'000 years ago and religion about 6000 years ago. The universe continues to expand, life continues to grow, man continues to evolve and religion is already on the decline.
The more we understand our beginnings the less we need myths to fill in the blanks.
"The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life." — Sigmund Freud
Born a Jew, died an Atheist and contributed more the our ethical understanding than any Rabbi.
"intrinsically progressive creature"
Yes, but that man is not is not intrinsically progressive. Progress is not passed on through your DNA, and if you get mixed up with a different tribe or become totally lost, your offspring may revert to the morality of caveman if you don't pass on those values that took centuries to arrive at… in other words, morally primitive without the values that progress the species. Values and knowledge is transferred from each generation to the next by being taught them, and that is how we are able to, after 47,000 years, get a torah.
If we threw your offspring in a jungle along with the offspring of other people as well, and incubated their growth and development, without them knowing it, it would take 10's of thousands of years for its offspring to construct anything akin to Judaism. The majority of humanity has not even arrived at Judaism's ethics, and we're about to end 2012.
Stalin & Children's Rights
You are reading into this too much. Switch out Stalin with Hitler or beethoven or Mother Teresa if that is troubling you too much (I did not think about Stalin's Atheism). I'm just contrasting two uniquely different people who occupied different time periods and and achieved completely different things while making their mark in history. Moses wasn't a real person?
Northern Europe was in the 18th century. Who protected and advanced children's rights between 3000 B.C.E and 1700 C.E?
Numbers 31:13-18
I have already explained the passage you've selected from Numbers. Feel free to visit it here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/posts208619-start150.html
Ethics Will Evolve… A Little.
Of course Ethics will evolve, but incrementally, as there is almost nothing new under the sun. For example, when we begin to conquer the cosmos some day, there'll be space ethics, but they won't differ too much from ethics on earth. It's just that the way they are applied will be slightly different. But nothing grand, as the human condition is still the same as it was for Shakespeare, and King David.
"Promised Land"
Utopian totalitarian regimes throughout history have been united in the idea that we can make the world perfect, that we can make the kingdom of heaven on earth, that you can have the thousand year reich, that we can reach a society where each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, that if you just work the economic policies just enough, you can bring the here-after, and make it the here-now.
The Christian has a preoccupation with the next life, the Jew has a preoccupation with this life, acknowledging that there is a life after this one… for the atheist, this is it so you have no choice but to bring the here-after and make it the here-now.
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14 Nov 2012, 11:28 am
Ok thanks. Thought it was an affectionate nic name. This is a good place to learn new things.
ruveyn
14 Nov 2012, 11:45 am
Got to agree with your assessment. Some of the most ethical people on earth do not derive their ethics from religion. The problem is without religion ethics is a variable commodity subject to change on the whim and opinions of the practitioner. For example what was at one time considered unethical..slaying unborn babies for example..has now become acceptable. Unbelievers seem to often rely on their "conscience" as a guide to ethical action..but we know it's not reliable as the conscience can become seared as with a hot iron. God's Written Word is the only trustworthy guide to ethics.
Ethics are a philosophical evolving process and religion is not, religion does not evolve because it grounds its self in very old and badly written books.
I (an atheist) have ethics, which are probably the same as the vast majority of people on this earth.
A test for anyone who believes their ethics comes from religion. Ethic are effectively a list of rules, which the most important ones can be found in law and these laws help to create a stable society for the vast majority.
Religion has lists of things you cannot/must not do (Ethics?), some are laws (Ethics again?) Yes, those of you with religion are now jumping ahead and saying yes these ethics come from our "good books"!
If you read your "good books" you will find rules, if you believe your ethics come from these texts then you should not disagree with any of these rules because you think they are ethical.
In the Torah, the penalty for a son persistently disobeying his parents is death. Is this ethical?
The Bible (as in the Torah) penalty for cursing your parents, death again. Is this ethical?
The Quran (as in the Bible & Torah) converting to another religion, you guessed it DEATH.
None of the above are ethical, in my opinion and from a civilized modern society. As a modern society we would not stone people for having an affair, working on a Sunday or being homosexual. These "good books" all prescribe such punishments.
If you go to China you will find ethics similar to the rest of the world but they had no real religion and I would argue that their ethics are derived from cultural practices and their use of Confucian philosophy. Similarly you can see the same ethics within tribes from Africa and the Brazilian rain forest and again no religion.
Your religious texts are the twisted uneducated views of a bunch of nomadic Arabs who lived in tents and believed in magic and that the earth was flat, while in China they were drinking tea and talking philosophy.
So for anyone to argue that their religion has defined our ethics is quite simply deluded and has no real grasp of Anthropology.
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14 Nov 2012, 5:11 pm
I agree, and it isn't as bad as relying on the heart, but conscience is not that much more an elevated source for ethics, and neither is logic or reason. It is all just all opinion in the final analysis if there is no objective origin that we source ethics from.
If God isn't the author of thou shall not steal, then it is just opinion: You say its not okay, I say it's okay some of the time, another person will say its fine so long as you don't get caught, and whose to say any of us are wrong...
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14 Nov 2012, 5:48 pm
The thing about it is that I don't really buy the fact that the Bible or the Torah or any other book was a God Given guide to ethics. They are... books, and at least the Bible has a lot of inconsistencies to boot. Following those books to the letter would lead to a very warped ethic system. From what I've gathered from other threads though, Jewish people put a lot of time and effort into studying their Scriptures, and finding what's acceptable and what's not from there. Then I ask, why is what they say not "just an opinion" as well? From what I've gathered, after the bad stuff is explained away, the resulting ethic system is actually good. But I'd give that one less to it coming from the Torah, and more to all the intelligent people who have devoted themselves to studying it.
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14 Nov 2012, 6:48 pm
The term torah means to teach. Not Law. You are not here to follow the laws or stories of the book rigidly. You are here to see what values and principles there is to be learned from the text about life and the human condition.
The fundamental difference between some of us religious people, and those who are liberal but religious, or irreligious all together, is that we believe in the divinity of the text, and the other group does not. They believe it was the works of brilliant men, we believe that since there have been generations after generations of brilliant men who have existed throughout time, but none of them has ever constructed as detailed an instruction manuel for life, and detailed account of the nature of God, and the human condition, that this could not have been the works of brilliant men alone, and that a divine element had to have been involved. There is too much intellectual material to digest from every sentence without reading into things that it is absolutely stunning the intellect the architects of it must have had. Especially considering that this was 3000 years ago. We are ending 2012, and yet many places in the world have still not arrived at many of our ethical positions.
When brilliant men study it, and they largely arrive at very similar conclusions, from studying semantics, history, etc, and to have the ages examine the opinions of the rabbi's of previous generations, time, and arriving at similar positions, dictate that perhaps the text is saying what we believe it is saying, reconfirmed time and time again throughout the chapters.
We could possibly be misinterpreting what we are reading. We never deny that, ever. But when enough of us arrive at the conclusions that that is in fact the case, we'll simply revise our positions to the more accurate interpretation that exists.
The bad stuff isn't explained away, it is explained in the light the authors intended you to see it in, and there are even a few spots where an explanation will not suffice, but not very many. I have maybe 4 or 5 things in the torah that I find troubling, but the question I ask is: "What am I missing, what is it trying to teach here, or is anything to be read into this?"
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