Are you embarrassed about being Jewish?

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Judaism is Judaism period. Juduaism doesn't have denominations. A Jew will always be considered a Jew as long as he/she was born to a Jewish mother and/or was converted as per Orthodox ritual. Because of assimilation and dispersion over countless centuries various influences have infiltrated resulting in a situation where congregations *define* for themselves gradients of what to take and what to leave out of the stream they choose to follow. However - the basics - One God, Sinai, Patriarchs, Matriarchs, Torah, holidays - are constant factors that do not change. Levels of observance, do. And that is all that separates one stream from another.

Kal,

Whether or not it's reality is questionable and I never said it's a bad thing. The last sentence of my previous post was referring to beliefs not related to science. Certain beliefs are necessary in order to apply the scientific method, as I stated previously.



The tests require beliefs about how something can be verified, what type of data is valid, and how valid the data is. Empricism is itself a belief. They don't start with a blank slate. They start with certain assumptions about how reality can be known and verified.



Neither of those statements are true. I'm an agnostic pan/panentheist. I don't hold beliefs about the world, in fact I hold fewer than those scientists who cling to reductionist materialism. I have many ideas about the world but I assess them regularly and certainly in many if not most cases my ideas manifest as a range of possibilities rather than a particular one.

Religion does not always require rigid adherence to a particular set of beliefs. Even when it comes to ethics I'm a relativist which is not to say I don't have certain principles that I hold to be important but that I don't hold those principles to be universally true. Was Hitler a bad person? The world community thought so, but the Germans at the time saw him as a hero. Does that mean I approve of Hitler's actions? No. But I don't think he must be evil, nor that we can say with absolute clarity what the nature of evil is or if it really exists outside of a generated conceptualization by man.

If I practice a particular set of religious rituals regularly and actively seek and engage in religious experiences yet do not hold that any of those experiences are universally true then how am I either a fundamentalist or not religious? I think your association of religion with fundamentalism is faulty.

By your definition of fundamentalism science is a fundamentalism.

Anyway, I dispute your definition of religion and think it's based on your own ego-stance as being opposed to a certain group within society that you choose to label with a very absolute and limited definition because admitting to its nuance instead of creating a straw man would make your statements more difficult. Personally I think it makes much more sense to oppose fundamentalism. As long as someone can admit to the possibility that they might be wrong, even if they believe that they're right, I'm not so worried. It's when someone's convinced that they're right, that they've got Truth, everyone else is wrong, that I think there's the most cause for concern. Are you convinced that you have Truth or a way of perceiving Truth?

jjstar,

those things have and do change. Orthodox conversion is not the only valid conversion except according to the Orthodox themselves. There are more differences than just level of observance. There are theological and philosophical differences about the nature of G!d, the nature of authority, the nature of Torah, the nature of revelation, the nature of chosenness, eschatology, the nature of mitzvah, how Judaism can and has changed, what types of investigation into Judaism are valid etc. It doesn't help to whitewash and call it all the same. Better to acknowledge our differences and honor them.

-- dauer

[quote="2ukenkerl"ALSO, such flowery things said by a politician, activist, adherent, descendent, or celibrity is MEANINGLESS! They tend to be biased and for public dispersal even when the speaker believes the contrary.[/quote]

Considering that these speakers actually spoke the truth regarding a people that have survived for 5,000 years every single hardship thrown at them be it from Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Canaanites, Assyrians, Christians, Nazis, Muslims (this is still ongoing - the last fight, before the End) - in spite of consensus at the time - says a lot about that person's integrity and courage and basic balls to get up and root for the guys everyone else on earth despises.

Maybe I am not far off base. I may just be talking about a taboo topic.

Last edited by JWRed on 02 Dec 2007, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The conversion processes may transpire but they're still not seen as valid in Rabinnical courts and marriage to a Halachic Jew (in Israel at least) would be problematic.

http://www.beingjewish.com/conversion/b ... ewish.html

jj,

They are seen as invalid in Orthodox rabbinical courts, not all rabbinical courts, and the rulings of the Israeli gov't are no more valid for all of the Jewish people than those of any other body.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/lifecyc ... rences.htm

Pantheism holds many more assumptions than scientific thought does, beginning with the God postulate. Also, can you explain what is an agnostic Pantheist? Sounds interesting. If Pantheism was not built off assumptions, it would be philosophy. Of course, philosophy is littered with assumptions, but they try to work through it. Its just a question of semantics and how you want to label Religion vs Philosophy. Its not an ego stance so much so as using the most common definition of the words.

Religion as quoted by Dictionary.com:


a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.


Philosophy as quoted by Dictionary.com:


the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science.

Its a question of semantics, and if you want to call a certain philosophical outlook on the Universe religion, your going to to have a lot of people mistake what you say.

Yes, Empiricism is built off prior assumptions, but its still held up to rigor that Religion can not begin to approach. However, again we're talking about belief vs thought. Ican still have a very dubious outlook on reality, and be a scientist. What works today, may not work tommorow, but I guess it works fine now, lets continue! I disagree about many Scientists being fundamentalists, so far as their beliefs can not be challenged. Their are many scientists who believe we can not know everything about the Universe, due to Empiricism NOT always working. Eventually Empiricism does break down, and saying all Scientists believe it doesn't isn't exactly true. Very good point though, as it does again call in the nature of reality. However, these assumptions again are regularly tested, and so are not fundamental, because they can change. Again this calls into question thought vs belief, where thought has evidence, belief does not.

This is just an argument of semantics, and how we are using words. I don't believe its a disagreement over systems of thought, just a disagreement over how we are using words such as belief, thought, philosophy, and religion.

I don't think I ever said I had the truth. I actually said that I didn't think anyone had the truth. However, many systems of religion, that claim to have the Truth, have very faulty foundations; postulates. Belief in a diety, such as Yahweh, demands equal belief in pink unicorns flying around Mars. If you want to discuss philosophy, thats much different than discussing Religion, and belief in a deity. Would be much more interesting than discussion the color of God's boxers. However, this has deviated from the discussion quite profoundly by our definitions of the words being very different from one another.

The agnosticism in your pantheism leads me to believe this is not so much a religion, as it is philosophy.

Right, and I'm an agnostic pan/panentheist. You missed the agnostic part. It means I don't believe pantheism or panentheism are necessarily true, but that it's an approach to reality I turn to somewhat frequently. I could in the same breath call myself a reductionist as I'm quick to become skeptical about any concept of Spirit or a metaphysic. I try to accept my subjective experience without becoming an elevationist, so in another moment I will doubt quite strongly one or another subjective experiences, not that I experienced them, but what was actually happening. My experiences themselves, based on the reports of other individuals, correlate with the same types of experiences that someone else might treat concretely. It's for this reason that I sometimes use theistic labels. It's not perfect but I can't think of a better way of referring to these things.

I would suggest that dictionary.com's definition would better be stated as:

"a particular set of beliefs/worldviews and/or practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion. "

and that it doesn't take the more liberal forms of religion into account. I also think it's a very Western view of religion, Western in this case meaning heavily influenced by Christianity, a religion which itself emphasizes belief very much. I think if anything religion has much more to do with adherence either to a particular worldview/belief and/or to a particular practice. I don't think belief is always so central or concrete among members of the same religion.

I also would ask, what about the philosophy of religion? Do you consider that as something which exists outside the realm of religion?



According to your definition of religion, not mine.



If one's beliefs being able to be challenged is what removes the label of fundamentalist than many religionists are not fundamentalists either. I've spoken to many religious people who have been completely willing to admit that they may be wrong and who have assessed their own beliefs in the past or currently assess them. I've had that very conversation with a conservative christian which I admit was atypical for how conversations go with members of that group.



I mostly agree, but I think we also have a different understanding, not just of the meaning of fundamentalism, but of the views of many members of liberal forms of religion. I don't think that's something that can be resolved within this conversation, however. Or perhaps it is that you would say that many of the liberal members of organized religion today who practice their religion are not religious. I think part of the issue is that there is an overlap of religion with philosophy which at times can seem a like a bit of a gray area. I don't think it's necessary for something to be only philosophy or only religion and I'm not sure philosophy is frequently associated with adherence to a system of ritual activities.



Yes, I agree with you. I told you I'm agnostic. I don't believe or disbelieve in G!d. I don't think our personal subjective experiences are a way of verifying what is True. Even a universal experience is, from one perspective, only validation of a shared experience, not that the experience correlates to anything outside of the individual psyche.

I am one who holds a similar view of Truth. I don't think, even if someone had it, there would be any objective way to verify at least at this time. I can't imagine a way that we could really verify it beyond a doubt but I do think we can speak in terms of what is more or less likely and that being able to speak in those terms can have practical implications.

Oh no I didn't. I would not label you religious at all, because the religious view you defined can easily be interpreted as philosophy, and it many ways to begins to tread on the same grounds as it. As I later edited, I can conclude that , in my definition of religious, you are not religious at all. If I used your definition of religion, I could label very many more things religious. Its just semantics. If I was to use your label of religion, I can very well be labeled a religious man, but that would give off an incredibly wrong impression of myself, which is I don't hold any particular belief in a God (atheist), but I'm not sure if we can ever really find out if there is in fact such a being (agnostic).

Many of the religious people you talked to seem more agnostic, who take Pascal's wager and side on religion "just in case". I would not define them as religious, as it starts to get into that gray area again. Also, religion implies blind faith, and these people are not blind at all.

The philosophy of religion, like St. Thomas Aquinas, still takes the assumptions of fundamental religion.

In the end, I think we agree on many things, just not our definition of religion. Yes, it is a gray overlapping area that I wanted to draw a dichotomy through to better define our conversation. I can see the same conclusion is come to. I would try to define it with the least amount of gray area possible, because in the same breath you talk about blind faith, you talking about philosophy also, at least in my mind, which greatly confuses the conversation. Religion as I define it is blind faith that can never be challenged.

I feel that way about Wrong Planet.

My outsider view of NYC was Jewish.

A constant disagreement over everything, as a means of discovering the truth of anything.

In New Orleans I was told I was rude, arrogant, superficial, aggressive, blunt and anti-social.

In New York I found my kind of people.

New Yorkers, You love them, or you hate them! Or both!

I am with Greentea,

I would rather be with people I understood enough to hate, than with people I did not understand at all.

this is a ghetto?

I mostly like Jews. They're smart people.

This thread has lost 35.7% of its former glory in the last 20 minutes.

glory?

The discussions and video's. I want them back now.