Search results

You're right. I'll try to do better.

Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been. I'm not saying that something is false because it is orthodox. I'm saying that if you don't question what others say, you have no way of knowing if it's false.

Sorry, Frost, but I couldn't disagree more. First, let's deal with the "chosen people" thing. I've never been really comfortable with that (it sounds like the "one true religion stuff). But even Jews who accept it consider it a yoke, not a gift. It means we're held to a higher standard. There's...

Some 14 or 15 years ago, I attended a seder specifically geared for children. There were toy frogs and locusts, and sunglasses for the days of darkness. It was a blast.

Probably right, but horrifying. Civilization collapses, we forget all we have learned, and start all over again.

Come to think of it, the first questions should have been: "What's wrong with eating that fruit?" "If you really don't want us to eat it, why did you put the tree there?" And most important, "Why do you want to keep us ignorant?"

Here's a better piece on Kaplan: Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan | Jewish Virtual Library

Marcia Lou: You may want to look up the works of Mordecai Kaplan, the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. Basically, he rejected the concept of a personal, supernatural God. He saw God as a cultural concept. It's hard to explain. Wikipedia does a decent if brief job...

Sorry it took me so long to stumble onto this one. The answer is no. I've enjoyed seders, and I've always doubted the literal history of the story (except when I was sure it wasn't true). To my mind, myth and ritual have intrinsic value regardless of whether the myth is true and the ritual...

How do you define "orthodox Christian traditions?" Greek and Russian Orthodox? Is the Catholic Church Orthodox. Or, since you didn't capitalize orthodox, should we assume you mean the dictionary definition, "pertaining to, or conforming to the approved form of any doctrine, philosophy, ideology...

I have no idea what you mean by that. But if you're asking if I'm a Biblical scholar, I can't say I am. I'm horribly monolingual.

I'm sure that this rabbi, and pretty much anyone who seriously studies Torah, understands the difference between modern and Biblical Hebrew.

Okay, I'll tell you my story. My parents were Jewish only in the ethnic/cultural sense of the word. They were both atheists. My mother, raised by religious Jews, rejected religion in adolescence. My father was born and raised an atheist. He was far more anti-religion than my Mom. When I...

How can a translation of a translation be the one true version? A rabbi, who is very familiar with the Hebrew original of what Christians call the Old Testament, told me that King James was the best English translation, as literature. But as an accurate translation, it's the worst.

I picked up this metaphor from an off-hand comment by a Buddhist monk in the book The Jew in the Lotus. But I've expanded on it considerably. Religion can be looked upon as food. Consider the laws and rules that make us better people. Treat others as you would want to be treated. Practice...

That thing with the ears of corn must truly be a miracle. While the word "corn" can be any grain, the term "ears of corn" apply to maze--the vegetable we call "corn" in the modern USA. That's a new world crop whose existence was unknown in 1st century Judea. Now then, about curing on the...

I agree. Lincoln

That is an utterly absurd and false choice. How do you know God's commands (let alone if God is a He)? How many people have gone on killing sprees because they thought that Gold told them to. How do you know that what you think is God's commands aren't your own fantasy--or a fantasy implanted in...

A spiritual path does not need to be ascetic. It can include embracing sensual pleasures, including sex and erotic art.

That's a pretty big assumption to make about a large portion of humanity. They may not be on your spiritual path, but they be on another one.