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If you don't like the word despair we don't have to use it. It was your interpretation of the text. As I said, he's using it euphemistically to refer to a low point in his life as the surrounding verses indicate. The actual verse doesn't mention despair. It's connected to threats to David's...

Sorry for the doublepost. Wanted to make one other comment on the "go up to the sky" question. In the biblical worldview there is a rakeea or firmament surrounding the world that rotates around it. The stars etc are all holes in its surface. YHWH's throne sits atop the firmament. I wrote an...

c0de, You're assuming that the word "shamayim" is equivalent to the contemporary concept of heaven. It's not and Jews don't refer to the afterlife as shamayim. It really would be better to say, "If I go up to the sky" . You'd have to show that shamayim and sheol and identified in the Tanach...

Salty, It's very possible. I've suggested before that in context it doesn't seem like there's any reference in the Torah at least to an eternal soul. You do have people communicating with the dead later on though, like Saul.

I am sorry to hear that you have been having a difficult time lately and hope that you can make your way through it without doing anything rash. Let me offer you a few resources in case you're looking to read more about reincarnation in Judaism: About Gilgul Neshamot - Transmigration of Souls...

Well, no, the afterlife is discussed very little in the Tanach. Most discussions are found elsewhere. It's not all nearly as set in stone as the afterlife beliefs in many other traditions but it also doesn't typically get a lot of emphasis, although during some periods it has received a huge...

There are ways around the great firewall. A guy I knew who was living in Hong Kong used to bypass it. Maybe it's less safe to do so on the mainland.

Oh I agree that it's pretty mild compared to a lot of other people, and there have certainly been occasions where I'd say c0de was correct as well as others where he seemed to be creating straw men and getting in the way of dialogue. Given his facility with theology I think he could add a lot...

I don't know that it is. There are two different theologies that Kaplan presents, one naturalistic and the other not. The movement which has followed him sometimes leans toward one and sometimes the other. Lately due to the influence of Renewal I'd say it has generally distanced itself from...

I just came across this short youtube clip and it made me think of BB's recent comparison of Reconstructionism to Jewish humanism: YouTube - RRC & Kaplan: Rabbi Jacob J. Staub On God as "the Power that makes for salvation" Staub quotes Kaplan as saying that "[it is not a] rational...

Just read a related article by Jay Michaelson: Commentary: Defining God Upward - Hadassah Magazine | HadassahMagazine.org

oh I wasn't suggesting as much. It was a parallel that was drawn from one of the two sources. I'm actually somewhat uncomfortable with that sort of essentialism.

Some of this reminds me a little of Yochanan Muffs' z"l thesis in The Personhood of God summed up here by Moshe Halbertal: Moshe Halbertal on "The Personhood of God" (Subtitled in English) Perhaps it is only because both are attempting to define Judaism against paganism, order against chaos...

btw = by the way fwiw = for what it's worth

Sounds similar to the counterexamples raised by Edmund Gettier. See: Gettier problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gettier Problems[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

I tend to contextualize belief as a state, a type of perception or awareness that is closer to intimate knowing than it is to the assertion of the truth of a proposition. For some people belief is just that sort of assertion of truth that I don't see as terribly relevant. I think for most people...

In my experience the more common reason for avoidance of tattoos among the non-religious has to do with belief in the old wives' tale that they won't be able to be buried in a Jewish cemetery with them. Perhaps it's different across the pond.

I'd say they're certainly religious sometimes, but only when applying that word according to its extended meaning. I don't think Kaplan would have seen them as very Reconstructionist nor would the new Reconstructionists today. Kaplan was too concerned with a redefined naturalistic God and in...

Gahhhhh. That is unfortunate. Looks like Last is similar though.

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