But Really, Why Was Jesus Crucified?

[Ben Masada]

Believing in the future is also superstition, because it doesn't exist yet. That is something to think about, not that I'm trying to make you superstitious. Consider that in many inland areas in the USA (and other parts of the world) you can go to farmland with fertile unsalted soil, but if you start digging you find the fossils from salt sea creatures less than ten feet down. Conch shells and shark teeth are found beneath standing wheat and soy beans and even in the highlands. When I think about how I feel seeing those shells underneath of soy beans, it is like how I feel about Torah, like finding something unusual beneath the mundane. It is the feeling that anything may happen.

Right! The future does not exist yet. So, to believe in the future will be superstitious if you do it with the fallatious certainty of faith. Probability is the word. Probably, one must expect that the future will be so and thus.
Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

hmm. that would still depend on how you define and interpret "hand-in-hand"; anyway, i think you are starting to understand how i explain and understand this stuff.

Hand-in-had means not in contradiction with.

gee whiz, you're starting to sound like a j-witness again. no, you don't "need" anyone to teach you, but one certainly needs to teach oneself to learn.

Well, read Jeremiah 31:34. That's one of the items of the New Covenant.

sa'adia ga'on once said "G!D Forbid there should be anything in the Torah that contradicts reason" - but i cannot agree with him and, frankly, reason in his day - and in maimonides' - was a lot more trammelled than it is nowadays, when nobody serious seriously contemplates "proofs of faith".

IMHO, the only thing faith proves is ignorance and death. Hence what happened to the faithfuls of Jim Jones. People perish for lack of knowledge which is the opposite of faith. (Hosea 4:6)

are you seriously maintaining that your position is maimonidean? maimonides, the author of the "13 principles of FAITH" - the creator of the formulation "ANI Ma'AMiN Be-EMUNaH ShLeIMa" (i believe with perfect faith [trust] that)..? seriously?

No, my position is Biblical.

oh, get off your high horse. anything that is makes it into the thinking of the sages must necessarily have a scriptural source, as i have said several times.

That's what I am after: The scriptural sources for what the sages say.

Ben

 

[Dream]

Right! The future does not exist yet. So, to believe in the future will be superstitious if you do it with the fallatious certainty of faith. Probability is the word. Probably, one must expect that the future will be so and thus.
Ben

Ben, I'll tell you what I think. Obviously you believe in the future when you have your various festivals and community activities.

On the subject of applying the concept of probability to God: In post 6 you referred to some charges made by King David in Psalm 14:1 . Obviously some god exists in Psalm 14:1 to David, but what is David actually saying? 'God' can be many things depending on the context. If I however first insist God is a __something__ to give God a probability of existing, I automatically am applying a superstition to the word 'God', saying that God must be a __something__. It destroys the meaning of the verse. That is because probability provides unknown information about measured objects, not nebulous ones. In Psalm 14:1, David is saying that a villain thinks no one is holding them accountable. Insisting upon a probability God would put huge emphasis upon the word God (which by the way should be lowercase in this verse). It obfuscates and fails to remove fundamentalist tendencies to impress a method of reading the verse. You're merely telling people they must read the verse a particular way that you want them to read it. Now you have replaced the fundamentalist insistence upon faith with another fundamentalist insistence of how to read the verse.

 

[donnann]

It seems you have greatly overestimated me, Donnann; though I appreciate your attempt at communication. It is the trick and miracle that no one ever really can estimate me properly, and that is because I cannot estimate myself. As long as I don't think you're a bot I'll respect you as a fellow poster, but don't assume that I'm of the same mind. Maybe there is some way that you could dumb the information down a little bit more. Maybe then I could understand what you are trying to impart.

Basically there were pairs to begin with not just two. A whole community of human beings. Each pair was considered one being. When they went outside the pairs sexually is caused the pairs to split apart and caused mortality.

 

[bananabrain]

Hand-in-hand means not in contradiction with.

only if you ignore the entire normative jewish tradition - contradictions and resolutions are how we develop understanding of the halakhah.

IMHO, the only thing faith proves is ignorance and death. Hence what happened to the faithfuls of Jim Jones. People perish for lack of knowledge which is the opposite of faith. (Hosea 4:6)

then you haven't even vaguely understood what is meant by "emunah" in judaism.

No, my position is Biblical.

no it isn't. you're trying to reconstruct the entire lecture with only the "cliff notes". you can try and avoid this all you like, but perhaps you can tell me then how it's "biblical" to get married? because the Tanakh only tells you how to get divorced. where does it mention the ketubah? there's no way round this without the Oral Torah!

That's what I am after: The scriptural sources for what the sages say.

i've just fecking given you the applicable sources for what's in the Oral Torah - "it is not in heaven" and "after the majority incline", both of which are in the Written Torah. until you have accepted this principle of human interpretation WHICH IS COMMANDED IN THE TORAH there's actually no way for you to get from Torah to normative judaism. i'm not going to re-establish it in every single conversation.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[Dream]

Basically there were pairs to begin with not just two. A whole community of human beings. Each pair was considered one being. When they went outside the pairs sexually is caused the pairs to split apart and caused mortality.

Were the serpents in pairs, and were the other animals and the trees in pairs?

 

[radarmark]

bananabrain --

an aside. "Enumah" is more like "a firm acceptance of H!s will"? Ken?

 

[bananabrain]

no, radar - it is far closer to trust. and there is a difference between belief IN and belief THAT.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[radarmark]

Thanks, will do some searching on that.

 

[Ben Masada]

Ben, I'll tell you what I think. Obviously you believe in the future when you have your various festivals and community activities.

On the subject of applying the concept of probability to God: In post 6 you referred to some charges made by King David in Psalm 14:1 . Obviously some god exists in Psalm 14:1 to David, but what is David actually saying? 'God' can be many things depending on the context. If I however first insist God is a __something__ to give God a probability of existing, I automatically am applying a superstition to the word 'God', saying that God must be a __something__. It destroys the meaning of the verse. That is because probability provides unknown information about measured objects, not nebulous ones. In Psalm 14:1, David is saying that a villain thinks no one is holding them accountable. Insisting upon a probability God would put huge emphasis upon the word God (which by the way should be lowercase in this verse). It obfuscates and fails to remove fundamentalist tendencies to impress a method of reading the verse. You're merely telling people they must read the verse a particular way that you want them to read it. Now you have replaced the fundamentalist insistence upon faith with another fundamentalist insistence of how to read the verse.

Dream, there are two modalities of belief. One is by faith and the other is on the base of probability. Those who believe by faith, aka, the fundamentalists, are sure 100% of things they do not know. These are no different from atheists who disbelieve by faith what they find hard to conceive. IMO, David had both in his mind when he wrote Psalm 14:1.

Regarding the other modality of belief, it does not matter how high or low is the degree of probability; one is safe of the Psalmist's charge for being cautious. Who on earth is sure of anything among mortals? Even the great Albert Einstein, when asked if he believed in God, he said that all his life was to try to catch God at His work of creation. Why did he say that, instead of simply saying no? Because he had in mind the expansion of the universe, which scientists are not sure how it happens. It could very well be God at His work of creation. It could be, I mean, it is probable. But none is sure about anything. Probability goes with caution and prudence.
Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

only if you ignore the entire normative jewish tradition - contradictions and resolutions are how we develop understanding of the halakhah.

I know. In a word, "controversy." That's how knowledge is developed.

then you haven't even vaguely understood what is meant by "emunah" in judaism.

Emunah in Judaism is trust and loyalty. Faith is too misleading. Therefore, for Christians; not for the Jews. Abraham did not draw the Divine blessings over his descendants because of emunah but because of his obedience to God's command. Read Genesis 22:18.

no it isn't. you're trying to reconstruct the entire lecture with only the "cliff notes". you can try and avoid this all you like, but perhaps you can tell me then how it's "biblical" to get married? because the Tanakh only tells you how to get divorced. where does it mention the ketubah? there's no way round this without the Oral Torah!

Really! You do not know how Abraham, Isaac and Jacob got married? You might want to brush up a little on your reading of the Torah. This that the method to get married is different today from that time, it is just a social development of the procedure. For better, which I enjoy the positive effects of fences around the Torah.

i've just fecking given you the applicable sources for what's in the Oral Torah - "it is not in heaven" and "after the majority incline", both of which are in the Written Torah. until you have accepted this principle of human interpretation WHICH IS COMMANDED IN THE TORAH there's actually no way for you to get from Torah to normative judaism. i'm not going to re-establish it in every single conversation.

Take it easy man, just get back on the mood of "b'shalom" or you can choose to ignore my posts. BTW, it is not appropriate for Gentiles to read us and laugh at two Jews in a controversial argument that will take us nowhere.

Ben

 

[Dream]

Dream, there are two modalities of belief. One is by faith and the other is on the base of probability. Those who believe by faith, aka, the fundamentalists, are sure 100% of things they do not know. These are no different from atheists who disbelieve by faith what they find hard to conceive. IMO, David had both in his mind when he wrote Psalm 14:1.

Ben, thanks for reading my post. You're a patient fellow! I think I better understand what you are trying to describe now. Often this psalm gets quoted by itself "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." Doubt is thought of as a contagious disease by many children and by many preachers. If you catch the disease of 'Doubt', then it is like you are dead on your feet. Your words no longer count, because you lack the faith to understand. You may even be excluded from society, marriage or even family. Faith is by some considered equal to a lifetime of good acts, while doubt undermines any. You are putting forward a counter to that attitude.

You are talking about the idea of avoiding David's charge or the ways that a person can conscientiously do so though plagued by doubts. (I'm just following your reasoning.) If we take doubts as a reasonable part of life and David's words to be inspired, it remains that there must be a way to continue in David's footsteps despite those doubts. Was he not also a man who must also have doubted at some point? Perhaps what you are saying is that by acting on the probability that evil doings will be reckoned, you have sidestepped the above fundamentalist reasoning altogether. So a person might be allowed to have doubts, but if they act based upon the possibility that their actions will be judged they do well despite their having doubts. Then they can read David's words as written in English Bibles and not have to feel evil or dirty just because they have doubts.

Regarding the other modality of belief, it does not matter how high or low is the degree of probability; one is safe of the Psalmist's charge for being cautious. Who on earth is sure of anything among mortals? Even the great Albert Einstein, when asked if he believed in God, he said that all his life was to try to catch God at His work of creation. Why did he say that, instead of simply saying no? Because he had in mind the expansion of the universe, which scientists are not sure how it happens. It could very well be God at His work of creation. It could be, I mean, it is probable. But none is sure about anything. Probability goes with caution and prudence.
Ben

I think that Einstein cannot be compared to most people, precisely because he was so great. Its hardly possible for me to know why he did things certain ways. Most of the time when people are mentally gifted in an area it takes away from their gifting in other areas, Einstein had a very large and organized brain. For all I know he may have done things knowing that someday a boy named 'Dream' would be born, upon whom he would be pleased to play a practical joke. Perhaps he is laughing at me from his grave. I will take your word for it though.

 

[bananabrain]

there are two modalities of belief. One is by faith and the other is on the base of probability.

i am afraid that this rather relies on you being able to base the assumptions in your numbers of matters of faith. i am familiar with all the arguments about, for example, conditions for life in the universe, but whatever you put into the assumptions affects the outcome and there is no way you're ever going to be able to prove it. in any case "proofs of faith" were last in fashion in the middle ages and they are, frankly, misconceived. maimonidean "principles" require faith-based belief, however you want to phrase that.

Those who believe by faith, aka, the fundamentalists, are sure 100% of things they do not know.

not all of us. some do our best to believe things that we are not absolutely sure of, but believe to be right and it is best to be honest about this; either way, other people cannot be induced to be convinced by such things.

These are no different from atheists who disbelieve by faith what they find hard to conceive.

what absolute rubbish. atheists do not believe at all. they go on the evidence. they also do not see why they should accept a priori something that seems unreasonable to them based on these assumptions - see russell's "jupiter-orbiting teapot" for your example; it cannot be disproved, but there is no reason to suppose it to be the case for them. now, for you and i, there may be very good reason for us to suppose the various articles of jewish faith to be the case, but this is not a communicable experience.

Even the great Albert Einstein, when asked if he believed in God, he said that all his life was to try to catch God at His work of creation.

oh, give over. einstein was *not* a theist in the traditional sense and no amount of selective quoting will construct this case. on the other hand:

It could very well be God at His work of creation. It could be, I mean, it is probable. But none is sure about anything. Probability goes with caution and prudence.

this is about as definite as one can really be about these matters, so at least you get that.

In a word, "controversy." That's how knowledge is developed.

perhaps, but not by insulting other religions as your jumping-off point - read our code of conduct. this is an interfaith dialogue site and your tone displays a sort of preachy arrogance i normally associate with saudi-influenced dawah merchants.

You do not know how Abraham, Isaac and Jacob got married?

no, because the detail isn't there.

You might want to brush up a little on your reading of the Torah.

well, instead of trying unsuccessfully to be patronising, why don't you quote me exactly where it says how the patriarchs dealt with things like the contract, the witnesses and so on, because it certainly isn't stated explicitly.

the method to get married is different today from that time, it is just a social development of the procedure. For better, which I enjoy the positive effects of fences around the Torah.

go on then - how did they get married at that time, according to the Torah? with verses, please.

Take it easy man, just get back on the mood of "b'shalom" or you can choose to ignore my posts.

i'm not going to ignore someone who seems to think the purpose of an interfaith dialogue site is to harangue christians about how misguided and wrong their faith is; i will ask you again to read the code of conduct rather than moderate you.

BTW, it is not appropriate for Gentiles to read us and laugh at two Jews in a controversial argument that will take us nowhere.

i can't believe you wrote this. are you seriously suggesting that this is an appropriate time or place for an appeal to tribal solidarity? if you're wrong about this stuff - and you are - it is quite appalling to suggest that i should give you a free pass. "not in front of the goyim?" arsebiscuits to that. in fact, how dare you? it's called an "argument for the sake of heaven". it's a qiddush haShem. what you are suggesting is a hillul - you should be ashamed of yourself.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[Ben Masada]

Ben, thanks for reading my post. You're a patient fellow! I think I better understand what you are trying to describe now. Often this psalm gets quoted by itself "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." Doubt is thought of as a contagious disease by many children and by many preachers. If you catch the disease of 'Doubt', then it is like you are dead on your feet. Your words no longer count, because you lack the faith to understand. You may even be excluded from society, marriage or even family. Faith is by some considered equal to a lifetime of good acts, while doubt undermines any. You are putting forward a counter to that attitude.

You are talking about the idea of avoiding David's charge or the ways that a person can conscientiously do so though plagued by doubts. (I'm just following your reasoning.) If we take doubts as a reasonable part of life and David's words to be inspired, it remains that there must be a way to continue in David's footsteps despite those doubts. Was he not also a man who must also have doubted at some point? Perhaps what you are saying is that by acting on the probability that evil doings will be reckoned, you have sidestepped the above fundamentalist reasoning altogether. So a person might be allowed to have doubts, but if they act based upon the possibility that their actions will be judged they do well despite their having doubts. Then they can read David's words as written in English Bibles and not have to feel evil or dirty just because they have doubts.

I think that Einstein cannot be compared to most people, precisely because he was so great. Its hardly possible for me to know why he did things certain ways. Most of the time when people are mentally gifted in an area it takes away from their gifting in other areas, Einstein had a very large and organized brain. For all I know he may have done things knowing that someday a boy named 'Dream' would be born, upon whom he would be pleased to play a practical joke. Perhaps he is laughing at me from his grave. I will take your word for it though.

Of the things you have said above, I would like to say a few words about the following: "...because you lack the faith to understand." IMHO, one does not understand by faith. Faith and understanding don't go together. Understanding comes as a result of knowledge and research. No wonder Disraeli, a former British Prime Minister said that where faith begins, knowledge ends." And Hosea reenforced that by saying that "people perish for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6) The faithfuls of Jim Jones had no understanding of their insane leader, and we all know today what happened to them.
Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

what absolute rubbish. atheists do not believe at all. they go on the evidence. they also do not see why they should accept a priori something that seems unreasonable to them based on these assumptions - see russell's "jupiter-orbiting teapot" for your example; it cannot be disproved, but there is no reason to suppose it to be the case for them. now, for you and i, there may be very good reason for us to suppose the various articles of jewish faith to be the case, but this is not a communicable experience.

What I meant is that atheists believe that God does not exit. I consider this kind of belief as of being by faith because they cannot prove the non-existence of God. They are famous to claim that there is absolutely no evidence for God to exist. That's what I meant by something they cannot conceive. If the universe is not an evidence for the existence of the Creator, according to Psalm 19:1, they should be able to prove where the universe came from and how. Otherwise, they should include God's existence into the concept of probability.
Ben

 

[Lunitik]

What I meant is that atheists believe that God does not exit. I consider this kind of belief as of being by faith because they cannot prove the non-existence of God. They are famous to claim that there is absolutely no evidence for God to exist. That's what I meant by something they cannot conceive. If the universe is not an evidence for the existence of the Creator, according to Psalm 19:1, they should be able to prove where the universe came from and how. Otherwise, they should include God's existence into the concept of probability.
Ben

The world must have been created for there to be a creator... If there is a creator something already existed for him to create from, for him to be born from. The mind automatically brings in much stupidity when you declare such things, yet the very notion there must be a beginning is something of the mind.

It is impossible to answer logically how things have began because there is no witness to it, even if we accept there is a creator, what is to say he is simply ignorant as to his own beginning? How can we discover his creator? If this creator can come about without anything creating it, why can existence itself not come about spontaneously as well?

There are many holes in this argument, and yet the whole point is simply irrelevant. It is, here and now, simply be grateful for this, you do not need to personify something to say thank you to, simply make your life a display of gratitude.

 

[Lunitik]

For me, energy itself is intelligent, it is the direct cause of our own intellect - just firings in the brain...

Yet, this does not diminish religiousness, for the experience of what is called God remains available. It is just that it is no longer dependent on some strange fellow who wants to control man like a shepard and his sheep, there is less silly speculation, less of the mind clouds what is encountered.

Take away God, and you realize these men have simply come to the summit of human experience and are trying to share what they have found. Now there is a possibility for man to mature, he is no longer a child suckling on his mothers breast. Zen is the absolute height man has climbed to in this direction - free from Buddhism and Taoism, yet containing both and even some Advaita, but transcending them all - it simply towers over all the other streams!

This is the current flowering of humanity, but we can go higher.

 

[Servetus]

as a community we were almost completely unprepared for re-integrating the iberian crypto-jews [at the time of Spinoza] that gravitated to the intellectual freedom of holland, with tragic consequences.

Right. The situation was complex. Here, for what it is worth (coming, as it has, from a pinko leftie turned neo-conservative author), is something I recently read in which a Marrano of the era reportedly had more trouble with the synagogue than the synagogue had with the Marrano. See, too, how the incident may have affected Spinoza.


Source: (pp. 13-15)


“That same year, in 1640, the young Spinoza no doubt heard and saw much concerning the tragedy of the stormy rebel, Uriel Acosta. The entire Jewish community was involved in a vindictive act, the crushing of a spirit. Uriel Acosta, born to a Marrano family in Portugal, had been enchanted in childhood by the legends and history of his secret people. In manhood, he abandoned his legal career and fled to Amsterdam, where he could assert his identity openly as a Jew. But legend and reality often diverge. Acosta was dismayed by the actualities of Jewish life. He brooded upon the narrow selfishness of the Amsterdam Jews and asked himself whether they were truly the descendants of the people of the book. He came into conflict with the Synagogue’s leaders, was excommunicated, recanted, then broke with communal discipline again after a few years, was once more excommunicated, and was finally compelled to submit to a horrifying public flagellation. Broken in will, he sat down to write his autobiography, then shot himself.


The child Spinoza witnessed the ordeal of the freethinker Acosta. Children can be made into their elders’ images, and the Amsterdam Jews, wrote Acosta, “set their Children upon me in the Streets, who insulted me in a Body as I walked along, abusing and railing at me, crying out, There goes a Heretick, there goes an Apostate.” The adults “spit upon me as they passed by me in the Streets, and encouraged their Children to do the same.” Then came the spectacle of the last recantation. “I stripped myself naked down to the Waste [sic],” Acosta told; then, his arms bound, “the Verger came to me, and with a Scourge of leather Thongs gave me nine and thirty Stripes … During the Time of my whipping they sang a Psalm … After this … I prostrated myself, the Door-keeper holding up my Head, whilst all both old and young, passed over me, stepping with one Foot on the Lower Part of my Legs, and behaving with ridiculous and foolish Gestures, more like Monkeys than human Creatures.” The child Spinoza probably remembered the communal cruelty. In any case, he mocked his people in later years for their rites of excommunication …


What made the expulsion of Acosta inevitable was his diatribe against the community’s Elders. The oligarchs could not overlook bitter words which were aimed against their own socio-economic status. “The modern Jewish Rabbins,” asserted Acosta, “like their Ancestors, are an obstinate and perverse race of men, strenuous advocates for the odious Sect of the Pharisees and their Institutions, not without a view to gain, and, as is justly imputed to them, vainly fond of the uppermost seats in the Synagogue …”

 

[donnann]

Were the serpents in pairs, and were the other animals and the trees in pairs?

All the animals were in pairs too. Thats why in the story of noah god told noah that there were pairs of animals one male and one female of each kind. However I believe there were pairs of each kind not just one pair of each just like I believe there was a whole human community and not just one pair of human beings to begin with.

 

[donnann]

All the animals were in pairs too. Thats why in the story of noah god told noah that there were pairs of animals one male and one female of each kind. However I believe there were pairs of each kind not just one pair of each just like I believe there was a whole human community and not just one pair of human beings to begin with.

Problem is we are not solitary creatures and the other problem is finding our one true other that makes us whole. On the one hand we dont do well alone, on the other hand we are not complete and dont feel completely unalone unless we are with our one true other half. Its kind of a catch 22. I believe we all have a number, just like atoms have numbers ect somewhere in our stem cells that is the largest number but is the smallest unbreakable unchangeable element that defines us. I call this number the crystal number. This number also determines who your opposite is and only your opposites number will completely match like a mirror image. I also believe even the animals have these numbers.