Question about Torah and Talmud
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kkawohl
Well-Known Member
It is nice to know that you are so easily amused.I said:I nearly choked on Coca-Cola, reading that.
kkawohl
Well-Known Member
Your explanation of God's interaction with Moses was enlightening...but tell me please, in your opinion, was God's interaction with Moses at all physical by either God or Moses or was this a "privacy of experience", a totally spiritual interaction?bananabrain said:
Kurt
bananabrain
awkward squadnik
i don't know. the privacy of experience actually makes it difficult philosophically to argue that anyone else can possibly validate in even a mundane experience, let alone the most sublime interaction. so, to be quite honest, i don't see how my opinion has any bearing on what actually happened. the point is whether i choose to abide by the laws that came out of that encounter - and, more pertinently, how i choose to interpret them.
the arab-israeli conflict is not a religious war, of rationalists against fanatics; it is a tragedy of modernity. our faiths have all got "issues" from confronting the modern world and the problem of israel and palestine is simply a way to avoid dealing with them by abrogating responsibility. as long as the islamic world (and indeed the jewish one) can raise this as a "how can we deal with these problems when people are dying?" it will continue to torpedo any serious discussion.
b'shalom
bananabrain
er... i really don't follow the logic of this. suggesting that judaism should be used to bring "rationality" to islam is misunderstanding what both of them are about - and misunderstanding rationality, aside from being patronising and an essentially western chauvinism. rationality is not some kind of panacea, as you seem to think. there is no guarantee that rationality results in people behaving decently to each other. indeed, if you've seen "apocalypse now", it is arguable that kurtz' (and the viet cong's) approach to war is far more "rational" - it results in victory. quite apart from this, islam has a highly developed history of rationalism, if you've ever heard of ibn al-rushd (averroes) or ibn sina (avicenna). in fact, most of the major religious figures of both islam and judaism prior to 1492 including such jewish luminaries as maimonides were engaged in a strenuous - albeit less than totally unsuccessful - attempt to reconcile the rationality of aristotle and the greek philosophers with both jewish and islamic thought. so this is nothing new.
the arab-israeli conflict is not a religious war, of rationalists against fanatics; it is a tragedy of modernity. our faiths have all got "issues" from confronting the modern world and the problem of israel and palestine is simply a way to avoid dealing with them by abrogating responsibility. as long as the islamic world (and indeed the jewish one) can raise this as a "how can we deal with these problems when people are dying?" it will continue to torpedo any serious discussion.
b'shalom
bananabrain
kkawohl
Well-Known Member
So why, IYO, 512 years later, is Jewish & Islamic rationality further apart? Has Judaism progresses and Islam regressed? Many radical Muslim clerics and Muslim fundamentalists still abide by verses in the Koran where Allah commands them to expand Islam by any means possible. This is causing problems in areas of Chechnya, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and other regions.bananabrain said:
I repeat, IMHO, one can of course find a million reasons why religious rationality wouldn’t work, but consider this: If religious radicals would eventually (in 100 years?) be considered mentally deficient, would they eventually disappear? I know, the present system has existed for several thousand years & will not change easily, but every new development began with the first step. The best weapon against irrationality is logic. If logic is implemented in religion, eventually the inference of reasoning has to predominate and the illogical will be considered inferior and will ridicule itself out of existence.
Namaste,
Kurt
I don't know much about far eastern history and politics - but I can state pretty assuredly that the Chechnya situation is one of politics first - namely, that of Russia refusing to allow that republic independence from Moscow.
bananabrain
awkward squadnik
er.. the rationalists (and, more to the point, the moderates) still agree with each other. it's the extremists who are guilt-tripping the moderates into following them, or generally employing any means in their power to influence the religion as a whole. the only defence we have is to take the religion back into our own hands and refuse them a monopoly of interpretation. this does NOT, repeat NOT, mean "only accept rational religious interpretations", it means we must be REASONABLE. other jews are always whinging at me about how the mean old beardies run everything and make everyone else feel ignorant, to which i say "why the hell do you let them?" take up the power and knowledge for yourself and LEARN - don't cede them control of the territory. OWN your own religion and tradition - you have only yourself to blame if you let the extremists set the agenda and run the show. moderate muslims (and jews and christians) are finally starting to stand up and say in public what they've only said in private for reasons of solidarity - "YOU DON'T REPRESENT ME. I WILL SPEAK IN MY OWN NAME AND I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR REPRESENTING MY OWN OPINIONS."
every time i hear one of the lunatic fringe on the "today programme" in the morning (like today, when they let that maniac omar bakri muhammad on AGAIN) i am struck by how he speaks of "the muslims" as if they are all of one opinion - which he, incidentally, purports to represent - speaking over the heads of the oblivious journalists to the only people whose opinions he seeks to influence, members of the wider muslim community. nobody ever challenges him. oh, occasionally iqbal sacranie shows up and says "he doesn't represent us" but he never points out that OBM is simply not playing in the same game that the media are.
i think i am digressing again but i dare say you get my point.
b'shalom
bananabrain
kkawohl
Well-Known Member
I agree. There is a very simple solution to the present conflict. If Muslims would urge their clerics to immediately publicly renounce and condemn ALL killings & it would stop, the entire world would support them and they would quickly achieve their goal of having their conflicts resolved.bananabrain said:
Namaste,
Kurt