noonehomer

Karma: −4

noonehomer Apr 27, 2014, 10:13 PM
0 points
in reply to: Username’s comment on: Open thread, 21-27 April 2014
That would work… but the Chareidim don’t actually believe in their defenses (they flee places getting bombed and leave the soldiers to defend people’s lives), nor are these defenses backed up in any way by halacha (they’re misinterpreted that one text they use as a source). Also, they don’t allow anyone in their community to go into the army. Ever. And they don’t let non-Chareidim join them in their learning for defense, either.

noonehomer Apr 27, 2014, 10:10 PM
2 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open thread, 21-27 April 2014
Almost certainly I can. But right now I’m in high school, so I don’t know that many people who qualify.

Um… assur means you can’t do it. It’s not less severe than “forbidden”, I don’t think. It literally means “bound”. It’s important to note that it doesn’t mean something’s morally wrong, but in this case, independent of the prohibition (non-literal translation of the noun form, issur) the act of reading foreign philosophy without knowledge of the corresponding arguments in one’s own can cause stupid questions, not smart ones, and is considered to be wrong, not just forbidden (in my father’s circles, anyhow).

noonehomer Apr 27, 2014, 9:24 PM
−7 points
on: Avoiding Your Belief’s Real Weak Points
Um… were you ever really Modern Orthodox? What about “Baruch Dayan Emes” after someone dies, or the continual affirmation of God after tragedy with kaddish? You, sirrah, have many blind points on this subject. I believe that God gave the Torah. God is not wrong. God created humanity, and He does not have to treat them as thinking beings beyond the dispensation He gave. He destroyed the Egyptian army, as was His right, and yet He STILL mourned and would not let the angels sing, yet He allowed the humans because He understood they could not be expected not to celebrate. You shouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand, since you clearly haven’t learned very much of the Midrash or, for that matter, much about Judaism period.

I’m sorry your experience with religion scarred you. That doesn’t give you the right to make broad generalizations.

EDIT: To those who down-voted me, my point is that his fundamental premise is that any “real” question will lead to his answers, i.e. rejection of faith. That’s narrow-minded and not at all rational

For the record, the simplest answer may be the best way to go based off of information, but germs weren’t the simplest answer when it came to figuring out where disease came from. History shows, again and again, that what seems to be the simplest answer is often wrong. So I don’t like your logic.

And that’s a lovely quote at the end. Truly. But I don’t think it entails the rejection of God or Judaism to question what I believe.

Besides, how can we ever know what’s true? I like Kant’s system for this. We can’t know what the real world looks like, only what our brain understands. For all I know, you’re not real. I’m not real. The point is, knowing is impossible, and truth is impossible without some sort of leap of faith. You choose to trust your brain. I trust in God, which makes a lot more sense to me.

noonehomer Apr 27, 2014, 9:15 PM
1 point
in reply to: iarwain1’s comment on: Open thread, 21-27 April 2014
I don’t know about “frum”. Badly educated and mistakenly chumradik is more like it.

noonehomer Apr 27, 2014, 9:13 PM
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open thread, 21-27 April 2014
The hardest part of reading things l’havin ul’horos is that I can’t recommend them to anyone else because it’s assur for non-learned people to read them (possibly even non-Jews, in this case). And yes, iarwain1 is correct that apikorsus is a thing and an apikores is a person. But thank you for translating.

noonehomer Apr 25, 2014, 12:29 AM
0 points
in reply to: iarwain1’s comment on: Open thread, 21-27 April 2014
I’m an Orthodox Jew (Modern Orthodox). Since Mr. Yudkowsky’s work is—obviously—apikorsus of the highest level, I read it l’havin ul’horos, mostly, but enjoy the thinking in it anyway.