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| Volume 13 Number 45 | Tue May 11 9:07:26 2004 |
From: Julian Yudelson <jeybbu@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Date: Sun May 9 17:12:01 2004 Subject: Bible and 21st Century Science May 4, 2004. MLJ XIII:43 I do not understand the problem of this poster. Rambam, as well as contemporary Jewish scientist, may posit that the Torah contains scientific truths without claiming that it is a science textbook. The concept of four basic element has come to us primarily from the Greeks, whose civilization is much younger than the Israelite society. Earth, air and water can be easily understood as representing the three forms that all elements may take, solid, liquid, and gaseous. Fire, represents energy, which is essential via quantum mechanics for keeping all the atoms both together and apart. Judaism was never "based on these 4 elements," but ancient texts did base the understanding of the physical reality on that construct. A previous understanding is not "wrong" in a moral sense if it based on the bet information at the time. The knowledge that water is a liquid produced by the joining of two gases is a relatively recent "revelation." As far as a traditional Jewish view of God and wisdom is concerned, the fourth paragraph of the Shmona Esray concludes, "Blessed are you, Adonoy, Grantor of perception (wisdom). Zusel ben Shlomo
From: Julian Yudelson <jeybbu@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Date: Sun May 9 17:13:17 2004 Subject: Flags on the Bima My congregation has both the American and Israeli flag on the Bimah and concludes Shabbos morning services with the singing of Ha tikvah. The Shabbos service includes the standard prayer for the government of the United States (the nation in we live), prayers for the State of Israel, and a prayer for Zahal, the Israel Defense Forces. Jewish community events often start with the Star Spangled Banner followed by Ha Tikvah. "Rabbi Hanina, the deputy High Priest said: Pray for the welfare of the ruling power, since but for fear of it, men would have swallowed up each other alive." Pirke AVotIII:2 Zusel ben Shlomo
From: Johanna <rebiljoj@woh.rr.com> Date: Mon May 10 18:04:53 2004 Subject: Flags on the Bima Thank you to all who responded to my query about flags on the bima. I would welcome more thoughts about this. My husband and I were both against having the flags on the bima. Our feeling was that, difficult as it is to admit, history shows that countries and cultures come and go. What is eternal is G-d. The bima is there for those elements of our tradition (which also, admittedly may change over time) that direct our attention and our souls to what is Eternal. That is not the realm of states. We feel that the lobby is the perfect place of the flags. Most of the people in our congregation felt the same way and putting the flags on the bima was voted down. What I am most proud of, however, is not what the outcome of the vote was. I am truly inspired by the process that the congregation when through in this decision-making process. The rabbi, wisely, stayed out of it. The ritual committee spent several hours discussing it in order to make a final recommendation. When the primary individual pushing the issue disliked the decision of the ritual committee and the board, it was decided to take the issue to the general meeting. At the meeting, everyone who wanted to speak was given an opportunity to do so and did so respectfully. No one could quibble with the outcome of the vote. It was eminently fair, and the person who's preference was voted down left feeling that, although he was disappointed, he was respected and heard. This, I believe is extraordinary for most synagogues I've had dealings with. I'm very proud of our temple! Johanna
From: Susan Daniels <esusandaniels@yahoo.com> Date: Sun May 9 17:15:08 2004 Subject: Prisons and Hazing Someone asked what is the difference between the Iraqi prisons and hazing. In hazing there is *VOLUNTARY* association between the members and the initiates. There is a presumed benefit at the completion of the pledge experience, that is membership as an equal in the fraternity and presumably networking to other members once college is completed. Also, the pledges pick their fraternity and can un-pledge or decide they do not want the pledge experience. Their families know where they are and can get in touch with them whenever they want. There is also some legal oversight. In the prisons, the detainees were arrested for an undetermined amount of time. They will not become members of the US Military. They cannot quit if they want. Their families cannot contact them. If the detainee is the family bread winner, the family is now poverty. And as the picture illustrates there is no legal authority for what the guards did. On a more personal note, I use to live across the street from a fraternity where the excess drinking and partying was the norm. In fact hazing did occur as I saw althought the boys probably thought it was just horseplay. I do not think it came anywhere near what goes on in the Iraqi prisons. Susan Daniels
From: Steven Weintraub <stevenw@fchoice.com> Date: Mon May 10 18:02:14 2004 Subject: Suprarationalism A while back there was an editorial letter written by a fundamentalist Christian complaining the all liberals thought right wing Christians were not rational. I was discussing this letter with a good friend of mine, our corporate lawyer and a devout Catholic. He brought it up and in in the beginning of the discussion I said : "But Mark - Christianity is not rational" :-) He took affront at this remark instantly, to which I replied : "Its not rational by definition. It's a Faith. It bases its philosophy on faith, not rational reasoning." He then replied by that definition, Judaism and Islam aren't rational too. I agreed. But the question is what sort of faith is it. When separated, rationalism and faith are wilderness pursuits. Rationalism is provably limited and must leave us empty. The problem is modern philosophy and science has shown that rational means can not derive the answer to some of the fundamental questions of physics or metaphysics. We can not get all the facts, all the rules or all the methods. More importantly we can not tell if metaphysics actually exist, much less does that metaphysics manifests in a coherent Universal we can relate to (which we call G-d). Faith without rationalism leaves no check on reality. I can believe anything and no matter what I believe you can not disprove it. If reason tell me that my faith is wrong I can ignore reason. This is irrational faith. Unfortunately much of religion falls for this fallacy (and I believe the fundamentalist Christian would fail to see the problem with this). It has also lead to some of the greatest excesses of faith. But I can use rationalism to provide us with a scaffolding to make leaps of faith from. If we do that then rationalism can be a check on whether our leaps reasonable or not. Faith based like this is supra-rational. By using Philosophy and faith together we get a framework that each buttresses and strengthes each other and leaves a system stronger than either on its own. In the sections of Rambam Robert Kaiser quotes from Guide to the Perplexed this is the system Rambam is trying to argue for. A system of supra-rational faith, where reason is used as a check against fallacies of faith and faith is used as the continuation of reason into realms where reason alone can not penetrate. Steven Ross Weintraub | First Choice Software | O Lord, 8900 Business Park Drive | let me talk gently, Austin, Texas 78759 | for I might have to eat Phone: 512-418-2905 x100 Fax: 512-418-2983 | my words tomorrow. external Email: stevenw@fchoice.com |
From: Herman Rubin <hrubin@stat.purdue.edu> Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 13:33:16 -0500 Subject: Re: When should we modify our beliefs? >I don't think we can discuss all this Jewishly without also translating >Rabbi Hasdai Crescas's OR ADONAI. I am reading W.Z.Harvey's THE PHYSICS >AND METAPHYSICS OF HASDAI CRESCAS. RaMBaM represents the 1100's, >Crescas reps the 1400's. Descartes/Galileo/Spinoza represent the >1600's. This means there's 400 years of activity concerning RaMBaM's >world view that we don't learn about. This means that we are stunting >our modern Jewish brains and possibly reinventing the wheel. I believe we need to really examine them, using our secular knowledge. Those who wrote the Torah, and all other writings, were limited in this respect, and often invented what at least some of us would call explanations which cannot be considered by those with the knowledge. I would even go so far as to say that secular knowledge must precede religious knowledge; "science" does not tell you what you should want, but tries to tell you what you can get, are while religion is important in deciding what you should want, action based on conflict with what is attainable cannot be justified on religious grounds. Secular knowledge also enables a great deal of correcting the errors of fact found in Tanakh and elsewhere. In some cases, we do not know, but often we know that what is there is not the case. Are the myths of the writers of the Torah and Talmud contrary to fact sound bases for action? This does not mean we should automatically reject everything. I believe in looking at the reasoning of any "sage", Jewish or Gentile, and evaluating it and incorporating it if it is reasonable. So my personal attitude towards leavening only differs slightly from the Talmudic conclusions, using modern knowledge to overrule what they guessed through ignorance. This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
From: Steven Weintraub <stevenw@fchoice.com> Date: Mon May 10 18:03:37 2004 Subject: When should we modify our beliefs? Ethel jean saltz <nietgal@airmail.net> wrote : >I don't think we can discuss all this Jewishly without also translating >Rabbi Hasdai Crescas's OR ADONAI. I am reading W.Z.Harvey's THE PHYSICS >AND METAPHYSICS OF HASDAI CRESCAS. RaMBaM represents the 1100's, >Crescas reps the 1400's. Descartes/Galileo/Spinoza represent the >1600's. This means there's 400 years of activity concerning RaMBaM's >world view that we don't learn about. This means that we are stunting >our modern Jewish brains and possibly reinventing the wheel. I have to disagree with this. The fact is that Descartes and Spinoza recreate (and actually in some cases steal) their philosophic writings from the Arabist philosophers of the 1100's. What difference is there from Descartes Oven and Avicenna's flying man*? 'Cognito Ergo Sum' was a conclusion well known to the Arabists. Spinoza's philosophy is very influenced and derived from his readings of the rationalism he found in Rambam and echoes the work of the Jewish philosophers of this period (Rambam, ben Gerson and even Crecas). The fact is that Rambam surpasses Spinoza in anticipating the modern movement of philosophy. Spinoza attempt at categorization has been shown to be ineffective and useless in the light of 19 and 20th century philosophy. Rambam anticipated the limits of rationalism and made the first strong attempts at defining Judaism as supra-rational**. To read philosophy without the attempt to understand what it borrowed and what it ignored from the previous philosophy is incoherent and dangerous. It is also incoherent and dangerous to read any philosopher divorced from his times and context, and as the end all of philosophy. Philosophy is always the pursuit of building or criticizing what comes before it. The 11th century Arabists were those these early Western philosophers built on. It should be added that often the more modern builds by ignoring the context and criticisms extent in the earlier and therefore makes dangerous leaps. When these leaps show flaws, it is often useful to pick up the thread from the earlier philosopher to see what was ignored and why it was ignored - and to reconsider not ignoring it, order to allow philosophy to flow coherently again. Rambam's writing are subtle and gives us many threads to pick up from when looking at the shards that Baconism and Newtonism (philosophic lines that Descartes and Spinoza strongly belong to) have shattered to. * Descartes oven is a man climbs into an oven and tries to decide what he really knows. He sees no light, he hears no sound, and eventually he decides he only knows one thing - he thinks - therefore he exists. Avicenna evasions a man floating in space. He experiences no light, no sound, no feeling. What does he know. He knows he exists because he can think. In fact Avicenna's flying man was well known in the medieval West and quoted by enough philosophers that it would be hard to believe that Descartes did not run into it at some point. ** see post on suprarationalism. Steven Ross Weintraub | First Choice Software | O Lord, 8900 Business Park Drive | let me talk gently, Austin, Texas 78759 | for I might have to eat Phone: 512-418-2905 x100 Fax: 512-418-2983 | my words tomorrow. external Email: stevenw@fchoice.com |
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