dagblog - Comments for "Quietly Celebrating Death"

Yes, I think the brutality is

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:40:27 +0000

Yes, I think the brutality is symptomatic of the human conditions, which is really the point of the article. Our sanitization of scripture mirrors our sanitization of ourselves.

I'm not sure that great acts of sanitizing are all that bad. If it works for you to reinterpret the Torah, I don't see any moral or practical problem. But its important to recognize that sanitization changes the text. It misrepresents the intended meaning and essentially creates a new text out of the old one. Maybe the power of inertia, which you suggest, is such that we have no option but to build new ethical systems from disfigured versions of the old one. But it would seem more honest to start fresh.

I agree, interesting discussion. Unfortunately, I'm too sleepy to be more coherent.

Heathen* to heathen, Why is

EmmaZahn — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 02:06:44 +0000

In reply to Some of us heathens read the

Heathen* to heathen,

Why is basing a disbelief on a superficial literal interpretation more acceptable than a belief in a different superficial literal interpretation? I ask this because in your superficial reading of my comment and its context, you missed the fact that we are in agreement that Moses used his god to coerce and control the Israelites into a forced march to cull the old so his new order could begin with a new generation. A little longer but not unlike Mao's Long March which was 'sky creature' free.

BTW, the god of Abraham at the time was not a sky creature. He lived in a box in a tent and had been known to strike men who came too near dead in their tracks**. He did not even claim to be the only god; just exclusive to the Israelites.

There is so much to learn about people and societies from reading what little remains from our past. I love history and do not want to see any more lost because of true disbelievers or any more than true believers.

*Abrahamic religions are misogynist and do not really really include women.

**I sometimes wonder if that little black rock in Mecca is the spent remains of what was in the Ark, a meteorite that was once very radioactive or a very highly charged .

Getting back to the real-life

acanuck — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:38:28 +0000

In reply to Quietly Celebrating Death

Getting back to the real-life subtext of your post, Genghis, here's a good piece from The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/03/israel-iran-and-america

Some of us heathens read the

acanuck — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:33:50 +0000

In reply to Even the admirable ideas,

Some of us heathens read the Old and New Testaments (and all the glosses and pronouncements, edicts and bulls that spring from them) as the record of specific groups of people seeking to control larger groups of people, mainly through violence, citing their special knowledge and access to a sky creature as authority to do so. They may actually believe this is true.

But once you see the sky creature as a manmade device of oppression, the authority they claim evaporates, and with it any pretensions that the brutality they impose is in any way "ethical." There may have been a pragmatic case for herding a bunch of restive tribes through the desert for 40 years, and I'm sure God's orders were a useful cudgel. Myself, I'd have backed the dissidents and rebels who proposed the golden-calf alternative. There are only so many ways to cook manna.

Even the admirable ideas,

EmmaZahn — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 20:05:06 +0000

In reply to I would say that certain

Even the admirable ideas, like refraining from work one day a week, are often sullied by ruthless enforcement. In the book of Numbers, a man is found collecting wood on Shabbat, and God commands Moses to stone him to death. Nice.

Ethical dilemma here. I have absolutely no desire to defend the excessive rulemaking of Numbers and Leviticus. The way I think of it is that God gave Moses' Hebrews ten commandments and they turned them into 613 or more. Just like Paul and early Christians turned Jesus' one commandment into a multitude. That is what happens when charismatic leaders and their followers break with traditional or legitimate authorities. There is a lot of uncertainty. People want to know which old rules still apply or what new ones to follow. There are disagreements, challenges to the new authority.

My understanding is that knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway is what makes a transgression a sin. The verses in Numbers immediately preceding the wood gathering are about the different punishments for ignorant versus deliberate sins. What if the guy collecting wood on Shabbat did it in defiance or from spite, as a way to deliberately undermine the new authority? Killing him for it still sounds immoral from our perspective but we do not have to herd and tend 12 tribes through a desert for forty years because they chickened out of entering the Promised Land.

You can see no change at all

MrSmith1 — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:45:41 +0000

In reply to And should our standard for

You can see no change at all in moral standards over 3,000+ years? Jeepers. I guess I'm viewing things a lot differently.

Well Christian sects love to

Richard Day — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:57:08 +0000

In reply to Maybe these histories and

Well Christian sects love to go to the OT to inform us of God's wrath. In the old days that always got to me. How ironic in such an anti-Semitic age.

Of course the NT kind of puts it altogether in the last book; Armageddon!

And should our standard for

kyle flynn — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:14:08 +0000

In reply to Then let me ask the stupid

And should our standard for ethical authority be frozen in a vastly different time when some actions were acceptable that are horrific by today's thinking and moral standards?

What vastly different times would those be? Seriously, what "natural evolution of thought and morality" is at work since we wandered out of The Garden, so to speak? Pick up a newspaper from the last hundred years--hell, just grab today's--and then let's explore this evolution.

I guess I'm wondering if

MrSmith1 — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:06:30 +0000

In reply to I would say that certain

I guess I'm wondering if those failings, the genocide, the brutality, etc. are symptomatic of the human condition, and whether any work written thousands of years ago would hold up to close scrutiny given today's ethical authority parameters.

Of course, I think part of the problem is spiritual inertia. We're reluctant to discount or discredit as ethical authority, the teachings we have looked to for two millenia. (It was good enough for my great, great (etc.) grandfather, so it's good enough for me.) Besides, if not the Torah, or the NT, or the Koran, or even the Book of Mormon, what ethical authority could possibly be agreed upon and used to guide us in the present time? I don't know, I'm just asking.

I agree with your assertion that for the Torah to claim ethical authority in 2012, requires great acts of sanitization. So I guess my next question is, what's wrong with great acts of sanitizing? Does sanitizing or selectively editing, automatically assume consent of the omitted 'bad stuff'? Does ignoring or not focusing on the evil, invalidate our embrace of the holy? Can any spiritual guide written 2000+ years ago be relevant today?

Sorry, if I seem stuck on this, but I think you're really onto something with this topic and I would like to see it explored more.

I would say that certain

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:10:03 +0000

In reply to Then let me ask the stupid

I would say that certain beliefs or actions--participation in genocide for instance--are sufficient to nullify moral authority no matter what. With the Torah, I think that the challenge is more a matter of quantity. If you went through and tallied up the ordinances and examples, you'd find that the familiar and sensible prohibitions (don't lie, don't murder, don't covet thy neighbor's wife) are overwhelmed by many examples vindictiveness, tribalism, despotism, and brutality on the part of God and his favorite disciples. Even the admirable ideas, like refraining from work one day a week, are often sullied by ruthless enforcement. In the book of Numbers, a man is found collecting wood on Shabbat, and God commands Moses to stone him to death. Nice.

I don't think that ancient texts are necessarily invalid as ethical guides because of their age alone, but yes, the evolution of society is such that this is very often the case. That does not make these texts unworthy of study. Far from it. The Torah is a beautiful work of literature that has much to say about our past and even a bit about our present. In some ways, it is more honest about human nature than modern texts. But to elevate it to the level of ethical authority in 2012 requires, I think, great acts of sanitization.