Wish You Knew? Ask a Jew! (page 2)

GrreatTeacher

Thanks, Caleb. Leave it to JWs to think they can do Judaism better than Jews can!

C0ntr013r

a need to be prepared for Jewish ambiguity

But how can you base your life around a belief system with ambiguity? How would you be able to tell if it was untrue? I think JWs have a lot of ambiguity and that is what is helping people wake up to TTATT. Is there something else that Jews have that the Christian religons don't have?

As to your question about life having contradictions and ambiguities...well, if you haven't noticed any yet, child just wait! They will slap you in the face soon enough.

So in your mind logical contradiction in life is the same thing as life being contradictory?

Life can be mysterious and have unknowns, even from a scientific standpoint

Do you believe that there are things science never can unravel or just that it hasn't yet?

So while you may want to know what my personal views are, if I don't have one I can't give one.

Maybe I should clarify, to know your personal views is not really my focus.

I want to know how a Jew thinks, not necessarily you personally.

As I said before:

Once you understand how someone thinks, you will be able to think like them.

I understand how JWs, atheist, agnostics, Christians think and so I can think like them, from there point of view. Put myself in their position.

I would like to be able to understand all people this way, including Jews ;)

Lastly I do not always have a personal view or opinion about matters that Judaism does.

I can appreciate this, and that is fine.

I would rather have a conclusion based on the application of the scientific method.

That is something we can agree on!

Often there are no definitive answers like the JWs offer for everything due to the fact that Jews aren't always looking for one.

Well, if there is "no answer", that is interesting too. It will help me and others understand better. JWs, Christians etc have things they don't have answers for too and that plays a huge part in understanding how they think.

C0ntr013r

I can prove that such ("that's just the way it is") can often be a valid answer and not an excuse.
For instance, why is Hebrew read for right to left and not left to right?
In Spanish, why is the word "table" in the feminine and the word "room" masculine?
Why does our existence exist?

There are questions without answers but I am not sure these qualify.

why is Hebrew read for right to left?

This I would guess have a historical explanation.

In Spanish, why is the word "table" in the feminine and the word "room" masculine?

Same with this one.

Why does our existence exist?

Because it is its very definition I would think.

Questions that asks about things outside of reality has no real answers.

It is a bit of a mind bender but here is an example:

Why is the grass green?

Because the chlorophyll in the grass when it is hit by the light that is reflected unto our retinas look green.

Yes, buy why green? What if it looked blue or yellow? Why are the universal laws constituting that, that chemical composition looks green to the human eye?

There is really no answer because it is outside our reality.

I agree with Viviane though, it is not a good respond when it comes to religion. But it does not matter because my goal is not to argue against your position but to understand it.

CalebInFloroda

@Viviane

Clearly you don't know the answers to my questions.

CalebInFloroda

There are actual answers to the questions I asked, C0ntr013r. Agreed upon answers, and those you provided aren't them.

Viviane

I know the answers. You're just trying to weasel word your way into pretending a non-answer is an answer.

So far you're showing how Judaism is exactly like JWs and Christianity in general. It's the pretense that ignorance is knowledge and obfuscation to hide that fact.

C0ntr013r

There are actual answers to the questions I asked, C0ntr013r. Agreed upon answers, and those you provided aren't them.

Well, then tell us.

we don't know for sure, but we have theories.
The theory that most appeals to me is how the Semitic region and the languages there (Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian, even their parent, Aramaic, and other languages from closer regions like Azerbaijani, Yiddish, Persian) all popularized the use of stone tablets. The Commandments were written on stone, as was the famous Assyrian Flood Tablet that talked about a mega flood in the Middle East. People throughout history, broadly speaking, have been more right handed. When a right handed person takes a chisel and hammer to a stone, he tends to hold the chisel with his left hand and hammer with his right. So it makes sense to move from right to left (RTL).
Later, when paper became a more popular medium for writing, people started preferring LTR because writing RTL increases smudging.

This is one theory.

If you think the answer is: "that's just the way it is". I disagree with you.

Remember that there is a answer even if we humans don't know what it is.

CalebInFloroda

First of all if you want to do is equate Judaism with JW and Christianity then that is your preorogative.

Second I am not trying to weasel out of the answers. If all you want are answers to those questions they are on the Internet.

Third, I am happy to answer each and every question and I will.

Before I do let me say I am happy to do so, Viviane. Judaism is about acknowledging there is more to life than having answers. And it is also about the struggle to find them.

It's about fighting and struggling against the "angel" like Jacob did all through the "night" of ambiguity, of unknowing, of being the object of hatred, Inquisitions, people who want to hurt you, disbelief, genocide, and being called out as something we are not.

Since some of us are atheists your views of me cannot be based on religion. We are a Tribe of theists, atheists, agnostics, believers, unbelievers. Some of us believe in prayer. Some of us don't believe in prayer.

What we do believe, Viviane, is if you hate one of us then you hate us all. If you respect one, you respect us all.

Jews are not a religion. We are not a race. We are a Tribe. A tribe of various beliefs, of multiple convictions, of one origin, one path, one destiny.

Ignorance is not knowledge, Viviane. Ignorance is what the United States and other countries showed us when the Saint Louis, a ship filled with Jews trying to escape the Nazi regime showed us when they were seeking asylum. No country would have the Saint Louis. They played ignorant to our cries for help, played ignorant to our reports of the concentration camps and the gas chambers and the Shoah. The Saint Louis ended up going back to Europe, its passengers back to Germany, and most all on board to their death in the ovens. ignorance is not what people did for the Jews or to the Jews. Ignorance is what people feigned so they did not have to help the Jews. Ignornace is doing nothing, and as such I would never offer ignorance up as a solution for anything. To claim such of me is the greatest sign of ignorance anyone could ever show.

A non-answer is never a solution. Silence kills. Giving a non-answer killed over 2 million of my direct relatives in camps like Aushwitz. So am I right that you are saying that I believe in not giving an answer, or trying to weasel out, of being silent like all those who were silent about my family as they were forced from our homes and sent to die?

Guess what. You just did.

C0ntr013r

First of all if you want to do is equate Judaism with JW and Christianity then that is your preorogative.

Not my intention, I could put atheists and agnostics on the list too if it makes you feel better. My point was that you don't need decisive answers to every question to understand the belief system.

We are a Tribe of theists, atheists, agnostics, believers, unbelievers. Some of us believe in prayer. Some of us don't believe in prayer.
Jews are not a religion. We are not a race. We are a Tribe. A tribe of various beliefs, of multiple convictions, of one origin, one path, one destiny.

How do you make the distinction between a Jewish man by birth and a Jewish man by religious views? Perhaps someone who has converted to Judaism?

CalebInFloroda

My answer above was not directed at you, C0ntr013r, but...

For everyone's information I have actually been considering labeling myself as an atheist Jew for a while. The fact is that it still leaves me a Jew.

I would still do the same things I do today, still treasure my culture and engage in its ritual, still observe Shabbat, still hold a Seder every Passover. "Belief" is not an important facet to the Jewish experience.

I am a Jew, and whatever you feel about me, say about me, state about me, my people, our culture and beliefs, you are saying about a real man with struggles like you, desires and hopes like you, and questions just like you. In many ways I am you.

Some of us are born Jews, some join the tribe, some are part of a synagogue, some have no affiliation. But we are united by a common origin and destiny. We all engage in some sort of public act that tells us and the world: I am also a Jew. It's not a creed you have in your mind. It's someone you live as.

Wish You Knew? Ask a Jew!

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