# Idiotic Orthodox Jewish Tradition Leads to Death of Seven Children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 22, 2015, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666 "2015-03-22T05:39:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/121 "2015-03-23T04:49:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Let’s see. Orthodox Jews have been following the rule about not cooking on Shabbat for many hundreds of years. Fires associated with following the practice that I can find documented? One. This one. Yup statistically one event is plenty to condemn a practice as idiotic … at least if it has some religious connection. Epidemiologically? One event is an insignificant number. You tried to point to 6 deaths per year in Christmas Tree fires as some huge number, but probably a hundred million Christmas trees are used every year for on average, what, 6 weeks? How does that compare to, I don’t know, fireworks deaths or driving deaths from extra travel on Memorial day? It seems like it’d be pretty in line with other holiday-related random deaths. I would suspect leaving a heating plate unattended has a per-hour fatality rate somewhere in the area of 1000-10,000 times more than Christmas trees. Additionally, people are using Christmas trees for their intended purpose, more or less, whereas anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would realize that leaving something hot and cheap and electrical and designed for uses in short bursts on, unattended for 12+ hours is a really fucking awful idea. I do wonder how many fatalities or significant injuries we could attribute per year to Sabbath related issues. There are probably a thousand unique ways in which Sabbath limitations and preparations could kill people, so it would be excessively difficult to pin a number on it. And don’t get me wrong - the Sabbath rules are silly regardless of whether or not they kill anyone. We can evaluate how silly various religious practices are. I’m not saying that this one incident proves that it’s a stupid practice. The premise is that everyone has a forced day of rest, and yet the extreme limitations put upon it make it so that you do signifcantly more work preparing for it than you would if you could simply do normal activities. Not being able to sort through your clothes to pick out an outfit isn’t restful, it’s just incredibly annoying. Not being able to open your doors, having to potentially contact and pay someone to come turn your laundry machine on or change the channel on your tv - having to plan your meals around both being unable to operate any devices and also not being able to seperate food items - there are countless little things like this. If the intention is for people to rest, then it’s obviously really fucking stupid and counterproductive since a whole lot of work goes into it. A rule like “at least one day a week you cannot do employment-related work or other hard labor” would seem reasonable. “Completely change your life around and make it a complete pain in the ass because you need to rest!” is not. Religious practices can be more or less silly than others. Going to church/temple/mosque every week is pretty reasonable. You’d want to stay in touch with your fellow believers, you’d want to learn more about your religion, and whatever other functions your holy place serves. So it’s totally reasonable to me that religions would have places where people congregate regularly. On the other hand magic underwear, e-meters, exorcism, refusing blood transfusions - I’m just talking about common stuff that’s still around - not even the crazy old testament shit that even devout religious people find too evil or absurd to continue. “Work hard to set up and live awkwardly as shit on your rest day” is a fairly silly practice. But not as silly as the ridiculous “I trick god with a string! Oh, it’s okay if I make a meal on a hot plate as long as I don’t press the power button!” style of rules lawyering on top of that. If you’re going to come up with absurd workarounds then just discard the whole damn thing anyway. Working yourself into ridiculous contortions to comply in a non-genuine way with arbitrary religious beliefs that could be discarded is silly. When it burns 7 kids to death, well, that makes it more sad than silly for a while. But it’s silly and mockable and shitty even if it didn’t. > [@](#): > > Which does seem to be your point I guess. “Idiotic _cultural_ tradition causes six deaths each year!” doesn’t bother you because you do not view celebrating Christmas as religious? Just culture is fine; it’s religious stuff that is _by definition_ idiotic, because you do not share the belief so the belief is idotic. Or because a majority do it so it isn’t “obscure”? Ignorance and serious consequences thereof is fine if it is, in your mind, associated with something secular or done by most. But if someone makes a poor choice in the course of doing something they think is religious then it is the religious belief that caused the tragedy. I want to clear something up - Jews are pretty awesome. As far as religious people go, they don’t proselytize, they tend not to go to holy war, they tend to make good citizens. I would expect the average Jew was considerably ahead of the average non-Jew on useful metrics like crime rate and such. But even so, their beliefs are based on a bunch of magic and shit that a bunch of goatherders made up thousands of years ago. Nothing about their beliefs deserves respect, except that if it’s a laudable belief anyway, like prohibitions on murder or theft. But then we don’t need magic to know that. So yes, their religious beliefs are idiotic, as are all religious beliefs, and any cultural trends that stem from those religious beliefs are equally tainted. Christmas Trees are a poor comparison in the US because, as I explained before, the Christmas tree isn’t even codified in Christian dogma. It doesn’t serve any real religious role. It’s something they co-opted to try to steal someone else’s holiday hundreds of years after the Bible was written. And it has been taken back as a secular tradition in the same regard as lots and lots of the people who use them as holiday theming aren’t even religiously Christian. As far as silly beliefs go, having a tree during a certain season and a holiday festivity is way lower on the list than having 1/7th of your life completely fucked for silly, counterproductive reasons. The 7 deaths in this example are some minor icing on the “religion wasting the shit out of people’s time” cake. Not that I really care - if you want to say it’s stupid to have a Christmas tree because you have somewhere around a 1 in 25,000,000 chance of dying from it - eh, so be it, it’s simple risk assessment vs enjoyment in that case. There’s nothing inherently contradictory, restrictive, forced, or counterproductive in voluntarily using Christmas trees in the same way there is in obeying the Sabbath and all of the silly workaround rules. > [@](#): > > No there is no Orthodox Jewish cultural tradition to do unsafe things to avoid cooking on Shabbat. There are people who are ignorant that certain things are not as safe as they think they are and who then do things that, on this one occasion, caused serious harm. Putting old [television sets](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/01/30/tvs-tip-over-on-toddlers-with-surprising-frequency-causing-injuries-and-deaths/) on low laying tables and dressers is also something people do out of ignorance, hundreds have died as a result. Not religiously inspired though so no worries. Bad things happening due to ignorance are fine if they are secularly motivated. In your mind anyway. I may have clouded my motivation here by appealing to your knowledge of epidemiology - I merely wanted to show what a poor comparison Christmas trees were to Sabbath hot plates. My concern on this issue isn’t because Sabbath hotplates are killing millions of people, but when something that’s really fucking stupid on its own ends up killing people, it’s that much more tragic. Let me try another analogy - I bet Catholic priests sometimes do hardcore shit during exorcisms that kills the person. If an exorcist killed a little mentally ill girl during the exorcism, I would both mock the ridiculous stone age shit that people believe, and it would be tragic because such silly beliefs lead to someone dying. Would you then come in telling me that hey, Christmas trees kill people too, and if I don’t get just as outraged about Christmas trees as I do about exorcisms, I’m a hypocrite? Would you be rushing to talk about how the exorcism related death wasn’t related to Catholicism at all, it’s just the priest making an individual, routine decision to shake her independent of his religion? > [@DSeid](#): > > And here again is the key point. This is a tradition and belief that is not mine and not that of the majority in this society; those who follow it are a small minority, a minority of a minority. It is therefore, by definition, a stupid and backwards practice. > > Such is the belief system of those who are truly stupid and backwards. Nothing I’ve said has anything to do with beliefs being stupid because they’re minority. In fact, I’ve obviously contradicted such a notion since I’m very critical of the harm that stupid Christian beliefs can do. They are, in fact, the ones that most threaten my life because of Christian political dominance in the US. If your mischaracterization were remotely true, then I’d be fine with mainstream Christian practices, right? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/122 "2015-03-23T11:36:20Z")
Not seeing where you have been critical of “harm” that the Christian beliefs shared by a majority of people do. Oh you’ve named some minority practices (exorcism?), but by your logic the family that neglects to wear a seatbelt and is killed going to church on Sunday is killed because of an idiotic religious practice: they did something needlessly risky while doing something motivated by religious beliefs. But okay, your point is that you think religion is _all_ “magic and shit” that you don’t believe and since it is not your belief religious beliefs deserve no respect and are idiotic. It isn’t about danger or risk as other arbitrary behaviors people do that are risky and done for no reason other than tradition you are just fine with, be it the non-religious act of a Christmas tree or fireworks. In terms of your basic premise, you put the jerk in knee-jerk response with your reflexive religious beliefs are to all be ridiculed. I can get it if someone is witnessing at you, but to use a tragedy as a mouthpiece for your irrational hatred of what others believe is lower than whale shit settles in the deep trench. Everyone should know not to string extension cords together. Some people do not. That ignorance and a tragedy that results from it is the result of that ignorance whether the cords were being strung together for a secular purpose or a religious one. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/123 "2015-03-23T12:51:09Z")
I think a lot of the criticism that the left would like to make about Jewish practices is channeled towards over the top criticism of Israel instead. Going after Jews in the aftermath of the holocaust (whether deserved or not) looks bad in the public mind at least for now. So they roast Israel as an alternative. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/124 "2015-03-23T14:24:58Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Hardcore Jews do all sorts of ridiculous shit. They tie strings around houses and and neighborhoods so that they can do things around their neighborhood that are technically only allowed in their own homes - but if a string connects them, then it’s one continuous structure and therefore it’s okay to go to your neighbor’s house and do it. Not only is the initial religious rule stupid in this case, but people’s absurd gaming-the-system cheat is a childish response to it on top of that. Yeah, there’s one of those enclosures around here (N. Dallas) that the local rabbi delineated using some combination of power lines, telephone lines and transparent fishing line (?). Not being a Jew, that seemed strange to an extreme to me, and like you say, very much trying to stretch the letter of the law to an extreme, rather than staying within the spirit of the law. But… I suspect all religions that have restrictive rules and a legalistic mindset suffer the same sort of thing. It’s certainly not exclusive to Judaism, but Judaism does seem to be on the bleeding edge of that kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/125 "2015-03-23T14:35:50Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Yeah, there’s one of those enclosures around here (N. Dallas) that the local rabbi delineated using some combination of power lines, telephone lines and transparent fishing line (?). > > Not being a Jew, that seemed strange to an extreme to me, and like you say, very much trying to stretch the letter of the law to an extreme, rather than staying within the spirit of the law. > > But… I suspect all religions that have restrictive rules and a legalistic mindset suffer the same sort of thing. It’s certainly not exclusive to Judaism, but Judaism does seem to be on the bleeding edge of that kind of thing. The spirit of the law is the letter of the law in Jewish law. These are commandments from God, you don’t presume to know better than him, you follow the letter of the law. Rabbis have pored over every consonant of every word in the OT to determine what the letter of the law is, and that’s what is important to follow (according to devout Jews). The worst attitude in this thread is the idea that these incredibly devout people who have ingrained these laws into their lives are somehow cheating. They may be doing stupid things in their practice, but these are not people who are avoiding the laws they believe in, their entire lives are governed by these laws and they practice them with greater devotion and adherence than you’ll find among most other religious people. However it is perfectly fair to criticize them for missing the forest for the trees, something that commonly happens among fundamentalists. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/126 "2015-03-23T14:53:56Z")
For the Orthodox, following the rules properly (that is, as they understand them) is the point. I think some folks simply don’t “get” ritual observance. Particularly as deriding Jewish ritual observance is a Christian canard that has, as it were, permiated Western culture: it affects even those who are not Christians. The tendency is to demand that a religious practice has some ethical purpose beyond itself, and dismiss it as meaningless if it doesn’t (or, as some seem to be doing in this thread, assuming that the rules have some sort of ethical component that is being “broken” by adopting work-arounds). One way of looking at Jewish ritual is as a kind of self-discipline, designed to create a sense of mindfulness in everyday life - sort of like some aspects of Buddhism, a kind of meditation-in-actions. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/127 "2015-03-23T14:58:37Z")
I’ve read that it’s OK for married couples to have sex on Shabbat, but is it an even greater sin for nafkehs to be working? ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/128 "2015-03-23T15:02:14Z")
Sidetrack from the news this morning: apparently the kids that died are going to be buried in Israel. Is that a thing? Most people like to have their loved ones buried near by so they can visit the graves. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/129 "2015-03-23T15:03:21Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Yeah, there’s one of those enclosures around here (N. Dallas) that the local rabbi delineated using some combination of power lines, telephone lines and transparent fishing line (?). FYI, that is called an [Eruv.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv) ---
**Author:** ![LunarPlexus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LunarPlexus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LunarPlexus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/130 "2015-03-23T15:18:42Z")
> [@Master\_Wang-Ka](#): > > …so Jews can’t smoke on the Sabbath? Some can, as evidenced by the story in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/131 "2015-03-23T19:08:45Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I love it when goyim tell us how Judaism is supposed to work. I love it when an obvious dimwit tries to pretend their bulb has a much higher wattage. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/132 "2015-03-23T19:12:44Z")
This OP is not what I would call a fine illustration of how much more intelligent the religion-rejecters are compared to the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/133 "2015-03-23T19:19:16Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > This OP is not what I would call a fine illustration of how much more intelligent the religion-rejecters are compared to the rest of the world. You don’t have to be more intelligent. Plenty of intelligent people believe. Brainwashing from childhood is profoundly powerful and can set up defenses against rational introspection. When I believed I had trouble facing the stupidity of Christianity without a feeling of dread, like getting too close to a ledge. Not that intelligence doesn’t help, but childhood indoctrination gets at you under your armor. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/134 "2015-03-23T19:24:21Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > … > Christmas Trees are a poor comparison in the US because, as I explained before, the Christmas tree isn’t even codified in Christian dogma. It doesn’t serve any real religious role… and you think there’s some codified rule that requires orthodox Jews to leave hot plates on? Let me inform you, there is not. Many orthodox Jews use a crock pot, or some other heating device that’s designed to run unattended. Others eat cold food. This was a tragedy. Blaming it on Judaism is silly. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/135 "2015-03-23T19:26:01Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > Some can, as evidenced by the story in the OP. Seriously? Seven children died and you’re making a ha-ha it’s funny, they “smoked”. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/136 "2015-03-23T19:28:51Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The worst attitude in this thread is the idea that these incredibly devout people who have ingrained these laws into their lives are somehow cheating. They may be doing stupid things in their practice, but these are not people who are avoiding the laws they believe in, their entire lives are governed by these laws and they practice them with greater devotion and adherence than you’ll find among most other religious people. This. Look, when the ACLU goes to bat for someone, and their lawyers pore over every appellate court and Supreme Court decision of the last 200 years, trying to see if there is a favorable (for their client) interpretation of the law, are they _cheating_? No, of course not, and many of us would say that lawyers like that are the ones who keep the Constitution safe from those who have no reverence or respect for it whatsoever. And, generally, here on this board, we’re on their side. It’s the same with observant Jews. They revere the law. And yes, they (or their rabbis) will know what Rabbi So-and-So wrote about this law in 1372, and what Rabbi Someone Else said a hundred years later. It _matters_. They’re not _cheating_. If they were cheating, they’d just pop dinner in the microwave on Saturday afternoon when no one was looking. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/137 "2015-03-23T19:32:05Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > and you think there’s some codified rule that requires orthodox Jews to leave hot plates on? Let me inform you, there is not. Many orthodox Jews use a crock pot, or some other heating device that’s designed to run unattended. Others eat cold food. > > This was a tragedy. Blaming it on Judaism is silly. No, no, see… since it has something related to Judaism makes it silly or something. But a potential dangerous tradition that has been secularized is perfectly ok… because… it is irrational due to non-religious ideas, or something. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/138 "2015-03-23T19:33:12Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Seriously? Seven children died and you’re making a ha-ha it’s funny, they “smoked”. [![](https://i.imgur.com/ItJB523.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/ItJB523.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/139 "2015-03-23T20:20:07Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > You tried to point to 6 deaths per year in Christmas Tree fires as some huge number, but probably a hundred million Christmas trees are used every year for on average, what, 6 weeks? How does that compare to, I don’t know, fireworks deaths or driving deaths from extra travel on Memorial day? It seems like it’d be pretty in line with other holiday-related random deaths. I would suspect leaving a heating plate unattended has a per-hour fatality rate somewhere in the area of 1000-10,000 times more than Christmas trees. Additionally, people are using Christmas trees for their intended purpose, more or less, whereas anyone with the slightest bit of common sense would realize that leaving something hot and cheap and electrical and designed for uses in short bursts on, unattended for 12+ hours is a really fucking awful idea. > > I do wonder how many fatalities or significant injuries we could attribute per year to Sabbath related issues. There are probably a thousand unique ways in which Sabbath limitations and preparations could kill people, so it would be excessively difficult to pin a number on it. > > And don’t get me wrong - the Sabbath rules are silly regardless of whether or not they kill anyone. We can evaluate how silly various religious practices are. I’m not saying that this one incident proves that it’s a stupid practice. > > The premise is that everyone has a forced day of rest, and yet the extreme limitations put upon it make it so that you do signifcantly more work preparing for it than you would if you could simply do normal activities. Not being able to sort through your clothes to pick out an outfit isn’t restful, it’s just incredibly annoying. Not being able to open your doors, having to potentially contact and pay someone to come turn your laundry machine on or change the channel on your tv - having to plan your meals around both being unable to operate any devices and also not being able to seperate food items - there are countless little things like this. If the intention is for people to rest, then it’s obviously really fucking stupid and counterproductive since a whole lot of work goes into it. A rule like “at least one day a week you cannot do employment-related work or other hard labor” would seem reasonable. “Completely change your life around and make it a complete pain in the ass because you need to rest!” is not. > > Religious practices can be more or less silly than others. Going to church/temple/mosque every week is pretty reasonable. You’d want to stay in touch with your fellow believers, you’d want to learn more about your religion, and whatever other functions your holy place serves. So it’s totally reasonable to me that religions would have places where people congregate regularly. On the other hand magic underwear, e-meters, exorcism, refusing blood transfusions - I’m just talking about common stuff that’s still around - not even the crazy old testament shit that even devout religious people find too evil or absurd to continue. > > “Work hard to set up and live awkwardly as shit on your rest day” is a fairly silly practice. But not as silly as the ridiculous “I trick god with a string! Oh, it’s okay if I make a meal on a hot plate as long as I don’t press the power button!” style of rules lawyering on top of that. If you’re going to come up with absurd workarounds then just discard the whole damn thing anyway. Working yourself into ridiculous contortions to comply in a non-genuine way with arbitrary religious beliefs that could be discarded is silly. When it burns 7 kids to death, well, that makes it more sad than silly for a while. But it’s silly and mockable and shitty even if it didn’t. > > I want to clear something up - Jews are pretty awesome. As far as religious people go, they don’t proselytize, they tend not to go to holy war, they tend to make good citizens. I would expect the average Jew was considerably ahead of the average non-Jew on useful metrics like crime rate and such. > > But even so, their beliefs are based on a bunch of magic and shit that a bunch of goatherders made up thousands of years ago. Nothing about their beliefs deserves respect, except that if it’s a laudable belief anyway, like prohibitions on murder or theft. But then we don’t need magic to know that. So yes, their religious beliefs are idiotic, as are all religious beliefs, and any cultural trends that stem from those religious beliefs are equally tainted. > > Christmas Trees are a poor comparison in the US because, as I explained before, the Christmas tree isn’t even codified in Christian dogma. It doesn’t serve any real religious role. It’s something they co-opted to try to steal someone else’s holiday hundreds of years after the Bible was written. And it has been taken back as a secular tradition in the same regard as lots and lots of the people who use them as holiday theming aren’t even religiously Christian. As far as silly beliefs go, having a tree during a certain season and a holiday festivity is way lower on the list than having 1/7th of your life completely fucked for silly, counterproductive reasons. The 7 deaths in this example are some minor icing on the “religion wasting the shit out of people’s time” cake. > > Not that I really care - if you want to say it’s stupid to have a Christmas tree because you have somewhere around a 1 in 25,000,000 chance of dying from it - eh, so be it, it’s simple risk assessment vs enjoyment in that case. There’s nothing inherently contradictory, restrictive, forced, or counterproductive in voluntarily using Christmas trees in the same way there is in obeying the Sabbath and all of the silly workaround rules. > > I may have clouded my motivation here by appealing to your knowledge of epidemiology - I merely wanted to show what a poor comparison Christmas trees were to Sabbath hot plates. My concern on this issue isn’t because Sabbath hotplates are killing millions of people, but when something that’s really fucking stupid on its own ends up killing people, it’s that much more tragic. > > Let me try another analogy - I bet Catholic priests sometimes do hardcore shit during exorcisms that kills the person. If an exorcist killed a little mentally ill girl during the exorcism, I would both mock the ridiculous stone age shit that people believe, and it would be tragic because such silly beliefs lead to someone dying. Would you then come in telling me that hey, Christmas trees kill people too, and if I don’t get just as outraged about Christmas trees as I do about exorcisms, I’m a hypocrite? Would you be rushing to talk about how the exorcism related death wasn’t related to Catholicism at all, it’s just the priest making an individual, routine decision to shake her independent of his religion? > > Nothing I’ve said has anything to do with beliefs being stupid because they’re minority. In fact, I’ve obviously contradicted such a notion since I’m very critical of the harm that stupid Christian beliefs can do. They are, in fact, the ones that most threaten my life because of Christian political dominance in the US. If your mischaracterization were remotely true, then I’d be fine with mainstream Christian practices, right? Your position makes about as much sense as ‘three died in a car crash, while not wearing seatbelts, driving to Church. Damn that idiotic religion! If they weren’t set on worshipping a primitive tribal god, they’d be alive today’. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666/140 "2015-03-23T20:24:07Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Let me try another analogy - I bet Catholic priests sometimes do hardcore shit during exorcisms that kills the person. Not really. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-orthodox-jewish-tradition-leads-to-death-of-seven-children/715666.md?page=8)