Are the Laws of Shabbat guided by rational thought? Yes or no, please?
What about the phrase “this is a false dilemma” do you not understand?
However, let’s play along: I would say the laws in this case are “rational”.
The logic is as follows.
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Shabbat is a ritual.
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Adherence to rituals may well be “rational” (there is nothing “irrational” about a wedding, a funeral, or a Rememberence Day Ceremony). On the other hand, expecting those rituals to have some magic effects is “non-rational”.
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Take the example of Church attendence. Going to church can well be “rational”; expecting that praying therein will bring rain during a drought is “non-rational”.
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Are the laws of Shabbat a “rational” or “non-rational” ritual? Well, the adherents aren’t doing it because they expect any benefits of a magic sort - as explained above, Shabbat is mostly a ceremony of commemoration - of the creation of the universe, and of the freedom from Egypt.
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Therefore, it is “rational”. It is comparable to observing a moment of silence on Rememberance Day - which is likewise a “rational” ritual.
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Does the fact that there is no proof that these events ever happened make the ritual of commemorating them “non-rational”? I’d say not: the point of engaging in such rituals is to conform with the community. It is quite irrelevant to their rationality whether the events being commemorated actually happened or not.
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Therefore, when invited into an Orthodox home, it is polite - and not a forced adherence to “irrationality” - to celebrate Shabbat with them, even if you have no belief in their god, the creation of the universe, etc.
You are an odd sort of impartial critic of Orthodox Judaism.
In your opinion what is a fair criticism of Orthodox Judaism in general and, if applicable, of Sabbath Law in particular from the perspective of an atheist? You alluded to that.
You don’t have to provide one of course but if you can it would help me better understand your point of view.
Thanks but crud. I hadn’t realized they’d be behind the wall.
It really is interesting stuff. One way of thinking of it that makes sense to me is that we are predisposed to believe in a religion in a very similar way to how we are predisposed to learn a language. The overall structure is pretty much wired in and the details are very personal exposure specific. I do think that atheist beliefs can end up co-opting the very same neural systems, and sometimes the very worst aspects - hence the similar need to convert others to “the true path” that we see on display here and the need to establish a superior “us” and an ignorant an inferior “other” … the infidel who refuse to see what is obvious truth.
Personally I accept that science is a much better tool for predicting future events and understanding how things work than religion is. If someone tries to block the role of science with religion or woo they cause harm to society as whole and cross a line.
I find secular axioms about human rights (including ones that promote tolerance and religious freedom) to be superior to religiously based ones.
I maintain some religiously based group affiliation and find such no better or worse than the host of other ways we unavoidable as part of human nature self identify into groups. The danger there is in the identification of any us vs the others and I am positive that we always need to on guard against the dangers of that unavoidably hard-wired way of thinking, be it divided by belief, or non-belief, or nation, or political stripe, or butter-side up versus butter-side down, or bellies with stars or none upon thars. This thread illustrates that hard atheism can make for as stupid a Sneetch as any belief can.
Still not getting the idiocy in this thread.
If this fire happened to this family on a Wednesday afternoon, there’d be no debate. Tragic accident, hot plate, just a mistake, yadda yadda.
But it didn’t. The fact that this has happened before and happens again, and will happen again on the Sabbath only proves that goddamn storybook should be banned unless you’re over 18 years old. Do this once and after one generation, everyone will start saying, “What’s religion? People really thought this shit? Can’t press a button?? Who would limit themselves for this tripe? 613 commandments? Women are shit even though they populate the globe?”
And the debate in this thread about it’s in the bible/no it isn’t/there’s exceptions/she didn’t know the exceptions-- is the same damn problem with religion to begin with: It’s how you interpret it, isn’t it? Well, strict orthodox religious tradition + forgone common sense + fatal fire = religious inspired tragedy, and I really, REALLY don’t see how anyone could convince me otherwise.
Off to the Café Society for a while… :rolleyes:
I was interested myself, and found the authors’ blog versions, in case anyone is interested:
On the Origin of Religion (E. Culotta)
Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion (J. Haidt)
I’m not sure why SenorBeef has a problem with this; his beloved Richard Dawkins says as much himself in The Selfish Gene.
Nice Posts, DSeid and Malthus.
You’re right. You’re not getting idiocy, you’re supplying it.
Hatred impedes critical thinking.
Malthus, are you coming back?
I was under the impression that the supernatural was kind of a big deal to the Haredim. They are a pretty radical bunch with their biblical laws, right?
But anyway one cause or motivator for what I described as irrational use of a hot plate was not magical thinking but a logical and rational desire to conform to a community observing a set of rituals governed by biblical law. Ok. The act of conforming can be very rational.
Orthodox Judaism is not one the causes. It’s conformity to Orthodox Judaism. The fact remains that if you remove Orthodox Judaism from the equation there would be no fire on that occasion. If nothing else I think the Haredim don’t like high utility bills any more than I do.
Saying “well, but if you remove electricity or oxygen there would be no fire also” is not a valid counter argument.
The significance is idiocy leads to tragedy. The idiocy is a matter of opinion, although you are well on your way to argue that not flipping switches is supple food for the mind instead of idiocy. Did we establish that it lead to tragedy as one of possibly many causes or not?
Not that it must. Not that it might have not. But that it did.
I really don’t understand what this means.
Awesome. Nice work in tracking those down, and thanks!
I don’t speak for Malthus, obviously, but here’s what you guys keep ignoring:
You can be an observant Orthodox Jew without using an unattended hot plate. You can also be an observant Orthodox Jew and have functional smoke detectors.
As has been said, over and over again in this thread, there are plenty of other options besides keeping a hot plate running unattended.
If the OP had been about the “idiocy” of using an unattended hot plate and not having working smoke detectors, there would be no argument.
We understand your point is that people should give up their beliefs completely, but this specific incident is not a valid argument to that end.
Why is that so difficult to acknowledge?
Well, just for starters, inflexible observance of interpretations from the Talmud dating back to the Middle Ages forces the Orthodox to accept social status issues that are no longer acceptable to modern sensibilities (and that I personally believe are objectively wrong). For example, a low social status for women compared with men; for another, considering homosexuality to be morally wrong.
For yet another, a certain close-mindedness concerning people outside of their community.
Neither of these are inherent to the religion - check out, for example, “Reconstructionist Judaism”. I know some Reconstructionists, and their thing is to keep all the socially binding rituals, while discarding the unacceptable and backward social ideology - they have no problems with (say) having a Lesbian Rabbi, while they keep the Sabbath.
As for the Sabbath laws, I don’t see them as particularly objectionable - though burdensome.
Thank you. (I snipped it just for brevity).
What? The point you quoted is that it is not a theological issue. Reasonable people should be able to agree on the meaning of causality.
Then we can make our own inferences and judgements from that, if any.
I have certainly “attacked” religion before, like I have attacked racism or people into magical crystals or simply the preference for red compact cars, but this is not it.
You said you think the cause was “conformity to Orthodox Judaism”, and I pointed out that you can conform in safer ways.
I think the cause in this case was simple carelessness on the part of these individuals.
Do you think people who tend to be careless automatically become more careful if they give up their religious beliefs? Do you think there are no careless atheists? No atheists without batteries in their smoke detectors, or leaving appliances on unattended?
If so, that would be an example of “magical thinking” on your part.
Here is the complete version of Culotta’s On the Origin of Religion (pdf)
I think I already addressed that before. I know there are safer ways to conform, I have been told so repeatedly and I accept it.
There can be many causes. Not all equally important or relevant.
They might, without god watching over them. I have an opinion on that. Statistically, I have no idea.
No, I do not.
Going back to you earlier post, if you ask me whether I think magical thinking is “bad” and eliminating magical thinking from religion would be an awesome step in fixing that, then the answer is yes, obviously. I do think much of it is “stupid”. I’ll even say so.
That doesn’t mean I’m some kind of thought police miser desperate to take away religious believer’s happiness, does it?
That’s a huge, unfounded leap.
I apologize; I shouldn’t have lumped you in with the more hostile posters in this thread.
To be clear, I’m a non-believer myself (third generation agnatheist), and I have been critical of the negative aspects of religion as well. My disagreement with some of the atheists here is about tactics. It might be because I didn’t go through the “trauma” of being raised as a believer, but I don’t have the level of hostility towards religion that many here bring to the discussions. I think it’s counterproductive, and is ultimately no better than the hate and divisiveness that occurs between religious factions.
I think the more persuasive tactic would be for atheists to make common cause in some non-doctrinal issues with religious communities instead of attacking them. Organized religion is a tribal instinct. People are more receptive to ideas expressed by someone they consider an ally rather than an adversary.
As far as your opinion of atheism leading to less carelessness, I think it’s an interesting debate. You could say that the mindset that leads to questioning religion is predisposed to critical thinking, but in that case atheism isn’t the cause of more careful thinking, it is the result.
No need for an apology, I will probably say something very soon that will piss you off, but I appreciate the sentiment. 
I don’t know if people assume I’m batting for some kind of team but I assure you I’m not. I use the atheist label for myself because it is a useful descriptor but don’t make the mistake of assuming I’m affiliated with some group think. Statistically I will agree more often about religion with an atheist than a believer but that’s about it. I’m definitely not in it to convert anyone. I have better things to do that banging my head against that wall.
I have a huge problem with pseudo-intellectual atheist dumbasses putting on a veneer of sophistication by bowing to the delicate sensibilities of woo believers and pretending (or not) that every human motivator goes in the same bag. So I attack atheism quite often too.
One of the first questions I would ask myself if I were a devout Catholic is: Why does God allow people like the old, arrogant, cynical Pedro to exist and sometimes prosper over believers that follow the Gospel to the best of their abilities? Why not touch everyone with the same love and kindness? That would be awesome. Is that so difficult?
When you start following these questions the whole ideology unravels. I know that some religious authority somewhere already came up with half-assed answers to all of these questions and more that I haven’t thought of. But when you follow up on the logical conclusion then all you are left with is a song and dance where everybody mumbles at the same time but they’re really in it for the biscuits.
That’s fine if you’re really into biscuits but unfortunately there is a lot of nasty shit that comes with that package too.
camille I just want to be clear that my attack on atheists (which you didn’t say you were) was in no way directed at you.
For myself, I find the “adaptive” explaination most convincing.
In my opinion, religion was triggered by episodes of mysticism that the human brain is prone to (either spontaneously, or under the influence of various drugs). The mystic experience is, at base, the direct intuition of one-ness with reality, that cannot be accessed in ordinary life; an experience of something greater than the self.
This inspired what I think are the most basic forms of religion - animism (the belief that things such as inanimate objects have ‘spirits’) and shamanism (the belief that one can access and interact with this spirit-world). In turn, these led eventually to theism (the belief in gods - or, in a social-evolutionary form - the eventual evolution of some or all spirits into more powerful spirits that must be appeased or worshipped; or, the personification of the mystic’s ‘one-ness with reality’ as a direct interaction with an all-pervading deity).
These beliefs, in my opinion, spread because groups having access to them had ‘adaptive’ benefits over groups that did not: in particular, a focus of authority that was greater than one based on kinship or personal self-interest, and one independent (at least, to the degree it was connected to genuine mysticism) from self-interested motives.