Kuzari: Round Two

[FinnAgain]

@abele_derer

If the sinai miracles never took place, if God never commanded an everlasting sabbath to the Jews who heard God’s voice at sinai, then our intution tells us that it would have been extremely difficult to get people to believe it.

No. Your intuition tells you that. The rest of us understand that, centuries after an event was alleged to have occurred, it’s easy to distort it. Especially if it’s couched in a narrative about how one’s ancestors had broken faith with God and the nation had to be redeemed. The Tanakh is, in fact, full of such events; the Israelites lose faith, carry on with foreign gods, crack their eggs from the fat end rather than the skinny end, whatever, and a prophet is dispatched to set them back onto the path.

“Centuries ago our nation witnessed a great miracle, but lo, our people have broken faith and now you do not know of it! And, look, that’s the reason why [insert bad thing] is happening now!” would seem to be a perfectly acceptable way to get a group of ancient people to believe an origin-myth for their tribe.

After all, that origin myth isn’t really any more ‘solid’, despite your protestations, than any other. Even for the ultimate ur-myth, the creation of mankind, would have had the same sort of evidence, if true: “Yah, my great-great-great-great-great grandaddy used to talk about how he was the grandson of the first man ever created on the planet. True story.”

And yet despite not having specific genealogies for every family in the 12 tribes, tracing how they specifically came out of Eve’s womb, that was pretty well believed too. People believe lots of silly stuff, in ancient times and now. Pointing to mass belief is evidence of nothing, at all other than mass belief.

Oh, and:

@abele_derer

Here are the facts: The Jews believe that

Fucking cut that shit out. You are not the Spokesman For The Jews, you do not speak for us. You sure as sunshine do not speak for me. And quite honestly, the way you talk about Jews, you make us sound like ignorant, bible-thumping fundies. Stop it.

[Lobohan]

@abele_derer

Before responding to a couple of the points mentioned here, I will add a couple of more points that should have been included in the original post. Also, I am sincererly sorry about the fact that I simply don’t have the time to respond to all of your points (I will also be out-of-town, overseas, for a couple of days on business, so I don’t know how often I will be able to access the internet).

Here are the additional points:

1. Why is it important that the sinai history is a nationally-experienced, nationally-commemorated event believed to have been heavily commemorated by the same people who saw the miracles? Why is it important? Because it makes it extremely difficult for a nation to gobble up this false event! If the sinai miracles never took place, if God never commanded an everlasting sabbath to the Jews who heard God’s voice at sinai, then our intution tells us that it would have been extremely difficult to get people to believe it. They should have immediately responded: “How can you claim that God commanded an entire nation who saw miracles to ‘never to forget the miracles of the Exodus,’ if we never heard of it from our ancestors”

Here is a list of the commemorations, which I already posted earlier on, for the exodus alone:
This is a short (and incomplete) sample of the commemorations of the Exodus. As I’ve said many times before, commemorations mean nothing. Rather, what excites me is the fact that the commemorations were believed to have been initiated at the time of the miracles:

1. One must refrain from work on the first day of Passover (Leviticus 23:7);
2. And refrain from work on the seventh day of Passover (23:8);
3. One must slaughter a Passover Lamb (Exodus 12:6);
4. One must eat a part of the Passover lamb (12:8);
5. One must roast, but not boil, the lamb’s flesh (12:9);
6. One must not serve the meat to non-Jews, whether they are pagans (12:43) or monotheists (12:45);
7. One may not serve the meat to a Jew who is uncircumcised (12:48);
8. One must eat the meat as part of a large group (12:46);
9. One mustn’t break a bone of the carcass (12:46);
10. One must not leave over any of the meat to daybreak (12:10);
11. One must not eat leaven and bread for the seven days of Passover; doing so can inspire death by heaven (13:3);
12. The Israelites must abolish leaven and bread from the land of Israel (13:7);
13. One must eat matzo for the seven days of Passover, to commemorate the food eaten at the Exodus (12:18);
14. One must eat bitter herbs, to commemorate the bitter labor in Egypt (12:8);
15. One must wear “phylacteries,” small scrolls which contain the Exodus miracles (13:9);
16. One must provide gifts for retiring servants as a way to commemorate that the entire nation who were once slaves in Egypt (Deuteronomy 15:15);
17. One is commanded to tell his children about the Exodus (Exodus 13:8);
18. One is required to verbally remember the miracles of Exodus “which you have seen with your eyes” at least once a day, and according to the Talmud, at least twice a day (Exodus 13:3; Deuteronomy 7:18; 16:13; 24:18, 22);
19. It is forbidden to forget the Exodus from Egypt (Deuteronomy 8:14);
20. One must celebrate Passover during the springtime, to commemorate the fact that the Exodus took place during the spring (Deuteronomy 16:1)
21. One must visit the Temple during the holiday of Passover (Exodus 23:15)
22. One who was unable to perform the Passover holiday, he must celebrate a “Second Passover” which takes place one month after the traditional Passover (Numbers 9:9-11).
23. One is commanded to love strangers, since “you were strangers in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19);
24. One must allow Egyptians to convert, since they initially allowed the Jews to reside in their land (Deuteronomy 23:8);
25. One must bring the first fruit to the Temple, and then read a chapter of the Torah which contains the miraculous Exodus story (Deuteronomy 26:5);
26. One must allow unfortunate people to enter his field and eat the leftover fruits, so as to commemorate the Exodus (Deuteronomy 22:24);
27. One must perform the “redemption of the firstborn child” ceremony, so as to commemorate the “Plague of the Firstborn” in Egypt (Exodus 13:11);
28. One must offer his firstborn sheep as a sacrifice in the Temple, in order to commemorate the “Plague of the Firstborn.” (Exodus 13:12)
29. One must redeem his firstborn donkey onto a sheep and then offer the sheep as an offering, and while doing so should relate the miracles of the Exodus generally and the “Plague of the Firstborn” specifically to his child (Exodus 13:13-15)
30. Jews mustn’t enslave their brothers indefinitely, in order to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt, when the Jews tasted the bitterness of slavery (Leviticus 25:42)
    Here are the facts: The Jews believe that a) millions of their ancestors; b) experienced 14,600 days of miracles (which makes hallucination impossible); c) which was heavily-commemorated; d) the commemorations are extremely burdensome.

Another interesting point worth keeping in mind: Moses’ Torah does not explicitly promise an afterlife.

I will specifically respond to many of your silly arguments in a later post.

You don’t understand the issue. You need to actually try to reason if you want to have a debate.

The exodus didn’t happen. The commemoration didn’t start until hundreds of years after the thing that didn’t happen. The commemoration still happens because religions make people do stupid things.

If you are unable to understand the logical flaws in your argument, you simply have no place debating here. Understanding logic is a basic prerequisite for debate. If you don’t understand basic logic it would be like an illiterate trying to debate the finer points of literature or a lifelong blind person describing the color red.

[abele_derer]

@Lobohan

You don’t understand the issue. You need to actually try to reason if you want to have a debate.

The exodus didn’t happen. The commemoration didn’t start until hundreds of years after the thing that didn’t happen. The commemoration still happens because religions make people do stupid things.

If you are unable to understand the logical flaws in your argument, you simply have no place debating here. Understanding logic is a basic prerequisite for debate. If you don’t understand basic logic it would be like an illiterate trying to debate the finer points of literature or a lifelong blind person describing the color red.

Do you want to say anything that would require an IQ above 65?

[Der_Trihs]

@abele_derer

Do you want to say anything that would require an IQ above 65?

Do you have any actual counters to the points he made?

[zoid]

@abele_derer

Do you want to say anything that would require an IQ above 65?

Except that he’s entirely correct.
You have yet to do anything but repeat the same flawed, twisted excuse for an argument and then stick you fingers in your ears and shout “LA-LA-LA” when presented with a rational response.

This is pointless - you have no interest in debate, logically formed argument or the truth. You should put a disclaimer at the bottom of each of your OPs of the form:

*Note: I will never be swayed from my position, no matter how illogical, by a thoughtful and reasoned alternative. It is useless to try.

[Steve_MB]

@Lasciel

It’s not “national” history, but there are a crapload of Confederates who, contrary to actual evidentiary records, believe that the “War of Northern Aggression” was not in any way inspired by the issue of slavery.

There are also many who believe, again, in direct contrast to evidence, that slavery was a benign institution which never harmed anyone.

The Civil War was just 150 years ago. If, in only 150 years, we can have whole societies honestly and passionately believing something false about their own history, then I boggle at what people can “remember” from even longer ago.

Oddly enough, I was just reading James W. Loewen’s “Lies Across America” (describing various misleading historical sites). The national (well, wannabee national in the political sense, but national in the sociological sense that is relevant here) believers in this tale have certainly gone to much trouble and expense to commemorate it.

[tomndebb]

@abele_derer

Do you want to say anything that would require an IQ above 65?

Do you want this thread left open?
Do you want to continue posting on this board?

If you are gooing to ignore all the rebuttals except to post insults, you are not going to be permitted either option.

[ /Moderating ]

[tomndebb]

@abele_derer

Here are the facts: The Jews believe that a) millions of their ancestors; b) experienced 14,600 days of miracles (which makes hallucination impossible); c) which was heavily-commemorated; d) the commemorations are extremely burdensome.

Hallucination is not necessary. The simple presentation of the story in the eighth century B.C.E. (or sixth century B.C.E.) for an event that was supposed to have occurred in the thirteenth century B.C.E. merely means that the people of the eighth century were willing to accept stories of unknown provenance regarding their ancestors–just as the Romans of the third century B.C.E. accepted the story of Romulus and Remus that purportedly took place in the eighth century with antecedents going back to the Trojan War. Once they accepted the stories, then all the heavy commemorations could procede to the present day without any problem. And, as I have already pointed out, according to Scripture there was no continuous line of memory from the eighth or sixth centuries going back to the Exodus for the Hebrews. If you claim that that Scripture is in error, you need to provide both evidence that it was wrong and a reason to accept the parts of Scripture that you like (the Torah) while ignoring the part you do not like (Kings and Chronicles).

[RitterSport]

I would like to request that abele derer respond to this specific post by tomndebb, since it seems to use the same source a d uses for his “proof” to disprove the theory.

[Bpelta]

I started the initial Kuzari thread. I’d managed to throw my friends into doubt on a lot of so-called proofs for Judaism (e.g. Torah Codes), but for some reason couldn’t shake them on the so-called Kuzari Principle, perhaps because I couldn’t bring myself to take the philosophical assumptions behind it seriously. I’ve since managed to write a blog post where I think I’ve expounded on some major problems with Kuzari. Abele responded there and we had a dialogue in the comments section.

[abele_derer]

I will provide a few general responses, because - and I apologize beforehand - I simply don’t have the time to respond to each and every one of your points.

Issue 1. If Kuzari is so devastatingly compelling, as I claim, then why doesn’t everyone agree with me? Response: Groupthink is a cycle. Everyone believes that God didn’t reveal Himself at sinai. Then, they find the fact that everyone agrees with them as proof that they are right. In short, don’t take comfort from the fact that everyone here agrees with you. There are tens of thousands of people who are in awe of kuzari.

Issue 2: My comment about the lack of IQ. Response: I only use personal attacks as a response to a personal attacks. He accused me of not knowing how to think logically. My response is, even if he right, why is that a particularly relevant or smart thing to say.

Issue 3: The broken telephone game shows that when information passes through a lot of sources it can become falsified. Response: That’s true. However, it is not relevant, because we are talking about a national scale. Indeed, show me a false nationally-expereiced event?

Issue 4: National history is not evidence. Response: Yes or no, do you believe that there was a temple in Jerusalem? Yes or no, do you think a person by the name of muhamed (who claimed to be a prophet and led large armies in Arabia) ever existed.

Issue 5: The fact that there is a dispute about some details of the civil war. Response: There are disputes about many details of events. Indeed, some people think that the north was the “bad-guy”, and they are probably wrong. But they aren’t stupid enough to invent a false national event. Rather they are merely INTERPRETING true events, in a way that we might disagree with. For example, its one thing to say that Muhamed never existed. It’s another thing to say “he was an immoral person.” They are very different.

Issue 6: And this is for the moderator: Show me a false nationally experienced event. Furthermore, it doesn’t make a difference how far back we can prove the belief existed. I can’t necessarily prove that people 1500 years ago believed that there was a temple in Jerusalem. PROVING THAT PEOPLE LONG AGO BELIEVED IN THE MIRACLES IS NOT ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF KUZARI.

Issue 7: And this is for the moderator. I dealt with the “found scroll” in a previous thread (that you yourself closed), I suggest your read it before closing this thread.

[zoid]

@abele_derer

Groupthink is a cycle. Everyone believes that God didn’t reveal Himself at sinai. Then, they find the fact that everyone agrees with them as proof that they are right. In short, don’t take comfort from the fact that everyone here agrees with you.

You do realize that this is exactly where your defense of Kuzari falls to dust, don’t you?

Try this editied version of the above:

Groupthink is a cycle. Everyone believes that God revealed Himself at sinai. Then, they find the fact that everyone agrees with them as proof that they are right. In short, don’t take comfort from the fact that everyone who believes in Kuzari agrees with you.

Please tell me you see this.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

If you can’t prove how far back the belief existed then you don’t have an argument. The basis of the Kuzari “proof” is that the Jewish people have believed these events occurred since they happened.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

1. Calling a large group of people a “nation” does not change the fact that it is a large group of people.

2. Calling the retelling of something a “commemoration” does not change the fact that it is a retelling of something.

3. If you recognize that the telephone game is a demonstration of the degradation of a message (i.e. causes reliability problems between the sender and receiver), then you must recognize that increasing the number of people (nation) and number of repetitions (commemoration) AMPLIFIES, rather than reduces, the problems inherent in the telephone game.

3a. Large groups of people repeating a story multiple times leads to less reliability regarding the relationship between the initial event and the present description.

[abele_derer]

@zoid

You do realize that this is exactly where your defense of Kuzari falls to dust, don’t you?

Try this editied version of the above:
Please tell me you see this.

I do see it; but my proof isn’t from the fact that the belief exists. The proof is from the fact that the belief started. Kuzari enthusiasts wonder this: How the hell did this belief get off the ground?

Regarding the general issue of groupthink, please show me one place where groupthink enabled people to gobble up a false history?

[42fish]

@abele_derer

There are tens of thousands of people who are in awe of kuzari.

Impressive. Why, it’s a fraction of the number of people in awe of Scientology. Or the ‘Loose Change’ videos. Or the moon landing hoax. Or…

[abele_derer]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

If you can’t prove how far back the belief existed then you don’t have an argument. The basis of the Kuzari “proof” is that the Jewish people have believed these events occurred since they happened.

I personally have some pretty good evidence that Jews as far back as 366 after the sinai events did believe in all the miracles. I am not going to go through them because it is not relevant.

I am proving it from the fact that the belief exists today. Today the belief exists. How did this belief get started. There are one of two general ways: 1) The sinai events happened; 2) The sinai events didn’t happen, and the Jewish people (in whichever fashion) gobbled up a false history. Option two hasn’t EVER happened anywhere else; and nothing even remotely close to it has ever happened.

[abele_derer]

@42fish

Impressive. Why, it’s a fraction of the number of people in awe of Scientology. Or the ‘Loose Change’ videos. Or the moon landing hoax. Or…

True. I was only using it as a response to his claim that no-one finds it convincing.

[42fish]

@abele_derer

I do see it; but my proof isn’t from the fact that the belief exists. The proof is from the fact that the belief started. Kuzari enthusiasts wonder this: How the hell did this belief get off the ground?

I suspect it could’ve taken a lot less than you apparently imagine. Heck, Plymouth Rock managed to become a national shrine*/major tourist attraction even though the only evidence that the Pilgrims landed there was a second-hand story first related 120 years after the fact.

*From De Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’: “This Rock has become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns in the Union… Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant; and the stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation; its very dust is shared as a relic.”
[PS: For the sake of brevity, can we just take the “But the landing on Plymouth Rock wasn’t a ‘nationally experience event’!” objection as a given and move on?]

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@abele_derer

I am proving it from the fact that the belief exists today. Today the belief exists. How did this belief get started. There are one of two general ways: 1) The sinai events happened; 2) The sinai events didn’t happen, and the Jewish people (in whichever fashion) gobbled up a false history. Option two hasn’t EVER happened anywhere else; and nothing even remotely close to it has ever happened.

If you can prove that the entire Jewish people believes the Sinai events occurred, I will accept your proof.