Religious loopholes

Great Debates
41

I once read an interesting idea about the Amish and their religious beliefs on technology. Many outsiders misunderstand the purpose behind these regulations. The Amish adopt many of these rules to strengthen their sense of community not because of the merits of the technology itself. So the reason they all wear black hats is not because they think black hats are somehow more holy; it’s because black hats distinguish Amish from non-Amish. If everyone in the country suddenly started wearing black hats, the Amish would get together and agree on some new form of headwear like toques or derbies so they would continue to look different.

The use of telephones was a much discussed one in the Amish community. Some Amish felt that it would strenghten the community because it would allow its members to communicate easier and be less isolated from each other. But others argued that telephones would also allow Amish to communicate easier with non-Amish which would weaken the Amish community. And some argued that because all telephone conversations were one individual talking to another individual, these private conversations would weaken the sense of the community all being one. So the decision was that the telephones shouldn’t be used for personal conversations. And they were put outside so nobody could harbor suspicions that their neighbours were using their telephones secretly to gossip.

The Amish also realize that it’s impossible to predict all of the social impact of a new technology. They sometimes test new ideas with part of their community trying it on a voluntary basis. Then after everyone has had a chance to see how it works out, the whole community will get together and decide whether or not to adopt the practice.

42

An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins for which the guilt is already forgiven. An indulgence may be partial or plenary, removing either part or all of the temporal punishment otherwise due.

I believe you are thinking of a dispensation, which the the local bishop may grant for Lenten restrictions.

43

[QUOTE=davenportavenger]
And don’t forget about Catholic marriage annulments. Because divorce is a sin, but never fear! Your local priest has time-travel ability that makes it possible to go back in time and strike the marriage from history completely. For a price, of course…[/qupte]

I cannot imagine what would motivate you to post this statement on a board ostensibly devoted to fighting ignorance.

  1. Divorce is not a sin.
  2. Your local priest has no power at all with respect to annulments.
  3. Like any other legal process, an annulment can cost money; like many other legal processes, it’s available free if the person cannot pay.
  4. The “time travel” ability to go back and decide that an act was invalid exists in civil, secular law for marriage annulments as well.
44

It was satire. Well, mostly, the stuff about a local priest and time travel, anyway.

45

The ignorance displayed in this thread is astounding. Before you start slapping “hypocrite” labels on every person who is different than you, try educating yourself about the religion and culture in question.

Quoting Jesus as an authority on how Jews should observe the Sabbath is truly amazing.

46

About usury, Bricker hinted at the theological underpinnings of the rules in post #55 of this thread. (I don’t know if Islam uses somewhat similar or maybe entirely different reasoning.)

47

This sounds extremely strange. The Amish tend to not be legalistic; in fact they adopt or reject practices and technologies based on the real impact they think it will have, not based on any rules or regulations.

The Amish don’t want to conform to the rest of the world, so they don’t use electricity. I assume they’d be OK with setting up their own power plant and using that. They don’t want to create envy, so they don’t use cars and other luxury articles. They’re perfectly OK with riding in someone else’s car. As for the power tools, this is the first I’ve ever heard of needing someone else to turn them on. They’ll use power tools when needed and available, but they will not own them, and, of course, power tools are not much use to the Amish since they don’t have electricity.

48

Religion is not inherently intellectual or logical. As soon as you apply logic to it, such as ways of finding loopholes, you literally start poking holes in the religion itself. The very act of intellectual scrutiny of a faith is a direct violation of it. Religion demands that you memorize and meditate on all of its various tenants, not question and debate…
“Yours is not to reason why…Yours is but to do and die”.

49

Umm…not *my *religion, thank you. We spend much of our time debating the nature of the universe, deity, and our place in it.

Perhaps I should just make this my sig line:

Religion =/= Christianity

(And really, even some Christian sects have a long history of welcoming logic, question and debate.)

50

I’m not sure about the provenance of these webpages, but the answers don’t seem obviously incorrect:

http://lds.about.com/library/glossary/bldefgarment.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~ldsendowment/clothing.html

Modern Garments are shorter than the old “long underwear” style, and the bottoms reach about mid-thigh while the upper looks like a T-shirt witgh the arms a little too long. There are specific holes and marks that have significance.

LDS folk don’t generally discuss these openly, although they say Garments are among the things that are “Sacred, not Secret”, although it comes to the same thing. Guides at LDS Visitor Centers will talk about them if you press them on it. And, as you can see, there are websites that discuss them.

51

IANAReligous Scholar, so I can only wonder what role having such rules written down plays. Weren’t most of these traditions first oral? If so, one could imagine how much they developed from generation to generation, adapting to current practicalities - throwing away obsolete “rules” simply because no one talked about them any more. Then bang, one version of this evolving religion is cast in stone (as it were) then thousands of years later practitioners are left trying to wedge electricity and prime-plus-one-compound-interest into an ancient tradition.

52

You have misunderstood the purpose of the eruv (marking a set of houses as one house so as to allow certain actions otherwise forbidden on Shabbat). It is forbidden to carry or push objects on Shabbat outside the home. This includes books and strollers. Since an inflexible reading of the commandments would make attending shul for families with young children impossible the rabbis devised this very narrow exception. The creation of an eruv does not create an “all work allowed” zone. For a better explanation see:

53

Never been taught by a Jesuit, have you?

Your characterization is absolutely inaccurate.

54

Which part wasn’t satire?

And if it was all satire, what is the actual truth you were satirizing?

I guess, since this is Great Debates, I’m inviting you to make whatever point you might have again, clearly, without satire.

55

My guess would be that he was originally saying that the idea of annullment does require a certain suspension of disbelief. A couple gets married but later decides to seperate. A divorce basically recognizes that the marriage is no longer working and puts an end to the marriage. But an annullment is saying that the marriage never existed in the first place; there were inherent flaws in the marriage that existed the whole time but were only discovered when the couple wanted to seperate. There is an element of “Bobby’s in the shower and we’re going to pretend all of last season never happened” to it.

56

Questioning and debating various aspects of the Jewish religion is basically what the Talmud, one of the holy books of Judaism, is.

57

FiveYearLurker:

As an Orthodox Jew, I can at least answer the question from our perspective (can’t say if this perspective is the same for Muslims, Catholics, etc.). Please (to all) refrain from comments that dispute the nature of the religious belief itself; this post is to explain it vis a vis the issue of loopholes from the perspective of the believer, not an attempt to justofy the belief itelf. Now, the key to understanding lies in this statement of yours:

This indicates some disconnect between the letter and spirit of the law. In (Orthodox) Judaism, the two are one and the same. The spirit of the law cannot be divined except through the letter of the law. And if one is to understand the principle behind the law (and so observe its spirit), the exceptions…or as you call them, the loopholes…must be understandable in the context of whatever principle is being derived. If the spirit doesn’t explain the existence of the exception, then your understanding of the spirit is incorrect.

Remember, we believe that the Torah was dictated by G-d word-for-word to Moses. So the words and letters used are our ONLY window into the otherwise not-fathomable intentions of G-d. Any attempt to “transcend” the letter of the law and thereby obey a “spirit” not found therein can only be a human idea replacing the actual divine command.

Therefore, we there is no reason to feel like we’re doing anything wrong when we take advantage of “loopholes” in the laws. A loophole is what human lawmakers inadvertently leave when trying to write their intentions into their imprecise words. Divine authorship is by definition perfect, so there is really no loophole, in the sense that it’s meant when speaking of man-made legal systems.

58

So, if I’m reading this correctly, at least in Judaism, it is truly believed that god has a problem with pushing the button, and none with riding the elevator once the button is pushed? Therefore, it is not so much a loophole left open by god, but that god was being very, very specific in what is and is not allowed?

I hope that doesn’t sound mocking, and it is not intended to. Yours is sort of the opinion that I was seeking out here.

59

FiveYearLurker:

Essentially, yes. Allow me to elaborate:

The use of the word “work” for Sabbath-prohibited things is a translation inaccuracy (though I wouldn’t say error). The word used in the Torah is “melacha,” which is best translated as “creative work.” This is consistent with the Biblically-stated intention of the Sabbath, which is to recognize that G-d created the universe in six days, and desisted from creating things on the seventh. The word used at the conclusion of the creation story in Genesis is, likewise, “melacha.”

The Torah gets specific about what kinds of activities are considered “melacha” near the end of the book of Exodus, when G-d prohibits it specifically in connection with the building of the Tabernacle, and as an example of such prohibited creative work, specifically mentions starting a fire. Building on this context and example, Jewish law has long recognized thirty-nine specific creative acts which are prohibited on the Sabbath, and acts which are similar in nature (for example: shearing a sheep was necessary for obtaining wool in creating the tabernacle. The removal of growth from any living creature, such as shaving, taking a haircut, or cutting one’s fingernails, is forbidden on the Sabbath under this prohibition as well). But other acts are not prohibited.

So, the elevator: when electricity was first harnessed in the late 19th century, the Rabbis of the time debated whether its use is permitted on the Sabbath, and based on Biblical/Talmudic principles, concluded that electricity is a form of fire, and as such, creation of an electrical spark or impulse on the Sabbath is as prohibited as striking a match. So pressing the elevator button, which creates an electrical signal, is prohibited. Riding on an elevator on which the button is already pressed, however, performs or causes no prohibited “creative work” (that is, as long as the elevator mechanism itself is not made to work harder by the person’s additional weight, but I believe that these “Sabbath elevators” are designed to not do so).

So this is indeed illustrative of the general “loophole” principle that I explained in my prior post: the prohibition of Sabbath is very specific, and anything that is not within that prohibition does not violate the spirit of the law or the letter of the law.

60

I should qualify that my comment was in specific reference to the major Judeo-Christian religions, and in the most general sense.