Karaite Judaism (Pro) vs. Rabbinical Judaism (Con):

Before I even begin, I'd like to say that the entire idea of Karaism is utterly ridiculous. The first people who denied the Oral Law were the Sadducees, who appeared no longer than 2500 years ago. Up until then, nobody disbelieved in the Oral Torah. They died out, and many years later, a new group sprang up called the Karaites. As the years have gone by, the Karaites have gradually disappeared, until now, we have less than 50,000 of them in the world. Just as the Sadducees have ceased, so will the Karaites; for all of those who stray from the Torah (Oral Torah included) will not endure, as it says in Pirkei Avot: "Any dispute which is for the sake of heaven will endure, and every dispute which is not for the sake of heaven will not endure. What is a dispute which was for the sake of heaven? The dispute between Hillel and Shammai. What is a dispute that was not for the sake of heaven? The dispute of Korach and his following."KARAITE HYPOCRISY The Karaites claim that we do not hold the oral tradition which stemmed from Moses. To the best of my knowledge, Sifrei Torah were once written without any spaces or vowels. The words kindoflookedlikethis. It was nearly impossible to read, until the Sages came and added spaces to the words of the Torah in order to make it readable. You are literally only able to read from the Torah because the Sages made it so. And yet you deny their authority?THE ORAL LAW'S OBVIOUS EXISTENCE It is literally impossible to understand any of the Torah's laws without a... well... AN EXPLANATION? For example,- We are commanded to circumcise our sons when they turn 8 days old. What if they are ill? Do we circumcise and kill, or not circumcise but transgress the commandment?- We are commanded to abstain from all work on Shabbat. How do we know what work is? For some people, writing is a burden, and for others, writing can be fun. How do we know what work is? Is work entirely subjective, defined by each individual? - Exodus 12:2 reads: "This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months". Which months?! Egyptian months? Chaldean months?- Where in the Torah do we see a blueprint for the Holy Temple? How did Solomon know what to build if not for an oral tradition?I can go on forever, but obviously you're not interested in reading all of my examples.SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATIONA perfect text cannot have ambiguities. The Torah is very ambiguous, and thus, any interpretations that Karaites come up with are entirely subjective and opinionated, open to debate. Whatever you interpret the law to be, I can do the same thing in the other direction, and there is nothing you can do to refute my claim. You need an official law, which we only find in rabbinic Judaism.THE ORAL LAW IN ACTION According to the oral law, a prophet has permission to temporarily annul any commandment of the Torah, other than the prohibition against idolatry. In the Written Torah, we have no source for this. In that case, can you please explain:- How Elijah brought a sacrifice on Carmel, when it was forbidden to do so anywhere outside of Jerusalem?- This is unrelated to the first issue, rather this has more to do with Pikuach Nefesh, but can you please explain how the Prophet Uriah ben Shmaya had permission to flee to Egypt?- Solomon personally brought sacrifices in the Holy Temple (1 Kings 8:64). Isn't this service reserved for the priests? Where did Solomon find permission to do this?WISDOM OF THE SAGESWhen you read rabbinic literature, you see very clearly that it could not have been the result of human imagination, for the Sages had great knowledge that nobody could have known back then. For example,- Knowledge of when a fetus is considered a person (this is important halachic knowledge. If a woman miscarries after 30 days of pregnancy, is she impure to a dead body?) The Oral Law (niddah 3:7) says that from day 40 and onward, the fetus is considered a person. Not aware of this mishnah, the scientist Professor David Lyrge said: "We do not know much about the development of the brain of the fetus... until about the fortieth day of life, at which point the basic structure of the brain is in place, and it becomes possible to discern slight electrical activity"- Knowledge of the amount of stars in the sky. Berakhot 32 says that the amount of stars are over an 18 digit number. To a primitive man, this would have sounded absurd. But to a modern man, this is perfectly rational. When you look into the sky, you see maximum 6000-8000 stars, and so it was assumed that that is how many stars there were. Later, Galileo Galilei and his telescope came and corrected this error, with his claim that there are many stars which we cannot see (and he was actually put under house arrest for his claim, if I am not mistaken)- Genesis 1:7 reads: "And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so." The Midrash (Bereshit Rabbah 4:2) comments that this water was literally above the firmament, and that it was frozen. In 4:5, it says that there is more water in space than there is on earth. To a primitive man, this would sound absurd. Water above the firmament? And there is more water up there than there is down here? How can that be (since there are so many oceans and lakes and rivers). And why would the water be frozen? Later we discovered that there are these things called comets which are made of ice. There are many comets, many of which are actually larger than the earth. How accurate were the Sages here? Too accurate to be ignored.(these are only a few examples. There are plenty more.)