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

This way that people debate - where you take something that I say and write a commentary on it; it is very annoying. You can't take my words and comment on them. You need to respond formally to what I said, as I have done with you. You can save plenty of time and characters by responding normally. Also, I find it strange that you would respond to me on Shabbat... That must mean that you are indeed a secret Shabbat-desecrator. Let's just assume that you live in a different timezone where it wasn't Shabbat yet. (I apologize for not addressing every point, I was pressured due to my limited) SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATIONInstead of deliberately wasting my time by challenging all of your interpretations for certain verses in the Torah, let's just sum it up quickly right here. I don't know how many times I have to stress this point before it crosses your mind that it is literally, without any exaggeration, impossible to understand even one law from the Torah without an actual explanation from the same one who wrote the Torah. Any explanation that you come up with is open to debate, whether you like it or not. Even your doctrine that the Torah is completely unambiguous (which I utterly refuted) is completely subjective. Whatever you, or your leaders come up with, is entirely subjective. You argued that there is no evidence for an oral law that came from Moses and that rabbinic interpretations were invented many years after Moses died. (which is a total lie, I provided evidence and you did a very shabby job refuting it.) We can argue all day long on whether that is true or not. It is, indeed, for the moment, an unfalsifiable hypothesis. However, we know with absolute certainty that the Sadducees did not exist any longer than 2500 years ago, and with absolute certainty, we know that you came up with your explanation for the commandments no longer than whenever it was that Karaism started. What makes sense to you can make sense differently to another person who lives in another community. Both you and him will say the same thing, that the Torah is perfectly clear and unambiguous, and yet you will come up with completely different interpretations, based upon your common sense. Whether you like it or not, the Torah is certainly up for interpretation. If you and your brother are locked in separate rooms, and asked to write pshat, you will have completely different pshatim. POSSIBILITY OF FORGETTING THE ORAL LAW & BROKEN TELEPHONEYou mentioned that my good friend harrytruman has given you an argument to post here. In that case, I am very disappointed with him. He sent me this same question privately, and I answered it. Apparently, he was satisfied with my answer. However, he must have, for whatever reason, kept it secret from me that he was not satisfied with my answer. And as such, he sent you this argument, almost as if he was siding with you. Whatever the case is, let's get down to it. - First of all, if there was an oral law (which you seem to be implying), that means 3 things. 1. You cannot interpret the Torah according to pshat since there is an oral law (thus you have just been exposed as a hypocrite again) 2. If that oral law were forgotten, we have no way of interpreting the law at all. 3. G-d would do everything to preserve this law, just as He preserved the written law. In regard to this third argument, I have something to add to it. In my previous argument, I cited a verse; the last verse in the 59th chapter of Isaiah which reads: And as for Me, this is My covenant with unto them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from and for ever Henceforth. This is a clear reference to the oral law, which is was not written down, but was rather put into their mouths, and into their children's mouths, and into their grandchildren's mouths. Technically, that settles the argument. However, I have more to say on this matter.You need to consider the fact that unlike the game of broken telephone which consists of a few words, the Oral Torah was a large body of law. If a sage taught the oral law incorrectly (whether intentionally or unintentionally) as you seem to be implying, he would be going against the majority, and his view would be dismissed. There was not just one sage nor was there only one academy. There were many. When you have 20 rabbis all from different cities who all unanimously teach the same law, we can be sure that they all know this from the same source. If you disagree, then there should be 5 million different versions of the Mishnayot. DO NOT ADDYou have argued that rabbinic commentaries somehow fall under the prohibition of adding to the Torah. I'm not sure what you're referring to - whether to Midrash or perhaps medieval commentaries by Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Sforno, and their like, but either way, this is flawed. You clearly do not understand the meaning of do not add, most probably because you are interpreting that verse subjectively, as you do with all other verses. If we were to go by your interpretation, then, as I said before, (you completely ignored this argument), all of the prophets are criminals. There is a different between throwing out ideas in order to give you a greater outlook, and claiming that your writings are the literal words of G-d. Thus we have a Kal Vachomer eating your argument from all directions. If what the rabbis wrote is "adding" to the Torah, how much more does this apply to the works of the prophets, who claim that their writings are the literal words of G-d? Why do you believe the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah? In reality, the reason is because the rabbis canonized these books. However, there is another reason; because this does not classify as adding to the Torah. FLAWLESSNESSWe are not trying to fix the car at all, because we never claimed that the car has anything wrong with it. We are trying to learn how to use the car by means of another instruction other than the car's obvious and apparent steering wheel and gas pedal which calls for us to drive it. We now have a law to follow. The law itself does not give details of what to do in specific cases, but it, according to you, leaves us to decide what to do in such cases according to our logic and common sense. In that case, everything is completely subjective. That is ridiculous, for no merciful G-d would leave us to stumble in darkness for so many thousands of years. Obviously, the same G-d who gave us the car also taught us how to drive it. SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION1. Instead of deliberately wasting my time by challenging all of your interpretations for certain verses in the Tanakh, let's just sum it up quickly right here. I don't know how many times I have to stress this point before it crosses your mind that it is literally, without any exaggeration, impossible to understand even one law from the Torah without an actual explanation from the same one who wrote the Torah. Any explanation that you come up with is open to debate, whether you like it or not. Even your doctrine that the Torah is completely unambiguous (which I utterly refuted) is completely subjective. Whatever you come up with is entirely subjective. You argued that there is no evidence for an oral law that came from Moses and that rabbinic interpretations were invented many years after Moses died. (which is a total lie, I provided evidence and you did a very shabby job refuting it.) We can argue all day long on whether that is true or not. It is, indeed, for the moment, an unfalsifiable hypothesis. However, we know with absolute certainty that the Sadducees did not exist any longer than 2500 years ago, and with absolute certainty, we know that you came up with your explanation for the commandments no longer than whenever it was that Karaism started. What makes sense to you can make sense differently to another person who lives in another community. Both you and him will say the same thing, that the Torah is perfectly clear and unambiguous, and yet you will come up with completely different interpretations, based upon your common sense. Whether you like it or not, the Torah is certainly up for interpretation. If you and your brother are locked in separate rooms, and asked to write pshat, you will have completely different pshatim. SAGES' WISDOM They came from Egypt! Is that really what you tell yourself? NOBODY knew these things about the stars until Galileo Galilei. NOBODY (egyptians included), up until the 20th century, knew that a fetus is considered a person at age 40; other than the Jewish Sages. There was no way to know such things. We did not have these great telescopes and x-ray photography like we have today. By the way, I am not exactly an Egyptologist, but from what I have read, the Egyptians were not proficient in astronomy as you claim. I believe you are confusing the Egyptians with the Greeks, who were more advanced in astronomy; and even they did not make claims like the Sages did. To the best of my knowledge, Egypt was more proficient with astrology, which is no longer considered a science anyways. As for the waters in space; I mistakenly believed that you were referring to the knowledge of the stars; but you did say that they knew this through a prophet. Now you say that it was through Biblical exegesis? (don't you deny their interpretations anyways? Hypocrisy!) Even so, you still have yet to explain how they knew that the waters were frozen, and that there is more water in space than there is on earth.