Date: Sunday, 3 January 1993 20:35:44 MST
X-Mailer: TMail version 1.15R
From: "D. C. Sessions" <dcs@witsend.tnet.com>
Organization: Nobody but me -- really
Subject: Re: Conversations with a Rabbi
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Distribution: world

In <6647@pdxgate.UUCP>, a0cb@rigel.cs.pdx.edu (Chris Bertholf)  wrote:
# >  We'd all appreciate it if you took your own advice and spent the
# >  next few decades doing some serious firsthand research into
# >  Atheism, Buddhism, Islam, ..., Wicca, Voodoun, Zen, ...
# 
# What a total idiot!

  So nice to carry on an intellectual conversation on the merits...

#                      Obviously, I don't have time to research every aspect
# of religion.

  So why do you propose an argument that isn't satisfied until WE do?

#               However, we are only discussing two religions here,

  How do you figure?  There's Judaism, and there's everything else.
  You propose that we not discard another religion without reading
  everything printed on the subject.  Given that Islam at least is
  closer to Judaism than Xtianity, why should your religion make
  the cut and Anisa's get left out?

#                                                                   thus
# research into Voodoun, Islam, Buddhism, etc. would not be germane to this
# discussion, nor to the investigation of that material.  I will point
# out that I do quite a bit of pleasure reading in the areas of religion,
# and I have in fact learned about many of the religions of which you
# write, on my own, without others telling me what those religions
# mean, how I should interpret them, etc.  I'm sure you haven't.

  Do we add amazing mental powers to your list of credentials?
  Really quite remarkable what you can tell about me over the Net,
  without knowing even my sunsign (or gender)!  Since you have pegged
  most of the remaining posting on this assumption, I'll let you in
  on a clue: you haven't got one.  What you don't know about me
  isn't a patch on what you think you know that just ain't so.

# You seem more content to let others think for you than I.  Your choice,
# not mine.

  Amazing discovery!  Please elucidate.

# Who ever said I had the One and Only True Faith?  Is this your
# best shot at discrediting the ideas of which I speak because you
# have no intellectual arguments?  I have never suggested anything except
# an open-minded look at the literature.

  Clue two: I'm unpleasantly familiar (literally!) with Xtian
  theology, thank you.  If I were content to let others do my
  thinking, I'd have been in Church this morning.  Nice try.

#                                         I never said 'convert to 
# MJ or Xianity', I just advocated thinking for yourself.

  I thought you said two religions.  Are you engaging in mitosis or
  is it three?  Or -- oops! -- this was a slip, right?  Should we
  try to cover up the secret?

# >  Some of us, for instance, have found that after the first few times we got 
# >  burned by hot objects we become quite uninterested in finding out if the
# >  NEXT one will, too.  Or are you open-minded enough to give
# >  the next coal you see a try, just to be sure?
# 
# Another misplaced analogy.

  Does the expression "learning by induction" mean anthing to you?
  I used it immediately prior to this paragraph for a reason.  If
  you're not familiar with the concept I can explain by e-mail
  without clogging up the newsgroup with fundamentals.

# You speak of literature as though it had some physical property, like heat,
# such that the book automatically burns you when you pick it up.

  Well, I've read things that burned me up and others that left me
  cold, but in fact there IS something that "picking up" your
  <material> DOES cost me: time.  Since I don't have enough of it
  for the really important things in life, wasting it on reading
  every wacked-out nutcase's ravings is decidedly NOT free, but the
  most costly mistake I can make.

#                                                                  I would
# love to see such a book or pamphlet, as it would definitely lessen my
# investigations into such matters.  However, as the literature I am familiar
# with does not posess such properties, I find the only authorative way in
# which to really deal with it is to read it, and based on what is contained, I
# can discard it, or accept it, or discuss the contents, or ...  You
# can do none of these things, because you have no knowledge of the materials,
# thus anything you say is based on conjecture, and can easily be discarded
# by those who do seek to ENLIGHTEN THEMSELVES BY INVESTIGATION.

  Which gets us back to point 1: why are you wasting your time and
  ours by making a nuisance of yourself when you could be reading
  Confucius?  How do you know, without doing so, that this isn't
  what you REALLY should be doing right now?

# >  In case this is too abstract to register, we have found that
# >  some people (Sam Saal, for instance, or the RAMBAM) have
# >  proven to be much more reliable than the J4Js.
# 
# Yes, groupthink!  Have someone else tell you what is right, wrong, good, bad,
# indifferent, yellow, red, white, wet, dry, ad infinitum.  Why determine any
# of these things for yourself based on investigation when you can rely
# on someone elses interpretation.

  WHAT investigation?  Your original suggestion didn't point to any
  primary sources, but to (at best) quaternary popularizations.  I've
  read Tertullian and Calvin directly, thanks, and don't need some
  clown to sugar-coat regurgitated pop theology to me.  What you were
  proposing is not independent investigation but the substitution
  of one set of authorities for another, and in that regard I have
  far more regard for Moses ben Maimon than for someone who believes
  in things BECAUSE they are absurd.

  [more argumentum ad hominum deleted -- dcs]
#                                             I wonder what you are missing;
# I know, you don't... You have someone else to guide you and that is easier
# than thinking for yourself.

  remarkable psychic powers again?

# >  BTW, we're not all so dense that we fail to notice that
# >  this "try us, don't listen to the Jews!" pitch is targeted
# 
# I never said "Try us".  What makes you think I am one of the "Us".  Could
# it be that I don't subscribe to your groupthink, and, as such, you will
# have to assume that I must be one of them.  Well I'm not!!! I just have
# more of an interest in letting my own mind think for me than you do.

  Oooooh!  Groupthink.  Tell us, oh Omniscient One, what group
  do *I* have think for me?  (No peeking!)

# >  towards the most ignorant among us, who won't recognize
# >  the lies and BS on their own.
# 
# I haven't advocated the acceptance of the material in any way; just the
# investigation of it.  Obviously, this bothers you. Too bad.

  Yup.  It bothers me when someone crashes a party uninvited and
  tries to trick people into a course of action with lies.  It
  bothers me when someone gives free inquiry a bad name by
  misappropriating the label for a dogma which won't stand
  INFORMED scrutiny.  It bothers me because the answer to Cain's
  rhetorical question is YES.

#                                                              Now go back
# to having someone else think for you.  I hope their next reply is better
# than the one they thought up for you this time.

  Do I...?  Nyahhh.  Couldn't be -- a CONSPIRACY THEORY!  Egad!
  Are the Elders of Zion scripting this for me?  Have I truly
  risen to the exhalted status of Dupe of the Zionist Conspiracy?
  Oh, joy of joys!  Such honor!

# >--- D. C. Sessions                            Speaking for myself ---
#                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
# But not thinking for himeself :-)

  'hime' self?  Is this something like Himetown?  Or just a
  misspelled guess at my gender?


--- D. C. Sessions                            Speaking for myself ---
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