From: dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
Subject: Re:      Re: God Is Unfair
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 09:20:29 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.151044.23933@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:

>OK.  Let's do the experiment.  Pick a package from the Iliad or
>the Odyssey, which I imagine we can agree are the most famous
>pieces of epic literature from ancient Greece.  Prepare
>a commentary and a sermon which would allow you to teach
>a public lesson from this passage.  I don't think it's
>going to be as easy as you think.  Make sure that the
>lesson can be understood at multiple levels --- by young
>children and by adults.

As I mentioned in another article, I wasn't referring to any of Homer's
stuff.  If I were, I'd have to agree that extracting lessons from
it might be difficult; maybe even as difficult as extracting lessons
from the Torah.  What I'm a little confused about though, is your
stipulation that my lesson must be understood by young children
as well as adults.  Why?  We don't teach anything else that way.
We don't teach quantum mechanics or calculus to kids in kindergarten,
and we don't teach university students how to tie their shoelaces
or drink their milk without spilling it.  Why should ethics be any
different?

>Could you divide the Iliad into 52 weekly portions and
>give a lesson a week throughout the year on them?

I'm sure I could if I were so inclined.

>If my memory serves me correctly, the Iliad and the Odyssey
>have problematic passages even more disturbing than the
>"bad" Biblical passages like Elisha and the bears.  I'll
>try to look up a few and post them.

To be honest, it's been so long since I've read any of either that
I can't remember much of what is in them.  But by all means, post
some of the nasty passages, and I'll derive a contemporary moral
message from them.  It'll be fun!

>|> You're right.  I do not have the fortitude for it at this point.
>|> If I can't get you to express a little doubt at the thought of teaching
>|> morality from the OT, I'm sure as hell not going to be able to
>|> get you to see that your tribe wasn't the most advanced of the time.
>|> You'll probably never understand that, for example, slicing off
>|> a bit of a kid's dick, is as barbaric as the practices of any 
>|> of the most backwards tribes in Africa.  I should point out that
>|> I do not consider present day Jews to be any more backwards than
>|> any of the rest of us, but that is now and that was then.
>
>I'm going to ignore the ad hominem attacks on my supposed closed-mindedness.

I apologize if I sound like I'm vehemently attacking your closed-mindedness.
I do think that you have a blind spot when it comes to the down
side of your culture, but otherwise, you seem like an entirely
reasonable person.  I suppose we all have that blind spot.  Perhaps
you could at least concede that I might have some small reason to
be a little nervous that there are a sizeable number of people out there
who use as their holy book a text that says that I am evil because
I am an unbeliever, and which describes a number of slaughters of
peoples because they didn't kiss Yahweh's ass.

>I find the above one of the most perplexing paragraphs in our entire
>exchange of postings.  

I'll bet you don't, really.

>Please explain how circumcision of an eight-day-old infant is
>as barbaric as excising the clitoris and sewing the vulva
>of a young girl.  

Ok, I guess if we have to start quantifying barbarity (I know, I
started it), I'll concede that circumcision is not quite as barbaric
as clitoridectomy.  But they're both completely unnecessary mutilation,
they're both very painful for the victim, and they both cause reduced
sexual enjoyment for the victim.

>Your last sentence just confuses me.  According to you, Jews
>used to be more backwards than many other tribes, although
>now they are the same.  In your opinion is that because
>we have gotten better, or because the other nations have gotten
>worse?

In my opinion, it is because the other nations have gotten worse.
As I may have pointed out, I have great respect for the accomplishments
of the ancient Greeks.  When they were conquered by the Romans, the
lights dimmed.  When the black cloud of Christianity descended, the
lights went out completely and the Western world has never completely
recovered.  Now it looks like the lights are going out again.

>After all, we *still* perform what you consider
>to be a barbaric rite.  

Yes, you do.  Don't many Xtians do this as well?

>What do you think accounts for the relative improvement
>(from more backwards to no more backwards) the Jews have
>made over the centuries?

Science.

>|> BTW, how do *you* think the Jews compared to the ancient Greeks
>|> or even the Romans in terms of backwardness?
>|> 
>
>Well, I'm not sure "backwards" is a rigorous scientific term.
>I find myself somewhat in a role-reversal here:  a theist
>who appears to be more of a cultural relativist than the
>atheist he is disputing with.  

I never claimed to be a cultural relativist.

>Certainly the Romans appear to be out of the running.
>Their entire history seems to be one of cruelty and
>conquest, slavery, bread-and-circuses.

Yes, they were cruel.  But, as far as I can tell, they were
fairly sane.  My impression is that the Jews were to the Roman
empire what the fundies are to our current civilization.

>Their period
>of ascendancy was brief, and their fall was due more
>to their own degeneracy than to any advanced qualities
>of their military enemies.

Actually, I think a large factor in their fall was that Christianity
sucked the life out of the empire.  What's more, history seems
to be repeating itself.

>The ancient Greeks were also primarily a slave-based
>society.  If I remember correctly, the average Greek
>was a slave in a silver mine --- not very pleasant.
>Their golden age was impressive, and left a lasting
>legacy, but it was also brief.  Part of the Jews'
>strengths were that they were willing to pick up
>good ideas from their neighbors.  The postive
>features of Hellenism influenced Jewish thought, e.g.
>through Philo of Alexandria.

Then where is the golden age of Judaism?  If the Jews picked up
the best features of Hellenism, why were they not able to pick
up where the Greeks left off?  Why was it the Muslims who preserved
and nurtured their knowledge?  Where is the Jewish vision of
a better world?  The Greeks pondered such questions, and proposed
sweeping changes.  Those changes did not include praying harder
to their gods, or trying harder to extract wisdom from Homer.
Granted, Plato was all too willing to encourage superstition,
but not among the philosopher-kings.  Not among the people who
were calling the shots.

>The Greeks did not
>do so well in picking up the positive features of
>their neighbors,

This exactly contradicts my admittedly limited understanding.  I
thought that the Greeks were as enlightened as they were because
they were a seafaring nation and had plenty of opportunity to
observe other cultures.

>and their brief golden age was
>soon gone.  Their legacy was picked up more by
>other tribes than by their own descendants.
>As I mentioned above, I disagree that I could teach
>a kinder gentler morality from the Iliad.

With enough rationalization, anything is possible.

>|> Try this:  Ask your daughter what she thinks of the Nazis for perpetrating
>|> the holocaust.  Now ask her what she thinks of the Jews for slaughtering
>|> the Canaanites in order to steal their land.  I'd bet any amount of money
>|> that you will get radically different answers.  She will have no problem
>|> condemning the Nazis, but she will make all kinds of excuses about
>|> righteousness and the progression of morals when it comes to the
>|> Canaanites.  When she fully understands that what the Jews did to the
>|> Canaanites was just as bad as what the Nazis did to the Jews, *then*
>|> she will be an enlightened human being fit to live in the 21st century.
>|> 
>
>This part of the discussion has appeared on this newsgroup
>before.  First of all, the Jews didn't actually do to the
>Canaanites what some of the hyperbolic descriptions in the
>Bible actually said.

Perhaps.  But that is, for the most part, irrelevant.  Your daughter
gets her impressions from your book of mythology, not from what
actually happened.

>Second of all, to use an expression
>you used earlier, that was then and this is now.  What they
>did then would, if done in the 21st century, be as bad.

Alright then.  Perhaps you could get her to compare the conquest
of Canaan to the enslavement of the Jews by the Egyptians (which I
think is probably fiction, but again, that's irrelevant).  Or compare
Canaan to oppression of the Jews by the Romans.

>But you have asked me to make an experiment, and I will.
>I will ask Tamara to compare the destruction of the Canaanites
>to the genocide of the Nazis.  I think you'll be surprised
>at what she says.

I wait with baited breath.

>|> I don't remember the details.  I'll see what I can find out.  Just
>|> out of curiosity though, would it make any difference to you if there
>|> were incontrovertible evidence that the Philistines had built a
>|> more advanced civilization than the Jews of the time?
>|> 
>
>Do you mean would I renounce Judaism and take up the religion
>of the Philistines?  No.  But I'd want to learn from
>them nevertheless.

I didn't think you'd switch religions.  But I thought it might give
you cause to wonder at the veracity of the Torah.  After all, "philistine"
has been ingrained in our language as a derogatory term, solely
on the say-so of the Torah.  Maybe we've been giving them a bad rap
all along.  Perhaps, if the Philistines had defeated the Jews instead
of vice-versa, "hebrew" would mean what "philistine" does today,
and it might well have been a more accurate reflection of history.

>Part of my question included a little skepticism about the
>interpretation of the archaeologists' report.  Scientists
>try to be morally objective.  Archaeologists and linguists
>tend not to use terms like "advanced" and "cultured" and "backward"
>any more.  So my eyebrows go up when you say that they
>were proven to be "a good bit more cultured than the Jews".
>I'd be more interested in knowing more about the details
>we learned about their life, their institutions,
>and the artifacts they left behind.

"Cultured" might have been my own term, but it was something similar.
Certainly you must agree that there is some way of measuring
how advanced a civilization is, because it is you who talks
a lot about how the Bible shows a progression of morals and
righteousness.  I believe that you have said previously that
the lesson you extract from the Canaan genocide is the triumph
of righteousness over unrighteousness.  What does this mean and
why does it need to be taught if there is no objective measure
of righteousness?  Of course, I don't believe for a minute that
the genocide, if it took place, had anything to do with righteousness,
but that's irrelevant.

>Of course, the Jews never claimed to be the most advanced
>in every respect.  The Bible itself describes occasions
>when the Jews had to retreat because their opponents
>had chariots with iron wheels, while the Jews didn't have that technology.
>Similarly, the prohibition against graven images
>meant that other cultures were more advanced in
>painting and sculpture.

In which respects were they the most advanced?
--
Should the human race not be extinguished by a nuclear war, it will degenerate
into a flock of stupid, dumb creatures under the tyranny of dictators who rule
them with the help of machines and electronic computers.  This is no prophecy,
just a nightmare.  -- Max Born.   **** dgraham@bnr.ca    My own opinions. ****