From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re:      Re: God Is Unfair
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 01:51:15 GMT
Organization: IBM Research

In article <1992Nov12.080628.21853@bmerh85.bnr.ca>, dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:

|> I think the problem is that the Bible quite obviously preaches a distasteful
|> message.  I suppose it's admirable that you do all you can to obfuscate the
|> true message of the Bible, but there really ought to come a time when you 
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> throw the damn thing away and give up on trying to get it to say something
|> that it doesn't say.  I'm not at all convinced that even with all the 
|> obfuscation, the psychological impact still isn't very harmful.  In any 
|> event, it certainly seems to me as if you're playing with fire.  I honestly
|> don't think that there is much place for God mandated slaughter and genocide
|> in a book that is supposed to be used for teaching morality.
|> 

I know that you're an atheist, and not a Protestant Christian,
but the underscored phrase triggers a flag within me.

The notion that there's a "true message of the Bible" and the
notion that the Bible *alone*, unaccompanied by writings
of the sages, constitutes the basis of morality, are very
Lutheran ways of thinking.  Catholics and Jews don't believe
this, and they don't use the Bible in this way.


|> >What do you mean by "stringent evidence that my interpretation is the
|> >'right one'"?
|> 
|> I think what he means is that it is obvious that you're desperately
|> trying to extract a sane message out of an insane book.  But there
|> is only so far that you can go with approach, and it's dangerous
|> because it can easily backfire.  I'm sure that I could, with the
|> appropriate mental gymnastics, extract the message from _Mein Kampf_
|> that Jews are fine people, but I doubt if that would be the best way
|> of conveying such a message.

But there's no 3000 year tradition of interpreting _Mein Kampf_
in a positive way.


|> >You're right.  There isn't a single algorithm we can apply to the text to
|> >find the *authentic* interpretation of the passage.  But why do you find
|> >that objectionable??  You sound like a fundamentalist in reverse --- you're
|> >arguing that if I corrected the errors of my ways and learned to understand
|> >the One True Way to interpret the Bible I would see the brutal and irrational
|> >message which God intended me to see.
|> 
|> But don't you see that this whole business of "interpretation" is
|> just a way of trying to get the book to say something that it really
|> doesn't say?  You and I can read most books without the aid of an
|> "interpreter" and usually get pretty close to the same message from
|> it.  Why is it that with religious texts, there are such wildly
|> varying "interpretations", many of which seem to have very little
|> to do with what was actually written?  Could it be that you have
|> preconceptions about what you want the book to say, and do all
|> kinds of tapdancing to get the book to match your preconceptions?
|> Can you honestly say that if I read the OT and see a vicious God,
|> that it is *I* who am guilty of not interpreting the text properly?
|> 

No.  All I could say is that you're not interpreting the text Jewishly.

Actually, I disagree that you and I can read most books without the aid
of an "interpreter" and get the same message.   For the DOS manual, 
possibly so.  For the UNIX manual less so.  For the US Constitution,
even less so.  For "Endgame" or "Waiting
for Godot", almost certainly not.  For Shakespeare's sonnets,
or Shakespeare's history plays, certainly not without outside
information.  (I remember hearing about some anthropologists
trying to translate "Hamlet" to some non-Western tribe and
soliciting reactions.)  

If a text is highly poetical, or if it is very old, or if it is
in a different language,  or uses different literary conventions,
or has been re-used by different cultures for different purposes,
it is unlikely to be readable the way Martin Luther thinks the
Bible can/should be.  And the Bible is all of these things.

It's ancient.  It's poetical.  It's in ancient Hebrew.  It
assumes cultural references and conventions from a culture
we don't completely understand.  It's been passed down from
the priestly cult to the Sadducees to the Pharisees to the
midieval commentators, to the modern Jewish movements.

You're right that we have preconceptions of what we want
the book to say and we do all kinds of tapdancing to
get the book to match our preconceptions.  It's impossible
to give *any* interpretation to the Bible without that.
And it's Jewish tradition to do *lots* of tapdancing.
That's why we have the Mishna, and the Talmud, and the
Midrashim, and the Shulchan Aruch, etc., etc.  We *thrive*
on the ambiguity of the Bible.  We thrive on the contradictions.

But we do succeed in teaching messages extolling loving kindness,
mercy, pluralism, charity, justice, study, etc.  Yesterday my
daughter stood up in synagogue for her Bat Mitzvah.  That means
that she celebrated her coming of age within our ancient tribe.
As part of that celebration, she taught exactly such a lesson
to the congregation.  The text from which that lesson was
taught was Vayera --- yes, the same text being discussed
here which contains all the apparently negative messages:
the destruction of Sodom, Sarah coaxing Abraham to expel
his concubine and their son into the desert, God calling
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.  She did it splendidly, demonstrating
that our 3000-year-old ability to "tapdance" is alive and well.


|> >The lessons have positive moral value.  The lesson that
|> >doing right is more important than honoring authority
|> >has vast social consequences whether you believe in
|> >God or not.  The lesson that one should avoid making
|> >the innocent suffer for the wrongs of the guilty
|> >also has vast consequences whether you believe in
|> >God or not.
|> 
|> Yes, these are excellent lessons.  But for the life of me, I can't
|> think of a worse way to teach them than trying to squeeze them
|> out of a book which quite clearly teaches the opposite.
|> 

Time out.  

Just in case this is in doubt, let me reiterate that
I have no desire to convert any atheists here to Judaism.
In fact, it would be against my tradition to do so.

I am *not* trying to get you to make the Bible *your*
holy book.  I have enough problems arguing on another
newsgroup with Christian missionaries who have adopted
our Bible as the holy book of their totally different
religion, and who are now trying to explain why the Jews,
who wrote the thing in the first place, have intentionally
distorted it to conceal the "truth" about Jesus.

Jews don't believe that atheists will become "saved",
or more moral, or whatever, by becoming Jews.

We teach our moral lessons from the Bible, because we're
the Jewish tribe, and the Bible is the story of our
people, and is the basis for Jewish law, and Jewish
customs, and Jewish life.

But our Bible has had a profound positive impact on
culture.  I defend the Bible here against attacks
based upon an oversimplified view of what it
appears to say and on how it is used to teach
children.   Of course, we don't only use the
Bible.  Great poets, great philosophers, great
humanitarians, great statesmen are also used.

I'd love to read a thread here on how to teach
morality to children.


|> >The lesson of mercy (the Noah-Abraham-Moses
|> >progression) is very important --- very relevant
|> >for our recent times when both major US presidential
|> >candidates supported the death penalty :-( .
|> 
|> Why is it necessary to show a progression when teaching morality?
|> I would think that showing what a bunch of barbarians we used
|> to be, should fall into the realm of history, not morality.
|> 
|> >If you think these are good lessons, then they should be
|> >taught to your children.  Otherwise they will assimilate
|> >the values around them and grow up more cruel
|> >and intolerant and authoritarian than you might wish.
|> 
|> The lessons are excellent, and if I were to choose to have children,
|> I would definitely teach them.  However, I choose not to have children
|> because there are too many cruel, intolerant, and authoritarian idiots
|> about, and because of this, I have little hope for the future.  And I
|> think that one of the biggest reasons that there are so many cruel,
|> intolerant, and authoritarian idiots about, is that our culture teaches
|> morality from a book which depicts a cruel, intolerant, and authoritarian
|> idiot of a God.  I do not accuse you Rob of being any of these things.
|> In fact, you seem relatively sane.  But I think you are that way
|> in spite of the Bible, not because of it.

Yes, there are cruel, intolerant, and authoritarian idiots about.
We are obligated to resist them.  (In Jewish language,
"We are commanded by God to resist them.")  But I am not
as pessimistic as you.  One way I am resisting them is
by raising my children David, Tamara, and Jessica to
stand up to injustice.  And I was proud to hear Tamara
tell a crowd of 100+ people yesterday that if Abraham
challenged God Himself to be righteous we must not fail
today to stand up for righteousness, kindness, and mercy.
That's our Jewish mission, to be a "light to the nations".



-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598
Newsgroups: alt.atheism