From: dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
Subject: Re:      Re: God Is Unfair
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 07:27:22 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.015115.29578@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.080628.21853@bmerh85.bnr.ca>, dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
>|> >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.

This misses the point entirely.  Assume the the book was written 3000
years ago and has been used as a holy book from then until now by, say,
1 billion people.  No doubt this sounds ridiculous to you, but I can assure
you that using the OT to teach morality seems no less ridiculous to me.
Even if this hypothetical culture had a priesthood which interpreted
the book in a more positive light, would you not be a little suspicious
of it nontheless?  Why?

>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.

Where do these preconceptions come from?  I think that most people who
use the Bible for teaching morality would assert that the wisdom
is contained in the Bible and that it is the rabbi's job to extract
that wisdom.  You seem to be agreeing with me (correct me if I'm wrong)
that it doesn't work that way at all, but rather that you get
the wisdom from elsewhere, and then go through great contortions
to try to pretend that it came from the Bible.  Why not dispense
with the Bible entirely?  My contention is that the Bible only hinders
advances in morality, and actually exerts a very powerful influence
in the wrong direction.  The current fundamentalist resurgence seems
in part to be a reaction against all the fancy "interpretations"
that have been made of the Bible in order to get it preach a more humane
message, and I'd imagine their proselytizing is made much easier
by the fact that their interpretations are not as contorted as
those of the more liberal sects.  They would like to take us back
3000 years, and that's not surprising since they're using a 3000
year old book as a description of their ideal society.

>But we do succeed in teaching messages extolling loving kindness,
>mercy, pluralism, charity, justice, study, etc.

Probably to some degree.  But there is something fundamentally wrong
with the world as it stands today, something that is embodied in
the following snippet from another Jewish poster:

  #The OT is a narritive of the growth of the human race as a moral species.

Now this is utter garbage.  Observe how he equates his little backwards
tribe with the human race.  It seems to me that any tolerance that most
people might show towards others of a different tribe/nation/race/creed
is really only a temporary truce until somebody gets the upper hand
and begins the slaughter anew.  This is because most people, deep in
their hearts, "know" that their tribe/nation/race/creed is the superior
tribe/nation/race/creed.  I think that as long as we keep teaching kids
that their ancestors were lilly white saints who were only interested in
"righteousness", and that the other tribes/nations/races/creeds were
all immoral beer-swilling sexual perverts, we'll keep doing what we've
been doing for 1000's of years: slaughtering each other.  We must start
teaching kids that they are human beings first, and only incidentally
members of their tribe/nation/race, and that their tribe/nation/race
is not the centre of the damn universe.  The Bible's perspective is quite
wrong in this respect, and I don't think that all the obfuscation in the
world will make it right.

As an aside,  I heard on the radio a week or two ago that recent
archaeological discoveries indicate that the Philistines were not
the scumbags that the OT portrays them as.  It turns out that they
were a good bit more cultured than the Jews.  But, the announcer went
on to say, the Jews had a vision: monotheism.  O happy day!  Does anybody
know any more about this?

>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.

I dunno.  Maybe it's just me, but I think there's already quite
enough tapdancing in the world.  I can think of more important
lessons that need to be taught.  Being honest with yourself
for one.

>|> 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 understand that.

>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.

I just finished reading _Holy Terror: The Fundamentalist War on America's
Freedoms in Religion, Politics and Our Private Lives_ which has section
on how the slimy bastards try to convert Jews.  You have my best wishes
in your fight against those arrogant fucks.

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

By contrast, this atheist believes that there is a difference between
obedience and morality, and that theism emphasizes the former while
often calling it the latter.  I don't believe that a theist can be
truly moral.

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

Here's how:

(1) Figure out what you don't want the kids to do.
(2) Figure out what you do want the kids to do.
(3) Tell them that they will burn in hell for eternity if they do any
    of the first, and go to heaven if they do any of the second.  If
    they ask what happens if they do some of the first and some of
    second, tell them that will burn in hell for eternity if they ever
    dare to ask such silly questions ever again.

Piece of cake, and it works every time!

Seriously, I'll leave this up to somebody who actually has kids.
Prometheus Books has a selection of books for young readers which
might be helpful.  Some of the authors have Jewish sounding names,
so they can't be all bad. :-)
--
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. ****
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