From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re:      Re: God Is Unfair
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 22:19:17 GMT
Organization: IBM Research

In article <1992Nov16.072722.9863@bmerh85.bnr.ca>, dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
|> 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?
|> 
It would depend on the recent behavior of the followers of that
priesthood.

...
|> 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.
|> 

It's a little like the US Constitution.  Some very cynical
folks will argue that we don't really have a constitution.
We just have 9 old folks getting their wisdom from elsewhere
and then going through great contortions to try to pretend
that it came from the US Constitution.

I think the real answer lies between the extremes of
literalism/strict constructionism and pick-and-choose/anything goes.

The Constitution has a stabilizing influence.  Things
can change, but precedent in general will be maintained.
Well understood dicta and principles of reasoning
will be preserved.  But here and there, legal fictions
will be invented to make new law while preserving
the appearances.

I disagree that this is a bad thing and that we should
go back to Sola Scriptura (which, like strict constructionism,
is a ruse underlying a hidden agenda of interpretation).

I wouldn't advocate "dispensing with the Bible, entirely",
even for atheists, however.  (What would that entail, anyway?)
It's not as if there were zillions of competing books
with better lessons around.

And in other postings I have argued that it is better for
the children to have the ambiguity and the high literary
plane of the Bible than to have the whole thing reduced
to a catechism.

|> >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.  

Whoa!  I think you are over-reacting.  To be sure, the poster
you quote expressed himself poorly.  But so did you, since
I don't think you're prepared to defend "backwards tribe".

You are correct.  The Bible is the story of the Jewish people,
not the story of the human race.  But *because* the Jewish
people are no better or worse than any other people, it could
have been the story, modulo details, of any nation.  Jacob's
leadership, his sons' jealousies, David's courage/fatal passion/diplomacy,
Solomon's excesses and failure to propagate the dynasty, the
giving of the law, and the building of the Golden Calf, etc.
Like other great literature, it does portray much of the
general human condition, and as such it can be said to be
about "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.

And yet you have to understand that when my daughter taught Vayera
last Saturday to our congregation that was the *exact* point
that she made!!  So we have succeeded in building an institution
in which 125 people, mostly adults, will spend Saturday morning listening
to a 13-year-old girl stand at a pulpit and explain that even though jealous Sarah
cast Hagar and Ishmael out in the desert and left them to die,
God rescued them and made them a great nation and a holy book
was written about it to remind us that our tribe/nation/race is
not the center of the damn universe!  So you're right.  We do
teach kids that they are human beings first and Jews second.
And we make sure that they can stand up in the synagogue
and remind the adults to teach it again to *their* kids.
And we praise them for doing a mitzvah as a Jew.
 
|> 
|> 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?

Not I.  How can an archaeologist discover that tribe X was
"more cultured" than tribe Y?  Exactly what facts about
the two cultures were being alluded to?


|> 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.
|> 

That is turning the FAQ question on its head.  I'd love
to see you start a spinoff thread called "Can a theist
be truly moral?"  Why don't you post your position?


-- 
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