March 04, 2005
Simplistic about Islam
I'd like to thank all of you who keep coming by. I look at my stats and see a long line of zeros, and it makes me sad. (When the page has not been refreshed since the last visit, it sends a short "nothing changed" message instead of the whole page. Your browser then knows to redisplay the page from its cache.) The zeros mean that people keep coming by, but get nothing - kind of like having a visitor at dinnertime and not feeding them.
Amritas quotes David Frum:
We in the Western press often praise “moderate Islam.” But in practice, “moderate Islam” often turns out to be moderate in its actions only. As decent human beings, moderate Muslims will of course refrain from committing acts of oppression, cruelty, and terrorism. But intellectually, moderate Muslims have a difficult time explaining why these acts are “un-Islamic.”
I, too, am skeptical about the presence of a "moderate Islam" in any meaningful way. Yes, moderates exist, but they seem to have no following whatsoever. However, this is very different from saying that a moderate Islam cannot exist:
Socrates once posed a brain-twister to his disciples. “Is a good action good because it is approved by the gods? Or is it approved by the gods because it is good.” In other words – do the categories of right and wrong have an existence apart from divine will?
Islam’s answer to Socrates’ puzzle has been emphatic: An action is good because it is approved by Allah. There is no independent criterion of morality outside of the will of God. And since the Koran is an absolutely literal and accurate account of that will – since indeed in a deep sense the Koran itself actually incarnates that will – there is no independent criterion of morality outside the text of the Koran.
In other words: If the Koran says or teaches something that seems morally offensive, it is morality that is mistaken, not the Koran.
Intellectually, traditional Islam forms a closed system. You can exit the system (although the penalty for exit – apostasy – is death). But so long as you remain within it, the intellectual system forbids its own reform.
I would like to point out a few things. First, I don't believe that Islam takes the Qur'an (Koran) more literally than Jews or Christians take their holy books. After all, there are reams of Islamic discourse trying to figure out what it means. Note the wide differences among Jews and Christians (and between them!) - all of whom believe that they are following God's word. Second, there are already wide-ranging differences among Muslims, note particularly the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, but also wide-ranging differences among Shiites. Finally, I want to take issue with the phrase, "the intellectual system forbids its own reform". The same thing can be said about Catholicism, yet the Protestant reformation did happen.
UPDATE: The title of this post is a play on the Arabic root s-l-m, corresponding to Hebrew sh-l-m.
UPDATE: Thank you all for dropping by! I don't know when I'll be able to post next, but I at least plan on posting for Purim. So stay tuned.
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Comment:To complicate things even more, in nations where Islam is the dominant religion it seems that there is little freedom of speech. The question is does that arise from Islam, from the dictatorships, from the monarchs, from wealthy corrupt individuals tied into the ruling elite, outside govts. supporting non-democratic leaders for their own gain, or from some combination of all of them? It seems like there would be a lot to revolt against in these nations, beyond just the religious authorites, which makes is super difficult for free-thinking folks.
It seems to me that American Muslims are the most relaxed and most free Muslims in the world. Clearly there are some nutjobs, but on the whole they kind of just quietly do their thing. The university I attended in the DC area had a huge Muslim population and there weren't any serious problems that I know of in the six years I attended. Granted they were children of wealthy people working in DC and diplomats, mostly.
Posted by: Alice at March 4, 2005 06:43 PM Permalink
Purim is March 25 this year. As usual, it starts the night before (Thursday night).
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 9, 2005 08:45 AM Permalink
As always, thank you for feeding my spirit. ;)
Posted by: jinnderella at March 9, 2005 09:11 AM Permalink
March 10, 2005
Jewish Demographics
Kantor alerted me to this article by Spengler. It's definitely worth a read. Excerpt:
Animals breed by instinct, but faith in the future is a precondition for the reproduction of human society. Wounded animals crawl into a hole and die; humiliated cultures turn sterile and pass out of memory. Germany eschewed democracy for a reason, believing that its hope for survival lay in collective identity. In light of the facts, one might say that this belief was not incorrect, but merely evil and tragic. I do not believe that the Islamic world, either, will succumb to democratization along American lines without an upheaval on the scale of World War II.
I intend no criticism of Allied war methods. On the contrary: even the Jewish diarist Viktor Klemperer, with little access to information, knew that military logic made Dresden an inevitable target as German troops withdrew to Saxony from the east. Nuclear bombardment of Japan may have been a more humane alternative than a conventional invasion. The consequences of these actions were tragic in the true sense of the term, namely that they could not be avoided.
In any case, the former Axis powers and the former Soviet Union and its satellites occupy every one of the top positions on the death row of demographics. I refer to the United Nations' report "World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision".At the top of the death list is Ukraine, whose population the UN projects to fall from 46 million to 26 million between 2005 and 2050. Democracy may have triumphed in Victor Yushchenko's Orange Revolution, but a generation from now only half as many Ukrainians will be around to talk about it.
Given the rate at which Ukraine exports women of childbearing age, that may be a special case, but by 2050 Bulgaria will lose more than a third, and Russia itself more than a fifth of its population. Japan (-12%) and Germany (-5%) do not look quite as far along the road to extinction, but the following half-century will do for them. By 2100, Deutsche Bank projects, only 25 million Germans will remain of the 82 million alive today.
None of this would have surprised the Nazis, who believed with paranoid fervor that Germany's national existence was in danger. One can hear the shade of Adolf Hitler saying, "You see, that is just what I anticipated and wanted to avoid! I warned the Germans that their national existence was in danger, and now you see that decadent democracy has finished us off."
What the "decadent democracies" of the United States and England finished off was the delusion of German racial superiority and chosenness as a master race. Hitler wanted Germany to be a new Eternal People, as I have written elsewhere (What the Jews won't tell you, November 4, 2003), and for that reason became obsessed with eliminating the Chosen People of Christian scripture, namely the Jews. The trouble is that Germany's desire to reproduce died with its delusions.
While I think that Spengler is right, as far as he goes, I would say there is more to this story. I don't think it will end the way he implies. For example, what's written above could also be said about Jewish demographics in the US. Currently, Jewish fertility is way below replacement rate, and taking into account intermarriage (which is around 50%) you get a fertility of about 1. By this prediction, Jewish births in the US will fall by 50% every generation. There are about 5 million Jews in the US today, so by this logic, in three generations, the population will fall below a million.
A scary thing to anyone who cares about a Jewish future. Fortunately, it won't happen. The mistake in the story above is to assume that the Jewish population is homogeneous. Specifically, what it ignores is the fact that about 10% of American Jews are observant, and their fertility rate is about 4.5, with essentially zero intermarriage, though a small number cease to be observant. Assume that 10% become non-observant (I think this is a vast overestimation - the real number is probably around 5% - and this ignores the number who become observant, which probably balances them out), and that they all intermarry (obviously absurd), which still leaves us with an effective fertility of 4. Meaning that the observant population doubles every generation.
Let's see how all this plays out:
| Generation | Non-observant | Observant | Observant % | Total |
| 1 | 4,500,000 | 500,000 | 10.00 | 5,000,000 |
| 2 | 2,250,000 | 1,000,000 | 30.77 | 3,250,000 |
| 3 | 1,125,000 | 2,000,000 | 64.00 | 3,125,000 |
| 4 | 562,500 | 4,000,000 | 87.67 | 4,562,500 |
| 5 | 281,250 | 8,000,000 | 96.60 | 8,281,250 |
Clearly, these numbers are a simplification. But I think they give a clear idea as to the trends. Assuming a generation to be 25 years, this projects 100 years into the future - a lot can change in 100 years, and will! Also, even keeping current trends steady, there will be more non-observant Jews than this table predicts (remember the simplifications in my assumptions).
In fact, the trend that this table predicts is already clear: I have seen it happen in my own lifetime. When I was growing up in Boston, about a generation ago, there were only two kosher restaurants, and observant Jews were so rare (even in the Jewish neighborhood where I grew up) that they were almost invisible. Now, when I go back to the old neighborhood I see observant Jews everywhere - and new observant neighborhoods have sprouted up elsewhere as well. (The nature of Judaism requires observant Jews to live in well defined neighborhoods, see here.) I stopped keeping track of kosher restaurants, there are so many of them.
While I am familiar with what's going on in the Jewish community, I think that something similar is happening in the US in general, and across the world. I have talked about it before, here.
UPDATE: Wes Meltzer responds. He thinks that observant Jews will become non-observant in the future at the same rate that they have in the past:
I am not going to dispute the fact that the ranks of the Orthodox will grow, as a consequence of their lack of birth control and intermarriage. But I don’t see it taking on the catastrophic numbers that so many commentators see. As the children of the Orthodox become well-paid doctors and lawyers and consultants like their parents want, most of them will feel the same pressure to fit in that my grandparents did, and they, too, will find themselves less observant. And particularly they’ll want to use birth control, so they can spend more per child of their new, high income on fewer children. Which means that not only are they more likely to be less observant, but that they’ll join the trend toward fewer children, too.
Wes has a very interesting blog, but clearly he has little experience with the observant Jewish community. They are already "well-paid doctors and lawyers and consultants" - yet show no signs of assimilation, and if anything their fertility is increasing. Clearly, something has changed, I talk about it here. (I admit, though, that the numbers above probably underestimate the future numbers of the non-observant Jews. Since my intent was to disprove the hypothesis that US Jews will disappear, I purposely underestimated wherever I could, for simplicity.)
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Trackback from The Idea Salon: Weblogue, The demographics of the Jews:
In which Wes expresses his amazement at the notion that non-observant Jews are committing demographic suicide, assuming that the two Jewish groupings are non-fungible, like ethnic groups.
I could never write anything this clever :)
Posted by: Hatshepsut at March 10, 2005 07:50 PM Permalink
I've heard from several others that intermarriage in the disaspora is actually 60% though, which is what I tend to call a "massacre", without people even realising it.
Oh and thanks for your comment. It's great to have someone with knowledge to correct me like that! I removed that post along with another one though.
Posted by: Hatshepsut at March 10, 2005 07:51 PM Permalink
It's the other way around: Europe's fertility is declining not because Hitler lost, but precisely because Hitler WON the war of ideas.
Hitler set out to strip away Judeo-Christian morality and return Germany to its earlier, pagan roots. He succeeded: Western Europe is mostly post-Christian and secular. The communists did the same for East Europe, stamping out "the opiate of the people".
The modern pagan feels him/herself to be a lonely point of fleeting awareness floating on that random fragment of matter on which - by chance - life evolved. Mass media and the nanny state have provided comfort while obliterating individual worth. What motivation does this worldview offer for the hard, selfless tasks of marriage and parenting?
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, in his classic work Michtav Me'Eliyahu (beatifully translated into English as Strive for Truth), distinguishes between those who are, at their core, givers - and those who are takers. Jewish monotheism leads to a conclusion that life is a gift, and that giving is the ultimate good.
The pagan world was/is the world of grasping, exploitative takers - who even try to bargain with and outsmart their "gods". Their is precious little reason, in this worldview, to forego one's own indulgence for the greater good.
The Greeks and Romans also faced dwindling populations in their decadent phases. Now Europe - having returned to its prechristian roots - is doing the same.
Faith in the future is, indeed, a precondition for the reproduction of human society. Modern, atomized neo-pagan society provides none.
Ben-David
Posted by: Ben-David at March 10, 2005 11:33 PM Permalink
Ben-David: I think you're pretty close to agreeing with Spengler. From the link:
In 1914 Europe's soldiers still fought under the illusion of a God that favored their nation. Germany fought World War II under the banner of revived paganism. For today's Europeans, there is no consolation, neither the old pagan continuity of national culture, nor the Christian continuity into the hereafter.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 10, 2005 11:51 PM Permalink
David, judaism is the most robust of Error Correcting Codes. Otherwise there would be no jews today. ;)
Posted by: jinnderella at March 11, 2005 07:31 PM Permalink
What I'd like to see is a Sailer-esque historical study of fertility rates, sorted by political stance, of Israeli Jews.
Of course we all know what the trends are, but it would be interesting to see how important a factor demographics have actually been ( compared to other factors ) in determining political developments in Israel in the last three decades.
Posted by: Melnorme at March 11, 2005 09:36 PM Permalink
Most important to remember is that Jews don't follow "nature." Statistics and predictions don't work with us. Remember how in the early and mid 20th century all the experts, sociologists, statisticians predicted beyond a doubt that religious Jews were a dying breed. In http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2005/02/rabbi-wolf-zatzl.html I have a link that shows today's situation in NY. Sorry I don't have the patience to search for the link itself.
Posted by: muse at March 12, 2005 08:58 PM Permalink
i know that many of the people on this blog are from a judaic background, but i have to say the characterization of "paganism" is exceedingly facile.
for example:
The pagan world was/is the world of grasping, exploitative takers - who even try to bargain with and outsmart their "gods". Their is precious little reason, in this worldview, to forego one's own indulgence for the greater good.
if you were never pagan yourself i think this seems a bit much in terms of psychological extra-introspection.
as a point of fact:
1) the more religious nations of southern europe (italy, spain) have the lowest birthrates, as opposed to secular france or sweden.
2) in africa, the converts to christianity tend to have far lower birthrates than uncoverted pagans.
3) in india, converts to christianity tend to have lower birthrates than the surrounding hindu population.
4) in south korea, christians have the lowest birthrates.
this is not to say that christianity causes low birthrates, rather, in all the situations above, christianity, a belief in a monotheistic god, correlates strongly with acceptance of western modes of life and expectations which often result in a decrease in fertility.
also, let me point out that between 300 & 400 the roman world converted to christianity, but they were conquered by barely christianized, often pagan, german peoples. christianity did not entail a demographic rebound (though for reasons offered by sociologist rodney stark christianity might have resulted in greater birthrates vis-a-vi roman pagans). the emigration by vikings from scandinavia was likely caused by overpopulation, this, from a people who believed in a destruction of the world and the gods.
sorry if i went off ;)
david makes a good point, which i agree with overall, but i read an article in moment magazine which suggests a far higher than 10% defection from orthodox judaism in the united states. barry kosmin at CUNY would probably know the exact numbers
p.s. in 1935 95% of germans were tax paying members of a protestant or roman catholic church. their demographic decline had started in the previous generation.
Posted by: razib at March 13, 2005 09:07 PM Permalink
also, let me add that the birthrate of the CIS (post soviet union that is) nations has declined greatly since about 1980 with the fall of communism. concurrently there has been a revival of religion, mostly in christian and islamic form, throughout the CIS (kalmykia has re-buddhaized itself though). the two correlations need not be connected (the decline in birthrate could be due to a very, very, sharp drop among non-religious people only, even though they are declinig as a frequency of the population), but, i suspect if the two numbers did track, some people would point to this as evidence that "paganism" saps the will to procreate.
my point is that i wish people would rely on broad, robust and plentiful data-sets on all levels of organization (individual -> social) as opposed their preconceptions on the psychology of other groups/individuals. remember that there was a time when people would naturally assert that somethings were part of the "jew mentality," as if they knew what the day-to-day experience of jewishness was through their distant and distorted lens of the outsider.
Posted by: razib at March 13, 2005 09:16 PM Permalink
David, judaism is the most robust of Error Correcting Codes. Otherwise there would be no jews today. ;)
what about the armenians? though their religion has changed (from paganism to monophysite christianity), it seems their language and likely their genetic continuity has been maintained for 2500 years, just like the jews. i am curious if they are as admixed as the jewish diaspora with local populations....
Posted by: razib at March 13, 2005 09:19 PM Permalink
OK, razib, one of the most robust of ECC's. You're right, if you are considering just birthrate, i haven't done the stats. shameless! ;)
And, i dunno, i suppose i am a neopagan myself. I do do sometimes consider conversion to judaism, because I am basically just ravished by the elegant and powerful simplicity of jewish teachings and scriptures, and out of pure admiration for the exceptional human beings that are my Jewish friends.
But as a pagan, i worship fertility first and formost. It is probably the Ur-religion, the most basic religion of all. I think razib's argument has legs.
Posted by: jinnderella at March 13, 2005 09:55 PM Permalink
I do do sometimes consider conversion to judaism, because I am basically just ravished by the elegant and powerful simplicity of jewish teachings and scriptures, and out of pure admiration for the exceptional human beings that are my Jewish friends
simplicity? do you consider the mishnah and gemarra not scriptures because of their commentarial nature? perhaps you should convert to karaitism ;)
Posted by: razib at March 13, 2005 10:06 PM Permalink
David, umm, weren't the Greeks pagans? ;)
razib, i am ignorant-- what is karaitism? and where is my inspiration in live models? I don't think i know any karaitists. ;)
Posted by: jinnderella at March 13, 2005 10:14 PM Permalink
karaites reject the oral tradition encapsulated in the talmud. in other words, they stick to the core of the torah...which i still wouldn't call simple.
christianity in its inception was simple i think because of its rejection of the law and emphasis on a few broad principles, but soon enough greek philosophy and roman government added a layer of complexity that made it no different than rabbinical judaism in my opinion when it comes to baroque elegance.
Posted by: razib at March 13, 2005 10:23 PM Permalink
Hello to all,
I agree with the analisys of David about the survivance of orthodox Jews, but it doesn´t make me happy, because what I like are precisely the non-observant ones. So, probably Jerusalem will persist but, what about Tel Aviv?
Well, I am non-religious, so I don´t believe in a God that created the world for the good of his creatures, and, under my materialistic cosmovision it is perfectly possible that the most advanced and free societies of the world were also unable to survive.
That´s the weigth of materialism: that there is no God to assure that good will prevail.
Anyway, perhaps transhumanism could be the solution as was proposed by Houellebeq in "Atomized".
Posted by: Kantor at March 13, 2005 10:26 PM Permalink
I disagree with razib about the elegance of cristitanity:
The fact that Cristianism is a full cosmovision where there is no room for disagreement makes it far more simple than post-Diasporic judaism.
There have been allways a lot of controversy about the nature of universe and the meaning of human life, that will not find in cristianism.
Judaism is only dogmatic about rules (and even there, not so much) not about principles.
Posted by: Kantor at March 13, 2005 10:44 PM Permalink
The fact that Cristianism is a full cosmovision where there is no room for disagreement makes it far more simple than post-Diasporic judaism.
hm. have you ever observed three jesuits discussing theology? imagine three rabbis trying to interpret the talmud.as a point of specific fact, christians have never been able to figure out if they accept post-corporeal migration of the spirit to heaven or a bodily ressurection for the past 2000 years on the issue of the after life. both simultaneously play a role in christian thought in most denominations (exceptions are the jehovah witnesses, who reject the soul migration for ressurection).
and of course, the nature of the trinity is the root of most pre-reformation christian disputes.
Posted by: razib at March 13, 2005 10:51 PM Permalink
Yes, I have observed a lot Catolicism! And believe me, it is more than boring.
The religious irrationalism in judaism is concentrated in the laws and rules, while in catolicism is in the moral principles and the cosmovision.
So, even the most extremist rabbi is aloud to think freely about the nature of Universe and human life: a catholic priest has a lot of philosofic dogmatism to cope with.
And remember, catolicism is based on the rejection of the body. Not limited "niddah rules" but full body hatred.
Posted by: Kantor at March 13, 2005 11:01 PM Permalink
Razib: I think that the discrepancy between the Moment numbers and mine are intergenerational. A lot has changed between my parents' generation and mine. If you look at the orthodox defection rate for the current population of Jews you get something like 50%, but if you look at my generation and younger you get something like 5%. I think that this report has the data, but you have to derive it. (I'll try to look at it later, I don't have time right now.)
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 13, 2005 11:41 PM Permalink
"And remember, catolicism is based on the rejection of the body. Not limited "niddah rules" but full body hatred."
Yeah it's a shame that the Valentinists were triumphant. Oh wait.
I don't think you actually know the Catholic (there's an 'h' in that word, by the way) position on such issues. JPII's "Theology of the Body" addresses this issue in particular.
On the topic of philosophical dogmatism, Thomism has only been said to be the model for philosophical systems in the service of the Church. The RCC is certainly not dogmatically Aristotelian (and note that St. Thomas was suspect at the time specifically because of his Aristotelianism!) (also, I think it is underemphasized how dogmatic Judaism has to be on at least some metaphysical issues for the halakha to make sense; it's not like just any set of arbitrary statements will make the Torah comprehensible.)
Posted by: Daniel at March 17, 2005 07:26 AM Permalink
I think it is underemphasized how dogmatic Judaism has to be on at least some metaphysical issues for the halakha to make sense
The point is: It doesn't have to "make sense". No one will bother you if you reject the reason and keep the practice. (I don't know what specific issues you're thinking of...)
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 17, 2005 08:17 AM Permalink
Basic issues like "it is possible to obey commands" and "there is a subject which is commanded". Things that practically no one would seriously doubt, but which are nonetheless metaphysical claims.
The idea of a Jew being commanded requires both a Jew and a command, after all. I'm not saying there has to be a rationale behind the commands, but only that the commands in general be conceivable. So if you have no idea why you should keep kosher, that's not a deal-breaker (it's possible to act from respect for a rule), but if you can't understand what it means to "obey a rule" then you have a serious problem.
Posted by: Daniel at March 18, 2005 09:12 AM Permalink
March 13, 2005
Holy Hubris - `Azut D'q'dusha
They say a picture's worth a thousand words, and if anything, it is a vast understatement. Only the simplest picture can be conveyed, with even rough accuracy, in a thousand words. (I commented on one here. In this case they set to convey a message merely by dressing their model, and they succeeded with resounding success. The message was conveyed clearly and unambiguously to a wide audience, even when contradicted by the accompanying written message.)
If so for a picture, how much more so for a life? Many things can be learned only by living. Since he linked to my previous post, I took a tour of Wes Meltzer's blog: The Idea Salon. It is an interesting blog, and Wes is clearly a very bright guy. It is also filled with youthful hubris: of leaping into the fray not fully prepared. Not a bad thing, in my opinion. (He reminds me a little of myself at that age.) Hopefully, with time, it will mellow into mature wisdom. But for now, it speaks of initiative, of a chomping at the bit of life. There is an expression for it in Hebrew: `azut d'q'dusha (עזות דקדושא) - holy hubris. (Actually, it is an Aramaic phrase borrowed into Hebrew - literally: "hubris of holiness".) `Azut, perhaps even more than its English translation, has negative connotations: but this oxymoron refers to the necessity of action, of not being too humble to take the initiative, and do the right thing. No one is omniscient, there is always the possibility that our good intentions are all wrong. Nevertheless, we must boldly do what is right, as we understand it. As it is said:
בִּמְקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ
Bimqom she'eyn anashim hishtadel lihyot ish
In a place where there are no men strive to be a man
Pirqey Avot 2:5
There are many, many, often conflicting, explanations as to why God chose to give the Tora to the Jews (not all of them reflecting favorably on the Jewish people) but here is one that is not well known:
מפני מה נתנה תורה לישראל מפני שהן עזין
Mipney ma nitna tora l'yisra'el mipney shehen `azin
Because of what was the Tora given to Israel? Because they have hubris.
Talmud Bavli, Beysa 25B
I too consider myself youthful, though I am quite a bit older than Wes. I can only hope that my hubris is appropriate for my age.
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I watched the video about dating. I was surprised, but I'm skeptical. A friend of mine did something similar, but without pictures. She put 2 dating adds in a online dating service. One was a "hot 20 year old blond girl, interested in fashion, loves sex", made spelling errors, etc. Men just went crazy. She received hundreds of replies. The other one was a 26 year old highly educated brunette with a good job. She got 6 replies. I think it all depends. Maybe the woman in the video used a conservative dating site or something. Maybe the men thought the sexpot was a fake (it certainly looked fake/modelled), and were intimidated.
Posted by: Maria at March 14, 2005 12:14 PM Permalink
While I'm glad there are guys like David sticking up for us "good girls", I still think most men are really superficial. Sorry :/
I bet the body-language communication was more nuanced than "good girl" vs. "sexpot".
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 14, 2005 03:05 PM Permalink
David, I am confident that you, alone among us all, will never completely grow-up. ;)
If your hubris is appropriate, how can it be hubris? Then it must be khouros, right?
Posted by: jinnderella at March 14, 2005 10:35 PM Permalink
Well, thank you kindly for the praise, David, as offhand as it sounds. I won't make any pretense to know everything, because I know I don't. But, as you suggest, my goal is mostly to, well, be there, to have a voice. So it's well worth the energy -- and it does take quite a lot.
I'm quite flattered, really, that you bothered to read through it. It's... somewhat mundane, most of the time. But I certainly appreciate it, and the kind words.
Posted by: Wes Meltzer at March 15, 2005 06:09 PM Permalink
March 14, 2005
No sole soul
John Ray writes:
From what David Boxenhorn says, modern-day Jews cheerfully accept several quite different accounts of the afterlife all at once! I must confess, however, that I don't at all understand how serious Jewish students of scripture can accept belief in an immortal soul in view of the number of times that those same scriptures describe the "nephesh" as mortal. I guess they must place a lot of emphasis on uses of the word "ruach" but Ecclesiastes 3:19 must give them a few difficulties there. That scripure says that animals and people have the same "ruach" ("spirit" or "breath") so Heaven must be overrun with billions of rats, cats and dogs (just for starters). Good if you want to have a chat with a dinosaur or a pterodactyl, I guess. Very confusing!
Well, there's a very simple answer to this: Hebrew has three different words for soul, and they are not synonyms. The words are: nefesh (נפש), ruah (רוח), and n'shama (נשמה), in that order. The nefesh is the soul that all living creatures share, it is the feature which distinguishes life from not-life. Perhaps a better word for it would be: life-force. This word can also be used to mean 'beings' or 'human beings' as in the phrase, "there are 10,000 souls in the city". The word for 'mentally ill' in Hebrew is: hole nefesh - 'soul-sick' or 'life-force-sick'. In Hebrew, mental illness is a disease of the soul, not the intellect. N'shama (its root: n-sh-m is also used in nasham - to breathe) is the kind of soul that only people have. When we speak of the immortal soul we use this word. It is also used to describe a person's spiritual presence, e.g. n'shama tova - a good soul. Ruah, often translated as 'spirit', is the link between the nefesh and the n'shama. It is associated with emotions. The word can also mean spirit in the sense of disembodied spirit, e.g. ruah ra` - an evil spirit. It can also mean simply: wind. The Hebrew word for spiritual is derived from this word: ruhani (its opposite is gashmi: material).
But there is also a not-so-simple answer to this question: Judaism doesn't concern itself with these kinds of issues. It is for this reason that "modern-day Jews cheerfully accept several quite different accounts of the afterlife all at once". I hope to speak more about it in my next post.
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Halakha and Hashqafa
Two posts down, there is an argument in the comments about whether Judaism is complex. I think this is a problem of terminology (like many arguments, which is why I repeat: The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms) the question being: simple in what way? Judaism is complex in some ways, but has a very simple theology. In fact, I think that only two beliefs are required:
1. There is one God
2. God wants the Jews to live according to halakha
That is not to say that there aren't other Jewish beliefs, in fact there are a lot of them. There are also Jewish ideas, Jewish attitudes, etc. However, they aren't required. The binding force among Jews is not a set of theological ideas, but a commitment to a way of life: halakha (the way).
In contrast to halakha (הלכה) is hashqafa (השקפה) - ideology, viewpoint. There are many, many Jewish hashqafot (השקפות , plural of hashqafa). Some are hostile to each other, but by and large observant Jews are tolerant, and even revel, in their variety. However, even when hostile, you will not hear, "they aren't Jewish" - the worst you will hear is, "they are wrong about an essential thing" - hem to`im b`iqar (הם טועים בעיקר).
UPDATE: Okay, I should have known it was coming. A reader asks, "Can a Jew believe in Jesus?" The answer is no, at least in the way a Christian intends that question. A Jew can believe that Jesus was a man, even a wise man, but he can't believe that Jesus was the son of God, or a part of God, or an embodiment of God: that would be a violation of requirement #1. You could believe that Jesus was a prophet, but then he would be a false prophet: "If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams -and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee - saying: 'Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them' thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God putteth you to proof, to know whether ye do love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. After the Lord your God shall ye walk, and Him shall ye fear, and His commandments shall ye keep, and unto His voice shall ye hearken, and Him shall ye serve, and unto Him shall ye cleave." (Deuteronomy 13:2-5) Jesus would be a false prophet because he advocated abandoning halakha - requirement #2. In contrast, I think, a Jew could believe in the entire Greek pantheon and still be Jewish, as long as he didn't call the Greek gods God, or worship them. The Greek gods are nothing like God, they are just powerful beings. We know that in the past many Jews believed in ghosts - ruhot (רוחות), spirits - shedim (שדים), etc. without it being a theological problem.
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This is very interesting. It seems that other religions agree on ideology but disagree about rules, and Judaism is broadly the opposite way round.
Other religions *have to* agree on ideology, because that's their identifying factor, whereas Jews are born Jewish- unless they convert, but then, that's very difficult, because to follow halacha properly without having been brought up in it means learning a whole culture in enormous detail.
Not sure how much sense that makes, but Judaism does seem both unique and structurally the opposite way round to other religions, to me, in this sense.
Posted by: Alice at March 15, 2005 12:20 AM Permalink
Alice: Islam is not far from Judaism in this regard.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 15, 2005 12:31 AM Permalink
This is very interesting. It seems that other religions agree on ideology but disagree about rules, and Judaism is broadly the opposite way round.
if you do a headcount of "religions" more are like judaism than not. hinduism, confucianism and shintoism are more like judaism. christianity and to a lesser extent islam are probably what you have in mind as contrasts with judaism, and buddhism is probably somewhat like the universalist monotheistic religions, but the preponderance of tribal religions through africa & asia are more like judaism.
re: david, i think he is write to emphasize that islam is skewed more toward orthopraxy than orthodoxy in comparison to christianity. but i would say it is not nearly as fixated on orthopraxy as judaism, because my personal experience is that only religious professionals and a small cadre of hard-core believers know the hadith directed correct practices with any level of fluency. the shia vs. sunni belief for example, and the concomittant charges of apostasy that occassionally fly, are more due to orthodoxy and orthopraxy. the analogy works better within the sunni tradition.
Posted by: razib at March 15, 2005 08:56 PM Permalink
Interesting it seems from Acts 9:2, 19:9,23 and 24:23 that early Christianity [possibly before receiving that name]was known as "the way".The Acts 24 reference is actually speaking about the resurrection. Did or does halakha ever include beliefs as in #1 and #2 in your piece as necessary to the "walk" of life? Peter.
Posted by: peter at March 16, 2005 04:26 PM Permalink
Peter: Halakha means "way". Its root, h-l-kh is used to form a lot of words that have to do with walking and going, e.g. halakh - "to walk", hithalekh - "to walk around", halikha - "walking"
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 16, 2005 07:21 PM Permalink
I think, a Jew could believe in the entire Greek pantheon and still be Jewish, as long as he didn't call the Greek gods God, or worship them.
That is good news for us pagans! ;)
Neal Stephenson says it better than i--
If you think of the greek gods....as patterns of neurological activity that the mind uses to represent things that it sees, or thinks it sees, in the outside world....so Athena isn't a supernatural being that lives on a mountain in Greece, et cetera, but rather whatever entity, pattern, trend, or what-have-you that, when perceived by ancient Greek people, and filtered through their perceptual machinery and pagan worldview, produced the internal mental representation that they dubbed "Athena"...They are not really "gods", but templates or recognizable patterns. A way of thinking about the world. I don't believe the greek concept of gods included the love of mankind, or a group of mankind. Occasionally a god or godess would love a particular mortal. Mortals were like pets or cattle. Reciprocal love is a thing i admire in the relationship of G-d with his people, the Jews. And loving-kindness.
Posted by: jinnderella at March 24, 2005 03:18 PM Permalink
March 16, 2005
The Other Palestine
It is not often remembered that before 1948 the term 'Palestinian' referred exclusively to Jews. Arabs rejected the term, they weren't Palestinians, they were part of the Arab nation.
I just watched this interesting film about Tel Aviv, Palestine, from 1947 (via Not a Fish). It was very interesting to see what had changed, and what hadn't. I recognized most of the sites in Tel Aviv, the brand names, etc.
It was also interesting to see some important themes that we seem to have forgotten, for example the theme of freedom. The narrator makes a point that most people in Tel Aviv are engaged in peaceful industries, "I haven't heard an explosion since I got here," he says at one point.
One of the last lines of the film:
When he is asked, "Who are you, and where are you from?" he will say, "I am a Jew, and I am from Tel Aviv, Palestine."
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Trackback from Willow Tree, So While I'm Blabbing about Juries:
Rishon Rishon is reminding us in who the original Palestinians were....
Palestine had the same borders as Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza (but not the Golan) in 1947. At an earlier point it included (Trans-)Jordan. What are now Syria and Lebanon were given to France after WWI, when the UK got Iraq and what became Palestine. All these areas were carved from the Turkish Empire, which divided up the region differently.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 16, 2005 09:45 PM Permalink
I guess I keep going back to the time of Herod and the Romans.
The word Palestine, in its modern usage was invented by the British, who didn't want to call it, "The Land of Israel" or "Judea". Before that, it wasn't used since the Romans changed the name of Judea to Palestina (after the Jews' long-gone enemies the Philistines) as a punishment for rebelling against Rome. See here.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 17, 2005 08:23 AM Permalink
Ideology, Democracy, University
Ever since I wrote my post on halakha and hashqafa I've been thinking about meta-ideology, and specifically the meta-ideology necessary to maintain ideological diversity. (What I mean by meta-ideology: ideology about ideology.) Actually, I've been thinking about this issue for a long time, but now I've hit on a new, and I think productive, way of thinking about it.
Judaism's emphasis on halakha (rules) results directly in freedom of hashqafa (ideology). That is, the fact that everybody agrees on the rules, and the fact that they are not derived from ideology means that no new ideology can challenge the stability of the system. Halakha (the way) specifies the rules of the road: drive on the right, stop on red, etc., and the fact that everybody follows them means that everybody is able drive to where they want to go. Imagine what would happen if traffic rules were derived from ideology, if people argued about whether you should drive on the left or right? Stop on red or green? Imagine if every town were free to set its traffic rules according to majority opinion, if traffic rules were a hotly debated issue, if the country were on the brink of civil war because of these differences of opinion?
It has occurred to me that for a democracy to survive while permitting ideological diversity, the vast majority of the population must be committed to a meta-ideology which permits ideological diversity. The United States Constitution serves exactly that purpose. It is a religious document, in the sense that its validity is not debatable. It is the basis of the American religion. (A good way to become a political pariah in the US is to reject the US constitution.) Its beauty is that, like halakha, it is a procedural document. It doesn't tell you what to think, it tells you what to do. Moreover, it demands that no laws can tell you want to think or say: laws can only tell you what is permitted or forbidden to do. (As an aside, this contrasts dramatically with the proposed European Constitution, which concerns itself mainly with ideology.)
In other words, the democratic religion (I cannot prove that democracy is good, except in terms of values which I also cannot prove, therefore it is a religion) requires something equivalent to "God wants the Jews to live according to halakha" (from the post below), something like: "It is required to live according to the constitution". (I can't think of better rhetoric that doesn't mention God.) But to promote diversity, the constitution must be such that advocates of any ideology (or at least a very wide range of ideologies) can point to it and say, "I'm okay because I support the constitution" - and that's exactly what the US Constitution provides.
With the possibility of ending this post on an anticlimax, I want to try to apply these ideas to academia. Academic freedom is supposedly a big deal, but universities, at this point in time, have exactly the wrong kind of freedom: There are no clear rules, instead there is a clear ideology to which you must conform. So let's try to turn the situation around: What sort of rules should there be? What should the academic meta-ideology be? Well, I know where to start: The scientific method. Unfortunately, the scientific method is not easily applicable to all fields of study, and it is true that in those areas where it is clearly applicable (physics, for instance) ideology is much less important. But, in fact, the scientific method (plus some statistics to make up for the difficulty of doing experiments) can be applied much more widely than it is. Fashionable fields like Woman's Studies or Black Studies are actually very amenable to the scientific method, if you are honest. And it's beyond me why Linguistics isn't a "true science" - you can really do experiments in many branches of Linguistics almost like you can in Physics. So the first rule of academia should be: I can say anything I want as long as I can back it up with the scientific method. I think that will get us far, but what about areas like Political Science, Literature and History? I don't know, but I'm open to suggestions!
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I don't think the scientific method can be applied to all problems, but the remaining truths can be argued for nonetheless.
Our primary shield against ideologies is to remain open to competing arguments, whilst continuing to act on our best theories.
I would suggest four reforms for academia:
(1) End compulsory schooling for children in countries where home education has been made illegal. (This will slowly impact on universities by changing the ordinary citizen's conception of education.)
(2) Insist on diversity of funding for universities
(3) Make university lectures non-compulsory
(4) Pay lecturers according to how many students actually show up at their lectures (the free market is a direct form of criticism)
Posted by: Tom Robinson at March 17, 2005 03:33 AM Permalink
Democracy isn't a religion, it's a way of criticising policy by giving citizens the power to remove bad law makers.
Religions, by contrast, ring-fence certain irrational beliefs in order to shield them from criticism. (This preserves old knowledge.)
Nothing is certain. Will humans survive? We've made plenty of progress so far, and there's no reason to suppose that infinitely more progress isn't possible.
Posted by: Tom Robinson at March 17, 2005 03:47 AM Permalink
Maria: You are a bright bulb yourself!
Tom: To me, anything that can't be proven (such as values) is a religion. Why should you believe in "a way of criticising policy by giving citizens the power to remove bad law makers"? Of course, you can give reasons in term of other values you may have, but ultimately you can't prove that it's right or wrong.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 17, 2005 09:12 AM Permalink
Anything that can't be proven, is a religion? The validity of reasoning is unprovable in exactly the same way that basic morality is -- question it, and you exile yourself from all possible debates. Is it sensible, or useful, to label the rules of logic a "religion"?
Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 17, 2005 12:08 PM Permalink
Michael: Well, non-religious people are always talking about how irrational religious people are. But in the final analysis everything is irrational. In other words, everybody has a religion, so the question is not, "Are you religious?" but, "What is your religion?"
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 17, 2005 12:33 PM Permalink
David: No knowledge is certain, even mathematical theories which have been "proved" are tentative.
Theories can never be positively verified, only shown to be false or flawed and inferior to their rivals.
Yes, I have faith in democracy, in the absence of better systems. To make an analogy: in physics there are really only three constants, namely 0,1,infinity. Given that we have made *some* progress (measuring between zero and one), there's no reason to suppose progress won't continue indefinitely.
Posted by: Tom Robinson at March 17, 2005 06:32 PM Permalink
No knowledge is certain, but faith in G-d is more rational than mere faith in reasoning. Here are three reasons why:
1. The G-d concept addresses the unconscious and unknown as well as the conscious and knowable.
2. Believing in the unknowable is more rational for fallible humans than believing that everything that should be believed is provable.
3. G-d is the ultimate optimistic moral meaning.
The most rational worldview is a basis of belief in the G-d concept, with reasoning applied to every action. There are other kinds of better or worse applicable to theories than verifiability.
Posted by: Alice at March 20, 2005 12:16 PM Permalink
It is not true you allways have a religion: a religion is a mithological set of beliefs.
Axiomatic truth is not provable but should be reasonable.
When you hold that human behaviour should be based on reciprocity, responsability and maximum welfare for the majority you make sensible and natural statements.
When you hold that stone women to death is a moral duty because a guy received a book from God in 622 AD, you are basing your statement in the unlikely fact that the guy received the book from God (specially unlikely becauase the moral contained in the book is openly cruel, intolerant and opposite to human needs).
So, not everything that cannot be proved is religion. Religion is based in mithology, and becomes false if the mithology is not factually true.
Abstract ethics doesn´t depend on mithology, so its validity depends on its ability to improve human welfare.
Posted by: Kantor at March 20, 2005 10:04 PM Permalink
so its validity depends on its ability to improve human welfare
How do you know what "human welfare" is?
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 20, 2005 10:08 PM Permalink
March 17, 2005
Mind the subtext
I don't think any of these demonstrations would have happened without the extensive television coverage now spreading through the Arab and Islamic world of Lebanon and Iraq. Several of my correspondents in the region have pointed out, that Al Jazeera's "pro-terrorist" coverage in Iraq has backfired, because Arabs watching the footage of anti-government demonstrations take away a powerful impression that such demonstrations should be possible.
The subtext is more eloquent than the text in these cases. For, yes, Al Jazeera often only covers people marching against America and her allies. But also, yes, the Americans and their "running dogs" also permit such protests. Viewers know their own dictators permit no such thing. Or rather, have only started allowing that sort of thing as a way to release pressures that their police forces tell them are building, quickly, everywhere.