South Africa: difficulty getting good information

[accelafine]

You know exactly what I mean, or are you a pitiful, drooling idiot?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Ps. People who use the term 'The Jews' are invariably what FDP refers to as nazis.

You mindless, insipid, drooling child!

The Jew: Essays from Martin Buber’s Journal, Der Jude, 1916-1928, selected, edited, and introduced by Arthur A. Cohen.

In 1916, in the middle of World War I, Martin Buber, then thirty-eight years old, launched the periodical Der Jude, with the cooperation of Robert and Felix Weltsch, Hans Kohn, and Max Brod. This was an extraordinary publication, not least in the forthrightness of its name. It struggled on for eight years, employing the talents of nearly all the main Jewish figures then writing in German, and some writing in other languages; included were Franz Kafka, S.Y. Agnon, Hermann Cohen, Gershom Scholem, Gustav Landauer, Jacob Klatzkin, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, Franz Werfel, Hugo Bergmann, Romain Rolland, Benno Jacob, Josef Meisl, and Elias Auerbach. But throughout, the main informing spirit of the periodical was Martin Buber himself, who contributed many weighty articles later published in book form and sought, through Der Jude as through his other activities, to raise Jewish consciousness and pride and to advocate the Zionist solution to the contradictions of Jewish existence in exile.

… and a thousand other similar references.

[accelafine]

Pitiful, drooling idiot, or pretending to be.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Please forgive me. Rupert (our little dog) peed over a Turkish rug we’d just got back two days ago. I apologize. I took it out on you. I sent Roopy to our finca up in the hills where he can piss anywhere it pleases him!

[Dubious]

Christian belief is constructed upon a metaphysical and supernaturalist platform. Judaism is the ur-form of Christian belief, or an extension of it, and is built upon the same platform.

I think that would be news to most Jews whether atheistic or fervently orthodox. There are too many belief differences and objectives between them for that to be true. Calling Judaism an ur-form of Christian belief is a near non sequitur by almost every comparison you wish to consider.

The issue of distinction as well as the time Hebrews have been around is irrelevant. The entire belief-construct of both belief-systems are fundamentally undermined by the same effort. Undermine one, both are fundamentally undermined.

A Christian who no-longer believes in the NT and thereby not in the OT is fundamentally different from a Jew who never believed in the NT to begin with. Whatever the consequences to Christianity, Judaism remains immune to it or at least seeks to expel as if it were a foreign body. The significance of the OT is very different to a Christian than it is to a Jew. The objectives of the former are very different from the all-inclusive version believed in by Jews which identifies them as a people distinct from all others.

Since Paul, the Apostles and nearly all first Christians were themselves Jews, the word borrowing does not quite fit.

Logically it does since those Christianized Jews were regarded as heretic, external to the established order. Even Paul, before his conversion, persecuted them...these heretical Jews being deemed sacriligious, ultra vires to the accepted orthodoxy.

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I think I can accept the notion of determinism when it pertains to the non-conscious world. It is when our consciousness, dim or partial as it may be, enters the world that non-determined choice also enters.

I'm not disagreeing but the underpinnings of whatever freedom of thought we have remain largely deterministic.

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For many Orthodox Jews Zionism (as a manifestation of human will or as reaction) is a terrible and a consequential error that itself will provoke disaster. It is contrary to God’s will to put it plainly. This is not me telling you what my view is, it is me repeating what their view is.

I think you may be referring to the the ultra orthodox Haredi group of Jews. Based on group, orthodox Jews generally have a host of divergent views regarding Zionism. Otherwise, I admit to not having heard anything so extreme that For many Orthodox Jews Zionism (as a manifestation of human will or as reaction) is a terrible and a consequential error that itself will provoke disaster.

It's possibly true for some ultra group but generally among orthodox Jews there are too many rival views to form a consensus, especially one so severe.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Having repeated my assertion twice, doing to again makes little sense.

Still, I cannot see a way around the understanding: Demolish Christian metaphysics and Judaic metaphysics is demolished simultaneously.

This argument rests solely on the metaphysical and supernatural claims (origin, platform) not on cultural differences.

I believe all I am doing is clarifying what an atheist’s position must necessarily be.

[Dubious]

Having repeated my assertion twice, doing to again makes little sense.

Still, I cannot see a way around the understanding: Demolish Christian metaphysics and Judaic metaphysics is demolished simultaneously.

This argument rests solely on the metaphysical and supernatural claims (origin, platform) not on cultural differences.

I believe all I am doing is clarifying what an atheist’s position must necessarily be.

Cultural differences can make a very big difference, of which religion and metaphysics, in essence being the same, are very much controlled and expressed by cultural norms and historical traditions. This is not simply MY idea. Religion, metaphysics are usually expressed as cultural entities, not something external to it. That's the reason religious rituals and traditions survive when their beliefs are no-longer equally upheld.

Also, you also fall into the perennial trap, forever exploited by IC, that what doesn't conform to your metaphysics must be an atheist position when atheism really has nothing to do with it and no motive in causing it. There is no lever that automatically clicks into atheism just because one's metaphysics has been questioned. That to me is a naive assumption consistently defaulted to by theists.

In addition, and historically considered, you have not (to my knowledge) given any indication as to what combines these two highly differentiated belief systems into a single metaphysical capsule that simultaneously collapses when one or the other goes defunct. In what manner are they so integrated that one or the other should cause the collapse of the whole?

Succinctly put, the historical motives which created Judaism have nothing or nearly nothing in common with that which caused the emergence of Christianity; this means that their raison d'être are not mutually wrapped into one metaphysical system subject to a simultaneous disintegration if either one loses the power to survive.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Succinctly put, the historical motives which created Judaism have nothing or nearly nothing in common with that which caused the emergence of Christianity; this means that their raison d'être are not mutually wrapped into one metaphysical system subject to a simultaneous disintegration if either one loses the power to survive.

I think — perhaps — I may understand where you are coming from (excuse that tired expression). In your view a “metaphysics” is a concocted stuff, so naturally what ancient Jewry constructed, is unique to them.

Christians, more or less, constructed a different metaphysical vessel and for this reason you see them as different, non-combining.

That explains why you use the term ‘motive’ that moved Hebrews so long ago, and why you refer to the ‘causes’ which brought Christianity into the world.

I tend to start from the other direction: God, the ineffable, the origin of all things, the manifest, is real and stands behind everything. I am thus not an atheist and am, in a qualified sense, a theist. But, like many, the “story” as an interface has also for me become unbelievable. Yet instead of disbelieving, my ‘belief’ transcends the container (story) while allowing for belief in the content. The content is “God” which is beyond all conception. One can only encounter (whatever that is) but explanation of (whatever it is) is not possible.

I have to go through (in fact I do go through) a series of manoeuvres to still hold to the fact of God; you dismiss the idea of God because it cannot be factualized.

If I understand your position, you do not “believe in” any sort of divinity (or you simply don’t bother with the entire problem). So, of course, metaphysics is mental organization, intellectual overlay, motive. What is metaphysical is unreal in this sense, perhaps comparable to maths (?). But constructed, and like all constructions, dissolvable.

[Alexis Jacobi]

In addition, and historically considered, you have not (to my knowledge) given any indication as to what combines these two highly differentiated belief systems into a single metaphysical capsule that simultaneously collapses when one or the other goes defunct. In what manner are they so integrated that one or the other should cause the collapse of the whole?

It is not that the system collapses, or the metaphysics collapses — that is metaphor — the capability of man to believe in collapses.

I do not see these as “two highly differentiated belief systems” and I would comment that there is a deep unity between them. However one notable difference when considering practical Judaism as practiced in synagogue and with a siddur, is the emphasis on Talmudic-derived exegesis, whereas a Christian reads the Bible directly and depends less on interpretive literature. Still, there is deep unity given the respect given to the Prophets and applied ethics.

But my assertion that when thinking men (Nietzsche and Spinoza as examples) work over the central predicates of the religious belief, and effectively dismantle it, they go about it in the same way. And in this sense it could be said that Nietzsche and Spinoza are the “fathers of modern atheism”. So again it in (obviously) not the metaphysic that has collapsed, it is that the entire conceptual structure that cannot sustain “belief”.

[Dubious]

I think — perhaps — I may understand where you are coming from (excuse that tired expression). In your view a “metaphysics” is a concocted stuff, so naturally what ancient Jewry constructed, is unique to them.

...not in the way you describe it! The OT is foremost a testament to nation-building. At that time, a nation and its people were defined primarily by its gods or god. Ergo, the first of the ten in the Decalogue: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. They created a unique god meant to express themselves as a unique and chosen people to carry the mandate forward.

I tend to start from the other direction: God, the ineffable, the origin of all things, the manifest, is real and stands behind everything. I am thus not an atheist and am, in a qualified sense, a theist. But, like many, the “story” as an interface has also for me become unbelievable. Yet instead of disbelieving, my ‘belief’ transcends the container (story) while allowing for belief in the content. The content is “God” which is beyond all conception. One can only encounter (whatever that is) but explanation of (whatever it is) is not possible.

This highlights our differences. I for one, cannot replace or finalize a question mark with god. I'd prefer the question to resolve itself in time; if it never resolves, that too amounts to feedback, if only as a slow attenuation and retreat of what once seemed so imperative.

It seems - correct me if I'm wrong - another way to state your position is to encounter a mystery beyond all conception then reify that into the one called god an entity, imagined or not, denoted as the ultimate mystery impervious to explanation as usually understood. This I would call believing philosophically rather than theistically...god as content being at the core of metaphysics.

I have to go through (in fact I do go through) a series of manoeuvres to still hold to the fact of God; you dismiss the idea of God because it cannot be factualized.

Why would I believe in anything that was never required to exist; never even once shown to exist? The evidence for god's non-existence is near complete in the acknowledgement that no such evidence ever appeared except in scripture. I'd say that even the word atheist or atheism only exists as a negation of theism, not as a direct negation of a non-existing god, being a non-sequitur, but as a direct negation in its belief. In effect, the word atheism defaults to redundant, existing only for so long as theism maintains its influence.

So again it in (obviously) not the metaphysic that has collapsed, it is that the entire conceptual structure that cannot sustain “belief”.

Metaphysic, as usually understood - though not in my version - requires the nourishment of belief to subsist without which it becomes more impalpable and irrelevant as is happening now to theism.

To me, as previously mentioned, metaphysics, compared to your more philosophic version, is an emergence into a mental state creating its own fluctuating world of values responsible for every thought and creation humans ever had or manifested throughout history as defined by their limitations. In that respect, the kind of metaphysic I adhere to also subsumes all your pronouncements and quotes on the subject being of a kind only a mentality advanced enough could force into existence. It's the kind of emergence which allows fictions to morph into a state of temporary truth as its inevitable consequence. We gain or seek less of truth than that which seeks to camouflage or reassemble it according to our will.