Philosophy is for talking about religion, among other things. — baker

I never heard of that. Why do you believe philosophy is for talking about religion? Isn't religion for talking about religion?

Why do you believe philosophy is for talking about religion? — Jackson

For one, because many philosophers do just that: They use philosophy to talk about religion.

For one, because many philosophers do just that: They use philosophy to talk about religion. — baker

Why isn't religious talk about religion?

Why isn't religious talk about religion? — Jackson

It is; but to religiously talk about religion can only take place in an actual religious setting (e.g. a church, the living room of a religious person, a religion forum), where the people involved actually are religious.

Typical for philosophical talk about religion is that those philosophers are typically religiously unaffiliated, and the discussion takes places in a non-religious setting.

Love can be bad when you only love your country, humility can be bad when you have no self respect, kindness can be bad when severity is required, ect. They are not virtues at that point, but neither is faith still faith when you use it to blow up schools ect — Gregory

This sounds like a worldly understanding of the matter.

This sounds like a worldly understanding of the matter. — baker

And why is that wrong?

It has no explanatory or didactic power.

It has no explanatory or didactic power. — baker

You mean because it does not align with your religious dogma?

*sigh*

Go back and reread the discussion. How does explaining things the way Gregory did help you in any way?

Go back and reread the discussion. How does explaining things the way Gregory did help you in any way? — baker

He explained it quite well. He was talking about how people express faith.

He said

In fact it seems that all virtues can be turned to evil — Gregory

If something can be turned to evil, then it's not a virtue to begin with.

If something can be turned to evil, then it's not a virtue to begin with. — baker

No. Aristotle's Ethics is a long discourse on exactly how virtue is a mean between extremes.

Well, even more than that. There's a difference between the written law and the actual law. The idea that the Torah (the written law) is the law is simply false, not just to liberal Jews, but to Orthodox Jews and to Fundamentalist Christians as well. — Hanover

I suppose those laws require interpretation and contextualization.

The oral law (the Talmud) and the thousands of years of rabbinical interpretation are as primary and authoritative as the Torah. — Hanover

In a way I agree with you. I understand that these laws need to be interpreted, contextualized and implemented.

If I were to challenge your view here I would ask "which interpretations?" Are only rabbis allowed to interpret? Why? IMHO just because a rabbi, even a famous one, has an interpretation or follows a certain midrash doesn't mean we need to. A midrash as far as I'm concerned is an old wive's tale. Ultimately, we only bind ourselves to the extent that we want.

A lot of the traditions we follow now like wearing a kippah or the exact way that certain holidays are conducted e.g. Passover or Shabbat are not in the Tanakh, but rather oral tradition. However Passover is mentioned in the Tanakh (Torah, I believe) so that has a solid scriptural basis but the exact way that Passover ought to be celebrated outside of Scripture is oral tradition and in my view not equivalent in force to the scriptural prescriptions. For instance - not eating bread = scriptural prescription, the four drinks of wine = oral tradition.

My purpose in providing the primer to Judaic law was meant only to provide support for my criticism against the anti-religious crowd that they were arguing a strawman. That is, there are not meaningful numbers of people who believe in a literal interpretation of the 5 books of Moses and who use them as an exclusive source of truth.

Historically, there have been sects that have rejected the oral tradition and held to the views I criticized, but they haven't been around for thousands of years. The Sadducees, for example believed in the Torah as the literal and sole source of authority. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadducees

To take the position that the OT is the literal and sole source of truth runs you head first into the problem that the OT advocates stoning and other terrible acts. If you choose to creatively interpret those problematic verses, I question why you accept your own interpretation but not of the ancient rabbis.

What I really hear you saying, however, is something more innocuous, which is that you're troubled by the idea that much religious doctrine is obviously man-made, so you want to hold to the notion that the Torah, at the very least, is a reliable, untainted, authentic statement of God, unmitigated by the imprecise hand of man.

Can't help you there, though, because it's not.

Let's go Aristotle and find the aurea mediocritas betwixt faith (belief sans evidence) & reason (belief only on evidence).

Have a little faith, mon ami. — Logician

Be a little logical, mon chéri. — Fideist

I see reason extending a hand, but faith, no, it's pouting and in the corner, sulking!

My friend David Hume made a little room in all our hearts for some faith, with two sceptical insights into the limits of reason, that I like to summarise thus:

1. You can't derive an 'ought' claim from an 'is' claim.
2. You can't derive a 'will be' claim from a 'has been' claim.

Some folks like to make much of 1. So much, sometimes as to deprive all 'ought' claims of any meaning.
But usually they make very little of 2. They simply claim that it is a matter of reason (and not faith at all),
to believe that the future will be like the past, often on the grounds that it always has been in the past, seemingly oblivious to the radical circularity of their "reasoning".

So I invite everyone to join my (and Hume's) irrational faith that things will be broadly as they have been and that we ought to be good.

So I invite everyone to join my (and Hume's) irrational faith that things will be broadly as they have been and that we ought to be good. — unenlightened

The alternative is pretty dire, so I'll have faith.

To take the position that the OT is the literal and sole source of truth runs you head first into the problem that the OT advocates stoning and other terrible acts. If you choose to creatively interpret those problematic verses, I question why you accept your own interpretation but not of the ancient rabbis.

What I really hear you saying, however, is something more innocuous, which is that you're troubled by the idea that much religious doctrine is obviously man-made, so you want to hold to the notion that the Torah, at the very least, is a reliable, untainted, authentic statement of God, unmitigated by the imprecise hand of man.

Can't help you there, though, because it's not. — Hanover

To use your term, at least Sisyphus isn't thirsty then, with all those water boys catering to him.
In other words, with the above line of reasoning, you've joined the lines of secular humanists, existentialists, etc.

I see reason extending a hand, but faith, no, it's pouting and in the corner, sulking! — Agent Smith

That is because reason cannot seem to abide its silent magnanimity, it is constantly nagging faith to go further and be rational.

:100:

That is because reason cannot seem to abide its silent magnanimity, it is constantly nagging faith to go further and be rational. — Merkwurdichliebe

:grin: Which party has lost its patience, is annoyed, and is fuming with rage? Theists (faith) or Atheists (reason)?

What I really hear you saying, however, is something more innocuous, which is that you're troubled by the idea that much religious doctrine is obviously man-made, so you want to hold to the notion that the Torah, at the very least, is a reliable, untainted, authentic statement of God, unmitigated by the imprecise hand of man. — Hanover

It is surely true that religious doctrine was written by man. The question is whether God exists and what is the range of feasible possible interpretations of his dictates.

Do you believe Moses existed? Jacob? King David? King Hezekiah? King Josiah? Tell me where you stop believing.

You're straw manning my position here on the Torah. I don't know what untainted means. Different authors? Certainly. Redactors? Certainly. What is tainted? There are contradictions in the Bible but on relatively non-important details and still adds up to a coherent narrative. In Philosophy a contradiction is damning but in narration its forgivable e.g. we'll never know whether it was the midianites or ishmaelites who brought Joseph down to Egypt but the result is the same.