Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 4, 2020 11:15:18 GMT -8
Here we will decide for all time the most important issues facing us. But, seriously, I’m going to take advantage of the superior wisdom we have here and that is available to us all (such as Dennis Prager) to probe some of the big issues such as: What is life for? Or maybe you have a different and better question. Feel free to crash in on the subject that most interests you. In order to set the stage, let me post some quotes from the introduction (and first chapter) of Dennis Prager’s The Rational Bible: Genesis: — —- — — — — — — — — — — — |
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Post by timothylane on Apr 4, 2020 12:10:24 GMT -8
Arguing with God . . . I recall as a child some comic-book presentation of parts of the Bible that included Abraham bargaining God down from 50 to 10 as the number of righteous men needed to save Sodom and Gomorrah. (As we all know, they couldn't even manage that many, though it's possible that God excluded Lot and his family from the count. I have no idea if it was 10 in each town or 10 total in both.)
And then there's Job, who wondered why God treated him so harshly. William Safire had a book on Job, and included both sides' arguments. And of course Jesus begged to be released from his horrible fate. But he went forward with it anyway. Like Captain Queeg, God always wins the arguments even if he allows himself to be bargained down on occasion.
God did indeed want his followers to wage war on idolatry. Look through II Kings, and you will regularly see that the kings of Judah are judged not merely on their righteousness and good rule, but on whether or not they stopped (at least for the time being) the pagans (Canaanite remnants, perhaps) from sacrificing to their idols in the high places. Today we still sacrifice human lives to Moloch in a ritual known as abortion, though I don't suppose many Tophets (Planned Parenthood centers) are in high places. That's probably worse. (The kings of Israel generally weren't righteousness to begin with and in fact followed idolatry, so it's a safe bet that they continued to allow sacrifices in the high places.)
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Post by timothylane on Apr 4, 2020 13:31:57 GMT -8
Very conveniently under the circumstances, TCM is currently showing Fiddler on the Roof, the movie that made Topol a movie star. (He had played Tevye on the London stage, and in fact that's the version of the soundtrack that I play. I prefer it to the Broadway version with Zero Mostel.)
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kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 4, 2020 14:21:05 GMT -8
I agree with you. Perhaps it is because Zero Mostel comes across as a New York Jew playing a shtetl Jew, whereas Topol comes across as a shtetl Jew. A big difference.
Max Bialystock was the perfect role for Mostel. The Producers is also the funniest movie ever made. (That I have ever seen.)
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 4, 2020 14:28:41 GMT -8
Let us stipulate that most of mankind is neither terribly bright nor good. (The Bell Curve doesn't apply in this case.) So we need ways to learn and grow. (The question why God made such a large number of dummies is something which I cannot answer.)
Those God allowed to argue with him were clearly of the more intelligent, better sort. They could learn through argument.
But what to do with the rest of the bovine, selfish herd?
I think suffering in the world just may be God's concession to man's stupidity and naturally debased nature. Over the years, it has become apparent to me that most people only truly learn something through pain of one sort or another. You can lecture them, try to teach them, coax them and even try to love them into adapting behavior which will be to their own good, but more often than not they don't change. Generally speaking, the only way to change behavior is with a nicely applied dose of pain. Even then, many will not learn.
As I often say, it is one thing for me to describe to you what it is like to be kicked by a horse; it is something altogether different for you be actually kicked by a horse.
Which of those two actions do you think most people will take more note of? Even then, they will forget rather quickly. As a result they will need a good kick in the pants on a regular basis. Such is mankind.
I suspect Churchill agreed with me on this point.
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Post by timothylane on Apr 4, 2020 14:52:16 GMT -8
I think I would take Bedazzled over The Producers as a comedy, and there are other possibilities as well. But I agree that Zero Mostel is the perfect Max Bialystok just as Gene Wilder is the perfect Bloom. And I think your interpretation as to why Topol has it all over him as Tevye is persuasive. Incidentally, when MAD Magazine parodied the movie (as "Antenna on the Roof"), they set it in modern times with a character based on Zero Mostel. And at the end, he has a vision of the old days in Anatevka with Topol's Tevye expressing his opinion of his descendants.
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 4, 2020 15:03:30 GMT -8
I have never seen Bedazzled, so I can't make a comparison. But I will note that I am not a big fan of Elizabeth Hurley's acting ability. She does, however, have other strengths.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 4, 2020 17:06:52 GMT -8
I wanted to get some foundational points laid out first, which Dennis Prager has been very helpful with. Here are a three more big ones:
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 4, 2020 17:29:25 GMT -8
If God created the world (and there is no good explanation other than this), then what happened so that we have become so corrupt and degraded?
A Darwinian view doesn’t have this problem because “values” and “morals” are, at the end of the day, complete fabrications. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad in a universe that has no purpose and is merely the result of random forces.
If a mediocre God created the world, we have no problem. It’s just another botched job. But if this is a good God (and the Torah says he is), then we have a possible conundrum.
Dennis notes in his analysis of Genesis that man does have animal-like traits.
Prager notes that modern man is apt to stress intelligence at the expense of other things:
Therefore one could say we find the state of the human world the way it is, not because of a lack of mental capacity or information, but the lack of wisdom . . . and wisdom, as Prager notes, is indispensable to goodness.
We’ve thrown out a God-centered view of life and replaced it, for all practical purposes, for a lusting after endless vacant amusements and cheap Chinese goods.
We stoke the animal in ourselves instead of the divine aspect. For whatever reason, we have the freedom to do either. And we see that our society (our entire world) has become almost insensate to the holy. We instead barter the profane as our common currency.
So I guess you can lead a horse to water (creating Ha-Adam) but you can’t force him to drink. And we see the results of that.
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Post by timothylane on Apr 4, 2020 17:42:15 GMT -8
Those are some very good points. Most of the distinctions God recognized -- beauty vs. ugliness, man vs. woman, human vs. animal (and vs. plant) -- have been accepted by just about all societies until the past century or so, when modernists began denying many of them.
Good vs. evil is a distinction man has tried to blur since he became aware of the distinction, and I suppose the same thing is true of man vs. God. If nothing else, the Enlightenment tried to blur the latter, at least in higher European culture (so to speak).
The Adonai vs. Elohim difference is also very interesting (note that Elohim is plural, cf. Hasidim, Goyim, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, cherubim, and seraphim). This is closely related to the Arabic use of "in" as a plural suffix (cf. Hashashin aka assassin, bedouin, and fellahin).
But the idea makes a good point. The notion of where mercy without justice (which is what Demagogues prefer these days) is expressed in many similar forms ("to be kind to the tiger is to be cruel to the lamb"). But of course those are all traditions, and leftists reflexively reject traditions.
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Post by timothylane on Apr 4, 2020 17:50:21 GMT -8
Prager's idea of creation makes me think of David Rohl's works. In one, he places the Garden of Eden in the area around Tabriz in Iranian Azerbaijan and thoroughly explains why (mostly based on the four rivers that flow out of Eden). Note that there are men aside from Adam and Eve (such as the land of Nod wherein Cain found his wife). It would make sense that Adam and Eve would be the first to have a notion of God, and of good and evil (from eating the unspecified fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil).
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 4, 2020 20:58:28 GMT -8
Because there is so much of “What can be the harm in two gay men marrying?” going around, I don’t know that the wisdom of the Torah can be vindicated unless there is a complete and utter collapse of society. But by then it’s too late.
These are basic world views in conflict. And I think it would be accurate to say that most of us here have a foot in at least two of those world views. It’s almost impossible to live in this “Progressive” culture without adopting some of its habits and customs.
My thought experiment in this thread is to imagine (as Dennis Prager does) that the Torah is true. And given how wobbly secular culture is looking right now, it seems a good time to play what-if in that regard.
Like a lot of you out there, I believe in God but it’s more an esoteric notion than a lived reality. Jews (at least some Jews) make God a lived reality.
What would it mean to sit at home tonight and know that God is real, God is good, and God doesn’t want us watching the junk on Netflix? What if you *really* sort of soaked that belief in? What would you change about your life? How differently would you look at things?
Would you laugh at things like the Kung Fu Flu (while taking basic precautions) and get on with more important things such as immersing yourself in the holy (could be just painting a nice picture or listening to good music) rather than imbibing in the non-stop smorgasbord of the profane that this culture is drowning in? There are a thousand small ways to die doing the latter.
There is no political argument regarding this topic. Abiding by the Torah and a belief in God won’t sanction a whole lot of things people want to do. It’s impossible to win a popularity contest. But the question is — and I think this is what the Jewish tribe was/is tasked with — is whether man can live above the level of an animal, if it is enough for a fulfilled life to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”?
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 4, 2020 21:15:01 GMT -8
Here’s an interesting sideline I hope Mr. Kung can do a thought experiment on because I’m guessing he knows far more about it than I do.
I’ve read a few Amazon reviews lately regarding various books that basically say there is Jesus (apostolic) Christianity and there is Pauline Christianity. Paul wasn’t an original apostle. Not all the apostles approved of what he was doing. The original apostles were specifically charged by Jesus with spreading the word. Etc. The basic idea is that Paul could be a gigantic corruption of Jesus’ ministry.
Into that mix (however you fall on this) is the gigantic Roman Catholic bureaucracy that, like any bureaucracy (as we see regarding the rampant pedophilia and cover-up), it’s the bureaucracies that comes first, the well-being of people second.
Add to this mix the so-called Reformation and the splintering of whatever existed as Christianity into dozens of pieces.
Jesus did not come to change one jot or tittle of the Torah. So what do we have now? And can this subject be picked up without devolving into the endless religious tribal warfare of “Those other guys aren’t doing it right”? Is there something universal that can be said, some way to find one's way through the weeds?
By the way, I’m not convinced anyone has been doing it right for quite a long time.
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Post by timothylane on Apr 5, 2020 6:04:15 GMT -8
The original apostles were Jews selected by Jesus to spread his message. Naturally, they concentrated their efforts among their fellow Jews. This would reflect the views of many (including, I think, Dennis Prager) that the Jews were in effect to spread Yahweh's message to the world.
Paul was also a Jew, and in fact a prime persecutor of those Christian heretics who thought the Messiah had come. But he saw his mission as preaching directly to non-Jews. This led to disputes. In particular, given that most of the Torah's laws were for Jews, not Gentiles, how many would the latter have to obey? No doubt his record of persecuting Christians influenced their attitude toward him. But in the end they allowed his mission to go forward and specified a small number of rules for the new converts to follow.
We also have to realize that this comes mostly from the Acts, written by Luke, who was an associate of Paul. Some may come from Paul's epistles. Naturally these sources are all favorable to Paul.
One might add that someone (probably the Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw) sent a letter to a newspaper under the initials "J. C." after or during the Jack the Ripper killings which (among other things) disdained Paul's epistles as "the silliest middle-class stuff on record" (which definitely sounds like Shaw, not Jesus).
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 5, 2020 7:10:43 GMT -8
There’s the obvious aspects that twelve mortal apostles couldn’t spread the message of Jesus far and wide without subsequent apostles and leaders. There’s also the question of the ideas Jesus intended to to spread and what was actually being spread. I couldn’t offhand tell you the difference. One division brought up in my cursory reading is the “faith-vs-works” idea. An orthodox Jew might rightly sit back and see faith-based Christianity as religious narcissism as practiced by many. (Just as Jesus pointed out the legalistic errors of the Pharisees. Fake head is as liable to be the case as fake heart.) In George Neumayr’s article, Closing Churches, Opening Jails he notes: The possible inherent religious narcissism of Christians (at least for today) is certainly given weight by how easily they have caved to the overreaching state. There are inherent tribal politics involved in all this. I like that Dennis Prager said the Torah was written for all people and is not just a Jewish thing. But can there be any doubt that much of the problem of spreading the Torah (and subsequent interpretations or culminations as with Jesus) would inevitable involve tribalism? When are ideas universal and when are the “owned” by a tribe of people? When is it really about the ideas (God) and when is it merely about maintaining the specialness, cohesion, or egotism of the tribe? So, at heart, I have no problem with Paul reaching out and trying to extend the ideas of the Torah (and of Jesus…again, we’ll have to discuss where they truly differ, not one jot or tittle aside). Whether Paul changed those ideas is an interesting question. But I doubt he did as much harm to those ideas as did the Roman bureaucracy as well as human nature itself. Or, really, maybe the entire question really is about whether Jesus is the Messiah. If he is, then by denying it, Jews are changing their own faith by more than a jot and tittle. What’s the use of having a Messianic belief system when you deny a credible candidate as the Messiah? |
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 5, 2020 8:14:23 GMT -8
Technical point. One could not be an apostle of Jesus without having seen him and been personally chosen by Christ and given the mission to spread the Gospel. This is why there are "Twelve" Apostles. Paul's being considered an apostle rested on his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
All of the apostles were disciples, but not all disciples were apostles.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 5, 2020 8:40:15 GMT -8
Distinction noted.
By the way, I did go ahead and buy Prager's "The Rational Bible: Genesis." I'll quote here and there any particularly juicy parts.
I did find it interesting that an exact translation of the text says that woman was created equal to man, and yet she was also to be a helper. Prager quotes his friend, Bruce Herschensohn, regarding the implications of "helper": "In the beginning God created man and critic."
Gotta love the Jews (and the Torah) for an often more frank, unsentimental, and eyes-wide-open view of things.
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Post by kungfuzu on Apr 5, 2020 8:41:51 GMT -8
This is an argument which has been around for some time. I do not know when exactly it began, but I suspect it became a serious subject around the time of the so-called Enlightenment. To my mind, it was picked up by those who were not true Christians as a way to chip away at established Christian doctrine. Their intent was "weaken one foundation stone of Christian doctrine and the whole structure begins to totter." But either these people have not read what Jesus said, or they are giving the head-fake to Christians trying to put a wedge between Jesus and Paul. To do this, they like to quote the Beatitudes, but leave out the rest of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.
If one believes the Bible, Paul was, after a fair amount of hesitation, accepted by the other apostles as being himself an apostle. He was also the most educated and learned in Jewish Law.
Paul is know as the apostle to the Gentiles. We all know why. Paul apparently had some trouble with the Apostle James in Jerusalem. The question of whether or not Christ's message should be held exclusively for Jews or should be spread further was the basic point of discussion. One of the particular areas which the anti-Gentile faction laid stress on was dietary laws, which Judaism is full of. Paul said they were not fundamental to Christ's message and even Peter came around to this point of view. Perhaps he was even ahead of Paul on this. One cannot but help feeling that James' position was that which was very common among the Jews, i.e. we are the chosen people and it should stay that way, even with regard to the teachings of Christ.
Looking into things only briefly, one can see that the position of the Christian-Jews in Jerusalem was wrong. All that is needed to prove this is to see what Christ said on the subject.
Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus approached and breaking the silence said to them, All authority-all power of rule- in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit;
Teaching them to observe everything that I have commended you, and lo, I am with you all the days-perpetually, uniformly and on every occasion-to the [very' close and consummation of the age, Amen-so let it be.
and after the Resurrection Christ said this;
Mark 16: 15
And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news (the Gospel) to every creature (of the whole human race).
The injunction is absolutely clear. The Gospel is not for Jews only.
As we have discussed before, there are many points during history at which Christianity lost its way, but the moment it became the State Religion of the Roman Empire, must be high on that list. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 5, 2020 8:51:00 GMT -8
Woman have often been given a lot of grief because of Eve tempting Adam with the apple (or whatever fruit it was). I found this to be an interesting analysis of that by Prager. (One of the benefits of buying the book is that you can highlight text and then be able to cut-and-paste it.). His style is to present passages from Genesis in bold and then his commentary follows:
There are obvious implications regarding getting your news from the newspaper as opposed to television…something that Prager has addressed before.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 5, 2020 9:05:28 GMT -8
Prager’s take seems to be that the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eve actually happened. But he acknowledges that it could be allegorical. Whatever the case may be, his point is that God is sending us a very real and powerful bit of wisdom. Prager writes:
It’s interesting to note the clear writing of Prager. He is not predisposed to arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I tend to agree with evaluation that this shows “the choice of man.” We might also divine that such free-will choice guarantees a lot of superficial “change for change’s sake” foolish choices as people chase novelty because they are so deeply bored (0r something).
To me, this story is obviously allegorical. Two people alone in a paradise garden doesn’t seem like a “sustainable” method for jump-staring the human race. It would just forever be two people in a garden.
It’s also worth noting in today’s circumstances that people would rather that a government Nanny God protect them inside a garden rather than to go out and experience life, with all it’s inevitable suffering and certitude of death. We are reverting on so many levels.
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