McFaith: A dialogue (part 1)

PAT: Ugh. This is Coke.

MIKE: What's wrong with Coke?

PAT: It's got caffeine in it. I can't have caffeine. I'm Jewish.

MIKE: You're what?

PAT: Jewish. We're not allowed to have caffeine.

MIKE: Dude, you're not Jewish. And even if you were that wouldn't mean you couldn't have caffeine.

PAT: Hey this is America, I can be whatever I want to be.

MIKE: Your name is Patrick Flynn.

PAT: Doesn't matter. Freedom of religion.

MIKE: OK, so if you're Jewish, how come you're eating a bacon cheeseburger?

PAT: We're allowed. We just can't have caffeine.

MIKE: You're trying to tell me a bacon cheeseburger is kosher?

PAT: Are you Jewish?

MIKE: No, but ...

PAT: Then what makes you think you have the right to tell us how to worship? You're being anti-Semitic.

MIKE: You're not Jewish.

PAT: Says you. Bigot.

MIKE: Look, you're free to believe whatever you want to believe. You want a cheeseburger? Eat a cheeseburger. Just don't say you're being Jewish.

PAT: Where do you get off lecturing me on my religion?

MIKE: I'm not telling you what to believe, I'm just saying you can't call it Jewish. That's not what "Jewish" means.

PAT: So you think all Jews have to believe the same thing?

MIKE: Not the exact same thing, maybe, but, you know, mostly, yeah.

PAT: And you're what, Catholic, right? So you think all Catholics believe the same thing?

MIKE: I'm not saying ... Look. The word "Catholic" means something, OK? Or a whole bunch of somethings. And that means there's also a whole bunch of somethings it doesn't mean.

PAT: First you're the expert on Judaism, and now you're the Pope.

MIKE: I'm just saying certain words mean certain things, otherwise what's the point in having them?

PAT: You really like telling other people what to believe, don't you?

MIKE: Believe whatever you want. But you know as well as I do that bacon is not kosher. Ask any rabbi, they'll tell you. Ask a hundred rabbis -- you won't find one that disagrees.

PAT: There's at least one. Me.

MIKE: So now you're a rabbi?

PAT: Yeah, and I'm telling you, as a rabbi, that we Jews can eat bacon cheeseburgers, but we can't have caffeine.

MIKE: You do realize, Rabbi Flynn, that the caffeine thing has nothing to do with Judaism, right? That's a Mormon thing. You can't just take something from Mormonism and start calling it Judaism.

PAT: Again with the pronouncements on other people's faith. What do you have against the freedom of religion?

MIKE: Look, OK, say I tell you I'm Catholic, right? Then suppose I tell you that I believe that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. I mean ...

PAT: Hey, whatever man. Doesn't matter. Free country.

MIKE: But it does matter. That's what Muslims believe. If I believe what Muslims believe then I can't go around calling myself a Catholic, can I?

PAT: So now you're the expert on Islam too?

MIKE: Jesus Christ!

PAT: Hey, man, don't blaspheme in front of the rabbi. ...

Comments

[Zingo Stertch]

I wish my first post was something much more profound but; Wonderful punch line.

[The Barefoot Bum]

Very funny post. As a philosopher, though, I have to say that Pat's view seems more rational than Mike's.

Religious folks have all of these entirely non-empirical beliefs. Since they're non-empirical, I can know what "Judaism" (or "Catholic" or "Muslim") means only by examining the views of people who self-describe as "Jewish".

We can use words such as "Judaism" metaphorically to mean, "The views held by 95% of self-described Jews," but this metaphor presupposes that the other 5% (including Pat) are legitimately Jewish, albeit outliers.

[Julia]

Oy.

There was something a little painful about that. But amusing.

I'm looking forward to part 2....

[A. Kennedy]

Religious folks have all of these entirely non-empirical beliefs.

You aren't using that word correctly, I'm afraid. Sorry, I just get tired of people describing us believers as having "non-empirical beliefs." It's just not so. The word empirical means "based on experience." Many, many of the faithful base their belief on experiences; you may not share those experiences, you may not think they are valid experiences, but they are, none the less, experiences.

If Pat received a direct revelation of his faith, and was told that it is true Judaism, well, he may be crazy, but his belief is still empirical. It can be wrong and empirical.

[JMiller]

BfB: No, Pat is delusional. Comparatively, if I don what most of the world claims is "A Beige Trenchcoat" and wander about being proud and snarky in my "Black Leather Bomber," then I'm the one who is delusional because I may be attempting to redefine the definition of the coat I've chosen to wear, but I haven't redefined the affliction in my brain that is causing me to foolishly disagree with the rest of the world as to how warm that coat will keep me.

[rm]

Why did I picture these two guys in the front seat of a car?

BAM! Kosher bacon cheese: Sonic's got it, others don't. Maybe y'all don't have these ads. I'll explain if necessary.

[Frances]

JMiller: if your experience leads you to conclude that what you are wearing is a Black Leather Bomber, then you wouldn't be attempting to redefine anything, just attempting to explain what you were wearing, right?

[rm]

Isn't Pat's position the Humpty Dumpty fallacy? Humpty says something like, when I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean, no more and no less, regardless of what the rest of the world means by that word. But none of us have that much control over language -- unless one invents an entirely private language, in which case one can't communicate at all. We might possibly influence usage, but we can't make it up for ourselves. Mike is arguing for the reality of the social world and of langue, and he is right. Pat is arguing that there is no langue, only parole, only what I decide I want to mean this minute.

[baf]

As The Barefoot Bum says, from a certain point of view it makes sense to accept Pat's self-labelling, just as we accept anyone else's self-labelling. But even from that point of view, it doesn't make sense to accept his claims that Jews are allowed to eat bacon cheeseburgers and not allowed to have caffeine: there exist other people who call themselves Jews, whose claim to that label is no less legitimate than Pat's, whose practice of their religion involves rejection of bacon cheeseburgers but not caffeine. So Pat's claims are overreaching: he cannot speak for Jews any more than Mike can.

If we accept Pat's claim to Judaism, the rational conclusion is that there are two branches of Judaism with different teachings. Call them Pattic Judaism and Non-Pattic Judaism.

The problem with this approach is that Pat is troublesome. Mention these branches to him and he may well declare himself to be a Non-Pattic Jew, and tell you that you're wrong about what Non-Pattic Jews believe.

[Raka]

I have to say that Pat's view seems more rational

Don't be ridiculous. Little philological koans like this and Carroll's Humpty Dumpty are entertaining and useful in illustrating that definition is neither inherent nor absolute. But just because something is not absolute does not mean that it does not exist or is without meaning.

[Simon St.Laurent]

I think Fred's up to something tricky here.

On the one hand, this feels like a lot of the conversations we have here in the comments, with back and forth that spends lots of time on definitions.

On the other hand, it also seems like Fred might be suggesting that dispensationalism is a "Pattic" form of Christianity, claiming to be Christianity while actually offering something quite different.

I'm curious to see Part 2.

[spencer]

You aren't using that word correctly, I'm afraid. Sorry, I just get tired of people describing us believers as having "non-empirical beliefs." It's just not so. The word empirical means "based on experience."

Um, no, not exactly. Or rather, not explicitly:

Empirical -

1. derived from or guided by experience or experiment.
2. depending upon experience or observation alone, without using scientific method or theory, esp. as in medicine.
3. provable or verifiable by experience or experiment.

(from dictionary.com)

The bolded parts tend to back up Barefoot Bum's use of the word, since your beliefs can never be proved or verified and are not subject to experiment. On the other hand, other parts of the definition support your interpretation, so I guess you're both right.

I guess my point is that maybe you should consider not getting annoyed about other people's supposed misuse of the word. Because they really are using it correctly, even if you don't like it.

[spencer]

Sorry, "explicitly" should be "exclusively" in the post above. That's what I get for posting during a break from disssertation writing.

[The Barefoot Bum]

baf: "[I]t doesn't make sense to accept his claims that Jews are allowed to eat bacon cheeseburgers and not allowed to have caffeine."

Pat's language is indeed a little bit confused. I think he would be more precise by consistently using "I" in his description of Judaism (e.g. "It's got caffeine in it. I can't have caffeine. I'm Jewish... Jewish. We're [I'm] not allowed to have caffeine."

I think the more charitable interpretation of Pat's remarks is that his use of "we" is erroneous or idiomatic; he's not really talking about what other Jews ought to believe, just that somehow or another his self-description as "Jewish" is connected in his own mind to his rejection of caffeine.

It's hard to call Pat "delusional" because we can't quite pin down any matter of actual fact that he's wrong about, even to the common definition of "Judaism". People have all sorts of false beliefs; some of them are entrenched in common language. Without appeal to an independent empirical standard (which we would have, for instance, concerning trench coats and bomber jackets), it's hard (i.e. impossible) to figure out who is correct.

[The Barefoot Bum]

Note: I don't deny that one's beliefs about religion might indeed be empirical, based on one's own experience. However, unless there's a common experience to appeal to, that experience can't apply to the definition of words.

I also observe that most religious people tend to differentiate themselves on the basis of content that appears strongly non-empirical.

[The Barefoot Bum]

Sorry, "independent empirical standard" above should read "common empirical standard".

[SV]

This reminds me of a comment I saw over a year ago in a thread over at dailyKos. I'm not a regular reader there, and have no idea who the author (BenGoshi) is, but I liked it so much I copied it to my quote file:

I'm one of those Christians who does, in fact, believe that The Beatitudes and the parable of The Good Samaritan (and Matthew Chapter 6, in passim) form the heart of Christianity, or, at the very least, how Christians should behave. I simply [insist] that those who call themselves "Christian," but who hold The Beatitudes, etc. in disdain or consider them with contempt[,] are in fact not Christian. I can call myself a penguine, or a sofa, or a follower of the Great Magical Dragon Named Steve, but if I lack -- or reject -- the fundamental characteristics of said entities, then I am not that which I call myself. If I'm a nudist who wears clothes, a fisherman who lives in the desert and never fishes or a world class sprinter but can't run the 40 in under 5.0 seconds, then what am I, other than an idiot who doesn't understand the fundamentals of that which I espouse to be?

I'd like to think it caught my attention because of its defense of the Beatitudes, but mostly, I like the idea of the Great Magical Dragon Named Steve.

[A. Kennedy]

If I'm a nudist who wears clothes, a fisherman who lives in the desert and never fishes or a world class sprinter but can't run the 40 in under 5.0 seconds, then what am I,

A nudist who is at work, or away from home, may wear clothes in order to conform with the requirements of her work. A man who fishes for 20 years, then takes a sabbatical to be away from the sea for a year (in the desert) and never fishes during that time is still a fisherman. And she who is a world class sprinter but is sick with the flu is still the same person.

I would argue, however, that one is unwise to label oneself a Christian if they care not for Christ.

[Daniel]

Hm...this is an interesting discussion.

My take is that Pat should have the freedom to interpret his religious/moral/ethical beliefs however he wants, and call it whatever he wants. The thing is, he's obviously not credible - no Jewish group will claim him, no Christian, Muslim, or secular group will take him seriously, and everybody knows that he's not a Jew in the "usual" meaning.

So - he has the right to redefine language, and everyone else has the right to ignore him.

Next development - what if Patistic Judaism does start to become popular? An increase in the number of Jews who eat bacon cheeseburgers would cause people to take notice, and may cause real Jewish groups to actually respond, clarify, and distance themselves from the Pattites.

Although it makes things more complicated to have a rebel group with no historical legitimacy subvert the religion with a radically different "interpretation" of the religion, there's still no "authority" that can force the Pattites to stop using the word "Jew" to define themselves. It just may [unfortunately] be more work for the "traditionalists"/non-Patistic Jews/conservatives to set themselves apart and assert their legitimacy.

Likewise, I can call my "A Beige Trenchcoat" a "Black Leather Bomber" all day - but I'll just be a crazy, impossible to have a reasonable conversation with.

[PepperjackCandy]

OTOH, I have a Jewish friend whose Rabbi said that kashrut (am I using that correctly?) is about setting yourself apart from the masses with your habits (dietary and otherwise).

So, in this day of our coffee-driven workplaces, perhaps abstaining from caffeine would set him apart in this way.

Or, you know, not.

[A. Kennedy]

Likewise, I can call my "A Beige Trenchcoat" a "Black Leather Bomber" all day - but I'll just be a crazy, impossible to have a reasonable conversation with.

Aha! (and not to defend Pat), But let's imagine the following scenario. You put on a coat that you swear is a black leather jacket, but everyone else you meet tells you it's a brown trench coat. You know you're not crazy -- you don't experience any other symptoms, anyway. It gets more and more frustrating until, one day, you meet someone who agrees with you about the black leather coat. You realise, there ARE people who see things your way, but they're very few and far between. You honestly see, and have every reason to believe in the black leather coat. Other people honestly see, and have every reason to believe in the brown trench coat.

You decide to do some experiments, but the trouble is, they don't provide useful results. When you see the same results as trench-coaters, the results seem to clearly indicate it's a black leather coat. Trench-coaters, seeing exactly the same results, say that clearly it's a trench-coat.

As an intelligent person, you have very few options. Either yourself and your co-jacketists are insane (you know you're not lying); or perhaps the trenchcoatists are insane or lying (also very, very unlikely); or something is going on with the universe that you don't understand, and that implies that human understanding is inherently imperfect.

Thus ends the parable.

[Raka]

Without appeal to an independent empirical standard (which we would have, for instance, concerning trench coats and bomber jackets)

To me, "bomber jacket" means "a belted raincoat in a military style, having straps on the shoulders and deep pockets". And "black" includes shades that are "very light brown". Since language is defined by usage, you can't say that I'm wrong!

Except that you can, and I am. In an epistemological sense, I'm not absolutely wrong, since language is indeed defined by usage. In any standard sense, I'm wrong.

In the same very limited sense, Pat isn't absolutely wrong about Judaism. But there are standard contemporary and historical meanings for "Jewish". They aren't all identical-- I'm willing to bet the Iranian definition of "Jew" varies somewhat from the Israeli. But they will share certain basic traits (being descended matrilineally from the 12 tribes, and/or following a faith based on the Torah). There will be plenty of arbitrary quibbling over exactly where the line falls (patrilineal descendent? ethnic but not religious? Reform vs Orthodox?) between a "true" Jewish person and everybody else, sure. But wander far enough from that basic area and your use of the word "Jewish" is wrong, since it deviates from the standard usage to such an extent that it is unrecognizable to anyone who isn't you (or the tiny sliver group who shares that definition).

Barefoot Bum, you're taking a really reductionist view of relativism.

[Raka]

What I find interesting about Pat and Mike's conversation is that Mike is talking about language usage and Pat is responding with religious pronouncements, and neither of them seems to realize (or realize but don't care) what the other is doing.

[the opoponax]

A. Kennedy, something very similar happened to me recently, and i have to say i really did think i was going crazy for a while.

a good friend of mine has two sweaters that are identical in shape and style, and very similar in color. one is a charcoal grey tone, and the other is a sort of dusky sorta medium greenish brown. well the first time he wore the brown sweater in my presence, we were doing something outdoors, and i got a really good look at it in great light. then, a week or so later, i saw him again, in the (dimly lit) neighborhood bar, wearing what i thought was the same sweater. the third time i saw him, i complemented what i thought was one sweater he wore both times; "i really like that brown sweater you wore last time i saw you."

"huh? i was wearing a grey sweater last time you saw me."

"what? no you weren't. it was brown. i saw you wear it another time, it was definitely brown."

"i don't know what you're talking about. that sweater i was wearing last time we hung out was definitely grey."

this went around and around for like 10 minutes, in which my friend decided to screw with my head a bit. he preceded to tell me that he didn't even HAVE a brown sweater, would never wear such a thing, had no idea what i was talking about, and maybe i ought to get my eyes checked. finally i admitted defeat (he knows his wardrobe better than i do), and figured it must have been a trick of the light.

well then a while later i saw him in the sweater again, and i said, "a ha! you see, this sweater is brown, not grey!"

here he decided to REALLY start fucking with me, 2+2=5 style: "um, no. definitely grey. are you colorblind?"

we preceded to have another 10 minute back and forth about the color of the sweater -- i saw brown. i KNEW i was right. i KNEW he was wearing a brown sweater. he kept insisting that i was wrong, that this sweater was grey and i was just being contrary. i started getting really frustrated, but i let it go.

finally, several months later, i was over at his place. he was wearing the hotly contested brown/grey sweater, which at this point i had dropped the subject on. though it was still driving me mad and i really was starting to think that my powers of perception must be WAY off because there was just no way that sweater could be grey, at all, no way no how.

and right there, slung over the back of a chair in the bedroom, was an identical sweater to the BROWN (!!!!) one he was wearing. except it was grey.

it immediately became clear. i grabbed the sweater and threw it at my friend. "I KNEW IT! THAT IS A BROWN SWEATER! I can see! I'm sane! I'm normal! You're the freak! WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT?"

"ummm, i just wanted to mess with you?"

needless to say, i am STILL pissed off about it, to this day, and mention it every time he wears either sweater. i have no idea what this has to do with Fred's post, or even your point, A. Kennedy, but i just wanted to share what i think is the ULTIMATE story of perception vs. language.

[nieciedo]

Pat sounds not unlike the "Jews [sic] for Jesus" and the soi-disant "messianic Jews."

When one proclaims oneself a member of a group, that's only one half of the deal. The rest of the group [or a reasonably segment thereof] must accept you as one of them for it to really count.

I am, actually, Jewish. I converted. Before my conversion, I held beliefs that were in keeping with authentic streams of Jewish thought and more importantly my life was structured by actions and behaviors that are informed by Jewish law and tradition. However, I did not become formally Jewish until the rituals of conversion were completed and the beit din affirmed my Jewishness.

However, the witnesses on my beit din were Reform rabbis. Since I had hatafat dam brit and teveilah and accepted 'ol malkhut shamayim, the Conservative movement likewise considers me Jewish, as do the Reconstructionists. However, because my beit din was not three Orthodox men (one was a woman!) the Orthodox do not consider me Jewish.

So, an Orthodox rabbi may say that I am not Jewish. A Reform or Conservative rabbi would say that I am. Since those other movements recognize me as part of their group, I am a Jew. My calling myself a Jew and living as Jew does not affect the Orthodox in any way. Being a gay man, I have no intention of marrying an Orthodox woman nor of joining an Orthodox congregation. If I did choose to do either of those things, the Orthodox would be within their power to deny me because they have the right to define their group identity.

It just so happens that all branches of Judaism have defined their group identity such that one cannot worship a god other than Hashem and be considered Jewish. Thus, one cannot worship Jesus and be Jewish. Groups exist that claim to be Jews who worship Jesus or accept him as the Messiah, but these groups are not accepted by authentic Jews. Through proselytism and propaganda, these "messianic Jews" threaten harm to the Jewish community and so the Jewish community is right to resist them.

On the other hand, my Jewish identity and lifestyle does not threaten the Orthodox who reject me, and so they do not have any reason to go out of their way to disabuse me of what, to their eyes, is a delusion.

Thus, if Pat doesn't want to drink caffeine, then Mike should simply have let him do so regardless of his motivations. If Pat were denying his child medical treatment or a blood transfusion, for example, or were preparing to sacrifice someone to his god because of his erroneous religious beliefs, then Mike would have been obligated to intervene to prevent the harm to others (and possibly also the harm to Pat if his actions or inactions would have led to serious harm of death).

As it is, Mike was better off just not getting involved.

[R. Mildred]

It gets more and more frustrating until, one day, you meet someone who agrees with you about the black leather coat. You realise, there ARE people who see things your way

Except, if we're to keep the religion analogy accurate, what you'd end up with is two people arguing over what shade of black leather coat it is, while some smart ass with a webcam had verified the chromatic spectrum of the coat as definitively "not black" according to what color of light the coat refracted, which would be compared to a swatch of carpet fabrics to scientifically prove that the black coat schismatics were both talking complete crap while they all ignored him because they were so enjoying arguing with each other.

Meanwhile, the phrase that was embroidered on the back of the coat, "make love not war", would be deemed irrelevent by everyone involved.

Y'all crazy imho.

[bulbul]

I have to say that Pat's view seems more rational than Mike's.
For a given meaning of rational. One that you wouldn't find in any dictionary...

[bulbul]

I think the more charitable interpretation of Pat's remarks is that his use of "we" is erroneous or idiomatic;
Charitable? Perhaps. But pragmatically unfounded.
If you say "I'm a Martian" and follow this statement by "We don't drink water", your partner in conversation has all the right to assume, based on his previous experience, that the first person plural pronoun "we" refers to "Martians". After all, you have just identified yourself as one, you have made it a focus of conversation and, whether you want it or not, you have linked it with your inability/moral or religious objections against drinking water. To deny you have just done that is to deny the meaning of the words and phrases you have just uttered. Yeah, delusional fits the bill quite nicely.

[damnedyankee]

Now me, I'd just assume that they were both idiots and just get back to my hamburger and book.

[Bugmaster]

Groups exist that claim to be Jews who worship Jesus or accept him as the Messiah, but these groups are not accepted by authentic Jews

I personally agree with you, but that's me, personally. No one died and made you Moses; you have no power to decree what an "authentic Jew" is. I'm sure there are lots of Jews out there who'll be quick to point out that their Jesus-worship is True Judaism (tm), and that all other Jews are not authentic enough.

The problem with religion is that there's no external standard to verify it against. It basically comes down to your word vs. mine, your Aramaic translation vs. my Roman canon, etc. You can argue endlessly about whose interpretation is better, but, as long as all parties are being internally consistent, there can be no agreement.

[RedEnsign]

I can't help thinking how Israel has a thriving pork industry, and how the Ethiopian jews have at best a murky link to the original tribes of Israel, and yet the definition of judiasm is broad enough that those who ignore the ancient prohibition, or who lack the genetic connection are both self-identified and accepted as jews in this modern age. Why not then bacon-cheese burger eating coffee abstainers?

And don't get me started on what is accepted as Christian and yet violates one (or usually, most) rules of Christianity....

[Jeff]

The word empirical means "based on experience."

spencer said it better than I could, but, dude, it so does not, no many how many times, in how many threads, you say it does. Unless you're using "empirical" in a totally Pattic way.

[nieciedo]

Hi, Bugmaster:

I personally agree with you, but that's me, personally. No one died and made you Moses; you have no power to decree what an "authentic Jew" is. I'm sure there are lots of Jews out there who'll be quick to point out that their Jesus-worship is True Judaism (tm), and that all other Jews are not authentic enough.

The problem with religion is that there's no external standard to verify it against...

I agree with you, too, but I think the key point is that it's not an individual decision, but a communal one. Also, many religions -- Judaism especially -- have bodies of written law and tradition that become externalized standards of belief. For us, it's the Torah and the rest of the Bible together with the Talmud as it has been understood by the rabbis throughout history. That is the foundation of "normative Judaism" which all currently existing branches of Judaism are derived from and have to come to terms with in some fashion. Granted, there's plenty of room for disagreement -- Fred's example is kashrut and an Orthodox and a Reform Jew would have very different ideas about why or why not it would be ok to eat a bacon cheeseburger. But the Jewish community as a collective entity has evolved some basic definition of what is legitimate Jewish belief. One thing that is fairly universal is monotheism. You can believe anything you want about God -- in some cases even that He doesn't exist -- as long as you only believe in one of them: not multiple, not three-in-one.

Catholic Christianity, by which I mean the Roman, Eastern, and Anglican churches, have a similar system of law and tradition and political organization. The Roman Catholic Church especially has a clearly defined system of what is or is not acceptable Catholic belief.

You can't prove that Moses wrote the Torah or that Jesus actually was God incarnate -- but you can prove that Jews believe that the Torah is the foundation of Jewish civilization and that Jesus is the center of the Christian faith. You can't prove that God thinks it's wrong to eat bacon cheeseburger's, but you can prove that they're not kosher according to Orthodox halakhah. You can't prove that the Pope is really infallible in faith and morals, but you can prove that its a dogma of the Roman Church.

[Stephen Frug]

I doubt this means much, but (speaking as a (secular) Jew here), when I read this dialogue out to my wife, I found that I kept slipping into reading Pat's lines in my (standard 'best-attempt-at-a') Yiddish accent. Maybe it's just because he's labeled Jewish, but some of his lines, e.g. "First you're the expert on Judaism, and now you're the Pope" really do have a flavor to me that makes it easy to imagine them being said by an older Jew ("so now you're the Pope already? oi!").

[Bugmaster]

@nieciedo:

... I think the key point is that it's not an individual decision, but a communal one ... You can't prove that Moses wrote the Torah or that Jesus actually was God incarnate -- but you can prove that Jews believe that the Torah is the foundation of Jewish civilization and that Jesus is the center of the Christian faith.

Right, so we have two communities: Jews for Jesus, and Ye Olde Jews (I'm lumping Reformed and Orthodox and the uber-Datiim into this category, for simplicity). Both of them believe that the Torah is the foundation of Jewish civilization, etc. However, one community believes that the Torah says that they should worship Jesus. The other community does not. Both sides cite passages from the Torah to support their position.

So, which side are you going to accept ? Which community is right ? The one that has more members, or what ? People commonly answer this question with, "whichever side has more Biblical/Torah-ic (is that a word ?) evidence on their side", but that answer doesn't get you anywhere. Each community interprets the words of their scripture differently; each swears that their interpretation is correct; and there's no objective (i.e., community-independent) way to test scriptural passages for correctness.

Consider a more extreme case, where one community believes that there are two Holy Books in their scriptures, and another community believes that there are three Holy Books -- as is the case (roughly) with mainstream Christians and Mormons. How do you tell if the Mormon Bible is properly holy ?

So, again, when you say, "...you can prove that Jews believe that the Torah is the foundation of Jewish civilization...", who decides what "Jewish civilization" is, and what "Jewish beliefs" are ?

You can believe anything you want about God -- in some cases even that He doesn't exist...

This is offtopic, but I think the above quote is a fallacy. You can't believe in God -- i.e., believe that He exists -- and believe that he doesn't exist at the same time. Any given god either exists, or he doesn't. Note, though, that it's possible to disbelieve in multiple gods; I, for example, disbelieve in any and all gods, from Allah to Zarathustra.

I like how there's no actual, specific topic. This is going to be fun to read...

Mm, as far as I know, the objections to defining words vaguely along the above example are:

1) people get kinda offended, either with suddenly being associated with heavens-know-what or with the right to proprietary definition of what was previously their label being taken away;
2) a failure to communicate;
and 3) WTFBBQ??!

Right? Anything I missed?

Well, the third one is refuted by the above-mentioned Mr. Dumpty, but it's not terribly important anyway, so far as I know. The second is quite a bit more important since that's normally detrimental to one's purpose in using words, but communication depends at least as much on context and audience as on anything else, especially on religious matters.

For example, you go ask a whole bunch of people, Christian pagan atheist what have you, what a 'soul' is (much less 'what does the word mean', which is almost an entirely different question), and in my experience at least, you get a whole bunch of different answers. Even more so if you include some of the recons, then you get the whole argument as to whether their religion's concept should even be translated as that or not. And that's just with people in what can roughly be considered 'this' culture (y'know, US). This is kind of a catch phrase.

On the other hand, you get all those people together with their own groups and they can communicate fine using the word for all sorts of things. There are probably better examples than this, but that would require revealing where I hang out normally, and I'd prefer not to do that, considering I'm too chickenshit even to pick a name. :D

And so that takes us to #1. That's kinda of a tricky thing, and involves who gets what right and why and whether rights and language even have anything to do with each other. It gets worse when we're talking about things other than religion, and I certainly know where I stand in certain of those matters, but religion- I don't really know. What is at stake here and why?

...Anybody else particularly want to comment, before I go completely tl;dr?

[JON ERICKSON]

When I first started reading the post I immediately thought of many fundamentalist christianists I have encountered who state, "I KNOW" God exists, and they seem to re-define the word KNOW to mean that there is some kind of emperical knowledge that satisfies their mind and should satisfy my mind as much as theirs. Try as I might, I cannot get them to understand they have changed the meaning of language and I try to get them to change their language to " I believe (with whatever degree of faith and conviction they hold or think they hold) God exists." Faith is, above all else, trusting in the unknown, the unproven, the ungraspable. To 'KNOW" is to put aside faith and live in some kind of delusian, rather than live with the uncertainty of believing.

Personally, I like the TAOISTS who say, "Those who know, do not say and those who say, do not know."

And with all that discussion, no one mentioned Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First?"

Jon

[bad Jim]

The discussion actually reminds me of the endless fluffy persiflage that often ensues in godless circles over whether one is agnostic or atheist. "Since you're X you must believe Y" (or not believe Z, or must rely upon dubious philosophic grounds, or ... )

What's the point of growing up, if even the faithless eternally dispute the finest point of lacking any doctrine?

(The point of growing up is realizing that people are people and you get into the same arguments no matter what you believe, or don't.)

[the opoponax]

@ Bugmaster:

this is not unlike something that is currently going on within the Anglican Communion (which, if you're unfamiliar, is basically a big assembly of the religious communities around the world who consider themselves part of the Anglican tradition).

the American Episcopal Church has one interpretation of scripture which justifies (and in some senses MANDATES) the full inclusion of gay members, up to and including the ordination of gay bishops and blessing gay unions (i.e. marrying gay people). the majority of the rest of the Anglican Communion interprets other aspects of scripture to mean that homosexuality is inconsistent with Christian belief, and not only refuses to accept gay bishops or perform gay marriages, but insists that member churches who do should not be considered part of the Anglican Communion.

so right now in the Episcopal Church there are all kinds of reaction to this going on. some are saying fine, ok, then i guess we're not Anglican anymore, whatever. others think the Episcopal Church ought to stop condoning homosexuality in order to stay in the Anglican Communion.

but, yeah, it's like niciedo said. there are religious communities that openly set forth what it means to be part of that particular sect. if you deviate from that, your coreligionists will not consider you a part of the community.

[nieciedo]

@Bugmaster:

Right, so we have two communities: Jews for Jesus, and Ye Olde Jews...So, which side are you going to accept ? Which community is right ? The one that has more members, or what ? People commonly answer this question with, "whichever side has more Biblical/Torah-ic (is that a word ?) evidence on their side", but that answer doesn't get you anywhere. Each community interprets the words of their scripture differently; each swears that their interpretation is correct; and there's no objective (i.e., community-independent) way to test scriptural passages for correctness.

Here's my question to you: why is it important, objectively, who is right? Subjectively, of course, it is of the utmost importance for the individual -- but each individual is going to make that decision for him or herself. Ye Olde Jews are pretty confident that our understanding of the traditional basis of Judaism is correct and that the J4J's are wrong. Often this can be demonstrated by the real shoddy scholarly work done by the J4J camp (who most often just appropriate evangelical theology and dress it up in a yarmulke). But let's pretend a serious, scholarly argument was made that said that Jewish tradition allows and in fact requires belief in Jesus and this is what the J4J's claimed.

Each individual, then, would have to choose which argument and which community he wished to belong to -- or choose another community or lack thereof altogether. Ye Olde Jews would define themselves as not believing in Jesus and exclude those who do; the J4J's would define themselves as believing in Jesus and exclude those who do not. The community would decide what it believes and individuals would either accept that belief or reject it.

Most J4J's are Gentiles who think dressing up and playing Jew make-believe somehow brings them closer to Jesus. But there are, unfortunately, actual Jews who for whatever reason get turned off to Ye Olde Judaism and get suckered in by the J4J's. In order to reach out to them and bring them back to Ye Olde Judaism, one can rely on whatever common text both the J4J and the YOJ accept as authoritative, the Torah usually being the common denominator. The Torah is an external, objective thing: it exists and its contents are known and verified. It then becomes a question of whose interpretation is more convincing, and that is usually again an individual, subjective question.

Consider a more extreme case, where one community believes that there are two Holy Books in their scriptures, and another community believes that there are three Holy Books -- as is the case (roughly) with mainstream Christians and Mormons. How do you tell if the Mormon Bible is properly holy ?

You can tell it's holy if the Mormon finds holiness in it. You can't prove that the Old Testament, or the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon, or the Qur'an are objectively true and holy in themselves. But if an individual finds meaning or holiness in it, then that book becomes true and holy for him. Then, that person will find a community of others who believe as he does and join them. As a community, they will work out communally what the range of accepted beliefs and practices are -- subjectively, based on their commonly accepted reference works and socially-agreed-upon guidelines -- and decide who does or does not belong to their group.

So, again, when you say, "...you can prove that Jews believe that the Torah is the foundation of Jewish civilization...", who decides what "Jewish civilization" is, and what "Jewish beliefs" are ?

Jews do. Those people who call themselves "Jews" decide among themselves what the defining aspects of their group are and what behaviors and beliefs are or are not acceptable within the definition of their group, including those who do and excluding those who do not. If there is a disagreement, the individual has to decide whether he will accept the opinion of the group or of himself, and whether he wished to remain part of the group (or continue to accept that others are part of his group).

An Irishman like Pat could decide that he's Jewish and believes in Jesus and that bacaon cheeseburgers are kosher but caffeine is not. Every other individual would then be free to either agree with him or disagree with him, to accept him as a member of the group or not. So long as he poses no threat to others or himself, it's best to let him enjoy his delusion rather than get involved in his mishegas.

You can't believe in God -- i.e., believe that He exists -- and believe that he doesn't exist at the same time. Any given god either exists, or he doesn't. Note, though, that it's possible to disbelieve in multiple gods; I, for example, disbelieve in any and all gods, from Allah to Zarathustra.

That was a joke: if you're Jewish and you're going to be an atheist, you can at least make sure that the God you don't believe in is the Jewish God.

More seriously, though, it doesn't make sense to me to talk about individual gods as being separate entities -- that Allah or Hashem or Jesus or Zeus or Thor or the rest are distinct individual beings. Religion is entirely socially constructed: there is, in most religions, a category of divinity and each group decides what, if anything, they are going to put into that category. Whether that category is going to be filled with one god (Hashem, Allah, etc.) or two gods (Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, etc.) or multiple (your Greek, Roman, Norse pantheons, etc.) is entirely arbitrary and socially determined.

If someone says "I do not believe in Thor, I believe in Jesus," they are saying "I do not agree with the way the ancient Germans filled the divinity category and so I have adopted the Christian option." If one says "I am an atheist," it makes no sense to list all of the multiple gods of all possible religions that one doesn't believe in: one simply says "I do not consider the category of divinity to be necessary or meaningful in my worldview" or something like that.

[Jesurgislac]

the American Episcopal Church has one interpretation of scripture which justifies (and in some senses MANDATES) the full inclusion of gay members, up to and including the ordination of gay bishops and blessing gay unions (i.e. marrying gay people).

The Scottish Episcopal church has the same interpretation. To quote the Scottish Council of Bishops:

“Is convinced that, within the Scottish Episcopal Church, open debate, a deeper mutual understanding, and an agreed way ahead in our life together, will ultimately best be achieved by working to maintain the strong bonds of trust and respect which already exist among those who disagree with each other.

“Recognises that significant debate on sexuality is taking place both inside and outside the church, and that this can cause puzzlement to some and pain to others.

“Believes that differences over matters concerning sexuality, though important, are generally “second-order” disagreements, which should be capable of being handled within the life of our Communion, and are not ones that should cause a major fracture in it.

“Believes that in this area the Church is called to set an example to the world as to how debate on matters involving deep disagreement and sincerely held conviction could be conducted.

When I read about the fuss the Episocopal Church in Africa and in parts of America are making over having to follow the principles outlined in the 39 Articles, I feel that these people have never understood what it means to be part of the Anglican Communion, since they're arguing - quite contrary to the 39 Articles - that their interpretation of Scripture must be imposed on members of the Anglican Communion who do not agree with it.

The claim made by these self-identified Anglicans that they are the real Anglican Communion, and the people who are insisting that the Episcopal Church abide by the 39 Articles are causing a schism, says to me that the Archbishop of Canterbury should simply accept that he can't keep these people in the Anglican Communion against their will, and, since they want to leave, let them go.

Seriously. The Anglican Communion is all about accepting that others in the Episcopal Church can have a different interpretation of the Scriptures from you, and it's for God, not you, to judge. It's these African and American bishops who won't accept that who are Pat in this dialogue: and if they don't want to be Anglicans, let them go.

[A.Kennedy]

I, for example, disbelieve in any and all gods, from Allah to Zarathustra.

Bugmaster, I'm disappointed in you. Zarathustra or Zoroaster is a prophet, not a god. No-one, anywhere (as far as I'm aware) claims him as a deity; and he's almost universally accepted as having existed (since he wrote things we can still read).

[Raka]

In my version of Judaism, Zarathustra was a good.

[Raka]

Er, "a god". A good god, to be sure. But definitely a god.

[the opoponax]

Here's my question to you: why is it important, objectively, who is right?

correctness in any context is incredibly important to Bugmaster. see the thread about the trap streets.

[A. Kennedy]

Ah, then I take back the statement that no-one considers him a God. My apologies to you and your Hebraic brethren, Raka.

[Bugmaster]

Yeah, I always thought of Zarathustra as a mini-god of sorts; he had a longer name than Zeus, so I used him... Man, I'm just a magnet for controversy :-( Anyway:

Here's my question to you: why is it important, objectively, who is right?

correctness in any context is incredibly important to Bugmaster. see the thread about the trap streets.

Well, that's true, of course. But in this case, I brought up objective correctness because it seemed like nieciedo was saying that J4J are not real Jews. I pointed out that it all depends on what you mean by "real Jews". Since there's no objective standard, there are no objectively "real Jews". However, nieciedo says:

But if an individual finds meaning or holiness in it, then that book becomes true and holy for him. Then, that person will find a community of others who believe as he does and join them. As a community, they will work out communally what the range of accepted beliefs and practices are...

So, it actually seems like nieciedo and I agree. There's no such thing as "real Jews" or "real Christians"; there are only different communities with conflicting beliefs.

However, nieciedo, I still disagree with this:

More seriously, though, it doesn't make sense to me to talk about individual gods as being separate entities

It doesn't make any difference to atheists like me, because, as you put it so succinctly, we reject divinity as a whole. However, if I were religious, it would matter a great deal to me how many gods there are. It mattered to the Greeks, to be sure (though they probably didn't take their gods too seriously). As far as I can tell, theists don't think that their gods fills some divinity category, or holds a certain portfolio (a la D&D; YHVH would be Law and Judgement and probably War); they actually do believe that their gods exist, in the same way that galaxies exist, only more so.

[Bugmaster]

Yey, now there are two people who consider Zarathustra a god ! Come, everyone. Join usssssss.

[Rebecca Borgstrom]

I'd argue that it's more reasonable to analyze Pat's argument as perlocution, not locution.

Pat isn't engaging in communication, no matter how much or how little meaning individual words have. He's talking, but he's not engaging in communication. He's doing something else.

I'm not entirely sure what.

To me, it looks an awful lot like a denial of service attack. ^_^

[Jeff Weskamp]

"As far as I can tell, theists don't think that their gods fills some divinity category, or holds a certain portfolio (a la D&D; YHVH would be Law and Judgement and probably War); they actually do believe that their gods exist, in the same way that galaxies exist, only more so."

Bugmaster's mention of D&D reminds me of a neat feature in most D&D campaigns: If a cleric or priest wanders too far away from his (or her) god's teachings and practices, he loses the ability to cast clerical spells (i.e., perform miracles). It's too bad that real life doesn't have something similar to determine who is a "true" follower of a deity and who isn't. But then, what would we have to argue about?

As for the ancient Greeks, they worshipped gods from many foreign sources (such as the Egyptian Isis, the Thracian Hecate and Priapus, the Anatolian Cybele, etc.) Some were incorporated into the Pantheon and given family ties to the Olympians (like Hecate and Priapus), but many others were just worshipped separately. I don't think they had any kind of "upper limit" to the number of deities in existence. One way to keep the total number of gods under control was syncretism, stating that a foreign god was actually a Greek deity in disguise (Oghma was equated with Hercules, Isis with Artemis, etc.)

As for how seriously they took their gods, it's very hard to say. We actually know little about the Greeks' day-to-day religion and worship. We know a heck of a lot about their mythology, the crazy stories about the gods. But those seem to have had peripheral importance in personal worship. I'm sure that religious texts of a personal or practical nature were written, but probably didn't survive the Christianization of Greece (unlike the myths).