Mis-Nagid February '05

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Scrolls and Stones

My first (and thus far only) quiz was one of the most popular posts I've ever done. So, here's a small challenge to my readers:

Who is the earliest person mentioned in the Tanakh who is also mentioned in an archaeological source?

Points will be awarded to readers who can name anyone, even if not the earliest. Bonus points for expounding on the significance of any of the finds.

The points can be traded in at the end of the contest for precisely nothing. What, you were expecting a grand prize?

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Cozy or Critical to Converts?

In today's New York Times Theater section there's an article about Rachel Factor, a convert to Orthodox Judaism. It's written by Sarah Bronson, she of the blog Chayyei Sarah. It's a decent piece, but it's mostly fluff. There's not one tough question raised in it, and the unpleasant bits are couched in soft terms.

Why is the article so forgiving of open displays of sexism? It uncritically allows that her "audiences [are] filled exclusively with women, as her strict faith demands." Would the editors have been so breezily non-judgemental if her strict faith had required her to perform only for white people? Since when is brazen sexism so accommodable?

The article makes a big deal out of the fact that Ms. Factor is successful in her new guise, contrary to her expectations. Why is this such a surprise? She's playing for an audience without access to the wider world of entertainment. Sure, she does well -- in an artificially constrained environment, with significantly less competition. I'm not saying she has a bad show, after all, I've never seen it (I'm a guy, remember?). But where's the great trick? Sarah makes it seem like Ms. Factor was a big star who gave it all up, but the high point of her career on the open market was being a Rockette. At least fundamentalist Muslims have Cat Stevens, and Scientologists have Tom Cruise.

The audience she gets is not evidence that her act is a cut above, and Sarah tacitly admits as much: "[...]tickets sold quickly, particularly to American expatriate Orthodox women who felt validated by the story of a glamorous dancer who had chosen to join their community." That's a bit like how fundamentalists flock to hear the one or two "scientists" who explain how evolution is false. Gerald Schroeder never gives the keynote at a cosmology conference, but he fills up every Agudah he books. His lectures are not the actual consensus of science, but it validates what his audiences want to believe. So too, glamorous dancers do not want to enter a cult. One minor one did, but that doesn't make Orthodox life glamorous. One minor scientist thinks Genesis is compatible with the Big Bang, too.

Sarah quotes Michelle Luwish to explain Ms. Factor's allure. "For someone who had been on Broadway to give up singing in front of men, to give up the seemingly glamorous aspects of life to take on a seemingly restrictive lifestyle in such a joyous way," she said, "it's inspiring to anyone who is on a spiritual path."

Seemingly restrictive? What a lame equivocation. It's telling in contrast with her turn of words at the end of the sentence. It's not inspiring to people on a spiritual path, but to those who are in what she euphemistically called a "seemingly" restrictive lifestyle. There's no necessary connection between being on a spiritual path and living the extraordinarily constrained life of an Orthodox woman, any more than a burkah is required. She'd like it to vindicate the restrictive lifestyle she's living, but it says nothing about a spiritual life. It's a phony sentence that Sarah just lets pass.

Another disturbing undertone in the article is the ambivalence to bigotry. Ms. Factor was so affected by bigotry as a child that she felt compelled to try to disguise her eyes with makeup glue and tape. And yet, she "embraces her culture" by...dating Asian men. How about embracing the culture of disdaining dividing people by race? She perpetuates the very thing that wounded her, like a victim of child abuse passing on his lessons to the next generation.

Things don't improve when she leaves that discrimination behind and dates a Caucasian Jew. She just swaps overlooking racial discrimination for overlooking religious discrimination. There's no censure in the article for her husband's insistence that his wife be Jewish. Would someone get a puff piece in the Times for getting eye surgery to marry someone who insisted his wife be Occidental? As before, why is religious discrimination any more acceptable then racial discrimination?

It's bitterly ironic that Ms. Factor includes in her act her pain in face of bigotry, but gets an article in the New York Times for joining a extremist religious sect suffused with bigotry. My readers know it well: the attitude of Orthodox Jews to "goyim" is only a step above the KKK's feelings towards blacks. What Orthodox shul hasn't heard the words "goyishe kup" said with just the right amount of disgust? Every Orthodox person has heard the speech about how the world exists for Jews. The Orwellian attempts to explain how some people are more chosen than others does nothing to dispell the bigotry of a theology that portray some people as more important to God than others. Orthodox Judaism is built on bigotry, the dividing up of people by religion, and the culture reflects and amplifies it.

The article ends with an uplifting quote from an organizer from the Orthodox proselytization group Aish HaTorah. "It's important for people to see that you can be Orthodox and still use your talents in a powerful way." Still? She sounds like a crippled person, talking about how the loss of her legs hasn't slowed her down at all. The question is, why cut off your legs in the first place?

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Suffrage Succotash!

I lost, but I'm thinking of contesting Ohio. I heard that browsers were tampered with over there.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Monday, February 14, 2005

Fabricating Fictions Fathers Further Fraud

There's an old saying that comes in a million and one versions: a lie begets a lie. It's the universal observation that a lie creates a tear in the consistency of the pastiche of claims, and the only way to paper over the breach is with another lie. Needless to say, the patch is no exception to the rule, recursively leading to a patchwork of lies. Nowhere is this clearer than the claims of frumkeit. The lies are piled so high, you'd need an archaeologist to date the layers. The truth has been stretched and sliced so many times that nothing remains but a gruesome mass of scar tissue.

This wreckage had to get started somewhere. What was the first lie, the one that precipitated the avalanche? I'd like to propose thats it was the genre mistake. A genre mistake is commited when someone mistakes what genre something belongs to.

Picture this: It's the year 2437, and archaeologists are digging up our era. Most of our paper has decomposed, so there's great celebration at the discovery of a complete set of Peanuts by Charles Schultz. They pore over the cartoons, taking copious notes. They conclude that in 2005, there were no adults, children had huge, misshapen heads, and life was predominantly melancholy. Clearly, they've not appreciated the sweet simplicity of Mr. Schultz's wry observations.

Why were they so deluded in their characterization of the era Peanuts depicts? Because they confused the genre to which it belong. Peanuts is not a history book, it's a comic strip. When viewing something through the lens of the wrong genre, not only do you get a distorted view, but you utterly fail to appreciate what a work of art you're studying. If someone sends you an email titled "Incredible Work of Art" and you open the JPEG attachment of the Mona Lisa in your MP3 player, you'll be hard-pressed to appreciate Da Vinci's genius in the painful noise emanating from your speakers.

So it is with the Torah. As a composite work of sacred literature, it's extraordinary. That's the genre to which it rightfully belongs, and in that capacity, it's a work of art without parallel. The lie that led to the shambles that is today's Orthodox Judaism is the one that confused sacred literature with revealed divine writ. As soon as that lie was put forth, huge rips appeared in the fabric of the Torah. The Torah became like the yellowing Peanuts of 2437, destroying what meaning it was written to convey. Delusionally mistaking its significance stripped it of its beauty and reduced it to a mere spellbook. The Torah has a meaning, the one its authors imbued it with. The genre mistake robs it of that meaning, and the dignity deserved of a work of art of such high calibre.

Of course, as prophesied in the saying that began this, a lie begets a lie. Much as the silly people of 2437 must create unending ad-hoc hypotheses to explain how their erroneous view coincides with other bits of historical evidence, the Torah's genre mistake led to ever-increasing absurdities in the futile service of covering inconsistency. For example, the unproductive efforts to reconcile the Torah's dual creation myths with evidential reality stems from the genre mistake. Just as today's children have normal heads, the eras depicted in the Tanakh were not populated by open miracles and flagrant violations of the laws of physics. It's only the genre mistake that makes someone hold of such inanity. Even something as seemingly trivial as explaining how the list of Edomite kings fits with the great lie motivated some people to come up with truly impressive (in a morbid way) new lies.

What's sad is that the genre mistake is relatively new. The Torah never says it was written by God, or that it was handed down on Sinai. Orthodox Jews mindlessly talk about Torah M'Sinai, but even a cursory look into the literature shows that there's no such authentic tradition. Even the traditional commentators argued about when the Torah was given, which some saying that it was given piecemeal, beginning in the midbar. Even though the Sinai legend was a very early addition to the religion, the Torah was not pictured as divine writ until later. It was at that point that the thread that led to Orthodoxy tripped on the lie that snowballed into today's nonsensical creation.

When I first discovered the truth about Judaism, my reaction was harsh. I was deeply hurt that I had been lied to for so long, and so extensively. For all the brave talk about unique access to truth, the set of beliefs that define Orthodox Judaism are incompatible with the evidence, which is why, despite repeated appeals to the contrary, ignorance remains the most popular option, enforced through the heresy taboo. That's why the vast majority of Orthodox Jews remain clueless, believing that the Torah is a spooky mystery, about which nothing is known outside of the holy seforim. When I learned how the truth had been carefully kept from me, I reflexively distanced myself from the object of their lies, the unfairly maligned Torah.

With time, distance allowed me to see it in less emotional terms. I asked myself why I enjoy reading works like the Epic of Gilgamesh. No honest answer I gave could exclude the Torah. I came to realize that my disdain for it was an overreaction. In the careless dismissal of my backlash, I forgot that the Torah can still be meaningfully studied, even if not the way I had been taught it. All that was necessary was to appreciate it for what it is: sacred literature. I forced myself to ask what it would have been like to learn it without the genre mistake. I had to admit that it would probably be great. I can still remember what it was like in 4th grade, when I was too young for the genre mistake to raise troubling questions for me. I enjoyed it immensely and blew my rebbi away with my enthusiasm. Furthermore, I have an unusual advantage in Torah study over my other intellectual pursuits -- I'm fluent in Biblical Hebrew. I can't read the Epic of Gilgamesh in its original form, but no such deficit exists in my study of Chumash. How many world-changing, 2500+ year old opuses of Near-Eastern sacred literature can I say that about?

Today, I enjoy learning Chumash, and the act is actually worthy of the term "learning." I learn with far more enthusiasm now, rather then when I was forced to; I also enjoy it for the first time since 4th grade. Every time I relearn a piece with fresh eyes, I savor the artistry of the founding document of my heritage. Correcting the genre mistake illuminates the Torah, revealing its beauty and superb form. There's no experience to compare with understanding Parshas Noach correctly for the first time, an intellectual orgasm of singular intensity. No person of even moderate intelligence should be forced to learn it as a historical event, missing out on the wizardry displayed by the combination of two tales into one. All the contradictions fall away, and the need for lies that began with the genre mistake disappears, leaving pure scholarship, worthy of the skills displayed by the authors and redactors.

I deeply resent the horrible waste of my childhood on pathetic lies. What would have been so bad if they had told me the truth about the Torah? Ok, I know the answer to that: Orthodox Judaism would wither and die. How long do they think they can keep the facade up? We don't live in the shtetl anymore, and we have easy access to the very information they fear the most. Sure, labeling it heresy, and creating the perception that it doesn't exist will work for some, but it won't work for all, or forever. To add insult to injury, all the time they prop up their damnable lies, they're disgracing the very thing they claim to respect: the Torah. After all, who is showing more respect to Schultz's material?

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Monday, February 14, 2005

Mis-Nagid December '04

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Whelp's Walken Wish

This guy is weird in a good way. He's posted parody children's letters to Christopher Walken. My favorite (though it needs more cowbell):



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posted by Mis-nagid @ Thursday, December 23, 2004

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Some questions for Jennifer (and one piece of advice)

Jennifer Mitts, she of the blog Ger--ish, posted a request for some advice. Instead of heeding her request, I rashly posted some questions in her comments section. She responded to my questions with more politesse than they deserved, what with them not being what she had asked for. As I was brazenly typing more questions raised by her response, it occured to me that it had gotten too long for a comment. So here is my reply to Jennifer.

_______________

First things first.

#1) I'm glad you realized that my questions were not rhetorical. I have no stake in your decisions. I'm just curious what leads you to the things you write about.

#2) Any comments I make can be misconstrued as negative. In a sense they are, since I often disagree with you. However, they are not personal. I don't mean to be insulting, but these sorts of probing questions can seem confrontational. If it makes you uncomfortable, you can always ignore me. On the other hand, perhaps you shouldn't be ignoring questions that make you uncomfortable.

#3) No matter what you do, you're not responsible to me.

Ok, to the questions.

"Wow, Mis-nagid. You have raised some very interesting questions. (This is why I like Jewish people SO MUCH.)"

Do you think only Jewish people ask interesting questions? What a horrible thing to say. Even worse for your case, frum people hate my site and my questions.

"I will do my best to come up with plausible answers."

How is that you've come so far as to consider conversion, but haven't yet even come up with plausible answers to these questions? Shouldn't you have delved into these issues before? Also, are merely plausible answers good enough for such important questions?

"And what about you? Are you so brainwashed that you can't say "Hashem is not God" or "The Torah was written by men?"
"I am sure that if my studies bring me to that conclusion, I would not hesitate to proclaim it thus."

I don't doubt that you study. But do you know how to determine the truth or falsehood of a claim? The fact that you have been so gullible with regards to so many diverse superstitions leads me to believe that you do not, in fact, know how we know what isn't so. Many people spend a lot of time studying alien abduction stories and crop circles and come to devoutly believe in them. There's little point in studying these sorts of things without first having mastered critical thinking skills.

"I am always searching for the answers. So far I have gone from Christianity to Messianic Judaism to Judaism/B'nei Noach. That's over the course of my lifetime. I will always be reading, studying, and asking plenty of questions."

How did you discern between the supernatural claims of the different religions? They all require faith, which is belief that does not rest on evidence or reason. On what grounds did you reject your previous religions, and how does your current one hold up to that standard? By what standard of evidence and reason is frumkeit correct, to the exclusion of all other religions? And how do you know that you're not just as wrong as you were before?

"And why are you so eager to add a bunch of arbitrarily restrictive cultic rules to your life?"
"I believe that those are the laws G-d set forth for Israel to follow."

Based on what evidence do you believe that? And given the same standards of evidence that you apply to that answer, how can you reject other religions' claims to divinely given rules? Like say, Islam?

How do you reconcile the grossly immoral orders in the Torah with your claim of divine origins? For example, orders to kill an entire city of people over religious differences? Or orders to cut off a woman's hand for defending her husband against an attacker?

"And I believe He intended for Israel to be a fish bowl for the world to see and emulate."

So your god is prejudiced towards the vast majority of humankind? He's tribalistic and clannish? Or is that just a reflection of human needs and desires projected onto an imagined deity? Why can't your non-egalitarian god have one set of rules for all humankind?

"I further believe that if more and more people adhered to these laws, or at least to the Noachide laws, that our world would be a better place."

Which laws? All of them? How is the world better if people don't eat shellfish? Or don't mix linen and cotton? Or kill anyone who picks up sticks on the wrong day?

As for the noahide laws, the world is a far better place with religious liberty, not required adherence to one form of monotheism. The very first noahide law is an abridgement of human liberty. Would the world really be a better place if we required everyone to believe in Yahveh instead of Imhotep, Allah, or Zeus?

"I'd hate to take away his time from a real Jew, though. That would be a sin."
"Why do you want to keep company with such religious bigots? Would you be so forgiving if it had been taking his time away from a real white person? Why is religious discrimination so trivial to you?"
"I believe rabbis are first obligated to Jews, that is all. Am I not correct in thinking this?"

Even if you are correct in thinking that, why is that acceptable? Would you be ok with saying that the KKK Grand Wizard is first obligated to whites? You never answered my question: why is religious discrimination so trivial to you?

"They'll never accept you; you'll always be a "tzigekimminer." One of the most common complaints BTs and Gerim have is that they're never really accepted. For example, they have the hardest time getting married or marrying their children."
"I have heard that the children of ger do not marry easily and well. However, I won't have that to worry about as I have no and do not plan to have children."

Even if your only concern is you, why do you want to associate with wanton bigots? Where is your rush to jump into such a xenophobic culture?

"What I am concerned with is me, a B'nei Noach, making friends in a very small Jewish community with frum women. I have online frum friends that are gracious and kind. I have two modern orthodox people (online friends) coming in from out of town to my home in a couple of weeks to sit down to dinner with me. This gives me hope."

Hope that what? That this time you got access to the correct exclusive we're-right club? That these unsupported supernatural claims are the right one, by god? Not like those last ones?

It sounds more like you're interested in the social aspects of fundamentalist religions. You want to think that you've got all the answers in a book, and the secret handshake known only to God's chosen people. You just can't seem to make up your mind about which cult to pick.

If I can make one suggestion to you, it would be this: Hold off on any major religious decisions until you've studied critical thinking. After you've been armed with such mental power tools, you'll be better prepared to discern truth from falsehood.

Some recommended books on critical thinking (not religion):
The Baloney Detection Kit ($5 from skeptic.com)
Why People Believe Weird Things by Dr. Michael Shermer
How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life by Thomas Gilovich
The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan
How to Think About Weird Things by Theodore Schick
Inevitable Illusions : How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini

Respectfully,
Mis-nagid

posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Monday, December 20, 2004

Clippings Collection

Sometimes being funny is the best way to expose how dumb someone is.
The idiot. The funny (comment #24 by RPM).
______________

A new discovery rocks the world of particle physics: the Jebon!
______________

AP: 44% in poll OK limits on rights of Muslims. Sadly, not a joke.
______________

New SAT Questions Replace Evolution with Creation. Don't miss the PDF.

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Monday, December 20, 2004

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel

[Before being rudely interrupted, I had planned a collection of Chanukah blog posts. This one was already finished, but the rest will have to wait until next Chanukah]

Continuing on the theme of frum ignorance of history, and in particular Chanukah, let's address the dreidel.

This seemingly benign toy is yet another example of frum ignorance of history, gullibility and lack of skepticism. As before, take a poll of frum Jews. Ask where the custom of playing dreidel on Chanukah comes from. Ask what Nun, Gimmel, Hey and Shin stand for. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you'll hear a verbatim playback of the traditional myths.

According to the pablum fed frum children, the dreidel was used by the Jewish children in the times of the Yevonim as an excuse. They would gather to learn Torah, and if they were caught, they would pretend they were only playing a children's game. The obviously retarded Seleucid soldier was totally fooled by this childish ruse, and wandered off like the goofus he was. It makes one wonder how such stupid soldiers managed to conquer a land where even the children could outsmart them.

The next lie taught in frum yeshivas concerns the letters on the four-sided top. We are told that NGHSh stands for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham -- a great miracle happened there. In Israel, the letters on the sevivon are NGHP, swapping "there" for "here."

Ask yourself what letters were on the dreidel spun by the mythically pious children of history and what they might have stood for. Were they prophets to predict the miracle? And did their's say Sham or Po? Ok, so the dreidel is just a remembrance of the top-like game they played. Then when did the letters get added? When did it take the form we have now?

Even this momentary reflection makes it obvious that at least some of the dreidel's backstory must be anachronistic, but frum people are trained not to pay attention to such things. If they notice them, they put it out of mind and don't investigate further. Sure, this "point" one can be dismissed with ease, but frum people can't even be bothered to think about it, let alone dismiss it. They simply lack any sense of history, and see the Chanukah story as an out-of-focus tale, never to be examined closely.

So where did the dreidel come from? Contrary to the popular song, the dreidel is not made out of clay, but of whole cloth. The legend of the alibi was made up in the 19th century, with no precursor. Its letters do not stand for Nebuchadnetzar, Gog, Haman, and Seir. That its letters equal Mashiach in gematria is mere numerology. The dreidel, in fact, had nothing to do with Chanukah, having been played by many cultures over the centuries.

The English and Irish have a Christmastime top-based game called totum or teetotum, Latin for "all." The game was first called totum in the early 1500s. By the 1700s, it was called T-totum or teetotum, and by the 1800s the four letters became four words in English: N for Nothing, T for Take, H for Half, P for Put. The dreidel is an Eastern European variant of the German equivalent of the totum game. Its letters come from German: Nichts for nothing, Ganz for all, Halb for half, and Shtell for put.

Thus, the irony. Chanukah is supposed to represent the rejection of foreign culture, yet many of its customs are of foreign origin. The rabbis, by fabricating an origin myth for the dreidel, were truly spinning a little piece of assimilation.

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Monday, December 20, 2004

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Rebbe Rousers

From the Jerusalem Post:

Nine Lubavitcher Hassidim were arrested Wednesday morning in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, when they attacked police officers who had been called to Lubavitch world headquarters to guard the installation of a plaque that referred to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as the Rebbe "of blessed memory."
[...]
Until recently, a 10-year-old plaque marking the occasion of the expansion of the building and referring to the Rebbe with the words "of blessed memory" remained undisturbed, community members said.

But a couple of months ago, the plaque was torn down under cover of darkness and replaced with one that said: "Long live our master, our teacher and our rabbi, the king the Messiah, forever and ever," according to a Lubavitch official.

Since then, workers trying to restore the original plaque have been blocked by fervently messianic Chabadniks, and Lubavitch officials had to get a court order to block them.

From the New York Post:

One of the Hasidic men arrested in a brawl outside the headquarters of an Orthodox Jewish sect offered a simple explanation of the fight for outsiders who can't tell the warring factions without a scorecard.

"The Rebbe is Superman and [Rabbi] Yehuda Krinsky is Lex Luthor, you understand?" Meyer Romano, 23, told The Post yesterday as he left Brooklyn criminal court after a night in jail.
[...]
Another arrested man was Chesad Halberstam, whose son, Ari, was killed by an Islamic fundamentalist in a 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting.

A lawyer for one of the men explained that the group was protecting the cornerstone, which is considered sacred because Schneerson once touched it. "His choice is: does he go against the rule of God or does he go against the rule of man," said Michael Kusevitsky.

A Lubavitch spokesman, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said that the arrested men "lack respect for any religious or legal authority. Pray for them."

From another NY Post article:

Among the radical Lubavitchers arrested was Chesad Halberstam, whose son Ari was killed by an Arab terrorist who shot up a van carrying Hassidic students on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994.

This pretty much speaks for itself. One question, though. Shouldn't Mr. Halberstam have learned about the danger of religious fanaticism? Of course, the very nature of it is irrational, so reasoning may be too much to expect. Also, his son was murdered, which is the sort of shock to the mental immune system that leaves one vulnerable to cults.

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Sunday, December 19, 2004

Friday, December 17, 2004

Beloved Bender

Two Bender quotes come to mind. To my friends: "I'm back, baby!" And to the hijacker: "Bite my shiny metal ass."

The current content of the site is not to be trusted, until I verify it against my archives.

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Friday, December 17, 2004

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Odd Ad

Check out this ad from this morning's paper:



The first thing I noticed is the cheesy language. A mistake can be hurtful? Give you a right recommendation? Four exclamation points? Yuck.

Once I got past my overly-delicate English sensibilities, something else occurred to me. What the heck makes a referral service Jewish? Well, other than the Yiddishe Bobbah language. And what is a Jewish referral service anyway? Apparently, it's a woman with some phone books. But wait, let's break out the zoom tool:



It's a kosher phone book. Perhaps that's what makes the service Jewish. And if that isn't Jewish enough, they tell you that it's "absolutely free" twice and in all caps.

Here's how I picture the one side of the conversation:


JRS, are you Jewish? Don't lie, we Jews can tell.
[...]
Ok, ok, I don't need your whole life story. What's the matter with you?
[...]
Just that? You kvetch too much. You think you have problems? My angina been acting up la... no, ANgina. Yeesh, don't have a heart attack, I'll check.



My aunt Bertha, Uleha Hashalom, said this doctor was very nice to her. Let me call and set up an appointment for you.



Doctor Hochenplotz? Oy doctor, have I got a daughter for you.

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posted by Mis-nagid @ Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Frum Fantasy or How a Legend Spawned an Industry

The frum world is thoroughly suffused with fantasy and ignorance. Frum people know pathetically little about their own history and practices, and what they do know is usually wrong. In general, frum institutions never teach any history at all, or at least nothing that deserves the name. Most yeshiva bochurim have no idea what was going on in the world at the same time as any Jewish event. All "history" is seen through the gauze of fantasy. The frum view of the history of world revolves around Jews and includes lots of myths, which makes for a witch's brew that has little to do with real history.

The root cause of this lack of rigor in understanding the past is the need for ignorance. After all, if you ask "What was going on in the rest of the world during Noach's Great Flood?" you may be surprised to find out that great (undisturbed) civilizations in Egypt and China were already writing stuff down, and never mentioned any flood. As the frum dogmas are not grounded in reality, so too the history must be kept floating above the ground, never attached to anything of substance, lest it come tumbling down to earth.

Chanukah, one of the few Jewish holidays based on a true historical event, is, ironically, no exception to this. Grab a frum person and quiz him or her: In what year was Chanukah? Who was Antiochus? Who were the Yevonim? Who were the Chasmonoyim? How long did the war last? You'll get the most pathetic answers (if you get any), because frum people have no sense of history. Shoot, most frum people don't know what the word "frum" means, or where it comes from! [*]

There is one aspect of frum Chanukah that truly brings this sense of ahistory into sharp relief. Case in point: the Bais Yosef's Kasha. To those of you lucky enough to be uninitiated in the frum cult, this peculiar obsession of frum Chanukah takes the form of a question. The Bais Yosef asked, "If the oil could have lasted for one day, but lasted for eight, only seven of them can be termed miracles. So why celebrate eight (rather than seven) days?"

This "difficulty" occupies a special place in the frum universe; it's a "true" classic. Gallons of ink were poured to answer this stupid question. Virtually every frum commentator since his time has had a crack at it. There's even a very large sefer consisting of nothing but answers to this one question. However, every single one of those answers is wrong -- completely, utterly, and totally wrong.

Before I get to the correct answer, let's understand why they're wrong. Don't worry, I don't have to refute them all, one at a time. The reason they're off-base is simple: it's a legend. The story of the miraculous oil was made up approximately six hundred years after the events of Chanukah. Of course the rabbinical legend has inconsistencies -- it's fiction. There's no point in trying to "fix" them. It's like reading Curious George and trying to explain how so few balloons could lift a monkey of George's heft.

Now, to the real answer to the Bais Yosef's Kasha.

Due to their aforementioned lack of history sense, most frum people have no idea that there are books written from the era of the Maccabees. Nor do they know that these books make no mention of any miracles. Ask a frum person what is says in the two[**] Books of Maccabees, and they'll say "Books of Maccabees?" I'll not get into why those books are invisible from the frum world, but I'll note one piece of irony. Virtually every frum child knows the Chanukah story of Channah and her seven sons. Where's the story from? The Book of Maccabees 2.

Were you to read the actual history of Chanukah, when you get to the part about the rededication [chanukah] of the Temple, you'd find the following:

10:5 Now upon the same day that the strangers profaned the temple, on the very same day it was cleansed again, even the five and twentieth day of the same month, which is Casleu [Kislev].
10:6 And they kept the eight days with gladness, as in the feast of the tabernacles [Sukkot], remembering that not long afore they had held the feast of the tabernacles [Sukkot], when as they wandered in the mountains and dens like beasts.
10:7 Therefore they bare branches, and fair boughs, and palms also [lulavim, hadassos, aravos], and sang psalms [Hallel] unto him that had given them good success in cleansing his place.
10:8 They ordained also by a common statute and decree, That every year those days should be kept of the whole nation of the Jews.

That's right, the very first Chanukah was a delayed Sukkot. Sukkot traditionally required going to the Temple, but on the correct date for Sukkot, the Temple was still under Seleucid control, so it was not celebrated properly. The Maccabees cleverly scheduled the Temple's grand reopening on the anniversary of its sacking, and celebrated Sukkot like it's supposed to be. It was especially poignant due to the fact that the transient and ephemeral living embodied in the story of Sukkot was so resonant with them, having just spent so long hiding in mountains and caves.

Furthermore, the book opens with a letter to the Jews in Alexandria, telling them to celebrate this new holiday:

1:9 And now see that ye keep the feast of tabernacles [Sukkot] in the month Casleu [Kislev].

That is the correct answer to the Bais Yosef's Kasha. The reason Chanukah is eight days (instead of seven) is because it was a delayed Sukkot, which has eight days. It was always eight days, and the rabbis made their legend match the extant practice, leading to the slight inconsistency noted by the Bais Yosef.

Before I close this post, I'd like to add a piece of speculation. The Mishna nevers discusses [Ed. note was "mentions"] Chanukah, even going so far as to give a grave warning against reading the Books of Maccabees (Sanhedrin 10:1). In the only Gemara to discuss Chanukah, history gets three lines, while ritual minutaie get more than three pages. However, there is one interesting link in this rabbinified version of Chanukah that may hint at their knowledge of its true origins.

In the discourse on how to light the Chanukah candles, two opinions are proffered. One says to start with one candle on the first night and add one each night, until you are lighting eight on the final night. The other says to start with eight and remove one each night. Where it gets interesting is the reason offered for the latter position. The justification given is that the candles represent "parei hechag," the bulls of the holiday. By this he means the bulls offered on Sukkot. As recounted in the Torah, those bulls were offered in decreasing number each successive day.

The commentators struggle to explain why that Sukkot practice is relevant to Chanukah lights. Some of them are almost amusing in their tortured logic. I'd like to offer a possibility; that this could be a partial remnant of the earlier explanations for the custom of the Chanukah lights.

email me: [mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

[*] It's a Yiddishization of the German "fromm," meaning pious. Admit it, you didn't know that.
[**] The other Books of Maccabee aren't about Chanukah, and are somewhat misnamed

posted by Mis-nagid @ Sunday, December 12, 2004

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Sneaky Scientists Slip Sermons into Schoolbooks

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Thursday, December 02, 2004

Mirror, Mirror

This blog post by Brian Flemming sounds like something I might write.

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Thursday, December 02, 2004

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Williamsburg Wingnuts

How did I miss this? The pic:



The discussions:

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.


Can someone please post a translation of these newspaper pics?

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Syllable Slip

Lately, I've been learning a lot of Chumash, about which I'll write more later. In the course of my study, I came across a large number of interesting scribal errors in the Masoretic Text, the version of the Torah that frum people think is identical with the "one" "given" over 2000 years ago. This was not a surprise to me, as I've been familiar with modern Biblical scholarship for quite some time. However, I had never made a real effort to study the field, and my current pursuit is an effort to redress that shortcoming.

My current favorite scribal error comes from Birkat Yaakov. In Beraishis:

49:19 Gad gdud yegudenu v'hu yagud akev
49:20 Mey'Asher shemaina lachmo v'hu yiten me'adnei melech

There are two things weird about those pesukim. The first oddity is that Gad's counterattack is singular, but his attackers are plural. Yegudenu is plural, but akev is singular. Also strange is that Asher's verse starts with "From Asher." None of the other verses have this "from" form, so it's very incongruous.

The answer lies in a simple scribal error. The MEM from Gad's posuk got accidentally moved to Asher's posuk. Gad's posuk originally ended with akvum (their heels), and Asher's with Asher. In fact, in the other surviving versions of the Torah, the original version is still intact, confirming the scribal error in the Masoretic text.

This is exactly the kind of scribal error which survives: one that leaves the source still making some sense. Gross errors get weeded out quickly, so they're not often in surviving documents. Similarly, the confusion of DALED with REISH usually got caught, but in the case of the cows in Pharoh's dream it didn't because Dakos and Rakos have similar enough meaning to leave the story sensible.

I think the reason I favor this relatively trivial scribal error over other more important ones is that it's Birkat Yaakov. Frum children, especially girls, are often coerced into memorizing the whole thing in song. The irony of revering it so much, yet unwittingly enshrining it in an erronious form, really tickles my funny bone.

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

[Ed. note: fixed "gdud" in 49:19 quote]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Mis-Nagid November '04

Friday, November 26, 2004

Befuddled Brains

I love studying how fallible our brains are. I find the study of human cognition fascinating, with particular interest in how it's broken. I've made the study of the different illusions (optical, logical, etc) of our brains something of a hobby. It's all part of my efforts to understand why people are so bad at interpreting the world, and how we come to erroneous beliefs such as theism (and other superstitions).

I may read neurology books for fun, but the following little game still surprised me. Play it for yourself, and see if it doesn't blow your mind:

1) You must read these rules in their entirety before beginning. Don't screw this up for yourself by cheating, or you'll really be missing out.

2) Watch this short video. (7MB download and Java required)

You are only allowed to watch it once. In the video you will see a group of basketball players, some wearing white and some wearing black, passing two balls around. Your goal is to count how many times the ball is passed by those wearing white shirts. It’s that simple. Remember, count just the passes of the ball by those wearing white. Once the movie is over, write down the number of passes you have counted. Do not watch the video again!

3) Go to this site and see how accurately you counted.

That's it, now begin!

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

UPDATE:
Daniel Simons won an Ig Nobel award for this research! Here's the paper that he published that led to the award. Do not follow any of these links until after you've taken the test.
UPDATE 2:
Michael Shermer, he of the excellent books on scientific skepticism, wrote about this in his column in Scientific American. Do not follow any of these links until after you've taken the test.

posted by Mis-nagid @ Friday, November 26, 2004

Monday, November 15, 2004

Alienating Architecture

Shaggy Maniac wrote about my last post:
Your point is well-taken but but I’m not comfortable with your usage of the term “atheistic” in reference to science.

I’d use it in reference to architecture, too. There are those who want to distort the meaning of atheist, but I will not give in to this politically-inspired recharacterization. Atheism isn’t a religion — it’s not even a belief. It’s a lack of a particular belief, and that is all. Anything that has nothing to say about God-belief is atheistic, and there no shame is saying it.

This term would seem to mean literally “without theism”.

Never mind “would seem” — that’s the definition. Anything that is without theism is atheistic. It’s not some cornered, niche idea, flitting in the shadows. Virtually everything we do and know is atheistic. Only those few things still left in the hands of the priests can still be said to be theistic, and that set is shrinking. It’s been shrinking ever since the first cities were designed with the market at the center, and not the church. The scope and domain of religion has shrunk, even as its adherents' numbers grow. Today, only the most overtly religious give more than an hour a week to the church, and have to campaign to affect politics. Compare that with 400 years ago, when the church owned the land and set the rules. It didn’t help them that entire fields slipped from the church’s grasp, such as biology and astronomy. Never let people fool you into thinking that science and religion are separate endeavors. Theism is separate from science. Religion has and is still constantly making scientific claims (virgin births, splitting seas, answered prayers). The fact that they can no longer make scientific claims about the stars is a reflection on the incorrectness of those doctrines, not on their origins in theism (or lack of).

I would argue that there is nothing about science as a human endeavor (which is what it is) that either implies or requires that the humans doing the science either are or need to subscribe in anyway to anything having to do with theism, including atheism. Saying that science is “atheistic” says, I fear, much more than saying that science properly conducted follows methodological naturalism.

On the one hand, you’re right; science does NOT imply naturalism. However, you’re still wrong, because science has led to naturalism. It needn’t have; there’s nothing in science that makes it so. It’s not science’s fault that the tools of reason and logic didn’t find anything supernatural. We could live in the world of The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. We obviously can conceive of it. But we don’t. In those worlds, science would confirm magic and fairies the way it has evolution in ours. As I said, nothing in the methods of science precludes that. However, our world, as it has exposed itself to us, exhibits no such things.

The latter is a requirement of science; the former (“atheism”) has utterly nothing to do with science and thus it is an inapproriate term to associate with science, imo.

Science is an atheistic endeavor, as is everything that is not specifically theological. It is the failings of religious claims in the realm of scientific authority that make science the enemy of religion, not the fact that science is atheistic. Were it otherwise, religion would be opposed to architecture.

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Monday, November 15, 2004

What's in an idea?

PZ Myers wrote:
“Olmsted and Mobley are under the delusion that evolution is an atheistic idea.”

That’s correct. Every scientific theory is atheistic — that is, lacks a god-belief. Heliocentrity does not invoke God, so it is atheistic. Relativity lacks a deity so it too is atheistic.


Of course evolution does not oppose theism. But its opponents are not theists, they are Christians. They do not just believe in God, they have a much larger set of beliefs that revolve around that belief. It is these auxilliary beliefs (such as Genesis) that are in conflict with the evidence that led to the theory of evolution.

The reason that religions have historically been so belligerent to science is because science is atheistic. It allows people to understand the world without invoking God. Evolution doesn’t prove that there are no Gods, but it makes Him unnecessary. Not that He ever was necessary, but the God of Gaps depends on His lacunae, and His followers resent every encroachment of knowledge into the ever-shrinking cavities of ignorance.

UPDATE: PZ Myers responded:
Good point. I was confusing the issues, too: science says nothing about god, which makes it atheistic, but the point I was really trying to address is that is not anti-theistic.

The mark of a true scientist: admitting a mistake. Now go read his blog, you menuval*, you have much to learn.

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

*Props to Rabbi Pinky Schmeckelstein

posted by Mis-nagid @ Monday, November 15, 2004

Mis-Nagid October '04

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Hank Fox on Chris Reeve's death

This post is directly lifted from Hank Fox. I'd link to it, but his site is awkward, and makes it hard to link to the content. I hope he forgives me this mild copyright violation. I liked this post of his too much not to share it with my readers. For now, please enjoy his work:

People die.

They do. And they stay dead forever.

It sucks. If you know and love someone, there is very little good about them dying.

I saw this cartoon today in my local paper, and immediately hated it.



I hated it because of how it pushed my buttons: "Awwww, look, Christopher Reeve is flying off to Heaven. He doesn't have to be paralyzed anymore. That's just so nice." Deep contented sigh.

Just for a second, it waylaid me with its smarmy appeal, and I felt GOOD about Reeve's death. I felt that everything was going to be okay. That it wasn't so bad that he was in a wheelchair all that time, and couldn't even breathe on his own.

It was ... release. From the thought of all the years he spent shackled in place by his damaged spinal cord. From the pain of his death. And even from the threat of my own mortality.

Yeah, we atheists feel such things. Don't ever think we don't feel the same escapist urges that godders do. The difference is, we think mass delusion has a lot of very harmful side effects. The difference is, we think the real world is more important. More interesting. More powerful. More ... super.

Take two parallels worlds, almost exactly the same.

In one world, the mind of every person is filled with the deep belief in some kind of life after death. Reincarnation. Immortality in paradise. Joining with the Oversoul. Beaming up to the Mother Ship.

In the other world, every person knows, on a deep, personal level, that you get one life, and when you die, you're gone forever.

On which of these parallel worlds is medical science likely to develop faster?

On which of these parallel worlds are people more likely to rejoice in day-to-day living, more likely to grab life by the horns and LIVE it?

On which of these parallel worlds are people more likely to express their true feelings for each other most often, knowing that they may not always have the chance?

Hell, considering a worldwide population of individuals who know absolutely that you get one life and no more, on which of these worlds is slavery less likely to develop, or last?

Then there was this other cartoon, which I liked very much:



In this one, the man becomes powerful by walking though a door labeled "Stem Cell Research."

The door might just as well have said, simply, "Biology." Or just "Science."

This cartoon doesn't inspire tears of joy, or heart-tugging pathos. What it does inspire is Hope.

Real hope.

Hope that one day, people like Christopher Reeve — not a symbol, not a cartoon, not a shill for superstition, but the real flesh-and-blood guy who wanted to walk again so much he showed the rest of us what real heroes are made of — will someday not have to spend their entire lives in wheelchairs.

It will not happen with tent revivals. It won't come about through the sermons of Benny Hinn. It won't take place in some fuzzy wish-fulfillment fantasy-land in the clouds.

There are plenty of people alive today — all of us, when you think about it — who have ONE hope of getting up out of their wheelchairs, one hope of being free of the daily shots of insulin, one hope of disconnecting their loved ones from the machines AND HAVING THEM COME HOME afterwards.

That kind of hope is not found in a church pew.

It's found in laboratories, in college science classrooms, in funding for research and education, and in getting the luddites — can you say George W. Bush, boys and girls? — out of the way so the science and research and teaching can actually happen.

One final thought: What do you suppose is the ultimate goal of medical science?

It's the curing of disease, isn't it? The curing of ALL disease. Because it's not like medical science is going to stop. Not ever. And sooner or later, ALL diseases will be curable.

The lung cancer that killed your mom. The multiple sclerosis that destroyed the life of your uncle. The heart attack that took your grandfather. The birth defect that spirited away your son. The diabetes or AIDS that claimed the life of your niece. The Alzheimer's that stole away your grandmother ... long years before she actually died.

All that stuff will be curable.

Sooner.

Or later.

For the sake of all the Christopher Reeves out there, for the sake of my friends and loved ones, for the sake of everybody who ever loved someone, I'd rather it be sooner.

posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Preposterous Presidents

I watched last night's presidential debate with only mild interest. However, there was one point where I sat up and took notice. The topic that perked me right up was, of course, religion.

In America, religion cannot be questioned. No matter how absurd someone's beliefs are, as long as it's labelled religious, you must simply bow your head in solemn respect. You can't say that tacking scrolls to your doorpost to bring good luck is supertitious and ineffective. You can't say that that claims of religion are no better than superstition, even though they clearly are.

This sense of immunity is never more pronounced than in the political sphere. Virtually noone in America would vote for an atheist; we're more likely to see a black gay president than an atheistic one. When a American politician is asked about religion, he must profess his faith loudly and clearly, lest the wrath of the populace fall upon him.

Reflect on the absurdity of this situation. To be considered fit for the most important position in the world, a candidate must state that he believes that an invisible being is looking out for him! The top two canditates believe that man who died thousands of years ago can help guide their decisions, if they think about him hard enough. How irrational is that? If you change that belief in the slightest bit so as to nudge it out from under the protective umbrella of religion, he might be institutionalized.

In this vein, I've learned a little trick to highlite the absurdity. When someone is harping on their religion, play word replacement. When it says religion, read superstition. When someone say God, hear aliens. When someone say prayer, hear something equally useless like "drawing pretty circles."

I must warn you that this technique is not for the weak-minded. Putting on your no-god glasses exposes an ugly side to human stupidity that most people are completely unaware of.

Let's try an example. I was reading a book about life in Germany right before World War II. The author describes his harrowing experiences during Kristalnacht. The event that "sparked" Kristalnacht was the shooting of a German ambassador by Hershel Grynspan. In the book, the author describes the Jewish residents' reaction to the news. They immediately realized that there would be a violent backlash, so they started...praying. He describes how they organized round the clock tearful tehillim sessions, which, of course, were to no avail.

Now let's play. Imagine that he had written the following:

"We heard the horrible news, and saw the implications -- our very lives were at risk. We quickly mobilized to stave off the attack by drawing circles. The townspeople drew them in many colors and sizes, and we organized groups to get full circle-drawing coverage. Many crayons were consumed, and the circles were drawn with great concentration, but to no avail."

Given that there's no reason to think that prayer works any better than coloring, why should the original author's version not make you just as angry as the slightly modified version? They were faced with terrible risk to themselves, their family and their property, and they spent precious time on futile superstition.

Now that we've had our warmup, let's try it on last night's debate. Imagine, as I did, that this is what Bush had responded with, and think how likely you are to vote for such an obviously insane man.

MODERATOR: You were asked before the invasion, or after the invasion, of Iraq if you'd checked with your dad. And I believe, I don't remember the quote exactly, but I believe you said you had checked with a higher authority. I would like to ask you, what part does your faith play on your policy decisions?

BUSH: First, my unreason plays a lot -- a big part in my life. And that's, when I answering that question, what I was really saying to the person was that I draw circles a lot. And I do.

And my unreason is a very -- it's very personal. I draw circles for strength. I draw circles for wisdom. I draw circles for our troops in harm's way. I draw circles for my family. I draw circles for my little girls.

But I'm mindful in a free society that people can perform cultic rituals if they want to or not. You're equally an American if you choose to perform cultic rituals to an alien and if you choose not to.

If you're a Gray, Agharian or Roswellian, you're equally an American. That's the great thing about America, is the right to perform cultic rituals the way you see fit.

Drawing circles and superstition sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency.

I love the fact that people draw circles for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, Well, how do you know? I said, I just feel it. (!)

Superstition is an important part. I never want to impose my superstition on anybody else. But when I make decisions, I stand on principle, and the principles are derived from who I am.

I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself, as manifested in public policy through the unreason-based initiative where we've unleashed the armies of compassion to help heal people who hurt.

I believe that the aliens wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe.

And that's been part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the aliens. And I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march.

And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me, and superstition is a part of me.

Would you vote for someone who believes he communicates with aliens in his mind? Why should you react any differently when the superstition changes? What's so special about the claims of religion that make them invulnerable to circumspection? There is no difference, and this game can help you see it.

OK, now it's your turn. Spend a day or two noticing how silly people sound when you remove the absurdly silly thing they believe in from the protective shell of the word "religion." I suggest you start with Kerry's response. Let me know how it goes!

[mis-nagid_AT_blogspot_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Thursday, October 14, 2004

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Review of Saved!

Last night, I watched the movie Saved! The movie was about as daringly critical of religion as a major studio release can be. That being said, it never allowed itself to reach the obvious conclusion: religion is a form of madness. People who believe that they have a personal relationship with a 2000-year dead man are rightly labelled insane -- unless they call their bizarre belief "religion," in which case it's labelled "faith." Mad frummies will laugh at a Hopi rain dance, opining, "Silly Indians with their ridiculous dances and chants. Don't they know that to bring rain you have to shake a fruit and intone Birkat Geshem?"

The movie flirts with this angle by portraying religious beliefs as silly and desperate for rational validation, even having Mandy Moore's character chastise Mary (the protagonist) for not praying by saying "Prayer works, it's been medically proven! Everyone knows that!"

There was one scene in the movie that reminded me of something I responded to in this blog. In it, Mary is bonked on the head in the pool, and is drowning. A poolhand dives in to save her, and in her oxygen-deprived state, she perceives him as Jesus, who delivers a personal message to her. This imagined message relieves her of worry about a distressing issue.

Sound familiar? I responded to someone who said a very similar thing. It always amazes me how people can run right past the obvious and correct explanation and dive into the shallow end of the reason pool.

Another line in it irked me. In the movie, Mary is having doubts about her Christian faith. She's grasping around to find something to replace it, so she buys a book on "crystal healing power" and tries that. Her voiceover asks about religions (paraphrasing) "I know there's so many of them, and they can't all be right, but they can't all be wrong, right?"

Wrong. There is no logical reason to exclude that possibility. People often fall back on that fallacy when they finally perceive the cracks in the irrational belief they have been holding. This is the same sort of "reasoning" used by alien enthusiasts when a particular "sighting/landing/abduction" is shown to be a hoax. They say, "Sure, that one was a lie, but there are soooo many reports, some of them must be true!" There's no therefore there, they can logically all be untrue.

Another nit worth picking was the backpedaling at the end. Mary looks at a newborn baby and, disappointingly, stumbles into the divine fallacy by claiming that she can't understand it, so there must be a god. She also says that she feels that there is a God, so one must exist. It's brief, and the movie doesn't dwell on it, but there was no need for such unskeptical blather after such a wonderfully critical movie.

In conclusion, the movie was very entertaining, skewering religious zealotry with great relish. I found it quite funny, and I highly recommend it to my readers.

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Debate diverts, detracts and distracts

The Jerusalem Report published a debate between Yaron Yadan, a formerly ultra-orthodox rosh yeshiva, and Dr. Jeffrey Woolf, a senior lecturer in Talmud at Bar Ilan Univerisity. Read it here.

Psychometricians have long noted that the way a question is asked affects the answers given. This is one of the reasons why most polls results are absolutely useless.

Look at the question that framed the debate:
"Should we reject religious Judaism if the Talmud is not literally the word of God?"

Notice how it studiously avoided asking about the divinity of the Torah (the more pertinent question) and focused on something that isn't really in question! Noone claims that the Talmud is literally the word of God -- but many falsely make that claim about the Torah.

Yaron mentions this obliquely, but is fighting uphill, since the playing field is slanted: "[...] I concluded that the Torah, the Scriptures and the halakhah are human creations. Your assertion that the Torah authorizes the sages to interpret the text is irrelevant."

Some things to remember:

1) Truth is not decided by debate, nor reality by referendum. You can debate a flat earth to until the heat death of the universe, but reality will not so much as flicker. Check out the book "One Hundred Proofs That The Earth is Not a Globe":

The arguments made in that book are very similar to the sort made by all those who expect reality to acquiesce to their preconceived notions.The core of the book's thesis is not made obvious, but is hidden in "proof" number 50:

"50. We read in the inspired book, or collection of books, called THE BIBLE, nothing at all about the Earth being a globe or a planet, from beginning to end, but hundreds of allusions there are in its pages which could not be made if the Earth were a globe, and which are, therefore, said by the astronomer to be absurd and contrary to what he knows to be true! This is the groundwork of modern infidelity. But, since every one of many, many allusions to the Earth and the heavenly bodies in the Scriptures can be demonstrated to be absolutely true to nature, and we read of the Earth being "stretched out" "above the waters," as "standing in the water and out of the water," of its being "established that it cannot be moved," we have a store from which to take all the proofs we need, but we will just put down one proof - the Scriptural proof - that Earth is not a globe."

W. M. Carpenter believed that his superstitions could shape the world (pun intended), despite all the evidence to the contrary. He'd debate it gladly, and write a book about it, but he's still just as deluded as Jeffrey Woolf.

2) When two people argue, the truth does not necessarily lie somewhere in the middle; one of them may simply be wrong. This logical error is very easy to slide into, and plays right into the hands of the superstitious. For example, the biblical creationists have relabeled themselves Intelligent Design and are trying to get supernatural claims into science textbooks. One of their credos is "teach the controversy," a blatant attempt to leverage this fallacy. Check out the cover article in this month's Wired magazine.

People assume that a controversy implies that each side must have some truth. Not only is this conclusion incorrect, there is no controversy about the whole of evolution - it was settled 140 years ago. However, by debating it they create the appearance of two sides to the issue. It works on people who are not properly skeptical, as evidenced by this snippet from the article:

"'I'm not a PhD in biology,' says board member Michael Cochran. 'But when I have X number of PhD experts telling me this, and X number telling me the opposite, the answer is probably somewhere between the two.'"

If he had said that in front me, I might have slapped him. How is that someone so unskeptical is allowed to make important decisions that affect the future of children? The article continues:

"An exasperated Krauss claims that a truly representative debate would have had 10,000 pro-evolution scientists against two Discovery executives. 'What these people want is for there to be a debate,' says Krauss. 'People in the audience say, Hey, these people sound reasonable. They argue, 'People have different opinions, we should present those opinions in school.' That is nonsense. Some people have opinions that the Holocaust never happened, but we don't teach that in history.'"

Bravo, Krauss. But he's not being understood:

"'Another board member, Deborah Owens-Fink, declares the issue already closed. 'We've listened to experts on both sides of this for three years,' she says. "Ultimately, the question of what students should learn 'is decided in a democracy, not by any one group of experts.'

The notion is noble enough: In a democracy, every idea gets heard. But in science, not all theories are equal. Those that survive decades - centuries - of scientific scrutiny end up in classrooms, and those that don't are discarded. The intelligent design movement is using scientific rhetoric to bypass scientific scrutiny."

So, while the debate in the Jerusalem Report is amusing to read, it sheds no light whatsoever on the question at hand. It merely serves to perpetuate the illusion that there really is something to both sides' claims.

3) Developing solid critical thinking skills is crucial for being able to dissect these sorts of issues. Don't even approach the issue until you've learned how to correctly wield the power of logic. It's very easy to be misled when confronting complex issues. You need training in logic just as surely as you need training in physics. It's just that everyone assumes that they're natural-born thinkers, so no tutelage is necessary.

Forget about reading about evolution until you've read about skepticism. Put down the Jerusalem Report and read "How We Know What Isn't So" and "Innumeracy." You can always come back to the issue when you're better equipped to field it.

[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]

posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, October 13, 2004