My advice for Americans that are upset about the attack on Biblical values: to learn Torah.
Normally that means the Oral and Written law but in this case an introduction would be in order.
That is Musar (Jewish Ethics). There are classical books of Jewish ethics based on the Old Testament which give a good idea of the basic world view of Torah. There was an actual movement among the Jewish people to learn Musar that was based in Vilnius, and its founder was Israel Salanter. It went into hibernation, but it might be a good idea to awaken this again.

Musar has the advantage that it is not trying to fit Torah into some alternative reality worldview, but is a rigorous evaluation of the texts of Torah. It will not be trying to sell you on believing in anyone except for the First Cause. It will be encouraging to follow all the laws of the Torah. So even if there are people that may learn it and yet not be perfect, it has the effect of encouraging people towards objective morality.


My recommendation is the Or Israel by a disciple of Israel Salanter and the Duties of the Heart [the first Musar book ever]. That was written in the Middle Ages and is the father of all Musar books.
It is a comprehensive view of Torah that draws together the various strands of thought in the Oral and Written Torah.   

There was a fellow in the coffee section that mentioned about some friend of his that is halfway between Judaism and Christianity. I really did not get the gist. But at some point in the discussion I mentioned that I had studied Christianity at least to some small degree. He asked about contradictions.

I said the major source of contradictions is in the four gospels. That is  about two issue that are of major importance in Christianity:1) Christology [what does one think about Jesus], 2) the other is mitzvot.

On the other hand I also said it is not good to downgrade someone else's religion. Everyone thinks their is the best.

He asked if I had been born to two parents one Jewish and one Christian, what faith would I choose? I said, "If I could choose any parents in the world, I would only choose my own.  I am very happy with the way the raised me--Jewish [Reform-- but with a traditional slant].".

I forgot the whole discussion but also he asked which is better Judaism or Christianity. I said, "I go by what Reason requires. Ah but my reason is faulty? So what. There is no better path."

 That was my first answer. He was not satisfied and then went to question two, and after that to question 1. So I am not writing this in order.

[My thoughts were that this is really a matter of group identity. Torah is my path and I think that this is good. I think when I see people fishing for arguments against other religions that that is not a positive thing.]









Later on the way home I thought to myself that there is an essential connection between path and human good or evil. We find paths that encourage people towards evil. And we also find paths that encourage people towards what simple common sense would be called good and just. So even there are bad people on all paths and good people on all paths still that does not mean the paths themselves are equal. So there are religions that it is worthwhile fighting against. Some are so bad that they deserve to be shunned. Some cause so much damage that you have an obligation to warn people against them.. But not all. Some are in a grey area with some good things and some not so good. Fighting them seems to be dumb. You are likely to end up causing people to throw out the good with the bad.

There is certain amount of critique that one hears from people who joined the insane religious world  and then were treated baldly and then left. It is hard to evaluate what this means. After all there are things that they are doing that seem related to Torah, at least on the surface. Also what makes this hard to judge is the unusual aspect that smaller groups of similar nature don't see to exist.   What I think cause the problem is the general treatment of people that join.

They are actively recruited under the idea that, "We are all one family." Then they are treated as garbage when they cease to be useful. It means that joining them is certainly a bad idea as many Jews have found out. But it also means making any kind of alliance with them seems like a bad idea.--If that is how they treat their friends, it does not seem to be worth much to be their friend. It even calls into question if they are in fact really keeping the Torah or not. And the answer seems to be negative.
And that leaves people like myself wondering then how best in fact to keep the Torah --if the the insane religious world  can't be used as a metric.

For that reason I try to keep Torah in the way my parents did which seems to me to be the meaning of the verse in the Ten Commandments, "Honor your Father and your Mother." Naphtali Troup brings from the Rambam that there is an actual obligation to obey your parents-- not just to honor them in some vague superficial manner. But you get the idea.  I try to keep things as simple as possible. If any question comes up, I look at the Torah. Most of the time the Torah is perfectly clear. But sometimes there is some issue that is ambiguous. If the Torah is clear, then full stop. If not, then I go to the Mishna. If that is not clear, then I go to the Talmud. If that is not clear then I go to the Rambam and the traditional books of Musar.
The evil custom of the the insane religious world  is to make a blank statement about Torah and Talmud  "Do you think you understand them better than___?" Fill in the blank.  They attempt to make every clear statement in Torah to be ambiguous, so that they can go to some charismatic lunatic to guide them.
This causes the effect that we have people that actually think they are keeping the Torah while doing the opposite and then criticizing others for not following them.
It is not that they keep Torah in some polarized extreme fashion. It is rather that they don't keep Torah at all, but think they do.

I asked Dr. Kelly Ross:

I wonder if  in the thought of Kant and Fries it is possible to draw a direct connection between the dinge an sich and non intuitive immediate knowledge.

His answer: Kant and Fries thought that Reason related directly to things-in-themselves, and non-intuitive immediate knowledge was knowledge from Reason for Fries.  So, yes.

I: The thing in itself is beyond empirical experience but knowledge of its existence seems to a kind of knowledge; while the immediate non intuitive kind of knowledge is more related to the synthetic a priori, first principles, and universals.

Dr. Kelly Ross : There are aspects of things-in-themselves that Kant already thought were only known through Reason.  Morality, in the first place.  Because of morality, he thought that God, freedom, and immortality were implied.  I only think that works well with freedom.  But the general principle is that unconditioned realities are possible among things-in-themselves but not among phenomena.  God, freedom, and immorality all involve unconditioned realities.

I: Is it possible that it is this non intuitive immediate knowledge that knows the dinge an sich?

Dr. Kelly Ross: The problem with our dealing with things-in-themselves, according to Kant, is that there cannot be a consistent theory of transcendent objects without generating antinomies.  I think that is still a good principle, and you can see the page on antinomies at http://www.friesian.com/antinom.htm.

But there is more to the transcendent than metaphysical paradoxes.  Neither Kant nor Fries knew how to deal with the principles of actual religions, e.g. ritual requirements such as baptism or observing the Sabbath.  See "Nelson and Religion" at http://www.friesian.com/nelson.htm#religion for the problems with the Kant-Friesian attitude.

Appendix:

(1) What I was getting at was that I think non intuitive immediate knowledge knows the existence of the dinge an sich, but reason knows universals. [I probably did not state this clearly enough in my question.]

(2) Also what I was trying to say was that even though the way Kant gets to the dinge an sich is different than how he treats the question of a priori synthetic knowledge, still they both seem connected.

(3) Are not unconditioned realities in the category of the thing in itself? And at least as far as Kant the dinge on sich is rather common place things. It is just we can get to what those things really are. But is it not so that we understand universals about those things? For example the laws of physics? What perhaps Kelly Ross is saying is that at a certain  common place things start to generate contradictions. For example Quantum Mechanics. The actual equations are exact and simple and local. [Correlation is not the same as causation.]
Here is Lubos's statement about this

Entanglement is nothing else than the quantum variation of the concept of correlation. It either represents any correlation between two subsystems that is properly described and understood in the language of quantum mechanics; or it refers to those correlations that make the subsystems behave differently than anything in classical physics.\

http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/03/most-of-research-of-nonlocality-is.html

A man is stopped by the police around 1 am and he is asked where he is going at this time of the night. 

The man replies, "I am on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking and staying out late." 

The police officer then asks, "Really? And who is giving that lecture at this time of night, and where will it be held?" 

The man replies, "That lecture would be given by my wife, and it would be held at home." 

I heard this lecture from my learning partner. He was  in New Mexico and part of the driver education course there involved seeing the difference between a person's brain who drank alcohol and one who did not. [These were from people who had donated their bodies to science.] The regular brain was  obviously healthy. It looked healthy and firm and clean. The brain of the person that drank alcohol when it was merely touched the slightest bit instantly fell apart into a bloody mess.


This relates to me because a  Tartar originally from the Crimea but now in Ukraine proper comes into my room about twice a week without asking and steals any money or wine that I have for Kidush [that is for one cup on Friday night]. This is not unusual. In the Ukraine, there are many  people that can't be happy unless they steal something. There are wonderful people in the Ukraine, but by and large there is this strange little thing that about 90% of the adult males have have that seem incurable.

Of course every group of people has at least one characteristic flaw. So just noticing this problem in Ukraine does not mean that anyone else is any better. Some people have much worse addictions than to alcohol and theft. For example Muslims seems to have usually bad days when they can't murder some Jew or Christian. Homosexuals in the USA seem to be very unhappy if they can't make others into sexual perverts. Everyone and every groups has their own special "evil inclination."

There is difference between deficit and debt.

Jon Gabriel Ricochet's chart


According to this information it is probably a good idea to elect a Republican president who at least does not have to goal to bankrupt the USA.







From Jon Ricochet

"The D.C. press corps was giddy last night, declaring that the fiscal crisis had ended. Senators praised "honorable friends" from "great states," congressmembers gave standing O's to their stalwart leaders, and the president saluted bipartisanship while ridiculing Republicans, bloggers, activists and pretty much anyone else who dared oppose him.

If the whole thing seemed a bit surreal, it's because the whole thing was a bit surreal. America's fiscal crisis is not that our debt ceiling isn't quite high enough — it's that we have too much debt.

It's as if I had $250K in credit card debt and I told my wife, "Great news, honey — our fiscal crisis is over! I just got a new Visa!" If she didn't hit me over the head with a rolling pin, she would most assuredly tell me where I should place it.

To help visualize how up the creek we find ourselves, I created the infographic above.

It's an imperfect analogy, but imagine the green is your salary, the yellow is the amount you're spending over your salary, and the red is your MasterCard statement. Before sharing this info with your spouse, I recommend you hide the rolling pin."

Sometimes the best remedy for a Torah controversy is simply a good old-fashioned, down to earth, nothing buttery, look-it-up-to-see-if-it’s-so, Torah study. No fancy footwork necessary. Just cut right to the chase, let the Torah speak for itself, then be loyal to it. That’s all. Of course, because of ambiguities in the text, not every challenging, contentious  dispute can be settled this easily.
That is why the Talmud exists--to clarify ambiguous issues.
Frequently, though, a careful, close, honest look at the Torah [Five Books of Moses] is all that’s required to resolve what might seem at first to be a difficult dispute.

 I take it to respond to one of the most severe challenges to Torah today. The question: What does God really think about homosexuality? Could it be that the Torah has simply gotten it all wrong? A dedicated group of homosexuals and “gay-friendly” Jews think so, and they are campaigning relentlessly to change your mind. They have certified scholars on their team, they’re tactically clever, and they’re aggressively training their own ambassadors to send out to reform the Torah. When—not “if,” but “when”—you encounter this teaching, you’ll need tried and true Torah answers.

If in doubt go to the Torah. If that is ambiguous, then go to the Oral Law. What is the Oral Law? According to many Christians, it is a conspiracy to undermine the Torah. So it can't help Christians. But for people that are not hostile to it, it can be helpful. It contains the way the Torah was understood traditionally. In other words, we, the Jews, had the Old Testament during the Second Temple period. The entire corpus of the Old Testament had been completed from the time of Moses until the end of the First Temple. But we also had a traditional understanding of how to keep the laws of the Torah. No one thought it is up to every individual to decide how to keep the Sabbath. For if there had been, then a person brought in front of the court to be tried for breaking the Sabbath could say that in his sincere opinion what he was doing was not breaking the Sabbath. That goes for all the laws of the Old Testament.

So simply put: there is a hierarchy in understanding the Old Testament of the Bible. The first step is the literal meaning. If that is clear, then full stop. If that is not clear then we go to the Mishna and Gemara (Talmud). If that is clear, then stop. If it is not clear then we go to the Rambam and other medieval people to gain understanding about the specific issue.
What is common for Christian to complain about is that often this order is reversed. For some reason people will use minor writers in order to confuse major issues. And that is a true critique.