stress and religious fanatics

Damage to the hippocampus seems to aggravate normal religious behavior and make it obsessive.
What causes this kind of damage? Glucocorticoids that are caused by stress.

What that means is do not spend time with jerks and a stressful crowd. That is to say they hurt not just your subjective feelings, but also your biology and that causes damage to your hippocampus and that over time will causes different types of mental problems.
It is part of the rule not to do things which damage your physical health.

There is no obligation to go to  any kind of religious gathering that is filled with jerks.

Reb Israel Salanter

I see most of the world is far from the Musar approach.
[That is the idea that to gain good character is by learning Musar (Ethics of the Middle Ages).]





That is sad because I see a lot of other approaches and systems being tried.  Israel Salanter's the original idea was that the main aspects of Torah are good character, Fear of God and Trust in God. Many other systems are being tried --the USA Constitution, communism etc. Personally I see that Reb Israel Salanter was right. That the main thing about Torah is character and the way to gain good character is by learning Musar.
[That is-- some think the fundamental aspects of religion are rituals, and meta-magical thinking, and a  shaman or guru.  Israel Salanter saw that Torah is something else entirely. It is about being a mensch.]



If possible I would like to suggest this approach on a wide scale. That is I suggest the ideas of Reb Israel are universally applicable. To everyone for all time.
That is the main thing is to have good character and the way to gain that is by learning works of Ethics of the Middle Ages.  People with different aspects of character that need correcting might try different books. The main set is well known. That is Obligations of the Heart and others.

Joseph Horwitz of Navardok emphasized trust in God

Each of the disciples of Israel Salanter brought a different message into the world.
One disciple Joseph Horwitz of Navardok emphasized trust in God.

In Kings 2 chapter 7 we find Elisha (a prophet) saying tomorrow wheat and barley will be sold for pennies.

The שליש (secretary of the treasury) asked, "How is that possible? If God would make windows in the heavens, could such a thing be?" Shomron [Samaria] was under siege by the Syrians.

Elisha said, "You will see but not eat from it."

Then next day the secretary was trampled and died.

Joseph Horwitz {Navardok} asked why people that ask the same question do not get the same punishment?
He said: "They do. They see others sitting and learning Torah, and somehow God provides for them, but they themselves are sentenced to a life sentence of hard labor."

Trust in God was the message brought by Navardok.

This got mixed up to some degree with learning Torah. But in fact no yeshiva is depending on trust in God except the Mir in NY. All other yeshivas tell a lie that it is  a mitzvah to support them and thus turn the Torah into a means to be making money. [Don't be fooled by their rhetoric. They are definitely looking for ways of conniving and convincing  people to give them money. They definitely are not trusting in God. ]

To some degree I had confidence in God for some time. Then I faltered. Still, I would like to let people know there is such a thing as trust in God,  and He reciprocates when one really has complete trust in Him.


I see most of the world is far from this Navardok approach. That is sad because I see a lot of other approaches and systems being tried. Reb Israel Salanter's the original idea was that the main aspects of Torah are good character, Fear of God and Trust in God. Many other systems are being trying --the USA Constitution, communism etc. Personally I see that Reb Israel Salanter was right. That the main thing about Torah is character and the way to gain good character is by learning Musar.

s17 E Flat Major  s17 in midi

If one believes all people are equal then why did white people create...

If one believes all people are equal, then why did white people create : Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration. Algebra [Euclid and Diophantine],Abstract Algebra, Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon.  Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-p hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. Quantum Mechanics Relativity Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes.  Apollo 11,The Space Shuttle, Surgery.  Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Bible, The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Roads. Buildings. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. public-key cryptography,etc.? Night vision. Lasers.

The reason then has to be exploitation. That is why the idea of exploitation has become so popular among intellectually and morally challenged people. I am not saying the exploitation theory is right. Rather it is more likely that not all people are created equal.

Israel Salanter

Israel Salanter thought people need to learn Ethics. That is you should not expect them to be born with ethics, or to just pick it up from some religious context, but to learn it actively. He was focusing on a certain set of Mediaeval books, but the principle applies across the board. That is even if ethics is mentioned in religious books, that does not automatically help. Ethics has to be learned as subject in itself. Judgybitch: "Do men and women learn the same ethics, or different ones?" Avraham: "It would be the same ones. There are the classical ones and later works built on the classics. But the principles are the same. This is a long story. In any case the books of Ethics that I like the most were the Obligations of the Heart and also two more recent books of disciples of Israel Salanter. One emphasizes trust in God [Level of Man Medragat HaAdam]. But the general gist was more along the lines of fear of God and good character traits. The general idea was to put emphasis on one's obligations, not one's rights." BG "Why would God be a component in treating fellow humans equally? What is wrong with old fashion "mutual respect"? Or, the old adage, do on to others, as u would want others to do onto you. What I find most hypocritical, is women preach this to their children, and yet,..." Avraham rosenblum to BG All true critiques. Like I said this is a long story. I wish I could make it short. There is a connection between fear of God and character. But not fear of God in the way the religious fanatics think of it. [I should mention that my parents sought to instill ethics in my brothers and me as their parents before them.]

This is an argument: Hegel holds that we can come to true morality by logic and reason. So also Michael Huemer [based on the Intuitionists: Prichard, GE Moore, etc.]

Fries holds that morality is in the realm of Dinge An Sich [things in themselves] that we know, but we do not know that we know, and it needs to be dug out like Socrates by careful questioning brought forth knowledge of Geometry of a slave boy.

Joan of Arc

Henry V was perpetually in debt. Most of his soldiers did not get paid until many years after their service. There simply was not enough money in the treasury.
Still the English paid for Joan of Arc 10,000 francs. Compare that to the price of a horse which in those days was from 10 to 12 francs. The average horse today is about $1000. So in today currency he paid about $1,000,000 for Joan.
She was a threat to English rule in France in a way that the English recognized.


I have a great sympathy towards Joan of Arc I should mention. In fact if we consider her mission as valid [which I do] that would mean the French were wrong for getting rid of the Monarchy.