My basic feeling about Reb Nachman is that important aspects of reality were revealed to him. Or as one person put it, "He is one important part of the big picture."

The problem is well known to be the cults  and groups that pretend to be going by his approach.

The general rule of cults is they are never satisfied. And the danger is they can get a person off track. And that usually happens by means of the the good ideas that are mixed up with bad ones.

Islam and Mass Murder

 In Islam to die by means of killing infidels is considered the only guarantee to get into Heaven. I mean to say that in Islam there is nothing about living a good life that guarantees getting into heaven except one  thing--to die by means of murdering infidels. So as far as that murderer was concerned, he went out in the only reasonable fashion possible.

[Later note--This post was about some incident that I have forgotten. In any case, I think the point is clear that there is  some kind of tendency with Islam which provokes towards violence. I would guess that the reason for this is found in the life of its founder.]

And in Southern California in those days, to follow your dream and find the truth of things was very much in the air.

Someone noted that the path of the Mir yeshiva (New York) was not exactly the path I was raised on {Beverly Hills High School}.
My basic excuse for leaving the path of secularism was mainly I think because I found something profoundly empty and meaningless about secular society.
And in Southern California in those days, to follow your dream and find the truth of things  was very much in the air. For me to find a path that made me happy and in which I found meaning was certainly not against my parents wishes.

I eventually did leave the Mir to go to Israel and eventually left the straight and narrow path. But I would have to admit I was no time as close to my essence as much as during the time I was at the Mir.

[I am not saying there should not be doctors and physicists but in terms of finding my inner essence I definitely have to say that that I found at the Mir. However the modification in my own schedule I would make today  would be to allot  some part of the day to learning Physics as per the Rambam.]

Islam

Howard Bloom has a small section on Islam in his book The Lucifer Principle which seems to fit his basic approach about the power of the super-organism. Going with Howard Bloom seems much better that trying to attribute things to the power of mind control of cults.

This is basically as the Rambam held that free will does not work when one is part of a group.He or she is automatically drawn after the "meme" unit of social information and opinions of the group.
Thus all one can do is to make sure he is part of good group.

Football

I do not like it when I see or hear people disparaging the USA. I guess this shows I am not alone.

Insulting the American Flag definitely gets under my skin.

The Left and mass murder.

To get back to Kant and Hegel. That is the common ground everyone can agree upon. It is true that the Left uses Hegelian ideas, but because of that they can be shown the error of their ways. The errors seems mainly to be  from the labor theory of value which is not from Hegel. But once they accept the Labor Theory of Value they then use Hegel.


Even Kelley Ross admits that people that go with Hegel are believing in objective morality.



From my own personal personal perspective, when the Rambam says to learn Metaphysics and Physics that includes Kant and Hegel even though he was referring openly to the Metaphysics and Physics of Aristotle. I tend to take the Rambam in that he meant the basic subject matter, NOT just just the specific writings of Aristotle.

Man kills 2 with knife at French station, yells 'Allahu akbar'--http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-french-train-station-knife-attack-20171001-story.html

The Chicago Tribune is putting that at the very head of its article. It is not hiding the fact that it is another incident of Islamic Terrorism.

But the NY Times as usual hides the truth:"
The Paris prosecutor’s office, which handles terrorism cases nationwide, said on Sunday that it had opened a terrorism investigation, but the authorities said the assailant’s motives were not entirely clear.
“This act could be of a terrorist nature, but at this hour we cannot affirm it,” said Gérard Collomb, the French Interior minister, who is in charge of domestic security."


[It was that kind of coverage of Islamic Terrorism that got me frustrated over the years.]


The issue of evil came up recently in a conversation. I basically took the approach of Dr Kelley Ross about a continuum of values on the side of holiness and by implication the exact opposite also. That is that Evil is a real presence. That is most clear in Islam because of the devious demon they worship. But the problem exists even in the larger religious world where evil hides in more subtle disguises.