faith and reason after Kant

 The best way to combine faith and reason after Kant is through the approach of Leonard Nelson and his new Friesian School. Sadly, the best spokesman for this approach,  Kelley Ross, does not seem to be updating his website [friesian.com] anymore. There were -- great thinkers before that that also walked this path of faith and reason, but they were all before Kant, and thus do not take the points of the mind-body problem into account, nor Kant's solution. Though Hegel also can be understood as taking the place of Aquinas in bringing about a faith and reason approach (see Kaufman), still he never actually deals with the mind-body problem directly. Thus, it is better to go with the idea of Fries of immediate non intuitive knowledge. [Besides that, Hegel is used to prop up Communism. The history of Communism of 100 millions dead ought to give one pause as to how accurate a theory it is,- especially in view of its stated goals of bring about utopia.]

  The main lessons I learned from my mother were monotheism; to marry a nice Jewish girl, to be a mensch. The first tends to be ignored in the religious world because the center of gravity is always  placed on some person instead of God. Monotheism means more than there is only one God. but also that by good actions we have access to Him. To marry a nice Jewish girl has very European connotations since in the USA such creatures do not exist. [However you can find such in Israel on odd occasions where girls sometimes have some idea of the responsibilities of womanhood.] To be a mensch is really best explained in the main cannon of the books of Musar. Chovot Levavot, Paths of the Righteous, Ways of the Just, Gates of Repentance.          

 The main approach of the communists is to get people to think that they are being abused so a to destroy society and then after all is in ruins to come in and take over and establish their order. Originally that meant the factory workers, but at some point the peasants working at the farms  of the owners of the estates got included in what was called the proletariat. That is why the flag of the  USSR has both the hammer and the sickle.  Obviously the Russians began to realize almost immediately that to run a factory or do any kind of business and especially advancement in the arts and sciences takes "know-how" and that know how got to be valued in the USSR way above the proletariat.

[Why were the factory workers above the peasants in Marx? Because Capitalism was the stage of world history between the Feudal period and Communism.]     

 If a woman makes an agent to receive her document of divorce, can that agent make another agent in his place? No-  in the opinion of Ramban because words are not handed over to a messenger. [Laws of Divorce 1:13][You can not make a messenger to say something. You can make a messenger to do something.] I thought as is was explaining this,  and later saw that Rav Shach himself asks the obvious question, "What words?" I imagine this must have been the approach of the Rambam who makes no distinction between messengers. But to the Ramban this seems to be a significant objection. If a messenger to receive a ''get''  can not make another messenger in his place because words are not handed over to a messenger, then why can she make a messenger in the first place? 

All American history is portrayed by those who hate the USA

 I like to read original historical documents or archeological evidence because i think later versions are often skewed to reflect some agenda. Thus I have a different point of view about everything in history than anything taught in schools. Examples are numerous. However sometimes that means I have only slight modifications on the accepted views and sometimes I have totally different views. An example is Columbus. The natives begged him to return and save them from the Caribbean tribes who were not nice. Another example is Cortes. He wanted peace, but kept on getting attacked three times. The fourth time was when he sent an interpreter to explain that he just wanted to be left alone; and that interpreter went to all the tribes and organized a vast army to attack Cortes. [They lost, and we still blame Cortes.] Things are never like they teach in school, and especially when you get to talk with people that were involved in an event and then see how it is portrayed in the news. see: The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.

This is in every group-especially a group with an agenda to portray themselves in a good light. the truth is out there-but it takes digging to find it. All American history is portrayed by those who hate the USA and want to show that everything it has done has been evil. this stems mainly from the Frankfurt school

Marriage is not needed to have children as we see in Chronicles I chapter 2 verses 45-49 concerning the children that Caleb ben Jefuna had with his concubines. Caleb ben Jefuna was a righteous tzadik as we see in the Book of Numbers concerning the spies that Moses sent into the Land of Canaan. Caleb ben Jefuna along with Joshua were the only ones who spoke well of the Land, and God specifically praised Caleb that he "went totally with God" וימלא אחרי השם. This is an argument among rishonim, but Ramban brings that in many texts of the Rambam the prohibition of a concubine is missing. Of course there is the need for a natural body of water for purification after the 7th day of the period.  [i.e. it makes no difference if she sees blood for one day or more or the whole seven. After seven, she dips in a natural body of water and is pure. if she sees more than seven that is a zava. If after seven she still sees for 3 days then she needs seven clean days.]

 People have had trouble for along time on the question of how to discern between a cult and a religion. to me this is clearly a matter of what Otto called ''numinous'' . That is to say that there is ladder of values and the closer one gets to an area of value that is all content and no form, the more one can  be caught up in evil. I do not think there is any antidote to this problem. being secular does not seem like much of a solution either. The best idea I think is the formula of the Middle Ages--to combine faith with reason. [You can see this approach most clearly in the Chovot Levavot and Saadia Gaon.]