evil cults

 You can have a evil cult that is an offshoot of a religion that teaches good things. And also a good cult in a religion that teaches bad things. Right now I want to deal with both these questions in short order.
Section (1): The question of religion. A religion needs a few requirements. If it teaches things about the physical world, then, we need to ask if what it says actually corresponds to reality? [External consistency].  Is it self consistent? [Internal consistency.] If it teaches some moral system, does this system correspond to what common sense tells us is moral? This is called "phenomenal conservatism." That is, things are the way they seem unless some convincing piece of evidence show otherwise. This is a forgotten principle in the world of philosophy, but none the less it is very important. It seems to me that murdering 10 million people for the fun of it is wrong and if a religion teaches otherwise then it is up to the religion to bring convincing evidence.
I will say here my own point of view so you know where I am coming from. I think all people don't care about evidence. People care about being part of a group. This desire to be part of a group goes against even the instinct for self preservation as we see in the 15,000 Kamikazes in World War Two. Their group was more important to them than their personal survival. All the more so when it comes to group identity, people don't care about logic or evidence (especially to Americans to whom books are just words). The only time this can change is when group identity itself is that of believing in material or logical evidence as it is the case in the Judaism of Maimonides.


Cults. Today instead of cult let me deal with cult apologetics. Because of group identity people will ignore and twist evidence that goes against what their cult says. The only way I can imagine how to change this is to join a group that believes only in following logical evidence or material evidence e.g. Maimonides. I.e. there are beliefs in areas that there is no evidence or scanty evidence. But these beliefs are contingent on evidence. it is understood that any future evidence can change the nature of belief. E.g creation something from nothing. To Maimonides if this would be disproved we would have to accept it. This is a serious statement for him because to him the entire Torah rests on Creation ex nihilo. That means that if it would be disproved, then the Torah itself would lose it foundation. [The view of Maimonides is what is known as Monotheism.

That is that God made the world something from nothing, and he is not the world nor is the world him.According to the Torah God has no substance nor form, and so he did not create the world from his substance. He created in יש מאין from nothing. ex-nihilo.
Cults try to pretend they keep Torah by doing lots of external rituals while their inner core is טרף and נבלה. That's the reason the Gra put his signature of the document of excommunication.



 God would never ratify the message of a false prophet. That so
many religious leaders  and teachers  fell under the spell of Nathan from Gaza  attests
to the fact  he was not a peripheral figure in the mystic circles, but his influence with regards to the movement’s adoption and approach to
the kabalah of the Ari   was  decisive. This taken by itself
represents should represent a devastating blow to the propagandists of a new
movement, but when coupled with the other little known facts about the
origins of these mystic circles should lead any and all Jewish people desirous of being
led to the truth that this movement was nothing but a successful deviation of
historical Torah. I do not want to go into it in detail. But it is simple to draw the line between the dots.

Torah and Freedom

  My idea of a just society is that of a circle of freedom contained in a larger circle of government. The purpose of government is to protect the inner circle of freedom where people have a right to be left alone.
  To be as brief as possible let me just say that the question of creativity and freedom in relation to Torah and Talmud is a immense project. It means first of all dealing with the origins of the idea of freedom being a good thing--and the critiques of Nietzsche and Rousseau against the Rational Enlightenment {that advocated the rule of Reason}. Any possible answer would have to answer this critique of freedom and defense of creativity.

The participants in this debate are John Locke, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Jonathan Swift, Rousseau, Nietzsche,  Marx.
Locke was pro freedom. The rest not. Hegel was in the middle. Not I think as people understood him.


Rawls did a noble task of trying to find some middle path, but Habermas blew him into smithereens. Kant did a good job in opening up a path between these paths. But his work is still in great need of elucidation. and how it could apply to Torah also is not clear.





My personal take on all this goes back to the argument between Aristotle and Plato about universals. I am basically with Plato on this which means I go by Socratic ignorance that what we think we know we really don't know at all. And Platonic knowledge--that there are things we do know but we don't know that we know. For me this opens the area of civil society in which people have the right to be left alone and government to led the lives the what to lead and make the contracts and relationships with others that they want to make. Their individuality is realized not as part of a group or a nation but as part of their own family and circle of friends. This is the area of Freedom and free will. In this area there is Divine service.

I deplore abuse and misuse of the Torah. Like any work of literature, the text has meaning, words have meaning.

I can't ignore the question of what to do with a text. Do you go by (1) Charity (i.e. one gives it an interpretation that makes more sense to him) or (2) "He meant what he said?" This questions comes up in many texts that either I believe in fully or at least believe they are inspired. Take for example the Torah. Or the Talmud or Plato.
  My attitude towards this is based on my experience with the side commentary in the Talmud called Tosphot. But also on a separate group of experiences that happens to me when people ask my advice about something or other. Also I like to look at the wide message of a text. This later idea I got from English literature classes.
  My first set of experiences with Tosphot is "He meant what he said."  But then inside of what he says is always contained something that looks like a glitch. But you go over it until you see the meaning in such a way that the glitch was actually not a glitch at all; but you see that you thought it was a glitch because you did not understand it perfectly. This has given me confidence in the "He meant what he meant" approach always even in Torah or anything that I read. But I have seen that often when people asked me for advice I would say exactly opposite things to different people-because of whom I was talking with. Different and even opposite pieces of advice apply to different people.


The problem with the (2) charity approach is that any text can say anything you want it to say.

  The third way of context I learned in my English literature classes in Beverly Hills High School with some great teachers.
Take for instance the Five Books of Moses. The context is clear. The basic approach is clear. The theme of these Five Books is clearly united.

Just in case this needs a explanation let me just say what Torah is not about first. It is not about Pantheism. It is not about Learning Torah. It is not about minutia that you can pick out from halacha books. It is not about the length of girls skirts. It is not about belief in any tzadik/saint including Moses.
It is about what King David said to Golath, "You come to me with a sword and a spear and I come to you in the name of the Lord God of the armies of Israel who you have insulted this day."
The basic theme of the Torah is the importance of Israel coming into the land of Canaan and building the Temple there and keeping all the commandments of God.

Habermas: On Israel (Considered by many to be the foremost philosopher of this generation.)

Habermas: In one respect, Muslim terrorism still possesses a certain outmoded characteristic in that it revolves around murder, around the indiscriminate annihilation of enemies, women, and children—life against life. This is what distinguishes it from the terror that appears in the paramilitary form of guerilla warfare
Compare the new terrorists with partisans or conventional terrorists, for example, in Israel. These people often fight in a decentralized manner in small, autonomous units, too. Also, in these cases there is no concentration of forces or central organization, a feature that makes them difficult targets. But partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives in order to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists who are scattered around the globe and networked in the fashion of secret services. They allow their religious motives of a fundamentalist kind to be known, though they do not pursue a program that goes beyond the engineering of destruction and insecurity. The terrorism we associate for the time being with the name "al-Qaeda" makes the identification of the opponent and any realistic assessment of the danger impossible. This intangibility is what lends terrorism a new quality.

(Habermas is considered by many to be the foremost philosopher of this generation. They might be right

The thing I must say about these people is their forte is in discovering fallacious logic. This includes their ability to discover the falsities in philosophical, political and economic thinking in most American universities and includes the falseness and self contradictions in Marx, Rousseau and almost all philosophers after the Enlightenment. The interesting thing is they never discover a flaw in Medieval thinking. The reason is there never is. Medieval thinkers made damn sure never to write anything that could be a million miles near circular reasoning. [Here I only refer to first level Medieval thinkers like Maimonides, Tosphot, Aquinas and Anselm. I don't mean second level people like the Ramban ( Moshe Ben Nachman) that did make mistakes in logic.] Also I don't mean they did not make mistakes at all. Obviously they did-but not in logic, only initial assumptions.
Incidentally just as side note: The Jews are not outsiders who invaded and colonized Israel; they are a native people whom the legal government allowed to return, as legal immigrants, to their ancestral homeland. The Zionists were given sovereignty, again by the legal government, over only that part of Palestine with over 60% Jewish population, so rule of the majority was followed. The Arab response to this LEGAL establishment of a nation by a NATIVE people was a War of Genocide, which failed. Bottom line, as I've EXPLAINED numerous times, is that the Arabs themselves have created the situation they're in by refusing to make peace after their attempt to ethnic-cleanse a NATIVE people from Palestine failed.

How to learn Kabalah the best idea is to go to just about any descendant of Rav Yaakov Abuchatziera.

How to learn Kabalah
prerequisite: It is necessary to have learned a lot of Talmud. First of all learning Talmud has a effect of purifying one and also just to understand the Kabalah the basic background of the Talmud is necessary.

Step (1): The first thing to do is to avoid the charlatans [They use kabalistic jargon to sound profound.]
Step (2): The next step is to learn the Eitz Chayim עץ חיים{a two volume work called the Tree of Life} of Issac Luria. It helps to learn all the writings of Rav Isaac Luria, but if you know the basic Eitz Chaim, you already know the basic structure of the Kabalah. The rest is just filling in the gaps. Now if you have come to this step the next step --and this is the step which everyone fails in--is the books of Shalom Sharabi. The major work is the Nahar Shalom [נהר שלום] printed at the end of the Eitz Chayim (עץ חיים). The problem here is simple. The Nahar Shalom [נהר שלום] is a vast system and it is hard to figure out how one part relates to the other. There are a few keys like when you read the word "chaya"often you know you are talking about Atzilut [Emanation].
At any rate, even here there is a major debate between the Ashlag and his disciple who wrote the comments on the printed Eitz Chaim. Between these two giants I dare not say anything.
As far as the present day  teachers of Kabalah --  most is  from Shabati Zvi and has little to do with real Kabalah. [You can not find the books of Natan, the false prophet of the Shatz in print but they are in microfim. Somehow most of new ideas of the Shatz and Natan from Gaza got into all books of Ashkenazim. I do not know how it happened, but it is easy to see.] [Not that I think anyone should read that stuff.]



So to get a unadulterated idea of Kabalah you really have to go to Rav Isaac Luria straight.



Now as for the kabalah of the Moshe Cordovaro and Medieval kabalah and the Heichalot the best bet to to go the Avraham Abulafia. Personally, I think Avraham Abulafia rivals Luria in greatness.

[As for people to learn from, I think the best idea is to go to just about any descendant of Rav Yaakov Abuchatziera.]

STEALTH JIHAD-Psychological Warfare. Humanity is at risk.

STEALTH JIHAD
 Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Islam and current Islamic propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the Islamic line in textbooks.
 Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

 Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting Islam in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
 Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "Islamic" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity.

 Eliminate Christian prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."


 Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Islamic goals.
 Discredit the Christian family as an institution.

Radicalize society. Help create an atmosphere in which when a man has an argument with his wife or a neighbor with another neighbor the automatic reaction is to go to the courts.

This year may prove to be the culmination of Islam's many years of infiltrating our educational institutions, and trade union organizations and attempts to dis-stabilize America relationships one with another. The effects of the poison of Islam is having the desired effect of undermining the Christian basis of the USA.
_____________________________________________________________

 But I can ask that people that see this process going on should do whatever it takes to stop this because I think the fate of mankind itself is in the balance. I should say that I see this process as corroding the very essence of humanity. And when I see people that see this process and do nothing I get frustrated.
Normally I would not say anything about this. After all there are some problems inside of Christianity. But at some point I began to realize that if Islam would have its way the whole world would look like Saudi Arabia and the Sudan. But not before they had atomized Europe and the USA. The very thought of it sends shivers down my back. How can people stand by and watch the destruction of Western Civilization in equanimity. It is not their concern? Or maybe they think that Islam  is a source of compassion and virtue and their daily rhetoric about destroying Christendom and all Judaeo-Christian civilization is just empty words? Or was is it they saw "It's a small world after all," in Disney Land  and they think teh whole world is just lovey dovy and everyone just wants peace and virtue.?

What has undermined the essence of America.

(I tried to find information about this from a friend who is a former KGB agent, but he was not involved in this type of activity, so he knew nothing about this side of the KGB.)
  Subversion and creating instability in the U.S.A. was a large part of the KGB. However my friend's modest part was simply to listen to radio broadcasts from the West and tell his superiors if anything interesting was mentioned. [No James Bond stuff.] Incidentally, he hates Communism even more than me--which is quite a feat. I have deep hatred of any totalitarian systems. On the other hand you can understand his point of view. He lived under Communism so he witnessed the evil of the system first hand. He incidentally did not think that the KGB had the ability to undermine American society all on its own. So I bring here information from another KGB that thought that it did. Also from my point of view the type of civil society that exited in America no longer exists there. Something obviously has already destroyed the very nature of America. This makes me wonder, "what could have caused this?" So here I present my essay on this subject)



[The way the KGB did this is by becoming or recruiting leaders of movements that are involved in destabilizing America like Christan pastors of liberal Protestant churches and the homosexuals and feminists. For example, just think about homosexuals. Years ago this was something dirty and sick that something someone did privately. Now it is a public movement. Why? People need to start asking "Why?" The question is not if homosexuality is a sin or not. But why is this political movement?]




(I want to mention that I have seen the results of what he is talking about in America. But this would require a whole different essay. Like I heard from a veteran of WWII: "The America I fought for no longer exists."}

Here is just one example from todays news (on Overlawyered blog) which shows this: Texas honor student jailed for missing too much school”

by Walter Olson on May 27, 2012

“Diane Tran said she works both full-time and part-time jobs, in addition to taking advanced and college level courses,” and her parents have “split up and moved away” leaving her in charge of a younger sister, which make it hard to keep to the exact school day. Judge Lanny Moriarty did not seem sympathetic: “If you let one run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em?” [CBS Atlanta]

This a perfect example of Legal Positivism which is in exact opposition to the very basic principles of natural rights that America was founded on.
This example show the basic American principle of justice today: "heteronomous relativism." This gives near or complete totalitarian force to any person that has a position in any branch of the America government. The main enemies of America today are the people in the America government.






Bezmenov "It’s a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one [is] demoralization; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).

The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties (drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals) are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people... the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society."



also see:http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/former-kgb-agent-yuri-bezmenov-how-the-kgb-demoralized-propagandized-and-indoctrinated-youth-using-schools/


As a final note to my readers I want to mention a ray of hope I have seen. Somehow or other there are in some American universities a few very powerful analytic philosopher and thinkers, like Brian Caplan and Michael Huemer and Kelly Ross. When I see people like that on the horizon it gives me hope for America. I think Caplan is the most analytic. Ross is the greatest builder. Huemer is the greatest architect of a political argument and the ability to perceive the flaws of logic of all philosophers since Hume.

Also see: you tube Yuri Bezmenov: KGB Psychological Warfare and Subversion Strategy.

The way to save America is simple. One word: Bible. For Christians this would be the Old and New Testament, Aquinas, and Augustine and learning John Locke. For Jews this would be the Musar [books fromthe Middle Ages explaining the moral principles of Torah]. The difference between Jews and Christians I respect. I know there are questions about the spiritual realm that I don't understand. But I know that America needs the holy Torah. Period. [And obviously getting rid of Islam from American soil.]

How the KGB influenced American Universities--the question of survival of the USA

The question of survival of the USA
[for more information: http://uselessdissident.blogspot.com/2008/11/interview-with-yuri-bezmenov.html]

I have noticed for a long time that the villain in all American movies is always the businessman or an American scientist, never a real criminal. I also noticed a shift in American universities starting from the 1960's when the social science and humanities departments of American universities began to teach radical Marxism under the code name "social justice" or as "progressive liberalism."
Until this very day, the regular staple of the diet of the political pseudo sciences is Hegel, Marx, Rousseau, Freud, Nietzsche;-- never actual ideas that America was founded on. They will never even mention the Second Treatise of Civil Government of John Locke. This is the founding document of America. You would think it would have some place in a political science course. No? Instead it is treated like the plague. May Marx and Lenin save us from thoughts of economic and personal freedom.

The problem is that all three branches of American government have now united to form one monolithic government. There is no more division of power. What the president want the states to say, they say. What he wants the Supreme Court to rule they rule. Whatever he wants passed in Congress is passed. They're all working together to create a new type of Soviet America.
Recently Arizona decided not to put the president on the ballot because he was not born in the USA, yet by coercion he was forced to concede.

Simply put the America people are no longer in control of their government.



"Bezmenov [a former KGB agent who defected to Canada and was murdered by the KGB] stated that he was also instructed not to waste time with idealistic Leftists, as these would become disillusioned, bitter, and adversarial when they realized the true nature of Soviet Communism. To his surprise, he discovered that many such [idealistic Leftists] were listed for execution once the Soviets achieved control. Instead, Bezmenov was encouraged to recruit such persons as were in large circulation, established conservative media, rich filmmakers, intellectuals in academic circles, and cynical, ego-centric people who lacked moral principles."

He also explained that the main (84%) efforts of the KGB was to subvert American values. Marxism was brought to America shores during the 1960s and those students are now in power. He says that the job of subverting America has already be accomplished and over accomplished. The USA is the last country of freedom. This is the last breath of freedom. It will fail unless Americans wake up now and force the government to abandon the communists system that is already in the USA.





What I do not like about the USSR is based my basic idea that people have a right to freedom, but also on stories I heard from Irina(a Ukrainian woman who just passed away). She remembered how when the Communists got power over Russia, the Communists came into her city and simply and plainly took everything in sight--cows, grain, all food stuffs, and whatever they wanted. This was Communism in real life--not how it is displayed in American textbooks.







From http://www.usnews.com/news

"The material in the Vassiliev notebooks corroborates the suspicion that Hiss was a longtime agent of Soviet military intelligence. That echoes the findings of Venona Project analysts, who concluded years ago that the code name "Ales" in the intercepted Soviet cables was "probably Alger Hiss."
The KGB files also corroborate that Julius Rosenberg, who was executed for espionage in 1953 along with his wife, Ethel, was indeed a Soviet agent.
Other Americans are vindicated by Vassiliev's KGB notes. For instance, they say that Robert Oppenheimer continuously refused to help the KGB, much to Moscow's frustration. After a public investigation into his loyalty, Oppenheimer lost his U.S. security clearance. Like many other accused "Red sympathizers," he spent the rest of his life defending his reputation. The Vassiliev documents concur with numerous other sources that show it was other scientists and technicians on the atomic bomb program who helped the Soviets develop a nuclear weapon."

Why does Kant want morality to be universal?

Why does Kant want morality to be universal? The reason is that he wants its existence to be perceived by reason. And reason perceives universals. (note 1) Now some universals are laws like laws of math. Some universals are other types of predicates. But Kant knows that he can't make morality into a universal like laws of math. Remember he was highly influenced by Hume. So he wants the universal morality to be a universal "ought".

 He also wants a certain ambiguity about its nature, but not about its existence. This is his opinion for dinge an sich (things in themselves). ("Unconditioned realities" in the language of philosophers.)

 Use the modification of Kant by Hegel. With Kant by himself you can't get reason to perceive the character of ethical laws. You need Reason to get to where Kant is trying to go.
[I should mention you always need to modify Kant. The surface level of what he says is sometimes wrong. But if you look into the deeper idea behind the words he is often implying a true and deep idea.]






  That personal freedom and economic freedom are valuable really seems to be  from  the separation of realms and different grounds of validity.

[note: The third formulation of the Categorical Imperative is “the Idea of the will of every rational being as a will that legislates universal law.” (4:432)]

At any rate, let me just say that I think the human problem needs a lot more that political or economic solutions. The problem is not just the dimension of morality, but the basic question what is the meaning of life? (This was the primary question of the 1960's, and sadly the answer to most people was political Liberation movements or fanatic Jewish or Eastern religious cults.)

I admit I have no great answer for this. But I do have an idea. It starts with  Maimonides. Because Maimonides managed to mediate between the two poles of Reason and Faith and formed a kind of synthesis or lightening rod. With him there is no contraction between Aristotle and the Torah.

The ground of holiness is different from that of reason. The radical Maimonides synthesis between Torah and Aristotle seems to me to need some improvement. First of all I am a Neo-Platonist. This is by education and also it is the way I think. Reading Plato when I was a teenager it think contributes to me tendency to say unpopular opinions and not be afraid to do so. I think clearly the example of Socrates contributed to this. But at any rate, I see spiritual reality just as real as atoms and molecules.


The thing which complicates this issue is often a doctrine that seems promising, seems to have a long string of crazy people attached to it. Since what makes spirituality interesting is its human element --it is impossible to separate it from the actions of people following a certain doctrine. What I mean is if the Talmud  was just some intellectual exercise that had nothing to do with people, then first of all they would not be interesting. So the fact that they have to so with people means that people following their teachings have to indicate to us to some degree the qualities of that doctrine.

However I do agree with Maimonides in that we should deny ‘there are good reasons for the polarization between faith and knowledge (which became an empirical feature of European modernity). There are no such reasons, on Maimonides' view,

The question is of course why is there no conflict? Is it because because Jewish theism – proved hospitable to and incorporated rational inquiry from the beginning, in the form of Greek philosophy.

However there is a ground of spirituality that is different from reason. The ground of spirit and the ground of reason in some way are in conflict because the principles are different but they are not in conflict in that both are important parts of what it means to be human.
If this is not clear just think of a circle of values. The closer you get to the top the more numinous value you have and less form. The more towards the bottom the more form and less numinous content

Notes
(note 1) Universals. I have (let's say for an example) two white pieces of paper in front of me. Do they have something in common? Yes. Whiteness.  So Whiteness is a universal. It is something that individuals have in common.

Appendix: One reason why Kant ought to be important to people is he provides a nice modification of Plato and neo Platonism. This is to where Jewish Philosophers were trying to go after the Rambam, [e.g. Crescas and Abravenal,] The Rambam was going pretty much with Aristotle and this seems to me to be a problem because knowledge of the physical form does not give knowledge of universals plus some basic problem in the Metaphysics. Maybe the Rambam can account for these problems? It would be nice to know if he does. But I do no have  Guide with me to do the research to see if he does. [I mean it is likely that he did hint to some answers in the Guide but I have not heard that anyone has found such hints.]

Where there are Muslims, things go "Boom!"

Iran’s chief of staff vowed Sunday to eliminate Israel.
As usual in the media there is not a peep.
The problem here is simple cause and effect. Where there are Muslims, things blow up. Most Jewish and Christian people don't have explosives in their underwear. Let's see now, who attacked us on 9/11? Muslims. Who was the attempted shoe bomber? A Muslim. Who attacked the USS Cole? Muslims. So, who should we be watching? Buddhists? Catholic nuns? I don't think so!!


In face of the Muslim threat to the continuance of Human Life on Earth, I suggest that people should prepare a survival kit. And in particular, I recommend the essay of Dr. Leonard Horowitz on the how to protect oneself in case of a Terrorist Chemical or Biological attack. Also notice the covertness blog I have a link to which has lots of good suggestions.
http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/apocalypse/bio_chem_guide.html

I should mention it is a good idea to be part of a community in which people care about each other.  This is the reason there are communities that I decided to leave when I saw this kind of relationship between people was publicly advertised, but in fact missing. In fact, I have become wary of people that are too friendly. Over friendliness is the first most important sign that someone has something up their sleeve.

The problem with Muslims I think is that they are de-evolving. This would probably be because  of lack of female choice. Female choice is an important part of evolution. When the females choose the best guys the species improves. Muslim women have not had female choice so it is inevitable they would degenerate into a sub species, while the rest of the human species evolves upward.

Now this does not seem like a John Locke kind of concept of the common rights of man. But for that to work mankind would have to be one species. And we are rapidly evolving into two different ones.
The West is becoming Homo Occident. Muslims are becomes Homo Simia

.
After all the most basic assumption in all American universities (outside of the natural science departments) is relativism. The trouble with relativism is not just that is is wrong, but that it is self refuting. It makes a claim that you can't make a claim about truth values that is independent of the person making the claim. So it denies its own claim to truth.
I quote [http://www.euvolution.com/euvolution/useless.html]: Today's postmodern philosophers deny the very existence of science, nature and truth, largely because their favorite verbal abstraction of "equality" is undermined by the brute statistical reality of human biological differences. The philosopher Richard Rorty recently informed us in Atlantic Monthly that " 'The homosexual,' 'the Negro,' and 'the female' are best seen not as inevitable classifications of human beings but rather as inventions that have done more harm than good." Therefore, according to Rorty, many deconstructionists "go on to suggest that quarks and genes probably are [inventions] too." You have to be as eminent a philosopher as Rorty to believe that the category of "the female" is a mere social convention.:


The way one might defend moral relativism would be by saying a claim about moral claims is a meta moral claim and not a moral claim in itself. It is about the set of all moral claims, and thus not self refuting.  See John Seale in his refutation of all relativism. But his refutation does not seem to apply to moral relativism
The aspect of orthodoxy that is bad is that it makes fanaticism into a norm. And then goes out of its way to claim that that is not what it is doing. This is a new invention and has nothing to do with traditional Judaism.

I think there is a deep spiritual reality inside the Torah and Talmud.

This was a question asked of me a few years back and my answer:

 (from the beginning of this May 4.5.12):"First, I am in need of some kind of deprogramming. I attended aish ten years ago for ten months and have never been able to shake the feeling that I am a bad person for not being orthodox. Any suggestions?
Second, do you believe or think that the Torah was actually given to Moses on Mt. Sinai? Everything I read in the academic world (James Kugel and some of his footnotes, David Carr at Union Theological, several others here and there) tells me that Orthodox Jews are mistaken in this belief. Also, the Greeks began the idea of authorship and it it is even likely that until Hellenic times no one said that Moses wrote the Torah. But once they gave authorship out, the Jews gave the Torah to Moses.
Third, are all of us ex-aishers suffering cult like symptoms of guilt and fear? Are all Jews suffering this as well? What is the future of Orthodoxy? I think it will always “pretend” because the community matters so very much. But what do you think?"


Torah from heaven is not the same as Torah from Sinai.
The Written and Oral Torah are inspired from Heaven. That has nothing to do with the physical location of where there were written. From what we know from the Rambam many parts of the Torah are allegories and were never meant to be taken literally. That includes Genesis.
Genesis was meant to tell us Creation ex nihilo. (That already cancels Orthodoxy. The irony is they like to claim others are falsify Torah.)





First Torah from Sinai is often confused with the issue of "Is the Talmud from Sinai?"
Part of the problem in the Orthodox world is that they succeeded in spreading the claim that everyone in Europe accepted that the Talmud was from Mount Sinai. This stacks the deck for Orthodox Judaism.
But it is false. No Jews in Europe thought the Talmud was given at Mount Sinai. The very idea in itself is ludicrous. Jews thought it is a great book that explains with great logical rigor how to keep the Torah. Saying it is a great book is not the same as the claim that it is from Sinai. No Jewish people in America thought the Talmud was from Sinai before the fanatic Orthodox came. The way the got people to believe this is by the fact that faith is a good. When it gets too expensive people don't buy it. The orthodox paid people to believe it by the promise of sex, shiduch, and money.

[My parents and all their friends had never heard of the idea that Talmud was from Sinai and if it had been mentioned they would have laughed.]


However being influenced by Plato and Kant (I believe in the world of Forms), I have to admit that I think there is a deep spiritual reality inside the Torah and Talmud [numinous is the current word for it]. (The dinge als sich selbest- the thing in itself.) Normally I would have just gone with Schopenhauer on this question and called God "the Will" and be done with it [i.e. an irrational force]. But according to later writings of Schopenhauer the the thing in itself is multidimensional. The irrational will is just one dimension. So I am led back to the basic idea of God being good in the long run. i.e the God of Moses, Job and Plato.
First I think holiness belongs to the realm of the thing in itself.
note: Things-in-themselves are the way that reality exists apart from our experience, our consciousness, our minds, and all the conditions that our minds might impose on phenomenal objects.

The Talmud excels.

The Talmud rocks!

The separation of milk and meat is in fact based on verses. This is one area in which the Talmud excels. Even if I think the Talmud is not perfect, but it excels in certain areas; and understanding verses is one of those areas. Though I am not holding in that subject matter right now, in working out in a logically rigorous manner the meaning and the laws of different commandments the Gemara [Talmud] does an excellent job, and in fact the only job.



It has been many years since I looked at that subject but so I don't remember the exact idea but just for an example of the way the Gemara looks at verses from a rigorous perceptive look at Bava Metzia at the end of chapter 11 and the many long Tosphot there.

The greatness of stereotypes

The greatness of stereotypes.
I have made a career of not believing stereotypes and giving different groups the benefit of a doubt. I have always been proved wrong and the stereotypes have always proved true.




Observe:

Kirsten Brydum was traveling across the country with an Amtrak pass and an old bicycle. She was meeting with fellow Marxists around the country and campaigning for Obama. Fresh from protesting the RNC National Convention, she arrived in New Orleans by train. While bicycling around New Orleans’ all black 9th ward ghetto to campaign for Obama, she was shot in the head. Residents would not even call the police to notify them that a dead white girl was laying on the sidewalk. Her body laid in the streets for hours until a construction crew drove by and noticed her.

Even the New Orleans police issued a statement saying “robbery does not appear to be the motivation.” All evidence suggests that she was murdered simply because she was white.

That girl would still be alive today, if only she had believed the “racist” stereotypes about black violence.

I quote Pinker: "The Blank Slate has also served as a sacred scripture for political and ethical beliefs. According to the doctrine, any differences we see among races, ethnic groups, sexes, and individuals come not from differences in their innate constitution but from differences in their experiences. Change their experiences—by reforming parenting, education, the media, and social rewards—and you can change the person. Underachievement, poverty, and antisocial behavior can be ameliorated; indeed, it is irresponsible not to do so. [Hence, the social engineering of the Left.] And discrimination on the basis of purportedly inborn traits of a sex or ethnic group is simply irrational.
The doctrine of the Blank Slate became entrenched in intellectual life in a form that has been called the Standard Social Science Model or social constructionism. The model is now second nature to people and few are aware of the history behind it."

There is a curious feature about American politics. A substantial body of political opinion, in the media, academia, and popular culture,and the White House [ simply despises America -- its history, its principles, and its institutions.

A few problems in America that need correcting


[1] The empirical approach of John Locke is not true for these reasons: (1) People have other ways of receiving information than just the five senses. For example I know a piece of paper can't be green and blue at the same time in the same place. I don't know how much this affects the whole John Locke type of Government scheme which eventually became the United States of America. Maybe not much. Clearly Kant was just as liberal as Locke and he was the one who plowed the middle ground between the empiricists like Locke and the Rationalist like Leibniz.
(2) Desire for sex overcomes the desire for self preservation. Desire to protect one's family and children overcomes the desire for self preservation. If self preservation was so absolute no one would cross the street-ever.
(3) People are not born blank slates and can't be social engineered to be what you want them to be. However it is a fundamental tenet of Feminism that people can be socially engineered. This is wrong and they know it because they never admit to this principle in public.


[2] The other problem is that while there are individual black people that are fine outstanding Americans (Allen West is a good examples) the general black population is highly hostile to the U.S.A. except to get as much money they can by welfare, and have contributed highly to its moral and social decay. The problem of a major hostile population in America is something the Constitution was never meant to deal with. It is the same reason you don't want Arabs to be voting for their governments in the Middle East;-- because that will only result in a major Muslim terrorist state that is powerful rich with oil and highly antagonistic towards Western Civilization.

[3] Civil society is like a circle inside a larger circle. It is the area the American government was meant designed to protect. This is the area of private contracts between people that government has no right to interfere with. This is a realm that the government has already entered and controls. But this precious area I hold was intended to be the place for personal observance of the Bible. For civil society needs a holy core to power it. Without that it is empty of meaning.

[4] "Democrat" has come to mean ideas that are wrong. For example while human rights are good, the meaning of rights in the Bill of Rights are negative rights. They refer to things you have that the government can't take away. Rights do not refer to things you can demand from other people, e.g. not to feel insulted. There is no such thing as a right to receive money, goods, or services from anyone else. Social benefits and health care are charities, not rights. The idea of rights has become useless. I claim it is better to go back to the Ten Commandments, and especially the one that goes contrary to all liberal agenda: "Thou shalt not covet anything that is of thy neighbors'."


[5] An example of where this entitlement mentality leads. The family of Thomas Duncan, the person that brought the Ebola Virus to the USA from Africa wants to sue? What is wrong with this family? Duncan lied to get onto his flight to the U.S. and never should have been here to begin with. He exposed hundreds of people to Ebola and infected at least two of the nurses who dedicated themselves to his care and are now fighting for their own lives. Duncan received far better care than he would have in Liberia. It would be appropriate for the Duncan Family to express nothing but gratitude to Texas Health Presbyterian which provided the best care they could for Duncan and did so with compassion and risk to their own lives.

One person wrote: "Since the libertarianism lacks the concept of Common Good ("Lose the 'We'")
This is one thing that bothers me about the John Locke (Libertarian) point of view. But on the other hand the point of view that does into account for the "We" (Rousseau, Hegel, Marx seem to have a problem concerning the "state of nature"). To them the "state of nature is benign." [Which is not true anyway.] And yet the Marx thing is that all higher aspirations can be linked to money. According to him people have a point of view because of what money class they belong to. This seems like contradiction in Marxist thought. I.e. "we" would all be nice if "we" would have the exact same amount of money. But then where is the "we". The we only exists if everyone has exactly the same amount of money. But until then we are raving wolves?

Why I bring this up is that in fact the lack of the "We" does bother me in America. It seems like Allen Bloom said: if you tell everyone that their motives are monetary alone, then eventually you will succeed in creating that type of person.

The "We" that I suggest is based on a common belief in Torah. (The unifying  meme of Western Civilization is the Torah.) That is the Written Torah. And the Oral Torah. The later is any actual laws that were handed down that are considered to be Biblical though they are only hinted at in the actual verses, for example the 39 types of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath day.

Western Civilization has already gone a long way with the unifying belief in the Torah. All I am suggesting here is to continue in this basic approach.

On sugar by yahoo

Eating too much sugar can eat away at your brainpower, according to US scientists who published a study Tuesday showing how a steady diet of high-fructose corn syrup sapped lab rats' memories.
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) fed two groups of rats a solution containing high-fructose corn syrup -- a common ingredient in processed foods -- as drinking water for six weeks.
One group of rats was supplemented with brain-boosting omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), while the other group was not.

According to the Torah, a lesbian relationship is not a sin at all. A male homosexual act gets the death penalty if the act is done on purpose in front of two witnesses. You need a court of 23 judges that have the authentic ordination also. (That ordination does not exist anymore.)

A lesbian relationship is not sin. A male homosexual act is a sin. That means if the act is done in front of two witnesses and a warning is given that the act is a sin and receives the death penalty, then the penalty is given.

Situation two: If there are not two kosher witnesses, and the act was done on purpose there is nothing one can do but repent. Repentance means that one accepts upon himself not to repeat the act. This by definition brings Divine forgiveness.

Situation three: If the sin was done by accident [for example a man thought it was his wife in bed with him] then he must bring a sin offering. This can't be brought anywhere except in the Temple in Jerusalem. In fact, bringing a offering anywhere else is a sin on the same level as homosexuality. This is explicit in the Torah (Old Testament) itself. That means that at the time there was a movable Tabernacle, one could only bring offerings there. And to bring one elsewhere is a sin of "cutting off" (which is called karet כרת in Hebrew). Once the Temple was in Jerusalem, it can't be erected else as Nathan the prophet said to King David.

So nowadays we (Jews and Gentiles) can't bring a sin offering anywhere. However repentance is always open to every person and always helps. (Repentance is accepting on oneself not to repeat the sin and confession before God and feeling guilty about the sin.)
No matter what where the circumstance repentance always brings some measure of forgiveness.

[If not for the words of Nathan the prophet to King David, then we would be able to build another Temple anywhere in the world. The problem nowadays is that Nathan said the Temple Mount would be the only place God would rest his presence from then on. So we are kind of stuck.]

Appendix: Repentance is simply accepting on oneself not to do the sin that he did. How do we know this? From the law that if a person does kidushin [marries a woman] on condition that he is a perfect saint even if he is a perfect criminal she is considered married because of a doubt: he might have thought not to repeat his sins ever again at the time he made the marriage. So we learn that if he in fact did think to never repeat his sins he is in fact a perfect saint. That is repentance is that hard and that easy. It is a thought. But a thought with that much power and conviction that in fact one never repeats the sin. It has little to do with what most people think of as repentance. If you want to see proofs in the Torah for this I suggest reading the book Gates of Repentance by Rabanu Yona where he bring Biblical proof.

[But repentance is not enough except for missing a positive command. If one has transgressed a negative command, one needs Yom Kipur. If a negative command that has karet attached to it then also afflictions. If hilul hashem, then only death brings forgiveness. See Rabbainu Yona who brings this from the gemara ]

About Kabalah today

 Isaac Luria  had some amazing revelations, but his revelations weree based on his own perception of the divine realm. This is a different type of perception than the perception that the Torah was written by. This type of perception in most cases has to pass through the Intermediate Zone. This is what gives it its mixed results.

In any case I think Rav Shicks emphasis on unifications is wrong. I did this because I was attached to Rav Shick but today I think this emphasis is wrong. Though I agree learning the Ari [Isaac Luria] is important. However I do not recommend the Zohar. Even if the Ari used it as a jumping board for his revelations still I think it is not from the Rashbi. I admit it is just one word which convinces me of this  עם כל דא "although." This usage for "although" is an invention of the Ibn  Tibon family [עם כל זה]. It is not ancient Aramaic but a medieval invention. So what is it doing all over the Zohar? Answer: The Zohar was written by Moshe DeLeon.
If we would be talking about ancient Hebrew or Aramaic it would say אף על פי.

Allan Bloom: "Descartes' ego, in appearance invulnerable and godlike in its calm and isolation, turns out to be the tip of an iceberg floating in a fathomless and turbulent sea called the id, consciousness an epiphenomenon of the unconscious. Man is self, that
now seems clear. But what is self?
Our embraced psychology leaves us with this question."

I would like to suggest that this relates to the mind body problem. I don't think we need to come to the idea of the soul to understand the self. I think the soul can exist and that God can reward a person for good deeds in the next world. But I don't think you need the soul to understand the self.

So there are three domains of the mind: Biology, Human Psychology, Spiritual. Each interact. But it is not reductive. Each interacts in a chaotic way.
So even if there biological origins of some, still some spiritual free will will interact with it, and so will some aspect that is of human psychology but not spiritual. 

But this secular system of the USA can work only if the center core is based on the numinous sacred power of the Torah

But this secular system of the USA can work only if the center core is based on the numinous sacred power of the Torah. And the central core of the Torah is not the book itself but rather two central themes which permeate the entire Torah and form its own core and central value system--the coming of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and the building on the Temple in Jerusalem.

[I am looking at this post now a few years later and I thought to add that these two themes while certainly important are not the only ones in the Torah. Generally you can see that belief in God and no other gods is important. And in fact this later theme seems to be the hardest. After all idolatry can refer to worship of anything besides the the one true God the First Cause. So idolatry does not have to refer to wooden idols . but also to worship of dead people. And idolatry can be Jewish idolatry also.] 

A general Biblical approach to womanhood would be first of all not like the feminist movement. It would also include the idea of dipping in a natural body of water once a month. It would also include a day of rest, not on Sunday. It would go against socialism, as being opposed to "Thou shalt not covet."

It would  not be liberal with commandments. That is, it would not expand them beyond their actual definitions. But it would not contract them either. And it would assume that what God means to say in the Bible, is what it actually says.

We know that as a matter of fact, most of the commandments of the Bible were addressed to the Jewish people in the desert. But that does not preclude anyone from joining the club who wants to join. But if you join the club you have to obey the rules. You don't get to change them. Even Jews don't get to change them. The rules stay fixed like the Northern Star.

Just like in the Torah itself different weight should be given to different verses, also this applies to doctrines of Torah. [You would not put a sentence from Bilam like come curse Israel and put it on the same level as a verse that starts with "And God spoke to Moses saying..." Surely cursing Israel can't be on the same level as one of the Ten Commandments.--I hope not anyway. Though judging by the general attitude of the world towards the Jews it seems like most people consider Bilam's commandment to be authoritative.] The Torah itself has basic doctrines that disagree with Jewish theology which came after Torah. Also the Talmud has different doctrines that are different than those of Jewish thinkers which came later. The Rambam (Maimonides) also has a system of doctrines which is different from those that came after the Rambam. And as for myself I also have two sources of information which I hold from personally--Reason (the school of Leibniz) and Empirical evidence. (Not like John Locke. I don't think empirical evidence is the only source of knowledge. And I think it can be proved logically that it is not by simple counter examples.) Also I believe there is a third type of source of knowledge called faith
At any rate, ethical monotheism is certainly a belief of the Torah and in particular the doctrine that God is simple- not a composite. This incidentally is accepted by Christians also and is called "divine simplicity." However the Rambam has a few doctrines which are not from the Torah, nor from the Talmud. He expands the prohibition of idolatry to include the idea that God can be enclosed in body. This is certainly against the Talmud which has God clothing himself in a body to give a haircut to Sancheriv. It is also not the basic idea of idolatry of the Torah itself.
Also, in the Torah God does change his mind. According to the Rambam basing himself on Aristotle God can't change his mind. This simply is against the Torah. Point blank.
Another example is Job. The Talmud and the Rambam because of theological reasons can't accept basic premises of the Book of Job. The reason is that the book of Job goes against the book of Deuteronomy. But in the book of Job, the narrator makes it absolutely clear in the beginning that Job was innocent, and he was not being punished for any sin at all. This is an absolutely clear part of the narrative because without this the entire narrative falls apart. And in the end God says that Job was right and his friends theology was wrong. [This is also against Jewish tradition. His friends were saying the regular Jewish approach.]

Final note: Any system of human interaction, if brought to its extreme, will result in evil. finding bad things in the Talmud or Rambam does nothing to disprove the basic system.you can do the same thing with democracy. The problem with outreach in general is that it is based on the jelly bean argument. If you have only two jelly beans in a jar and you take out the red ones you are-left with the other one. An example of this type of argument is: since all gentiles are evil so the Torah is automatically right.

People in general need a moral compass. Reform Judaism seeing the abuses and problems of Jewish leadership, decided the most current up to date German philosophy of the 19th century was the way to go. The sad thing is the most up to date and popular German thinker was Hegel. (Later they added Freud who based himself on Nietzsche.) Reform Judaism could not have chosen a worse philosophy even if they had tried. 

Schopenhauer claims that facts about the physical world have no internal significance. In this point the Rambam surely disagrees. The Rambam holds learning Physics and Metaphysics (of Aristotle) is higher than learning Torah. The Ari ( Isaac Luria) also from also disagrees. He has a whole list of Divine names that are embodied in the physical universe. See the large Sidur of the Reshash [from the grandson of Shalom Sharabi] for the whole list. (That is besides the smaller list in the Eitz Chaim itself). Some of these Divine names are from the Eitz Chayim itself (The book, Tree of Life of Isaac Luria) but not all. This is common with Shalom Sharabi- to fill in missing gaps in the writings of the Arizal. [The Ramchal also does this like for the intentions of mincha for Shabat.]
In this world is hidden holiness; and even in the lowest regions in spirituality is hidden the highest holiness that comes from the hidden statement of creation. In the first statement of Creation there is no "He said"


To the Rambam when you learn Physics and MetaPhysics you directly fulfill the mitzvah of Love and fear of God. These are not means to come to fear of God or love, but direct fulfillment of the actual commandments.
You can see this in the beginning of the "Yad HaChazakah" and also in the Guide. All later Musar books quote the Rambam about this but seem innocent about what he was actually intending.

This is similar to the mitzvah of being attached to God Deuteronomy 13:5. The Sages ask how is this possible to fulfill. And they answer by marrying off ones daughter to a Torah scholar and doing business with a Torah scholar and  giving money to a Torah scholar.
The Rambam brings this statement as meaning that doing these things is an actual fulfillment of the commandment;- not just a means to come to attachment with God.


Where do you see that truth is in the ground? In physical matter? Why is it that the Rambam insists on seeing in facts about physics the highest truths? He probably saw it in a Midrash. God wanted to create Man. The angel of truth came and asked how can you create Man when he is full of lies? God took the angel of truth and threw him on the ground, as the verse says, "He threw truth to the ground." So we see truth is in the ground--i.e. Physics.

Some of the pluses about Gemara [Talmud] and some of the negatives.
The good things are an infinity, painstaking, rigorous, logical approach to the Bible. Of course no gentiles can see this because if they ever pick up the Gemara at all, it is a translation. Not that I am against translations. but -you really can't see the profundity of the Talmud without Tosphot [commentary on the side of the page of the Talmud] and the Maharsha [a later commentary located as an index in the back of the Talmud], and about a week of work on one Tosphot [comments on the side of page of the Talmud]. The only way to ever see this is to get to a point where you see some question on Tosphot that seems to make it make no sense, but then by faith you keep on plugging away until you reach the next level and see how Tosphot answered the question with some slight change of wording and was hinting to some great deep idea. Few people are aware of this in the Talmud, so they never understand its importance.

Another positive thing is that it does not try to derive morality from a small number of principles. This is a trap that all moral philosophers fell into for the last 2000 years, and there are plenty of counter examples to all of them.
Another great thing about Torah and the Talmud is that we can exercise a certain amount of control over how we are forming beliefs. It is up to us, for example, whether we believe whatever we hear on television, and we can choose to suspend judgment rather than accept conclusions according to a certain method.
Since we are primates, we need a way of getting through our desires and animal nature to perceive moral values. It does not happen automatically.



We need some method of forming beliefs that is systematically directed at the truth -- in other words, a method such that, in general, when you use it you will probably acquire a true belief rather than a false one. For if we don't apply such a method, then we will probably have false beliefs, and we don't want that,  for obvious reasons. E.g. something will happen to us when we leave this world. If it is true that there is a hell, then it is better for people not to end up there by doing things they think are good deeds like blowing up Jews or other such misinformed actions.] Now, it could be doubted whether there are any such methods.
And that is my complaint. The Talmud is fallible. It does automatically lead to true beliefs about moral values. It is good, but not perfect. And as a system, it can be abused by those willing to abuse it. Many fall into this trap of assuming their interests and ideas  are the interests and ideas of the Talmud.

In Praise of Racism. [In the Middle Ages this essay would be entitled "In Praise of Heresy."]

Game Theory and Stereotypes

Suppose that you could have some sort of “clairvoyant knowledge” of whether a person belonged to a murderous group. You could then avoid interactions with members of that group, say by remaining in a segregated community.
Clairvoyance, of course, unfortunately does not exist. But you could get a similar benefit by learning from the past experiences of other members of your group in interactions with other subgroups, especially if it’s encapsulated in easy-to-remember memes/sayings.

You know what that “collective wisdom based on past experiences” is called, right? Stereotypes. Drunken Irish, airhead blondes, violent blacks, etc.


Of course, in practice, even a community of convicted murderers doesn’t kill every new person they meet, the first time. But if there’s any risk at all that trusting others too much before they’ve earned that trust will result in you immediately “losing the game,” and if such crime statistics can in any way be validly associated with particular, identifiable subgroups, it follows immediately from that that the holding of valid stereotypes about those groups will be a superior survival strategy to simply trusting them until they betray you.

Observe:

Kirsten Brydum was traveling across the country with an Amtrak pass and an old bicycle. She was meeting with fellow Marxists around the country and campaigning for Obama. Fresh from protesting the RNC National Convention, she arrived in New Orleans by train. While bicycling around New Orleans’ all black 9th ward ghetto to campaign for Obama, she was shot in the head. Residents would not even call the police to notify them that a dead white girl was laying on the sidewalk. Her body laid in the streets for hours until a construction crew drove by and noticed her.

Even the New Orleans police issued a statement saying “robbery does not appear to be the motivation.” All evidence suggests that she was murdered simply because she was white.

That girl would still be alive today, if only she had believed the “racist” stereotypes about black violence.

I want to introduce a new type of Judaism that already many people keep but don't know that it is in fact a new branch. It's called "shomer mitvot" i.e. keeping the 613 mitzvot. This is different than Reform which does not hold from mitzvot. This is different than Orthodox which makes up mitzvot at random and ignores all real mitzvot. The importance of mitvot is that this is the actual idea of Torah of what is important.

 Pesach. The correct day is the 15th date from the new moon as the Torah says. that is April 5. Hillel the second never made any calendar. that is a made up myth to give support to the meton calendar which wee use which was adopted from the Greeks.
the so called Hebrew calendar was never sanctified by any beit din. (If it was then this question would be a debate between the Talmud in Sanhedrin and the Talmud is rosh hashanah.) But as it stands today the Hebrew calendar is a mistake.
Number two.\

the great thing about Shulchan Aruch that even I with all my critiques on it have to admit is that a person  that learns it generally has a good idea of halacha. While people that learn Rambam never seem to have the slightest idea of any halacha and don't even know what the very concept is.


Also it is important to understand the way the Torah is written. It was not meant to be taken literally. It is kabalistic. The apologetics to try to bring archaeological proofs to the exodus is wrong and unnecessary and also not true--and it goes against the very spirit that the Torah was written in.

Further it is important not to lie about these things. See the Ten Commandments and psalm 101:7 for further details.

I would only pray in a Reform Temple or a Conservative one. Ethical Monotheism. The energy and teachings of the Sitra Ahra (Dark Side) got totally entwined with religious Judaism.

Reform Judaism is right about Ethical Monotheism. This is first of all true. [One of the major goals of Torah is objective personal ethics as you can see in the Ten Commandments.] Also it is what the Torah is about.  But Reform is wrong in ignoring the Oral Law and the efforts of the  Sages to understand Divine Law. Also-It is bourgeois. They have no Gra, or his disciple Haim from Voloshin, or Rav Isaac Luria. No juice. No taste. The batteries need charging.

Reform  ignores the most important aspect of Torah,- the holy numinous aspect.

There are a few people in the context of Torah who discovered and  revealed parts of the divine reality contained in Torah. They were the Ramban (Nachmanides) and Ari (Isaac Luria), the Gra, Israel Salanter,
Also "social justice" is an 1840's invention of two Catholic priests meant to replace noble obligation (Noblesse oblige). It is not the main idea of the Torah, nor the Prophets, nor the Writings.[, תורה נביאים כתובים]  Social justice is the opposite of justice. Social justice is steal from the rich. This is based on the idea that the rich must have somehow gotten rich in some non proper way even if there is no evidence for this. Justice means don't steal; not from the rich and not from the poor. Simply don't steal. [I was in Temple Israel of Hollywood on Rosh Hashanah, and the talk was about "social justice". My mom was not impressed. She did not think Torah was all about "social justice". Rather, it is about Justice, -- not social justice. Still as a family we did go the Reform.]

In spite of this, I would only pray in a Reform Temple or a Conservative one. I would run from the "religious" like one runs from a charging leopard. That is just how frightened I am from them. (This is not irrational fear. It is fear based on personal experience and observation of what I see they do to people. They make a tremendous effort to make "baali teshuva" (to make people religious) and then destroy them systematically.) [But one does have to learn and keep Torah. To learn Torah you should take one page of Gemara and keep learning it day after day. That is read it from the beginning until the end with the Tosphot and Maharsha--every day the same page until something gives way and you understand its depths.  This is  the "in depth" session. besides that you need a fast session to get through the  Oral Law- Bavli, Yerushalmi, Tosefta, Sifri and Sifra. But you don't need to go anywhere near a religious synagogue, Heaven forbid!]

And it would not matter if the only mikvah in town was in an religious synagogue. I would still simply refuse to go anywhere near the religious. [I would go to the ocean.  When I was in the mountains there was a nearby stream which I dug deep into so it could be used for  mikvah.
The Sitra Achra (Realm of Evil) just got too much intertwined with "religious" Judaism until it is impossible to separate the two.

This fact is hidden to many religious  people - because they think their approach is based on Talmud and Halacha. They are unaware that it is not based on Halacha at all, but rather it takes a few  rituals to cover up what is really going on.

 What makes this almost impossible to know is that people today rarely every learn the books of the Shatz and his prophet Nathan from Gaza. But if you have had the sad experience of  reading those misguided books, then you can see right away how the most basic teachings of the Shatz are part and parcel of Religious Judaism today.

[If I was back at Beverly Hills I would not drive to Temple Israel in Hollywood on Shabat. I would stay home and learn Torah. But I would make an effort to be part of a Conservative, Re-constructionist or Reform Temple during the week. The trouble with driving is that it involves  fire. I learned that in a high school physics books about how the spark plug and the four- cylinder car engine works. If it would be just electricity, that would be allowed.]

In sum: Reform is right about some things, but wrong on others. My younger brother in fact goes to a Conservative shul. But there are things I think Conservative have also gotten a bit wrong. Personally, I just can't see anything as good as a straight normal Litvak yeshiva.




Appendix:
1) The major support of Reform and Conservative Judaism comes from Musar (Ethical) books of traditional Judaism.
I mean the major principle of Reform Judaism is what? That between man and your fellow-man comes before between Man and God. This is the exact principle of Musar.
 "You should walk in his ways, and keep his mitzvot."
The command to walk in his ways we know is the commandment "What is he? Kind. So you too be kind."
R. Haim Vital, the disciple of Isaac Luria, in chapters one and two of his Musar book Shaarei Kedusha makes the same point. And the great Yemenite Kabbalist, The Rashash (R. Shalom Sharabi), goes into this exact point in detail. He says the soul of a person is his character traits. The mitzvot are simple the clothing and food of the soul, but not the soul itself. [נפש השכלית]
Reb Haim Vital says, "One must be more careful to stay away from bad character traits than be keeping positive and negative commandments, because bad traits are very much worse that sins."
There is no clear connection between being religious and being a decent human being. It is clear from that that the religious world is not keeping Torah properly. Fanaticism is just a cover up for something that is not Torah.


2) The major problem with the religious is not so much in places where there is a strong Litvak yeshiva presence. For example in Brooklyn where the three major Litvak yeshivas are located {Haim Berlin, Mir, Torah VeDaat} even local shuls (synagogues) tend to be straight Torah oriented.
3) The main problem I see with the strictly religious  is the idea of a עיר הנדחת a city in which false gods are worshiped. The law is that the city is destroyed--everyone  and everything. The reason being that even the tzadikim inside the city acquiesced. That is they did not actively protest or simply leave. Only Rav Shach saw the problems and objected.




[I hope it is clear what I am saying. If I would have  A Litvak yeshiva in the area that would be one thing. But the religious world outside of that is very insane. And sadly to some degree the insanity has penetrated.]

Another problem with the religious is  the desire to rule others. They invariably ruin everything they touch. 

Another point is that prophet Jeremiah says חרפת עולם אתן להם (an everlasting shame) about Klal Israel. That means that almost any involvement with the religious be definition brings about involvement with the Dark Side. I thought I could avoid this problem by sticking with the most straight form of Torah--the Litvak Yeshiva, but there also (sadlly enough) the Sitra Ahra managed to find a way in.

At any rate I want to mention that in the USSR they had a system of physical education that I think should be used in the West

I had a P.E. in HS teacher that told me he wants to train us students to be fit at that time and not to depend on the idea that we would continue to exercise in collage. But clearly he believed that exercise should be a daily thing. Also I think there are two ages when the basic metabolism of the body changes--about 40 and then again at 55.
And I think the same applies the the mind.

At any rate I want to mention that in the USSR, they had a system of physical education that I think should be used in the West. On the radio at 7:00 A.M. they had a ten minute program of home exercise.
The reason I think this is important is because I think the West made a great mistake when it linked physical education to school. This almost guarantees that people that are out of school will stop.

Moral obligations (that is, the facts that we ought to act in certain ways) should be self-evident. But we need the holy Torah because though the principles of Torah should be self evident, most people allow considerations (of what social group they want to fit in with) to cloud their judgment about what is moral.

My basic contention is that the Torah is objective. As I am using the word "objective" to mean "not subjective" -i.e. not dependent on anyone's opinions or viewpoint. Further I want to contend that the Torah consists of principles, not laws.

And that the difference [between principles versus laws] is easily seen in today's society where you have collages giving out rule books about sexual conduct (to protect themselves from lawsuits) and theaters have to tell people not to talk during the show. This is because people have forgotten the basic principle--don't be inconsiderate.


Yosi Faur contends that the Rambam (Maimonides) discovered this objective aspect of Torah, and all his opponents were off the true path.

(My feeling is that the Rambam together with the other "Rishonim" (people from the Middle Ages that wrote either commentary on the Talmud or Halacha books) form a seamless whole.)

At first the Rambam seems to stand on his own, but then little bugs in the system start to creep in. It looks to me that Yosei Faur was trying to make out like that the Rambam/Maimonides found the absolute truth of the universe, and he writes very convincingly in this direction.

At first I was convinced by Yose Faur. But that is me. I find myself always between great charismatic leaders that are very convincing. It takes me a long time to step back and to try to consider things from a rational point of view.

After some time I looked at the original essay of Yosi Faur and I discovered what you can see in a lot of religious writing--they sound very convincing about subjects you know nothing about, but then when it gets to a subject you know something about their supposed genius falls apart. (But I admit this does not happen with the Rambam or Tosphot, or the Torah itself. For me the deeper I go into these things, the better they become.)

  But my claim is that no one person discovered the real Torah. And that true Torah observance is not person based, and not even text based, but rather God based.

  Also my final contention is that one should be like a hound dog with his nose to the ground. That is after one has read and learned Torah and the Talmud, then one should look at the individual questions that come before him. I.e. the big picture is not just too big, but distracting. People that learn Halacha (Law) or Kabalah forget how to be simple decent human beings.

 Moral obligations (that is, the facts that we ought to act in certain ways) should be  self-evident. But we need the holy Torah because though the principles of Torah should be self evident, most people allow considerations (of what social group they want to fit in with) to cloud their judgment about what is moral.

The problem with the American democracy is in its very essence. It is based on the empirical British school of thought begun by John Locke. And empiricism is wrong.

The problem with the American democracy is in its very essence. It is based on the empirical British school of thought begun by John Locke. And empiricism is wrong. Here, I will give a counter-examples to empiricism.

Nothing can be both entirely red and entirely green.

A naive empiricist might appeal to my experiences with colored objects: I have seen many colored objects, and none of them have ever been both red and green. One thing that makes this implausible as an explanation of how I know that nothing can be both red and green is the necessity of the judgment. Contrast the following two statements:

Nothing is both green and red.
Nothing is both green and a million miles long.
These are justified in completely different ways.

And there is a connection between the idea that all knowledge from from the senses and John Locke idea of a democracy. People are not blank slates. Not when they start and at no time. They have genes. And genes are not blank slates. And stuff is written on them. Sometimes really bad stuff.  Sometimes really great stuff. (All men are created equal comes from the idea of the tabula raca, empty slate. But the slate is not empty.)

My learning partner noticed this also. He thinks the direction the USA is going in is is almost the default position.You might say it gives license for people to follow their desires with no restraint. So why not take it all the way? What stopped this for so long was obviously the fact that people were believing in Torah. [Christians and Jews]. But take away that numinous core you have nothing to hold society together.



Charles Darwin and John Locke continue to exercise extraordinary influence from the grave. The former birthed a revolution in biology which has persisted to the present day, the latter fomented a revolution in political philosophy which reasserts itself in every contemporary iteration of “individual rights.” Darwin’s theory is widely taken to be the unifying theory in modern biology; apparently nothing in biology makes sense except in light of his view.

And Locke’s classical liberalism, developed in diverse ways, has had a profound influence on the Founding Fathers of the United States. Collectively, Darwin and Locke tell human beings where they have come from, what they are, and how they ought to live with each other. The combined legacies of these men could hardly be more powerful.

Yet  Darwinism and classical liberalism hold incompatible visions of morality, human nature, and individual autonomy.That means that basic biological science has as view of human nature that is in direct contradiction to the view of human nature as understand by John Locke.

Thus the American democracy can only work together with Torah. It can't hold together without Torah.

Dear Professor Michael Huemer,

Dear Professor Michael Huemer,
I have been reading you writings for a few years and i want to thank you for making public your ideas. I find your writing to be very impressive. My question for you is what do you think about the Kant-Fries school of Professor Kelley Ross. I know you have a some major critique on Kant's "thing in itself," but it seems to me that your thought on this issue runs parallel to the Kant-Fries school.

Your critique of Kant is something that the scholars from that school also deal with.

In fact, the one major difference that you seem to have with that school is that they believe in immediate nonintuitive knowledge, while you don't believe in any such knowledge. It seems to me that you believe that reason itself has the ability to perceive universals--but no universals are inherently known.

I also wonder what he thinks of Princeton school of philosophy. They seem to be doing some good work--but i did not include it in my letter.


The answer: "Thanks for your message. I have not studied the Kant-Fries school and thus have nothing useful to say about it.

I am not sure what you mean by "inherently known". Perhaps you are referring to innate ideas. In that case, I don't know whether there are innate ideas. That seems to be more a matter for cognitive psychologists than for philosophers to investigate.

I am also unsure what you have in mind by "immediate non-intuitive knowledge".

Sorry not to be of more help.

--
Prof. Michael Huemer"



Afterword: The school of thought of Michael Huemer begins with Prichard, and is called the "Intuitionists." 

I want to claim that forming beliefs based on non rational methods is in itself against the Torah.

I want to discuss the thesis that reason can know moral values, and moral values are objective. On the other hand by non rational considerations people can form non moral beliefs and think that their beliefs are moral. (A good example of this is Islam. In Islam people believe that it is a mitzvah to murder Jews or Christians as we see in this news: "Gunmen linked to Al Qaeda shot dead an American teacher in Yemen on Sunday, accusing him of Christian proselytizing." This shows that people can believe in things that are against reason.) This gives a great beginning to understand how God could create a covenant relationship with Israel.
This would not work very well to the Rambam (Maimonides) but I think this fits with Saadia Geon pretty well. And you can actually see this in the Gemara itself where mitzvot are assumed to have rational reasons that support them.

The problem is that the beliefs that people hold are determined by their self-interest, the synagogue they want to fit into, the self-image they want to maintain, and the desire to remain coherent with their past beliefs. People can deploy mechanisms to enable them to adopt and maintain their preferred beliefs, including giving a biased weighting of evidence; focusing their attention and energy on the arguments supporting their favored beliefs; collecting evidence only from sources they already agree with; and relying on subjective, speculative, and anecdotal claims as evidence for religious theories.

I want to claim that forming beliefs based on non rational methods is in itself against the Torah. This is at least implicit in the Rambam and the Сhovot Levavot (Duties of the Heart).
The Rambam considers the halacha process of the Talmud to be using reason to analyze and legal material that was received by tradition. The idea of the Geonim that the Talmud itself is received tradition he said was a very bad view--מְתֹעָב "disgusting" he called it.



Suppose I offer the opinion, "Colors are objective." What then is it that I am saying about colors? What I am saying is that colors are 'in the object.' In what object? In colored objects. What does "in" mean here? It means that a color - redness, say - is a property of the objects that are said to be red. That is, that the nature of those objects themselves and not anything else determines whether they are red or not. Hence, to say that morality is objective is to say that whether an action is right depends on the nature of that action; whether a person is good depends on the nature of that person; etc.

If one knows moral relativism to be true, then one cannot rationally believe any moral judgement. One cannot do so because in order to rationally believe something, the proposition must first be justified, and as a moral relativist you know that no moral proposition is true before you believe it, so you would not have any justification for accepting it.


So if moral values are objective, it is hard for me to imagine that the Torah would say to do otherwise. Rather we say we should keep Torah because it is good--it can't be measured against a standard of objective good. If it would be good by definition then saying "It is good" would be question begging. And this is how it is possible to analyze the Torah by reason as the Talmud does. Torah reveals what is good objectively, and the Talmud analyzes it. This leads to the type of understanding the Rambam had of Torah --a strong correlation between Torah and reason.
The sad thing about the lack of gentile understanding of the Talmud, is that it creates a situation in which they can't understand  the Bible either because they don't know how to learn it with rigorous logic.

 It seems to me that natural law [as some understand it] is not the same thing as the morality that we can perceive by reason. Natural law seems to imply that one who nature is to murder ought to murder since it is part of his nature. But the morality that can be perceived by reason says no.

Now you might complain to me that religious people are often not moral. That is because morality and spirituality are two separate areas of value. Each is perceivable of reason but they are two separate areas.