Maimonides

There are lots of subtleties in the writings of Maimonides that are not apparent on the first reading. You can see this easily in the book of Chaim Solovechik. (Chidushei HaRambam) Before him you basically had to accept it on faith that Maimonides had some deep reason for the way he would decide a law, but you almost never knew what it was. All you had was people trying to dig up some source in the Talmud and trying to show that it all fit together.
No one has done anything like this with the Guide for the Perplexed, and this is sad because it is likely that the same type of thing could be done.
Today I wanted to say one deep point in Maimonides. When he says it is a mitzvah to know that G-d exists he is not referring to faith. When talking about the first commandment in the Ten Commandments he always uses the word "to know" that God exists. With Maimonides this knowing means by the two types of knowing that Aristotle claimed could exist. (1) Things we know by induction. This is called a Posteriori Analytics (2) Things we know by deduction in the books of Aristotle are called A Priori Analytics.
Now it is a known fact that I have claimed here that Maimonides was a Pre-Kantian Kantian. So you can expect that I will try to combine these two types of knowledge into one.
That is I will take note that both inductive knowledge has the problem that Hume noted and that you can never know how many samples you should have until you can make a logic induction. Also there is no reason to say the next sample should not be different from the preceding ones. You do not know this at any rate by logic. Now Hume admitted we have synthetic knowledge based on what we see. But it is not based on logic. But what results is the modern skepticism that denies knowledge of anything.

The rationalist thought that reason alone could result in knowledge. But then you get the regress of reason the fact that all the systems of the rationalists contradicted each other.

 What you have with Kant a class of knowledge that you know by reason by it does not have to be so. You have to observe it in some way. That is-- he is combining these two categories into one category and by that he is expecting the building to stand --like an arch that each side without the other would fall. This is what I think Maimonides is doing. [There are lots of indications in the Guide about this but also you can see that Aristotle himself did not accept either type of knowledge by itself. he did not go with the empiricists that only accepted induction nor like the rationalist that accepted only deduction.]

 I should mention that there are in fact two good arguments for God. The First Cause idea which is purely inductive. This does not work in any deductive way. The other argument from Anselm of Canterbury which Godel sharpened up. This is purely deductive. Together they fit. This is what Maimonides was thinking-- that to know something you need to know it from these two sides

The flaws in the case against the argument From design -by Steven Dutch

Steven Dutch


The Case Against the Argument From Design
We cannot validly reason from earthly parallels to the Universe as a whole.
Since the creation of the universe was a unique event, we cannot say anything about it.
The order in nature could equally well result from the intrinsic properties of matter itself.
The existence of pain and suffering cast serious doubt on the existence of a benevolent Intelligence.

[I] Critique

The nature of science has changed dramatically since Hume's day, and the changes illustrate some holes in Philo's reasoning that probably would not have been apparent to Hume or anyone else at the time.
In Hume's day, the only rigorously known scientific laws were gravitation and Newton's laws of motion. The fact that these had successfully explained the motions of the planets had profoundly impressed all of society. Also, Newton had successfully explained why Kepler's empirical laws of planetary motion worked, and even made a correction to them. Still, nobody in Hume's day suspected the extent to which it would be possible to explain laws of nature in terms of still higher laws. Hume's trio was restricted to finding order in nature solely in the complex phenomena of the natural world, something that might not be the case today.
In Hume's day the stars were considered so inconceivably remote that it seemed impossible ever to have any real knowledge of them. Double stars, where one star orbits another, would be the first direct demonstration that gravitation applied among the stars. Spectroscopy, with its incredible power to analyze the physics and chemistry of the stars, was a century in the future. Quantum mechanics, which successfully explains what spectroscopy observes, was three quarters of a century beyond that. So we can forgive Hume for not envisioning how deeply we would be able to test the hypothesis that the laws of nature are the same everywhere. Nevertheless, Philo's argument that we cannot reason from earthly examples to the universe as a whole is flatly, definitively, wrong.
Mid-18th century Edinburgh was home to one of those brilliant collections of minds that appear from time to time, called the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume probably knew James Watt. A few years before the Dialogue was first published, Watt realized that existing steam engines were inefficient because they alternately heated and cooled the same vessel. He envisioned a completely new design in which spent steam was exhausted to a separate vessel to be condensed. His invention would launch the Industrial Revolution. So what? You envision a new way of doing things and build it. This is how technology works, right? Not in Hume's day. Hume could have Philo argue (Part VIII) "In all instances we have ever seen, ideas are copied from real objects...You reverse this order and give thought the precedence." The idea of conceiving something totally new and making it happen, the essence of modern technology, is completely opposite to the mental processes of Hume's time. We can forgive Hume for not foreseeing the extent to which abstract thought could precede the creation of objects, but again Philo's argument is flatly, definitively, wrong.


 [II] A Sample With N = 1

"When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other. And this I call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects ... are single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain..... To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds..."

Here's another case where Hume utterly (and nobody can blame him) failed to foresee the growth of science. He would doubtless be astonished at how much we can infer about the origin of the universe.

But let's look at the validity of the argument even in Hume's day. The French mathematician Laplace would publish the first speculation on the origin of the solar system shortly after Hume's death. It simply is not true that we cannot reason about a unique event.


 [III]  Hume's Central Circularity

The issue to be decided is whether the order in nature is the result of intelligent design. If it is, then the properties of matter (the color, luster and density of gold, for example) are also the result of intelligent design. Postulating a dichotomy between intelligent design and the properties of matter therefore amounts to postulating a priori that there is no design in nature. Hume (and all who follow him) essentially follow a grand circularity:
Matter and the laws of nature are defined a priori to be separate from any intelligent design.
Order in nature is shown to be the result of the laws of nature and the properties of matter
Therefore order in nature is not the result of intelligent design

Nowhere is the circularity more blatant than Jacques Monod's Chance and Necessity. Monod starts by asking what criteria one would use for deciding something was intelligently designed and defines two criteria: repetition and geometric regularity. But, he hastens to add, these criteria apply only at the microscopic level. The distinction is entirely ad hoc because, if we applied it at the microscopic level, the Argument from Design would follow automatically. In any case, the distinction is nonsense, since macroscopic non-biological structures like crystals, cloud patterns and orbital resonances in the Solar System display repetition and geometric regularity, and microscopic structures like computer chips are of clearly intelligent origin (the bug in the first Pentium chip notwithstanding).


 [IV] Lacuna Matata (Don't Sweat the Holes)

There's probably no greater lacuna in Hume's reasoning than in Part IX. Demea asks why there should be something rather than nothing, and why the universe we know instead of something else. By definition there can be no external cause, hence the only explanation is a logically necessary Being who "carries the Reason of his existence in himself, and who cannot be supposed not to exist without an express contradiction." (I run into people who quite literally cannot conceive of their religious beliefs being wrong, for whom the very concept of the Koran being wrong is a logical contradiction.)

Hume puts the reply in the mouth of Cleanthes, who says it only to forestall Philo. Hume presumably assigns this role to Cleanthes to spare Philo the burden of attacking every religious doctrine and thereby alienating readers, but it's quite definite here that Cleanthes is voicing Hume's own convictions. He says:
Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no Being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no Being, whose existence is demonstrable.

This is essentially disproof by outright denial. We can conceive of God as non-existent, hence God cannot be logically necessary. The only thing missing is any proof that the conception of God as non-existent is valid even in principle. Cleanthes shortly cites the idea that 2 + 2 = 5 as an example of a logical contradiction. By the logic above, if I say I can conceive of 2 + 2 = 5 not being a contradiction, that makes it non-contradictory, since I can conceive of the contradiction being non-existent.

Cleanthes (Hume) goes on to say that the universe might well contain hidden attributes that would make its non-existence seem as contradictory as the non-existence of God. Considering how hard Hume hammers elsewhere at the unproven nature of religious conjectures and their ad hoc nature, postulating wholly unknown properties for the universe is a nice case of the pot calling the kettle black.

But there's more. Cleanthes (Hume) says the only argument that persuades him the universe (rather than God) is not the necessarily existent entity is the fact that we can validly conceive of it being different. "But it seems a great partiality not to perceive, that the same argument extends equally to the Deity." Let this soak in. The entire thrust of Hume's arguments up till now, mostly as voiced by Philo, have been that we cannot reason from our knowledge of design on earth to design in the universe. Now Hume uses Cleanthes to assert that because we can conceive of matter being different than it is, we are justified in conceiving of God being different than he is. If there is something about God that makes him logically necessary and immutable, it must be attributes we do not know, and we have no way of knowing whether the same qualities might not reside in nature. We're back to proof by postulating unknown hypothetical properties of the universe.

Hume essentially gets away with using mutually contradictory arguments by putting them in the mouths of two different characters, but nothing could be clearer than that Cleanthes, in this section, is relating Hume's ideas exactly.

 [V] A Truly Weird Argument

In Part VII, Philo describes that in Indian mythology, the universe was spun by a great spider, and goes on to say:
And were there a planet wholly inhabited by spiders (which is very possible) this inference would there appear as natural and irrefragible as that which in our planet ascribes the origin of all things to design and intelligence, as explained by Cleanthes.

This argument is so wonderfully naive and blatantly anthropomorphic one hardly knows where to begin. A good starting point is to say duh..., any primitive intelligent species is likely to picture God as a larger version of itself. Spiders on this planet don't, as far as we know, have any conception of God so we don't need to worry about what they think, if indeed they have any more cognition than a personal computer.

So Philo's hypothetical spider planet would have to be inhabited by intelligent spiders. Just as human thinkers in Hume's day had long since concluded that it was mere imagination to picture God in human form, by the time Philo's spiders reached a similar level of development, the more intelligent ones should have gotten over their primitive arachnomorphism and reached the same conclusion. No doubt their artists would still picture God as a spider, but they would realize that was an image, not necessarily reality. (The only people on our planet who really seem to believe God is an old man with a long white beard are cartoonists and atheists.)

Spider webs, of course, are a matter of biology rather than conscious effort, but a race of spiders that remained at that level would be unlikely to have enough consciousness to speculate about God. Who knows what sorts of webs intelligent spiders might spin? (Just imagine the webs a spider mathematician might weave!) And even if we postulate a race of spiders that did nothing but spin webs and engage in philosophy while waiting for hapless flies, this argument still embodies the fundamental circularity of assuming that complexity in nature (spinnerets and spider webs in this case) are not the result of design, then using their "naturalness" to "prove" that the complexity is not the result of design.

 [VI] The Problem With Disproofs Of Design

When I was attending geology field camp, a favorite pastime was hunting for arrowheads. There was no doubt about their authenticity. They were exquisitely chipped on both sides (in contrast to the clumsy modern ones sold in tourist traps) and made of obsidian, a rock not found in our field area. Most of my classmates did well to find one or two. I found dozens. In fact it got downright obscene. I found arrowheads in camp along trails that people had walked every day for weeks. The most surreal case was finding an arrowhead in my shoe one morning. I presume it was the gift of a pack rat because I guarantee none of my classmates would have given up a nice arrowhead for a practical joke!

I also found quite a few chips of red and yellow chert. They occurred in batches, and this rock, too, was foreign to the area, but I never found a full-fledged artifact of these materials. All things considered, I think it's safe to assume they were left by Indians.

At the opposite extreme of probability, the late anthropologist Louis Leakey spent a number of years excavating a site in the Calico Hills, California, convinced that he had discovered artifacts that pushed the arrival of humans in the Americas back to 100,000 years or more. The purported artifacts included flakes and crudely chipped pebbles. The problem is that the claimed artifacts come from an alluvial fan, not the gentlest depositional environment. With fist-sized pebbles being carried by flash floods, it would be surprising if there weren't a few that got chipped en route in a manner reminiscent of an artifact. Most geologists and anthropologists are convinced that's exactly what happened. (You'd never know this to look at most of the Web sites on the subject, which start at taking the artifacts at face value and drift off to the fringe from there. Very few pictures of the claimed artifacts are on line, something that hardly speaks well for their status as revolutionary discoveries or the confidence of their backers.)

So here we have chips, flakes, and chipped rocks. Are they artifacts of intelligent origin? In one case circumstantial evidence suggests they are, in the other case, not. But they're ambiguous. Maybe some single band of early humans got to Calico through some improbable series of adventures, lived for a while, then died out. We can never rule out the hypothesis short of a time machine.

Moral: If something looks complex enough to be of intelligent design, one possible interpretation is always that it is of intelligent design. It may not be, but in the absence of disconfirming evidence, intelligent design is always a viable hypothesis. We can say that it's not the only possible explanation, maybe even that it's not the most likely explanation, but it's extremely hard to dismiss the idea entirely. Intelligent design is always a possible interpretation of any sufficiently complex object.

 [VII] Why Try to Disprove Design?

In his Enquiry, Hume accurately described the Argument From Design as "useless" because in and of itself it can never "establish any new principles of conduct and behavior." The Argument From Design only shows at best that there is intelligent design in the universe; it tells us nothing about whether the entity cares about human beings, communicates with them, or has moral scruples. Of itself, intelligent design does not validate any theology beyond deism.

On the other hand, intelligent design does not violate any known facts or logical principles. So why does it meet with such fierce opposition? True, many people leap immediately from the notion of intelligent design to the theology of their particular sect, but the proper response by anyone who claims intellectual rigor is to show the hidden assumptions in that leap of reasoning.

Still, it's legitimate to raise the possibility that order in the universe arises solely from the properties of the universe itself. Or is it? We know that some cases of complex order are the result of intelligent design. We do not know that any other origin for complex order is possible. What basis do we have even for postulating such a possibility? The bottom line is that none of the criticisms of the Argument From Design are compelled by any empirical or logical evidence; they are inspired solely by the desire to discredit the Argument From Design for the sake of discrediting it.


 [VIII] The Red Herring

Parts X and XI are given over to a debate about suffering and its implications for a benevolent intelligence. Although any discussion about the nature of God has to confront this issue, it is completely premature in a debate about the existence of God. Most of Hume's readers, of course, would have thought in terms of either the God they pictured in their own theology, or no God at all (other conceptions of God being merely spurious fantasies). They would have considered Cleanthes' arguments for a benevolent intelligence inseparable from the issue of design in general. But that's no excuse for a modern reader to conflate the two issues.


[IX] Where Should We Look For Design?

It's worth looking at a list of what was not known in Hume's day:
Maxwell's Equations and the nature of electromagnetism
The Periodic Table
The structure of the atom
The nature of chemical reactions
Quantum Mechanics
Relativity
Genetics
The DNA code
Evolution by natural selection
The laws of thermodynamics
Spectroscopy
The nature of galaxies

So, although science was making thrilling progress in understanding the workings of the world, the "laws of nature" in Hume's day were mostly restricted to empirical descriptions of phenomena, and therefore the argument for and against design was waged mostly in the realm of complex natural phenomena. For every case Cleanthes can cite of two natural phenomena meshing smoothly together, Philo can cite a counter-example where the feedback fails. A century later Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection would pretty much demolish this line of reasoning.

However, a modern day Cleanthes (as opposed to his semi-literate wannabes) wouldn't point to the way a hummingbird's bill is precisely shaped to fit a certain flower (or vice versa). He would point instead to the symmetries found in physics and the way a relatively small set of fundamental laws give rise to such a vast range of complex phenomena (the Cleanthes wannabes are mostly too illiterate even to have any idea of physics). He would also point to the fact that a very slight change in some fundamental constants would either have prevented complex atoms from forming at all, or would have allowed the stars to exhaust their nuclear fuel before life could evolve.

By way of analogy, consider a chess board well into the game. Is this a product of intelligent design? The pieces might very well look randomly arrayed, although a skilled player could easily spot that some arrangements cannot be achieved in normal play. For example, one side cannot lack a king, or have a pawn in its own back row. There is a checkmate position involving a king and two knights against a lone king, but it cannot be achieved in normal play (the lone king can always evade checkmate). But there would be many positions that are ambiguous. For every masterful position Cleanthes cites as clear evidence of intelligence, Philo cites one with two passed pawns. Cleanthes suggests that some positions are artificially created as problems; Philo accuses him of creating ad hoc excuses to avoid acknowledging failures of the design hypothesis. Cleanthes argues the pieces are clearly of intelligent manufacture; Philo notes that seashells are even more intricate and are wholly natural. Cleanthes points to the geometric regularity of the board; Philo cites crystals and honeycombs as equally regular but natural structures.

The reason chess has been played as long and seriously as it has is not because people like the pieces and the board (a nice chess board and set has esthetic appeal because of our reverence for the game), but because a very sparse set of rules leads to a fantastic variety of possible outcomes. And it's in the rules, not in the pieces, the board, or any particular arrangement on the board, that we must look for intelligence. (Chess isn't a perfect analogy. There are ad hoc rules like capturing en passant. The Japanese game Go might be a better analogy for pure intelligent design, but chess is more familiar.)

Philo, of course, has not been asleep at the wheel. He would point out that the beauty of chess is rooted in the underlying laws of logic and mathematics in the universe. He would also point to hypotheses that perhaps there are many universes, and we merely occupy one where the laws of physics allow matter to evolve into complex forms.

Cleanthes would wonder, in turn, why it's valid to criticize theological concepts as ad hoc, while it's simultaneously permissible to postulate the existence of universes whose existence is entirely unproven and which may be forever untestable. He'd also wonder why the order in the universe is such a pressing scientific problem as to justify postulating a vast number of alternate universes but not to justify postulating an intelligent designer.

Reb Chaim Soloveichik

There is a Kashe  [an attack type of question] on Reb Chaim. He starts out his ideas in Tractate Shabat with a question of the Magid Mishna on the Rambam.  But then he ignores the answer of the Magid Mishna and starts out immediately with a different approach of his own. This is at a time when the answer of the Magid Mishna seems satisfactory.
  My answer to this question on Reb Chaim will be that in fact the answer of the Magid Mishna is seriously flawed.
  The Gemara in Shabat 107b brings three opinions about the statement of Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav. The Magid says that the Rambam throws out the second opinion. This in fact sounds very reasonable. Why not? We throw out "some say" all the time. This works well for the second "Some say." But once you get to the third everything falls apart. The third one refers to the Mishna, "a person traps a snake on Shabat not to be bitten is not liable."

  The third "some say" says that this Mishna is the opinion of Rabbi Shimon [that a person that does  work on Shabat not for its normal purpose is not liable]. [I.e he does not decide like  Rabbi Yehuda.] [And Shmuel is posek [decides the law] like this Mishna and the Rambam also.] This presents a question on the Rambam who holds by Rabbi Yehuda that a work done not for its purpose is still liable.

Now this whole same discussion went on for the mishna about opening a wound on Shabat. Rav Judah in the name of Rav said this is like Rabbi Shimon. This is a question on the Rambam also because he holds one can open the wound and he still holds like Rabbi Yehuda. Not that question was easy for the Magid to answer. He said the Rambam simply throws out the second "some say." I.e. that that mishna is also like Rabbi Yehuda and it is  allowed because it is not work at all. He does not open it like the doctors do. This fits perfectly. But when you get to the next "Some say," it falls apart.
I mean to say that in theory you could have the Rambam come along and say, "I say trapping the snake is A.O.K. even to Rabbi Yehuda because the reason one is not liable is not because of a work done not for its own sake, but because it is mitasek (i.e. not done in the normal way) exactly like Shmuel says about it. [And this works perfectly for Shmuel [who in fact holds by Rabbi Yehuda just like the Rambam and says it is a case of Mitasek]. But this is the place it all falls apart. The Rambam does not say it is mitasek (i.e. not done in the normal way) . He says he traps the snake in the normal way. [Not jut that he flips a vessel on it but he ties it up. That is not mitasek] This is why Reb Chaim had to throw out the Magid Mishna.]

The lesson from all this for Jews and Gentiles is simple: There is a place to go to relearn ethics. It is rigorous study of the Torah and Talmud. 
As  Pedro Blas Gonzalez  wrote in "Schopenhauer on Conscience
as the Ground of Ethics":
"While the predominant notions of ethics today are totally devoid of any religious content, moral higher ground or the capacity for transcendence, ethics, as so many today like to think of this, essentially remains a tool at the disposition of those who are socially-politically "committed." 
One clear-cut evidence for this is that nothing can be deemed ethical today that is difficult to embrace or live by. Our predominant rendition of "ethics" is conveniently and curiously geared to the exigencies of our hedonistic age. For this and other reasons, nothing ethical, according to our gurus today, can showcase an intrinsic aspect of resistance to our whims and desires."

Philosophy and philosophers.

 Not only do they have nothing of interest to say about the meaning or value of life, but even the linguistic study of languages that seems to be their main interest they get wrong.  If we start with Leibniz and Kant we get a fair account of analytic truths. Frege wanted to expand on this. Now Frege was the father of modern logic, and invented the language need to program computers. So I would rather not get on his case. But the fact is that when he tried to expand on Kant's idea, he fell into a fallacy. Not all truths are contained in the definition of a thing. If you take the logical result that use can use simple logic to derive all concepts then you can have no concepts. Wittgenstein rightfully noted the fallacy of Frege. He noted the logical conclusion of Frege would mean all sentences are synonymous. But instead of going back to the more sensible approach of Kant, he launched the post modern revolution in which philosophy has been wallowing in for almost a century.


 some of the fallacies of philosopher like Hume who he pinned down with an observation that if you have only one window pane to cover two windows then why would you move it to cover the open window? The answer is you wouldn't.  Hume =pure circular reasoning. 


 But one glance at general chasidut today will tell us that something is seriously flawed in this system.  It is not just that people have a evil inclination, but that the system itself does not make anything closely resembling a moral decent human being,-- but rather monstrosities and caricatures of humans.

The reason why Hume is learned in universities in spite of his constant falling into circular logic and Nietzsche in spite of the incoherence of his positions is I think because people simply do not want Metaphysics. This became the rallying point of Twentieth Century Anglo American philosophy. I use the word philosophy here rather loosely.

If you do not think the USA is under attack by Muslim then take a look at this: Atlas Shrugs

[From Atlas Shrugs]
The plot by a jihadist to plead guilty in plot to bomb NY Federal Reserve, the jihadi attack on a church Easter Sunday in March, the Muslim charged with jihad in New York, muslim gets ten years for plotting to blow up NY synagogues and slaughter Jews, a Washington Muslim convert who has stated his "willingness to die for Islam" stabs two people after discussion of religion, the Oregon Muslim charged with assisting homicide bomber who killed 30, the Florida Imam Hafiz Khan guilty in terror case, Yusuf Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Egyptian immigrant who on Feb. 5 allegedly beheaded two Coptic Christians living in New Jersey, Ali Syed, a 20-year-old Muslim who allegedly randomly killed three people in Southern California on Feb. 18 before killing himself, Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, a 26-year-old reported black Muslim convert who on Feb. 21 is said to have killed three people in Las Vegas, the Muslim who forced daughter into arranged marriage suspected in murders of relatives who helped her escape, the jihadist who tried to blow up the Oakland Bank of America, the NY Muslim arrested for series of 20 bomb threats, the Oregon Muslim who tried to detonate an 1,800 bomb at a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony targeting 25,000 families (check out his jihad tape), the Chicago Muslim who got 35 years for Mumbai jihad slaughter, the three NY Muslims charged with training to be jihad-martyrdom suicide bombers, the Florida Muslim planned to blow up NYC landmark, the Chicago Muslim gets ten years in prison for jihad plot, the Alabama Muslims arrested on terror charges, plotted to wage jihad in Africa, the Texas jihadi bomber Who was one chemical Away from building a bomb, the Muslim arrested for bombing Arizona Social Security office with IED, the two Florida Muslim brothers arrested on jihad charges "to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against persons and property within the United States", the four California Muslims arrested in plot to wage ‘violent jihad’ on America: plotting to kill Americans, bomb government facilities and public place, the Massachusetts Muslim who got 17 years for jihad plot to blow up Pentagon and US Capitol, a former U.S. soldier charged with conspiring to use destructive device while fighting with Al Qa'ida affiliated group in Syria, Ahmed Warsame pleads guilty in NY for providing material support to al-Shabaab and AQAP, Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif sentenced for plot to attack Seattle military processing center, Abdel Hameed Shehadeh convicted of false statements in terror case, Al Shabaab's Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed sentenced in SDNY to 111 months for conspiring to support and receive military-type training from a FTO, Federal grand jury probing double-murder in Pakistan - may have been ordered by NYC cabbie,the Texas Muslim arrested with fake military ID, weapons, access to chemical agents, the US Muslim Teen arrested in jihad bomb plot using weapons of mass destruction, targets included military recruiting centers, bars, malls, and other tourist attractions in Chicago, the "Active" terror plots linked to Iran, Hizballah in Los Angeles area,the Florida Muslim pleads guilty to terror plot to kill high ranking US military brass, the Muslim soldier who got a life sentence for second Fort Hood jihad plot, the Chicago Muslim homicide bomber that plead guilty, (there's more, much more here - scroll) and these;

In face of the Muslim threat to the continuance of Human Life on Earth, I suggest that people should prepare a survival kit.

In face of the Muslim threat to the continuance of Human Life on Earth, [see this link by Kelly Ross problems with Islam] I suggest that people should prepare a survival kit.


I should mention it is a good idea to be part of a community in which people care about each other. This you will not find on survival blogs, but I think it is the most important factor. 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 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 evolve 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.
 Muslims are becoming Homo Simia. (Race is the first step that Nature takes to divide one species into two.)

Appendix:

So deal with the fact that a Muslims are de-evolving and that survival is going to be a major issue the steps to take are as follows
1) Learn outdoor skills.
2) Get off the grid. Get solar power.
3) Learn survival skills every day. Just like you have a session in Talmud so you should have  a session in survival skills. Get a good book and learn it by heart and practice
As it says in the Gemara when there came up a question about learning about health practices--is it not Bitul Torah? The answer was it is חיותא דברייתא the life of creatures--that is humans- so of course it is not Bitul Torah
4) Learn Musar [Mediaeval Ethics]. That is learn books that deal with fear of God. This is divided into two parts. Mediaeval books which are logically rigorous but seem to be so of  ..well ... "medieval." But in spite of that that have the main spirit of fear of God. Then some more modern book of fear of God which brings the ideas home to people today. Fear of God seems to be highly related to  survival and several other things according to Isaac Blazer a disciple of Israel Salanter
5) I am not surprised that as Muslims invade Germany, who do people blame? Jews of course!
But if they would have asked me I could have told them that Muslims are bad news wherever they go and whatever they touch. They take the numinosity (holy power) out of whatever they touch and replace it with something unclean and unholy that comes from their religion. Of all peoples they conquered that sapped they energy out of. Now they are sapping the life force out of England and Germany. But all I can say to this is apparently this is what the English wanted and Germans also. But when it all goes sour who do they blame? The Jews! So let me just say --(this coming from a Jewish person) for the record to any Englishman or German or American or Russian that will listen. Keep the Muslims out. And who ever is already there kick them out before they destroy your civilization.  And if you don't want to listen to me then at least don't blame the Jews for your problems.

Torah is not a document of Pantheism

Another point is that the Torah is not a document of Pantheism. And the fact that the cult that the Gra excommunicated  represents it as pantheistic is bothersome.
The verse they use to support this says in fact the opposite of what they are claiming.  אתה הראתה לדעת כי השם הוא האלהים אין עוד מלבדו. They take the end of the verse out of context. The verse simply says that your were shown to know that the Lord is God, there are no others besides him.  There are no gods besides God. To claim what they say would mean that the Rambam and Saadia Gaon and all the rishonim and  achronim that held God made the world יש מאין ex nihilo some thing from nothing were mistaken and did not understand the Torah. To their way of thinking they would have to say "He made the world from himself."


In order to get the verse to mean what they want they conveniently forget about the first part of the verse.



But this is not the major point. The Torah itself from the first to last verse is very clear that God is not the Creation. He is something or someone beyond it. If God made the world, then he is  not the world. If he is the world, then he did not create anything. If you want an honest appraisal of Pantheism you can study Adavaita Hinduism  and Spinoza.  Jewish religious cults are being dishonest when they present the Torah as pantheism. If you like pantheism then you should study Shankara and the Bahavad Gita and the Veda,-- not Torah.

I should mention however that the main trouble with that cult is  that they are wicked and sadistic. And that is definitely not what the Torah requires. They pretend to keep Torah, but the enormous amount of sexual abuse of children and sadistic behaviors is not possible to cover up forever. Eventually people get the idea.