However to know any single halacha properly one needs to know the Talmud from where that halacha comes from.

As for Halacha in fact the only valid source is the Talmud. But because not everyone has the time it is perfectly fine to go by the Rambam or the Tur Beit Yoseph. The only Achron in Halacha I have much respect for is the Aruch HaShulchan. There are people that go by the Gra in every detail like Rav Zilverman in the Old City. These are all very good approaches. However to know any single halacha properly one needs to know the Talmud from where that halacha comes from.

As for the other issues like problems with all religious teachers  being creeps that I brought up in my essay. I would not say what I say if I did not know it to be true.  And like I mentioned before there is such a thing as group behavior.  There are plenty of examples of this in the Gemara. See the end of kidushin "Where it says stay away from that group that are from such and such a city because they are all liars."  In any case my essay was really meant to address a public problem which is very real and everyone knows it except the people that want everyone else to be blind. 

And there are the obvious exceptions of people that are sitting and learning Torah all day who can be trusted and in Israel there is in fact is pretty good rigorous system in place. But these are side issues and tend to detract attention away from the widespread catastrophe that surrounds us.

It is for good reason I have mentioned the importance of  a legitimate Lithuanian yeshiva. If you do not have one there, then at least  get the book of Rav Shach so you can be yourself a walking Litvak Yeshiva, keeping the whole Written and Oral Law. Get to you also the books of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik and the other great sages of Lita.
[For example, the Even HaAzelof Rav Isar Meltzer, the rav of Rav Shach.] My learning partner, Dadvid Bronson, had a mind that could go deeply into Tosphot , but I know of no achron with that capability. So I confine myself to recommending the great sages of Lithuania that had a more global approach.
[What people call halacha nowadays is a joke. They take the majority of the frauds and liars that are as crooked as snakes and go by the majority opinion. That is what they call Halacha.]

why is there evil,

  I think the issue of "why is there evil," is confused with existence of God. Also I think in the West, a metaphysical structure of the world was denied beginning in the Middle Ages with the idea that universals do not exist  and getting up to the British empiricists. Both of these issues I think tend to obscure the central issue.\

FrankNorman

The people most likely to use the "problem of evil" as an argument against Christianity tend to have a very blurry conception of evil.
And also often to be the same people who reject the very idea of there being any transcendent standards of right or wrong.



\Frank: you brought up a good point that both points used against existence are contrary one to the other. If they hold no objective metaphysical structure of the world exists, then there is no objective evil, and so the problem of evil does not exist.

In any case, the first cause idea was already used by Aristotle himself.  People for some reason think it began with the Rambam and Aquinas based on Aristotle's' idea of a First Mover.  But in fact Aristotle does bring the idea of the first cause also in his Physics.

Here is the idea of the first cause in my own words:
Belief  in God is rational.
 Everything has a cause. So unless there is a first cause, then you would have an infinite regress. And then nothing could exist. Therefore there must be a first cause. Therefore God, the first cause, exists. QED. (You could prove the first step a priori that everything has a cause by noting that nothing can come from nothing. This makes it a priori, not just an empirical observation).

I love Avraham's Music!

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I love Avraham's Music!

religious teachers always lie

I wrote a rather sharp essay about the Mishna "עשה לך רב", "Make for yourself a rav." And I did mean to be sharp because it is misused. Even so the issue is relevant and should be addressed in a more calm fashion. The actual issue is: to whom (if anyone) must one listen?  Perhaps anyone that claims to speak in the name of Torah? Perhaps to any group that have decided to claim the title of "Rav" for themselves and their associates?
Or perhaps (as, in fact, the Torah does say) to one's parents?  Should perhaps they be given consideration? Perhaps the Torah is just making a suggestion: "It is  a good idea to listen to your parents, when you happen to agree with them"?!!

Furthermore then what place does the Oral Law --the actual tradition written down by the Tenaim and Amoraim have?

One of the "Gedolai Lita", the sages of Lithuania, Naphtali Troup addressed this issue. The name might not be familiar to you, but he has a stature close to that of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. You can find his book in yeshivas called Chidushei HaGarnat. His ideas became widespread in yeshivas even more that Reb Chaim's. But, for some reason, his reputation was eclipsed by Reb Chaim.
The idea is the command of listening to your parents is a Mitzvat Ase, מצוות עשה- positive command.
[What I mean is: It pushes off a negative command, but not a negative command that is also a positive command, nor a command that has "כרת" (being cut off from one's people) attached to it.]



As for the cult of religious teachers --they should be trashed.



As for the Oral Law --it should be learned and kept. And never trust any rabbi about what it says. They always lie.
religious teachers  always lie because the very title shows they  do not know or care what the Torah says. Ordination from Sinai  stopped during the period of the sages of the Talmud, thus anyone with ordination today is a fraud, a cheat, and  a liar.

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Avraham's Music

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The cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on always lie about everything,- especially Torah. They use true things to promote lies. They mix a little truth with the lies so it all sounds plausible.

.The cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on

The reason they lie about everything is because they are schizo personality types  and their leaders have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. hyper-graphia, hatred of sex, obsessive compulsion disorders, and are malicious. That is they intend to do harm. But they get the appearance of ‘doing good.’This  has a seductive appeal because it gives the ‘moral high ground.’ This moral high ground is then exploited to shame and barrage anyone who disagrees into oblivion

I do not think one should have a rav because they do not teach Torah. The Mishna (that one should have a rav) was referring to a rav at the time of the Mishna when there was ordination from Sinai. And furthermore there are further problems with ravs nowadays. I am not sure how to explain what is the problem but these are well known. Everyone besides themselves knows that everything they say has some agenda. You can't trust them to tell you what the Torah says

They think they are doing a favor for Reb Nachman by worshiping him

Reb Natan his disciple was a classical case of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Obsession with hared of sex, hyper-graphia. Obsession with religion. In any case, there was one person that was asked how he managed to stay married for a long time, when nowadays that is uncommon. He answered,I made sure my wife never talked with any religious teacher. Religious teachers today are extremely dangerous when it comes to keeping ones family together and to raise a healthy, wholesome family. I have been around the block enough times to know this in my own experience and many many other people's. Especially the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on . You think to gain something by their blessing? It is all an illusion only to vanish after some time

The closest you can get to the idea of a real rav is if there is a person that is actively teaching Talmud daily in a Litvak yeshiva. That kind of rav is OK. The cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on are bad people and we need to take back the Torah. The real, Torah. Religious teachers are as corrupt and crooked as a snakes, but much more dangerous. Because when one follows them he or she think he or she is doing a mitzvah. It is true that a mishna in Pirkei Avot can be used in a false way to support this conspiracy to divert Judaism into a cult of worship of the great leader. All one needs to do is get together with a few other criminals  and agree to start giving each other ordination. Then you have a mishna that tells everyone that they have to listen to a rav about all important matters in life. Even if none of these people know anything about Torah, they still get the immense authority given by this mishna over everyoneAuthentic ordination ended in the middle of the age of the amoraim (sages of the Talmud).] So the only people that get the title are only those that do not know the Torah even at the most minimal level, or are false and devious enough to know the fact and yet ignore them.Temporal lobe epilepsy is an important model of behavioral change that accounts for the overarching  increased religious interests, hypergraphia (obsesive need to write), increased moral and philosophical concerns,  and lack of humor. Hate of sexuality. Norman Geschwind. Many of Geschwind’s observations and formulations regarding this topic were highly developed in 1974, reflecting his long-standing interest in behavioral changes in epilepsy
Appendix bout Halacha. Halacha.  It is hard to give a good idea of what Halacha is. Clearly the first problem is the charlatans that claim to know it. But even if we could clear away all the trash it still is hard to get to Halacha because it has to come from the Gemara. Without knowing from where it comes inside the Gemara itself there is no halacha that comes out right. Context is everything. The way I approached Shabat was to learn masechta itself with Rashi, Tosphot, Maharasha. And besides that I had a learning partner with whom I did the Gemara, Rif, Rosh and the Shiltei Giborim on the Rif and the Tur Beit Yoseph. To my way of thinking this is the only way to do Halacha. And I am not alone in this opinion. The Maharshal wrote that it is better to poskin from the Gemara itself rather than any compilation of halacha even if one get the halacha wrong. And he wrote that specifically on the Rambam. The Maharsha wrote in a similar vein about those that poskin from the Shulchan Aruch (The large Shulchan Aruch with all the commentaries) even with knowledge of the commentaries. He wrote that it is proper to rebuke them and they are causing many people to sin. The disciple of the Gra, Reb Chaim from Voloshin wrote a response disagreeing with a pesak of some famous religious teacher and added "We only go by the law of the Gemara.There are no shortcuts to Halacha. No one has a right to an opinion in Halachah unless they have done the work. Everyone has the right to an opinion but no one has the right to an uninformed opinion.

If you want to have an opinion in the Laws of Shabat, then go through tractate Shabat with Rashi Tosphot Mahrasha Maharam from Lublin and the the Rif, Rosh, Tur, Beit Yoseph from start to finish. Every last word. Ah you say you don't have time? Then cancel your TV programs and make time. You don't have the right to an uninformed opinion