Quite a discussion. There’s much that was strung together that might better be sifted into piles.
Moses, for example. Moses was an educated man in charge of a host of ignorant, illiterate peasants who firmly believed in magical thinking. Golden idols, etc. So he knew he couldn’t make any headway with them by saying, “I’m an educated gent, and I can tell you you’re wrong.” He couldn’t say, “We’re in the desert, you fool, and if you eat that pork that’s been lying around for three days, you’re gonna get trichinosis.” Nope. He said, “GOD SAYS pork is UNCLEAN!” And then it’s on to commandments given on the mountain, etc. But the jews were “people of the book,” which was their salvation. They valued study of the Torah. Which translated to the value of study in general. And that—and prohibitions against their indulgence in other professions, plus Vatican usury laws—sent them into banking and scholarship and physics and other intellectual pursuits of value to all of us.
Now, as to truth. Most embrace a specific “truth” because it suits their disposition while giving their poor little egos some reason besides accomplishment to feel themselves superior to their neighbors. (Read your Hoffer. And, of course, your Thoreau: “If anything trouble a man, if he has a pain in his bowels even, he forthwith begins reforming the world.”) The real question is why one can’t be happy in his beliefs unless he can impose them on others. Why, for example—a simple one, admittedly—does someone claim to be allergic to perfumes. Of those who have been tested, the only ones to respond did so only at the threshold of smell. Very strange. Could the real issues be “victimization” and control.
But, of course, the worst of all truths is the current one. Beware, my friends, of the zeitgeist. The temper of times is no guide to rational thought.
Why would he say that pork was unclean, and not other meats too? Why not say that if you eat old food, you’ll get sick? These people aren’t stupid. In fact, all of these people lived in the desert. There would not be any of them left if they ate old meat on a regular bases. And why would you assume that they were ignorant and illiterate? Your idea doesn’t make sense. And making sense is the whole point of this website.
Are you saying that people defend the truth not because they think it’s true but because they’re mean, desperate people who want people to believe in them? So, if you defend the truth you’re an enemy, don’t listen to him, he’s mean?
And my eyes water when they’re too close to perfumes. You just dissed everyone in the world who’s sensitive to strong smells. Not nice, buddy.
Quite a discussion. There’s much that was strung together that might better be sifted into piles.
Moses, for example. Moses was an educated man in charge of a host of ignorant, illiterate peasants who firmly believed in magical thinking. Golden idols, etc. So he knew he couldn’t make any headway with them by saying, “I’m an educated gent, and I can tell you you’re wrong.” He couldn’t say, “We’re in the desert, you fool, and if you eat that pork that’s been lying around for three days, you’re gonna get trichinosis.” Nope. He said, “GOD SAYS pork is UNCLEAN!” And then it’s on to commandments given on the mountain, etc. But the jews were “people of the book,” which was their salvation. They valued study of the Torah. Which translated to the value of study in general. And that—and prohibitions against their indulgence in other professions, plus Vatican usury laws—sent them into banking and scholarship and physics and other intellectual pursuits of value to all of us.
Now, as to truth. Most embrace a specific “truth” because it suits their disposition while giving their poor little egos some reason besides accomplishment to feel themselves superior to their neighbors. (Read your Hoffer. And, of course, your Thoreau: “If anything trouble a man, if he has a pain in his bowels even, he forthwith begins reforming the world.”) The real question is why one can’t be happy in his beliefs unless he can impose them on others. Why, for example—a simple one, admittedly—does someone claim to be allergic to perfumes. Of those who have been tested, the only ones to respond did so only at the threshold of smell. Very strange. Could the real issues be “victimization” and control.
But, of course, the worst of all truths is the current one. Beware, my friends, of the zeitgeist. The temper of times is no guide to rational thought.
Why would he say that pork was unclean, and not other meats too? Why not say that if you eat old food, you’ll get sick? These people aren’t stupid. In fact, all of these people lived in the desert. There would not be any of them left if they ate old meat on a regular bases. And why would you assume that they were ignorant and illiterate? Your idea doesn’t make sense. And making sense is the whole point of this website.
Are you saying that people defend the truth not because they think it’s true but because they’re mean, desperate people who want people to believe in them? So, if you defend the truth you’re an enemy, don’t listen to him, he’s mean?
And my eyes water when they’re too close to perfumes. You just dissed everyone in the world who’s sensitive to strong smells. Not nice, buddy.