Do you believe in God?

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Self-exploration is mandated by Torah.

I'm not sure that the Self had been invented when the Torah was written. To be sure, Jews were exhorted to examine how they had fallen away from the law. However, the Torah as interpreted by the Talmud is supposed to provide the answer to every situation. While this may be an exercise requiring rigorous study, I don't think it remotely equates to open-mindedness, as we understand it. I think that openmindedness, i.e., rejection of tradition, is more a cultural product of numerous beatdowns, emigration and self-interested assimilation.

Perhaps understandably, Jews are reluctant to say that any portion of the law was wrong, the same way that we readily say that American slave owners were wrong. The nasty parts are always dismissed as primitive, tribal or needing to be put in context. Further, while there are Jewish groups that take this position, if you want to see liberal Jews' hair stand on end and their minds snap shut like dominoes, tell them that you think circumcision is wrong.

[Alex]

When I think of the watchmaker god, I like to think he didn't create an old-looking world 6,000 years ago but rather created an old-looking world in 1986. How would we know the difference?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

However, the Torah as interpreted by the Talmud is supposed to provide the answer to every situation.

That's a rather important qualifier. Talmud is a whole other story, a giant safety net intended to ensure that one comes no where close to crossing the line of the laws of torah. I have major issue with the way that Talmud has been elevated to a point where too many people have lost sight of what it actually is and venerate it more than Torah itself.

But I digress. My point was that organized religion is a tool and nothing more. Other people's use or miss-use of the tool are something I have no control over and are not my concern. All I'm concerned with is how I can make use of a tool that I've felt has helped me in my life.

As for circumcision, we've gone through that discussion before. I'll leave it at the fact that a mohel-performed bris bares little resemblence to radical circumcision performed in many hospitals which involved constriction and tearing.

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

As for circumcision, we've gone through that discussion before. I'll leave it at the fact that a mohel-performed bris bares little resemblence to radical circumcision performed in many hospitals which involved constriction and tearing.

Obviously, I didn't have the pleasure of that discussion. I've been to just one bris. The actual removal was done with just the parents present. The baby howled. The mother wept. I've heard a number of other anecdotes to the effect that "If I'd known it would be like that . . ." I submit that if Jews did not practice circumcision, Jews would have no trouble condemning at as something akin to female genital mutilation.

For some openmindedness: http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

I submit that if Jews did not practice circumcision, Jews would have no trouble condemning at as something akin to female genital mutilation.

I've seen it all, and I've seen the studies that have not shown that properly performed circumciscion carries any significant risk beyond the risk involved in any surgical procedure or lead to desensitized penis. I've also seen the studies that show that a circumsized penis leads to lower risk of infections (though that evens out with proper hygene).

Geez, I ddin't post to this thread thinking I'd have to defend my religion.

[RStar]

I don't see it as much defending as defining, at least to me reading it. It's very interesting.

I do belive.

There is so much we don't understand, that as science makes discoveries, I find that this universe could not have been just one big accident. And if God did create it, ponder this-

On the first day of creation, he created the first day. So he created time, and is outside of time. He lives forever, because there is no time where he is at. That is outside the realm of my thinking.

The big question everyone brings up. What came first, the Chicken or the egg? If you belive in what the Bible says, that God created the animals, then it is simple. He created the animals and told them to "Be fruitfull and multiply". Therefore, he made the first chicken (and hen) and then they laid eggs. So the chicken came first. At least in my mind.

[Alex]

I was very careful to not go into discussion of what I believe and am definitely trying to avoid discussion of what others say they believe.

But I want to respond to one little thing in Moonliner's post (with which I am much in agreement). Predetermination does not necessarily require pre-intent. If Newtonian mechanics had proven correct in their entirety (rather than just being correct as a subset of mechanics) they would produce an entirely pre-determined universe throughout all time without requiring a "plan" or "intent" for what happened.

[Frogberto]

Originally Posted by RStar

I don't see it as much defending as defining, at least to me reading it. It's very interesting.

I do belive.

There is so much we don't understand, that as science makes discoveries, I find that this universe could not have been just one big accident. And if God did create it, ponder this-

On the first day of creation, he created the first day. So he created time, and is outside of time. He lives forever, because there is no time where he is at. That is outside the realm of my thinking.

The big question everyone brings up. What came first, the Chicken or the egg? If you belive in what the Bible says, that God created the animals, then it is simple. He created the animals and told them to "Be fruitfull and multiply". Therefore, he made the first chicken (and hen) and then they laid eggs. So the chicken came first. At least in my mind.

But if you're going to tie your belief to scientific discoveries, then your belief system is subject to being disproved. Big Bang theory shows how the laws of the universe were created, extrapolating backwards, to include time. As Stephen Hawkings says again and again, since time is linked inseparably with matter, if the Universe slows and begins reversing back to a singularity, time would actually run backwards. Thus, the theory of relativity, which predicts manipulation of time, doesn't require a creator, and even more significantly, if there is an endless cycle of expansion and contraction, there is an infinite universe, and thus nothing for a Creator to "create".

Science has an answer to the chicken and the egg question, and it can be proven - the egg came first. A dinosaur that was one mutation away from a chicken laid an egg that contained a chicken -- the first chicken, if you will.

[RStar]

Originally Posted by Frogberto

But if you're going to tie your belief to scientific discoveries, then your belief system is subject to being disproved.

Not necessarily. Take DNA for instance. There is so much information in it in just the right order, that having it form by accident has been compared to an explosion at a printers accidentally creating a dictionary. The more I learn about the human body, the more I realize there is a creator. But that's just my take on it. I respect anyone who has other opinions.

Originally Posted by Frogberto

Big Bang theory shows how

Theory shows nothing more than the person who thought up the theory does. What ever is happening in the universe could have easily been the work of God, a god or group there of, or some E.T. out there. The creation of the universe will never be explained because we cannot prove it. Which is why we cling to beliefs, including the Big Bang.

Originally Posted by Frogberto

Science has an answer to the chicken and the egg question, and it can be proven - the egg came first. A dinosaur that was one mutation away from a chicken laid an egg that contained a chicken -- the first chicken, if you will.

Now that's an interesting theory. To my knowledge they have not yet found a "one mutation away from a chicken" dino, but I read today that they believe there are something like 70% of dinosaur species yet to be discovered. Very interesting, but do you know why the chicken crossed the road?