| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"wcb" |
| Date: |
23 Mar 2005 05:24:27 AM |
| Object: |
Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
March 22, 2005
Religion and Natural History Clash Among the Ultra-Orthodox
By ALEX MINDLIN
NYT
It was early January when the posters went up in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem's
largest ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, and they signaled the start of a bad
year for Rabbi Nosson Slifkin.
Twenty-three ultra-Orthodox rabbis had signed an open letter denouncing the
books of Rabbi Slifkin, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli scholar and science
writer. The letter read, in part: "He believes that the world is millions
of years old - all nonsense! - and many other things that should not be
heard and certainly not believed. His books must be kept at a distance and
may not be possessed or distributed." Rabbi Slifkin, the letter-writers
continued, should "burn all his writings."
Fundamentalist Christians have long championed a literal reading of the
Bible that suggests the planet is thousands of years old, rather than
millions. But the denunciation of Rabbi Slifkin has publicized a parallel
strain of thought among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a subset of the Orthodox
Jewish community that is deeply skeptical of modern culture, avoiding
television and the Web and often disdaining college education.
Rabbi Slifkin has made a career of reconciling Jewish Scripture with modern
natural history. He teaches a course in biblical and talmudic zoology at
Yeshivat Lev HaTorah, near Jerusalem, and gives frequent lectures,
sometimes wearing a boa constrictor along with his black hat and jacket.
With nine books to his name at age 29, he is a young up-and-comer in the
sober world of Jewish scholarship.
The controversy surrounding him has pitted Jews who are skeptical of science
against their more cosmopolitan brethren, who may follow ultra-Orthodox
traditions but hold jobs as doctors or teachers. "My sense is there are
literally tens of thousands of people who are upset about the ban," said
Dr. Andrew Klafter, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the
University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, who is ultra-Orthodox. "I'm
very, very puzzled by it."
In the days after the ban, Rabbi Slifkin's publisher and distributor dropped
the three books mentioned in the open letter. He himself lost several
speaking engagements and saw his own rabbi pressured to expel him from his
synagogue. "He was crushed," said a friend, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a
professor of Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "Do
you know what it's like to walk through the street and see posters branding
you a heretic?"
Three of Rabbi Slifkin's books, published from 2001 to 2004, were singled
out in the letter or in related materials: "Mysterious Creatures," "The
Science of Torah" and "The Camel, the Hare and the Hyrax."
Predictably, the banned books have become hits. A copy of "Science of Torah"
recently sold on eBay for $125, or five times its cover price. And Rabbi
Gil Student, whose company, Yashar Books, has taken over the distribution
of the other two books, said he had done a year's business in a month
selling them.
Rabbi Slifkin's books seek to reconcile, rather than to contrast, sacred
texts with modern knowledge of the natural world.
But in the process, he has sometimes cast a critical eye on those texts. In
"Mysterious Creatures," Rabbi Slifkin discussed fantastic animals mentioned
in the Torah and the Talmud - among them, the unicorn and the phoenix - and
suggested that, in reporting their existence, Jewish sages might have
relied on the erroneous writings of ancient naturalists.
He gently debunked the claim, found in a medieval text, that geese grow on
trees, explaining that it was "based on the peculiar anatomy of a certain
seashell." And he examined the Talmudic doctrine that lice, alone of all
animals, may be killed on the Sabbath because they do not sexually
reproduce - a premise now known to be false.
In "The Camel, the Hare and the Hyrax," Rabbi Slifkin examined the difficult
separation of animals into kosher and nonkosher, and discussed apparent
exceptions and contradictions to the claims of Jewish law. (The aardvark
and the rhinoceros, for example, meet one test for being kosher but not
another.)
And in "The Science of Torah," he took a scientist's eye to the Torah.
Evolution, he wrote, did not disprove God's existence and was consistent
with Jewish thought. He suggested that the Big Bang theory paralleled the
account of the universe's creation given by the medieval Spanish-Jewish
sage Ramban. And Rabbi Slifkin wrote, to quote his own later paraphrase,
that "tree-ring chronology, ice layers and sediment layers in riverbeds all
show clear proof to the naked eye that the world is much more than 5,765
years old."
The latter statement was particularly galling to the rabbi's critics, who
support a literal reading of Genesis that they say puts the earth's age at
5,765.
The rabbis who signed the letter denouncing Rabbi Slifkin are widely
respected Torah authorities; one of them, Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, 91, is a
leader of Israel's United Torah Judaism Party and one of the most respected
scholars in Orthodox Ashkenazi Judaism. As a result, the letter has had
repercussions far beyond the congregations of those who signed it. Rabbi
Slifkin's publisher, Targum Press, and his distributor, Feldheim
Publishers, have stopped carrying the books. Aish HaTorah, an Orthodox
outreach organization, has removed most of his articles from its Web site.
Revered though they are, however, most of the rabbis signing the letter are
not known as community leaders or public voices; only one of the Americans,
for example, sits on the eight-member Council of Torah Sages at the head of
Agudath Israel of America, an influential national Orthodox organization.
Rather, they represent the most unworldly segment of the ultra-Orthodox
community, in which learning is prized and contact with the secular world,
including secular education, is shunned.
The letter against Rabbi Slifkin is not the only recent outburst against
science among the ultra-Orthodox. Last November, during the annual
conference of Agudath Israel, Rabbi Uren Reich, the dean of Yeshiva of
Woodlake Village in New Jersey, said, "These same scientists who tell you
with such clarity what happened 65 million years ago - ask them what the
weather will be like in New York in two weeks' time."
Many science-minded ultra-Orthodox Jews say it is spiritually wrenching to
see leaders they revere endorsing views they oppose.
Rabbi Adlerstein of Loyola said: "I know rabbis, I know teens in yeshivas
who were on the verge of quitting" when the letter first came out. "They
look at themselves in the mirror and they say, 'What have I been
representing?' "
--
When I shake my killfile, I can hear them buzzing!
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
23 Mar 2005 05:26:46 AM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:1141v8u5d67q962@corp.supernews.com...
March 22, 2005
Religion and Natural History Clash Among the Ultra-Orthodox
By ALEX MINDLIN
NYT
It was early January when the posters went up in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem's
largest ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, and they signaled the start of a bad
year for Rabbi Nosson Slifkin.
Twenty-three ultra-Orthodox rabbis had signed an open letter denouncing
the
books of Rabbi Slifkin, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli scholar and science
writer. The letter read, in part: "He believes that the world is millions
of years old - all nonsense! - and many other things that should not be
heard and certainly not believed. His books must be kept at a distance and
may not be possessed or distributed." Rabbi Slifkin, the letter-writers
continued, should "burn all his writings."
(snip)
If this is true, the thought of Jews imitating nazis eliminates any hope for
the human race. Obviously we are not creatures that learn from our mistakes.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
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| User: "Secular Fundamentalist" |
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| Title: Re: Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
23 Mar 2005 08:55:31 AM |
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Denis Loubet wrote:
"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:1141v8u5d67q962@corp.supernews.com...
March 22, 2005
Religion and Natural History Clash Among the Ultra-Orthodox
By ALEX MINDLIN
NYT
It was early January when the posters went up in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem's
largest ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, and they signaled the start of a bad
year for Rabbi Nosson Slifkin.
Twenty-three ultra-Orthodox rabbis had signed an open letter denouncing
the
books of Rabbi Slifkin, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli scholar and science
writer. The letter read, in part: "He believes that the world is millions
of years old - all nonsense! - and many other things that should not be
heard and certainly not believed. His books must be kept at a distance and
may not be possessed or distributed." Rabbi Slifkin, the letter-writers
continued, should "burn all his writings."
(snip)
If this is true, the thought of Jews imitating nazis eliminates any hope for
the human race. Obviously we are not creatures that learn from our mistakes.
Religious people and psychopaths don't learn from their mistakes, the
rest of us do. Not that we make anything like as many.
--
David Silverman F.L.A.H.N.
aa #2208
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
25 Mar 2005 02:33:20 AM |
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On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 23:26:46 -0600, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com>
wrote:
"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:1141v8u5d67q962@corp.supernews.com...
March 22, 2005
Religion and Natural History Clash Among the Ultra-Orthodox
By ALEX MINDLIN
NYT
It was early January when the posters went up in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem's
largest ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, and they signaled the start of a bad
year for Rabbi Nosson Slifkin.
Twenty-three ultra-Orthodox rabbis had signed an open letter denouncing
the
books of Rabbi Slifkin, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli scholar and science
writer. The letter read, in part: "He believes that the world is millions
of years old - all nonsense! - and many other things that should not be
heard and certainly not believed. His books must be kept at a distance and
may not be possessed or distributed." Rabbi Slifkin, the letter-writers
continued, should "burn all his writings."
(snip)
If this is true, the thought of Jews imitating nazis eliminates any hope for
the human race. Obviously we are not creatures that learn from our mistakes.
That was apparent thousands of years ago and has remained since then.
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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| User: "James" |
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| Title: Re: Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
23 Mar 2005 07:17:41 PM |
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wcb wrote:
<snip>
Fundamentalist Christians have long championed a literal reading of the
Bible that suggests the planet is thousands of years old, rather than
millions.
Billions.
But the denunciation of Rabbi Slifkin has publicized a parallel
strain of thought among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a subset of the Orthodox
Jewish community that is deeply skeptical of modern culture, avoiding
television and the Web and often disdaining college education.
.... Yeah. Great way to improve the lives of your members.
--
James B, former monkey #4,567,000,000
aa #944
"Hence the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances,
compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion: Hence, it
is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any certain inference in
favour of a man's morals from the fervour or strictness of his
religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere."
-David Hume, "The Natural History of Religion"
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| User: "Tukla Ratte" |
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| Title: Re: Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
24 Mar 2005 05:46:21 PM |
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On Wednesday 23 March 2005 01:17 pm, James wrote:
wcb wrote:
< snip >
But the denunciation of Rabbi Slifkin has publicized a parallel
strain of thought among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a subset of the Orthodox
Jewish community that is deeply skeptical of modern culture, avoiding
television and the Web and often disdaining college education.
... Yeah. Great way to improve the lives of your members.
I doubt that's a concern.
--
Tukla, Eater of Theists, Squeaker of Chew Toys
a.a. #1347, Official Mascot of Alt.Atheism
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Jewish fundamentalist idiocy. |
25 Mar 2005 02:34:36 AM |
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On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:46:21 -0600, Tukla Ratte
<tukla_ratte@tukla.net> wrote:
On Wednesday 23 March 2005 01:17 pm, James wrote:
wcb wrote:
< snip >
But the denunciation of Rabbi Slifkin has publicized a parallel
strain of thought among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a subset of the Orthodox
Jewish community that is deeply skeptical of modern culture, avoiding
television and the Web and often disdaining college education.
... Yeah. Great way to improve the lives of your members.
I doubt that's a concern.
It isn't. Control and power is their 'coin.'
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
.
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