Noah Feldman on the contradictions of a religious community facing modernity in NY Times. If you read an essay on the contradictions of orthodoxy by anyone at any time in history, you will find the same themes discussed. Ignorance empowered by authority will always be at odds with Science, regardless of how well they've learnt to split hair and write finer points on the margins of oversized books.
Couldn't the contradictory world from which we sprang be just as rich and productive as the contradictory life we actually live? Would it really, truly, have made all that much difference? Isn't everyone's life a mass of contradictions?
asks Feldman. Is it? Or is it that the ones whose life is a mass of contradictions are the ones who need religion to justify their existence?
More like this
I haven't written a basics post in a while, because for the most part, that well has run dry, but once
in a while, one still pops up. I got an email recently asking about proofs by contradiction and
tags: Bible Contradictions Quiz Show, religion,
A bunch of people have been asking me to take a look at
href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.4433">yet another piece of Cantor crankery
recently posted to Arxiv. In general, I'm sick and tired of Cantor crankery -
The Rational Response Squad has a "competitor": a group calling itself the Righteous Response Squad. I think we can already see a problem—we can expect a dearth of originality and imagination from this new gang.
Interview with Feldman about breaking Orthodoxy.
http://www.jewcy.com/daily_shvitz/questions_for_the_author_of_orthodox_…
Thanks for the link. A thoughtful interview.
"a skewed and distasteful takedown that encourages non-Jews to gawk at the internal problems of a modern Orthodox Jewish community. Or maybe its a poignant and brave discussion of the challenges of bringing a traditional faith into modern life", thus starts the Q&A. What shouldn't non-jews 'gawk'? It's a pleasure and I don't want anyone deny me that. As for the challenges of bringing traditional faith into modern life, there's nothing new in it. Everyone who hasn't embraced rationality thoroughly is doing it in one way or other, and invariably failing in the endeavor.