- Do you know anything about Fiqh?
Nope. The application of Islamic law isn't anything I know about.
- Equivocation. & you're
contradicting yourself.
No, I’m citing a truth in law. If
you don’t have a background in law, let me know and I’ll explain further.
- Yes, obviously. Hence, the
aforementioned analogy.
So then you just contradicted
yourself. You said that rulings aren’t law. I said they are, and you agreed
with me.
- False. I established the fact that
it is a false claim.
No, you simply asserted it was
false. You have presented no provable fact to such. That seems to be your
approach and it isn’t fruitful.
- Ad hominem. Your opinions =/=
facts.
Not only isn’t it an ad hominem to
point out that you lack information, I didn’t present opinion – I gave a truth
evident in Judaism. If you don’t know the facts, that doesn’t make them an
opinion.
- More claims. Care to prove any of
them?
You want me to cite the various
halachot which show an awareness of either changing time/societal norms or
textual understandings? Well, I eat turkey, but not kitniyot (but I do eat
gebrochts), so there’s some. Matrilineal descent (in certain denominations) is
another. If you aren’t fluent with the various threads of Judaism and the
halachic process (and the laws, themselves) then citing things will only
confuse you. Take a look at Mas Shekalim (page 20ish) for an entire discussion
in which the law changes based on the locale and the community.
- Don't tell me about their claims.
If you believe they don't reject scriptural ideals & practices in favor of
secular ones, *show* me proof.
Wait, what? You are still stuck on “scriptural
ideals” as if they exist alone in terms of authority. But I have already shown
you that this is wrong. Oh wait. That was in the article you won’t read. Then
you insist that religious ideals are, by definition, exclusive of secular
ideas? That’s still wrong so the opposition you demand doesn’t exist (“reject
in favor of”). You are making more assertions that aren’t the case anywhere but
in your head. Not useful.
- If we didn't have a common base of
knowledge we wouldn't be talking about this.
Untrue. We would be (and are)
talking, just at cross purposes. An ignorant person can talk about anything with an
expert if he doesn’t care about being wrong.
- The stage is yours, show me the
proof, since you know what it is.
I did show you the proof – it is in
an article easily available online. You want me to read it and summarize it for
you when it takes pages and pages and is full of citations and proofs? Sorry,
but thinking requires work on your part, not spoonfeeding.
- You believe in the truth of their
claim right?
Nope.
- If you disagree, refute my
arguments & address my objections. All you doing is bare assertions on top
of bare assertions.
When you make a statement about
Judaism that is wrong, and I say it is wrong, you label my statement a “bare
assertion” but somehow, your initial claim isn’t? Laughable.
- Again with the post-modernist
nonsense. There is such a thing as superior & inferior understanding, there
is such a thing as 'better' & 'worse', 'true' & 'false", 'right'
& wrong', 'authoritative' & 'non-authoritative'...etc.
I don’t think you understand
post-modernism. Or if you do, you are misapplying it. You want to say that
there is such a thing as “superior” and “inferior” but don’t seem to be able to
quantify how one determines it in the example I gave. So you sidestep and try
to apply a label so you can dismiss the entire line of thinking. Not fruitful.
I could say
"Islam is not an Abrahamic faith" and you would answer "because
the Quran..." which demands an a priori acceptance of the authority of the
Quran which is innate in Islam. Self-serving, using the questioned
claim's source authority to establish the claim.
- First of all, your premise rests
on a definition, thus any conclusion from that is deductively derived.
Yes. Premises depend on definition.
You define “religion” to exclude “reform Judaism” and then make your argument
predicated on that definition of religion. This is a flawed premise based on a flawed
definition.
- Second of all, your impersonating
answer, while have nothing to do with the premise, it also conflates an appeal
to authority: "authority
says, therefore it's true",
with defeasable reasoning: "authority says, therefore it's
authoritative/binding".
The mistake you make here is in
considering an appeal to authority as, automatically, a logical flaw. But that wasn't even the point of what I wrote. My
argument was simply mirroring yours in structure – that an in-group has its
authority and that authority exists because the in-group subscribes to it.
- if I claim my 'ultimate authority'
is the Quran, then proceed to prioritize secular values over Quranic values,
then I'm blatantly lying.
Unless you cite something from the Quran
that shows that prioritizing secular values is, itself, a demand of the Quran
or a demand, based on Quranic understanding presented by the human authorities
acceptable within the religious structure.
- Are you gunna keep that knowledge
to yourself, or are you gunna share it to support your claims.
Gee, over 40 years of formal and
informal education all “shared” in a web discussion? No, I don’t think that
that is feasible. How about I share some by citing my own sources, inviting you
to experience the same process of learning. I’ll share with you an article
about the topic that you can…um…read…for…um…
- No, it was obviously rhetorical.
Again, in your mind.
- Why would sarcastically ask about
the reformists' opinion on homosexuality right after I state that they don't
really follow the scriptures?! To prove a point, which it did.
What indication was there that it
was sarcastic? You made an assertion that a group doesn’t follow scriptures and
I disproved that by answering your question. Did you not want an answer because
it would do exactly this? Now, THAT was rhetorical because I know the answer.
- The scriptures prohibit
homosexuality.
That’s debatable even on its face but
that would depend on your understanding of the scriptures. And, if the
authority of the scriptures is (as it is in Judaism across the board) complemented by human authority in interpreting and applying the scriptures,
then the conclusion you draw about a certain behavior may not be in line with a
religious set of laws that come from an accepted authority. The fact that other
behaviors have NOT been permitted under that structure actually strengthen the
point that reform rabbinic authority is still limited by scripture.
- That's the claim. I doubt you're a
true orthodox jew as you say, I've never seen an orthodox jew say things like
this before...
OK, you haven’t. You must not hang around with all the orthodox Jews I hang around with. Also, by the way, I’m
not just an Orthodox Jew. I’m an ordained orthodox rabbi. True fact. Of course,
you can claim this is just an unproven assertion but that won’t change the way
people address my mail.
- There is the article, where is
*your* argument. "Here is an article, therefore I'm right" is not an argument. You have yet to address any of my
objections or refute any of my arguments.
It isn’t my job to refute your
arguments when they are wrong based on your ignorance. It is your
responsibility, when confronted with resources, to inform yourself. Your
refusal to do so is sad. If I made a comment and someone said “that’s not true,
as proven by this article” I would look at the article instead of repeatedly
saying “SPOONFEED ME”.
