Questions on Jewish & Christian Beliefs

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Straybow

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Originally posted by Straybow
Monotheism as a concept has no intrinsic value. Whom you worship is more important than how many.

Thats not everyones opinion.

So if someone worships Huitzilopochtli as the one true God and sacrifices unwilling humans on a regular basis, that's just as good as Judaism, Xnity, and Islam?

sacrificing unwilling humans is wrong, even the person doing so thinks they are doing to it Hashem. Its the act thats wrong in that instance . See "bringing strange fire to the Lord".

If someone worships Huitzilopochtli by prayer and other means that dont violate ethics, as the one true God, it may well be better than Christianity, depending on which commentator you follow. Im assuming Huitz is worshipped in the form of an idol. That would make his worship worse than Islam, which does not worship idols (per Maimonides, Mishneh Torah) and, if you follow those commentators who consider Christians idol worshipers (most of the big commentators im aware of on this issue are pre-Reformation, note well) than it would be better than Christianity. If you hold (as many commentators do) that Christians arent really idol worshipers, then you have monotheist idol worshippers vs trinitarian non idol worshippers.

Note, wrt Halachic relevance. Its forbidden to drink wine handled by an idol worshipper. There is debate whether noachides (non-Jews who accept Judaism as true but dont convert) are forbidden to worship idols or not.

In general Judaism, on those occasions when it has to judge other faiths, does so based on form of worship. We dont attempt to discern whether what Muslims mean by Allah is the same as Hashem, or whether the Christian trinity is related to Hashem. If youre going to play that game, how can you say that Huiti whatever isnt also Hashem, under another name?

As for Judaisms OWN philosophy, monotheism is an essential and key element, and any deviation therefrom is historically considered heresy. Which creates major issues for Kabbalists, who speak of the sefirot as "aspects" of G-d, and in some of their works appear to go beyond strict monotheism. Anti-kabbalists simply labled Kabbalah heresy. Kabbalists themselves went to great pains to avoid the notion of sephirot as distinct personalities of any kind - Im not familiar enough with their work to say to what extent they succeeded. In any case high level kabbalistic study was always limited within the population, in part to limit the temptation to polytheism, I think.

[Elok]

Okay then, how is Darius using the word "proactive" correctly?

Sorry, when I hear "annihilate" I picture an action verb, where a subject proactively annihilates an object.

At the very least, that's a malapropism.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
intrinsic doesn't mean primary

Originally posted by Straybow
Own goal?

No. Read your definition again.

"belonging to a thing by its very nature: the intrinsic value of a gold ring."

My original statement: Monotheism as a concept has no intrinsic value. Whom you worship is more important than how many.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Elok
The word was made up by the doofus from "seven habits of highly successful people." It was meant to mean the opposite of reactive; in other words, its meaning is basically indistinguishable from that of "active." It's a stupid, stupid word. Which is why it's used to sell things to stupid, stupid people.

It was posited as: Don't just be active, be proactive!

And then it wasn't enough to merely be proactive. I actually heard someone say you have to be "actively proactive."


It's the stoopidity, stoopid!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Straybow

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
intrinsic doesn't mean primary

Originally posted by Straybow
Own goal?

No. Read your definition again.

"belonging to a thing by its very nature: the intrinsic value of a gold ring."

Yes. Get it now?

My original statement: Monotheism as a concept has no intrinsic value. Whom you worship is more important than how many.

Obviously not

I was responding to this, which should have been obvious from the fact that my first post immediately followed it:

So if someone worships Huitzilopochtli as the one true God and sacrifices unwilling humans on a regular basis, that's just as good as Judaism, Xnity, and Islam?

Monotheism's intrinsic value, or the lack thereof, doesn't speak to the relative importance of monotheism wrt the choice of deity.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Elok
The word was made up by the doofus from "seven habits of highly successful people." It was meant to mean the opposite of reactive; in other words, its meaning is basically indistinguishable from that of "active." It's a stupid, stupid word. Which is why it's used to sell things to stupid, stupid people.

Actually no, it was made up by the famed psychiatrist & Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl four decades before being made a staple of corporatespeak by Covey, and subsequently bastardized by almost two decades of frequent misuse. Countless times I've heard it both used and interpreted with the meaning I described (sometimes by idiots and often not), so I honestly don't care what it was originally intended to mean. The fact that you can get so wound up over something that trivial truly saddens me. They say desensitization therapy is helpful for this sort of problem:

[LordShiva]

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

"belonging to a thing by its very nature: the intrinsic value of a gold ring."

Yes. Get it now?

No. Tell me, what value belongs to Monotheism by its very nature?

I was responding to this... :

So if someone worships Huitzilopochtli as the one true God and sacrifices unwilling humans on a regular basis, that's just as good as Judaism, Xnity, and Islam?

Monotheism's intrinsic value, or the lack thereof, doesn't speak to the relative importance of monotheism wrt the choice of deity.

Well, I was responding to this:

How is there no point to monotheism? You might as well tell me all Jews and Muslims are all wasting their time.

You still have not shown the intrinsic value of Monotheism.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Straybow

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

"belonging to a thing by its very nature: the intrinsic value of a gold ring."

Yes. Get it now?

No. Tell me, what value belongs to Monotheism by its very nature?

I was responding to this... :

So if someone worships Huitzilopochtli as the one true God and sacrifices unwilling humans on a regular basis, that's just as good as Judaism, Xnity, and Islam?

Monotheism's intrinsic value, or the lack thereof, doesn't speak to the relative importance of monotheism wrt the choice of deity.

Well, I was responding to this:

How is there no point to monotheism? You might as well tell me all Jews and Muslims are all wasting their time.

You still have not shown the intrinsic value of Monotheism.

dennis prager on ethical monotheism

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/mono.html

monotheism means one moral code. It means the whole world united under one creator. It means a connection among all things. It means wrestling with evil as part of good, not assigned to a demigod. Its a fundamentally distinct way of looking at divinity.

Now it may be that trinitarian christianity is compatible with all that, in which case trinitarian C may well be a form of monotheism after all.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Straybow
No. Tell me, what value belongs to Monotheism by its very nature?

None to me, I'm not a theist.

Well, I was responding to this:

Deal with it. You made a statement which demonstrated a clear misunderstanding of the difference between intrinsic and important. I called you out on it. I don't really care about the rest of your debate.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
None to me, I'm not a theist.

That's the subjective value.

Well, I was responding to this:

Deal with it. You made a statement which demonstrated a clear misunderstanding of the difference between intrinsic and important. I called you out on it. I don't really care about the rest of your debate.

I didn't say "important." I didn't mean "important." I meant intrinsic and used the word properly.

Now answer the question: what is the intrinsic value of monotheism?

[Straybow]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
monotheism means one moral code. It means the whole world united under one creator. It means a connection among all things. It means wrestling with evil as part of good, not assigned to a demigod. Its a fundamentally distinct way of looking at divinity.

Now it may be that trinitarian christianity is compatible with all that, in which case trinitarian C may well be a form of monotheism after all.

That exercise is particular to one specific type of monotheism. Huitzilopochtli is god of all, both good and evil. He is capricious and you never know what you're going to get. But we hope that if we sacrifice enough we'll get his favor instead of his wrath. The struggle of good and evil on a personal level is meaningless, only the results we get.

Hypothetically speaking.

[Kuciwalker]

Sigh.

So if someone worships Huitzilopochtli as the one true God and sacrifices unwilling humans on a regular basis, that's just as good as Judaism, Xnity, and Islam?

Even if we accept that Monotheism has intrinsic value it doesn't mean that worshipping Huitzstuff > worshipping the Greek pantheon. That would only be true if monotheism were a primary value.

[Straybow]

No, you don't get it. I'm not saying that monotheism has intrinsic value. Just the opposite.

[Kuciwalker]

I know that. You are trying to demonstrate it by saying "if it has intrinsic value, wouldn't this absurdity result" and I'm saying that no, it doesn't, unless you're confusing the meaning of intrinsic.