Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
A religion is a cult that is formed around an ideology. I think its fair to say these ideologies base on a.) superstition on the one and and b.) the self interest for power and privileges of priesthoods of said religions.
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You can call religion an ideology it is all a matter of definition.
As i see modern ideologies are replacements to old religious orders and often view religion as threat to own the goals.
In Torah or bible you can find all sorts of controversial stories in particular in the early chapters which deal with establishment of monotheism.
All sort of faith tests with rewards and punishments which might be very total in attitude but seem logical for those times.
There is also issue of swift punishment for corruption and lack of competition which is portrayed in Sodom and Gomorrah fate..for example.
Ruled by greed and corruption.
The punishment might be extreme yet important is the moral teaching and what society is viewed as unacceptable to god.
Actually issues of corruption and treatment of fellow human beings is one of the issues that pop out again and again in the book...brought up by judges and prophets as warnings to the masses or the political leaders.
According to Jewish law women are equal but separate at their role in sociaty.
Viewing the role as inferior is really a matter of perspective and whom you ask.
Defined family rules solve a lot of problems from what i have seen but still i would not like to see my daughter as such unless it was her choice.
Certainly Judaism had more open view on women rights than Europeans up to 18/19 century.
Maybe one of the reason for antisemitism in past centuries could be that there had relatively well educated and successful communities in middle of dark ages Europe when people could hardly read and could only look to church priests.
At the same time Jews learned to read to be able to practice religion and dealt with theological philosophy.
When it comes to some orthodox currents i agree that there is an backward regression on some issues.
To me they are like dark ages Christians in modern times and while some communities regress and close up even more to preserve themselves others try to adapt themselves and make best of it.
The way to view Torah is not literal...i agree that god is portrayed as total at the way he acts but more important is why and for what purpose.
He puts on scary shows by those days standards but what is interesting that there is no concept of hell so no burning for eternity comes to mind.
If he was good uncle who would even piss in his direction...right?
On another hand he is not about putting on magic tricks all the time to save us from our salves....he made few strong points back then...and that's it.
When in comes to genocide at time conquering Canaan i suppose it is not much different from the way it was done by Germanic tribes in central or north Europe.
There had been some theological gymnastics to explain this but none worth mentioning besides simple practical explanation which unfortunately is unethical.
Why god could not had pulled on some magic tricks the same way he done in Egypt to scare the hell out of Canaanite tribes may be a matter of education.
God is not a nanny therefore one needs to do his dirty jobs and learn to survive in this violent environment.What ever was done it was done by the warfare rules of that time that is...if one wanted to make strong point for all to see.
Remember your calling for total war
Greeks and Romans or Egyptians had gods for every occasion here we have one that needs to deal with all sorts of issues which sometimes leads to contradictions.
On another hand assimilation usually means cultural compromise which was out of question to this new religion that had to establish itself.
Later on when Kingdom of Israel was defined wars had been fought for defensive purposes.
I cant really think of any jihadist attitude in Torah quite opposite isolationism or spreading the massage by good deeds.
That is be the light to all nations ....yeah i know lol.
I'm not religious but it is just my take on this... .
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