actually, according to the extremely logical rabbi I mentioned, Emunah means Trust.
Which is like Belief/faith and acting on that belief/faith.
He sees that by looking at all occurrences of the word in the torah.
He does not see it as a leap of faith. He says there is always "an if" , what if the world was created 5 seconds ago.. What if your parents are not who they claim to be - they just picked out somebody that looked like you.. We cannot know anything beyond any theoretical doubts. (infact, when proving somebody guilty, in america, they say do so `beyond reasonable doubt`, you could always find doubts - but are they reasonable!)
He disagrees with arguments of intelligent design. But he thinks the evidence is that judaism is true. And that that is not a leap of faith.. But I don`t think jews are meant to go around trying to convince gentiles that judaism is true.
note- when I did jury service, the british lawyers ask the jury "are you sure".. maybe only american ones you have to be "beyond reasonable doubt".. But i think it amounts to the same thing. Another thing to bare in mind, was we sentenced a guy for stealing.. But the law was, that he had to know he was stealing. The decider was that police testified that he was hiding away when they came, they found him in a cupboard..
In court, he denied that he was hiding in a cupboard. That, combined with his bad attitude, made us sure he was lying, and that he knew he was stealing..
Fact is.. it is possible that he only hid because he thought he might lose a future case, and he did not want police hassle, and he still felt he was not stealing. Infact, the illiterate black muslim hilariously told the policeman "I know the law, I`ve had 20 years experience!!!!"
the other case I sat in, an asian muslim.. this one was the claimant.. (the victim- allegedly). He was telling his story.. How he is a window cleaner and these guys (mostly black) kidnapped him and tried to get him to give them £10,000.. After being beaten terribly, he called his girlfriend to give them all he had. She gave them his precious rolex watch that he says he bought from an ex girlfriend for £300. The kidnapper realises it is fake. He throws it down and beats the guy further. As he gives his testimony, it turns out that he knew the kidnappers.. they were not strangers at all.. He had smoked pot with them in his car in the past.. He had been caught with them, driving a car with stolen wheels.. All these things,, he had denied. So he just was not credible. The lawyer defending him said he won`t do it. Case thrown out of court. Tax payers money spent on 4 lawyers, one for each of the criminals who the claim is against, and for the lawyer of the "victim", and on the judge and for the jury, for days.
At one point.. the lawyer for one of the criminals, the one white one, said "is it possible that my client did not kick you, he just walked from one end of the van to the other in the dark, and tripped over you?" . He said "yes, that`s possible". That was it!! other lawyers were pissed.
Maybe this compares to the mohammed`s satanic verses incident! He tries to convince the pagans, so mohammed said you can worship certain pagan gods. He was obviously poked about that, so he later said that it is wrong, and satan had got him to say that! Then there is the abrogation, so he could justify making up the rules as he went along not being bound by what he decided was law in the past. Then there is the 1 hour marriage.. The marrying and divorcing little children, aisha that 6 year old. The fact that he married an older rich woman then once he had amassed wealth from her, he married a child. This does reflect badly on his character and thus his claims.. Nevertheless, I think the fundemantal thing is no positive evidence.. Secondary thing is islam`s claims do not hold up.. e.g. about it being a continuation of the torah.. Then maybe, that he was an unethical pervert.
western values on what is ethical would condemn some things in the bible too, like killing amalek..
the capital punishments in the torah are prob not worse than the electric chair. Death was instant. e.g. stoning was strapping the person up and dropping him from a height onto a rock. So it is not as bad as islammic countries, where the crowd all join in throwing stones shouting allah akbur, and the woman is not dead for ages, and blood comes through the cloth.. and they keep throwing the stones, (I saw a video from an iranian dissident website) .. Besides the fact that in judaism, the cpaital punishment only applies if the sanhedrin are sitting in the court of the temple.. (we have no temple, and no recognised sanhedrin). And if 2 witnesses, and the guy has to agree to be killed(so must be quite a righteous person!)!! And he has to be warned beforehand.. and if they sentence more thna one person in like 50 or 70 years, they are considered a bloodthirsty court. So it is more of a deterrent.. Still though, even as a deterrent, capital punishment, even if instantaneous, for breaking a law of G-d does not fit into western values.
Topic: My letter to Sarah. (Please make this a sticky thread for 2 weeks) (Read 15300 times)