Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:54, 8 November 2002

Hi RK, I don't want to clutter up or involute the relikgious pluralism talk page more, so let me just reply to your most recent comments with a couple of quick points: You ask, "SR, You write "What I mean is this: to me, this account of Judaism makes Judaism (at least according to some people at one time) non-pluralistic." In what way do you mean this? Judaism in many eras didn't grant other religions the same respect that it gave itself (and I think often for good reason)." I guess this goes to my point that we need to distinguish between a variety of pluralisms. To me, the strongest pluralism is entirely relativist (there is no absolute truth, all truth-claims are relative). I think this is different from people who claim "my system is better than yours, but yours still has some validity (especially when if converges with what I think!). And I think this second position is different from those like the one I was responding to, like "only Judaism was true." This seems to me to be inherently non-pluralist, but I will now admit that one could perhaps come up with a kind of pluralism that will make room for this statement and competing statments like "only Christianity was true" or "only Islam was true." I think it would take more work than the first kind of pluralism! Again, I am asking you to do more work, but I wish you could explore these three (or are there more?) kinds of pluralism, both abstractly, and as they may or may not be found in different varieties of Judaism.

One other point I want to make -- I am no Wittgenstein expert, but I do not think he backed down from his position. But I do think a lot of people misinterpreted his position, thinking that the word "game" necessarily means it is trivial. The Roman gladiators played games in which they died, and today people make and lose fortunes over games. I think Wittgenstein meant something else by "game," I think he meant it in the sense that there were rules that determined what constituted an intelligible (let alone effective) action. Thus, the rules for football and soccer are different -- in soccer you just cannot hold the ball and run with it, if you did you would be penalized and some people would think you were just nuts. But I think LW understood that different language games could have very very serious consequences.

I do think you and I agree on a lot of things; I hope you take most of my comments not as criticisms (I don't think you do) but as suggestions about things you could clarify or expand on in the article. Perhaps you think some of the things you have written in response to me on the talk page is evident in the article itself. A main point of my comments is that I think some points are in the article, but could be made more explictly or developed. Anyway, good job! SR

RK, how is your knowledge of the Great Revolt? Have you seen the page, Fall of Jerusalem? I have serious problems and do not even know where to begin (although nixing the "AD" would be a start); I was wondering whether you have looked at this and what you think, Slrubenstein

I haven't looked here at my Talk page for a while, so I just found your comment! I'll take a look at it and see if there is anything that I can meaningfully contribute. RK

This is a prophecy about the future fates of two ethinic groups, but not about the individual fates of specific people. The Jewish tradition holds that the fate of individual Arabs and Jews is not predestined in any way. I wonder if you are using the word "predestinaion" in a way that other English speakers do not use it? It seems to me that you are using this word as a general description of any form of visions of the future. However, I have only seen this word used to describe it when God is said to predetermine an individuals' fate before they are born, which is a different concept. RK

I hope that all of these rhetorical questions aren't irritating. I'm struggling to understand. These are decisions concerning divine intentions toward people not yet born, which are then carried through. It appears to me that prophecy also involves predestination: not necessarily in the sense of a future after death, but surely in the sense of Israel's status and the promise that the blessing of God for the other families of the earth is destined to come through Israel.

None of these fascinating questions are bothersome in the slightest! RK

It's in order to make room for ideas such as this, that I think that the article on predestination needs to be made more inclusive and not focus, to the exclusion of comparable ideas, on a small segment of the Protestant Reformation. I do not think that it is factual to imply that only the Calvinists have an idea of a God capable of infallibly declaring the future lot of anyone: particularly since the Calvinists derive this notion from the Jewish Scriptures. To escape that erroneous idea, I think that the entry would be improved by including Judaism in the fuller explanation of what is meant by predestination: either as the very thing, or at the very least a comparable idea -- mkmcconn 9/17/2002, Tuesday 10:44 AM

Hey, RK. Please take a look at the following: Yeshivish, Yeshiva, Kollel, Shabbos, Rabbenu, Yinglish, etc. Also note that a new article, Yidden, is in store for us too. I am really at a loss here. Danny

RK, I really feel uncomfortable banning someone from the project, although of course I sympathize with you here. On the one hand, I do not think that some of EW's new articles are any worse (silly or mistake-ridden) than many other Misplaced Pages articles, meaning over time others can improve them. On the other hand, the revert war going on on some of his articles is just ridiculous. By the way, I haven't checked out Gemarah yet, although I just assume you are correct. I would like to know what Danny thinks. But here is what I suggest: first, freeze one or two of those pages that are constantly being reverted, and give people some time to figure out what to do. Second, ask a couple of sysop people to review the history and talk pages of some of the egregious cases. I am on your side, but think it would be more effective to build a more general consensus. As you know, I have been involved in some revert wars myself (most recently in the Jesus article) -- that was resolved without any permanent blocking. That is probably not going to happen in this case, I know. No matter how right you may be, my point is just that Misplaced Pages is by its nature prone to such stuff and the community and the process has ways -- over time -- of handling it without blocking, and if we are going to block someone it has to be because a few other people have come to reach this conclusion. Slrubenstein

Hi RK, I looked at Holocaust Theology briefly -- this week is very busy for me -- and it looks good. Personally I'd like to see more detail on people like Rubinstein and Fackenheim. I may try to contribute although my knowledge of these areas is way way out of date. I remmeber a French theologian writing something about silence, I do not know if I am able to retreive his name.

I do think there is a larger issue: to what extent people see the Holocaust as unique or not. My sense is that a lot of Jewish "Holocaust" theology does not claim the Shoah is unique, and in fact do not call for a specifically (or unique) "Holocaust" theology, but rather use' the Holocaust to recover earlier Jewish responses to suffering, such as Kabbalah, the notion of Tikun Olam, and Zionism -- all these things existed prior to the Holocaust but were able to claim greater significance after. I do not know, I hope I am not babbling, I gotta run but will go over the page more carefully later. Good work, though! Slrubenstein PS can you work on the COnservative section of "segments of Judaism" -- I really don't like it, and your comments on the now archived talk page seem much better, Slrubenstein

RK, please take it easy, dude. This is not a murder trial.

Also, I would appreciate you did not remove comments you made after others have answered them. It makes other people's replies to you seem out context and is, as far as I am concerned, a demonstration of lack of integrity.

I appreciate your contributions to wikipedia, and I encourage you to be respectful of others, and stand behind your words.

Oh, and another thing. When there is a paragraph break in my comments, it's because I meant for a paragraph break to be in my comments ;) Christopher Mahan