This is supposed to be 2007, not 1007, not 7, not 7 BC, etc.

Submitted by Issac (United States), Jan 16, 2007 at 22:55

Yakkov, in the year 2007, as far as government is concerned, religion is supposed to be optional, personally, what is important is to be a good person, not whether or not you refrain from eating pork and things like that. I do not believe that religion is necessarily obsolete ... but certain kinds of behavior certainly are obsolete.

Dictionary.com defines religion as

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

and wikipedia further elaborates on what morality is in its page under morality

ethics which pertains to matters of good and evil —also referred to as "right or wrong", used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments — sometimes called moral values —shared within a cultural, religious, secular, Humanist, or philosophical community; and codes of behavior or conduct morality.

Personal morality defines and distinguishes among right and wrong intentions, motivations or actions, as these have been learned, engendered, or otherwise developed within each individual.

It's just common sense that there is no such thing as being evil with God, just being evil with people. Being evil with God would fall under a mental disorder.

If you don't subscribe to common sense, you don't subscribe to common sense.

When you say that "The fact is that a significantly large number of people disagree with your definitions including me" as a religious Jew, and a haradi religious Jew, the idea that the number of adherents to an idea determines its trueness would be the last thing that you would want to put forward.

And they are not my definitions, they are thee definitions. I did not write them.

When you say, "So let's define my beliefs this way if it makes you happy. I subscribe to an integrated set of beliefs and behavioral standards that encompasses all of human experience including science, technology, morality and religion. I subscribe to the idea that fragmented standards produce conflicts among the fragments," what you appear to be doing is intellectualizing a mental disorder. What if one were to say, if you flip a light switch on Saturday ten times it will create a thunderstorm," people would think that this guy is nuts, what you are saying is the same thing in more supposedly intellectual terms.

As for the story about the plane landing, you presented it as fact to support your point, not as a joke.

If you are for the reestablishment of the sanhedrin, then unfortuately you have about the same amount of catching up to do as others that currently cause misery in other parts of the world in the name of religion. Perhaps if the messiah does actually come, then human nature will be different and it would be possible to mix religion with government in a way that everyone would want and religion would not be corrupted by politics, but to do so now would not be good.

Lastly, I did not start up with Haradim I merely responded to points made by you. If you happen to have a problem with people responding to what you write in an environment that facilitates a place where people can trade ideas in a civil manner, I would suggest that you don't write them. I guess you're not used to being outside of your religious enclave where everyone is each others yes man.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".