Not all of us religious people want to impose what we do onto other people like Evangelical Protestants or other religious groups. Nor do we necessarily want to convince atheists or other people who believe otherwise that our way of life is correct. Lots of us just want to be left alone to practice our religion without having to listen to lectures why our religion is wrong from believers of other religions or atheists.
The entire book of Jonah? God's rage at the oppression of the poor in Amos? God's frequently expressed concerns for the welfare of the poor, the widow, and the orphan in the Torah and the Prophets.
Lets look at Leviticus, which the "OT God is evil" crowd likes to site a lot as evidence. I'm using the JPS translation, specifically Leviticus 19. In Leviticus 19:9, people are told to leave food for the stranger and the poor around harvest time. Leviticus 19:13 is a command not to commit acts of fraud or to exploit laborers. Leviticus 19:14 expresses concern with the disabled.
The rest of Leviticus 19 is an expression of similar ethical concerns that leads ultimately to Leviticus 19:33, "When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God." This is a declaration of universal love as the supreme virtue.
If you think the Torah is at least semi-divine if not outright divine in origin, probably not. If its entirely of human origins, probably not either. People and presumably God use tenses to express meaning. The fact that Hashem uses the imperfect to describe himself to Moses is evidence that either God or the human writers of the Torah did not see God as perfect.
This might just be me but I've read the entire Tanakh or as Christians put the Old Testament and never understood where the God is evil thing comes from? From my reading, God comes across as good and concerned with justice, ethics, the welfare of the unfortunate and others aspects we generally associate with morality. Maybe as a Jew I just read the Tanakh differently from non-Jews. I also read the New Testament and found it underwhelming and not as moving as the Tanakh.
We have a different interpretation than you do and I do not find the Old Testament God is evil, New Testament God good cute or appropriate. Why don't you try to understand this from our perspective?
No not necessarily so, as I mentioned above Jewish thought doesn't necessarily see God as perfect or even good in the traditional sense. Judaism isn't really a theological religion and the nature of God played relatively little role in the thinking of the Rabbis. The Rabbis were more concerned with what God wanted, the commandments in the Torah, than the nature of God. The Rabbis that did tend to think about the nature of God were more or less content to define what God is not rather than what God is but the consensus is that God is not human and describing him as good or evil really isn't that helpful.
Jewish thought doesn't see God as evil, rather God is basically seen as being beyond human comprehension. The Rambam argued that God can only be described in the negative, by what God is not rather than in the positive. Its probably better to see God as being correct rather than good or evil from a Jewish point of view.
More than a few Jewish theologians actually argue that the idea that God is perfect is inconsistent with Judaism because the Torah doesn't present God as perfect.
Kazzy, see Zic's link to Jonathan Bernstein above. The main problem with the GOP forming a viable alternative view of governance is that most members of the GOP don't believe in governance at all these days. You see this in their response to practically every problem facing America.
Lets look at transportation as an example. America, in contrast to Europe, built a transportation that was heavily dependent on the car after WWII. European countries had a more balanced approach, building highway systems and good roads for cars and transit at the same time. I think its pretty clear that the European approach was better because some very car focused places like Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Denver. The GOP's response was to respond to this in despair and speak about transit as a dangerous Europeanization of America that will destroy our freedom. I think the GOP nominee for governor awhile back lashed out against bike lanes in Denver as evil. This isn't reasonable, they can't really recognize that America's car-focused transportation system might not be the best idea.
This applies to nearly every policy choice facing America from healthcare, to security, to the environment etc. Many members of the GOP simply feel that government should not do anything but provide tax cuts for the rich and services to the right type of Americans.
James, NYC has been building luxury condos and rentals at a fairly fast and high rate in recent years. I can find several constructions sites within in a mile of me. It doesn't seem to have the affect you seem to think it will have yet.
James, I agree with you on the problems of rent control and the limited suply of super-wealthy. My main concern is that your systerm takes to long for the apartments to trickle down to the less well-off and that the less well-off still get bad places to live. We need to provide more housing now, not sometime in the future.
I mean yeah, I can understand why a married person or person with kids or some family issue can't travel much but a recent grad with few family problems, no kids, and no romantic partner doesn't have those issues. Its not like we are asking them to move to another country and work under really harsh and exploitative labor practices to.
There are millions of people in this country who have made a long and often dangerous journey in order to do farm work, construction, or restaurant work. These people are coming from societies that are very different but they do it. Moving from South Carolina to North Dakota is less of a culture schock.
Sweden isn't exactly a small country geographically, its about the size of California and not that densely populated. Whats really important though is that Sweden, when it enacted its welfare state into law, was one of the most homogeneous countries in the world. Only Japan and the Koreas were probably less diverse. The most generous welfare states tend to occur in the most homogeneous societies. At least the society needs to be pretty homogeneous when the welfare state gets built.
I think Sweden's small population also helped. The more populous country is, the less intimate society gets and everything needs to get imperssonal to run properly. Even without taking the heteorgeneous and geographic size of the United States into account, the sheer number of Americans is going to make government less personal than it is in smaller countries.
On the moving argument, I think that a lot of people are perplexed about why fewer Americans move to places where there are jobs because we have an example of people who make even greater moves for work, really shitty work. We call these people immigrants and many of them give up all the know for a job.
Considering that most jobs have already moved into the suburbs, I think the ship already sailed on that one. Still your right. It makes much more sense for jobs to be relatively centrally located in their metro area like they are in New York metro area.
My parents taught me the exact opposite. Every bill simply must be paid in full every month so you do not go into debt because going into debt is one of the worst things possible.
I agree with this, get rid of mandatory minimum parking. Still, does anybody know when the first mandatory minimum parking lot regulations appeared? Suburbs as we know them, with their strict land use and building code requirements became widespread after WWII but proto-types appeared in the interwar period even if most people still lived in more traditional towns and cities, which really only started their steep decline after 1960.*
*Most of the rust built cities like St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland reached their peak population in 1960 and started a fast and furious decline afterwards. A different set of policies might have saved American urbanism. German cities updated their tram systems into light rail systems during this period rather than rip them up like American, Canadian, and British cities did. It probably would have been a lot bettr if we followed the German model.
I agree with this, get rid of mandatory minimum parking. Still, does anybody know when the first mandatory minimum parking lot regulations appeared? Suburbs as we know them, with their strict land use and building code requirements became widespread after WWII but proto-types appeared in the interwar period even if most people still lived in more traditional towns and cities, which really only started their steep decline after 1960.*
*Most of the rust built cities like St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland reached their peak population in 1960 and started a fast and furious decline afterwards. A different set of policies might have saved American urbanism. German cities updated their tram systems into light rail systems during this period rather than rip them up like American, Canadian, and British cities did. It probably would have been a lot bettr if we followed the German model.
I'm with Chris on this, a lot of mass transit opponents think that everything will end up like Manhattan or San Francisco if we built decent mass transit systems for our cities. Mass transit doesn't necessarily mean high densities. Most of the major German cities have great transit but densities in the 5000 to slightly over 10000 people per square mile range, much less than NYC, San Francisco, Boston and others. You can have mass transit, relatively low densities, and single-family homes with lawns if you design things right.
A lot of the LA freeway system follows the Pacific Electric lines very closely. LA's sprawl has its origins in transit not the car.
America was turning into a car-friendly nation a generation or two before the Civil Rights movement. As soon as the car appeared and became a viable product for the masses, we took to it. Until the recent spat of light rail construction, the cities that didn't build a mass transit system between the 1890s and 1910 just decided to focus on cars.
If statistics are anything to go by, Americans are getting less car crazy as well. Has anybody figured out why we became car crazy in the first place and why we decided to ditch transit for the most part?
On “Sunday Morning Atheism”
Not all of us religious people want to impose what we do onto other people like Evangelical Protestants or other religious groups. Nor do we necessarily want to convince atheists or other people who believe otherwise that our way of life is correct. Lots of us just want to be left alone to practice our religion without having to listen to lectures why our religion is wrong from believers of other religions or atheists.
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The entire book of Jonah? God's rage at the oppression of the poor in Amos? God's frequently expressed concerns for the welfare of the poor, the widow, and the orphan in the Torah and the Prophets.
Lets look at Leviticus, which the "OT God is evil" crowd likes to site a lot as evidence. I'm using the JPS translation, specifically Leviticus 19. In Leviticus 19:9, people are told to leave food for the stranger and the poor around harvest time. Leviticus 19:13 is a command not to commit acts of fraud or to exploit laborers. Leviticus 19:14 expresses concern with the disabled.
The rest of Leviticus 19 is an expression of similar ethical concerns that leads ultimately to Leviticus 19:33, "When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God." This is a declaration of universal love as the supreme virtue.
"
If you think the Torah is at least semi-divine if not outright divine in origin, probably not. If its entirely of human origins, probably not either. People and presumably God use tenses to express meaning. The fact that Hashem uses the imperfect to describe himself to Moses is evidence that either God or the human writers of the Torah did not see God as perfect.
"
This might just be me but I've read the entire Tanakh or as Christians put the Old Testament and never understood where the God is evil thing comes from? From my reading, God comes across as good and concerned with justice, ethics, the welfare of the unfortunate and others aspects we generally associate with morality. Maybe as a Jew I just read the Tanakh differently from non-Jews. I also read the New Testament and found it underwhelming and not as moving as the Tanakh.
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We have a different interpretation than you do and I do not find the Old Testament God is evil, New Testament God good cute or appropriate. Why don't you try to understand this from our perspective?
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No not necessarily so, as I mentioned above Jewish thought doesn't necessarily see God as perfect or even good in the traditional sense. Judaism isn't really a theological religion and the nature of God played relatively little role in the thinking of the Rabbis. The Rabbis were more concerned with what God wanted, the commandments in the Torah, than the nature of God. The Rabbis that did tend to think about the nature of God were more or less content to define what God is not rather than what God is but the consensus is that God is not human and describing him as good or evil really isn't that helpful.
"
Jewish thought doesn't see God as evil, rather God is basically seen as being beyond human comprehension. The Rambam argued that God can only be described in the negative, by what God is not rather than in the positive. Its probably better to see God as being correct rather than good or evil from a Jewish point of view.
"
More than a few Jewish theologians actually argue that the idea that God is perfect is inconsistent with Judaism because the Torah doesn't present God as perfect.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/an-imperfect-god/
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Here is a link on the Jewish answer to Why Bad things happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner whose the Jewish expert on the matter.
http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/113001/harold-kushner-reads-job
On “How to Sustain a “Republican Spring””
Kazzy, see Zic's link to Jonathan Bernstein above. The main problem with the GOP forming a viable alternative view of governance is that most members of the GOP don't believe in governance at all these days. You see this in their response to practically every problem facing America.
Lets look at transportation as an example. America, in contrast to Europe, built a transportation that was heavily dependent on the car after WWII. European countries had a more balanced approach, building highway systems and good roads for cars and transit at the same time. I think its pretty clear that the European approach was better because some very car focused places like Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Denver. The GOP's response was to respond to this in despair and speak about transit as a dangerous Europeanization of America that will destroy our freedom. I think the GOP nominee for governor awhile back lashed out against bike lanes in Denver as evil. This isn't reasonable, they can't really recognize that America's car-focused transportation system might not be the best idea.
This applies to nearly every policy choice facing America from healthcare, to security, to the environment etc. Many members of the GOP simply feel that government should not do anything but provide tax cuts for the rich and services to the right type of Americans.
On “The Mixed Message Economy”
James, NYC has been building luxury condos and rentals at a fairly fast and high rate in recent years. I can find several constructions sites within in a mile of me. It doesn't seem to have the affect you seem to think it will have yet.
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James, I agree with you on the problems of rent control and the limited suply of super-wealthy. My main concern is that your systerm takes to long for the apartments to trickle down to the less well-off and that the less well-off still get bad places to live. We need to provide more housing now, not sometime in the future.
"
I mean yeah, I can understand why a married person or person with kids or some family issue can't travel much but a recent grad with few family problems, no kids, and no romantic partner doesn't have those issues. Its not like we are asking them to move to another country and work under really harsh and exploitative labor practices to.
There are millions of people in this country who have made a long and often dangerous journey in order to do farm work, construction, or restaurant work. These people are coming from societies that are very different but they do it. Moving from South Carolina to North Dakota is less of a culture schock.
"
Sweden isn't exactly a small country geographically, its about the size of California and not that densely populated. Whats really important though is that Sweden, when it enacted its welfare state into law, was one of the most homogeneous countries in the world. Only Japan and the Koreas were probably less diverse. The most generous welfare states tend to occur in the most homogeneous societies. At least the society needs to be pretty homogeneous when the welfare state gets built.
I think Sweden's small population also helped. The more populous country is, the less intimate society gets and everything needs to get imperssonal to run properly. Even without taking the heteorgeneous and geographic size of the United States into account, the sheer number of Americans is going to make government less personal than it is in smaller countries.
"
On the moving argument, I think that a lot of people are perplexed about why fewer Americans move to places where there are jobs because we have an example of people who make even greater moves for work, really shitty work. We call these people immigrants and many of them give up all the know for a job.
"
Considering that most jobs have already moved into the suburbs, I think the ship already sailed on that one. Still your right. It makes much more sense for jobs to be relatively centrally located in their metro area like they are in New York metro area.
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My parents taught me the exact opposite. Every bill simply must be paid in full every month so you do not go into debt because going into debt is one of the worst things possible.
On “Cars in Singapore are expensive”
I agree with this, get rid of mandatory minimum parking. Still, does anybody know when the first mandatory minimum parking lot regulations appeared? Suburbs as we know them, with their strict land use and building code requirements became widespread after WWII but proto-types appeared in the interwar period even if most people still lived in more traditional towns and cities, which really only started their steep decline after 1960.*
*Most of the rust built cities like St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland reached their peak population in 1960 and started a fast and furious decline afterwards. A different set of policies might have saved American urbanism. German cities updated their tram systems into light rail systems during this period rather than rip them up like American, Canadian, and British cities did. It probably would have been a lot bettr if we followed the German model.
"
I agree with this, get rid of mandatory minimum parking. Still, does anybody know when the first mandatory minimum parking lot regulations appeared? Suburbs as we know them, with their strict land use and building code requirements became widespread after WWII but proto-types appeared in the interwar period even if most people still lived in more traditional towns and cities, which really only started their steep decline after 1960.*
*Most of the rust built cities like St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland reached their peak population in 1960 and started a fast and furious decline afterwards. A different set of policies might have saved American urbanism. German cities updated their tram systems into light rail systems during this period rather than rip them up like American, Canadian, and British cities did. It probably would have been a lot bettr if we followed the German model.
"
I'm with Chris on this, a lot of mass transit opponents think that everything will end up like Manhattan or San Francisco if we built decent mass transit systems for our cities. Mass transit doesn't necessarily mean high densities. Most of the major German cities have great transit but densities in the 5000 to slightly over 10000 people per square mile range, much less than NYC, San Francisco, Boston and others. You can have mass transit, relatively low densities, and single-family homes with lawns if you design things right.
A lot of the LA freeway system follows the Pacific Electric lines very closely. LA's sprawl has its origins in transit not the car.
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America was turning into a car-friendly nation a generation or two before the Civil Rights movement. As soon as the car appeared and became a viable product for the masses, we took to it. Until the recent spat of light rail construction, the cities that didn't build a mass transit system between the 1890s and 1910 just decided to focus on cars.
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Unfortunately, yes. Lots of people love their cars even if the most sustainable communities are served by rail of some sort.
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If statistics are anything to go by, Americans are getting less car crazy as well. Has anybody figured out why we became car crazy in the first place and why we decided to ditch transit for the most part?
On “Thursday Night Bar Fight #11: In Which You are Not Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone”
Shoot.
On “Get a grip, Mr. Aravosis”
Kazzy, so you want to create a system where American citizens are basically only able to marry other American citizens?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.