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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Capital Punishment
Message-ID: <1174@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 14:45:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1174
Posted: Sun Jul  7 14:45:25 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 01:23:00 EDT
References: <619@sfmag.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 68

> = YITZCHOK SAMET

> 1)  Samet's  view  is  that  everything  should  always  be  done
> according to the Torah.
> 
> Yes, the Torah does prescribe capital punishment for things  like
> sexual  sins  and  shabbos  violation.  In  fact,  it contains an
> account in which a shabbos violater was executed in Moshe's time.
> This  fact may  surprise those Jews who imagine that the Torah is
> very much in tune with modern American values.
> 
> Now, along comes someone and says "The Torah considers xyz to  be
> a  capital  crime."   This information may be quite disturbing to
> such people. They can react in different ways. Here are a few:
> 
> 1) verify that the Torah is not what they  thought  it  was,  and
> adjust to that reality, no matter how uncomfortable it may be
> 
> 2) ignore what is openly stated in the Torah, and cling to wishful
> preconceptions
> 
> 3) attack the person who makes disturbing revelations  about  the
> Torah  rather than deal with the uncomfortable dissonance between
> the Torah and modern values
> 
> After stating the fact the Torah prescribes the death penalty for
> homosexuality,   I've   been   dismissed   as   a  crackpot  (for
> misrepresenting the Torah)

Hardly.  I've never seen that here.  On the contrary, I'm relatively sure you
are representing the Torah quite accurately.

> and compared to a Nazi  for  believing in it.

And, again, rightfully so.  The point being:  you have based your views on
what is right on the content of Torah.  But who on earth are you to say
that other people are obliged to hold that same view?  You feel bound
to those laws for yourself, and that is fine.  But to claim that OTHERS
*must* adhere to them because you do is ludicrous.  What is your basis
for doing so?  Until you can give me such a basis, your assertions are NO
DIFFERENT from those who would take some arbitrarily chosen book and declare
that the content of that book consists of laws that everyone must follow.
One (very extreme) example of this is Nazism:  it holds that the content
of Hitler's writings, which declare as a valid and good end, the elimination
of Jews from the face of the earth.  Who is any of us to question that
"obviously right" set of writings?  If you proclaim that to be arbitrarily
true for one book, why shouldn't people like the Nazis do the same with theirs?
The point is that if you can justify doing it for one book without solid reason
behind it, you can do it with another.  If you don't want to create a set of
rules in which a Nazism could be justified in imposing its will on others,
you cannot hope to do the same sort of imposition yourself!

> The Nazi charge shifts attention to me rather than to the  Torah,
> which  is  the  source  of my view. I would reverse the charge as
> follows:
> 
> According to your reasoning,  you  should  compare  Judaism  with
> Nazism.   Why do you avoid  that conclusion? I think it's because
> you recognize that such a comparison is ludicrous.  If  so,  what
> does that say about your reasoning?

Read the above for the answer to that.  In short:  What is being compared
is the set of metarules that would allow for arbitrary proclamation that 
MY (or YOUR) set of rules is enforceable as law because we say so despite
our lack of evidential support for them.
-- 
Like a sturgeon (GLURG!), caught for the very first time...
			Rich Rosen   ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr