Jewish atheism would be a perfect fit for my Aunt.  She is an ethnic Jew who abhors theism itself.  I don't know to what extent, if any, that she still acknowledges her religious heritage.  She's very liberal politically, she met my uncle back in the 60's when they were both members of VISTA.  Needless to say that she is sympathetic to my lack of belief.

"Unclean" doesn't mean "yucky".  It also doesn't mean "gonna make you sick", "there's a scientific reason not to eat it", or anything else that could even REMOTELY be judged on an objective, scientific basis.

So perhaps "casual observation" is good enough?

Oh, right -- only advanced scientific knowledge is sufficient in the MODERN world.

In Europe, rabbis created a "fence" which prohibited mixing poultry and dairy, based on the prohibition of cooking a kid in its mother's milk.  I guess you think rabbis are stupid people and believe that chickens give milk, rather than that rabbis were saying that "because people might get careless, it would be better to refrain from mixing chicken and milk."  Much like "Because people might get careless, we're going to lump all these other animals into the pile, so they don't have to have some kind of highly detailed list to carry around while wandering in the desert."

"Yuck factor"?  Which "yuck factor" would that be?  The one you invented yourself?  Because I've places where many of those foods are considered to be "good eatin'".  I think I may have eaten rabbit in the past (fairy sure I have), but I know for sure I've eaten alligator and quite a few other "yucky" animals.  I eat roast or BBQ goat as often as I can find it (but not so often that I get bored with it).  Goat is kosher, but probably considered "yucky", and I'd bet may would consider it "yuckier" than rabbit.

No, I'm saying that you're a completely clueless non-Jew who's trying to co-opt Jewish texts and apply a non-Jewish understanding to them.

You can keep pretending it says it's a Science manual, but you've not presented a single shred of evidence that it does.  Quick -- claimed scientific basis for not mixing wool and linen.  You're a smart guy with lots of Torah skills, how about you find the (non-existent) scientific basis for the prohibition against mixing wool and linen.

Which stuff wrong?  The stuff it isn't even claiming is based on  scientific facts?  Like, European rabbis and their "mistaken" belief that chickens give milk?

Bob, it has become clear to me that your argument against the Torah is based on the mistaken belief that it is a Science manual of some sort.  Now that you have a member of the religion which "owns" the texts telling you that it's not a Science manual, all that's left for you to do is keep on lying and acting as though it is one.  That is perhaps one of the most dishonest of all types of arguments because it starts with an utterly false premise.  A false premise you keep being told is a false premise, but which you keep on using in spite of being informed it's a false premise.

I notice you did not acknowledge your dishonest dodge in trying to say your stupid Book "didn't say anything like that". I suppose ignoring that part of any post which clearly shows you to have been wrong - it is a pattern in your responses.

I was suggesting a reason why they those primitives who came up with the superstitious notion of "unclean" were reacting so, probably unconsciously, to the thought of "vomiting'" partly digested food back into the mouth and then proceeding to chew on it.

All I am saying is that a little more careful observation, not remotely involving "advanced scientific knowledge", would have corrected their mistake.

Obviously rabbis are stupid people if they take this crap seriously.

But getting back to the topic, what kind of stupidity could lead to people accidently "cooking a kid in its mother's milk", just because there were chickens running around?? How the fuck does that make any sense?? At best you might accidently cook a chicken with a bit of goat's milk. If they actually did what you say, for that reason, then they absolutely were stupid.

The one I described above, the idea of an animal chewing on regurgitated food. The remaining comments are irrelevant. I have eaten alligator and kangaroo and rabbit, and some antelopes - I think it was kudu.

I almost can't believe you are so dense or stubborn as to persist with this "science manual" crap.

You are making it difficult for me to retain the general respect I have had for non-fundy Jews, if your attitude is a genuine reflection of a common outlook among them.

"Co-opt Jewish texts"?? Just because I quote them to point out they are basically the same as the Christian ones, who at least had the necessary shred  of intelligence and decency to sense that the OT had a lot of really questionable stuff in it, and make a token effort to play down its importance, rather than making up a whole lot of new shit to plaster over the crap.

You are the one yet to provide a shred of justification for ignoring its many factual inaccuracies.

And failing to acknowledge that things like prohibition on mixing fibres is based on nothing more than the same primitive "thinking" than any other "taboo" is usually based on.

Pretty much everything  . 

Are you saying that rabbis actual believe chickens give milk? So you are admitting they actually were stupid? Even if they believed chickens gave milk, that still doesn't represent a risk of accidentally "boiling a kid in its mother's milk", unless they actually believed something like that chickens could give birth to baby goats.

Your refusal to acknowledge that it contains explicit factual errors that are are so fucking basic that they don't remotely require a science degree to detect, and your almost total inability to comprehend plain statements that offend your religion-warped sensibilities is actually sad.

That crazy stuff about mixing chickens and goats and trying to tie it to the prohibition about cooking a kid in its mother's milk is mind-boggling fucked-up. 

OK, I apologise, you can only eat mammals that both chew the cud and have cloven hooves - gotcha. Anyone ever attempt to explain what is the basis of that particular superstition??

So obviously the 'yuck' factor is not involved. I will concede that - I was just speculating, before realizing it was this magic combination which is the thing.

It looks like at least some scholars see this specification as 'proof' of divine inspiration, because it seems there are only four animals in all the world that fit, although the camel hoof classification is not quite as clear, but it was decided that it wasn't a TRUE cloven hoof.

Seems to be just an almost 'arbitrary' rule, to help define the 'faith'.

IOW, maybe no practical reason at all. Interesting.

Apparently a quite tasty cheese can be made from camel's milk, despite it having the wrong kind of feet...

And there is a rare cheese made in the Italian province of Tuscany from pig's milk. Major part of the reason for its rarity seems to be the sheer difficulty of milking a pig.

"Chickens and Cows"? A kid is a baby goat.

But I see it is speculated that that  "Rabbinic Judaism developed the command into the cornerstone of dietary law and saw it as a prohibition of eating milk and meat products together - a meaning entirely extraneous to the text." I have had a friend put that idea to me, that there is some problem with mixing meat and dairy, but he put in some sort of health context, not religious, AFAIK. So the meme is out there.

One suggestion of the reason for the text is that it was because certain pagan rituals literally did cook a foetal or new-born goat in its mother's milk.

All very interesting...

Seems to be mostly a matter of ritual, in the broadest sense, part of reinforcing the Jewish religious identity, to help distinguish them from all those pagans.

A pity you couldn't have been more honest and straight-forward with me, you seem to want to keep all this stuff a mystery, apparently so you can ridicule me for my ignorance. We could have had a more polite and fruitful discussion.

Still don't see where that crazy crap about separating chickens and cows came from, chickens don't seem to have anything to do with it. May look it up later, doesn't seem like you are able or willing to clarify what the hell you were talking about. It may well be be a good idea for various simple practical reasons.

As for Atheist and moral codes, good people of all beliefs are mostly good for the same reasons, our natural desire to get along with and support our social group, as all higher social animals do.

Religion is on of the most effective ways to pervert those instincts by introducing a whole bunch of primitive and ritualistic commandments and "thou shalt not"s. Not saying Judaism is too bad on that front, but religion is based on our moral instincts, rather than the reverse.

Makes sense to me.

So, just pulled out of their arse. (The cheeseburger rule, not the bit about the poor).

I was just referring to what some silly rabbi said.

Who started with the "idiot" remarks?

Still got nothing to do with any prohibition about mixing dairy and meat, or boiling kids in milk.

So you have just listed the negatives, that it is harder to update them to cope with changes in society, and you are stuck with the problems of 'black-letter' law in handling the less-than clear cut situations., and people losing sight of the idea of ethics as something you cultivate in people, rather than read out of a book.

L.Ron Hubbard's scam, 'Scientology', is indeed an example of what can go wrong with encouraging that approach to morality.

The answer is either you or Vastet.  The answer is most definitely NOT me.  And yes, I have gone back and reviewed the exchange between us.  At first you seemed to be a fairly reasonable sort of guy and then you laid into me about how stupid or whatever it was to write "G-d" instead of "God".

God God God God God God God.

Make you happy?

Maybe it's just your way of being and you don't think anything of it.  But it's very offensive and it's not leading to any good.  I've pointed it out several times to you and each time you make comments about "stupid rabbis" or whatever.  It's like you're constitutionally incapable of refraining from insulting people.

At any rate, this is pointless.  If you want to have cordial dialog, I'd suggest you be more like AtheistExtremist.

English 101 response to credibility of Bible That is simply hilarious and so true! I have students continually use Biblical scripture and stories from the Bible as research paper sources. I had one student discuss and try to argue homosexuality as a sin because of what the Bible and his religious teachings emphatically brainwash him to think. Let's think for a minute about the Holocaust and how it was not just persons of Jewish faith who were incinerated and gassed; it was homosexuals too, anyone presumably different. Back to my student who I will call Harold: I had a conference, not to change his beliefs, but to inform him it was an invalid argument. What other proof can you find, Harold? I have also had students research abortion and use Biblical scripture as source material. To which I respond, this cannot be part of your argument because it is from a Christianity standpoint not a theism standpoint or embracing other religious viewpoints. In my MLA style handbook, there is an example of how to cite Biblical scripture, which indicates in the world of MLA, citing Biblical scripture is acceptable. I have had others tell me the Bible is common knowledge, such as the story of Adam and Eve, without saying it is from the King James Version of the Bible. This is where I am torn: On the one hand, I am higher power confused and on the other hand, I believe there is SOMETHING, such as the universe that is bigger than me (All I think of there is the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon of Calvin and Hobbes standing in their backyard looking at the sky and making such a reference). So what do I tell my students? I tell them to “Consider all religious/spiritual viewpoints but realize religious argument/persuasion cannot be scholarly sources.” That, in the very least, keeps students open-minded and critical thinkers. I am not a fan of organized religion, rebelled against it in my late teens and am now 32 years old. I don’t set foot in a church unless I have to such as on the occasion of a wedding or funeral, more so out of respect for the people who are getting married and their wishes or for those who have perished. I do believe in angels, but only in a Universal sense, not in a Angel Gabriel visiting Joseph and Mary sense on Christmas Eve. But what is very interesting to me is when one Googles the Bible in terms of its credibility, there are a myriad of answers from the strictly Bible-thumper/Christian standpoints to the Militant Atheist standpoints. What do the scholars actually say? How are the secular universities viewing the credibility of the Bible? My digression has come to an end....so I will end with this quote: "Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?"--Calvin and Hobbes

The Bible actually DOES stand up to the standards of reliability and validity as applied to ancient documents.  Very little ancient history was written down in real time, or even very soon after.  Even the destruction of Pompeii was not written about until some 20 years after the fact, and that by an eyewitness.  Indeed, most ancient events and people, even important ones, were not written about in real time. So the fact that Jesus had someone writing about him, only 20 years after his death, who knew and named eyewitnesses does, at the very least, give credibility to the historical existence of Jesus.

Perhaps some research on the standard of validity and reliability of ancient documents would be in order. 

You cannot apply the literary historical method to supernatural events so don't even try this on us. You can't compare the historical destruction of a town we go on to dig up and I go on to personally walk around in with the possible existence of a water-walking 'man' born of a virgin and possessed of the homoousios of a 'living god' who exists outside space time, is defined only by qualities without definitions and whose existence is proved only by our inability to disprove it. Then there are the core principles of source criticism to consider:

The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997):[1]

Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.

Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability.

The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened.

A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source which is more reliable than a tertiary source, and so on.

If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.

The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.

If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased. 

- Wiki

So, we have the NT, a narrative whose origin cannot be known - only that it was written in a foreign land in foreign language. It was written long after the events it describes. It is not a primary source. If it was it would be written in Amaraic. It cannot claim to be an eye witness report. It implies it's author knew what jesus said to the devil when they were alone in the desert. It is clearly contrived. It is based on one document, and not clearly supported outside itself. It is motivated by bias. It has an interest in creating bias. Perhaps you could offer us some evidence that is not the doctrine of a very old cult.