Isis vs. klal yisrael

Is that so? ISIS gives everyone a choice of becoming a tributary, leaving, or facing battle? That’s not the impression I’d gotten.

In the original conquest of Eretz Yisrael, led by Yehoshua bin Nun,

we were commanded NOT to give anyone choices, but to wipe them out.

ISIS intends to conquer areas and impose their own law on them, not

to entirely destroy the native populations and replace them.

We did what Hashem told us to and wanted us to do. They, of course, do not. They do the precise opposite, in fact. And if that is the only difference (though there are very many differences in what and how isis does and practices and behaves than what we did unlike your suggesting otherwise) then that reason alone would more than suffice. Even if they claim they are doing G-d’s work they are not, only we are, and we can disregard their claims of doing what G-d wants. Even if we cannot prove all this when arguing with non Orthodox Jews, we know it’s true. And the truth is all that matter whether or not we can defend the position we know is true.

ca: They have a religious mandate to take over the world spiritually. They are choosing to interpret that via violent and brutal war. We had a direct command to destroy 7 nations.

Lior: Your argument doesn’t work because it could have been the exact same if written by an ISIS person.

It’s not that different. The main difference is that we stopped doing that sort of thing about 3000 years ago.

The facts are a state run according us 3000 years ago would not look that different then IS looks today. We would execute non jews who steal or transgress any of the Sheva Mitzvos for that matter.

We would stone adulterers

We would kill anyone who spoke against the king etc etc.

Patur,

It’s not an argument defending what was done then.

The facts are we would not do today what isis is doing. Most European countries 1000 years ago committed atrocities back then, we are no different.

Until pretty recently the entire world and their legal systems committed atrocities. The main (and only) thing that matters is what we do today. If a Jewish Gadol said today that we should kill anyone who speaks against what he says or kill thieves or stone adulterers we would all agree that the Gadol that said this and his followers are out of their minds.

Being yeshiva guys we find lumdishe reasons as to why even though we wouldn’t do it today our ancestors were right for doing it then. (See Sam2 above) But that’s not really relevant.

000646:

I’m not following you. If we hadn’t stopped what we used to do then we would still be doing it because we would say that our religion demands it. Unless we were afraid of the repercussions. So how can we have a tayneh on them if we would do the same thing if our religion demanded it. All you are saying is that our religion no longer demands it. Now it is fine to condemn them as long as you have no problem if the world would condemn us for following our religion.

Patur,

You said: “‘m not following you. If we hadn’t stopped what we used to do then we would still be doing it because we would say that our religion demands it…. All you are saying is that our religion no longer demands it. Now it is fine to condemn them as long as you have no problem if the world would condemn us for following our religion.”

No, we would have found a reason to stop doing it. You know how I know that’s what we would have done? Because that’s what we did. We never got a direct command from Hashem to stop doing things that way, we found reasons not to (even when we had autonomy and technically could have if we wanted to).

Two people can read the same exact religious book and one will be able to find reasons why they should kill etc. and one will find a bunch of reasons why they should be nice and that killing is wrong. Both will “blame” their actions on their religious book and both will be wrong.

Pattur,

Here’s my point: if we wanted to act the way isis is acting we would be able to find plenty of sources in our religious books telling us we should do so. We don’t want to act like Isis so we look at the sources that support not killing. They act that way because they want to. They then blame it on religion.

That is a very strong possibility but not one that I think you can prove. I could make the same claim about many things in Judaism and I wouldn’t be able to prove them either.

000646 seems to be of the opinion that much of what we do does not actually emerge from our sources, but that we interpret our sources according to current external standards of behavior.

I am not sure that view can be countenanced in Judaism.

Our system is self-regulatory to ensure that the rules are applied as will be most beneficial in a given situation.

Example: When murder became more common, we ceased to judge capital cases.

(Some of the rules are not meant to be practiced, but to teach their lessons. Where circumstances will cause these rules to be put into wide practice, we stop applying those rules.)

Essential idea from an article by R’ Moshe Grylak, explaining why secular Israelis need not fear a full chareidi government of Israel (killing them for their sins).

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I must note that “coffee addict” claimed to be disingenuous in

his/her original question, meaning that he/she did not mean it sincerely. Take that how you will. Has that also been the case with others in this thread?

As a matter of fact our batei din were never bloodthirsty the way ISIS is. Executions were extremely rare. But that is beside the point. The main difference between us and ISIS (and us and the Nazis and every other bad group that ever lived) is that we were right and they are are/were wrong.

Meaning, there is no objective, outsider, point-of-view that can be used to examine the actions and positions of any group from a moral perspective. Our morals and values are shaped by the society we are brought up and reside in. Very little, if anything, can be said to be objectively bad.

Klal Yisroel received a direct transmission from the Creator of the Universe as to what our morality should be in many different situations. The same Creator that revealed that infanticide, in general, was wrong, also said that in the special circumstance of the shiva umos, it was required.

We, and modern society that was influenced by us, find the killing of children to be so repellant specifically because we have imbued the value of the sanctification of life into society as a whole. I do believe that the mitzvos are meant to achieve that effect on us, making violence against the innocent repugnant to us.

ISIS (a.k.a. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or increasingly Islamic State) is no less a threat to Klal Yisrael than were the Communists or Nazis. Again, from a “this world” perspective, our survival will largely depend on the Americans (without whom the Third Reich would rule the world today, or the Communists would have achieved the global dictatorship). While we would undoubtedly survive an Islamic conquest, just as we would have survived a thousand year global Reich, or a global “dictatorship of the proletariat” – suffice to say we’ll have more to worry about than which hecksher to buy and where to go on vacation.

edited

While the above deals with “this world” (the world of ???), frum Jews deal more with the world of ??? and have no option other than to concentrate on Torah and Mitsvos and allow Ha-Shem to take care of matters.

Lior, Beninguman, and anyone else who is saying similar things: It doesn’t matter if we are right because we have the truth. The problem is that you can’t criticize someone for something when they have the same exact excuse as you have for what you do and you don’t expect people to criticize you. You can know that you are right but you should expect to be criticized for what you do. Or don’t criticize other groups and then you can be upset when people criticize you. But you can’t have it both ways.

It doesn’t matter if we are right because we have the truth.

Of course it does. Same argument as in the other (Daas Torah?) thread. Right is right, whether you can successfully prove it or not. I think you even put a line of mine in the good quotes thread.

There can be a huge nafka mina about how much we can get away with practically; on that I think we agree.

Beniguman, You said,

“Meaning, there is no objective, outsider, point-of-view that can be used to examine the actions and positions of any group from a moral perspective. Our morals and values are shaped by the society we are brought up and reside in. Very little, if anything, can be said to be objectively bad.”

You can judge “morality” of a group or ideology objectively by looking at it and seeing if it imposes suffering on the world or does the opposite. If it decreases suffering you can call it “moral” if it increases it then it is “immoral”. So if an ideology says to kill a million people, or wound them etc. etc. or increases the suffering of the population that carries it then that ideology can be called “objectively immoral” no matter what it’s reason for imposing that suffering is.

It gets slightly more complicated when it comes to things that claim to cause suffering in the short term to specific people in order to alleviate it in the future for the society at large.

The key here would be that if you can do something without causing suffering and you choose the way that causes suffering then that would be immoral: For example; if you have a thief and you can educate him not to steal (which will cause less suffering) or lock him in Jail for 20 years, or chop off his head etc. (which would cause more suffering) then taking the second choice would be immoral. (letting him steal from victims would also cause more suffering then educating him not to steal, so here educating him would be more moral then just ignoring the situation)

Visiting an old lady in the hospital or feeding a poor person, or educating a child are all things that cause less suffering in the world and could be called moral

We can criticize others because we know they worship a falsehood. If they reciprocate the criticism, so what. We know the truth and needn’t defend it.

Coffee Addict,

Again, the war with Midian or anything that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago is not relevant to this conversation as I pointed out in my earlier comments. All that matters is what a religion or ideology causes or does today. No-one is critical of Isis, Islam or any religion because of what they may have done in the past, they are critical of what they do today.

PAA,

We can criticize ISIS from a religious perspective (i.e. we are right and they are wrong) or from secular perspective (they present a current, active threat to everyone in the Middle East, while Israel does not). The problem is only if you mix the two. I don’t see a problem criticizing ISIS for its brutality and cruelty so long as Jews and Judaims today are not similarly brutal and cruel.

Beniguman,

1.) You said,

“There are two problems with this position. First, as you yourself hint at, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine what will impose the most suffereing over the long term. ISIS might argue that they are causing a lot of suffering in the short term but in the long term the world will be vastly better off under a thousand-year world-wide caliphate. There is no way to demontrate, or even provide evidence, that ISIS is incorrect.”

They can “argue” that all they want. They would however need proof to justify it in order for anyone to take their arguments seriously: They would have to provide proof that a caliphate will cause the world to contain less suffering, and that there is no other way of accomplishing whatever the goals of having a caliphate would accomplish to lessen the suffering by causing less pain. If they did this then we could have a discussion.

2.) You said

“Second, and more fundamentally, by what objective means did you determine that “suffering” or the lack thereof, is the most important thing? Maybe truth is the most important? Maybe justice is the most important? My what objective means did you determine that it is moral and good to avoid suffering and immoral and bad to cause suffering?”

Pointless suffering by definition is something that is not what human beings (or even animals) consider a good thing, completely independent of any religious beliefs they may or may not have.

Objectivity will always from the standpoint of our existence even from a religious standpoint. What is “objectively” moral about pleasing a God? maybe God being constantly upset is more moral?

Coffee Addict,

My point is that no one is critical of Germany’s policies today because of their past Nazi government the same with Persian government and Greek government.