Philosophy

The bible, so full of contradictory statements, is a perfect setting for Rorschach tests. It’s all just spilled ink on the page. You see what you want to see. You want airy fairy hippy shit? You got it. “Sons you are, to the lord your God.” You want dogmatic, oppressive, hardline world views? You’ll...

“No other religion claims to have experienced public revelation. Therefore, it’s a claim that is so outlandish, that it must have actually occurred because otherwise no one else would have been stupid enough to believe in it, or brazen enough to ‘introduce’ it into the cultural narrative.” Thus goes the...

The following is a guest post by an anonymous contributor. I found their response articulate, poignant, and personal, stating in different tones a lot of the issues and personal grievances I struggled with myself. I relate a lot to the feeling of having given my all, trying to be...

Unofficially, using mainly common sense as our guide, we can think of two definitions of terrorism. The term gets thrown around rather freely, and is used by governments to police and invalidate a wide range of individual and social behaviors. Definition #1: Deliberate Attacks on Civilians Part of the terrorist...

The worship of Israel as a state, especially by Jews abroad, is a recent invention. Not even after its founding in 1948, was this the popular sentiment. Only after 1967 did this become the mainstream, a way for Jews to express their Judaism even if they didn’t believe in...

See also, Anal.

For a long time, I was angry at religion for its own sake. And don't get me wrong, the thing is full of irrational beliefs and oppressive ideas. But I'm coming to appreciate over time how, like almost all things, Fundamentalist Religion is really just a tool - a...

So, yeah, in case you didn't know. This is totally a real law. If you didn't wipe your butt properly, any prayer or study you've done during that time is a sin instead of a virtue. The same law (guf naki) that argues that some women shouldn't be allowed...

Torah! Oh Torah! It’s the absolute truthIt’s better than coke or ice cold vermouthThe Torah’s our guide to tell us wrongful from rightfulTo make the right choices, now ain’t that delightful?Because you can't ever just trust your own teensy brainTo make moral choices, that would be a strain Our purpose...

Without the Holocaust, Zionism would not have succeeded. It was a fringe movement, ignored by assimilated secular Jews as unnecessary, and by religious Jews as oppositional to its beliefs. The Holocaust was critical for the formation of the state of Israel - it shifted the views of Jews around...