samet@sfmag.UUCP (A.I.Samet) (06/06/85)
> But the bottom line of ALL that discussion is always (for ALL religions) > that the basis for believing is a personal one that stems from one's > own unverifiable personal subjective experience interpreted by YOU > (based on your own mindset) as "God", plus one's acceptance a priori > of certain things as true (some combination thereof). Extrapolating from "ALL religions" to Torah Judaism leads to false conclusions. Anyone who bothers to investigate the basic doctrines of Torah belief can verify that, in strong contradistinction to other religions (lehavdil), subjective unverifiable evidence is totally rejected as a basis for belief. Attributing that doctrine to Judaism is a false presumption. It also reflects the tragic fact that many assimilated Jews confuse Christian doctrine with Torah Judaism, and often lack basic information concerning fundamentals of Jewish belief. For those seeking facts concerning these fundamentals, there are many excellent books available in English. A trip to a Jewish bookstore could easily clear up some serious misconceptions like the one quoted above. (I've said before that I feel this is a critical and broad subject which should not be compressed in the form of net articles, because the presentation would suffer seriously. It warrrants a book.) Also, there is a seminar this weekend on Jewish Basics. See next posting for info. Yitzchok Samet