Re: Diet

Posted by fschmidt on
URL: http://mikraite.155.s1.nabble.com/Diet-tp173p226.html

or7, I only fully read your post today since it is shabbat and I have the time.  And having fully read it, I don't want to debate it.  You can have your view and I will have mine.  I don't want to change your mind, but I would like to explain a few things.

or7 wrote

By suggesting that pork is okay to eat now, you're doing violence to his law, to his holy things. Erasing the distinctions between "clean and unclean" is right up there with violating his Sabbaths: take one of those things away, and it's no longer YHWH—the Holy God of Israel, the Most High God, who created the heavens and the earth—whom you announce to the world and to each other. You might as well be worshiping yourself. By valuing your own reasonings above YHWH's commands that is exactly what you're doing. To do that is to put oneself—not YHWH and his commands—on the pedestal, as the object of worship (the one whom you submit to as Lord over your decisions, who defines what is prohibited and what is not). "No sense" to man is not "no sense" to YHWH.

This is really the core of your argument.  What I want to explain is that REASON divides into two categories, inductive reason and deductive reason.  Inductive reason is to reason about to facts and to say that facts that hold up over time tend to be true.  Inductive reason makes reality the source of truth.  Inductive reason is the basis of the scientific method as advocated by Galileo and Isaac Newton (both Christians, by the way).  Deductive reason is to reason inside your own mind.  To purely use deductive reason to arrive at truth about the world is "to put oneself on the pedestal, as the object of worship" as you say.  The primary advocate of this curse is Plato.

So now we see that there are three means of arriving at truth: there is faith, inductive reason, and deductive reason.  Clearly your means is faith while mine is inductive reason, so we will arrive at different conclusions.  But to accuse me of putting myself on a pedestal when seeking truth is unfair.  I put reality on a pedestal and I consider YHVH to be a force in that reality just as gravity is.  You put a book (the Bible) written by men on a pedestal, above reality, which I view as borderline idolatry, but which I am willing to accept if you can tolerate my view.

I have no interest in getting you to eat pork.  Eat whatever you want to.  But my eating pork does not harm you in any way, so I don't see why it should bother you.  The purpose of this web site is to encourage people to cooperate based on shared biblical values.  We expect people's views to differ on the details which is why we do not specify everything (like the Talmud does).  We encourage tolerance of differing views where these differing views do not cause harm to others.  Dietary law is a perfect example of this.