Re: Hitchens on religion

n Sun, May 20, 2007 at 06:27:47PM +0000, Abe Kohen wrote:
: And I think of math as both beauty in itself, but more importantly, as a
: tool to describe physics, econometrics, and other disciplines. That options
: pricing and heat conduction can both be expressed - to a first
: approximation - by the same mathematical equations is amazing.

: What this has to do with religion is beyond me.

My point was that we accept proofs of things other than facts about
the empirical universe. Someone suggested that religious proof must be
about the empirical aspects of religion. I suggested that was ridiculous,
and gave examples of other kinds of justification of ideas. Math proofs,
and a man's love for his wife.

On Sun, May 20, 2007 at 06:27:47PM +0000, Abe Kohen wrote:
: "Micha Berger" <micha@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
:: J.B. Soloveitchik a great admirer of Kierkegaard?)

: "Not really. NeoKantians will cite [other] Existentialists, but no more
: than that. R' Soloveitchik focussed on unresolvable dialectics in the
: human condition, not the notion of man-as-process."

: In Ehnglish, pleese?

Not sure I can. Not even sure it's worth it -- Maimonides' Guide is for
the Perplexed. As he says in the intro, the reader would be happier if
he weren't bothered by such questions to begin with.

: In yeshiva we didn't study "Philosophy." And in college and grad school the
: only philosophy class I took was "Philosophy of Science." So I read Kuhn,
: Popper, Hempel, Hume and Ayer. But not more.

: Can you please point me on a simple path to self-study?

I'm not the right person to ask. I never formally studied philsophy.
Rather, I would not study a book of Jewish thought without taking a
detour to understand the references.

Maimonides required taking a break to read up on Artistotle and Plato,
and later, when I found out about it, neoPlatonism.

But otherwise, my knowledge is from Britannica. Today I would recommend
Stanford's Encyc of Philosphy <http://plato.stanford.edu>. But it won't
help with Hermann Cohen, though.

I only sound informed because it's a topic no one knows. So in the
country of the blind, the one eyed man...

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

--
Micha Berger Today is the 47th day, which is
micha@xxxxxxxxxxx 6 weeks and 5 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org Hod sheb'Malchus: What is glorious about
Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity-how does it draw out one's soul?
.

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