Questions about Judaism

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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby DamianaRaven » Fri May 31, 2013 5:30 pm

Tablo wrote:What does a jew look like?


Jerry Seinfeld is a handsome example, in my opinion. Stereotypical attributes include: dark, curly hair (known to some as the Jewfro) prominent nose, big dark eyes, full lips, and an olive-toned complexion. Nicely done on the DNA recipe, I must say.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Fri May 31, 2013 9:23 pm

LaChaise wrote:I don't know if that's true in the US, but in france you can guess quite safely with just the first name. For example, Sara and Rachel are mostly jewish names.


When my parents named my brother Benjamin and me Rebecca, all my dad's friends asked if my mum was Jewish and vice versa. But then all the cool kids copied us, so now there are lots of Benjamins and Rebeccas.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Learned Nand » Fri May 31, 2013 10:56 pm

Tablo wrote:What does a jew look like?

Well, they're about 12 feet tall when standing upright and covered in brown fur. They're quadripedal and hibernate during the winter. Their diet consists primarily of salmon and berries. Right, Eric?

DamianaRaven wrote:I'd like to take this moment to sincerely thank the Jewish people for their contribution to the entertainment industry! I mean, just... WOW!

Thanks, I suppose Though I prefer our contributions to science. Not so much our contributions to the banking crisis.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:10 am

aviel wrote:
Tablo wrote:What does a jew look like?

Well, they're about 12 feet tall when standing upright and covered in brown fur. They're quadripedal and hibernate during the winter. Their diet consists primarily of salmon and berries. Right, Eric?

It's salmon, berries, humans, and trash! And you call yourself a Jew!
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Learned Nand » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:27 am

Ericthebearjew wrote:It's salmon, berries, humans, and trash! And you call yourself a Jew!

I know that humans are a popular food but it's technically not Kosher so I left it out, okay?
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:36 am

I swear, you two almost make me want to convert. Seriously though, I feel the presence of God in this thread and I'm pretty sure He's laughing happily at us.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby D-LOGAN » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:45 am

DamianaRaven wrote:I swear, you two almost make me want to convert. Seriously though, I feel the presence of God in this thread and I'm pretty sure He's laughing happily at us.


Wait, God's here? Better put some clothes on so, don't wanna get in no trouble!
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Learned Nand » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:51 am

DamianaRaven wrote:I swear, you two almost make me want to convert. Seriously though, I feel the presence of God in this thread and I'm pretty sure He's laughing happily at us.

This is kind of funny considering Eric and I are atheists.

But the process of conversion to Judaism is deliberately difficult. A lot of religions (unsurprisingly, the large ones) tend to seek out people to convert, but Judaism, if anything, actively repels people. You have to learn a good deal of Hebrew and there are tons of tests and you often have to go through the rather strict Orthodox Rabbinate. This, along with the fact that Jews tend to live in first world countries (basically all of us are in America and Israel, with a few in France), means that the non-Orthodox Jewish population has remained steady or even declined a bit since the Holocaust. It's sort of a tragedy of the commons things: sure, I guess I want the Jewish population to grow, but I definitely don't want to have to go through the child-rearing process necessary to facilitate that.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:58 am

D-LOGAN wrote:Wait, God's here? Better put some clothes on so, don't wanna get in no trouble!


You fuckin' lunatic! At what point did you take off the clothes He gave you? Wait a minute, I'm confused here. Rebo, stop that! Logan CANNOT afford to have you stealing from his meager supply of sanity.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:08 am

aviel wrote:This is kind of funny considering Eric and I are atheists.


It is funny and I can't imagine for a moment that God would disagree. Serious questions, though, if I may. Do the two of you doubt or deny the existence of God? Also, how do you figure creation came about? I admit, that's some heavy stuff to lay on you, but I believe - with all my black little heart - that at least one of you has a neat theory (or funny joke) already mapped out. Funny thing, faith... if you have it, you can do very little with it and nothing without it.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Learned Nand » Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:32 am

DamianaRaven wrote: Serious questions, though, if I may. Do the two of you doubt or deny the existence of God? Also, how do you figure creation came about?


Obviously I can't speak for Eric, but I don't believe in God because there's no evidence one exists. I try to make my beliefs as scientific as possible, so I assume the null hypothesis until other evidence comes along. In this sense my lack of belief in God is really quite mundane: it's the same as anyone's lack of belief in bigfoot or unicorns or any of the gods other people believe in that they don't. There's no evidence they exist, so why believe? Certainly if one intuits from the evidence that God likely exists he's free to prefer that hypothesis. One is really only wrong on this issue if he makes an unsubstantiated and affirmative claim.

As for the creation: we don't know, and anyone who says otherwise is incorrect. It's now well established that the universe began with the big bang, as it's called, but the origin of that singularity is, at the moment, unknown. Some people like to assert it's God. Conceivably it is, but I see no reason why it had to be a God that created the universe. I tend to prefer hypotheses that don't require a creation, but a cycle. I prefer these hypothesis because they only rely on the current and extant laws of physics: no creator or creation event is necessary.

For a while the Big Crunch hypothesis was looking nice. According to this hypothesis, eventually the universe's expansion would stop because it would run out of energy, and everything would start collapsing into the center of the universe because of gravity. Eventually everything would collapse into a singularity and then potentially explode again in another big bang. Unfortunately, the Hubble Telescope discovered a problem with this hypothesis: the universe's rate of expansion is increasing. We don't know why, but it probably has something to do with dark energy, whatever the hell that is.

One potential explanation that recently arose revolves around the Higgs' Boson. Basically, with our discovery of the Higgs' Boson, we've narrowed down the size of the boson to a specific range. If the boson is a certain size within that range, this means, for reasons I absolutely don't understand, that it can, by chance (though with extremely low probability) spontaneously form another universe expanding faster than the current one that will engulf it. It could be that there have been a series of universes that were each engulfed by faster ones as the bosons within them fell from their metastable state to a stable one.

I like both of those hypothesis (well, now only the latter, because the former has been falsified) because they don't necessitate a creation event or a creator. They work within the current laws of physics. But ultimately, who knows? It'll probably be solved soon enough but until then we don't know.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:08 am

I'm actually a pragmatic agnostic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Learned Nand » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:27 am

Ericthebearjew wrote:I'm actually a pragmatic agnostic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

I like physics and science too much to be an apatheist, but that doesn't really have to do with God: I like knowing things in general. That said, I like Apatheism just because the portmanteau is nice.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:29 am

aviel wrote:
Ericthebearjew wrote:I'm actually a pragmatic agnostic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

I like physics and science too much to be an apatheist, but that doesn't really have to do with God: I like knowing things in general. That said, I like Apatheism just because the portmanteau is nice.

Knowing things is hard.
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Re: Questions about Judaism

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Sun Jun 02, 2013 1:33 am

...
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