How Eurocentric of you. You missed Hinduism, practiced by about a billion inhabitants. It’s been around for thousands of years. I don’t want to get into an advanced discussion on the Hindu religion (I don’t think this is the place for it) but they too have daily rituals and a highly complex religious system.
The fact is that while the IDEA of worshipping objects did not change for thousands of years, the Hindu religion in itself WAS constantly undergoing changes. Look at their “gods”. They have some “gods” that are barely tens of years old, they have some hundreds of years old and some thousands of years old. While They do not have a very basic set of laws that cannot be changed throughout the centuries. Rather they believe in the gods, which as I mentioned above can be old and new and various customs and rituals that have changed throughout the centuries to suit there needs.
That’s not proof. Hindus, as I mentioned, have a complex religious system
The Hindu religion is NOT based upon every aspect of their lives. While their lives revolve around their religion, they have no laws for every aspect of their lives like Jews do. And again these rituals and their gods HAVE undergone changes throughout the centuries.
The Puritans lived pretty restricted lives
The Puritans LIVED pretty restricted lives. As far as I know their offspring do not.
The bottom line is that all it proves is that people *believed them to be* incumbent or divine and had a good system for transmitting those values to their progeny. It does not actually prove that those laws and values actually are divine.
People can believe anything if you repeat it enough. The point is that were the Hindus to be forced to change religions or they would be put to death, they would change religions, just like any other people who under death threat changed their religions.
The point is not whether people will believe anything that remotely makes sense. People do. Ithink it was Geobbels y”s who said that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth.
The point is that at the start of each and every relgion the only version you that could be sold was that some individuals witnessed a miraculas event. None of the religions other than Judaism could claim at the start of there religion that theres were 600,000 witnesses to witness such an event.
The Jews who accepted the Torah would never do so had the fact that they themselves, 600,000 strong, stood and witnessed the event at har Sinai. How would they accept such an open and brazen posek would it have been a lie?
It’s funny that you mention R, C and Recon, because they actually disprove your point. The fact that these groups define Jewish law in such a radically different way disproves the point you’re trying to make. Unless, of course, you’re defining “Jews” as those who keep halacha (however you choose to define it), at which point your argument becomes circular (because your defining those who keep Jewish law according to your definition of the same.)
Some Conservatives believe (some don’t) in the divine origin of the Torah. The Reform and Reconstructionists definitely do not. And that precisely proves my point that even though they decided that the Torah is not divine, when they want to prove a point they turn to the that same Torah, because regardless what they say – THE TORAH IS DIVINE.
This post as well as wolfs last post on this subject were sent in (but not approved) before I made the request. No more in this thread please