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From: hbb@houxt.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Ann Landers on Judaism
Message-ID: <458@houxt.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Aug-84 09:48:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: houxt.458
Posted: Mon Aug  6 09:48:18 1984
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Mark:

I cannot imagine how you can criticize my position  without  even
attempting  to  understand  what that position is. Let me analyze
your "response" piece by piece.

>I hope you never hurt yourself on Shabbat and can't call an ambulance
>because your too damn stubborn to use the phone to save your own life.
>
>I hope your mother or father never gets badly injured, and you're not
>reachable because your too brainwashed with religion to answer the telephone
>on Shabbat.

Thank you, I, too, hope that neither my parents nor  myself  ever
get injured on Sabbath (or any other time, for that matter.) Your
response is totally ridiculous. I explicitly stated that  calling
for an ambulance would be one of several actions permitted on the
Sabbath. It is permitted precisely because it is done to  save  a
life. The saving of a life supercedes the Sabbath laws.

What your statement does is bolster my claim that  the  arguments
used  against  observance of the Sabbath laws (and any other laws
of Judaism) are nothing more than straw-men!

>I know I wouldn't want to find out in the newspaper that my parent was hurt.
>That's pretty unfeeling, but typical of folks that are super-religious, to
>suggest that you wouldn't want to be notified in case of an emergency
>just because of some law that says you shouldn't use the telephone on Shabbat.

If someone is injured and I am not a person that  can  help  that
person, then calling me is a waste of valuable time that could be
better spent calling on experts who could help. An example  would
be  a doctor. By all means, call the doctor. But since I am not a
doctor, you shouldn't conatct me.

While it is quite true that I am most interested in  the  welfare
of  my  parents,  and  that  I  would  want to know right away if
something (Chas Veshalome) ever happened to them, I realize  that
letting  me  know  about  it  on  Shabbat  will not improve their
chances for recovery, precisley because I haven't the ability  to
heal  them. I would be thankful that they received prompt medical
attention before any thought of contacting me was made.

As for the snide remark you made  about  lack  of  feeling  being
"typical   of   folks  that  are  super-religious,"  I  say  that
misrepresenting other peoples' point of view  simply  to  bolster
your  own  position  about  which  you display a tremendous guilt
complex is the  epitome  of  an  "unfeeling"  characteristic!  To
subsequently  accuse  these  same people of poor character traits
you yourself display, is hipocrasy!  It  would  appear  that  the
"super-religious"  do  not  have  any  sort  of monopoly in those
areas.

>By the way, has it ever occurred to you that phones did not exist in biblical
>times, and that therefore this law is not an original law.  But yet you still
>observe it!
While it is true that phones did not  exist  in  biblical  times,
this  has nothing to do with originality of any of the laws. When
new inventions or new discoveries are made, what the  sages  have
always  attempted  to do was determine what characteristics there
were in this new object so that it could be  classified  and  the
proper laws be attributed to it.

Fire has been around for quite  a  while  and   electricity   was
found  to   have   many   of   the  same qualities.  It  is  true
that  by   going   this  route  we  have  not  formulated  a  law
specifically designed for electricity.  However, this is much the
same process as modern day secular courts use to  pass  judgement
on  cases  before  them.  The  most   important   concept in  U.S
Jurisprudence  may  be precedence - basing judgements on previous
cases.

>Technology definitely was not an issue in biblical times.  That's why that
>argument was not used then.  Now, however, the rapid and accelerated growth
>of technology affects all of us. 

Technology was as much an issue in biblical times as it is today.
You   seem  to  have  forgotten  that  tools  were  used  in  the
contruction of buildings and in the manufacture of cloth and  for
metalwork  in those days. The invention of the plow is attributed
to Noah. During the construction of the Mishkan  in  the  desert,
the  Jewish  artisans produced very detailed and beautiful works.
This may not be modern technology as we think of it today, but it
was modern then.

>It is the super-religious who want to hold back technology and, therefore,
>hold back the advancement of mankind.
Oh, brother. I hardly think that members of that "super-religious" group you
speak about would ever have entered a fields like computer science had they
really wanted to hold back technology. You will find religious physicists,
educators, chemists, pharmacists, engineers, etc if only you will look.

>It's no "straw-man" argument -- it's quite real.
Wrong. It is nothing more than a straw-man!

>Not seeing that is living with you eyes closed.
That goes both ways.
-- 
Harlan B. Braude
{most "backbone" sites}!houxt!hbb