tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6337887555862662350.post6519386681441828481..comments2024-01-18T07:59:31.728-08:00Comments on The Second Son: Shabbos ReadingG*3http://www.blogger.com/profile/06104739087560005056noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6337887555862662350.post-2476065638349370282010-01-24T20:39:24.201-08:002010-01-24T20:39:24.201-08:00DrJ, reminds me of the old joke about the woman wh...DrJ, reminds me of the old joke about the woman who had a minhag to cut the end off her Shabbos roast every week, and found out that it had become a family tradition because her grandmother didn’t have a pot big enough to fit the whole roast.<br /><br />JG, I probably will get around to reading his other books eventually. He’s a good writer.<br /><br />MKR, 1) Could be, but the impression I got was that he was also differentiating between Christians (and others) who are constantly talking about and thinking about God and folk religions where the Divine is rather mundane. His overall point was that organized religions have sophisticated theologies while folk religions just have a set of practices without any philosophical justification. My point is that the average member of an organized religion is hardly more reflective than the theologically naïve members of the folk religions.<br />2) Thanks for the correction.G*3https://www.blogger.com/profile/06104739087560005056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6337887555862662350.post-49544927083451205522010-01-24T18:14:51.061-08:002010-01-24T18:14:51.061-08:00Members of folk religions aren’t aware of being re...<i>Members of folk religions aren’t aware of being religious and don’t spend time thinking about their faith. The deities and demons that populate their world are taken for granted, known to exist in the same way as trees do. When asked, they are unable to describe any tenants of their faith.... I think this may be true not just of philosophically unsophisticated folk religions, but of religions in general.</i><br /><br />(1) It has been a long time since I read Dennett's book, but I think that the point of difference is that when religions are formally institutionalized, they have learned authorities whose business it is to expound doctrine, while in folk religions the authorities are purely charismatic figures, even if the rank and file are equally ignorant and unreflective in the two sorts of case.<br /><br />(2) "Tenet of faith," not "tenant." "Tenant" = "one who holds"; "tenet" = "something held."Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6337887555862662350.post-22481684706690747922010-01-24T15:13:46.778-08:002010-01-24T15:13:46.778-08:00I just finished Breaking the Spell as my Shabbos r...I just finished Breaking the Spell as my Shabbos reading a few weeks ago. I like the last point you mention, and how it ties into his point about how religious beliefs often differ from other ones--for many other ones, you may not understand something, but you can at least trust that the experts do (eg E=MC squared). With religion, many of the claims are held to be incomprehensible by all. But many people don't really reflect on that, and assume that someone knows what's going on.<br /><br />If you like his style, you may like <i>Darwin's Dangerous Idea</i>, which contains his philosophy of life, science, meaning, morality, etc in light of Darwinism (I haven't finished that one yet).JewishGadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03531540800635608198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6337887555862662350.post-47867963349291176382010-01-24T02:01:20.699-08:002010-01-24T02:01:20.699-08:00We have a inside joke in our house related to this...We have a inside joke in our house related to this. <br /><br />My son in law is allergic to our dog. Everytime before he sits down on the sofa, he mindlessly but consistently takes a towel and wipes the sofa to rid it of the hair. It has become a ritual, and the ever-present hand towel has become known as the "minhag avoteinu towel". We envision that their grandchildren will all have a minhag to wipe their seats before sitting on them, but nobody will no exactly why they do it. They will come up with various possible explanations, having to do with tuma'ah, zecher l'mikdash or perhaps they will attribute special qualities to such a towel which a tzadik used.DrJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07330156581796629945noreply@blogger.com