In a previous diary, I noted that I don't understand the Right. Some people said there's no point trying to understand the Right, since it's like a religion.
Speaking of religion...
The other day, I came across a blog post* from August by teacher and charismatic outreach lecturer Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer. He writes in part:
I just got off a long phone call with a new acquaintance, who feels surrounded by [companions] who went to [Orthodox Jewish academies] of the what-is-now-called "Charedi" variety (including one of my almae matres, the Mir in Brooklyn), who are now Orthoprax - religious in facade, and atheistic or agnostic at core.
To his mind, two separate individuals serve as inspirational beacons for these fellows: Baruch Pelta and James Kugel...
James Kugel, formerly at Harvard and currently at Bar Ilan, is a noted expert on the Hebrew Bible. In his late 60's, he is most famous for his book
How to Read the Bible. Kugel presents an explanation of the critical scholarship on the Bible in lucid language for a general audience and in the last chapter attempts to explain why, despite the problems the scholarship raises on traditional understandings of the Bible, he still practices Orthodox Judaism. This is not the place to get into subtleties of theological debates, but suffice it to say that his approach is generally rejected as heretical. His book has inspired some to question the theological certitudes regarding the Bible they were indoctrinated with.
Baruch Pelta...is me. Baruch is my Hebrew name and the name I went by while I was a born-again Orthodox Jew. I had only been in the Orthodox world 5 years when I left and became a nontheist (and more specifically, an atheist). My path to Orthodoxy was one which was odd and outside the norm of the born-again journey many people go through when becoming religious, but that's a story for another time. My journey from Orthodoxy was not at all uncommon: I became increasingly skeptical over time, my questioning led to my delegitimization in the community I wanted to be a part of, I became less emotionally attached to said community, and long story short, I ended up leaving the community. I had a few blogs, authored some articles in peer-reviewed journals, and interviewed some Orthodox thinkers, but I ended up not going through grad school, so I'm no prestigious academic. It's been almost 2 years since I left Orthodoxy; today, I'm just another 25 year old shmoe looking for work in Atlanta (can't get an MA right now for a number of reasons, although once I find a job, I'm considering studying for the LSATs on the side, in the hopes of seeing possible potential I might have in Law).
So, uh, you can imagine how it's somewhat jarring to see my name juxtaposed to an esteemed scholar's like Kugel's as an inspirational force for people no longer believing in the faith they were brought up in. But it's not as jarring as you might think. I was told by a lot of people that they'd found my last blog** to be compelling and my approach to be fair. There are also those few people who I know to have been directly influenced by my blog to become less religious. Don't get me wrong, I don't spend my days trying to get people to leave religion. I simply think some people feel trapped in their communities and have doubts about Orthodox Judaism, but not finding any rational rejection of the apologetics they were given, they feel they have no "rational" choice but to stay in their fundamentalist worlds. It traps them, and they trap their kids in a system which doesn't allow the kids to question and think for themselves; it's a vicious cycle. I sought to give such people an intellectual way out by refuting some of the most common apologetics in a few posts.
These posts were surprisingly popular. They worked, for people I knew in real life and people I'd never met before. What was my secret? It wasn't that big a deal: I listened to people. I thought about their religious proofs not only from a skeptical perspective, but from their perspective. I fundamentally understood where they were coming from, and therefore, I was able to fundamentally refute the bases of their epistemology. Once that was done, much of the other BS crumbled like a house of cards. You just have to get at the core of the ideology, slam down their specific reasons for believing. Telling an Orthodox Jew his religion's rituals look silly or that his religion is fundamentally antifeminist/antimodern, for example, won't get you anywhere. He already knows about those things, but if God commanded them, God commanded them. Plus, there are a million different Talmudically twisted reasons the rabbis give for the things which seem silly or antimodern, which can often be squeezed into a sophisticated modern worldview. You can't just quote stupid rabbis either. He'll just dismiss them with a wave of a hand, say their actions are not representative of Orthodoxy.
Today, I go by the name I grew up with, Mark Pelta. I'm trying to transfer the skill in discourse I had then to politics. So far, I've had no success. Actually, my own experience would seem to indicate that the people I've discoursed with are more set in their ways regarding politics than religion. I think the reason is because while fundamentalisms claim to be based in some sort of undeniable fact (whether it be spiritually or logically reached), political worldviews are sometimes based on emotional attachments to certain concepts (e.g. 'total negative liberty,' 'property and traditionalism'), which sophisticated professors then come up with theories to justify as not only comfortable for the people who have those ideological inclinations, but also ultimately practically best for everybody.
Do any fellow Kossacks have positive experiences convincing Republicans or libertarians to be less extreme in their beliefs, or perhaps to change their minds on any issues?
(no idea how some of the text was bolded, someone lemme know if u know how to fix that)
*not all links in original; except when otherwise noted, bracketed English words replace non-English used in original.
**Note that the dates given for posts are a year after the actual dates of postings, due to an odd system I was using.