Sadly people just read what they want to read.
Text : Sodom was destroyed because they didnt care for the less fortunate people.
People: Sodom was destroyed because sex.
> Text : Sodom was destroyed because they didnt care for the less fortunate people
That isn't what the text says or even implies, at all.
It vaguely says it would be destroyed for "wickedness", and then when Lot goes to see whether the town can be saved, residents come and try to rape the angels accompanying Lot...
Uh, no, indifference to the suffering of the poor and weak is pretty much the mainstream Jewish interpretation of the sin of Sodom. The "homosexuality as sin" interpretation is just the usual Christian mistranslation and misinterpretation nonsense, lol. (And a few far right fundamentalist Jewish sects among the Haredim, but they're, uh, not particularly lauded among other Jews for their textual analysis, lol.)
Source please? That captures "mainstream" appropriately. Even the Jewish sources that throw out the homosexuality aspect (which is not what I'm litigating) lean into the fact that it wasn't simply about "not caring" for the poor, it was also very much about active cruelties, taboos, abominations (pick your terms) visited on pretty much everyone.
My point was not (as I repeatedly iterated) about the homosexuality angle, it was about op giving a ridiculously and unfounded analysis of Sodom. The whole point--in this is supported in pretty much every exegesis!--is that it was a place of profound and active evil, not simply because "they didn't care" for the unfortunate.
You: demand I offer you a source
Also you: claim that "pretty much every exegesis" supports your stance.
(I know, you requested a source, not demanded, but the meme format works better this way. But, nah, you can do some pretty basic googling if you want, I have way too much bureaucracy to navigate today to spend a bunch of time collating links. And not caring for the unfortunate is, uh, basically considered "active" evil in Judaism? Judaism tends to prioritize impacts above many other considerations.)
I did Google, and couldn't find anything to support your claim, which was why I came back.
I can provide individual analyses that *are* supportive to my claim (happy to if helpful?--not clear it would be, though), but it is hard to prove your negative.
Every source I find supports what I've claimed. To support yours, I would expect some sort of attempt at authoritative analysis/overview.
EDIT (b/c reply isn't saving right now):
Let's take your first link (https://www.myjewishlearning.com/2012/10/29/the-real-sin-of-sodom/).
All of the below is consistent with my original point, that the sins of Solomon went far beyond "not caring" for the poor, but included extensive, active cruelty.
If this is a distinction without a difference to you, fine--we have no argument to be made.
> The sages of the Babylonian Talmud also associated Sodom with the sins of pride, envy, cruelty to orphans, theft, murder, and perversion of justice.
> In Sodom, they had a bed for weary guests upon which they might rest. However, when the wayfarer would lie down, they made sure that he fit the bed perfectly. A short man was stretched to fit it and a tall man was cut to size.
> The place of sleep, comfort, and sexual pleasure in Sodom has been transformed into a place of threat and malice, a device of torture for strangers
> Sodom is a place where compassion is punished brutally
> What bought down the wrath of God upon Sodom was not homosexuality, but inhospitality and cruelty, arrogance and greed, callousness, fear of loss, and ultimately, violence against the stranger
Lol you're pretty bad at googling, then? Here's a few different takes, from wildly different parts of Judaism, literally all from the first page of search results.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/2012/10/29/the-real-sin-of-sodom/
https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/destruction-cities-sodom-and-gomorrah/
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2017931/jewish/Sodom-and-Gomorrah-Cities-Destroyed-by-G-d.htm
You did get me to roll my eyes hard enough to actually get the links for you, so I guess you won that victory, lol.
see, you have to understand that that's just how things were at the time-who are we to impose our modern value judgements on them, as if we know everything?
On an unrelated note, only religion (and specifically Christianity) can save us from the horrors of moral relativism
Bud, I was making no argument about "sound basis" or "moral philosophy"--that's all you.
It was strictly a question of what the text supports--nothing about whether it is consistent or whether you should live your life by it.
Ezekiel 16:49 says
âNow this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.â
What they wanted to do with the angels send there after the judgment was already upon them is secondary. (And remember ACAB includes angels!)
Yeah so they were arrogant and did abominable things, abominable in the bible includes eating shellfish, illicit sex, illicit marriages, dishonesty, pride, idolatry, stealing, breaking convenants, usury, murder stealing from the poor etc. A lot more than just sex.
[There is also this](https://lifeisasacredtext.substack.com/p/on-the-sin-of-sodom) sodom from the jewish perspective, which has a bit of the extended backstory on Sodom.
Ow certainly. A deeper scholarship would go into the hebrew/greek words for abomination and dig deeper onto that (I don't speak hebrew/greek, so I only have the word of others on that the word for abomination is an often used word in the bible (aka, the modern focus we have on the usage here and Leviticus might not be warranted). And even that isn't enough, as you should include a lot more cultural/historical context in everything etc. And I used her link for the references to extended backstory, not her social commentary (It just was a link I could find easily). But yes you are correct, bad blog to use.
But yeah, it is all dumb yeah. (Also according to the bible you are allowed to have 2 swords, not more. So bad news for all the sword guys out there).
Yeah one of my fave weird bible things (often related to people going 'jesus was all pro peace and a hippy and all that') is that jesus said something like 'not everybody who follows me should carry a sword, we have 2 people with swords already, that is more than enough'. (And yes this isn't his exact words, no need to nitpick me over this people).
So jesus says, go join a HEMA society, but don't overdo it and spend all your energy on buying swords. 2 Zweihänders per household is enough. Truly a prophet ahead of his time.
honestly it kind of sounds like Jesus was concerned about having an optimal mix of swords, polearms and ranged weapons in the party instead of everyone showing up to be a sword guy
(I'm sorry I'm sorry)
> Also according to the bible you are allowed to have 2 swords, not more. So bad news for all the sword guys out there
Well at least dual wielding seems to be supported. Not ideal, but I can work with this.
edit
now I can't stop thinking what Jesus would say about swords that are combined from a larger amount of component swords like in Advent Children
I never said anything about sex (that is a separate argument that is probably not fruitful to have).
The point is that your version is incomplete, based on most mainstream scholarly and religious interpretations. It was not simply a case of being bad to guests and indolent, it was doing "abominable" things.
Even the Dutch EO says it was destroyed because of their greed/lack of hospitality/their lies/divorce/etc. It only leaves the sex thing (and they don't discuss any further possible abominations (so as causes go it would be hospitality etc->the various sex acts->other abominations) as a far away point. So this view isn't as far from the mainstream as you make it out to be.
Of course, iirc some pope declared that the netherlands could be considered a new missionary area so my view might be a bit skewed due to that. ;)
> their lies/divorce
Again, these are items not covered in your original post:
> Text : Sodom was destroyed because they didnt care for the less fortunate people
You seem to be arguing a point not made. I'm not arguing about how sex did or did not weigh in here. I'm stating that your original statement is not accurate, based on mainstream interpretations of the scripture (including your own Dutch EO, it would seem).
Ah right, you are as we say in Dutch a mierenneuker.
Also you are wrong. Here is what you started with:
> That isn't what the text says or even implies, at all.
While the text literally said that, it just had an additional implication.
Clearly you can see that this additional implication has nothing to do with what is being discussed. ;)
Nice.
* Accuse others of reading what they want to read.
> Sadly people just read what they want to read.
* Reads what they want to read.
* Gets called out on it being demonstrably incorrect.
* Curses.
Bravo.
In general, if you're going to accuse pretty much everyone else of blatantly misreading something, you should be prepared to be called out for doing the same.
Yes, my initial remark was a little bit hyperbolic yes. (You do know which subreddit you are at right?) but in no way was that not what the text said or implied at all. You just are just nitpicking about the additional implications while I was only talking about the homophobia.
(I know I shouldn't ask this after todays "dead_chicken_do_not_fuck_gate", "beepboopgate", "prettygate", "speckgate", and "neotenygate") but do you have any proof of that? After ydays person I didn't have much energy to go looking through peoples post history. (I just see a lot of "gamer", which is horrible of course an all gamersshould be put in camps ;). And a little bit of billionaire fellatio).
Looked through some of their post history and a lot of it was on the level of 'well actually, a small detail here was wrong' corrections like this. *shrug* so seems more to be just a certain character trait bumping into my particular character traits.
A wiser person would have recognized these pitfalls and not reacted. I am not that wise. Nothing will be learned of this. We are here forever, almost like something captured...
And all that while apparently there are more interesting things going on [in the wider Rationalism world](https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/issue-14-ftx-friends-flip-on-fellow) 'Treason! Betrayal! [A Rationalist gone Rogue!](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/effdbb24-549b-403c-89cc-11fb4cbf0725)'. (TL:DR; one of the ex-CEO types of FTX picked the 'betray' option in the prisoners dilemma).
If you've got an example where you think I don't meet the--very low--standard of discourse I outlined, please share.
Otherwise, I'm not clear what you are getting at.
You came in to start a pointless fight about some throwaway biblical exegesis, pissing people off, but one of those people swore mildly at you in Dutch
I understand that for you the last part is a sin, or possibly a capital crime, but itâs telling you straight up expect that to be universal to everyone
To be honest that kind of attitude is a much greater fault than using almost any bad word I can think of
You are going to have to explain me whatâs wrong with permitting somebody to be mildly rude to you after you came in here from nowhere explicitly to pick an incredible dumb fight with them
I'm sorry, I didn't realize being accurate in blanket criticisms of humanity is "dumb". Particularly on a subreddit that is effectively devoted to the topic.
âRav Pappa says: This is due to the potential family flaw, i.e., harm
to the family name, as it is not permitted to bring disgrace to the
entire family in order to save the lovesick man. Rav AḼa, son of Rav
Ika, says: This is so that the daughters of Israel should not be
promiscuous with regard to forbidden sexual relations. Were they to
listen to the doctorsâ recommendations, Jewish women might lose moral
restraint.â
Whatâs the story on Aaronson here? I know heâs kind of rationalist
adjacent but Iâve really only read his quantum computing posts (which
tend to be in the vein of âyour quantum computer isnâtâ and I kind of
appreciate).
His quantum computing posts are excellent its just that he also uses the same blog to go on weird rants about how feminists make life difficult for sexless nerds like himself (he has a wife and kids btw)
Adding on to that, the title of his blog, "shtetl-optimized", refers to his view that he's poorly suited to a modern society that hates nerds (probably true in the 80s or whenever he was a kid) and has weird views on male sexuality (definitely true) because it crushed his self-esteem. I'd blame these problems on the patriarchy, and tell him to become a feminist and go to therapy. He, instead, blames mean girls and views himself as "shtetl-optimized": he belongs in an earlier, more patriarchal era, in which some woman would be gifted to him in an arranged marriage. Absolutely disgusting.
It's obvious to any reader that his ego is in tatters and he needs serious help. He follows his critics, including sneerclub. He might even be reading this thread right now! (If you are, I'm begging you, change your blog name, block twitter and reddit, and go to therapy.)
Which blows my mind. My general impression is that his wife sounds like a badass but he canât seem to stop talking about how he never got women he wanted lmao. Like dudeâŚfucking hell youâre kind of disrespecting your wife!
I don't think so. Except for his mental health issues, SA is doing great in the modern world. He has a wife and kids (the thing he wanted from the shtetl) and he has all the benefits of of modern society. He's a fucking tenured professor at MIT. The shtetl would probably be worse for him in every way.
I think the same is true of almost everybody else, and maybe everybody. Nobody *really* wants to turn back the clock, (or if they do they're delusional) giving up on medicine and social security and computers---they just want to be kings. Or, in Scott Aaronson's case, patriarchs.
That is very possible; there are probably some people that would've done OK in ye olde days but aren't doing so hot now. Maybe the 70 IQ guy struggling hard to survive in modern society would've been a perfectly OK peasant. Or maybe he'd have shat his guts out from dysentery.
If you search his name on the sub youâll see his weirdo posting but yeah I also really love his technical articles like his busy beaver overview paper
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How is this not from maimonides_nutz
If you read on, itâs actually not so great.
âRav Pappa says: This is due to the potential family flaw, i.e., harm to the family name, as it is not permitted to bring disgrace to the entire family in order to save the lovesick man. Rav AḼa, son of Rav Ika, says: This is so that the daughters of Israel should not be promiscuous with regard to forbidden sexual relations. Were they to listen to the doctorsâ recommendations, Jewish women might lose moral restraint.â
Whatâs the story on Aaronson here? I know heâs kind of rationalist adjacent but Iâve really only read his quantum computing posts (which tend to be in the vein of âyour quantum computer isnâtâ and I kind of appreciate).
âlet him die, and she may not converse with him behind a fenceâ is a quote that will enter my regular vocabulary now.