Sago Boulevard

I can’t believe Santorum actually came out against “The Pursuit of Happiness” (via Tacitean). And that was only a minute or so after talking about “the kind of freedom our founders’ envisioned”.

I’d love to go through Santorum’s (seriously flawed) theory of freedom and liberty point-by-point, but alas, it’s already 10 and I haven’t done nearly enough reading. You’ll just have to watch and decide for yourself.

The greatest Jew in Great Britain, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reviewed Richard Dawkins’ most recent rant, The God Delusion (via Hirhurim). He begins with the following brief dialogue:

“DO YOU believe,” the disciple asked the rabbi, “that God created everything for a purpose?”

“I do,” replied the rabbi.

“Well,” asked the disciple, “why did God create atheists?”

The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. “Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: ‘This is the will of God.’ We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God.”

It’s important to recognize how brilliantly R. Sacks undermines the main thrust of Dawkins’ argument. Dawkins emphasizes the cruelty and injustice perpetrated in the name of God as a way of undermining religion. R. Sacks uses those same facts to promote ethically sensitive religion. By forcing believers to distinguish more sharply between “what passes for religion” and genuine service of God, the atheist critic does religion a tremendous favor.

If I remember correctly, Rav Kook develops a similar idea regarding secular Zionism. Would anyone care to dig up the reference?

In the comments to her post about her son’s atheism, Dr. B writes:

I think that the argument that we should believe in god in order to make ourselves be good is really rather blasphemous. God ought to be an end, rather than a means, by definition.

She’s responding to a commenter who doubted the sincerity of a boy that young professing to be an atheist, but the context here is secondary. I’m more interested in the statement itself. I think the idea that God must be an end is motivated by an aversion to ulterior motives. There is, perhaps, something unsettling about acting as though God is real merely because it motivates us to behave in a socially responsible way. That would reduce God to merely a useful fiction. But that doesn’t mean there’s a problem with viewing God as a means to an end; there’s a problem with viewing God as the wrong means to an end.

Belief in God and Torah is, in fact, a means to an end, but to a far more loftly end: a life of holiness. Believing in God because we want to share in His holiness isn’t an ulterior motive. It’s the whole point.

In Newsweek’s “My Turn” column, philosopher Erik Wielenberg offers a witty and largely accurate take on what exactly professional philosophers do and the significance it has.

We can trace our lineage back to a man who, while on trial for his life, informed his judges that an unexamined life is not worth living and that he would not stop practicing philosophy as long as he could draw breath. What got him into trouble was speaking truth to power, and he later drank poison rather than betray the principles to which his reasoning had led him.

In the long run, he was victorious: today every educated person knows the name of Socrates, while few know much about the government that executed him. We philosophers can also point out that whatever your most cherished institution or ideal—representative democracy, the free-market economy, even Christianity—it would not exist if no one engaged in the mysterious work of philosophy. I once overheard a student remark that philosophy professors are the “renegades of society.”

Via Hirhurim, David Wolpe’s article in this week’s The Jewish Week:

Did the Talmud anticipate city traffic? You might think that since there were no cars, no streetlights, and very few SUVs (some Roman chariots were extravagant, after all) that the Talmud may have missed this subject.

But as Daniel Feldman’s book “The Right and the Good” reminds us, the Talmud and later authorities warn us not only against violence, but also against a threatening gesture. As Rabbi Feldman writes, the Talmud is concerned by such displays — “the civic relationship between human beings is disrupted, lowered to an animalistic conflict…”

Much of our civic interaction, sadly, takes place between people looking out of car windows. Still, the tone matters. People who cut in front of another car on one block scream at those who do the same a block later. Mistakes are seen as acts of aggression and frustration leads to rage. Pedestrians are endangered, children unnerved, drivers debased.

The great chess player Aron Nimzovitch used to say, “The threat is stronger than its execution.” Sometimes the gesture, in a home or in the street, is more powerful and lasting even than a blow. So if we may reformulate the wisdom of our Rabbis in modern terms, it would go like this: Be kind, be forgiving, and drive carefully.

You may have noticed my recent lack of blogging. It’s difficult for me to keep any kind of regular schedule because of school. The extra time constraints of the holidays didn’t help. I toyed with the idea of calling it quits but I’m not ready to do that just yet. One problem I’ve had with blogging since I started law school is that when I have an idea but I don’t have the time to think about it seriously, I put it off because I like my writing to be thoughtful and polished. When I have more time, though, either I’ve lost interest in the topic or it’s no longer relevant.

I decided to accept the fact that, for the time being, I don’t have time to write detailed, carefully-organized posts. Instead, I’ll write shorter, pithier comments without worrying as much about writing style and thoroughness.

That said, here are a few forthcoming posts: The case for a retributive theory of punishment; Preview of the NHL season; Why William Safire is right about Islamofacism.

Stay tuned.