[DuckDodgers]

What is an example of a reward God gives you for following his commandments?

[Yonah ben Amittai]

Again, that is a question I choose not to answer.

[DuckDodgers]

I just ask wondering if a nonfollower of his commandments received the same rewards.

[Rushy]

Again, that is a question I choose not to answer.

Why, though? Do you believe that admitting you either do or don't expect a reward for your deeds to be a sin in and of itself? You keep telling me to look up things about other Jews, but I'm asking you, specifically. I don't care what other Jews think inside this thread.

I'm genuinely curious as to whether you adhere to a belief of any type of reward and that includes the aversion of punishment.

[Yonah ben Amittai]

I just ask wondering if a nonfollower of his commandments received the same rewards.

A non-Jew is not obligated to follow the 613 Commandments of the Torah, but only the Seven Laws of Noah, which are:

The prohibition of idolatry.
The prohibition of murder.
The prohibition of theft.
The prohibition of sexual immorality.
The prohibition of blasphemy.
The prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive.
The requirement of maintaining courts to provide legal recourse.

Again, that is a question I choose not to answer.

Why, though? Do you believe that admitting you either do or don't expect a reward for your deeds to be a sin in and of itself? You keep telling me to look up things about other Jews, but I'm asking you, specifically. I don't care what other Jews think inside this thread.

I'm genuinely curious as to whether you adhere to a belief of any type of reward and that includes the aversion of punishment.

And, to be frank, I am not a performing animal here to satisfy your curiosity like an elephant in the circus might do. You want that, go to Barnum and Bailey. The purpose of this thread is to answer genuine questions about Jews and what they believe, how they pray, and how they live. Although I am prepared to use my life in certain ways as a pattern thereof, I choose not to in this instance when I know that the reason you ask the question is to draw me deeper into your perverted little dance with denial of God and all that is holy and pure. I shall NOT participate in your little game, nor help you maintain it.

So, again I answer the question generally. Jews, including me, do not obey the commandments out of fear of Hell or hope of reward. No Jew I have ever met (and that includes me) ever believed in Hell. Now mind you, that does not exclude the possibility of divine punishment, but not in Christian terms of eternal torment. And although many (perhaps most) Jews do believe in ultimate Paradise, there are certainly many who don't. That includes the reincarnational Jews, and the the ones who don't believe in an Afterlife at all. And ALL of us still believe that the 613 Commandments must be followed (at least those that can be, in the absence of a Temple).

[Yonah ben Amittai]

Any non-Jew who follows the Laws of Noah is capable of attaining a place in the World to Come (Paradise) if such a place there be.

[Rushy]

And, to be frank, I am not a performing animal here to satisfy your curiosity like an elephant in the circus might do. You want that, go to Barnum and Bailey. The purpose of this thread is to answer genuine questions about Jews and what they believe, how they pray, and how they live. Although I am prepared to use my life in certain ways as a pattern thereof, I choose not to in this instance when I know that the reason you ask the question is to draw me deeper into your perverted little dance with denial of God and all that is holy and pure. I shall NOT participate in your little game, nor help you maintain it.

I didn't force you to make this thread. I didn't come from nowhere to bother you. You made a thread for people to ask a Jew questions, not ask questions about Jews. I think it is intellectually disheartening for you to sidestep such a simple issue; that is, that you may have ulterior motives for doing what you do.

I personally think that most religious people are in fact terribly selfish and do what they do out of fear of not receiving some sort of reward for their service. Some reconcile death by pretending it doesn't exist. Until you are willing to state otherwise it is highly probable that you also ascribe to some barbaric belief that you are a special chosen snowflake that will never die.

[Blanko]

Holy fuck, don't do that shit.

[Rushy]

I'm not going to encourage your escapades of making obnoxiously huge text (by not reading it). I'm just going to go ahead and assume you didn't answer the question and just started prattling on about some strawman. Might as well just change the subject.

How many Nobel prizes have you won?

[Yonah ben Amittai]

I'm not going to encourage your escapades of making obnoxiously huge text (by not reading it). I'm just going to go ahead and assume you didn't answer the question and just started prattling on about some strawman. Might as well just change the subject.

How many Nobel prizes have you won?

I apologise for the obnoxiously large text. I didn't realise that is what it would look like! Here follows in smaller print:

Let's cut to the chase here. What you personally think is not the point. While I find that all too often, I agree with you in terms of why Christians and Muslims do what they do, again, it isn't the point. It's not for me, or you, to judge that. I don't believe that selfishness has anything to do with it, actually. I believe that its the opposite of that for many people. Many don't want to leave their loved ones alone. That is something I understand. I neither want to leave alone nor be left alone, although it is unavoidable for obvious reasons.

Suggesting that unless I satisfy your morbid sense of curiosity that I must be barbaric is simply an ad hominem and makes you look the fool. Furthermore, even assuming I DO hold such a belief (and I am not saying I do or do not), the holding thereof does not make me or the belief barbaric. Nor does the not holding of it make me or the contrary belief enlightened.

As far as being Chosen, I DO believe that Jews are the Chosen People, but that does NOT translate into Life After Death, which is a whole different argument. We were Chosen by God to bring ethical monotheism to the world. Whether we live on in some way after we die is another matter altogether.

There is no doubt that death exists. I have never heard any Jew suggest otherwise. Even those who believe in Olam haBa (Life in the World to Come) admit that. There is a distinctive change.We go from point to point. The first stop would be Sheol, where we are neither happy or sad, and where we remain until Judgement Day when we are admitted to Paradise. That is what most Jews believe, but certainly not all. Some believe in Reincarnational ideas. Some reject Olam haBa all together. Some have even yet other ideas.  Me? I choose to keep my beliefs personal. But, I do believe that when a man dies, there is a distinctive change between what we are here, and anything that might occur or not occur afterward.There is a qualitative difference.

Humans are a nasty, brutish little species. We do horrid things to each other, and we call ourselves good. Before we can even BEGIN to talk about Olam haBa for ANY of us, we have a world to repair (Tikkun Olam). I don't even like discussing what happens after we die. Such a discussion of necessity detracts from pressing responsibilities here. Until we can learn how to get along without doing vicious and mean things to our friends here, let alone our non-friends (ie, everybody else, those we don't know, along with those we don't like), we've got no business even discussing reward and punishment.

After all? Why do we seek to please God? Is it because God is God, and deserves our love, or is it because we selfishly think that we deserve something from him? The fundamental fact is this:

God created us, and the world, and the universe, and all that is therein because he WANTED to. He certainly had no reason to   have to. He doesn't need us. God would be perfectly just to snuff us all out with a breath from his metaphorical nostrils. As far as Paradise goes, if such there is, it would be perfectly just to deny it to all of us, even Moses. NONE of us deserve it, no, not one.

So what does this mean? It means that since we are here by God's own good grace, we are supposed to extend that good grace to as many others as we are able. Instead of doing mean and horrible things to one another, we need to find a way to treat our friends with some level of kindness and respect. Maybe then we can start worrying about reward and punishment. As Gandhi said of fighting the British: "Do we fight to change things, or do we fight to punish? I've found we're all such sinners we should leave punishment to God."

And further, the traditional Catholic prayer, "Oh my God, I am heartily sorry, for having offended thee. And I detest all my sins, because of thy just punishment, BUT MOST OF ALL, because I have offended thee, my God, who art all good, and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more, and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen." Do note that it puts greater emphasis on the fact that the reason the penitent is sorry is primarily because God is all good and deserving of all love. The punishment question is secondary.

Granted, Jews don't put even that much emphasis on punishment. In fact, we put far less on it. I put virtually none at all. But ultimately, any Jew will probably give you similar answers, no matter what his answers might be to what happens to him at death are. The only difference between me and him is that I choose NOT to answer that question, because I distrust your motives in asking it, as well as for the fact that I believe the question to be irrelevant and to pale in importance with what is truly important, namely, what I pointed out above.

[Vindictus]

Whether a conclusion has been reached or not is irrelevant. There is evidence suggesting early Jews were indigenous Canaanites. There is no evidence suggesting anything the Bible claims is true. Going with one because of personal predispositions is very retarted.

And there is cotradictory evidence saying they are not. Anyone who insists on one, deliberate misspelling of a word he knows to be wrong is  an idiot. Two, anyone anyone who reads into evidence, especially contradictory evidence, a thing which isn't there is a schmuck. The fact that Israelite stuff looks similar to Canaanite stuff is because they borrowed ideas from their neighbours even though they shouldn't have. God punished them harshly as a result. But tell me: who is the tard here? The one who who can't spell 'retarded' and takes uncertain "scholarship" for truth , or the one who actually uses his brain? I realise you haven't got one of those, but still... And I gave you evidence from as far back as 1950 that helped prove the Exodus case. So...

None in support of the Bible though. eg. Contradicting evolution does not prove Creationism.

[Yonah ben Amittai]

Yes, I read that myself. And it really depends on what you choose to believe. Either you can accept the VERY limited archaeological work that has been done, and which I believe will eventually be reversed with further work on the subject. There is almost NO evidence either way. The  "modern day liberal biblical scholars" seem to think that that is the last word on the matter. Note that the text says the following: I shall quote the entire thing, and mark in bold the aspects to which I point.

"A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has ARGUABLY found no evidence that can be DIRECTLY related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness, leading to the SUGGESTION that Iron Age Israel—the kingdoms of Judah and Israel—has its origins in Canaan, not Egypt:[6][7] The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute."

Such words as "arguably" and "directly" and "suggestion" in no way demonstrate that you have a strong argument for a point of view!

Do observe the following, quoted from the Pocket Bible Handbook by Henry H. Halley, 18th Edition, 1948, Second Printing, 1950, p. 117.

"Chapter 5. Moses' First Demand on Pharaoh. Pharaoh was insolent. He ordered the taskmasters to lay heavier burdens on the Israelites,  requiring them to make the same number of bricks, and yet gather their own straw, 10-19. ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTE: The Bricks of Pithom. Naville, 1883, and Kyle 1908, found and Pithom , the lower courses of brick filled with good chopped straw; the middle courses with less straw, which was stubble plucked up by the root; and that the upper courses were brick of pure clay having no straw whatever. What an amazing confirmation of the Exodus account!"

Although I find the author's Evangelicalism distasteful, and his emotionalism in the last sentence even moreso, he does have a valid point to make. So, it is quite clear that there are some things that don't add up in the overall archaeological record. We DON"T have all the information, and what we do have contradicts itself. So, until we have all that we need, I choose to accept the Torah account. I'll take Moses over incomplete, contradicting secular records any day.

I regret having to quote myself, but apparently, you are a bit blind, hopefully by accident, rather than willfully. As far back as 1950, there was evidence in support of Exodus. And changing the subject to Genesis will not help you. Losing the argument on Exodus and then going to Genesis is NOT a good tactic. Shall we move on, now that you have been proved to be obviously out of your league?

[DuckDodgers]

You keep dancing around the matter.  Do you receive a reward for following God's commandments?  Is it possible for a nonbeliever to receive a a similar reward without following his commandment, whatever commandments nonJews are required to follow?

Also, it's been found that one of the leading archaeologists trying to prove Exodus faked his proof and no one else has really come up with much proof since.  You can argue that absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, but a lot of things point to it never occurring.

[Rushy]

Suggesting that unless I satisfy your morbid sense of curiosity that I must be barbaric is simply an ad hominem and makes you look the fool. Furthermore, even assuming I DO hold such a belief (and I am not saying I do or do not), the holding thereof does not make me or the belief barbaric. Nor does the not holding of it make me or the contrary belief enlightened.

It is barbaric, though. "If I follow these laws, I receive unimaginable rewards after I die" is something someone is either extremely selfish or brainwashed to believe. It's not the result of someone who values their current (and only) life.

As far as being Chosen, I DO believe that Jews are the Chosen People, but that does NOT translate into Life After Death, which is a whole different argument. We were Chosen by God to bring ethical monotheism to the world. Whether we live on in some way after we die is another matter altogether.

Narcissism.

There is no doubt that death exists. I have never heard any Jew suggest otherwise. Even those who believe in Olam haBa (Life in the World to Come) admit that. There is a distinctive change.We go from point to point. The first stop would be Sheol, where we are neither happy or sad, and where we remain until Judgement Day when we are admitted to Paradise. That is what most Jews believe, but certainly not all. Some believe in Reincarnational ideas. Some reject Olam haBa all together. Some have even yet other ideas.  Me? I choose to keep my beliefs personal. But, I do believe that when a man dies, there is a distinctive change between what we are here, and anything that might occur or not occur afterward.There is a qualitative difference.

Except for those people, death is a temporary annoyance. They don't consider that they will truly be dead/nonexistent. They simply view death as "I get to be happy and not deal with crappy ol' earth anymore." It is a terribly pessimistic view of life.

Humans are a nasty, brutish little species. We do horrid things to each other, and we call ourselves good. Before we can even BEGIN to talk about Olam haBa for ANY of us, we have a world to repair (Tikkun Olam). I don't even like discussing what happens after we die. Such a discussion of necessity detracts from pressing responsibilities here. Until we can learn how to get along without doing vicious and mean things to our friends here, let alone our non-friends (ie, everybody else, those we don't know, along with those we don't like), we've got no business even discussing reward and punishment.

This is also a very pessimistic view of life. There are very few truly awful people in the world. They probably think they're chosen people, too.

After all? Why do we seek to please God? Is it because God is God, and deserves our love, or is it because we selfishly think that we deserve something from him?

God created us, and the world, and the universe, and all that is therein because he WANTED to. He certainly had no reason to   have to. He doesn't need us. God would be perfectly just to snuff us all out with a breath from his metaphorical nostrils. As far as Paradise goes, if such there is, it would be perfectly just to deny it to all of us, even Moses. NONE of us deserve it, no, not one.

This is double plus Stockholm syndrome. If I kidnapped you and your family, you would be entirely dependent on my gifts to you. Food, water, clothing, etc. I bequeath anything you have to you. Imagine you turning around and saying I deserve your love but you deserve nothing from me. Sounds sort of psychotic, doesn't it?

So what does this mean? It means that since we are here by God's own good grace, we are supposed to extend that good grace to as many others as we are able. Instead of doing mean and horrible things to one another, we need to find a way to treat our friends with some level of kindness and respect. Maybe then we can start worrying about reward and punishment. As Gandhi said of fighting the British: "Do we fight to change things, or do we fight to punish? I've found we're all such sinners we should leave punishment to God."

You are so far away from Gandhi I'm surprised you can even read any of his statements without your brain having an aneurism.

Granted, Jews don't put even that much emphasis on punishment. In fact, we put far less on it. I put virtually none at all. But ultimately, any Jew will probably give you similar answers, no matter what his answers might be to what happens to him at death are. The only difference between me and him is that I choose NOT to answer that question, because I distrust your motives in asking it, as well as for the fact that I believe the question to be irrelevant and to pale in importance with what is truly important, namely, what I pointed out above.[/size]

The lack of a reward can be considered a punishment. If I have three kids and only give one a gift, then I'm playing favorites, and by extent I am punishing two of them with a lack of gifts.

[beardo]

why is e?

[Yonah ben Amittai]

You keep dancing around the matter.  Do you receive a reward for following God's commandments?  Is it possible for a nonbeliever to receive a a similar reward without following his commandment, whatever commandments nonJews are required to follow?

Also, it's been found that one of the leading archaeologists trying to prove Exodus faked his proof and no one else has really come up with much proof since.  You can argue that absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, but a lot of things point to it never occurring.

I've already indicated what Laws non-Jews are expected to follow, and that obedience to such renders them to be as righteous as any Jew. Of course, you don't know the name of the scientist.

Suggesting that unless I satisfy your morbid sense of curiosity that I must be barbaric is simply an ad hominem and makes you look the fool. Furthermore, even assuming I DO hold such a belief (and I am not saying I do or do not), the holding thereof does not make me or the belief barbaric. Nor does the not holding of it make me or the contrary belief enlightened.

It is barbaric, though. "If I follow these laws, I receive unimaginable rewards after I die" is something someone is either extremely selfish or brainwashed to believe. It's not the result of someone who values their current (and only) life.

You of course don't know its the only and current life, you simply assume that.

As far as being Chosen, I DO believe that Jews are the Chosen People, but that does NOT translate into Life After Death, which is a whole different argument. We were Chosen by God to bring ethical monotheism to the world. Whether we live on in some way after we die is another matter altogether.

Narcissism.

In your uninformed, irrelevant opinion.

There is no doubt that death exists. I have never heard any Jew suggest otherwise. Even those who believe in Olam haBa (Life in the World to Come) admit that. There is a distinctive change.We go from point to point. The first stop would be Sheol, where we are neither happy or sad, and where we remain until Judgement Day when we are admitted to Paradise. That is what most Jews believe, but certainly not all. Some believe in Reincarnational ideas. Some reject Olam haBa all together. Some have even yet other ideas.  Me? I choose to keep my beliefs personal. But, I do believe that when a man dies, there is a distinctive change between what we are here, and anything that might occur or not occur afterward.There is a qualitative difference.

Except for those people, death is a temporary annoyance. They don't consider that they will truly be dead/nonexistent. They simply view death as "I get to be happy and not deal with crappy ol' earth anymore." It is a terribly pessimistic view of life.

Again, in your uninformed, irrelevant opinion.

Humans are a nasty, brutish little species. We do horrid things to each other, and we call ourselves good. Before we can even BEGIN to talk about Olam haBa for ANY of us, we have a world to repair (Tikkun Olam). I don't even like discussing what happens after we die. Such a discussion of necessity detracts from pressing responsibilities here. Until we can learn how to get along without doing vicious and mean things to our friends here, let alone our non-friends (ie, everybody else, those we don't know, along with those we don't like), we've got no business even discussing reward and punishment.

This is also a very pessimistic view of life. There are very few truly awful people in the world. They probably think they're chosen people, too.

Lets be blunt. There may not be too many truly awful, Hitler-like persons in the world. That means life kind of sucks, since not-too-awful persons can do some truly awful shit to people.

After all? Why do we seek to please God? Is it because God is God, and deserves our love, or is it because we selfishly think that we deserve something from him?

God created us, and the world, and the universe, and all that is therein because he WANTED to. He certainly had no reason to   have to. He doesn't need us. God would be perfectly just to snuff us all out with a breath from his metaphorical nostrils. As far as Paradise goes, if such there is, it would be perfectly just to deny it to all of us, even Moses. NONE of us deserve it, no, not one.

This is double plus Stockholm syndrome. If I kidnapped you and your family, you would be entirely dependent on my gifts to you. Food, water, clothing, etc. I bequeath anything you have to you. Imagine you turning around and saying I deserve your love but you deserve nothing from me. Sounds sort of psychotic, doesn't it?

The comparison is illogical in the extreme. Comparing a kidnapper with the Creator makes no sense. A child looks to his parent for love. This is a far cry from what a kidnapper demands from the kidnappee (to coin a word).

So what does this mean? It means that since we are here by God's own good grace, we are supposed to extend that good grace to as many others as we are able. Instead of doing mean and horrible things to one another, we need to find a way to treat our friends with some level of kindness and respect. Maybe then we can start worrying about reward and punishment. As Gandhi said of fighting the British: "Do we fight to change things, or do we fight to punish? I've found we're all such sinners we should leave punishment to God."

You are so far away from Gandhi I'm surprised you can even read any of his statements without your brain having an aneurism.

That is just a stupid response. Especially since Gandhi, however admirable, was hardly a saint. He was on record as having a racist attitude toward Black Africans, and actually took non-violence so far as to recommend that Jews in the camps commit collective suicide.

Granted, Jews don't put even that much emphasis on punishment. In fact, we put far less on it. I put virtually none at all. But ultimately, any Jew will probably give you similar answers, no matter what his answers might be to what happens to him at death are. The only difference between me and him is that I choose NOT to answer that question, because I distrust your motives in asking it, as well as for the fact that I believe the question to be irrelevant and to pale in importance with what is truly important, namely, what I pointed out above.[/size]

The lack of a reward can be considered a punishment. If I have three kids and only give one a gift, then I'm playing favorites, and by extent I am punishing two of them with a lack of gifts.

Irrelevant.

[garygreen]

We saw God on Mt. Sinai. Its not that Moses claimed to be inspired. Its that we know that 2 million people, our ancestors, saw God, and heard him speak. And no, I am not about to get into that argument with you about that so don't even go there. It is in both our written and oral history, so there you are.

To be fair, "we" didn't see anything.  You're not a member of the group of people who claimed to have seen God.  Those people have been dead for some time now.

You say that you know that your ancestors saw God and heard him speak.  How?  Because the Torah says so?  You seem to be taking for granted that because it is in your oral and written history that it must be true.  I don't dispute that it's in your written and oral history.  I dispute that you have any way at all to verify the truth of the claim of the author of the text.

So what does this mean? It means that since we are here by God's own good grace, we are supposed to extend that good grace to as many others as we are able. Instead of doing mean and horrible things to one another, we need to find a way to treat our friends with some level of kindness and respect. Maybe then we can start worrying about reward and punishment. As Gandhi said of fighting the British: "Do we fight to change things, or do we fight to punish? I've found we're all such sinners we should leave punishment to God."

This is an odd thing to say for someone who routinely advocates the use of violence and force against a group of people he labels as subhumans.  I guess you don't think Arabs are worthy of God's grace, love, kindness, or respect.  How Godly of you.

[Yonah ben Amittai]

We saw God on Mt. Sinai. Its not that Moses claimed to be inspired. Its that we know that 2 million people, our ancestors, saw God, and heard him speak. And no, I am not about to get into that argument with you about that so don't even go there. It is in both our written and oral history, so there you are.

To be fair, "we" didn't see anything.  You're not a member of the group of people who claimed to have seen God.  Those people have been dead for some time now.

You say that you know that your ancestors saw God and heard him speak.  How?  Because the Torah says so?  You seem to be taking for granted that because it is in your oral and written history that it must be true.  I don't dispute that it's in your written and oral history.  I dispute that you have any way at all to verify the truth of the claim of the author of the text.

Perhaps you are willing to gainsay the word of 2 million persons, but I am not.

So what does this mean? It means that since we are here by God's own good grace, we are supposed to extend that good grace to as many others as we are able. Instead of doing mean and horrible things to one another, we need to find a way to treat our friends with some level of kindness and respect. Maybe then we can start worrying about reward and punishment. As Gandhi said of fighting the British: "Do we fight to change things, or do we fight to punish? I've found we're all such sinners we should leave punishment to God."

This is an odd thing to say for someone who routinely advocates the use of violence and force against a group of people he labels as subhumans.  I guess you don't think Arabs are worthy of God's grace, love, kindness, or respect.  How Godly of you.

I would be more than happy to extend them the hand of grace, love, kindness and respect if I didn't know that they would rip my hand off and eat it while I watched. But so far, that is what Arabs, particularly "Palestinians" have done EVERY time the State of Israel in particular, and Jews in general, have tried. Doing something the same way every time and expecting different results IS the definition of stupid. Jews are many things good and bad alike, but we are not stupid. I happen to like both of my hands, thank you.

[Rushy]

I'm getting a pretty strong sense that you believe you'll be rewarded with an afterlife for doing menial things such as declining to eat bacon.

[Lord Dave]

We are Jews. We saw God on Mt. Sinai. Its not that Moses claimed to be inspired. Its that we know that 2 million people, our ancestors, saw God, and heard him speak.

20:16 And they said unto Moses: 'Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.'

How does 2 million people hear God yet also claim that if they hear God, they'll die?