Unexamined faith and ritual are worthless, imo. A religion that has been in existence for thousands of years can just as easily be wrong about perpetuating any tradition, ritual or practice as one that has existed for decades. Jewish tradition exemplifies this: our traditions have adapted to modernity again and again throughout the ages as our understanding of the world around us has changed.Your approach isn't thoughtful. It's derisive. That may be your goal, I don't know. But if you're interested in having a discussion, you're not showing it.
Our religion isn't static, and we should welcome thoughtful inquiries into, and critiques of, its practices.
Yeah but Jews outnumber Muslims on MeFi by probably a hundred to one (in fact the only muslim poster that I know of has left so it may be more than that) and everyone likes to talk about themselves, so hey presto you have a thread that becomes about the group that is most represented/people are more familiar with on MeFi.Well if we allowed that principle everywhere on Metafilter, all discussion here would eventually be about middle-class Americans...
Things are not like they were thirty years ago, when the culturally dominant Christian society in Germany was accompanied by just 30,000 Jews largely keeping to themselves and a Muslim community of which it could be assumed that they would soon be returning to their homelands. Today, more than four million people are living in this country whose religion decrees that boys are to be circumcised.Sidhedevil: " Yes, but there are way more Muslims requesting the procedure in Germany these days."
The sense of Christian rituals is being lost, while those of other religions are understood even less, are contested, battled and brought before the courts – who then become the referees.
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posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:33 PM on June 27, 2012 [2 favorites]