Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Kuzari Keeps on Giving, or Pay No Attention to the Assumptions Behind My Principle!

 [The Kuzari Principle is not so wonderful as it first may appear.]

I have been exchanging emails recently with Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb concerning my post on the Kuzari Principle. When I finished that post, I emailed Gottlieb to let him know it was up. He emailed me the following:
I appreciate your sending me the link to your article. Although well written and clearly presented, I find that it does not engage my argument at all. Below are the sections of my essays that are relevant.

I could just copy them onto your blog and post them on mine, but I will wait a while to see if you want to revise your article.
In this note, he includes relevant selections from his previous writings, and he also gives a link. Here is my response to him:
Thank you, truly, for your reply. I have carefully read the material below (I was familiar with it already) and considered whether a revision to my article would be necessary or prudent. I simply don't see any points in my piece that warrant revision based on the text below.

Please know that I am grateful to you for emailing me and for reading my article. I appreciate the descriptions "well written" and "clearly presented," as I do work hard at communication and am often not nearly as successful as I would like.
I really thought we were done at this point, but no....

The passages below from your article indicate that you did not even consider my argument that the support of KP is empirical, and not "logical" or intuitive. Your critique is to imagine a plausible scenario via which the tradition could have come into existence even if the event did not occur. I argue explicitly that the ability to imagine such a thing has no bearing on an argument based on the real experience of real human traditions. At no point do you engage this argument.

The person who prefers Kuzari thus chooses a weak and indirect logical argument over an argument developed using empirical data. [LT]

My point is that in truth, the roles you describe here are precisely reversed. You are using a weak, intuitive argument concerning what it is reasonable to assume about collective human behavior. I, on the contrary, am using empirical data.

We also have scientific knowledge of the real workings of the natural and social world – and this knowledge leads us to see the truth as being ever less likely as portrayed in ancient religions. [LT]

What about the logical proofs offered by Gottlieb to explain Kuzari?

The evolutionary nature of both stories and societies thus undermines Kuzari's premises. This evolutionary development is extremely plausible and very well attested. [LT]

Not for anty cases meeting the conditons of KP. There is not even one such case.

Kuzari supports an illusion people can afford to have and often feel like they cannot afford to live without [LT]


Just an appeal to intuitive psychology.

Thus, neither the Sinai event nor the laws purported to have been given at that time seem to represent anything of radical uniqueness or difference [LT]

You are ignoring the uniqueness of the event by focusing in stead on the content of the treaty.
Above, I have signaled with an [LT] those places where my article has been quoted. At this point, I am focused on Gottlieb's idea that he has an empirically-based argument. He doesn't, and I do. This is the argument I continue to make in my response to Gottlieb's last email:

You say that "the support of KP is empirical." Please tell me, then, what the empirical data is; after all, providing such data is the burden of your argument. To my mind, that burden has not been met thus far because the evidence of real human experience and of real human cultures suggests that a naturalistic, cultural-evolutionary hypothesis is far more likely than a genuine divine-human interaction (which by definition is practically the least likely explanation).

My argument, however imperfect, focuses on several empirical domains: (a) The rhetoric of KP proponents, which is driven by "spin" in language; (b) the modern form of the Documentary Hypothesis, which draws on seven types of empirical data; (c) cultural parallels to Sinai elements and relevant biblical passages bearing on general arguments made by KP proponents; (d) scrutiny of the logic expressed in and through the KP; and (e) an examination of the relevant Torah passages, in English, regarding the Sinai event.

I find the logical proofs on Kuzari unpersuasive for reasons I explain in my article: (1) The very possibility of a divine-human event is itself not established satisfactorily; (2) the definition of "evidence" used is too imprecise; and (3) the seemingly arbitrary tethering of cultural beliefs to single events is overly simple and not sufficiently nuanced to deal with real cultural history. The events themselves are not the only or the most important elements in shaping public belief. However, all three of these reasons point to major flaws in reasoning based on KP.

Sinai may be a unique story--although in some elements it actually is not--but in my opinion KP needs more than the quality of uniqueness to be truly compelling.

I thank you again for clarifying your critique and for allowing me the opportunity to clarify my position. I enjoy this dialogue, but I don't wish to press you into an argument if you don't want one. Nevertheless, I am interested in your responses to my challenges to you, which are to have you be very clear about what your empirical data actually is and to have you defend your argument against the three reasons I give above for finding the logical proofs on Kuzari unpersuasive.
Gottlieb's email back starts to complicate matters. He persists in claiming that his argument appeals to empirical data, and he re-states his argument in favor of Kuzari:

The empirical data I appeal to are highlighted in blue below [LT note: In the email, Gottlieb has color highlighted sections from his writings. I do not reproduce these writings here, as they are too long.] that . The red section expresses what I take to be your argument. Please review them before continuing my argumentation here.

Now I can put my argument directly, in two stages. Stage 1:

a. Assume there are no historical parallels - no known false national traditions of national unforgettables - no known false NETs. .

b. Then the evidence in favor of the Sinai tradition being such a false national traditions is all indirect. It is all of the form: people do other things that seem similar to forming false NETs.

c. In a conflict of evidence, direct evidence takes precedence over indirect evidence. In other words: indirect evidence can only show possibility and plausibility. It does not show probability. If we have a total absence of direct evidence, then there is no positive probability - only possibility and [psychological] plausibility. But the real world often does not agree with our judgments of plausibility. So only direct evidence can justify a judgment of real probability. [See Q+A below.]

Now stage 1 starts with the assumption a. I present no direct investigation of its correctness. Even so, at this stage the critic ought to recognize that the argument is valid [as opposed to sound], so that if a is correct my conclusion follows. If the critic does not know a to be false, what he ought to say is: "We do not know whether the KP argument succeeds or fails. It depends upon an unverified - and unfalsified - empirical assumption. Thus we cannot pas judgment on the argument at this stage." Now stage 2:

If the psychological process(es) the critic is appealing to is/are to be probable [that is, the process(es) that produce false NETs], they must have occurred more than once or twice in all of human history. I think we should expect a good dozen verified cases at least. The fact that there are no well known cases should give the critic pause. But here is the key point: until and unless he finds such cases, then all the direct evidence we have is that there are none, and the argument should be regarded as [at least provisionally] valid and sound.

That is how far the material I have so far made public should take the critic. Since Living Up was written I have done some considerable research, and engaged in lengthy debate with a professor of classics, all of which has reinforced my conclusion that there are no known false NETs. If you like, I will send you that material.

Concerrning "(1) The very possibility of a divine-human event is itself not established satisfactorily" please see http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/Credibility_Of_Testimony.htm
I hardly think Gottlieb's two-stage argument is stated directly. In my view, my original critique of Gottlieb's reasoning stands solidly. I say as much in the latter part of my reply, but before I give it let me express some shock that Gottlieb wants us to accept Kuzari as sound, in the absence of perfect false NETs. That's not the way it works! The premises are not true, regardless of the existence of perfect false NETs. Unfortunately, I did not point this out in my reply to the Rabbi:

I see that you have highlighted in blue four main passages. You tell me that "The empirical data I appeal to are highlighted in blue below," but I see you bringing in no empirical data at all to support your position.

Passage 1 ("The question is...resembling such an event"): Here, you ask a question and demand Kuzari opponents to show you "real cases." But you are evading my request: I understand that you do not accept the evidence that I have brought in. I want you to explain what your evidence actually is. Your dismissal of my empirical data is not showing me evidence. Your demand to me for evidence is not showing me evidence. In this passage, you have not met your burden to provide actual empirical data that you claim is the basis of your argument.

Passage 2 ("If you think than an event...once in the history of the world!"): Again you are asking for parallels. I don't know why you do this, since you reject all the parallels brought before you. It seems that what you want is something identical to Sinai in every way, 100%, all the way through. Same thing with your claim of lack of historical parallels. In this second passage, no actual evidence is brought by you. You may want to know at this point what I think your evidence ought to look like. In my mind, you should be citing data on the nature of Jewish "belief in the revelation at Sinai." You could also bring in data on those earthquakes and volcanic eruptions you speak of.

Passage 3 ("We need reason...in national revelation."): This is a single assertion, but it provides no evidence itself. Again, the totality of your reasoning seems based on claiming insufficient evidence on the other side of the argument. But you are no providing any evidence yourself. In my last email, I explicitly listed the empirical data grounding my argument. I am asking you to do the same.

Passage 4 ("The very minimum indirect evidence...produced such a belief"): As before, your argument is all critique and no evidence.


So, I continue to assert that your argument in support of KP is not based on empirical data. I also maintain that I have met my burden to provide an empirically-based justification for rejecting KP as a proof of Judaism's truth. Please note that I am not saying here that "Judaism is false"; I am only saying that KP does not prove Judaism.

As to your two-stage argument:

I find item (b) in Stage 1 to be puzzling because it conflates the Sinai event (which can be true or false, i.e. there was or was not a single event) with the report of the Sinai event (which can be accurate or inaccurate). Now, my parenthetical notes already point to some of the complications we face: are we talking about a single event or many events? When, or over what time span? What's the relationship of the report to the event(s)? What purposes might have been achieved through such a report? What information was included and excluded?

My point here is that I don't think it's promising for any researcher to set out to "disprove" or to "falsify" Sinai or the Sinai tradition. Rather, I think the goal of the researcher is to understand as much relevant information as possible about Sinai and the Sinai tradition. I also don't think it's useful or necessary to be invested in a particular outcome of the research, i.e., Sinai being true or false. For this reason, I dislike your item (a), which seems unwarranted to me. I don't know why we want to start out by making this large assumption. Besides, if we assume (a), why do we need (b), since if there aren't any false NETs, then there naturally won't be any direct evidence of them?

Let me conclude by saying that I don't "get" why you want direct evidence of falsity. I imagine you are looking for something like a signed letter by Moses that says "I made the whole thing up." But I don't think KP opponents claim for the most part that there is direct evidence of falsity, in this or in most cases. My position is that "direct evidence of falsity" is a red herring, a tactic to distract attention away from the real problem of your argument: no direct evidence of veracity for either the Sinai event or the Sinai report. Even if KP is true as a principle, it is not itself direct evidence of the Sinai event and it does not necessarily corroborate the report of Sinai in Judaism's holy writings.

Please do not take my last statements here as a personal attack or as unduly harsh. I do not intend them so. I only mean to speak as clearly and frankly about my opinion of our arguments.

I have no objections to your using our dialogue in your websites and blogs. I only ask that you provide a link to my article so that people may read it for themselves and judge its merits and flaws as written. I hope you will allow me to do the same.
By this point, I think I've closed down the empirical argument. In Gottlieb's next response, I sense he is getting frustrated with our exchange:
Perhaps we can test our commuinicatin by focusing on one very small opint. I write:

a. Assume there are no historical parallels - no known false national traditions of national unforgettables - no known false NETs. .

and again

a. Assume there are no historical parallels - no known false national traditions of national unforgettables - no known false NETs.

And I define NET this way:

The condition of Sinai is this: it is a national tradition concerning a national experience that would change the life of the nation. Let's call this NET [National Experiential Tradition] for short.

So I am asking for real NETs. Now you write:

It seems that what you want is something identical to Sinai in every way, 100%, all the way through. [LT]

Can you explain how your wrods are at all related to mine?
I say back:
You ask: "Can you explain how your wrods [sic] are at all related to mine?"

My answer: yes, I can. My comment is based on the idea that there are parallels to Sinai. There are aspects of Sinai that other reports of events share. My article lists some.
He then sends me this response:
Aany two things "share aspects". What is needed is events that satisfy the definition of NET. You have provided none.
I get what he wants. He wants me to say either that (a) ABC is an event that meets the conditions of NET, and it was false; or that (b) there are no known false NET events. I completely agree that I have not provided any events (false or true) that meet his full definition of NET:
I agree, but it seems the definition of NET is rigged to include only Sinai. Do you have a list of objective criteria that define any NET -- real or hypothetical?

Also, I'm a bit disappointed that you have not yet acknowledged the lack of empirical grounding for your argument, as I show by reviewing your four blue-highlighted passages.
My point here is that the NET definition we have used so far is too squishy to be really useful. In his emails, Gottlieb's working definition of NET is "national tradition concerning a national experience that would change the life of the nation." I would like to know the specifics of "national," "tradition," and "change the life." These are potentially variable terms that will affect the scope of events we may be able to include or exclude as NETs.

While I was writing my last email, Gottlieb had sent this:
Furthermore, your words are still not connected to mine: I said the parallels should be *[false] NET events. You say that I want #an event identical to the revelation. * is not identical to # [nor even closely related]. So you are not addressing my words.
Again, I get what Gottlieb is doing. His implicit case is that if Sinai is supposed to be a false NET then there should be other false NETs. In my Kuzari article, I mention the Aztec national revelation and some claims about the appearance of the post-crucifixion Jesus as potential qualifiers. Nevertheless, I think the seemingly arbitrary condition of "false" NET ought to be sidestepped. As I write to Gottlieb:
And I am not dealing with the question of falsehood. Let's try to round up some NETs and then determine which are true and which are false.
Gottlieb graciously sent me a document that looks to be an appendix to a book of his. The document purports to be "a survey of spurious beliefs." It's supposed to show that there remain no documented false NETs: no false NETs means that Sinai should be true, I guess. It does not seem to deal with the Aztec and Jesus cases I have cited, but (a) I have only skimmed at this point and (b) I am interested to see some better-defined criteria for a NET:
(1) The story must describe an event witnessed by a nation. (2) The event must be one that would have created a national tradition. (3) The story was in fact believed to be true. (4) The believers included the nation composed of the descendants of those to whom the event was supposed to have occurred. (5) The story is in fact false.
My sense is that Gottlieb is only satisfied if all five criteria are present at the same time. If not, then to him there are no "real" documented cases of false NETs.

Let me note here now that this appendix still fails to provide the empirical grounding that I was requesting earlier. All it's doing is going down a checklist and disqualifying possible candidate events from (false) NET status. Going down a checklist like this is not the same thing as providing empirical evidence in favor of the Kuzari Principle. Indeed, that evidence might consist of specific events meeting the five criteria above, except that (3) would be "The story was in fact not believed to be true." In (4), "believers" would change to "non-believers."

Since I am getting bored with the topic, let me concede one point (with rights reserved by me to take it back upon further review and/or better data): there are no "real" documented cases of false NETs. So what? And what, pray tell, are the "real" documented cases of true NETs?

I'm going to skip a few emails and go to my latest one to Gottlieb. I start off apologizing to him for suggesting that his idea of NETs seems rigged to apply only to Sinai. He said that a war or a natural disaster could just as well qualify as a NET. Thus, I say:
I see your point that NET can apply to events beyond Sinai itself. Apologies for saying it was "rigged," but what are the objective criteria of a NET? This is a very important point that continues to get glossed over.

I also think you are missing the larger criticism of Kuzari. It does not take real cases of false NETs to defeat KP because it's already a flawed principle! It's construction is fatally deficient from the get-go because it assumes the truth/falsehood of an event when the truth/falsehood of that event is what we want to know.

Take your example below, "Someone is trying to convince me that a fictitious war, or an earthquake, or something like that happened. If he is right that it (the war, earthquake, etc.) really happened, I should know about it already. I shouldn’t need him to tell me. Then the principle tells me that I will not be convinced by him. The problem of the missing evidence will prevent me from believing him." The "fictitious" in your example is a problem, just like before when you referred to "false national traditions."

Your example below can be streamlined and re-worded as "someone is trying to convince me that a war happened." See the difference made by taking out "fictitious"? We're now not assuming in advance that the war is fictitious. Without this assumption, we see that convincing the listener is going to take place at the levels of evidence and argumentation. If a war happened then there perhaps should be some evidence, but what kind and of what volume? Who is the source? Perhaps I feel comfortable believing this source alone because of his qualifications and training. The "problem of missing evidence" will not necessarily prevent one from believing him depending on (1) what kinds of evidence can be reasonably expected to exist at the time and (2) the authority of the source.

These two factors adhere as well to the second example you give. We could add a third: (3) benefit conferred by belief. If accepting the belief helps the listener become more friendly with the source, perhaps because that source is politically influential, then the listener may be more inclined to accept what the source says without further question. Or perhaps the source's statements align well with the preconceptions and ideology of the listener--it's well-documented that people will not be as skeptical when they encounter statements that match their prejudices.

When we remove the presupposition that the proposed event is false, we see more clearly that formation of beliefs involves more than simply the truth of (all/some of) the event. Kuzari is critically flawed, in my opinion, because it makes truth/falsehood part of the principle's foundation--when the listener really is not in a very good position at all to assess truth or falsehood.
In the end, what does this dialogue leave us with? Just a story. That's all we have of Sinai. No proof. No evidence. Just a story. Those who want to believe the story may find the Kuzari Principle impressive. I don't. My reasons for this have been stated before, but let me also suggest that items (3) and (4) in the NET criteria may not necessarily hold for Sinai. I am unaware of evidence that suggests the first hearers of the story, in whatever form, understood it as historically accurate and true. They may as well have understood it as partly or fully figurative--a literary exaggeration to make a point. So also do we not know the real relation of the story's first hearers and the characters in the story.

This has been a fun discussion, but unfortunately it has borne little fruit.

21 comments:

  1. > (1) The story must describe an event witnessed by a nation. (2) The event must be one that would have created a national tradition. (3) The story was in fact believed to be true. (4) The believers included the nation composed of the descendants of those to whom the event was supposed to have occurred. (5) The story is in fact false.

    One of the problems with this definition is that (assuming the validity of the principle) if the first four criteria are filled, we would be forced to accept that the story is true. If the first four criteria are not filled, it doesn’t count as an NET. Therefore there can never be a false NET.

    That is, if we have a story about Athena appearing to the Greek army before Troy and promising them victory and the Greek nation which includes the descendants of those soldiers believes this story to be true, then we must accept that it actually happened. If the descendants of those soldiers eventually decide that the event in fact didn’t happen (as is the case with Greek mythology), then 4 is not fulfilled and it doesn’t count as an NET.

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  2. I read some of your critiques of the Kuzari argument and I apologize if I misunderstood your problems with it.

    I will outline your major critiques of the argument (again, it might be comprehension issue on my part).

    1. You argued: The voice at Sinai is not neccesarily a miracle, because it was just a loud noise. Answer: This is very strong critique of the argument. It is exactly for this reason that Kuzari proponents focus, rather, on the manna, miriam's well, the pillar of fire and other continuous miracles. These, if true, are undeniably a sign of a higher intelligence who toys with nature.

    2. You argued: The Documentary Hypothesis shows how the story developed over time. Answer: The Kuzari proponets do not care if the written Torah developed over time. You can bring absolute proof that the story was written down centuries after the events and you still will not have mentioned anything relevant about the Kuzari principle. The issue is THAT THE NATION BELIEVED THE STORY. Kuzari proponents argue that the nation would believe the story only if it truely describes historical events.

    (You mentioned other critiques of KP which I will deal with in a later post, if I can.)

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  3. My responses:

    Your #1: These stories of continuous miracles are as nice as the Sinai story. However, the Kuzari principle is still subject to the three main flaws I identify in this post as 1, 2, and 3. Besides, the chain of transmission is not continuous. So, we have incredible (literally incredible) stories passed along in discontinuous fashion by story tellers and story hearers who are particularly credulous to supernatural explanations. Not to be flippant, but my basic response to your point is "big deal." You need more than other magic stories to make a compelling case.

    Your #2 is something I've addressed in other posts. That the nation believed the story is not very impressive at all. What's more, how do you know the nation believed the story? It's a big nation. Lot's of people. What does it mean to say they believed it? Did everyone? Did they all believe in exactly the same way? But explain how it could happen that there are not competing accounts of the event by eyewitnesses. After all, a front-row seat is much different than a back-row seat. As I have argued in much greater detail throughout my Kuzari posts: belief is not the issue (though you want it to be). Empirical data is the issue, especially as the first premise in the priniciple brings the issue of "evidence" front and center.

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  4. You realize there is no such thing as proof by lack of counterexample.

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  5. Drew, Yes I realize that. Have I indicated otherwise?

    In writing, if there is a specific point to be made, it helps to actually state it.

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  6. It seems that Gottlieb's entire case is an attempted proof by lack of counterexample. If I asserted that there can be no gold spheres larger that 20 feet in diameter, you might ask for a reason why. If my only reason is that there are no counterexamples, I don't think anyone would buy that.

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  7. Drew,

    Ah, I see what you are saying. But I don't think that Gottlieb ever uses the word "proof." His argument relies more on plausibility and an appeal to common sense, which we know can be highly suspect. His assertion is not about gold spheres but about human behavior. Moreover, his argument is that there should be a preponderance of counterexamples. That there are none (so he says, although we can make some legitimate disagreements) doesn't prove anything, but every time someone says s/he has a counterexample and he shows why it doesn't apply, his principle looks all the stronger.

    That's why I have taken the multi-pronged approach I have. It's also why I have asked for--and myself provided--examples of true NETs. true NETs give us a real context for examining the applicability and strength of the KP.

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  8. The stregnth of the evidence (again, my apologies for miscomprehension):

    1. You claim that the Kuzari argument is weak because many people MAY have not have believed in the Sinai story. First, and this is not neccesarily a response to your argument, it is noteworthy that although the prophets chastize the nation for any flaw as large as idolatry and as small as hoarding the produce till the Sabbatical year to sell it at a higher price (as in Amos). Nevertheless, while we do find the Kuzari argument in Psalms 44 and 78, we NEVER find the prophets blaiming the population for not believing in the Sinai miracles. It is ALMOST as if it is a given.

    Furthermore, we don't have to prove that everyone believed in the story. We are simply saying that at least some people do. That type of belief has never been shown to be wrong.

    2. How is it possible that everyone agreed with the same story, you ask? Because everyone had a front-row seat. Everyone ate Manna and walked though the split sea, and everyone saw Moses write the Torah and place it in the ark, and everyone saw Joshua write the Torah on the stones. True, you don't believe in one word of what I just wrote, so all I am saying is that I can easily DEFEND why everyone has the same story.

    In fact, the fact that everyone has the same story (the Samaritan Torah has only minor differences regarding the location of the Temple) tells you something about the possibility that this story evolved over time. Had it evolved, we would have expected widely different Torah texts etc.

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  9. abele,

    Your #1 is responding to my earlier comment, which was hardly the sum of my posted arguments. It's hardly a blip in terms of the posts I make assessing Kuzari. Kuzari is weak structurally. It's not a well formulated argument, conceptually.

    When you say "That type of belief has never been shown to be wrong," please tell me the tests "that type of belief" has undergone. What are the specific scenarios where "that type of belief" has emerged? Who thought it might be wrong, and how was it later found to be true?

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  10. abele,

    "all I am saying is that I can easily DEFEND why everyone has the same story."

    No, you can't. You don't have another story. You only have one. You're using the same story to defend an earlier part of it.

    But you skipped ahead on my questions. I initially asked "how do you know the nation believed the story?"

    Had there really been a huge NET Sinai-event, we would have expected very many different reports of individuals relating their specific experience. The high-level view of the narrative of Sinai and the lack of individuation suggests to me that it was invented, not reported. The contrast with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if you read that post, makes very clear the difference.

    As I say later: "The case of the atomic bombings reveals the gaping weaknesses of the Sinai story. The eyewitness accounts of Hiroshima, like first-person testimonies in many momentous events, are visceral and immediate. People understand where they were in the critical moment, what they were doing, how it felt to go through what they did. These people talk about their confusion, their fear, and their concern for fellows. The Sinai story, in contrast, reads as craft. It bears all the hallmarks of artifice. It's a detached, omniscient narrative story that is less about national revelation than about a claim to power by self-appointed political and filial descendants of both Moses and Aaron."

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  11. Your comparison to Hiroshima is not relevant because that is a one-time event.

    Manna fell, according to our history, for 14,600 days.

    The revelation at sinai was a mass-prophecy, so they all had the same account. (Please cite which verses bothers you.)

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  12. abele,

    I showed why Hiroshima qualifies as a NET. I think it's pretty clear that it is one. I invite you to submit other known and hugely significant national events that we can reference.

    The story of the manna, so far as I can tell, is just that: a story. Do you have any other evidence to corroborate or substantiate the story? I assume you have reasons for believing the story is true. May I ask what these reasons are?

    My comments on the relevant Exodus passages are here: http://larrytanner.blogspot.com/2010/07/definitively-refuting-kuzari-principle.html

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  13. I am not clear why Hiroshima is a NET. It seems to be a case of an extreme non-NET, simply because nobody witnessed the event. Specifically, the Americans witnessed none of the event.

    I am not sure why you keep asking for a known true-NET. That is not neccesary. Nevertheless, I will provide you with one: The Second Temple in Jerusalem is a known true-NET. The first Temple is also a known true-NET (unless some scholars hold that there really wasn't a First Temple in Jerusalem).

    The Kuzari proof is simple: it a certian type of evidence which has never shown itself to be false. The skeptic's response that it the evidence is SURELY curroptable goes unproven.

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  14. abele--

    Hiroshima is a NET, according to criteria laid out by Rabbi Gootlieb:
    (1) The nation of Japan witnessed the event. (2) The event created a national tradition. (3) People believed that it was true that the event happened. (4) Believers have included the nation composed of the descendants of those to whom the event was supposed to have occurred.

    So it is a NET. You example of the 2nd temple--what exactly is the "event" in question? What is it that the entire nation witnessed together? The importance of true NETs is simple: they help clarify the Kuzari claim and give us real data to use when we consider ancient, alleged events such as Sinai. Would people in Japan ca. the year 2445 believe that Hiroshima happened in 1945 if it didn't? That's the claim made by Judah Halevi for Sinai.

    But you are clearly and indisputably mistaken to call Kuzari "proof." It is alleged to be a principle. You are also mistaken to use the word "evidence" with reference to Kuzari, as it itself is a speculative principle and not evidence and as it contains no empirical or logical evidence.

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  15. The nation of Japan did not witness Hiroshima. Almost everyone there died. Everyone was hearing the official government position of what happened.

    The Second Temple (and the first Temple) is surely a NET. Its existence is an event, is it not? The nation was required to visit the Temple, so the entire nation saw the Temple.


    Regarding your criticism about the fact that there aren't various accounts of the events, why are you sure that there weren't? It is quite possible that a tiny percentage thought that the manna fell for 14,601 days and not 14,600, but why should they have PRESERVED that opinion over the centuries?

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  16. abele --

    Again, the facts contradict you. The nation of Japan did witness Hiroshima. About 200k died from the two atomic bomb attacks. Many more were left alive, injured or irradiated or near enough to visit. It's a nearly perfect example of a NET.

    I don't know why you call the "existence" of the Second Temple a NET. To be a NET, the first creation of this temple would have to be witnessed by the entire nation. The creation of the temple would have to create a national tradition. Why would people centuries later not believe that there was a second temple without evidence?

    But anyway, I have lost the main thrust of your arguments. You've made some criticisms of my Kuzari refutation, but those criticisms have been addressed and dissolved.

    Please answer some questions I gave you earlier: "The story of the manna, so far as I can tell, is just that: a story. Do you have any other evidence to corroborate or substantiate the story? I assume you have reasons for believing the story is true. May I ask what these reasons are?"

    Thanks!

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  17. I am surprised that you keep on asking for MORE evidence for the manna story. I have evidence, and its the same evidence that I have for the existence of the First Temple in Jerusalem.

    I simply do not understand your critique of my claiming that the Temple is a NET (please elaborate).

    Finally, you claimed that Hiroshima shows that a NET can be false. Yet, the false parts that you cited (such as whether the Americans dropped leaflets) were not NETs. Yes, I agree, a NET can contain some side issues which are not NETs, and can therefore be false. For example, the tradition in the Midrash claims that the saints and holy people would be able to taste the taste all various foods in the manna; the average folk, could not. That sub-miracle would be a non-NET which is related to a NET: the falling of the manna.

    The only NET aspect of Hiroshima is that a great ball of fire exploded over the city. That is a NET (assuming millions of locals saw the explosion, and survived it). All other issues related to Hiroshima do not acquire NET status merely because they are related to Hiroshima.

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  18. abele,

    "I am surprised that you keep on asking for MORE evidence for the manna story. I have evidence, and its the same evidence that I have for the existence of the First Temple in Jerusalem."

    I am asking if you have more evidence. I am aware that the Bible tells the manna story and that there's a "tradition" claiming the story is true. I don't necessarily believe the story and suspect the tradition is mistaken. I imagine that the miracle stories of other religions are somewhat less persuasive for you, even though they have strong traditions. But again, I am only asking if there is more evidence.

    Please recall that I started this line of questioning because you said that you could "easily defend" the story. How can you easily defend it? There's only one story and no other evidence to draw upon, so far as I'm aware. Therefore, I'm eager to learn what else you use to justify your belief that this particular story is true as reported.

    "I simply do not understand your critique of my claiming that the Temple is a NET (please elaborate)."

    My critique is really only an observation, and that observation is that the Temple does not clearly meet the definition of a NET, as I understand the definition from what Gottlieb has written.

    The Temple would meet the definition if the entire nation all at once witnessed it's creation. It would meet the definition if the existence of the Temple created a national tradition. It would meet the definition if people would not believe the Temple was created without enormous and easily available evidence.

    This last point is important because one of the keys of NETs is that they are especially extraordinary and significant. While the creation (dedication?) of the Temple may have been a great thing in its time, I don't know too many people who would have trouble believing that there was such as temple.

    "Finally, you claimed that Hiroshima shows that a NET can be false."

    No, Hiroshima is a NET, and it's a NET that we know for certain is true. The side issues of Hiroshima all go to showing why we probably don't get the whole Sinai story from Torah.

    I will say, once again: "The case of the atomic bombings reveals the gaping weaknesses of the Sinai story. The eyewitness accounts of Hiroshima, like first-person testimonies in many momentous events, are visceral and immediate. People understand where they were in the critical moment, what they were doing, how it felt to go through what they did. These people talk about their confusion, their fear, and their concern for fellows. The Sinai story, in contrast, reads as craft. It bears all the hallmarks of artifice. It's a detached, omniscient narrative story that is less about national revelation than about a claim to power by self-appointed political and filial descendants of both Moses and Aaron."

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  19. I may have misunderstood your's and Gottlieb's definition of a NET. I understood it to mean a 1) NATIONAL EVENT which 2) WAS BELIEVED TO HAVE LEFT COMMEMORATIONS IN ITS WAKE.

    The Sinai miracles left many commemorations. The Temple did not leave as many. The only commemorations are 1) Tisha B'av and the three weeks; 2) Chanukah; 3) and a few other commemorations.
    I wasn't calling the initial dedication of the Temple a NET. I was calling the physical existence of the Temple a NET.

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  20. Larry may I have your e-mail so that we may personally discuss things?

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  21. Johnny,

    Not until I know what you wish to discuss and why.

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Feel free to comment if you have something substantial and substantiated to say.