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In Israel, Potential Organ Donors Could Jump the Queue
laron writes "In Israel, a new law is in the making: Holders of donor cards and their families would get preference if they should need an organ for themselves. Apparently this initiative faces resistance from Orthodox rabbis, who hold that organ donation is against religious law. Jacob Lavee, director of the heart transplant unit at Israel's Sheba Medical Center, and one of the draftees of this new law, hopes that a broader pool of organs will ultimately benefit everyone, but acknowledges that one of his primary motivations is 'to prevent free riders.' (Apparently receiving an organ is OK under religious law.)"
can go to the end of the line
It's always a tough call when you're talking about life and death and major elective surgeries. But I find myself thinking this is a good thing, that makes sense?
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
Seriously. I'll give you mine if you give me yours.*
* In the event of spectacular untimely demise.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I've been an organ donor since I got my license when I was sixteen. I never really considered that people who WERE NOT organ donors would receive the same treatment in regards to their placement on the the list of people in need of an organ transplant. Total bullshit.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
It's apparent their time is out, why are the orthodox trying to subvert god's will? Don't they want to go to heaven?
"If I can't contribute organs because of my religious beliefs, the state shouldn't be allowed to harm me,"
Seriously? This is the kind of stuff Jesus was criticizing in the bible: he tried to show that loving each other and helping each other out is more important than following the law to exactness. Fortunately it is a minority that feel this way, most of the rabbis in Israel are more sane (according to the article).
Qxe4
I never understood why organ donation is opt-in rather than opt-out.
I can understand having religious convictions not to be a donor but the default ought to be "your organs are up for grabs"
Maybe this will open up more discussion of the religious permissibility of organ donations, which is a topic that's nowhere near as black and white as some people make it out to be. Plenty of orthodox rabbis also say donating is permissible (as far as I've heard from members of the New York ultra-orthodox contingent) in a lot of circumstances, but their voices seem to get drowned out far too often. I'd love to see some real discussion of the topic, so while yeah the measure is radical, it's also kind of brilliant. It's also an interesting approach to tackling the religious/secular divide in Israel, which makes the American one look downright friendly.
open source modern art: laser taggi
Israel has various religious sub-groups, and it's only in the extreme orthodox group (Haredim) that organ donation is problematic. In the moderate orthodox community some rabbis have suggested that it's an obligation to sign the donation card.
Oh yeah. It's everywhere.
For instance around late March and early April we'll have passover. It's forbidden to eat anything yeasty or something like that on passover, so no beer, whiskey or more importantly: bread.
See, I always bring a sandwich with me to work and eat at my desk. It's what I do. I like having my sandwich for lunch because I don't feel like heading to the kitchen. But now I'll have to find an alternative because my office is apparently supposed to be kept kosher for passover.
Nobody honestly cares in my department, and not in any of the neighboring departments, and not my boss(es).
How can I have my sandwich without bread? :(
o hai
I may be missing something, and feel free to tell me. But I have no problem with donors being higher on the list. It makes sense to reward altruism in society and this certainly fits the bill. Sure some religions might interject, but just like organ donation religious practices are a choice and like every choice they carry consequences. That's not to say non-donors shouldn't get organs, but they should not be the priority.
Instead of 2 choices (donor or non-donor), how about a third category: donor with preference to other donors. This takes the decision away from the government and to the owner of the organs.
I'm sure some people would be willing to donate to anyone, but the majority would choose the new third option.
Organ donation is NOT always against Jewish law (Halacha). In fact there is almost always a way that it is totally fine and even further, there are interpretations that suggest that not being an organ donor is a violation of Halacha! Please see http://hods.org/ for a very good observant Jewish organization that seeks to make more orthodox Jews organ donors.
Organ donation doesn't conflict with the Jewish religion, in fact there is a religious law that authorizes it under few minor limitations. Also, the law is widely supported by most Israelis, there's a very small orthodox minority that doesn't support it because the public they represent has a low percentage of organ donor card holders and not due to a conflict with religion.
Most Orthodox Rabbis are not against organ transplants. They disagree about the determination of death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation_in_Jewish_law
Why should you get a organ from someone who just died if you aren't willing to give the same if you die?
Except for the group of people who have something that means they aren't candidates for organ donations but are candidates for organ transplant (I don't know if there is such a pair, but you don't take organs from people with aids or numerous other illnesses) - they are going to get the short end of the stick. Though it's a simple exception to add.
Normal rules of ethics dictate that the commons should be more willing to help someone out if they're willing to donate to the commons too. This is related to the idea behind the GPL. If you have two friends who are short a buck for lunch, you're more likely to give your only dollar to the one who's more likely to spot you when you come up short.
Just because organ donation is a matter of life and death doesn't mean that it plays by any different rules than "ordinary" ethics -- it just means the stakes for getting it right are that much higher. The commons should encourage people to contribute /to/ the commons, thereby enriching everyone, and rules like this are just one way to do it.
And this sort of ethics is independent of anyone's primitive superstitions. Superstitions are fine -- believe whatever you want -- but don't expect reality to change to suit them.
The problem here is not a religious one, but an economical one. There is a greater demand than supply, and thus scarcity: the fundamental reason for economics. The trouble with a government trying to regulate the distribution of goods is that they must make decisions that will hurt some people and help others. Basically, they have to define what is "fair", and it is usually an arbitrary decision. Most often, the decision is left to who can bribe the politicians the most, and therefore relating back to money anyways.
According to the article, there seems to be some occasions where they don't mind donating an organ and therefore may be willing to give something in return. Of course, if this had anything at all to do with religious beliefs, then anybody who believes God is powerful enough to enforce a rule will believe He is powerful enough to provide when that rule is followed. Anything else seems to me more like a social club.
There are 10 commandments: 01)Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God 10)Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.Matt22:34-40
Apparently this initiative faces resistance from Orthodox rabbis, who hold that organ donation is against religious law.
There's a shortage of donors as it is where too many are dragging their feet when it comes to registering. This new rule seems to make the "game" fairer.
But how I understand it, orthodox who explicitly refuse donating organs apparently want to dictate rules for matches they don't even participate in. What's it then? Do they want be in front of the queue for accepting organs? Play the game or leave the table. Another fine example of religious representatives imposing themselves, interpreting the word of God.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Orthodox Judaism considers it obligatory if it will save a life, as long as the donor is considered dead as defined by Jewish law (from Wikipedia)
What gives? Can anyone shed light on this?
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Yeah, I don't understand this. Their religion comes from a time when cutting-edge surgery involved a dull axe, some grain alcohol (to get the surgeon's courage up) and maybe some hot tar if you were lucky. How can they possibly justify applying a book written by a bunch of shepherds and nomads to something as modern as organ transplantation?
And if they think that God intended for His holy book to say something about organ transplants, wouldn't it be right there where it's obvious (like say in the ten commandments), and not hidden away in some obscure little passage?
If you're not a donor, you're a douche bag. Sign the card or whatever it is in your state. Let your loved ones know. You might save a life.
There are nuts in every religion. Those Orthodox rabbis need to get control of their minds and stop with these ancient laws and notions. Being able to receive an organ but not donate one is flat out loonie tunes. After all when you get an organ the bad organ gets tossed in the trash so your corpse is not completely you when you eventually pass away. Some of these rabbis are as off the wall as the Moslem idiots who blow themselves up.
Will a healthy "non-donator" be put far behind, for example, other persons likely to die/reject the transplant? If the free-loaders are a small minority one would think it would be better to keep the emphasis on getting organs to the people who stand the best chances of being able to use them, rather than necessarily who has put in an equitable stake.
For that matter, although these people may not have volunteered their organs, if they pay taxes they are still contributing to Israel's socialized health care program. How much does that count for sharing the burden of these expensive procedures?
And will these people still have a reasonable chance of coming up on the waiting list, or are their prospects pretty much nullified? Seems to me that death is a bit harsh of a penalty for not signing up. You may as well just void the opt-out bit entirely. Surely you would rather they be annoying whiners about it than potentially dead.
Disclaimer: I'm 100% for letting people bear the natural consequences of their choices, even when that's death, and would never want to be forced to sign up for anything. The above simply represents some objections I feel a less libertarian individual might raise.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Click here for a list of state agencies that handle organ donation:
http://organdonor.gov/donor/registry.shtm
It only takes about 30 seconds to register online.
moox. for a new generation.
Traffic signals close to Synagogues in my city run automatic pedestrian movements on Saturdays because people walking to the Synagogue won't press the button.
Joseph Guttnick wouldn't watch the football on Saturday but he did hire non-jewish security guards to watch it for him.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You might save a life.
...Or you might lose your own life in some circumstances as well.
Religious law may allow it, but religious people won't donate - it's a cultural thing. They still want the organs when they need them though.
I agree. This is a very good idea!
Well,the _ donation _ is not a problem .The problem is : ,so you can use his organs? In other word ,the moment of death. ,right? ,how do you make sure of two things: ,there are two main opinions in Judaism: ,_ but _ to make sure that person is really dead .Let say we need two doctors to say
When do you consider a person dead
This is _ not _ a simple question to ask.
The current knowledge in medicine says the moment of death is the "brain death".
However this is not so simple.
If there _ is _ a possibility of a person to be back alive after a "brain death" then taking his organs is
pratically killing him
This "moment of death" is the real Judaism problem .
While doctors say it is OK to take your organs
1. The person is _ really _ dead (when we think of a person as dead?)
2. Why would you trust _ any _ doctor on such a thing?
So
1. The moment of death is the brain death
there is a need of more then just one doctor to decide
that and one _ none _ doctor to see that the two other guys are not going to just kill somebody
for money.
There is a law in preparing actually in Isarel that makes all this to happen.
2. The moment of death is the moment of heart actually stopping. ,however I would not trust a science for this, science changes.
This is _ against _ of current science
Note however that if an organ was _ already _ taken than the person is already dead anyway and thus
the "receiving an organ is OK under religious law".
Just trying to clear thing out.
Not being an organ donor does not make you a douche bag. People may have valid reasons for choosing not to be a donor. Some of those are religious or ethical, others might be medical.
Would you want to accept an organ from a person that has a communicable disease and that disease would come to you from a donated organ?
Would you want to accept an organ from a person that has not taken good care of that organ in their body?
The organ you receive could actually kill you if your body outright rejects it without appropriate post operative medical care. Should we give organs to people that mark themselves donors, but are unlikely to obtain reasonable post operative medical care?
Some people may be better donors than others! Would they re-prioritize organs to people that are more likely to be better organ donors than people that are not as good organ donors? For example, lets say that I'm fairly healthy except for this kidney I have that won't work. Would I get the kidney before a person that is less healthy than myself? Which types of organs are more desirable? Age matched? Younger? Older? Larger? Smaller? Is there a grading scale for organ donor-ability?
(get away, you zombies! it's not food!)
Maybe you have something of a point - and maybe you don't. I mean, the Greeks were doing brain surgery way back when. There was commerce in the region way back when. Which is older - Judaism, Greece, or commerce? I mean, it's not like Moses, Methuselah, and all the other prophets were neanderthals, or cave men, or whatever. Not to mention that all those famous libraries that were destroyed by good Christian crusaders. We really don't know what the level of medical learning was in the region 5000 years ago.
You insist that they had no medical know-how? Well - there is evidence that they had engineering skills in Egypt that we can't equal today. Try hiring a construction firm to build some of those pyramids. Go for it.
Some of those historic and prehistoric people were a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Jewish law doesn't prohibit anything involving pigs except for eating them, and praying in places where you can smell them.
Thank G-d for that. I was worried that the Rabbi wouldn't like it if he found out I was screwing them.
Wouldn't that be like circumventing the law?
Folks, God's laws ain't like the human kind. They aren't meant to be searched for loopholes. Either keep them or just ignore them altogether, there's no reason to dance around them. If you think God exists, then you should know that God ain't a judge who'll mutter under his breath when he acquits you on a technicality because you happened to find a loophole. He'll be pissed, first that you broke the law, second that you did so while smugly telling him that you're upholding it.
Think he'll like that? And think he'll follow due process and all the crap that came way after he invented the whole deal? Hmm?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, and you also might save the life of someone who goes on to take someone elses.
Fuck off you ignorant dick, the philosophy of organ donation isn't as simple as "you're a douche if you don't do it".
Some of us don't like the concept of helping to keep up artificially an already overpopulated species and are happy with the concept that when we die, we're gone, and we're not saved by some donation and even if we were might end us in a state where we can't contribute anything to society, but may consume a disproportionate amount of resources.
The human overpopulation problem is a big deal- it's the reason for many wars, it's the reason for climate change and other pollution related problems, it's the reason for starvation in many places and it's the reason for many social ills in some places also (i.e. higher crime). Keeping people alive artificially well beyond their means is part the reason for it.
It's ironic that people like you have such an ignorant, simplistic view of how you might save someone's life through organ donation, completely missing the point that you're responsible in the long run for many more deaths.
The real douchebags are people too fucking stupid to realise that their do-gooder attitudes actually cause the problems they think they're saving against.
So no, I'm not going to sign, and I'll continue to actively campaign against opt-out organ donation, because it's just one of many factors responsible for more deaths and more problems amongst the human population in the long run. The human population needs to slow down it's growth, death is a natural check on that, it's sad, but it's an essential part of the natural cycle. People should be able to live in a world where they don't have to suffer the problems of overpopulation, why would I want to contribute to a world where they can't?
Come back and tell me it's okay to donate your organs when you're been to somewhere like certain parts of Africa and Asia, where there are entire families of people near starving to death and having to work in conditions where they suffer and sometimes lose limbs or lives just so that some guy in the US whose been kept alive through organ donation can continue to live his lifestyle where he consumes daily what an entire such family might consume in a month.
So again, organ donation isn't as simple as "you're a douche if you don't do it". It's a far bigger, far more complex issue than that, and a lot of people are perfectly justified in not being interested in organ donation.
It is *not* a sin to give an organ, this is a mistake in the parent summary. Jewish law does *not* forbid giving an organ.
I posted this before, but here it is again:
Jews do not believe it's wrong to donate. What they believe is that, as long as a persons heart is beating they are alive.
Meaning: They believe it's wrong to murder someone to harvest organs.
Others believe that after brain death the person is dead, and it's not murder.
The argument is not over organ donation, which even the strictest rabbi agrees with.
The argument is over the definition of death, since most organ donation are done after brain, but not cardiac, death.
-Ariel
When you start putting an acceptable face on preferential medical treatment, it's the thin end of the wedge.
How long before this perfectly acceptable and seemingly reasonable tier-ring system is tweaked some more?
Perhaps soldiers get preferential treatment? I can see that meeting little public resistance.
Then soldiers and their immediate families.
And if soldiers, why not fire-fighters or even other medical staff?
Or politicians?
At what point do people enter a job market, or start a political campaign, just to help a loved one move up a few spaces on the transplant waiting list?
And if it did extend as far as politicians, what with campaign contributions being as messed up as they are, how is that any different than buying the organs in the first place?
Jewish law doesn't prohibit anything involving pigs except for eating them, and praying in places where you can smell them. Get your facts straight before you blathering on about the corruption of a religion you don't know much about.
I agree that the post you replied to is trollish, but have to berate you for your very, very limited imagination. This is the Internet Era, no? The last time I checked, bestiality with pigs was still a big no-no in Judaism (and no, I wasn't checking because of personal interest --- it's a figure of speech, get over it). In addition, I believe that most rabbis would also forbid torturing pigs (unless it might save a human life). Hmm, what else. If/when the practice of animal sacrifice will become active again, only kosher animals are permitted to be sacrificed. Jews can wear shoes made from pig leather, but not on Yom Kippur. It's forbidden to murder someone by dropping a pig on them from a great height. You are forbidden buying and selling pigs on the Sabbath.
Actually, the list is, well, endless....
BTW for the next time this comes up, you might want to cite: http://engforum.pravda.ru/archive/index.php/t-216072.html
That's fucking stupid. Why the hell should they be punished for someone else's decision?
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If you're not a donor, you're a douche bag
Well, I used to be very pro-organ donation, but having seen 'the market' at work in the US, I now feel pretty disgusted. Larry Hagman (a known alcoholic) getting a new liver thanks to his money while others wait in line ? What about Steve jobs, did he have to wait for years in line ? If all it takes is to be rich and famous, then no, I'm sorry, I don't want to participate. Let natural selection run its course.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Groups of bicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks of Williamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanes away last week at the request of the Hasidic community.
The Hasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-haven neighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posed both a safety and religious hazard.
Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.
Two cycling advocates were apprehended by the Shomrim Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, as they repainted a section of bike lane at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, but when cops arrived, no one was arrested and no summonses were issued, police said.
"These people should apply for a job at the DOT," neighborhood activist Isaac Abraham said of the repainting. "You put it on, they take it off -- and they will probably do this again."
A Department of Transportation spokesman said: "We will continue to work with any community on ways we can make changes to our streets without compromising safety."
A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month's election.
Abraham contends the bike lanes put children at risk of getting hit by cars or bicycles as they exited school buses.
But Baruch Herzfeld, who has tried to bridge the gap between hipsters and Hasids with a bike-rental program, said safety is not the issue so much as xenophobia.
"They don't want the hipsters in their neighborhood," he said. "It's like in Howard Beach back in the day when they didn't want black people in the neighborhood."
The cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has not taken sides in the dispute.
But bike lane or not, "cyclists have a right to be on Bedford Avenue," said Wiley Norvell, a group spokesman.
(First of all, to clear up the nitpick: "But you don't need a bike lane to ride down the street!" It's there to keep people from running you over, not to give you legal sanction to use the street.) What's amazing here is that an American city outside Utah acquiesced to demands that a piece of public infrastructure be degraded, on the basis of someone's religious objections to women who are not covered. It was a boneheaded decision to enforce values of a single religious group upon the public at large.
In Israel, where I presume there are no bike lanes, there is clearly not the messy separation of church and state that exists here (for now). Maybe it's fine there for religous law to dictate secular law. But there isn't much organ donation in Israel because of people's religious beliefs. An "opt-out" system isn't discriminatory in any way, but the same sort of people who got the City of New York to sandblast its bike lanes are the ones who will claim discrimination.
How can they possibly justify applying a book written by a bunch of shepherds and nomads to something as modern as organ transplantation?
It's because
A. Their god doesn't talk to them anymore
B. They don't listen
C. Nietzsche killed him
It's fairly easy to work oneself into a state of exctacy where the idle chatter of one's mind sounds so concentrated it has to be the voice of god. But since all preachers are so enamoured with their own voice and the simili of power that their interpretations of scripture grants them, when it comes to listening to the voice of their conscience for moral guidance they expect that voice to be as loud and intolerant as their own.
The techniques for trance, extacy and so on used to be the closely guarded secrets of priesthoods since these were also the basis of their power. Today however if you are able to filter out the New Age BS from the ancient shamanistic practices you too can commune with nature, 'talk with god', and achieve concentration so deep that you're unable to differentiate between yourself and the focus of your mind.
Clearly the Abrahamic tradition didn't get the memo, or their preachers would be instructing people in these internal arts rather than puff themselves full of air like the Rabbis behind this brain-fart.
All rites reversed 2010
I don't think anyone is saying it'd be the ONLY criteria, just that it should be one that gets considered. There's all kinds of factors that go in to who gets to be where on the list as it is. I think this is a fair one to add. If you are willing to donate your organs, then it is fair to give you a better chance at getting organs.
No matter what, we have to have some criteria currently since demand outstrips supply and any of the current solutions to that are unacceptable. One thing that might help is to encourage more people to be donors. This might help do that.
> Well - there is evidence that they had engineering skills in Egypt that we can't equal today.
> Try hiring a construction firm to build some of those pyramids. Go for it.
They'll laugh at you, not because they can't build them. But because you're not going to be able to afford it.
You're not the Pharaoh after all - the supreme absolute ruler of the nation.
Or Bill Gates or any of those extremely rich billionaires (who'd have the $$$ for it, but they clearly have different priorities).
A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is pretty much in the same order of magnitude in size, and far more complicated and sophisticated.
...not oppressed, whoops.
Rich and arrogant Jews* have been doing this forever. A quick glance through the New Testament is proof of this. (Even if one doesn't hold it to be scripture, it really is ancient.) Rich people of all religions seem to do it, but wealthy Jews seem to have a knack for it.
*(With very strong emphasis on "rich and arrogant". One of my closest friends from High School is a practicing Jew and I have no patience for antisemitism.)
I'm not sure what drives the transplant double standard. Reiterating ancient nonsense** that doesn't reasonably stem from scripture (but is tradition) is forgivable, even understandable. Making up fresh contradictions is only amusing when lives aren't on the line.
**(It happens sometimes. I heard some today in my church. Let's stay calm, please.)
The following (from the article) is probably part of it:
But it has also raised resistance from within Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority... Most leading Orthodox rabbis — as well as Israeli law — agree that a person dies when his brain-stem stops functioning. A minority opinion, endorsed by Elyashiv, holds that as long as a person's heart beats he or she is alive and therefore the organs cannot be harvested. Donation in Israel after cardiac death is rare and only done in special circumstances.
It's still a double standard. If you can accept such a donation, you can give such a donation. I agree with you: God certainly knows where that organ came from. (He also won't blame recipients who were not conscious when the decision was made. etc.)
(Most transplants in Israel are done while the donor's heart is still beating!?!?! Am I misreading this?)
Final disclaimer: I'm posting while quite tired. I know I shouldn't. The above certainly contains mistakes. Perhaps egregious ones.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
How in the world is the parent post a Troll?
Think about it. If the Executive, Legislature, Judge, and Jury were all one person (God) is he going to give any leeway to loopholes?
Obvious, maybe (to some), but not Troll.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
What? Not a single "In Soviet Russia.." joke so far?
No respect for traditions these days..
In Soviet Russia, The Queue jumps potiental organ donors!
You are claiming that signing a donor card might make you more liable to die since the doctors would kill you for your organs. Your solution, give a monitory incentive for your killing as well.
Smart.
And this problem really ain't all that complex. If I refuse to pay taxes, can I claim social benefits? If I don't pay road taxes, can I drive on the public roads? If I don't have insurance, can I claim insurance?
People without donor cards who want a donated organ are the ultimate "do as I say, don't do as I do". And no, they don't deserve to life.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's a lot of talk about overpopulation and world hunger. If you're really this concerned, why don't you grab a flight to "certain parts of Africa and Asia", slash your throat and donate the usable parts of your body to a "famil[y] of people near starving to death"? You'll not only provide food and directly reduce the population but might just cause one or a few cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, reducing the number of people living in such bad circumstances.
Being a registered donor is a rather elegant way to put my mind at ease with the thought of dying. Should I die through some random act of stupidity, I'll still have done my best to allow someone else to live their life to the fullest. If I'm not going to use an organ anymore, why throw it away? Give it to somebody who needs it and allow them to enjoy a bit of extra time. They might be the one to find a solution to the pressing problems you describe above. And if they aren't, I'll afford them with the responsibility of recognizing that and donating their organs to somebody more deserving.
So register that, if you have a donor registry such as NL - or put it in your will if there is no such registry / you have privacy concerns.
Seems to me that the taboo on death is, in fact, at play here.
If you are religious and believe in some form of a soul, then the body tends to be an empty vessel once you're dead.
If you aren't religious, then you probably believe that the lack of any electrical signals pretty much means your body is just organic matter.
By the way - your life is opt-out. Unless you made a conscious decision to be born into this world ;)
Ham and Cheese on Matzo.
Mmm.... Sacrelicious!
They're cracking down. As we all know, the problem is uploading, not downloading.
Oh I am sure I too can come up with any contrived reason to prove my point.
It comes down to one thing, people who don't step up to the plate are offended that those who do get some kind of benefit.
It is a great example of what is wrong with society these days, everyone wants everything they just don't want to earn it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Ours isn't even the most extreme version of what is (in my arrogant opinion) far too much respect for the dead. See the Navajo concept of 'chindi', at least as presented/{possibly distorted} by Tony Hillerman. In general, and real anthropologists (as opposed to survival anthropologists from Mars) please correct this if I'm wrong, funerary customs seem to be especially persistent---perhaps because the uh 'item' at the middle of them can't object, and those closest to it are generally in no mood to do. Few Japanese are devout Buddhists or any kind of Christian, yet almost all funerals are Buddhist whilst weddings have changed to the movie-style 'Christian' sort.
A similar religious obligation, that of not letting a corpse be alone, is kind of sweet, and is reminiscent of how elephants mourn.
Added incentive.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Not being an organ donor does not make you a douche bag. People may have valid reasons for choosing not to be a donor. Some of those are religious or ethical,
And those reasons are the ones that make you a douchebag.
Would you want to accept an organ from a person that has not taken good care of that organ in their body?
The organ you receive could actually kill you if your body outright rejects it without appropriate post operative medical care.
In a choice between certain death via organ failure and possible death because someone didn't eat right and exercise often, I'll take the latter, thanks. Your argument is plain stupid.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Breath animated Adam; the word for the human-level spirit 'ruakh' (as opposed to the animal and divine spirits) is related to breath, air, or wind, like the Sanskrit 'atman', cognate to the Greek 'atmos'. Basically, you become an human being when you first draw breath. And it used to be a lot easier to tell when someone had stopped breathing than when their heart had stopped beating, especially in a body-taboo--rich, culture.
*Back when the National Lampoon was funny---that is, before it died, and before P.J. O'Rourke got his fratcentric hands all over it, there was a very good little piece purporting to be the diary of an adventurous Inca who journeyed to Spain in (say) 1450, in a giant urn well-stocked with guinea pigs. He said that the majority of the country were Christ-me, who believe that 'after they die will turn into birds'; the others, the Jew-men and Moor-men, will 'go into a cellar and burn'.
That Kissinger quote just goes to show that Jews were the originators of the same sort of guilt now commonly associated with Catholics.
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You actually need to check on what you're talking about. Seriously. There are at least two documentaries "out there" somewhere, in which today's modern engineering big shots have voiced opinions that they couldn't build a pyramid in the time frame in which the various pyramids were built. Not for any amount of money. Using the methods commonly used in building our modern skyscrapers, they couldn't move those huge blocks of stone from the bottom to the top. I won't swear to it, but I believe that one of those documentaries was done by the Discovery channel.
Oh, they could build a pyramid SIMILAR to those in Egypt - using concrete. But, they can't move those huge stones, as the Egyptians did.
Can YOU come up with a method of moving those tons of rock, that doesn't require electricity, or gasoline or diesel power?
There is at least one guy on the internet who thinks he has solved the problem. In his case, money might be the problem in building a pyramid on a grand scale. The rest? They don't have the skills, or even the knowledge needed to build those skills.
Much lesser feats of engineering have baffled out best minds for years. Another documentary was running on Discovery or History channel several months ago, in which some people attempted to match one of the Caesar's crossing of one river or another. Those Romans moved an entire army across a river between dusk and dawn, and our people today worked on the problem of building that bridge within such a short time frame for YEARS.
So much knowledge was lost during the dark ages, and the subsequent crusades.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
a time when cutting-edge surgery involved a dull axe
Wait, what? I don't think it's even bleeding edge.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Judaism disagrees with you. God's intentions are not known, so a great deal of interpretation has to go into it. Since many of the rules apply only to Jews, as long as the rule breaking is done by Gentiles (generation of power and all that), all is well. Keep in mind, to even identify the use of electricity as a violation of the law required interpretation (what with electricity not being a factor in the Torah). So they expanded the rule to cover something not found in the Torah just in case, but interpreted what constitutes use in a way that doesn't render you a shut-in from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Anyhow, don't eat animals. You should minimize your trust in the processed food supply. For example, see Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food.
So what you really mean is "don't eat fruits and vegetables"...
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(Apparently receiving an organ is OK under religious law.)
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I lived in Israel for a while, and stopped trying to have empathy or to care for the ultra-orthodox when this happened:
It's shabat.
A woman from an ultra-orthodox ('charedi') family in a charedi neighbourhood in J'lem (Mea Shearim) is in labour, but things are difficult.
Someone goes out to get an ambulance. The ambulance drives in the neighbourhood, and the same family that ordered for the ambulance to come, start throwing stones at the van because they are driving a car on shabat in their neighbourhood.
There comes a point when the reasoning of a religious group becomes so messed up that you can't possibly try to take it into account anymore in a normal social relationship.
So my immediate response when I read about the charedis making trouble again about something that does not fit in their belief system was:
Whatever, I don't care. You don't want to give, you don't get, end of story.
Here's a USA group trying to make that more fair:
http://www.lifesharers.org/
In only a few circumstances is it even a possibility to make an organ donation; death by most illness or simple old age won't leave the organs in a state where they can be harvested. So only a very small number of deaths make it possible to donate organs.
No matter what you indicate with an organ donor card or on your driver's license, your family will in fact have the final say about whether or not organ donation happens. It's a good idea to discuss organ donation with whoever might be making the decision, so they do know what you wanted.
And it does seem to be to be pretty unfair that someone who wouldn't be willing to donate an organ might be at the top of the queue for receiving an organ donation.
Practicing usury in a society that considered it immoral, for much of that time. Christians and Muslims didn't lend money, because they weren't allowed to charge interest on it, so there was no incentive for them to do so. Jews did. Everyone hates the person they owe money to, especially when they start making unreasonable demands, like eventual repayment. This didn't stop the Christians from borrowing money from the Jews - no one else would lend to them - but it didn't exactly endear the Jews to the rest of the population.
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Let's do an experiment. Send you 100 years into the future, where they've decided that because of a new technology, your moral code doesn't apply anymore... saaaaaay, they've invented personality uploading and cloning. And since everyone backs up weekly, murder is now considered mere property damage. But you, with your ancient codes of conduct, object, because you don't trust the backups to not be tampered with, and you're not keen on dying even though "you won't remember."
"Piffle" says futureman, "your ancient and obtuse ways of thinking are no longer valid in today's advanced world. In your time, brain surgery was barely more than trepaniation. It's not really a question of life and death, just property rights. Here, let me show you." And he pulls out a gun and shoots you.
My point being that just as new things are neither bad nor good because they are new, old things are neither bad nor good because they are old. "Don't kill people arbitrarily" is a good idea, even though it's old, and while "the heart is still pumping" might be an outdated method of tracking liveliness, the idea of waiting until someone's "dead" before pulling their organs out is a good one. If you'll recall, the US Constitution was written by a bunch of tobacco farmers and hayseeds generations ago- but the concepts written down in it are still useful, n'est-ce pas?
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You know why? Because we don't have slaves any more. What they mean is "with modern safety standards, we couldn't build the pyramids". If you told them "Okay, here's two thousand people, you're allowed to kill ten men for every 20 meters in height", they'd be all "so where do I sign on?"
Organ donation can be a form of self sacrifice, not unlike falling on a grenade, or rushing into a suicide bomber. Surely, observant Jews don't condemn those people, why should organ donation be any different?
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Jobs did what anyone can do - he registered on more than one transplant center's list. What makes him special is that he can afford to fly anywhere in the country on no notice so as to be ready to receive the organ. Anyone with a bit of time and $100k to charter a private jet can do the same.
This controversy is already going to have a great benefit by making everyone (in Israel at least) think about organ donation and, hopefully, make a decision on whether to become a donor or not.
As I understand, one of the major problems with organ supply is that even people who would be inclined to donate never actually register or discuss the topic with their families. By the time the question is relevant, they are no longer able to state their opinion, so the family has to agonize over the decision and tends to choose the "safe" option of not donating.
I actually saw a documentary where they did it with just period tools, they didn't build an entire one, as I recall they basically just did about 4 levels of the top of one, but if you can move 20 gigantic stone blocks with a dozen or so people, you can move a few thousand with a few thousand people, it'd take a long time the first few times, but the Egyptians didn't start with Giza either.
We could build a pyramid today, but they'd have to build specialty machines. Modern cranes aren't designed to move a multi-tonne stone block. Developing those machines would be crazy expensive I'd guess you'd burn at least a few million bucks and a decade or so just getting the thing together, which would basically make doing it infeasible. That's not the same thing as impossible though, and the fact that you couldn't just rock up with modern equipment and build one doesn't mean they could do things we can't. That'd be like saying that because our soldiers wouldn't be all that gooda t fighting with a spear from a chariot that the ancient Egyptians could beat us in battle, that like building pyramids, just isn't something we do these days.
That's not to say stuff hasn't been lost, reasonable evidence indicates that Damascus steel was what we'd call carbon steel today and it took about 500 years for us to rediscover that when it was lost, and I'm sure there are other things. The pyramids
Which is why they "harvest" them from murdered Palestinian children.
"Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathologists-harvested-organs
""It was the middle of the night. The soldiers caused an electrical power outage in the entire village. Bilal was returned in a black bag; he had no teeth. The body was stitched from the neck all the way down to the abdomen," the Swedish newspaper quoted the mother as saying."
"Swedish daily publishes second article on 'IDF organ harvesting' "
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3765992,00.html
Only the devil dares not to speak the name of God - which invokes the grace of divine presence.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
If we were willing to use slave labor and were not concerned with a good number of them being worked to death, we could do it no problem. Don't confuse barbarism with skill or ingenuity.
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You don't know the first thing about Judaism's view on organ transplantation. You also don't know the first thing on how Jewish law is formulated.
Simple, you go with the Hypocratic oath that all doctors take: "First Do No Harm" sums it up. You do not allow the first child to die unless there's nothing else to be done, regardless of whether or not they're a donor. THEN you think about organ donation. Medical ethics have covered this topic ad nauseum.
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Those in need of organs are not all dead, they are only mostly dead. The medical miracle worker might enquire: 'What is it that you've got that's worth living for?'
In most cases, the answer is 'to blathe'. Really it's usually best to just go through their pockets and look for loose change.
...
Apparently not all Jews define death as "when the heart stops beating"; it seems to be only a small yet oddly vocal minority.
You could save a few lives by donating more of your income. Most of use don't bother because we know that lives aren't worth it. Donating organs is probably counter-productive in many cases since it diverts health-care money from people with minor issues to those who will live in suffering for only a short time even if they get the transplant.
I'm not sure why they honor the decisions of the ultra-orthodox, but not Palestinians. (That was a rhetorical statement of course. I understand why.)
Here is a link.
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Actually, I would expect the futureman to respect my beliefs and not try to force his modern culture on me (and hence not shoot me, and if I do die not revive me); however, I would extend that same respect to the futureman: I would not try to block legislation that would, for instance, move psyche-donors to the top of the mental apparatus transplant lists because I believe such things to be against my ancient New Reformed Spaghettheology beliefs. I wouldn't try to change the education standards of the era to only teach my cherished but now known to be wrong Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, instead of their shiny new Grand Unified Theory. I wouldn't try to deny people the right to genetically screen their potential children, in order to avoid the pain and hardship of raising children with gross physical and mental deformities.
Unfortunately, we have our own transplants from a thousand years ago who are right now trying to accomplish the equivalent of these very things.
If enough people are willing to donate, then the waits won't be as long for everyone, eliminating the unfairness.
"Any people who have been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong."
On the other hand, any people who have survived two thousand years of persecution might be doing something right.
Re rabbinical decisions on organs etc.: One of the nice things about Judaism is that if you are in a congregation and your rabbi says things you disagree with, you can lobby to have him or her replaced or you can go find another temple to join. Try that in the Catholic Church.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Can YOU come up with a method of moving those tons of rock, that doesn't require electricity, or gasoline or diesel power?
I haven't thought very hard about it, but I'd get all my friends together and push it really hard, probably while it is on rollers, and hopefully up a ramp. If that didn't work, then I'd think about it a little longer and probably come up with another idea.
That makes logical sense, but there is Egyptian science from the last decade or so which shows pretty conclusively that the workers weren't slaves, they were paid laborers. In any case, slaves or not, the evidence supports the theory of combined human might as the power source.
Same thing works in the Baptist Churches. Hence all of the varieties of Baptist Churches.
It keeps the religion profession going.
So? Just because they were paid laborers doesn't mean the worker attrition rate wasn't horrific. People are willing to endure a whole lot of shit for their daily bread. Further, just because they were paid doesn't mean they weren't effectively slaves - after all, if you're not going to work on the Pyramid, what else are you going to do? None of the rice paddies need unskilled labor, the Pharoah is pre-empting all other construction projects for his great endeavor, and where else are you going to get health insurance if you don't work for him?
Wait sorry I was channeling modern day America for a moment there. Anyway, even though you may be paid, you're still a slave if your only choices are "take this job" or "starve and die".
You're an idiot. Seriously. Turn off the TV and think about the problem for a minute.
First, no without gasoline, electricity or diesel power we probably couldn't build the pyramids in the same time frame. Because we don't have an army of slaves.
But the pyramids are structurally simple. And we DO have gasoline, electricity and diesel power. Hell, we have construction equipment BIGGER than the pyramids. How long do you seriously think it would take a large tower crane to position a stone? It doesn't even have to be precise, by modern standards. One guy in the tower, a few guys on the ground, they could probably place a couple of stones an hour once everybody got used to it.
It took absolute monarchs decades to build each pyramid; if money was no object you could have one built today in about a year. We don't build new pyramids because we can't figure out how. How is easy. We don't build pyramids because nobody wants one.
If you still don't believe you're an idiot, google 'Dubai artificial islands.'
Jews believe the Messiah will come and will raise the dead from their graves. If my liver outlived me for 20 years in somebody else's body, the Messiah will have a hard time resurrecting me.
Jewish law forbids organ donation, as well as it forbids cremating the dead, as the body as a whole is holy and will get its life back in the aftermath of times.
Of course, we all know organs decompose and get eaten by worms and whatnot... But that is the justification, after all. Do not argue about logic with religious people!
I somewhat concede your point "Well - there is evidence that they had engineering skills in Egypt that we can't equal today.", assuming you mean we can't do things exactly the way they did, or don't know how they did some things.
But that doesn't mean we can't build a pyramid. We just can't do it using the exact same methods the Egyptians did (since we don't know exactly what they did thousands of years ago).
There are some interesting theories though: http://www.livescience.com/history/070518_bts_barsoum_pyramids.html :) ): http://www.cmc-concrete.com/CMC%20Publications/2007,%20The%20Great%20Pyramid%20Debate,%2029th%20ICMA.pdf
And some arguments against it (of course
Building a pyramid is a fairly parallelizable problem. Once you are willing and able to throw enough resources at the problem the issues become more of project management and logistics, than technology.
To me building a nuclear powered aircraft carrier is a far more difficult problem. It involves relatively high level mastery of far more different technologies, sciences and methods (in addition to project management etc).
> Can YOU come up with a method of moving those tons of rock, that doesn't require electricity, or gasoline or diesel power?
A modern construction firm would prefer to use electricity, gasoline or diesel.
That said, there are lots of Bangladeshis breaking up ships using human power (google for it ). So if you give me enough money (upfront) and reasonable time, perhaps I can convince them and others to build a pyramid. Then with your generosity, I can provide them with far better living and working conditions than what they are experiencing daily, and a better salary too.
I assume one would be allowed to initially transport the workers from Bangladesh, India etc to the building area using modern tech ;).
My estate will be taking care of my body in a way that I, and my heirs, feel is appropriate. No embalming or burning or transplants for me, thank you. That shit's for the short-sighted. I hope to eventually become part of a mighty oaken timber holding up a beautiful piece of sustainable architecture, but honestly I will settle for just not becoming a bunch of spoiled meat soaked with refinery toxins. Maintaining productive soil is more valuable to the human race than temporarily extending the life of any one person.
Now, if some living person asks me nicely on my deathbed if they can have one of my organs, I might consider it. If I really, really like that person, if I really think their existence makes the world a fundamentally better place, then maybe. But I'd rather not end up like William Lucas, thanks anyway, so don't put me on any lists.
This is somewhat true; the term for ultra Orthodox Jewish men is "sit and learn," and chiefly the Talmud. Rebecca Goldstein's novel The Mind-Body Problem discusses this phenomenon extensively.
It's not quite true to say that the average woman has more education, since most of their businesses are of the small, shop-keeper / mender / teacher types (and teacher doesn't mean "M.A. and in public schools." It means "high school education then teaching at the Yeshiva"); it would be more accurate to say that many women in that culture have a larger direct financial impact on the world.
Are you kidding? Us Jews have a nice little story about how proud G-d was when we finally out-argued him on the fine points of His law. (look up the Oven of Akhnai if you're interested in the pretty hilarious details).
The Jews who define death as "when the heart stops beating" are hardly a small minority. Ha'aretz has an article detailing the history of the dispute in Israel.
On one side of the dispute, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (the leader of Sephardic jewry, a group which comprises about half of the religious Jews in Israel) has ruled that according to Jewish law a person is considered dead at the time brain stem activity ceases.
On the other side of the dispute, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (the leader of Lithuanian jewry, also a very significant group in Israel, though I suspect it's smaller than the Sephardic jews) has ruled that according to Jewish law a person is considered dead when the heart stops beating.
It's also important to note that Israel has no requirement that the Chief Rabbinate agree to a bill in order for it to pass or become law. Israel's government is a secular parliamentary democracy (structured similarly to many European governments), and the Knesset (parliament) has unlimited legislating authority, without even the limitations or checks and balances provided by a written constitution. However becuase of the large population of religious Jews in Israel, it's good politics to listen to consider what their religious authorities have to say when drafting laws that may be affected by Jewish law.
And CPR is ressurection? I think not.
I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that according to these rabbis, death occurs when the heart stops and can't be restarted.
Probably because he's a troll, that's why.
Wasn't Adam the original organ donor? Eve was created from his rib.
Sorry but if you're not willing to share your organs then you shouldn't get any other person's organs. The UK has a situation where they're low on organs because of course everyone is happy to take them but doesn't want to share.
I think making donors have priority is the most fair solution. You can't have organ donation without donors so we need to do something to encourage people to share. They won't need them when they're dead.
How about an Organ Transplant General Public License?
"I hereby agree to donate my organs, in the event of my death, to anyone in need of them, but only so long as they agree to do the same upon the receipt of my organs, for as long as those organs are within them."
The subject of self sacrifice is very very complicated. There is no settled answer - it varies by circumstance.
But basically it is prohibited if you are certain you are going to die. Risking your life on the other hand is quite different. Intent matters more than probability here.
However if someone did do it, they are not condemned, as you say. But that's not the same as saying they are allowed to do it.
And certainly you can not help kill someone.
-Ariel
I believe the circumcision practice comes from ancient health reasons. Cleanliness was not godliness back in the days, and an dirty foreskin led to infection. In response, there were practices of circumcision, something that Judaism adopted along with kosher laws for similar reasons.
Now, thousands of years later, it's tradition, a link to the history of my people. Tradition is important. So yes, we had our son circumcised. Is it child abuse? He cried, fell asleep, and then woke up happy. Now he definitely likes his penis, a lot.
Are earrings child abuse? How about the lip and ear stretching and other body modifications done in various cultures? Traditional Mori tattooing of kids? Context is everything. These are loving acts.
In contrast, female circumcision, done to reduce female sexuality, is child abuse because of its context.
Would you want to accept an organ from a person that has a communicable disease and that disease would come to you from a donated organ?
Jeez, I keep seeing people make this totally vacuous argument.
Do you realize that the medical establishment takes extreme caution to weed out low-quality organs? I mean, you obviously do not realize that, so go ahead and consider yourself educated. If you are a smoker, your lungs aren't going to be donated. If you are a drinker, your liver is going to fail the test. But in both cases, your eyes might be of use, or something else.
To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with your point. Great point, old chap. I'm not trying to have an argument.
I just wanted to salt the conversation with a some recent scholarship, which (apparently) shows that not only were the laborers paid, and not slaves, but enjoyed better-than-average nutrition (ie, they ate well, including meat -- a fact that apparently modern science can establish), and drank alcohol. This is merely an interesting side-note to the topic of building pyramids, given the popular belief that slaves built the pyramid. (Moreover, the laborers were not Jewish, another popular belief.)
I'm pretty sure here were no libraries destroyed by Christian crusaders 5,000 years ago. In fact, I'd venture to say that Christians had no impact at all, for good or ill, on the state of medicine in the middle east 5,000 years ago.
It seems like a safe bet that some Muslim libraries in the region were destroyed by the Crusaders roughly 1,0000 to 1,100 years ago, and it's a well known historical fact that Christian Not-Crusaders destroyed the library of Alexandria about 700 years before that.
With enough digging, I was able to find historical references to a few Jewish libraries that were looted and/or burned by one or the other side during the crusades. The incidents are not very well known compared to the destruction of the great Alexandrian library or anything else like it. It's pretty doubtful they resulted in the complete loss of any major works on medicine, as most of those types of books were sold to rich people in Europe, who hoped to learn alchemical secrets for living forever, rather than being burned.
I'm not saying it's totally impossible that there were medical theories well in advance of what we think people in the region knew then, and they were somehow all lost. But, to make it even vaguely probable, you're conflating events that lie hundreds or thousands of years apart, and ignoring significant differences (i.e. most Muslim works on medicine existed as primary copies in parts of the empire no Christian looting ever reached, and there were dozens of copies known to have survived. While the crusaders did reach all parts of what was once the Jewish controlled portion, again dozens or hundreds of copies of the known works still existed after they left. There would have to be some mysterious book, and it and its author would have to not be mentioned in any of the books that survived to even hint at its existence, and the Crusaders would have had to do a much more thorough job of destruction than history suggests they did, and so on...). It's simply not at all likely.
Who is John Cabal?
... you will get none.
But you can be sure nobody will pry your rotten entrails from your cold dead hands!
Actually, I would expect the futureman to respect my beliefs and not try to force his modern culture on me
You'll note how well that worked for Africa between, say, 1600 and 1900.
I would not try to block legislation that would,
Yes, but let's pick something you disagree with on a fundamental moral level- say, (let's presume you favour pro-choice) the futuremen think that abortion is a social wrong, and ban it. You wouldn't lobby to get that law changed? Or a law that says, since murder is property damage, rape is merely vandalism?
If you disagree with the views of a culture or subculture, I have no qualms. If you object to the influence they're having in politics as free agents in a democratic state, as long as they're allowed to speak, I have no qualms. But you seem to have objected to the rabbis' arguments on the basis of the tech level of their core books, not any particular ethical or logical element. I assume you don't disagree with the parts of their books you like, like "don't murder people" and "treat people well-" yet those parts come from the same era as the parts you object to.
What I mean to say is, you seem to be making the argument (in this and the other post I replied to) that being later in time, being scientifically advanced, and having a better grasp of ethics all go together. I don't imagine you mean to say that, since our internet-using society seems to manage plenty of evils, intolerance, and race camps despite having way more jet planes than Stalin or Hitler did.* You disagree with the rabbis, obviously, but why? Your argument is unclear to me.
*Not a Godwin. Not comparing you to Hitler. Just pointing out the disconnection between time, science, and ethics. See also the reduction in European learning between, e.g., 1250 and 1400.
Please note- I also disagree with the rabbis' interpretations of the state of death, and I think donors jumping the queue is a good idea. I think the rabbis are making the same kind of reading error that more recent groups have made about blood donations- being awfully literal about some passages that may not bear it well. But I don't disagree with them because their beliefs are old.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
I mean, it's not like Moses, Methuselah, and all the other prophets were neanderthals, or cave men, or whatever.
Actually, if you believe the dates they give you in the Bible, they pretty much were. Modern archaeology has a pretty good understanding of how and which civilizations developed over time. According to the Moses was in a nomadic culture in the middle Bronze Age. That's pretty basic. :-)
Noah by the way was a bronzeage engineer who built a giant cargo ship made of wood.
Don't base your understanding of history on Mythological texts. Nothing irks me more than when people take images from Charlton Heston movies and picture books and think they're historic.
Indeed, I have only my imagination; likewise the uncircumcised. Alas, imagination is a human's only basis for empathy, each of us stuck forever in only a single mind.
It means "high school education then teaching at the Yeshiva")
So lots of my friends are kollel wives and still more want to be, so I have a pretty good idea of how the culture wants. I'm the odd girl out for not wanting it. Almost all of them have masters degrees (linguistics, special ed, speech therapy, etc.) and even the ones that teach at a yeshiva have real college degrees. At least in New York, even the ultra-orthodox girls take some form of post-secondary education.
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