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Re:The Book of Esther and the Jewish Festival Purim by compsciphd on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @05:03PM (#13879760)
1) more complicated discussion that what can be done here

Not necessarily - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_principles_of_faith

2) do some believe that? sure.

I tend to argue that while we say one can't define god, one of the attributes attributed to god is "truth" (last word of Exodus 34:6). Many have a hard time associating God who is defined by as truth with a god who is like Loki who is just here to trick us by putting our senses against us (i.e. what we can observe).

Re:The Book of Esther and the Jewish Festival Purim by wycats on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @07:34PM (#13880949)
Further, Maimonides, who enumerated the principles of faith accepted by Orthodox Jews, also held that Genesis could/should be interpreted allegorically[1].

> Some medieval philosophical rationalists, such as Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon, the "Rambam") held that it was not required to read Genesis literally. In this view, one was obligated to understand Torah in a way that was compatible with the findings of science. Indeed, Maimonides, one of the great rabbis of the Middle Ages, wrote that if science and Torah were misaligned, it was either because science was not understood or the Torah was misinterpreted. Maimonides argued that if science proved a point, then the finding should be accepted and scripture should be interpreted accordingly.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of...

Re:The Book of Esther and the Jewish Festival Purim by js2 on Thursday March 16, 2017 @10:33AM (#13885293)
Maimonides always amazes me. What an incredible position to advocate for in the middle ages.
Re:The Book of Esther and the Jewish Festival Purim by pmarreck on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @05:21PM (#13879898)
Interesting.

Calling God "truth" sounds nice, but at least in science, what is considered "true" is constantly debated and is not a static, immutable thing. That said, if a consensus of learned people decide a new thing is true, religions should accept it IMHO

Re:The Book of Esther and the Jewish Festival Purim by compsciphd on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @06:10PM (#13880322)
and the argument would be that our understanding of God increase as we understand creation even more.

on the flip side, if one's faith is based more in the god of the gaps, i.e. the "magical" aspects of creation, of course one's faith will be tested or discarded as science's knowledge increases as the gaps shrink and shrink (and fits with clark's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")