Xequecal wrote:
It's not a straw man to point out that many religious people are very committed to even minor points of dogma and believe that violations of even these minor points will result in damnation.
Here's another example. A few weeks ago I witnessed a religious argument between two very conservative Jews. The premise was thus: It is the Sabbath and you come across a man who has his arm caught in a conveyor belt or similar piece of machinery. He is bring pulled towards another piece of equipment that will sever the arm at the point it is caught. The argument? They were arguing over how far this guy's arm has to be jammed in there before it is permissible to ignore the prohibition on "extinguishing" on the Sabbath and press the emergency stop. They were in agreement that if its the whole arm jammed in there up to the shoulder you should press the stop, as he could die. But if it's just a finger caught, they agreed that they had to let it get cut off. There was very intense disagreement over the correct course if it was stuck some intermediate amount. If it's just his hand at the wrist, well that won't kill him so you can't press it. But maybe it'll affect his ability to provide for himself and his family in the future which could kill one of them, so maybe you do need to press it.
You just admitted to a strawman. Judaism is a very small religion, and it also (especially in its orthodox form) is one of the most legalistic. These people are not even remotely representative of religious people in general.
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This is the kind of dogma-fueled insanity that just pisses me off. They're not only trying to apply a millennia old text to modern electrical circuits, but are willing to let someone be horribly maimed if there's even a chance their behavior could be construed as incorrect by said text. Every tiny little minor point is unquestioningly accepted as infallably true and all life experiences have to be fit into that framework. This is also how we get people that believe dinosaurs lived alongside humans: Since we "know" that the world is only 6000 years old and we know dinosaurs existed, well logically that's the only possible explanation. Any evidence to the contrary can safely be discarded.
The fact that the above debate actually bothers you indicates that the problem with you. It's merely an abstract debate and I'm pretty sure that Orthodox Jews, since they don't work on the Sabbath, would be pretty unlikely to be around a person working with a conveyor belt on the Sabbath in the first place. The debate is simply a hypothetical used to discuss the implications of Sabbath rules.
There's an old law school hypothetical involving a man who falls off a building, lands on a woman, and in the process, penetrates her with his penis. This is obviously absurd; it's intended to illustrate points about intentional and unintentional torts and fault and such. You getting upset over these Jews having this argument would be the equivalent of claiming the law school scenario was a justification of rape.
It is also in no way equal to the debate over Creationism. One is an ethical discussion; the other is a matter of what did or did not happen historically. You are confusing "should" with "is/was."
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