Third Incarnation
November 25, 2008 Blogger, Modern Orthodox
A well-known skeptic — perhaps the most well-known frum skeptic on the Net — has resurfaced with a blog about living as Modern Orthodox Jews when you don’t believe.
I have no problem with a writer changing the focus of his interest/investigation. The problem is that this certain someone deleted all his prior writings without warning. That seems both selfish, unnecessary, and ultimately, superstitious.
8 comments
Who is (or was) it?
I like the third article – the Kugelmeter: “As for whether the shul is LWMO. (What stupid terminology.)” Sounds like fightin’ words to me, DK.
It is pretty funny, though – Modern Orthodoxy Documentary Hypothesis, then, “Consult Levenson and Halivni”.
Did I tell you I drove Prof. Halivni to the airport a few weeks ago?
That was supposed to say “Modern Orthodoxy [heart] Documentary Hypothesis”. Which I wouldn’t have to do if you and Mobius would just tell me how to get the damn emoticons in there.
The blogger appears to be XGH.
I thought it might be.
It is XGH; he’s still using the pseudonym when he responds to comments.
dunno why, but I actually bothered to make a comment there. didn’t say anything you haven’t heard me say before.
told you he wouldnt stay down for long
XGH can’t stay down because he attempts to lie on the razor edge of orthodoxy which is not a comfortable bed. On the one hand, orthodoxy is very big on this G-d person and His/Her relationship with us/we/you which is all very personal and moving and emotional.
On the other hand, orthodoxies stifle thinking and feeling for yourself by providing for the human need for what Staples calls “the easy button”. No chance of thinking wrong, guessing wrong, being wrong. All the thought has been taken out of it and you just follow rules, procedures, custom, stringency, ritual, etc. and it should work.
As anyone who does tech support work knows, following a script is rarely a one size fits all solution and if you attempt to force it to be, you usually cause more problems than you fix, chief among them intellectual discomfort.
XGH is the archetype tortured can’t stop thinking person torn between getting with the program and feeling the program. That he would delete everything is just a byproduct of the internal struggle. Such people wax and wane this way and that and have their manic times, and their dark times. Nice to see XGH still having at the eternal verities.
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