Andreas saw this blog and wrote in with some very insightful comments. I also recommend reading his blog. Andreas has a lot of good insight, and seems to be following a similar path to enlightenment, accepting God's Word, but fully versed and informed in all the scientific and mathematical wisdom of the day.
Dear Ted
I followed a /. link and found your blog. A blog entry on the torah caught my eye.
In my opinion, the torah (just like the commandments of Christ) are like a communication protocol; the commandments enable man process information in a more efficient way. Through that way, man is helped to get a knowledge about God and creation.
So, the following of the commandments has to do with man's buses getting as noise-free as possible and enable the re-arrangement of the buses so that man's processors process information of high existential value.
In your view, however, the commandments regarding prostitution, adultery and fornication have to do with manpower and other social elements.
Do you think that the Law can have a dual character, or do you think that it's only about how the society works and, thus, I'm mistaken in seeing it as a way that leads to knowledge?
Yours
Andreas
Short reply. Your analysis of the Law is quite accurate and I agree with it. Not only does the Law have a dual character, it has a multi-dimensional character that is very unique; no other book or law code has it. Imagine a puzzle where each piece connects up to all of the other pieces.
Long reply. I agree with you that the Torah acts as a communications protocol. It is a way for man to signal to God "here I am, I am willing to obey you and do things your way." Once we are in that frame of mind, God will use us to run his errands, and reward us richly for doing so. A business man may give to charity, but he gives much more to his own employees. As for the Torah being a way to knowledge, again I completely agree. King Solomon said "The fear of יהוה is the beginning of knowledge." Wisdom, insight, and knowledge come from taking off our blinders and just watching. We are often blinded by our own desires. When we want something, we see things in a way that supports our desires. Our desires are wicked and evil when they blind us to relevant truth. When we obey God, we don't practice evil. Without practicing evil, we don't have the mental impetus to blind ourselves to essential truth, so we keep growing in knowledge.
What information is of high existential value? Why, the information about how to live a good life. A good life is one that increases the sustainable amount of life in existence. A bad life is one that decreases the sustainable net amount of life in existence. To be "as useless as tits on a boar" is almost as evil as being a thief.
I do believe that the commandments and laws have very physical, very immediate consequences. But it is spiritual through and through. Everything physical has a spiritual genesis. The law not to steal is spiritual; the consequences are also spiritual; peace among men. But at a lower level, the consequences are directly physical; when you put your spanner down on the ledge, you know that an hour later when you come back to use it, it will still be there. The wind blows, and the windmill turns. The visible has invisible causes, and the physical is a three dimensional projection of multidimensional spirits. Even scientists follow this viewpoint when they invent "superstring" theories, invisible little strings vibrating at various wavelengths to form the particles that form the atoms that form the molecules that form our world. At some point, all matter is spiritual. When you take a single straw, would you imagine that someone could press it into bales and make a sturdy house? The best translation of spirit from Greek and Hebrew is probably "invisible cause", as well as "breath, air, wind, thought, meme, state of mind".
Only by having faith in the spiritual laws and practicing them do we come to understand their physical consequences. The physical consequences are always good, because the Laws come from a good spirit, the Father of us all, the Creator, who his own Word says "is spirit". Scientists say matter can be made from energy. Energy too is spiritual, mostly conceptual, yet it is real and we use it, whether as heat or electricity, to enjoy the many things our civilization provides.
God is not limited as humans are; his Word is extremely compressed. Each part ties in with the other parts, in ways that are invisible until you start living it. This is another way to identify God's Word; it is so tightly connected and compressed, it is beyond the ability of a human. Take the commandment that says you have a right to go onto anyones land, and pick an apple from their tree and eat it if you feel like it. The same commandment says that you may not put apples from that same tree in a container and take it away with you. From this, and a couple other commandments, one can understand the fundamental injustice which inspired the whole Open Source movement. Without knowledge of Torah, the Free Software people have erred in some ways, but their initial impulse to correct an injustice is a good one. Should it surprise us that the man who forced Free Software as an ideology had a background in the Torah, even though he rejected it at the age of 12? God's standards of justice have a deep impact on children; Richard Stallman may be an atheist, but the true ethics of the Law of Moses are indeed in him, perhaps moreso than in the Jewish and Christian religions which he so correctly rejected.
One spooky coincidence; On Sunday May 21 Andreas wrote about the future transformation of mankind. Without any knowledge of Andreas blog or blog post, John Sokol and I discussed the future of mankind, and whether it will disappear or be transformed. When people get onto a good carrier wave they start to think and act in synchronization. Pretty wild stuff. יהוה's sword and Gideon's!