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novalis comments on Thwarting a Catholic conversion? - Less Wrong Discussion

8 Post author: Jay_Schweikert 18 June 2012 04:26PM

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Comment author: novalis 19 June 2012 05:05:01AM 8 points [-]

I think you're forgetting about Orthodox Jews, who have the Catholics beat on pretty much all counts (age, complexity, and at least arguably "reason"). Of course, it's all mere rationalization -- the bottom line has already been written. And the Orthodox tend to reason within their framework rather than trying to justify their framework to outsiders, presumably because they're not seeking converts.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 June 2012 05:00:22AM 8 points [-]

Catholicism has probably spent a heck of a lot more money on complex proselytizing than Orthodox Judaism. Also Catholics were competing with the Protestants - rabbis have no real competition, since their only audience is Orthodox Jews. But mostly, my point is just that there's this huge, worldwide organized Church that has spent who knows how many equivalent billions of dollars on theology. It's amazing how little they've accomplished, really, given how much they've spent and how many geniuses it wasted (theology was the string theory of its day), but they still did end up with something. Probably an equivalent amount of raw genius, if not money, was wasted on Orthodox Judaic halacha, but in a much less competitive, outside-world-facing way.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 23 June 2012 07:55:08PM 4 points [-]

The remarkable thing about halacha is that an effective legal system grew out of it. When Jews in Europe didn't have access to the mainstream legal system, rabbinical courts worked well enough.

Comment author: shminux 26 June 2012 02:46:24PM 0 points [-]

The remarkable thing about halacha...

Even a broken clock...

Comment author: David_Gerard 29 June 2012 04:52:29PM 3 points [-]

theology was the string theory of its day

+1