Argument of Repentant Believers
Many of the repentant Jews of our generation are repentant themselves.
There is a feeling that this is so, if only because of the argument we often hear from them, in discourse with secular people:
I also share your world of knowledge and values (due to the past), but you haven’t been exposed to mine (religious/faithful) yet, I am!
I have an advantage over you, (Maybe this means: I am more right? In order to have a discussion, you also have to be exposed to my world?)
For example, Rabbi Pegner testified that he told Chaim Etgar:
We both grew up in Herzliya, we went to the same high school. I know at least most of what you know.
But you don’t know anything about what I know.
Do you think there is something to this argument?
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Absolutely. Even religious people at home are familiar with secularism.
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You're basically saying that a secular person at home doesn't know about religiosity, so the argument that "I was on your side" is therefore true?
According to this argument, it is enough to find a Jew who converted to the Irish religion and then every Jew must know Buddhism/Hinduism/Shinto/Christianity/Islam and other vegetables….
Of course, one can rule out a priori religions that led to backwardness and cruelty, but the same consideration will rule out Judaism.
It is enough to look at the ultra-Orthodox politicians who represent the 2024 model of Torah thought and understand that Torah thought is a mixture of stupidity, wickedness, greed and selfishness, and then there is no need to investigate the technique behind Torah thought.
Adi, if I write this again, won't you ask me again if it's true? I wrote it, didn't I?
Gabriel, it's good that there is no censorship on this site for demagogy and obsession, or even for drawing incorrect conclusions. All this goodness is in your short message here.
Ok…
I think this argument is true but not always, especially since you assume that the other side does not know your side (unless they explicitly told you so) but as a collective and systematic argument for conversion it is simply not true, there are secular people who know the other side or were even religious in their past so this argument in their case is worthless,
What does this whole argument basically say?
"I know something that you don't"
Which is fine but it is not a good argument for conversion…
The reality of most people is that we do not know the background of the "other side" like all the religions and cultures that Gabriel listed, with the same Buddhist weight he will come to me claiming that I do not know his religion, and he is right, but it is not an argument to attract me to his religion,
What will make me do it is for him to present me with facts on the ground.
It is amazing how simple it is, I do not understand why people get so involved.
To Adi
You wrote about the question of whether it is true that a person who was secular and converted has an advantage over a person who was always secular, so yes, he has an advantage, it doesn't mean he is necessarily right
What advantage in what respect? If you mean that he knows specifically about his world and another very specific religion that he entered, then fine, but it's an advantage that has nothing to do with re-conversion because it doesn't enter into the equation whether it's true or not. It's like me telling you that this person has a higher IQ than a secular person, so what? There are a lot of advantages. The question is which of them are considered a function that must be taken into account when we want to convince a person of our position. The most we can say is that because he was on the other side, he will be able to understand the secular person more than a religious person (although even there you will find suitable conversationalists who understand everything, they don't necessarily have to be secular... as the rabbi said, there are religious people who know about secularism).
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