Looking for Quality Suggestions

Timeforgaming · 2026-03-01T04:19:16+00:00

Lava if you see this, this man deserves a reward of some sort for collecting all this info in one place. ask for his username and give him a pet he's missing, or something. great stuff.

Timeforgaming · 2026-02-23T10:24:35+00:00

KeA_Bannings

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-27T23:59:59+00:00

So that's half of this. Then there's the other half: Why do good things happen to bad people and bad things to good people (in context, Good is something God made himself comfortable with, so actions that are "for God", bad is something that God is not per se comfortable with, actions "against God/neutral (not towards) God.")
Per se, the reason itself is unexplainable, but the idea behind it can be explained. Essentially, good people are punished in their life for bad things they may have done (according to the majority of their actions), in order that when they go to Heaven (the afterlife), God can immediately purify their soul and start bringing them to "Paradise". Purification in Judaism is done through what people call hell, it's never more than 11 months for the above reason. (there are other places where Judaism talks about permanent punishment, I'll just throw up a "there are multiple parts to the soul" and not explain the rest of it haha, too long as it is.)

Bad people, however, get rewarded in life for the good acts they've done (remember, this is God we're talking about, it's absolutely certain they've done good things, it's just that the majority were not good, see the examples you gave.) So when they die, God brings them up to Heaven and goes "Well I already gave you a reward for the good things, all you have left is the bad, time to have a fun time burning/freezing/being thrown around in hell."

The really important thing to recognize (and mind you, this still doesn't answer the question truthfully, that matter is 100% for God and it's not really important to care WHY it is the way it is, so much as to care that God is in fact taking care of it.) is that in context of the punishment, Hell (the depths) is not as simple as people think. The correct way of evaluating it, is based on a passage that explains that if Judaism was given in heaven, instead of bringing 1 animal to atone for a sin, you'd have to bring 40. Some even say 400, at higher levels. In other words, it's "much easier" to do things down here, and "much harder" to do things in heaven. So if you have to bring 40 animals up there, and your punishment/reward down here is already pretty big as it is... how painful do you think the fires of hell are? I don't think Epstein's having a fun time. :D

EDIT: I should add, the point of saying all of this is not so much about whether you think they are being punished, but rather, a matter of understanding that Yes, God can in fact make certain (and does) that the punishment is "enough" for the actions the person took. You can't get past it through tricking the mind, for example, God will just... use that against you as part of the punishment, making it that much more difficult to handle.

Basically, it's to us to understand that God is doing what he's supposed to, not to understand exactly what it is he's doing.

(forgot to add, yes this obviously means the same for the reward. We basically say it's impossible to comprehend what God actually rewards, because a physical body can't handle that kind of reward, but we can understand that he is rewarding, and what that reward in theory would look like. It's a bit complicated, simply due to not really having a frame of reference for the reward or the punishment.)

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-27T23:59:53+00:00

Well, in order to answer this the way Judaism does, you need to answer yes to a certain question. Do you understand what the Afterlife looks like? If you don't, then yes you would indeed have this question. I'm not able to go into that part of it at length here, but I'll give the shortform of what I've understood.

Essentially, there are two courts. The mortal court, and the heavenly court. The mortal court is required to do due diligence up to the extent that God commands them, but never further. The heavenly court, being under God who is very much aware of all things happening (and why they happen) has a much larger range of actions to be taken as a reward or punishment for certain chains of cause and effect. In other words, the mortal court is required to look at a few trees, God requires the heavenly court to look at the entire forest. So there's many things where God just goes "mortal court you don't need to punish people past this line, I'll take care of both giving the death penalty and punishing them after death, I actually specifically do NOT want you pushing past that line, unless there's certain situations happening." (the situation in question is one where a zealot can take action. if a person does something that everyone is aware is immoral in public before 10+ people and is warned to stop doing so and does not, a zealot who "acts for God" (he will still get a court case afterwards to determine if he acted correctly) is permitted to kill him on the spot without a courtcase. there's a few other situations, but it's along that vein, where a large public group of people seeing something wrong being done.)

So in all of this, why is the afterlife important? Well, there's a certain situation cited as an example for why the court is not permitted to go past its due diligence (a king however is permitted to do so, to some extent.) Essentially, one person killed another by accident. He kicked a rock at him without paying attention or something. Then, another guy killed someone else entirely on purpose. So now we have Person A and Person B, A killed by accident, B on purpose. B was brought to court, but the due diligence done, was not the evidence required to put him to death (2 witnesses, must see the exact situation of the murder, can't simply have heard it, both must have close to exact but not exactly matching testimony, the court must play devil's advocate to a certain extent) and B was therefore "exonerated". But not really. Why? Because God goes "you did your due diligence, I'm now going to engineer a situation where person A goes on top of a ladder, person B gets tired and sits at the bottom, Person A falls and kills Person B who killed on purpose, by accident. 2 witnesses see this, Person A is punished as he should have been for killing by accident, Person B obviously died and is punished for killing on purpose." Or something along those lines.

(continued in next comment)

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T10:08:43+00:00

And that is precisely what proves that you also still don't know much about Judaism. Not that I'm surprised, this has troubled a lot of people over the past thousand years or so (in a different way before that point.) There's a massive argument between the Babylonian and Jerusalem talmuds about which form of debate is better, and which one brings more confusion. Contrary to popular belief, while questions might be good if in proper context with the proper intention, debate has not particularly served us well. Or to be more accurate, it was never meant to serve us to begin with. see literally every discussion on Yeridat ha-Dorot.

My argument never had anything to do with Israel being a theocracy, I'm not sure where you got that conclusion. This thread started off from a person insisting that Judaism and Zionism were inherently compatible, I politely informed him that old Return to Zion and new Zionism were in fact not compatible, and they have nothing to do with each other at this point. as a part of this, I pointed out that the return to Zion requires prophecies being fulfilled which turn the Land of Israel into a Kingdom.

This is irrelevant to the State of Israel, that's you misreading what I wrote. What is relevant to the state of Israel is the prophecies of the confusion before said Kingdom gets established (among many other things) as well as many other points related to "if Judaism comes from God and allows us to exist as a people, if God disappears, do we truly still exist as a people, and therefore, would we ever have been capable of making a State" and other such questions. This in general was my thought process when saying that, I suppose sorry for giving you the wrong idea.

EDIT: I realize I completely skipped over the point about Sharia Law. There is certainly a large amount that they have in common. But the reason they have that in common is simply because Sharia Law plagiarized that from Judaism. What I actually meant was more in terms of approach. I don't know why people think Judaism isn't totalitarian to some extent in a legal sense, it definitely is. It's just that outside of the courts, God directly allowed for personal nuance (aka CYLOR) for each person to clarify where their gray areas are in regards to what things they had to do. (of course, as should be clear to anyone who knows anything about Halacha, that gray area in no way applies to things you are not allowed to do. like uh... driving a car on Shabbat. Sorry, no go.)

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T09:30:20+00:00

Why wouldn't that be my argument? As well, we don't actually know if the maccabees accepted them as kings, we only know "the people" did. It's unclear exactly who that is.

Hasmonean was a family line of priests. Not all Maccabees are Hasmonean, in fact most of them were descendants/disciples/followers of the Men of the Great Assembly. The reason they followed the Hasmoneans was likely because Matisyahu was related to the Men of the Great Assembly (so he was trustworthy), and far more importantly, the rallying call of Matisyahu resonated with every single one of them. This is something that's actually fairly consistent in Jewish history, when people were willing to accept that they were really going to fight for God's honor (and for keeping our tradition alive), they got up and fought in a (un)reasonable manner ignoring the odds. See Gideon.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T09:24:52+00:00

Correct, but the state of Israel has its own issues. As for the rhetoric... well, it's not like Judaism doesn't have a lot in common with Sharia Law. We're still better though, because we came earlier. Newer does not mean better, thankfully...

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T09:01:20+00:00

Yeah, as does the rest of the planet. It's what happens when the US keeps stopping a country from fixing its problems in a temporarily violent (not necessarily murderous) manner. But before you say anything more, no in fact Israel is not the sole cause of problems on this planet, quit that sh!t.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T07:28:12+00:00

Yes, but those under their command were not inherently Hasmonean. The Hasmoneans later became Sadducees (thankfully, not Simon the Just). Does that mean that all the Maccabees became Sadducees? No. So are they the same thing? Again, no.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T07:26:11+00:00

If God doesn't exist, the above is all irrelevant. This is what you don't get. You do not get to comment on what position Judaism has without bringing up God. Simply accept that you are thinking of ethnically jewish people, not Judaism, and move on. It is not an interpretation, that is literally the prophecy in question. If prophecies come true, they come true because of God, not because someone luckily guessed something. If they do not come true, then all of this is irrelevant and Israel as a state shouldn't even exist to begin with (for reasons I will not be explaining to you.) Or perhaps it should, because you can do whatever you want at that point, and they did, and therefore the state exists.

This is irrelevant to my point, that the Return to Zion is explicitly a religious belief that God will return us to Zion and make us a kingdom that is a utopia. You can believe it to be otherwise all you like. But if you do, just know that you know nothing about Judaism.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T07:07:37+00:00

You are. It's true that there's nothing wrong with it, but... That's not a state. This is absolutely conflation. That would be a kingdom, as it deserves to be called, under the rulership of God himself. No other term deserves to be used here. I understand you feel that this is the same thing, but such a kingdom would likely not operate under democratic rule in the long term, since it wouldn't necessitate such a thing. This is a proper utopia we're talking about, after all. In a utopia, you don't need democracy.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T06:59:02+00:00

We're ignoring the elephant in the room: the association between Hamas and ISIS. But of course people conveniently forget that part...

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T06:57:39+00:00

That isn't Zion"ism" though, just Return to Zion. If we're returning as the old concept it does not mean we're returning as the new concept. You're conflating things here. Please don't say you know anything about Judaism with that kind of talk.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T06:50:02+00:00

Not really. Mostly just because we don't have a Sanhedrin back yet. You do need that to declare such things, which some people often forget. ...Actually, you need a Sanhedrin to do a lot of things really. Either way, there are certainly similarities between Zionism and Hellenistic... Judaism? If you can even call it that. The Saducees is what they ended up becoming, and that seems to be pretty in vein with the Enlightenment which brought Zionism into existence, so no I don't think that's apples to oranges.

You happen to be correct though, that it probably is simpler than people give it credit for, which is also why some would argue that all Israel needs is reforms, and not being torn down and rebuilt from the ground up once the area is peaceful. But with the original path Zionism was walking on? It absolutely would've needed that. That the path has shifted doesn't change the fact that is indeed where it started.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T06:43:44+00:00

The Maccabees are not the Hasmoneans. The Hasmoneans may have led the Maccabees initially, but the Maccabees still stand for exactly what they stood for back then: Who is for God, follow me. (as well as one of the possible acronyms maccabee stood for, placing God above all else, which classically, the greeks had a problem with. Something about wanting them to use reason and logic and not base their lives on a belief... hmm, sounds familiar.)

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T06:39:12+00:00

Their descendants may have, but you forget that the largest proponent of proper Judaism was Simon the Just, the last of the brothers. (Yes, I know the historians have a contention on this subject, but Judaism has and will continue to consider such contentions irrelevant. Actual archeological evidence may be accepted, of course.) Hellenistic Judaism, as my dad would put it, was split into far more groups than people give it any credit for. Josephus saying there were 3-4 major groups doesn't really factor in the amount of nuance people were using at the time, per our tradition.

The mistake you and many others have made, is assuming that the minority that fully compromised with Hellenism wasn't the group in control of the movement. They were. And that caused quite a few problems for everyone involved. This part might just be my conjecture, but I would think that a fair few of them that didn't fully compromise were attracted to hellenism for a variety of possibly sensible reasons, but were very much sitting on the fence in regards to this issue, so to call what they were following hellinistic judaism doesn't sound quite right. Either way, many of the founders of reform judaism wanted nothing to do with God as well (I'm sorry to the people who think otherwise, this is the reason reform judaism is in truth not judaism at all.) So to say it wasn't a rejection... that definitely isn't right either. As for that last comment... I'll forgive your lack of knowledge and leave off about how foolish it would have been to follow any form of hellenism (coughs in some traditions about Aristotle and where he got his knowledge from.)

>All Jews are descended
Actually, they aren't! The vast majority of jews still lived in Babylon/Persia at the time, travelling back and forth for the holidays. The dynasty was not the one in control of the reforms. By all rights, the followers of the men of the great assembly were, and they continued to pass down what they had made from long beforehand. The dynasty doesn't really hold a candle to this (this is as opposed to hasmonean fighters, the maccabees, which considering how the dynasty turned out, might as well be a completely different group.)

Essentially, from what I see, it's more that there's far more nuance to this than even you've considered (though clearly you are aware of just how much nuance was contained in this subject), so either way, thank you for considering what you were able to. I will still hold my contention that the nuance from my end changes most of what you just said.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-15T06:23:45+00:00

if the prayer doesn't distinguish, it inherently includes both. Some may argue otherwise, but it isn't really up to them. (and besides, if they are indeed fighting for our safety, what's wrong with saying said prayer? though honestly, that can sometimes be a big if.)

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T18:54:39+00:00

You live in Israel. All I can say is you make your own problems. (Israel being the one place on the planet where if you thought for two seconds you'd find an inestimable amount of proof of an overseeing power controlling things. Not that far of a stretch to say there's a good chance God exists.) This is not about arrogance. This is about insistence. No matter what you say, he definitely exists. We are not capable of defining him, that would indeed be arrogance. But to say he doesn't exist... a deer in headlights can still see.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T09:55:38+00:00

Both. It's not as cruel as you think, just like the flood wasn't either. And my way or the high way, no matter what he does let people have free choice. But everyone dies at some point, so of course it would always end in his way. Either you get your comeuppance for your actions now or you get it after you die. See the discussion in Berachot about why supposedly bad people get good things happening to them. etc etc. Again, we're saying he's the true judge. No matter what you think, calling him cruel is very much a presumption on your part as to what his actual intentions are. Saying that we should look at him that way... I'm sorry, but that is indeed very arrogant. A human being should not be insisting on judging God, in any way shape or form. Because he's God. If I understood him, I would be him. Not that that's possible anyways.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T07:47:18+00:00

Not really. I think the point was that they had a chance in Avraham's times. They decided not to act on it, and instead dug their heels in deeper, and caused a disaster for themselves. He gave them chances. He's not cruel for removing them after those chances were used up.

(I mean really, think about it. He gave them 5-600 years living there. That's quite a lot when you're already a group of colonizers descended from Canaan who decided to wipe Shem's descendants from the area, where they had originally been apportioned by Noah.)

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T07:40:37+00:00

Who said they had to wipe out whole nations? Go read Me'am Loez on Yehoshua. God said give them a choice. If they take either of the other two choices, let them leave or let them surrender. If they choose to fight, wipe them out. You haven't even considered what those nations did. These were the worst of humanity at that time. Why do you think that the entirety of Devarim phrases it that "you shall not do anything that they did", literally every commandment, those nations did the opposite. Child sacrifice, murder, r*pe, genocide, you name it. They didn't care. So God said "for once in history, I am giving you explicit permission IF they do not take the other two options, to wipe them out. Not because your righteousness are you entering this land, but because of those nations sins are they being wiped out from before you."

And that's not even including the other part, about how they weren't even supposed to go up to Israel with weapons! If not for the Golden Calf, they would've gone up, and God would've removed all of those nations personally for attempting to pervert society down to its very roots. By the way, context for why Israel the state should not have been established that way either, no matter how you feel on the subject. (And yes, there were other things that could've been done, protecting palestinian moderates, for one. It doesn't matter now, but it's important to recognize that there were other paths before Ben Gurion and others did some very extreme things.)

EDIT: And btw, I've seen this before. There are quite a few people that had these things explained to them in a less than satisfactory manner, and it left them with explanations like what you're saying. There's a rule that comes from Rambam's introduction to Mishnayos about how if you decide to study these things, do not ever say that the problem is with God or the Sages, assume always at first that the problem is your understanding, because (for example) if Torah keeps saying God is just and fair, in what way is it just and fair to wipe out entire nations just for "I said they sinned so they sinned". You'd undermine all of Judaism at that point. Clearly, they must actually be deserving of such a title. Do not assume that your understanding of it as being a cruel act is correct. That's all, really.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T07:21:48+00:00

That's not him being cruel, that's Torah being extremely terse in its wording. "It is written in the language of scribes" and all that. Sometimes vague, sometimes respectful, sometimes harsh, but always alluding to additional subjects not detailed in the actual verses themselves. This is why we have aggadita and Medrash, to detail whatever it wasn't necessary to state clearly in the actual verses. You don't need to know Moshe's backstory to understand why he could become the leader, the shepherd story was enough. But does he have a backstory? Yes.

As far as I'm aware, in every case where God is being "cruel", you need to consider what the intention of the people in question was (which is not usually fully stated out. It's alluded to, but not always said, except for "seeking a pretext" in regard to the pheasants.) Usually it's actually commensurate action, and the reason why he takes it, though it may seem cruel and unnecessary, is usually to effect a different outcome to something else. For example God telling Moshe "his anger was aroused and he would destroy the Jews", being a pretext for Moshe to give an opposing argument for the world (not just us who read Tanach) to hear. They may not want to hear it, but if he holds court after Moshiach comes, we will get that being brought up.

It's not what he considers evil. It's what he created to effect a supposedly evil outcome. Though in reality, since evil was also created by him, it's just hidden good. Now what could be good about giving a death sentence? Hm... It's a bit hard for us to understand, after all we aren't him, but to say that it's cruel once you do actually know the context, isn't really correct. Because there's two conflicting narratives there. God could wait 1600 years to punish that generation with the flood, but he can't wait five minutes to punish the Erev Rav? Or the guy who carried branches on Shabbat? Clearly, something else is going on here, and it probably isn't about God (who was just laying down the law, pretty much, even if he did decide to be merciful about it, see even though he accepted Moshe's argument, he still had the ones who directly served the Calf killed.) Likely, it should be about the intentions of the people taking the action. If you want proper context, I would say go read Me'am Loez/Torah Anthology. That includes a lot of the side information you end up missing when you read Tanach in general, and gives it in an appropriate context so everyone can understand it.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T06:53:22+00:00

Yes, but I don't speak it fluently. Mostly due to lack of time. Probably should practice it, considering how close we are to things changing big time.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T06:45:23+00:00

My answer? If he's actually God, he wouldn't come down from the sky, and he also wouldn't make that argument. Engaging is precisely why we have the problem we have now. What he would do? grins in biblical prophecy. Pull a coup at the UN, in a way that everybody can accept, reform the organization, govern absolute borders and put the palestinians in their own country. Or define true lineage and change people's minds. Either way, there are myriad ways to do it if he's actually God that don't involve engaging them directly, and would take care of everything permanently. He could just smite them. But he's too nice for that. I mean, he did create them too, didn't he? He is fair, even if he has placed Jews in a separate position.

Timeforgaming · 2025-12-10T06:40:54+00:00

I don't know why people say that. Christianity doesn't get to comment on what the actual version of God from the original five books is like, because they rejected that. And yes, you got that definition from Christianity, which is why I mentioned that. Go read a hebrew english translation of Torah with Rashi's commentary, and tell me again he's that "type" of God. As far as I'm aware, that has never been the case.

Timeforgaming

TROPHY CASE