Phat writes:
What jumps out at me is this phrase:
As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted,...
Can anyone shed any light on what that means?
I'm not sure.
I'll take a crack at it, though.
Feel free to criticize my criticism.
quote:
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Wall of pride #1
-the external one 'as a man'
-'dispensation from causality otherwise accepted' = (and this is my guess...) - Basically the same idea as the phrase "you don't believe in all Gods except for one - I just go one further." That is, the "causality" being discussed is the "mundane-ness" or the "reality-based" ideas that lead one to not believe in ghosts or goblins or unicorns. Mr Gutkind accepts this causality to disregard such fanciful notions, but "claims a dispensation" (wants an exception) from this rule-of-causality (believing in things existing in reality based on evidence found in reality) where his God is concerned.
Wall of pride #2
-the internal one 'as a jew'
-claiming the privilege of monotheism = "My God exists, obviously. But yours doesn't. Again, obviously." Where the 'obvious' part is, of course, never successfully defended.
-"And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization." = "You can say only your religion is the correct one all you'd like. It doesn't stop the other religions existing, or them having just as much "truth value" as yours does. Especially since many of their adherents claim the same thing for their own religion.
And, then in general:
"With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception" = "You're only lying to yourself. And, therefore, you're only fooling yourself."
"our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary." = "Your religion isn't providing morality, it's hurting the progress of human morality."
...or such is the gist I get when I read it, anyway.