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It does seem to me that an omniscient God would see all these attempts to outwit him via looking at the small print, but then it's not me that would end up in h

It does seem to me that an omniscient God would see all these attempts to outwit him via looking at the small print, but then it's not me that would end up in hell or purgatory or whatever the Jewish equivalent is.

kstrauser 1y ago
A friend explained it to me like this: they believe God gave the rules, loopholes and all, exactly as intended. His followers were made in his own image. He delights in their creativity in discovering the true intent of his rules, which must include those loopholes because the rules are perfect. If he meant something different, he would’ve phrased the rules otherwise. I’m not Jewish and this just my paraphrasing of an explanation I’ve heard a couple of times. The idea of God giving us a hacker nature and delighting in it makes me happy.
WJW 1y ago
An omniscient God can't be outwitted by stuff in the small print. If there's a loophole in the small print, God put it there on purpose. If anything, He would be delighted that some of his followers read the holy books closely enough to find some of the easter eggs that He put in there. The whole idea of "the spirit vs the letter of the law" is a secular one that came up as a result of imperfect human lawmakers. But when dealing with holy texts, that is obviously not required because axiomatically God doesn't make mistakes.
- cam_l 1y ago
  God didn't write the texts.. people did. I mean, even apart from the fact god doesn't exist.
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    Don't interfer with their LARPG. :-)
- gadders 1y ago
  I see. Thanks for the explanation. Does that mean the old testament is taken literally as well?
  - PessimalDecimal 1y ago
    Isn't it interpreted literally to an extreme degree? For example, the injunction to not boil a kid in its mother's milk [1] has had a bunch of corollaries added going to extreme lengths to ensure this doesn't accidentally happen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_and_meat_in_Jewish_law#Rabbinic_additions_to_the_Biblical_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_and_meat_in_Jewish_law#Ra...

kstrauser 1y ago

A friend explained it to me like this: they believe God gave the rules, loopholes and all, exactly as intended. His followers were made in his own image. He delights in their creativity in discovering the true intent of his rules, which must include those loopholes because the rules are perfect. If he meant something different, he would’ve phrased the rules otherwise. I’m not Jewish and this just my paraphrasing of an explanation I’ve heard a couple of times. The idea of God giving us a hacker nature and delighting in it makes me happy.

WJW 1y ago

An omniscient God can't be outwitted by stuff in the small print. If there's a loophole in the small print, God put it there on purpose. If anything, He would be delighted that some of his followers read the holy books closely enough to find some of the easter eggs that He put in there. The whole idea of "the spirit vs the letter of the law" is a secular one that came up as a result of imperfect human lawmakers. But when dealing with holy texts, that is obviously not required because axiomatically God doesn't make mistakes.

cam_l 1y ago
God didn't write the texts.. people did. I mean, even apart from the fact god doesn't exist.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  Don't interfer with their LARPG. :-)
gadders 1y ago
I see. Thanks for the explanation. Does that mean the old testament is taken literally as well?
- PessimalDecimal 1y ago
  Isn't it interpreted literally to an extreme degree? For example, the injunction to not boil a kid in its mother's milk [1] has had a bunch of corollaries added going to extreme lengths to ensure this doesn't accidentally happen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_and_meat_in_Jewish_law#Rabbinic_additions_to_the_Biblical_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_and_meat_in_Jewish_law#Ra...