Questions from an outsider

Hi, this is milo452 from reddit. I would like to ask some questions about Mikraite. I may add some more in the future, but will keep it to this thread.


1. How would you comprehensively define what Mikraite is? Is it actually a religion? For most people, a religion involves believing in some supernatural entity or meaning to life, but I don't think that's a part of Mikraite. Is it: A tribe that dislikes modern culture and follows the 5 commandments? I'm sure there's more to it than that, because technically that would mean you'd accept a serial killer who hated society, as long as he followed the 5 commandments.

2. What was the thinking behind making these your 5 tenets? Is this like your 10 commandments?

1. Keep the Sabbath
2. Dress Modestly
3. No Tattoos
4. Keep Passover
5. Make the Declaration

These are the most important rules of the religion?

Why would you not have one which had a rule similar to this (obviously could be phrased better):

"Thou shalt not fuck over or screw over someone else*, especially morally acting people of any tribe. *Exception: it's okay to fuck over a person who fucks over innocent people who are minding their own business"

So that rule is basically like "do not kill/steal/etc" but it allows you to kill a violent robber.

Anyway, clearly you didn't make that one of your 'commandments', so what was the thinking behind leaving something like that out?

Personally, I'm okay with killing a violent robber, but not okay with fucking over innocent people... and the fact your religion doesn't have this in your top 5 list is troubling (although I admit I definitely could be misunderstanding what that list is, or what you guys believe). Is this just a gang of dudes who is happy to screw over anyone who isn't part of Mikraite or the Mennonites?

Thanks for reading/answering.

Most religions are not about belief.  The confusion is caused by the dominant Western religions which happen to be about belief.  But Judaism is mostly about action, Buddhism is about a frame of mind, etc.  Mikraite is like Judaism in this regard, it is about action, moral action.

I wouldn't call our 5 requirements "tenets".  They were chosen as the best, most practical, criteria for membership.  "Do not murder" is not a practical criteria.  Asking potential members "have you murdered recently" doesn't seem like a very effective selection criteria.  We chose criteria that are observable, that members of modern culture are likely reject, and that are (mostly) regular practices.

The declaration implies that one would generally follow the Old Testament as applied to other Mikraites.  The god of the Old Testament represents the ethics of the Old Testament.  So things like the Ten Commandments are implied here.

But note that the Old Testament is extremely tribal.  "Do not murder" means to not murder a member of your tribe.  The commandments do not apply to outsiders.  This doesn't mean that the Old Testament condones murdering outsiders, only that it says nothing on the subject.  And this reflects our position.  As a group, we are neutral on the topic of how to treat outsiders.  Each Mikraite can decide this issue for himself.  The purpose of Mikraite, and the Old Testament, is to establish strong moral rules on interactions between members of the group/tribe.

Being tribal is key. I have a friend who is a Christian minister. He was quite surprised when I told him that the ideas in bible are tribal. In his words, for many years in his study of the bible, he was pained by the commandment to love your neighbor vs the slaughter and pillage of neighboring countries (tribes). Being tribal resolves the conflict making the old testament highly consistent ...

>As a group, we are neutral on the topic of how to treat outsiders.  Each Mikraite can decide this issue for himself.  The purpose of Mikraite, and the Old Testament, is to establish strong moral rules on interactions between members of the group/tribe.

Thanks, that sounds pretty logical and reasonable.

Is joining the weekly Skype voice sessions a requirement?

ValarMorghulis wrote

Is joining the weekly Skype voice sessions a requirement?

It's not a requirement, but it is highly recommended at the beginning so that we can meet each other online.  Is there any reason that this would be a problem for you?

Sorry I forget to check back here. I don't like making phone calls because I don't have enough privacy in my current situation, but I'm fine with text chatting.

Have you guys considered running a discord chat room? It is like skype but less bloated and fucked up, also works as an app or in a browser. downside is by default it logs all the chats, which can be bad or good (you have to right click and delete each message one by one).

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he made the telegraph obsolete.  That was until degenerate modern culture introduced text chat which brings us back to the age of the telegraph.  I see no reason to participate in this degeneracy.

You can remain completely anonymous with Skype.  Just get a dummy Skype account and don't give us your name.  Why is this a problem?

My problem is in my living situation I can be overheard, and it bothers me.

Skype as software does happen to bother me, but mostly because it's garbage and right up there with itunes, but that's not the issue.

So what you can do is to get headphones and use Skype to listen to our reading.  If you want to say anything, you can text what you want to say and we will respond by voice.  Does that work?