
Kosher search engine powered by 4 car batteries on a passively cooled server - glcheetham
https://jewjewjew.com/
======
emosenkis
As on Orthodox Jew, while I don't have anything against this and it sounds
like a fun hobby project, I don't like that it misleads regarding what Jewish
law actually requires.

As several others have mentioned, there is absolutely no problem with keeping
a server running on the sabbath - computers aren't Jews (Jewish law only
expects Jews to keep the sabbath). If it's Jews working to generate the
electricity (most "modern" or "yeshivish" Orthodox Jews don't believe this is
a problem; I don't know what fraction of "ultra-" Orthodox Jews disagree with
that), any public cloud outside of Israel should suffice. If you're concerned
with electricity, why not worry that Jews may be working to maintain the
server's internet connection (again, this is trivially solved by not hosting
it in Israel - all it takes is a non-Jewish majority to provide a reasonable
presumption that the workers probably aren't Jewish)?

If you're worried about Jewish users accessing it on the sabbath (in my
opinion the least far-fetched concern, but not one addressed by the site), the
complete solution would be to shut it down for ~49 hours every week starting
from ~sunset on Friday in east Asia - this doesn't require using batteries or
really anything special about the site's hardware or even software.

Finally, why call it a 'kosher' search engine when almost anyone interested in
such a thing would understand that as being about filtering the search
results?

Edit: _If_ you assume that using electricity and/or internet that are
maintained by Jews on the sabbath is a problem, I guess you might be able to
make a case for avoiding indexing sites in Israel or at all during the
sabbath, since then you'd be benefitting indirectly from the work of the Jews
that maintained the infrastructure - however, I think it's safe to assume that
the vast majority of the internet is not served using infrastructure actively
supported by Jews during the sabbath so even assuming you're concerned about
this, the final answer would probably still be that indexing during the
sabbath is fine.

~~~
sukilot
Jews exist outside of Israel. Saying that an organization with majority non
Jews probably has no Jews working on it is bizarrely innumerate.

~~~
amadeuspagel
From: [http://www.thebigquestions.com/2020/04/15/goofus-gallant-
and...](http://www.thebigquestions.com/2020/04/15/goofus-gallant-and-the-law/)

>You have three pieces of meat, two kosher, one not. You lose track of which
is which. Can you eat them? Answer, according to (my memory of Sternberg’s
account of) the Talmud: Each individual piece of meat has a 2/3 chance of
being kosher. So if you choose one of them and ask “Is this kosher?”, a “yes”
answer gives you a 2/3 chance to be right and a “no” answer gives you only a
1/3 chance to be right. A 2/3 chance is better than a 1/3 chance, so you
should say yes. Repeat three times and you’re allowed to eat all of the meat.

>There is much that is troubling here, because that strategy actually gives
you a 100% chance of eating a non-kosher piece of meat, so it matters whether
you inquire about each piece separately or whether you inquire about all three
as a group. I’m not sure what principle the Talmud invokes to settle that
issue. But that’s not the point that concerns us here. The point here is that
we’re instructed to focus strictly on probabilities, without regard to any
measure of how bad it would be to be wrong in either direction.

>You’re traveling to town with a left pocket full of coins designated for
charity and a right pocket full of coins designated for your personal
expenses. (In certain circumstances, you’re required to designate these coins
in advance, and cannot substitute a coin from one pocket for a coin from the
other, even if they’re otherwise identical.) You fall off your horse, and the
coins all spill out into one great heap.

>If there were more coins in your left pocket to begin with, then each
individual coin has a greater-than-fifty-percent chance to be a charity coin,
so each individual coin must be given to charity. If there were more in your
right pocket, you can spend all the coins on yourself.

>You take in an abandoned child. Should you raise him as a Jew? It depends on
whether he was born as a Jew. Suppose you don’t have that information. Answer:
If the majority of your neighbors are Jewish, you assume he’s Jewish. If not,
not.

>(A later commentary amends this prescription by directing your attention not
to the majority of your neighbors but to a majority of those neighbors who are
of such character that they would abandon a child.)

~~~
gorgoiler
Ah yes: the Monty Challah problem.

~~~
Shermanium
well played

------
ggop
B&H Video is shut for a day every week but also disallows online checkout.
I've always found that interesting, like the website is an extension of their
beliefs.

[https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp)

> Online Checkout Hours

> Open 24/6

> Online checkout will be closed while we observe Shabbat from 8:15pm ET Fri
> until 9:45pm ET Sat. Although online ordering is unavailable, you may still
> add items to your cart or wish list.

~~~
cameron_b
I did my degree in Photography and spent money I don't care to sum up at that
store both online and in person the few times I was in the City.

I always found their stance to be one of integrity instead of self-
righteousness. They are situated in a little enclave - see HN articles about
the Eruv, etc. - and are quite genuine and not exclusive to their Jewishness,
but simply have a community and a point of view.

The no-shabbat-order-processing feels less like "we don't make the machines
make money for us" than it feels like "Look, you can shop online, but we're
not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."

Like how I interpret the intentions of that commandment, it forces
Photographers to think ahead and plan for that service outage. I may or may
not encourage Rest, but again, the commandments weren't for the Egyptians.

~~~
masklinn
> The no-shabbat-order-processing feels less like "we don't make the machines
> make money for us" than it feels like "Look, you can shop online, but we're
> not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."

That interpretation doesn't make much sense to me. Unless there's a human
actually validating each order individually right as you checkout, you could
just have a note saying there won't be any shipping on saturday. Or even that
orders only ship mon-fri. And nobody would find it surprising.

Other commenters' hypothesis (against doing business on shabbat) make a lot
more sense, a checkout would in fact be "doing business" even if the business
does that on its own it's still in your name and under your responsibility.

~~~
AdamN
As someone who works at a 24/7 retail company, I can say that if the orders
stop flowing, somebody gets called to fix it (even if nobody's boxing it right
then and there). B&H has it set up so that no outage will trigger a pager and
I'm betting that if the site went down on Sabbath it would stay down.

~~~
walrus01
Wouldn't one solution to that be by hiring some shabbat goy sysadmins to
operate the website infrastructure?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy)

------
mrweasel
I don't know why, but I find it absolutely hilarious, in a good way. It's such
a weird thing to build, but it gives you that fuzzy old-school internet vibe.

It's awesome.

------
Animats
There are some "kosher search engines", to go with "kosher phones" in Israel.
This is an ultra-Orthodox thing. Basic kosher phones are "no Internet, no
text", but that's so restrictive that there are now kosher smartphones. These
often have a very short list of allowed sites. Stack Exchange explains: [1]

[1] [https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/108332/what-
make...](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/108332/what-makes-a-
smart-phone-kosher)

------
tenkabuto
> New search results are calculated on Tuesday of each week. Nothing new is
> created during Shabbat. You are served static cached data.

I've been interested in the idea of having a user-facing website that
generates static copies of its dynamic content on a set schedule. Do any of
you have more examples of this?

About this particular search engine, though, the search results I received
from it either were not very relevant or the service did not display
information that made them seem relevant (such as a snippet of text from the
page — it did this occasionally but not always).

~~~
oefrha
Frozen-Flask freezes a dynamic Flask app into a static site.

[https://pythonhosted.org/Frozen-Flask/](https://pythonhosted.org/Frozen-
Flask/)

~~~
tenkabuto
Thanks! It looks like django-bakery also does something similar for Django:
[https://github.com/datadesk/django-
bakery](https://github.com/datadesk/django-bakery)

------
kwhitefoot
> This computer does not physically manipulated electricity.

Sophistry.

The whole purpose of a computer is to manipulate electricity, it is what
electronic computers do.

Perhaps it really is kosher (I have no idea, I'm not Jewish and I'm not well
informed about what kosher really means) but whatever it is or is not, it is
quite certainly not true that 'This computer does not physically manipulated
electricity.'

Perhaps the author actually meant something else, if so I'm curious as to what
that might be.

Presumably the inclusion of the superfluous word physically means something to
the author. To me (B. Sc. Physics) there is no need to include the word
because all manipulation of electricity is physical, there is no other kind.

~~~
compsciphd
one can start a fire before the sabbath and benefit from its heat. One can't
stoke the fire (to make it hotter) or extinguish it. On the flips side (as an
example only) if I was sitting around a camp fire that I lit before the
sabbath with a non jew, and he wanted to extinguish it or stoke it for his own
benefit (I might benefit as well, but he's supposed to be doing it for his own
benefit) that would be permitted.

apply to a computer: one can let it keep on doing what it is doing, but he
owner wouldn't manipulate it.

------
alangibson
That's a lot of effort to do nothing.

Does anyone know if there is some significance to it being calculated on
Tuesday? Since Shabbat is from Friday to Saturday I would have picked Sunday
or Monday.

~~~
mrweasel
Assuming everyone else don't work on the Shabbat, there should be nothing new
to calculate on Sunday, compared to Thursday. You can't use the site on Friday
to Saturday yourself, because Shabbat, so indexing on Thursday perhaps also
doesn't make sense, because no one will see it before Saturday. Tuesday is
sort of in between... It's weird, why not do the calculating all other days
than Friday and Saturday?

~~~
masklinn
> why not do the calculating all other days than Friday and Saturday?

Note that assuming UTC reference point you need to bleed into sunday: Kiribati
is on UTC+14, and you need to wait until some time after sunset (stars should
be visible).

Though that makes me wonder how shabbat works in northerly latitude, how does
shabbat work within the arctic circle?

~~~
llimos
Been there, done that. The commonly accepted ruling is to take the time that
the sun is at its lowest point as simultaneous
sunset/nightfall/midnight/dawn/sunrise (each of which has its own significance
in Jewish law). So shabbat is from around midnight Friday to midnight
Saturday.

It also means one can pray the afternoon, evening, and morning prayers one
after the other.

------
verytrivial
I have never understood trying to get in to heaven on a technicality. Anyway,
none of my business! All power to them (except during Shabbat of course.)

~~~
jfengel
Kosher laws have nothing to do with getting into heaven. They're about
community. Jews are the people who keep kosher. It's not a sin to fail to keep
kosher. You're not jeopardizing the afterlife; Judaism puts far less focus on
the afterlife than we're used to swimming in a Christian world view.

That does sometimes lead to a weird performative "more kosher than thou",
which I don't believe is really healthy but every community has equivalent
behavior. The finger wagging isn't about protecting their immortal soul, but
merely making yourself to be the best at the arbitrary rules and therefore
somehow to be most beloved by the community.

~~~
llimos
That is not really true of most Orthodox Jews. Keeping the laws is about
following the word of God, and the afterlife does play a fairly big part in
our worldview. There are a handful of laws which are identified in the
literature as being about community but those tend to be ones added later by
the early rabbis (miderabannan), rather than straight from the Torah i.e. God
(mideoraisa).

That being said, what you described in your second paragraph does happen, yes.
Though not everyone who engages in it has the motives you ascribe to them.
Some are sincerely trying to do the will of God as best they can.

> It's not a sin to fail to keep kosher

Well, it is for a Jew, but not for a non-Jew. We don't say that non-Jews need
to keep our laws, other than a few very very basic ones likes not to murder.
Non-Jews can still have an afterlife without keeping kosher.

------
locofocos
Neat. This might not be satire though. To those wondering why it needs to be
passively cooled:

Jews and other folks that keep Torah do not kindle a flame on the Shabbat. For
those who are very strict about keeping God's commandments (basically orthodox
Jews), they avoid anything that would create a spark. This spark is like a
very tiny, short lived flame. Any time physical electronic contacts join
together (like when turning on a light switch), the argument is that there's a
very small spark that occurs. The same would happen with the electric contacts
in a motor, such as the motor inside CPU fans, desktop power supplies, and
platter hard drives. By running on this physical hardware, they're avoiding
breaking the Sabbath as much as possible.

source: I'm a gentile Christian that tries to keep the Torah. So I'm more
familiar with Jewish laws than the average person, but don't quote me too
much.

~~~
jmole
then every keystroke would be a spark, no?

I've often wondered if "spark" is only considered in the electromechanical
sense. Driving a tesla might be ok, since it uses brushless motors that are
electronically commutated and has no electromechanical switches or brushes to
speak of.

------
hristov
Is that a joke? Because if it isn't, I'd hate to tell you but you are wrong.
That computer most definitely manipulates electricity.

If anyone is about to take this seriously, check out how a transistor works.
It most certainly manipulates electricity. The cpu in that computer has about
a billion transistors.

~~~
killface
even a capacitor.

------
throwaway744678
I don't get it: the potential user has to use some kind of
computer/smartphone/non-kosher device to make use of this server. Not to
mention all the network infrastructure in-between!

Is there a rabbi here to enlighten us?

~~~
bszupnick
Not a rabbi, but I am Jewish.

A specific segment of Jews (namely Ultra-Orthodox) have quite a complicated
relationship with the internet. On one hand, that community has experienced
the positives of this technology, but they also VERY much discuss the fears
and downsides.

So this site can be a seen as trying to wiggle into that tough space of
getting use out of it, but in an "acceptable" way.

Here's another example I found by a quick google search:
[https://koshercell.org/](https://koshercell.org/)

But in Israel there's also a well-known ISP that filters the internet for you
(and your household): [https://www.linkedin.com/company/internet-
rimon/](https://www.linkedin.com/company/internet-rimon/)

~~~
davidmanheim
Interestingly, all ISPs and phone companies in Israel are required to offer
server-side filtered internet for all customers who request it, at no extra
cost.

------
aaaaarghZombies
A bizarre and not very appealing website BUT an interesting provocation about
what values we embed into technology.

------
gerardnll
Religion and beliefs never cease to amaze me.

------
the_mitsuhiko
Unless a shabbat goy is employed (who would have to be human) I don’t think
you can have a compliant search engine.

The machine can work at any point of the week but a jew cannot operate it on
shabbat. A non jew could, but not acting on a direct command.

The rules are quite watertight. Siri and co. are a no-go and there are no
obvious ways to adapt smart assistants that would restore functionality.
Anything that’s not preprogrammed is not possible.

~~~
082349872349872
Thinking of elevators which stop at every floor on shabbat, maybe the search
engine ought to run on a timeout, returning results for all the "most common
searches" (such as the auto-fill suggestions for each letter?) on some
interleaved schedule.

(I'm not concerned with electricity here so much as with "בורר", selection.)

~~~
LegitShady
if search engines knew what you wanted to look at before you looked at them
they wouldn't be necessary.

------
abductee_hg
hmm, and here i was thinking that the Shabbat is to disconnect and unwind...
you know get away from the constant notifications and such.

~~~
Jaruzel
Ok. A serious question here: Can some HN Jews, enlighten me (a 100%-proof
agnostic) on what they actually do on Shabbat? Are you allowed to use the
internet? If something in your house breaks, are you not allowed to fix it? Do
you just sit around gazing into space just in case something you do is classed
as 'work'?

I find the whole concept quite interesting.

~~~
kenrose
For Sabbath observing Jews, “work” is defined as a certain set of 39 (?)
activities that are defined in the bible and relating to building the
“Mishkan”. Generations of Talmudic rabbis then added new interpretations and
requirements on these rules to adapt for new technology. eg, the prohibition
against using electricity is because it relates to igniting a spark, which is
one of the 39 prohibited activities (Or “malakha”)

Internet? No

Something breaks, fix it? No

Sit around all day? No :)

For many that keep the Sabbath, the time is spent eating, praying, and
studying and there’s somewhat of a schedule. Friday night: synagogue, then big
ceremonious dinner. Saturday morning: Synagogue. Saturday afternoon: big
ceremonious lunch and study or sleep. Saturday evening: back to synagogue
again. It’s a pretty full day.

~~~
masklinn
> Something breaks, fix it? No

I assume that's only if not urgent? e.g. pipe blows up or rock hits a window
for whatever reason, you can at least effect basic repairs if not immediately
call the tradie?

~~~
freedrock87
In strict orthodox Judiasm nope.

The only time you can break the Sabbath is if it is "pikuach nefesh" (life
threatening if not done)

~~~
masklinn
So, say a pipe blew and is flooding the apartment building you're supposed to
not do anything?

~~~
compsciphd
you turn off the main water shutoff and get to fixing it after shabbat (i.e.
no different than turning on and off the faucet)

------
grishka
I saw the dreaded Cloudflare "one more step" page and closed the tab. I'm
highly doubtful Cloudflare is kosher.

~~~
GoblinSlayer
Captcha is ultra kosher, because it assumes you're not a human and must prove
otherwise.

------
yadco
There is nothing wrong with having a computer running on Shabbat if it is
scheduled before Shabbat. (If you are worried about electricity generated on
Shabbat by a Jew, use AWS ect that isn't in Israel) And some of the sites it
links don't appear to be very "kosher".

------
reallydontask
I can't find the exact quote but I think a comedian once said something along
the lines of (large pinches of salt on the quote and whether it was said by a
comedian):

You think your god is all knowing, etc.. but at the same time stupid enough to
fall for these work arounds

~~~
pron
Halakhic Judaism isn't about faith or what God knows. It's about obeying laws
( _Halakha_ [1]) made by people based on a God-given "constitution." Employing
"loopholes" is fine -- it means you care about the law and try to obey it,
which is the point. Worship is expressed not with faith but in a process of
interpreting and creating laws and then following them.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha)

~~~
Udik
It's more that for Judaism it seems God's laws are legal boundaries devoid of
any ethical meaning. The important thing is to respect their letter, not their
spirit.

~~~
pron
I wouldn't say that they're _devoid_ of ethical meaning but rather that their
ethical meaning might be unknown or can only be speculated, and whose
understanding, in any event, is not pertinent to keeping the letter of the
law, which is the central tenet. What you _do_ is what's important, not what
you believe or think or even what God thinks. Once His laws were given to
humankind, they're out of His hands. There's even a famous story [1] in the
Talmud where God argues with the Rabbis over Halakha, and the Rabbis tell God
that what they say should prevail because Torah was given to man, and God
concedes. From Wikipedia:

> [T]he work of law is a work of human activity, and... the Torah itself
> supports this legal theory. The Torah is not a document of mystery which
> must have its innate meaning revealed by a minority, but it is instead a
> document from which law must be created through the human activity of debate
> and consensus

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai)

------
dogma1138
What happened to koogle? It used to be a thing now it’s a parked domain.

~~~
joelbluminator
Hahaah koogle what an awesome name!

------
shmerl
If new electricity is created in automated fashion, how is that a problem for
running a server? You aren't using it. Automated machinery is perfectly fine
to work on its own.

------
teajunky
If there was a God, I don't think he likes being tricked.

~~~
WJW
He's not tricked, he put the loopholes there on purpose. You can't trick an
omniscient being.

~~~
Faaak
Supposing you're right, then why did they put these loopholes by purpose if
they're going to be discovered someday ? To play games with us maybe ? But
then is that morally ok to do so ?

~~~
llimos
Before asking why the loopholes are there you should ask why the _laws_ are
there, then you can ask how the loopholes fit into that purpose.

Speaking as an Orthodox Jew - We believe the laws are there because particular
actions affect the universe in ways we might not understand but that the
creator does. It's like the instruction manual that comes with a machine. (If
it was something we could figure out for ourselves we wouldn't need to be
given the laws from on high.)

So it follows that if there is a loophole, in a law given by an omniscient God
(i.e. there is no argument that He didn't think of it), it's because following
that loophole does not cause the spiritual damage to the universe that
breaking the rest of that law does.

Obviously some of you will argue with some of those axioms, but as stated by
WJW elsewhere in this thread, this is about people who have already accepted
the axioms.

~~~
llimos
I should add that there _are_ those who study how each thing affects the world
- that is the study of Kabbala.

But you don't need to know it to accept the idea, just as you don't need to
know how a machine works in order to use it, as long as you follow the manual.

------
iskander
That's not how Shabbat works...

(it's very mysterious that someone would go to all this trouble with an
idiosyncratic outsider interpretation of Judaism)

------
NovemberWhiskey
Of relevance:
[https://www.star-k.org/appliances.php](https://www.star-k.org/appliances.php)

------
bjourne
Obviously a joke/satire site. "This server is powered by 4 car batteries that
are charged every Tuesday. This website does not use new electricity created
during Shabbat." Shouldn't it have ran out of electricity by now? How many
requests can a home server running on four car batteries serve?

~~~
krallja
Low-tech Magazine[1] runs off of a 168 W-h lead-acid battery and has pretty
good uptime. An average sized car battery has ~600 W-h. Four of them is 2400
W-h. They might have enough power to run for a week between charges.

168 W/h gives you about 12 hours between charges.

2400 W-h / 168 W-h = about 14.28x the size of LTM's

12 hours * 14.28 = 7.14 days.

1: [https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/01/how-sustainable-
is...](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/01/how-sustainable-is-a-solar-
powered-website.html#uptime-and-battery)

------
mwambua
Nit: The copper heat pipes move a fluid around... so there technically are
moving parts.

------
mlatu
The lengths some people go to for religion... smh

~~~
nanna
Some people live their lives for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Some
live their lives for the gods capitalism. I'd say the former is a lot less
pernicious.

~~~
quenix
At least capitalism actually exists.

~~~
nanna
And Judaism, Islam and Christianity don't?

Edit: If you believe in a religion, then religion exists in the most real
sense possible, as that which guides your relation to the beginning and end of
reality itself, God.

If you don't believe, then religion exists in no more and no less of a sense
as capitalism: it is a fiction which vast amounts of people believe in and
live their lives by, and so it is real. Not in the sense of the computer in
front of you, but in the sense of a real social relationship. From a secular
standpoint religion and capitalism have no more and no less reality than other
fictions like gender and race.

~~~
archi42
This is an excellent comment, and I agree on the conclusion that either exists
as much as the other.

However ;-), I dare to say your argument is weak: Assume "I believe in the
apple on my desk". But you will find there is neither a fruit nor an Apple
branded computer on my desk. So an outside observer is bound to believe I am
going mad, hence my belief shapes my social relationship with others around
me. Now does this make the apple as real as religion, which becomes real due
to it's impact on social relationships? Or are people who let religion shape
their social relationships as mad as I am? Or is the argument flawed? (edit:
No, I can not answer these question).

Shapiro's "Thinking about mathematics" springs to my mind, IIRC in the first
chapter(s) he gives a nice overview about what philosophers thought about
numbers, the realm of numbers and whether they "exist" or not. I think some of
that could be applied here. (And, generally, I think it's a great read for
computer scientists & mathematicians interested in philosophy, as it gives a
great overview across various different schools).

~~~
nanna
Well, this is fun :)

I think the problem with your argument is that you're replacing the concept of
religion with the concept of 'apple' which in every sense signifies something
that exists as a hylomorphic object. An apple which can sit on my desk.
However language is full of concepts which don't share that kind of existence,
ones which tend to be the objects of philosophy. Love, justice, power... race,
gender, capitalism, religion, God. These exist but not as 'physical' objects,
objects whose existence can be accepted or denied according to empirical
criteria.

For example, in the market I can say I see capitalism before me, even though
it's not a physical object. It's in the exchange of goods, the extraction of
commodity and surplus value. In the same way in a synagogue or church I can
say that I see religion before me, or in the Oval Office I see power (as well
as in the streets, of course).

With respect to comparing God to an apple, I'd take a Kantian line. One refers
to belief, the other to knowledge. Got to make space for one in order to have
room for the other ;)

~~~
archi42
Absolutely :) Very convincing, but as per your user-info (should have read
that before trying to be smart), I should not expect less of someone with a
proper philosophical education and the (as I suppose) accompanying repository
of philosophical knowledge ;) The subject of your thesis seems pretty
interesting,... ah, I'm digressing ;)

Now, regarding Gods and apples: Because that's how I setup the
Gedankenexperiment (and assuming I belong to the majority of people, who are
neither blind nor suffering from severe neurological problems), if there was
some matter in form of an apple on my desk, I should perceive it. IIRC Kant
would say that I have a-priory knowledge of the absence of an apple from my
desk. (I'm afraid I can't argue against that, so let me rephrase the first
paragraph until I come up with something useful on how to convince you that
comparing religion to an non-existent apple is perfectly fine reasoning.)

[... some minutes passed ...]

No, I think you're right. The problem is that, as you say, an 'apple' is an
inherently physical object. Hence there either is one sitting on my desk and I
can see it, or I can see that there is none. I can not just bend the
definition of an apple at will, so I think I'm stuck here; accordingly, when I
say "I believe in the apple on my desk", I am basing my proclaimed belief on a
verifieable-false proposition; and much as with false assumptions, from that I
can obviously derive anything. Religion (or other constructs of the mind)
don't exist as physical objects (there is no religion-shaped matter), yet they
influence and shape (ha!) our world, often even beyond what's possible for a
physical object [1].

 _edit_ So when I say that I still believe in the apple on the desk even if
there is proof of the contrary, I am just acting like an idiot - and that's
what's actually influencing/shaping my social relationships ;) _end edit_

But, one ray of light :) Comparing religion to an apple might not be possible,
but I think it's undecidable if comparing God to an apple is: What constitutes
God is a matter of belief and hence there is no coherent definition. E.g. some
might say there is no physical God, or maybe there is one but not "on our
realm of existence" (whatever that means). OTOH, some religious people might
even go as far to say that there is a physical heaven and a physical hell,
even when presented physical proof of the contrary. So, maybe, there is an
apple after all? ;)

[1] I can't resist but to note that, if we were on Pratchett's Discworld, this
would be much easier. In that case "the Gods" would probably come knocking on
my door for implying that they might not exist.

------
avipars
My personal laptop is more powerful than this

------
galuggus
schmuckschmuckgo

------
Jekyll-Jacobson
It is also not clear cut that other than the incandescent bulb use of
electricity is actually prohibited. The Hazon Ish ruled that the completion of
a circuit is considered ‘makke bapatish’ or ‘boneh’. But one can argue
reasonably that it is not so.

~~~
MrBoogyTron
It's been assur for long enough that everyone just holds `lo plugh' when it
comes to electricity. Yes an incandescent is prohibited, a hotplate is
prohibited. An eInk display is technically alright, as is an LCD watch. But
there's way to many gray areas between those. What about LED bulbs? Some get
hot enough to be a problem, some do not.

~~~
compsciphd
I've had this idea that if we could ever get e-ink displays to actually be
paper like (i.e. in thickness, and bendability and hatever other features you
attach to paper books) it be interesting for observant jews an people who just
like books to be able to sell "placeholder" e-ink books. i.e. books filled
with programmable eink pages that you can flip through like a regular book.
One would download a book and program it, and then just read it like a
traditional book, flipping pages as you go. once done, you download another
book to it and all the pages get reprogrammed.

------
fmakunbound
All regilion is superstition, but some of it is also hilarious.

------
fazza99
Betcha it doesn't return any results for 'PLO' ;)

~~~
dabbernaught420
I'm sure it's more than happy to teach you about the great game of Pot Limited
Omaha

But after you're done with that, at result number 11, you get this interesting
web-site: [https://abbaszaki.plo.ps/](https://abbaszaki.plo.ps/)

------
dangus
As someone who isn’t religious, it’s really, REALLY hard to remind myself that
not only do people still believe this stuff, but MOST people in the western
world still believe in the Judeo-Christian God and all the underlying
mythology.

I feel like the rational outcome would be that only a small minority of people
would still buy into these ideologies. But I guess economists already know
that people aren’t rational.

Obviously, I’m aware that this website represents an orthodox minority. Most
religious people don’t go to these lengths.

Religious rules and practices are just so annoyingly easy to pick apart. For
example, doesn’t the change from the Julian and Gregorian calendars throw a
wrench into what day we are actually on?

It’s hard for me to buy that God created billions of planets and galaxies with
each planet having different orbital properties and that somehow the arbitrary
days of the week that weren’t even set to their present status until after
Moses was dead for 3000 years are important to him.

This nonsense affects my daily interactions in the sense that I can’t run
around questioning obviously arbitrary traditions, it’ll just insult people
and it’s just generally mean.

So, I’ve given you more than enough of my opinion, and this isn’t exactly
constructive, but to me the sooner you exit the denial stage of grief the
sooner you and move on to accepting the reality of life.

That means specifically accepting that the only two roles of religion are:

1\. A social construct and group (with legitimate benefits of fellowship and
social interaction like a club)

2\. A coping mechanism for death, one that prevents its adherents from
reaching the painful stages of grief beyond denial.

~~~
rsynnott
> but MOST people in the western world still believe in the Judeo-Christian
> God

This is probably no longer literally true; in polling a majority of Europeans
who identify as Christian don't usually believe in a personal god, and
significant numbers who identify as Christian don't believe in the
supernatural at all.

> and all the underlying mythology.

Believing in _all_, or even most, of the mythology, as something that actually
happened, is unusual; you're basically talking Biblical literalists, who are a
small minority of Christians.

> For example, doesn’t the change from the Julian and Gregorian calendars
> throw a wrench into what day we are actually on?

For most Christians, the only one that's particularly important that it be on
the right day there is Easter, which is dealt with. The Gregorian shift, in
any case, was seen as a _correction_; from the point of view of those who
initiated it the problem would have been the time that went before.

~~~
dangus
I think you make a good point, even in Bible Thumping America I bet a lot of
people who identify as religious don’t deep down believe any of it.

At my most recent “church session to satisfy family” the preacher talked a lot
about handling doubt. I found it very revealing that, on any given Sunday, you
might find a preacher feeling the need to re-convince the congregation that
the thing they’re there for is “real.” It made me think, “But I thought this
was obvious truth to you? Haven’t you moved beyond this point?”

Interestingly, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches don’t agree on
which day Easter falls upon!

