Why I hate subway + tofu

So we are trying to eat better, and by better I mean not only more healthy, but with more concern for our animal friends (cows and such). As a result, I was introduced recently to tofu. I’ve never had tofu before, but I have to say, it really wasn’t bad at all. Thusfar, we’ve have tofu burritos, tofu lasagna, and tofu stuffed pasta shells. All. Very. Good.

So today, I didn’t bring food to work, resulting in subway eatage. Standing in line, contemplating all the non-kosher meat, I decided to give the Veggie Delight a whirl. Now, there’s one thing that I loathe and despise about Subway, and that’s that they always ask me what I want on my sub. And I’m not talking about do I want cheese or pickles. I mean, they want to know EVERYTHING that is suppose to go on the sub. Now, when I order a sub, right there, RIGHT THERE, is a picture of the sub that I want. With all of the happy things on it, that should go on it. WHY must the ask me what is suppose to go on it. I’m not a sandwich master. If I KNEW what should go on it, I’d open up my own shop and start selling gourmet subs with things that go on subs. Of which, I do not know.

So, there’s why I hate subway. I just want to point to a picture and say, “Make me that.” And you cannot do that at subway. I hate it. But…I ordered a veggie. Not to my surprise, they ask what I want on it. And for once…it really wasn’t a big deal. Lettuce, cucumbers, onions, bell peppers, banana peppers. Oh and some mayo.  Please.

I found out later (remember, this was my first veggie), that apparently if you get a veggie, ask for TWICE the normal amount of mayo / mustard, whatever you have on there. The regular serving amount WILL NOT be enough. So, next time I’ll know.


The Debate

So I went to a debate recently called “Good Without God”. Present were an atheist, a minister, and rabbi Sendrow. It was an interesting debate. The format was as follows:

– Each debator received 15 minutes to state their overall position

– Each debator received 5 minutes to rebut the other debators

– Each debator received 5 minutes to answer Q / A (5 minutes per question selected. Questions were written on index cards and sent to the front).

– Each debator was given (10/15?) minutes to conclude.

I had a few problems with the way this worked. First off all, 15 minutes is a LONG time. Too many topics were covered by each speaker for any of the other speakers to really address. As an idle listener in the crowd, I often forgot most of the points that each of the speakers brought up. It would have been better for them to have spoken in maybe 5 minute intervals with 5 minutes to rebut, or something similar.

Questions came from the crowd, and were anonymous. Honestly, it felt like the atheist had setup many of his constituents to send in specific questions for him to answer. Questions that weren’t really related to the debate, but were about his overall stance on various topics. I wasn’t interested in his thoughts on Heaven, Hell, and Evolution. That’s not what the debate was about.

The atheist was a somewhat well-versed debator / speaker. I identified a few tricks / techniques that he used on the audience, that I hope everyone else was smart enough to recognize.

1. He used a story involving saving a baby. Was the story true? I honestly doubt it. I think it was meant to stir up emotion to further his point. You bring in saving a baby from a fall, and that evokes an emotional response, not a logical one.

2. He quoted statistics, without really providing proof. He offered statistics, and just expected everyone to just accept them as being true.

3. He would sometimes sum-up and say that one or both of the other speakers had agreed with him on various points, when in fact, they had not. This one was quite tricky to pick up on.

4. He used one or two, what I like to call, logic bombs. Things that are thought out ahead of time, that are difficult to reason your way out of without sufficient time to consider them. Very tricky if you’re not ready for it.

Overall, I was disappointed by the debate. No one argued whether the source of all goodness stemmed from God, which is what I thought the debate was going to be about. Everyone did agree that it was possible to be a good person and lead a good life without being religious at all. In fact, for the most part, I’m still confused as to what was actually being debated.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the very large and pretty church that it was held in.


99.9% certain?

So, recently I attended a debate between a minister, a rabbi, and an atheist. One thing that the atheist said struck me as odd. He seemed to allude (elude?) to the fact that he was 99.9% sure of himself. But in science, there’s always a 0.01% chance for error. I couldn’t help but think….really? I never would have expected the percentage to be so high. Some background about me. I’m a software engineer (soon to be a software consultant, but that’s another post). I grew up christian, became atheist for about 3 years during / preceeding college. Maybe a little longer. Then after lots of thinking and seaching, have settled on Judaism. I don’t ask anyone to believe anything that I say at this point, because with all these changes, I must seem wishy-washy. I wouldn’t believe me.

But, understand this. When I was an atheist, I never would’ve considered myself more than 60% certain. Honestly, I don’t rate anything that I think I know that highly. Here’s an adage from the software world, You can only prove the existence of bugs in software, not the absence of them. No matter how hard we test, we can’t prove that software is bug free. Ever. Why? Because bugs are an unknown. You can’t come up with evidence. Religion is similar. You can’t come up with evidence to prove there is a God. You can’t come up with evidence to prove there isn’t one either though. We have things that SUGGEST an existence or nonexistence, but nothing that proves. When you don’t have sufficient evidence, I can’t say I understand being able to claim 99.9% accuracy.

Basically, after that statement, he lost all credibility with me. I was, in fact, interested in his ideas and beliefs. Not because I’m looking to become atheist, but I’m interested in how they may shape and reform some of my own beliefs.

Until next time.


Antisemitism…the only good side?

I was thinking today about how it seems, how it appears, that the Jewish people are unjustly rallied against. Unjustly hated. Lies spread and our people murdered, and for what reason? Because we have different beliefs than they do? Perhaps someone can enlighten me. Perhaps someone can explain to me what we’ve done wrong. Did Jews do something wrong at some point and everyone is still angry about it? Even if some small extremist group did something wrong, is that any reason to aim your hatred at the entire Jewish population? I don’t hate all Muslims just because of a few extremist groups. I hate the extremist groups. Perhaps some would say that I should love them, not hate them, but I’m not sure what to tell you. I cannot love someone that murders others without just cause.

So, I did some more thinking. Do the other groups receive this kind of hate as well. Do people rally against Muslims and Christians this way? Is there anti-Christian /anti-Muslim manifestos? Fabricated documents? I’ll do some more research, as I’m currently unaware of any, and update this post with any information that I find. But my current answer is no. Especially, not on the same scale. Would such a large group be an even bigger target though? Isn’t it illogical that this one group, this Jewish group, is such a large target given its size?

I can only think that this is meant to show us something. To teach us something. Maybe this is some form of indirect proof that Jews have it correct. Why else would these things happen, only to the Jewish people? It seems there must be evidence to refute my conclusion, and that evidence would be readily available. I’ll update this post myself when I find or, or when someone else presents it to me. But for now, I think there is something important here in this unusual persecution of the Jewish people throughout the ages.


Religion vs. School Sports

How am I ever to balance my children’s school activities with our personal religious goals? I really want to attend services Friday night / Saturday morning. However, these directly conflict with most typical school activities that our children are going to be enrolled in. Fortunately I haven’t had too much difficulty here as the two children that live with me are too young, but my daughter (who doesn’t live with me) is in Cheer and cheers at games saturday mornings. During services of course. How are we to attend services and attend all of these school events? Is the only option to move to Israel where these events (I would assume) would be held on Sunday? Surely there must be another answer.

The only thing that I can come up with right now though, is that saturday morning services are simply going to fall to the wayside as our children get more and more involved in school activities. I dislike this, but I’m not sure what to do about it. As a child, I never had the opportunity to attend extra-cirricular activities, or parents who were interested in pressing me to do so. So, it’s important for me that my children do..something……I don’t care what it is, but they will most definitely be involved in something. This was a decision that I made long before I started looking back into religion and before I decided to become a Jew.

Maybe one of my non-existent readers has an answer for me, until then, I’ll just continue struggling to come up with a better answer all on my own.


So many blessings!

There seem to be too many blessings to learn. Or maybe, the problem is that I seem to want to learn them all at the same time, so I end up not learning any of them. It’s been very confusing for me, trying to figure out which blessings to learn when. So, I’m going to maybe help someone else out, and just say which blessings I’ve learned, and in which order. Also, something that has been difficult for me, is figuring out what blessings are said on a typical day, so that will be covered as well.

A typical day of blessings:

1. Say Shema when waking. There is actually another prayer you’re suppose to say, but I don’t know that one yet.

2. Say Hand Washing blessing

3. Say Torah Reading blessing

4. Read Torah

5. Say After-Torah Reading blessing

6. Go to work

7. Say hand washing blessing (at lunch)

8. Say Hamatzi (bread blessing) (at lunch)

9. Say hand washing blessing (at dinner)

10. Say Hamatzi (bread blessing) (at dinner)

11. Say Shema (before bed)

These are the ones that I know, there’s more that I don’t know, and I’ll fill these in as I learn them. Also, I’ll edit this to include the transliterations for the blessings and I might as well throw in the hebrew text also.

Stay Tuned!