Maimonides on Heretics - Do people with mistaken beliefs merit the world to come?

Autoplay Next

Maimonides on Heretics: Do people with mistaken beliefs merit the world to come?

Clarifying seemingly contradictory statements from Maimonides on his attitude towards heretics. Looking at how others, (particularly the Kabbalists) viewed Maimonides' attitude toward people who have erroneous beliefs. And the importance of correct belief vs correct intention.

By Chaim Rapoport

Rabbi Chaim Rapoport is an author, educator, lecturer and expert Judaic scholar.

Join the Discussion

Sort By:

NewestOldest

3 Comments

Anonymous Na March 1, 2017

Mistaken belief? Dear sir, forgive me if I offend you. I think that a mistaken believe is as nonexistent as a true believe. The word believe says it all. Reply

David June 4, 2017

in response to Anonymous:

It sounds like you never listened to the lecture; it's actually a pretty strange comment in the context of what the speaker talked about! XD Reply

Anonymous June 5, 2017

in response to David:

Thanks. But mistakes are made in e.g. arithmetic. A, more or less, arbitrary person can check. Believes are not mistaken. The outcome of the judgement of the mistake depends on the belief of the person.

On 1+1=3, (semi modules excluded) I cannot build a bridge. On a different assumption of belief I can still believe.

I on my turn think it strange to use "mistaken" in the combination of belief. The sentence is syntactical ok, but its semantics is meaningless. Reply

Maimonides on Heretics: Do people with mistaken beliefs merit the world to come?

More in this section

You may also be interested in...

Join the Discussion