A Rabbi Selling Kosher Vibrators

This comment seems strange and misguided at best. Practice of religion or beliefs (especially when not infringing on other's rights to do so) is, I can only hope, _exactly_ how civilization should progress.

Instead, looking down on a group of people because they are ultra-orthodox (in any religion) - is "not how it...was supposed to go."

Isn't believe in progress a religion?

Progress can cause people to go two ways, they go with it, or they go against it. Which is of course obvious except that those who fight against it usually snap back very hard. They don't just stay where they are, they end up gravitating to the very hard rules of what they perceive as the way things were. This lets them feel much more comfortable as the world around them changes. The more it changes, more people hit some limit and start snapping back.

Science isn't the only thing that progresses one funeral at a time.

>meaning the progress of civilization

if you look around the world, the couple decades of globalization, of opening of the world, of falling various curtains down have caused conservative reaction in many places that took forms as rise of nationalistic, religious and other extremisms. People are scared of changes, it makes them feel like they are under attack, and as result they instinctively form the "Croods kill circle". Just look at all the human history - the progress has always been a painful process of fighting through that reaction. People were burned at stake.

Unfortunately we see people continue gullible to extremism in order to find a life purpose, but it's maybe a commentary on our materialistic and empty capitalistic system (which has all the wrong incentives lined up to stifle education about the wealth of life experiences you could have to find purpose) that religion has been steadily on the rise. Religion gets adepts both from oppressed camps as well as disillusioned followers of the "things" religion--that is, more power and things as a life purpose. Extremism happens because it's much easier for a person made ignorant and alienated by our society to accept a system of thought wholesale, as a framework, otherwise there would be too much friction in their heads to enjoy the religious experiences (much like an athlete can't have cognitive friction when performing). It's the sense of bonding, community and shared powerful, meaningful experiences that keep extremists together. Once our educational system gets its act together on teaching how people can find these things elsewhere it should get better.

That said, in this case, the article points to some rabbis with a more progressive mindset who may shake things up a bit from inside their society. Not necessarily promising but it's nice to hear of an oasis of good sense/empathy/tolerance once in a while.