Yeah, I only brought up the chair to point in the direction the slippery slope went :)
I did think of the fact that, because of what you said, it was quite a reasonable likelihood that the next family to move into a house in that neighborhood would be jewish --- but then again, I would expect the leaving family to determine this, and then decide whether to leave the mezuzah or not.
Maybe, like you said, there exist families that aren't Jewish, but want to keep mezuzot arond for some reason anyway. It sounds like you're possibly "not allowed" to do this, but that's verging on really legal-philosophically uncomfortable. It reminds me very directly of Peter Suber's comments:
Similarly, most other games do not embrace non-play and do not become paradoxical by seeming to do so. Children often invent games that provide game-penalties for declining invitations to play, or that extend game-jurisdiction to all of "real life" and end only when the children tire or forget. ("Daddy, Daddy, come play a new game we invented!" "No, sweetheart, I'm reading." "That's 10 points!")
no subject
I did think of the fact that, because of what you said, it was quite a reasonable likelihood that the next family to move into a house in that neighborhood would be jewish --- but then again, I would expect the leaving family to determine this, and then decide whether to leave the mezuzah or not.
Maybe, like you said, there exist families that aren't Jewish, but want to keep mezuzot arond for some reason anyway. It sounds like you're possibly "not allowed" to do this, but that's verging on really legal-philosophically uncomfortable. It reminds me very directly of Peter Suber's comments:
(from http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm)