...A doubt is spurious if it does not issue from a quest for truth. A genuine doubt must be a question that arises from a quest, not a specious excuse that spares the doubter the need to commit himself. It must be critical not only of the object of its concerns, but of itself as well, lest it be no more than an irresponsible evasion of the need to take a stand...
...The emet which cognitive emunah affirms is not given to us for the price of mere assent; it is the prize for which we must engage in a fierce intellectual struggle. Doubt, so conceived, becomes not an impediment, but a goad to reinvestigate and deepen cognitive faith assertions. Out of the agony of a faith which must constantly wrestle with doubt may emerge an emunah of far greater vision, scope, and attainment...This is, of course, a dangerous and risky kind of faith. But, as someone so rightly said, you cannot open your mind to truth without risking the entrance of falsehood; and you cannot close your mind to falsehood without risking the exclusion of truth. The only way to avoid cognitive doubt is to ignore it; worse yet, to abandon the enterprise of cognition, or daat Hashem. The path to the knowledge of God is strewn with the rocks and boulders of doubt; he who would despair of the journey because of the fear of doubt, must resign himself forever from attaining the greatest prize known to man...
I think about this alot.
There is a whole (short) masekhet about the Israelite Samaritans: Masekhet Kutim (the whole text in English) that sums up much of what the Mishna has to say about them. Chazal call them Kutim, based on II Kings 17:24. By calling them Kutim, Chazal are saying that they're from Cuthah & thus not from Samaria. The Samaritans, of course, dispute II Kings 17:24-41.
Testy relations between Jews & Israelite Samaitans dates as far back (at least) as the New Testament. The Gospel of John records some Jews insulting Jesus by calling him a devil and a Samaritan.
Bereshit Rabbah & Yalkut Shimoni record a very snippy exchange between Rabbi Yishmael and a certain Israelite Samaritan. Rabbi Yishmael was passing Mt. Gerizim on his way to pray in Jerusalem. The Israelite Samaritan asked him if it wouldn't be better to pray on Mt. Gerizim & not in "the cursed House". Rabbi Yishmael replied that the Samaritans are drawn to Mt. Gerizim because they know where Yaakov Avinu buried the idols (see Bereshit 35:4). What a nice (not) exchange of insults that does credit to neither group!
The Mishna (Rosh Hashanah, Chapter 2) tells us that Chazal stopped the practice of lighting beacons on certain mountain tops as a way of announcing Rosh Chodesh because the Samaritans would put them out. But the Tosefta on Masekhet Ohalot (Chap. 18) says that Jews looted a market belonging to either idolaters or Samaritans, depending on the version.
But in spite of the foregoing, Chazal, at least initially, could not make up their minds about them, were they Jews, non-Jews or something in-between?
Chapter 2 of the Tosefta on Masekhet Avoda Zara says: "A Jew who rents his home to a Kuti has no fear that the latter will bring in idolatry."
Chapter 6 of the Tosefta on Masekhet Mikvaot says: "The land of the Kutim is clean as are its mikvaot, houses and roads."
The Gemara (Kiddushin, 4th Chapter, Daf ayin-vav) records the following exchange: "A baraita: The matzot of the Kutim is permitted and a man fulfills his obligation with it on Pesah. Rabbi Eliezer forbids it because they are not aware of the details of mitzvot. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Any mitzva that the Kutim hold to, they are more exact (mdakdakim) on than the Jews..."
The Mishna (Nidda, Chapter 4:1) says that Samaritan women are to be considered nidda from birth (because they hold that any issue which a woman may have before her first regular period doesn't count & doesn't render her nidda, whereas we hold the opposite). Tuma, tahara, nidda, etc. are concepts that do not apply to Gentiles. So if the Mishna is saying that Samaritan woman can be nidda, it's saying that they're Jews.
Hullin 3 & 4 detail Abayye's opinion that Samaritan schehitah is valid under certain conditions. (On the other hand, the Mishna in Sheviit says that eating Samaritans' bread is like eating pork.)
But, as I said, attitudes toward the Samaritans hardened. The Yerushalmi (Masekhet Avoda Zara, Chapter 5) has a rather poignant (I think) account in which a group of Samaritans came to Rav Abbahu and said, "Your fathers were satisfied with us (hayu mistapkin b'shelanu) and you, for some reason, are not satisfied with us. He said to them, "Your fathers did not corrupt their ways but you have corrupted your ways."
Rav Abbahu ruled that the Samaritans were no longer as strict as they once were vis-a-vis kashrut and is also likely referring to the determination in Hulin 6 by Rav Nachman Ben Yitzhak that the Samaritans were worshipping an idol in the shape of a dove on Mt. Gerizim. Rambam picks up on Hulin 6 in his perush on the Mishna in Brachot and says that the Samartans are much worse than goyim. (Not surprisingly, a contemporary Samaritan scholar cursed the Rambam.)
Given, as I said, that this reference in Hulin 6 is the only reference to the worshipping-an-idol-in-the-shape-of-a-dove thing in any extant Jewish and/or non-Jewish source and that the Israelite Samaritans deny this utterly & vehemently, I conclude that either Chazal were misinformed or that other issues were involved. What do I mean by "other issues"? Look at when the Israelite Samaritans were given the boot, in the late 3rd-early 4th centuries CE. By then all the other groups that had challenged the position of the rabbanim (the Sadducees, the Zealots, the Essenes, etc.) were gone...except for one. At that time the Israelite Samaritans were prospering, were well-organized and numbered over a million. So, says jaded cynical me, in order for the rabbanim to be the unchallenged kings of the mountain (as it were), the Israelite Samaritans had to be disparaged, declared non-Jews and given the boot.
After we had been up to observe the Israelite Samaritan Passover on April 23, as an experiment, I told one of our neighbors (a native Israeli) where we had been. Her astonished reaction was, "Aval hem kofrim!" ("But they're heretics!") I told this to my Holon Israelite Samaritan friend & he agreed with me that she has never actually met a real Israelite Samaritan in her life. If all we know about them is Rambam's remark that they're much worse than goyim (see below), then of course we'll be suspicious-to-hostile.
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