Columnist and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple, writing in the prestigious "City Journal," discloses the origins of his atheism. He was nine years old and attending prayer assembly in his British school. The headmaster Mr. Clinton commanded the children to keep their eyes shut lest God depart the assembly hall. Young Theodore wanted to test the hypothesis, so he opened his eyes suddenly so as to catch a glimpse of the fleeing God. Instead he saw Mr. Clinton praying with one eye open in order to survey the children. "I quickly concluded," recounts Dalrymple, "that Mr. Clinton did not believe what he said about the need to keep our eyes shut. And if he did not believe that, why should I believe in his God? In such illogical leaps do our beliefs often originate, to be disciplined later in life by elaborate rationalization."
Over the last year and a half, such "elaborate rationalizations" of atheism have spawned a spate of books condemning God, religion, and religious believers. Christopher Hitchens' book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in just three weeks. Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion has sold over 1.5 million copies and has been translated into 31 languages. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks. The BBC produced a two-hour documentary based on the book, entitled, "Religion: The Root of All Evil?"
Many critics have pointed out that the appeal of these books is less in the soundness of their arguments than in the eloquence of their prose. As Bruce DeSilva of the Associated Press wrote: "Hitchens has nothing new to say, although it must be acknowledged that he says it exceptionally well."
The venom of their invective actually turns these proud rationalists into irrational hate-mongers.
Five of the six books constituting the neo-atheist crusade can be dismissed as screeds, full of what Theodore Dalrymple describes as "sloppiness and lack of intellectual scruple, with the assumption of certainty where there is none." The venom of their invective against God and religious believers actually turns these proud rationalists into irrational hate-mongers. Witness Sam Harris's declaration in his book The End of Faith: "The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them."
Obviously, such a diatribe does not merit a rational rebuttal.
1. THE DANGER OF RELIGION?
Only The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford, merits serious discussion. Dawkins advances four basic arguments.
One is that religion is dangerous. His BBC documentary begins with the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. He then shows footage of wounded Israelis after a suicide bombing. From this he pans to pictures of Hasidic Jews praying at the Western Wall, and announces, "Religious terrorism is the logical outcome of deeply held faith."
Dawkins's distorted syllogism -- that because Muslim terrorists are religious and Muslim terrorists murder, therefore all religious people are potential murderers -- is enough to make a freshman student of logic go apoplectic.
The obvious rebuttal of Dawkins's allegation that religion causes terrorism, wars, crusades, inquisitions, jihad, etc. is a cursory look at the genocides of the 20th century. An estimated 80,000,000 human beings were murdered in the course of the 20th century (not including war casualties), and they were all murdered by atheists: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao.
Dawkins writes that this point comes up "after just about every public lecture that I ever give on the subject of religion, and in most of my radio interviews as well." He then devotes seven pages to attempting to prove that Hitler was not an atheist but a Catholic. He sums up this section: "Stalin was probably an atheist and Hitler probably wasn't; but even if they were both atheists, the bottom line of the Stalin/Hitler debating point is very simple. Individual atheists may do evil things but they don't do evil things in the name of atheism."
If Dawkins had asked Stalin or Mao if they were motivated by their ideology, they would certainly have contended that all their policies derived directly from their Communist principles. Even today the Communist regime of China is cutting open live Falon Gong practitioners and removing their vital organs for sale on the lucrative organ transplant market. This atrocity is consistent with their atheistic ideology that regards human beings in exclusively economic terms and denies that human life is sacred because human beings were created "in the image of God." Since Communism is an inherently atheistic system that denies both God and the Divine soul, Dawkins's contention that atheists "don't do evil things in the name of atheism" is blatantly false.
It's like saying medicine is evil because Dr. Josef Mengele committed heinous acts in the name of medical research.
Furthermore, to say that religion is evil because religious people have committed heinous acts in the name of religion is like saying medicine is evil because Dr. Josef Mengele committed heinous acts against the subjects of his Auschwitz experiments in the name of medical research. One can take any constructive enterprise and use it for destructive purposes. This offers no grounds for condemning the enterprise itself.
One of the many distortions in which all the neo-atheist books abound is that they rant about the evil byproducts of religion without ever mentioning religion's benefits to every society throughout history. As Theodore Dalrymple observes: "The thinness of the new atheism is evident in its approach to our civilization, which until recently was religious to its core. To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy."
Dalrymple gives as examples the Cathedral of Chartres and the Saint Matthew Passion. Judaism can point to its legacy of Western values. As Ken Spiro demonstrates in his book WorldPerfect, Judaism has given the world its core values: respect for human life, peace, justice, equality before the law, education, and social responsibility.
Even Oxford University, where Prof. Dawkins enjoys tenure, was founded nine centuries ago by religious Christians, among them the Bishop of Rochester.
2. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION
Dawkins contends that religion and science are irrevocably opposed. He maintains that, unlike science, faith in God is irrational:. "Faith demands a positive suspension of critical faculties." The Dawkins dogma states: "Science uses reason and evidence to reach logical conclusions. Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time."
Dawkins, who was raised in the Church of England, naturally associates religion with irrational beliefs such as the virgin birth and God impregnating a human being to give birth to a God-man. This, however, has nothing to do with Judaism. Just open a page of the Talmud, read Maimonides, or spend one hour learning in a yeshiva, and you will experience Judaism's rigorous argumentation to discern the truth. The primary focus in Judaism is the study of Torah and the development, not the "suspension," of critical faculties.
Judaism's perfectly rational belief in God, as enunciated by Maimonides, is that there must be a non-physical, infinite source of the physical, finite universe. As will be shown below, there is no other plausible explanation for how the universe got here.
Einstein understood that the beginning of the universe implies a transcendent force that brought it into being. That's why for so long he clung to his belief in a static universe (one that had always existed, and therefore had no beginning) and resisted the mounting evidence for an expanding universe.
As Lawrence Kelemen in his book Permission to Believe, explains the challenge posed by an expanding universe:
Why would a dot containing all matter and energy -- a dot that sat quietly for an eternity -- suddenly explode? The Law of Inertia insists that objects at rest should remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force. Since all matter and energy would be contained within this dot, there could be nothing outside the dot to get things going—nothing natural, at least. What force could have ignited the initial explosion?
Faced with evidence of an expanding universe discovered by astronomer Vesto Slipher and deduced by mathematicians Willem de Sitter and Alexander Friedman, Einstein refused to accept the inevitable conclusion. "I have not yet fallen into the hands of the priests," was Einstein's famous response to the possibility of an expanding universe. Clearly he understood that an expanding universe must have a non-physical First Cause.
Since then, of course, science has proven that the universe is expanding from the original event known as the Big Bang. This reality gives scientific backing to Maimonides' philosophical contention that a supernatural force must have initiated the natural universe.
The respected journal Astrophysics and Space Science [issue 269-270 (1999)] states clearly that the Big Bang points to a "transcendent cause of the universe":
The absolute origin of the universe, of all matter and energy, even of physical space and time themselves, in the Big Bang singularity contradicts the perennial naturalistic assumption that the universe has always existed. One after another, models designed to avert the initial cosmological singularity--the Steady State model, the Oscillating model, Vacuum Fluctuation models--have come and gone. Current quantum gravity models, such as the Hartle-Hawking model and the Vilenkin model, must appeal to the physically unintelligible and metaphysically dubious device of "imaginary time" to avoid the universe's beginning. The contingency implied by an absolute beginning ex nihilo points to a transcendent cause of the universe beyond space and time. Philosophical objections to a cause of the universe fail to carry conviction. [pp. 723-740]
In a flippant two and a half pages, Dawkins dismisses Thomas Aquinas' proofs for the existence of God (Maimonides, who preceded Aquinas by two centuries, writes similar arguments). "The five ‘proofs' asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don't prove anything, and are easily -- though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence -- exposed as vacuous." [p. 100]
Dawkins simply fails to understand the depth of argument of philosophy, and is too arrogant to admit when he's out of his element.
Dawkins's rebuttal of Aquinas would earn him a "D" in any first year philosophy course. A biologist, not a philosopher, Dawkins simply fails to understand the depth of argument of philosophy, and is too arrogant to admit when he's out of his element.
The problem of "First Cause" is the knock-out argument against which Dawkins has no defense. Even if Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, could prove that human beings evolved out of some primordial soup, evolution still begs the bigger questions: Where did the elements of the primordial soup come from? What caused the first particles to come into being? What caused the Big Bang? How can you believe in a beginning without also believing in a beginner? To these classical challenges to atheism, Dawkins offers no response.
Dawkins's sanguine belief that although scientists have not yet created life, someday in the future they will succeed, suspiciously resembles messianic hopes:
I shall not be surprised if, within the next few years, chemists report that they have successfully midwifed a new origin of life in the laboratory. Nevertheless it hasn't happened yet, and it is still possible to maintain that the probability of its happening is, and always was, exceedingly low -- although it did happen once! [p. 165]
Of course Dawkins would then have to explain how to do it without having the original chemicals. Dawkins may be able to make a salad, but let's see him create the vegetables.
Dawkins's insistence that religion and science contradict each other dismisses with an imperious sweep of the hand an entire body of work written by respected scientists who show that science in fact corroborates the Genesis narrative. Although the bibliography of such books is too lengthy to list here, three excellent examples are: The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom by M.I.T. physicist Dr. Gerald Schroeder, The Language of God by Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, who, by the way, grew up as an agnostic, and There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Anthony Flew and Roy Varghese.
3. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AS CHILD ABUSE
Dawkins's third point is that indoctrinating children with religious teachings is akin to child abuse, because they prevent children from learning to think independently.. He writes that terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people flinch.
Dawkins is, in fact, surprisingly tolerant of the sexual abuse of children. He writes: "We live in a time of hysteria about pedophilia ... It is clearly unjust to visit upon all pedophiles a vengeance appropriate to the tiny minority who are also murderers." [p. 354-5] He has, however, zero tolerance for what he considers the far worse crime of raising a child in a particular religion:
Once, in the question time after a lecture in Dublin, I was asked what I thought about the widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place. [p. 356]
While it takes a whole book to refute a book, suffice it to say that all parents, whether religious or secular, inculcate their children with their own beliefs. Does Dawkins not raise his children with a prejudice to be pro-democracy? Anti-cocaine? In the name of intellectual honesty, would he expose his children to every perverse element of society? In the name of intellectual balance, would he permit his children to study Muslim theology in a Saudi mosque for a few months?
4. DARWINIAN MORALITY
Dawkins' final point is that human beings don't need religion for morality. In his BBC documentary, as a troop of chimpanzees frolics in the background, he asserts that morality is also the product of evolution.
His explanation is simple: "Morality stems from altruistic genes naturally selected in our evolutionary past." Pointing to the social structures abounding in the animal kingdom, he asserts that "survival of the fittest" favored the evolutionary development of moral traits:
Natural selection favours genes that predispose individuals, in relationships of asymmetric need and opportunity, to give when they can, and to solicit giving when they can't. It also favors tendencies to remember obligations, bear grudges, police exchange relationships and punish cheats who take, but don't give when their turn comes. [pp. 248-9]
Here the title of Dawkins's documentary,"Religion: The Root of All Evil" turns out to be true, although not in the way he intended. Religion is indeed the root of all evil, because without religion there would be no concept of "evil." And religion is also the root of all good. Simply put, without religion determining an absolute system of values, what makes anything evil or good?
If human beings were nothing but advanced monkeys, as evolutionists would have us believe, the concept of morality would be irrelevant. A lion that devours a kicking and struggling "innocent" zebra is not "evil." She is merely following her instinct, and instincts in the animal kingdom carry no moral value.
Dawkins offers an example: "Vampire bats learn which other individuals of their social group can be relied upon to pay their debts (in regurgitated blood) and which individuals cheat." [p. 248] But is the bat who pays his debts "good" and the bat who cheats "evil"? Of course not.
According to Dawkins, the terrorists flying into the Twin Towers are no different than the lion devouring the zebra.
By taking God out of the picture there is nothing evil about evil. According to Dawkins, the terrorists flying into the Twin Towers are no different than the lion devouring the zebra.
Even in the development of human civilization, social contracts were expedient rather than moral. The Code of Hammurabi, for example, prohibits stealing for the mutual protection of property rights, not because stealing is "evil."
Morality could have been introduced into the world only by God, for no one else has the arbitrary right to declare universal standards of right and wrong. And much of the morality that God ordained is counter-intuitive and goes against instinct.
For example, historian Paul Johnson [A History of the Jews, p. 34] has pointed out that, among all the legal codes of the ancient Near East, only the Bible declared that crimes against property are never capital, because the sacredness of human life supersedes property values. The Torah also commands people to release the debts owed to them at the end of every seven years, to return purchased land to its original owner every fifty years, to proactively intercede when another person's life is in danger, and to not carry a grudge or take revenge. (Remember Dawkins's statement, quoted above, that natural selection favors those who "bear grudges.") (1)
In his duel against religion Richard Dawkins chose his weapon: rationality. While he certainly gets points for his eloquent use of the Queen's English and for his cynical wit, in terms of rational argument Dawkins wields a dull sword indeed.
(1) Most laughable is Dawkins' attempt to show the strides made in a constantly evolving morality. His "proof" that morality evolves is that a half century ago in England almost everyone was racist, and now almost no one is racist. A half century ago almost everyone was homophobic and now the majority is not. This is the apex of moral evolution in Dawkins' estimation.
But what about the Holocaust? The present genocide in Darfur? The stealing of organs of live Falon Gong practitioners? The sadism that accompanied or accompanies each of these atrocities dramatically refutes any notion of moral evolution. Dawkins's fancied "moral evolution" must mean that human beings are demonstrably less barbaric with the passing of centuries, but in terms of moral level, Rudolph Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, had nothing over Genghis Khan.
(71) Anonymous, June 1, 2018 6:44 PM
The arguments against Mr. Dawkins book are so much more clever than what he wrote, and were very interesting to read! Thank you, Shabbat Shalom.
(70) Dvirah, May 30, 2018 7:23 PM
The Evolutionary Mechanism
I have never understood the opposition to the theory of evolution as a theorem in itself (building whole philosophies on it is another matter). It can easily be understood as one of the mechanisms of continuing creation. Many "natural" events appear "random" to us short-spanned humans; this is no reason to discount any of them.
(69) helen porath, May 30, 2018 4:13 PM
Religion and Science ; thanks for this wonderful article.
You mentioned Einstein in this article. His "genius" is marred, for me, by his refusal to accept the scientific truth of religious belief. My late mother, a German-Jewish refugee, as was Einstein, had the same mindset. As a child, growing up in England, this is what I remember:
" I met Mrs. Goldberg at the grocer's today," she once told me,"Poor woman. What a tragedy. Her son became religious!'
To the end of her days, religious belief, to my mother, was "mumbo-jumbo"
. I am now 77 years old, have lived in Israel for 56 years,trying hard to learn-as-I-go on my spiritual journey, a mother and a grandmother. At my age, I remember when kids prayed to G-d in secular schools as compared to today, with the strenuous efforts by atheists to keep prayer out of schools.
It is like depriving children of an essential vitamin, without which they cannot develop mentally or physically.
I see no contradiction between knowledge of Judaism and knowledge of science,; this gives me great joy, which I found echoed in your article.
I shall certainly try to read more by these authors.
(68) Toby Katz, May 29, 2018 11:46 PM
Scientists have no clue how the Big Bang started
"As will be shown below, there is no other plausible explanation for how the universe got here."
Anon wrote: "Sure there are. Study cosmology - those theories are rooted in science. ... Classic argument from Ignorance fallacy."
>>>>>
I have studied cosmology. I have read a lot of fascinating books on the subject, but when you go all the way back to the beginning -- to the Big Bang -- science has no clue how it actually started. The universe just popped into being "yesh mei'ayin" -- something from nothing -- a classic creation ex nihilo, as Jews have always known. That it **just happened** is the most common "scientific" "explanation" for the origin of the universe.
(67) Toby Katz, May 29, 2018 8:57 PM
Who is the judge of what is moral?
"Most laughable is Dawkins' attempt to show the strides made in a constantly evolving morality. His 'proof' that morality evolves is that a half century ago in England almost everyone was racist, and now almost no one is racist. A half century ago almost everyone was homophobic and now the majority is not. This is the apex of moral evolution in Dawkins' estimation."
How does he even "know" that it is "better" to be non-racist than to be racist? Part of the theory of evolution is the belief that there is no "good" or "bad" in the moral sense, there is just "more likely to survive."
By the light of his own beliefs there is no objective way to determine which beliefs are "moral" and which are not! The Nazis were Social Darwinists who believed that they were helping evolution along and improving humankind by weeding out the bad stock (the "inferior races"). By what objective measure -- in the absence of an objective Judge -- can we decide they were "bad" or "wrong" or "not moral"?
(66) Yaacov Taube, May 29, 2018 8:13 PM
islamic shameless declarations calling for Israel's destruction
In spite of Dawkin's attempt to show the strides made in a constantly evolving morality while nazi Germany tried to hide it's policy of Genocide during WW2 Iran, ISIS, Hizbollah and Hamas have no problem with openly calling for genocide agains the Jews of Israel. I don't see any significant improvement of morality here.
(65) Anonymous, September 1, 2016 10:14 AM
Logical fallacy
"As will be shown below, there is no other plausible explanation for how the universe got here."
Sure there are. Study cosmology - those theories are rooted in science. Now you may understand those theories or disagree with them for one reason or another. But you can not plug in god(s) for a lack of knowledge of why this or how that... Classic argument from Ignorance fallacy.
Anonymous, May 30, 2018 6:57 PM
This is not a counter argument. In fact, it's not an argument of any sort. All it says is that Anon trusts in some vague notions in "cosmology". How about stating what they are? As it is, this does not prove anything, because it does not say anything.
(64) Ben, January 5, 2015 4:22 PM
Let's cut to the chase
Atheism is a historic reaction to the blind faith of the Church. Atheist Jews are a negative response to Gentile bigotry, ignorance, or disillusionment with people as opposed to ideology. Opposition to The Old Man or The Big Guy is a trivial argument for us; it's a pagan description of Zeus or Odin. Paganism is ideological degeneracy; Judaism is original anti-paganism. Hitler was incidentally a neo-pagan. Our depiction of G-d as Father/King or G-d's feelings and moods are understood as descriptions of our relationship, not of an unknowable god. Atheists pride themselves on being rational realists as opposed to us irrational mythologists. However, we Jews yield nothing with respect to truth and realism. I understand the Aish/Rabbi Weinberg way is first to focus not on who G-d is, but WHAT G-d is. The object of our service as 'reality'. Intelligent atheists must agree that all and everything, the totality of reality is infinite and incomprehensible. But with the blink of an eye's difference... WE say that reality ('Reality') is conscious, willful, purposeful, active, has preferences, requirements and plans, a unique identity and is essentially well intentioned (loving). THEY say reality is inert and unconscious, and is essentially subordinate to our puny will ('...how's that tsunami working out for ya'?) They say 'It is what it is'. We hear 'I am that I am ('will be')'. Our philosophy is the Yiddish admonition - 'don't beat your head against the wall'. 'Why does G-d allow this or that, or create bad things etc.'? We say G-d created perfection, and our species did not live up to it. Everything bad can be traced back to a human decision at some time. Don't beat your head against the wall. If you do, stop it. I wish I could wave a wand and universally change the word 'god' to 'Reality' as a proper noun, and many things would make sense. In Hebrew, there is a useful distinction to make between named aspects of reality. I don't think that survives the translation.
(63) janice, May 26, 2014 6:34 AM
rebuttal to the rebuttal
If I were to grade this article, I would give it a C . It is full of loaded words and innuendos, precisely what the author is accusing Richard Dawkins of, and fails in many places to support the statements the author makes. It thoroughly fails to convince me, for example, that Prof. Dawkins is wrong on any of the points this author attempts to rebut. One particular point the author makes is that Hitler was an atheist and therefore his religion had nothing to do with what he had unleashed on the world. However, in the very next week's Aish.com article on Pope Francis, Rabbi Ken Spiro writes: "While the Holocaust and HItler's attack against the Jews (a religion) was not specifically theological, there is no doubt that he would have been able to do to European Jewry what he did without building on 2,000 years of Christian anti-Semitism." Which is it, then? Which Rabbi am I to believe?
Zvi, May 26, 2014 11:33 PM
Glad to see I'm not alone IMO
Janice: thanks for putting my feelings about this article into words. to be fair to the author, Dawkins is very difficult to beat. Dawkins is intelligent, eloquent, scientific and well educated. And, bottom line, there is no proof of any gods, rather much more logic that people invented gods rather than the other way around. That doesn't mean many of the commandments are not excellent, it just means they are not "divine" - pardon the expression.
John, January 3, 2017 8:40 PM
Atheism is illogical
One would have to know all that there is to state unequivocally that there is no God. How can a person with limited knowledge state with absolute certainty that there is no God? That position reeks of pride and lacks logic!
Igor, June 12, 2014 6:33 PM
rebuttal to the rebuttal of the rebuttal?
of the entire article this is the question you have? Well, it's an easy one: both Rabbis are right. Hitler's 'ideology' was not religious, and his hatred for the Jews was not theological, but to actually kill millions of Jews he needed people, lots of people who would be willing to kill civilians, old people, women, and children. Christian doctrine of antisemitism made it possible. This is no more a contradiction in terms than muslim fanatics using 21st century technology to spread their barbaric 12th century savagery all over the world.
Mitchell Wachtel, June 30, 2014 11:40 PM
It's kind of psychological to me.
I cannot really justify why I believe in the Almighty, other than nothing else works for me. Having tried atheism, believing in a Supreme Being simply makes everything have some sort of sense. Otherwise, nothing fits. It's almost a mind set. When the stars in all their infinite beauty appear via the Hubble telescope, my conclusion is "there must be a G-d". The atheist concludes "this is evidence that G-d does not exist." Who can say in the end? In any case, our sages through interpretation of the Torah, enabled us to make sense of our moral lives.
(62) ruth housman, May 23, 2014 11:19 AM
it's a duel A duality of ONE
The keys have always been in the words. We have a God who is so everywhere and not. And knot. Divisible and Visible. Hide has a dual meaning being also skin, what we do see. What is covered. It could be seen as the eternal game of hide and seek. Alone and All one. Apart and A part. But Y ever listen to me. in truth/ruth
(61) Anonymous, May 23, 2014 3:25 AM
Wow
Wow, I found this article very impressive. Wonderful job!
(60) Lydia, May 23, 2014 1:29 AM
Bottom line.
You either believe or you don't. It's that simple. I can't say that I do. I would love to believe in an all powerful OZ, but what are the odds?
(59) zvi, May 22, 2014 6:52 PM
diatribe !?
The author writes: "Obviously, such a diatribe does not merit a rational rebuttal". Really?. So dismissive? What was written by Sam Harris was far from a diatribe and he is but one of many who state that religious tenets have been used to justify murder (think: crusades, jihad, even Moshe rabenu's battles in the Sinai).
Could Jews be a "people of the book" without believing that a god wrote the book ? I think yes. Many of the Jewish mitzvoth (commandments) are ethical, moral, intelligent and caring (e.g. give charity, rest one day a week ... and here I don't mean anything arbitrary like don't carry money or turn on a light, I merely mean it's healthy to rest one day a week). However, do we need any gods for that? Not IMO. I embrace the positive aspects of Judaism, even immigrated to Israel as I wanted to live in a country that is organized for my traditions and believe Jews deserve a country. However, I need no gods who devotes 3 of "his" 10 commandments to himself as a role model or to blindly believe in some invisible and imaginary friend. Judaism: yes ... delusion: no. Judaism has been summed up as "ahavta l'ra'echa k'mocha" - that is my Judaism - along with tikkun olam.
(58) Anonymous, May 22, 2014 4:51 PM
'Visiting' the World of HaShem
Do you know the difference between,' Universe' and Cosmos? Do you know that 'no placenta no baby(ies)?
or you just created 'yourself'? Your parents' parents',parents' won't like that.
To be continued . . .
(57) Dan, May 22, 2014 3:59 AM
Maimonides arguments for G-d
Please post where I can get the arguments Maimonides maide that are mentioned in relevance to Aquinas' five proofs for G-d.
(56) L. Bensimon, May 21, 2014 12:42 PM
Great Article
Very well written, well thought rebuttal against some of the most classical atheistic arguments. Congratulations.
(55) Frank Adam, May 21, 2014 9:27 AM
Insufficient context
Hitler started as a choir boy and Stalin as a novice monk. They both learned to treat the World on faith instead of by rationalised observation from clerical authoritarians. More important psychologically, they were both bullied by their fathers as was Saddam Hussein orphaned young by his Uncle, his guardian.
To create homicidal regimes bully your sons and insist in schools etc that the World be taken on faith instead of critically. From the other end of the telescope which exposes what this is all about: "The God the atheist hates is seldom the God tha the curate loves."
(54) Max, May 21, 2014 8:56 AM
Psalm 14 v 1
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” -
When God calls you a fool you are a fool indeed. The Bible tells us that faith pleases God. Like Abraham in Genesis 15:6 - Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. That my friends is faith
Zvi Benari, May 22, 2014 6:53 PM
The fool is the one who does not question
the title says it all.
(53) chana, May 21, 2014 8:01 AM
in a nutshell
great article !
(52) Anonymous, May 21, 2014 2:27 AM
Anyone who thinks the world “just gave birth to itself” “or “has existed for a long time” is a real simpleton at heart.
Anyone who thinks the world “just gave birth to itself” “or “has existed for a long time” is a real simpleton at heart.
The world ”religion “ cannot be used to lump Judaism into the “mix” of beliefs, as Judaism is unique and true and together with the Seven Universal Noachide Laws for all gentiles (i.e. non-Jewish people) are the ONLY 2 true beliefs. ALL the OTHER “religions” are simply variations of idolatry.
It’s really time to say that if ALL people followed, according to Hashem’s Will, Judaism for Jews and The Seven Universal Noachide Laws for non-Jews (the latter completely unrelated to “other religions”, then there would be no wars, no suffering just peace.
(51) daniel, May 21, 2014 12:31 AM
Why god but not Zeus?
Atheists are no better or worse than deists. To me it is obvious that god does not exist, just as Zeus does not exist. There are so many gods to choose from, the vast majority of people only believe in theirs because their parents did, and none of them believe in any other gods. So who's right, what god really exists? They can't all exist! I do sometimes wonder why we stopped believing in Santaclaus but not in the old man with the beard sitting on a cloud.
But the debate is really irrelevant. I am an atheist but I have no desire to talk anyone out of their belief. I do not understand why Dawkins does, unless it is simply to make money, which I guess is not a bad reason.
To deists: don't worry about atheist activism. People like that have simply replaced one zealotry for another. To atheists: what do you care what anyone believes, so long as they don't bother you with it?
beth, May 21, 2014 1:16 PM
Daniel, Well said. I agree.
Danny, May 21, 2014 3:00 PM
Many G-ds?
There is only one G-d, being the creator of the world. Different people or religions might give Him different titles or names, but there is only one.
An atheist is either a fool or a liar
Anonymous, May 21, 2014 5:00 PM
Daniel's paradox
But dear Daniel you just have shown you care! Why bother?
Anonymous, May 30, 2018 9:53 PM
If you can compare Gd to Zeus, you are making a mistake about the nature of Gd. Gd is not a person, nor an entity that is disconnected from the universe. Rather, Gd is Existence itself. (Kind of. In Rabbi David Aaron's words, Gd is "existence and beyond.") He is the Intrinsic Unlimited Existence that gives existence to all finite things that exist. Gd is beyond the universe, He is not limited to this universe. But the universe does not exist independently of Him. The universe exists "within" Gd, because any thing that exists can only exist "within" Gd. If you think about it a bit, you can sense your own existence as being dependent, which brings up the question: "How is it that I exist?"
I find that Rabbi David Aaron has a good way of presenting this idea. (If anyone else has other recommendations for learning about this, please leave a comment and let me know!)
(50) Alan, May 20, 2014 8:47 PM
Religion Not Dangerous
While this topic is too broad for complete comment, religion is not dangerous. What is dangerous is the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of religion. Sadly, there is no shortage of religious and non-religious people who commit murder. Those who murder in the name of religion misinterpret their religion and misunderstand God. I discuss this somewhat in my book, Thirteen Truths About God and Life.
I, too, dismiss Aquinas' attempted proofs of God. In the first chapter of my book I discuss why, in my view, we can neither prove nor disprove God's existence (in part because God must be beyond our physical world and incapable of detection). Faith, by its nature, is something beyond proof. So, while I believe in God, I do so quite comfortably as an act of faith.
I do disagree that God is necessary for morality. The Greek philosophers (and others) addressed ethics and morals.
Science and religion are not at odds with one another. I discuss their necessary harmony both in my book referenced above and in my post The Natures of Science and Religion on my blog, The Examined Life.
There is much in the article to discuss, and I thank the authors for their efforts on a complex topic.
Respectfully,
Alan S Acker
janice, May 26, 2014 6:41 AM
deists
But they DO bother us with their religion, and have always done so. Even today people try to bring religion into our everyday lives by trying to bring prayer back into our schools, and by praying to god before township committee meetings which has just been approved by our esteemed Supreme Court. Anti-Semitism is rampant throughout Europe, and what is it if not one religion hating people of another religion?
(49) Anonymous, May 20, 2014 8:43 PM
Why Didn't He Tell Them/Us?
I've only just started on the Comments but this Anglican Atheist can see that he is in good Jewish argumentative company. I make just two remarks. If we are "made in his image" and vice versa we know something about Him, namely that he wouldn't have created us for our benefit but for His own. Lonely and bored, he must have simply set the show going so he could see what evolved for his entertainment. And if there were an Abramic deity who created us and cares enough about us to have given us instructions, how come he has allowed so many variations on the alleged truth to flourish snd has neglected Hindus, Buddhists and animists......?
Anonymous, January 5, 2015 2:29 PM
Free will, remember? Actions have consequences
Remark One:
As the unlimited Source and acting in love, G-d who is self-sufficient and unchanging and needs nothing created us in order to give.
Remark Two:
The lesson of the Torah is that any variations come from us, not G-d. Every such variation is an error, a blind alley, a dead end. If it makes you happy, we have a tradition that the children of Abraham's concubines who were sent to the East (India) with 'gifts' (esoteric Chaldean knowledge) were the foreign Brahmins who originated Hinduinsm (aBRAHM=BRAHMin). Not the ideal outcome but at least internally consistent. Buddhism is enough like Christianity and animism is not inconsistent with the Jewish belief that nature and materiality is a subset of a supernatural reality.
(48) Melissa, May 20, 2014 7:59 PM
Religion did not 'create evil'
the only thing that surprises me is that the american public are still so enthralled with Richard Dawkins' ridiculously leaky arguments. Man is responsible for his actions, not an elusive God; he'd be better off realizing the folly of his early catholic teaching - understand that humans are falliable. God, however, is beyond definition; Dawkins' is clinging to straws and toothpicks to explain his views: academic hatred is no excuse for unleashing confusion upon his readership.
(47) Ben Silberstein, May 20, 2014 7:07 PM
We live in a probabilistic universe
Whether or not God exists is not the point. It is in fact irrelevant. The key point or concern is whether or nor there exists a "personal God" who in fact hears our prayers, is watching over us, and actually cares about our actions.
It is perfectly clear we live in a probalistic world and universe where things happen through cause and effect. Accidents happen, the good die young, the bad die old and rich, and so on. Sadly for human beings, we are perhaps the only or one of the few species that actually know we are alive and that causes a problem - our ego cannot accept the concept of death so we need god or religion which essentially tells us there is life after death and/or if you suffer in this world you will be rewarded in the next. Or perhaps the next world is better than this one.
Anyway, this topic is to broad for a brief response.
(46) David, May 20, 2014 6:51 PM
Not an atheist, but you pushed me a bit closer to it...
This is bad argument all around. First, there's a bit too much snark-- why contend that Harris' statement about killing for belief is unworthy of argument? Does the author believe that it was right to kill all the Canaanites (or the Amalekites, etc.), including the children? If so, then they were (allegedly) killed for their membership in a tribe, which is a lower standard than belief. As to the appeal to the study of Talmud as proof of our rationality, this argument might work on people who haven't studied it. The essence of every Talmud discussion is an analysis of why a foregone conclusion is correct and not whether it is correct. It may involve fancy reasoning, but it's hardly designed to get at an objective truth. As to the appeal to science, the conclusion that science somehow "proves" God is a gross misinterpretation of the facts and evidence. You cannot scientifically test the idea of God, and it is unwise (for both scientists and theologians) to attempt it-- the notion of scientific proof includes the idea that a theory must be refutable. What theory of God's existence could I have that could be experimentally tested?
Yisroel, May 20, 2014 11:02 PM
Proof Positive
As to your closing question, it's simple. Scientific theory posits the Big Bang. It does so on the basis of experimental evidence. But logic dictates: if there was a Big Bang, something outside it must have caused it. Ergo: There is a First Cause! (Even Aristotle understood this!)
(45) Yoel, October 20, 2010 4:36 PM
Not all parents indoctrinate their kids!!!
I was born and raised in an atheist home but I decided later in life to take upon myself the yoke of Torah and my mother and father didn't care,they were actually very supportive (even buying kosher meat for me to be able to eat with them) me and my sister were raised to explore,discover,investigate and choose what's better for us.So sad when I hear that "religious" parents kick their own children out of their homes for stop being religious.What a shame !!! I think religion is intolerant and oppress others abilities to choose.The G-d of the Torah is not the G-d hareidim preach.My dad used to help many poor people and my mother gave me extra lunch for me to be able to share with others and they believe in nothing.
Marilyn, May 20, 2014 11:17 PM
It's impossible for someone to believe in nothing.
(44) Sara, August 26, 2010 8:15 PM
why debate?
For me, the concept of "truth" is irrelevant. What matters is what works, on a practical level, in terms of supporting the creation of a life worth living. The atheists who demand "proof" and decry religion as "unscientific" - as well as religious people who feel compelled to argue that their beliefs reflect reality - I have to ask, what does it matter? Why is this a topic for debate? Every time I hear an atheist or religious person defending his beliefs, I think that person must have doubts, or why not go peacefully about his business? Also, human beings only have human brains and five senses. We can't know everything. We can't know all of reality. Our window on the universe is limited by what we are, in addition to what we've learned. Ultimately, "truth" is no more knowable than G-d. As someone says in the Talmud, "If I knew G-d, I would be G-d." We can at best know cause and effect. We can learn what works well for us, and hopefully discard what doesn't work so well. "Wisdom" is an accumulation of findings about what has worked for human beings over time. The best argument for the "truth" of Torah is simply that it has lasted so long, because people find value in it.
Anonymous, January 5, 2015 2:16 PM
But that's just you
It doesn't work for most people. Truth is a common denominator for discussion. No one is willing to be considered irrational, and even true lunatics will try to justify their madness.
(43) Ed Zuiderwijk, November 18, 2008 3:44 AM
Just two comments
1) It's irrelevant whether Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao were atheist or not. They could do their murderous deeds because they had figured out how to be the focus of a religion themselves, how to be a (false?) god. Nazism and Communism had several characteristics in common with religions, their authoritarianism not being the least. 2) Dalrymple uses Bach's Matthew Passion, but he could also have used Handel's Messiah (which is in his own language). Yet he didn't, and I suspect that that was because Handel considered himself as agnostic (about as far as you could go in his days, he felt inspired but not convinced by the texts he put to music).
(42) Anonymous, August 19, 2008 10:26 PM
Mt. Sinai
I fail to understand what is irrational about the giving of the torah. Obviously there is a necessity for instructions on how to live, and if you refer to the Mt. Sinai experience it was the first and only national revelation which is necessary in rational thought to believing that the Jews are the "chosen" people. I would refer you to R. Akiva Tatz's lectures on the subject.
(41) Anonymous, July 23, 2008 2:35 AM
Good article, but one weak point
You point out how irrational it is to believe in the vigrin birth, but "Judaism's perfectly rational belief in God" is different. Yes, Judaism may have a more rational belief system than Christianity, but there is plenty in the Torah, including the creation and deliverance of the Torah on Har Sinai, that is not 'rational'. The fundamental Jewish beleif in God may be rational, however the argument that is posed here that compares Judaism and Christianity is weak and is a completely different discussion for a different time. The topic of religion vs. atheism is not the same as Judaism vs. Christianity.
Otherwise, a very well written article.
Sarah Hirsch, April 3, 2011 1:11 PM
Very true
There is much in Judaism that is miraculous and beyond rationality, so I agree, it's not "Judaism vs. Christianity" in terms of rationality but rather, "belief in God" vs. "lack of belief in God."
Aryeh, June 10, 2011 10:37 PM
Response
You stated: "Yes, Judaism may have a more rational belief system than Christianity, but there is plenty in the Torah, including the creation and deliverance of the Torah on Har Sinai, that is not 'rational" - In response to this, I would suggest that you read: http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/start-of-judaism/ , the book "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" or "Permission to Receive" which enumerate proof/s to the intellectual truth of its Divine origin. Have a nice Shabbat!
(40) Ellen, July 14, 2008 7:27 PM
thank you for posting
I enjoyed reading your article b/c it helped me to expand my thinking on subject matter that is somewhat over my head
(39) lela, June 24, 2008 8:05 PM
Dwaukins is a "shadow boxer,"
Dwaukins is the kindy grade eloqaint intellectual.A lion with no teeth.
(38) zaphod beeblebrox III, April 12, 2008 3:35 AM
exellent article ...
... bookmarked to be quoted to idiots for whom atheism becomes such a rabid obsession, that it is in effect their own 'religion'.
(37) Bill, March 29, 2008 4:30 PM
Thank you!
Thank you for this review- I thought I was the only one who felt this way about Dawkin's book-- I had to laugh about the evolution of morality- all one has to do is read a newspaper or look around to see that racism, antoi-semitism, hate- they are all alive and sadly, well!
(36) Anonymous, March 28, 2008 12:20 PM
Athiset crusade vs. Dogma crusade?
Has nothing to do with who did what, the problem is the relentless dogma atheists receive from religionists, particularly Christians. The more Christians dog,dogmatize,stigmatize,harassers, harass atheists the more anger will be shown to religionists. Thank you, have a nice day.
(35) Greg Wotton, March 28, 2008 3:59 AM
Defining Religion
At university I had several arguments with professors about the true nature of religion. To my mind, people do not identify all strongly held beliefs as 'religious' because of some self-deluded idea that ideology is somehow separate. But compare the fervor of belief (yes BELIEF) between a Communist, a Capitalist and a Fascist and you will see that there is no immediately identifiable difference between their strongly held beliefs and those of devout followers of a 'religion'.
At one point I used a number of sociological models to show that the form of feminism we were having shoved down our throats was no different than Christian conversionism or even modern Mind Control Cults. The counter argument was simply that "this is a political movement, it has nothing to do with religion".
Anyone with strong beliefs conforming to a repeatable structure has a religion. So these people who claim to be 'free of religion' are simply deluding themselves.
(34) Ken, March 27, 2008 6:26 PM
Great article, I just have one gripe
This article was great and I would pay a fortune to see Dawkins debate someone like Rabbi L. Keleman. Dawkins may be funny, dramatic, or playing to people's emotions, but he is totally blinded by his religion: Atheism!
My only problem with this article is the way it mentions the birth of Jesus as an indicator that Judaism is different than other religions.
I don't believe in the virgin birth at all, but Judaism has plenty of things that require huge stretches of imagination like each of the ten plagues or many other miracles in Tanach.
The proper way to fight an atheist is not by pointing to the flaws of other deists (although they too may have serious flaws) but to point to the flaws of the atheit's arguments, which the authors did a exemplary job of!!
Thanks
(33) standr, March 26, 2008 10:05 PM
evolutionary morality?
When Dawkins says "Morality stems from altruistic genes naturally selected in our evolutionary past." he has sawed off his branch from which to raise moral objections against what those blind processes of evolution have produced.
In other words, Dawkins has to accept that religion (including Judaism and Christianity) are the resulting morality of his alleged evolutionary processes. Dawkins cannot stand outside of the evolutionary system and throw rocks at religion. To do so is to admit that he is appealing to some higher moral framework.
(32) Barbara, March 26, 2008 9:36 PM
No God; no rules
Somebody once said that most people don't want to find God because they want to be God. If there is no God they are not accountable to him. They can do as they choose and not face a future judgement. It's an empty, hollow freedom but it is what they desire. And all truth has to fit into that construct. It is necessary to ignore the fact that because of religion the British doctor, Paul Brand pioneered reconstructive surgery for leprosy patients and then provided it without cost to those who needed it. Also not on the radar screen are the food and shelter given to those in the slums of most major cities. There are also medical teams treating civilians in war ravaged areas and risking their own lives in the process.
I doubt if the "irrational beliefs such as the virgin birth" caused Dawkins to doubt the existence of God. He would also have been taught that God took part of a man and made a woman. And he would have learned that fifteen years after Sarah realized she had no hope of bearing children she had a son in her old age. Of course the last two events did occur but the dumb gentiles think all three are works of God. Nobody tells them otherwise. Too bad because when Jonah tried it all those low toned people listened.
(31) leora, March 26, 2008 2:52 PM
Hitchen's comments on Judaism
I was reading an article written by Hitchens in (suprise!) Vanity Fair, where he discusses how his book tour is going. He describes how he was given platform to speak in a Temple where he was told he was wrong that Hasidic Jews have relations through sheets. The fact that this guy actually thought that that was true kind of shows how much research he did for his book. If you're going to debate a subject, at least know it well.
(30) David, March 26, 2008 7:41 AM
The Lion's Instinct.
Your point on the Lion following it's instinct was wonderful. It really opened my mind. Thank you
(29) Ester, March 25, 2008 9:32 AM
The Brisker Rav said it:
"The non-believer will believe anything" (as long as it allows him to do whatever he wants, I might add). Great article.
(28) Andy, March 25, 2008 8:24 AM
Dear Rabbi Zeldman: re your response to my comment
"Imagine living in
Germany in the early 1900's, and one day, as you're walking past a
playground, you have an unmistakable direct prophecy from God. He tells you
"see that kid playing on the swing? The second one to the left? His name is
Adolf Hitler. If you don't kill him now, he will end up shedding the blood
of millions". I think that any one of us, in that situation, would see it as
our moral duty to stop him, even if it means killing him."
Thank you for your response. I have no issue whatsoever with killing little Adolf[or others ] given the situation you described. The problem is that along with the Adolfs the Raoul Wallenbergs, Oscar Schindlers and who knows how many others are condemned for death. A merciful God whose ways we are commanded to try and emulate could of course kill or command us to kill only little Adolf. The question is why exterminate the good with the bad as that seems to facilitate the possibility for those who desire to follow in his ways to act similarly in the name of God. It seems to me to be a small step from seeing God as unjust which will not sit well ,to then limiting his power [thing Rabbi Kushner]which also does not sit well, to denying his existence [think Dawkins]
(27) Moshe, March 25, 2008 7:05 AM
Doesn't take a genious
As with all atheist arguments, you only need to think about them for about a second or two to see through them.
Because one religion lists God as a support for war, therefore all religion is wrong? Then what about pacifist religions? I found it ammusing that the BBC showed a picture of Chasidic Jews praying after showing palestinian terrorists. As if this was to prove that both sides were fighting because of religion. Apparently, BBC doesn't know that the Chassidic community doesn't join the Israeli military. Actually, the original founders of Zionism were more atheist than religious and it was more of a nationalist movement than a religious one.
Also, when was the last war fought over christianity?! Over a hundred years ago! Obviously it is possible to have religion and not use it as an excuse for war.
Furthermore, who's to say that an atheist would be less prone to war? That's certainly not a statement backed by evidence. Actually, anytime atheists have taken over a country, history shows that the country was worse than any other religious country. And of course they were not doing it in the name of Atheism, because atheism isn't something that you can do things in the name of. Atheism is a lack of something. An absence of belief. So there is nothing there to claim as a motive. The only motive left is the uninhibited desires of man. So, an atheist belief could allow any type of crime and travesty because it doesn't prevent a person from anything. Look, even the fanatic muslims don't say that everyone has to die, just that they have to rule over everyone. Only crazy atheists have considered murdering people already subjucated to them.
I don't know if Hitler was babtized or not, but I seriously doubt that he went to mass. Furthermore, his philosophy of murder was based on darwin philosophy - master race subjucates all other races. He didn't learn that lingo from church, and it is certainly a philosophy that atheism would allow and even advocate as part of nature and natural. The only thing that atheism considers a crime is to believe in God. Everything else can be justified.
(26) Anonymous, March 24, 2008 5:26 PM
Finally. A Jewish Response
Perhaps Dawkins' favorite Jew is Spinoza, who wrote in his book of morals "Humility isn't a virtue; i.e. it doesn't arise from reason" (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata,book 4 rule 53).
Well done Rabbi and Mrs. Yoheved! I was waiting for such an article.
And judging by comments here, it warms my hear to see my brothers and sisters not fall into the 'witty' atheistic modern literature but cleave to Jewish wisdom and understanding.
(25) Anonymous, March 24, 2008 4:11 PM
Unhappy with article
I feel that an article like this is poorly written. For example - Einstein
is quoted as fighting religion - when in fact he spoke on numerous occassions
of his belief in a creator. (NPR radio had a long discussion about many comments he made). The vast amount of books and people related to the near death experience as well as the entire spectrum of unscientific phenomenon is totally ignored in the article. Responding to these kinds of childish ideas expressed by atheists, in a similar kind of manner, is really very immature. Quoting the big bang like it came from Sinai - (and going soft on evolution) is also walking a thin line. A topic like this requires more expertise on the subject.
There a huge awakening taking place in the non Jewish world on related subjects. I would strongly suggest you research these people. They know what they are saying, and they know how to say it. Amateurs need not reinvent the wheel, and do a poor job at it.
A very important new concept is that the "Scientific World" is seriously waking up to many scientific conundrums, and that many current scientists are giving very esoteric kinds of solutions.
Ben, January 5, 2015 2:10 PM
Useless without specifics
Numerous, vast, entire, totally, huge, important and many. Wow, sounds meaningful. A few less adjectives and a few ore nouns might make for a discussion.
(24) Yaakov, March 24, 2008 3:32 PM
Dawkins can be inspirational
I saw an interview with him once where the interviewer asked him what his reaction would be if he determined that he could be happier living a religious lifestyle. His response was that he would just be doing that to be comfortable and "I don't believe we were put here to be comfortable"
Like many atheists I think this guy has had a really bad experience as a religious person and rather than overcoming his problems and searching for truth he sits back and lets out his frustration and aggression on the entire institution of religion. It's sad really
(23) Ray, March 24, 2008 3:27 PM
Defence of the Atheist
as a former atheist and physicist I can tell you that the primary reason why many are atheists is simply because they have no alternative.
It's either science or "an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud". Only when I took a serious look at Judaism did I find a worthy alternative explanation.
(22) steelymark, March 24, 2008 1:33 PM
Religion can and will be used
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet"
Napoleon
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, the the wise as false and the rulers as useful"
Seneca the Younger
The Catholic church knew this all too well.
(21) Seth Abrahams, March 24, 2008 12:46 PM
Genocides of the 20th Century
In 1972 Gil ELLIOT gave a figure of 110 000 000 for persons who died on the battlefields, in the death camps, pogroms, organized famines and other disasters.
SBN 345-23553-3-165
(20) Heshy Riesel, March 24, 2008 11:43 AM
Hitler and Stalin followed Darwinism
In the book, TOrnado in a a Junkyard by Perloff, he lists sources of people close to Hitler and Stalin who wrote and attested to their idealogical links to Darwin's survival of the fittest, which would require the elimination of the inferiors to allow the successful progress for a superior race.
To extreme Darwinists, like Hitler and Stalin, human life is not divine and genocide for the cause of "survival" is certainly not evil.
(19) van Suylekom, March 24, 2008 11:22 AM
Religion should "rethink" itself
First of all I wish to state that what i held as my personal "worldview" is the result of my upbringing, education the way people in my circles look at the world in short all these opinions influence me, brainwash me. I believe this applies to us all which means that real creative thinkers must be very rare.
Having said this i will now discuss the belief in the so-called first cause or what it is that moves it all (our world, the galaxy or universe if you wish)
Apparently scientists and religious people meet each other there where no man has gone before: at the start of the universe! We cannot figure it out so it must some superbeïng! I would expect that having reached this point the conclusion would be: our present concepts and scientific methods are inadequate lets find new ones!
Instead i read in your article about the first cause in relation to the philosophy of Maimonides. Never knew that Maimonides heard about the Big Bang or the expanding universe!
Why is it that people still hang on to ideas (or stories about)of people,long dead. Ideas that were proven to be incorrect! Why is it so difficult to develop a new worldview, is it because we are all trapped in our "brain washed" frame of mind.
I hope to see one day the dawn of a belief that is really based on concepts that science supports and which really respects our humanity!
(18) ilan, March 24, 2008 11:01 AM
"Dawkins simply fails to understand the depth of argument of philosophy." and so doe riglere and zeldman
"Dawkins simply fails to understand the depth of argument of philosophy."
talk about the pot calling the kettle black. so much is wrong in this essay, i haven't the time or patience to write about them all. i will have to be satisfied making the following 2 points:
the cosmological argument is one of the worst arguments in the history of philosophy. of how many arguments can you say that the premises not only don't lead to the conclusion, but actually lead to the opposite conclusion. specifically, if everything must have a cause, and thus the universe must have a cause that brought it into being, then that which brought the universe into being, what theists call god, must have had a cause, and therefore can't be god. you can find loads of websites that discuss the cosmological argument, and any will include this basic criticism - well, at least any site that hasn't religious goals.
more disturbing is the following comment: "Morality could have been introduced into the world only by God, for no one else has the arbitrary right to declare universal standards of right and wrong."
first, a historical note. morality existed before monotheism. monotheists like to think that before their ilk came along people wantonly killed and there was terrifying chaos everywhere. false. in fact, polytheism allowed for much more tolerance than was found under religious hegemony. the 30 years war and the wars of the reformation were not exactly pleasant. people killed each other over differing beliefs on the question of transubstantiation or consubstantiation. don't know what i'm referring to? that's kind of the point. blood shed because religious zealots found agreement over this point more important than the lives of "infidels."
this historical point leads to this next, more important, one: the morality we in the west boast, even the religious among us, is a product of intellectual advances, such as those that occured following the reformation and during the enlightenment. our western morality is not a product of religion!
finally, the philosophical point: religion and morality have no logical relationship. i haven't the time to explain. one can find the argument in plato's euthuphro, or in one of the many fine explications of the argument available. james rachels (spelled rachaels perhaps) has a nice summary.
those who sincerely seek the truth, and who don't just flock blindly to any idea that seems to support what they are predisposed to believe, will search out this important argument.
RABBI ZELDMAN RESPONDS
Hi Ilan. Thank you for your comments. To address your two points.
1) The cosmological argument. You mention that "you can find loads of websites" that give a critique of this argument, namely that the creator itself needs a cause.
You're really asking the classical "But Mommy, then who made God?" The question is raised by those very philosophers who present the argument to begin with! Their answer? That our observation of this finite world is that it is governed by a system of cause and effect. Therefore we conclude that the universe itself, which is finite (with respect to time, space and energy), must itself have a cause. That cause is by definition non-finite. Why, Ilan, do you assume that an infinite existence needs a cause? That's an illogical assumption. That which created the system of cause and effect is not bound by the laws of what it created, any more than a baker has to made out of dough! (ok, with the philosophical exception of the Pillsbury dough boy).
2) On the question of morality, you mention two points: a) Morality historically precedes religion, and b) Plato's classical argument in the Euthyphro. The response is simple:
When you say that morality precedes religion, what are you defining as morality? What those societies practiced? Then your definition is circular—morality=whatever people/societies happen to practice. If, on the other hand you claim that morality is objective, then who/what determines it? Similarly, Plato asks- "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious? Or is it pious because it is loved by the gods". The answer is: It is pious because it is loved by the gods. i.e. actions are either "good" or "bad" because God determines them to be so. If not God, then who? You? Me? Dawkins? Hitler? It's all just personal opinion.
(17) Orrin Kom, March 24, 2008 10:04 AM
Religion for Grownups
This is excellent. I much prefer this to "My-Bubbie-survived-the-Holocaust-so-there-must-be-a-Gd", which (however heartfelt) strikes me as insensitive to all those whose friends and family did NOT survive, and to all those "Good people" to whom "Bad things happen".
Now... If only all of us could understand why bad things happen to good people. The theory that Gd exists, is good, is all-knowing, is involved, but is not all-powerful is depressing. Maybe the best for a lot of us is to admit that we can't understand and to concentrate on helping bad things not happen.
(16) Frank Adam, March 24, 2008 9:57 AM
Don't be too cocky
First Hitler was a choirboy in childhood, and Stalin was a novice monk till thrown out of his monastery run secondary school. Childhood schooling is bedrock as anybody trying to teach science or anything else slightly counter-intuitive to a class filled with fairy stories & urban myths knows only to well. Perfect faith was one of the casualties of the four years of the trenches, which the US joined for the last six months. Thirdly it is not only mad jihadis who are dangerously religious. US presidents talk about/ mention God too often for political credibility abroad. God talk is the oldest political smokescreen in the Bible, and Macchiavelli "The Prince." Remember Bush Jnr before Iraq, and Reagan. In Europe where the separation of "Church" and "State" is still very new and incomplete, most of us remember the abuse of religion as a prop of state and not just society and morality. Besides the whole dispute raises the matter of morality standing on its own two feet without benefit of clergy - like law, psychology, medicine and other professions.
Secondly, go back to when Dawkins and the others were in secondary education in the 50's & 60's when religion teachers were still asking pupils to believe, rather than just to know about the religion of the society they were in. Further there were a lot of duffers teaching religion because they could not do any other job. There is a lot of truth in the Mr Clinton story. Children might be short on actual experience and facts but they are not daft and Mr C set himself a pit to fall into. If he had said close eyes to pay attention to prayer and keep out everything else he would have got away with it. We live in an age when the laity are as well educated in their professions and trades as the clergy in theirs. That means the clergy and teaching sidekicks have to brush up their standards. Note for a moment that many of us, for history and literature, learnt a lot of Graeco - Roman classics and their religion, plus a list of Egyptian gods as well. There was no requirement to believe, and I doubt if anybody did but we did not rebel nor forget because it was obvious that to undestand these people, their art and society one had to know their ideas.
Given our society is utterly dependent on the technical agnosticism of engineering "suck it and see" backed by accountants who will close anything for a bottom line, people want to see the beef in the sandwich they are buying. The only way round the built in scepticism of industrialised urban living is to teach religion in the manner of seder - as commemoration acronyms and hooks to hang serious ideas - something regimental history and custom is rather good at, with a section of society not renowned for intellectual brilliance. Above all remember Rabbi Immanuel Jacobovits' comment that, "Faith is caught , not taught." Faith is also part of te three legged stool of the mind/ psyche: intellect, affects, and faith. If you overload any of them too early, you break the whole artefact.
(15) Andy, March 24, 2008 9:17 AM
I would enjoy reading a Dawkins rebuttal. Understandable why many deny the existence of God
I am a believer but can see how confusion and corruption of religion can allow atheism to gain a powerful foothold. In the bible G-d tells the Israelites to slay every man woman and child [Amalek and I think also the Midianites.] God himself decides to kill every living being except Noach and family with the flood. God kills all the first born of Egypt [wicked with the good].We have no understanding as to why that was necessary and it seems to me blind faith or at least a great many steps of faith are required.Even in the worst situations such as Nazi Germany there were righteous who risked their lives to defy the evil regime. If the bible is accurate it does seem to raise questions about a just,loving God which along with the abuses in the name of God cause many to turn away from his instructions and look for reasons that he may not exist, or that he is not active in this world. It seems to me the Torah would need to be more specific about reincarnation and/or an afterlife where the innocent are rewarded to prove that a just God exists. It is beyond human understanding that every person killed in the examples above was guilty and I believe they were not. I recall the outcry when former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef stated that the victims of the holocaust where the souls of former sinners reincarnated. Maybe I didn't understand him correctly, or he has an insight into God's ways which is beyond explanation. The book of Job teaches we can't understand God. In that instance God tested Job for no apparent reason[a bet with Satan is given as to why] and as God himself confirmed Job was a completely righteous man. We learn God will seem to do evil and at the same time our faith teaches that in a way not comprehensible it must be good. Man's yaitzer hara is programmed to try and thwart one from knowing and doing God's will. The combination of all this can be most confusing. The common and publicized perversion of religion for personal gain contributes as well for a search for an alternative to a life dedicated to learning and observing God's commandments.
RABBI ZELDMAN RESPONDS:
Dear Andy,
Thank you for your comments on the article. As you said quite well, "We
learn that God will seem to do evil and at the
same time our faith teaches that in a way not comprehensible it must be
good."
I think that in this whole discussion, that's the one most important
distinction that must be made. I.e. We can know, based on our logic, that
there must be a being called God. That we both agree with. But to know what
God's ideals are, God's definition of goodness for example, is a different
question altogether. That requires Torah- both seeing the logical basis to
Torah's divinity as well as an appreciation of God's system of values as
expressed in Torah.
I just want to offer one paradigm shift that might put this question of
God's notion of goodness onto a different plane. It bothers us that God
indeed commands us to wipe out the nation of Amalek (whom, incidentally, we
can't really identify today in practical terms). And that does indeed sound
like an uncharacteristically cruel for a God that's supposed to be
all-Merciful! But if God, as creator of the universe, is telling us that
this nation is a spiritually and morally destructive force that threatens
the wellbeing of mankind, and we can know that with certainty, it would
certainly be a mitzva to protect the world from them. Imagine living in
Germany in the early 1900's, and one day, as you're walking past a
playground, you have an unmistakable direct prophecy from God. He tells you
"see that kid playing on the swing? The second one to the left? His name is
Adolf Hitler. If you don't kill him now, he will end up shedding the blood
of millions". I think that any one of us, in that situation, would see it as
our moral duty to stop him, even if it means killing him.
When we look at those few isolated places in Torah where there is a
commandment that required loss of life or property,it always has to be
viewed in the context of the greater good that is meant to be achieved. Does
the end justify the means? We can always rationalize that it should be so,
but ultimately we need something above us, a divine being, calling the
shots. And we need to know that we're relying on a book and a tradition that
rests on strong compelling evidence, not the irrational leap-of-faith
straw-man fundamentalists that Dawkins likes to attack.
(14) Jay Grossman, March 24, 2008 8:53 AM
Dawkins on Religious Scientists
Dawkins claims that all religious people are deluded. When asked about such notable religious scientists as John Polkinghorne, Stanley Jaki, Francis Collins, et al, he backs off because he doesn't want to make the patently foolish claim that they are deluded. So he claims they have compartmentalized their thinking into 2 realms; a rational "scientific" realm and an irrational religous realm. If you want a good laugh, watch Dawkins' film on the evils of religion when he interviews the Jew-turned-Muslim Yousef al-Khatoub. The muslim really puts Dawkins in his place. It's quite funny.
(13) bob, March 24, 2008 7:54 AM
Evolution is a religion
2 points.-
1.-
Just like Dawkins, Hitler was an ardent believer in Darwin. Darwin's evolutionary theory was the basis upon which Hitler developed his Aryan master race ideas. Ideas which gave him the right to exterminate 6 million jews. Genocide is the natural conclusion of active evolutionary and Godless atheism.
2.-Dawkins definitions of science V religion is laughable. Much of science requires far more faith than religion. Take the theory of evolution for one. Darwin said that it would be proven when the missing links between the species were found. Since that time we have been bombarded with regular "missing link", discoveries, none of which stand up to scrutiny. Evolution within a column of species is fine, ie. all dogs have a common dog or wolf ancester, no problem! There are however no honest finds of links between diverse species. Additionally we are not looking for a few missing links but we need millions and millions of them. Apart fom a few dubious specimins there is nothing that has not been manipulated in some way. Hoaxes like Piltdown man abound.
FAITH is the biggest requirement to be a follower of evolution.
(12) Carmen, March 24, 2008 2:31 AM
Religion is bad.....
Religion is not bad, it keeps us in line
to remember God's Commandments. We are given choices, when indiviuals make a bad choice then comes trouble. Religion is good for us, we are not animals to be compared with lions eating zebras. Humans have a conscience,(judgement of right and wrong;the moral sense; morality.)this is Webster's definition.
(11) Julie, March 23, 2008 11:48 PM
Has Dawkins Seen this Article?
Perhaps he would re-think his foolishness. More likely, his arrogance would prevent him from doing so. Nonetheless, it would behoove him to read this. Once again, SYR, you make excellent points AND to paraphrase Bruce DeSilva, "it must be acknowledged that (you make them) exceptionally well."
(10) matt, March 23, 2008 3:37 PM
Wonderful
Greetings,
I'm a protestant pastor and I greatly loved this article. We as Christian and Jew alike need to realize that atheist attacks are aimed at our two groups. Despite our differences we are under the great scrunity, may God bless you for writing this. Also, great comments everyone, very insightful.
(9) Anonymous, March 23, 2008 3:36 PM
Gratitude
For those of us who may lack the eruditiont to refute easily the "critics" of religion and morality, your web-site provides a useful set of ideas as a counterweight to this other type of thinking.
(8) Anonymous, March 23, 2008 12:23 PM
During my year in Israel, my Rabbi used to tell us some of the screaming phone calls from parents about how "you've brainwashed my daughter". His response was: how can I successfully "brainwash" you daughter in 1 year when for the last 18 years she has been brainwashed by tv, movies, music, and all sorts of garbage? Its the same with religion as pointed out above. I raise my children to be religious, and you can call it brainwashing, but am I any more of a brainwasher than Dawkins, whom I assume raises (or raised) his children by a rigidly secular and atheistic code?
(7) Anonymous, March 23, 2008 11:29 AM
The definition of atheism is a belief that G-d doesn't exist. Simply put, in order to know what doesn't exist, one must know everything else that does. So, for someone to say they don't believe in G-d's existence, they must know about every other existence in the universe. If the above proclaimed atheists wish to at least not align themselves in the realm of stupidity, they should call themselves agnostic. Since they don't subscribe to intellectual honesty, that would be a challenge in the least. They also seem to be following the path of the "perfect marksman" who paints the bulls eye around the arrow previously shot into the tree. In order to be able to act a certain way, they profess a certain belief system to pacify their real life desires.
Thank you for the rebuttal arguments...they come in handy in my line of work.
(6) Anonymous, March 23, 2008 7:21 AM
Finally - someone putting this buffoon in his place
I was so glad to see an article finally dealing with refuting the arguments of a foolish, arrogant, and dishonest man. Well done. Thank you.
(5) Henri Lai Hon Leong, March 23, 2008 5:48 AM
Some people...
Some peoples are just not a good representative of their field... I am a Biologist and I found HaShem while studying and observing life... The splendour and grandeur of life is simply not possible to have just come out as it is... Just like someone splashing paint on a canvas, it will become a primavera...
(4) Orrie Dancewicz, March 22, 2008 11:20 PM
Biologists
Biologists think they know everything!
(3) Chris Cobb, March 22, 2008 8:22 PM
Dawkins insults religion and demoralizes science
How can one call himself a scientist and boast about his use of factual collection and subsequent "rational conclusion" while being so unabashedly prejudiced and unobjective against religion. Dawkins' vehement objection religion is impulsive and unintellectual, hence the 'scientist' is a stone cold hypocrite; hands down.
(2) Kannan, March 22, 2008 7:13 PM
Amazing
The arguments given in this article is really amazing. Also, the compatibility of religion and scinence was well explained in Stephen Jay Gloud's "The Principle of NOMA --www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html
(1) Ryan, March 22, 2008 4:42 PM
Great!
Wonderfully written, I really enjoyed it.