This happens every time. Just when I decide to live and let live (da da da da), some crazy believer comes along with a bunch of ridiculous arguments that I can’t resist addressing.
Last night was a veritable goldmine of such arguments, from Yus and Huh?. I would love to know what RJM thinks of these people. He is always suspiciously absent from these kind of debates. My guess is he’s embarrassed, but doesn’t want to let the side down.
Anyways, here is a short list:
Fallacy 1: Other religions only have a revelation to one person (or small groups of persons), but Judaism has a revelation to 600,000 people! How could 600,000 people have been deceived like that?
Answer: There was never any revelation to 600,000 people, and 600,000 people were never deceived like that. There was a small revelation myth, which 500 years later grew into a bigger story about people’s ancestors. There is a huge difference between 600,000 people claiming to have seen something, or people 500 years later claiming that 600,000 people saw something.
Fallacy 2: Okay, but how could you deceive a whole nation about what their ancestors saw? Surely they wouldn’t have believed it unless they heard it from their parents. And yet the entire nation of Israel believed it!
Answer 2: Firstly, the entire nation of Israel did NOT believe it. Tenach is full of stories of idolatry etc. Could be the majority of people did NOT ever believe it, but we don't hear about such people since they assimilated. (Just like today, the vast majority of Jews don’t believe it). Secondly, the belief only spread HUNDREDS of years after the supposed event. People back then had no clue about ancient history (we know more about it today than they did then). There was no TV, no newspapers, no nothing. Just oral transmission. If the priests and community spread a story, people believed it. There are thousands of examples of ancient cultures all believing the most ridiculous things. (Modern cultures too) It is FAR more likely that gullible people were misled into believing some false mythology than any other alternative.
Fallacy 3: My parents wouldn’t lie to me. And they heard this from their parents, all the way back to Sinai. It’s an unbroken chain of Mesorah! No other religion has this.
Answer 2: Firstly, the Mesorah is probably broken. There are stories in Tenach about things being entirely forgotten for hundreds of years. Who says it’s an unbroken chain? Why the Mesorah of course! So the Mesorah tells you that the Mesorah is reliable because the Mesorah is unbroken! Ever hear of circular reasoning? Secondly, the entire argument is incredibly poor. No one is accusing your parents of lying, just that they are mistaken. Since most (if not all) religions are false, this would be a good assumption.
Fallacy 4: How can you not trust your parents? Do you not trust them about you being a legitimate child etc?
Answer 4: Most parents don’t lie about their parenthood. If we lived in a society where most parents did indeed lie (or were mistaken) about this, then yes, we would probably doubt them. For example, there are certain segemnts of modern society where fatherhood is much debated. (See Jerry Springer for more details). However even believers agree that most religious beliefs are wrong, so it makes sense to doubt parents about religious beliefs, since the statistics in this case are undeniable.
Fallacy 5: The story of mass revelation being a myth is so amazing. Such a thing never happens. How can you make such an amazing claim without any proof? Aren't you transgressing your own maxim that amazng claims need amazing proof?
Answer 5: Firstly, it’s not so amazing. We have plenty examples of all sorts of fantastic ancient myths that people believed, even mass myths (global flood, the Aztecs etc). Within the three ‘Abrahamic’ faiths, it is true that we are the only one with a mass revelation story. However all this means is that we have a better story than the other two. That’s it! Doesn't make it any truer. Also, the Jewish story was claimed to have happened 3,000 years ago, and that claim was only made 2,500 years ago, before there was even much writing. Xtianity was 500 years later, and Islam a 1000 years later. By that time it would have been too difficult to fake a mass claim.
Secondly and more importantly, we don’t NEED any proof that the myth grew. It’s certainly a possibility, and it’s not a miraculous possibility, it’s an understandable possibility. So, given the choice between a natural possibility, and a supernatural possibility, it makes sense to pick the natural one. You don't ever pick some super natural explanation if there is a perfectly reasonable natural explanation.
Fallacy 6: It doesn’t matter that the Torah looks complex, confusing, multiple texts etc. It was written by God, so it doesn’t have to follow normal writing rules.
Answer 6: Sure, if it was indeed written by God, then fine. But we have no evidence it was written by God. Instead, it looks exactly like you would expect an ancient text to look. It has Summarian style ancient creation myths (modified to be monotheistic of couese), Hammurabi style law codes, and all the other usual stuff. Plus lots of duplicate passages, many contradictions, etc etc.
Fallacy 7: Sure it looks like other texts, 'Dibrah Torah Keloshon Bnei Odom'. But that's how God writes!
Answer 7: Maybe so. But again, without any evidence that God wrote it, there's every reason to believe that man wrote it, just like all the other 99.9999999999999% of books in the world.
Fallacy 8: Let’s say Har Sinai happened. What evidence would be left today? None at all, except a legacy of descendants from the original people saying it happened. And that’s exactly what we have today!
Answer 8: Maybe so. But again, without any evidence that God wrote it, there's every reason to believe that man wrote it, just like all the other 99.9999999999999% of books in the world. The bottom line is there's no evidence that God wrote it, and no good reason to believe so.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
How do we know anything?
Sigh.
An Intellefundie by the name of Anthony has raised the old chestnut of 'How do we know anything?'. We have discussed this numerous times in the past, but I guess that's never stopped me before, so here we go yet again.
How do we know we really exist? Maybe we are all in the Matrix, or in the imagination of an evil demon. Maybe reality is an illusion. Maybe I'm real, but you are all simulations. How do I know anyone else really has consciousness? Maybe only I have consciousness, but the rest of you are robots? Maybe when I see red, you see blue? Maybe what I experience as pain you experience as an itch? Can I ever really understand what you subjectively feel? And if I did would I be you? If I got cloned into two people, and then you killed the original, would I be dead? What is reality anyway? What's an atom? What's a quark? Is anything actually real? Maybe we are all just information in the mind of God? Or an alien. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Can God commit suicide? What happens when an immovable post gets hit by an unstoppable cannonball? How do we know God isn't just a congenital liar? How come you can wait and wait and wait for a bus and none will come, and then just when you give up and start walking, three will come together?
Well, there's been plenty of philosophical ink spilt on the above subjects, and I've read plenty of it. There's some cute philosophy books (mostly out of the UK) which go through all of these. A fun read. Especially if you're in 12th grade.
But all of this is irrelevant to us.
We assume we exist because we can think, and we also have sensory inputs. We see other people like us, so we assume they are the same. Could this be a false assumption? Yes, it certainly could be. But what possible gain could there be in thinking like this? Let's say this is all a dream. Would we act any differently? Probably not.
People assume they exist, even philosophers, and even radical skeptics. The only people who don't assume they exist are locked up in asylums. And the only people who bring up these subjects are Intellefundies desperate to try and score some points, and divert attention away from their lack of ACTUAL REASONS why their religion is true.
Now, starting with the assumption that we exist, can we please continue?
[I can see it now: The intellefundie response: 'See! All systems start with basic axioms which are unprovable! Mine are the ikkarim!'. Yes, yes. The only thing this proves is how intellectually bankrupt the intellefundies are.]
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
An Intellefundie by the name of Anthony has raised the old chestnut of 'How do we know anything?'. We have discussed this numerous times in the past, but I guess that's never stopped me before, so here we go yet again.
How do we know we really exist? Maybe we are all in the Matrix, or in the imagination of an evil demon. Maybe reality is an illusion. Maybe I'm real, but you are all simulations. How do I know anyone else really has consciousness? Maybe only I have consciousness, but the rest of you are robots? Maybe when I see red, you see blue? Maybe what I experience as pain you experience as an itch? Can I ever really understand what you subjectively feel? And if I did would I be you? If I got cloned into two people, and then you killed the original, would I be dead? What is reality anyway? What's an atom? What's a quark? Is anything actually real? Maybe we are all just information in the mind of God? Or an alien. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Can God commit suicide? What happens when an immovable post gets hit by an unstoppable cannonball? How do we know God isn't just a congenital liar? How come you can wait and wait and wait for a bus and none will come, and then just when you give up and start walking, three will come together?
Well, there's been plenty of philosophical ink spilt on the above subjects, and I've read plenty of it. There's some cute philosophy books (mostly out of the UK) which go through all of these. A fun read. Especially if you're in 12th grade.
But all of this is irrelevant to us.
We assume we exist because we can think, and we also have sensory inputs. We see other people like us, so we assume they are the same. Could this be a false assumption? Yes, it certainly could be. But what possible gain could there be in thinking like this? Let's say this is all a dream. Would we act any differently? Probably not.
People assume they exist, even philosophers, and even radical skeptics. The only people who don't assume they exist are locked up in asylums. And the only people who bring up these subjects are Intellefundies desperate to try and score some points, and divert attention away from their lack of ACTUAL REASONS why their religion is true.
Now, starting with the assumption that we exist, can we please continue?
[I can see it now: The intellefundie response: 'See! All systems start with basic axioms which are unprovable! Mine are the ikkarim!'. Yes, yes. The only thing this proves is how intellectually bankrupt the intellefundies are.]
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Charlie Hall on the conflict between Science and Religion
Intellefundies like to claim that Science does not contradict religion in any way. Here is a typical intellefundie comment on the subject, this one courtesy of Charlie Hall on Cross-Currents:
Science is limited to addressing matters that are amenable to empirical verification, and thus is a potential threat to religion only to the extent that a religion’s basic precepts are empirically verifiable. Science is therefore no threat to Judaism as only one of the Rambam’s 13 principles — the eighth — is even theoretically subject to empirical verification, and a practical verification of even that one is impossible. Judaism also has a long tradition of non-literal interpretation of its sacred texts so even an actual disproof of the most straightforward literal meaning, which of course has happened for parts of Sefer Bereshit, is no challenge to our tradition. As a scientist I have no difficult in reciting, “Ani maamim….”
This is of course wrong, for multiple reasons. The main mistake that Charlie Hall is making is that he is confusing Scientific Knowledge with Scientific Method.
It is true that Scientific Knowledge does not inherently contradict the ikkarim. Most of the ikkarim are about God, or about Nevius, or about the future. There is no Scientific knowledge on these topics, because they are beyond the bounds of science.
However the Scientific Method certainly does make committed belief in the ikkarim quite ludicrous. The Scientific method informs us that the most reliable way to gain information is to follow the evidence, take the most resonable, unbiased, objective conclusion, create testable hypotheses, subject your theories to peer review, and be fully open and willing to change your theories if someone else comes up with a better theory. The ikkarim fulfil none of these conditions.
In addition you have Scientific techniques and guidelines such as Occams Razor and similar. The most reasonable explanation of Judaism, all things considered, is that it is a religion like all the others, and most likely untrue. This is the conclusion you would inevitably reach were you to follow the Scientific Method.
Charlie Hall, being a Scientist, should know that.
But of course Charlie is only capable of 'being Scientific' in the realm of the physical universe and the laboratory. When it comes to religion, his emotions and desires take control of his thought process, and he is no longer capable of 'being Scientific'. Instead, he allows his subjective feelings and desire for his religion to be true to over-ride the obvious fact that all religions are ancient mythologies, which only survive though intense indoctrination of their children from a very young age, Baal Teshuvahs notwithstanding.
Possibly, Charlie will argue that Science works well in the realm of the physical universe, but when it comes to the spiritual universe, Science won't work, and you need something else to find the truth, such as religion, or your soul, or something like that.
I am entirely fine with that argument, as long as you can show that there is such a thing as a 'Spiritual Universe', and more importantly, that religion is a reliable way of discovering the truth about it.
But of course Charlie can't do that, since there is no solid evidence of a spiritual universe, which is exactly why Science can't touch it. And furthermore, all the various religions disagree violently on spiritual truths, and therefore clearly religion isn't even a reliable method of discovering truth about the spiritual universe, never mind the physical universe.
Science says 'Here is a theory, we think it's true, based on all this data. But if you come up with different data and a better theory, we will change'.
Religion says 'Here is what you must believe, based on ancient tradition. If you believe otherwise, you're may be going to hell'.
Since 90% of the planet would trust their lives to 90% of Science (and that's a conservative estimate), and 90% of the planet are passionately convinced that 90% of all religious belief claims are wrong (except of course those of their own sub-sect of their own sect of their own religion), I think it is entirely reasonable to conclude that Science seems spectacularly successful at establishing generally agreed upon provisional 'truth', while in contrast, Religion has been spectacularly unsuccessful at establishing truth. Nobody argues on this.
While this is not inherently a conflict, any reasonable person would conclude that Scientific beliefs are generally reliable, whereas religious beliefs are not, unless you have some exceptionally strong data and evidence. Since almost all the data and evidence I am aware makes the claims of fundamentalist religion, including Orthodox Judaism, look highly unlikely, and since we know that in general religions are false, I see no reason to assume that contra all evidence, this particular religion is true.
As a normal, reasonable person, I have great difficulty in reciting 'Ani Maamin', and as a Scientist, Charlie Hall should kal vechomer have the same problem. Why doesn't he? Because like all Intellifundies (not the fake ones) he's not capable of being either objective or honest when it comes to his religious beliefs.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Science is limited to addressing matters that are amenable to empirical verification, and thus is a potential threat to religion only to the extent that a religion’s basic precepts are empirically verifiable. Science is therefore no threat to Judaism as only one of the Rambam’s 13 principles — the eighth — is even theoretically subject to empirical verification, and a practical verification of even that one is impossible. Judaism also has a long tradition of non-literal interpretation of its sacred texts so even an actual disproof of the most straightforward literal meaning, which of course has happened for parts of Sefer Bereshit, is no challenge to our tradition. As a scientist I have no difficult in reciting, “Ani maamim….”
This is of course wrong, for multiple reasons. The main mistake that Charlie Hall is making is that he is confusing Scientific Knowledge with Scientific Method.
It is true that Scientific Knowledge does not inherently contradict the ikkarim. Most of the ikkarim are about God, or about Nevius, or about the future. There is no Scientific knowledge on these topics, because they are beyond the bounds of science.
However the Scientific Method certainly does make committed belief in the ikkarim quite ludicrous. The Scientific method informs us that the most reliable way to gain information is to follow the evidence, take the most resonable, unbiased, objective conclusion, create testable hypotheses, subject your theories to peer review, and be fully open and willing to change your theories if someone else comes up with a better theory. The ikkarim fulfil none of these conditions.
In addition you have Scientific techniques and guidelines such as Occams Razor and similar. The most reasonable explanation of Judaism, all things considered, is that it is a religion like all the others, and most likely untrue. This is the conclusion you would inevitably reach were you to follow the Scientific Method.
Charlie Hall, being a Scientist, should know that.
But of course Charlie is only capable of 'being Scientific' in the realm of the physical universe and the laboratory. When it comes to religion, his emotions and desires take control of his thought process, and he is no longer capable of 'being Scientific'. Instead, he allows his subjective feelings and desire for his religion to be true to over-ride the obvious fact that all religions are ancient mythologies, which only survive though intense indoctrination of their children from a very young age, Baal Teshuvahs notwithstanding.
Possibly, Charlie will argue that Science works well in the realm of the physical universe, but when it comes to the spiritual universe, Science won't work, and you need something else to find the truth, such as religion, or your soul, or something like that.
I am entirely fine with that argument, as long as you can show that there is such a thing as a 'Spiritual Universe', and more importantly, that religion is a reliable way of discovering the truth about it.
But of course Charlie can't do that, since there is no solid evidence of a spiritual universe, which is exactly why Science can't touch it. And furthermore, all the various religions disagree violently on spiritual truths, and therefore clearly religion isn't even a reliable method of discovering truth about the spiritual universe, never mind the physical universe.
Science says 'Here is a theory, we think it's true, based on all this data. But if you come up with different data and a better theory, we will change'.
Religion says 'Here is what you must believe, based on ancient tradition. If you believe otherwise, you're may be going to hell'.
Since 90% of the planet would trust their lives to 90% of Science (and that's a conservative estimate), and 90% of the planet are passionately convinced that 90% of all religious belief claims are wrong (except of course those of their own sub-sect of their own sect of their own religion), I think it is entirely reasonable to conclude that Science seems spectacularly successful at establishing generally agreed upon provisional 'truth', while in contrast, Religion has been spectacularly unsuccessful at establishing truth. Nobody argues on this.
While this is not inherently a conflict, any reasonable person would conclude that Scientific beliefs are generally reliable, whereas religious beliefs are not, unless you have some exceptionally strong data and evidence. Since almost all the data and evidence I am aware makes the claims of fundamentalist religion, including Orthodox Judaism, look highly unlikely, and since we know that in general religions are false, I see no reason to assume that contra all evidence, this particular religion is true.
As a normal, reasonable person, I have great difficulty in reciting 'Ani Maamin', and as a Scientist, Charlie Hall should kal vechomer have the same problem. Why doesn't he? Because like all Intellifundies (not the fake ones) he's not capable of being either objective or honest when it comes to his religious beliefs.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Monday, April 14, 2008
If you believe that the Torah is true, then you'll see that the Torah is true!
I wasn't kidding when I posted the top ten reasons why Orthodoxy is most probably not true. But the number one reason, that the people with the answers don't really believe much themselves, might not be the actual number one reason.
Probably the number one reason is that the most sophisticated and highly intelligent apologists always end up with some ridiculous argument that even a child can see has no foundation. The two most striking examples on the internet are RJM and David G. Now, I like David G and RJM. I like them both a lot. But a spade must be called a spade.
Let's start with David G. He's so incredibly circular, I don't know if he's kidding or what. Here's an example from his latest post:
Torah has to be accepted. Its divinity and inerrancy have to be accepted rather than proven. For Torah to work as an educational tool towards the ultimate goal of knowing God and His ways, it has to be accepted fully as divine and inerrant.
How can he write this stuff? How is this any different than the following:
Koran has to be accepted. Its divinity and inerrancy have to be accepted rather than proven. For Koran to work as an educational tool towards the ultimate goal of knowing Allah and His ways, it has to be accepted fully as divine and inerrant.
(David G's probable response: But the Rambam says we can't learn the Koran!)
But wait. There's more:
Rambam in MN 1:35 lists foundational rules or accepted beliefs that all have to accept before embarking on a discovery journey towards God. They start with the existence of God and exclusive worship of only Him followed by belief that God is not physical, He is transcendent, His existence, life, knowledge are all equivocal statements (they are human concepts applied to a non-graspable entity for lack of better words).
Wow, so in order to start a discovery journey towards God, we have to believe God exists! Who woulda thunkit?
Most of the rest of the post is about the same.
As for RJM, all his arguments for the truth of Orthodoxy ultimately boil down to this:
"If you only knew ANE and comparative religion, you would see that TMS is the most probable explanation for what happened."
Unfortunately for RJM, there are thousands of ANE scholars who know ANE and comparative religion (and more besides) very well, but still don't believe TMS is true. I guess they could all be biased, but then so could RJM.
Bottom line: None of these arguments work. And just admitting to the bleeding obvious, that you believe in OJ because you want to believe (as per evanstonjew), is a lot more truthful, respectable and admirable than arguing a bunch of hooey.
I wonder if David G or RJM could agree to the following statement:
"I admit that from a rational objective perspective, Orthodox Judaism does not look true. However I am passionately, emotionally and intellectually committed to Orthodox Judaism, therefore I will use whatever arguments I have to try and make a case for it."
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Probably the number one reason is that the most sophisticated and highly intelligent apologists always end up with some ridiculous argument that even a child can see has no foundation. The two most striking examples on the internet are RJM and David G. Now, I like David G and RJM. I like them both a lot. But a spade must be called a spade.
Let's start with David G. He's so incredibly circular, I don't know if he's kidding or what. Here's an example from his latest post:
Torah has to be accepted. Its divinity and inerrancy have to be accepted rather than proven. For Torah to work as an educational tool towards the ultimate goal of knowing God and His ways, it has to be accepted fully as divine and inerrant.
How can he write this stuff? How is this any different than the following:
Koran has to be accepted. Its divinity and inerrancy have to be accepted rather than proven. For Koran to work as an educational tool towards the ultimate goal of knowing Allah and His ways, it has to be accepted fully as divine and inerrant.
(David G's probable response: But the Rambam says we can't learn the Koran!)
But wait. There's more:
Rambam in MN 1:35 lists foundational rules or accepted beliefs that all have to accept before embarking on a discovery journey towards God. They start with the existence of God and exclusive worship of only Him followed by belief that God is not physical, He is transcendent, His existence, life, knowledge are all equivocal statements (they are human concepts applied to a non-graspable entity for lack of better words).
Wow, so in order to start a discovery journey towards God, we have to believe God exists! Who woulda thunkit?
Most of the rest of the post is about the same.
As for RJM, all his arguments for the truth of Orthodoxy ultimately boil down to this:
"If you only knew ANE and comparative religion, you would see that TMS is the most probable explanation for what happened."
Unfortunately for RJM, there are thousands of ANE scholars who know ANE and comparative religion (and more besides) very well, but still don't believe TMS is true. I guess they could all be biased, but then so could RJM.
Bottom line: None of these arguments work. And just admitting to the bleeding obvious, that you believe in OJ because you want to believe (as per evanstonjew), is a lot more truthful, respectable and admirable than arguing a bunch of hooey.
I wonder if David G or RJM could agree to the following statement:
"I admit that from a rational objective perspective, Orthodox Judaism does not look true. However I am passionately, emotionally and intellectually committed to Orthodox Judaism, therefore I will use whatever arguments I have to try and make a case for it."
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Top ten signs your religion might not be the one true religion ...
10. Nobody else in the world believes in it (including 80% of your co-religionists), apart from people born into it, and a small percentage of lost souls who get pursuaded into it.
9 The foundational stories of the religion have been shown scientifically and historically to be extremely unlikely, and in some cases impossible, and the possibility that people were misled into believing in it (like every other religion) is thousands of times more probable than it actually being true.
8. The community and your family expend tremendous unrelenting effort to ensure that you are strongly indoctrinated from very early childhood, and don't ever come into contact with any information which might shake your faith.
7. The religion includes numerous laws forbidding you to investigate your faith, and certainly not changing your faith, including death penalties (in theory) for changing your faith or pursuading others to do so.
6. Your community will severely shun anyone who asks questions, and in some cases forbid questions.
5. The foundational Divine text of your religion has been shown to have been authored by multiple humans, and every scholar in the world believes this to be true (in one form or another), and the only people who don't believe this are the people required by their religion to not believe it.
4. Almost very time you get into (or witness) an argument between a believer and a skeptic, the believer ends up appealing to authority, faith, tradition, or all three. And the one rare exception to this argues that if you only understood ANE history you would see that it's true, yet is unable to explain why all the world's secular ANE experts know ANE history very well, yet still don't think it's true.
3. The most revered and distinguished scholars and leaders of your religion seem incapable of being honest and admitting to basic, proven scientific fact.
2. Significant elements of your religious brethren believe in all sorts of nonsense, beliefs which even their fellow, but more modern, believers are convinced are nonsense, yet the processes & arguments (and of course biases) by which these extreme believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs are curiously identical to the processes and arguments (and of course biases) by which the more modern believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs.
And the number one sign your religion might not be the one true religion is ....... (drum roll).....
1. Every time you meet a rational, intellectual believer, who appears to the outside world to have reconciled all the questions and figured it all out, it turns out that deep down they don't believe very much either, and have some lame reason why they pretend to do so.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
9 The foundational stories of the religion have been shown scientifically and historically to be extremely unlikely, and in some cases impossible, and the possibility that people were misled into believing in it (like every other religion) is thousands of times more probable than it actually being true.
8. The community and your family expend tremendous unrelenting effort to ensure that you are strongly indoctrinated from very early childhood, and don't ever come into contact with any information which might shake your faith.
7. The religion includes numerous laws forbidding you to investigate your faith, and certainly not changing your faith, including death penalties (in theory) for changing your faith or pursuading others to do so.
6. Your community will severely shun anyone who asks questions, and in some cases forbid questions.
5. The foundational Divine text of your religion has been shown to have been authored by multiple humans, and every scholar in the world believes this to be true (in one form or another), and the only people who don't believe this are the people required by their religion to not believe it.
4. Almost very time you get into (or witness) an argument between a believer and a skeptic, the believer ends up appealing to authority, faith, tradition, or all three. And the one rare exception to this argues that if you only understood ANE history you would see that it's true, yet is unable to explain why all the world's secular ANE experts know ANE history very well, yet still don't think it's true.
3. The most revered and distinguished scholars and leaders of your religion seem incapable of being honest and admitting to basic, proven scientific fact.
2. Significant elements of your religious brethren believe in all sorts of nonsense, beliefs which even their fellow, but more modern, believers are convinced are nonsense, yet the processes & arguments (and of course biases) by which these extreme believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs are curiously identical to the processes and arguments (and of course biases) by which the more modern believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs.
And the number one sign your religion might not be the one true religion is ....... (drum roll).....
1. Every time you meet a rational, intellectual believer, who appears to the outside world to have reconciled all the questions and figured it all out, it turns out that deep down they don't believe very much either, and have some lame reason why they pretend to do so.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Book Review: Bondage of the Mind
I just finished reading Bondage of the Mind by RD Gold. Now I see Yaakov Menken over at Cross Currents has a post about it, in which he rants and raves about how terrible the ads for the book are, though he hasn't actually read the book.
Menken is upset because the tone of the advertising is that the book bashes OJ, and that's quite true, the book does bash OJ (ironically it also bashes Reform). Menken says that OJ books don't bash Reform, but rather 'prove' the truth of OJ, and a reform book should just 'prove' the truths of Reform, without attacking OJ. I see his point, but I don't think it works, since the 'truth' of Reform is basically that OJ is untrue, so you have to take down OJ before you can get anywhere.
However, I do agree that the book is lame, and Gold sounds like a blogger with an axe to grind half the time. Gold does a very quick run through the DH, with hardly any good examples of any problems in the text. In fact Louis Jacobs has way more content in his ikkarim book. Gold mostly appeals to the authority of Richard Friedman, and also some Israeli archaeologists. While Gold's basic premise is obviously correct, he certainly doesn't make a good case for it in this book. He also spends an entire chapter bashing bible codes, as if the truth of OJ rests on that!
He mentions having had long conversations with an OJ Rabbi, it seems to me that Gold went on an Aish discovery program, or had some similar bad BT experience. Anyways, after not making a very good case why OJ is false, he then starts to bash OJ, bringing up Baruch Lanner, Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir in short order. Not very impressive. And he doesn't even mention the amalekite babies!
Finally he gives a somewhat half hearted nod towards Mordechai Kaplan (though he says he doesn't like Kaplan's take on ritual), and then the book is over.
If I was going to write a book which disproves OJ, I would make it very detailed. Every DH question would have to be in there, plus all the other questions of history, science etc. Once you see all the questions laid out, and also all the flimsy answers, then it becomes clear.
Now it's true that the burden of proof lies with OJ, so to 'disprove' OJ all you really should have to do is knock down the various 'proofs' for OJ, which Gold certainly does. But that's never going to convince an OJ. It's only after they see all the issues laid out that they start getting nervous (assuming they are honest).
Probably Gold wasn't looking to convince any OJs to turn secular. Rather, I think he is alarmed at the popularity and success of the kiruv movement and of fundamentalism in general, and he's writing the book for would be BTs or secular Jews who don't know much about religion.
But, if you're looking for more solid proofs that OJ isn't true, you can get much better content on a blog.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Menken is upset because the tone of the advertising is that the book bashes OJ, and that's quite true, the book does bash OJ (ironically it also bashes Reform). Menken says that OJ books don't bash Reform, but rather 'prove' the truth of OJ, and a reform book should just 'prove' the truths of Reform, without attacking OJ. I see his point, but I don't think it works, since the 'truth' of Reform is basically that OJ is untrue, so you have to take down OJ before you can get anywhere.
However, I do agree that the book is lame, and Gold sounds like a blogger with an axe to grind half the time. Gold does a very quick run through the DH, with hardly any good examples of any problems in the text. In fact Louis Jacobs has way more content in his ikkarim book. Gold mostly appeals to the authority of Richard Friedman, and also some Israeli archaeologists. While Gold's basic premise is obviously correct, he certainly doesn't make a good case for it in this book. He also spends an entire chapter bashing bible codes, as if the truth of OJ rests on that!
He mentions having had long conversations with an OJ Rabbi, it seems to me that Gold went on an Aish discovery program, or had some similar bad BT experience. Anyways, after not making a very good case why OJ is false, he then starts to bash OJ, bringing up Baruch Lanner, Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir in short order. Not very impressive. And he doesn't even mention the amalekite babies!
Finally he gives a somewhat half hearted nod towards Mordechai Kaplan (though he says he doesn't like Kaplan's take on ritual), and then the book is over.
If I was going to write a book which disproves OJ, I would make it very detailed. Every DH question would have to be in there, plus all the other questions of history, science etc. Once you see all the questions laid out, and also all the flimsy answers, then it becomes clear.
Now it's true that the burden of proof lies with OJ, so to 'disprove' OJ all you really should have to do is knock down the various 'proofs' for OJ, which Gold certainly does. But that's never going to convince an OJ. It's only after they see all the issues laid out that they start getting nervous (assuming they are honest).
Probably Gold wasn't looking to convince any OJs to turn secular. Rather, I think he is alarmed at the popularity and success of the kiruv movement and of fundamentalism in general, and he's writing the book for would be BTs or secular Jews who don't know much about religion.
But, if you're looking for more solid proofs that OJ isn't true, you can get much better content on a blog.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Friday, April 4, 2008
New Guide for Pesach Cleaning
Just got the new guide (out of Lakewood) for Pesach cleaning. It's pretty extreme, but it does now come with helpful pictures. Here is how you should prepare your living room and bathroom. Happy pesach cleaning!
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