In a previous post, I wrote how all the believers were convincingly thrashed when it came to arguments about religion. But RJM claims he wasn't beaten. But he was, both on the phone, here and on Orthoprax. But we can summarize the main arguments again.
NOTE: I am not talking about First Cause arguments and Medieval or Greek philosophy. RJM is quite a philosophy expert and that's very nice. However medieval philosophy doesn't have much to do with the truth of Orthodox Judaism. What I am talking about here is RJM's Kuzari style argument for why Torah must be from Heaven.
The debate goes something like this:
RJM
It is extremely unlikely that the Torah would have been accepted as Divine by thousands of ancient Israelites if it wasn't true. And it is equally unlikely that it evolved from a small legend into a big one. The most reasonable conclusion is that it's Divine, as described in the Torah itself.
XGH
Of course it's more likely to have developed and evolved by human hands. Saying God wrote it is a fantastic claim, and one that needs plenty of evidence. We have many similar stories of ancient texts being claimed as Divine, yet in all cases we believe they were really man made (the Koran for example). Most likely the Torah is man made too, unless you have good evidence to the contrary. The most likely scenario is that there was some original event, e.g. a volcano (or whatever), and the legends developed from there. The ancient Israelites had many stories, legends and myths (just like all other ancient peoples), and these gradually coalesced into the Torah. Almost every single Bible expert and religious historian (non biased) in the world holds this to be the case. The only people who don't believe this are the people who are religiously forbidden to hold this. Canyou imagine a more extreme version of bias?!
RJM
Firstly, claiming a God written text is not a fantastic claim. It is a perfectly reasonable claim. Secondly, the Torah story is unique, and unlike all the other stories (mass revelation). No way could a mass revelation claim have been accepted as true, unless it really happened. Thirdly, the Torah contains many difficult laws, which would not have been accepted had they not been from God.
XGH
Firstly, this is ludicrous. Are you seriously claiming that a Divinely Written Book is no more amazing than a Human Written Book?
Secondly, the more unique the story of the Torah is, the more your argument completely fails. If the story is totally unique, then we have no data and no experience as to whether such a story is reasonably true or not.
For example, if revelation stories happened frequently, and 9 out of 10 times turned out to be true, then RJM could claim that a revelation is a likely true story. Conversely, if revelation stories happened frequently, and 9 out of 10 times turned out to be false, then I could claim it's most likely false.
However RJM claims that the Torah's mass revelation story is unique, and such a story would have to be true. But how can he know this? If OJ is false, then such a unique story is in fact false. And since the story is so unique, there is simply no data to go on. Are mass revelation stories typically true? Could a mass revelation story simply evolve? We have no idea and no data! It's a singularity, and so the default position is to make the simpler claim, that the book is man made, and the religion evolved, like all other religions and all other supposedly Divine Texts.
And of course this isn't even getting into the fact that there are contradictions, errors, different styles and untrue events in the Torah. yes, you can provide kvetches for all those, but at the end of the day, which is more likely: This fantastic tale is true, despite no evidence, or this is yet another false religious claim, just like a thousand others.
Thirdly, many religions contain difficult laws. Many ancient religions required human sacrifice. If anything, ancient Judaism might have been EASIER than the Canaanite religions. There were no Rabbinic Humras, and you didn't have to sacrifice your children to the Gods. And, even if it was difficult, so what? The Moslems keep many difficult laws, does that prove the Koran is min hashamyim? They were convinced to keep the laws because of the benefits that accrued, as we say in shema every day.
RJM himself agreed to me that religion has a serious credibility problem (His words, not mine), so if he wants to claim that Judaism is the one true religion, he needs to provide some very good reasons why. So far I haven't heard him give any, but I'm more than willing for him to try.
In fact, I'm literally begging him to try.
NOTE: I hope my readers appreciate that I have a lot of respect for RJM, which is PRECISELY why I am challenging him to a debate. I wouldn't bother with someone like TrapperJoe or Daganev for example, it would be a worthless waste of time. But RJM is indeed about the most knowledgeable, well thought out, intelligent and educated debater out there (on the believer side). And I'm not just saying that to butter him up!
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