[I coulda written this. I shoulda written this. But I didn't. And evanstonjew did.]
Many people of all religions believe in believing. They want to adopt a religious attitude towards life, not because such and such dogma is true, but because they just want to. It is a desire that cries out for satisfaction like all other desires; not all people, only some people and not necessarily all the time.
This is happening everywhere in the world. Why are Muslim girls putting on scarves? Because they believe in hadath min hashamayim? No...they seek a spirituality, and they give expression to this desire by inscribing it on their bodies.
My intuition is that behind all the bluster many of us at least some of the time want to believe, not believe some propositional content, and not just believe in the evolutionary or utilitarian value of emuna, which is considerable and hardly ever discussed, but simply want to be frum...daven bekavanah, learn as we did when we were in yeshiva, walk in the world with a frum consciousness.
Some people simply have a desire to return to the enchanted world of religion, and in our case Orthodoxy.
This active nekudah in some Jews is in my opinion a good thing, everything else being equal, i.e. it doesn't end in fanaticism, remains progressive and decent in politics and human relations, etc.
As usual propositional truth, dogmas are irrelevant to the cultivation of this feeling.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Why OJ isn't true
Some of my new commenters don't seem to understand. This blog is not about debating whether OJ is true. That debate was lost by the fundies a long time ago. (About 400 years ago to be precise. Badaboom).
There are many reasons why OJ isn't true, but here it is in a nutshell (RD Gold uses this argument in his book on why OJ isn't true):
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone you trust tells you he had a flat tire, it's reasonable to believe him, because flat tires are normal and this is a trusted friend. If someone you trust tells you he got abducted by aliens, you don't believe him. If ten thousand people, all independently tell you they saw an alien, maybe there's something to it, but you would still need to seriously investigate.
Many Moslems are convinced that Jews were behind 9/11. Why? Because they saw multiple stories in multiple sources about this. However, all the stories traced back to a singular nasty 'rumor' put out just after 9/11, that was then picked up by all the Islamic outlets. Moslems think they heard the story from multiple sources, but in reality it all traces back to one, unreliable source.
It's the same deal with OJ. Yes, we have 3000 years of people believing in it, but it all traces back to one event, Mattan Torah at Har Sinai. And there is absolutely ZERO corroborating evidence that it ever happened, ZERO. Apart from the Torah of course. Well, sorry fundies, but one document which every expert believes strongly was written hundreds of years later is not good enough evidence for such a fantastic claim.
And make no mistake, TMS is a fantastic claim . Especially with all the questions, but even without any questions at all, it's still a fantastic claim. Even if the text was perfectly reasonable and straightforward with no flaws at all, TMS would STILL be a fantastic claim. And with fantastic claims like that, it always boils down to a simple equation: Which is more likely, the fantastic claim is false and people are mistaken or are lying or have been fooled, or the fantastic claim is actually true?
Well, everyone (even fundies) agree that religions are 99.99999% false. Also, all books are written by men, and no one has ever seen God. So which is more likely, TMS is true, or this is just another false religion? It's not even a kashyeh.
So we have an absolutely extraordinary claim, with zero corroborating evidence, plus plenty of questions and evidence which makes the claim look entirely untrue. It's a no brainer.
So why do people think it's true?
Why are people of all fundamentalist contradictory religions so passionately convinced that their religion is the one true religion? It's all emotional/spiritual of course. Even to this day I have a hard time countering the incredible religious brainwashing I received for most of my life. My family is OJ, my community is OJ, my friends are all OJ. The peer pressure is immense. It's very, very hard to escape from it, especially if you basically had a happy childhood and were always 'into it'. (It's not as hard to escape if you were 'abused' by the system, theologically or otherwise.)
Intellefundies will of course claim corroborating evidence, and then launch into a series of highly debatable and highly subjective arguments, like 'Jewish history is so unique, TMS must be true!' Or 'Torah is so amazing, TMS must be true', or many other arguments which are similar. As the argument of last resort, they will fall back on loyalty and faith.
Trouble is, all these kinds of arguments work equally well for all other religions too. 'The story of Christianity is so unique, Christ must be Lord!' 'The Koran is so amazing, Koran Min haShamayim must be true!' And so on and so on. I have seen these arguments myself.
But here is the clincher, and note this very well:
'Any argument which works for all religions works for NO religion'.
Now, the 'loyalty and faith' argument might very well work from a practical, social or cultural aspect. i.e. you should be loyal to your tribe, for whatever reasons. But it doesn't work for determining truth. Imagine the following scenario:
Kiruv Worker: You should become frum!
5th generation Reform Jew: But I have loyalty and faith to my parents, grandparents and community!
Of course the above story would never happen, because there's no such thing as a 5th generation Reform Jew! Badaboom.
But seriously folks, none of these arguments work to establish truth. The best approach (which makes skeptics crazy), in fact the only approach which even has a snowball's chance in hell of working, is to attack the very foundation of knowledge and truth itself.
That's right. I'm talking PoMo. (gasp)
UPDATE: Ooops! There is one other approach which works well, though it's somewhat juvenile. I'm talking about the 'I don't care approach'. 'I don't care if OJ looks entirely false, I'm gonna believe it anyway!'. Hard to argue against that one, and more people really rely on that argument than you might think.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
There are many reasons why OJ isn't true, but here it is in a nutshell (RD Gold uses this argument in his book on why OJ isn't true):
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone you trust tells you he had a flat tire, it's reasonable to believe him, because flat tires are normal and this is a trusted friend. If someone you trust tells you he got abducted by aliens, you don't believe him. If ten thousand people, all independently tell you they saw an alien, maybe there's something to it, but you would still need to seriously investigate.
Many Moslems are convinced that Jews were behind 9/11. Why? Because they saw multiple stories in multiple sources about this. However, all the stories traced back to a singular nasty 'rumor' put out just after 9/11, that was then picked up by all the Islamic outlets. Moslems think they heard the story from multiple sources, but in reality it all traces back to one, unreliable source.
It's the same deal with OJ. Yes, we have 3000 years of people believing in it, but it all traces back to one event, Mattan Torah at Har Sinai. And there is absolutely ZERO corroborating evidence that it ever happened, ZERO. Apart from the Torah of course. Well, sorry fundies, but one document which every expert believes strongly was written hundreds of years later is not good enough evidence for such a fantastic claim.
And make no mistake, TMS is a fantastic claim . Especially with all the questions, but even without any questions at all, it's still a fantastic claim. Even if the text was perfectly reasonable and straightforward with no flaws at all, TMS would STILL be a fantastic claim. And with fantastic claims like that, it always boils down to a simple equation: Which is more likely, the fantastic claim is false and people are mistaken or are lying or have been fooled, or the fantastic claim is actually true?
Well, everyone (even fundies) agree that religions are 99.99999% false. Also, all books are written by men, and no one has ever seen God. So which is more likely, TMS is true, or this is just another false religion? It's not even a kashyeh.
So we have an absolutely extraordinary claim, with zero corroborating evidence, plus plenty of questions and evidence which makes the claim look entirely untrue. It's a no brainer.
So why do people think it's true?
Why are people of all fundamentalist contradictory religions so passionately convinced that their religion is the one true religion? It's all emotional/spiritual of course. Even to this day I have a hard time countering the incredible religious brainwashing I received for most of my life. My family is OJ, my community is OJ, my friends are all OJ. The peer pressure is immense. It's very, very hard to escape from it, especially if you basically had a happy childhood and were always 'into it'. (It's not as hard to escape if you were 'abused' by the system, theologically or otherwise.)
Intellefundies will of course claim corroborating evidence, and then launch into a series of highly debatable and highly subjective arguments, like 'Jewish history is so unique, TMS must be true!' Or 'Torah is so amazing, TMS must be true', or many other arguments which are similar. As the argument of last resort, they will fall back on loyalty and faith.
Trouble is, all these kinds of arguments work equally well for all other religions too. 'The story of Christianity is so unique, Christ must be Lord!' 'The Koran is so amazing, Koran Min haShamayim must be true!' And so on and so on. I have seen these arguments myself.
But here is the clincher, and note this very well:
'Any argument which works for all religions works for NO religion'.
Now, the 'loyalty and faith' argument might very well work from a practical, social or cultural aspect. i.e. you should be loyal to your tribe, for whatever reasons. But it doesn't work for determining truth. Imagine the following scenario:
Kiruv Worker: You should become frum!
5th generation Reform Jew: But I have loyalty and faith to my parents, grandparents and community!
Of course the above story would never happen, because there's no such thing as a 5th generation Reform Jew! Badaboom.
But seriously folks, none of these arguments work to establish truth. The best approach (which makes skeptics crazy), in fact the only approach which even has a snowball's chance in hell of working, is to attack the very foundation of knowledge and truth itself.
That's right. I'm talking PoMo. (gasp)
UPDATE: Ooops! There is one other approach which works well, though it's somewhat juvenile. I'm talking about the 'I don't care approach'. 'I don't care if OJ looks entirely false, I'm gonna believe it anyway!'. Hard to argue against that one, and more people really rely on that argument than you might think.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Can loyalty and faith over-ride truth?
Yus has been arguing that although OJ maybe does not look so likely to be true, the fact is he has tremendous loyalty and faith to OJ, and that over-rides any truth issues.[UPDATE: Just for Deganev - what I mean by this is that even though from a rational objective perspoective OJ doesn't look very true, yus says his tremendous loyalty and faith cause him to still believe with 100% conviction that it is indeed true. I didn't mean to imply that yus agrees it isn't true, but through some bizarre application of loyalty and faith will pretend that it is true, or act as if it was.]
[UPDATE TWO: Yus just tied all his loyalty and faith to the Kuzari argument (in another thread), which has been debunked countless times. Oh well, so much for loyalty and faith. Seems these were mostly code-words to disguise his allegiance to some bogus rational argument.]
Is this a valid argument?
I think it depends. Of course loyalty, and in some instances faith, are good middot to have, and the world would be a poorer place without them. On the other hand, we wouldn't say that about a suicide bomber about to blow up a pizza store, with utmost loyalty to his Mullah, and absolute faith that he is doing the will of Allah.
So, like all things in life, you have to use your sechel.
Is loyalty to an ancient law code, which seems rather immoral in places by modern standards, and which by all available evidence really doesn't look very true; is that kind of loyalty and faith sensible? And I think the obvious answer is that it isn't very sensible. Is it the worst thing in the world? No probably not, though given the recent excesses in multiple Fundamentalist religions, it's pretty damn scary.
The bottom line is this: Would the world be a better place without fundamentalist OJ? And that's a hard question to answer. However I think OJ would be a better place if some part of OJ admitted that a literal TMS just isn't very likely, the ikkarim are ridiculous, and that Orthopraxy is perfectly fine. Oh wait, I just described much of LW MO. Never mind!
[Note: Flowchart was found on the web. It is not my work!]
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Thursday, March 27, 2008
A Guide to Intellefundies
Intellefundies are Intellectual Fundamentalists. Typically Right Wing Modern Orthodox (RWMO) or Left Wing Ultra Orthodox (LWOU), and occasionally even Chassidish or slightly RW UO, these are people who are 100% convinced of their fundamentalist religious views, but are also quite well educated, often having advanced degrees in Theology or Philosophy, and certainly bekiim in all the rational rishonim.
I have a bunch of friends here in my neighborhood who fit this description, and there's quite a few online too. In fact, much of the Avodah forum, and much of the Hirhurim readership probably fancy themselves as Intellectual Fundamentalists.
You might think, how can someone be educated, intelligent, intellectual; yet still believe in the ancient myths of Orthodox religion? I mean, it's easy to understand how some ignorant sheltered yeshivah bochur, or even Godol Hador, is still convinced that 'every man, woman and child knows the world is only 6,000 years old'. But someone with a PhD in Philosophy?! How is that possible?
Well, the well known skeptic Michael Shermer studied this phenomenon, and came to the conclusion that smart people are just as capable as deluding themselves as stupid people. In fact, smart people are often better at deluding themselves, figuring out even more clever 'rationalizations' to support their ridiculous views.
We see this in spades with the Intellectual Fundamentalists, who typically will quote all manner of Philosophical terms (usually those of fundamentalist or medieval philosophers), mostly in order to impress, befuddle and hopefully force their opponents into submission.
However, once you get past all that pseudo-philosophical bluster, you generally find that there's nothing actually backing it up. Intense conversations with these Intellefundies always seem to end up in one of three places, what I will call radical skepticism, spiritual intuition or fundamental axioms.
Let me explain.
Radical Skepticism
I have encountered the Radical Skepticism argument for Orthodox Judaism a few times, most recently today. The argument goes like this:
Skeptic: Prove that OJ is true!
Intellefundie: Ha, prove that anything is true!
Skeptic: Good grief!
Of course one can always be radically skeptical about everything. The old skeptical stance was we could all be brains in a jar, managed by some evil demon. More recently, someone figured out that since one day in the future it's very likely that nano-computers will be powerful enough to simulate whole civilizations, and since the universe's resources are finite, then statistically speaking the number of simulated people that ever will have 'lived' will be exponentially higher than the number of actual people who ever will have lived. This being the case, it is far more likely that any individual (i.e. me and you) are in fact simulations rather than real. This argument has an advantage over the 'brain in the jar' scenario in that it does actually seem quite likely, given the ever increasing power of computers.
But, firstly, nobody actually thinks like that. Secondly, even if you do think like that, you don't live your life like that. You assume that probably you are real, and if you aren't then so what? Things seem basically real, and it would be insane to live your whole life assuming you were actually in a jar. Thirdly, what kind of freaking stupid defense of religion is this anyway?! If we really don't know anything, then we certainly don't know anything about religion. How do we know that Har Sinai wasn't actually just an evil trick by some demented prankster god? Maybe it all actually happened just like the Bible says, but the god of the bible is actually an evil demon, and when you get to Olam Habah after being a tzadik your whole life, he says 'haha, fooled you' and sends you to hell, while the kofrim all get to go to heaven with 72 virgins. Basically, any intelligent non fundamentalist person knows that this line of reasoning is childish.
So much for radical skepticism.
Spiritual Intuition
Spiritual Intuition also comes up fairly frequently, and came up today as well. The argument goes like this:
Skeptic: There's no proof that God exists (or TMS is true etc)
Intellefundie: You can't use normal physical proof for spiritual things! You must use your spiritual side for that. Why should you expect that Science/The Senses is the only path to knowledge? There are other paths too.
Skeptic: Oh yeah? Like what?
Intellefundie: Like spiritual intuition (or chose any other name, it makes no difference what you call this. In reality this is called faith/indoctrination/emotion).
Skeptic: But that's what the Moslems, Christians and many other religions say too. They sense God, or Jesus or Allah with their spiritual side.
Intellefundie: Sure, they all use different names for God, but ultimately it's all the same thing.
Skeptic: But how can you say that? They are all convinced that their God wants entirely different things! Allah wants Moslems to forcibly convert Jews. How can you call that the same spiritual intuition?
Intellefundie: So they sometimes get the details wrong. However I know my spiritual intuition is good.
Skeptic: How do you know that?
Intellefundie: Because I have spiritual intuition of course! (Or faith, or loyalty etc)
Skeptic: Good grief!
Of course there could in theory be alternate paths to knowledge, I have no problem with that idea at all. Maybe jumping up and down while patting your head can cause you to know all sorts of things. The key point of course is that no other path to knowledge has ever been shown to be reliable.
If spiritual intuition (or whatever the heck you want to call it) was in any way reliable, then I would believe it in a second. But of course it isn't, because billions of people all have 'spiritual intuition' about all sorts of contradictory things. And also, there's no actual way of ever verifying that spiritual intuition is reliable, since all the beliefs that people know through spiritual intuition are inherently unverifiable by scientific means, and only verifiable through spiritual intuition, and hence you get completely circular.
At this point the Intellefundie will argue that science is also only verifiable through science, and then you get back to radical skepticism again. A complete waste of time.
Finally, we get to the 'Fundamental Axioms' argument, which is actually only a slight variant of all the tricks outlined above.
Fundamental Axioms
The argument goes like this:
Skeptic: Prove that God exists! (or TMS is true)
Intellefundie: I don't need to prove that. All epistemic systems have fundamental axioms which are unprovable. Mine are God and Torah.
Skeptic: But Science doesn't have any basic unprovable axioms!
Intellefundie: Sure it does! You can't prove that anything is real!
Skeptic: Good grief!
Basically, the 'fundamental axioms' very quickly devolves into radical skepticism. But it's amazing how many times I have heard this line.
I will give a shout out at this point to two types of Intellefundies, one is a Rabbi friend of mine, and one is RJM.
My Orthodox Rabbi friend admits he has no good reasons for faith (though he sometimes argues that it's 'intellectually defensible', whatever that means. He says his faith is personal, purely based on feelings, and he wouldn't ever expect to be able to convince anyone else. In fact, if people come to him with doubts, he may very well counsel them to leave OJ.
RJM takes a totally different approach, and I'm still torn between thinking he's even more insane than the average Intellefundie, or maybe he's actually onto something. RJM is from the Chaitian school of religion (Rabbi Chait in Far Rockaway), who passionately believe that they can actually prove that OJ is true. Another Rabbi friend of mine, an ex-Chaitian, told me that he believes that if you ever were actually able to show a Chaitian that his proofs don't work, the guy would go OTD immediately.
So RJM has all these elaborate arguments showing how Judaism is totally unique, can't be compared to all other religions, and the only rational explanation is that Orthodox Judaism is the one true religion. Personally, I have gone head to head with RJM over the phone, and I think he's probably delusional if he thinks his arguments are strong enough to convince anyone. But I will admit that he makes a very good effort, and I admire him for sticking to his guns and not resorting to the ridiculous arguments outlined above.
Just to round this out, I will recount that I once sat down at length with a well known hard core MO Rabbi to discuss theology. He basically said 'Judaism is plausible, more plausible that many (most?) other religions' and refused to say anything further than that. He even admitted that occam's razor would tell you to be agnostic.
The most amazing thing about the Intellefundies is that they have no problem labeling hard core fundies like the average Chareidi as 'childish, ridiculous, naive' and similar. In fact, they are often quite happy to say that the Gedolim have no clue about Breishis or Science, and that well known Gedolim who hold crazy views on these topics are simply swayed by their religious biases!
So these people are convinced that the world's greatest living Torah scholars are helpless victims of religious bias, while they themselves are fully rational and not biased at all!
Mamash unbelievable.
Finally, here's a good tip if you ever find yourself locked into an argument with an Intellefundie. Take the argument, and see if the same argument works equally well for any other religion. If it does, then you know it doesn't work at all. Simple!
Anyways, you gotta love the Intellefundies, they certainly keep life interesting!
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
I have a bunch of friends here in my neighborhood who fit this description, and there's quite a few online too. In fact, much of the Avodah forum, and much of the Hirhurim readership probably fancy themselves as Intellectual Fundamentalists.
You might think, how can someone be educated, intelligent, intellectual; yet still believe in the ancient myths of Orthodox religion? I mean, it's easy to understand how some ignorant sheltered yeshivah bochur, or even Godol Hador, is still convinced that 'every man, woman and child knows the world is only 6,000 years old'. But someone with a PhD in Philosophy?! How is that possible?
Well, the well known skeptic Michael Shermer studied this phenomenon, and came to the conclusion that smart people are just as capable as deluding themselves as stupid people. In fact, smart people are often better at deluding themselves, figuring out even more clever 'rationalizations' to support their ridiculous views.
We see this in spades with the Intellectual Fundamentalists, who typically will quote all manner of Philosophical terms (usually those of fundamentalist or medieval philosophers), mostly in order to impress, befuddle and hopefully force their opponents into submission.
However, once you get past all that pseudo-philosophical bluster, you generally find that there's nothing actually backing it up. Intense conversations with these Intellefundies always seem to end up in one of three places, what I will call radical skepticism, spiritual intuition or fundamental axioms.
Let me explain.
Radical Skepticism
I have encountered the Radical Skepticism argument for Orthodox Judaism a few times, most recently today. The argument goes like this:
Skeptic: Prove that OJ is true!
Intellefundie: Ha, prove that anything is true!
Skeptic: Good grief!
Of course one can always be radically skeptical about everything. The old skeptical stance was we could all be brains in a jar, managed by some evil demon. More recently, someone figured out that since one day in the future it's very likely that nano-computers will be powerful enough to simulate whole civilizations, and since the universe's resources are finite, then statistically speaking the number of simulated people that ever will have 'lived' will be exponentially higher than the number of actual people who ever will have lived. This being the case, it is far more likely that any individual (i.e. me and you) are in fact simulations rather than real. This argument has an advantage over the 'brain in the jar' scenario in that it does actually seem quite likely, given the ever increasing power of computers.
But, firstly, nobody actually thinks like that. Secondly, even if you do think like that, you don't live your life like that. You assume that probably you are real, and if you aren't then so what? Things seem basically real, and it would be insane to live your whole life assuming you were actually in a jar. Thirdly, what kind of freaking stupid defense of religion is this anyway?! If we really don't know anything, then we certainly don't know anything about religion. How do we know that Har Sinai wasn't actually just an evil trick by some demented prankster god? Maybe it all actually happened just like the Bible says, but the god of the bible is actually an evil demon, and when you get to Olam Habah after being a tzadik your whole life, he says 'haha, fooled you' and sends you to hell, while the kofrim all get to go to heaven with 72 virgins. Basically, any intelligent non fundamentalist person knows that this line of reasoning is childish.
So much for radical skepticism.
Spiritual Intuition
Spiritual Intuition also comes up fairly frequently, and came up today as well. The argument goes like this:
Skeptic: There's no proof that God exists (or TMS is true etc)
Intellefundie: You can't use normal physical proof for spiritual things! You must use your spiritual side for that. Why should you expect that Science/The Senses is the only path to knowledge? There are other paths too.
Skeptic: Oh yeah? Like what?
Intellefundie: Like spiritual intuition (or chose any other name, it makes no difference what you call this. In reality this is called faith/indoctrination/emotion).
Skeptic: But that's what the Moslems, Christians and many other religions say too. They sense God, or Jesus or Allah with their spiritual side.
Intellefundie: Sure, they all use different names for God, but ultimately it's all the same thing.
Skeptic: But how can you say that? They are all convinced that their God wants entirely different things! Allah wants Moslems to forcibly convert Jews. How can you call that the same spiritual intuition?
Intellefundie: So they sometimes get the details wrong. However I know my spiritual intuition is good.
Skeptic: How do you know that?
Intellefundie: Because I have spiritual intuition of course! (Or faith, or loyalty etc)
Skeptic: Good grief!
Of course there could in theory be alternate paths to knowledge, I have no problem with that idea at all. Maybe jumping up and down while patting your head can cause you to know all sorts of things. The key point of course is that no other path to knowledge has ever been shown to be reliable.
If spiritual intuition (or whatever the heck you want to call it) was in any way reliable, then I would believe it in a second. But of course it isn't, because billions of people all have 'spiritual intuition' about all sorts of contradictory things. And also, there's no actual way of ever verifying that spiritual intuition is reliable, since all the beliefs that people know through spiritual intuition are inherently unverifiable by scientific means, and only verifiable through spiritual intuition, and hence you get completely circular.
At this point the Intellefundie will argue that science is also only verifiable through science, and then you get back to radical skepticism again. A complete waste of time.
Finally, we get to the 'Fundamental Axioms' argument, which is actually only a slight variant of all the tricks outlined above.
Fundamental Axioms
The argument goes like this:
Skeptic: Prove that God exists! (or TMS is true)
Intellefundie: I don't need to prove that. All epistemic systems have fundamental axioms which are unprovable. Mine are God and Torah.
Skeptic: But Science doesn't have any basic unprovable axioms!
Intellefundie: Sure it does! You can't prove that anything is real!
Skeptic: Good grief!
Basically, the 'fundamental axioms' very quickly devolves into radical skepticism. But it's amazing how many times I have heard this line.
I will give a shout out at this point to two types of Intellefundies, one is a Rabbi friend of mine, and one is RJM.
My Orthodox Rabbi friend admits he has no good reasons for faith (though he sometimes argues that it's 'intellectually defensible', whatever that means. He says his faith is personal, purely based on feelings, and he wouldn't ever expect to be able to convince anyone else. In fact, if people come to him with doubts, he may very well counsel them to leave OJ.
RJM takes a totally different approach, and I'm still torn between thinking he's even more insane than the average Intellefundie, or maybe he's actually onto something. RJM is from the Chaitian school of religion (Rabbi Chait in Far Rockaway), who passionately believe that they can actually prove that OJ is true. Another Rabbi friend of mine, an ex-Chaitian, told me that he believes that if you ever were actually able to show a Chaitian that his proofs don't work, the guy would go OTD immediately.
So RJM has all these elaborate arguments showing how Judaism is totally unique, can't be compared to all other religions, and the only rational explanation is that Orthodox Judaism is the one true religion. Personally, I have gone head to head with RJM over the phone, and I think he's probably delusional if he thinks his arguments are strong enough to convince anyone. But I will admit that he makes a very good effort, and I admire him for sticking to his guns and not resorting to the ridiculous arguments outlined above.
Just to round this out, I will recount that I once sat down at length with a well known hard core MO Rabbi to discuss theology. He basically said 'Judaism is plausible, more plausible that many (most?) other religions' and refused to say anything further than that. He even admitted that occam's razor would tell you to be agnostic.
The most amazing thing about the Intellefundies is that they have no problem labeling hard core fundies like the average Chareidi as 'childish, ridiculous, naive' and similar. In fact, they are often quite happy to say that the Gedolim have no clue about Breishis or Science, and that well known Gedolim who hold crazy views on these topics are simply swayed by their religious biases!
So these people are convinced that the world's greatest living Torah scholars are helpless victims of religious bias, while they themselves are fully rational and not biased at all!
Mamash unbelievable.
Finally, here's a good tip if you ever find yourself locked into an argument with an Intellefundie. Take the argument, and see if the same argument works equally well for any other religion. If it does, then you know it doesn't work at all. Simple!
Anyways, you gotta love the Intellefundies, they certainly keep life interesting!
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
And The Enlightened Ones Shall Struggle
A common theme amongst Modern Orthodox intellectual fundamentalists is that the Torah, and Orthodoxy in general, is somewhat metaphorical.
Taking their cue from the famous Zoharic idea that only a fool thinks the plain meaning of the Torah is the true meaning, and compelled by the discoveries of modern science that directly contradict much of Breishis, these intellefundies (TM) propose that the Torah is written in a simplistic style for the 'masses', but the intellectual elites realize that the true meaning is much different. Taken to its extreme, this idea paves the way for a radical reconstruction of almost all Orthodox ideology and beliefs, the kind of approach that Mordechai Kaplan advocated.
I have toyed with this concept in the past, but two things have always bothered me. One, the concept of the 'masses' versus the 'elites', with the elites keeping their true beliefs secret from the masses, has always intensely annoyed me. It reeks of dishonesty, disingenuous and a sort of intellectually smug clique-ishness.
Secondly, the radical reformulation and reconstruction of traditional ideas has always seemed to me somewhat fake. Surely when Chazal said God, they meant God, not the Kaplanian forces that enable personal salvation, or the Spinozian sum of all existence.
However now I'm thinking maybe this was too harsh, and maybe there's some room to maneuver here. For two reasons.
Firstly, with regards to elitism, I'm thinking that maybe it's not about an elite class of intellectuals, withholding the truth from the poor ignorant masses. Or at least it shouldn't be about that. Rather, anyone and everyone can and should be enlightened, and the intellectuals (or the enlightened ones) have a duty to try and enlighten as many people as possible. Unfortunately many people are extremely unenlightened, and remain quite stubbornly so. Also, one has to be careful, because introducing someone who is not prepared to the idea that religion is man made, Torah Min Hashamayim is metaphorical, or other such concepts, can really be damaging. The goal is to enlighten, not destroy.
However, with those caveats in mind, and considering that our generation is both the most educated in history and simultaneously the most gratuitously fundamentalist in history, I no longer see such a stark inherent distinction between the enlightened and the masses. Anyone can become enlightened should they choose to become so, and as long as the enlightened make their best efforts to spread their enlightenment, they can be free of the accusation of elitism.
Secondly, with regards to the reconstruction of ideology, that might not be so clear cut either. SYL asked yesterday whether the Biblical writers and redactors knew that what they were writing and compiling was man made. I think the answer is yes, and no. Of course they knew that they, as mortal men, were writing and redacting the text. Yet they were clearly intensely spiritual people, powerfully in the grip of a spiritual frame of mind. Metaphorically speaking, they felt as if it was all Divine.
Carrying this idea forward, presumably there was always an enlightened elite who realized that much (if not all) of Orthodoxy was metaphorical, an attempt (like all religious mythology) to convey the ineffable and incomprehensible mystery of being into common language. In fact, there is no doubt at all that Chazal were world class masters of metaphors. The famous story of the oven of Achinai is a much quoted but perfect example. Could Chazal have really believed that God laughed? Or that any of those supernatural events happened? Of course not.
Does this mean that every member of Chazal, every Rishon, every Acharon were really reconstructionist Jews at heart? No, I don't think so. But certainly some of them were. And as history progresses, the numbers have grown larger.
John Cottingham, in his very excellent book 'The Spiritual Dimension', makes the point that faith is not a cognitive exercise. Rather it is an emotional feeling, a worldview, a sense. I think this is very true. I think principles of faith, and organized religion in general, are an attempt to set down in words and rituals a series of intense spiritual emotions about life. This is exactly contrary to the oft repeated skeptic claim that religion is at it's core a pseudo scientific attempt to explain how things work, and which now can be replaced by science. I think that is a ridiculous idea. Religion is clearly about spirituality, morality and meaning, not about explaining how rain happens.
I see this borne out in practice all the time. I have friends who grew up Conservative, but are now intensely Orthodox. It's clear (to me at least) that they did not have intellectual reasons for making the leap, and still don't. Rather, being intensely spiritual, they found that Orthodox was an inherently better fit, with more avenues available to enhance and explore their spirituality.
Spirituality and Religion exist in a kind of co-dependant vicious circle. Each feeds off and nurtures the other. Spiritual people seek out religion, whether traditional or new age, and religion (at least in theory) is aimed at enhancing our spiritual side.
But, while religion is 'man made', there is no question that spirituality is a fundamental part of human nature. For the believers, the drive for spirituality is the 'neshamah', a God given spark in our material bodies. For the non believers, spirituality is a strange spandrel of evolution. But either way, all agree that spirituality is a deeply ingrained and very integral human trait. Spirituality, morality and meaning are very closely related, they may even be different aspects of the same emotion. We can't avoid spirituality, and nor would we want to.
So in sum, I see religion as an age old attempt to express our spiritual side, to enhance it with rituals and practice, and was and is an exercise that the original architects, and quite a few of the subsequent leaders, knew all along was metaphorical, yet incredibly 'true' and vital at the same time.
In this way of thinking, Modern Orthodoxy is somewhat of a failure. The intense spiritual passion of Chareidim is mostly missing, yet the conclusions of the enlightenment are forbidden. As I always say; Modern Orthodoxy, neither Modern nor Orthodox. Yet people are drawn to it, mostly for the simple reason that most people are not looking for an intense religious or spiritual experience.
But what about those of us who do want something more intense, yet also need to remain intellectually honest? Perhaps we will be blessed with an intense spiritual experience. The famous Philsopher Pascal had such an experience, he called it 'la nuit de feu' (the night of fire), and it changed his life. The Jewish Philosopher Franz Rosenzweig had a similar experience, at an Orthodox shul on Yom Kippur, the day before he was due to convert to Christianity. No doubt there are some Baal Teshuvah readers here who can recount similar life altering experiences.
But if the nuit de feu does not come, we shall have to remain in the struggle. And maybe this is not a bad thing. Holy Hyrax recently remarked that he had 'made his peace' with his doubts. This reminded me of an intellectual friend of mine, who transitioned from Conservative to Modern Orthodoxy, and who refused to seriously engage in thinking about Biblical Criticism or other challenges to his new found faith. 'I have made my peace with that' he told me, which to my mind is code for 'I don't have the emotional or intellectual energy, ability or desire to deal with that'.
Maybe that's okay for some people, but for the truly honest that just will not do. Boruch Hashem for the struggle! And no, I don't mean the struggle to answer questions on Orthodoxy. That ship sailed long ago, about 400 years now. As Ken Wilbur says, fundamentalists are just cognitively immature, they need to grow up. No, I'm talking about the struggle for spirituality, morality and meaning, in a seemingly meaningless universe.
How could any thinking person not be torn to his core at such a struggle? Making peace with that simply means you have mentally and spiritually checked out.
Rav Soloveitchik actually expounds a similar theme: that religion is not there to ensure a happy calm existence, but rather so that one should struggle intensely his whole life. I'm not sure whether the Rav was one of the enlightened ones, maybe he was just a depressive. But it's quite possible he was enlightened, and that would explain why he famously said, somewhat enigmatically, that he had never been bothered by questions from science, evolution or similar.
So, let's not check out, or 'make our peace', except perhaps with the fact that Orthodoxy is not literally true. But then it really never was, and the enlightened ones knew that all along. We didn't so much lose something, as realize we never had it in the first place. Which is still painful to be sure, but perhaps not quite as painful as it might be.
But as for the struggle to live meaningful, moral and spiritual lives in a seemingly meaningless, amoral and material universe, that is the core struggle of human existence. And in that struggle, our ancient traditions and texts do have much to say. Metaphorically of course.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Taking their cue from the famous Zoharic idea that only a fool thinks the plain meaning of the Torah is the true meaning, and compelled by the discoveries of modern science that directly contradict much of Breishis, these intellefundies (TM) propose that the Torah is written in a simplistic style for the 'masses', but the intellectual elites realize that the true meaning is much different. Taken to its extreme, this idea paves the way for a radical reconstruction of almost all Orthodox ideology and beliefs, the kind of approach that Mordechai Kaplan advocated.
I have toyed with this concept in the past, but two things have always bothered me. One, the concept of the 'masses' versus the 'elites', with the elites keeping their true beliefs secret from the masses, has always intensely annoyed me. It reeks of dishonesty, disingenuous and a sort of intellectually smug clique-ishness.
Secondly, the radical reformulation and reconstruction of traditional ideas has always seemed to me somewhat fake. Surely when Chazal said God, they meant God, not the Kaplanian forces that enable personal salvation, or the Spinozian sum of all existence.
However now I'm thinking maybe this was too harsh, and maybe there's some room to maneuver here. For two reasons.
Firstly, with regards to elitism, I'm thinking that maybe it's not about an elite class of intellectuals, withholding the truth from the poor ignorant masses. Or at least it shouldn't be about that. Rather, anyone and everyone can and should be enlightened, and the intellectuals (or the enlightened ones) have a duty to try and enlighten as many people as possible. Unfortunately many people are extremely unenlightened, and remain quite stubbornly so. Also, one has to be careful, because introducing someone who is not prepared to the idea that religion is man made, Torah Min Hashamayim is metaphorical, or other such concepts, can really be damaging. The goal is to enlighten, not destroy.
However, with those caveats in mind, and considering that our generation is both the most educated in history and simultaneously the most gratuitously fundamentalist in history, I no longer see such a stark inherent distinction between the enlightened and the masses. Anyone can become enlightened should they choose to become so, and as long as the enlightened make their best efforts to spread their enlightenment, they can be free of the accusation of elitism.
Secondly, with regards to the reconstruction of ideology, that might not be so clear cut either. SYL asked yesterday whether the Biblical writers and redactors knew that what they were writing and compiling was man made. I think the answer is yes, and no. Of course they knew that they, as mortal men, were writing and redacting the text. Yet they were clearly intensely spiritual people, powerfully in the grip of a spiritual frame of mind. Metaphorically speaking, they felt as if it was all Divine.
Carrying this idea forward, presumably there was always an enlightened elite who realized that much (if not all) of Orthodoxy was metaphorical, an attempt (like all religious mythology) to convey the ineffable and incomprehensible mystery of being into common language. In fact, there is no doubt at all that Chazal were world class masters of metaphors. The famous story of the oven of Achinai is a much quoted but perfect example. Could Chazal have really believed that God laughed? Or that any of those supernatural events happened? Of course not.
Does this mean that every member of Chazal, every Rishon, every Acharon were really reconstructionist Jews at heart? No, I don't think so. But certainly some of them were. And as history progresses, the numbers have grown larger.
John Cottingham, in his very excellent book 'The Spiritual Dimension', makes the point that faith is not a cognitive exercise. Rather it is an emotional feeling, a worldview, a sense. I think this is very true. I think principles of faith, and organized religion in general, are an attempt to set down in words and rituals a series of intense spiritual emotions about life. This is exactly contrary to the oft repeated skeptic claim that religion is at it's core a pseudo scientific attempt to explain how things work, and which now can be replaced by science. I think that is a ridiculous idea. Religion is clearly about spirituality, morality and meaning, not about explaining how rain happens.
I see this borne out in practice all the time. I have friends who grew up Conservative, but are now intensely Orthodox. It's clear (to me at least) that they did not have intellectual reasons for making the leap, and still don't. Rather, being intensely spiritual, they found that Orthodox was an inherently better fit, with more avenues available to enhance and explore their spirituality.
Spirituality and Religion exist in a kind of co-dependant vicious circle. Each feeds off and nurtures the other. Spiritual people seek out religion, whether traditional or new age, and religion (at least in theory) is aimed at enhancing our spiritual side.
But, while religion is 'man made', there is no question that spirituality is a fundamental part of human nature. For the believers, the drive for spirituality is the 'neshamah', a God given spark in our material bodies. For the non believers, spirituality is a strange spandrel of evolution. But either way, all agree that spirituality is a deeply ingrained and very integral human trait. Spirituality, morality and meaning are very closely related, they may even be different aspects of the same emotion. We can't avoid spirituality, and nor would we want to.
So in sum, I see religion as an age old attempt to express our spiritual side, to enhance it with rituals and practice, and was and is an exercise that the original architects, and quite a few of the subsequent leaders, knew all along was metaphorical, yet incredibly 'true' and vital at the same time.
In this way of thinking, Modern Orthodoxy is somewhat of a failure. The intense spiritual passion of Chareidim is mostly missing, yet the conclusions of the enlightenment are forbidden. As I always say; Modern Orthodoxy, neither Modern nor Orthodox. Yet people are drawn to it, mostly for the simple reason that most people are not looking for an intense religious or spiritual experience.
But what about those of us who do want something more intense, yet also need to remain intellectually honest? Perhaps we will be blessed with an intense spiritual experience. The famous Philsopher Pascal had such an experience, he called it 'la nuit de feu' (the night of fire), and it changed his life. The Jewish Philosopher Franz Rosenzweig had a similar experience, at an Orthodox shul on Yom Kippur, the day before he was due to convert to Christianity. No doubt there are some Baal Teshuvah readers here who can recount similar life altering experiences.
But if the nuit de feu does not come, we shall have to remain in the struggle. And maybe this is not a bad thing. Holy Hyrax recently remarked that he had 'made his peace' with his doubts. This reminded me of an intellectual friend of mine, who transitioned from Conservative to Modern Orthodoxy, and who refused to seriously engage in thinking about Biblical Criticism or other challenges to his new found faith. 'I have made my peace with that' he told me, which to my mind is code for 'I don't have the emotional or intellectual energy, ability or desire to deal with that'.
Maybe that's okay for some people, but for the truly honest that just will not do. Boruch Hashem for the struggle! And no, I don't mean the struggle to answer questions on Orthodoxy. That ship sailed long ago, about 400 years now. As Ken Wilbur says, fundamentalists are just cognitively immature, they need to grow up. No, I'm talking about the struggle for spirituality, morality and meaning, in a seemingly meaningless universe.
How could any thinking person not be torn to his core at such a struggle? Making peace with that simply means you have mentally and spiritually checked out.
Rav Soloveitchik actually expounds a similar theme: that religion is not there to ensure a happy calm existence, but rather so that one should struggle intensely his whole life. I'm not sure whether the Rav was one of the enlightened ones, maybe he was just a depressive. But it's quite possible he was enlightened, and that would explain why he famously said, somewhat enigmatically, that he had never been bothered by questions from science, evolution or similar.
So, let's not check out, or 'make our peace', except perhaps with the fact that Orthodoxy is not literally true. But then it really never was, and the enlightened ones knew that all along. We didn't so much lose something, as realize we never had it in the first place. Which is still painful to be sure, but perhaps not quite as painful as it might be.
But as for the struggle to live meaningful, moral and spiritual lives in a seemingly meaningless, amoral and material universe, that is the core struggle of human existence. And in that struggle, our ancient traditions and texts do have much to say. Metaphorically of course.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Biblical Criticism: The Believers Respond
A very interesting discussion on Biblical Criticism ensued on the previous post.
I (and others) argued that if the debate about single vs. multiple authorship was a genuine scholarly debate, then you would find some academics arguing single authorship, and some arguing multiple authorship. Whereas in fact, the only people arguing single authorship are the people who have to hold that, because of their religiously mandated beliefs. In other words, there are no non-fundamentalist academics who hold of single authorship, and that should tell you something. In fact that should tell you everything.
Y Aharon claimed that there are certainly academics who believe in single authorship, and then went on to name a bunch of Chareidi and Modern Orthodox Chumash Rebbes. He also mentioned Benno Jacob, a Reform Rabbi. While it is true that Jacob was not an Orthodox Fundamentalist and held of single authorship, it is also true that Jacob did not believe in Mosaic authorship, so I'm not sure how much help he is in that argument. Anyway, Jacob died in 1945, the field has moved on since then.
I'm still waiting for someone to name a single mainstream modern Bible critic who holds of single human authorship around the year 1200 BCE.
Yus took a different approach, arguing that the changes in style in the Torah are reflective of the changes in Am Yisrael over a period of time, and Hashem adjusting His writing accordingly. While this is an interesting theory, I think it fails, since there is not a smooth transition of writing styles over time, but rather a huge mish mash of contradictions and different styles all through at least the first 4 books, often in the same story. Yes, you certainly can kvetch individual explanations in every case, but that's the whole point. All these kvetches taken together are not that convincing to anyone except people who are constrained to believe in single Divine authorship.
Kibi had the most interesting argument of all. He argued that the Torah is such an amazing work of seeming contradictions, flaws and so on, which then all pans out incredibly when you add Torah Shebaal Peh, that the most reasonable answer of all is that of single Divine authorship. However the academics, being biased against religion, obviously can't hold of this theory, so they are forced to fall back on multiple human authorship, since everyone agrees that single human authorship is truly unlikely. According to this reckoning the Fundamentalists are the least biased of the various sides in this debate, since they are able to accept the obvious answer of single Divine authorship.
What do I say to that? I say you must be delusional to think that's a credible theory. And you wouldn't accept such a theory from another religion. For example, Moslems have a similar argument for KMS (Koran Min Hashamayim). They argue that since the Koran is so amazing, and since Muhammad was illiterate, the most reasonable explanation is that the Koran is Divine.
I'm sure Kibi, Yus and Y Aharon would respond that the Koran is not amazing at all, and the only reason that 1 Billion Moslems think it is is because they are religiously biased.
But I can hear the rebukes of the Aish Hakoran preachers in my ears:
'Just sit and learn Koran for 10 years behasmodoh gedolah. Then you'll see how amazing it is!'
Yep. I probably would. Especially if I had sacrificed a lot to make aliyah to Iran, invested my whole life in my religion, and built my identity around being a Islamistic or Koran-True Moslem. And that's very understandable, because you can't expect people to give up their religion and identity just because it's all based on a bunch of extremely unlikely and completely unverifiable ancient myths. Seriously.
But isn't it possible that the Torah really is amazing, once you learn ganz shas, and that only true Talmedei Chachamim can see that? And that if only the academics could see that too, they would all agree that single Divine authorship was the only credible option?
Yes, it's definitely possible.
But it's also possible that this kind of thinking has been deliberately implanted in our brains by the extraterrestrial civilization of Helatrobus, in order to brainwash and ultimately control the Orthodox Jewish population.
Is Helatrobus real? Well, 3.5 million Scientologists are convinced it is. What, you don't think Scientologists are credible? You kofer, just sit and learn L Ron Hubbard for 10 years behasmodoh gedolah, and then you'll see how true SMS (Scientology Min HaShamayim) is!
OK, OK, but don't you think that TMS is more likely than SMS or KMS?
Yes, I do think that TMS is more likely than SMS or KMS. But then again, I might be biased. Here is a graphic to help explain:
To be fair to my MO intellectual friends though, I will post a graphic to explain their position.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
I (and others) argued that if the debate about single vs. multiple authorship was a genuine scholarly debate, then you would find some academics arguing single authorship, and some arguing multiple authorship. Whereas in fact, the only people arguing single authorship are the people who have to hold that, because of their religiously mandated beliefs. In other words, there are no non-fundamentalist academics who hold of single authorship, and that should tell you something. In fact that should tell you everything.
Y Aharon claimed that there are certainly academics who believe in single authorship, and then went on to name a bunch of Chareidi and Modern Orthodox Chumash Rebbes. He also mentioned Benno Jacob, a Reform Rabbi. While it is true that Jacob was not an Orthodox Fundamentalist and held of single authorship, it is also true that Jacob did not believe in Mosaic authorship, so I'm not sure how much help he is in that argument. Anyway, Jacob died in 1945, the field has moved on since then.
I'm still waiting for someone to name a single mainstream modern Bible critic who holds of single human authorship around the year 1200 BCE.
Yus took a different approach, arguing that the changes in style in the Torah are reflective of the changes in Am Yisrael over a period of time, and Hashem adjusting His writing accordingly. While this is an interesting theory, I think it fails, since there is not a smooth transition of writing styles over time, but rather a huge mish mash of contradictions and different styles all through at least the first 4 books, often in the same story. Yes, you certainly can kvetch individual explanations in every case, but that's the whole point. All these kvetches taken together are not that convincing to anyone except people who are constrained to believe in single Divine authorship.
Kibi had the most interesting argument of all. He argued that the Torah is such an amazing work of seeming contradictions, flaws and so on, which then all pans out incredibly when you add Torah Shebaal Peh, that the most reasonable answer of all is that of single Divine authorship. However the academics, being biased against religion, obviously can't hold of this theory, so they are forced to fall back on multiple human authorship, since everyone agrees that single human authorship is truly unlikely. According to this reckoning the Fundamentalists are the least biased of the various sides in this debate, since they are able to accept the obvious answer of single Divine authorship.
What do I say to that? I say you must be delusional to think that's a credible theory. And you wouldn't accept such a theory from another religion. For example, Moslems have a similar argument for KMS (Koran Min Hashamayim). They argue that since the Koran is so amazing, and since Muhammad was illiterate, the most reasonable explanation is that the Koran is Divine.
I'm sure Kibi, Yus and Y Aharon would respond that the Koran is not amazing at all, and the only reason that 1 Billion Moslems think it is is because they are religiously biased.
But I can hear the rebukes of the Aish Hakoran preachers in my ears:
'Just sit and learn Koran for 10 years behasmodoh gedolah. Then you'll see how amazing it is!'
Yep. I probably would. Especially if I had sacrificed a lot to make aliyah to Iran, invested my whole life in my religion, and built my identity around being a Islamistic or Koran-True Moslem. And that's very understandable, because you can't expect people to give up their religion and identity just because it's all based on a bunch of extremely unlikely and completely unverifiable ancient myths. Seriously.
But isn't it possible that the Torah really is amazing, once you learn ganz shas, and that only true Talmedei Chachamim can see that? And that if only the academics could see that too, they would all agree that single Divine authorship was the only credible option?
Yes, it's definitely possible.
But it's also possible that this kind of thinking has been deliberately implanted in our brains by the extraterrestrial civilization of Helatrobus, in order to brainwash and ultimately control the Orthodox Jewish population.
Is Helatrobus real? Well, 3.5 million Scientologists are convinced it is. What, you don't think Scientologists are credible? You kofer, just sit and learn L Ron Hubbard for 10 years behasmodoh gedolah, and then you'll see how true SMS (Scientology Min HaShamayim) is!
OK, OK, but don't you think that TMS is more likely than SMS or KMS?
Yes, I do think that TMS is more likely than SMS or KMS. But then again, I might be biased. Here is a graphic to help explain:
To be fair to my MO intellectual friends though, I will post a graphic to explain their position.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Science vs Religion
A common argument often made by modern religious fundamentalists is to dismiss any challenges to OJ from the 'soft sciences' (literary criticism, archeology, ancient history etc) because these are not true science. I've even seen the Science and Torah crowd make this very argument, and here is a direct quote from Gil (in reference to Kugel's book on the Bible):
"One thing I found throughout the book is the confidence in the methodologies of literary scholarship. Perhaps I am biased because of my background in math, but I find that the liberal arts are taken way too seriously by their adherents. They are full of assumptions and guesses, and in the end cannot actually prove anything. Folks, this isn't science. Stop pretending that it is."
These people generally argue like this:
"It's true that Science 'proves' the world is ancient, therefore we must interpret Breishis allegorically. (And I might extend that to agreeing about Noach, Evolution and even the amount of people by YM, just not officially). But don't ask me any questions from the DH, or archeology, or ancient history, because these are all highly subjective arguments, not based on hard science, and therefore they are not strong challenges to OJ. Therefore OJ remains (mostly) true. The end."
The funny thing is, when you probe these people further to try and find out why they think that OJ is so true, the reasons and arguments that come back are even weaker and more nebulous than all the historical, archaeological and literary arguments that they so cavalierly dismissed just a moment ago. Don't these people get it?
And even worse (for the fundies) is the fact that the historical and literary 'soft sciences', have convinced the entire academic world (and even quite a few 'Orthodox' scholars such as Jacobs, Kugel etc) that the Bible is a composite, man made text, whereas the only people who still insist that the Bible is a single Divine text are the people who are religiously required to believe so. That should tell you something.
And just in case you still don't get it, here is a simple graphic which explains it all. Note that the arguments from the Hard Sciences (e.g. Physics and Chemistry) such as an ancient earth and no global flood destroy Chareidi Judaism specifically, but Modern Orthodoxy can wriggle out of it by kvetching like the Rambam. However arguments from the soft Sciences (e.g. ancient history, literary criticism) that the Bible is man made destroy all Orthodoxy, so it's understandable why MO types try to distinguish between the two.
And of course there IS a bit of a distinction: Hard Sciences are extremely strong proofs, whereas the Soft Sciences are more nebulous. But still, even the Soft Sciences are head and shoulders above the arguments for fundamentalist religions, so the distinction is basically moot.
I mean, are there academic departments studying the 'proofs' for Judaism? Are there world wide conferences in whether the 'Kuzari Argument' is solid? Are there journals? Global agreement? Ever wonder why there is a 150 year old 'soft science' in Biblical Criticism, with participation from all types of people from multiple (non fundamentalist) religions, whereas no equivalent academic discipline exists in 'proving the truth of OJ' ?
Seriously, why do you fundies think that is?
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
"One thing I found throughout the book is the confidence in the methodologies of literary scholarship. Perhaps I am biased because of my background in math, but I find that the liberal arts are taken way too seriously by their adherents. They are full of assumptions and guesses, and in the end cannot actually prove anything. Folks, this isn't science. Stop pretending that it is."
These people generally argue like this:
"It's true that Science 'proves' the world is ancient, therefore we must interpret Breishis allegorically. (And I might extend that to agreeing about Noach, Evolution and even the amount of people by YM, just not officially). But don't ask me any questions from the DH, or archeology, or ancient history, because these are all highly subjective arguments, not based on hard science, and therefore they are not strong challenges to OJ. Therefore OJ remains (mostly) true. The end."
The funny thing is, when you probe these people further to try and find out why they think that OJ is so true, the reasons and arguments that come back are even weaker and more nebulous than all the historical, archaeological and literary arguments that they so cavalierly dismissed just a moment ago. Don't these people get it?
And even worse (for the fundies) is the fact that the historical and literary 'soft sciences', have convinced the entire academic world (and even quite a few 'Orthodox' scholars such as Jacobs, Kugel etc) that the Bible is a composite, man made text, whereas the only people who still insist that the Bible is a single Divine text are the people who are religiously required to believe so. That should tell you something.
And just in case you still don't get it, here is a simple graphic which explains it all. Note that the arguments from the Hard Sciences (e.g. Physics and Chemistry) such as an ancient earth and no global flood destroy Chareidi Judaism specifically, but Modern Orthodoxy can wriggle out of it by kvetching like the Rambam. However arguments from the soft Sciences (e.g. ancient history, literary criticism) that the Bible is man made destroy all Orthodoxy, so it's understandable why MO types try to distinguish between the two.
And of course there IS a bit of a distinction: Hard Sciences are extremely strong proofs, whereas the Soft Sciences are more nebulous. But still, even the Soft Sciences are head and shoulders above the arguments for fundamentalist religions, so the distinction is basically moot.
I mean, are there academic departments studying the 'proofs' for Judaism? Are there world wide conferences in whether the 'Kuzari Argument' is solid? Are there journals? Global agreement? Ever wonder why there is a 150 year old 'soft science' in Biblical Criticism, with participation from all types of people from multiple (non fundamentalist) religions, whereas no equivalent academic discipline exists in 'proving the truth of OJ' ?
Seriously, why do you fundies think that is?
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Very Important Post on the Credibility of Religion
A lot of people seem to totally misunderstand the issue of credibility. I have had a three day argument with 'Trapper Joe', running about 700 (yes! Seven Hundred) comments. And now this morning I see someone way more intelligent also not getting it.
Listen up guys this is important.
Let's compare Science to Religion. Obviously we are somewhat comparing apples to oranges, because Science and Religion fulfil two very different roles in life. But I'm not trying to compare them in toto. Rather, I want to compare the methodology and reliability of the various facts that are claimed by each to be true. Also, please bear in mind that I am NOT talking about conflicts or contradictions between Science and Religion. Not at all. I am simply going to contrast and compare these two endeavors in their approach to gaining knowledge, and see what conclusions are to be drawn. Also, by religious knowledge or beliefs, I am referring to Spiritual / Theological or beliefs of a similar nature. Social / practical beliefs, for example be nice to people, are not included, since such beliefs are not specifically religious, but rather most societies, even secular ones, come to similar conclusions.
Inspiration
Interestingly, both Scientific Knowledge and Religious Knowledge can often start out the same way - as a spark of inspiration in someone's mind. How did Einstein suddenly figure out the theory of relativity? Something sparked in his brain. Similarly a Novi gets inspired. Of course we can debate where the inspiration comes from, but let's leave that aside for now.
Scientific Methodology
After the initial spark of inspiration, Science and Religion diverge quite rapidly, and quite significantly. If a Scientist presented a theory, based on nothing more than inspiration, it would get nowhere. We want to see his working. We want to see repeatable experiments. We want to make sure that other scientists in other parts of the world can produce the same results. We have peer reviewed journals. And this system works very well. Of course scientists are human, and occasionally someone publishes some wrong theories (by mistake or even deliberately), but these usually get discovered sooner or later.
Consensus
If you look at most aspects of life, you will find little consensus amongst humanity. How to live? Which political party to vote for? What's the best flavor of ice-cream? Sometimes it seems that nobody agrees on anything. Even with topics that have been debated for thousands of years, for example philosophy, there is often little agreement. Yet modern Science has only been going for about 200 years, and we have incredble global agreement on many, many parts of it. How did this happen? How come we don't have a Japanese Science, and an American Science? Isn't it incredible that the global community of Scientists pretty much agree on all the basics?
The answer of course is obvious.
Objective
Firstly, Science is about objective fact. It's not about emotional, personal things such as how to live, or what to value. This means that scientists can be objective, and not get emotionally invested. Of course scientists can still get emotionally invested in their pet theories, and this happens a lot, But over time, new scientists come on the scene, and eventually these biases can be overcome. Note: I am talking about pure Science here. When a Scientist oversteps the boundaries and starts making pronouncements about religion and God, then of course he can be very biased indeed.
Methodology
Secondly, the consensus in Science has arisen precisely because of the Methodology described above. Scientific journals and books precisely lay out the details for the theory, describe experiments which can be replicated, and the field is open to anyone to confirm that the theory is true.
Applied Science
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the entire world relies on applied science, in the realm of technology and medicine. Everyone of us literally trusts our lives to science. Science makes predictions which work in the real world. Science enables us to create drugs which really do cure people. Science enables us to create technologies which we see work with our own eyes. Nobody, not even the biggest fundamentalist, denies this.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine a world where Science is only pure, never applies. Even though the methodology would be as solid as it is in our world, would a Pure Science be seen as credible, without a working practical application? Tzarich Iyun.
However, in our world, the Scientific Methodology, combined with real world results have produced what most people regard as the most amazing human achievement ever.
Another thought experiment: Imagine if the world of Science was divided into warring groups of scientists. Imagine if each group had a theory which they proclaimed as true, but no side could prove their theory. Would any one side have credibility? Of course not, the matter would be up for debate. And there are certainly large parts of Science which are like this, for example String Theory. Nobody would claim that String theory has conclusively been proven true. It is speculative. I'm sure that the originators of String Theory are very passionate about it, but even they wouldn't claim it is within the realm of 'Proven Science'. And, if they did, they would probably be accused of being biased.
Now, let's compare this with religion
Religion
There are many hundreds of religions in the world. Many of them contain beliefs about God, gods or similar. Many of them have sacred texts and sacred teachings, either directly communicated by God or gods, or by prophets and Holy men. Unfortunately, a lot of these teachings or beliefs contradict each other, so they can't all be true.
Religious Methodology
There is no methodology as such in religion. Once a prophet (or set of people) claim to have a revelation about something, that becomes dogma. There is no experimentation, no peer review, no way of proving this to be true. No real world practical application. Rather each religion claims that through intuition, tradition, and authority of their particular religious figures, the knowledge is true. The problem though is that all the religions pretty much claim a similar set of reasons for why they are true, yet they mostly contradict each other. They can't all be true!
Consensus
There is almost no consensus in religion. The three major Western Faith do seem to superficially agree on God and the Bible, but when you dig a little deeper very significant divisions appear. Some Christian Sects accept the Old Testament as the literal word of God, other sects just regard it as sacred literature. Christianity itself mostly regards Jesus as the son of God, a belief which Jews find totally unacceptable. Islam believes that Moshe forged key parts of the Torah, and that Yishmael was by the Akeidah, not Yitzchak. Not only is there almost no consensus between all the various different religions, even within each religion you typically have a huge variety of sects, all of whom significantly disagree with each other as to the basic teachings.
Although religion has been ongoing for 3000 years, not only has little consensus been reached, if anything, it seems more and more religions get created with different beliefs. Mormonism and Scientology are both relatively recent. There is no global consensus, and no process for achieving consensus.
In the same way that Science is regarded as incredibly reliable, because of the consensus, reliable methodology and application in the real world; religion exhibits the exact opposite set of features: no consensus, no reliable methodology and no way to test out the beliefs in the real world.
In fact, attempts to prove religious beliefs, e.g. God or prayer, have always failed.
Separate Magistaria
Some readers will claim that this comparison is unfair. Of course Science is reliable, because Science deals with the physical world which is measurable. However religious beliefs concern the spiritual world, and the methods of science cannot be applies. It is unfair to expect that Scientific methodology could be applied to the spiritual world. However there are two responses to this, each response works independently.
Response 1
The very fact that Scientific methodology cannot be used for Spiritual questions is the issue. If spirituality cannot be seen or measured, then there's nothing we can know about it. This response assumes that Scientific methodology is the only methodology which is valid.
Response 2
However, we don't need to take such a hard line to refute this allegation. We can certainly accept that Science isn't all there is, and that human intuition, tradition, or any other method could potentially work to create reliable knowledge. The problem of course is that the religious methodology is entirely unreliable. Using religious methodology, we have hundreds of religions all claiming to be true, yet all contradicting each other. Sure, one might be true, but how could you possibly tell?!
Each religion has its devotees, who passionately confirm their own religion as the one true religion. But since religion is a way of life, it is impossible for these devotees to escape the charge of bias. Even worse, many religions actually make it a religious CRIME to question the religion, promising all sorts of awful punishments for those who dare to do so.
Can you imagine a world where questioning science meant getting a jail sentence?! It would be unthinkable. Yet this situation exists with religion. How can any passionate religious person possibly be non biased in such an environment?!
It should be clear that the key components that make Science credible: Reliable Methodology (experiments, peer review) , Objectivity (facts about the world), Real World Application (Technology, Medicine) are not only missing in Religion, in fact we have the exact opposite in religion: We have an Unreliable Methodology (tradition, religious authority), Subjectivity & Bias (passionate devotion to religion,laws against heresy) and no real world application of the beliefs themselves.
Some people might argue that there is real world application of religious beliefs. For example people feel very connected to God. Or people give charity. But these are actions and feelings, they say nothing about whether God actually exists, or whether the charity giver is actually going to Olam Habah.
In summary, it is clear that while science is a very credible, religion certainly is not. Does that mean that we should reject religion in total? Not necessarily. But certainly in any conflict between Science and religion, it's no contest. And, any religious person who accepts their own religious beliefs, but rejects various aspects of Science (which Scientists themselves regard as 'proven'), is clearly being ridiculous, accepting an unreliable methodology over a reliable one.
How reliable is Science? Well since almost everyone on the planet trusts their lives to it, I would have to say that (in general), the parts of Science which are accepted as proven are about as reliable as anything could possibly be in this world. Of course as our scientific knowledge deepens we will further refine and even alter various theories, but this is all part of the awesome methodology where change is possible and even encouraged (where proven).
How reliable is Religion? Well since almost everyone on the planet disagrees about it, I would have to say that in general it has absolutely no credibility at all. Does this mean that all religious beliefs are false? Not necessarily, but without any really good evidence or arguments there is no reason to assume that any of them are true.
In another thread, RJM says that if only I would know Ancient Near East (ANE) history, I would see that Divine Revelation is the most reasonable explanation of how the Torah came to be. Of course there are plenty of ANE scholars in academia, far more knowledgeable than RJM who know ANE history very very well, and yet think that human origins is the most reasonable explanation for the Torah. Perhaps these Scholars are Reform Jews, or secular, in which case maybe they are biased. perhaps, But this only goes to show that everyone here is incredibly biased, and no one has any credibility.
More likely, it is RJM who is biased, since he is religiously compelled to affirm a Divine Torah. Maybe you could argue that the Secular Scholars are equally religiously (or anti religiously) compelled to deny a Divine Torah.
Either way, at the end of the day, nobody has any credibility here. Without a Scientific (or any) reliable methodology, without the ability to be Objective, and without a real world way of testing these beliefs, we are simply left in the dark.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Listen up guys this is important.
Let's compare Science to Religion. Obviously we are somewhat comparing apples to oranges, because Science and Religion fulfil two very different roles in life. But I'm not trying to compare them in toto. Rather, I want to compare the methodology and reliability of the various facts that are claimed by each to be true. Also, please bear in mind that I am NOT talking about conflicts or contradictions between Science and Religion. Not at all. I am simply going to contrast and compare these two endeavors in their approach to gaining knowledge, and see what conclusions are to be drawn. Also, by religious knowledge or beliefs, I am referring to Spiritual / Theological or beliefs of a similar nature. Social / practical beliefs, for example be nice to people, are not included, since such beliefs are not specifically religious, but rather most societies, even secular ones, come to similar conclusions.
Inspiration
Interestingly, both Scientific Knowledge and Religious Knowledge can often start out the same way - as a spark of inspiration in someone's mind. How did Einstein suddenly figure out the theory of relativity? Something sparked in his brain. Similarly a Novi gets inspired. Of course we can debate where the inspiration comes from, but let's leave that aside for now.
Scientific Methodology
After the initial spark of inspiration, Science and Religion diverge quite rapidly, and quite significantly. If a Scientist presented a theory, based on nothing more than inspiration, it would get nowhere. We want to see his working. We want to see repeatable experiments. We want to make sure that other scientists in other parts of the world can produce the same results. We have peer reviewed journals. And this system works very well. Of course scientists are human, and occasionally someone publishes some wrong theories (by mistake or even deliberately), but these usually get discovered sooner or later.
Consensus
If you look at most aspects of life, you will find little consensus amongst humanity. How to live? Which political party to vote for? What's the best flavor of ice-cream? Sometimes it seems that nobody agrees on anything. Even with topics that have been debated for thousands of years, for example philosophy, there is often little agreement. Yet modern Science has only been going for about 200 years, and we have incredble global agreement on many, many parts of it. How did this happen? How come we don't have a Japanese Science, and an American Science? Isn't it incredible that the global community of Scientists pretty much agree on all the basics?
The answer of course is obvious.
Objective
Firstly, Science is about objective fact. It's not about emotional, personal things such as how to live, or what to value. This means that scientists can be objective, and not get emotionally invested. Of course scientists can still get emotionally invested in their pet theories, and this happens a lot, But over time, new scientists come on the scene, and eventually these biases can be overcome. Note: I am talking about pure Science here. When a Scientist oversteps the boundaries and starts making pronouncements about religion and God, then of course he can be very biased indeed.
Methodology
Secondly, the consensus in Science has arisen precisely because of the Methodology described above. Scientific journals and books precisely lay out the details for the theory, describe experiments which can be replicated, and the field is open to anyone to confirm that the theory is true.
Applied Science
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the entire world relies on applied science, in the realm of technology and medicine. Everyone of us literally trusts our lives to science. Science makes predictions which work in the real world. Science enables us to create drugs which really do cure people. Science enables us to create technologies which we see work with our own eyes. Nobody, not even the biggest fundamentalist, denies this.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine a world where Science is only pure, never applies. Even though the methodology would be as solid as it is in our world, would a Pure Science be seen as credible, without a working practical application? Tzarich Iyun.
However, in our world, the Scientific Methodology, combined with real world results have produced what most people regard as the most amazing human achievement ever.
Another thought experiment: Imagine if the world of Science was divided into warring groups of scientists. Imagine if each group had a theory which they proclaimed as true, but no side could prove their theory. Would any one side have credibility? Of course not, the matter would be up for debate. And there are certainly large parts of Science which are like this, for example String Theory. Nobody would claim that String theory has conclusively been proven true. It is speculative. I'm sure that the originators of String Theory are very passionate about it, but even they wouldn't claim it is within the realm of 'Proven Science'. And, if they did, they would probably be accused of being biased.
Now, let's compare this with religion
Religion
There are many hundreds of religions in the world. Many of them contain beliefs about God, gods or similar. Many of them have sacred texts and sacred teachings, either directly communicated by God or gods, or by prophets and Holy men. Unfortunately, a lot of these teachings or beliefs contradict each other, so they can't all be true.
Religious Methodology
There is no methodology as such in religion. Once a prophet (or set of people) claim to have a revelation about something, that becomes dogma. There is no experimentation, no peer review, no way of proving this to be true. No real world practical application. Rather each religion claims that through intuition, tradition, and authority of their particular religious figures, the knowledge is true. The problem though is that all the religions pretty much claim a similar set of reasons for why they are true, yet they mostly contradict each other. They can't all be true!
Consensus
There is almost no consensus in religion. The three major Western Faith do seem to superficially agree on God and the Bible, but when you dig a little deeper very significant divisions appear. Some Christian Sects accept the Old Testament as the literal word of God, other sects just regard it as sacred literature. Christianity itself mostly regards Jesus as the son of God, a belief which Jews find totally unacceptable. Islam believes that Moshe forged key parts of the Torah, and that Yishmael was by the Akeidah, not Yitzchak. Not only is there almost no consensus between all the various different religions, even within each religion you typically have a huge variety of sects, all of whom significantly disagree with each other as to the basic teachings.
Although religion has been ongoing for 3000 years, not only has little consensus been reached, if anything, it seems more and more religions get created with different beliefs. Mormonism and Scientology are both relatively recent. There is no global consensus, and no process for achieving consensus.
In the same way that Science is regarded as incredibly reliable, because of the consensus, reliable methodology and application in the real world; religion exhibits the exact opposite set of features: no consensus, no reliable methodology and no way to test out the beliefs in the real world.
In fact, attempts to prove religious beliefs, e.g. God or prayer, have always failed.
Separate Magistaria
Some readers will claim that this comparison is unfair. Of course Science is reliable, because Science deals with the physical world which is measurable. However religious beliefs concern the spiritual world, and the methods of science cannot be applies. It is unfair to expect that Scientific methodology could be applied to the spiritual world. However there are two responses to this, each response works independently.
Response 1
The very fact that Scientific methodology cannot be used for Spiritual questions is the issue. If spirituality cannot be seen or measured, then there's nothing we can know about it. This response assumes that Scientific methodology is the only methodology which is valid.
Response 2
However, we don't need to take such a hard line to refute this allegation. We can certainly accept that Science isn't all there is, and that human intuition, tradition, or any other method could potentially work to create reliable knowledge. The problem of course is that the religious methodology is entirely unreliable. Using religious methodology, we have hundreds of religions all claiming to be true, yet all contradicting each other. Sure, one might be true, but how could you possibly tell?!
Each religion has its devotees, who passionately confirm their own religion as the one true religion. But since religion is a way of life, it is impossible for these devotees to escape the charge of bias. Even worse, many religions actually make it a religious CRIME to question the religion, promising all sorts of awful punishments for those who dare to do so.
Can you imagine a world where questioning science meant getting a jail sentence?! It would be unthinkable. Yet this situation exists with religion. How can any passionate religious person possibly be non biased in such an environment?!
It should be clear that the key components that make Science credible: Reliable Methodology (experiments, peer review) , Objectivity (facts about the world), Real World Application (Technology, Medicine) are not only missing in Religion, in fact we have the exact opposite in religion: We have an Unreliable Methodology (tradition, religious authority), Subjectivity & Bias (passionate devotion to religion,laws against heresy) and no real world application of the beliefs themselves.
Some people might argue that there is real world application of religious beliefs. For example people feel very connected to God. Or people give charity. But these are actions and feelings, they say nothing about whether God actually exists, or whether the charity giver is actually going to Olam Habah.
In summary, it is clear that while science is a very credible, religion certainly is not. Does that mean that we should reject religion in total? Not necessarily. But certainly in any conflict between Science and religion, it's no contest. And, any religious person who accepts their own religious beliefs, but rejects various aspects of Science (which Scientists themselves regard as 'proven'), is clearly being ridiculous, accepting an unreliable methodology over a reliable one.
How reliable is Science? Well since almost everyone on the planet trusts their lives to it, I would have to say that (in general), the parts of Science which are accepted as proven are about as reliable as anything could possibly be in this world. Of course as our scientific knowledge deepens we will further refine and even alter various theories, but this is all part of the awesome methodology where change is possible and even encouraged (where proven).
How reliable is Religion? Well since almost everyone on the planet disagrees about it, I would have to say that in general it has absolutely no credibility at all. Does this mean that all religious beliefs are false? Not necessarily, but without any really good evidence or arguments there is no reason to assume that any of them are true.
In another thread, RJM says that if only I would know Ancient Near East (ANE) history, I would see that Divine Revelation is the most reasonable explanation of how the Torah came to be. Of course there are plenty of ANE scholars in academia, far more knowledgeable than RJM who know ANE history very very well, and yet think that human origins is the most reasonable explanation for the Torah. Perhaps these Scholars are Reform Jews, or secular, in which case maybe they are biased. perhaps, But this only goes to show that everyone here is incredibly biased, and no one has any credibility.
More likely, it is RJM who is biased, since he is religiously compelled to affirm a Divine Torah. Maybe you could argue that the Secular Scholars are equally religiously (or anti religiously) compelled to deny a Divine Torah.
Either way, at the end of the day, nobody has any credibility here. Without a Scientific (or any) reliable methodology, without the ability to be Objective, and without a real world way of testing these beliefs, we are simply left in the dark.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
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