This happens every time. Just when I decide to live and let live (da da da da), some crazy believer comes along with a bunch of ridiculous arguments that I can’t resist addressing.
Last night was a veritable goldmine of such arguments, from Yus and Huh?. I would love to know what RJM thinks of these people. He is always suspiciously absent from these kind of debates. My guess is he’s embarrassed, but doesn’t want to let the side down.
Anyways, here is a short list:
Fallacy 1: Other religions only have a revelation to one person (or small groups of persons), but Judaism has a revelation to 600,000 people! How could 600,000 people have been deceived like that?
Answer: There was never any revelation to 600,000 people, and 600,000 people were never deceived like that. There was a small revelation myth, which 500 years later grew into a bigger story about people’s ancestors. There is a huge difference between 600,000 people claiming to have seen something, or people 500 years later claiming that 600,000 people saw something.
Fallacy 2: Okay, but how could you deceive a whole nation about what their ancestors saw? Surely they wouldn’t have believed it unless they heard it from their parents. And yet the entire nation of Israel believed it!
Answer 2: Firstly, the entire nation of Israel did NOT believe it. Tenach is full of stories of idolatry etc. Could be the majority of people did NOT ever believe it, but we don't hear about such people since they assimilated. (Just like today, the vast majority of Jews don’t believe it). Secondly, the belief only spread HUNDREDS of years after the supposed event. People back then had no clue about ancient history (we know more about it today than they did then). There was no TV, no newspapers, no nothing. Just oral transmission. If the priests and community spread a story, people believed it. There are thousands of examples of ancient cultures all believing the most ridiculous things. (Modern cultures too) It is FAR more likely that gullible people were misled into believing some false mythology than any other alternative.
Fallacy 3: My parents wouldn’t lie to me. And they heard this from their parents, all the way back to Sinai. It’s an unbroken chain of Mesorah! No other religion has this.
Answer 2: Firstly, the Mesorah is probably broken. There are stories in Tenach about things being entirely forgotten for hundreds of years. Who says it’s an unbroken chain? Why the Mesorah of course! So the Mesorah tells you that the Mesorah is reliable because the Mesorah is unbroken! Ever hear of circular reasoning? Secondly, the entire argument is incredibly poor. No one is accusing your parents of lying, just that they are mistaken. Since most (if not all) religions are false, this would be a good assumption.
Fallacy 4: How can you not trust your parents? Do you not trust them about you being a legitimate child etc?
Answer 4: Most parents don’t lie about their parenthood. If we lived in a society where most parents did indeed lie (or were mistaken) about this, then yes, we would probably doubt them. For example, there are certain segemnts of modern society where fatherhood is much debated. (See Jerry Springer for more details). However even believers agree that most religious beliefs are wrong, so it makes sense to doubt parents about religious beliefs, since the statistics in this case are undeniable.
Fallacy 5: The story of mass revelation being a myth is so amazing. Such a thing never happens. How can you make such an amazing claim without any proof? Aren't you transgressing your own maxim that amazng claims need amazing proof?
Answer 5: Firstly, it’s not so amazing. We have plenty examples of all sorts of fantastic ancient myths that people believed, even mass myths (global flood, the Aztecs etc). Within the three ‘Abrahamic’ faiths, it is true that we are the only one with a mass revelation story. However all this means is that we have a better story than the other two. That’s it! Doesn't make it any truer. Also, the Jewish story was claimed to have happened 3,000 years ago, and that claim was only made 2,500 years ago, before there was even much writing. Xtianity was 500 years later, and Islam a 1000 years later. By that time it would have been too difficult to fake a mass claim.
Secondly and more importantly, we don’t NEED any proof that the myth grew. It’s certainly a possibility, and it’s not a miraculous possibility, it’s an understandable possibility. So, given the choice between a natural possibility, and a supernatural possibility, it makes sense to pick the natural one. You don't ever pick some super natural explanation if there is a perfectly reasonable natural explanation.
Fallacy 6: It doesn’t matter that the Torah looks complex, confusing, multiple texts etc. It was written by God, so it doesn’t have to follow normal writing rules.
Answer 6: Sure, if it was indeed written by God, then fine. But we have no evidence it was written by God. Instead, it looks exactly like you would expect an ancient text to look. It has Summarian style ancient creation myths (modified to be monotheistic of couese), Hammurabi style law codes, and all the other usual stuff. Plus lots of duplicate passages, many contradictions, etc etc.
Fallacy 7: Sure it looks like other texts, 'Dibrah Torah Keloshon Bnei Odom'. But that's how God writes!
Answer 7: Maybe so. But again, without any evidence that God wrote it, there's every reason to believe that man wrote it, just like all the other 99.9999999999999% of books in the world.
Fallacy 8: Let’s say Har Sinai happened. What evidence would be left today? None at all, except a legacy of descendants from the original people saying it happened. And that’s exactly what we have today!
Answer 8: Maybe so. But again, without any evidence that God wrote it, there's every reason to believe that man wrote it, just like all the other 99.9999999999999% of books in the world. The bottom line is there's no evidence that God wrote it, and no good reason to believe so.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Showing posts with label Kuzari. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kuzari. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Top ten signs your religion might not be the one true religion ...
10. Nobody else in the world believes in it (including 80% of your co-religionists), apart from people born into it, and a small percentage of lost souls who get pursuaded into it.
9 The foundational stories of the religion have been shown scientifically and historically to be extremely unlikely, and in some cases impossible, and the possibility that people were misled into believing in it (like every other religion) is thousands of times more probable than it actually being true.
8. The community and your family expend tremendous unrelenting effort to ensure that you are strongly indoctrinated from very early childhood, and don't ever come into contact with any information which might shake your faith.
7. The religion includes numerous laws forbidding you to investigate your faith, and certainly not changing your faith, including death penalties (in theory) for changing your faith or pursuading others to do so.
6. Your community will severely shun anyone who asks questions, and in some cases forbid questions.
5. The foundational Divine text of your religion has been shown to have been authored by multiple humans, and every scholar in the world believes this to be true (in one form or another), and the only people who don't believe this are the people required by their religion to not believe it.
4. Almost very time you get into (or witness) an argument between a believer and a skeptic, the believer ends up appealing to authority, faith, tradition, or all three. And the one rare exception to this argues that if you only understood ANE history you would see that it's true, yet is unable to explain why all the world's secular ANE experts know ANE history very well, yet still don't think it's true.
3. The most revered and distinguished scholars and leaders of your religion seem incapable of being honest and admitting to basic, proven scientific fact.
2. Significant elements of your religious brethren believe in all sorts of nonsense, beliefs which even their fellow, but more modern, believers are convinced are nonsense, yet the processes & arguments (and of course biases) by which these extreme believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs are curiously identical to the processes and arguments (and of course biases) by which the more modern believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs.
And the number one sign your religion might not be the one true religion is ....... (drum roll).....
1. Every time you meet a rational, intellectual believer, who appears to the outside world to have reconciled all the questions and figured it all out, it turns out that deep down they don't believe very much either, and have some lame reason why they pretend to do so.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
9 The foundational stories of the religion have been shown scientifically and historically to be extremely unlikely, and in some cases impossible, and the possibility that people were misled into believing in it (like every other religion) is thousands of times more probable than it actually being true.
8. The community and your family expend tremendous unrelenting effort to ensure that you are strongly indoctrinated from very early childhood, and don't ever come into contact with any information which might shake your faith.
7. The religion includes numerous laws forbidding you to investigate your faith, and certainly not changing your faith, including death penalties (in theory) for changing your faith or pursuading others to do so.
6. Your community will severely shun anyone who asks questions, and in some cases forbid questions.
5. The foundational Divine text of your religion has been shown to have been authored by multiple humans, and every scholar in the world believes this to be true (in one form or another), and the only people who don't believe this are the people required by their religion to not believe it.
4. Almost very time you get into (or witness) an argument between a believer and a skeptic, the believer ends up appealing to authority, faith, tradition, or all three. And the one rare exception to this argues that if you only understood ANE history you would see that it's true, yet is unable to explain why all the world's secular ANE experts know ANE history very well, yet still don't think it's true.
3. The most revered and distinguished scholars and leaders of your religion seem incapable of being honest and admitting to basic, proven scientific fact.
2. Significant elements of your religious brethren believe in all sorts of nonsense, beliefs which even their fellow, but more modern, believers are convinced are nonsense, yet the processes & arguments (and of course biases) by which these extreme believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs are curiously identical to the processes and arguments (and of course biases) by which the more modern believers gain (and maintain) their beliefs.
And the number one sign your religion might not be the one true religion is ....... (drum roll).....
1. Every time you meet a rational, intellectual believer, who appears to the outside world to have reconciled all the questions and figured it all out, it turns out that deep down they don't believe very much either, and have some lame reason why they pretend to do so.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Book Review: Bondage of the Mind
I just finished reading Bondage of the Mind by RD Gold. Now I see Yaakov Menken over at Cross Currents has a post about it, in which he rants and raves about how terrible the ads for the book are, though he hasn't actually read the book.
Menken is upset because the tone of the advertising is that the book bashes OJ, and that's quite true, the book does bash OJ (ironically it also bashes Reform). Menken says that OJ books don't bash Reform, but rather 'prove' the truth of OJ, and a reform book should just 'prove' the truths of Reform, without attacking OJ. I see his point, but I don't think it works, since the 'truth' of Reform is basically that OJ is untrue, so you have to take down OJ before you can get anywhere.
However, I do agree that the book is lame, and Gold sounds like a blogger with an axe to grind half the time. Gold does a very quick run through the DH, with hardly any good examples of any problems in the text. In fact Louis Jacobs has way more content in his ikkarim book. Gold mostly appeals to the authority of Richard Friedman, and also some Israeli archaeologists. While Gold's basic premise is obviously correct, he certainly doesn't make a good case for it in this book. He also spends an entire chapter bashing bible codes, as if the truth of OJ rests on that!
He mentions having had long conversations with an OJ Rabbi, it seems to me that Gold went on an Aish discovery program, or had some similar bad BT experience. Anyways, after not making a very good case why OJ is false, he then starts to bash OJ, bringing up Baruch Lanner, Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir in short order. Not very impressive. And he doesn't even mention the amalekite babies!
Finally he gives a somewhat half hearted nod towards Mordechai Kaplan (though he says he doesn't like Kaplan's take on ritual), and then the book is over.
If I was going to write a book which disproves OJ, I would make it very detailed. Every DH question would have to be in there, plus all the other questions of history, science etc. Once you see all the questions laid out, and also all the flimsy answers, then it becomes clear.
Now it's true that the burden of proof lies with OJ, so to 'disprove' OJ all you really should have to do is knock down the various 'proofs' for OJ, which Gold certainly does. But that's never going to convince an OJ. It's only after they see all the issues laid out that they start getting nervous (assuming they are honest).
Probably Gold wasn't looking to convince any OJs to turn secular. Rather, I think he is alarmed at the popularity and success of the kiruv movement and of fundamentalism in general, and he's writing the book for would be BTs or secular Jews who don't know much about religion.
But, if you're looking for more solid proofs that OJ isn't true, you can get much better content on a blog.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Menken is upset because the tone of the advertising is that the book bashes OJ, and that's quite true, the book does bash OJ (ironically it also bashes Reform). Menken says that OJ books don't bash Reform, but rather 'prove' the truth of OJ, and a reform book should just 'prove' the truths of Reform, without attacking OJ. I see his point, but I don't think it works, since the 'truth' of Reform is basically that OJ is untrue, so you have to take down OJ before you can get anywhere.
However, I do agree that the book is lame, and Gold sounds like a blogger with an axe to grind half the time. Gold does a very quick run through the DH, with hardly any good examples of any problems in the text. In fact Louis Jacobs has way more content in his ikkarim book. Gold mostly appeals to the authority of Richard Friedman, and also some Israeli archaeologists. While Gold's basic premise is obviously correct, he certainly doesn't make a good case for it in this book. He also spends an entire chapter bashing bible codes, as if the truth of OJ rests on that!
He mentions having had long conversations with an OJ Rabbi, it seems to me that Gold went on an Aish discovery program, or had some similar bad BT experience. Anyways, after not making a very good case why OJ is false, he then starts to bash OJ, bringing up Baruch Lanner, Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir in short order. Not very impressive. And he doesn't even mention the amalekite babies!
Finally he gives a somewhat half hearted nod towards Mordechai Kaplan (though he says he doesn't like Kaplan's take on ritual), and then the book is over.
If I was going to write a book which disproves OJ, I would make it very detailed. Every DH question would have to be in there, plus all the other questions of history, science etc. Once you see all the questions laid out, and also all the flimsy answers, then it becomes clear.
Now it's true that the burden of proof lies with OJ, so to 'disprove' OJ all you really should have to do is knock down the various 'proofs' for OJ, which Gold certainly does. But that's never going to convince an OJ. It's only after they see all the issues laid out that they start getting nervous (assuming they are honest).
Probably Gold wasn't looking to convince any OJs to turn secular. Rather, I think he is alarmed at the popularity and success of the kiruv movement and of fundamentalism in general, and he's writing the book for would be BTs or secular Jews who don't know much about religion.
But, if you're looking for more solid proofs that OJ isn't true, you can get much better content on a blog.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
My argument with RJM
I keep on having the same argument with RJM, and RJM keeps on missing the point. Here is how it goes:
RJM: If you truly understood ANE history, you would see that TMS is the only reasonable explanation for what happened.
XGH: If that's true, then why don't all, or at least many, ANE history experts convert to OJ? Yet they don't. In fact if anything, it's the other way round. Clearly, ANE experts don't find your arguments convincing.
RJM: Many people find my arguments convincing.
XGH: Only co-religionists do, and they are required to believe that. No one else finds these arguments convincing, because they are highly subjective and basically they are just not good arguments.
RJM: You are being circular, because if anyone finds my arguments convincing, they would by definition be OJ, and then you would discount them.
XGH: But nobody does find them convincing!
RJM: Circular!
XGH: Good grief!
RJM ENTIRELY misses the point, every time. I will try and explain it again to him one last time, and if he still doesn't get it, I give up. He is quite intelligent, so he should be able to get it if he tries hard.
RJM believes he has strong arguments for TMS. I have heard his arguments multiple times, straight from his mouth. They are all more sophisticated variants of the Kuzari proof, i.e. No way could such a Torah have ever been created by man, for various reasons to do with ANE history and similar.
The problem is, he doesn't ever have any hard and fast facts, all he has are subjective arguments.
For example, he says:
'No way would the Neviim have been able to convince idolatrous ancient Israelites to give up their idols if TMS wasn't true'.
And I respond:
'Sure they could!
And more to the point, they did! And the proof for this is that TMS is not true, yet the Neviim were still able to convince the ancient Israelites to give up their idols'.
This argument sounds almost like a joke, but this is actually how every single argument goes with RJM on this topic.
(He has different arguments when it comes to First Cause, but since he correctly admits that First Cause says nothing about God, that whole argument is absolutely irrelevant to me now.)
RJM says 'X happened, and no way could X have happened unless TMS was true', and I say 'Sure it could'. But there's no corroborating evidence, no way of verfying that X implies TMS, there's only RJM saying 'If you truly understood ANE history, then you would see that X could only possibly have happened if TMS was true.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF RJM'S TMS ARGUMENTS FOLLOWS THIS SAME PATTERN.
Now THIS is the point at which I bring up the academics. RJM argues that if you truly understand ANE history, you will see that the most reasonable explanation is that TMS is true.
Yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of all types of ANE experts in academia, and none of them hold that TMS is true! If RJM is correct, and if RJM's arguments are convincing, then surely many, if not all, of these ANE experts should all be converting to OJ!
Yet hardly any of these experts ever convert to OJ. How can this be? These people are experts in ANE, yet they do not find RJM's arguments in any way convincing. The only logical explanation is that these arguments are NOT in fact convincing to anyone, not even to ANE experts. Especially not to ANE experts. They are only convincing to RJM and his fellow co-religionists, and naive lost students being conned at Aish discovery programs.
And even worse, the 'traffic' is almost all in the other direction.
How many secular academics believe in SINGLE HUMAN authorship of the Torah in 1200 BCE? Not Divine Authorship, but Human Authorship in 1200 BCE.
How many? NOBODY.
But why not? This has nothing to do with God or religion, it's simply a single human author in 1200 BCE. Yet nobody believes that. The only people who believe in SINGLE authorship are also not co-oincidentally religious fundamentalists who HAVE to believe that because they are religiously required to hold that.
Yet there have been quite a few formerly OJ Bible experts who have been convinced the other way: on the textual evidence alone, they became convinced that the Torah had multiple human authors and was compiled late.
The bottom line is that all of RJM's arguments are highly subjective and almost nobody who is not already convinced is ever convinced by them, including experts on all the very subjects that RJMS claims prove his point.
And what does RJM respond to this? He just claims I'm being circular, that of course people who find him convincing are OJ, and people who don't are not.
The only possible defense that RJM has here is for him to argue that ANE history does reasonably show that TMS is true, but all the ANE academics are too biased to accept that. The trouble is, if RJM plays that hand, he instantly loses, because then I counter that of course TMS isn't true, and the only reason he thinks the arguments are convincing is because he's biased. He can't win that argument at all.
Like I said, entirely missing the point.
And the really funny thing is, RJM has admitted to me on numerous occasions that religion has an incredible problem, because when it comes to religion, everyone is inescapably biased and everything is entirely subjective, there are no hard facts. RJM said this to me personally.
So if that's the case, why should I believe anything that RJM (or anyone else) says on the topic of religion? Everyone is hopelessly biased and subjective, even RJM agrees. Obviously the entire field is a complete and utter waste of time and should just be ignored until some real evidence comes to light. And in the absence of any good, unbiased evidence, the best approach is to assume that all fantastical claims about gods writing books should be taken with a grain of salt.
Isn't this entirely poshut, from a rational standpoint? Of course it is.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
RJM: If you truly understood ANE history, you would see that TMS is the only reasonable explanation for what happened.
XGH: If that's true, then why don't all, or at least many, ANE history experts convert to OJ? Yet they don't. In fact if anything, it's the other way round. Clearly, ANE experts don't find your arguments convincing.
RJM: Many people find my arguments convincing.
XGH: Only co-religionists do, and they are required to believe that. No one else finds these arguments convincing, because they are highly subjective and basically they are just not good arguments.
RJM: You are being circular, because if anyone finds my arguments convincing, they would by definition be OJ, and then you would discount them.
XGH: But nobody does find them convincing!
RJM: Circular!
XGH: Good grief!
RJM ENTIRELY misses the point, every time. I will try and explain it again to him one last time, and if he still doesn't get it, I give up. He is quite intelligent, so he should be able to get it if he tries hard.
RJM believes he has strong arguments for TMS. I have heard his arguments multiple times, straight from his mouth. They are all more sophisticated variants of the Kuzari proof, i.e. No way could such a Torah have ever been created by man, for various reasons to do with ANE history and similar.
The problem is, he doesn't ever have any hard and fast facts, all he has are subjective arguments.
For example, he says:
'No way would the Neviim have been able to convince idolatrous ancient Israelites to give up their idols if TMS wasn't true'.
And I respond:
'Sure they could!
And more to the point, they did! And the proof for this is that TMS is not true, yet the Neviim were still able to convince the ancient Israelites to give up their idols'.
This argument sounds almost like a joke, but this is actually how every single argument goes with RJM on this topic.
(He has different arguments when it comes to First Cause, but since he correctly admits that First Cause says nothing about God, that whole argument is absolutely irrelevant to me now.)
RJM says 'X happened, and no way could X have happened unless TMS was true', and I say 'Sure it could'. But there's no corroborating evidence, no way of verfying that X implies TMS, there's only RJM saying 'If you truly understood ANE history, then you would see that X could only possibly have happened if TMS was true.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF RJM'S TMS ARGUMENTS FOLLOWS THIS SAME PATTERN.
Now THIS is the point at which I bring up the academics. RJM argues that if you truly understand ANE history, you will see that the most reasonable explanation is that TMS is true.
Yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of all types of ANE experts in academia, and none of them hold that TMS is true! If RJM is correct, and if RJM's arguments are convincing, then surely many, if not all, of these ANE experts should all be converting to OJ!
Yet hardly any of these experts ever convert to OJ. How can this be? These people are experts in ANE, yet they do not find RJM's arguments in any way convincing. The only logical explanation is that these arguments are NOT in fact convincing to anyone, not even to ANE experts. Especially not to ANE experts. They are only convincing to RJM and his fellow co-religionists, and naive lost students being conned at Aish discovery programs.
And even worse, the 'traffic' is almost all in the other direction.
How many secular academics believe in SINGLE HUMAN authorship of the Torah in 1200 BCE? Not Divine Authorship, but Human Authorship in 1200 BCE.
How many? NOBODY.
But why not? This has nothing to do with God or religion, it's simply a single human author in 1200 BCE. Yet nobody believes that. The only people who believe in SINGLE authorship are also not co-oincidentally religious fundamentalists who HAVE to believe that because they are religiously required to hold that.
Yet there have been quite a few formerly OJ Bible experts who have been convinced the other way: on the textual evidence alone, they became convinced that the Torah had multiple human authors and was compiled late.
The bottom line is that all of RJM's arguments are highly subjective and almost nobody who is not already convinced is ever convinced by them, including experts on all the very subjects that RJMS claims prove his point.
And what does RJM respond to this? He just claims I'm being circular, that of course people who find him convincing are OJ, and people who don't are not.
The only possible defense that RJM has here is for him to argue that ANE history does reasonably show that TMS is true, but all the ANE academics are too biased to accept that. The trouble is, if RJM plays that hand, he instantly loses, because then I counter that of course TMS isn't true, and the only reason he thinks the arguments are convincing is because he's biased. He can't win that argument at all.
Like I said, entirely missing the point.
And the really funny thing is, RJM has admitted to me on numerous occasions that religion has an incredible problem, because when it comes to religion, everyone is inescapably biased and everything is entirely subjective, there are no hard facts. RJM said this to me personally.
So if that's the case, why should I believe anything that RJM (or anyone else) says on the topic of religion? Everyone is hopelessly biased and subjective, even RJM agrees. Obviously the entire field is a complete and utter waste of time and should just be ignored until some real evidence comes to light. And in the absence of any good, unbiased evidence, the best approach is to assume that all fantastical claims about gods writing books should be taken with a grain of salt.
Isn't this entirely poshut, from a rational standpoint? Of course it is.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
More Bad Arguments for Religion: RJM
In a previous post, I wrote how all the believers were convincingly thrashed when it came to arguments about religion. But RJM claims he wasn't beaten. But he was, both on the phone, here and on Orthoprax. But we can summarize the main arguments again.
NOTE: I am not talking about First Cause arguments and Medieval or Greek philosophy. RJM is quite a philosophy expert and that's very nice. However medieval philosophy doesn't have much to do with the truth of Orthodox Judaism. What I am talking about here is RJM's Kuzari style argument for why Torah must be from Heaven.
The debate goes something like this:
RJM
It is extremely unlikely that the Torah would have been accepted as Divine by thousands of ancient Israelites if it wasn't true. And it is equally unlikely that it evolved from a small legend into a big one. The most reasonable conclusion is that it's Divine, as described in the Torah itself.
XGH
Of course it's more likely to have developed and evolved by human hands. Saying God wrote it is a fantastic claim, and one that needs plenty of evidence. We have many similar stories of ancient texts being claimed as Divine, yet in all cases we believe they were really man made (the Koran for example). Most likely the Torah is man made too, unless you have good evidence to the contrary. The most likely scenario is that there was some original event, e.g. a volcano (or whatever), and the legends developed from there. The ancient Israelites had many stories, legends and myths (just like all other ancient peoples), and these gradually coalesced into the Torah. Almost every single Bible expert and religious historian (non biased) in the world holds this to be the case. The only people who don't believe this are the people who are religiously forbidden to hold this. Canyou imagine a more extreme version of bias?!
RJM
Firstly, claiming a God written text is not a fantastic claim. It is a perfectly reasonable claim. Secondly, the Torah story is unique, and unlike all the other stories (mass revelation). No way could a mass revelation claim have been accepted as true, unless it really happened. Thirdly, the Torah contains many difficult laws, which would not have been accepted had they not been from God.
XGH
Firstly, this is ludicrous. Are you seriously claiming that a Divinely Written Book is no more amazing than a Human Written Book?
Secondly, the more unique the story of the Torah is, the more your argument completely fails. If the story is totally unique, then we have no data and no experience as to whether such a story is reasonably true or not.
For example, if revelation stories happened frequently, and 9 out of 10 times turned out to be true, then RJM could claim that a revelation is a likely true story. Conversely, if revelation stories happened frequently, and 9 out of 10 times turned out to be false, then I could claim it's most likely false.
However RJM claims that the Torah's mass revelation story is unique, and such a story would have to be true. But how can he know this? If OJ is false, then such a unique story is in fact false. And since the story is so unique, there is simply no data to go on. Are mass revelation stories typically true? Could a mass revelation story simply evolve? We have no idea and no data! It's a singularity, and so the default position is to make the simpler claim, that the book is man made, and the religion evolved, like all other religions and all other supposedly Divine Texts.
And of course this isn't even getting into the fact that there are contradictions, errors, different styles and untrue events in the Torah. yes, you can provide kvetches for all those, but at the end of the day, which is more likely: This fantastic tale is true, despite no evidence, or this is yet another false religious claim, just like a thousand others.
Thirdly, many religions contain difficult laws. Many ancient religions required human sacrifice. If anything, ancient Judaism might have been EASIER than the Canaanite religions. There were no Rabbinic Humras, and you didn't have to sacrifice your children to the Gods. And, even if it was difficult, so what? The Moslems keep many difficult laws, does that prove the Koran is min hashamyim? They were convinced to keep the laws because of the benefits that accrued, as we say in shema every day.
RJM himself agreed to me that religion has a serious credibility problem (His words, not mine), so if he wants to claim that Judaism is the one true religion, he needs to provide some very good reasons why. So far I haven't heard him give any, but I'm more than willing for him to try.
In fact, I'm literally begging him to try.
NOTE: I hope my readers appreciate that I have a lot of respect for RJM, which is PRECISELY why I am challenging him to a debate. I wouldn't bother with someone like TrapperJoe or Daganev for example, it would be a worthless waste of time. But RJM is indeed about the most knowledgeable, well thought out, intelligent and educated debater out there (on the believer side). And I'm not just saying that to butter him up!
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
NOTE: I am not talking about First Cause arguments and Medieval or Greek philosophy. RJM is quite a philosophy expert and that's very nice. However medieval philosophy doesn't have much to do with the truth of Orthodox Judaism. What I am talking about here is RJM's Kuzari style argument for why Torah must be from Heaven.
The debate goes something like this:
RJM
It is extremely unlikely that the Torah would have been accepted as Divine by thousands of ancient Israelites if it wasn't true. And it is equally unlikely that it evolved from a small legend into a big one. The most reasonable conclusion is that it's Divine, as described in the Torah itself.
XGH
Of course it's more likely to have developed and evolved by human hands. Saying God wrote it is a fantastic claim, and one that needs plenty of evidence. We have many similar stories of ancient texts being claimed as Divine, yet in all cases we believe they were really man made (the Koran for example). Most likely the Torah is man made too, unless you have good evidence to the contrary. The most likely scenario is that there was some original event, e.g. a volcano (or whatever), and the legends developed from there. The ancient Israelites had many stories, legends and myths (just like all other ancient peoples), and these gradually coalesced into the Torah. Almost every single Bible expert and religious historian (non biased) in the world holds this to be the case. The only people who don't believe this are the people who are religiously forbidden to hold this. Canyou imagine a more extreme version of bias?!
RJM
Firstly, claiming a God written text is not a fantastic claim. It is a perfectly reasonable claim. Secondly, the Torah story is unique, and unlike all the other stories (mass revelation). No way could a mass revelation claim have been accepted as true, unless it really happened. Thirdly, the Torah contains many difficult laws, which would not have been accepted had they not been from God.
XGH
Firstly, this is ludicrous. Are you seriously claiming that a Divinely Written Book is no more amazing than a Human Written Book?
Secondly, the more unique the story of the Torah is, the more your argument completely fails. If the story is totally unique, then we have no data and no experience as to whether such a story is reasonably true or not.
For example, if revelation stories happened frequently, and 9 out of 10 times turned out to be true, then RJM could claim that a revelation is a likely true story. Conversely, if revelation stories happened frequently, and 9 out of 10 times turned out to be false, then I could claim it's most likely false.
However RJM claims that the Torah's mass revelation story is unique, and such a story would have to be true. But how can he know this? If OJ is false, then such a unique story is in fact false. And since the story is so unique, there is simply no data to go on. Are mass revelation stories typically true? Could a mass revelation story simply evolve? We have no idea and no data! It's a singularity, and so the default position is to make the simpler claim, that the book is man made, and the religion evolved, like all other religions and all other supposedly Divine Texts.
And of course this isn't even getting into the fact that there are contradictions, errors, different styles and untrue events in the Torah. yes, you can provide kvetches for all those, but at the end of the day, which is more likely: This fantastic tale is true, despite no evidence, or this is yet another false religious claim, just like a thousand others.
Thirdly, many religions contain difficult laws. Many ancient religions required human sacrifice. If anything, ancient Judaism might have been EASIER than the Canaanite religions. There were no Rabbinic Humras, and you didn't have to sacrifice your children to the Gods. And, even if it was difficult, so what? The Moslems keep many difficult laws, does that prove the Koran is min hashamyim? They were convinced to keep the laws because of the benefits that accrued, as we say in shema every day.
RJM himself agreed to me that religion has a serious credibility problem (His words, not mine), so if he wants to claim that Judaism is the one true religion, he needs to provide some very good reasons why. So far I haven't heard him give any, but I'm more than willing for him to try.
In fact, I'm literally begging him to try.
NOTE: I hope my readers appreciate that I have a lot of respect for RJM, which is PRECISELY why I am challenging him to a debate. I wouldn't bother with someone like TrapperJoe or Daganev for example, it would be a worthless waste of time. But RJM is indeed about the most knowledgeable, well thought out, intelligent and educated debater out there (on the believer side). And I'm not just saying that to butter him up!
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The Disputation
My 4 hour Conversation with Rabbi Maroof
Full Transcript
XGH: Hello, is that Rabbi Maroof?
RJM: Yes, hello.
XGH: How are you?
RJM: Fine, fine. And you?
XGH: Fine.
Oh forget that, I’ll be here for the next 3 weeks. I’ll just have to summarize:
XGH: You’re a fundie fruitcake!
RJM: And you’re just a non serious cynic!
XGH: Good night!
RJM: Good night!
But seriously, it was quite a good conversation. Four hours! The last time I had a four hour phone conversation it ended off with “You hang up first” “No you hang up first!” “No you!”
So what happened?
I started out by explaining to RJM why I feel religion has credibility problems. Turns out, he mostly agrees with me. I will summarize:
With Science, you pretty much have global consensus on all the ikkarim. Sure, there are arguments on fringe areas, and in areas which are still very theoretical (e.g. string theory), but the basics are well established, with global agreement.
Religion in contrast, is characterized by global disagreement. Of the 5 billion religious people in the world worshipping 11 or 12 mainstream religions, and probably hundreds if not thousands smaller religions and sects very few of them agree on anything. Not only do the major religions not agree with each other, but even denominations within the religions have disagreements, often even more violent ones. Not only different denominations, but even different sects within a denomination have serious disagreements! Just look at MO and UO, two sub groups of one denomination of one religion, and they can’t agree whether a 15 billion year old universe is kefirah or not!
[Important Note: I am talking about religious beliefs here, for example which book was written by God, or who God spoke to. I am not talking about abstract ideas, ethics, values and morals, where of course there is more agreement, but that’s not the topic of this debate.]
So why is this?
Why is there global agreement on Science, but global disagreement with Religion? Id it because Scientists are good at compromising? Good at working in teams? Gaining consensus? While Religious leaders are appalling individualists, lone rangers and can’t ever compromise?
I don’t think so. I’m sure the character traits of Scientists and Religious Leaders follow roughly the same pattern (though maybe the Scientists are a more analytical and less spiritual crowd).
So if we can’t explain this massive and significant difference by character profile, what is the cause?
I maintain that the cause is simple: Science relies on objective facts. Facts and theories are proven by experimentation. Results are tested, validated and subject to peer review. Articles published in magazines generally go through a review phase. There is very little bias (in the basic principles, there certainly is bias in theoretical areas e.g. Dark Matter). There is also little dogma – there is no rule that Science can’t be changed or improved if new facts come to light. All in all, the system works very well. Most historians would say that Science is the most successful human endeavor in the entire span of history.
Religion however is very different. There is a serious lack of available facts: We have no experiments that can prove God’s existence, we have no data that proves Har Sinai, or the Resurrection of Christ. Instead, we have what RJM calls ‘Sevarah’, and what I would call ‘Subjective Opinion’. Each religion has its traditions and beliefs, which are not backed up by hard data or experimentation, subject to peer review, but rather rely on reasoning which somehow is never convincing to members of another religion.
Even worse, there is no methodology, organization or process in place to even work on gaining consensus. Sure, we have some inter-faith dialogue, but that’s really not about gaining consensus as to whether Torah is the final word of God or whether the Koran is. The only time in history there was anything like a concerted inter-faith effort to get to the truth was the period of the Disputations, though they were usually rigged anyway to force the Jews to lose (though we still won quite a few!).
RJM and I agree on all this.(Surprise!) RJM further maintains that this would be theoretically possible – we could get together a committee of intelligent honest people, and have them figure out a methodology to get to the truth. Of course he thinks they will all conclude that Judaism is the truth, whereas I think they would all eventually either kill each other, or turn into skeptics. However the important point is that we both agree there is a serious problem here with religion.
Furthermore, religious arguments are incredibly subjective, since they are based on ‘Sevarah’ and not on objective facts and experiments. Of course it’s not 100% black and white, some Science is somewhat subjective, and some religion can be somewhat objective, but by and large religion is massively more subjective than science.
This can be seen clearly by the fact that there is global agreement on Science, regardless of race, religion or culture (apart from the fundamentalists of course), whereas with religion, you always find that each religion believes in itself, but doesn’t believe in any others (with the possible exception of some types of Hindus who believe in all religions).
RJM had an interesting argument here: He claimed that some of the consensus of Science is due to the fact that modern Science was preceded by Aristotelian science, and there was global agreement on that for 1500 years, and so a precedent had been set. I’m not so sure this is a good argument, but I didn’t pursue it.
So far so good. Where RJM and I now begin to diverge is that my conclusion from all the above is as follows:
We know there is global disagreement in religion.
We know that religious arguments are incredibly subjective
We know that each religion has its arguments that pretty much are only convincing to members of that religion (and a relatively small number of converts and born agains). Sure, if every convert all converted to the same religion, that might tell you something, but they don’t.
The only logical conclusion here is that no religious belief has any credibility at all.
I’m not sure RJM agrees with me here. He was pushing the argument that you can’t a priori dismiss any religious argument because of the lack of credibility. You have to assess each argument on its own merits. He claims to have done so, and has read the New Testament and Koran in depth. (I’m not sure about the hundreds of other religious texts and religions, seems they didn’t get a fair hearing!) Anyway, this point is somewhat irrelevant, because I am happy to asses his arguments on their merit.
At this point, we turned to discussing RJM’s proof for TMS. He holds that though myth formation is a well known historical fact, the myth of TMS is so different and so unique, that its highly implausible it was invented without it being true. RJM points out that the Neviim are constantly lecturing a wayward Hamon Am and telling them to give up their idols (which they clearly lusted after), because of Har Sinai and the Mitzvot. RJM says that if Har Sinai, was just a myth invented by the Neviim, then the Hamon Am could care less, and why on earth would the Neviim think they could persuade the Hamon Am to give up their idols based on something they didn’t believe in anyway. And, if you want to claim that the Hamon Am did believe the Myth, and were involved in its formation, then this is even stranger. Myths usually encode the desires and ideas of the people. So why would a people desiring to worship multiple idols ever participate in the creation of a myth which proclaims one God and forbids idols! It’s highly implausible, and therefore a reasonable conclusion is that the myth of Har Sinai is actually true.
I have two arguments against this.
1. This analysis is not the only possible analysis. Maybe the Neviim were part of the priestly / religious class that developed the myth over hundreds of years. The hamon am, being less religious were somewhat involved, though not integral. Think of it as the UOs and the MOs. As time went by, the Hamon Am became more and more enamored of the local idols, and started to forget the myth of Sinai, or at least not follow the commandments. The Neviim tried to exhort them to follow the Torah by repeating the Myth of Sinai. Everyone knew about the myth of Sinai, however it was a myth. Some of the Hamon Am listened, some didn’t. Some maybe really were skeptical, Tenach doesn’t really say. True, the myth is unique, in that it’s a myth of national revelation rather than individual revelation, but just because it’s unique doesn’t make it implausible.
RJM seemed to recant at this point a little. On the blog, he had seemed to dismiss my scenario as ‘silly’, whereas on the phone he seemed to agree that my scenario might be plausible. Not sure what he would say now.
2. My second major objection is that even if RJM is correct, and that Myth Formation for TMS is a highly implausible scenario, it still doesn’t get you anywhere, because the alternative – that God wrote the Torah, is even more implausible, so all you are doing is replacing an implausible scenario with an even more implausible scenario.
This is where we started to disagree. RJM maintains that God writing the Torah is not inherently implausible. We then got into a whole discussion about plausibility, probability, a priori probability etc etc. We didn’t get anywhere. Ultimately I maintain that God writing a book is not an everyday occurrence, it is highly unusual and improbable, and you would need rock solid evidence to make such a claim. RJM disagrees, but I can’t understand why. (No doubt he will enlighten us in the comments).
Next I explained that if there were no other questions on the Torah, then I might agree that TMS could be plausible. But since his arguments were weak anyway, and since there are a whole host of other issues with TMS, including technical issues, historical issues, science issues etc etc, the whole thing just doesn’t get off the ground.
RJM of course maintains that all of these issues have answers. I argued that true, they do, but the answers are never as good as the questions, and the only reason people accept the answers is because they are biased towards believing TMS. Nobody outside the faith would find these answers convincing. So in summary, I believe RJM has a weak argument to begin with, which then totally fails once you start looking at the bigger picture and start thinking about all the other questions.
In addition, since we already know that all religious arguments suffer from a very serious bias/subjective issue, and we have no way of really reaching any consensus, the fact that RJM is an Orthodox Jew arguing that his argument prove the validity of Orthodox Judaism is an inherently non credible position to be in. He counters that this is a little circular, because by definition anyone arguing for OJ will be an OJ. But that’s exactly the problem (and he agreed). This problem is insurmountable, at least for now
In summary:
We both generally agree that religion has a serious credibility problem. We start to disagree when it comes to the arguments for and against TMS. RJM maintains that his initial TMS argument is strong (or at least not weak), and that once we get into all the other questions we will see that they all have reasonable answers. The one question that he admits he doesn’t have a good answer for is the numbers by Yetziat Mitzrayim, as it’s very hard to allegorize that. (This is somewhat ironic, because it was that very same question which caused me to have to abandon my famous Myth/Moshol peshat, leaving me exposed to the attacks of the skeptics).
I maintain that as a subjective biased religious person arguing for his religion he has little credibility to start with. And, even if he wants to claim objectivity, I argue his TMS argument is incredibly weak anyway since myth formation is highly plausible in this case. And furthermore, even if I agree that myth formation is implausible here, TMS is even more implausible, both inherently as a concept, and even more so once you start investigating all the other issues.
So, where do we go from here?
Well, we agreed to start investigating all the other questions. I guess that means that I have to start all over again, from day one.
Next Up: Myth/Moshol Theory!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Fundies get their asses wupped again
....and its a darn shame, because I had high hopes this time.
A Rabbi who quotes Spinoza, an educated man, someone who thinks the Gedolim are simpletons who don't understand peshat in Breishis! Sounds like my kind of guy!
Ultimately though, he failed to deliver the goods. He made a reasonable stab at the Kuzari argument, not bad at all (all things considered). I then countered with a reasonable counter argument, see the post below entitled "Lame Fundamentalist Arguments". I expected some kind of counter to my counter. But what did I get? Absolutely nothing!
There are 250 comments on that post, and not one of them addresses my counter argument! Instead RJM attacks my methodology, my bias, my lack of seriousness, my lack of learning, anything and everything, but nowhere does he address the actual content of the post, except to say it's silly, and he leaves it at that. Not very convincing I'm afraid. And the only thing all this has achieved is to make me realize yet again how absolutely incapable fundamentalists are in admitting to reality.
Millions of people believe passionately in their different (and usually contradictory) religions. True, many of these people never think about their religion very seriously, even the highly intelligent people. But certainly some do. And, given the millions upon millions of religious people in the world, that still leaves you with a very significant number of intelligent people who have questioned their faith very seriously indeed.
Now, we know many of these people have become secular Christians, Moslems and Jews. And no doubt there is quite a large percentage who decided to stick with their faith, for all the usual reasons. However there is a tiny percentage who switched faiths. How many Christian converts to Judaism do you know? A handful? And vice versa? And to Islam? And vice versa? It hardly ever happens. Why is this? Of course there are social issues involved, but for a true truth seeker, they wouldn't matter as much.
Do you honestly think that if you had been brought up religious Christian that you would now be a Rabbi? Or vice versa? Fact is, the statistics plainly show that the vast majority of people brought up in a strong faith remain that way. And of those that don't, the vast majority give up all faith. Clearly, the vast majority of people convinced by religious arguments are the people who believed in it in the first place.
Go to any bookstore. You will find volumes and volumes of Christian apologetics, written by educated and intelligent people, all apparently containing 'convincing' proof that Jesus just must be the Messiah. But RJM dismisses all of these as nonsense! (And he's right of course). But does RJM really think that all these people are fools, and only he has the convincing arguments? Which is more likely, he has a solid argument for religion, or he is yet another fundamentalist convinced by arguments that no rational objective person would ever be convinced by?
We know for a FACT that millions upon millions of otherwise highly intelligent and educated people believe in the biggest nonsense - when it comes to religion. We KNOW this! Every fundamentalist agrees to this! RJM himself holds that 99% of all religions, and consequently 99% of all religious believers, believe in nonsense. We have clear evidence that when it comes to religion, people believe what they want to believe. Its irrefutable! Even the fundamentalists agree! Yet RJM has the hubris to think that he is objective and non biased about his own religion? Unbelievable!
The effects of religious indoctrination are obvious. They're everywhere. From the Muslim suicide bombers, to the devout evangelicals, to Orthodox Jews. All of them, even the highly intelligent ones, are absolutely convinced of the veracity of their own arguments, and absolutely convinced of how nonsensical their opponent's arguments are.
'God couldn't possibly manifest Himself as a man!' exclaims Y Aharon. Does he not realize how ironically non self aware this comment is? Thousands of years of Christian apologetics, written by the most educated, intelligent and spiritual people, yet Y Aharon dismisses it all in an instant. The stupidity of Christianity is readily apparent to him, and to all Orthodox fundamentalists (and to all skeptics of course), but the stupidity of his own beliefs, in mythical floods and genetically altered men? No! Not stupid at all. The hubris is mind boggling.
Of course Y Aharon and RJM will respond as they usually do. Their arguments are convincing, and the only people not convinced are led by their yetzer horah, or are not serious, or are not honest, or some other insult. Their lack of self awareness is quite incredible. Boruch Hashem my own Rabbeim are more intellectually honest (but that doesn't help much either).
I don't attack the fundamentalists for holding the beliefs they hold. I can understand why someone would want to hold onto their beliefs, it's natural. But for intelligent people to think they have convincing arguments for their fundamentalist faith is laughable. Absolutely laughable.
And I have nothing against any of these people personally. Y AHaron I know for a fact is a fine fellow with a choshuv family. I don't know RJM that well, but clearly he is a respected Rabbi and also a fine fellow. Even ed is a good guy! But all these people are so incredibly biased and brainwashed, they can't think straight. Could God possibly want things to be this way? I find it hard to believe He does. Assuming He exists. Which is yet another thing that nobody seems to know for sure. Amazing really. We don't know for sure whether God exists, but we do know for sure that He wrote the Torah. And how does that work exactly? Of course it doesn't. Just like every other argument I have heard.
But what do I know? I'm just dishonest, not open to the truth, guided by my yetzer horah, unscrupulous, not serious, biased towards the skeptics, not spiritual enough, not philosophical enough, not rational enough, not learned enough, too stubborn, too fallacious, too intellectually dishonest and an all round failure at finding the truth. Oh well, I tried.
A Rabbi who quotes Spinoza, an educated man, someone who thinks the Gedolim are simpletons who don't understand peshat in Breishis! Sounds like my kind of guy!
Ultimately though, he failed to deliver the goods. He made a reasonable stab at the Kuzari argument, not bad at all (all things considered). I then countered with a reasonable counter argument, see the post below entitled "Lame Fundamentalist Arguments". I expected some kind of counter to my counter. But what did I get? Absolutely nothing!
There are 250 comments on that post, and not one of them addresses my counter argument! Instead RJM attacks my methodology, my bias, my lack of seriousness, my lack of learning, anything and everything, but nowhere does he address the actual content of the post, except to say it's silly, and he leaves it at that. Not very convincing I'm afraid. And the only thing all this has achieved is to make me realize yet again how absolutely incapable fundamentalists are in admitting to reality.
Millions of people believe passionately in their different (and usually contradictory) religions. True, many of these people never think about their religion very seriously, even the highly intelligent people. But certainly some do. And, given the millions upon millions of religious people in the world, that still leaves you with a very significant number of intelligent people who have questioned their faith very seriously indeed.
Now, we know many of these people have become secular Christians, Moslems and Jews. And no doubt there is quite a large percentage who decided to stick with their faith, for all the usual reasons. However there is a tiny percentage who switched faiths. How many Christian converts to Judaism do you know? A handful? And vice versa? And to Islam? And vice versa? It hardly ever happens. Why is this? Of course there are social issues involved, but for a true truth seeker, they wouldn't matter as much.
Do you honestly think that if you had been brought up religious Christian that you would now be a Rabbi? Or vice versa? Fact is, the statistics plainly show that the vast majority of people brought up in a strong faith remain that way. And of those that don't, the vast majority give up all faith. Clearly, the vast majority of people convinced by religious arguments are the people who believed in it in the first place.
Go to any bookstore. You will find volumes and volumes of Christian apologetics, written by educated and intelligent people, all apparently containing 'convincing' proof that Jesus just must be the Messiah. But RJM dismisses all of these as nonsense! (And he's right of course). But does RJM really think that all these people are fools, and only he has the convincing arguments? Which is more likely, he has a solid argument for religion, or he is yet another fundamentalist convinced by arguments that no rational objective person would ever be convinced by?
We know for a FACT that millions upon millions of otherwise highly intelligent and educated people believe in the biggest nonsense - when it comes to religion. We KNOW this! Every fundamentalist agrees to this! RJM himself holds that 99% of all religions, and consequently 99% of all religious believers, believe in nonsense. We have clear evidence that when it comes to religion, people believe what they want to believe. Its irrefutable! Even the fundamentalists agree! Yet RJM has the hubris to think that he is objective and non biased about his own religion? Unbelievable!
The effects of religious indoctrination are obvious. They're everywhere. From the Muslim suicide bombers, to the devout evangelicals, to Orthodox Jews. All of them, even the highly intelligent ones, are absolutely convinced of the veracity of their own arguments, and absolutely convinced of how nonsensical their opponent's arguments are.
'God couldn't possibly manifest Himself as a man!' exclaims Y Aharon. Does he not realize how ironically non self aware this comment is? Thousands of years of Christian apologetics, written by the most educated, intelligent and spiritual people, yet Y Aharon dismisses it all in an instant. The stupidity of Christianity is readily apparent to him, and to all Orthodox fundamentalists (and to all skeptics of course), but the stupidity of his own beliefs, in mythical floods and genetically altered men? No! Not stupid at all. The hubris is mind boggling.
Of course Y Aharon and RJM will respond as they usually do. Their arguments are convincing, and the only people not convinced are led by their yetzer horah, or are not serious, or are not honest, or some other insult. Their lack of self awareness is quite incredible. Boruch Hashem my own Rabbeim are more intellectually honest (but that doesn't help much either).
I don't attack the fundamentalists for holding the beliefs they hold. I can understand why someone would want to hold onto their beliefs, it's natural. But for intelligent people to think they have convincing arguments for their fundamentalist faith is laughable. Absolutely laughable.
And I have nothing against any of these people personally. Y AHaron I know for a fact is a fine fellow with a choshuv family. I don't know RJM that well, but clearly he is a respected Rabbi and also a fine fellow. Even ed is a good guy! But all these people are so incredibly biased and brainwashed, they can't think straight. Could God possibly want things to be this way? I find it hard to believe He does. Assuming He exists. Which is yet another thing that nobody seems to know for sure. Amazing really. We don't know for sure whether God exists, but we do know for sure that He wrote the Torah. And how does that work exactly? Of course it doesn't. Just like every other argument I have heard.
But what do I know? I'm just dishonest, not open to the truth, guided by my yetzer horah, unscrupulous, not serious, biased towards the skeptics, not spiritual enough, not philosophical enough, not rational enough, not learned enough, too stubborn, too fallacious, too intellectually dishonest and an all round failure at finding the truth. Oh well, I tried.
Are talking donkeys silly?
Happy says that any religion which requires you to believe in talking donkeys is just plain silly. Now, I think we all agree that God, if He exists, could certainly make a donkey talk, and vis-a-vis God, creating talking people is no more silly than creating talking donkeys. However God is not the issue here, man is. To a (normal) man, a talking donkey is quite ridiculous.
The Rambam famously re-interprets this whole episode as a dream, but frankly, thats very clowny. Reminds me of Dallas season seven, and that was pretty clowny too. But how about a talking horse? I think that's slightly less silly. Maybe we can re-interpret Bilaams ass as a horse instead. That might help things. The other advantage is that it will spare us all those silly jokes about God talking out of Bilaam's ass.
I recently was sent an email list full of famous names: Akiva Atwood, DBH (the conspiracy nut), Koffer, Ostroff, FKM (Freakin Kiruv Maniac), discussing at length whether Science might be true or not. Such a waste. I find it hard to believe that this is what God wants from us (assuming He exists). And, since God saw fit for whatever reasons to completely hide all evidence of Himself, I find it hard to believe that He cares one way or another as to whether we believe in Him at all. It's all a test? It's all baloney more likely.
The fundamentalists claim they are being reasonable, but any normal, rational and objective person can see they are not. How can they possibly advance the lamest of arguments, and think they are good? It's mamash unbelievable.
Here's what I think is going on:
What comes out of their mouths:
TMS is entirely rational blah blah kuzari proof blah blah critical thought blah blah
What goes on in their brains:
Torah just must be true, I mean it must be! My whole life is predicated on that fact, And my whole family, my whole community, everyone I know. I’ve believed this since childhood, how could it not be true? And my father, and his father and so on for three thousand years! And how many yidden were moser nefesh for this??. If it isn’t true, then I have been living a lie for all these years. How could that be? It just can’t! And not only that, it would mean all the Gedolim have been living a lie, and all the Acharonim, and Rishonim, and oh my gosh, Chazal! And not only living a lie, but Chazal were a part of it! That couldn’t be! All that Torah and Torah learning, all those Mitzvot, the entire enterprise? All false? All a waste of time? No! It just couldn’t be! And anyway, Hashem would never have allowed that to happen. Not to the Yidden! Not to me! No way. Just can’t be. No! Never! Can’t be. Oy, and to even have such thoughts is such a pgam in my emunah. Oy, almost kefirah, such a bad aveirah. I can’t even think like this! Oy.
Update inspired by Little Foxling: And I don't want to go to Gehinom! I don't want to lose my cheleck in Olam Habah! Please Hashem, take these kefiradick thoughts away from me. They distress me so much. Please Hashem, I was only doing this lshem shamayim, only to fight the skeptics. I didn't ever intend to get skeptical thoughts myself. I promise to try and be mechazek myself. I promise! I'll also daven with more kavanah, and learn more. But please remove these doubts and questions from me, please!
And how could I possibly be skeptical? To tell my wife? My kids? My parents? My in-laws? Oy, my chavrusoh? My Rav? My shul? My community? Oy, the shame, the humiliation, how could I possibly do that! No way. It just must be true. What am I thinking?! Of course it's true, of course it's true. Oy, of course of course of course its true. Just take a deep breath. Relax your mind, and think of Torah. Please Hashem help me in this hour of my need. I don't ask for much. Please remove any kefirah doubts and let me be mechazek in my emunah. Your Holy Torah! OF course its all True. The Avos, the Neviim, Chazal, the Rishonim, the Acharonim, the Gedolim (for RJM you can skip the Gedolim, he thinks they're a bunch of simpletons who have it all wrong anyway), my Rabbeim! Oh my gosh, my amazing Rabbeim! Of course they are all right. How could they possiblt be wrong? No, it just can't be. It can't.
What’s funny is that nobody gives a second thought to the fact that 2 billion Christians have it all wrong, and are praying to a god who isn’t there. Or that all the Moslems have it all wrong. All the thousands of Christian and Islamic martyrs who gave up their lives for nothing. All the millions of man hours spent in specifically Christian or Moslem (or Hindu) pursuits all essentially a waste of time. That’s all entirely believable. But the Yidden being wrong? No! That cannot be!
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Lame Fundamentalist Arguments
Even though I said I was done arguing religion, I guess I’m not. Why is that? Well, I still harbor a secret hope that someday someone somewhere (over the rainbow?) will have a decent argument for Orthodoxy. You never know, it could happen! Seriously.
Unlike many of the other skeptics, I am actually looking to the web for chizuk. My own Rabbeim are hardly fundamentalists. One told me that Judaism is merely plausible; he certainly offered no arguments for its validity, not even Jewish History. (Maybe he felt that wouldn’t help). The most he offered was that Jewish Morality has had a good track record.
My other Rabbi didn’t even go that far, he just wanted to know why I still came to shul if I didn’t believe, and maybe I would be happier going somewhere else! No, he wasn’t trying to get rid of me; he was genuinely concerned for my happiness. But I’m quite happy going to shul (and doing everything else).
My third Rabbi (and chavrusoh) is a genuine Biblical Scholar, who, while he does find the Documentary Hypothesis unconvincing (ha!), is not exactly a fundamentalist either. He keeps on pointing out anomalies in Tenach, like the five Tehillim which give accounts of Yetziat Mitrayim through Kibush Haaretz yet don’t mention Sinai! Not to mention all the differences between Devarim and Shemos that I had never noticed previously. Still, what can you expect from a YCT’nick? (joke).
Also, one of our friends here is a big time skeptic blogger, and quite a few of my neighbors are not exactly classical Orthodox. (Oops, I hope they don’t get too upset with that). And quite a few people in my shul have rather interesting theories too. So, unlike many other skeptical bloggers, I certainly don’t lack skeptical companionship in real life.
But I look to the web, not for skeptic support, but rather for some good arguments for OJ. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any (yet). In fact, the process has been thoroughly demoralizing. Even the most intelligent and well read believers have the lamest arguments. I don’t know what to do anymore. David Guttman says I must study the sources, and only then will I find an answer.
But which sources? The Koran, or the New Testament? Or perhaps Socrates and the Enuma Elish? Hard to tell which sources are the correct ones, since that is the VERY QUESTION WE ARE DEBATING OF COURSE. Can anyone say ‘Circular argument’ ? I wish someone would explain this concept to David, it would save a lot of time.
Here’s just one example of what I would call a lame argument. Not surprisingly, the person advancing the argument is quite convinced by it.
Believer:
No other religion has EVER offered its adherents a false account of their OWN HISTORY, under the pretense that they ALREADY KNOW IT, and foisted a new religion upon them that is AGAINST THEIR WISHES, all the while saying that they have KNOWN ABOUT IT ALL ALONG.
To which I say:
Firstly, this is certainly not the only possible analysis of history.
The senario you paint above is the scenario you BELIEVE to be true based on your particular reading of Tenach. But many other options are possible. I'll just invent one option from the top of my head, just as plausible, and it destroys your argument:
Many of the stories in Breishis and Shemos are somewhat true. There was a very charismatic leader called Moshe who rescued some (maybe a few thousand) slaves from Egypt, about 1500 BC. They had some kind of experience at Sinai (a volcano? a mass hallucination? who knows?) .They moved to Israel, and settled amongst the indigenous population. They maintained their own beliefs, and had a lot of unique customs and writings, including of course a belief in one God. Though even this belief could certainly have evolved from a belief in a tribal god. Over time their mythology expanded, as did their customs. The population grew, eventually conquering the whole of Israel. By then the myth had grown, but the Hamon Am didn't really buy into it, hence all the idol worship. It was only after the churban that people really solidified around it. Why then? Probably because all the skeptics had left by that point, leaving only the hard core fundies.
[Same kind of thing is happening today. Reform and Conservative will die out, leaving only the Orthodox. In a thousand years the 31st century fundies will no doubt be arguing that OJ must be true, because all of Judaism since the enlightenment believed in it!]
Is this scenario plausible? As much as any other. In fact a lot more so, because it doesn’t require God to write a very strange book.
Secondly, even if I accept the argument that it’s amazing that the people would have listened to the Torah even though it was false, so what? Lots of things are amazing, as the fundies themselves argue. So an amazing thing happened, and a people believed in a fake history, and suffered because of it. Nu, strange things happen. I mean, if a God can write a book, surely something as equally strange could happen, no? Why is your amazing belief any more likely than my amazing belief?
Either way you look at it, this argument is totally lame, and would only convince someone who doesn’t actually need any convincing at all, because they already believe in it. You can find many such arguments given by Christian apologists and no doubt Islamic apologists too. But my question is not whether Christianity or Islam are true, I have no doubt they are at least as (or more) bogus than Judaism. The question isn't which religion is the least unbelievable, but rather which religion is most probably actually true.
The most amazing thing of all though, is why these otherwise intelligent people believe their arguments are strong. I’m not questioning their beliefs, we all have beliefs. What I’m questioning is why they think their arguments for their beliefs are good!
My new theory is that in reality they are assuming the consequences before they even start arguing. They already accept TMS is true and all other options false, so they become convinced by lame arguments. If they truly accepted what an extra-ordinary claim TMS was, they wouldn’t really think their arguments were any good at all.
Oh well. I'm still waiting for that fundie on a white horse who has a good argument. Maybe I should daven for him to come soon.
Unlike many of the other skeptics, I am actually looking to the web for chizuk. My own Rabbeim are hardly fundamentalists. One told me that Judaism is merely plausible; he certainly offered no arguments for its validity, not even Jewish History. (Maybe he felt that wouldn’t help). The most he offered was that Jewish Morality has had a good track record.
My other Rabbi didn’t even go that far, he just wanted to know why I still came to shul if I didn’t believe, and maybe I would be happier going somewhere else! No, he wasn’t trying to get rid of me; he was genuinely concerned for my happiness. But I’m quite happy going to shul (and doing everything else).
My third Rabbi (and chavrusoh) is a genuine Biblical Scholar, who, while he does find the Documentary Hypothesis unconvincing (ha!), is not exactly a fundamentalist either. He keeps on pointing out anomalies in Tenach, like the five Tehillim which give accounts of Yetziat Mitrayim through Kibush Haaretz yet don’t mention Sinai! Not to mention all the differences between Devarim and Shemos that I had never noticed previously. Still, what can you expect from a YCT’nick? (joke).
Also, one of our friends here is a big time skeptic blogger, and quite a few of my neighbors are not exactly classical Orthodox. (Oops, I hope they don’t get too upset with that). And quite a few people in my shul have rather interesting theories too. So, unlike many other skeptical bloggers, I certainly don’t lack skeptical companionship in real life.
But I look to the web, not for skeptic support, but rather for some good arguments for OJ. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any (yet). In fact, the process has been thoroughly demoralizing. Even the most intelligent and well read believers have the lamest arguments. I don’t know what to do anymore. David Guttman says I must study the sources, and only then will I find an answer.
But which sources? The Koran, or the New Testament? Or perhaps Socrates and the Enuma Elish? Hard to tell which sources are the correct ones, since that is the VERY QUESTION WE ARE DEBATING OF COURSE. Can anyone say ‘Circular argument’ ? I wish someone would explain this concept to David, it would save a lot of time.
Here’s just one example of what I would call a lame argument. Not surprisingly, the person advancing the argument is quite convinced by it.
Believer:
No other religion has EVER offered its adherents a false account of their OWN HISTORY, under the pretense that they ALREADY KNOW IT, and foisted a new religion upon them that is AGAINST THEIR WISHES, all the while saying that they have KNOWN ABOUT IT ALL ALONG.
To which I say:
Firstly, this is certainly not the only possible analysis of history.
The senario you paint above is the scenario you BELIEVE to be true based on your particular reading of Tenach. But many other options are possible. I'll just invent one option from the top of my head, just as plausible, and it destroys your argument:
Many of the stories in Breishis and Shemos are somewhat true. There was a very charismatic leader called Moshe who rescued some (maybe a few thousand) slaves from Egypt, about 1500 BC. They had some kind of experience at Sinai (a volcano? a mass hallucination? who knows?) .They moved to Israel, and settled amongst the indigenous population. They maintained their own beliefs, and had a lot of unique customs and writings, including of course a belief in one God. Though even this belief could certainly have evolved from a belief in a tribal god. Over time their mythology expanded, as did their customs. The population grew, eventually conquering the whole of Israel. By then the myth had grown, but the Hamon Am didn't really buy into it, hence all the idol worship. It was only after the churban that people really solidified around it. Why then? Probably because all the skeptics had left by that point, leaving only the hard core fundies.
[Same kind of thing is happening today. Reform and Conservative will die out, leaving only the Orthodox. In a thousand years the 31st century fundies will no doubt be arguing that OJ must be true, because all of Judaism since the enlightenment believed in it!]
Is this scenario plausible? As much as any other. In fact a lot more so, because it doesn’t require God to write a very strange book.
Secondly, even if I accept the argument that it’s amazing that the people would have listened to the Torah even though it was false, so what? Lots of things are amazing, as the fundies themselves argue. So an amazing thing happened, and a people believed in a fake history, and suffered because of it. Nu, strange things happen. I mean, if a God can write a book, surely something as equally strange could happen, no? Why is your amazing belief any more likely than my amazing belief?
Either way you look at it, this argument is totally lame, and would only convince someone who doesn’t actually need any convincing at all, because they already believe in it. You can find many such arguments given by Christian apologists and no doubt Islamic apologists too. But my question is not whether Christianity or Islam are true, I have no doubt they are at least as (or more) bogus than Judaism. The question isn't which religion is the least unbelievable, but rather which religion is most probably actually true.
The most amazing thing of all though, is why these otherwise intelligent people believe their arguments are strong. I’m not questioning their beliefs, we all have beliefs. What I’m questioning is why they think their arguments for their beliefs are good!
My new theory is that in reality they are assuming the consequences before they even start arguing. They already accept TMS is true and all other options false, so they become convinced by lame arguments. If they truly accepted what an extra-ordinary claim TMS was, they wouldn’t really think their arguments were any good at all.
Oh well. I'm still waiting for that fundie on a white horse who has a good argument. Maybe I should daven for him to come soon.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Rabbi Maroof: New Kuzari Proof
Although I gave him a hard time, I do like his new spin on the traditional Kuzari Proof:
We know how Islam started, we know how Christianity started, etc., etc. They began with a visionary prophet who gathered a small following, became popular because of his charisma or message, and eventually gained political power and influence that helped him or his followers spread the word.
Of course, those who became followers of the prophet accepted his lofty demands. They accepted those demands because of their faithfulness to the prophet and belief in his message.
Now to my point about Judaism. Judaism uses the national experience of events as the basis for its demands. No prophet requests their faith. No charismatic leader wins their allegiance. They are reminded, time and time again, to observe the Torah because of what they underwent in Egypt and committed to at Sinai. My argument is that these demands could only have been put forth on this basis if the people were aware of these events and their purported significance.
It's not exactly a proof of anything, but it's better written than Gosselieb. And also, I must apologize publicly for not showing Rabbi Maroof sufficient respect in my previous post. I didn't realize he is a Rabbi of a large shul (not that that's much of an excuse).
We know how Islam started, we know how Christianity started, etc., etc. They began with a visionary prophet who gathered a small following, became popular because of his charisma or message, and eventually gained political power and influence that helped him or his followers spread the word.
Of course, those who became followers of the prophet accepted his lofty demands. They accepted those demands because of their faithfulness to the prophet and belief in his message.
Now to my point about Judaism. Judaism uses the national experience of events as the basis for its demands. No prophet requests their faith. No charismatic leader wins their allegiance. They are reminded, time and time again, to observe the Torah because of what they underwent in Egypt and committed to at Sinai. My argument is that these demands could only have been put forth on this basis if the people were aware of these events and their purported significance.
It's not exactly a proof of anything, but it's better written than Gosselieb. And also, I must apologize publicly for not showing Rabbi Maroof sufficient respect in my previous post. I didn't realize he is a Rabbi of a large shul (not that that's much of an excuse).
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Definitive Proof That Even 'Rational' OJs Are Just Nuts ... err I mean emotionally driven
Just look at this comment from RJ! I rest my case.
My argument is not that we should "reach a supernatural conclusion". My argument is that we should accept the historical testimony of the Israelites based on three factors:
1 - The magnitude of the events and their involvement of the entire Jewish population
Sorry, but the 'magnitude of the events' actually works against TMS, not for it. Just think about it: The Torah claims that 2 million slaves left Egypt after 10 incredible miracles. The entire Egyptian army drwoned chasing them, while they were miraculously saved by a split sea. Then, 2 million people travelled through the desert for 40 years (with quite a few miracles on the way), 2 million people witnessed God Himself, and then conquered Israel without ONE SINGLE PIECE OF CORROBORATING EVIDENCE ANYWHERE?????? Which is the more likely scenario? All this happened, but for some strange reason NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD NOTICED? Or, the myth grew over time? At best, this whole line of argument proves absolutely nothing. At worst, it proves that TMS cannot possibly be true.
2 - The significance of the events and their role as the basis of the theological, cultural and political establishment in Israel, which was unlike any other system before or since, and made significant demands on the populace to give up the temptations enjoyed by their neighbors
A religion making significant demansd? Oh well, then it must be true!!! Hello??!! Have you ever heard of Islam??? Have you ever heard of cults??? Have you ever heard of religious indoctrination???? Have you ever heard of people willingly sacrificing things to appease the gods??? You claim to have studied religion. Doesn't sound like it to me! Also, Tenach itself disproves your arguments. The Bnai Yisroel worshipped idols for almost a thousand years after Matan Torah is claimed to have happened. Any changes in their behavior happened gradually. And, giving up Baal Peor Worship or Molech Worship is hardly a demand. Which is better - sacrificing animals to the one true God, or playing with faeces and burning your children to death?
3 - The unlikelihood that a group of people who would have wanted to oppose the implications of these stories simultaneously having a hand in developing and embellishing them;
What on earth are you talking about?? All religions develop over time. How do you think Christianity or Islam developed? The evolution of religions is well documented in general.
alternatively, the unlikelihood of the neviim trying to use stories that the masses did not recognize as their history (YT"M, receiving laws and standards from Moshe, etc.) in order to convince them.
Again, the myth grew over time. You have no idea what actually happened with the Neviim. Also, the Neviim by and large preached social justice. They were hardly advocating chumras in halachah.
This argument leads to a conclusion which is implausible in the sense of being unconventional, i.e., involving Divine intervention.
Rubbish. Your arguments lead nowhere at all, except to someone already convinced.
Any alternative scenario will be implausible from the standpoint of logistics - it will have to posit the occurrence of events and gradual changes in the history of the Jewish people as well as the existence of individuals facilitating these developments - although its conclusion will be more palatable to the skeptic because it doesn't invoke the supernatural.
Events and gradual changes????? Individuals facilitating these changes???? Like, that couldn't possibly happen in a religion!!!! No way!!!!
Are you nuts? No, just fundamentally incapable of seeing how distorted your 'arguments' are. Every one of your arguments works just as well for Islam as for Judaism. What's the matter with you???
This is the reason I believe these discussions go nowhere, as BHB and I recently concluded on his blog. I am open to the possibility of the supernatural having occurred if there is compelling evidence and it is the most plausible explanation for it. He (and other skeptics) is happier with a less plausible scenario that produces a less objectionable result, i.e., avoiding the supernatural. We left it at that.
Utter nonsense. Your scenario is ridiculous. Your arguments are incredibly lame. And we haven't even touched the content of the book, and all the issues with that.
This is also why I have never considered Kuzari a "proof", just a good argument that makes other explanations implausible. Suggesting it is a proof is intellectually dishonest in my opinion.
LOL.
I don't think I have anything further to add. Generally these debates are not fruitful because of the above mentioned factors.
No, they are not fruitful because your arguments are miserably pathetic, but being a fundamentalist, you couldn't admit to that even if a gun was held to your head. You really just proved my point better than any article I could ever have written.
You are obviously an intelligent, well read and articulate person. You are not even a hard core chareidi! But still, you cannot face reality.
Oy.
My argument is not that we should "reach a supernatural conclusion". My argument is that we should accept the historical testimony of the Israelites based on three factors:
1 - The magnitude of the events and their involvement of the entire Jewish population
Sorry, but the 'magnitude of the events' actually works against TMS, not for it. Just think about it: The Torah claims that 2 million slaves left Egypt after 10 incredible miracles. The entire Egyptian army drwoned chasing them, while they were miraculously saved by a split sea. Then, 2 million people travelled through the desert for 40 years (with quite a few miracles on the way), 2 million people witnessed God Himself, and then conquered Israel without ONE SINGLE PIECE OF CORROBORATING EVIDENCE ANYWHERE?????? Which is the more likely scenario? All this happened, but for some strange reason NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD NOTICED? Or, the myth grew over time? At best, this whole line of argument proves absolutely nothing. At worst, it proves that TMS cannot possibly be true.
2 - The significance of the events and their role as the basis of the theological, cultural and political establishment in Israel, which was unlike any other system before or since, and made significant demands on the populace to give up the temptations enjoyed by their neighbors
A religion making significant demansd? Oh well, then it must be true!!! Hello??!! Have you ever heard of Islam??? Have you ever heard of cults??? Have you ever heard of religious indoctrination???? Have you ever heard of people willingly sacrificing things to appease the gods??? You claim to have studied religion. Doesn't sound like it to me! Also, Tenach itself disproves your arguments. The Bnai Yisroel worshipped idols for almost a thousand years after Matan Torah is claimed to have happened. Any changes in their behavior happened gradually. And, giving up Baal Peor Worship or Molech Worship is hardly a demand. Which is better - sacrificing animals to the one true God, or playing with faeces and burning your children to death?
3 - The unlikelihood that a group of people who would have wanted to oppose the implications of these stories simultaneously having a hand in developing and embellishing them;
What on earth are you talking about?? All religions develop over time. How do you think Christianity or Islam developed? The evolution of religions is well documented in general.
alternatively, the unlikelihood of the neviim trying to use stories that the masses did not recognize as their history (YT"M, receiving laws and standards from Moshe, etc.) in order to convince them.
Again, the myth grew over time. You have no idea what actually happened with the Neviim. Also, the Neviim by and large preached social justice. They were hardly advocating chumras in halachah.
This argument leads to a conclusion which is implausible in the sense of being unconventional, i.e., involving Divine intervention.
Rubbish. Your arguments lead nowhere at all, except to someone already convinced.
Any alternative scenario will be implausible from the standpoint of logistics - it will have to posit the occurrence of events and gradual changes in the history of the Jewish people as well as the existence of individuals facilitating these developments - although its conclusion will be more palatable to the skeptic because it doesn't invoke the supernatural.
Events and gradual changes????? Individuals facilitating these changes???? Like, that couldn't possibly happen in a religion!!!! No way!!!!
Are you nuts? No, just fundamentally incapable of seeing how distorted your 'arguments' are. Every one of your arguments works just as well for Islam as for Judaism. What's the matter with you???
This is the reason I believe these discussions go nowhere, as BHB and I recently concluded on his blog. I am open to the possibility of the supernatural having occurred if there is compelling evidence and it is the most plausible explanation for it. He (and other skeptics) is happier with a less plausible scenario that produces a less objectionable result, i.e., avoiding the supernatural. We left it at that.
Utter nonsense. Your scenario is ridiculous. Your arguments are incredibly lame. And we haven't even touched the content of the book, and all the issues with that.
This is also why I have never considered Kuzari a "proof", just a good argument that makes other explanations implausible. Suggesting it is a proof is intellectually dishonest in my opinion.
LOL.
I don't think I have anything further to add. Generally these debates are not fruitful because of the above mentioned factors.
No, they are not fruitful because your arguments are miserably pathetic, but being a fundamentalist, you couldn't admit to that even if a gun was held to your head. You really just proved my point better than any article I could ever have written.
You are obviously an intelligent, well read and articulate person. You are not even a hard core chareidi! But still, you cannot face reality.
Oy.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
The Kuzari Proof – it works!
I think I finally figured out that the Kuzari proof might indeed work, though maybe not in the direction that some people hope.
The Kuzari ‘proof’ goes like this:
The story of Sinai is so huge - 600,000 males (approx 2.5 million people) all experiencing God’s revelation (in some fashion)- that it could not have been made up and then accepted by the public. Nobody in ancient Israel would have believed such a story if it wasn’t common knowledge already. Hence it must be true.
R Dovid Gosselieb has a long essay about this, and adds that a further argument for this proof is that no other religion has such an origin story. All the other religions start with a revelation to a small group of people, or just one ‘prophet’. If a mass revelation story is easy to fabricate, then why didn’t every other religion start such a story? The fact that there are no parallels shows that such a story could not be ‘sold’ unless it was actually true.
The issue with this argument is of course that ‘Myth-Formation’ is a well known phenomenon (which even Gossleib admits is real and proven). Basically, myths develop over the centuries and are not deliberately invented to fool people. Hence each generation believes in only an incrementally larger myth. There is no huge deception involved.
As to why only Judaism has an origins story on such a grand scale, there are many possible reasons. Firstly, maybe the Jews had more chutzpah than everyone else! Secondly, and more seriously, critical historical writing started with the Greeks around 400 BC. Mass produced paper (papyrus) started around 100 BC (or thereabouts). Before that, most religious traditions were passed down orally, and there was not a clear notion of critically examined history. Early Judaism would have been able to evolve a myth on the scale of Sinai, whereas later religions would not. Finally, so maybe Judaism evolved a unique story. Unique things do happen, and do not in themselves prove anything.
However the Kuzari proof might work in the opposite direction. An event of such magnitude - 2.5 million people fleeing Egypt and witnessing a Divine revelation - would have left some evidence somewhere, either in archeology, history or similar. Yet no such evidence exists. There is no independent corroboration whatsoever.
In other words, we have two possible arguments here
1. The scale of the Sinai story is so huge that it could not have been invented, hence it must be true.
2. The scale of the Sinai story is so huge it would have left evidence somewhere, yet none has ever been found. Hence it must be false.
Given what we know about myth formation and ancient history, which argument do you think is stronger? At best, it’s a tie. At worst, argument 2 is way stronger.
However, there is no denying that we have an amazing and unique story here. A group of nomadic people, (or possibly a smaller sub-group settled within Israel), created a unique monotheistic religion which changed the world. The Old Testament has been called the most influential book ever. For those people who believe that God exists, and has a hand in shaping history, it’s hard not to think that God was somehow quite intensely involved here, in some fashion.
I think this correlates with the Science & Torah view of evolution. The reconciliators argue that even though all the evidence seems to show 15 billion years of purely random evolution, a believer will still say that God is behind it all. (I will discuss the issue of whether this means God is a trickster in another post). Likewise, one could argue that even though the evolution of Judaism/Torah looks random and/or man made, God was really behind it all.
Of course you could also argue the same for any other religion too, that God was really behind it all. I suppose that if you have an intense feeling that God arranges everything for a reason, then maybe your particular task is to follow the religion you are born into, and that’s God’s will. Then again, maybe you were put here to be skeptical, and prove to your co-religionists that your particular religion is false. That could be God's will too. Hard to say really.
And of course this line of argument only works if God (the classical Jewish God) actually exists, in any sense of the word. Some people seem to think that there is good proof for Sinai (i.e. Torah Min Hashamayim), but no proof for God. This makes no sense, since if TMS is true, then God must exist. So, you can hold there is no proof for either concept, or good proof for both concepts, or maybe good proof for God but not for TMS. But it is logically impossible to have good proof for TMS yet not for God.
On my previous blog I came to the conclusion that since there was no way to know any of this for sure, the only possible option is ‘shev ve’al taaseh’. But this just leads to paralysis, and isn’t very practical when your kids are about to start 15+ years of Jewish education. So, we have to come up with something.
The question is, what?
The Kuzari ‘proof’ goes like this:
The story of Sinai is so huge - 600,000 males (approx 2.5 million people) all experiencing God’s revelation (in some fashion)- that it could not have been made up and then accepted by the public. Nobody in ancient Israel would have believed such a story if it wasn’t common knowledge already. Hence it must be true.
R Dovid Gosselieb has a long essay about this, and adds that a further argument for this proof is that no other religion has such an origin story. All the other religions start with a revelation to a small group of people, or just one ‘prophet’. If a mass revelation story is easy to fabricate, then why didn’t every other religion start such a story? The fact that there are no parallels shows that such a story could not be ‘sold’ unless it was actually true.
The issue with this argument is of course that ‘Myth-Formation’ is a well known phenomenon (which even Gossleib admits is real and proven). Basically, myths develop over the centuries and are not deliberately invented to fool people. Hence each generation believes in only an incrementally larger myth. There is no huge deception involved.
As to why only Judaism has an origins story on such a grand scale, there are many possible reasons. Firstly, maybe the Jews had more chutzpah than everyone else! Secondly, and more seriously, critical historical writing started with the Greeks around 400 BC. Mass produced paper (papyrus) started around 100 BC (or thereabouts). Before that, most religious traditions were passed down orally, and there was not a clear notion of critically examined history. Early Judaism would have been able to evolve a myth on the scale of Sinai, whereas later religions would not. Finally, so maybe Judaism evolved a unique story. Unique things do happen, and do not in themselves prove anything.
However the Kuzari proof might work in the opposite direction. An event of such magnitude - 2.5 million people fleeing Egypt and witnessing a Divine revelation - would have left some evidence somewhere, either in archeology, history or similar. Yet no such evidence exists. There is no independent corroboration whatsoever.
In other words, we have two possible arguments here
1. The scale of the Sinai story is so huge that it could not have been invented, hence it must be true.
2. The scale of the Sinai story is so huge it would have left evidence somewhere, yet none has ever been found. Hence it must be false.
Given what we know about myth formation and ancient history, which argument do you think is stronger? At best, it’s a tie. At worst, argument 2 is way stronger.
However, there is no denying that we have an amazing and unique story here. A group of nomadic people, (or possibly a smaller sub-group settled within Israel), created a unique monotheistic religion which changed the world. The Old Testament has been called the most influential book ever. For those people who believe that God exists, and has a hand in shaping history, it’s hard not to think that God was somehow quite intensely involved here, in some fashion.
I think this correlates with the Science & Torah view of evolution. The reconciliators argue that even though all the evidence seems to show 15 billion years of purely random evolution, a believer will still say that God is behind it all. (I will discuss the issue of whether this means God is a trickster in another post). Likewise, one could argue that even though the evolution of Judaism/Torah looks random and/or man made, God was really behind it all.
Of course you could also argue the same for any other religion too, that God was really behind it all. I suppose that if you have an intense feeling that God arranges everything for a reason, then maybe your particular task is to follow the religion you are born into, and that’s God’s will. Then again, maybe you were put here to be skeptical, and prove to your co-religionists that your particular religion is false. That could be God's will too. Hard to say really.
And of course this line of argument only works if God (the classical Jewish God) actually exists, in any sense of the word. Some people seem to think that there is good proof for Sinai (i.e. Torah Min Hashamayim), but no proof for God. This makes no sense, since if TMS is true, then God must exist. So, you can hold there is no proof for either concept, or good proof for both concepts, or maybe good proof for God but not for TMS. But it is logically impossible to have good proof for TMS yet not for God.
On my previous blog I came to the conclusion that since there was no way to know any of this for sure, the only possible option is ‘shev ve’al taaseh’. But this just leads to paralysis, and isn’t very practical when your kids are about to start 15+ years of Jewish education. So, we have to come up with something.
The question is, what?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)