I'm very conflicted as to the extent I should try to persuade people that fundamentalism is untrue. On the one hand, I believe it isn't true. On the other hand, why try and persuade people?
On another thread, angry ex BTs and Kiruv Pros are debating Kiruv. It's true that some Kiruv workers and organizations are irresponsible, unscrupulous and even dangerous. Clearly some BTs feel they were duped, or at the extreme end their lives were ruined. But I believe the majority of professional Kiruv Workers are indeed responsible. It's not in their interest to 'con' people into Orthodoxy.
When it comes to Kiruv, Caveat Emptor. We live in a market driven society, it's entirely legitimate for anyone to market anything. Just do your research before buying!
However KAN argues that religion is as life altering as medicine, and therefore should be subject to the same rules as drug advertising. When drugs are marketed, by law the advertiser MUST mention all the negative side effects and similar downsides. This is obviously not the case for example with Vehicle advertising. GM are not required to say that SAABs are totally unreliable for example.
So should religion be similar to medicine, or similar to cars? Seriously, I'm not sure.
However I am sure that the basic concept of Kiruv is legitimate. You market your goods or lifestyle, and as long as you follow fair advertising standards, it is the responsibility of the buyer to do his research. The vendor cannot be blamed for buyers remorse.
This being the case, it is entirely legitimate for any organization to offer Kiruv. This includes of course the Maskilim, or Kofrim. So if someone is genuinely convinced of his Kefirah, Kefirah Kiruv is just as moral as regular Kiruv.
Aish Hamiskilim anyone?
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Very Important Post on the Credibility of Religion
A lot of people seem to totally misunderstand the issue of credibility. I have had a three day argument with 'Trapper Joe', running about 700 (yes! Seven Hundred) comments. And now this morning I see someone way more intelligent also not getting it.
Listen up guys this is important.
Let's compare Science to Religion. Obviously we are somewhat comparing apples to oranges, because Science and Religion fulfil two very different roles in life. But I'm not trying to compare them in toto. Rather, I want to compare the methodology and reliability of the various facts that are claimed by each to be true. Also, please bear in mind that I am NOT talking about conflicts or contradictions between Science and Religion. Not at all. I am simply going to contrast and compare these two endeavors in their approach to gaining knowledge, and see what conclusions are to be drawn. Also, by religious knowledge or beliefs, I am referring to Spiritual / Theological or beliefs of a similar nature. Social / practical beliefs, for example be nice to people, are not included, since such beliefs are not specifically religious, but rather most societies, even secular ones, come to similar conclusions.
Inspiration
Interestingly, both Scientific Knowledge and Religious Knowledge can often start out the same way - as a spark of inspiration in someone's mind. How did Einstein suddenly figure out the theory of relativity? Something sparked in his brain. Similarly a Novi gets inspired. Of course we can debate where the inspiration comes from, but let's leave that aside for now.
Scientific Methodology
After the initial spark of inspiration, Science and Religion diverge quite rapidly, and quite significantly. If a Scientist presented a theory, based on nothing more than inspiration, it would get nowhere. We want to see his working. We want to see repeatable experiments. We want to make sure that other scientists in other parts of the world can produce the same results. We have peer reviewed journals. And this system works very well. Of course scientists are human, and occasionally someone publishes some wrong theories (by mistake or even deliberately), but these usually get discovered sooner or later.
Consensus
If you look at most aspects of life, you will find little consensus amongst humanity. How to live? Which political party to vote for? What's the best flavor of ice-cream? Sometimes it seems that nobody agrees on anything. Even with topics that have been debated for thousands of years, for example philosophy, there is often little agreement. Yet modern Science has only been going for about 200 years, and we have incredble global agreement on many, many parts of it. How did this happen? How come we don't have a Japanese Science, and an American Science? Isn't it incredible that the global community of Scientists pretty much agree on all the basics?
The answer of course is obvious.
Objective
Firstly, Science is about objective fact. It's not about emotional, personal things such as how to live, or what to value. This means that scientists can be objective, and not get emotionally invested. Of course scientists can still get emotionally invested in their pet theories, and this happens a lot, But over time, new scientists come on the scene, and eventually these biases can be overcome. Note: I am talking about pure Science here. When a Scientist oversteps the boundaries and starts making pronouncements about religion and God, then of course he can be very biased indeed.
Methodology
Secondly, the consensus in Science has arisen precisely because of the Methodology described above. Scientific journals and books precisely lay out the details for the theory, describe experiments which can be replicated, and the field is open to anyone to confirm that the theory is true.
Applied Science
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the entire world relies on applied science, in the realm of technology and medicine. Everyone of us literally trusts our lives to science. Science makes predictions which work in the real world. Science enables us to create drugs which really do cure people. Science enables us to create technologies which we see work with our own eyes. Nobody, not even the biggest fundamentalist, denies this.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine a world where Science is only pure, never applies. Even though the methodology would be as solid as it is in our world, would a Pure Science be seen as credible, without a working practical application? Tzarich Iyun.
However, in our world, the Scientific Methodology, combined with real world results have produced what most people regard as the most amazing human achievement ever.
Another thought experiment: Imagine if the world of Science was divided into warring groups of scientists. Imagine if each group had a theory which they proclaimed as true, but no side could prove their theory. Would any one side have credibility? Of course not, the matter would be up for debate. And there are certainly large parts of Science which are like this, for example String Theory. Nobody would claim that String theory has conclusively been proven true. It is speculative. I'm sure that the originators of String Theory are very passionate about it, but even they wouldn't claim it is within the realm of 'Proven Science'. And, if they did, they would probably be accused of being biased.
Now, let's compare this with religion
Religion
There are many hundreds of religions in the world. Many of them contain beliefs about God, gods or similar. Many of them have sacred texts and sacred teachings, either directly communicated by God or gods, or by prophets and Holy men. Unfortunately, a lot of these teachings or beliefs contradict each other, so they can't all be true.
Religious Methodology
There is no methodology as such in religion. Once a prophet (or set of people) claim to have a revelation about something, that becomes dogma. There is no experimentation, no peer review, no way of proving this to be true. No real world practical application. Rather each religion claims that through intuition, tradition, and authority of their particular religious figures, the knowledge is true. The problem though is that all the religions pretty much claim a similar set of reasons for why they are true, yet they mostly contradict each other. They can't all be true!
Consensus
There is almost no consensus in religion. The three major Western Faith do seem to superficially agree on God and the Bible, but when you dig a little deeper very significant divisions appear. Some Christian Sects accept the Old Testament as the literal word of God, other sects just regard it as sacred literature. Christianity itself mostly regards Jesus as the son of God, a belief which Jews find totally unacceptable. Islam believes that Moshe forged key parts of the Torah, and that Yishmael was by the Akeidah, not Yitzchak. Not only is there almost no consensus between all the various different religions, even within each religion you typically have a huge variety of sects, all of whom significantly disagree with each other as to the basic teachings.
Although religion has been ongoing for 3000 years, not only has little consensus been reached, if anything, it seems more and more religions get created with different beliefs. Mormonism and Scientology are both relatively recent. There is no global consensus, and no process for achieving consensus.
In the same way that Science is regarded as incredibly reliable, because of the consensus, reliable methodology and application in the real world; religion exhibits the exact opposite set of features: no consensus, no reliable methodology and no way to test out the beliefs in the real world.
In fact, attempts to prove religious beliefs, e.g. God or prayer, have always failed.
Separate Magistaria
Some readers will claim that this comparison is unfair. Of course Science is reliable, because Science deals with the physical world which is measurable. However religious beliefs concern the spiritual world, and the methods of science cannot be applies. It is unfair to expect that Scientific methodology could be applied to the spiritual world. However there are two responses to this, each response works independently.
Response 1
The very fact that Scientific methodology cannot be used for Spiritual questions is the issue. If spirituality cannot be seen or measured, then there's nothing we can know about it. This response assumes that Scientific methodology is the only methodology which is valid.
Response 2
However, we don't need to take such a hard line to refute this allegation. We can certainly accept that Science isn't all there is, and that human intuition, tradition, or any other method could potentially work to create reliable knowledge. The problem of course is that the religious methodology is entirely unreliable. Using religious methodology, we have hundreds of religions all claiming to be true, yet all contradicting each other. Sure, one might be true, but how could you possibly tell?!
Each religion has its devotees, who passionately confirm their own religion as the one true religion. But since religion is a way of life, it is impossible for these devotees to escape the charge of bias. Even worse, many religions actually make it a religious CRIME to question the religion, promising all sorts of awful punishments for those who dare to do so.
Can you imagine a world where questioning science meant getting a jail sentence?! It would be unthinkable. Yet this situation exists with religion. How can any passionate religious person possibly be non biased in such an environment?!
It should be clear that the key components that make Science credible: Reliable Methodology (experiments, peer review) , Objectivity (facts about the world), Real World Application (Technology, Medicine) are not only missing in Religion, in fact we have the exact opposite in religion: We have an Unreliable Methodology (tradition, religious authority), Subjectivity & Bias (passionate devotion to religion,laws against heresy) and no real world application of the beliefs themselves.
Some people might argue that there is real world application of religious beliefs. For example people feel very connected to God. Or people give charity. But these are actions and feelings, they say nothing about whether God actually exists, or whether the charity giver is actually going to Olam Habah.
In summary, it is clear that while science is a very credible, religion certainly is not. Does that mean that we should reject religion in total? Not necessarily. But certainly in any conflict between Science and religion, it's no contest. And, any religious person who accepts their own religious beliefs, but rejects various aspects of Science (which Scientists themselves regard as 'proven'), is clearly being ridiculous, accepting an unreliable methodology over a reliable one.
How reliable is Science? Well since almost everyone on the planet trusts their lives to it, I would have to say that (in general), the parts of Science which are accepted as proven are about as reliable as anything could possibly be in this world. Of course as our scientific knowledge deepens we will further refine and even alter various theories, but this is all part of the awesome methodology where change is possible and even encouraged (where proven).
How reliable is Religion? Well since almost everyone on the planet disagrees about it, I would have to say that in general it has absolutely no credibility at all. Does this mean that all religious beliefs are false? Not necessarily, but without any really good evidence or arguments there is no reason to assume that any of them are true.
In another thread, RJM says that if only I would know Ancient Near East (ANE) history, I would see that Divine Revelation is the most reasonable explanation of how the Torah came to be. Of course there are plenty of ANE scholars in academia, far more knowledgeable than RJM who know ANE history very very well, and yet think that human origins is the most reasonable explanation for the Torah. Perhaps these Scholars are Reform Jews, or secular, in which case maybe they are biased. perhaps, But this only goes to show that everyone here is incredibly biased, and no one has any credibility.
More likely, it is RJM who is biased, since he is religiously compelled to affirm a Divine Torah. Maybe you could argue that the Secular Scholars are equally religiously (or anti religiously) compelled to deny a Divine Torah.
Either way, at the end of the day, nobody has any credibility here. Without a Scientific (or any) reliable methodology, without the ability to be Objective, and without a real world way of testing these beliefs, we are simply left in the dark.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Listen up guys this is important.
Let's compare Science to Religion. Obviously we are somewhat comparing apples to oranges, because Science and Religion fulfil two very different roles in life. But I'm not trying to compare them in toto. Rather, I want to compare the methodology and reliability of the various facts that are claimed by each to be true. Also, please bear in mind that I am NOT talking about conflicts or contradictions between Science and Religion. Not at all. I am simply going to contrast and compare these two endeavors in their approach to gaining knowledge, and see what conclusions are to be drawn. Also, by religious knowledge or beliefs, I am referring to Spiritual / Theological or beliefs of a similar nature. Social / practical beliefs, for example be nice to people, are not included, since such beliefs are not specifically religious, but rather most societies, even secular ones, come to similar conclusions.
Inspiration
Interestingly, both Scientific Knowledge and Religious Knowledge can often start out the same way - as a spark of inspiration in someone's mind. How did Einstein suddenly figure out the theory of relativity? Something sparked in his brain. Similarly a Novi gets inspired. Of course we can debate where the inspiration comes from, but let's leave that aside for now.
Scientific Methodology
After the initial spark of inspiration, Science and Religion diverge quite rapidly, and quite significantly. If a Scientist presented a theory, based on nothing more than inspiration, it would get nowhere. We want to see his working. We want to see repeatable experiments. We want to make sure that other scientists in other parts of the world can produce the same results. We have peer reviewed journals. And this system works very well. Of course scientists are human, and occasionally someone publishes some wrong theories (by mistake or even deliberately), but these usually get discovered sooner or later.
Consensus
If you look at most aspects of life, you will find little consensus amongst humanity. How to live? Which political party to vote for? What's the best flavor of ice-cream? Sometimes it seems that nobody agrees on anything. Even with topics that have been debated for thousands of years, for example philosophy, there is often little agreement. Yet modern Science has only been going for about 200 years, and we have incredble global agreement on many, many parts of it. How did this happen? How come we don't have a Japanese Science, and an American Science? Isn't it incredible that the global community of Scientists pretty much agree on all the basics?
The answer of course is obvious.
Objective
Firstly, Science is about objective fact. It's not about emotional, personal things such as how to live, or what to value. This means that scientists can be objective, and not get emotionally invested. Of course scientists can still get emotionally invested in their pet theories, and this happens a lot, But over time, new scientists come on the scene, and eventually these biases can be overcome. Note: I am talking about pure Science here. When a Scientist oversteps the boundaries and starts making pronouncements about religion and God, then of course he can be very biased indeed.
Methodology
Secondly, the consensus in Science has arisen precisely because of the Methodology described above. Scientific journals and books precisely lay out the details for the theory, describe experiments which can be replicated, and the field is open to anyone to confirm that the theory is true.
Applied Science
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the entire world relies on applied science, in the realm of technology and medicine. Everyone of us literally trusts our lives to science. Science makes predictions which work in the real world. Science enables us to create drugs which really do cure people. Science enables us to create technologies which we see work with our own eyes. Nobody, not even the biggest fundamentalist, denies this.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine a world where Science is only pure, never applies. Even though the methodology would be as solid as it is in our world, would a Pure Science be seen as credible, without a working practical application? Tzarich Iyun.
However, in our world, the Scientific Methodology, combined with real world results have produced what most people regard as the most amazing human achievement ever.
Another thought experiment: Imagine if the world of Science was divided into warring groups of scientists. Imagine if each group had a theory which they proclaimed as true, but no side could prove their theory. Would any one side have credibility? Of course not, the matter would be up for debate. And there are certainly large parts of Science which are like this, for example String Theory. Nobody would claim that String theory has conclusively been proven true. It is speculative. I'm sure that the originators of String Theory are very passionate about it, but even they wouldn't claim it is within the realm of 'Proven Science'. And, if they did, they would probably be accused of being biased.
Now, let's compare this with religion
Religion
There are many hundreds of religions in the world. Many of them contain beliefs about God, gods or similar. Many of them have sacred texts and sacred teachings, either directly communicated by God or gods, or by prophets and Holy men. Unfortunately, a lot of these teachings or beliefs contradict each other, so they can't all be true.
Religious Methodology
There is no methodology as such in religion. Once a prophet (or set of people) claim to have a revelation about something, that becomes dogma. There is no experimentation, no peer review, no way of proving this to be true. No real world practical application. Rather each religion claims that through intuition, tradition, and authority of their particular religious figures, the knowledge is true. The problem though is that all the religions pretty much claim a similar set of reasons for why they are true, yet they mostly contradict each other. They can't all be true!
Consensus
There is almost no consensus in religion. The three major Western Faith do seem to superficially agree on God and the Bible, but when you dig a little deeper very significant divisions appear. Some Christian Sects accept the Old Testament as the literal word of God, other sects just regard it as sacred literature. Christianity itself mostly regards Jesus as the son of God, a belief which Jews find totally unacceptable. Islam believes that Moshe forged key parts of the Torah, and that Yishmael was by the Akeidah, not Yitzchak. Not only is there almost no consensus between all the various different religions, even within each religion you typically have a huge variety of sects, all of whom significantly disagree with each other as to the basic teachings.
Although religion has been ongoing for 3000 years, not only has little consensus been reached, if anything, it seems more and more religions get created with different beliefs. Mormonism and Scientology are both relatively recent. There is no global consensus, and no process for achieving consensus.
In the same way that Science is regarded as incredibly reliable, because of the consensus, reliable methodology and application in the real world; religion exhibits the exact opposite set of features: no consensus, no reliable methodology and no way to test out the beliefs in the real world.
In fact, attempts to prove religious beliefs, e.g. God or prayer, have always failed.
Separate Magistaria
Some readers will claim that this comparison is unfair. Of course Science is reliable, because Science deals with the physical world which is measurable. However religious beliefs concern the spiritual world, and the methods of science cannot be applies. It is unfair to expect that Scientific methodology could be applied to the spiritual world. However there are two responses to this, each response works independently.
Response 1
The very fact that Scientific methodology cannot be used for Spiritual questions is the issue. If spirituality cannot be seen or measured, then there's nothing we can know about it. This response assumes that Scientific methodology is the only methodology which is valid.
Response 2
However, we don't need to take such a hard line to refute this allegation. We can certainly accept that Science isn't all there is, and that human intuition, tradition, or any other method could potentially work to create reliable knowledge. The problem of course is that the religious methodology is entirely unreliable. Using religious methodology, we have hundreds of religions all claiming to be true, yet all contradicting each other. Sure, one might be true, but how could you possibly tell?!
Each religion has its devotees, who passionately confirm their own religion as the one true religion. But since religion is a way of life, it is impossible for these devotees to escape the charge of bias. Even worse, many religions actually make it a religious CRIME to question the religion, promising all sorts of awful punishments for those who dare to do so.
Can you imagine a world where questioning science meant getting a jail sentence?! It would be unthinkable. Yet this situation exists with religion. How can any passionate religious person possibly be non biased in such an environment?!
It should be clear that the key components that make Science credible: Reliable Methodology (experiments, peer review) , Objectivity (facts about the world), Real World Application (Technology, Medicine) are not only missing in Religion, in fact we have the exact opposite in religion: We have an Unreliable Methodology (tradition, religious authority), Subjectivity & Bias (passionate devotion to religion,laws against heresy) and no real world application of the beliefs themselves.
Some people might argue that there is real world application of religious beliefs. For example people feel very connected to God. Or people give charity. But these are actions and feelings, they say nothing about whether God actually exists, or whether the charity giver is actually going to Olam Habah.
In summary, it is clear that while science is a very credible, religion certainly is not. Does that mean that we should reject religion in total? Not necessarily. But certainly in any conflict between Science and religion, it's no contest. And, any religious person who accepts their own religious beliefs, but rejects various aspects of Science (which Scientists themselves regard as 'proven'), is clearly being ridiculous, accepting an unreliable methodology over a reliable one.
How reliable is Science? Well since almost everyone on the planet trusts their lives to it, I would have to say that (in general), the parts of Science which are accepted as proven are about as reliable as anything could possibly be in this world. Of course as our scientific knowledge deepens we will further refine and even alter various theories, but this is all part of the awesome methodology where change is possible and even encouraged (where proven).
How reliable is Religion? Well since almost everyone on the planet disagrees about it, I would have to say that in general it has absolutely no credibility at all. Does this mean that all religious beliefs are false? Not necessarily, but without any really good evidence or arguments there is no reason to assume that any of them are true.
In another thread, RJM says that if only I would know Ancient Near East (ANE) history, I would see that Divine Revelation is the most reasonable explanation of how the Torah came to be. Of course there are plenty of ANE scholars in academia, far more knowledgeable than RJM who know ANE history very very well, and yet think that human origins is the most reasonable explanation for the Torah. Perhaps these Scholars are Reform Jews, or secular, in which case maybe they are biased. perhaps, But this only goes to show that everyone here is incredibly biased, and no one has any credibility.
More likely, it is RJM who is biased, since he is religiously compelled to affirm a Divine Torah. Maybe you could argue that the Secular Scholars are equally religiously (or anti religiously) compelled to deny a Divine Torah.
Either way, at the end of the day, nobody has any credibility here. Without a Scientific (or any) reliable methodology, without the ability to be Objective, and without a real world way of testing these beliefs, we are simply left in the dark.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
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
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Three Year Summary
[NOTE: This post is talking about Orthodox Judaism as currently defined. It is not talking about the existence of God, or other streams of Judaism, or even other conceptions of 'Orthodoxy' which might be feasible.]
Since this blog is about to imminently close down, I think it's a good time for a recap. We have spent three years debating religion from every conceivable angle, with many, many different people, skeptics and believers alike.
Who won?
It's not even a kashye. It wasn't even close. Sorry, but I think this is beyond debate. The skeptics thrashed the believers to smithereens, time and time and time again. And I know, because I was one of the believers who got well and truly thrashed.
Does this prove that OJ is necessarily false? Not necessarily, but it really doesn't look very good. And that's an understatement. Could this be because the skeptics are a self selecting set of people, who naturally are way more intelligent, whereas the believers tend to be the less smart ones, so naturally they lost the debates? Of course, but 'hoh gufoh'.
Some people will no doubt argue that I'm biased. But I started out on the believers side, and I am still admitting defeat! No doubt some people will argue that because I lost, I switched sides, but a better debater than me would have won. Well, a better debater is yet to appear. If there is one, let him show his face. I didn't win the debates, and neither did anyone else, except perhaps in some very tiny inconsequential battle on a side issue.
This doesn't mean that the skeptics are right about everything. On the contrary, I think they are very wrong about quite a few important things, such as the value of religion. But when it comes to the credibility of fundamentalist religion (as currently understood by the majority of OJ), they trashed it quite decisively.
I can say quite confidently, that given our current knowledge, fundamentalist religion does not look true, and all the so called 'proofs' don't work.
Could things change?
Certainly. But I can say quite confidently, that given our current knowledge, it really doesn't appear that fundamentalist religion will ever look true.
Now, even given the fact it doesn't look very true, could faith in it be justified for some external reason?
Well, this depends on what you think about unjustified faith. This is not an epistemological question. It's an 'ought to' question. A behavioral question. A pragmatic question. Should one hold unjustified beliefs or not?
I think the answer is it depends. A blanket 'ban' on all unjustified beliefs would seem to be too extreme. On the other hand, you really shouldn't go around believing in any old nonsense.
The truth is that all humans feel this instinctively, and it's very rare to find someone who genuinely believes in something whilst simultaneously knowing the belief is entirely unjustified. Almost everyone tries to justify their beliefs, usually with arguments about tradition and such. The only problem is that the arguments are very poor, and don't really work. If the believers fully analyzed their arguments honestly, they would see that.
Is it wrong to justify unjustified beliefs by appealing to bad arguments? Again, this is another 'ought to' argument, and the answer is it depends.
Is there anything left to debate here? Not on this issue. But I think that there's still plenty to discuss with respect to non fundamentalist halachic religion, and science vs. religion, faith vs. reason as a whole, especially in the realm of 'ought to'. Plus, there is some interesting PostModern stuff which we never really got into.
This will all have to wait for another blog.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Since this blog is about to imminently close down, I think it's a good time for a recap. We have spent three years debating religion from every conceivable angle, with many, many different people, skeptics and believers alike.
Who won?
It's not even a kashye. It wasn't even close. Sorry, but I think this is beyond debate. The skeptics thrashed the believers to smithereens, time and time and time again. And I know, because I was one of the believers who got well and truly thrashed.
Does this prove that OJ is necessarily false? Not necessarily, but it really doesn't look very good. And that's an understatement. Could this be because the skeptics are a self selecting set of people, who naturally are way more intelligent, whereas the believers tend to be the less smart ones, so naturally they lost the debates? Of course, but 'hoh gufoh'.
Some people will no doubt argue that I'm biased. But I started out on the believers side, and I am still admitting defeat! No doubt some people will argue that because I lost, I switched sides, but a better debater than me would have won. Well, a better debater is yet to appear. If there is one, let him show his face. I didn't win the debates, and neither did anyone else, except perhaps in some very tiny inconsequential battle on a side issue.
This doesn't mean that the skeptics are right about everything. On the contrary, I think they are very wrong about quite a few important things, such as the value of religion. But when it comes to the credibility of fundamentalist religion (as currently understood by the majority of OJ), they trashed it quite decisively.
I can say quite confidently, that given our current knowledge, fundamentalist religion does not look true, and all the so called 'proofs' don't work.
Could things change?
Certainly. But I can say quite confidently, that given our current knowledge, it really doesn't appear that fundamentalist religion will ever look true.
Now, even given the fact it doesn't look very true, could faith in it be justified for some external reason?
Well, this depends on what you think about unjustified faith. This is not an epistemological question. It's an 'ought to' question. A behavioral question. A pragmatic question. Should one hold unjustified beliefs or not?
I think the answer is it depends. A blanket 'ban' on all unjustified beliefs would seem to be too extreme. On the other hand, you really shouldn't go around believing in any old nonsense.
The truth is that all humans feel this instinctively, and it's very rare to find someone who genuinely believes in something whilst simultaneously knowing the belief is entirely unjustified. Almost everyone tries to justify their beliefs, usually with arguments about tradition and such. The only problem is that the arguments are very poor, and don't really work. If the believers fully analyzed their arguments honestly, they would see that.
Is it wrong to justify unjustified beliefs by appealing to bad arguments? Again, this is another 'ought to' argument, and the answer is it depends.
Is there anything left to debate here? Not on this issue. But I think that there's still plenty to discuss with respect to non fundamentalist halachic religion, and science vs. religion, faith vs. reason as a whole, especially in the realm of 'ought to'. Plus, there is some interesting PostModern stuff which we never really got into.
This will all have to wait for another blog.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
More bad arguments for religion
In the last couple of days some really bad arguments for religion have surfaced yet again. These are the same tired old arguments we went over in 2005. Let’s do some quick chazarah though.
1. The argument from love
The argument from love comes in a few different flavors, but it generally goes something like this: "Can you prove you love your wife? No! So why do I need to prove that God exists?"
2. The argument from faith
This one goes like this: "Everyone believes everything on faith. You skeptics believe in Science, I believe in Chazal. There’s no difference!"
Both these arguments fail miserably. In fact they don't even start.
1. Argument from Love
This fails for a few reasons, depending on the intent of the argument. What does it mean to prove your love? It could mean (a) prove that your love is justified, or (b) prove that you are actually in love, or (c) prove the person you love actually exists.
Let’s consider (a) prove that your love is justified. Well, obviously ‘justified’ love is entirely subjective, and depends what you are looking for. But let’s say you had a well defined list of what you are looking for, for example a caring, intelligent RW MO woman who you find attractive and are compatible with, and you find someone with all those attributes, then it seems reasonable to assume that your love is justified. Of course even the best marriages can falter due to strains and stresses, so to assume that just because you found the woman of your dreams it means you are set for life is foolish. Marriage requires constant work. What any of this has to do with whether God exists is a mystery to me.
Now let’s consider (b) prove that you are in love. Well, it’s impossible to really know what another person is thinking or feeling. A really good actor can always pretend. The news is full of con artists who can fake anything. But assuming an honest person, who is in touch with their emotions, love should be reasonably simple to figure out. You feel a sense of elation when the person is around, you miss them terribly when they are gone, you admire and respect them etc etc. If you feel all those things, then you’re in love. If not, then probably not. Again, I don’t see what any of this has to do with God.
Perhaps the argument means that just like people feel intensely in love even though there’s no way of scientifically measuring that, yet we accept their love feeling, likewise if people believe in intensely in God then we should accept their belief feeling. And of course I do. In exactly the same way I accept that someone who honestly claims to be feeling intensely in love, is in fact feeling intensely in love, likewise someone who claims to be feeling (or thinking) a passionate belief in (or connection to) God, is presumably feeling (or thinking) a passionate belief in (or connection to) God. Of course that says nothing about God, it just tells us that the person believes in God, or feels close to God, or loves God. But then we knew that already! Does being love with something in any way prove that the “something” must exist? Hardly. You could be in love with an imaginary thing.
Imagine if you claimed to love your wife, but were in fact single, and no wife could be found. Would your love prove that your wife exists?! Hardly, but it might prove you are delusional.
2. Argument from faith
This one fails because all faith should be justified, where possible. There must be some reason why you have the faith. Otherwise anyone could just have faith in anything and it would be nuts. Of course all religious people do indeed attempt to justify their faith, usually with an argument about an ancient heritage or unbroken tradition or some such. The only problem is that this justification is pretty poor, since many religions claim the same justification, and many of them contradict each other, so clearly this justification is simply not reliable.
On the other hand, people have faith in Science for good reasons – it works, everyone agrees to it (at least to the proven parts), and there is a good system in place for gaining agreement, for reviewing people’s work, for gaining more knowledge etc etc. Contrast this with religion where the system quite literally stinks (as far as gaining knowledge goes). The beliefs are set in stone, and if you consider other possibilities you are damned to hell. Hardly a fair system conducive to gaining true knowledge!
Believers sometimes argue that we unfairly privilege science over religion. Or they claim that it’s unfair to judge religious beliefs by scientific standards. Or else they claim that there are other methods to knowledge besides science and that it’s unfair to insist that everything must be scientific.
I say, fine! I’m ok with any system of knowledge you want to propose. Tarrot cards, spiritual knowledge, divination, whatever the heck you like! As long as it works reliably, I have no problem with it. The reason I trust Science is not because I intrinsically trust Science and reject everything else , but rather because it works reliably. If it didn’t work reliably, I wouldn’t trust it! And neither would anyone else.
If the science world was full of warring factions of scientists, each of them claiming to have the one true science, and none of it worked reliably (at least as far as we could tell), then nobody would trust science either!
All this is poshut. And is at a level of sophistication (or rather un-sophistication) way, way below where I would like to be. And the people arguing this stuff are supposedly mature adults! Sad, very sad. There probably are some interesting things to debate on this topic, but these are not it.
I think the best that can be said here is that humans have a complex range of emotions, and one of them is spirituality. In the same way we celebrate our love, we should also celebrate our spirituality. Since most people do have a strong feeling that there is “something” out there, it seems legitimate to go with this feeling. I don’t see any valid reason to declare such a feeling to be ‘forbidden’. But I would certainly caution against taking things too far.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
1. The argument from love
The argument from love comes in a few different flavors, but it generally goes something like this: "Can you prove you love your wife? No! So why do I need to prove that God exists?"
2. The argument from faith
This one goes like this: "Everyone believes everything on faith. You skeptics believe in Science, I believe in Chazal. There’s no difference!"
Both these arguments fail miserably. In fact they don't even start.
1. Argument from Love
This fails for a few reasons, depending on the intent of the argument. What does it mean to prove your love? It could mean (a) prove that your love is justified, or (b) prove that you are actually in love, or (c) prove the person you love actually exists.
Let’s consider (a) prove that your love is justified. Well, obviously ‘justified’ love is entirely subjective, and depends what you are looking for. But let’s say you had a well defined list of what you are looking for, for example a caring, intelligent RW MO woman who you find attractive and are compatible with, and you find someone with all those attributes, then it seems reasonable to assume that your love is justified. Of course even the best marriages can falter due to strains and stresses, so to assume that just because you found the woman of your dreams it means you are set for life is foolish. Marriage requires constant work. What any of this has to do with whether God exists is a mystery to me.
Now let’s consider (b) prove that you are in love. Well, it’s impossible to really know what another person is thinking or feeling. A really good actor can always pretend. The news is full of con artists who can fake anything. But assuming an honest person, who is in touch with their emotions, love should be reasonably simple to figure out. You feel a sense of elation when the person is around, you miss them terribly when they are gone, you admire and respect them etc etc. If you feel all those things, then you’re in love. If not, then probably not. Again, I don’t see what any of this has to do with God.
Perhaps the argument means that just like people feel intensely in love even though there’s no way of scientifically measuring that, yet we accept their love feeling, likewise if people believe in intensely in God then we should accept their belief feeling. And of course I do. In exactly the same way I accept that someone who honestly claims to be feeling intensely in love, is in fact feeling intensely in love, likewise someone who claims to be feeling (or thinking) a passionate belief in (or connection to) God, is presumably feeling (or thinking) a passionate belief in (or connection to) God. Of course that says nothing about God, it just tells us that the person believes in God, or feels close to God, or loves God. But then we knew that already! Does being love with something in any way prove that the “something” must exist? Hardly. You could be in love with an imaginary thing.
Imagine if you claimed to love your wife, but were in fact single, and no wife could be found. Would your love prove that your wife exists?! Hardly, but it might prove you are delusional.
2. Argument from faith
This one fails because all faith should be justified, where possible. There must be some reason why you have the faith. Otherwise anyone could just have faith in anything and it would be nuts. Of course all religious people do indeed attempt to justify their faith, usually with an argument about an ancient heritage or unbroken tradition or some such. The only problem is that this justification is pretty poor, since many religions claim the same justification, and many of them contradict each other, so clearly this justification is simply not reliable.
On the other hand, people have faith in Science for good reasons – it works, everyone agrees to it (at least to the proven parts), and there is a good system in place for gaining agreement, for reviewing people’s work, for gaining more knowledge etc etc. Contrast this with religion where the system quite literally stinks (as far as gaining knowledge goes). The beliefs are set in stone, and if you consider other possibilities you are damned to hell. Hardly a fair system conducive to gaining true knowledge!
Believers sometimes argue that we unfairly privilege science over religion. Or they claim that it’s unfair to judge religious beliefs by scientific standards. Or else they claim that there are other methods to knowledge besides science and that it’s unfair to insist that everything must be scientific.
I say, fine! I’m ok with any system of knowledge you want to propose. Tarrot cards, spiritual knowledge, divination, whatever the heck you like! As long as it works reliably, I have no problem with it. The reason I trust Science is not because I intrinsically trust Science and reject everything else , but rather because it works reliably. If it didn’t work reliably, I wouldn’t trust it! And neither would anyone else.
If the science world was full of warring factions of scientists, each of them claiming to have the one true science, and none of it worked reliably (at least as far as we could tell), then nobody would trust science either!
All this is poshut. And is at a level of sophistication (or rather un-sophistication) way, way below where I would like to be. And the people arguing this stuff are supposedly mature adults! Sad, very sad. There probably are some interesting things to debate on this topic, but these are not it.
I think the best that can be said here is that humans have a complex range of emotions, and one of them is spirituality. In the same way we celebrate our love, we should also celebrate our spirituality. Since most people do have a strong feeling that there is “something” out there, it seems legitimate to go with this feeling. I don’t see any valid reason to declare such a feeling to be ‘forbidden’. But I would certainly caution against taking things too far.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
New!: The argument from stupidity
[UPDATE: Turns out that TrapperJoe is 'Yus', some jerk who used to hang out at DBs blog. He wasn't really interested in making any real arguments, just jerking people around. I haven't actually ever seen a skeptic do that, it always seems to be some moronic believer who plays that game. But of course not all religious people are jerks, and not all skeptics are not jerks., just when it comes to debating on the blogs, the religious side always seems to field more jerks. Being charitable, perhaps this is because the smart ones are all learning, or doing something more productive. And by definition, the skeptics tend to be the smarter ones. So it makes sense actually, and should not be seen as reflection on religion as a whole.]
I thought I'd seen all the bad arguments for religion, but this one takes the cake. Trapper Joe is proposing the following argument (I'm paraphrasing):
'It's true that religion rests on unprovable or seemingly untrue faith. However many people have faith in all sorts of unproven or untrue things, e.g. certain aspects of Origin Sciences, or unwarranted faith in Professors or other academics, so my faith is legitimate!
Or, to put it more cynically, as anony writes, 'other (stupid) people have absolute faith in unproven or seemingly incorrect things, so why shouldn't I?' I guess it kinda works. Maybe Trapper Joe should write a kiruv book - 'Permission to be stupid'.
But is there anything actually wrong with TrapperJoe's argument? Well, I think his argument actually does work, but I would have put it differently. I would say that believing in fantasy, especially religious fantasy, is part of the human condition. Possibly the human race will evolve beyond that one day in the future, but for right now, the alternatives are far from being proven, and could even turn out to be worse.
I think the focus needs to be on refining people's religious fantasies, and ensuring that they don't cause any undue harm, rather than trying to make people give up their fantasy.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
I thought I'd seen all the bad arguments for religion, but this one takes the cake. Trapper Joe is proposing the following argument (I'm paraphrasing):
'It's true that religion rests on unprovable or seemingly untrue faith. However many people have faith in all sorts of unproven or untrue things, e.g. certain aspects of Origin Sciences, or unwarranted faith in Professors or other academics, so my faith is legitimate!
Or, to put it more cynically, as anony writes, 'other (stupid) people have absolute faith in unproven or seemingly incorrect things, so why shouldn't I?' I guess it kinda works. Maybe Trapper Joe should write a kiruv book - 'Permission to be stupid'.
But is there anything actually wrong with TrapperJoe's argument? Well, I think his argument actually does work, but I would have put it differently. I would say that believing in fantasy, especially religious fantasy, is part of the human condition. Possibly the human race will evolve beyond that one day in the future, but for right now, the alternatives are far from being proven, and could even turn out to be worse.
I think the focus needs to be on refining people's religious fantasies, and ensuring that they don't cause any undue harm, rather than trying to make people give up their fantasy.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Friday, December 7, 2007
Do Kiruv Workers Target Rich Jews?
I just noticed this comment over on Hirhurim:
But there are far too many kiruv workers indisputably more interested in wealthy non-frum Jews than they are in their less wealthy brethren. It's the dirty little secret of kiruv.
I have to strenuously disagree with this comment. It's hardly a dirty little secret, it's way out in the open! I receive a glossy Kiruv Magazine every quarter, which is put out by a group of Kiruv 'Community' Kollels. Who is often on the front cover, or all over the photo pages? Not some local poor shmo, but rather the richest Jewish guy in town (he may even be the richest guy in town, period. He even has a street named after him). Him, his family, his friends etc have all been 'targeted' by the local Kiruv groups, no question. A few years ago a Hollywood media mogul moved to town, and the kiruv workers were all over the guy. But to be fair, they do spend much (most?) of their energy on regular people too. After all they do need to fill their quotas. It's just that the regular people aren't going to make huge donations, and maybe don't look as photogenic. Also if you snag a rich and/or famous guy, that's great PR.
On that same Hirhurim Thread, 'Chakira' (a.k.a. Josh Harrison) writes:
Kiruv as a combination of slick packaging, oversimplified rhetoric and reheated conservative family values blended together in a hypercapitalist economy can never be the Judaism we aspire to.
But slick packaging, oversimplified rhetoric and reheated conservative family values is pretty much what modern day Orthodox Judaism is, at least for the masses. Why should kiruv sell something it isn't? And what's so bad about conservative family values anyway? It's just a lifestyle choice.
Chakira continues:
It is heartening to see that all sectors of the Jewish community, from the Badatz to the Blogosphere, have finally realized that there is something about kiruv that just doesnt convert.
Feh, this isn't true. Just because a few BT's turned bAd doesn't mean the entire community have had it with kiruv. Kiruv is a money making machine, putting Jews in touch with their heritage, and opening up the community to some much needed infusion of culture (and a few crazies). And, many BT's seem to be happy at the end of the day. Would they have been happier had they not become BT? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say. I mix a lot with non religious couples and there seems to be a much higher incidence of marital infidelity and divorce in that segment of the community.
As long as the Kiruv workers don't *deliberately* mislead people with blatant lies (that they know are lies) I say Caveat Emptor. Any non religious Jew who decides to turn Orthodox has only himself to blame (or thank, as the case may be). We live in a capitalist, consumerist culture. If there wasn't a market for it, Kiruv wouldn't exist. Kiruv is entirely legit.
In fact, I myself intend to start a Kiruv Organization. I will be mekarev people to my way of thinking (LW MO without unbelievable ikkarim). I think I will start by targeting some local rich Jews who are unhappy being Conservative. Or Orthodox.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
But there are far too many kiruv workers indisputably more interested in wealthy non-frum Jews than they are in their less wealthy brethren. It's the dirty little secret of kiruv.
I have to strenuously disagree with this comment. It's hardly a dirty little secret, it's way out in the open! I receive a glossy Kiruv Magazine every quarter, which is put out by a group of Kiruv 'Community' Kollels. Who is often on the front cover, or all over the photo pages? Not some local poor shmo, but rather the richest Jewish guy in town (he may even be the richest guy in town, period. He even has a street named after him). Him, his family, his friends etc have all been 'targeted' by the local Kiruv groups, no question. A few years ago a Hollywood media mogul moved to town, and the kiruv workers were all over the guy. But to be fair, they do spend much (most?) of their energy on regular people too. After all they do need to fill their quotas. It's just that the regular people aren't going to make huge donations, and maybe don't look as photogenic. Also if you snag a rich and/or famous guy, that's great PR.
On that same Hirhurim Thread, 'Chakira' (a.k.a. Josh Harrison) writes:
Kiruv as a combination of slick packaging, oversimplified rhetoric and reheated conservative family values blended together in a hypercapitalist economy can never be the Judaism we aspire to.
But slick packaging, oversimplified rhetoric and reheated conservative family values is pretty much what modern day Orthodox Judaism is, at least for the masses. Why should kiruv sell something it isn't? And what's so bad about conservative family values anyway? It's just a lifestyle choice.
Chakira continues:
It is heartening to see that all sectors of the Jewish community, from the Badatz to the Blogosphere, have finally realized that there is something about kiruv that just doesnt convert.
Feh, this isn't true. Just because a few BT's turned bAd doesn't mean the entire community have had it with kiruv. Kiruv is a money making machine, putting Jews in touch with their heritage, and opening up the community to some much needed infusion of culture (and a few crazies). And, many BT's seem to be happy at the end of the day. Would they have been happier had they not become BT? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say. I mix a lot with non religious couples and there seems to be a much higher incidence of marital infidelity and divorce in that segment of the community.
As long as the Kiruv workers don't *deliberately* mislead people with blatant lies (that they know are lies) I say Caveat Emptor. Any non religious Jew who decides to turn Orthodox has only himself to blame (or thank, as the case may be). We live in a capitalist, consumerist culture. If there wasn't a market for it, Kiruv wouldn't exist. Kiruv is entirely legit.
In fact, I myself intend to start a Kiruv Organization. I will be mekarev people to my way of thinking (LW MO without unbelievable ikkarim). I think I will start by targeting some local rich Jews who are unhappy being Conservative. Or Orthodox.
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
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