Interview with a Fake Fundie!!!

Today I had a two hour interview with a fake fundie! A genuine Orthodox Rabbi / Educator / Leader / Well Known type of guy (i.e. not just some nobody blogger). And don't even try to guess who it is, believe me I am very well connected. I know plenty of fake fundies on at least three continents. And they aren't even all LW MO! There's no way anyone who even knows me could guess exactly who I'm talking about, because I know at least 4 people who would all say the exact same thing as I reproduce below.

So what did he have to say? Basically his shpiel goes like this: (I'm paraphrasing slightly)

"Yes, of course fundamentalism is somewhat ridiculous. And of course I realize that I'm only here because I was brought up that way. Of course you can't prove any of this stuff, or even show that it's more reasonable to believe than not. In fact many if not most of the fundamentalist claims of Orthodoxy are clearly NOT true and I don't believe them at all.

However I still believe in God, and I would like to think the Torah has some Divine inspiration behind it (though it doesn't have to). I'm ok with the DH and things like that. I do believe that religion in general, and OJ in particular, has very good values and is a good way of life, and the halachic framework is important.

But if I came right out and told people in my OJ community my true views, I would be cast out as a kofer, and I would have no effect on anyone. So I stay on the inside, and slowly slowly try to move people more to the left. You have to take baby steps with things like this.

Am I being a fraud and a fake? No! If I told people my true beliefs it would just turn them off or hurt them. This is no different than if your wife asks you 'honey do I look fat' and you lie. It's not being a fake or a fraud, that's the way the world works.

Of course, if I felt fundamentalism was truly evil, like Dawkins or Hitchens, then maybe I would have to speak out more strongly against it. But I don't think it's truly evil, just that it needs to move more left, and be open to any academically accepted truths such as Biblical Criticism. The best strategy to achieve this is to be circumspect about my true views, while slowly introducing people to the true facts of the matter.

You on the other hand [XGH: i.e. me], are the frum skeptic equivalent of Richard Dawkins. You're way too extreme and confrontational, and you end up having the opposite effect - the fundies just circle their wagons and ignore you [XGH: except for the ones I manage to convert! Bwahahaha]. You should stop being so aggressive against the fundies and adopt my strategy'. [XGH: Ironically I say the same thing about Dawkins].

Also, you're too negative and destructive, and not constructive enough. You use loaded words like 'fundie', 'narishkeit' and so on. You need to be more tactful. All you'll end up doing is either alienate people from you, or alienate people from religion entirely. You need to move people slowly away from their fundamentalist beliefs, while maintaining their religious commitments [XGH: Only if God exists, but we can assume He does for now].

So, I have to admit he has a good point. But I'm not sure I could ever play that game. I'm the classic engineer at heart, I tell it like it is. But, I guess we have to differentiate between two types of fakefundie:

- Gratuitous Fake Fundies are just cowards, who can't be honest about their true beliefs. I don't hold of those guys at all.

- Strategic Fake Fundies have a plan to make people less fundie, and the only way to achieve that is from the inside. I'm not sure I could do that myself, but I guess it's a reasonable strategy.

So which type of fake fundie are you?

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

Evanstonjew nails it

[I coulda written this. I shoulda written this. But I didn't. And evanstonjew did.]

Many people of all religions believe in believing. They want to adopt a religious attitude towards life, not because such and such dogma is true, but because they just want to. It is a desire that cries out for satisfaction like all other desires; not all people, only some people and not necessarily all the time.

This is happening everywhere in the world. Why are Muslim girls putting on scarves? Because they believe in hadath min hashamayim? No...they seek a spirituality, and they give expression to this desire by inscribing it on their bodies.

My intuition is that behind all the bluster many of us at least some of the time want to believe, not believe some propositional content, and not just believe in the evolutionary or utilitarian value of emuna, which is considerable and hardly ever discussed, but simply want to be frum...daven bekavanah, learn as we did when we were in yeshiva, walk in the world with a frum consciousness.

Some people simply have a desire to return to the enchanted world of religion, and in our case Orthodoxy.

This active nekudah in some Jews is in my opinion a good thing, everything else being equal, i.e. it doesn't end in fanaticism, remains progressive and decent in politics and human relations, etc.

As usual propositional truth, dogmas are irrelevant to the cultivation of this feeling.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

This blog is not OJ

This blog is not OJ.

It has not been OJ for about 2 years. Actually, at this URL, this blog was NEVER OJ. In fact, that was the entire reason I moved to this URL in the first place, to distance myself from my previous URL, since some people felt it was misleading since previously my blog was a bit OJ.

I don't know how many times I have to keep on repeating that, but apparently I do.

Even though the blog is titled 'Angstgnostik', and not 'Come learn the Holy Torah with me', apparently some people are confused. Even though I have posts titled 'OJ isn't true', apparently some people are still confused. Even though I have had several HUNDRED posts, all pointing out that OJ is completely false, and anyone believing in it is living in a delusional bubble, apparently some people still are not quite sure what the views of this blog are.

Possibly you think I'm saying my blog is not an orange based drink? Or maybe you think I'm telling you that this blog is not a discredited former football star. I'm not sure. But OJ stands for Orthodox Jewish and this blog aint it.

If you are looking for a blog which consistently says OJ isn't true, and then tries to deal with that, you've come to the right place. But if you are looking for an OJ blog, try Hirhurim.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

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

Why OJ isn't true

Some of my new commenters don't seem to understand. This blog is not about debating whether OJ is true. That debate was lost by the fundies a long time ago. (About 400 years ago to be precise. Badaboom).

There are many reasons why OJ isn't true, but here it is in a nutshell (RD Gold uses this argument in his book on why OJ isn't true):

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone you trust tells you he had a flat tire, it's reasonable to believe him, because flat tires are normal and this is a trusted friend. If someone you trust tells you he got abducted by aliens, you don't believe him. If ten thousand people, all independently tell you they saw an alien, maybe there's something to it, but you would still need to seriously investigate.

Many Moslems are convinced that Jews were behind 9/11. Why? Because they saw multiple stories in multiple sources about this. However, all the stories traced back to a singular nasty 'rumor' put out just after 9/11, that was then picked up by all the Islamic outlets. Moslems think they heard the story from multiple sources, but in reality it all traces back to one, unreliable source.

It's the same deal with OJ. Yes, we have 3000 years of people believing in it, but it all traces back to one event, Mattan Torah at Har Sinai. And there is absolutely ZERO corroborating evidence that it ever happened, ZERO. Apart from the Torah of course. Well, sorry fundies, but one document which every expert believes strongly was written hundreds of years later is not good enough evidence for such a fantastic claim.

And make no mistake, TMS is a fantastic claim . Especially with all the questions, but even without any questions at all, it's still a fantastic claim. Even if the text was perfectly reasonable and straightforward with no flaws at all, TMS would STILL be a fantastic claim. And with fantastic claims like that, it always boils down to a simple equation: Which is more likely, the fantastic claim is false and people are mistaken or are lying or have been fooled, or the fantastic claim is actually true?

Well, everyone (even fundies) agree that religions are 99.99999% false. Also, all books are written by men, and no one has ever seen God. So which is more likely, TMS is true, or this is just another false religion? It's not even a kashyeh.

So we have an absolutely extraordinary claim, with zero corroborating evidence, plus plenty of questions and evidence which makes the claim look entirely untrue. It's a no brainer.

So why do people think it's true?

Why are people of all fundamentalist contradictory religions so passionately convinced that their religion is the one true religion? It's all emotional/spiritual of course. Even to this day I have a hard time countering the incredible religious brainwashing I received for most of my life. My family is OJ, my community is OJ, my friends are all OJ. The peer pressure is immense. It's very, very hard to escape from it, especially if you basically had a happy childhood and were always 'into it'. (It's not as hard to escape if you were 'abused' by the system, theologically or otherwise.)

Intellefundies will of course claim corroborating evidence, and then launch into a series of highly debatable and highly subjective arguments, like 'Jewish history is so unique, TMS must be true!' Or 'Torah is so amazing, TMS must be true', or many other arguments which are similar. As the argument of last resort, they will fall back on loyalty and faith.

Trouble is, all these kinds of arguments work equally well for all other religions too. 'The story of Christianity is so unique, Christ must be Lord!' 'The Koran is so amazing, Koran Min haShamayim must be true!' And so on and so on. I have seen these arguments myself.

But here is the clincher, and note this very well:

'Any argument which works for all religions works for NO religion'.

Now, the 'loyalty and faith' argument might very well work from a practical, social or cultural aspect. i.e. you should be loyal to your tribe, for whatever reasons. But it doesn't work for determining truth. Imagine the following scenario:

Kiruv Worker: You should become frum!
5th generation Reform Jew: But I have loyalty and faith to my parents, grandparents and community!

Of course the above story would never happen, because there's no such thing as a 5th generation Reform Jew! Badaboom.

But seriously folks, none of these arguments work to establish truth. The best approach (which makes skeptics crazy), in fact the only approach which even has a snowball's chance in hell of working, is to attack the very foundation of knowledge and truth itself.

That's right. I'm talking PoMo. (gasp)

UPDATE: Ooops! There is one other approach which works well, though it's somewhat juvenile. I'm talking about the 'I don't care approach'. 'I don't care if OJ looks entirely false, I'm gonna believe it anyway!'. Hard to argue against that one, and more people really rely on that argument than you might think.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

Fake Fundies Do It Disingenuously

So an Orthodox Rabbi I know has been telling me that I'm irresponsible for blogging that Orthodox Judaism isn't true. (For goodness sake man, my blog is called 'Angstsnostik', not "Come Learn The Holy Toyrah With The Godol Hador'. Haven't you ever heard of Caveat Emptor? Sheesh, there's no pleasing some people.)

But I wonder if he would say I was being irresponsible if I told people that Christianity isn't true? Or Wahabi Islam? Or what if told people that a secular life was worthless and meaningless, would that be ok? Probably.

The funny thing is, this particular Rabbi, like many MO Rabbis I know, actually believes far less than he makes out in public. His beliefs are basically Conservative, not Orthodox. And he's not the only one.

So how is that morally acceptable? To be an Orthodox Rabbi, yet not really believe in it? And even worse, to go around spreading lies and pretending that Orthodoxy is totally true? Isn't that bad? I think so.

Sam Harris famously argues that liberal (i.e. non fundamentalist) religion is to blame for the actions of the extremists. How so? Because the liberals give the extremists cover, by validating that religious faith is a good thing to have. I don't buy this argument at all, because liberal religion is about as different from fundie religion as secularism is, and anyway, the liberals are probably our last remaining hope against the extremists.

So, I'm okay with liberals. But what about a liberal masquerading as a fundie, too scared to admit to his real views, and instead comforting the fundies that their faith is ok? Seems to me that such a person truly is bad, and Sam Harris argument would apply.

Now what about a liberal, masquerading as a fundie, who claims that he's our 'man on the inside', and that his goal is to convince the fundies that science, or tolerance, or some such liberal value or belief, is okay, and compatible with fundie-ism. And the only way he can do that is to masquerade as a fundie. Would that be okay? And in case you think this is a bizarre unrealistic scenario, I know multiple people who think like that.

I guess it's not totally terrible. But it's far too sneaky for my liking. I prefer to be honest about things, and I think honesty is usually the best policy. I don't pretend (even in real life) to be anything more than I'm not, except in mitigating circumstances (e.g. where people would get needlessly upset).

Honestly, I don't know how some of these Fake Fundie Rabbis sleep at night, considering the charade they play. Maybe they really don't sleep very well at all. That would certainly explain their grumpy demeanor.

I would really like to hear from a Fake Fundie about this. Seriously, how do you guys rationalize your behavior? Is it an elitist/masses thing? Or a 'someone's got to do it and better it should be me' type of thing? What? Please tell.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

The goal of this blog

Some new people have joined recently, and since it's not always obvious what this blog is all about, let me explain it here.

This blog started out at a different URL, and was originally written from the perspective of a Modern Orthodox Jew. Initially, the 'Science and Torah' controversy was the main subject, and I was intent on proving that the Chareidim and their Gedolim were completely wrong in their views on Science.

It was easy enough to win the debates against the Chareidim, too easy in fact. But I started noticing a very troubling thing. Various skeptics would come on my blog and start to debate me, and often with the exact same types of arguments that I would use so successfully against the chareidim. You know those arguments - the annoying ones which reference facts and evidence rather than loyalty and faith.

After a while I started to realize that it would be extremely intellectually dishonest of me to continue to declare victory against the chareidim, while simultaneously ignoring all the very strong questions coming to me from the skeptics.

For example, if it was 'the most reasonable conclusion' that God would not create a bizarre miracle like the world appearing to be older than 6,000 years, why was it not also the 'most reasonable conclusion' that God would not create a Torah which to all the world looked like a composite document, entirely consistent with other religious mythology and rules of its time? That's just one example, there are many others.

So, I was forced to debate the Skeptics. And I lost. Every single time. And I knew this couldn't be because I'm a poor debater, because I had no problem at all debating the Chareidim. And I also knew this couldn't be because I wanted to be skeptical, because on the contrary, I did not. It was painful to have to admit to it, but the only rational explanation was that the skeptics had better arguments.

One other possibility presented itself - perhaps the online skeptics were all the incredibly smart and knowledgeable skeptics, whereas the online believers were all the idiot batlanim, while the intelligent believers did more useful things. Maybe in real life some genuine believer could convince me.

So, in parallel to my blogging, I engaged personally with a number of highly intelligent and very credentialed Modern Orthodox Rabbis who I know in real life. While I respect and admire all these Rabbis greatly, and consider some of them to be close friends, I found no better arguments from these people.

Ultimately it became clear to me: In the same way that I could never understand how a Mormon could be so silly as to passionately believe in the truth of Mormon ideology, even though it was so obvious to anyone on the outside that Mormonism is just abject nonsense, likewise me and all my friends were stuck in the delusional bubble of Orthodoxy.

OJ obviously wasn't true, and that becomes immediately and abundantly clear as soon as you have the ability to stick your head outside the delusional bubble, and create an objective vantage point from the outside looking in.

Though even as I write these words, some part of my brain still clings to the beliefs that were so very well indoctrinated in me since my birth. It is VERY hard to shake those kind of beliefs, and I suppose I should be more sympathetic to those poor unfortunates amongst us who are incapable of doing so. (Sometimes I think Richard Dawkins is correct - religious fundamentalist education IS a form of child abuse.)

Once I realized that OJ probably wasn't true, I was stuck with a quandary. What to do now? Ever since then, I have tried various approaches. I tried secularism for a short while, but found that very wanting. I tried a type of conservative 'Divine Inspiration' theory, but it wasn't very convincing. More recently I am trying out Reconstructionist Orthodoxy, which involves trying to reconstruct as much as the OJ lifestyle and culture as possible (and as sensible), without sacrificing my brain on the alter of mindless fundamentalism.

What motivates me?

Well, I am Orthodox, and Orthodoxy does not make it possible to leave very easily. And since I know that the beliefs of OJ are not true, I have no real choice but to stay and fight for a different interpretation. As someone famous once said: 'Fight them from the inside. It's much more effective that way'.

Do I have a specific goal?

Not really. I tend towards being destructive about OJ, but that's mostly because OJ is so dominant in my life that it's a constant struggle to fight it. In truth I would rather be more constructive, but the atmosphere is not conducive. Perhaps if the believers were more encouraging to my quest that would help. But of course they are not, because they see my views as very threatening to them. A sign of insecurity (and mindless fundamentalism) to be sure.

Is my approach for everyone?

Not at all. I certainly wouldn't want all the world, or even all of Orthodoxy, or even all of Modern Orthodoxy, to hold like me. Apart from the fact that it would never work, pluralism is good and healthy. But I am fighting for my place at the table. There needs to be a space within Orthodoxy for people who value the lifestyle, even value halachah, and yet can say without shame that the beliefs are unbelievable (at least from a literal perspective, maybe there's wiggle room for a post-modern type of approach).

My main goal, as I have always said, is just to figure stuff out. And so far, it is definitely working.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS