Faith = Bias

'Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, especially when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective

Wikipedia

Isn't this exactly what faith is?

If I was a believer, and a skeptic accused me of bias, I would simply respond 'Yes, of course I'm biased.'

Actually, I am quite biased. I really genuinely do think that Judaism is by far the best religion there is. I also think my kids are georgeous. You say I'm biased? I probably am. So sue me.

Pointless Conversations: no. 1

Skeptic: You're biased!
Believer: No I'm not!

When fundamentalists disagree

I always find it funny when fundamentalists and skeptics are debating, and the fundies can't agree with each other. I've seen this happen a lot, and most recently I saw it on Hirhurim. One guy states that we can only justify our own beliefs b y admitting to some kind of epistemic pluralism. The next guy says chas vesholom, Judaism is the one true religion and everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong. One guy says of course we need faith, the next guy says chas vesholom, Judaism is the one true religion that can actually prove its the one true religion, all the other religions admit they have no proof (wrong, but entertaining nonetheless). One guy says faith must be rational, and therefore faith in Jesus is no good because the concept of a man-god is not rational (bizzarre), the next guy says it is rational, we just don't believe in it. Even funnier, Rabbi Shafran on Cross-Currents posted an anti-evolution piece (stupid and wrong), whereas Rabbi Adlerstein posted a more pro-Evolution piece from the Chief Rabbi.

Meanwhile, the skeptics are pretty much all on the same page. Why is this? Why is there so much disagreement amongst the fundies, yet the skeptics all speak with one voice?

I guess the answer is that when you are duty bound to follow the facts, you arrive (most of the time) at the same conclusions, since the facts are the facts. However when you are not constrained by facts, and are driven instead by your personal biases and emotions, the only limits to your theories are your imagination and your existential angst.

Why Dawkins has more credibility than Abaye and Ravah

The current debate about faith and reason playing out here and on Hirhurim raises some interesting questions. No doubt this has been addressed extensively in the literature and ej and arama can provide us with copious links.

Gil himself keeps saying that reasonable people disagree about important things all the time, for example the bailout plan, politics in general, some areas of Science like 'String Theory' etc. So why is that legitimate, but when fundies disagree about religion we all shout 'bias & nonsense' and discard the whole topic?

So here's my take on what is going on.

The world is very complex, there's no way that any one person can sufficiently master every science, every aspect of ancient history, every religion, and so on. We can become experts in one area, if even that. As my late father, a scientist, would often joke, one can learn more and more about less and less (i.e. become increasingly specialized) so that eventually one knows everything about nothing.

So ultimately, we have to 'trust the experts' for most things. Then the question becomes, who are the experts? Who has credibility? And it's not just about the individual people. People are people after all. It's also about the process. In fact, it may be more about the process than about the people. If you have good, smart people stuck in a lousy process then the results aren't going to be great. On the other hand, if you have mediocre people in a great process, you might still get good results. Obviously the ideal is to have good people and a good process.

So the question becomes, where are the experts and more importantly, the good processes?

Science is an obvious starting point. They have experts, and a really great process. In fact the process itself is superb - self correcting, open to review, experimentation, evidence based etc etc etc. It's not perfect OF COURSE, but it's by far and away the best process for determining facts about the universe (and by extension ancient history, linguistics etc). Also of course Science hasn't got much to say about morals and values (except indirectly i.e. given Value V, science might be able to tell you the best way to achieve V).

Religion on the other hand is terrible by comparison. Individual religions have experts in that one religion, but there are few experts in all religions. And those who are tend not to be fundamentalists. It's very rare to find an expert in all religions who is still a fundie. But that's not really what's important anyway. What's really important is that the process for discovering 'truth' in religion is fundamentally flawed. Actually, there is no process! There are ancient beliefs that are passed down, and people are told to believe them or else. That's it. Not a very credible process.

Now, there are some areas of Science where there is disagreement, for example String theory. You have passionate experts on all sides each claiming their theory is correct. What do I say to that? I say a few things:

1. If any one of those scientists would argue that he is 100% correct with no doubt about it, I would regard that person as a little crazy.
2. I have trust in the scientific process (based entirely on evidence of past performance) that eventually the correct theory will win out, or at least we will get progressively closer to the truth. This is what has been happening for the past few hundred years, and there's no good reason to think it will stop (except of course because of the total collapse of Western Civilization).

But imagine if all of Science was like religion. Imagine if we were to have American Science, European Science and Asian Science. Imagine if everyone disagreed about what the laws of science were, if everyone dogmatically stuck to their guns, and there was no process to resolve the issues. Imagine if scientists were all indoctrinated from birth to believe that their science was the one true science. What would you say then?

Obviously then science wouldn't have any credibility either!

There's nothing inherently special about scientists versus religious leaders. They're all good people. But scientists have an excellent process for getting to the truth, whereas religions don't have any process at all. And please don't start talking about 'moral truth'. That's NOT what we are talking about and is an entirely different discussion.

In 5 years of discussion in the blog world and elsewhere, I have seen that the fundies have the following process:

1. I must believe in X
2. Therefore I will argue any which way to make X appear to be true.

That's not a credible process. That's bias. Could some scientists in some areas of Science also be operating like that? Probably. But so what? Then they're not very credible either.

Ultimately, OJ is Rabbinic Judaism, i.e. Chazal. Being OJ means having faith that Chazal were right. The Chareidi model is that Chazal were right about everything. The MO model is that Chazal were right about religion, but not neccessarily about Science. Although this small difference has been the cause of a lot of tumult in the veldt these past few years, when it comes to religion, both Chareidim and MO agree that Chazal were absolutely correct.

So why have faith in Chazal? Are they the experts? Did they have a good process? Ultimately, we have faith in Chazal because Chazal said so. We have no idea what their process was, except to say that it presumably was 'tradition', and we all know how reliable that is. Unless you believe that Chazal had Ruach Hakodesh, like Chazal said so.

If you are non fundamentalist, you don't priviledge Chazal with any special knowledge or abilities, just on their say so. You figure out who the experts on ANE history are (hint: They're sitting in academia in the 21st century, not in the Beis Midrash in the 4th Century), and you proceed from there.

Unless of course you want to have faith. You can always have faith, because faith doesn't require anything other than faith itself. Is faith good? That's an entirely different question.

Holy Moly! Hirhurim goes off the deep end

I have been waiting for a while now for Gil's promised post on 'epistemic justification', and tonight, he finally delivered. As soon as I saw it on my cellphone, I jumped out of bed, ran to my PC, and settled in for what I was sure would be a long night. I eagerly opened Microsoft Word, cut & pasted the whole post, and got ready to fisk it, line by line.

But after getting through the first few paragraphs I began to realize there wasn't much point. It was all just too silly. Too silly by far.

It's abundantly obvious that fundamentalist religious believers are biased in every which way possible to believe in their particular set of unbelievable beliefs. It's also abundantly obvious that the evidence is entirely NOT in favor of any of those beliefs being true. If you can't see that, there's not much point in further conversation.

I think the problem with Gil & Co was stated quite clearly on Avodah almost 10 years ago to the day. I can't find the exact post now, but in January 99, around the post where Melech Press calls Rabbi Saul Berman a 'kofer', YGB (IIRC) says something like 'The people on Avodah / Areivim are the intellectual elite / creme de la creme of the Orthodox world'.  (Update: Found it! You should read that Avodah thread. It's great.)

And of course, for the intellectual elite, for those who can quote Aristotle and Aquinas with as much familiarity as Gershonides and Maimonides, admiting to 'emunah peshutah' just won't do. No, emunah peshutah is for the simple folk. The intellectual elite are way more sophisticated than that! The intellectual elite are epistemically justified!

Now, in a nod to ej and Post Modernism, I will admit that all of us in some sense live in some kind of mythical delusional bubble, trapped by the subjectivity of our own minds and senses. Still, there's delusional bubbles and then there's delusional bubbles.

Believing that you are real, that you have free will, and that other minds exist is the basis of everybody's experience on the planet. I might even go so far as to say that believing in some kind of 'supernatural' something (be it God, gods or karma) is so natural that you can't really fault anyone for believing in that either. 

However, when it comes to fundamentalist religion, the claims are so bold, the evidence so scant, the contradictions so glaring, that it's really impossible to believe in it, unless you immerse yourself so deeply in your little delusional bubble that you never allow any external objective perspective to ever seep in.

Is it 'wrong' to live in a delusional bubble? I guess as long as you're not hurting anyone you can do as you wish. Do believers have the 'right' to believe in whatever they want? It's a free world, they have the 'right' to believe anything they like.

But that's not really the question, is it? 

The real question, for most people, is whether their beliefs are 'likely to be true'. I didn't say 'provably true'. And I didn't say 'Not provably false'. I said 'likely to be true'. 

And if you have the ability to step outside your little bubble, and peer objectively back in at the fundamentalist inside, you should be able to see that when it comes to fundamentalist religion, it's just not very likely.

The other ironic thing about Gil's post is all that blather about 'religious pluralism' and 'epistemic justification' won't really cut the mustard if Gil's own children decide that Christianity is the one true religion. 

Still, I'm glad Gil posted that post. It contains some good references, and it's a marvelous example of something that Michael Shermer writes about - Why do smart people believe silly things? Because smart people are great at intellectual rationalizing the sillyness.

If I was Gil, I think I would say something like this:

OJ could be true, and it hasn't been proven absolutely false. Yes, that's true of all other religions too, but still, OJ might be true, so I'm going to continue to believe in it because that's what I've been brought up (or that's what I want) to do. So sue me.

At the end of the day, that's about the best you can say. And at the end of the day, despite all the philosophical blah blah blah of Gil's post, that all he's really saying anyway.

How bad will the meltdown be? More pessimism porn

ej writes:

'There are apocalypses and there are apocalypses. XGH’s idea of a meltdown is very different from the projections in the [press] ... I think it is premature to think of unemployment rates much in excess of 10%.'

I think ej is very wrong here. I think there will probably be unemployment rates in excess of 80% when all is said and done. There will be serious rioting and crime issues. Martial law will probably be imposed. A global asian bird flu pandemic will be left unchecked and will kill hundreds of millions of people. Ultimately there will be a total breakdown of Western Civilization. Science will be set back to the dark ages, and bizarre religions will rule once more.

Maybe I'm being a tad pessimistic here, but this is how things could easily go. Don't kid yourself. Frum people might be thinking 'Well God wouldn't let that happen'. Why wouldn't He? He let the Holocaust happen, and it's not as if Reform/Zionism/Anti-Zionism/Loshon Horoh has disappeared since then.

I guess the bottom line is repent, for the end of the world is nigh. Alternatively, eat drink and be merry, for the end of the world is nigh. 

Alternatively just hope for the best and don't worry about it too much. It's not like there's anything you can do about it anyway. You should have bitachon in Hashem that all will be for the best, and if hundreds of millions of people do die, well, it's all for the best. It's all part of the big plan. Just like the Holocaust. No need to worry at all.

Thanking the Religious

There is a thought-provoking opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal (link) in which the atheist author suggests that he is grateful for the past two thousand years of vocal theism:

Why should unbelievers welcome this emergence of belief? Why not? We should be glad that there are people, even the devil's disciples, who take religion seriously enough to uphold it, especially in these days when unbelief seems to appear in quarrels over holiday displays, during political campaigns or on the self-help shelves of Barnes & Noble. Should the primary goal of atheism really be to fund municipal crèches, allow scientists to end every speech with the tag "We are all stardust," or inspire works like "Why religion posions everything" and "Why God does not exist"?

In attacking the cloistered monks and nuns of my Roman Catholic Church, the brilliant, if occasionally logorrheic, John Milton wrote in his defense of free speech, "Areopagitica," that "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed." And what will possibly make us exercise and breathe more fully than challenges by intelligent, thoughtful opponents?

In other words, he has two reasons for praising them:

• They take religion seriously enough to argue for it, which is unusual in this skeptical age.
• They cause skeptics like us to rethink and re-energize. Some of the greatest works in human history were written to rebut fundies (e.g. David Hume's works).
  

However, while all this may be true, something tells me that the parents of someone who is convinced by these believers to join a fundamentalist religion is not going to be thanking them.

So, thanks but no thanks.

Will the crash kill Orthodoxy?

Jonathan Sarna writes:

Orthodox Jewish organizations are apparently in the worst shape. Orthodox Jews have been disproportionately involved in banking and the stock market, and were also disproportionately hurt by Madoff ($2 billion, by one account, were lost by members of a single Orthodox synagogue.) They also are heavy users of our most expensive Jewish institutions (synagogues and schools). I have felt for a long time – and for numerous reasons – that Orthodoxy’s rise had run its course. My sense is that the downturn will confirm this. I do not expect to see same kind of Orthodox growth moving forward as we have seen since 1960s, and my guess, sadly, is that some significant Orthodox institutions will not survive

I think he's wrong. Orthodoxy, specifically fundamentalist Orthodoxy, is a survival king. The fundies are like cockroaches (lkehavdil elef havdolos), they can survive anything. Sure, the less committed will drop out, but the hardcore will thrive. In fact, in a global economic meltdown and cultural holocaust, the only thing that will survive will be fundie cultures.

What Sarna is really talking about is Modern Orthodoxy. The MO aren't that committed, and when the going gets tough, the MO will get going. The RW MO will gravitate towards the Chareidim, but the LW will be lost. I'm already seeing the early signs, LWMO types without much money are choosing public school over private religious schools (this is only an issue in the US). 

Some things will change of course - the notion that everyone must sit and learn in kollel will be gone. But fundies survived 2,000 years in Europe without a kollel culture, they'll adapt, as always. In fact, it may even make them stronger.

Some may point to the enlightenment as proof that fundies will turn tail and run given the slightest chance, and it's only the current luxury of Orthodox lifestyles that is keeping the faithful, well, faithful. 

But I think this is exactly wrong. When the global meltdown occurs, and people have no money, and there's riots everywhere, people will turn to religion as their only hope. After all, there's not going to be many atheists running soup kitchens.

Fundamentalists & Humility: Rabbi Avi Shafran, take note

[Based on this ridiculous piece of nonsense from Rabbi Avi Shafran.]

What makes so many so certain that the current Jewish Orthodoxy is the final word on religion? The answer is hubris, the monkey wrench in many a human machine. The merest modicum of modesty would compel the fundamentally sure to recall that their counterparts in centuries past [and present] are no less confident in their own religious certainties. And to consider how, centuries hence, people will likely look with pity on the limited understanding of 21st century religious fundamentalism.

A little humility would help us recognize that, no matter our fundamentalist beliefs, we humans resemble nothing so much as the proverbial blind men first contemplating an elephant, each touching a different part of the pachyderm and concluding that the beast is shaped, variously, like a tree, or a snake, or a sail or a wall. No, not an elephant; we are blind men confronting a rainbow.

Which brings us to a third famous man born in 1809: Louis Braille, who developed the system of raised marks that enables the blind to read. While he opened a world of literature and written communication to the unsighted, he could not help them visualize color or contrast or beauty. There are limitations to our sense of touch.

As there are to all our senses. They are imperfect tools, even in tandem with our intellects, for truly understanding reality, and for conclusively reconstructing the past. Does religion have any real evidence as to whether God exists, or who wrote the Torah?

We certainly can, and should, strive to understand what we are able to fathom with the gifts we have been granted. Engaging in religious inquiry is a noble pursuit and can provide a healthy sense of wonder at the world.

But when conclusions are confidently proclaimed that collide with what we inherently know to be true – like the fact that the universe is clearly billions of years old, that human civilization is tens of thousands of years old, and much more. Stop and realize that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophies.

That, as Charles Darwin wrote, in 1872: “[I]t is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.”

Tolerance & Culture in the Frum Community

I davened recently at an MO shul, and they were quite happy to give a Conservative Rabbi an aliyah and even have him layn. There's no question this Rabbi believes in the DH, and there's no question the shul's Rabbi knew he was a Conservative Rabbi. Contrast this with the United Synagogue's refusal to give Rabbi Louis Jacobs an aliyah (in the UK) !

I have lived in many places, including Israel, Europe & the USA, and I have always felt that the USA is way more tolerant than all these other countries, even amongst the fummest of the frum. This isn't too surprising, the USA prides itself on tolerance, and it's only natural that the characteristics of the broader culture will seep into even the most insular of communities. 

It's actually quite funny to see frummies in Boro Park or Lakewood proclaim how terrible the goyim are and how different the yidden are, yet when you contrast let's say an American yeshivah bochur from an English yeshivah bochur, the differences in attitudes and cultures are quite apparent. Perhaps by the Chassidim they have managed to create a uniform Chassidish culture which is identical globally (I doubt it), but certainly cultural differences are very noticeable amongst the average Chareidi.

Of course compared to the goyim, or the MO, Chareidim in the US are extremely intolerant. But compared to their Chareidi brethren across the pond, the Chareidim here look positively open minded. 

The bad news is that some of the Gedolim here seem hell bent on importing Bnei Brak attitudes and norms into the USA. We can only hope and pray that they fail.

Correllation between LWMO and Halachic Observance

I have commented a few times recently about how LW MO are less stringent with halacha, and each time I have gotten criticized by Steg and Y Aharon that I am unfairly correlating two entirely different things.

Well, certainly in my experience, those people in MO who are more into egalitariansim and all the other ideological issues which define 'LWMO', are also all the people I know who are much less makpid on halachah. Coincidence? I don't think so. 

Now of course you can find LWMO people who are very makpid on halachah, likewise you can find RW Conservative people too. In fact I bet you could even find some Reform or Reconstructionist types who are very makpid on at least some portion of Halachah. And OF COURSE there are plenty of chareidi fakers who aren't makpid either. It's not a 1:1 correlation, but it is significant.

And, let me be clear, I'm making no judgment here. I'm just stating a correlation. In fact, I can hear good arguments both ways:

For makpidity: Halachot are the core element of Jewish cultural tradition. Once halachot are gone, it's all gone. Even Reform are coming back to the idea of keeping halachot. And the devil is always in the details. Without the details, the generalities start to erode. We need to push makpidity (Within reason, we don't need to be chumradick).

Against makpidity: We are creating a generation of halachically obsessed neurotics, who care more about the spot on their esrog than whether they cheat on their taxes or not. While there is value in Shabbat, an excessive focus on minor inconsequential minuate robs Judaism of its spirit and reduces it to a dry legality with no joy (kinda like the Christian objection to Judaism). Plus, the minutae are simple a waste of time, energy and other resources which can be better spent elsewhere.

Now, what do we mean by 'less makpid on halachah'? Do we mean chillul shabbat? Eating treif? What? 

Well, I'll leave the actual halachic considerations to people like Gil. Could be there are heterim for plenty of these behaviors, could be it's all just a chumrah or minhag in the first place. Could also be that people are being oyver on deoraysos. I don't know, but here are some examples of behaviors I see in the LWMO which I don't see in the RWMO. Most if not all of these revolve around not being too concerned about the minutae of any halachah. 

Examples:

- Shabbat: Won't drive, but don't bother me about borrer

- Niddah: Will go to mikveh, but forget about harchokos, vestos, negiah and all the other details

- Kashrut: Keep a kosher home, but will eat salad and fish out. Or will eat in a Vegetarian restaurant with no hashgachah

- Davening: Go to shul shabbat only. May not even daven at all the rest of the week.

- Learning: Occasional shiur

I think the general attitude goes like this:

The LWMO care about Halachah in principle, and care about the major things in practice (Shabat, Kashrut etc), but they pretty much believe that all the 'details' were made up by Rabbis (possibly like the Rambam says, with not much meaning behind them), and therefore aren't too concerned about keeping all the details.

In fact, they may not even believe that God commanded the major things either, rather its a culture / tradition / heritage / orthopraxis thing to essentially keep shabbat or kashrut.

Anyway, that's been my experience. However, like someone I know, if you happen to be closely connected to two of the frummest LWMO people on the planet, your experience might be a little different.

A debate on the DH between Gil and anon

Gil: I don't believe in treating holy writings so cavalierly and making judgments about them based on speculative, unprovable theories.

anon: Very well said. So you wouldn't ever dare to say that God was the author of a book, based on speculative, unprovable theories, right? 

Gil: Not based on theories, no. Based on a tradition.

anon: And traditions passed down from the axial age have a far greater degree of reliability than 'speculative unproven theories', right? 

Gil: If you want to start from scratch and try to build up your beliefs based on pure evidence, then you will not be certain about anything. I have no desire to do so and see no need. I begin from a starting point and evaluate from there. You can feel free to toss thousands of years of heritage and history out the window. I do not.

anon: In other words, you seem to agree that traditions from the axial age do not generally have a high degree of reliability, however you are very motivated to cling to your own beliefs which have 'thousands of years of heritage and history' behind them. Of course all the other axial age religions at this point have 'thousands of years of heritage and history' behind them too, though ironically none of them had any heritage and history at all back then!

Gil: No. There are traditions and there are traditions.

Anon: It always comes down to this point with you, that you have your prior beliefs, and the DH (or any other challenge for that matter) must be absolutely rock solid before it can possibly make a dent in them.

Gil: Yes

Anon: I certainly understand that from an emotional / loyal perspective, but from an academic / intellectual perspective it's just not a credible methodology.

Gil: You have yet to prove that it is not a credible methodology. This is the area where people like Alvin Plantinga have made a significant contribution.

anon: Oh please! According to Plantinga, everybody's epistemically justified. Might as well stop all rational debate.

Gil: He's also explained why that's not a valid criticism. I'll b"n post about the issue of religious pluralism after my next trip to the library.

Proof that Koran Min Hashamayim

Sea (includes lakes etc)  is mentioned in the Koran 32 times.

Land is mentioned in the Koran 13 times.

The ration of 32 to 13 is 71 to 29 which is what modern day Geography shows to be the land-water ratio on earth. And this was predicted by the Koran 1400 years ago!

For many more proofs of KMS, including Koranic Gematriahs and Koran Codes, see here.

Bashing the Modern Orthodox

I frequently have conversations with skeptics who live in the heart of Chareidistan (Brooklyn, Monsey, Lakewood etc) and I am often struck by just how different that culture is to that of my own neck of the woods, out of town ModernOrthoPraxoland. For example, my correspondents frequently regale me with tales of racist, sexist or other just completely non politically correct remarks made by their Rabbis in shul. But it would be inconceivable in my shul for the Rabbi (or any other speaker) to make a racist comment, or anything like that.

Recently, we had a Modern Orthodox speaker in my shul, who gave a talk on when Halachah and ethics conflict. (Chareidi: Whadyamean 'conflict'? It's not possible for halachah and ethics to conflict!) It was the usual stuff, though I almost fell off my chair when he started talking about the Amalekite babies! (I thought I invented that phrase). Anyways, ultimately he said we should try and bend halachah to be as ethical as possible, except of course when we can't. He gave all the usual examples, Ben Sorer Umoreh, children in Ir Hanidachat etc. I asked him why he didn't address the simple case of  picking up sticks on Shabbat, but of course that's one of those cases when you can't bend the halachah, so never mind about ethics in that case I guess.

Anyways, after the drashah, my Orthoprax friend, 'H', implored me not to be too tough on the guy. After all, said H, even though the MO are full of bs, they're still much better than the Chareidim, and I wouldn't wish for the Chareidim to be in charge, so I should be grateful that the MO exist. And I have made similar arguments before, against Sam Harris for example, that liberal religions are important as antidotes to extremist religions. Plus, at the end of the day, I do regard the values and norms of MO to be fairly balanced and good, even if they have to kvetch to get there.

Long time readers will recall that I started out by bashing the Chareidim. I then realized that Chareidim were totally brainwashed tinokot shenisbeuh, and really it was unfair to give them a hard time. They have no clue about science, or the modern world, or even their own religion. I then turned my attention to the MO, especially the MO educated elite, and decided that they, being non ignorant, were the real culprits here, by pretending to be so modern and reasonable while in fact they are as fundie as the next Chareidi.

But in truth the MO are a bunch of brainwashed fundies too, no matter how much they might insist otherwise, really they are tinokot shenisbeuh too, and I really should lay off them, especially since they are a voice of reason within fundie Judaism.

I think I basically am going through something akin to the five stages of grief here:

1. Denial and Isolation. 
2. Anger. 
3. Bargaining. 
4. Depression. 
5. Acceptance.

Hopefully I'm somewhat nearer to stage 5, and will no longer feel the need to bash the MO, just like I no longer feel much need to bash the Chareidim. My friend H went through this all 10 years ago, or more, hence he can be accepting. I have only been at this for about 4 years, but the acceptance is coming soon. I hope.

The Many Gods of Judaism

People think that Judaism insists on one God, and that's basically true. However the one God that Judaism insists on has changed multiple times over the years, and even today different groups within Judaism worship different Gods. It's kinda like what I say about the state of kosher eating in my town - 'We have a wide variety of Kosher restaraunts here, just not all at the same time'.

Moshe Halbertal sums it up neatly in his excellent work: 'People of the book', as follows:

Jews have had diverse and sometimes opposing ideas about God: the anthropomorphic God of the Midrash, the Aristotelian unmoved mover of Masimonides and his school, the Kabbalah's image of God as a dynamic organism manifested in the complexity of his varied aspectsa, the sefirot.

And you can add many more to this list, including the immanent 'Hashem is here' God of the Lubavitchers, and the transcendant God of the Litvaks. Not to mention the henotheistic God of the early Bible.

Some may argue that these are all the same God, just that different groups believe He has different characteristics. Well, that makes no sense, because a God with different characteristics is a different God, since all we know about God is His characteristics.

I was talking about this with a Jewish studies professor friend of mine, and he said that the conception of God that we have today is different than even the conception of a hundred years ago, since we are so profoundly affected by modern culture that we can't possibly claim to have the same 'god'. I think that maybe is going a bit too far, but it's certainly true that when you trace God back from early biblical Judaism down to the present day, it's a very different God.

Even if you are too fundie to agree to most of this, you can't deny that the Rambam thought the Kabalaha God was pure kefirah, and vice versa. So there's at least two entirely different Gods right there.

So what's the lesson here? I guess the takeaway is that it doesn't matter what type of God you believe in, as long as He's one. Or more accurately a unity. Or more accurately still, an incomprehensible something about which anything you say is by definition not correct.

Believer: Do you believe that God created the universe?
Skeptic: But God is incomprehensible!
Believer: Fine, so do you believe that 'An incomprehensible something' created the universe?
Skeptic: But how can you say 'created'? God's action of creation ex nihilo is incomprehensible to us too. The best you can say is 'caused'.
Believer: OK fine. Do you believe that an incomprehensible something caused the universe to be?
Skeptic: Err, yeah, I guess so.
Believer: Aha!

The Genius of Jewish Ethical Monotheism

Talk about missing the point. Most, if not all of the (atheist) commenters on my previous two posts entirely missed the point of my posts. Shame on you guys! OF COURSE the fact that belief in God (or gods or demons) is natural is in NO WAY a proof for said God, gods or demons existence in ANY WAY whatsoever. You all deserve a big fat DUH. I'm kinda dissapointed in your lack of comprehension.

Anyway, here's the point, spelled out in a little more detail for those of you with weaker comprehension. Belief in God or gods, or animism, or paganism or Karma or Tao or anything else in that realm, is the natural state of man. As the article states, even atheists often believe in such things. I had a neighbor who told me he was an atheist, but he did believe in 'karma', and he didn't mean a naturalistic karma either.

Most people, in most cultures, in most civilizations, have believed that there's "something" more out there. Now, this belief can be 'channelled' in all sorts of stupid, dangerous and even evil ways - for example believing that the gods require sacrifices. The genius of Judaism was to take this natural desire and to channel it into something great - ethical monotheism, the idea of the holy and all that (surely I don't need to go into details on this topic).

Yes, of course there are 'nasty' bits in the OT. What do you expect from a book written 3,000 years ago? Standards of morality back then cannot compare to ours. However the morality of the Neviim is pretty darn good, even by today's standards.

Again, it's completely natural to FEEL that there's "something" out there. Judaism insists that we view this "something" as all good, provides meaning to life, and is the basis for ethics and morals. That's a good thing.

It's not about proving God's existence. The entire concept is not an ontological fact which can be proved or disproved. Orthoprax (the blogger) is heading down the wrong path trying to show that there's reasonable arguments for God's existence. It's not about arguments for and against.

Do you have arguments showing that a joke is funny? No, but you laugh anyway. Can you prove that Monty Python is funnier than SNL? No, but everyone knows they are, because they laugh louder. Can you prove that "something" exists out there? No, but we all believe in it anyway.

God is not a cognitive belief based on evidence. It's an emotional state of mind.

Wow! I no longer need to worry about God's existence!!!

Turns out that belief in God is a perfectly natural and normal phenomenon, and we may even be wired for it. Not only that, but nobody has ever been able to prove that God exists, or doesn't exist. In fact the whole concept is incomprehensible anyway. It's not a rational thing at all, it's purely an emotion. So, it's an emotion, it feels good, and it's perfectly normal! What could better than that?

This also explains why people are distrustful of atheists - it's just not very normal. Being a hard core atheist is kinda like saying you don't believe in love, or laughter.

New Scientist: Reb Elchonon Wasserman was right!

A couple weeks ago, Rabbi Yaakov Salomon wrote that the miraculous escape of the passengers of US Airways flight 1549 was proof that God exists. Now that Continental Connections Flight 3407 has crashed, killing everyone on board plus 1 on the ground, does that show that God doesn't exist? Or maybe He just likes crashing planes every so often. Or maybe when a plane crashes it's the fault of bad weather, but when it lands safely it must be God? Doesn't make much sense, but then God isn't really a rational concept anyway.

In fact, this highly fascinating and must read article in New Scientist lays out a theory which I have long suspected, that we are predisposed to believe in God. Research studies on young children show this to be true, and I have seen this myself with my own kids, they seem completely at ease and natural disposed to the idea of God. But I can imagine the following conversations:

Atheist Roshoh Scientist: Studies have shown that humans are predisposed to believe in the God idea.
Fundamentalist: See? Hashem has created us to believe in Him!

The irony of this study is quite amusing though - it turns out that Reb Elchonon Wasserman was right after all. Belief in God is the natural state of man!

But what do we believe in when we believe in God? Who do we love when we love God? Who are we talking to when we talk to God? Since everyone agrees that God is ultimately incomprehensible, everyone therefore agrees that we are believing in, loving and talking to a false conception that exists solely in our minds.

But that's fine I think. It's natural, it's human, and it's good. And that's why I'm sticking with it.

Two Good Articles

Pessimism Porn

Final Exit Strategies

The Future Belongs To The Fundies

A while back, way before the current economic crisis, I posted that if there evere was a global economic meltdown and / or a massive deadly pandemic, Western civilization could easily crumble, and the only cultures that would survive would be religious fundamentalists. 

When I wrote that, a global economic meltdown was just a crazy idea, but now it's actually happening before our very eyes. Meanwhile H5N1 continues to spread. 

Oh well.

Random Rants & Raves

I was lying in bed this morning, thinking of all sorts of thintgs about politics, the economy and whatnot, and I found myself wishing that there was some kind of public forum where I could air my views. I then thought, 'Whoa, wait a minute, don't I have a blog? Why yes, I do have a blog!' So here are some random musings. Feel free to comment, or not.

Joe Biden's 'Gaffe'
Everyone was saying it was a 'gaffe' when Biden commented that the bailout plans had a 30% chance of failing. But why was that a gaffe? On the contrary, it was refreshingly honest.

The economy
It's not getting fixed anytime soon. It's one thing to have low consumer confidence. But this situation is more like when you find out your spouse is cheating on you. The trust has been broken. Back in the summer, everything looked totally fine. Then all of a sudden, it turns out that the entire Wall Street system was totally f*****. No prior warning at all, unless you count Jim Cramer's famous tirade last year. So people have lost confidence in the system, and I doubt $2 trillion is going to fix it. It's not a question of economics, it's a question of psychology. There was interesting article in the Atlantic magzine a few months ago about this - comparing markets to pandemics. During a bubble, we have irrational exuberance. Now we have irrational depression.

Consumer Culture
On a related point, the economy has been driven in part by a culture of spending. But 50%? of all this spending is luxury spending: gadgets, gimos, fancy cars, McMansions, none of this stuff is strictly neccessary. So how is that a long term strategy? A girl from Bloomberg asked Obama that direcly the other night at his press conference, but he didn't have a good answer.

Nadya Suleiman
I think she's nuts for going for number 7 when she already had 6 kids, with no husband or job. However once she found out it was going to be a multiple birth, I respect her right not to have an abortion. Also, I felt she was being hounded in her interview last night. There's plenty of people in New Square with 14 kids on welfare.

Amazon's Kindle
People want convergence, not divergence. A specialized device which is only good for one thing, even if it does that one thing very well, isn't going to have mass market appeal. We alreay have twoo many gadgets, we don't need another one. Having said that, if they priced it at $99, and threw in a free digitial copy of every book I have bought from Amazon over the past 5 years, I'd buy one.

Arguments for God

Orthoprax posted the following 'argument' for God:

1. The Universe exists.
2. The Universe demonstrates great order.
3. The Universe has a distinct point of origin.

Is it more reasonable to believe existence magically derives from itself or that there's something significant and ordered which ontologically preceded it?

There are numerous problems with this argument.

Let's look at his premises.

1. The Universe Exists

OK, I'll let him have that one. Though I could be radically skeptical and claim we can't really know that, but that would be pretty stupid.

2. The Universe demonstrates great order

Oops. We are already on tricky ground. What does 'great order' mean? Scientific laws? Complexity? Design? All the above? It's gonna make a difference, as we'll see.

3. The Universe has a distinct point of origin.

I'm not sure what that means. There was a big bang, though where the big bang came from is anybody's guess.

So now let's look at his conclusion:

Is it more reasonable to believe existence magically derives from itself or that there's something significant and ordered which ontologically preceded it?

Hmmm, a bit of a non sequitur there I'm afraid.

Firsty, we are talking about God. In other words Hashem, and all (or most) of what that entails - Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent, and Omni-Involved. Even if Orthoprax's argument worked (it doesn't), the best it would show is that 'there's something significant and ordered which ontologically preceded' the universe. Well, Quantum Soup is significant and ordered. Let's try that - 'Boruch Atah Quantum Soup'. Nah, doesn't work that well.

Second of all, his argument doesn't work anyway. Let's look at it again:

Is it more reasonable to believe existence magically derives from itself or that there's something significant and ordered which ontologically preceded it?

OP is trying to appeal to 'reason' (or maybe he means 'common sense'). He seems to be saying that existence deriving from itself would be 'magical' and 'unreasonable'. But how can he say this? After all, God derives from himself in just the same incomprehensible way as a universe might, so what's the difference? Has OP done a study of universes, and found that in general they don't derive from themselves? I think not. How is an infinite God any more reasonable than an infinite universe? Or Quantum Soup deriving from itself? Or any one of an infinite number of possibilities, 95% of which we can't even comprehend or articulate?

On the other hand, hakol modim that we can't comprehend or articulate God anyway. It always seems to boil down to this:

Believer: The universe must have come from somewhere!

Skeptic: Why do you say that?

Believer: Well everything comes from somewhere.

Skeptic: You mean everything inside the universe?

Believer: Yeah, but we can extrapolate to outside the universe.

Skeptic: No we can't, the outside of the universe is completely different.

Believer: Well in any case, it's more reasonable to assume the universe came from somewhere.

Skeptic: OK, the universe came from somewhere.

Believer: Yes, and that 'somewhere' is God!

Skeptic: No, it's Quantum Soup.

Believer: What the heck is Quantum Soup?

Skeptic: I have no idea. What the heck is God?

Believer: God is the thing that created and sustains the Universe.

Skeptic: Nah, you're confused. Quantum Soup is the thing that created and sustains the Universe.

Believer: You're just renaming God to Quantum Soup.

Skeptic: On the contrary, you're just renaming Quantum Soup to God.

Believer: What evidence do you have for Quantum Soup?

Skeptic: What evidence do you have for God?

Believer: Well, the universe is so ordered and complex and amazing, it must have come from God.

Skeptic: On the contrary, only Quantum Soup can create an ordered, complex and amazing universe.

Believer: How do you know that?

Skeptic: Same exact way you know that about God.

Believer: Yeah, but which is more likely, Quantum Soup or God?

Skeptic: Quantum Soup of course. Then you don't have the problem of evil, or why a God would even create a universe in the first place.

Believer: But with Quantum Soup you have other questions, like what is Quantum Soup.

Skeptic: Sure, but you have that problem with God too.

Believer: Well God isn't supposed to be comprehensible.

Skeptic: Ahh, well neither is Quantum Soup.

Believer: Well if it's a choice between Quantum Soup and God, I'll take God.

Skeptic: Sorry, false dichotomy. It's a choice between God and an infinite number of other possibilities, all of which are ultimately incomprehensible.

Believer: Well I'm still choosing God.

Skeptic: I think I'll keep my options open until some actual data appears.

Believer: You just don't want to make a decision, do you?

Skeptic: Well, it's hard to make a decision when there's an infinite number of incomprehensible possibilities and absolutely no data whatsoever. You know?

Believer: For the believer there are no questions, and for the skeptic there are no answers.

Skeptic: Ahh, but there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Believer: Yes, like God!

Skeptic: No, like Quantum Soup!

Believer: Look, every system has it's fundamental axioms. Mine is God.

Skeptic: And mine is Quantum Soup. Or any one (or more) of an infinite number of other incomprehensible theories.

Believer: Well good luck with that.

Skeptic: You too.

By the way, I believe in God. Quite strongly. Why? Because I feel like it. Quite strongly.

A very important post on strategy & direction

This blog was launched with the intent of moving on from pure skepticism and instead developing an approach to life, religion and Orthodoxy, with all our previous knowledge and experiences taken into account.

I'll admit that occasionally it has been a process of 1 step forward and 2 steps back, where I have fallen back into the bad habit of 'bashing the fundies'. Yes, they deserve it, and yes, it pulls in the punters, but really I need to move on from that. What always pulls me back is when fundies come on here and start debating. Listen up guys - the discussion here is about what to do next, not whether fundamentalism is true (it isn't). Other things that pull me back is when I come into too close contact with fundie stupidity, either in real life or on the blogs. So I'll have to watch that too.

One challenge though is whether there is actually anything new to be said on this topic. Hasn't the last 200 years produced an incredible range of ideologies, philosophies and theologies, Jewish and other, which attempted to deal with the clash between enlightenment and fundamentalism? Is there really anything new we can say which hasn't already been said by Mordechai Kaplan, Louis Jacobs, Eugene Borowitz or Neil Gillman? Or Paul Tillisch and Ken Wilber for that matter?

So I'm thinking we do have something to say. Coming from a 'nice frum' background gives us a certain unique perspective, and more importantly, wanting to remain a part of that community gives us a unique set of challenges. And should we even desire that anyways?

Possibly there is no real 'solution' to our challenges, and each person has to make their own way. Alternatively, maybe there are some general approaches which might be useful. And finally, even if nothing new is said at the end of the day, the process itself is a valuable educational and learning experience.

Here then is a somewhat random list of things that I think we should address:

1. God
How do we talk about God when it's clear there is no empirical data on the concept? Do we create a metaphor of God (as in the Torah) and have a 'relationship' with that? Is all God talk metaphorical ? A waste of time? Is the concept so important for society that we just have to pretend we know what it means?

2. Torah
How do we think about Torah after we acknowledge Biblical Criticism? Should we go with some fluffy concept of 'Divine Inspiration'? Should we regard Torah as no different than any other ancient mythological book? Should we regard it as sacred literature of our people?

3. Halachah
How do we view Halachah? A vote, not a veto? A voluntary expression of our culture? Something we commit to for continuity sake (or many other good utilitarian reasons)? Somethin we pretend to do but not really?

4. Family
What do we tell our kids? How do we deal with our spouses?

5. Community
How do we realate to the other parts of our community? Chareidim? MO? Conservadox? Reconstructionist? Do we hide in the closet?

Like I said, just a random list. The real list is much longer.

So how long is all this going to take? Well, when it comes to important decisions like this, I prefer to take my time. Some people go OTD in 3 months, it took me 3 years (plus I'm not fully OTD anyways). Some people marry their first date, I dated for a long while, and dated my wife for a while too. I take my time making decisions. And that's the way it should be, with important life decisions. This isn't an impulse buy from ebay.

There are some time pressures though. Life is short, and my kids are getting older. In fact the kids are the biggest pressure here, and me and my skeptical friends are all feeling it.

What do we teach our kids? I have a friend who is also Orthoprax, and keeps asking me to post on this topic. But for him, the issue is less pressing, since he's sending his kids to a barely religious school, so they're not going to be asking him whether God exists. They'll probably be like 'Dad, why do we need to keep Shabbat, none of my classmates do?' (har de har). But my kids go to properly religious schools. Am I going to let them be, or try and provide them a deeper perspective on life, without destroying their faith? As they get older, I see more and more educational value in the 'God' concept for example. And not just 'Don't do that cos Hashem will get mad', but in deeper ways.

Anyways, just some thoughts. Let's see if we can make any progress.

Why are we all so nuts when it comes to God?

Rabbi Yaakov Salomon of Aish Hatorah has a ridiculous video wondering how non believers can possibly not believe in God, especially after US Airways Flight 1549's miraculous escape from death and destruction the other week. 

Wow, so if God saved Flight 1549, what the heck was he doing with all these? Oh yeah, you can't understand God. Except of course when something good happens, and then it's entirely due to God's good nature. 

Hmm. But maybe God is all bad, and when the occassional good thing happens we should just say 'Well, you can't understand God'. Strange how people never think like that, I guess it's just not as comforting.

There's no doubt that believing in God can bring all sorts of individual and societal benefits. Unless of course you are an Islamic fundamentalist, in which case maybe we would all be better off if you became an Atheist.

And it's not just Kiruv Clowns who say stupid things when it comes to God. Philosophy Professors do to, just go read Michael Novaks' latest book. What a load of piffle.

There aren't any good arguments for God's existence, and that's pretty clear. I challenge anyone to try and provide one - I'll demolish it faster than you can say 'Anachnu Ma'aminim Bnei Maaminim'.

Still, many of us believe, even me. I used to say I was Agnostic. Then I said I was Ignostic. But in reality I'm an Agnotheist. But still I know there's no good arguments for God.

LW vs RW MO Cheat Sheet

A commenter recently claimed that there was no difference between LW and RW MO, and that it was all in my head. Well there certainly is a difference, I see it and live it every day. But in case you are confused, here is a handy cheat sheet. (Click to enlarge).

MO Survey: Out of Town vs. NY/NJ

One interesting result of my informal MO survey is that there seems to be quite a geographic difference in MO. In the NY/NJ area, MO tends to be quite Right Wing, whereas out in the rest of the country MO is more Left Wing. For example, Houston hosting James Kugel, YCT's success in placing it's graduates in Out of Town locations e.g. Dallas and Nashville, my own personal experience.

I think the reasons for this are fairly straightforward: In NY/NJ YU has a large influence, and serious YU graduates are everywhere. Plus you have the influence of the chareidim. Out of town, MO is often composed of people from non YU backgrounds who like to identify as MO. Also, out of town locations are often more kiruv oriented, with more converts and BTs (the non crazy types). Also, the serious charedim tend to live in NY/NJ, and so have less influence out of town.

Of course there are some very charieid locations across the country, especially around various yeshivos such as Telz or Philly. But in out of town cities where no major Yeshivish institution exists, I think MO tends to be more LW.

Beis Yaakov Girls Gone Wild

I heard an interesting maaseh she'hoyoh this weekend. A Modern Orthodox couple use a babysitter from the Chareidi community who attends a Beis Yaakov girls only high school. They went out one night, expecting to be out late, but for various reasons came back much earlier than expected, and much earlier than they had told the babysitter. Anyways, they get back to find that the babysitter is not alone, but surprise surprise, a yeshivah bochur is there too.

I don't know any more details than that, so please let's not discuss what was going on. I'll be dan lekaf zechut and assume they were just discussing Nach, since no doubt a Beis Yaakov teaches Nach a lot more solidly than a boys only Yeshivah. As to whether it was first base or second base Nach is a different question.

Anyways, the discussion that ensued was whether the couple had any obligation to tell the girl's parents, or maybe the yeshivah hanholloh, about the incident. Some people felt that the parents should be told. Other people felt that the boy talking to girl thing wasn't the issue per se (even if in the Chareidi community it clearly would be), rather the issue is that if you have a babysitter, then the babysitter should not be inviting friends of either gender over, unless they get permission first. This then led to a broader discussion of which is healthier - single sex high schools or co-ed high schools.

I went to a boys only high school, and being a late developer in general, didn't realize that girls even existed until I was about 20. I mean, I wasn't completely ignorant, I had of course seen all the naughty bits in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, and saw the occasional R rated movie, but the notion that there might be girls my age who would be desirable to talk to, or hang out with, didn't really cross my mind. This was probaby for two reasons - a) In my small town there wasn't anywhere decent to hang out in and b) There weren't any local girls who were actually desireable to talk to. Or at least I never knew of any.

My wife on the other hand, attended a semi Syrian Modern Orthodox high school, with pool parties and who knows what going on every weekend. I'm afraid to ask, and anyway she won't tell. (Don't worry though, she frummed out later.)

So which was healthier? And could it be healthier for girls one way and boys another? I believe studies show that boys learn better in coed programs, and girls in single sex, (or maybe it was the other way round), but I'm more interested in the healthy, human development angle, rather than the educational angle.

No doubt Dude and friends will respond that while of course 'hookups' do occasionally happen between Beis Yaakov and the Bes Medrash, it's far less frequent and dangerous than what probably goes on at an MO coed high school. And that's probably true.

I'm thinking I should send my boys to a coed high school, so that they can learn early on what girls are about, but my girls I would send to a girls only high school, so that there's less chance of them getting into trouble. (If you think I have it backwards, then you need to meet my son and daughter).

Your thoughts?