The internet is a hotbed of Kefira! Now obviously a good Ben Torah will stay away from pernicious blogs like Shilton HaSechel (with a name like that you gotta be careful!) but what about those little tidbits of information that hit you by surprise.
If you're anything like me you've probably gotten bored before and done some Wikipedia surfing. The truth is Wikipedia paves the path to Hell!
Let's say I decide to search "Torah" on Wikipedia. Boom! Right away I'm bombarded with Kefira:
"Most Modern biblical scholars believe that the written books were a product of the Babylonian exilic period (c.600 BCE) and that it was completed by the Persian period (c.400 BCE)."
What if I search "Moses"
Same thing, kefira, kefira kefira!
"The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story is disputed amongst archaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence, and related origin myths in Canaanite culture."
Now you'll probably disregard these things if you have the proper training, but eventually they might just get to you. Compare this to the state of affairs BEFORE the internet. The only way I could find out about the Documentary Hypothesis or evolution or anything was if I went to a library and specifically looked it up. It was most rare to stumble upon these sorts of kefiradick ideas.
The internet is very dangerous because it might just expose you to ideas and theories which contradict your current worldview!
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8 comments:
Their problem is not so much the nudity as the naked truth.
It's pretty well-established by now that this all about control, and the porn-obsession is just offshoot of that.
Shilton - bingo! You're on the mark, as usual. I know for myself that I would never have questioned at all had it not been for the Internet and the ease of access to information it brings.
The only real fear any closed society has is the fear of information, and these people in their insular society are very fearful indeed of people gaining some real knowledge.
It's all about porn. The local public library has been full of atheism for decades. Who cared? Who read it? However the Internet has meant for the first time in history you can watch porn movies without anyone else seeing you purchase it. This is making an impact on society in general, not just Jews.
http://nymag.com/news/features/70976/
"The only real fear any closed society has is the fear of information, and these people in their insular society are very fearful indeed of people gaining some real knowledge."
That's probably the reason they won't allow me to join the Off The Derech Facebook group and why a lot of atheist blogs delete my posts. Fear.
I'm not a troll. My comments are perfectly rational, polite and relevent to the topic. It's fear which keeps me locked out.
sunlight is the best disinfectant
The internet is merely a more convenient form of the library.
What is needed by users in both cases is a healthy dose of intellectual honest and skepticism.
So some scholars think Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, might not have existed? Why believe them?
Some modern Biblical scholars don't believe in the antiquity of the Bible? What makes them more authoritative than the ones that do?
Reminds me of something I heard an Israeli archeologist once say: if we find a pillar someone in the Iraqi desert that says "I King So'n'so fight and won a glorious battle on this site" we enter it into the history books and then try to find reasons why there's no trace of it later. But when it comes to the Bible, well then we want King David's credit card receipts and some photo ID or we won't believe anything about what it says of him.
Why are you only skeptical of one side?
Ah yes, but what makes them less authoritative...? What if there's merit to both points of view?
If there is indeed a debate, and not just one answer, then things are not as clear cut and faith is not as easy. I don't have to choose one side to be in doubt I just have to know that THERE IS a real scholarly debate.
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