The Danger of Alternatives

Garnel said:

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? 


[...]


Why are you only skeptical of one side?

This brings up a good point. 

Let's think about this. 

 I, like most people, was raised believing in a heliocentric Solar System i.e. that the Sun is at the center of the Solar System. I don't usually ponder this question. I take it as a given. I've never bothered to even look at the proofs that the Sun is actually at the center of the Solar System. So I go on with my life, I go to work, eat my supper and occasionally watch some TV and assume all along that the Earth orbits around the Sun. 

Then one day I surf the internet. And I find a fascinating article that claims that many major scientists actually question whether the Sun is at the center of the Solar System. In fact they say that the Earth is at the center of the Solar System. And they claim to have ironclad proofs to demonstrate this!

Suddenly my assumptions about a heliocentric solar system are not so true. I have to start questioning what I used to take as obvious. Maybe now I start looking at the proofs for a heliocentric solar system. Maybe I compare them to the merits of a geocentric solar system. 

In short nothing is as simple as it used to be. 

Here's the kicker. It doesn't actually matter whether or not I'm certain that the geocentric folks are correct or not. Now, I'm not gonna be so cocky and certain that the Sun is at the middle of the solar system. An important and dramatic shift has occurred in my worldview. Originally the heliocentric solar system was something I never questioned at all. It barely crossed my mind. But NOW that I know that MAYBE just maybe there is another opinion. Now I'm in the realm of doubt. 

So you see it doesn't matter whether I fully believe the scholars who says Moses didn't exist are right. When I'm growing up I assume that Moses existed. Its as obvious to me as the heliocentric solar system. I never question it. I never think about it. Now, suddenly the cornerstone of my life, an axiom that tells me what to do in the morning, what blessings to say what God to pray to, is no longer axiomatic. I have to start thinking whether Moses existed. I have to determine it. 

I might decide that the evidence proves that Moses did exist. I might decide the opposite. Or I might decide that one cannot tell one way or the other and therefore the efficacy of me following the dictates of this "Moses" cannot be proven one way or another. 

Learning about alternatives, even if you don't initially believe them, is still "dangerous". 

Internet

I don't know what they're gonna discuss at the Asifa but I'm pretty sure it's not just porn that's worrying our Gedolim.

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! 

Yom Ha'atzmaut

The big question used to be whether or not to pray Hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut - Israeli Independence day, thanking God for creating the State of Israel. Charedim generally do not do this either because they don't see the State of Israel as a blessing or because of more technical objections to liturgical innovation.

I always said Hallel because I liked the State of Israel and considered it very important.

However, following my skepticism, I stopped doing this because I decided it was against the true spirit of Yom Ha'atzmaut. Yom Ha'atzmaut is a human day. The Zionist pioneers decided to leave God behind in Europe and start new lives and become new Jews. They decided that the Messiah would not come by sitting in shuls fervently praying for a heavenly savior. Rather the redemption could only be brought about by human means. It was these people who led the re-creation of the Jewish State, and started the third commonwealth.

Yes, Religious Jews did take part in the Zionist enterprise and until this day believe that human endeavor and divine intervention can mesh together, however they were neither the leaders nor the majority of the Zionist movement, (though today things are changing).

Although obviously religious Zionists will disagree with me, to me Yom Ha'atzmaut is testament to human struggle and victory, the power of a dream, and the secular "redemption" of the Jewish Nation. It is not about divine intervention, the Jewish God or heavenly victory.

The Secular Zionists sang "who can praise the victories of Israel, who can count them?"

This replaced a Biblical verse which read "who can praise the victories of God, who can count them?"

Back to Russel and "The Emotions of the Heart"

Been having an email correspondence and a discussion of this statement of Bertrand Russel's came up (it's my favorite one):

There are two objections to the practice of basing beliefs as to objective fact upon the emotions of the heart. One is that there is no reason whatever to suppose that such beliefs will be true; the other is, that the resulting beliefs will be private, since the heart says different things to different people.

Let me explain:

Russel's point about the heart speaking different things to different people is that it cannot serve as a source of objectivity. A Christian thinks that Jesus was an incarnation of God because this is what his heart tells him and a Jew believes he was not ALSO because his heart tells him. Therefore one cannot establish an objective answer to the question was Jesus an incarnation of God, or any other religious question for that matter based on one's heart. 

As to Russel's second point. The difference between Maths and logic on the one hand and "the heart" on the other hand is we DO have reason to to suppose that such beliefs will be true. What is this reason - you may ask. The answer, i believe is twofold:

1. Maths and logic have accomplished concrete things. Ultimately all fields of science derive from certain assumptions about logic and math, and these assumptions have led to the creation of rocketships, medicines, cars and all sorts of things - thus demonstrating that these fields have some basis in reality. The ability of Maths and logic to manipulate what we perceive as reality is evidence to its own reality. The dictates of the heart, on the other hand, have never been used to manipulate reality effectively.

2. Maths and logic are universally accepted. No one argues that 1 and 1 make two and that half of a circle is less than a square. It is this universal acceptance that gives these fields validity beyond the human heart. The dictates of the heart, however, are not universally accepted as attested to by the stunning proliferation of countless variegated faiths. 

That is my פירוש of Russel. 

The Smart Folks Who DON'T Believe It

Chaim Sofek asked:

i would like to like at the other side why did only we (otd, undercovered) came to this conclusion that its not true are we more educated or smarter then everyone who stays jewish? 

In other words why were we not smart enough to defend Judaism to ourselves? Why can James Kugel believe in the DH buy still remain Orthodox while we can't? Are we smarter than him? Do we know something he doesn't know? 

I can't speak for other people but I can speak for myself. It is my belief that the reason this stuff got to me was not because of the content of it but rather because of the way I found out.

In other words a bunch of coincidental factors contributed to it:

1. No one ever told me that there was a DH. I'd heard of this vague thing called Bible Criticism but I didn't realize how developed it was. Similarly I found out that Karaites exist nowadays and reject the Talmud! Something else I had not been aware of. I began realizing that a lot of very normal people simply rejected things I had always taken for granted. 

In contrast, learning about evolution never phased me because I'd grown up with the proper defenses. I had been openly taught about evolution and it had been explained to me that God guided evolution, that 6 days of creation were not literal etc. In other words I'd incorporated the problem into my personal theology and didn't think of it as a problem because, in my mind, תשובתו בצדו - the answer was always there. I could only think of the problem of evolution and the answer to that problem as one thing, and to me the problem never stood by itself. 

If I'd been raised fully knowing what the DH said but at the same time been raised with the solution, even a lame solution, I doubt that it would have gotten to me at all. 

2. I was very scared of the consequences of learning these things and therefore instead of facing them head on  I tried to ignore them (like good Jews should!) and let them simmer for about 6 years in my head until they effectively eroded my faith. Had I been mature enough at the time to face these problems I might have built up some sort of intellectual defense before my faith was gone.

3. Once your faith is gone its gone. And therefore when I was older and learned new and ingenious defenses of Judaism it did not matter because the faith was gone. I could intellectually defend Judaism but I could not rebuild a childhood feeling which had slowly disappeared. 

This is my own theory about myself and I wrote about this a bit on the interview on Coin Laundry's blog: 

So if I had to sum it up I'd say a series of coincidences led me down the path I did, and if a few things had been different I might be learning in Kollel in Bnei Brak today. 

All the Smart Folks Believe It

E said...

One thing I will say about my statement that there is reason to believe is that ultimately there are a number of intelligent people out there that have read everything you have read, know everything you know and still believe in the Torah. I am aware that there aren't that many people that fit this description. I am also aware that not all of them are intellectually honest. But, I hope we can agree on this, these people do exist. (That doesn't mean they're right. There are lots of very clever and knowledgable atheists and I'm not an atheist.) I presume these people have a reason for believing the Torah is more than just an interesting ANE text. I think you'd do better asking people that fit the above description rather than me why they believe. Reasons for believing exist, whether you find them convincing or not.

Before people jump on him, I want to say that E brings up a very important point. I personally have met people who know everything I do and have read everything I read and YET still believe in Judaism. I'll go one step further I personally know people who believe in the Documentary Hypothesis, agree that you can't prove God exists and STILL believe in Judaism (and keep it devoutly!). This is an extremely interesting phenomenon and seeing this phenomenon has led me to the conclusion that believing in Judaism or not believing in Judaism has very little to do with intelligence. Some people out there would expect there to be a direct correlation between intelligence and NOT believing in Judaism but that's simply not true, as we know some of the greatest Rabbis were simply geniuses, and STILL believed this stuff. And we're not just talking about brainwashed uneducated Rabbis, even Rabbis who knew all the facts and read all the literature buy Judaism.

So what's it all about?

Firstly I have to quote Michael Shermer on this one. In his book Why People Believe Weird Things: He makes a bold but insightful statement: "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non smart reasons."

Michael Shermer in this pithy little statement has summed up a whole lot of human psychology. Generally speaking people arrive at their beliefs for non-intelligent reasons. Once they already have a belief they will prop it up with "explanations", "justifications".

Now, I'm not saying this is inconceivable, but I would be extremely interested to meet someone who grew up an atheist or agnostic, learned everything about the DH and proofs of God and everything us skeptics know, and then in spite of all this decided Judaism was correct. Now THAT would be a person worth talking too, because as far as I know most intelligent informed people who believe in Judaism despite knowing about skepticism and Biblical criticism etc. are Frum From Birth. (e.g. Louis Jacobs, James Kugel, etc.) In other words they believed in Judaism from the beginning, faced some challenges to it, and then summarily solved these problems with a bit of ingenuity.

This is important because it would add a degree of objectivity to the question. If Judaism was logically sound, as opposed to merely logically defensible, we would expect people to flock to it the way they do to Science and mathematics and other objective things. The fact that people don't, in my mind, shows that Judaism is defensible, but not justifiable, from a logical perspective.

More about this in another post...

No Proof

Just want to follow up on my post from the other day about Torah and Science etc.

A lot of discussion went into the comments about science and Torah and all that and I just want to stress again, that even though it's interesting to discuss, its really irrelevant, because there is no proof that the Torah is anything more than an interesting ANE book. 


You can say the Torah doesn't contradict Science. You can say that it alludes to scientific ideas, but ultimately expecting to find science in the Torah is like expecting to find science in the Epic of Gilgamesh or in the Iliad. (I'm pretty sure that someone could read one of these ANE god-stories as alluding to different elements combining to create different parts of the universe, someone with enough time on their hands should give it a try.)

Once again, it all boils down to proof, can anyone prove that the Torah is anything more than an ANE religious text? I personally don't think so.