God Plays Dice: A Talk on Evolution and Religion – Rabbi Dr. Michael Avraham – Bar-Ilan University
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Table of Contents
- [3:49] The book as a response to Dawkins
- [5:59] The problematic nature of scientific-philosophical discourse
- [7:16] Separating scientific and philosophical planes
- [9:26] Critique of Dawkins’s philosophical interpretation
- [11:09] The implication of an improbable process
- [12:17] The beliefs of Einstein and Hawking
- [18:02] Atheism and rationality
- [20:21] A psychological and philosophical explanation for opinions
- [24:39] Scientific-religious persecutions in history
- [27:08] The absence of Jewish criticism of Dawkins
- [29:44] Pragmatism, faith, and implications
- [31:13] The level of religious cruelty and belief
- [32:32] Is the naturalness of natural selection a tautological claim?
- [33:47] Giving the benefit of the doubt—when do we use it?
- [36:30] Do prayers affect healing? – a review of studies
- [40:08] Atheist versus religion—can they be separated?
- [42:49] Dawkins and the facts—what is the scientist’s role?
- [48:47] Defining logic and faith—what is the difference between them?
- [??:??] Opening and introduction of Dr. Michael Abraham (NONE)
Summary
General Overview
The text presents the launch of the book “God Plays Dice” by Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham as an intellectual response to Richard Dawkins and to the widespread identification of evolution and belief in God as mutually contradictory. Dr. Abraham argues that the discourse around evolution is infected by a mixing of scientific questions with philosophical interpretations, and that even if one accepts evolution as a scientifically valid theory within its limits, the philosophical question remains open—and evolution itself may even be seen as good evidence for the existence of God. He goes on to criticize the philosophical authority claimed by famous scientists when they stray beyond their field of expertise, explains how psychological and ideological pressures shape the discourse, rejects the claim that religion is the root of all evil, and emphasizes that no belief has logical certainty, so one must live according to what is reasonable rather than what is absolutely certain.
Introducing Dr. Michael Abraham and the Book
The event opens with greetings to the “creationists” and the “slaughterers of evolution,” and with an introduction of Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham as the author of “God Plays Dice” and as someone with a background in theoretical physics, logic, philosophy, Talmud / Talmudic text, Jewish law, and law. The host presents his academic work, his participation in the “magnificent project” of “Talmudic Logic,” and his teaching in various institutions, and notes that he won the Minister of Education’s Prize for Jewish Creativity in 2004. The host describes the book as a response to Richard Dawkins’s book “The God Delusion” and claims that the book gives a “decisive answer” to Dawkins because it was written by a “religious scientist” of equal stature, rather than as a preachy response from a “religious layman.”
The Distinctiveness of the Approach: Separating Science from Philosophy
Dr. Abraham says that public discourse is conducted in a problematic way because of its lack of substance and because of repeated confusions between philosophical and scientific questions and between scientific results and interpretations. Dr. Abraham argues that this confusion characterizes not only those who are not trained scientists, but also skilled scientists on the neo-Darwinist side, because they are skilled in science and less so in philosophy, and that the scientific aura gives them weight even when they are “simply talking nonsense in the philosophical realm.” In the book, Dr. Abraham assumes for the sake of discussion—and beyond that—that evolutionary theory is correct, though with flaws that still require completion, and insists that the philosophical question remains: what does accepting evolution mean on the philosophical plane? Dr. Abraham concludes that the more convinced he becomes of evolution, the harder it is for him to accept the atheist position as a reasonable interpretation, and he presents evolution as “not bad” evidence, perhaps even “the best,” for the existence of God.
The Critique of Dawkins: Interpretation Instead of Science
Dr. Abraham states that he does not criticize Dawkins on the scientific plane because he is not a biologist, and places the problem in Dawkins’s slide into philosophical interpretations and in his failure to distinguish between interpretation and scientific result. Dr. Abraham describes the creationist claim that evolution is an improbable process with a low probability, and notes that many neo-Darwinists agree with that while also claiming that the facts confirm that it happened. Dr. Abraham argues that both sides are “right in their premises and therefore both are wrong in their conclusions,” because combining the premises “completely improbable” and “it happened” leads to the conclusion that “apparently someone brought it about.” Dr. Abraham says that both sides are “shooting themselves in the foot,” because the creationists pull the ground from under their own evidence when they claim evolution did not happen, while the neo-Darwinists effectively adopt the very basis that allows one to see this as evidence for a creator.
Einstein, Hawking, and Spinoza as Religious-Metaphorical Authority
The host quotes Dawkins on Einstein’s and Hawking’s metaphorical use of the word “God,” and on an Einstein quote defining “religiosity” as the experience of something beyond what the mind can grasp, to which Dawkins adds, “In that sense, I too am religious,” with the reservation that “unable to grasp” does not necessarily mean “forever ungraspable.” Dr. Abraham says he is not interested in what Einstein, Hawking, or Dawkins “thought,” but in what the arguments are, and argues that there is no value in clarifying their positions as philosophical authorities because they are “mediocre philosophers and below,” even if they are brilliant scientists. Dr. Abraham says he does discuss Einstein’s position in the final chapter because it is interesting, and he raises doubt whether Einstein “correctly deciphered himself,” similar to the amorphous nature of surveys about belief in God. Dr. Abraham accepts that Einstein believed in a non-personal God in an abstract sense, but argues that one can extract from Einstein’s statements a different picture of “something that stands behind this totality,” even if Einstein did not go into the question of one’s relationship to it.
Rationality and Atheism
Dr. Abraham argues that, in his view, the deeper question is not whether belief in God is rational, but how atheism can be reconciled with rationality, and he says he cannot understand such compatibility. Dr. Abraham defines philosophical rationalism as an outlook that applies insights of the intellect to the world, and asks what justifies the assumption that the structure of thought fits the way the world behaves, emphasizing the puzzle of the fit between mathematics and nature. Dr. Abraham argues that this correlation “cannot be justified without belief in some force,” not necessarily “a God who says to put on tefillin,” but some force that explains the fit between thought and the world; therefore, he presents atheism as a position incompatible with rationality.
Why We Don’t Hear Believing Positions in the Scientific World
Dr. Abraham offers a psychological explanation according to which experts tend to see their field as a complete explanation and ignore parallel planes of explanation. He illustrates this through a psychologist treating OCD who gives a psychological explanation for questions of faith, alongside the possibility of a philosophical discussion in which conclusions arise from arguments. Dr. Abraham offers another explanation in terms of “ideological pressure,” which creates paradigms that push certain views “into the closet.” He argues that the main fear is not persecution but the intuitive association of certain views with lack of intelligence. Dr. Abraham says intelligence is a criterion for advancement, and so people recoil from expressing positions that “will be perceived as unintelligent,” and he adds that he has the “privilege” of not being a biologist, so no one can stop his advancement.
Mutual Persecution Between Religion and Science and the Jewish Attitude
Dr. Abraham explains that historical persecutions stem from a confusion between the religious and scientific planes and from a shared premise that if one side is right, the other must be wrong. He presents a symmetry between the church that burned heretics and an “atheist church” that metaphorically burns believers in the name of the “neo-Darwinist religion.” Dr. Abraham argues that one can “belong to both churches,” and that if science reaches convincing conclusions and there are also good arguments for the existence of God, then “apparently there is no contradiction” and one must think through why there is none. He adds that the religious persecution of scientists was mainly a Christian phenomenon, and expresses the feeling that Jews are “more relaxed” about such problems, bringing an anecdote that, according to his American friend, no book written by a Jew had appeared against Dawkins. The host adds the statistic that “60% of respondents” in the United States do not believe in evolution, and Dr. Abraham presents this as a result of the feeling that religiosity forbids belief in evolution.
Religion, Cruelty, and Fanaticism
Dr. Abraham says Dawkins’s claim that religious belief is the root of all evil is “a great illusion,” and states that in a world without beliefs, one cannot kill over beliefs, but in a world with beliefs, there is such a danger. Dr. Abraham argues that the alternative is not to give up beliefs, but to hold them while trying to prevent their rolling over into problematic consequences, and he criticizes a pragmatist approach that bends beliefs according to their implications for tolerance and democracy. Dr. Abraham says that if he believes in God, he cannot deny that even if it has problematic consequences, and he adds that Dawkins himself brings examples like Stalin and Hitler that show enormous cruelty exists even without religion. Dr. Abraham concludes that the correct claim is that cruelty can stem from belief in general, not specifically from religious belief, and that non-religious beliefs do not lessen the concern that people may kill over belief.
Is Evolution Science, and What Is the Status of Natural Selection?
Dr. Abraham says the question is difficult because evolution is made up of different components, some of them scientific and open to falsification and empirical confirmation, and some not scientific. Dr. Abraham argues that the principle of natural selection is “clearly not a scientific claim,” not because it is false but because it is necessarily true, and he defines it as the tautology “the survivor survives.” Dr. Abraham says a tautological claim can still have non-trivial implications and that the Darwinian move is intelligent, but it does not stand up to factual testing because one can always find alternative explanations even in the face of examples formulated as if they were refutations.
Ideological Biases in Science and the Example of Prayer Studies
Dr. Abraham argues that both sides in the discourse are biased, and that intelligent people display “really embarrassing biases” when they reach ideological territory. He brings an appendix from the book on studies examining the effect of prayer on healing, including an article in the journal “HaRefuah” from Tel Aviv University by three authors, one of whom was an Israeli professor named Sheinfeld. Dr. Abraham says the article reviewed around 13 or 14 experiments, and that among the seven done with full scientific methodology, “all seven show that prayers are beneficial,” while the others were methodologically weaker. Dr. Abraham presents the authors’ conclusion as “we have no indication whatsoever” and “the righteous shall live by his faith,” and argues that if that is the conclusion from the data presented, then “something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark,” concluding that scientists should not deal with ideologically loaded questions.
The Atheist’s Question: God, Facts, and the Multiplicity of Religions
An atheist questioner argues that science is based on facts and that there is no scientific proof for God or the supernatural, adding that the multiplicity of religions and beliefs in the world poses a difficulty for the claim of absolute religious truth. Dr. Abraham replies that Dawkins is not dealing with facts but with interpretation of facts, and that on the factual plane he has no argument, for the sake of discussion, about the occurrence of evolution. Dr. Abraham argues that Dawkins’s claim against the supernatural is empty of content, because anything that is defined and understood will be called natural, and anything not accepted will be defined as non-natural—so this is a tautology. Dr. Abraham responds that multiplicity of beliefs exists in politics and history too, and there is no necessity to follow the majority; he emphasizes that theoretical science deals with interpretation, not only facts. Dr. Abraham clarifies that he is not disconnecting God from the world, but disconnecting the discussion: the question of God is philosophical, and the question of evolution is scientific, and he declares that he believes God brought about evolution as well.
Faith, Logic, Certainty, and Living by What Is Reasonable
A question is asked whether there are areas in which one is left only with faith that is not logically proven, and Dr. Abraham replies that there is nothing in the world that is logically proven except derivation from premises, and one can only prove that if the premises are true, then the conclusion follows. Dr. Abraham presents logic as an instrument for analyzing and unpacking insights, not as a tool that generates new insights, and emphasizes that mathematics “never adds information” but rather extracts information from axioms. He recounts an attempt in the “Talmudic Logic” group to develop a “logic of information accumulation” as a structure different from ordinary logic. Dr. Abraham argues that nothing is certain, including gravitation and the electromagnetic field, and that the choice between generalizations is also made according to principles such as “Occam’s razor.”
Why Conduct the Debate, and What Evolution Does to Proofs of God
A question is asked why to conduct the debate if evolution makes God unnecessary, or at least does not require Him, and Dr. Abraham replies that the cautious claim is that evolution does not refute the existence of God, but at most refutes the physico-theological proof; then people use “Occam’s razor” so as not to posit entities without reason. Dr. Abraham argues that evolution does not refute even that proof, and that one can argue about it just as people did two hundred years ago, including Kantian criticism, without any unique contribution from evolution. Dr. Abraham repeats that there is no necessity or logical proof for faith, and criticizes religious education that demands absolute certainty, which in his words causes people to think that if there is no proof, then “we don’t believe.” He concludes that one must live according to what is reasonable, not according to what is certain, and declares that he is prepared to stand behind the claim that belief in God is more reasonable than atheism, even if it is not certain.
Full Transcript
[Speaker A] Hello to the creationists, and hello to all the slaughterers of evolution. I’m happy to welcome Dr. Michael Abraham, Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham. Dr. Michael Abraham is the author of the book that has just come out, “God Plays Dice”—what evolution really tells us. He holds a doctorate in theoretical physics; after several years of research at the Weizmann Institute and Bar-Ilan University, he served as a lecturer at the hesder yeshiva in Yeruham. Today he teaches at the Institute for Advanced Torah Studies at Bar-Ilan University, is a member of the Talmudic Logic group at the university, and a partner in a magnificent project that has already produced five—four volumes, Talmudic Logic, which I hope we’ll get to launch separately soon, four out of an expected 11 or 12 volumes, logic in the Talmud. He teaches various courses in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University, at Bezalel, at Kiryat Ono College, and elsewhere. When do you have time, Doctor Rabbi? He has published many articles and books dealing with physics, logic and philosophy, Talmud / Talmudic text, Jewish law, and law, and more and more. He has additional books to his name, including “Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon” on Judaism and postmodernism. He won the Minister of Education’s Prize for Jewish Creativity in 2004. And his previous books paved the way for the comprehensive philosophical work before you. We have gathered here, as mentioned, to launch his book that has just appeared from Yedioth Books, a much-discussed book that is already making waves: “God Plays Dice”—what evolution really tells us. This is in fact meant to respond to a bestselling book that also came out from Yedioth Books about a year ago, “The God Delusion,” a bestseller translated into Hebrew, written by the English biologist Richard Dawkins, the neo-Darwinist. A bestseller, as I said. And when I read that book at the time, as a believing person, my heart sank, and I said: when will the religious scientist arise who will pick up the gauntlet and, as they say, give Richard Dawkins a fitting answer? I said to myself, if I were a scientist of a high enough caliber—I’m an amateur scientist—and I wanted to write something that would intelligently answer Dawkins’s book and put him in his place. And I waited for that book. And then when Dr. Michael Abraham’s book came out and I read it—I have to say, in two days—my heart was relieved and I said, ah, we’ve arrived, my heart is relieved and I’m calm now, because the answer has been given. And now I’m truly calm. The book gives the decisive answer to Dawkins. Really, the book by the religious scientist gives the answer I had been waiting for. And I have to say, it really is a book worthy of its name, from the point of view not of a religious preacher—for books that took on Dawkins from the perspective of the religious person, the religious layman, of a religious preacher, of a religious rabbi, there were many, let’s say, that were not a fair match, that really weren’t at the right level, and so it wasn’t an even match and Dawkins won, or the neo-Darwinists won, because it wasn’t an equal contest, and their thesis really won. So someone had to come, let’s say, with equal weight, someone who could really engage at that level, and Dr. Michael Abraham—whose résumé I just read to you, who has a great wealth of knowledge and knows what he’s talking about—has in fact come with tremendous intellectual resources and knows what he’s talking about. After that introduction, I want to get to the heart of the matter, and I’d like to ask you, Dr. Abraham, Rabbi Dr. Abraham, a few questions about the substance of it. My first question is: what is distinctive about this book’s approach compared to the accepted approaches?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, the truth is, “accepted approaches” is a little hard to define, but if I look in broad brushstrokes, let’s say, at how the discourse is conducted, then the discourse is conducted in a very problematic way. It’s conducted in a very problematic way also in terms of manners and civility, but that bothers me less. It’s conducted in a problematic way because of its lack of substance and because of the many confusions that occur on both sides between philosophical questions and scientific questions, and between interpretations and scientific questions. And I think this confusion is not the exclusive domain of those people you mentioned earlier who are not trained scientists. This confusion belongs no less to skilled scientists on the neo-Darwinist side, and the main reason is that they are mainly skilled in science and much less in philosophy. And I think we’ve met quite a few writers and speakers in recent years who are definitely first-rate scientists, and I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt their scientific abilities, but who are simply talking nonsense in the philosophical realm. And their scientific aura, or scientific résumé, stands in their favor also in the philosophical context. And I think that’s one of my main goals in the book: to try to make some order here, to try to understand which questions are scientific and which questions are philosophical. And if I may perhaps sum it up in one sentence, I’d say this: the common feeling in the world today is that this is one question—whether evolution is true or not. And if evolution is true, then there is no God, and if evolution is not true, then there is a God, and now all we need to do is argue about whether it’s true or not. So the neo-Darwinists bring their evidence, and the creationists try to attack that evidence or point out flaws in the theory—and there certainly are such flaws. But I think this entire discussion is being conducted on the wrong plane. In the book, I assume, at least for the sake of argument and beyond the needs of the argument, that the theory is true. It is true within the limits of various flaws that still require completion. And even so, the philosophical question remains. Even if this theory is scientifically true, what does that mean on the philosophical plane? And here, it seems to me, the answer surprised even me at first. My goal was, as I said earlier, to separate the planes. That is, to say: you can answer the scientific question however you choose, using scientific tools, and still the philosophical question remains open. And my conclusion after writing the book is that if I become sufficiently convinced that there is evolution, then it is very hard for me to accept the atheist position as a reasonable interpretation of that. In other words, I think evolution is not bad evidence for the existence of God—perhaps the best there is. So that’s the nutshell version. Fine, thank you.
[Speaker A] What is the problem with Dawkins’s conceptions? On the face of it, he deals strictly with science—a scientist, rational science, dealing strictly with science—so what’s the problem with his views?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so as I said earlier, on the scientific plane I’m not qualified to judge what the problem is with his views. I’m not a biologist, not an expert in biology, and not in evolution either, and my criticism of him is not on that plane. On that plane there are many who criticize him, and there are debates raging in various directions. My problem with Dawkins is his drift into philosophical interpretations and his failure to distinguish between interpretations and scientific results. If I formulate this briefly as well, I’d say this: the creationists basically argue that evolution is a completely improbable process. The probability of its occurring is very low. And most neo-Darwinists, it seems to me, accept that. In other words, they say: indeed, this process is really improbable, but there are data, empirical facts, that confirm that it happened. True, it’s improbable, but it happened. You can’t deny that—that’s what the neo-Darwinists claim. And what I’m trying to argue, and perhaps this will mark the difference I’m talking about between science and philosophy, is that both sides are actually right in their premises and therefore both are wrong in their conclusions. That is, the creationists are right that the process is improbable; there is a very low probability that such a process would happen, and usually most neo-Darwinists agree with that too. The neo-Darwinists are right—at least for the sake of discussion—that there are facts, meaning the facts show that it did happen, at least certain parts, certain segments of this theory did indeed happen. The question I ask is: what conclusion am I supposed to draw from the fact that a completely improbable process did in fact occur? If the premise that it is completely improbable is true, and the premise that it happened is also true, then now I combine the two. If something completely improbable happened, what does that mean? It means that apparently someone brought it about. That seems to me the case. And if I continue one more line, I’d say this: if we understand the conclusion in this way, as it emerges from the combination of the two premises of the two sides, then both sides in the debate are each shooting themselves in the foot. The creationists want to argue that evolution did not happen. The moment you argue that evolution did not happen, you pull the ground out from under your own evidence for the existence of God, because that evidence is based on the fact that a completely improbable process did happen—and then the question is how. But if it didn’t happen, then what’s the question? And if the neo-Darwinists answer them: what do you mean, even though it’s improbable, it happened—what does that mean? That a completely improbable process happened. That is the creationists’ evidence. So they shoot themselves in the foot. Therefore this confusion between science and philosophical interpretation casts both sides in this debate in a somewhat ridiculous light.
[Speaker A] I want to quote from Dawkins’s book. He writes there that Einstein used the word “God” in a metaphorical, poetic sense, and so did Stephen Hawking, and that this is also the way of most physicists whose language sometimes slips into the territory of religious metaphor. And when he comes to summarize Einsteinian religion, Dawkins quotes one quotation from Einstein, and this is the quote: “The ability to feel that behind everything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, something whose beauty and sublimity reach us only indirectly and as faint reflections—this is religiosity. In this sense I am religious.” And Dawkins adds: “In that sense, I too am religious,” with the reservation that “unable to grasp” does not necessarily mean “forever beyond grasp,” says Dawkins. What do you think of that statement?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll begin with a kind of preface. My initial view is that I’m not really interested in what Einstein thought and what Hawking thinks, and even less in what Dawkins thinks. I don’t think these figures are—all of them are smart people, by the way, as far as I at least understand, all of them are very smart people, and I don’t doubt that. The only question is why it matters what this or that smart person thinks. The question is what arguments he raises, and whether they are convincing or not. So my initial criticism of Dawkins’s presentation is that I don’t see value in clarifying Einstein’s position, for example, or Hawking’s. This falls into the category I described at the beginning, in response to the previous question, of talented scientists who slide into the philosophical realm and sort of lose their footing there a bit. It seems to me that these three people, all three talented at different levels in their scientific fields, are all mediocre philosophers and below—Einstein, let’s say, mediocre; the other two, far below. So I think their positions are not especially important, and not really worth dwelling on. I do devote the last chapter of the book to Einstein’s position, not only because he was at least mediocre, but because it’s an interesting position. In other words, it’s a position I discuss not because Einstein held it, but because it’s a position worth discussing. First of all, one has to understand that preface. As for the matter itself, first of all, it may indeed be that Einstein was not a religious person, and Hawking certainly was not a religious person.
[Speaker A] He believed in Spinoza.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, and I’m not sure Spinoza wasn’t a religious person either. But let’s accept that too for the sake of discussion. But why is that important? The question is whether the religious claim is true or not, not who was religious and who wasn’t. Now, regarding Einstein, I raise a few thoughts there about the interpretation of his statements, because many times my feeling is—and this doesn’t characterize only Einstein, but a great many people—that when you ask them for some kind of report on what their position is, they don’t always decipher themselves correctly. Many times, for example, surveys here in Israel ask how many people believe in God, and each time we’re struck anew by the high percentage of believers, whom I never manage to identify around me. And my feeling has always been that these surveys ask such an amorphous question that if I were to try to analyze and explain what “God” is and what “believing in God” is, and define the five, ten, or hundred possible options, we would discover that far fewer people believe in God than these surveys suggest. And in our context it seems to me that Einstein too, who definitely saw himself as believing in God—not a personal God, and Dawkins emphasizes that, quite rightly—I think in this matter Einstein is often misused. I said both sides suffer here from the same problems. Einstein definitely was not a believer in the ordinary sense, as far as one can tell. He believed in God in a very, very abstract sense, not a personal God, as I said earlier. I’m just not entirely sure Einstein interpreted himself correctly. And I try to show, through a few examples in what I think is the last chapter of the book, that from a number of Einstein’s statements I can try to extract a conception different from the one he himself reports. In other words, the claim that he is really speaking about awe before nature and not before something that stands behind nature—that is basically the claim of a non-personal God—I don’t think that really describes Einstein’s intuitions correctly, although maybe—I don’t know—perhaps he himself did think that. Because when you examine what he says, it seems to me that a somewhat different picture emerges. A picture emerges according to which there really is something standing behind this totality, this whole that we see around us. And how exactly to relate to it—that really is a question Einstein didn’t go into, but as I said before, that’s not really the interesting question.
[Speaker A] Can religion be reconciled with rationality?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, here I’m really entering a bit into the territory of my previous books, and it seems to me there are several very fundamental questions at the foundation of rationality—that is, at the foundation of the conception of what rationality is—which I think a position that is not, I won’t say religious, but an unbelieving position, will not really succeed in grounding. Or in other words, I really can’t understand how atheism is compatible with rationality. And I don’t mean in the sense of whether believing in God is rational, whether there are proofs or no proofs. I’m speaking on the reverse plane. I’m speaking on the plane where, if I believe in rationality and I go backward and ask myself what the reason is that I believe in rationality, because rationality basically means—philosophical rationalism, as distinct from empiricism—an approach that is willing to apply conclusions or insights that arise in my mind or intellect to the world. And the question is: what justifies that? Why should things that derive from the structure of my thought or my intellect correspond in some way to how the world itself behaves? Some people ask, yes, about the puzzle of why the world is written in the language of mathematics. The language of mathematics describes our ways of thinking, and somehow we repeatedly discover that the conduct of the world reflects mathematical mechanisms that in many respects fit how our thought behaves. And this fit, which is at the basis of rationality—without it one cannot be rational, certainly not rationalist—seems to me impossible to justify without belief in some force. I’m not speaking specifically about a God who tells you to put on tefillin, or any particular God, but some force that ensures this correlation between the form of our thinking and the way the world behaves. And therefore it seems to me that the better question should be addressed to atheists: is atheism compatible with rationality? It seems to me the answer is no.
[Speaker A] I’m going to wrap two questions into one now. The first question is: why don’t we hear positions that support faith in the scientific-philosophical world?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, on that matter I need to put on the psychologist’s hat a bit, perhaps, but I’ll try to offer two explanations, or two mechanisms, that can provide some justification or explanation for this picture. The first mechanism is that a person engaged in a certain field naturally gets used to seeing it as the whole picture. And when a person works in evolution or in physics or in some scientific field, he is more inclined—I say again on the psychological plane, because I don’t think this is philosophically necessary—but he is inclined to see his explanations as exhaustive explanations. Something that needs nothing beyond it. But it’s not always like that. Many times there are parallel planes of explanation, and I wrote about this in one of my previous books: even if I adopt an explanation belonging to one plane, that doesn’t mean I’m supposed to reject explanations belonging to another plane. But this is a general human weakness—focusing on the plane in which I’m an expert, or in which I’m engaged. Maybe just a banal example: when a person goes to a psychologist and discusses with him all kinds of troubling questions. I met such a case, for example, someone whom a psychologist referred to me, someone being treated for OCD, compulsive disorders. And he asked me all kinds of questions about faith—questions anyone else could ask too—but he went to the psychologist with those questions, probably because they were troubling him in too high a dose, meaning it had become somewhat compulsive. So the psychologist who treats those questions treats them with psychological tools. But on the other hand there is also room for philosophical treatment of those questions, and the question is whether they really have answers, and what those answers are, and that’s what should be dealt with in that discussion. And when you ask the psychologist why the person reaches those conclusions, he’ll tell you: because he’s compulsive. And when you ask the philosopher why he reaches that conclusion, he’ll tell you: because he has reasons A, B, C and arguments D, E, F, and therefore he reaches that conclusion. Who is right? Both are right. That is, on the philosophical plane the conclusion follows from the premises in philosophical arguments, and on the psychological plane there are also psychological explanations for it. And I think in that sense scientists have a tendency to focus on their field of occupation or expertise, and they tend more to ignore other fields or other questions that arise—and I have abundant examples of that. That’s the simpler and less problematic answer. The more problematic answer really is one that stems from a kind of pressure—ideological pressure, I’d say. There are quite a few worldviews today that are supposed to remain in the closet—not only in biology, in other fields too, certainly in the humanities, and in law of course. Try being a conservative jurist today in many places in the Israeli legal world—I don’t think you’d last there very long. And one of the biggest problems with this pressure is that people often tend to see it as a conspiracy of the elders of the leftists, or the elders of the liberals, or the elders of Zion. I don’t think it’s the result of a conspiracy, and I don’t think there are villains and righteous people here. There is a certain worldview, a paradigm in Thomas Kuhn’s terms, that takes over certain fields. He spoke about the natural sciences, but if it’s true in the natural sciences, then in the humanities and social sciences it is certainly true. And a situation is created in which a person who expresses certain positions will be perceived as unintelligent, and therefore he cannot allow himself to express those positions, because people will genuinely see him as unintelligent—not because he will be persecuted for opposing prevailing views. I think there are a few cases like that, but very few. Usually it’s some kind of intuitive reaction: well, anyone expressing a conservative position in the legal world is probably not an intelligent person. Or anyone expressing a believing-in-God position in the neo-Darwinist world is probably not an intelligent person. And so on. Now, in a world where intelligence is the measure for advancement and esteem and credibility, I think people recoil from expressing positions that will be seen as unintelligent. So I have the privilege—I’m not a biologist; no one can stop my advancement.
[Speaker A] Throughout history we’ve witnessed the phenomenon of religious people—the religious establishment—persecuting scientists. We see this at its height in the period of the Inquisition, Galileo, and throughout history. To tell the truth, the persecution is mutual too, we have to admit that. Can you explain this phenomenon?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, I think this phenomenon is connected to what I said earlier, to the confusion between the planes—the religious plane and the scientific plane. And there was—and perhaps still is in some places—a certain consensus between the persecuted and the persecutors on both sides. And that consensus is that if one is right, then the other is wrong, and vice versa. So the Church decided that anyone who believes in certain scientific views is a heretic and therefore should be burned. And the atheist church today decides that anyone who believes in any religious positions is a heretic against the neo-Darwinist religion and therefore should be burned. Burned metaphorically, I mean—thank God, people aren’t literally burned here. But I think the basic premise of both sides is mistaken. You can belong to both churches. And therefore it seems to me that part of the lesson we’ve learned over the last 400 or 500 years since Galileo is exactly that lesson: that these persecutions lead nowhere. If science works with proper tools and reaches convincing conclusions, then the assumption is that this is probably so. And if there are good arguments in favor of the existence of God—and it seems to me that there are—then that too is true. And if both are true, then apparently there is no contradiction. We just need to think about why there is no contradiction. That’s one of the things I tried to do in the book. And one small added remark: it’s worth noting that this persecution, in the period of religious hegemony—in the 16th century, say—the religious persecution of scientists was mainly the domain of Christians. Now, you can say that this is because the Jews didn’t yet have power or a Jewish establishment capable of carrying it out, but somehow I have the feeling that Jews are more relaxed about problems of this sort. I have a good American friend who knows the American scene very well, and he told me there’s a very interesting phenomenon. There have been dozens, maybe hundreds—I don’t know—of articles, books against Dawkins; articles, of course, hundreds; dozens of books against Dawkins. Not a single book was written by a Jew, not even one. There are more classic books, older ones, but in the United States—at least from what he knows—no book written by a Jew came out. That in itself is interesting, an interesting anthropological phenomenon.
[Speaker A] By the way, as part of preparing for this interview with you, I read some material and data: 60% of respondents in interviews in the United States don’t believe in evolution.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, that’s part of the same issue, because people feel that if you’re religious, then you’re not allowed to believe in evolution. That’s one of the problems I tried to solve in the book. If I succeed in selling this to the 60% of respondents in the United States, I probably won’t have to sit here anymore.
[Speaker A] An idea—you need to translate it. All right, next question, Dr. Michael Abraham. Dawkins claims in his book that religious belief is the root of all evil in the world. Why is religiosity linked to cruelty and fanaticism?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, I deal with this issue too in one of the chapters of the book, and again, it really isn’t the direct issue in the controversy around evolution. But since Dawkins took it upon himself to gather all the aspects and all the arguments, I decided to touch on these arguments too. So, first, it seems to me this is a major illusion—not absolute, but major. And second, I’ll say something that may sound a bit tautological. In a world where there are no beliefs, you can’t kill over beliefs. And in a world where there are beliefs, there is a concern that you may kill over beliefs. It reminds me a bit of what happened after Rabin’s assassination, when there was a certain feeling in the public: look where religious faith can lead, where it can take us. And the answer is that that’s true. Religious faith certainly can take us to such places, and it has even done so. But the question is: what is the alternative? Am I supposed to give up my beliefs because of the concern that they may lead to problematic actions? Or, if these are my beliefs, then I’m supposed to hold on to them and try to make sure they don’t reach, or don’t roll over into, problematic consequences. And more generally I would say this: very many people today, even if they don’t define themselves as pragmatists in the philosophical sense of the word—I mean—are very influenced by pragmatism, mainly American pragmatism, though today, as you know, America is everywhere in quite a lot of places. And pragmatism somehow bends the facts, or the beliefs—the existing reality—to fit the desirable one. I choose my positions, my conceptions, according to their consequences, according to how much they will contribute to dialogue, democracy, tolerance. If the fact is that there is a God, then I can’t deny it. I don’t subordinate my beliefs to consequences. I also don’t think those are the consequences, but I’m saying that even if, hypothetically, that were the situation, what can I do? If I believe in God, then for me that’s the truth. I can’t subordinate it and give it up just because it leads to problematic consequences. And therefore, basically, I have no choice; I’m condemned to live with that belief. Now, regarding this very widespread assumption that religiosity is always the basis of cruelty, I can only bring a few examples that Dawkins himself brings and answers in a way that only proves the philosophical skill I mentioned earlier—examples like Stalin and Hitler, who seem to me to be people who more or less diminish almost—never mind Pol Pot and various other princes of evil—who, it seems to me, cast a huge shadow over all the levels of cruelty we know from religious aspects, from religious contexts. I don’t see that as a justification, of course. I don’t think it justifies the fact that cruel things are done in the name of religion. I’m only saying that the claim that this is a result only of religious belief is simply false. It is a result only of belief. That’s true. Not necessarily religious belief. Someone who has no belief will never kill for his belief—that’s a tautological sentence. But it’s clear. If you have other beliefs that are not religious, the concern that you may kill, it seems to me, if it doesn’t increase, at least it does not fall short of the concern that you may kill over a religious belief.
[Speaker A] The next question—I really want you to put on more of the hat of a scientist and answer me this: creationists claim that evolution is not science. They call it a theory as opposed to established science. Is that true?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The truth is that this is a difficult question. First of all, evolution is made up of several different components. And it’s very convenient for neo-Darwinians to hide behind the mixture that includes genetics, natural selection, random processes of the formation of mutations, and so on. Some of these things are undoubtedly scientific—they are falsifiable, they are subject to confirmation, to empirical testing. Another part, it seems to me, is clearly not scientific, such as the principle of natural selection. Despite all the attempts—at least the ones I know—to defend it as a scientific claim, it is plainly not a scientific claim. And again, I’m saying it’s not a scientific claim not because it isn’t true, but the opposite—because it is necessarily true. Mathematics too is not a scientific claim. But the claim that the survivor survives is a tautological claim. Now, it has very interesting implications, very nontrivial implications. I think Darwin made a very intelligent and very nontrivial move, but in the end this claim of natural selection is a tautological claim. And as such, it is not a claim that can stand a factual test. And it seems to me that I can bring quite a few examples—and I bring such examples in the book too—where people raised as a possibility: if you show me that the result will be such and such, I’ll give up my belief in natural selection—I’m not talking right now about evolution—and such examples were brought, and people did not give up their beliefs, and rightly so, by the way. They found other explanations. If I may bring a Mishnah from Pirkei Avot, the Mishnah says that one should judge every person favorably. And there is a certain tendency—about Rabbi Chaim of Brisk they tell that they asked him: the Holy One, blessed be He, everything He created has a purpose—why did the Holy One, blessed be He, create crooked reasoning? So Rabbi Chaim of Brisk says: in order to judge favorably. Meaning, when you see someone doing an ugly act, activate all your crooked reasoning in order to let him off safely, to give some optimistic or positive interpretation to that act. So that’s a nice quip from Rabbi Chaim, but when you look at the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who interpret that Mishnah, they absolutely do not explain it that way. The medieval authorities say that one should judge every person favorably where it is indeed reasonable. In a case where, when you see someone chasing another person in order to kill him, you are not supposed to judge him favorably—you are supposed to shoot him in the head in order to save the one being pursued. Why? Because the situation shows that there is a serious concern that this person is going to murder the pursued person. Even though it could be that he is running after him with a pistol because the other one forgot the pistol at his house, and he is running after him in order to return it. Usually, if that’s true then all right, of course we have to take that possibility into account. But if in our assessment that’s not true, there is no reason to fool ourselves with this trait of judging favorably. And so too in other contexts. When we judge a person, we have to judge him according to what he is. If this is a great righteous person and you see him committing a clear transgression, then you should judge him favorably because it isn’t logical—not because you’re God-fearing, but because it isn’t logical that such a person would really do such a thing. If you see Mother Teresa chasing a girl with a cleaver in order to kill her, you understand that that’s not the reason she’s running there; she’s probably running there for some other reason, and I will judge her favorably. Why? Not because I’m such a great righteous person, but because I’m realistic. You have to make an interpretation that fits the circumstances.
[Speaker A] We’ve reached the last question. You argue that the arguments of scientists are different—they’re biased by their ideology. They, the scientists, by contrast, claim this about believers—rabbis, priests. Who is right? And could you also give examples?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, I already did—both are right. I brought examples from both directions of biased discourse. And again, intelligent people who, when they arrive in ideological territory, display really embarrassing biases there. In one of the appendices to the book—there are several appendices—in one of the appendices I bring two examples regarding the influence of prayers. Dawkins also deals with this. Regarding the influence of prayers on healing. By the way, these are Christian prayers, so it seems to me I have no sentimental investment in experiments that showed it works. But there was some discussion there. It turns out that three authors, one of them a very well-known Israeli professor named Sheinfeld, who as I recall was, from a young age, the youngest professor in the country—that is, by all accounts a talented person—and two other authors whom I do not know, wrote a short three-page article in the journal Harefuah published at Tel Aviv University. And they discuss there the question of whether we have indications that prayers affect healing. They review—I don’t remember how many, I think 13 or 14 experiments that were done. Some of them used full scientific methodology, meaning double-blind with a control group and everything required. And some had certain methodological problems, meaning they were not perfect methodologically. It turns out that out of the 13 or 14—I no longer remember exactly how many there were—there were seven done with full scientific methodology. All seven show that the prayers were beneficial. All seven, every last one. Those are the articles they brought. I did not conduct a literature review myself; I have no idea whether there are more studies that show otherwise or not. I’m feeding off those three pages I read there. Now, I’m not bringing this in order to convince you that prayers help, because these articles got harsh criticism, some of it very justified, in various places—I even give a link in the book. So my purpose is not to prove that prayers helped based on these articles. What I’m trying to show is what conclusion the authors of the article reached. The three authors, from the data they themselves presented—I read their article, that’s what I know—their final conclusion was the following: in light of the data we have presented to you, we have no indication whatsoever by which to know whether prayers help or do not help, and “the righteous shall live by his faith.” In other words, everyone should do what he thinks best. Now if that is the conclusion that emerges from the data appearing in the article, then something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark. And not because those studies are free of problems. Again, I’m saying there are serious problems in them; I tend to think they are not correct. I’m speaking right now only about the inference the authors made. They brought these articles and treated them as serious articles. Seven out of 13 were done with full scientific methodology, and all seven showed that prayer significantly helps healing. All the other articles, some of which showed yes and some of which showed no, were done with incomplete scientific methodology. If from this the conclusion is drawn that the question is still open, then it seems to me scientists really should not deal with ideologically charged questions.
[Speaker A] With that we’ve reached the resolution of the problems of evolution. Dr. Abraham will now sign for anyone who buys the book in the room next to the station manager’s office, for whoever purchases the book. I thank Dr. Abraham, and we’ll meet him next time with the next book he publishes. We’ll wait eagerly for the next book, and as you can see he’s very prolific with books. So thank you very much, and see you for the next book. Thank you very much. Questions? Questions? Maybe two or three questions?
[Speaker C] Yes, please, indeed.
[Speaker D] Please.
[Speaker A] I’ll ask.
[Speaker C] I’ll ask. First of all, I’m an atheist, I’m proud to be one, I think it’s rational thinking, advanced thinking. I didn’t agree with most of what you said, for several reasons. First of all regarding God, whom you supposedly placed on the philosophical level as you said, detached from science. A religious person believes that God created the world. You can’t, on the one hand, ask a scientist to detach God scientifically to the philosophical level, while a religious person believes that the whole material world was created by a supreme being. That’s not… Now, if we’re dealing with science, then science is based on facts. When you have no scientific proof whatsoever for God or for anything else spiritual—whether souls, the human spirit, supernatural things as they’re called—you can’t say that these scientists approach things in a way that they don’t understand philosophy. They understand facts, science. So on the one hand, you say they’re weak philosophers, but they’re great scientists and they deal with facts. And the facts—after all, Dawkins doesn’t say one hundred percent that there is no God. He says that because he is an evolutionist and he knows… he is a biologist, understands the subject, he says that evolution simply removes God from the possibility that He created everything. Now, if that is a greater proof, this is also a question for you—look at our world. You are a believing Jew; you believe in God, the God of Israel, of the Jewish people. The Jewish people make up 0.22 percent of the world, something like that. Most people believe in Christianity, in Islam, Buddhists, people who believe in idols, there are tribes in Africa who believe in lots of things. For each of these people, his God is the one who created the world, he is the absolute truth. Now you say your truth is absolute—but what about their truth? Maybe he says mine is absolute. What science does is put all that aside. It says: these are the facts. Now a true scientist will tell you, okay, I don’t know how the entire universe was created, but I won’t bring in God or anything else to explain it for me; I will find those facts, I will strive toward that. And a true scientist will tell you that it’s okay not to know, because that’s why science exists—to investigate things so as to know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are a lot of questions here. I’ll try, as much as I can, to touch on them somewhat telegraphically, because really some of the things I said were not argued through, and I don’t have the opportunity here to justify everything. In that sense you are right that I still haven’t finished the job. But a few things. First of all, Dawkins is not dealing with facts. That’s the first point.
[Speaker C] Evolution is a fact?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, Dawkins is not dealing with facts because the debate is not conducted over the question of what the facts were. The debate is conducted over the question of what the interpretation of the facts is. And whether evolution occurred or did not occur—as I said earlier—I too agree, at least for the sake of discussion, that it occurred. Therefore, in the factual domain I have no disagreement with him. So what was the book written for? The book was not written in order to teach evolution. The book was written in order to explain what the philosophical conclusions are from the scientific facts, and over that we do have a disagreement. So Dawkins is not dealing with facts but with interpretations. That is the first point. The second point concerns the supernatural. Dawkins declares in his book that he opposes anything supernatural of any kind. In one of the chapters of the book I break that claim down and show that his lack of philosophical skill—which you see more or less on every page, but especially on this point—leads him here to make a declaration that is empty of content. Because anything that you understand and define, you define as natural. Anything that you do not understand and define, you do not accept. So the claim that you do not accept something that is not natural is a tautological claim. Meaning, true, I also do not accept what I do not accept. Now the only question is whether there are things—what I call divine. You can call it natural or supernatural; that’s terminology. You can argue about that terminology. As far as I’m concerned, call it natural. That’s the point regarding the supernatural. Regarding the question of the many beliefs that exist in the world: many beliefs exist in many areas. Meaning, if I am a communist, I don’t intend to be influenced by the fact that most of the world is capitalist, and vice versa—in my case vice versa, but never mind. I do not intend to be influenced by the fact that most of the world thinks the opposite. In certain periods, most of the world also practiced idolatry and danced around the fire in order to make rain come. Are you prepared to join them now? Or do you always go by the majority of the world? Meaning, if most of the world today thinks it’s not right to dance around the fire, then you’re there too. I make my own assessment. Sometimes the majority is right; sometimes the majority is wrong. And all I know is what I know. It may be that I’m mistaken because I… I hope, at least, that I don’t suffer from such great arrogance as to think I’m never mistaken. But I don’t suffer from excessive humility that tells me always to go after the majority opinion. If I have a position and I think it is reasoned, then I go with it, even if it’s against the majority opinion. And perhaps one last remark, because really each one of these points requires much fuller clarification: science does not deal with facts—that’s a common mistake. Experimental science deals with facts. Theoretical science deals with the interpretation of facts. And once you enter the interpretation of facts, interpretation comes in. And once interpretation comes in, there is a multiplicity of possible interpretations, and no small number of pens have been broken over this in the philosophy of science. Therefore, I don’t think you are right in the claim that scientists deal only with facts. I do agree with your claim that when scientists deal in their field of expertise, there is added value to what they say. The only question is whether the philosophical domain is indeed their field of expertise. My claim is that it is not. Okay? And one final remark—you spoke about whether I can detach God from the physical world as a religious person who believes that God created the world. I don’t detach Him from the physical world in that sense. I think He created the world. That’s clear. I think about everything; even gravity I only think about. I’m not certain of anything—what can I do? I’m an absolute skeptic. I’m telling you, nothing is certain: not gravity, not God, not the electromagnetic field, nothing is certain. Everything is generalizations. There are alternative generalizations that explain all the facts no less well. The choice between generalizations is made by principles unrelated to the facts—principles of convenience, of simplicity, Occam’s razor, and the like. But regarding the detachment I spoke of between God and physics, or between God and the world, between God and science—the detachment is a detachment of the discussion. I am not claiming that God is detached from the world. As a believing Jew, I think He is very much connected to the world. The discussion should be detached. The discussion of whether there is a God is a philosophical discussion. And the discussion of whether evolution is correct or not is a scientific discussion. And these are two different discussions that it is very important to separate. I think God also brought about evolution, so I do not detach Him from evolution. I detach the discussion of God from the discussion of evolution, because these are two different planes of discussion. Any more questions? Please.
[Speaker D] There is a very broad discussion here about religion in logical terms. Are there things in which we are left only with faith? According to the outlook on which the book is based? Only with faith? Faith that is not logically proven? That is not understood?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no such thing as faith that is logically proven. There is nothing in the world that is logically proven; I have some news for you. There is not one claim in the world that is logically proven. What can be proven logically is only implication. Meaning, if all human beings are mortal and Socrates is a human being, then Socrates is mortal. You can prove that if the premises are correct, then the conclusion is correct. You can prove that if you adopt the axioms of two-dimensional plane geometry, then the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You cannot prove the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. That cannot be proven. What can be proven is that if you adopt the premises, that is the conclusion that follows from them logically. Therefore one must separate logic from beliefs. Scientific beliefs, theological beliefs, philosophical beliefs. Logic is an instrument. Logic is not a tool by means of which one arrives at claims or insights. Logic is an instrument by means of which I can analyze my insights and understand what they mean, what follows from them, what is hidden inside them. Therefore there is no such thing as logically proven and not logically proven. That is a common illusion. At the beginning of my first book I wrote the joke that has already become a little worn out—the two wagons and the hot-air balloon. The hot-air balloon there is named after the joke that appears at the beginning about two people who lost their way, flying in a hot-air balloon, and they lost their way. After a few days of not knowing where they are, they see someone plowing a field down below. They ask him: tell us, where are we? So he says: above my field. Then one of the guys sitting up there says to the other: that guy down there is definitely a mathematician. Why a mathematician? Because what he says is absolutely certain and completely precise—that’s one—and second, it doesn’t help us at all. And beyond the joke, there is an essential connection between those two characteristics of the mathematician. Meaning, anything that is certain and necessary does not help us at all, by definition. Meaning, mathematics can never add information for us. Mathematics can extract more and more information from the basic assumptions we make. Therefore, we always have to begin with axioms, and then we use mathematical tools to understand what is contained within them, what is inside those axioms. Mathematics never adds information to us. Yareach mentioned earlier our work in the Talmudic logic group. The first work we did in that group was to try to develop a logic of information accumulation. Meaning, can one develop an algorithmic or logical mechanism that describes the process by which we accumulate information, as distinct from logic or mathematics, which describe the processes by which we analyze existing information? So there are such logical structures. They are not exactly standard logic, but they are definitely systematic logical structures.
[Speaker E] One more question. I think that Dawkins, in his book, beyond his chatter and mockery, ultimately comes to say that today’s scientific theories, and evolution in particular, make God unnecessary—we don’t need Him anymore. And your book, which I’ve only just started reading, comes to say that evolution actually strengthens belief in God, even—but still it’s not necessary. Meaning, we do not need God in order for this theory to exist or in order to explain the reality of the whole universe, of all existence. So why conduct this argument at all?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are good questions. I’ll try to answer briefly as much as I can. First of all, indeed, the correct claim—the claim that somewhat more careful people make—is not that evolution disproves the existence of God, but that evolution disproves the physico-theological proof of His existence. Meaning, now that we no longer have the proof, the question remains open. And when the question remains open, there is no reason to assume that He exists if I do not need to assume that He exists. I do not assume the existence of entities if I have no reason to do so—that’s Occam’s razor. That is the more accurate description of the role of evolution in this process. So first of all, that itself is an important thing that needs to be understood: evolution does not disprove the existence of God, but only the proof of the existence of God. If at all. That is one point. The second point: it does not even do that. It does not disprove the proof of the existence of God. My claim is that the physico-theological proof of the existence of God—you can argue about it; I still think it is correct; you can argue about it—has no connection to evolution whatsoever. Meaning, after evolution, the debate can proceed in exactly the same way as it did two hundred years ago regarding the physico-theological proof. I still think it is a good proof, but that is a separate debate. My claim is that evolution does not disprove that claim, that proof. If you do not accept the proof, fine—that is a philosophical debate that can be had; Kant already had it. But evolution contributes nothing to it. That is basically my claim in a nutshell. And maybe one final point to what was implied in your words—that it’s not necessary. Faith is not necessary in my humble opinion. Nothing is necessary, as I said before; science too is not necessary. Nothing that we think is necessary. At most only the implication is necessary—the logical implication, inferring conclusions from premises that follow from them logically—that, that I am willing to say is necessary or is certain from my perspective. Nothing beyond that. One of the severe problems in standard religious education is the education toward the idea that faith has to be certain, and if it is not certain then you do not believe. There is no greater mistake than that. First, because it isn’t true—that a person cannot be one hundred percent convinced of anything, otherwise he is just arrogant. That’s one thing. And second, it is also harmful. It is harmful because when a person suddenly understands that his faith is not certain, it breaks it completely. And I have met dozens, dozens of such people, who came to me in some revealing confession: “We don’t believe in God,” with these long coats and sidelocks and all the trappings you want—I met dozens like that. And then when I try to understand what brings you to that conclusion, why do you think you don’t believe? Not why do you think there is no God—why do you think you don’t believe in God? So he says, “Because it isn’t certain, there is no proof of anything.” I told him, “Not true, next—so what if there is no proof? Is there anything in the world for which you do have proof?” So it depends: if you are talking about proof in the logical sense, as I said earlier, nothing has proof, and therefore indeed nothing is certain. But in our world we have to live according to what is more reasonable and not according to what is certain. The question is what is more plausible and what is less plausible. And the proofs we can hope for at most are not logical proofs but plausibilities of one sort or another—I am careful not to say probabilities, but plausibilities—and plausibilities are still a very broad and fertile field of discussion. You can still have a very large discussion there about what is plausible and what is not plausible. And here I am willing to stand behind the claim that belief in God is far more plausible than atheism. Even though I definitely agree that it is not certain and I do not have a logical proof for it, and of course not—there is no logical proof for anything and nothing is certain. I’m not even sure logic itself is certain.
[Speaker A] Any more questions? If so, then once again, thank you very much.