Is Judaism refutable?

Hello Yossi. No. If faith were a falsifiable theory, it could be tested with scientific tools. In my book God Plays Dice, I argued that there are areas in which the Popperian criterion for scientificity is not useful (for example, in psychology and other non-scientific areas). This criterion defines what is a scientific theory but not what is a correct theory. There are theses that are not accessible to scientific tools, and then the way to formulate a position on them is common sense or intuition. Insisting on falsifiability narrows our fields of study to only a very small variety. Incidentally, as David Hume has already shown, even in science itself there are quite a few principles that cannot be refuted (the principle of causality, for example). In my notebooks, I tried to show how to approach the question of faith in a systematic and rational philosophical way, even though scientific and empirical tools are not applicable to it. I also dealt with your question quite a bit there, in both the first and third notebooks. When you discuss “Judaism,” you must define what it is. Biblical criticism attacks certain principles that have been accepted in tradition, but it can be argued that they are not necessary. The same is true of evolution. Incidentally, Maimonides does not say that if they prove that the world is ancient, religion falls. He says exactly the opposite: if they did prove it, he would interpret the verses of Genesis creatively and not be moved by it. If we come to the conclusion that there is no God or that He did not give Torah, it seems to me that “Judaism” has fallen. But if we discover that more lateral principles are falling, there is no reason not to give them up. The fact that people in some previous generation thought something and now it has been discovered that it is not true should not obligate God and/or us. For example, people once thought that the world was flat, and so it is in the Gemara. So when they discovered that it was round, did “Judaism” fall? No. The sages introduced their insights into Judaism, and once it became clear that the insights were incorrect, they could be abandoned. The price is that when we examine our tradition, it is very important to distinguish between the main and obligatory and the additional ones that we should give up. This is one of the main projects I have taken on for this site and in general. In addition, when you discover a scientific or other finding that contradicts an accepted belief, you do not necessarily have to reject it. If it is convincing, you must not give up on common sense. On the contrary, you should reject the side detail in faith because it turned out to be wrong. In my last post, I also addressed these things, and the trilogy I am currently writing is supposed to present this full picture regarding faith.