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Responding to the main claims of atheism today

שו”תCategory: faithResponding to the main claims of atheism today
asked 7 years ago

Hello Rabbi.
I would love to know the rabbi’s position on the central claims of atheism today:
The existence of God cannot be proven because it is a pseudo-scientific creation, meaning it cannot be put to the test to test it. Logic cannot be used to investigate it and at the same time, logic can be used to investigate it because our perception as humans is limited.
This raises the question of how people believe in such an entity in the first place if they cannot “grasp” it:
1) Some will say that they see God’s intervention in everyday life all the time – this claim is wrong because it contains the subjective perception of each person, and most likely represents a misconception of reality because when asked to give an example, they will not describe an event that goes beyond nature, but rather a coincidence that can be explained in other ways.
2) Another common claim is that “creation” indicates the Creator. This claim also does not hold because it relies on a lack of information among humanity regarding the formation of the universe. Just as in the past it was believed that Baal is the one who brings down the rains, today we know how rain falls and that it is not a matter of supernatural intervention.
3) The survival and uniqueness of the people of Israel: This is a topic that has been studied historically, and again the miracles described are nothing more than historical events that describe how the expulsion of the Jews and their persecution contributed to their adherence to the faith. Persecution may preserve and unite. As for the uniqueness of the people of Israel. This is a matter of supreme pride, there are countless nations and populations across the globe for which Israel is included, along with Micronesia and the Canary Islands. A marginal and insignificant region. Not to mention the size of the universe and the time span in which it exists. In this span, all of humanity is less than a grain of dust.
4) The Bible: The Bible is written evidence for the connection that God created with the Jews. However, biblical criticism, archaeology, and other ancient writings prove and suggest that the Bible is an inaccurate document to say the least. Worse, the Bible presents a defining figure of God with feelings and emotions that is similar to other gods in the region, such as Baal. Various stories in the Bible also seem to have been copied or inspired by other ancient stories in the region. Only after the destruction of the Temples, when the people of Israel lost actual worship and the institution of the priesthood, did Judaism become a religion with important symbolism and transformed God from a peripheral god into an absolute god – God became an idea, unlike other gods who could be eliminated by eliminating their statues or temples, an idea that could not be eliminated.
5) The Status of Mount Sinai: In my opinion, this is an argument that is not even worth mentioning. The Status of Mount Sinai is described exclusively in the Torah. The same document through which believers show that the Status of Mount Sinai occurred. This is a circular argument and therefore is not valid. In addition to the argument that the souls of all Jews were at Mount Sinai. Let every believer ask himself and tell the truth: Does he have any memory of the Status of Mount Sinai?
6) Most people believe in God and there are a great many believers who engage in science: According to the majority argument, we should actually convert to Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism. The fact that a majority of people do something does not indicate that they are right. Religious scientists will usually not claim, for example, that the version of the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis is the true way in which the universe was created. They will claim that it is a metaphorical way of illustrating a very long process or a spiritual process, etc. The same goes for evolution, abiogenesis, and a host of other topics. It is important to emphasize that religious scientists do not perform religious practice while working. If a religious scientist decides that the answer to the challenge he faces is that God is responsible for it, he will be immediately thrown out of the faculty. For many people, religion is a solid framework of social belonging that adds value to their lives, and therefore they do not see a contradiction between their work and their social life.
7) There is another aspect to faith, and it is the aspect that is inherent in us evolutionarily. This is an excellent lecture that explains why people tend to believe in supernatural events of all kinds, divine and non-divine. Why does “faith” exist in humans at all, how it contributes to their survival, how it is actually a trait that other animals also possess, and how it may skew our perception of reality. https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception?language=en
8) Clinical death: Similar to the effects of drugs and other substances, clinical death leads to partial or impaired functioning of the brain, which may affect one’s perception of reality and confuse imagination with reality. There is countless evidence and studies that refute the matter of simple reincarnation. For me, the simple proof is that people in clinical death have seen supernatural figures in whom they believed. A Christian saw Jesus, a Muslim saw Muhammad, and an Indian saw Ganesha with the elephant’s head. No one saw the other’s God proving him wrong.
9) Seance: For your reference, the ideomotor effect https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%A7%D7%98_%D7%94%D7%90%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%90%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99
For more serious reading, you can refer to the articles listed at the end of the page.
10) Personal miracle: Personal proof, a subjective miracle is not a miracle, it is something that at that point in time you could not explain. Since it is a case that happened only to the individual, it is difficult for the litigator to present arguments against, because he did not observe the phenomenon. In any case, a personal case includes only the judgment of the individual who experienced the event and it can be assumed that this judgment was mistaken based on the fantastical nature of the individual’s arguments. Thus, a person who claims to have seen a unicorn will receive strange looks at best and be thrown into a medical institution at worst.
Three more arguments that are unrelated to the question of why people believe in God in the first place. These are arguments that I think believers should also consider:
A) There is a puzzling phenomenon in which every person who is born believes in the religion of his parents and, in addition to that (in the vast majority of cases), will continue to believe in his adulthood, when his judgment has already been formed, in the religion into which he was born. Do you think this is a mere coincidence, or does this make you doubt your faith even slightly? I want to believe that the chosen people are almost as humble as their prophet and will not be inclined to say that they are better and wiser than the rest of the nations of the world.
b) The validity of the Torah in the current world. I believe that the religious world has noticed the desperate and ongoing pursuit it has been conducting against the modern world since the emergence of modernity: a circular pursuit whose stages are as follows: first, a complete rejection of the new idea that was proposed, examination and experimentation with the new idea, collapse among the religious and secular seam zones where there is continuous contact and connection between the two types of populations, growing demand among the religious population for the idea, the validation of the idea by the religious authority, the entrenchment of a few conservatives in their position, and acceptance of the idea by the majority of the religious public. With such a situation, one must ask whether this is not a situation in which the Torah is actually being folded by the will of the public, supposedly through its reinterpretation?
C) The morality of the Torah in the present world: This point is particularly sensitive for religious believers because by definition the Torah is sacred and its words are absolute truth, the manufacturer’s instructions. I would ask that you not see this passage as a defiance but rather as an innocent question aimed at seeing through your eyes, the believers. The Torah holds a clear position that keeping slaves is desirable, that women and children are considered property, and that killing a person in certain cases is desirable. (I am aware of the Sanhedrin’s argument). The question that arises from this is, it is clear that the Torah was written at a different time, when the rules of the game were different. Isn’t it a mistake to try and enforce the rules of the Torah even in our own day? Aren’t there actually cases where you ignore these “problematic” verses? Isn’t a reinterpretation of these verses a crooked way to deceive and say that here is the same lady in a different dress?
 
 
 


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מיכי Staff answered 7 years ago
This is too busy. I foresee arguments on every point and it will run concurrently and confuse us all. Therefore it is better to split the discussion and post each point in a separate thread.

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