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Q&A: The Ratzio Website and Similar Ones

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The Ratzio Website and Similar Ones

Question

I’d be interested to know what you think about the Ratzio website and the claims presented there. https://rationalbelief.org.il/mobile-home-page/
Personally, it reminds me of evangelical websites. For example, the video of the preacher Bob Enyart raising doubts about dating methods. https://rationalbelief.org.il/Bob Enyart raises doubts about MM dating/
I haven’t seen that it’s very different from outreach-to-the-religious websites like Arachim, except that it supposedly appeals more to rational and educated people. From my limited impression, some of the articles are very problematic.
I’d be interested to know what the Rabbi thinks about claims of this kind.

Answer

I’m not deeply familiar with the site. One has to be careful about forming an opinion just because a site has an agenda. A lot of sites have an agenda. The arguments have to be examined on their own merits. If there’s a particular argument you want to discuss, please present it and we can talk about it.

Discussion on Answer

Yossi (2018-08-27)

I meant more the style of the site and not a specific claim.
The site brings articles that it hunts down desperately, by scientists (and sometimes not even scientists), usually not in the relevant field, who come out against an accepted theory, presenting things one-sidedly without addressing the other arguments.

In some fields the site brings the most far-fetched conjectures and hypotheses (like in articles dealing with quantum physics) with almost no reference to the counterarguments, or only very little reference to them; sometimes it even tries to create a misleading impression regarding the accepted views. Sometimes without accuracy.

Yossi (2018-08-27)

Like in these articles:
https://rationalbelief.org.il/Professor Woodward against evolution/

https://rationalbelief.org.il/Professor Troop against evolution/

https://rationalbelief.org.il/It is forbidden to conceal evolution/

The site reminds me very much of evangelical websites; I’ve seen a large portion of the claims there as well, or on religious outreach websites.
I’d be interested to know what your opinion is regarding this style.

Copenhagen Interpretation (2018-08-27)

I’d also suggest you take a look at Muslim outreach websites (there are quite a few in English), Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the like, and you’ll see that everyone copies from everyone else.

Kehat (2018-08-27)

Indeed, this site rather gives innocent Jews the feeling that Judaism is like the rest of the world’s empty religions.

Copenhagen Interpretation (2018-08-27)

Are you sure? I actually bookmarked for myself articles that seem interesting on biblical criticism. The fact that most of the defense of the Hebrew Bible comes from the conservative Christian side follows naturally from the simple fact that there will always be more researchers among 2.2 billion people than among 14 million Jews, most of whom in any case deny their tradition.

As for shared topics in natural theology and philosophy too, if Maimonides, Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Duties of the Heart, and others were influenced to a considerable extent by pagan Greek philosophers and of course by Muslims (not to mention the deep influence of Sufi Islam on figures like Rabbi Abraham son of Maimonides), then it would be presumptuous to think that similar things would not happen in our own time. (For some reason Kierkegaard is considered perfectly acceptable because he was already legitimized long ago.) At least when the activity is conscious, it also comes with a dash of self-criticism.

David (2018-08-29)

The site has a clear agenda. It does not pretend to provide opposing or objective information, or even to present the issue in a complex way. That is also how one should relate to it.

David (2018-08-29)

Copenhagen Interpretation, if I understand correctly, are you claiming that basically all beliefs are equivalent to one another, and that the differences between religions are really cultural and ideological differences?

Masculine Ending (2018-08-30)

I haven’t really looked deeply into the site, but it seems to be swimming against the current of the dominant heresy regarding Torah from Heaven in its plain sense, so it stands to reason that it would invest in presenting the relevant arguments and evidence.

I am not claiming that all beliefs are equivalent, but quite the opposite—that there is truth, yet no religious community in the world has automatic ownership of it, simply because there is no reason to think that would be so, aside from the revelation uniquely given to the Jewish people in the Torah. If figures like the Muslim al-Farabi and Avicenna or the Christian Thomas Aquinas discuss divine simplicity, I have no reason to think a priori that they are more right or more wrong than I have reason a priori to think that Maimonides or a Breslover is more right or more wrong; everything depends on weighing the arguments and accepting the truth from whoever says it.

This can be illustrated by the common belief in reincarnation, which did not exist in original Judaism but entered us under pagan influence (as Rabbi Saadia Gaon describes in Beliefs and Opinions). There are religions in the world that contain truth not found in the Jewish mainstream, since they deny reincarnation, and from this it follows that the commandment is specifically to heed them on this matter, as a rebuke from Ezekiel: “You have not acted like the proper ones among them; you have acted like the corrupt ones among them” (Sanhedrin 39b).

Copenhagen Interpretation (2018-08-30)

The last response I posted to David was mine, but I submitted it without noticing from a computer that was logged into a different account.

Different Approaches Are Presented (2018-08-30)

Thanks to Yossi for the link to the review (on the “Ratzio” site) of Professor Moshe Trop’s book The Enigma of Existence. The site presents different approaches to dealing with the theory of evolution: both those who in principle accept the theory and explain the verses of the Torah and the midrashim of the Sages accordingly, and those who reject the theory and try to refute it. In this way the reader can compare the approaches and choose what seems more convincing to him.

Best regards, S. Z. Levinger

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