Atheism vs. Agnosticism

I've been seeing a lot of confusion about the term "atheist" lately -- specifically the misconception that it implies 100% certitude (surely impossible.)

I thought this chart (via reddit's enormous atheism community) really clears it up:



Strong atheism is the belief that there are no gods. Weak atheism is simply an absence of a belief in God. Neither one implies certainty.

Similarly, theism is the belief that there is at least one god, even if you aren't 100% sure.

Agnosticism is (1) the belief that neither gods' existence nor nonexistence can be known or (2) simply a lack of certainty about gods' existence or nonexistence. The chart above uses the former definition, although the latter is perhaps more common in lay usage. Both meanings are compatible with atheism or theism, although people who are pretty sure one way or the other tend not to use the term.

I consider myself a "strong" atheist in that I believe that there are no gods, but I do not claim 100% certainty.

Hope that clears things up.

Load-bearing Beliefs vs. Cosmetic Beliefs

I've been arguing a lot recently on various other blogs, mostly about the standoff in Wisconsin between the governor and the teachers' union. (I'm for the union, obviously.) Like an idiot, I went in thinking that since my position makes a lot of sense, at least to me, I'd be able to convince the people I was arguing with to if not change their minds than at least see that there was another reasonable point of view.

Instead, I found myself responding to not to just a couple of counterpoints, but to a number of arguments multiplying so fast that I couldn't possibly keep up. I'd attack the first six, and not only would I not have convinced my opponents, but there would suddenly be six more arguments on top. If I attacked those, there would be six more. No arguments were ever conceded, either, so they could cheerfully go right back to the first six arguments if they ever ran out of new ones. This is a not a new insight -- people have compared arguing with certain people to playing Whac-a-mole.

I was thinking about how frustrating this situation is, though, and I realized that not all of the arguments are equally important. Some arguments reflect the genuine reasons the person believes in their position, while others are arguments they just think will help their case. I'd like to call these load-bearing arguments and cosmetic arguments.

Load-bearing arguments

These are the only arguments that matter. If you can convince someone that a load-bearing argument is false, then it will rock their belief. It won't necessarily convince them, because if their belief is psychologically important to them, they'll quickly shove a bunch of other arguments under there and hope they hold, but you're not wasting your time. If you could convince them that the load-bearing argument is false, it's going to at least temporarily shake their confidence.

Cosmetic Arguments

These arguments are just for show. They exist to create the appearance that the belief is supported by a vast and ever-multiplying array of arguments, but they are just decoys. Upon examination, not only do they not hold up, but you realize even this particular believer isn't convinced by them.

It's important to realize that an argument is load-bearing or cosmetic for a particular person -- it's not an objective categorization. One person's load-bearing argument might be another's cosmetic one and vice-versa. There are some arguments, though, that are always cosmetic.

Some examples

Let's take abortion. I think "God says it's wrong" is a load-bearing argument. If (obviously a big "if") you could convince a person who uses this argument either that God does not exist or that He does not say it's wrong, it would shake their belief. Again, it's possible that they would hold onto it by putting other arguments under it, but there would have been a moment when the belief was actually at risk.

"Abortion is murder," on the other hand, is a cosmetic argument for most people. If you could convince someone who says this that abortion and murder aren't exactly the same, they would likely still oppose abortion without ever wavering. That's because they don't really believe this argument in the first place -- their belief rests on a different argument entirely. (As evidence that they don't really believe abortion is murder, they would send a woman who killed a baby to jail, but would never send a woman who has an abortion to jail.)

How about our old favorite, the existence of God. I think some version of the Argument from Design is often a load-bearing argument. I'm not talking about the formal argument -- I don't think formal arguments are good representations of how people actually think -- but the genuine intuition that some intelligent being must be responsible for the dazzling complexity of the universe. If you can convince a believer that the universe *could* have come about without a designer, you will often have genuinely shaken their belief. Again, they might not be convinced, they can shove other arguments under their belief, but there will be that moment of panic. I think that's what happened to my belief in God. Hawking shook it with A Brief History of Time and Dawkins sealed the deal with The Blind Watchmaker.

That's why Darwin was so revolutionary and why he is still so reviled by many religious people -- he didn't just disprove a literal reading of Genesis, he demolished the Argument from Design as it applies to biology and human beings. Even though he didn't explain why the universe exists, how the planets formed, or even how life began, it was enough of a blow to the idea of a Designer that it convinced a lot of people, himself (probably?) included, that God does not exist.

Note that the Argument from Design is not load-bearing for all believers. Some believe that they have personally witnessed God or that they can see him in everyday life. For them, the Argument from Design is a cosmetic argument and this other thing is the load-bearing one. Convince them that the universe could have come about without God and it won't shake them. But if (huge if) you could convince them that what they experienced was a hallucination, for example, or that what they took to be God's influence was really a series of coincidences, then their belief would be rocked.

I think the Ontological Argument is a rare argument that is *always* cosmetic in all its forms:

When we hear the words "that than which a greater cannot be thought", we understand what the words convey, and what we understand exists in our thoughts. This then exists either only in our thoughts or both in thought and reality. But it cannot exist only in our thoughts, because if it existed only in our thoughts, then we could think of something greater than it, since we could think of something than which a greater cannot be thought that exists both in thought and in reality, and it is a contradiction to suppose we could think of something greater than that than which nothing greater can be thought. Hence, that than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in thought and in reality. Therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought really does exist, and in later chapters of the Proslogion Anselm argues that this being has the traditional attributes of God like being the omnipotent creator.

I can't imagine anybody's belief rests on such an obvious gimmick.

How to Tell the Difference

Again, most arguments can be either load-bearing or cosmetic, depending on the believer. It's all about the genuine reason the believer believes, and that might be ultimately unknowable. However, I think there are some clues.

Cleverness

Some arguments are clever, and the believer might be proud of them. This is usually an indication that it came after the belief already existed and is used simply to score points -- that's why the believer is proud of it. The Ontological Argument, discussed above, is a prime example.

When I was in yeshiva, we were talking with our rabbi about the "apparent" contradiction between an omniscient God and free will. (In Orthodox Judaism, playing Resolve that Contradiction! is a popular pastime, both in casual conversation and in Torah study.) I came up with an analogy. I said we people living in this century can look back at people living in the last century and know that they chose X instead of Y and yet they still had free will. So, since God exists outside of time, it's pretty much the same thing.

The rabbi was delighted and the other students smiled and nodded and I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a clever argument. The argument, though, now that I don't believe, is obviously bullshit. Even if we allow for a God that exists "outside of time," he also must be "inside of time," because he allegedly interacted with the universe in the past. Therefore, he knew about people's choices before they made them and the contradiction still stands.

If someone had pointed out the flaw in my argument to me then, I would have shrugged and been like, "Oh yeah, good point" but my underlying belief in God (and free will) wouldn't have been shaken for even an instant. That's what makes it a cosmetic argument.

Tentativeness

Oftentimes, a believer will offer up an argument or several tentatively. Now, obviously, there's nothing wrong with offering an argument tentatively rather than confidently, especially if it's a bad one or one not yet investigated or challenged, but it's on obvious indicator that it's not load-bearing. Either the person does not yet believe the conclusion of the argument (hence the tentativeness) or the person already believes the conclusion and the argument is just cosmetic.

For example, in this thread at the great XGH's, commenter Thanbo offers four "solutions" to the same problem - the conflict between the Documentary Hypothesis and the belief that God dictated the Five Books to Moses - and adds "I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of." Clearly, regardless of the merits of the individual arguments, they are all cosmetic because if you knocked them down, it won't affect Thanbo's belief. He's sure there are others.

I find that a lot of believers who think of themselves as more open-minded (but not so open-minded that their brains fall out!) do this. They see a contradiction in their beliefs and are too "open-minded" to either pretend it doesn't exist or to pretend that any particular argument resolves it, so they'll say well this could be a solution or that could be a solution, etc. Ultimately, if you destroy every "solution" they offer, they'll just shrug and concede that it's an issue, but it won't shake their faith in the slightest.

Arguments that don't directly support the belief

Some "arguments" don't really support the belief in question. For example, Pascal's Wager is more of an attempt to convince the audience that it's in their self-interest to believe than it is an argument that the belief in question is true. Arguments that not believing would have adverse effects (religion makes me happy and healthy or it keeps me behaving) might point to explanations for a person's belief, but they aren't load-bearing because knocking them down would not directly affect the person's belief.

Conclusion

Engaging with cosmetic arguments is a waste of time if you're trying to convince a believer (in anything) that they are wrong. In the best case, defeating a cosmetic argument might cause the believer to start questioning the source of that argument, but in no case will it directly lead to a change in belief. It's probably still a waste of time to engage with a load-bearing argument since it's so hard to convince anybody of anything, but that is where you should direct your efforts if you decide to argue. It's the only one that matters.

Reasons To Believe

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away -- Philip K. Dick

Brooklyn Wolf asks, Do You Really Require Proof?

I don't have any absolute proof, and, truth be told, I don't need any. Just by looking at the wonderfulness of nature, from the macroscopic to the microscopic, I am convinced that God exists. When I look at the universe and consider the possibilities that it either sprung into existence by itself or had help, I take "had help." Yes, it's only a gut feeling and yes, it falls far short of proof, but that's all I need to live my life. But I'm also honest about it. I know that it's not proof, and I state the same up front to anyone who asks. I don't require "solid proof" for my beliefs -- and, if you seriously consider what I said, neither do you.

This was my response:

"Proof" is the wrong word. What people need are reasons. For some people, the fact that they like Orthodox Judaism is reason enough to believe. For others, the fact that their parents and ancestors believe is reason enough.

And then some people just want to know what's TRUE, period. We don't want reasons to believe if those reasons don't help us believe what's true. We want to avoid the traps other minds fall into: denial, logical fallacies, and sheltering ourselves from people and ideas that might destroy our beliefs.

We see that people with Muslim parents tend to believe in Allah and people with Jewish parents tend to believe in YHWH and we realize that people who believe for the kinds of reasons that we believed basically believe whatever they want to believe.

So we become skeptics. We set out to find what's true. And we steel ourselves to face the truth even if we have to give up some cherished beliefs and even if accepting the truth means that our families and friends and communities might reject us.

I'm not saying this makes us better people, or more healthy psychologically. I'm sure the psychological reasons for believing what our communities believe evolved for a reason. What I am saying is that we're more likely to believe in what's true.

If you'd rather believe what your loved ones believe and what your parents believed and what lets you live in an Orthodox community, you should probably stick with whatever it is that lets you do that. If you want to know what's true, become a skeptic.

Bill Maher and Mike Huckabee Discuss Religion

Religion and Politics: Brainwashing in Action

The blog Beyond Teshuva is a group blog comprised of people who are becoming or have become Orthodox Jews. I find it fascinating not just because it's a mirror-image of those of us who go the other direction, but because of how it provides an unusually clear window into the brains of people making that transition.

In today's post I'm Having Trouble Shedding My Democratic Values, a guest contributor finds him/herself troubled:

Like many Baalei Teshuva I was raised in a community that was mostly Democrat and now find myself in a mostly Republican voting Orthodox community. Although I have voted Republican in some previous Presidential elections, I still believe in many of the values and ideas that the Democrats represent.

If Orthodox Jews support McCain and he supports Obama, he assumes the problem is with him. "I'm having trouble shedding my Democratic values," he says. Not, "Why do so many Orthodox Jews support McCain when it seems to me that they should go for Obama?"

There's a part of him that rebels against the conformity: "I’m not sure why I have to be apologetic because I am considering voting Democrat and find that some of their policies resonate with me." But still he says he's "having trouble shedding [his] Democratic values."

He's not primarily interested in finding the truth. He wants to be convinced either that his new community is right about voting Republican or that the community is not as Republican as it seems.

Previously on Beyond BT: What am I Allowed to Believe?

Religulous: A Review

Religulous was funny and entertaining, but ultimately unsatisfying. Like Borat by the same director, most of the humor comes at the expense of the unsuspecting, the unprepared, and the ill-equipped. Maher debates with some people so out of their league that I just felt sorry for them. Rather than being an argument against religion, the movie too often feels like an argument against basic stupidity.

I liked the film better when he chose worthy targets like the Vatican astronomer, who spoke more eloquently against creationism and Biblical literalism than Maher does, and a Catholic priest who as far as I could tell holds approximately the same religious beliefs as I do. His conversation with scientist Francis Collins was far too short and Collins didn't get a fair shake. I would have loved to see a movie that just focused on those people.

Some of the unintelligent people he interviewed did not gain my sympathy, as they are in positions of power and deserve to be exposed. Democratic Senator Mark Pryor of Alabama comes off especially badly, and there are a couple of pastors (and one man who claims to be the Second Coming of Jesus) who seem like they're in it just for the money and prestige.

Maher makes no pretense at being fair or balanced. He selectively edits, adds subtitles, and stitches in funny shots from other movies for maximum effect. His primary tool is ridicule, and while that may be the only reasonable response to something like the tenets of Scientology or the talking snake from Eden, it's a tool he goes to a little too often. The documentary is at its best when he lets the craziness speak for itself, like his tour of the Institute for Science and Halacha in Israel, which creates gadgets to exploit loopholes in the laws of Shabbos.

The section on Islam in this film is not funny or novel. Instead of mocking the ridiculous beliefs as he did with other religions, he focuses on the violence and hatred, which everybody is already aware of. There was only one part of the Islam section that worked -- a conversation with an intelligent and moderate Muslim woman who had some trouble defending the hateful and violence-inciting verses of the Koran. This was the only part of the movie where I thought Maher successfully took down a religious moderate.

The end of the movie is basically a juxtoposition of believers wishing for the end times and a montage of truck bombs and nuclear explosions. I found it unsatisfying and too simplistic, although there is obviously a large grain of truth there.

It is something of a thrill to see an anti-religious movie on the big screen, and to be with an audience that was mostly approving. Only once before, at a Richard Dawkins event, have I been in a room with so many open non-believers. It's a cool feeling.

Religion, Health, and Happiness: What Causes What?

I've posted before about the correlation between religious belief and/or attendance with longevity, fewer depressive symptoms, and low blood pressure. At the time, I assumed that religion caused those benefits, and asked, What's an Atheist to Do?

Turns out, I may have jumped the gun on causation. Via Abandoning Eden, a new experiment shows that

the presence of a receptor that regulates general serotonin activity in the brain correlates with people's capacity for transcendence, the ability to apprehend phenomena that cannot be explained objectively. Scientists have long suspected that serotonin influences spirituality because drugs known to alter serotonin such as LSD also induce mystical experiences. But now they have proof from brain scans linking the capacity for spirituality with a major biological element.

The concentration of serotonin receptors normally varies markedly among individuals. Those whose brain scans showed the most receptor activity proved on personality tests to have the strongest proclivity to spiritual acceptance.

I take from this that there's a good chance that a common underlying factor may cause both increased religiosity and increased health and happiness.

What does this mean for atheists? Well, for one, it means that even if we "found" religion, it might not bring with it the health and happiness benefits.

Second, ironically, it's just more confirmation that we're probably right about the whole God thing. Read the quote again. "The presence of a receptor... correlates with people's capacity for transcendence, the ability to apprehend phenomena that cannot be explained objectively." That's kind of a polite way to say that the presence of that receptor correlates with people's capacity to see things that aren't there.

That confirms previous research, summed up by psychologist Martin Seligman:

[T]here is clear evidence that nondepressed people distort reality in a self-serving direction and depressed people tend to see reality accurately.

Maybe religion is just a side-effect of a "reality distortion gene," which evolved to increase happiness and health, even at the expense of clear seeing.

How Orthodox Will My Wedding Be?

So, I'm engaged. Yay! I've been debating whether to talk about this because it pretty much gives away my identity to anybody who both knows me in real life and reads my blog... but then I thought, how bad can you be if you read my blog? :-) And, what's this blog for if not to discuss this sort of thing? Please respect my privacy if you figure out who I am. (But let me know by email, as I'm interested to see who YOU are!)

So anyway, we're just starting to plan the wedding. My fiancée and her family are Jewish but not Orthodox, my fiancée is a non-religous semi-agnostic, I of course am an atheist, and my parents are Orthodox. (Long-time readers may recall that I decided to only date Jews a couple of years ago so that I wouldn't break my parents' misguided hearts by marrying out. Obviously, that one worked out.)

We have just started negotiations with my parents regarding their needs. Here are the issues that have come up so far:

Shabbos and Kosher

Obviously, the wedding cannot be on a Saturday or my parents and half our guests wouldn't be able to attend and it must be kosher, or they won't be able to eat. Not a big deal, although a Sunday wedding requires us to either have it on a three-day weekend or put a burden on the mostly non-religious guests coming in from out of town who would have to go to work on Monday morning.

The Rabbi

I do not believe in God. I do not believe in Orthodox Judaism. To have an Orthodox rabbi officiate at my wedding, then, would make the ceremony less meaningful to me and make me feel like a hypocrite. If I were going to have a rabbi at all, I would want a Humanistic one, but obviously, he or she wouldn't count. And if he was a gay man or she was a woman, that would make the Orthodox people extra uncomfortable.

Considering it's our wedding, shouldn't we be allowed to create a ceremony that reflects our love and beliefs and nothing else? Why do we need all this religiocultural bullshit?

Yet my father insists it must be an Orthodox rabbi. Why does he get to insist? It's not his wedding. It doesn't directly affect him. I tried to press him on this and he just said that we wouldn't "really" be married if it weren't an Orthodox wedding. I also got some dark, vague muttering about future problems with kids and/or divorce if the wedding isn't halakhic.

But you don't even technically need a Rabbi to have a halakhic wedding! This debate is ongoing, although I'm leaning towards finding the most liberal Orthodox rabbi I can and negotiating with him just to make my parents happy.

Dancing

My fiancée and I want nothing to do with traditional, single-sex dancing. Admittedly, this is not so much an ideological issue as an aesthetic one, but neither of us would feel at home at our own wedding if we had it. My parents originally expected this and seemed okay with it (they are pretty modern, by Orthodox standards) but then a couple of days ago, my mom called and said that an Orthodox rabbi might not perform the ceremony if we didn't have at least the first dance be separate.

Well, what kind of hypocritical bullshit is that? Either mixed dancing is completely out of bounds, in which case the rabbi should have nothing to do with the wedding, or it's acceptable, in which case, what difference does the first dance make?

I think we're standing firm on this one, and if we're lucky, maybe that will get us out of the Orthodox rabbi question as well.

Blessings at the Reception

We haven't discussed this yet, but we want no part in any benching or sheva brachos. I'd probably be willing to have someone make motzi if necessary.

Wearing a Kippah

I obviously don't wear a kippah (a.k.a yarmulka.) I know my father will be embarrassed if I don't wear one to the reception (I'm willing to do it for the ceremony, I think) but I'd feel like a fraud wearing it. I think my dad's just going to have to deal with that one.

Not Being Counted as One Who Left

One of the things that bothers me the most about the Orthodox community is the way people who go off the derech just disappear. We obviously have to leave the community when we stop being religous, but we're also expected to sort of pretend to be religious when we come home and to not rock the boat. Any discussion about us has the furtive, whispery quality of a bunch of Victorians discussing a sexual deviant. From within the community, you'd barely know that anybody who grew up there ever left (or was gay, etc.) This marginalizes those who leave and it leaves the kids who are thinking about leaving without any positive role models. I emphatically do not want to give the impression to anybody that I'm still Orthodox.

Rituals and Other Concerns

In addition to being uncomfortable with giving the appearance of supporting Orthodox Judaism by having an Orthodox wedding, there are a number of specific things that really get my goat.

1. The notion of buying/acquiring the woman with a ring. The Orthodox ceremony is based on the idea that the man is buying the woman. Besides being entirely distasteful and out of date, this might make a modern ceremony with a ring exchange difficult AND, due to Talmudic nitpicking, will restrict us from using the actual wedding band we want during the ceremony because it has diamonds in it.
2. The notion that virgins are worth more money. This is in the standard ketubah. Spin all you want, that's basically what it says.
3. The idea that we're getting married "according to the traditions of Moses and Israel." Uh, no. We're getting married according to the traditions of America. She's not 12 years old and I'm planning on being monogamous.
4. The fact that the Orthodox rabbi would not perform an intermarriage or gay marriage. Would I have someone who refused to perform marriages for black people officiate my wedding? How can I support such a person? My father suggested that the rabbi might even investigate my fiancée's background to make sure she's halakhically Jewish. She is, but how intrusive and offensive is that??
   
5. The fact that Orthodoxy doesn't consider me (or, of course, my fiancée) a kosher witness. We need two kosher witnesses and yet neither of us is considered good enough to witness at someone else's Orthodox wedding.
6. The breaking of the glass for the Temple. I know there are other interpretations of this event, but I can't in good faith say that I mourn the destruction of the Temple or hope for it to be rebuilt.
7. The yichud room. (For those who don't know, this is where the bride and groom go immediately following the ceremony in order to have the opportunity to consummate the marriage. Although they generally don't actually do that in there, the idea is that they could.) This is just plain creepy and it contributes to the idea that premarital sex is wrong, which I do not agree with.
8. The rabbi's speech. Obviously, I can't have a rabbi up there speaking from our chuppah going on and on about God and how we must raise our children as religious Jews. I'm assuming I'll be able to keep the rabbi on some sort of leash here, but that remains to be seen.
   

Final Thoughts

We went into this process naively thinking that we would graciously accommodate my family by having kosher food and a Sunday wedding and then everything else would fall into place. It's not going to be that easy.

The problem is that anytime we want one thing and Orthodoxy demands another, it's just what we "want" versus what my parents "need." Orthodoxy is so rigid that compromise is impossible (except, hopefully, regarding the mixed dancing.) So we volunteer to have kosher food and a Sunday wedding, which are substantially different from what we would prefer, and we get nothing in return. We try to be gracious, and they just make more demands. Unless we are extremely careful and willing to get confrontational on things we absolutely do not want to compromise on, Orthodoxy will just take over the whole thing and it will feel like any other Orthodox wedding. Maybe my father will be able to compromise on the rabbi. It's just so hard to tell what's negotiable when everything is supposedly non-negotiable.

Yielding to Doubt

Great post by Kevin Parry of Memoirs of an ex-Christian:

Excerpt:

I recently received an email from a Christian struggling with uncertainty, and his anguish was something that I could completely relate to. But what struck me most about his email is that his doubt in God was followed by a form of self-abasement. The question “Does God really exist?” was followed by “What is wrong with me?” The feeling of guilt that accompanies doubt is, I believe, a result of two general Christian beliefs: the first, that doubt is undesirable; the second, that God is perfect, and thus cannot be blamed for an undesirable situation. In other words, doubt is a problem; and if we doubt, we are to blame.

As a doubting Christian, I also believed there was something seriously wrong with me when I tried in vain to get some sense of God. But the one thing that I slowly realised is that the problem didn't lie with me at all, but with Christianity (or with God, if he exists). I couldn't for the life of me understand why a loving God would hide himself from me, and cause me so much anguish through the doubt I was experiencing. One day I came to the conclusion that a hidden God is no different to a God who doesn't exist. If there is no difference, I reasoned, then why waste energy and time – and experience so much anguish – believing in him.

When I finally gave up Christianity, doubt no longer remained an issue. No longer did I have to expend so much mental energy trying to believe in invisible demons, virgin births, parting seas, and people rising from the dead – things that seem so contradictory, incredible, and counter to everyday experience and common sense. I felt a strange sense of relief when I finally changed to a worldview that seemed more consistent with what I plainly observed in the world around me.

I now view doubt as an opportunity for change, no longer as a threat. Questioning my own beliefs has lead to growth as it has enabled me to discover problems in my thinking. In the words of Dan Barker in Losing Faith in Faith, I conquered doubt by totally yielding to it, and I think – for me at least – I am better for it.

What am I Allowed to Believe?

That's the question that many Orthodox Jews have to ask themselves. Take this post, titled Should I Argue Against Evolution or for a G-d Directed Evolution?

I have a work associate who seems interested in Torah, but he likes to challenge me about contradictions between Torah and science and other things. He recently asked me about the Torahs views on Evolution.

On the one hand, I could say that that I don’t believe in evolution and there are many holes in evolution theory and that scientists are biased against a belief in G-d. On the other hand, many secular Jews accept the scientific consensus that evolution did take place, and I could make the case that a G-d directed evolution would not necessarily contradict the Torah.

My Rav holds that you don’t have to take a 6,000 year creation literally.

What approach makes more sense when dealing with non observant Jews?

Wikipedia's page on intellectual dishonesty should redirect to that post.

The poster isn't interested in what's true, but in what he is allowed to believe ("My Rav holds that you don’t have to take a 6,000 year creation literally") and what beliefs would be useful ("What approach makes more sense when dealing with non observant Jews?")

Commenter Michoel worries that the poster is not being careful enough:

Jack wrote that his Rav holds that one may believe in a universe which is more than 6,000 years. Somehow you took that to mean that one can believe in Evolution. That is an enormous leap.

Heaven forbid we come to the erroneous conclusion that one "can" believe in evolution. A rabbi must give us explicit permission!

Bob Miller spells out a method for coming to a belief that is consistent with the Torah:

Step 1 is to understand the Torah’s account of creation and subsequent history in light of the entire Mesorah, including the opinions of Chazal, Rishonim, Acharonim, etc. With a comprehensive inside view on all levels (”Pardes”) one can begin to see which of today’s physical/biological theories may be consistent with a Torah view and which may not.

To be fair, a few commenters did jump in to point out that there is, in fact, overwhelming evidence of evolution. I just think it's crazy that people care more about what they are allowed to believe than what's true.

Albert Einstein: Bible a Collection of Childish Stories

Maybe this will clear some things up for those confused by Einstein's unfortunate use of religious metaphor.

Albert Einstein, writing in 1954, dismissed Judaism and other religions as "an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," though he said he gladly belonged to the Jewish people and felt a deep affinity for the Jews' "mentality," excerpts published on Tuesday showed.

Einstein also said he saw nothing "chosen" about the Jews, and that they were no better than other peoples "although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power."

The renowned physicist, who died a little more than a year after writing the letter, also had tough words for God and the Bible, according to the text published by the British The Guardian daily.

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish," the letter was quoted as saying. "No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

The letter, written in German in January, 1954 to philosopher Eric Gutkind, is to be auctioned in London on Thursday, the paper said. Written in Einstein's hand, the letter, which has been in private hands for more than half a century, reportedly could sell for as much as 8,000 pounds sterling.

Turning to Judaism, Einstein wrote that "For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.

"As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

Tip o' the hat to JP Perry.

Compartmentalization Observed in the Wild

At the Conservative Passover seder I attended this year, the woman next to me told me that she is a middle-school ancient history teacher. I asked her if that included Egypt, and she said, "Of course."

"Let me ask you something," I said. "Is there any evidence that the Jews were ever in Egypt, outside of Jewish sources?"

She smiled and said, "You know, I was talking to my Rabbi a few days ago about how the anthropological record compares to some of the events recorded in the Torah. Basically, we decided that faith is faith and anthropology is anthropology. But faith is still important."

(Previously on compartmentalization.)

Religious Brainwashing

How to get a child to grow up believing that God wrote the Five Books of Moses:

Immerse him in Orthodox Judaism from day one. Spend thousands of dollars sending him to Orthodox schools. Insulate him from non-Jews and non-religious Jews. Shield him from any mention of the documentary hypothesis. Assure him that commentators like Rashi and Tosfos know more about the Torah than any secular Biblical scholar. Make him believe that Orthodoxy is dependent on certain beliefs and that if he leaves Orthodoxy, he loses his community. And maybe your love, as well. Expose him to speeches almost every day about the beauty and necessity of the Torah. Have him study the Talmud for years and insist that the Talmud's analysis of every verse as if it were dictated by God is not only true, but was also given to Moses at Sinai.

How to get a child to grow up believing that the Five Books were written by men:

Don't send him to an Orthodox school.

Any questions?

After the Paradigm Shift

I wince when I hear the phrase "paradigm shift," because it's so tied into business buzzword BS, but it is an important concept. Those of us who have left Orthodoxy have experienced a major one -- our understanding of everything has been upended and we can never return to seeing things the same way as we once did.

DBS explains it well in his new post. Excerpt:

There is a very tangible change which happens some time after you have left religion and have had a chance to reacclimate to the world. At some point, you look back at the belief system which you left behind and feel a sense of shock at what you see.

This may really be the point of no return. Up until then, there is a sort of built in defensiveness in your thinking. You have all of your reasons – logical and moral, all worked out in your mind - as if you have to justify your choice to leave the Orthodox world. But at that moment, you suddenly grasp that the shoe belongs firmly on the other foot. You have the powerful feeling of seeing, for the first time, your old beliefs on equal footing with the claims of the other religious groups.

And, just as suddenly, your need to justify your ideas evaporates. “Am I really concerned about explaining why I don’t believe in this outrageous mythology?” “Am I really worried about proving that I’m still moral?” You feel, for the first time, that it would be just as absurd to have to justify why you are not a Mormon or Scientologies.

From this side of the shift, I cannot understand how smart, educated people continue to believe in Orthodox Judaism. I know that sounds arrogant, but it's true. I literally cannot understand it. I've come up with various hypotheses ranging from psychological mechanisms to the idea that a lot of them are just faking it, but I don't get it at the gut level as I once did.

What Do Orthodox Jews Really Believe III, and Why Don't They Speak Up?

(Previously: one, two.)

XGH, DovBear, and Ezzie all link approvingly to this answer from James Kugel about what the implications are to Orthodox Judaism if the Torah is not divine. The comments at XGH's are well worth reading, as well.

The question is in response to Kugel's recent book How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now. Kugel is a Biblical Scholar and a professor at Harvard, who believes in the Documentary Hypothesis but nevertheless considers himself an Orthodox Jew.

Anyway, here's the gist of the question:

I suppose I am writing to you to get your thoughts on how a religious person can maintain his/her faith and fealty in and to a rabbinic system that is so directly based on the belief of a Divine text and the “Four Assumptions”? I fully realize that I am asking this question to a Bible professor who happens to be observant rather than to a Rabbi - I am more interested in the former's response than the latter's.

And the answer in full:

Before getting to the specifics of your e-mail, I should say something exculpatory (I hope) about this book in general. It really is not addressed specifically to Orthodox Jews, or even to Jews as a whole. I think there’s been some confusion about this. I’m a Bible professor, and the purpose of this book is to teach something about the nature of modern biblical scholarship – something that the general public, and even quite a few modern scholars themselves, are largely unaware of (i.e., the great gap separating ancient and modern scholarship, and the crucial role of ancient interpreters in shaping the Bible’s message). It’s true that, in the last chapter, I also tried to offer some thoughts about how different groups, including what I called "traditional Judaism," might try to reckon with the insights of modern scholars, but if that were all I was out to do, the book could have been considerably shorter.

A second point is also worth mentioning – and this is a bit closer to the subject of your e-mail. Orthodox Jews (myself included) are, by definition, people who like to be told what to do. We accept eagerly the whole “prepared table” of Judaism – not just the idea of avodat H’, but all the detailed plan that goes with it. In fact, the general idea alone would not get us very far (this was the oft-repeated theme of my book “On Being a Jew”). And so, it is part of the whole posture of seeking to do God’s bidding that we absorb ourselves in the details of the traditional way of life, "davening three times a day" as you say, and kashrut and learning and Shabbat. We don’t take easily to going beyond this, looking up from those daily tasks to contemplate our Employer, that is to say, to think about the really basic issues of theology. In fact, to talk about such things even seems to us un-Jewish; it is neither a necessary nor a particularly comfortable activity for someone who has undertaken to live as an Orthodox Jew. If it ever does come to such basic questions, I think our preferred path is, as in the details of halakhah, to look to our classic texts to tell us what to think. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

The problem posed by modern biblical scholarship is that it calls into question some of the most basic teachings of Judaism, and, since it really is modern, its specific arguments are not addressed by our classical sources. So what should a Jew think about modern scholarship? As I said, I wrote this book for a broad audience from different religions, but as far as Jews are concerned, my purpose was certainly not to get them to incorporate into Judaism modern scholarship’s version of what the Torah is or where it came from. In fact, I think I recommended pretty clearly at the beginning of the book that people of traditional beliefs think twice about reading it, and at the end I said outright that modern biblical scholarship is altogether incompatible with traditional Jewish belief and
practice. In other words, I think that if you want to be an Orthodox Jew, the Documentary Hypothesis and the other insights of modern scholars can have no place in the way you study Torah. (This, by the way, puts me at odds not only with the stance of Conservative Judaism, but also with a fair number of biblical scholars who describe themselves as Orthodox.) I really don’t even buy the idea that you can go halfway down the modern path, adopting the linguistic or philological insights of modern scholars but not the rest. Ultimately, all roads lead to Wellhausen.

But the question I tried to address in that last chapter was: bedi’avad, what is someone who has heard or learned something of modern scholarship (and this includes an increasingly large number of Orthodox Jews) to think?

I know that the answer of some people, perhaps a great many people, is what your e-mail calls “burying their heads in the sand,” though perhaps we should rather call it: “trying to stick with Judaism’s traditional teachings by ignoring or dismissing what modern scholars say.” I really have nothing to say against such a stance. I know perfectly well how much is at stake for most people in adopting any other position. For the same reason, I feel pretty sure that most Orthodox Jews will continue to declare modern scholarship off-limits.

But I also know that this is not an adequate response for some people – not for you, according to your e-mail, and truthfully, not for me either. It just feels wrong to say about anything that really matters to you, “Well, I know that scholars have turned up a lot of disturbing facts, but I don’t want to know about them.” My impulse, anyway, is to face the truth as best it can be known and then try to make sense of what it is telling us.

In your e-mail you say that if modern scholars have proved that the Torah is not a "divine document," then our whole system of halakhah collapses. I don't think I'd ever accept that premise in the first place: modern scholars may have proven a lot of things, but I don't think they've ever tried to determine what is or is not divinely inspired, simply because there is no litmus test by which you can decide such a thing. Words are words, whether written by prophets or interpolators or editors, whether written in this particular set of circumstances or another; the words never carry little flags identifying some of them as divinely inspired and others and ordinarily human.

I believe what I just said is absolutely true, but I wouldn't want to use it as a cop-out to avoid addressing what seems to me to be the real issue. Modern scholars have said a lot of things that are indeed upsetting to traditional belief: they've cast doubt on the Torah's reliability as a historical account of things that actually happened, they've highlighted contradictions within the text, and so on and so forth. Doesn't this indeed undercut the Torah's standing as the basis of our whole way of life?

Forgive me if I restate some of the overall argument I made at the end of the book. (I know you didn't find it particularly convincing the first time around, but I'm hoping this time I may say it better.)

When you actually consider Judaism as it is, the role of the Torah in it is really not what you say it is. Ultimately, Jews are not Torah-fundamentalists. On the contrary, our whole tradition is based on adding liberally to what the Torah says (despite Deut. 4:2), sometimes reading its words in a way out of keeping with their apparent meaning, and sometimes even distorting or disregarding its words entirely. (My book “The Bible As It Was” contains seven hundred pages of examples of how this all began.) What’s more, as everyone knows, much of what makes up the daily fabric of Jewish life has only a tenuous connection, or no connection at all, with what is actually written in the Torah. I mentioned such things as saying the Amidah three times a day, the berakhot that we recite before eating and on other occasions, netilat yadayim, many aspects of kashrut [e.g. basar vehalav], many of the particulars in the way we keep Shabbat and holidays, studying the Babylonian Talmud, and so on and so forth. Isn’t this an awful lot of what it means to lead a halakhic life? On the other hand, one might also mention such practices as mekhirat hametz, which on the face of it seem in fact to contradict what is written in the Torah, in this case, the prohibitions of bal yera’eh ubal yimmatze. And all these are really only the tip of the iceberg; you yourself could go into much greater detail on this theme.

So someone looking at this situation from afar would probably be reluctant to accept your assertion that the whole system of halakhah depends on the words of the Torah and their divine inspiration. (Of course I am aware that our Rabbis sought to find within the Torah itself the source of their own authority to add to or depart from the Torah’s own words, but I think our outside observer would rightly point out a certain circularity here: It is only the rabbis’ own, authoritative interpretation of a certain verse in the Torah that grants them the right of authoritative interpretation. In any case, this is a formalist argument, one that doesn't really speak to the larger issue.)

No, this observer would say, it is simply not true that the whole system of halakhah depends on the words of the Torah. Those words were the starting-point, but what has truly proven determinative in them (indeed, what was recognized as such from the start) was the general direction that those words point in and embody, and whose trajectory was then carried forward through the Mishnah and Gemara and all later writings. That "general direction" is the basic idea that Israel's connection to God is to be articulated through avodat H'. This is the whole substance of the Sinai revelation, and whether it took place at Sinai or somewhere else, biblical scholarship itself has highlighted the utter disconnectedness of this idea from all that preceded it. Before that moment, there was (for centuries) the God of Old, who appeared and disappeared; and there was the offering of sacrifices in the temple. Then, suddenly, the phrase la'avod 'et H' acquired a new meaning: it meant doing all these mitzvot. That changed forever the whole character of divine-human interaction, and it's that change that all later Judaism embodies.

As I said before, Jews generally don't like to think about such things, and talking about a "general direction" or overall character of the Sinai revelation is particularly disturbing for people who are otherwise so devoted to studying specific words and actual texts. But I think if you want to be absolutely accurate, you have to admit that, time and again, it's not a matter of the specific words, at least not if you try to see the big picture. What really underlies everything -- and what was the ongoing substance of the Sinai revelation -- was the revelation of a new way of being connected to God.

In the light of all this, I hinted at the very end of the book at what is called in German a “thought experiment.” What would happen if someone could demonstrate definitively that God had truly given only one commandment to Moshe at Mount Sinai, the one in Deuteronomy that says: “You shall serve the Lord your God with your whole heart and soul.” Then He said to Moshe: “Okay, you and the zeqenim and their later successors can work out the details.” Well, this is a somewhat jarring question, but please go along with it for a minute. In the end, I do not believe that this would, or could, invalidate our system of halakhah. Of course I do believe in nevu’ah, in divine revelation, and I don’t think that Israel got only that one commandment from God. Theoretically, however, I think it would be enough if that were all, since that would provide the firm basis for everything that followed -- Moshe's, or Rabbi Akiva's, elaboration of how this primal divine commandment is to be carried out. Because ultimately, any Jew must admit that at some point the divinely-given text leads to the human interpreter and the poseq, indeed, to this specific taqqanah and that specific gezerah shavah. And frankly, we don't really seem to all that aware of, or even care much about, where the dividing-line falls. This is our “prepared table,” the work of many hands. If someone wants a different table, let him go ahead – but this is the Jewish table, the way Jews serve God.

As one of our sages said: to what may the matter be compared? To a man who wished to see the King. So he went to the royal palace and stood outside and waited for the King to appear. After some hours, the King did come outside, and the man was thrilled. But soon the King went back inside the palace. The man returned the next day, and the next, and sometimes he did catch a glimpse of the King, but always only for a few seconds, and then his view would be blocked by someone, or the King would step behind a pillar or get into his carriage and ride off. What had at first been thrilling now became only frustrating.

Eventually, the king’s close advisor became aware of the presence of the man standing day after day outside the palace, and he approached him and said: “I know what you want, but you are going about it the wrong way. Go up to the palace door and ask to work inside – it doesn’t matter what: janitor, guard, woodcutter or water-drawer! Then you will enter the palace by right and see the King as a matter of course; indeed, He will recognize you and perhaps even call you by name.” And so the man did, and it was just as the King’s advisor had said: he saw the King up close every day, and the King called to him by name.

This is the whole idea of Judaism. If you want to come close to God, the only way is to become His employee. Understanding that avodat H' is the true foundation of our halakhah may not de-fang modern biblical scholarship; a lot of what it says will always be disturbing to Jews. But I think that modern scholarship does not, because it cannot, undermine the essence of Judaism or what Jews actually do in their lives; it cannot, as you suggest, cause the system to collapse.

That was not my whole purpose in writing this book, but it was one thing I wished to say, because I thought it might be of help to people like yourself. Of course I knew – I knew this even before I began writing – that some people would be upset by the book, and I knew that their natural reaction would be to attack me. I must tell you I really don’t mind. I know that for such people, even contemplating modern scholarship is off limits for an Orthodox Jew, so anyone who does so must be condemned. But after all is said and done and Kugel is long gone, the problems raised for Orthodox Jews by modern biblical scholarship will remain. My hope is that the response I’ve outlined here, which is really what I said in somewhat different terms in my book, will also be around for a while, and that it may help people like yourself to look squarely at those problems and at what seems to me to be their only truthful resolution.

In other words, it doesn't matter if the Torah came directly from God as told to Moses at Sinai, because the Torah itself isn't that central to Orthodox Judaism!

Now I agree with him that Orthodox halakha (law) is so far removed from the words of the Torah that the Torah itself is almost irrelevant. E.g., the Torah says not to cook a calf in its mother's milk and today's Orthodox Jews wait 1-6 hours after eating meat to eat milk, have separate dishes and silverware for milk and meat, and even sometimes separate dishwashers and ovens. The Torah says "an eye for an eye" and the Rabbis made it "compensation for an eye." The Torah says to bring sacrifices and the Rabbis turned it into saying prayers.

But as Kugel admits, "modern biblical scholarship is altogether incompatible with traditional Jewish belief and practice," so it strikes me as a strange leap to go from, "Oh, we've built so much on top of the Torah that it doesn't even matter if it turns out not to be from Sinai," as if the Torah were just a mold for the halakha that could be discarded once the halakha itself was built.

But yet he persists as an Orthodox Jew.

Many other Orthodox Jews no doubt would take issue with his self-identification with them, but I wonder how many others secretly agree, or have similar thought processes.

So far, we've seen in this What Do Orthodox Jews Really Believe series, that Jews who call themselves Orthodox might believe that the world is billions of years old, that Adam and Eve were mythological, that the Flood was either mythological or greatly exaggerated, that the Exodus was either mythological or greatly exaggerated, and now that the Torah itself very well might have been written by several different people and wasn't given at Sinai at all.

This doesn't give us any indication of how many Orthodox Jews believe these things, but it does give us an idea of the range of beliefs one can hold while still considering himself or herself Orthodox. There are X number of Orthodox Jews who believe that the earth is less than 6,000 years old and that Bilaam really had a talking donkey and then there are Y number of Orthodox Jews who believe that the Torah was written by men, albeit divinely inspired, and contains mythology, historical errors, and presumably other non-divine things, like maybe the whole idea about gay sex being an abomination. And, of course, there are Z number of Orthodox Jews who believe some combination of the above beliefs or any number of other ones and, perhaps the largest group of all, W number of people who are either incurious and simply take everything for granted or specifically avoid thinking about certain topics and dismiss out of hand any contrary arguments.

If Y is a large number, though, I think what we have is an enormous sham. Kugel is open about his beliefs, and so is XGH, at least pseudonymously, but I have to guess that they are just the tip of the iceberg. There are tens of thousands of modern, intelligent, educated, and curious Orthodox Jews in America who must be asking themselves these questions and arriving at some pretty similar answers. Kugel put it perfectly: once you start asking, "all roads lead to Wellhausen."

Is there a vast well of Orthodox Jews who believe these things in private but are afraid to speak up?

Do they have a responsibility to speak up?

A whole generation of intelligent, curious teenagers are feeling ashamed and scared for having doubts and questions about Orthodoxy's legitimacy. A whole generation of adults is stressing out every day about following to the letter an increasingly stringent and incomprehensible set of laws. Families are divided when some of us go "off the derech" or, God-forbid, marry a non-Jew. A generation of Chareidi (ultra-Orthodox) youth, especially the girls, are being shortchanged in their secular educations and career prospects. A whole generation of Orthodox gay children are being raised with the belief that God considers gay sex an abomination and worthy of death, even if we no longer execute people for it.

How many Orthodox people lied to me, overtly or by omission, when I was a teenager wondering how people could really believe this stuff? How many betrayed the gay kids I went to school with by keeping silent when they were taught at every turn that their desires and feelings were wrong? Why are the fundamentalists the only ones talking honestly about their beliefs?

I think the other denominations of Judaism have a lot to do with people's reticence to speak up. If the modern Orthodox suddenly started talking openly about these beliefs, they would instantly create a new denomination, de facto if not de jure. They don't like what they see in Conservative, in Reform, in Reconstructionist, or in Humanistic. They desperately want the ultra-Orthodox to consider them Orthodox. They want to maintain Orthodoxy's retention rates. They want to keep Orthodoxy's strong communities. They think that they'll lose what they love about Orthodoxy if they admit what they really believe, and they're probably right.

These are just my guesses. I have no way of knowing how many people believe these things, because people aren't talking. Maybe the blogs will change all that. Maybe if people have a safe avenue to explore forbidden thoughts, something new and better will come out of it. Or maybe it will just be the end of Modern Orthodoxy. Or maybe nothing will change, because that's just how the world works.

More on Noah and Orthodox Apologetics

Last week, I asked What Do Orthodox People Really Believe? Several commenters argued that many Orthodox people believe that Noah's flood was merely a regional flood and not a global one and that certain Orthodox authorities have stated that this belief is acceptable within Orthodox Judaism.

This is what drives me nuts. The story is obviously mythological, so obvious that it's hard to believe anyone who has read it wouldn't immediately see that. It's also pretty obvious that the story comes from sources alien to Judaism. Let's look at some other parts of the story, all directly from the Torah:

1. Noah was 600 years old.
2. Beings called "the sons of gods" (בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙) married "the daughters of men."
3. God decides that from now on people would live only to a hundred and twenty.
4. By the way, there were giants in those days.
5. Also, there were giants later, when the "daughters of men" bore children to "the sons of gods."
6. God became sorry and grieved that he had created men.
7. So he decided to kill all of them except Noah -- and to kill all the land animals and birds, too.
8. He tells Noah to build an ark, 300 x 50 x 30 cubits, with three levels.
9. He declares that everything on Earth and under heaven shall die.
10. He tells Noah to bring two of every kind (מִינָ֔הּ) of land animal and bird and enough food to feed them.
11. He tells Noah to bring seven of every kind of pure animal and of all birds and two of the rest.
12. The fountains of the deep and the "windows of heaven" (אֲרֻבֹּ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם) opened.
13. All the high hills under the entire heaven were covered. Then all the mountains.
    
14. The water began to recede after 150 days.
15. Noah opened the ark after 40 days.
16. God promises never to do that again.
17. Noah just happened to father the ancestor of all Canaanites, who he later cursed along with all of his descendents for "uncovering his nakedness."
18. Noah died at 900.
19. Noah's sons have sons who all formed their own peoples as well!
20. Then we enter the story of the Tower of Babel.
    

What a story! In a single narrative, we have impossible claims about humans' lifespans, a God who isn't happy with his work and kills virtually every living thing on earth, actual giants, indications of some sort of polytheistic/demigod mythology, hints at multiple authorship, hints of a flat-earth cosmology, just-so stories about how all the nations came to be, all leading up to a just-so story about how different languages came to be!

For those Orthodox people who take the whole thing as a sort of parable or myth, I have no real problem, other than questions about how they know when not to take something in the Torah as parable or myth. (And why the precise measurements of the ark?) I'm mystified, though, about those people who take the story as more-or-less history, even if it's "really" talking only about a regional flood.

Have they never read the story? Did they just settle on the first pat answer to a troubling question? What do they make of all the great sages of old who obviously took the story as history? Do they just try not to think about this stuff too much? Again, I'm wondering about the educated, intelligent, "modern" Orthodox people. What do they really believe?

(Cartoon via Stardust Musings.)

What Do Orthodox People Really Believe?

XGH has claimed that several rabbis have admitted to him in private beliefs that they would never own up to in public. I wonder, if that's true, how many other rabbis are the same way? And how many of the rank-and-file Orthodox are as well?

There are several claims which are (in my opinion) transparently false but Orthodox Judaism depends on. For example:

1. 600,000 Jews literally walked out of Egypt at one time, plus "a mixed multitude" who went with them, along with flocks and herds and "very much" cattle.
2. There was a global flood that killed all living things except those which lived peacefully together on a man-made ark for forty days and forty nights.
3. The five books of Moses were written primarily by Moses, plus or minus a few letters here and there and maybe the last eight sentences.

I know that a lot of Orthodox Jews simply assume that these claims are true. I'm sure that some others are convinced by apologetics that they are true. What of the rest, though? Are we to believe that your average, relatively intellectual Modern Orthodox Jew believes these things? Or do they disbelieve, but keep quiet?

I don't really want to call anyone out, but do people like Chana and Ezzie believe that those things are true? Or do they just not think about them? Or do they accept the apologetics without thinking about those? Or are they literally in psychological denial? What about the rabbis? Is it all a big lie to them, albeit with good intentions, like telling children that the ghost of Elijah drinks from the cup at the seder or that the tooth fairy gives you money for teeth?

I'd really love to know. It's a shame there's no way to find out, short of kidnapping a bunch of rabbis and other Orthodox Jews and submitting them to a carefully-constructed polygraph test.

Morning Links: Petraeus, Iran, and Belief

• I wonder whether the new issue of The American Conservative will ignite the same kind of controversy with its "Sycophant Savior" article as the MoveOn.org ad did:
  

  David Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes...
  
  Politically, it qualifies as a brilliant maneuver. The general’s relationships with official Washington remain intact. Yet he has broken faith with the soldiers he commands and the Army to which he has devoted his life. He has failed his country. History will not judge him kindly.

  
  Yowtch. I'm kidding, of course. There's no chance the media or the Senate responds to The American Conservative as they did to MoveOn.org. Because of liberal bias, you see.
  


• Glenn Greenwald points to some "extraordinary reports about what appears to be the virtual refusal of senior military officials to permit a war with Iran."


• Eliezer Yudowsky writes about belief and evidence and what it would take to convince him that 2 + 2 = 3.

Does God Want Cowardly Followers?

Chana writes:

What good is this frumkeit* that is cultivated simply by wearing blinders?

...

Personally, I think that the person who has quested and tried and dealt with various issues in an attempt to act as a committed Jew but who ends up non-observant is more authentically religious than the one who maintains his religiosity by avoiding everything that could potentially undermine it.

More simply, in the words of a very wise person I once knew, "There is a heresy that is holier than observance."

I might qualify that statement by stating, "than some types of observance."

...

So perhaps I may argue, even though it may seem revolutionary, that the very person who denies God or who becomes non-observant in his own way is actually the person with the deepest, most committed, most authentic relationship to Him.

Thanks, Chana! :-)

I've long felt the same way, of course. If God exists, he surely prefers an honest and courageous atheism to a sheltered and cowardly observance. As Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

There are courageous and honest religious people. I think Chana is one of them. Too many, though, shy away from difficult questions. I believe the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews fall into that category. If you're the kind of person who hasn't taken a position on evolution, or dismissed the Documentary Hypothesis without even an investigation of the subject, you probably do too. If you've honestly investigated and found them untrue, you might be wrong, but you aren't a coward.


* Orthodox Judaism