Quote of the Day - Religion and Comfortable Myths

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dares not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.
-- Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954), quoted from James A. Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" (1996)

Quote of the Day: Science Vs. Religion

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address

There are More Things in Heaven and Earth, [Cross-Currents], Than are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy

Cross-currents makes a particularly weak argument in favor of their "opposition to the gay lifestlye."

Here is a direct quote:

In a nutshell: It is an essential aspect of our Jewishness that we strive to be other-oriented rather than self-oriented. This leads us directly to G-dliness, or is perhaps a subset of G-dliness, as we strive to serve His needs rather than our own. By marrying someone who is wired like me (a male) or even someone not wired like me but nonetheless innately familiar to me (a female, but a close relative of mine) I will not become as other-oriented as I would had I married someone who is completely different than I am. (This also gives context to the linkage between feminism – ‘no differences’ between roles of men and women – and the gay lifestyle.)

Since they are known not to always publish comments which disagree [SECOND update: my comment now shows up there.], I'll simul-post my response here:

With all due respect, I find your rationalization utterly uncompelling. What you seem to ignore is that gay people cannot enter into a good marriage with a member of the opposite sex. It’s just not an option. (Please note that I specified a good marriage.) Clearly, by even your logic, marrying someone, even a member of the same sex, would make you more “other-oriented” than would remaining single. Forbidding same-sex marriage forces people to be LESS other-oriented, and so you should be against a prohibition.

Moreover, proponents of a ban on gay marriage seem to believe that if it’s forbidden, gay people will just go away or magically become straight. This is not the case. There are already gay couples who live together, have children together, and create families together. Banning gay marriages serves only to discriminate against such couples and their children and does not provide any benefit. [I added the next line to my post here for emphasis:] A gay marriage ban does not prevent gay families, it just discriminates against them. You must first recognize that gay families exist and then deal with that reality rather than assuming that if you ban gay marriage, gay people will just disappear.

A Parable

This one's made the rounds, but it might be new to some of my readers. It's a funny and spot-on, if offensive, parody of fundamentalist religion.

Kissing Hank's Ass

This post is dedicated to Avi of the thefrumskepticsgroup.

On Lively But Narrow Debate in Orthodox Judaism

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

--The Common Good, Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky's talking about the mainstream media, but his words apply even more to Orthodox Judaism. Jews are famous (at least amongst themselves) for disagreement. There's the saying, "Two Jews, three opinions," and the joke about how if you lived on a deserted island, you'd need to build two shuls, the one you go to and the one you don't go to. People constantly disagree about standards of kashrut, what kinds of clothing to wear, and how much you should spend on an etrog. The center of Orthodox study, the Talmud, is a compendium of such arguments.

But where are the meta-questions? Why don't yeshiva students study the arguments for and against God's existence? Why don't they study textual criticism? Why don't they study the great non-Jewish theologians? Why don't they read philosophy? Non-Orthodox religious scholars do all of the above. Why don't yeshiva students?

One answer is that they already agree on the fundamentals. This is true, but it's missing the point. They agree on them not because of previous study and debate, but because they aren't allowed to believe in anything else. It's not as if in elementary school or even high school, they were introduced to a lively debate about the existence of God and the historicity of the Torah.

If you study Talmud, you must believe in the importance of debate. If all that mattered were the conclusions, we wouldn't study that Bet Shamai said this and Bet Hillel said that. We would just read the final rulings of our corner of Judaism. If argumentation is so critical to understanding the narrow issues, why do the Orthodox passively accept answers to the biggest questions around and not debate them with vigor?

I think Chomsky's on to something.