Chapter from the book "Is there God? The Great Illusion of Religion" by Richard Dawkins from English: Adi Marcuse-Hess, Attic Books Publishing and Yediot Books * In this chapter, Dawkins analyzes what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection encourage the urge to religion
In the eyes of an evolutionary psychologist, the universal extravagance of religious rituals, due to their cost in time, resources, pain and deprivation, should highlight - as colorfully as a mandrill's butt - the idea that perhaps religion is adaptive.
Con soup
The Darwinian imperativeEveryone has their favorite theory about the question of where religion came from and why it is found in all human cultures. Religion comforts and soothes. It fosters the sense of togetherness of groups. It satisfies our longing to understand why we exist. I will immediately come to explanations of this kind, but I want to start with an earlier question, which wins precedence for reasons we will see later: a Darwinian question about natural selection.
Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution, we must ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection encourage the urge to religion. This question becomes pressing from standard Darwinian considerations of thrift. Religion is so extravagant, so ostentatious; And Darwinian selection permanently identifies any waste and eliminates it. Nature is a stingy bookkeeper, counting every penny, constantly looking at the clock and punishing for the smallest luxury. Continually and mercilessly, as Darwin explained, "natural selection reviews every day and hour by hour, over the whole world, every variation, even the slightest; discards all that is bad, preserves and adds all that is good; Works silently, imperceptibly, whenever and wherever the opportunity arises, for the betterment of every organic being." If some wild animal performs a useless activity as a matter of course, natural selection will favor competing individuals that invest time and energy in survival and reproduction activities. Nature cannot afford frivolous acts of retaliation. Ruthless utilitarianism is the trump card, even if it doesn't always seem that way.
On the face of it, the peacock's tail is an example of frivolity of the first order. He certainly does not encourage the survival of his owner. But it benefits from genes that make it stand out from its less illustrious rivals. The tail is an advertisement, which buys its place in nature's economy by attracting females. These things are also true in relation to the labor and time that the Suchi man invests in building his sukkah: a kind of outer tail made of grass, twigs, colorful wild strawberries, flowers, and if available - also beads, penny jewelry and bottle caps. And if we choose an example that does not involve advertising, there is the strange custom of certain birds to "bath" in ant nests, or to bring ants into contact with their feathers in other ways. No one knows for sure what the benefit of this "molting" is - perhaps it has some hygienic effect, such as removing parasites from the feathers; And there are several other hypotheses, none of which are supported by sufficient evidence.
But the uncertainty about the details does nothing to prevent Darwinism from assuming that the rapture is done "for" something. In this case common sense might agree, but Darwinian logic has some reason to think that if the birds did not do this, their statistical chances of genetic success might be damaged, even if we do not yet know the exact course of this damage. The conclusion stems from the two preliminary assumptions, which say that natural selection punishes wasting time and energy, and that observations consistently show that birds invest time and energy in "predating".
If this adaptationist principle could be expressed in a one-sentence manifesto, it would find its expression - albeit in extreme and slightly exaggerated terms - in the words of the celebrated Harvard geneticist, Richard Lewontin: "This is one point on which I think all evolutionists agree, and that is that it is in no way possible to do something better than what the same organism does in its living environment." If abstinence did not bring any benefit to survival and reproduction, natural selection would have long ago favored individuals that avoided it. A Darwinist might be tempted to say the same about religion; Hence the need for this discussion.
In the eyes of the evolutionist, religious ceremonies "stand out in the field like a peacock in a sunlit meadow" (Dan Dennett's sentence). Religious behavior is the human weight, amplified several times, for birds flying or for building a sukkah at the Sukkah's house. It consumes time, it consumes energy, it is often flamboyantly decorated like the feathers of a bird of paradise. Religion can endanger the life of the person who believes, as well as the lives of others. Thousands of people suffered torture due to their loyalty to religion, were persecuted by fanatics due to a belief that in many cases is very difficult to distinguish from that of the persecutors. Religion devours resources, sometimes on a huge scale.
A medieval cathedral claimed hundreds of man-years for its construction, yet was never used for residence or any other useful purpose. Was there a kind of architectural peacock tail? And if so, who is the advertisement aimed at? Sacred music and paintings dedicated to the worship of God dominated the art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. People pious in their faith died for their God and killed for their sake; They whipped themselves on the back until they bled, took vows to a life of abstinence from sex or of solitude and silence, all in the service of religion. What is all this for? What is the use of religion?
The word "benefit", in the usual sense among Darwinists, means improving the survival chances of the individual's genes. What is missing here is the important fact that Darwinian utility is not limited to the genes of the single organism. There are three different purposes that the benefit may be aimed at. One stems from the theory of group selection, and I will get to it later. The second derives from the theory I advanced in the Extended Phenotype books (Dawkins 1982): the individual being observed may act under the manipulative influence of the genes of another individual, who may be a parasite. Dan Dennett reminds us that the common runny nose is as common among humans as religion, yet we would not try to claim that the runny nose is beneficial to us. There are many known examples of animals being manipulated into behaving in a way that will benefit the transmission of a parasite to its next host. I presented this point succinctly in the essays "Central Theorem of the Extended Phenotype": "An animal's behavior tends to maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behavior, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal exhibiting the behavior."
Third, the "central theorem" may replace the term "gene" with a more general term - "multiplier". The fact that religion is so widespread probably means that it works for the benefit of something, but it doesn't have to be us or our genes. It is possible that it works for the benefit of the religious ideas themselves, to the extent that they behave in some gene-like way, as multipliers. I will write about this later, in the section entitled "Tread carefully, you are stepping on my memes". In the meantime, I continue with the more traditional interpretations of Darwinism, according to which "utility" means benefit to the survival and reproduction of the individual.
People who exist as hunter-gatherers, such as the native tribes of Australia, lead a lifestyle that is probably similar to that of our ancient ancestors. The New Zealand/Australian philosopher of science Kim Sterelny, in his article on "The perverted primate" (Sterelny 2006), points to a dramatic contrast in their lives. On the one hand, Aborigines are excellent survivors in conditions that put their practical skills to the most severe test. But, adds Sterelny, as intelligent as our species can be, our intelligence works against us. Those same people, who are so well versed in their natural world and the ways to survive in it, at the same time fill their heads to the brim with beliefs whose falsity is really palpable, and for which the word "useless" is an understatement. Sterelny himself knows the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea. They survive in very harsh conditions, in places where food is hard to come by, "thanks to an incredibly accurate understanding of their biological environment. But they add to this understanding a deep and destructive obsession with the contamination of the female menstrual cycle and with witchcraft. Many of the local cultures respond with a terrible fear of sorcerers and magic, and with the violence that accompanies these fears." Sterelny presents us with a challenge, to explain "how we can be so wise and so stupid at the same time".
Although the details are different in different parts of the world, there is no culture known to us that does not have some version of time-consuming, wealth-intensive, hostile-inducing rituals and worship - the anti-fact, anti-creative fantasies of religion. A few educated individuals may have abandoned religion, but all were brought up in a religious culture that required a conscious decision to abandon it. The old Northern Irish joke - "Yes, but what are you, a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?" - spicy really bitter. Religious behavior can be called universal human behavior, just like heterosexual behavior. Such generalizations always have their individual exceptions, but all those exceptions are well aware of the rule from which they deviate. Universal characteristics of a biological species require a Darwinian explanation.
There is no difficulty, of course, in explaining the Darwinian advantage of sexual behavior: it is associated with the birth of babies, even in those cases where it seems as if contraceptives or apparent homosexuality work against it. But what about the religious behavior? Why do people fast, kneel, bow, whip themselves, shake their heads devoutly against a wall, embark on a crusade, or devote resources to actions that exact a heavy price from them, and in extreme cases even pay with their lives?
For the announcement of the release of the book and details of what is written on the cover
57 תגובות
No discrimination of any religion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuoBPGvXFAs&feature=related
Mike Huckabee interviewing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFnLtQFkZxc&feature=related
Richard Dawkins on Bill Maher Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZeXuX7-zU&feature=related
To Michael
I did not think differently. Certainly a chemical compound cannot have a will, and an aggregate of molecules cannot be "selfish".
Hugin:
The dilemma is indeed not between Spinoza's God and evolution. This is not what the book discusses, and no scientist would bother to mess with Spinoza's God. After all, it is clear that nature exists, and therefore if someone wants to claim that he calls nature God, all you can say to him is "why do you use two words to refer to the same thing" but beyond that it is of no importance just as I will not argue if someone tells me that he calls his cat by the name of God and there is He has a cat.
Want to call a cat, nature or a box of oranges in the name of God? Read! I don't care what it is.
A:
Look!
If you discover something - tell us too.
Elisha:
Dawkins doesn't disagree with me at all.
Evolution, as I said, has no goals and it has nothing to do with the fact that some organisms have goals.
By the way - even their moaning - contrary to your claim - has no goals and that too according to Dawkins.
The "selfish garden" is just a form of language that I think you just didn't understand.
A gene is a chemical compound without any will.
As I have explained many times - we also use evolution to develop software.
There, too, evolution itself has no goal, but we "train" it so that a better adaptation to the environment will actually be a better adaptation to the goal that we (we, not evolution) want to achieve.
Regarding your claim about the error of evolution in the creation of the brain - this seems to me to be a joking claim.
He who has no goal cannot make a mistake either. For us - humans - it's good that we were created and it's great that people like Einstein and others knew how to use their brains so well.
To Michael
If you claim that evolution is completely pointless, then at least Dawkins disagrees with you, because his version is motivated by organisms (see the "selfish gene" theory). If organisms have a motivation, and that motivation is to pass on genes in the most efficient and powerful way to overcome the other species (whatever they may be), then we must agree that human intelligence is the most serious mistake ever made in evolution, because there is no greater obstacle to reproduction than it. I won't go into personal experiences, but trust me I know what I'm talking about. It's hard for me to see where I'm wrong.
I probably wrote my previous response simultaneously with you. The question at the end is the relevant one.
Now, when I read in broad daylight what I wrote (and also what Dawkins writes), the point becomes even more acute. It turns out that religion is probably a reality-bound creation of natural selection, in a desperate attempt to correct its embarrassing mistake (the human mind). After realizing her mistake, which culminated in unnecessary and parasitic mutations such as Beethoven, Mozart, Einstein and Dostoyevsky, who apart from babbling and smearing pages of paper with all kinds of strange signs were of no use at all for the difficult survival war of the human race (not to mention Drouin himself, who while his fanatical ideological opponents are vigorously engaged in fulfilling their duty (evolutionary, he consumed his time and energy in collecting bird carcasses), after thus seeing this error, natural selection found a solution in the form of religion. And so we witness the paradoxical fact that the contribution to the evolution of the entire scientific community in Cleveland, for example, which fights fiercely against the slanderers of natural selection of all kinds, is smaller than the contribution of a handful of Abdkans in Bnei Brak, who generally believe in the pretending charlatan who pretended to take her place until his disgrace was revealed to all by modern science.
But this brings us to the exact opposite question to Dawkins' question: the question of why natural selection created primitive religion is very understandable. The incomprehensible question is why did she create the non-primitive intelligence in the first place?
I do not agree that the only consideration that determines whether something will exist or not is the result of Darwinism.
Especially not when it comes to the psychology and sociology of animals with complex consciousness like humans.
Apart from pure conservatism, I can't think of many alternative reasons for Darwinism right now, but I think it is important to look in these directions as well.
The dilemma is not either 'evolution' or 'God': although Spinoza reached the sublime insight that God is nature, then 'nature' is something 'divine', hidden and revealed, deep and sublime, spatial and peripheral, multidimensional from the 'conscience' as 'huge' as 'new' ' and an intelligent and intelligent 'ancient' far beyond the relative 'spectator': he is wonderful!! innocent and purposeful!!, and all of us, as far as the generality of our species, his creations are 'copied' into many different types.
It's strange how proud the 'brainless' are 'creationists', creating alternatives to nature and fighting in the name of 'natural evolution'.
Michael: Hmmm for you :)
In any case, we have not yet reached the point of 'peak maturity' and therefore certain parts do not yet understand the overall image and purpose.
Therefore, we 'chose' life and living.
Elisha:
It's hard to tell if you're serious or joking.
Evolution has no purpose.
This is one of the things that distinguishes her from God (who the more we try to guess what his goals are we seem to fail in achieving them).
Evolution is a natural phenomenon that occurs under certain conditions out of mathematical necessity.
Its result is the breeding of species and their development in directions that give them priority over the other creatures competing for the same resources.
The goal of evolution cannot, therefore, be achieved for two main reasons:
The first reason is that there is no such goal.
The second reason is that this is a system that under no circumstances can be frozen because even if you feel like defining a certain situation as ideal, your definition will not require any gene, will not prevent mutations and will not stop the competition for resources.
By the way, there are quite a few commenters here who really hold the view that the knowledge of a bacterium is superior to human knowledge.
There is something here that I do not understand. According to Dawkins, if the ultimate goal of nature is the fight for the continuation of the species, then this goal was best achieved at the beginning of evolution with the single-celled creatures. As we go up the evolutionary scale, the ability to reproduce decreases and the obstacles to inheriting genes actually increase. We reach the climax of course with Homo sapiens, whose magnificent intellect, with the idiotic philosophizing it emits, is the greatest obstacle that natural selection has ever created for the reproduction of any species. With religion it is still possible to manage somehow (the mitzvah "Pro and Rebu", etc.). But philosophical, spiritual, questioning about the history of the universe and all these - why did natural selection need them? Why the hell did evolution abuse us and not leave us at the evolutionary level of amoebas? What does the debate here contribute to the survival of the human race? There is no doubt that this is a serious mistake of evolution. Is it possible that the very existence of the human race disproves Darwin? impossible.
Uri Sternberg,
Already at the beginning of your speech you said: "I think there are many difficulties in both religion and science"
In this way, an equal division was made between religion and science.
Nothing could be further from the truth. These are two completely different worldviews.
The religion relies on ancient writings, and those who believe in it ** know ** that all the truth is there. All you have to do is just read and interpret the scriptures correctly.
Science is much more answerable and modest. He explicitly claims that he does not know the whole truth, and probably never knew the whole truth.
He operates according to an objective method of researching the truth, he is not subject to the spite and authority of rabbis, dictator priests or idol doctors - only to the truth. Scientific progress is fraught with disagreements, failures and errors, but the scientific method guarantees that over time the dizzying success in deepening human knowledge will continue. There is no other method that even comes close to the successes of the scientific method.
And what do religious scholars do in the face of every new scientific discovery?
They immediately dismiss with contempt that this was already known to them thousands of years ago, point to one verse or another, happily skip 50 letters, do three somersaults and two peppered screws, multiply by the geometry of the Book of Zohar, and prove that the result is remarkably suitable for the scientific "discovery".
If I were a religious person, I would feel a certain embarrassment...
In conclusion, you asked for some modesty and humility - there is no more humble and humble method than the scientific method, which also puts man in his rightful place - not at the center of the world, not at the center of the galaxy, and not at the center of the universe.
On the other hand, it is difficult to call a method that "knows" the whole truth, without any need for substantiation - simply knows - a modest and humble method
A day will come when it will be possible to examine religious foundations with new tools. It is difficult to measure and quantify with scientific tools things whose essence is not matter but spirit.
Some parts that are called pseudo-science today will surely be revealed as reality tomorrow and you will remember my words well. 🙂
Hello everyone ,
I read a bit of your stuff. These things, or at least some of them, have been discussed for many years by many researchers. I don't know what your education is but I think the forum members here need some humility. I'm a religious guy myself, so maybe my position is psychological defensiveness, but I'll say it anyway. In my opinion there are many difficulties in both religion and science. Regarding evolution, there are approaches in Judaism that do not see a contradiction in this Torah. You may see it as a defense of the religious about religion - perhaps, and here I come to my second point - even today there is no such thing as "Judaism", there are so many currents and so many opinions. Although there is some kind of consensus, there are still many differences. In my opinion, we do not know exactly what the Torah means and in every generation we try to reinterpret this Torah both with a new halachic concept and with a new scientific concept. The sin should also be the share of the religious in that they should realize that we still don't know everything and maybe we won't know if science can give its opinion on the matter then rather. I remind you of the saying of the Sage Torah in the Gentiles do not believe, wisdom in the Gentiles (and here the emphasis) - believe. This may answer your question about lice that Christians sweat. This is simply a perception that the Sages thought so and it was found to be wrong. On the other hand, do not ignore big questions and contradictions and different approaches among the scientists. To remind you for years that the religion believed that it was healthy has a spring. Until relatively recently there were approaches that believed that the world was ancient until science (at least in theory) discovered that the world was created there is a spring in the big bang - it is true that there are positions in religion that do not accept this theory but there are positions that do. What I said is that we need iniquity both from the religious side and from the scientific side
deer:
What is written is written and you are merely referring to a person's body and not to the content of things. You also invent explanations that are not written anywhere for the reason why they lied in the Torah. After all, there was no need to write that the rabbit was ruminating and yet they did it.
Perhaps you can explain to me on that occasion why they wrote that the Euphrates and the Tigris originate from the same point? Is it also because the hundreds of kilometers separating their starting point seemed to people as one point?
You are merely defining your fabricated knowledge as knowledge that I lack.
Hello again Michael.
You too are welcome to grow up a little...
If you will allow me to skip over your sarcastic and sarcastic comments about the incorrect value of Pi that was supposedly given in the commandments to the builders of the Copper Sea (where did this deed come from?), I hope you are ready to separate the Bible from the orthodox rabbis that hold that lice are created from human sweat.
As for Abraham our father, you completely missed the message. You didn't realize that there is an incredibly moral message in the story of the binding - that human sacrifices have been wrong in our society for generations and that only animal sacrifices should be offered to our God.
You must understand that ridicule can also flow in your direction and not only from you in the direction of religion.
If you and your ilk insist on expressing yourself with such knowledgeable and confident arrogance, it is appropriate first of all for you to know and know the facts for sure instead of writing all kinds of ridiculous nonsense - including straw arguments. Otherwise you're just proving how much of a fan you are. And believe me, there is nothing more pathetic than an atheist or anti-theist who attacks parts of a particular religion's scriptures for wrong and ignorant reasons.
To Michael:
1. Part of what seems to you to be many factual errors in the Torah is not due to a poor understanding of the simplicity of what is written in the Torah on your part.
So, for example, when the Torah draws the rabbit and the hare to the grass, the meaning was to speak in a language understandable to the people who observed the behavior of these animal species, since they look as if they are raising grass.
I'm sure you'll dismiss my argument as an excuse that's funny to the point of tears, but this phenomenon is expressed in the Bible by other examples such as the sun "comes", i.e. sets, while we know that the sun itself never sets, but it seems that way from our point of view, even though almost every educated person and even anti - Theists continue to refer to the "setting" of the sun.
Other mistakes in your understanding arise from the fact that the picture of knowledge that emerges from the scientific findings is not yet entirely clear or that certain phenomena in Makara have not yet been given plausible explanations at the level of scientific language.
2. What you consider to be the decline of the "barbarism" of certain laws in the Torah was mostly an attempt by the Pharisee stream in Judaism to adapt the religion of their time to the Hellenistic effects of urbanization and commercialization in the region at that time. Converting death sentences for a variety of offenses to monetary punishments fits this trend, but what suffered from this was the morality of Jewish society in Israel at the time. That is, precisely the decline of criminal law in the Torah led to an acute moral deterioration in Jewish society beginning in the second half of the second century B.C. .
In my opinion, Biblical Judaism (there is such a thing - the type of Biblical Judaism promoted by Nehemiah Gordon and his colleagues) that derives its laws directly from the true Torah (and not the Torah) is much better than both Judaism and Christianity; I would much rather that a person who plots to murder and murders a person with intent to be executed than to be thrown into prison and perhaps have the opportunity for the rest of his life to continue murdering or maiming other people while or after serving his sentence.
In some ways, it is a shame that some of the actions that are considered transgressive in the Torah are not considered such in the regime of the State of Israel.
The shorts..the wonders of technology..
Michael..and..and..again,
Nature, yes, has gifted us, as individuals and as lives to chain consciousness...and collective consciousness
Enormous..like a vast mind..and we want to trace its wonders...the story that never ends..
Facts - they are, in the eyes of the beholder.. read the insights... in the book on occasion, if it's right for you
The tension of James Redford..the heavenly prophecy..and its sequels..
The mind of nature has enormous patience... although, like all laws, it works, like a boomerang...
There are many elegant ways to explore all the phenomena..and each one..and one..in his own way, in his station...
Of Dan Brown's books..four..for now..in Hebrew..you can understand more..actually..I wouldn't be surprised..if you read..some of them..like all of them..
My indirect answer..I admit.
You also need patience in order to experiment..(..experiment..)
And by the way..books are the result of practice.-.useful experience
and....stimulation..the potential of deciphering the riddle of the..spirit...and the blood-ion...
After all, thanks to..all the reporters..we are dealing..at this moment...
And that is also the beauty of the site.
much good
Qantas:
I agree with you that science becomes a religion as soon as every original spirit is expelled from the pulpit, but science, as a framework, does not expel every original spirit and therefore the terrible moment you speak of does not come.
It's not that there aren't scientists who occasionally throw out an original spirit, but the scientific framework functions well and even with a certain scientist stopping a certain direction for a moment, this moment is really fleeting and his life is much shorter than that of the original spirit.
The criteria used in science are not those that exclude originality.
There are things that they do reject, but these are only things that cannot at all be talked about in terms of "truth" and "falsehood" - those that do not claim anything and those that make claims that by definition cannot be tested (and in this sense their truth or falsity has no effect on our lives).
The laws that limit science are extremely minimalistic and it is not a matter of transferring the way of learning of the individual to the general.
The individual experiences the facts (hence the experiment is derived) and identifies patterns that connect these facts and allow him to predict behaviors (hence the theories are derived).
It seems that nature has not favored us, as individuals, with other ways of understanding the world, and therefore we should not expect science to adopt other ways - at least as long as another way is not successfully demonstrated (and again - what does the saying "successfully demonstrated" mean? - this is, as expected, an experiment of a theory only that this time This is a theory about how real knowledge is acquired and the truth of the knowledge is tested - again, by experiment).
In conclusion, I repeat - science is not a religion because it does not place in front of our thinking any obstacle that nature has not placed before it, and this is in contrast to religion, which is an obstacle to thinking and understanding.
And pay attention! I was only talking here about how science and religion deal with the identification of claims as true or false. I did not talk here about the enforcement of rules of conduct because this exists only in religion and is another difference between religion and science.
Science only discusses ideas and theories. Religion interferes in the lives (and causes the death) of people.
Hello Halevi:
Indeed the written Torah is not a religion.
Actually no book is a religion.
Religion is a practice of people and not a book.
However, considerable parts of that practice are drawn from the holy books. Even if there are changes in a religion during a certain formative period prior to its petrification, these changes are eventually enacted in the books that petrify it.
The Torah is one of the holy books of the Jewish religion. Part is a framework story that presents the entities discussed in the religious laws (such as the "whereas" and "definitions" clauses in a contract drawn up by a lawyer) and part (mainly Deuteronomy) is a collection of laws.
The frame story part is beautiful, but has many factual errors, as you would expect from a book written thousands of years ago.
The part of the laws also reflects the period and contains laws that nowadays would be considered creepy.
During the period of the establishment of Judaism, they already stood up to the barbarism of these laws and tried to moderate them by a shell of laws and institutions that dulled their teeth a little.
In this sense, Judaism is indeed similar to Christianity, but in the same sense it is also true that both are good, apparently, a religion that derives its laws directly from the Torah in which many "transgressions" (actions nowadays are not considered crimes at all but according to the definitions of the Torah are transgressions) are punishable by death.
Dear Michael
As a matter of fact, you are the first of every person.. and that is wonderful.. the rationale is also a relative matter
And there is nothing to fight for him.. We all try in every way to learn and become educated, that's true
A blessed matter..your desire..as your desire to reach the truth..as you mentioned is of interest
And there is no one, presumably, who does not pay attention to your words.. Honestly, you inspire wonder..
And for that matter, science too..became a religion..as soon as every spirit is original...in the limited guaranty.
You are kicked out of the chair..in one way or another..if you do not meet the dictated criteria...then what is the difference? Thus, through all the organizations for their share in Teva..
By the way, the whole universe.. is basically nature.. and logic.. there is no end..
There is no condescension in my words, unless you feel that way.. by the way. sense-sense.. this is also intelligence.. apropos.. the squid...
And regarding..the experiment...in the name of science...these are all questions we..are asking and will continue to ask..
We will leave the semantics..and its consequences..to
Next time.. because of the time.. much better.
To my dear Michael.
Indeed, the religion rejects any criticism of it, because criticism only leads to confusion, be it regarding its justification. And this is also the Jewish religion that forbids "heresy heresy".
However, if we take the written Torah book, we can notice that it was written in a simple way that does not leave many unopened questions, on the other hand, with the analysis of the written Torah, it is easy to notice a good logic behind the things, so that it is easy to explain them in a logical and scientific way.
Conclusion, the written Torah book is not a "religion", because it does not contain mass worship as implied by this concept in other religions, and it does not contain any obligation of casual prayers "to the name of heaven".
The Jewish laws and mitzvot, as if they are required by reality from the Torah, are incorrect and/or distorted in almost all cases.
For example :
1 . All kosher laws related to milk and meat.
2. Purity in the mikvah.
3. Tefillin and mezuzah.
4. Writing by a "Setam" writer.
5. The rituals of the dead. Graves and tombstones.
6. Main values such as: Messiah, the end of days and the world to come.
7. The modesty of the woman.
8. (Should be 1) Using the name "Lord" equals other Gods.
9. Dedication and tradition.
10. Slaughter laws.
As mentioned, all these laws are not from the written Torah. Therefore, Judaism is no different from Christianity, just as Halacha is no different from the New Testament. And both are very far from the written Torah.
Sincerely
Hello Halevi.
Mr. Quantos:
Your arrogance is out of place.
I struggle with the irrationality that in my eyes is the source of all evil in the world. I'm not showing off at all - I just don't soften my words when it seems to me that the one arguing with me is not guided by the search for truth.
What are you struggling with? my speaking style? In my opinion not every end justifies every means but the specific goal for which I am fighting certainly justifies the means of blunt style.
On the other hand - the goal for which you are fighting in an ethical debate is the blunt style and this - apart from the fact that even in itself it does not justify arrogance (which in itself is worse than a blunt style) - may be destructive (at least to me) when in the end you cause irrationality to prevail.
I don't know if you noticed, but I always speak to the essence of the matter and only respond to a person's body if this person has attacked me personally.
Your things towards - on the other hand - are to the body of a person and not to the body of a matter.
And in essence - it is not true that science is a religion. There is no sacred claim in science that must not be contested and all the knowledge gained through it is subject to constant doubt. All scientific practice essentially consists of trying to challenge the existing knowledge through an experiment. All religious practice consists of suppressing critical thought to allow the mind to accept the illogicality and truth in the claims of religion.
And it turns out that all religions...including the religion of science...are types of thought patterns...basic assumptions
Rooted..or seemingly renewed..influenced or influenced by a barrage of information, which creates a need for us to react..
And regarding everything..all knowledge..relative..which everyone by nature..interprets, according to his own ..trending understanding..this is also how things look..which are seemingly contradictory.
It is very important that we learn..ourselves..and those around us...the question is how and what each one conducts with the vast knowledge...history is full of knowledgeable people of all kinds
And the issues... don't we have a tendency to replace one thing with another... because of the primal need to grasp something... to control... or at least show control...?
Well, I don't intend to castrate Belil from the brainiacs running and running on this site... after all, it's fascinating... in Stargate.. in Smallville.. and Harry Potter...
And many more.. there are at least the.. many.. morals of the mind..
What a shame that knowledge means power..and how and what do we do with it on a daily basis..that is the question..
Maybe also a human wish..eternal...maybe even human maturity at all, which we haven't reached yet
stop talking about it..
To Michael, you are brilliant..don't forget to be a human being, when you grow up..your arrogance
evokes associations with numbers... not particularly pleasant.
Avi - It's nice that you brought up this site... and it's nice that you encourage thinking...
Common sense, it's a healthy thing...check from time to time if you're not too biased..and grope
Impenetrable... to the subtleties, right under your nose... out of self-importance...
All the best.
Choose the seat:
So what happens in the end? Do the rabbit and the hare chew the cud (as it is written in Deuteronomy Yad) or not (as it is written in the rabbit and the rabbit)?
Could such nonsense have been written by whoever created the rabbit and the rabbit?
Is Pi 3 (as written in the instructions for building the Copper Sea) or something around 3.14 (as written in the circle)? It is true that an omnipotent being can also make mistakes, but you don't expect him to take advantage of this ability and make mistakes at every turn!
The Holy Scriptures are full of factual nonsense like pomegranates and you defend them as if they were a divine creation?
Isn't it time to grow up?
Isn't it time to understand that mice are not created from dirt and lice are not created from human sweat?
And this is even before the disgraceful moral message that the Torah tries to teach us. It is important to note that the figure that the Torah wants us to worship - Abraham our father - is the figure of a man who drove one of his wives with her son (his son!) to dry in the desert and was ready to slaughter his other son - all because of some vision he had during an epileptic attack and not just because the religion asks us to worship This vile creature - we are supposed to admire him precisely for these actions!
They try to start with the ultra-Orthodox mainly because the ultra-orthodox are the most limited to their own world, and most of them do not know the secular world.
In addition to this, they are the root of this crime called faith and especially institutional faith. They are the ones who repent (although this can be disputed, because there are Hasidic and Zionist Judaism who repent more).
I think faith is something created by excessive stupidity, fixation, and lack of creativity. Any person who wears a cap is a person who is unable to think outside the box.
I don't know if you got a chance to hear the conversation of the rabbi from the Nachelat HaLoim yeshiva, they put it on this website you sent me (and I've known for a long time), because if not, you should listen to it carefully, and try to come to it by hearing and objectively and without preconceived notions about it, as you try The site shows that there are really important things
And I'll give you an example, the rabbi asks what the purpose of this organization is, and they don't believe that they're winning anything, who is it, because they don't believe in another world and religion, so there's no reward for their action, and why exactly did they go to the yeshiva to attract them, if it's just that they They want everyone to know their truth, so why don't they first try to convince the people who don't believe too much anyway, why did they want to go to these guys, and you can hear the answer directly from him
What is certain is that this organization is an organization that tries to fight for no reason because it has hatred without an explanation, because why does it bother them since there are people who believe innocently and after all if a person believes he does not lose anything to their foolishness this is not for example like Christianity which tries to convince because it believes that every person Bringing to Christianity is rewarded in the world of truth, but it's just convincing a person without a profit goal
The truth is, I don't know if this is the place to correspond with you on this subject, but what to do, this is the only place I can do it
I apologize to the readers if this bothers them
And thanks for understanding
It's a shame that you really aren't introduced to Judaism a little more and you would see the books that were written throughout the years the language never stopped, you can see for example that Rambam wrote some of his books in Arabic but at the same time he also wrote some of the books in Hebrew, the language never stopped there are books from all periods that were written in Hebrew by the writer, maybe there was mixing with other languages but they always also knew Hebrew, there are many people who are abroad today who do not know how to speak Hebrew as a language, but understand the words in biblical Hebrew and when they read it in the Talmud, just as most of the Yeshiva can translate the Aramaic but Almost no one knows how to speak it as a language, Hebrew has never been stopped and it doesn't matter which generation, because they always read the Torah written in the Hebrew language and as I said the books, many of them were written in Hebrew, but there were times when only the sages knew the language, and there were better times when all The people knew, but knowing the Torah without knowing Hebrew at all, not even the Hebrew of the Bible, has no chance of knowing Judaism.
2000*
I didn't praise the author, it just seemed like you made assumptions about him based on nothing.
I somewhat agree with you that without knowing Hebrew it is difficult to enter the Jewish existence.
But for 200 years Jews did not speak Hebrew..
Want to read about the Jewish religion from its Jewish side? Go to the Daat Emet site and wait: http://www.daatemet.org.il/
to the cool responder
Go find out if he knew Hebrew before he wrote the book
Can't tell you for sure that no, if so how exactly did he learn Judaism
Most of the books have not been translated into English, and if there are some, most of them were not translated by Jews at all, so they interpret it as they wish, and if you still want to believe that it was not understood in Judaism, you win, but apparently you also have not understood it in Judaism, because otherwise you would I understand why he can't know what Judaism is without knowing Hebrew
[And find out if he knew Hebrew or not, it's easy, so before you praise him, find out]
A very disappointed thing here, that they did not bring even one article about religion from the religious side of Judaism in the entire religion section, but Christianity has a lot
And it's a shame, because after all, most of us here are Jews and it wouldn't hurt to also know the religion we come from
"How wise is the one who learns from every man" said King Solomon (and even if there are those who do not believe that he existed, this sentence still sounds wise)
Maybe I'm wrong, because I haven't known this site for a long time, I'd be happy to know that I'm wrong
to choose a yeshiva abroad (alek 😉 )
In my opinion you have no idea at all about his knowledge and understanding of Judaism.
I just don't understand one thing, how is it that people talk about religion (Judaism) when they have no concept of what it is, it's like a child explaining to you what arithmetic is, when he only knows how to add and subtract, the simple knowledge that ordinary people have about Judaism (if there is even the This) cannot truly reflect what Judaism is, because you have to be really knowledgeable to say what the root of the matter is, it is stupid and childish that people write books without knowing what they are writing about, it may be that this author really knows what Christianity is, but he does not What is Judaism in general (what's more, most of the commenters here don't really know what Judaism is, except for what they heard by chance or in a loose study like that from above) and when he writes about all religions, he includes Judaism as well, and this shows stupidity, because you have no possibility to have an opinion on A subject when you have no opinion on it
That's why, friends, I expect more maturity from now on, and not let him mislead you, because he may be a wise man in general (which I don't think, because otherwise he wouldn't jump to talk about something he has no sense of) but in this matter he is surely stupid and has no sense of what is he talking
A group of Israeli atheists on Facebook
Atheist Israelis Israeli atheists
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20521790282
June:
Natural selection is a law of nature and my father compares it to the force of gravity, but in fact it is a much stronger law because it is a law of mathematical origin.
It is possible to prove mathematically that wherever there are elements that reproduce themselves with slight changes and compete for resources in order to survive and produce more offspring, natural selection will occur.
This is the reason why the mechanism of natural selection is also used to build computer programs that solve problems that do not know how to deal with them otherwise.
Have you ever seen someone who integrated the idea of God into a computer program?
Natural selection is no more a form of God than, say, gravity.
A question about natural selection - it is not a type of God - i.e. a force that acts on reality even though it is impossible to see it or point to its location - but yes it is certainly possible over time to see its effects?
By the way, it is clear that there are religious people (according to their self-definition) who do not get carried away by the bad effects of religion. It was interesting to see in this context the discussion that took place yesterday or the day before yesterday in Popolitika. There was an interesting debate between the religious scientist (whose name, to my shame, I do not remember) and the "secular" rabbi Menachem Ben (whom it seems that all the debaters did not tolerate because beyond the nonsense he speaks, he also does not know how to keep his mouth shut when others are talking) when Science claims that life (or at least its diversity) was created through an evolutionary process and Menachem Ben claims on the other hand that it was created by God.
When that scientist summarized his way of believing in God, I smiled to myself and regretted that I could not tell him in reverse that what he was describing was exactly "God of the gaps" because he said that God is in those places where science has not reached.
Chen T.
I read the book more or less the day it was published in English and I referred to this in the previous discussion on the same topic (first response):
https://www.hayadan.org.il/the-god-delusion-announcement-300508/
I came back and explained there (for the umpteenth time) why religion is not as innocent as people like to treat it.
In the same discussion I also explained (comments 8, 9, 10) that the choice is not between religiosity and atheism because, unlike religion which dictates a complete way of life, atheism is only defined by the negation of religion and does not dictate anything, therefore there are many ways to be an atheist, some of which are good and some of which are bad.
There is much more there - I think you missed this discussion.
By the way, I didn't understand why you thought that the order of presentation of the characters was important to me
Expected, I see that everyone is already here and I'm late as usual... 🙂
There are articles that always attract fire, it's surprising how many comments are related to the topic but not to the article. But I'm having fun, at least until the next creature or idiot utters something stupid.
And personally I was not impressed by Mr. Dawkins, I'd love to be fooled but I've already read more interesting ideas about religions. I quite agree with Roy's idea, even if there is no God, the people will always invent one (at least...) if because that way they can interpret what the mind could not understand in ancient times and also as a way to control people in times when there was no effective way to enforce the law as he pointed out Michael.
I don't think religion should be treated in terms of good or bad, but regarding beneficial or harmful, my point of assumption is that the purpose of religion is to benefit, the question is to benefit whom? If it is for a group or individuals at the expense of the rest of the people then it is harmful (this is the stage where religion and its laws tend to be imposed) but sometimes religion makes it possible to have a more normative and orderly society for the individuals within it. Everything is always related to the people who run the religious society and their motives, which are not always pure, here the dog is usually buried in the attitude people develop towards religion.
I tend to believe that the attitude people develop towards religion is not related to intellectual ability on the one hand or primitiveness on the other, but only to the way in which he is exposed to it. It is not difficult to find a stupid atheist who wastes what he owes to nothing and imprisons our precious air and on the other hand to find a religious person whose wisdom and contribution to society exceeds the value of many people (and vice versa of course... the order was chosen that way because of Michael).
Has anyone here read the book yet?
Hello to all readers of the article.
A link I randomly found that may be of interest to some of you.
Sharon.
How about you guys make the problem someone else's problem.
This record is already worn out. Use the rest of the brain working to renew the cells to refresh the air. Don't lay so many boredom eggs, crackle loudly and lay a surprise egg, freedom eggs.
Another point.
Those who believe in intelligent planning bury in their thinking the contradiction to their claim regarding the need for an intelligent planner (it is enough to be an idiot to create an idiot.) (which increases their stupidity doubly).
.
Sharon:
I suggest you ignore Airwax's advice and read something more interesting than his nonsense.
To Sharon - "Your entry to a website about science is random" - not accurate. It is deterministic. After all, something made him come here.
"It is permissible to express a different opinion, but to write that Darwin's theory is a failure? That it is based on randomness?" - Why not? See my announcement in the previous article about the fish that underwent speciation.
Hezi,
Evolution is not random at all.
Your entry to the science site is random.
It is allowed to express a different opinion, but to write that Darwin's theory is a failure? That it is based on randomness?
As I wrote to one of the paleontologists on the site not long ago - go learn a little, my friend.
good evening.
Sharon.
The theory of evolution is not a failure and as Hazi demonstrates, there are people who completely fail to understand it.
But it is natural that those exact same people also do not perceive the subject of the discussion, which is actually the question of how it is possible nowadays - with all the conflicting information that exists, that people still believe in religion.
By the way, evolution does not boast of the "intelligence" of the planner and therefore it also has an answer to the question of how there can be irrational people?".
I see it very simply,
Not knowing = fear, knowing = long-term investment
No one wants to be afraid, and investing is not a common trait (for a number of other reasons) ===> Invent something that is easy to understand, something beautiful that is fun to read, something simply divine that will answer all the questions as long as we are always in control 🙂
I learned too much from sweets today hence the above comment format 🙂
Evolution is not random. It is guided by natural selection.
And as for her 'failure', you are welcome to take antibiotics from fifty years ago if you get tuberculosis (God forbid). Just don't expect the bacteria to die, because they have already evolved to the old antibiotics.
So many words are needed to once again try to prove that Darwin's failed theory (random evolution) is still alive????
Religion is mainly based on faith and faith is a mechanism instilled in us so that as children we can believe what the adults tell us and we won't have to discover all the dangers firsthand.
The problem is that there are people who never grow up and continue to see faith as a substitute for a real clarification of the facts and there are people who take advantage of the children's tendency to all believe in order to brainwash them.
Of course, the "successful" religions survive thanks to ideological mechanisms built into them such as "death for the sanctification of Hashem" "you shall have no other gods" and more.
It is likely that the origin of religions is in people who saw them as an aid to their control of the masses. In the absence of a technological and legal infrastructure, it is better for people to fear God's punishment and since this punishment or, alternatively, the reward for good behavior, cannot be given (because there is no God), it is better to stick in people's heads the thought that they are given in the next world or in the next incarnation.
Religion encourages social cohesion as well as the production of maximum energies from the individual.
In a false religion, the energies and cohesion are channeled in unhelpful and even destructive directions and in the end that religion is extinct and replaced by another.
In the language of Judaism this process is described as "God's nose piercing" against "foreign worship".
Richard Dawkins's Christianity-the cradle of culture is not one religion but a cluster of religions, so its survival does not really prove or contradict the said things. Judaism is also very flexible and very difficult to define. But superficial thinkers like this writer speak of her as an object whose definition is clear.
The meaning of the word religion in Hebrew is law.
The evolutionary advantage of living within a set of rules is obvious.
I believe the answer is that religion is a disadvantage that originates from an advantage.
There was a fascinating article in Galileo more than ten years ago, in which the author claimed that superstitions originate from man's desire to connect cause and effect, or between action and effect.
A simple example:
Primitive man prays to the sun to protect him from darkness. In the middle of the night, when it is freezing cold, lightning suddenly strikes a nearby tree and sets it on fire. The person associates a reason (the prayer) with the mutvab (the lightning that brought the fire).
It is clear that the way to connect a cause and a cause is an important component of human intelligence, and this is also one of its definitions. Criticism entered the equation at a relatively late stage, but until then there was a very strong choice for those who could make links and logical jumps between different events, according to Dat.
Roy.
But why didn't you add the point....?
Just to arouse curiosity?
The answer to the last question is simple to me:
1) The evolutionary advantage in curiosity and the need to understand is self-evident.
Humans are notable for this trait. This is how the need to understand how things in the world work.
2) Another characteristic of humans is stupidity, with the evolutionary advantage of this characteristic being the ability to make an immediate decision and thus be saved from immediate danger (note the fear factor involved here) instead of taking the time to research and think.
A combination of these 2 features gives rise to all religions and beliefs of all kinds.