“If you are willing to define the human experience as nothing more than an arbitrary series of chemicals, atoms and other blind and indifferent forces acting in concert, then at the end of the day, you necessarily concede that human emotion and experience are intrinsically meaningless.”

It sure took this guy a long time to get to this profoundly fallacious non sequitur. It depresses me that a fellow man wasted so much of his precious time as a sentient being writing an argument based on a premise so horrifically wrong.

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I find it hard to believe that this man truly believes that these arguments have any legitimate basis whatsoever. Unfortunately I know that he does indeed believe exactly that.  Yet another case of the arrogance and ignorance of religion.  Surely, examples of utter nonsense such as this from a man who sounds not unintelligent highlight the desperate need for high profile education and awareness raising.  To be ‘blinded by faith’ is bad enough but for faith to hijack simple human reasoning is a catastrophe.

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What a stupid article by that Rabbi. Every sentence is full of nonsense.

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Wow I’m converted. So basically he’s arguing that if I dont believe in a creator then I dont believe in emotions?  Seriously, how does something this stupid even get printed?

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Just because sentimentality and respect are neurons at work in my brain, it doesn’t mean they have less effect on me than if they were of spiritual origins. Yes my sentimentality to my parents’ body will haunt me if I mistreat them; does there need to be more to that?
I’ll know what I do in the last hour. It’s my last hour to experience anything so of course it’s going to matter what I do.
Thirdly, art and love etc. influence my brain in ways that I highly enjoy. “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” - Douglas Adams.

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Sorry I don’t believe in Judaism. But maybe you can slowly convince me by saying that if I won’t sell my dead parents ashes for dog food, I’m actually on the path to believing in stupid, made up sh1t.

I seriously can’t believe being a “Rabbi” is an actual career. Let me guess, your family was Jewish and you just happen to become one too? What a coincidence.

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This is the most ridiculous tripe I’d ever read.

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How do you say “straw man” in Hebrew?

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Being human and finding peace, beauty and meaning in the human experience does not mean that a made up story about a diety is true.

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This looks like a rambling attempt to combine two flawed arguments outlined by Rebecca Goldstein in ‘36 Arguments for the Existence of God’; specifically #19 (The Argument from Personal Purpose) and #34 (The Argument from Sublimity).  As anticipated, two bad arguments cannot join forces to make one good one.

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Impressive how confused people get when they try until the last breath to justify their beliefs and, worst of all, are more worried to convince others to do the same.

This Rabbi, as all kinds of priests, is just defending his secure ground: his family tradition and his job.

He’s almost like a legislator that creates an illogical law, without ever discerning whether it is in compass with the social and individual needs of people or if it needs to be changed.

Materiality is not an option, is all that we can observe and make honests experiments with it. It’s natural. A god and its agenda is self dialogue taken as real and, as that, is subject to cultural limits and quirks, disconnected from actuality.

Matter and life are natural and the values of love, cherish and all other good stuff we may feel is justified by human perpetuation, which is something marvellous by itself. This is not pride, but self esteem.

I don’t need any god and its dogmas to feel love, compassion and want to perpetuate our society as long as possible.

BTW, I wouldn’t sell my parents’ bodies as food, unless if I didn’t have other choice. Instead, I would donate their bodies to a Medicine College that would probably need them.
Burying them is unsustainable, no ecological at all!!

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I thought maybe—just maybe—the commentators were exaggerating how bad this article was. No, they were UNDERstating its inanity. You could mix marmalade with dogshit, throw a handful of it against a wall, and come up with something more meaningful than this drivel. It’s actually not worth the effort I’ve put into this comment.

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Religion is often the perfect culmination of narcissism and a desperate longing for external meaning. If you were to present these questions to a neutral observer, none of them would logically lead to the conclusion for a belief in a supernatural entity. The assumption which these questions depend is also a fallacy which can be challenged in multiple ways. It is assumed that meaning which is conceived or interpreted internally through experience is somehow less valid than meaning imposed externally by an entity which would have had to conceive of that meaning itself. It also ignores biological advantages behind the motivations of solidarity, cooperation and mutual aid in organisms. There is no shortage of explanations which do not require simplistic theistic arguments—arguments which should have been discarded completely sometime during the Enlightenment.

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Emotions are often touted by the religious as uniquely and/or necessarily human.  That’s actually precisely backwards:  emotions are *more* primitive than the intellect, and the intellect is the stuff that humans seem to do better than other animals.  Most, if not all, mammals have emotions; possibly even some reptiles do as well.

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WHAT. A. FUCKING. IDIOT.

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Nah, he just asks the same questions as all the believers who don’t really comprehend that lack of religious belief does not mean lack of cultural involvement or personal values and virtues. One sentence comprising that would easily answer all his questions: Morality, art, culture, understanding of rules of conduct in a society and piety to dead significantly predate religion. He has no new argument, not even anything that would make me stop and think for a short moment. These questions are like something a 4-years-old would ask…

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Oh. My.  Goodness.  This is all SO much simpler than I thought!  Thank you for clearing it up for me, Rabbi!

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It’s not about whether emotions exist or whether these questions have any loopholes that make them, it’s about whether your emotions are anything more than just body processes.  Of course emotions are very real and we act on them accordingly.  If you conclude that humans are the result of random processes, however, then that would imply that everything we think of as ethical or everything that we think of as having intrinsic value beyond the value we place on it actually has no basis.  Sure we have ethics because it’s good for stability or we can identify certain brain chemistry that makes it appealing, but that doesn’t equate to morality.

Furthermore, your responses to these questions don’t mean much to me.  It’s more important to look at everyone’s actual choices to see how moral they really are, and we don’t see atheists doing atheist things.  If so, then we would see them jump at every ability to seek pleasure that is permitted by law, society, etc, even when it’s considered immoral.  The only two rationale for not doing so to a greater extent than other groups is that supposed atheists are either conditioned to do what everyone else in society does, or they understand the ethics that originated with Judaism.

One last point, and this may be hard for a lot of people to understand, but Judaism is not a religion.  Jews that observe the Torah do so because they have actively deduced that it is true in the same way that we deduce the laws of gravity and live by them.  In that respect, Judaism IS science.  There is, by definition, no difference between the two.

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Andrew:  Well let me be the first of what I’m sure will be many responses!j

I was raised a very religious Jew, i.e. I was brainwashed to believe the things I did.  Once I reached adulthood and un-brainwashed myself, I actively deduced that since there wasn’t a shred of evidence to back up these remarkable claims, they almost certainly were not true.

So exactly why do you think anyone could actively deduce that Judaism’s claims are true?  And how is it only a tenth of a percent of humanity has been clever enough to make this deduction (amazingly, the same tenth of a percent that were brainwashed as I was)?  Should be interesting….

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wow. Once again, it is unfortunate that so many believe that mysticism is the only way to learn morals, and without a mystical belief system you are amoral…..

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Hi ellenberg: over half the world subscribes to the Jewish theory on the creation of the world.  Christianity and Islam just carry on that idea after twisting much of the rest.

It’s not a problem that most of the world denies something.  The existence of major religions that conflict with one another is proof that over a billion people could believe something and it can be wrong.

I’m actively searching for the truth myself.  ellenberg, you may be completely right regarding the truth of the Torah, although I personally have split this into two parts: the rationale for the existence of a finite universe and the veracity of the Torah.  The first appears to a be a logic question and the second based on data, and it’s my duty to seek out as much data as I can in order to deduce the right answer because I just don’t know.  One reason I’m on this web page to begin with.

The point the rabbi is trying to make, it seems, is that if people act with morals that have no basis in emotions or selfishness, then the only things left are societal conditioning or that we subconsciously understand morality, which I would add is something that is beyond what we’ve been conditioned to do and beyond what is beneficial to us personally.

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Andrew:  I couldn’t agree more with your second paragraph, since I think about 5 or 6 billion people who believe in the supernatural are completely wrong.

As for morality, to me it is kind of like pornography, I can’t quite define it (although Sam Harris tries) but I know it when I see it, and that’s quite good enough for me to live what I consider to be a moral life.

In your search, simply apply the same rules of reason that you would if you were, say, a judge in a court of law, or an intelligent consumer making a product decision, or in any other avenue of life for that matter.  Somehow when people approach this most important of questions they think it’s OK to throw out the reasoning processes that they apply daily to all of their other decisions.  If you refrain from doing this, you will come to conclusions that will leave you with peace of mind instead of constant doubts.

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Why should anybody be surprised that a Rabbi contrives a reason to believe in god, and why further that the contrivance is dualistic (totally materialistic or god exists)?  It’s completely bankrupt as an argument.  Anyway, let’s have a little fun.

1.  Why would a materialist sell their dead mother’s remains like chattel when the significance of a parental death can be milked for years upon years of material and immaterial gains, particularly from credulous fools who think that the parent lives on as they did here in some miraculous kingdom in the sky?  Dumb.

2. I have a ham radio and I have not tried to contact anyone for rescue from the island with the person I dislike?  If you’re a Rabbi, you probably spend the whole time praying to god, rather than using the ham radio to effectuate a rescue.  See, a ham radio allows you to talk to other people—like a CB.

3.  Are love, art, etc. intrinsically significant?  No.  That one is simple.  Art has no intrinsic value that can be separated from the artist or the beholder.  Love has no significance separate from the giver and receiver.  Why is that controversial?  I suppose, as a Rabbi, enjoying a painting yourself is meaningless unless there is a god nearby silently to disapprove of your taste.

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If anyone knows what type of drug you have to be on for that article to not be ridiculous please let me know. What a colossal fucking idiot

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If there were any good reasons for believing in gods and cosmic purposes, Jacobs would be able to present evidence to that effect and make an honest case. Instead, he is reduced to insisting that those who dismiss his fantasies are only pretending. Materialists ought to be immoral nihilists, dammit, and if they turn out not to be — then they’re not really materialists. It’s Jacobs who is in denial.

You can read my full critique here: http://norighttobelieve.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/on-a-desert-island-with-rabbi-adam-jacobs/

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On occassion, in minature pamphlet form, I will have this type of argument left on the porch of my home by some local church (typically Baptist or JW).

The pamphlets and this forever-existing memorialization of unsound, vulgar and simply ridiculous argument find themselves kept in my files for purposes of future arguments as evidence of the crime committed by groups and individuals such as this Rabbi.

Rabbi, thank you for revealing your self much like the KKK has done marching in the streets cloaked in their ignorance for the world to see and in their arrogance so that they could be summarily defeated in the secular courts and in the minds of rational beings using moral philosophy.

So will be the fate of you and others like you.

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Pathetic BS I cannot believe the Huff Post will actually put this dismal display of prose or lack thereof online for people 2 read people that come up with this ridiculous moral garbage &wish; 2 convert people 2 their own belief is nothing short of deplorable Instead of trying to convert people 2 your belief which obviously is the root of the problem here your belief was already decided & then your explanations follow next just like every Religious person I have ever come met Why don’t you expand your mind into Science & Philosophy & then we can have this conversation but not until you open your mind I do not know & neither do you if god exists &if; u claim2 know u r nothing but a liar & a con artist at best & have no reason 2 try 2 push your belief in god onto anyone but just like all fundamentalist religious people do they prey on the vulnerable & the people that cannot Critically Think or have Reason & Logic because if they did u wouldn’t have a ground 2 stand on Live your pathetic life the way you choose but keep this BS 2 yourself worry about u & leave us non-believers alone we r quite content with our life & I actually would put my morals up against anyone religious So I hope u find your solace in your Hebrew Book of Fables but for me it is actually the most horrific horror novel that I have ever read If u are truly a Rabbi u should realize that Morals do not come from God especially if you read the Old Testament because if God is indeed Omnibenevolent Omniscient Omnipotent these pathetic commandments would not exist especially in the form they are written& you should know from all the Philosophic arguments in particular Kant and others about morals and absolute laws & how they make zero sense & makes god look like a petty fool when it comes to being a all powerful all knowing entity NOT Keep believing because there is zero data proving his existence not 2 mention that u don’t know & neither do I but I am not going around claiming to know whether he exist or doesn’t but I really could care less, but I live my life according to me not some flying spaghetti monster in the sky.

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Gonna have to do this in multiple posts, so bear with me. 

Morality is a product of society, and of evolutionary processes.  These moral “laws” are a natural result of group selection.  Traits which increase the survival of a group as a whole confer a selection advantage to the individuals within the group.  As a result, higher organisms have an innate desire to conform to the community of similar organisms around them, to those in the same species, especially those in one’s family. 

As a result, societies form, and rules are established to maintain the society.  This is seen throughout the animal kingdom.  The most basic rules, i.e. the most critical for maintaining a society, are the most preserved across societies/species.  These include rules governing not killing others in your group, not stealing from those in your group, not deceiving those in your group, etc.  For example a school of piranhas will kill and devour an animal of another species but will not attack each other.  Those that don’t comply are weeded out of the group and their traits are not passed on to the next generation.

When it comes to animals with more advanced levels of socialization, the rules become more complex and more dependent on the particular group with regards to time and place.  Which is why among the human race some moral rules are essentially universal (e.g. restrictions on murdering or lying to or stealing from other humans), others much less so.  For example, among some groups, homosexuality is considered immoral, others don’t consider it immoral at all (count me among the latter). 

Such rules change with time and place.  In the time and place that the stories/legends that would become the bible were written, human slavery was not at all considered immoral.  The judeo-christian bible is full of examples of how to treat/beat your slaves, as well as instructions for how slaves should obey their masters, etc.  In fact as recently as 160 years ago (coincidentally in an area now called “the bible belt”) slavery was still not considered immoral.  I think we can all agree in today’s day and age slavery is morally WRONG.
(to be continued)

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Part 2:
Such rules, (AKA morals) are taught to members of a society at a young age in different ways.  Parents directly teach their children by telling them the rules and disciplining them if they dont follow them, authority figures (including parents) demonstrate such rules to children via their actions, and (in probably the most effective manner) children learn it through their interactions with other children (e.g. if you run around stealing and lying to other kids, you soon find yourself playing alone).  These patterns of behavior are reinforced throughout childhood and pretty well instilled in you by the time you reach adulthood.  How well these rules are instilled in you is a reflection of the strength of these three processes.  Some have it instilled more deeply than others, i.e. are more “moral”.  Some have it instilled much less so, and are less “moral”,

But what really needs to be emphasized is that these are patterns of behavior which are developed, not moment-to-moment responses and decisions.  For example, I do charitable things for others who can in no way pay me back because that PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR has been instilled in me over many years via the processes I mentioned above.  So someone jumping on a grenade to help his platoon mates certainly doesnt help his personal survival, BUT…the PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR of thinking of your friends’ welfare first IS a trait that increases survivability more often than not because it increases group survivability.  Thus that pattern of behavior is selected for, and will lead to someone making a decision to jump on a grenade in certain situations, if that person has had such rules instilled in him deeply enough.

Bottom line is that morals are not a product of judaism.  Or christianity.  Or any religion.  Once you get past that misconception, you’ll see that religion’s big selling point, that religion is synonymous with morality, is nothing but yet another giant myth.

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Chris, so from your logic, if you were born in a different part of the world, you would have been a suicide bomber, knowing it to be moral.

Why is slavery morally wrong to you, other than that you and everyone around you says so.  It wasn’t wrong for most of human history, and like you seem to be saying, parents and society dictate morals to you.

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If you are willing to define a computer as nothing more than a bunch of wires and other blind and indifferent forces acting in
concert, then at the end of the day,
you necessarily concede that computers are intrinsically meaningless

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well chris I wasn’t taught anything about religion ,slavery or any moral values as a child. not by my parents nor the community. everything I think of right or wrong I had to figure out for myself and I’d say I did a good job.
P.S. @SMackon weren’t u taught 2 use words instead of numbers?

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How did you come to the conclusion that slavery is wrong?

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Fairly typical, middle-of-the-road response that completely misses the mark.  If I concede that any of his examples is accurate, it makes me a ‘believer’?  I fail to understand the leap.  The standard ‘atheism=nihilism’ response in which the believer falsely states that atheists believe in nothing and that everything is meaningless; that morality only exists in the vacuum of religion.  In fact, I believe it is our general contention that morality in SPITE of religion is a worthwhile goal.  The idea that one who does not believe in a god has no moral compass is a typical fallacy of those who would criticize our minority.  The implication in this rabbi’s article is that you either A.) Believe in God or B.) would bash your opponent’s head in with a coconut.  To the believer, morality can only exist through faith.  To the rest of us, morality for ITS OWN SAKE is true virtue.  The motivation for ‘doing good’ is its intrinsic value—not ‘eternal damnation’ or ‘judgment’ or ‘rapture’ or any other unfounded religious standard by which to impose its will.  Who is more ‘dangerous’: the person who believes it is wrong to hurt people because god is watching OR the person who believes it is wrong to hurt people because it is wrong to hurt people?

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I didn’t know that Ray Comfort had a Jewish relative?

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Andrew:  You ask how we know slavery is wrong.  It’s pretty easy to come up with various systems for morality starting with a few axioms like those in the Declaration of Independence (people are born equal and should have equal opportunities to live life on their own terms) that would lead to this conclusion.

Alternatively, we can look at the bible and conclude that slavery is in fact just fine.  Is tthat your position?

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This guy is right in that our brains must simply be different.  I am no philosophical genious, and I break right through these questions with little thought.  I think these questions belong with the all the youtube videos claiming, “THIS QUESTION STUMPS EVERY ATHEIST!” and things similar to that.

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I almost left a reply on the HuffPost. I decided against it, even though the Rabbi’s argument is full of holes and is easy refuted. It feels like he is just ‘baiting’ and looking to ruffle feathers. His logic is full of holes, yes. All of these are leading questions. (when did you stop beating your wife?)

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Words cannot describe how unthoughtful this article is.  Reading it makes me want to vomit.

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Andrew, no I would not have been a suicide bomber had I grown up in a different part of the world, because I do not base my actions on what I think an invisible being is telling me to do via a “holy book” and “prophets”.  Those aren’t morals, those are the actions of someone who has brainwashed themselves into their local cultural superstitions to such an extent that they are willing to sacrifice their life and those of others to curry favor with imaginary beings.  Sound familiar?  Radical islam is no different than radical christianity. 

As far as slavery goes, I find the idea of enslaving another human being morally reprehensible.  If I lived my life guided by the judeo-christian bible, I would certainly NOT have a problem with slavery since it is blatantly endorsed, repeatedly, throughout the bible.  Fortunately I do not. 

I was describing to you the basis of morality.  Morals ultimately are the set of “rules” that one’s society defines as acceptable behavior.  But what one personally thinks is “right” or “wrong” is a decision that comes from within, based on their own thoughts and experiences.  Such patterns of behavior may or may not jibe with what the society around them considers acceptable.  I don’t live in first century Israel, or 19th century Mississippi, or 2nd century B.C.E Egypt, etc, etc, so I don’t know if I would have broken from the pack and spoken out against slavery had I lived in such societies.  I like to think I would have, but I am not there.

But again, if I used as my guidance the local cultural superstitions in the society where I personally live (as described by the judeo-christian bible), then I would clearly have no problem with slavery, just as I would have no problem with the killing of homosexuals, the subordination of women, and the mass-murder of entire nations of people.  Since I don’t use such nonsense as my guidelines, I don’t have such issues.

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Ryder1984, you didn’t read my post very carefully.  What your parents and those you consider authority figures directly tell you is a PART of the process, yes.  But a large part in your development of your sense of “right” versus “wrong”, in fact probably the vast majority of the process, comes through your interactions with others.  This occurs predominantly in your childhood, although it continues throughout your life.  Through every single interaction you have with others, you get feedback, positive and negative.  You weigh more the feedback of those you care more about (e.g. your parents) and you also try to emulate their behavior since those are the ones you consider most “right” as a small child.  But ALL interactions you have play a part in the process.  Over time, you build a sense of what patterns of behavior are “right” or “wrong” to the society around you.  Unless you grow up in a cave, with no parents, no authority figures, no interactions whatsoever with others, then you DO go through this process.

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Andrew, do you not believe that slaves should obey their earthly masters?

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@Mike: “2. I have a ham radio and I have not tried to contact anyone for rescue from the island with the person I dislike?  If you’re a Rabbi, you probably spend the whole time praying to god, rather than using the ham radio to effectuate a rescue.  See, a ham radio allows you to talk to other people—like a CB.”

Ok, that was pretty funny. I admit to not noticing it. Good job!

As for the Rabbi, I would love to ask his a few of his fellow Rabbis if they found the article an embarrassment to the religion. Generally, the Rabinical tradition takes some pride in reasoned argument.

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I think quite the opposite…under the condition that the human emotion and human experience are not limited by the existence of an omnipotent, omnipresent higher power looking down, judging us makes the human experience and emotion purely intrinsic.  In other words: we act, feel, and experience to please ourselves, not to please the white bearded man in the sky holding the naughty and nice list

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I think I agree with the rabbi.  If material is all there is, then the fact that one snuffs out a human being is no more significant than the fact one snuffs out a mosquito.  I know that we feel more grief over the loss of the human than the mosquito - but that really doesn’t matter either.  Grief is only a temporal chemical reaction.

Atheist should not care one iota wether one has faith in a supreme God and choses to share that fact (to convert or not).  Because, in a material world, it is only chemical reactions in the brain conjuring up a diety. It is not a reality that truly poses a real threat to your world view.  It shouldn’t matter to you.  Unless of course you are afraid you might be wrong.

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@Wave Rider

Deists are lying to themselves and everyone else.  The most any intellectually honest person can claim is to be agnostic.  Nevertheless, we have all kinds of people in high-ranking positions, including in governments, making decisions based on fairy tales.  This is exactly why atheists are important and have every right and obligation to challenge theistic and deistic masturbatory nonsense everywhere it rears its stupid head. 

If you really believe that there cannot be moralty without god, you’ve just outsourced your identity and every bit of agency in exchange for nothing.  If you are nothing without god, you are nothing. 

The Rabbi’s argument is crap.  Take an example, almost everybody agrees that what Michael Vick did to dogs in his care was abhorent and immoral.  Almost every deist of any particular relgious dogmatic (no pun intended) stripe would have to admit that no dog has a soul and their god would not care one iota for the way they are treated.  How do you sqare that? 

Any bit of morality you possess comes purely and exclusively out of your lived experience.  Particularly, your ability to sympathize and empathize with your fellow creatures.  This is not something imported into you be a ficitional self-aggrandized version of you hovering above you silently approving of you and making you feel wicked awesome.  There is nothing supernatural about your ego.

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Wave Rider, why is it that a non-material being or beings would be necessary to make human life matter more than that of a mosquito?  I am not following your logic at all.  The fact that grief is a powerful emotion does not necesitate the existence of imaginary beings.  If you truly want understand the “chemical reactions” involved in human emotions, I suggest you spend time studying neuroscience and evolutionary biology instead of just defaulting to cultural superstitions when you don’t understand something.

And the reason atheists such as myself have problems with religious people “sharing” their delusions has nothing to do with it being a “threat” to my “world view”!  What a bizarre non sequitur!  Is that really what you think?  The problem is the violence and the war in the name of religious beliefs, the indoctrination of our children into this nonsense, the holding back of the progress of science again and again and again over this crap, the imposing of such bizarre “rules” on others and preventing them from living the lives they want and marrying those they love.  Not to mention the many billions in tax dollars paid by others because of the breaks religious organizations enjoy.

So yes, it matters to me quite a bit that this cult continues to invade the public sphere.  I dont really give a crap if you prefer to have imaginary friends as an adult.  You can turn to Yahweh, Zeus, Allah, Odin, Quetzylcotyl, whatever.  Just dont expect others to do the same.

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By the way, Wave Rider, just out of curiosity, why WOULD I feel “threatened” by the god beliefs of others?  Do you feel your beliefs are threatened by scientologists or mormons or muslims or wiccans?  Why not?  Why do the gods of the christians have more validity than the gods of the ancient greeks/mayans/egyptians/chinese, etc?  Aside from just the fact it is what you were TOLD, and would have been different had you grown up in a different time and place, what makes the christian gods the “right” ones?

Also, do you believe slaves should obey their earthly masters?

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And Wave Rider, do you believe that homosexuals should be put to death?  I mean, you must given that it is what is stated in the ancient writings believed by christians to be the word of gods.

Unless of course you are afraid you might be wrong.

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Mike

I have to say that you are on your usual track of logic.  And you still don’t get the Rabbi’s point. 

Chris

You missed the point too.  You have gone off on tangents.  Go back an read it again.

Wave Rider

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@wave rider,

I consider the recognition of logic being my usual track as a compliment.  So thank you. 

I think that I do get the Rabbi’s point.  It’s one that has been made more articulately and less sanctimoniously by other, smarter people.  The problem is that it assumes a the conclusion in the premise and makes a number of unjustified leaps:  If an atheist does not believe in god, they are a materialist.  There’s no morality or ethics amongst materials.  Thus, the atheist must be desirous to sell their dead mother for $36.  It’s a silly argument.

I think you are missing the broader scope.  The existence of god is not necessary for human beings to develop society or morality.  No doubt the god you grew up on (and the fairy tales about him) didn’t exist when the first heiratic city states were built.  In fact, the cities came first, and the gods came next.

No amount of fawning over paintings or cherishing of parents will create god.

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No, actually I understood your post just fine, addressed the points you were trying to make, and then refuted them.  If you’re only comeback to that is to just claim I didn’t understand your post then I guess you dont have a response.

And again, do you think slaves should obey their earthly masters?  Do you think homosexuals should be put to death?

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Again, unless you are worried you might be wrong…

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I have heard that a eunuch may not become a rabbi? If this is true then it is just one more example of the incredible illogicalities of religion and the people who preach it.  This rabbi is right up there with the best of them

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Chris72,

Your questions have nothing to do with Rabbi Jacobs’ article. 

I am not at all worried about being wrong.  No need to because of the following:

1 -  If I adopted your materialistic world view - nothing really matters - because it just doesn’t - we are merely randomly evolving matter - and the universe doesn’t care. 

2 - If I stick with my world view - God has redeemed me - and I don’t have to be concerned with His displeasure - in fact - I have seen His love for me.

But option 1 just won’t be in the final accounting and those buying into this world view will find themselves separated from the creator of all things good in the after life.

Mike,

You can take it as a compliment if you so desire - as I did not mean it as an insult.  However, you frequently raise points that obfuscate rather than address the issues raised in the article.

Noek vanBilgon,

What????? 

Wave Rider

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Sooo….again, do you think that slaves should obey their earthly masters?  Do you think homosexuals should be put to death?  I could go on…

I am asking these questions because you made the rather strange assertion of “unless of course you are afraid you might be wrong”.  I am about as worried on being wrong on the non-existence of Yahweh as I am on being wrong that the sun isn’t really Apollo riding across the sky on a golden chariot.  About as worried as I am that an alien warship isn’t really orbiting behind the sun sending out mind-controlling radiation to us here on earth controlling our actions.  That is to say, not particularly worried at all. 

If your meaning in life comes from trying to gain favor with an imaginary overlord in the sky derived from ancient cultural superstitions, then that is not a meaningful life.  It’s just an adult version of the boogeyman, or an invisible friend, however you look at it.  In either case, it’s just a myth, a cultural superstition.  It ain’t reality.

There is nothing meaningless about living in reality.  You enjoy life, cherish your relationships, appreciate the ups and the beauty and the wonderful times, persevere through the downs and the ugliness and the tragic times, and when all is said and done what is important is that you have lived every day to the fullest and made the earth a better place than when you came in. 

Creating an imaginary utopia in your head and brainwashing yourself into believing it is there waiting for you after you die does nothing but cheapen your life.  Why would you want to even live your life if you think that eternal bliss is waiting for you when you check out?  Seems to me like people like you would want to just end their lives as soon as possible so they could move on to the real fun.  After all, if what you believe were true, your time here on earth is just a blink of an eye.  The longer you spend here, the more time to trip up and sin and ruin your chances of eternal bliss, right?

What you’re doing is essentially the same as someone convincing themselves they will win the lottery tomorrow.  You get all excited and overjoyed, and maybe if you are with others who feel the same, you all get happy at the same time and look down on those of us who don’t feel we are going to win the lottery tomorrow (aren’t even playing).  You wonder how those who don’t share your belief can cope, since they aren’t gonna win any money at all the next day.  Of course, tomorrow comes, reality sinks in, and you realize that it was all a scam.  And you realize that those of us who knew it was a scam weren’t really depressed about it at all, we were just living in reality.

The problem is in your case, this supposed prize comes after you die.  Meaning no one can come back to tell you it was all just a myth.  So the myth just keeps propagating itself on and on and on. And takes different forms depending on what culture you happened to have been born into.

That monster your older brother told you was under the bed that would attack you if you looked…he didn;t really exist.  When your mom told you you would never grow big if you didn’t eat your vegetables…wasn’t entirely true.  When the nuns told you that you would go blind if you, well, ahem…guess what?  Not really true either.

Your gods don’t exist.  They are just cultural superstitions kept alive by a large scale cult mentality.  But reality ain’t ugly and it ain’t meaningless.  If you open up your eyes and see, you will realize that.

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Wave Rider,

I’m not obfuscating anything.  The Rabbi is.  His arguement is intellectually bankrupt.  He can’t defend it, and you have no prayer (irony) of doing so either. 

There is absolutely no rule of reason or logic that requires an atheist (even a materialist) to be immoral.  Assume for sake of argument that somebody demonstrated to you (to a level of your acceptance) that the god you believe in absolutely is false and nonexistant.  Would you then become a murderer, rapist, thief and liar?  Would you then sell your mother’s corpse?  Would you then burn all of the works in the Louvre?

Neither would I.  The Rabbi’s argument is stupid, pseudo philosophical grandstanding that appeals only to those who have already bought in to this type of baloney.  It doesn’t get you or him anywhere.  In fact, the way you repurpose it for your silly afterlife cosmic copulation event with the “almighty,” indicates that your actual life must be totally meaningless and external.  I feel sad for people who have to import meaning through an imaginary super-parent who tells them what to think.  That’s type of insecurity has got to be tough.  Probably why so many of this crowd have to gather in buildings on weekends to sing about how fervently they believe in god.  Funny that you don’t find science-y types wringing their hands, gathering in rooms and singing about their belief in gravity.

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Silly.  My first thought was who would want ashes for dog food.  I honestly have no issue w the buddhist way of disposing of a corpse by feeding it to nature, but I k.ow not everyone would appreciate that.  Admiring beauty, creating art, its GOOD for us, it helps keep us healthy.  Cooperating with others is also beneficial to our survival, our minds, and in turn our physical bodies. And by the same logic, affection and sex, the same thing.  Most if not all of.his arguments can be explained by the survival instinct, the selfish gene, same as any other mammal.

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