wchap24c.html
8/6/00

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Judaism has made vast contributions in helping to lay the foundation upon which humanity can now develop a Science of Religion. Its cultural values have contributed many persons who saw themselves as citizens of the world, and who have advanced the cause of human progress. Some of the persons who are widely known are: Isaac Asimov, George Cantor, Omar Chaim, Noam Chomsky, Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Disraeli, Emile Durkheim, Bob Dylan, Albert Ellis, Friedrich Engels, Rothschild Family, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Anne Frank, Viktor Frankl, Sigmund Freud, Betty Friedan, Milton Friedman, Murray Gell-Mann, Allen Ginsberg, Benny Goodman, Stephen Jay Gould, Harry Houdini, Franz Kafka, Immanual Kant, Danny Kaye, Larry King, (and that only takes us to "K!" For more check out the following URL:) http://www.yahoodi.com/famous/oldlist.html

However, there are many Jews who have aligned themself with the past, and certainly they are not individuals to hold up as models for the future. In this vein, I have from time-to-time been questioned by observant Jews who ask, "How can you call Judaism a folk religion?" We have been proclaimed by God to be the chosen people and have been carrying on a dialogue with God since we were chosen in order to understand his will.

My best response to this question is the below quote: [1]

“…the claim that religious knowledge is derived from historical events in which God makes self-disclosures, i.e., from revelations by God, must contend with the fact that there are numerous, often conflicting, instances of alleged revelations. The claim that the Judeo-Christian deity has revealed himself must be justified within the context of rival claims. Quite clearly there are no agreed-upon criteria whereby such revelatory claims are capable of establishing their genuineness or the spuriousness of their rivals. It is hardly possible that all the alleged supernatural revelations -- those within so-called "primitive" religions, various polytheisms, as well as those associated with the world's monotheisms -- are what they pretend to be (because they contradict each other), but no satisfactory procedure exists for deciding among them.”

“Another difficulty lies in the fact that revelations, if they occurred, would amount to a kind of miracle (a divine intrusion into the normal course of nature). It is dubious whether the occurrence or even the possibility of miracles can be established. As David Hume argues persuasively in Section X of his work, AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish. . . ." And this, he goes on to argue, is never the case. Hume gives the following reasons: first, nowhere in all of history is there any such event attested to by enough people of unquestionable good sense and education as to eliminate the possibility of self-delusion, of such integrity as to eliminate the possibility of deceiving others, of such a high reputation and with so much to be lost if discovered that possible deception can be ruled out, and of such a public nature that any form of deception is immediately obvious.”

“Second, studies of human nature make it abundantly clear that people in general derive considerable pleasure from telling or hearing stories that create feelings of surprise and wonder. This greatly diminishes any reliability normally associated with human testimony.”

“Third, Hume argues, supernatural events are nearly always reported from ignorant and superstitious peoples. When more advanced peoples report such occurrences they generally have received them from ignorant prescientific ancestors. This means that such claims are nearly always derived from the most uncritical and superstitious sources.”

“And, fourth (the point to which I already alluded), all such testimony is opposed by a large number of witnesses, namely, the miraculous reports abounding in rival religions. “

“Still another difficulty facing those who claim that religious knowledge, quite unlike scientific knowledge, comes from God's self-disclosures, lies in the difficulty of justifying the belief that God exists. One is hardly entitled to claim that a putative revelation is really from God unless one of two things can be done: (a) establish beyond any reasonable doubt that God exists and is the kind of being who could and sometimes does reveal Himself; and (b) establish beyond any reasonable doubt that divine self-disclosure is the most plausible, logically simple, explanation for the purported experience. Neither of these conditions, and certainly not both of them together, has yet been satisfied.”

1. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION, Tad S. Clements, p. 22-23, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1990.

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