I recently had a conversation with a neuroscientist, who also happened to be a self-described atheist. He knew I was a rabbi and so, in the middle of the conversation, he very tentatively asked me, "So ... do you believe in evolution?" I think what he was really asking was, "Can you be a religious person who believes in science?" And my answer to that question is, "Of course."
While some people think of science and religion as being inherently in conflict, I think it's because they tend to define "religion" as "blind acceptance and complete certainty about silly, superstitious fantasies." Quite honestly, if that's what religion really was, I wouldn't be religious!
In fact, it's not "religion" in general, but that particular definition of religion that is so often in conflict with science. Instead, my experience with Judaism has been that it embraces science quite easily. So why is that?
While there may be many reasons, there are three in particular that I have found to be especially significant:
1. The Bible is almost never read simply literally.
Yes, the Bible is the basis of Judaism. But Judaism as it is practiced today is not biblical, it's rabbinic, which means that it's about studying and engaging with the text but not stopping at face value. I've met people who haven't understood that distinction. When I had a student pulpit in Sandusky, Ohio, for example, a group came to the synagogue asking "where we offered up our sacrifices," because they believed that Jews still followed the literal laws of Leviticus.
Instead, when Jews read the Bible today through a rabbinic worldview, we are trying to answer two separate questions: First, what did the text mean in its time, and second, how can we create interpretations that will give us lessons for our time?
Indeed, the Bible shouldn't be taken simply literally today because circumstances, societies, norms and knowledge have all changed.
A great example of that comes from how the rabbis interpret the verse "an eye for an eye." While that is what the Bible says, to the rabbis, that's not what the verse means. Instead, the rabbis argue, "an eye for an eye" actually means financial compensation, and they go on for multiple pages in the Talmud trying to explain their reasoning. They don't read that verse on its simple, literal level, but through the lenses of fairness, of common sense, of other verses in the Torah and of the best legal knowledge they had at that time.
So now we can also see why in Judaism the beginning of Genesis is not in conflict with the big bang theory or natural selection. On the one hand, for its time, the Bible provided an origin story that was a story that worked then, but now, science provides a much better explanation for how we got here.
But the Bible isn't meant to be taken only literally -- it's designed to be a source of study and exploration for the questions of our time. The point of the Creation story is really to challenge us with questions like, "How should we treat people if everyone is created in the image of God? What are our responsibilities to this world if God has called it 'good'?"
In Judaism, there's no concept of "God says it, I believe it, that settles it." Instead, Judaism pushes us to embrace the text for what it was back then, and to create new ways of reading the text for what it can be now.
2. Questioning is not only acceptable -- it's encouraged.
There's a phrase that recurs all the time in rabbinic literature: "How do we know this?" The rabbis always had to explain their reasoning. And if there was a choice between believing something because of a Divine miracle or believing something because of thoughtful and reasoned arguments, there was no question which one the rabbis would accept: reason and logic would always win.
The classic story about this comes from the Talmud, where a Rabbi named Eliezer was arguing with all the other rabbis about a minute detail of Jewish law, and trying to convince them all that he was right. As the story goes,
...Rabbi Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the rabbis did not accept any of them. Finally he said to them: "If I am right, let this carob tree prove it!" Sure enough, the carob tree immediately uprooted itself and moved one hundred cubits, and some say 400 cubits, from its place. "No proof can be brought from a carob tree," the rabbis retorted.
And again he said to them "If I am right, let this river prove it!" Sure enough, the river of water flowed backward. "No proof can be brought from a river," they rejoined...
Finally, Rabbi Eliezer then said, "If I am right, let God Himself prove it!" Sure enough, a Divine voice cried out, "Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer? He is always right!" Rabbi Joshua then stood up and protested: "The Torah is not in heaven! We pay no attention to a Divine voice, [because now that the Torah has been given to humanity, people are the ones who are to interpret it.]" (Baba Metzia 59b)
So even though the Torah was seen to be a gift from God and was sacred scripture, as soon as the Torah had been given to humans, any arguments would have to be settled by logic and reason -- and would trump even a voice from God.
Similarly, science is never to take anything on faith. Science is about continually questioning assumptions, revising theories and integrating new data. So critical thinking -- an essential aspect of science -- is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition.
3. There is no fixed, systematic theology.
There's a great Yiddish expression that says, "If I knew God, I'd be God." In fact, I think that claiming that you "know God's will" is an act of incredible hubris. Instead, what we say about God has much more to say about us than about God. There are, in fact, a whole range of different theologies within Judaism (you can find some of them in the terrific books "Finding God" and "The God Upgrade," both of which describe a whole range of differing, and sometimes even conflicting, theologies.)
And while I can only speak personally here, to me, "God" isn't really a noun at all -- it's a verb.
Here's why. The most common name that God gives Godself in the Torah is "YHVH," a name that is sometimes thought to be so holy that no one was allowed to pronounce it. But that's not exactly right -- it's not that "YHVH" was not allowed to be pronounced, it's that it is literally unpronounceable, since it consists of four Hebrew vowels (yod, hay, vav and hay). By the way, that's also why some people incorrectly call this name "Yahweh," since (as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner once said), if you tried to pronounce a name that was all vowels, you'd risk serious respiratory injury.
But even more importantly, the name YHVH is actually a conflation of all the tenses of the Hebrew verb "to be." God's name could be seen as "was-is-will be," so God isn't something you can't capture or name -- God is only something you can experience.
And indeed, when Moses is at the burning bush, having just been told by God that he will be leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he says, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
God responds that God's name is "Ehyeh asher ehyeh," which is often translated as "I am what I am." But it could also be translated as, "I am what I will be." So God is whatever God will be -- we simply have no idea. Indeed, for my own theology, I believe that God is found in the "becoming," transforming "what will be" into "what is."
Science, too, is very much about process. Science at its best is about testing hypotheses, setting up experiments and exploring ideas. And if new data or new evidence arises, scientific knowledge changes. Science can't be tied down to old theories -- it is dynamic and ever-changing.
Just like our experience of God.
And perhaps that's how science and religion can be reconciled -- not as two realms that are in conflict or as "non-overlapping magesteria" (as Stephen Jay Gould once described them), but as things you do.
Science is about creating hypotheses and testing data against these theories. Judaism is about how we act to improve this world, here and now. And these processes can easily go hand in hand.
So yes, if science and religion are seen to be competing sources of truth and authority, they will always be in conflict -- especially if religion is "blind acceptance and complete certainty about silly, superstitious fantasies." But if instead religion is about helping people create a deeper sense of meaning and a stronger sense of their values, then I truly believe that science and religion can be brought together to improve ourselves, our society and our world.
Follow Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiMitelman
Deepak Chopra: A New Creation Story: Beyond Religion and Science
Genesis creation narrative - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
F&F
I don't think the point is that eloquence rules. I think the point is that objective observable reality is to be a trusted source of understanding the world. Human understanding is a group endeavor. When we can show each other how something works, we increase our understanding of the world. If one buys into the supposition that G-d put us here, then I think it's fair to say that G-d wants us to figure out the place.
Here's another reason: God gave us a brain. Learning, discussion, reason, and critical thinking glorify that gift.
Willful blindness, ignorance, and rote learning from "authorities" denigrate it.
Speaking as a 'Simple Christian' this is where modern judgmental Christianity goes wrong. Too often I hear Xtians quoting exerpts, out of context, while totally failing to understand the age from which the quotation came and the history of the quote.
My pastor (Michael Aus) provides a great service for me by taking the Xtian bible back to its greek roots, and setting the scene (so to speak) to describe why what Jesus was doing was significant, and why what he said was important. If more people took this approach I believe that Xtianity would be better understood, and many of the mockers would be silenced.
I'm afraid, though, that no matter how evolved Christians become (and many are doing it quite well!), the urge to mock will remain strong as long as the fundamentalist Christian minority remains in control of this country.
http://themodernrabbi.blogspot.com/2010/01/bereshit-5770-two-non-conflicting-views.html
Some stereotypes are earned, evidence of an exception; Hitching back from Texas in the 60s about 11:30pm in a poor part of town a man going into his small apartment noticed me walking with my suitcase and inquired, then said, "The buses don't run this late and you probably won't get a ride this late, I have a cot you can sleep on, my wife and I are Jews, but in saying that I feel I should apologize for the conduct of the big city Jew types, we are nothing like them, we are just poor hard working honest people".
Any ulterior motives for holding "science" high over "the Word of God"? What if some Jewish scientist are making BIG money, but are violating "God's Rules for Jewry" that would have got them kicked out in times past? No contributions, no hierarchy, no reason to boast.
"Logic and reason...would trump even...God"? How do we get back on top after He (YHVH) has knocked us low? Ecclesiastes 7:11,12
In any faith or creed, you're going to get extremist whackos, and those are the ones who get the attention.
No stereotype is ever "earned." People, even within a group, are different from each other, with different personalities or mindsets. To judge the majority because of the minority, or even vice-versa, is unfair and narrow-minded. What evidence do you have that the couple in Texas is a minority?
2. "Logic and reason...would trump even...God"? You've misunderstood. The story was about how God gave us the Torah and now wants US to THINK--as opposed to sitting around trying to receive revelations as so many others still do.
Nobel laureates: 10% Jewish. Enough said. Kick ass culture when it comes to science and education.
First of all, the Hebrew letters yod, he, and vav are not vowels: they are *consonants* (or rather, signs for consonants). "Rabbi" Mitelman has apparently confused the English words "vowel" and "consonant."
Second, ALL words in the Hebrew Bible were originally written without vowel signs. There is no difference between the Tetragrammaton ("YHVH," or, in scholarly discussions, more commonly "YHWH") and any other word in the text in this respect. Any differentiation between the Tetragrammaton and other words in the Tanakh with respect to the presence or absence of vowel signs is a later development (I have only seen it observed in English translations) and has nothing to do with pronunciation. I cannot believe that anyone with a legitimate rabbincal degree could be ignorant of this fact.
Third, there is nothing "incorrect" about interpreting the Tetragrammaton as standing for "Yahweh." That is the reconstruction of the word that is commonly accepted among biblical scholars as having the greatest weight of evidence on its side. It certainly *is* incorrect to infer, from the fact that the Tetragrammaton is transliterated into English as a series of four consonant letters, that it was an unpronounceable string of four consonants.
I think the Rabbi Eliezer story brings this home so beautifully. We can safely ignore the evidences of God as physically existing out there creating miracles, for ultimately God is within us. To maintain anything else is nothing but a power trip (and a contradiction with science). I do think that writer is remiss for not observing that morality is a non-rational felt response and not a rational outcome ("settled by logic and reason"). That is bordering on rationalism (a contradiction with religion), and doesn't seem to be in the story as related.
I have never thought about it in this context. Its kinda Freudian. Great article.