Is atheism necessary for religion? Rabbi Zusya would say yes.
The great Russian Hassidic Rabbi, who lived more than two hundred years ago, was one day teaching his students when he emphasized the necessity of atheism and agnosticism. His students were aghast. Had the master lost his mind? He proved his point. "Say you're walking down the street and you see a hungry man or a homeless woman. If you're certain there is a G-d you're reaction might be, 'I need do nothing because G-d will provide.' But if you don't believe in G-d, or if you doubt his existence, then there is only you who can provide.'"
Religion is the most powerful tool known to mankind. It is capable of inspiring the artistic wonders of the Italian Renaissance and the reliefs of Michelangelo, and it is capable of inspiring 19 young men to fly airplanes into buildings. It can lend mankind a vision of a perfect world in which 'the wolf lies down with the lamb' and it can impart to the world a vision of people needing to be burned at the stake as infidels.
Without intelligent and earnest critics of the faith the heavenly vision of religion can easily spill over into the hell on earth. Hence, the necessity of atheism and agnosticism. I would argue that religion learns more about itself from its critics than it does about its admirers.
I have debated many atheists in my time, from Richard Dawkins to Daniel Dennett to Sam Harris to Christopher Hitchens. Of them all Hitchens stands alone. He has by far been the most formidable and the most interesting opponent, the one I have most loved and the one that has most gotten under my skin. Religious people have no real interest in Dawkins, whom they find extreme, clinical, mechanical, and monolithic. But Hitchens is passionate, utterly unpredictable, contrarian, and fluent. And while he has been, at times, in my opinion, highly unfair in his criticism of religion, he redeems it all by being all too human. It is his most likable quality. He is also supremely entertaining.
I believe this is the reason that my upcoming debate with Hitchens on 16 September in New York City at the Cooper Union on 'Is there an afterlife' has generated such considerable interest, particularly among religious people. The news that Hitchens has esophageal cancer and may be terminally ill has provoked sadness all around, particularly among the faithful. When I told my friends at the excellent Baron Herzog vineyards in California that Hitchens was ill, we all immediately decided to send him fine bottles of kosher wine so he and his friends could toast L'Chaim, to life, for his recovery. Religious prayer groups for Hitchens' healing have sprung up all over America.
Are the faithful praying for Hitchens recovery because they want to have enough time to convert and win a great victory? Is it because they want a miracle in Hitchens' life to open his eyes to G-d's presence? I cannot say. I can only speak for myself.
I have no interest in converting Christopher Hitchens to religion. His atheism has not stopped him from being a singular champion of human rights throughout the world, and he can teach we religious people a thing or two about courageously standing up to tyrants. I am not so naïve as to believe for a moment that Hitchens would be so intellectually dishonest as to suddenly now change his antipathy toward religion because of the possibility of impending death. Only a coward would forsake his personal truth out of fear of death, and one thing Hitchens certainly is not is a coward. I am not a believer in religion-in-the-foxholes and deathbed confessions. Religion is too important to be embraced out of fear or trepidation.
Rather, what I intend with our debate is to finally dismiss this notion that religious people invented the idea of an afterlife out of a sense of weakness and insecurity. We've heard it all before. Religion is the opiate of the masses. It's a drug that weak-minded people take to help them deal with the meaninglessness of life. They invented the afterlife because they couldn't accept the finality of death. Then they invented G-d to give purpose and design to a fundamentally chaotic and unjust world.
The afterlife in Judaism is none of these things. It is not an escape from the flaws of this world or a reward for the suffering endured here. Any religion that promises an eternal reward for living righteously is better characterized as a business promoting celestial remuneration. Worship G-d so that he'll pay you in the hereafter. Judaism certainly demands that we do the right because its right and never for the consideration of any external reward.
Most Jewish sages understand the World to Come as the world the way it will be when it reaches a state of perfection through human endeavor and G-d's finishing touches, what we call the messianic era. Judaism's focus is not on the heavens but on the earth, not on a disembodied existence in the sky but on souls animating bodies and doing good deeds here on earth. Our ground zero is not G-d's celestial throne but the earth's sacred spaces.
I have no intention of converting Hitchens to my religious point of view and do not believe I could do so even if I wished.
But I can convince Hitchens that his ideas about religious people are wrong. That we are strong rather than weak, focused on this life rather than the next, dedicated to healing the world rather than gaining entry into the heavens, fundamentally opposed to fundamentalists, extremely suspicious of any kind of extremists, and open to ideas - and criticism - from every quarter.
And that's what Rabbi Zusya was trying to demonstrate in his story. Religious people learn how to serve G-d and humankind better from all whom they meet.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the host of 'The Shmuley Show' on 77 WABC in NYC, America's most listened-to talk radio station. He is the international best-selling author of 23 books and was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium. As host of 'Shalom in the Home' on TLC he won the National Fatherhood Award and his syndicated column was awarded the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. Newsweek calls him 'the most famous Rabbi in America.' He has just published 'Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.' Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
Follow Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiShmuley
Rabbi Jennifer Krause: Don't Pray for Christopher Hitchens
Dr. Denis Alexander: How Evolution Gets Used and Abused in the Science-Religion Debate
Where's the evidence for that claim?
Now, compare what we experience of pure conscious virtue with the Law of Gravity. Give both equal worth since both are based on fundamental facts. Who loves a loved one with the sense that their virtue, the ideal they strive for is flawed? If we felt in our hearts that Love is flawed, we would never strive for her, indeed, we couldn't even conceive of her. Though we are flawed, yet we touch in our consciousness something that is real, and dare say perfect. This is not a wish. We recognize this as a conscious fact. And in this beautiful conscious fact of say, Love, we find only Life within it, for its very nature is mutually exclusive of death or corruption.
The afterlife you will seek to prove is indeed proven everyday in the here and now, as you said, for it is proven through each eternal conscious virtue, that is more than just a mere thought, for Love is a consciousness with a will, with Understanding, Justice, Truth, Peace, Wisdom, and Life. Just as we ourselves are more than just a thought.
Unfortunately, from my experience, the views listed are not typical of "religious people", but represents a minority of them -certainly world-wide, and this minority most nonreligious people would have no particular quarrel with.
- even though they have not yet accepted the final step of casting off the primitive Western religions, by recognizing that the existence of a personal God, who is in any way involved in our day to day lives, is a highly unlikely proposition, for which there is no good evidence to support it, and so should be dismissed without serious consideration
Secondly, you talk as if faith came first, and atheism exists only because religion does. Mankind had superstitions before any god was conceived, and many gods before the One G-d was conceived, or found if you will. And before all that, there were no gods of any kind. And what is superstition or even organized religion but the attempt by Man to control what he cannot by claiming to understand why things happen, or at least who causes them to occur?
Third, explain to all the people out there who do believe life is more than purely physical but who do not hold to any strict definition of G-d as required by organized religions, their individual standing with your G-d. Isn’t the only difference between the Jewish, Christian and Muslim G-d the names and rituals humans have attached to this Being? What’s more important, sir, the common values each Faith claims or the ability of each faith to claim G-d as their own?
You would argue atheism makes no sense; but to many outside religious communities, claiming to know, understand or even speak with Omnipotence sounds outright insane.
Signed Lucid (not Lucifer) in California
That sums up everything you need to know about religious people. Unless you are omniscient, it is impossible to know anything with certainty. So you have to either claim to be omniscient, and therefore possess the capacity to know everything and thereby gain certainty, in which case you are a lunatic, or you have to admit you don't know everything there is to know, but still claim certainty, in which case your an illogical fool.
As human beings who are limited, we can strive to make informed judgements based on what we perceive. What one religious person or another believes may be completely accurate, but the hubris and ignorance for an imperfect being to claim absolute knowledge is simply ridiculous.
But, I disagree that "it is impossible to know anything with certainty", and that you would have to be "omniscient" in order to know "anything".
I know many things, but I don't claim to be omniscient.
When religionists claim to know with certainty that god/s exist, it's not ridiculous because they don't know everything ... it's ridiculous because there is no evidence to back up that claim.
I would suggest that as limited, non-omniscient beings, we can only do our best to interpret our perceptions, process the information we have available, and make our best judgements. Without complete knowledge of everything and complete understanding and an infinite capacity to reason, there is uncertainty and unknowns by definition.
Food for thought.
What, if not matters of life and death form our personal truths? The fact that we exist with so much deeply intent meaning and then suddenly don't is an intense feature of life, and you can hardly fault someone for changing their mind based on a new perspective as they move through various stages of life.
The ability to change our mind is a) great, one of the best parts about being human, and b) sometime a very, very scary thing to do.
Cowardice? Yeah, in theory it can be, but no, not in all cases. I find the conservative antipathy for changing your mind, flip-flopping, they call it, to be a form of harassment the movement inflicts on its members in anticipation of anyone of them possibly questioning the mythological ghost stories used to keep people in their place.
Don't be afraid to change your mind.
Add the idea that most religions, perhaps Judaism is an exception, has an evangelical aspect to it. This evangelical aspect is what makes them dangerous. When a religion gets to have overwhelming influence on the political state watch out! Witness not just sharia law in Muslim States but the Inquisition in the Middle Ages in Christian States.
You said it Rabbi Boteach. That's the way it is - you won't be convincing Hitchens that's it's just not so anytime soon. Good Luck with your debate!