Many of us are familiar with the “Brain in a jar” (also known as “Brain in a vat”) thought experiment. It talks about a hypothetical mad scientist who removes a person’s brain from the body, suspends it in a jar full of life-sustaining liquid, and connects its neurons to a computer which provides electrical impulses […]

It’s that time of the year again… when the number changes and people celebrate. Progress has taken its toll, and terms like “Christmas”, “New Year’s Eve” and “Silvester” have all mixed up worldwide into something vague, often called “the holiday season”. This may include vacations, Christmas trees and pictures or dolls of the imaginary Santa […]

Many of my arguments with others about “God” (or gods in general) stumble sooner or later upon the issue of an “incomprehensible entity”. This phase of the argument may have several flavors. Sometimes, the mythological god is described as an entity we cannot see and feel. Other times it is portrayed as something that is […]

Apparently, it’s very hard to leave an ultra-Orthodox Jewish environment not only in Israel, but also in the U.S.A. Netflix has released a wonderful new peace, describing the extreme difficulties of people trying to leave the “Hasidic” New-York community. The latter does its best to make life miserable for those who want to break free, […]

“The State of Israel … will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex …” — From the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel Wait a minute… Suppose someone’s religion is in favor of killing innocent people? Does he or she still […]

Many religious leaders don’t want their flock to study science. The excuses may vary. Some say they want the people to concentrate on studying [what they claim is the] “important things”. Others don’t want them to, say, have males and females in the same class. No matter what the “official” reason is, it always boils […]

This week the Jewish people, specifically the religious ones, mark the date of “the ninth of Av” – when according to Jewish tradition the second temple (and presumably also the first one) was destroyed, and many were killed. There are many similarities between the disasters of “the ninth of Av”, about 2,000 years ago, and […]

Proportions are nice. Putting things in proportions is an important thing. Often it makes us feel a bit humble, causes us to think a little about the world around us. Thinking, you know, may promote unwanted actions :) Consider for example the rocks and stones in Jerusalem. The Western Wall – one of the most […]

The State of Israel is committed — according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — to enable every “men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, [to] have the right to marry and to found a family”. Commitment is nice, but reality is more complex. The Jewish […]

By Ido Sokolovsky (Original article in Hebrew here) Basically, there are two types of religious people in our world. There are those who draw the line between their world of values and the real world, still there are those who don’t. In Israel, the most prominent representative of the first kind was the late Prof. […]