In most Western countries with Christian orientation, the question itself is pretty obvious. ‘Belief in God’ for a typical American would usually be accompanied by some common Christian behaviors, and since many of these are optional, it could be translated into simple everyday habits. Nothing special that can be recognized by an outsider, unless they specifically ask.

Not so for an observant Jew. The amount of strict rules enforced by Orthodox Judaism is enormous, many of which are directly related to how one is dressed, how they talk, what they eat, you name it. Hence, asking a Jewish person ‘are you religious’ – seems unnecessary. If they are, you quickly see it without asking.

So far, the minority of Israeli citizens of Jewish origins would answer ‘yes’ and be classified that way. Yet, a recent survey revealed 80% of Israeli Jews ‘believe in God’… What is the meaning of this? How can one define him or herself as ’secular’ and believe in God at the same time?

I suppose the explanation has to do with both the way we are brought up and the way our mind has evolved, but whatever the reasons are, the road from ’secular but believe in God’ to ‘religious’ is pretty clear. It is that road that poses the real danger to the future of modern Israel.

Perhaps the most striking attribute of a legend is to assign human-like behaviors to other “things”. These can be animals, plants, and of course silent objects (where does Bugs Bunny fit in this classification?). Some call it ‘personification’, and others would use the term ‘anthropomorphism’ (look up Google for the difference).

The most interesting usage of personification stories involves fooling around with the personification issue itself. Take Pinocchio for example: He (it?) started his (its?) way as a wooden puppet being assembled by a skilled carpenter. In the end… well, we all know what happened. Want another example? How about The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? That is a fine example of splitting one conscious mind into several. Who Framed Roger Rabbit set the standard for a mixed human-cartoon plot. And the list grows on and on.

The ancient Greek mythology, and for that matter, many ancient mythologies, made use of their own Pinocchios, building, destroying, bringing to life, and shutting down each other. Some of these mythologies really made it to the top with Pinocchio making Geppetto, as in God making man in his workshop: First version from earth, second version from a rib.

Many legends have managed to remain under the ‘legend’ tag. Some have managed to escape.

This may be a symptom of the steep slope on which the State of Israel is quickly going down with its cultrure (and subsequently with its very existence).

However, one major point remains un-asked: If the Almighty wanted to, he would have prevented those sons and daughters from becoming a “memory” altogether, saving them from being killed in action.

Don’t you think it’s ironic to ask the killer to remember his victims?

“And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God” (1 Kings, Chapter 18, Verse 24)

The meaning of ‘Hezbollah’ in Arabic is “God’s party” (’party’ as in ‘political party’). The meaning of Nasrallah’s name in Arabic is no less than “God’s victory”. ‘Allah’, so it seems, plays a major role in the recent conflict on Israel’s north border, between the State of Israel and the Lebanese-Iranian terrorist party that resides in several bunkers in the south of Lebanon.

Using an idiom set by Israeli Channel Two’s Amnon Abramovitch, we have a Muslim-Haredi politician in the land of cedars, recruiting his ‘Allah’ for fighting the Zionist heretics. The Lebanese politician, who sells arrogant preaching with pathos as tactics for raising reliability among certain people, doesn’t have exclusivity on the arrogant preaching tactics, nor on recruiting this ‘Allah’ for his private goals. He was preceded with both things by many other “good” people, some from the same era and region, such as Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, as well as many other mythological figures of the region.

There’s not much difference between the ancient world, where when two nations that fought each other brought their own gods into the battle, and the modern world, where when two nations that fight each other bring God into the campaign. For that matter, it would be interesting to compare the many speeches made by Saddam Hussein and George Bush (Sr.) in the beginning of 2003. If the Christian God is the same entity as the Islamic one, he must be suffering from a split personality.

In practice, almost every politician given a microphone in front of him performs this sin of cheap godly demagogy. One should hear the speeches in almost any modern parliament (including the Israeli ‘Knesset’) in order to realize how God is recruited, often with great purpose, many times unintentionally, for the benefit of the speaker.

‘God’, ‘Allah’, ‘Elohim’, and ‘El’ penetrated not only the names of strict believers, but also our day-to-day language and purely secular names. Starting with “Thank God” and ending with names like Eliyahu, Elhanan, Emanuel, Michael and their many linguistic sibs. A similar thing happened to God’s remote relative ‘Jehova’, ‘Yehova’, ‘Yahweh’ and ‘Yah’ with names such as Ovadia, Yehonathan, Yehoram, Hallelujah, John, Judy and many others.

‘El’, as we know, was the top god of the ancient Canaanite-Phoenician pantheon, also revealed in the excavations of Ugarit from the 14th century BC. We don’t know for certain how did these ancient Lebanese inherited El’s name, and from which even more ancient civilizations, if any. We do know how its name later evolved into ancient Israel’s ‘Elohim’, and ‘Allah’ of the Muslim world. How ironic it is that “El’s party” and the terrorist preacher named “El’s victory” appeared nowadays in Middle East history in the same geographical region where their name had originally showed up, to the best of our knowledge.

“El’s victory” and the victorious ‘El’

Recruiting “force majeure” for the benefit of man is a result of our characteristics, and a natural thing to do under many circumstances and difficulties. When we endure great suffer, we tend to call every god upon which we were brought up, even upon its name alone. We may do so silently in our heart, or we may do so explicitly and loudly. There’s nothing wrong with that, and nothing to criticize. This is how we are built.

The much-needed (and often absent) criticism is about the cold manipulative and well-planned usage of these “super forces” to justify horrible acts on behalf of the user/recruiter. Sometimes meant for the ears of the audience, and many other times as self-justifications for the preacher himself. ‘Allah’ in this sense has turned into just another weapon in the arsenal of war politics. And those who use various weapons should not wonder when these weapons lose their high position together with the results of using them.

Man: It’s the influence of television. Yeah, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a-a high, uh, high intensity, you understand? A hot medium … as opposed to a …

Singer: What I wouldn’t give for a large sock o’ horse manure.

Man: … as opposed to a print …

Singer: (addressing the audience) What do you do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you? I mean it’s just maddening!

Man: (addressing the audience) Wait a minute, why can’t I give my opinion? It’s a free country!

Singer: I mean, d- He can give you- Do you hafta give it so loud? I mean, aren’t you ashamed to pontificate like that? And-and the funny part of it is, M-Marshall McLuhan, you don’t know anything about Marshall McLuhan’s…work!

Man: Wait a minute! Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called “TV Media and Culture”! So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan – well, have a great deal of validity.

Singer: Oh, do yuh?

Man: Yes.

Singer: Well, that’s funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. So … so, here, just let me – I mean, all right. Come over here … a second.

Man: Oh.

Singer: (To McLuhan) Tell him.

McLuhan: (To the man) I hear – I heard what you were saying. You- you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

Singer: (addressing the audience) Boy, if life were only like this!

Taking it even one step further: A Biblical verse, if containing some controversial idea, will most likely be criticized or dismissed as “misunderstood” when quoted by a non-religious person (try it – it’s fun). The interpretation in this case may often be proposed as a wrong one. However, the same verse may get lots of attention, perhaps even hours of lecture time when presented by a religious authority. The interpretation then is not to be argued, even if it’s similar to the previous one.

The issue of the alleged divinity of the sages has another interesting perspective. Theoretically speaking, there are two contradicting options: Either those who wrote the Talmud, for instance, were speaking the actual words of God, or they simply wrote whatever was on their human minds. If they did quote the Almighty on everything, then this raises considerable doubts about His Holiness’ knowledge of the world he’d created. Doesn’t he know insects are not formed of human sweat (the tractate of ‘Shabbos’)? Doesn’t he know cats and birds don’t carry poison in their fingernails (the tractate of ‘Chulin’)? Isn’t he aware of the fact that the trachea does not reach the heart and the liver (again the tractate of ‘Chulin’)? Doesn’t he know rabbits, hares and badgers don’t ruminate (the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy)? Is he confused about the relative movement of the Sun and the Earth (the tractate of ‘Pesachim’)? Hell, he can’t even properly count the verses of his own Bible (the tractate of ‘Kidushin’)! And there are many more similar examples!

On the other hand, if they simply wrote whatever was on their earthly minds, then why follow the ancient dictated rules? Why follow commands that were perhaps more appropriate for the era when they were written? Why not adopt an updated codex of rules, made also by humans – but humans who are equipped with modern knowledge of our recent time? And even more importantly: Why not allow the questioning and changing of the old man-made rules?

Even if we do distinguish (as some people do) between the Biblical text and the later extensions – as it happens, most of the religious day-to-day rituals and rules are derived from those extensions and not from the original Bible. This is certainly true for Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

So we make good use of our ancient messengers, our “middle men”. In practice, they are our gods much more than the concept we use to name as such.

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“Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.” – Samuel Palmer

How do we know God wants us to refrain from stealing from others? How can we be so sure the Almighty is against adultery? After all, it’s kind of difficult to pinpoint any individual meeting with him (her? them?) recently. Yet, millions of people seem to know exactly what this mysterious super-power requires from them, to the very last detail.

Not to worry. Where the distance between God and man appears to be too big, there comes the messenger. He is typically a male figure. He carries with him some impressive personality and often also certain extreme physical characteristics. Painters and sculptors love him. He seems to have had breakfast with God every other day. What’s much more important – he has been dead for quite a while now, so there’s no way to really ask him about God’s favorite kind of coffee. Some say he’ll come back one day, as part of the overall deal, so there’s another good reason to follow his messages.

We call them “prophets”, “saviors”, “sages” and “Messiahs”. We name them “Moses”, “Jesus”, “Eliyahu”, “Muhammad”, and other ancient names. It’s easier for us to relate to their human appearance and to the tangible texts they allegedly left behind, than to some abstract God. They of-course penetrate our mind at a young age, together in the same package with heaven, angels and respect to the unknown.

So, not all men are created equal. If you ask the Christians, not all men are even created men – some are genetically related to God (hmmm). Actually, the Hebrew Bible also mentions “sons of gods” in various places (Genesis, Psalms), which seems to be inherited from older Canaanite texts. The Jews have it organized a bit differently: The sages are said to be closer to God and succeeding generations are said to lessen in spiritual power – thus simply reversing the facts of human and cultural development.

Our tendency to look for cosmic conspiracies makes it easy for us to glorify ancient events as well as old heroes. The stories about them are found here and now, but their human weaknesses are not visible to us. Can you imagine your favorite hero in some embarrassing situations? Perhaps cheating someone, having a sexual fantasy, or even suffering from diarrhea? Instead we typically imagine them with shiny eyes, standing powerfully in a high spot, speaking words of guidance.

Alas, even the words they speak in our books are not necessarily their own words. We almost take for granted the way modern media and politics alter what leaders and politicians have to say. Yet we totally ignore the fact that this trend has not been recently invented. Putting words in someone else’s mouth is a very old art. Modern studies demonstrate many such cases in the Jewish Talmud, for example. It requires a great measure of naivety to assume the absolute integrity of any ancient text, especially one that deals with people.

If you came across the legendary British TV series “Yes, Minister” (and later named, “Yes, Prime Minister”) – lucky you! Manipulating someone else’s words can be done directly, but the more elegant and stealth way to do it is to reinterpret the meaning. You can say almost anything you want about someone’s words as long as he or she is not there to defend their original meaning. The Talmud is literally full with “X said Y but he actually meant Z”. The sentence gets extra strength when the interpreter himself (never herself!) is also considered sacred enough.

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The Daily Planet’s roof.

Superman is standing on the roof, looking down. Even an ordinary man with no super powers would notice the situation down below is far from ideal. The town is on fire, and in the few places still untouched by the fire, the citizens of Metropolis took upon themselves the task of enhancing the chaos with riots and looting.

The voice of Lois Lane is heard from behind: “Aren’t you going to do something?”

While her question is not really a surprise, his answer manages to surprise her: “No.”

“No? What do you mean ‘No’?”

“No means ‘No’.”

Just like that. Plain and simple. It looks like Superman has decided to quit the super-hero business. Exercising her journalist curiosity, she continues to question him: “But you are Superman! You can fix all that before dinner…”

“I’m through with this saving business. From now on I’ll just stand here on the roof and watch you humans kill, rape, steal and who knows what else.”

“What made you decide that? Has Lex Luther taken over your brain again?”

“Nope, it’s my own decision.”

“But… why?”

– * — * –

Why indeed? This is the real question.

Superman does have the power to stop this thing in seconds, but he chooses not to do it, for reasons known only to him.

So what does that make him?

It makes him appear lazy. He can just move a finger and help the world – it wouldn’t require too much from him. It makes him a real sociopath. Enjoying the sunset with clouds of smoke in the background, while people suffer down below. It makes him evil. It’s a situation better fit for an evil character than for the superhero.

What does it tell us about him?

It means he is not a hero. A real hero helps when there is a need, rather than standing high above and watching the sunset, with clouds of smoke in the background. It means he is not good hearted. Someone with a good heart would help others in trouble.

– * — * –

But wait a minute! It’s clear that Superman would never do something like this. After all he is Superman – that’s his very name. So where does all this lead to?

Let’s explain this in two ways:

First: In the above text, replace the name “Lois Lane” with yours, and replace “Superman” with “God”.

Second: This version elaborates on the first one. Several comparisons can be drawn between God and Superman:

Both have super powers.

Both have the ability to make the world a better place.

Both have books written about them, describing their heroic acts.

Both are admired by many people worldwide (not necessarily those who purchase every Superman comic only never to take it out of the wrapper, but rather from the point of view of the “ordinary” people in Superman’s universe).

There are, of-course some differences as well:

Superman is not a god.

Superman uses his powers to help mankind (preventing floods, fires, earthquakes etc.) and if he fails, it’s because some things are beyond his powers, not because he doesn’t try.

– * — * –

The last difference must have infuriated quite a few readers, so let me explain the logic behind it: Unlike the story I told above, Superman would never step aside watching some disaster without attempting to help. God would.

How come I dare claim that God would just step aside and do nothing? How do I know he hasn’t saved many people in each of the disasters that happened to mankind?

God allegedly has the power to stop every catastrophe immediately. So immediately, in fact, that he can stop a disaster even before it claims its first victim. You see, God is allegedly almighty, but if he cannot stop disasters in this way, then he is not almighty.

Now I’m sure no one will argue with me about the fact that disasters do happen, and therefore we come up with only two possible logical conclusions:

1. There is no almighty god.

2. God exists, but chooses to stand on the Daily Planet’s roof, doing nothing.

– * — * –

Let’s concentrate for a moment on the second possibility, and return to Superman’s roof example.

I wonder what Superman’s admirers down below would think about him, once they find out that he could have stopped all this, but chose not to.

Will they be disappointed? No doubt.

Will they cease to “believe” in him? Probably yes.

However, when God stands up on the roof of the building and people down below die in fires, tsunamis, 9/11, the Holocaust – they not only don’t wonder why hasn’t God lifted a finger in the direction of saving them, but they even worship him.

Do they cease to believe in God as a result? Illogically, only a few do so.

“Tell me yourself, what will cause you to quit believing… Is there anything that will stop your belief?”

Now, let’s analyze for a moment the possible answers to this question. Your friend may answer something that boils down to “nothing”. If he/she does so, then this is a declaration that his/her belief is not based on any evidence whatsoever. If it were based on some findings and conclusions, then the potential discovery of contradicting findings would be sufficient for him/her to generate different conclusions – a thing that he/she says will never happen.

In other words, he (or she… well you know…) who gives such answer, declares his faith to be blind faith; and it’s pointless to argue about it, since he declares in advance, that every claim presented – even if true and overwhelming – will not be sufficient to change his belief.

A different kind of answer may be: “If XXX happens / if I see XXX, then I’ll stop believing”. Such an answer opens up a possibility for an interesting discussion, as the person who uses it declares his faith to depend upon extraneous factors. He stipulates certain conditions to God, and pretends to understand better than him when this god is right and when he is wrong in his deeds.

A belief that presents conditions to God is in contrast with, say, the principles if the Jewish faith, as phrased by the Rambam and the Talmud (and others), stating that one should never doubt, and worship God for “no prize”.

Your religious friend may of-course reciprocate the question to you: “What will make you start believing and being religious?” However, this is what’s it all about: The rationalist skeptic, whose ways of life are derived from self-choices and logic conclusions, should have no problem stating he will decide according to what he will see and be convinced, subject to future changes, if and when new things will be revealed. The scientific approach gives here pretty clear answers (which also demand a more precise definition of what “religious” and “God” are).

Taken from Hebrew: http://hofesh.org.il/articles/jew/faith-and-jewish-flavors.html

Is the Islamic ‘Allah’ the same as the Jewish ‘Elohim’? If not, are they related? Are they enemies? If they are the same, how come so many millions of people know they think differently? Taking it one step further: What’s the connection between the existence of a creator, and the ridiculous, day-to-day rituals carried out by millions? The different religions of the world tend to drill this point carefully in our minds, using various kinds of human or semi-human messengers as a link to God.

Digging into the writings and sayings of some famous Jewish rabbis, philosophers and preachers, one can find two conflicting views for reason and belief: There are those who actually attempt to prove their way of life; they come up with some partially logic-based statements to convince and prove to others (or perhaps even to prove to themselves) that the Bible came from God, etc. We can find an example of this (which will be discussed later) in Rabbi Yehuda HaLevy’s famous 900 year old book, ‘The Kuzari’. And yet there are those, such as the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who claimed that they believe simply because they choose to, not because of reality-based reasoning.

Some people choose to believe in God as a calming mechanism. They find it really disturbing for their very essence to be made of flesh and act according to the outcome of chemical reactions. If I expect nothing after I’m dead, what hope do I have? What keeps me going? This is a comfort-driven belief. I am also terribly depressed due to the amount of wars, hunger and disease worldwide… perhaps I should believe all of it is not there, which will make me much happier? What keeps me going is personal goals, values, my family and friends, physiological reasons – a combination of many things.

Does it really matter? Does it have any impact on our lives if the world is managed by God or by the rules of physics?

The mathematician Alan Turing, who lived in the UK in the 20th century, devised a test for artificial intelligence. Imagine the following situation: You are given two rooms. In one room there’s a computer with an intelligent program that attempts to mimic the thinking of a human being. In the other room there’s an actual person. By similar means (say, by a messenger) you ask both of them identical questions of your choosing, and you receive their answers. If, after a while and in spite of everything, you cannot tell the computer from the person, then the computer program would be regarded as truly artificially intelligent.

The Turing Test was built with artificial intelligence in mind. Apart from the fact that in the early days of computing people were possessed with enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, this could simply be a test for intelligence (‘artificial’ omitted). From the point of view of the person who asks the questions, there’s no real difference between the machine and the human being made of flesh and bone.

Most people with an interest in God imagine an entity with self-awareness. Unlike the intelligent computer in the Turing Test, the real human being is aware of their own existence, with his or her own feelings and will. However, just like in the Turing Test, the self-awareness of some other entity is not something to be taken for granted. We humans tend to grant human-like characteristics to many of the gods invented by us over history, and self-awareness is certainly one of these characteristics.

So, just like in the Turing Test, does it make a real difference to us whether we have a thinking, feeling, human-like God? We want the world to have such a God, for it helps us to complete our limited picture of the world and provides us with easy answers to many tough questions. We may even feel there is such a God and there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s more, this is the way we have been brought up and have been constantly influenced by the environment that shaped our mind: Parents, teachers, preachers, stories, even our spoken language, God forbid.

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“When we talk to God we are praying; when God talks to us, we are schizophrenic.” – Lily Tomlin

God is usually kept at a safe distance. It’s politically correct to mention his deeds, his presence, and it’s perfectly okay to use his name (well, some of his names, depending on your exact education) on bills of money and inside thick books. Yet, one should not get too explicit with this trend, or he or she loses all credibility.

Try this experiment: Approach a police officer, or a judge, or a teacher of religion, and insist that you had a chat with God yesterday – a real discussion, not one over the Internet or within your heart. Try to present some hard evidence – something like a piece of paper given to you by the Almighty, with some clearly stated divine message. Don’t forget to take with you some extra clothes for one night, and a toothbrush. You may need them later.

The question “Do you believe in God?” is perhaps the second most asked question in the world (after “How are you?”). If for a moment we ignore the strange urge to ask a question whose answer is supposed to be in consensus, we’re left with a question that lacks some basic elements.

What does it mean to ‘believe in’ something? From the general linguistic aspect, if you really believe something is true, you normally don’t say, “I believe it’s true”. You simply say, “It’s true”. Furthermore, “I believe this is what happened” is frequently used to imply, “I think this is what happened, but I’m not sure”. And if God is part of a belief, then why do so many preachers attempt to prove its existence? Let’s continue with the obvious fact that this question is not fully defined in one more aspect: What is the meaning of this strange word, ‘God’? If both the person who asks and the person who answers share the same interpretation of this word, then this by itself is a giant step towards recognizing the concepts involved in the original question.

So what is the meaning of the word ‘God’ in the above question? You can find a great number of definitions. Some of them are not so problematic: God is everything, God is everywhere, are real close to the ‘God = Nature’ equation (remember Spinoza?). Some may assign this name to the set of basic rules of physics, driving our universe. In that sense – yes, it’s quite difficult not to believe in such a ‘God’.

Even so, you’ll often hear of ‘God’ as the creator. Have you ever heard the famous watchmaker analogy? A man walks in an open field and suddenly observes a shiny object from a distance. As he gets closer to the object, he sees a beautiful watch visibly lying in the dirt, ticking the time. He concludes that someone must have created this nice and complex object – there’s no way it could create itself. Similarly, if you look around at our beautiful and much more complex world, you must come up with an analogous conclusion: Someone must have created this masterpiece.

Neat, eh? So what is more complex – the watch or the world around it? Observe that in the beginning of our little story, the watch was the more complex object, while in its end, the world around it turned out to be much more complex… Note also that given enough time, there is a way that nature around us could be created by itself based on the rules of physics. Every scientist will tell you how this can be, at least when they are talking in reality mode (hope you still remember the previous chapters!).

And by the way, the reason we thought the watch had been created by someone has nothing to do with complexity. We thought so because it looked artificial and contained objects whose shapes were too perfect for the natural surroundings and too different from it. We would have thought the same seeing only a single hand of the watch.

Moreover, much of the complex living kingdom around the watch has been formed gradually, through processes of multiplication and natural selection. No watches have been seen multiplying, yet.

Logic is a true competitor of religion, even if, as in some Jewish Talmudic discussions, these two sometimes interestingly attempt to approach each other.

Let’s leave the complex watch ticking and go back to the complex world (or universe, if you will). There’s no argument that the world around us is complex. Complexity is, of-course, a relative thing. It depends on our own ability to memorize many details and understand the relationships between them. A modern PC is very complex. A car engine is also complex. In the eyes of a domestic cat, a mousetrap is probably a miraculous object. We’ll come back to this point in a later chapter.

But assuming the universe is really, really, really complex, does it necessarily mean it must have been created by someone? If so, then this creator must have been extremely complex himself. Hence, using exactly the same logic, someone must have created him as well…

Further, what does this complexity have to do with baptism? Is the beauty of the world enough reason to eat kosher? Should the intriguing laws of physics dictate pilgrimage to Mecca?

You may have heard the elusive claim: “There’s no proof that there’s no God”. Who says there’s a single creator? There’s also no proof that there aren’t two Gods. Perhaps there are several Gods? Perhaps there’s a whole super-universe filled with super-creatures playing with inferior universes such as ours, just like in some science fiction stories?

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