Rational people are often blamed for allegedly worshipping scientists’ words. In practice, “worshipping” and blindly following words — is something I tend to associate with religious believers, even if I hope it’s not true for each and every one of them. No man, whether a scientist or some religious authority, even if considered “respectable” by […]

This question has bothered me for a long time. It still does. I watch TV and see some local religious preacher talks about, say, evolution. He (it’s almost always a “he”) enthusiastically explains how humans differ from all animals and not associated with them. Some other time he explains about the “history” of the great […]

There is a big difference between how we perceive the world with our brain and how it really is. Furthermore, this difference is growing bigger as we discover more and more stuff about the world, especially about the behavior of very large things (as in astronomy) and very small things (as in quantum mechanics). The […]

The following partially-translated article appeared in one of Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious newspapers, “Yated Ne’eman” (name roughly translated into “Faithful Tent-Peg”) on May 2000. It was written by Rabbi Chaim Shaul Karelitz, one of the most prominent leaders of the Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy at the time, and largely reflected the Jewish ultra-Orthodox attitude towards the state […]

How do you know when modern law is influenced by old archaic religious rules? At least one of the criteria is when it becomes too “recursive” – when it starts heavily dealing with itself. Laws about the law. Ancient legislators were well-aware of the fact that things may change in the future. Anxious to preserve […]

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 […]

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. […]

The scientific method has developed significantly during the recent centuries, along with the dramatic development of science and technology, which derived from putting that method to the test. None of our ancient “sages” ever came close to the tip of the current scientific knowledge iceberg, starting from the structure of the universe and its laws, […]

Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s actually good that many religious preachers nowadays tend to spread extremely-stupid contents… In the land of milk and honey, even the state itself tends to do so, courtesy of the Ministry of Education. So how can it be good? Let’s see: In ancient times, when someone with authority said God […]

On the alleged symmetry between religion and atheism One of the arguments raised in countless discussions with various believers, deals with the alleged symmetry between religious faith and “atheism”. The religious believer may claim that atheists vigorously defend their viewpoints, just like religious believers. Furthermore, he or she may give many examples in which the […]