“But most people believe in God…” – You’ve probably heard this winning argument in one of your endless discussions with some religious preacher. The calculation done by our partner to the discussion is pretty obvious: Let’s take the number of Christians in the world (say about 2 billion) together with the number of world’s Muslims […]

Knowledge of religion is often portrayed as “wisdom”, and memorizing religious verdicts is often referred to as “studying”. However, the real attitude of religion towards true studying is like a double-edged sword. This is true for many religions of the world, is in particular true for the big Western ones, namely the various trends of […]

A soldier in the IDF has been put into a month of detention, because… a package of hamburger was found in his private fridge, in his room. Now, let me make this clear: This was not an issue of health. It was not some commercial thing. No money was involved in the reason for this […]

The big parties in the Israeli parliament (the “Knesset”) quarrel over the image of the future government. One of the main issues? Things associated with a bit more separation of church and state. In particular: Public transportation in the weekends, the right of every couple to get married regardless of religious constraints, compulsory basic education […]

The Amazon rainforest is on fire, while many world leaders are troubled by customs wars, local disputes or elections propaganda. This just demonstrates the short-term thinking of the human mind. We generally don’t perceive the risks of global warming or overpopulation for the same reason we don’t really perceive animals’ and plants’ evolution. Ironically the […]

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 […]

It’s election time again in Israel. Something that happens frequently. Some Jewish religious political parties have found this time appropriate for attracting voters by promoting a hate campaign against homosexuals and lesbians. The current slogans involve using the terms “natural” and sometimes also “majority”. Supposedly it’s not “natural” for a couple of the same gender […]

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 […]

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 […]

And you thought a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. Maybe, but even if so, a synagogue is still not a synagogue. Following the terrible shooting of many Jewish people inside a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the story was published and the act was condemned by every sane person worldwide. It was also condemned […]