Acclaimed polemicist and atheist Christopher Hitchens traded wit on science and scripture last week at a debate titled “Does God Exist?” with his opponent, Orthodox rabbi and television host Shmuley Boteach.
Ticket holders filled the auditorium at Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y to capacity; many hoped that Hitchens would demonstrate his irreverent, razor-edged reasoning. The fans weren’t disappointed.
“We’re all atheists,” Hitchens argued in his dry British timbre. “We no longer believe we need to tear the beating heart out of a virgin to make the sun rise. We no longer believe in the sun god Ra or in Zeus, and we now must go one step further.”
A critical essayist known for his caustic prose and attempted literary assassinations of popular figures (including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi), Hitchens recently aimed his arrows at the divine with his book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”
At the podium, Hitchens — who discovered his Jewish ancestry only as an adult — called religion a “pernicious belief” that does “nothing good for our poorly evolved species.” He bemoaned the human psyche, which “prefers junk explanation over no explanation,” and called the belief in God “the first explanation, and the worst explanation” for the state of existence.
The human race has “nothing to look forward to,” Hitchens said, given the fact that extinction could come about in the near future, and if not soon, then within the next 5 billion years, when the Andromeda galaxy collides with our own.
Boteach took the podium next. “After hearing that,” he began, “I’m colossally depressed. If the Andromeda galaxy doesn’t finish me off, Christopher Hitchens will.” Boteach is the author of several books on Orthodox life in the modern world, including “Kosher Sex.” He hosts the show “Shalom in the Home” on The Learning Channel.
Boteach attacked his opponent’s recent book, calling it Hitchens’s “worst work yet, full of falsity.” A proponent of Intelligent Design, Boteach labeled Hitchens a scientific reductionist who belittled humanity as a race of poorly evolved apes.
“We might be 98% identical to primates,” Boteach asserted, “but in that 2% lays intellect and morality.” The rabbi asked how Hitchens could call the Bible “inhumane” when it commanded humankind to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
In his rebuttal, Hitchens asked, “What happened to the Midianites?” and argued that the Bible clearly approved of genocide. “It’s a good thing those books are fiction,” he said.
"<em>Marc Brukhes said: I think it is wrong to deduce--whether from the religious perspective of a fundamentalist Christian or a West-Bank settler, or from an atheistic standpoint seeking to discredit religion "by any means necessary"</em> I reject your characterization of accurately describing the genocide alleged to have been committed by Moses and his followers as some sort of radical attack on Judaism by "any means necessary." To recount the murder of the Midianites is to describe the actions supposed to have been taken with the approval of God. If God is the source of morality and God's word and actions are exemplified in the Torah then the actions taken on His behalf by his chosen disciples with His approval are entirely relevant to the credibility of God and the Torah as a source of morality. If the murder of children is not moral then neither God nor the Torah can be said to be moral--unless one wishes to claim the ground of moral relativity, for which, ironically, God and the Pentateuch are supposed to be the antidote. "<em>--that because the massacre of the Midianites appears in the Bible, therefore Judaism embraces this incident as the source of its spiritual identity or moral authority. The source of Judaism as a living religion is not "the Bible" but "the Torah," meaning not only the written text of Scripture (the Pentateuch) but the body of texts and interpretive strategies that constitute the religion as a culture and a civilization." Or what I like to think of as the "rationalizations" for all of the untenable horrors in the bible. <em>"The Bible presents the massacre of the Midianites and "love thy neighbor as thyself" as two undifferentiated parts of the same text;</em>" Note that it is love thy neighbor--as in "those of your people"--not love all men. Thus it is not inconsistent to kill other tribes, for they are not ones "neighbor." "<em>One doesn't need the Bible to explain why murder or theft or adultery is wrong</em>" Then why do we need the Bible? If it is to study our culture, then fine. But let us not pretend that the Bible is a moral book. Were it so, the Decalogue would be less obsessed with swearing and covetousness and perhaps a little more concerned with stamping out the horrors of rape, slavery and torture. (Funny how there was no room for those in the Decalogue.)
So, Mr. Bruhkes, I assume you would also attribute "a monopoly on metaphysical truth and certitude" to anyone who describes Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the Flying Spaghetti Monster as fictions, and you would be equally uncomfortable with such pronouncements. Are you incapable of seeing how ludicrous such a positions are? Or do you discount the possiblility that the above-named fictional characters truly exist, while inconsistently (and hypocritically) allowing the invisible friend you call God to enjoy an unquestionable status? Either way, your position betrays a shocking intellectual bankruptcy not worthy of an intelligent, educated and honest person. I offer no "caricature" of religious belief, but rather a simple, accurate portrayal: All religion relies on belief in magic. But magic (as well as magical beings, places and things) simply isn't real. It is fiction. Wishing does not make it so. So, please grow up! (Your only alternative to is to acknowledge that the religious mass murderers of September 11, 2001 are now in Heaven, receiving their just reward in the arms of willing virgins.) Magical, invisible friends are for small, not very smart children. There is no mockery indescribing God as your magical, invisible friend; it is perfectly accurate. As for your style of debate, your incivility nicely complements your unreason.
So here we go again, PJ: in response to my observation that you've made a caricature of religious belief you equate a belief in God--any God--with a belief in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny, and you equate all believers--whatever their religion--with the September 11 terrorists. I'm left unconvinced by such arguments that yours is the side of reasonableness and mine the side of irrationality. In fact, your whole premise is faulty from the outset because you claim that atheism is morally and intellectually superior to belief--yet atheism itself is a belief, and one can no more prove the non-existence of God than the existence of God. This is the position I have maintained throughout our dubious exchange, and to this argument you've offered no response other than an increasingly hysterical and ad hominem series of insults. As for whether my debating style is unreasonable, I can only respond by stating, categorically, that I'm not debating you because I'm not expecting any answers from you. The hostility that you've expressed in each of your postings really has nothing to do with me; it's your own irrationality you should be considering at this point.
StanP asks, fairly, "How could a murderous God and disciples like Moses be the source of morality? Is it not more likely that such horror is the product of man?" I tend to agree that people are morally responsible for their own actions and as such it is morally fatuous to attribute good behavior or impute bad behavior to the will of God. It is true that the massacre of the Midianites is narrated in the Bible; there are a lot of stories in the Bible, the moral of which is, at best, inscrutable. I think it is wrong to deduce--whether from the religious perspective of a fundamentalist Christian or a West-Bank settler, or from an atheistic standpoint seeking to discredit religion "by any means necessary"--that because the massacre of the Midianites appears in the Bible, therefore Judaism embraces this incident as the source of its spiritual identity or moral authority. The source of Judaism as a living religion is not "the Bible" but "the Torah," meaning not only the written text of Scripture (the Pentateuch) but the body of texts and interpretive strategies that constitute the religion as a culture and a civilization. The Bible presents the massacre of the Midianites and "love thy neighbor as thyself" as two undifferentiated parts of the same text; it has been the work of Judaism as a religion and a civilization, imperfectly but consistently realized, to elevate the latter statement over the former incident in creating its moral and ethical values. One doesn't need the Bible to explain why murder or theft or adultery is wrong--any more than one needs Christopher Hitchens or Shmuely Boteach to explain this--but one purely secular reason why Judaism maintains the Bible, even the ugly stories in it, as the bedrock of its textual tradition is because a sense of continuity and cultural memory is one of the characteristics of a civilization: the United States, by analogy, can claim as part of its heritage both the genocide of the Native Americans and the Bill of Rights; there is a historical imperative to remember both of these features of American civilization, though it would be wrong to treat them as morally equivalent. Christopher Hitchens seems to be perfectly capable of distinguishing these competing tensions within American history, yet he deliberately conflates them where the history of religion is concerned--which suggests that a fair and reasoned assessment of religion's essential complexity is not really what he has in mind when he initiates these debates.
Full version of the debate is now online at the 92nd St. Y: http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/rabbi_shmuley_boteach_and_christopher_hitchens_full_god_debate_video/ Now, on to a comment: "Marc Bruhkes said: What happened to the Midianites? Indeed, and what happened to the millions of people murdered by Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and the rest of the atheist-totalitarians of the 20th century: religion by no means guarantees elevated moral behavior, unfortunately." You are leaving out the fact that the murder of innocent Midianite children was endorsed by God and Moses. We hold up Stalin, Mao, Hitler and the rest as absolute examples of immorality not virtue, yet Moses and God are held up as virtuous in spite of the murders in their name committed in the Torah. If God is all powerful, He has no need to call for the murder of any man since He could merely make them disappear. How could a murderous God and disciples like Moses be the source of morality? Is it not more likely that such horror is the product of man? For if those murders are the product of God then surely God is not moral in any useful sense of the word.
"SK said: There is really no point in holding such a public debate. Most of the audience members left the place with the same opinions they brought with them. Really? You have a scientific survey to prove that? Even your speculate disproves your point. You speculate that "most" people left with their opinions intact. If some people were swayed then clearly there was a point to such a debate. Nice of you to disprove your own point. While you may well be correct you are speculating. One thing seems rather clear, though, Boteach was awful. As another poster noted, he set up straw man after straw man and couldn't even knock the straw men down. The audience reaction to Boteach quoted in Jewcy is universally negative so I can see why you are trying to argue that such debates are pointless seeing has how your view was so soundly trounced. It is only natural that you would want to distance your self from the event. But, if I may speculate has you have done (only I will acknowledge it as such), I suspect you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss debates if Boteach had managed to make the kind of utter victory that Hitchens did.
What happened to the Midianites, asks Hitchens. I'll tell you what happened to the Midianites. Moses ordered his army, with God's approval, to slaughter the men. Then Moses ordered the captive Midianite boys and non-virgin girls be murdered. Then Moses gave the virgin women and girls to his men as sex slaves. Such moral enlightenment, this Bible has!
Why no comment on the fact the fact that in the debate, Hitchens was having a battle of wits against an unarmed person? Many blogs commented on the shameful debacle to Judaism. Boteach has repeatedly set up "debates" whose real goal is getting him PR, effectively reducing his religion to a cash cow. He's even done it with non-Jews, in non-Jewish venues, anathema to every Jewish tradition. While I am sure he's of the "Doesn't matter what you say, just spell my name right" school, it would at least be appropriate to mention his pitiful performance. He's selling our religion down the river for a few cents. Shame on him, and on you for enabling it.
Hitchens has been staging these foolish disputations around the country to promote his asinine views; it's a repulsive premise for a public forum as nothing constructive can come out of the argument, as the two sides cannot agree to the terms by which meaningful conversation might take place. What happened to the Midianites? Indeed, and what happened to the millions of people murdered by Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and the rest of the atheist-totalitarians of the 20th century: religion by no means guarantees elevated moral behavior, unfortunately. But where Hitchens and his hasidim fail by the terms of their own logic is in their refusal to acknowledge that an absence of religion is (a) itself a religion; (b) no better barometer for moral behavior than believing in Virgin Birth, the parting of the Red Sea, or Mohammad's ascent to heaven. Ironically enough, Hitchens rails against religions for soliciting converts--a charge Judaism is immune from--yet he himself is a proselytizer as well as an inquisitor for militant atheism. Narrow-mindedness and intolerance, not religion, is what really "ruins everything." But preaching against them doesn't sell books or fill lecture halls, which is precisely why Hitchens chooses the strawman he does. He is the atheist version of Jerry Falwell.
Stan: if you will read my original post in response to this article I stated that a debate regarding the existence of God is a waste of time; I am not interested in debating the existence of God with you, Christopher Hitchens, or anyone else. And as I said in another previous post, one can no more prove the non-existence of God than the existence of God. I am responding to your comments, as I've responded to others, because they impute the cultural validity of Judaism specifically and religion in general. Ideas, history, and textual interpretation can be meaningfully and productively debated. Faith and belief cannot. When matters of belief--regarding the existence or non-existence of God, for example--come into conflict, the result is not an exchange of ideas and interpretations, but, as we've both seen (and demonstrated) here, an exchange of insults. It's apparently Christopher Hitchens' idea of a good time--Shmuely Boteach's as well--but it's not how I would choose, ideally, to spend my day, all things considered. Next question?
In his comment, Mark Bruhkes repeats the oft-told lie that Hitler was an atheist. Not one shred of evidence exists that Hitler ever repudiated the Christian beliefs his parents taught him. However, many, many examples exist of Hitler's own words extolling God. Had Mr. Bruhkes taken thirty seconds to Google the words Hitler and atheist, he would have found dozens of direct quotes from Hitler's writings, such as this one from "Mein Kampf": “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” No one has ever produced any direct quotations of Hitler's in which he renounced, or confirmed a lack of, belief in God. Why did Mr. Bruhkes include this patently false assertion that Hitler was an atheist? Only he knows. But two obvious explanations spring to mind. First, Mr. Bruhkes knows that if Hitler were, in fact, a believer in God, then this would sabotage his whole argument against Christopher Hitchens, so he deliberately states the falsehood that Hitler was an atheist. The second explanation would be that he is too intellectually lazy to seek out the facts on Hitler, and has swallowed this lie simply because he heard (or read) someone else repeat it. Mr. Bruhkes, you obviously have access to Google. Why don't you research this issue for a few minutes, and then you can post an apology to us atheists for your slander. (Unless, of course, you find a quote directly attributable to Hitler that contradicts all his other affirmations of his belief in God. I wish you luck in this endeavor. Godspeed!)
"“We might be 98% identical to primates,” Boteach asserted, “but in that 2% lays intellect and morality.” The rabbi asked how Hitchens could call the Bible “inhumane” when it commanded humankind to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” In his rebuttal, Hitchens asked, “What happened to the Midianites?” and argued that the Bible clearly approved of genocide. “It’s a good thing those books are fiction,” he said." In quoting Hitchens last you take his side. I am not religious but I am no fan of Hitchens. No, the Bible does no approve of genocide. The Midianites made war on the Israelites and raided their settlements. The Israelites fought back the way people in those days fought back. The Biblical account which is retrospective has their deity approve of the killings of the Midianites. I notice that even in the Bible this was a one time event and if god approved of the killings of Israel’s enemies it also approved of the defeat of the Israelites for their own “immoral” behavior. The kind of behavior that Hitchens calls evil in the Bible is what was common to all people’s behavior at that time. Has he read Greek or Roman history, not to mention Persian of those of other ancient people’s? However, what is good in the bible is unique” “love thy neighbor like yourself” is a unique maxim. Besides, the Biblical idea of God changes in the Bible and by the end of the narrative God is perceived as ethical and righteous. This too is unique to the Bible in the writings of those days.
Religion does poison everything but "thanks be to god" ;-) it is a thing of the past. As far as our relationship with monkeys is concerned I wonder whether they would put all their communal effort in making the earth uninhabitable and a lot of effort in covering up the fact. As far as "god" is concerned - who needs him if he should exist if things like the holocaust can happen? So if he should be around he should be in the dock for refusing help when he could have helped. In all... Hitchens gets it right.
Stan, I can only say--since further elaborations beyond this point would be fruitless--that acknowledging the historical, exegetical, and metaphysical development of Judaism beyond the literal word of the Bible is not the same thing as claiming moral relativism; if the civilization of Judaism has evolved out of its Biblical origins by "rationalizing atrocities," as you claim, then this is no different than any other civilization. You claim, with a literalism that rivals Pat Robertson and Meir Kahane, that "love thy neighbor" means only "love your tribe," not "love all mankind." Let's say that if you were my rabbi I would go find a different synagogue, and leave it at that.
[i]if the civilization of Judaism has evolved out of its Biblical origins by "rationalizing atrocities," as you claim, then this is no different than any other civilization. [/i] Well, yes--the difference being we are talking about [i]religion[/i]--not culture--and its claims to know the will of God and to derive its morality from God. You seem intent on ignoring this conundrum and, instead, focusing on the cultural aspects. That is fine if you want to be secular but is nonsensical in regards to Judaism (or Christianity, for that matter) from a religious perspective and regarding the derivation of morality from the divine. [i]"You claim, with a literalism that rivals Pat Robertson and Meir Kahane, that "love thy neighbor" means only "love your tribe," not "love all mankind."[/i] While the ad hominem comparison to Pat Robertson is noted you haven't actually refuted that love thy neighbor was written to be literal. If you want to re-invent the Pentateuch to be more reasonable, please do so, but don't try and revise history to pretend the Pentateuch is something that it is not. BTW, I would applaud your finding a synagogue that appreciates a more loving world than can be found in the Pentateuch. But such a view is not an accurate view of the the text or of the God written of in that text--a jealous and vengeful god. You seem to want to rationalize rather than consider the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, the Pentateuch is not a good source of morality. Even you acknowledge we don't need texts by God to know murder is wrong. To the contrary, it is our innate distaste for murder that informs us that the war crimes described in the Pentateuch are immoral in the most blatant and horrific of ways.
Stan, I'm arguing for the cultural integrity of Judaism as a civilization because those are the only terms that make sense for this debate: belief, faith, and the hermeneutic intent of either the Bible or its application within Jewish law are irrelevant in this discussion because we would never, ever agree to the terms. What I believe with respect to Judaism is ultimately my concern, not yours, but I believe that Judaism is as valid a source for morality as any other philosophy or religion: Meir Kahane cited the Bible to justify his fascist ideology, but Adolf Eichmann cited Kant to justify the Holocaust, so no belief system is immune from the abuse of fanatics. Nonetheless, the historical circumstances out of which Judaism developed from a tribal cult to a modern religion are worth bearing in mind over and above the "literal' meaning of the text: "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" never meant blinding an adversary or blunting the teeth of a criminal, at least as far as the historical development of Jewish law is concerned.
--"Stan, I'm arguing for the cultural integrity of Judaism as a civilization because those are the only terms that make sense for this debate:"-- The title of the debate was "Does God Exist," so by arguing the "cultural integrity of Judaism" you are arguing a tangent. "What I believe with respect to Judaism is ultimately my concern, not yours, " True. And yet, a strange way to go about debating an issue. You are basically saying that what you believe is off limits. Fine, then **don't debate.** But don't try and have it both ways by implying that your beliefs are non-debatable and **debating** them with me at the same time. Judaism is as valid a source for morality as any other philosophy or religion: You are changing the subject. The debate was "Does God Exist" and therefore, the issue isn't whether Judaism is a **cultural** source of morality--of course it is--but whether **God** is the source of morality. You argue for the importance of culture but you seem to be unwilling to say what is implicit in your arguments--that God is not the source of morality. Instead, you argue that Jewish culture and the "living" religion is the source of **a** morality. Well, duh. But that at isn't the question. If you want to argue **culture** rather than God and religion then this is the wrong thread.
See: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_hitler.html Hitler may in public have claimed to be doing the will of God, but records of his private conversations show otherwise. Many of these were recorded by his secretary and published in a book called Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953). I have lifted the text of these from the soc.religion.christian newsgroup's Hitler FAQ. Night of 11th-12th July, 1941 "National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... "Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7) 10th October, 1941, midday "Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43) 14th October, 1941, midday "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... "Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... "...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... "Christianity the liar.... "We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52) 19th October, 1941, night "The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity." 21st October, 1941, midday "Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... "The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... "Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65) 13th December, 1941, midnight "Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... "When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118-119) 14th December, 1941, midday "Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... "Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics." (p 119 & 120) 9th April, 1942, dinner "There is something very unhealthy about Christianity." (p 339) 27th February, 1942, midday "It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie." "Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)
Christopher Hitchens has a sharp mind & wit however his god is the rational mind which is by it's very nature, limited. Mystery and not-knowing are essentially more compelling and fascinating.
Monsieur Crapeau's response to my posting illustrates effectively why the debate regarding the existence of God or the perniciousness of religion is ultimately pointless: he not only fails to establish the common terminology needed for debate to be meaningful, but apparently fails to understand what constitutes logical argumentation in general. Of the many arguments I offered, he seizes on one point of detail, whether or not Hitler was an atheist. This is a historical question that one can debate according to historical evidence; it doesn't change the fact--evidenced as much by Mao, Pol Pot, or Stalin as Hitler--that an atheist philosophy is at least as capable of mass murder as a religious one. Ultimately he is more interested in an argumentation of distraction over Hitler than examining the fatuousness of his own position. An interesting choice of priorities.
It's to be expected, after such a debate, to find defensive comments attacking the uncomfortable and thought-provoking ideas of an eloquent atheist like Hitchens. However, we don't need Hitch to tell us about the twisted hypocritical thinking of the "faithful" when we can read posts like that of the mystery-loving Anni Marcus : "...his [Hitch's] god is the RATIONAL MIND [my caps] which is by it's very nature, limited. Mystery and not-knowing are essentially more compelling and fascinating." The bankrupt and monumentally dangerous belief that ignorance and stupidity are preferable to truth and rational thinking would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous. To say that "not knowing" is a kind of "ENLIGHTENMENT" is actually insane. Jonas Salk didn't really want to know about a vaccine that might save lives. Death is just so fascinating! Einstein would much rather have "not known" about the Universe - it's such a sweet mystery! If Anni's compelling arguments don't get me to schul next shabbas I don't know what will. In what realm of experience have humans always been taught to fear RATIONAL THINKING? Only two - totalitarianism and religion. Unfortunately for proud true believers like Anni, flim-flams like totalitarianism and religion tend to wither away as rational thinking emerges.
Given the severe limitations of the Forward's review of the debate, Hitchens didn't seem to answer Boteach's protestations. I would argue that the actions of genocide do not, largely at least, come from Jews; and that this is probably true for Christians as well. However, most modern day genocides come from those leaders, government or otherwise, largely without a religious point of view, a self-serving religous front, or, perhaps, Islamists. It is just patently nonsense to equate atrocities in the World to the religious convictions of Christians and Jews (and Buddhists, and others). Hitchens' arguments are just plain sophist. This point just doesn't work.
Hitler had a debased Nietzschean view of Christianity as a religion for weaklings, but unlike Nietzsche (a philosemite and skeptic of political nationalism) Hitler admired the Catholic Church in whuich he was raised: for its discipline, global structure and durability. A historian once famously defined National Socialism as "Catholicism without Christianity". Dissent tended to come from Protestant circles in Germany which emphasized individual conscience like Luther, whereas Nazism was potent among Catholic Bavarians and Austrians. Hitler's own "folkish" beliefs largely consisted of faith in Providence or Fate, whose foreordained decrees he alone could interpret on behalf of the German people. There was a subculture of self-conscious neopaganism around Himmler and Rosenberg, but Hitler privately mocked it while allowing that Nazism would need some kind of cultish spiritual superstructure. In any event, it is idle to arraign a belief system by pointing to its more disreputable votaries. Some atheists are nice guys. Even some Rudy Giuliani supporters.
<em>"Stan, I responded to your original comments because you asked HOW one could base morality in the present day on a Biblical text that includes--among a lot of narratives, pronouncements, and laws--the massacre of the Midianites. I've answered the interrogative "how": by trying to understand Judaism's development historically, conceptually, and culturally, that's HOW."<em> Well, I can agree that that is "how." It completely ignores the question whether morality come from God. Or rather, implies that it does not. On that point, which you continue to imply but never state, we can agree <em>"WHY one should preserve a belief in the Bible's sanctity in spite of its distasteful or baffling digressions, which you have taken synecdochically and capriciously as representing the Bible as a whole, comes down to questions of faith and belief (subjective questions), </em>" If the Pentateuch is the word of God, or even just Divinely inspired and approved by God then one should--perhaps must--expect any individual passage, law or example to represent the the "morality" the work is said to encompass so long as that passage is not a counter example. To do otherwise is to declare the Pentateuch a mere scroll or book and to treat morality as relative--not that I would necessarily disagree with that but it conflicts with the religious import and implementation of the Pentateuch and how that is used to justify moral positions. Judaism is complex, with a rich culture and a strong religion. Yet Rabbis base "morality" in God, not culture. We cannot ignore the claims that "God" is the source of morality for that is the authority that is cited when "morality" is invoked in the name of Judaism--well, actually, in the name of God. <em>You think the tenets of the Bible are invalidated because of the tribal/cultic aspects of the Pentateuch that have largely been discarded by subsequent, rabbinic Judaism; </em> What tenets? Isn't that the point. We pick and choose what parts of the Torah to follow based on our own upbringing and sense of morality, not because the Torah is a Divine source of morality. To the contrary, the Pentateuch describes immoral acts (genocide and rape of the medianties, for example) done with the approval of God. One, therefore, cannot call God moral. But, don't mistake my point, I'm not saying that there is no morality to be learned form the Torah, just that the Pentaeuch is not a perfect source of morals and that morals cannot be said to come from God if God approved of, and is the source of, the immoral acts in the Pentateuch. While we may forgive man for imperfection of moral character--for that is human--we cannot forgive God the same and still call God the source of Morality. I disagree that "HOW" and "WHY" should be considered severable issues.
Stan, I responded to your original comments because you asked HOW one could base morality in the present day on a Biblical text that includes--among a lot of narratives, pronouncements, and laws--the massacre of the Midianites. I've answered the interrogative "how": by trying to understand Judaism's development historically, conceptually, and culturally, that's HOW. WHY one should preserve a belief in the Bible's sanctity in spite of its distasteful or baffling digressions, which you have taken synecdochically and capriciously as representing the Bible as a whole, comes down to questions of faith and belief (subjective questions), which as I've tried to explain, are not conducive to the same terms of intellectual exchange as the (objective) questions of history and culture. You think the tenets of the Bible are invalidated because of the tribal/cultic aspects of the Pentateuch that have largely been discarded by subsequent, rabbinic Judaism; I disagree with your characterization, and at this late date it should become clear that neither of us is going to persuade the other. I'm not asking for a free pass here--if I were I would have ceased posting, perhaps to our mutual relief, a long time ago--but I'm also not willing to acquiesce to the rules of debate that you have retroactively and unilaterally set.
I wonder if there is a transcript of the "debate" or an audio/video record? Then maybe there will be some substance to comments. For the record, I have read Hitchens book and find it thought provoking; Boteach also has valuable things to say about family life in his books and articles. Maybe facts would be the best place to start.
"an: if you will read my original post in response to this article I stated that a debate regarding the existence of God is a waste of time;" And yet here you are... "I am responding to your comments, as I've responded to others, because they impute the cultural validity of Judaism' That depends on whether you think the culture of Judaism can only be justified if God exists and is as posited in the Torah. I don't think that need be the case. Judaism exists in many forms, including a strong secular tradition. But, rationalizing the horrors authorized by God in the Pentateuch does not help that tradition. Better, I think, to condemn them as we condemn all other horrors and move to create a better and more humane and just world. To do so is not to "impute the cultural validity of Judaism" but to strengthen it--unless you insist that it is more important to ignore the clear war crimes in that text for purposes of "validating" the "cultural validity of Judaism." Me? I think it is more important to be moral **now** than to get dogmatically and reflexively defensive about the past. Ideas, history, and textual interpretation can be meaningfully and productively debated. Faith and belief cannot. You have created an artificial dichotomy. There is no point to "ideas" about a religion or "textual" interpretation if the tenets they are predicated on are false. You don't get a free pass on the underlying issue, though you expect one.
Would someone please explain to me what, "given the fact that extinction could come about in the near future, and if not soon, then within the next 5 billion years, when the Andromeda galaxy collides with our own" means? In the near future........ or within the next 5 billion years........It sure gives him a heck of a chance of being right. It is the most uneducated comment I have almost ever heard.
Nice try, Carl. Hitler's "Table Talk" does not consist of direct quotes from Hitler, but edited (i.e., rewritten, revised and altered) quotes that have NO reliablity. Just Google the words Hitler and table talk and you will find the truth -- if you dare. As for you, Mr. Bruhkes, are you saying that the Soviet Union murdered its political dissidents (real and imagined) because atheism forbids criticism of the government? Stalin murdered millions because his version of Communism forbids criticism of the Party and the Government. Atheism forbids only indulgence in infantile fantasies of magical, invisible friends. Or are you not capable of understanding this? (Also, you deliberately misspelled my name -- that's real mature!)
See: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_hitler.html Hitler may in public have claimed to be doing the will of God, but records of his private conversations show otherwise. Many of these were recorded by his secretary and published in a book called Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953). I have lifted the text of these from the soc.religion.christian newsgroup's Hitler FAQ. Night of 11th-12th July, 1941 "National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... "Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7) 10th October, 1941, midday "Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43) 14th October, 1941, midday "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... "Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... "...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... "Christianity the liar.... "We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52) 19th October, 1941, night "The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity." 21st October, 1941, midday "Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... "The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... "Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65) 13th December, 1941, midnight "Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... "When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118-119) 14th December, 1941, midday "Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... "Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics." (p 119 & 120) 9th April, 1942, dinner "There is something very unhealthy about Christianity." (p 339) 27th February, 1942, midday "It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie." "Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)
Thanks, Ronelle Delmont, for your excellent comments. You have drawn attention to one of the most pernicious qualities of religious belief: namely, that it relies on the love of mystery, which is merely a euphemism for love of ignorance. Science, by contrast, is based on a love of knowledge and understanding. Science destroys mystery, and this drives the believers nuts.
Way to go,Chris!!
"I don't think the Pentateuch is primarily a moral book (scroll): it's too diffuse, obscure, and archaic to function in purely or exclusively moral terms. " I agree. But this is the start of where we differ. To my mind the fact that the Pentateuch is "diffuse, obscure, and archaic" suggests that it is merely a human text rather than Divinely inspired. It would be rather easy to make the text clearer and more moral using only those tools available to man. So, I think the aspects you cite suggest that the work is not that of God and that the moral lessons one can glean from it are not Divine. "But the Torah isn't merely the naked document preserved as the first five books of the bible; it's the oral "law," the midrash, and the whole complex of interpretive strategies that the rabbis use(d) to codify, understand, and explain the baffling mixture of writings that the Pentateuch presents to us. For the rabbis, the oral, expository, and exegetical apparatus around the Biblical text are inseparable from the written text itself; both, in the rhetoric of the rabbis, are "from Sinai." Also agreed. We also differ on what this means. I think there is a strong morality in Judaism. But I think the Talmud, etc. are made to address the obvious defects of the Pentateuch and are the works of man to correct and rationalize the inconsistencies and, sometimes, outright immorality found in the Pentateuch. "From an objective, historicist standpoint it's perfectly understandable and acceptable to say that this is just the rabbis' way of retroactively justifying their own spiritual and moral claims--particularly against the contemporaneous early Christians--reading them back into the Bible, thereby changing the meaning and significance of the original. " And I would so say. "But this act of creative and exegetical audacity is really the origin of Judaism as a religion (as opposed to its former status as a tribal cult), and it liberates Judaism not only from animal sacrifice, territorialism, and the most obvious and egregious forms of tribalism; it also liberates the individual Jew from the obligation to read the Bible in a literal, fundamentalist fashion: the diversity, pluaralism, and appeal to individual conscience that characterizes contemporary Judaism stems from this act." Agreed. However, I'm also interested in whether belief in the existence of God of the Pentateuch is a reasonable assumption and if one may assert that morality derives from God, or if morality is man made. Depending on this, we may develop more rational morals. For if morality derives from man then the Jewish laws are merely tradition and need only be kept for cultural reasons rather than for fear of offending God. Thus, it would be reasonable to touch your thermostat or cook with a flame on the Sabbath if you felt like it and Orthodox men and women could forgo head coverings--though one could make a rational argument for why societal conformity may have value. "For most observant Jews, this act is sanctioned by God, "from Sinai." I while that is certainly true I am not content to merely leave it at that. If religion were a self contained unit that didn't affect the outside world--or the rights of human beings within the religion--what people believed and why would be of no account. However, as the debate which spawned this thread has shown, it is. Rabbi Boteach's belief in God and that God is the source of morality is used in his efforts to actively argue against scientific evidence in favor of what is written in the Pentateuch. His belief in God causes him to make claims that are demonstrably false, even to the point of claiming that Stephen J. Gould didn't believe in Evolution! Further, Boteach claims that the Ten Commandments are the Divine essence of morality, a belief which can only be supported by a Divinely inspired cognitive dissonance given that the Decalogue considers it more important to prevent swearing, idolatry and covetousness (which it makes space for) than to prohibit slavery, rape or torture (which it just couldn't squeeze in) I think I do understand your point. I just happen to disagree with the idea that belief can't be debated or that what people believe isn't important to the rest of society at large. If you don't think belief can be debated, I don't really see why you showed up to a thread about the debate titled "Does God Exist," though I suppose you could say you showed up to say that such a debate was pointless. I would differ and say that such a debate is vital and that it is equally vital that church and state, and religion and science remain permanently separated.
Well, first off: congratulations on the fancy italics--I wish my computer would do that! For what it's worth, I don't think that observing the Sabbath or keeping kosher are essentially or significantly moral practices; Jewish law and rabbinical rhetoric maintain a clear distinction between the ethical obligations that people owe one another and the religious rituals mandated of observant Jews by God. I think that when one chooses to observe ritual laws like observing the Sabbath or the Jewish holidays, these practices can have a spiritual value--one that cannot be calibrated or calculated in empirical, statistical terms--for the individual believer that can enhance his or her life, and ideally his or her belief in God. But certainly one can be a moral, ethical, good person without observing these rituals, or any rituals other than one's own compulsions. More importantly, to your final point: "I would differ and say that such a debate is vital and that it is equally vital that church and state, and religion and science remain permanently separated." I agree with this completely. Religion and science speak to different human needs; one cannot judge the claims of one against the standards of the other, and one cannot do the work of the other. The attempt to masquerade religion as science ("Intelligent Design") makes a mockery of both. The unholy intersection of religion and politics corrupts both, hopelessly. For all its imperfections--philosophically, politically, and morally--the 18th century Enlightenment made an enduring contribution to civilization by instituting the concept of a public sphere which lifted the burden of declaring or adhering to a specific religion, or any religion, from the individual. 'Nuff said?
Read some of what you pretend to know fool! "Hitchens rails against religions for soliciting converts--a charge Judaism is immune from--yet he himself is a proselytizer as well as an inquisitor for militant atheism." Hitchens, like Dawkins, rails against religions for pressing children into spiritual servitude; not soliciting converts. The Jews don't need to solicit, they simply take a knife to an infants genitals. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler all believed themselves spiritually superior and righteous leaders. They all forced variations of worship from their countrymen. This is not atheism. They took a page out of your book; literally. They just did it more efficiently. What happened to the Midianites indeed.
Ronelle Delmont asks: "In what realm of experience have humans always been taught to fear RATIONAL THINKING? Only two - totalitarianism and religion." To this excellent analysis I would add a third--alternative medicine.
Hitchins is an angry man. He is angry at the very God whose existence he denies. Religion has indeed been the cause of many of humankind's wars, but religion, like sex, can be perverted and twisted to fit man's ego, lust for power, and need to control.
Michael Krebsbach, who demonstrates the tolerance and open-mindedness on which secular thought prides itself by referring to me obliquely as a fool, states that Mao, Stalin, and Hitler were not atheists, but architects of a religion in which they deified themselves. Although he would have done well to have consulted with P.J. Creepeau before posting his remarks--I thought according to the latter that Hitler was a genteel, church-going Unitarian--he nonetheless demonstrates the futility of engaging in this exchange: atheists who kill people in the name of fascism, dialectical materialism, or race-obsessed neo-paganism aren't "true" atheists, they are another example of religion's wrong-doing. Religious people who manage in spite of themselves to achieve something good in the world--this is Hitchens' argument explicitly--either weren't really good, or else they were working as fronts for an essentially secular, religion-less ideology. So religion = bad and secular = good, even when "religion" means Stalin (not really secular) and "secular" means Martin Luther King, Jr. (not really religious, and besides Bayard Rustin was more important...). This turns history on its head and makes a mockery of the logical discourse which these debaters claim to place at the center of their world view. If Stalin is an agent of religion, then the concept of religion we are arguing over has no meaningful definition. Our time would be better spent discussing other matters, under other terms of exchange.
BOYCOTT LITHUANIA! Did you see the article about Lithuanians mocking Jews in Vilnius after they killed almost all of them in the WWII? I was born in that city but I'm telling you, boycott Lithuanian products and anything which has to do with that country - these and the Uks are the biggest enemies of Jews. I wanted to post in the Haaretz too but those cowards censored me.
There is really no point in holding such a public debate. Most of the audience members left the place with the same opinions they brought with them. Hitchens remains an atheist (read: a talking and moving piece of matter) and Rav Boteach remains a believer (read: someone who recognizes our Creator)
I like Hitchens and have read and agree with most of what he says in his various books. But when it comes to astronomy Hitchens should leave it to the astronomers. I know if no astronomer, and I personally know quite a few - who believe that the Andromeda galaxy is on a collision course with our Milky Way and even if it were the two would pass right through each other without the slightest impact on our Sun give the "astronomical" distances that exist among most stars. Our Sun’s demise is indeed likely in about 4-5 billion years but it will due to its own expansion into a red giant that will in the process consume most of the inner planets including our own. Hopefully we will have moved somewhere else by then. Richard Reis, former executive director, Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Perhaps all this comes down, ultimately, to a semantic distinction, which I tried to explain in a previous post: the Pentateuch is not the same thing as the Torah. I don't think the Pentateuch is primarily a moral book (scroll): it's too diffuse, obscure, and archaic to function in purely or exclusively moral terms. But the Torah isn't merely the naked document preserved as the first five books of the bible; it's the oral "law," the midrash, and the whole complex of interpretive strategies that the rabbis use(d) to codify, understand, and explain the baffling mixture of writings that the Pentateuch presents to us. For the rabbis, the oral, expository, and exegetical apparatus around the Biblical text are inseparable from the written text itself; both, in the rhetoric of the rabbis, are "from Sinai." From an objective, historicist standpoint it's perfectly understandable and acceptable to say that this is just the rabbis' way of retroactively justifying their own spiritual and moral claims--particularly against the contemporaneous early Christians--reading them back into the Bible, thereby changing the meaning and significance of the original. But this act of creative and exegetical audacity is really the origin of Judaism as a religion (as opposed to its former status as a tribal cult), and it liberates Judaism not only from animal sacrifice, territorialism, and the most obvious and egregious forms of tribalism; it also liberates the individual Jew from the obligation to read the Bible in a literal, fundamentalist fashion: the diversity, pluaralism, and appeal to individual conscience that characterizes contemporary Judaism stems from this act. For most observant Jews, this act is sanctioned by God, "from Sinai." Maybe this doesn't pass muster on a scale determined by history, philosophy, or sociology. But this is where culture leaves off and religious faith begins. And this is the point at which I've tried to leave off my efforts at debate and argumentation. Clearer?
Mark Bruhkes: You whine about being referred to as a fool by Michael Krebsbach, yet you behave in an equally immature way by deliberately misspelling my name yet again, this time in an equally infantile way as the first time you did it. Thanks so much for proving our point: Belief in magical, invisible friends is infantile, and adults who indulge in such fantasies in this day and age should be ashamed of themselves. You have demonstrated this by derisively misspelling my name (it's Crepeau, not Crapeau or Creepeau as you so childishly wrote). If you cannot engage in a civil discussion on this issue, refraining from mocking those who engage you in dialogue, then you only show your own immaturity. I sincerely hope that you and all other believers someday grow up and face the facts: There is no God, no Heaven (or Hell), no Eternal Soul and no Afterlife. Death is the permanent end of experience for all people. This life is the only one you get. I wish you all good luck in coming to terms with these truths.
Sorry, Stan, but I can't let this comment of yours go without my own response: "I would argue that the actions of genocide do not, largely at least, come from Jews; and that this is probably true for Christians as well. However, most modern day genocides come from those leaders, government or otherwise, largely without a religious point of view, a self-serving religous front, or, perhaps, Islamists." You refer to "modern day genocides." But what about the classic genocides of yesteryear? Who perpetrated those unconscionable horrors? That's right, it was your good buddy Yahweh, doing what he does best: slaughtering whole races of people. That's why Hitchens asked, What happened to the Midianites? (God, in his infinite wisdom, had Moses' army kill them. He does that sort if thing a lot in the Jewish Scriptures.) So, if you don't like perpetrators of genocide, then you must hate God. Or is genocide sometimes a good thing?
PJ, for the record, I'm not whining about anything; if you feel offended at having your sensibilities tread upon, it's certainly within your rights to call foul, yet it's worth pointing out that your entire position is premised on expressing mockery and contempt toward the beliefs of other people. When one of your antagonists responds in kind, what did you expect? That he or she would "turn the other cheek"? How very Biblical of you! You have scanned heaven and earth and found them spiritually empty. Maybe that's because there's nothing there. Or maybe it's because your vision is defective. Nonetheless, you arrogate to yourself a monopoly on metaphysical truth and certitude--a stance you share with religious fundamentalism. It's not an attractive position from which to argue. You write, "There is no God, no Heaven (or Hell), no Eternal Soul and no Afterlife." Do these statements logically follow one another? Do all religious people believe in an eternal soul? Do all secular thinkers disavow an afterlife? (Spinoza, for example, one of the pillars of Hitchens' secular pantheon, certainly believed in an afterlife, though one abstracted from human consciousness.) Does the Hebrew Bible claim the existence of heaven or hell? Does Judaism mandate belief in these concepts? Does Buddhism? Does Stalinism (which you have equated with all "other" religions)? Did I ever claim to believe in an afterlife? Did I ever claim, if it comes to that, to be religious myself? You, like Hitchens himself, have offered a caricature of religious faith, one that homogenizes all beliefs and all believers into a two-dimensional cartoon, and exempts itself from critical reflection. Hitchens has memorably argued that religion belongs "to the childhood" of mankind. If so, making fun of religion belongs to humanity's adolescence--hardly an improvement. You are quick to excoriate the fanaticism of others--even when that fanaticism is premised on scriptural citations wrenched from the historical or moral contexts in which they are understood (and neutralized). Yet in the process you expose the fanaticism of your own thinking, one that is authored authored not by Moses or Stalin or Christopher Hitchens, but by yourself alone.
Well, first off: congratulations on the fancy italics--I wish my computer would do that! As you can see from my earlier attempts this comments engine is really fussy about using the normal format tags. I've had varying success using the HTML tags for italic :-/ 'Nuff said? Sounds good. Cheers,
Cheers to you, too, Boychik; cheers!
Of course there is a GOD! I don't care how long the earth has beenin existence-a slurpee machine just oculd not have built itself-some intelligent designer must have inspired it!
I urge all readers of these comments to peruse Mark Bruhkes' above postings. Would someone please explain why religious believers claim that they highly value honesty, if they are so willing to please fast and loose with the truth? Here is but one of Mr. Bruhkes' distortions: He claims that I "equate all believers--whatever their religion--with the September 11 terrorists." Yet, here is my entire reference to those religious terrorists: "All religion relies on belief in magic. But magic (as well as magical beings, places and things) simply isn't real. It is fiction. Wishing does not make it so. So, please grow up! (Your only alternative to is to acknowledge that the religious mass murderers of September 11, 2001 are now in Heaven, receiving their just reward in the arms of willing virgins.)" Why did Mr. Bruhkes completely distort what I said? My meaning was quite clear. Another way of putting my argument is: Even if one acknowledges God is real, no religion has ANY reliable evidence that their God is the one, true God; all religions have only stories, emotions and rules to back up the "truth" of their claims. (Either Muhammed is God's prophet, or he is not.) So, once you admit that "there must be a God," then you must also admit that "the fundamentalist Muslims might be right, since their so-called evidence is as strong (or as weak) as that of all other religions." In that case, the religious mass murderers of September 11, 2001 could well be in Heaven. Mr. Bruhkes states that I had equated all believers with Bin Laden and his henchmen, and this is a ridiculous distortion of what I said. Mr. Bruhkes is clearly too intelligent to believe I was equating believers with terrorists, so he must simply be consciously using a completely dishonest argument. To Mr. Bruhkes and all other believers: If you have God on your side, then why must you lie?
PJ: you claim to have reason on your side, but so far you have yet to make a single reasonable statement in this entire thread. Your latest posting is too convoluted both in its logic and its prose style to merit commentary. When you do say something intelligible, I'll respond in kind. In the meanwhile, why don't you have a coke and a smile and have a nice day?
Mr. Bruhkes: Your conduct reveals what a pathetic intellectual coward you are. Repeatedly, I have have cite untruths and inconsistencies in your own postings; you refuse to address my specific criticisms. You have refused to cite a single statement of mine as untrue or unsupported by evidence. You have deliberately distorted my positions. You have mocked me by deliberately misspelling my name two different ways. You do not understand the concept of honest dialogue. In sum, you are extraordinarily lame. Cheers!
Go ahead, Mark, end the argument. Offer just one reliable piece of evidence that (your) God exists. What's that? You can't do it? Why is that? Is it because belief in God relies not on reason or evidence, bit on -gasp- faith? Shocking! Who would have guessed that FAITH played a role in why people believe in their magical, invisible friends? Certainly not you....
Still waiting for a reasonable statement from you, PJ. Knock yourself out, Boyo....
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.