#55331: jfaberuiuc — 12/27  at  02:15 PM
As a graduate student, one of my advisor's other advisees was an orthodox Jew, whose parents are Conservative (in the Jewish sense, meaning belonging to a movement roughly more religious in philosphy than the Reform, but not as thorough as the Orthodox in following every biblical regulation regarding diet, activities, etc.). I was raised Reform myself, so I was curious about the ways in which someone could choose to be an astrophysicist while embracing the more all-encompassing form of the religion, including a more direct interpretation of the Bible. How, I asked him, do you reconcile Genesis with big bang cosmology, evolution, and the like. He was kind enough to give me only a moderately patronizing look, before explaining that Genesis is figurative, duh. This may not be the view of all Orthodox Jews, but it certainly represents a non-trivial fraction of the Orthodox Jews in the sciences.

#55341: — 12/27  at  03:53 PM
I can't live with that before the usage of 'unitary' is explained in a sentence that refers to science and Hawking.

In mathematics unitary operators implement isomorphisms between operator algebras, and in physics a unitary evolution operator preserves the total probability of all possible alternatives of the evolution.

So one can read that sentence to mean that the content of Torah is exactly the same as the content of science.

Which is obviously wrong. (Those who oppose that statement have some work to do, not least to overcome the fact that the Torah (primarily) is a finite and fixed construction while most of science is unknown (and most probably an open domain, ie no known boundaries).)

#55344: — 12/27  at  04:27 PM
I don't know you, good professor, but I can't live with this: "All schools concur that God is the ultimate cause and that humanity was an intended end result of Creation." As far as ultimate cause is concerned, no problem - it is more a philosophical position than a scientific one. But "man as the end result of creation" contradicts (in my view) the reality of pure gouldian contingency, of random mutations, of "we are a lucky bunch".
If by "I can live with that", you mean "it is the most bearable position, as far as religious people are concerned, and I can even speak with them 8-)", it's Ok. But if you mean "mmm, maybe there's a grain of truth", it's a no no.
Am I wrong?

Bye

#55346: jfaberuiuc — 12/27  at  04:32 PM
I think that "unitary" refers to the fact there is one reality in question. Various Jewish commentaries are fond of discussing the many attributes of God, facets if you will that make up parts of the whole. Thus, both science and Torah can be viewed (by an Orthodox Jew) as true in and of themselves, but relevant to two different sets of questions. The corollary he is implying is that there cannot be a conflict between science and religion, because in his eyes, both are fundamentally correct (we're assuming science to mean facts here). Any perceived conflicts between the two, therefore, do not imply that science is wrong, rather, it implies that we are misinterpreting one of the two or both. With regard to evolution, there is wiggle room enough to argue that Genesis gives a poetic account of a theistic God, who created evolution and natural selection as a means to bring about humanity.

#55349: jfaberuiuc — 12/27  at  04:40 PM
Marco, I happen to agree with you that the religious account seems vastly implausible, but I think the key issue is that there is no obvous scientific test to determine its ultimate veracity. Admittedly humanity seems to be a contingent product of evolution, but an omnipotent superbeing could in theory have the capacity to see it coming. If religion is to be disproved, I think that its weak point is likely to be that "free will" can be shown to be an illusion, although such a task is well beyond anything we have the technology to do at the moment. Still, I see no reason in theory why we could not eventually show that humans are in some fundamental way determinsitic, which would be something of a theological crisis for a number of belief systems...

#55351: PZ Myers — 12/27  at  04:55 PM
Oh, I don't mean that I agree with it. I just mean that if the religious held attitudes like this, we wouldn't interfere with each other.

#55354: — 12/27  at  05:35 PM
jfaberuiuc,
I see, it seems logical in that context. (And I will confess I thought something like that was intended. But they just _had_ to use expressions that were ambigious in the original context.)

#55367: — 12/27  at  07:33 PM
I don't give a rat's patoot about what child-stealers think about who created them.

#55379: wolfangel — 12/27  at  10:07 PM
As a point of (possible) interest, Judaism -- even orthodox Judaism -- also does not require theism.

#55381: Bartholomew — 12/27  at  10:43 PM
There's a difference between the Orthodox and the Ultra-Orthodox. Here's a news story archived on Skeptic Files:

DINOSAURS NOT "KOSHER"
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel, claiming dinosaurs contradict Genesis, are insisting that a company they certify as kosher must remove dinosaur images from its products. "It's inconceivable that we should give our seal of approval to a product that is imbuing Orthodox children with heresy," said Rabbi Zvi Gafner. "The dinosaur is presented in encyclopedias as an animal that is millions of years old, despite the fact that the world was created only 5,753 years ago."

#55382: — 12/27  at  10:47 PM
I would like to dialectically stand that "unitary" construction on its head:

The idea that science and religion, or that scientific theories and religious texts and thought are two sides of the same coin, encompassed by "God's plan" is a relatively appealing and innocuous one that give the religious folks the intellectual breathing room they need to retain their deeply held faith without necessitating interference, banning, or otherwise degrading scientific inquiry.

Fine and well, and I think I agree with PZM's "I can live with that"...

However, I would like to rephrase it, like so:

The appeal and power of religious thought, religious texts, and religious doctrines is that they are the first-recorded and passed down attempts to answer basic questions about the human condition and environment.

Why are we here, how did we get here, why does it rain, why do the seasons change, why does the earth shake, the wind blow, the volcano explode? Why do plants grow and then die, why do animals have certain behaviors? What is the best way to organize a successful community, society, nation-state, economy, and why? How can we determine effective rules for survival and common effort for mutual benefit and survival?

These questions are natural outgrowths of human attempts to understand and manipulate their world, their environs, their neighbors, their communities, and are, as such, critical attempts to rationalize the world into a coherent framework required for survival.

Since we started out pretty ignorant, those "first questions" and their "first answers" were pretty damned important starting points, and those who had the best handle on some of the "answers" and who pointed out or devised systems that enabled survival, increased the utility or efficiency or power of the community, who wrote down some of those systems in ways that enabled transferral of that "knowledge" became extremely important. The texts that evolved (heh) out of the compiled, ongoing, sometimes-sequential, sometimes-parallel attempts to systematize and rationalize the world and the human community became extremely important, as well....

And then they were codified, written in stone, and handed down as received wisdom, rather than as "living documents" intended for the recording of ongoing questions and answers....

I think that the "first questions" represented by many religious texts and religious philosophies are, in essence, the original "working hypotheses"...thus it is no surprise that all the major world religions have, at one time or another, been critical in the housing, protection, and furtherance of many scientific disciplines in their infancy...

Only, like smothering parents, when the infants grow and outstrip the parents, all hell breaks loose.

Therefore, I would say, rather than Science and Religion being unitary expressions of God's creation...that, instead, both are expressions of the human evolutionary survival traits - learning, curiosity, adaptation of behavior and community, and passing along of that knowledge to succeedng generations.

Science is the inheritor of the "first question" represented by religious thought, but has shed the illusions of ignorance and the fantasies of childhood.

So, to the religious, I say:

"Thanks - we owe you a lot! Your saints and prophets, your recorders and transcribers opened the discussion and preserved much of the original attempts to understand our world. Those attempts appear to the modern eye to be a bit weird, but that is a bias akin to an adult laughing at a child who attempts to explain a Television by asserting that small people live inside the box with the window. However, please realize that for all the beauty and power of those thoughts, works, and writings, we know better now, and can do more with our knowledge. Step aside, please."

#55386: — 12/28  at  12:08 AM
Dan,
Your dialectical materialism has the virtue of being both elegant and convincing. I too think that was the likely origin of religion. However, does that mean we can look down on those with supernatural beliefs, when those don't contradict the observable facts? What is wrong with feeling a connection to your ancestors, finding wisdom and beauty in the stories (myths, if you insist), and achieving some sort of cognitive harmony with the world? I don't see why we need to tell religious people to step aside, or feel superior to them because we are no longer in thrall of the childish superstitions. Let a thousand flowers bloom! (to conclude on a symmetrically communist note)
Dmitry

#55388: — 12/28  at  12:27 AM
I got the same impression as wolfangel. I spent months with orthodox Jews (in Army reserve duty) and engaged in convoluted debates (mostly around the kashrut - ritual purity - of food and correct timing of prayers). They was no interest in convincing me of the literalness of the basic premises - the Pentateuch - since it is so obviously full of contradictions and errors, but said: "OK, but let's presume that it is so, that God gave the Torah and thus it follows that so and so ... (long argument) it is forbidden to make up the generator fuel till Saturday 5.45 PM." The operational outcome was always logically built and quite reasonable. Judaism appeared as a fascinating let's pretend debate.

#55389: — 12/28  at  12:39 AM
Dmitry,

I do not think "look down on" is what I intended. I have great respect and admiration for some of the writings and writers, philosophers, prophets (pbot), saints, and thinkers of both ancient and modern religions of all stripes.

Some of the most beautiful writing, thought, sentiment, and philosophy arises directly out of the major (and many of the minor) religious creeds. Indeed, some of the most incisive logic, penetrating observations, and searching questions arise out of those traditions.

I do not automatically feel superior to, look down upon, or sneer at religions, religious thinking, or people of deep faith...no way!

However, when those who hold faith, when a religious school or creed starts trying to assert primacy, or even theoretical equality with modern science in the field of scientific inquiry...then I get nasty.

Find me some oil with that there holy book! Make me some medicine, tell me how to transplant an organ, figure out a vaccine, make my GPS work, tell me how to build an earthquake resistant structure...with your received textual interpretation of the word of god as passed down through multiple translations and political machinations over thousands of years.

I dare you!

There is nothing wrong with supernatural beliefs, with deeply held faith...as long as that faith does not intrude upon or interfere with the smooth running, growth, maintainence, and survival of the individual, community, civilization, or planetary ecosystem.

Believe as you (not you personally, rather you in general) wish, celebrate your belief, preach if you want, try to convince me - it's a fun conversation over drinks, it makes for extremely enjoyable mutual self-discovery as long as it is honest and friendly and warm.

But do not tell me to try and cure my appendicitis with prayer, do not tell me that god made all the oil the human race will ever need, do not tell me that polluting is fine because god said the earth is ours to do with as we please, and do not tell me what I should teach, investigate, try to understand and use to make the world a better place for my (and your) children...

Those with faith really have nothing to be insecure about - their faith sparked generations of inquiry and searching. Their faith is the seed from which science sprang, no matter how painful the growth and separation of the two disciplines has been. Their faith is the original repository of human attempts to understand ourselves and our universe.

Relax, ye of great faith! You have done well.

We'll take it from here.

#55395: Pete — 12/28  at  02:36 AM
jfaberuiuc:"Still, I see no reason in theory why we could not eventually show that humans are in some fundamental way determinsitic, which would be something of a theological crisis for a number of belief systems..."

I'm not sure what you mean by "deterministic", but we have already shown (in that we have no good reason to believe otherwise) that humans are as mechanistic as the rest of the stuff in the universe - the atoms in our brain behave like atoms everywhere. There is nothing "magical" about our actions, no "soul" as most religions conceive it.

As for theistic evolution: I think it is a rather silly idea, and the problem is.. supernatural beliefs do contradict observable facts. Feeling connections and finding meaning in stories are not supernatural -- the problem comes with the other verbal gymnastics one must perform ("God looked into the Torah and used it as His blueprint for creating the Universe"?), apparently just for the sake of being able to say you haven't given up your religion. But I agree we can "live with it" in the public sphere -- it's nowhere near the glaring blinkeredneess that ID is, for instance.

#55399: — 12/28  at  05:52 AM
Exactly, Pete, "supernatural beliefs do contradict observable facts". First, I can't understand Miller and Ayala. Second, I really can't live with it, because, in the land of the Pope, religion is everywhere, and from Pope to priests, they try to intrude in each and every facets of society. Money to roman catholic schools, religion teachers hired by the thousands (the other ones are waiting), laws written directly by the Vatican. And educational system molded by a confessional Ministry. They have a Weltanschauung, and they try to impose it to the society as a whole. As one Bishop in Rome said: “If faith and science clash, one has to yield; and it is not faith“.

Bye
Marco

#55403: Seth Gordon — 12/28  at  08:29 AM
Re "God looked into the Torah and used it as His blueprint for creating the Universe":

There's a concept in Jewish mysticism that the text of the Torah is not just a code of law and a collection of stories, but that it has the same relationship with the physical universe that, say, a mouse genome has with a physical mouse. (Except, of course, that we mortals don't know the "genetic code" that was used to translate from one to the other.)

#55418: jfaberuiuc — 12/28  at  09:31 AM
Hi Marco and Pete,
I actually agree with the both of you, and as a physicist, it bugs me to no end that many colleagues assume that the universe follows a set of mechanistic rules, and always has, except that people get an exception because we were infused with some form of divine spirit. By "deterministic", I was suggesting predicting complex human behaviors that we traditionally attribute to "free will". I'll grant you, such a proof shouldn't be necessary, but religious folks will go to amazing lengths to maintain their belief in the face of overwhelming evidence that key components of the faith are based on misunderstandings. It often goes unremarked in society how fluid our religious beliefs are taken as a whole; people seem to prefer to delude themselves into thinking that since religion contains absolute truth (their perspective, not mine), people have always interpreted these things the same way. The stories of Galileo and many other heretics who believed then what everyone accepts now are very telling, but many people happily ignore the obvious conclusions.

As a side note, I have always appreciated the willingness of Reform Judaism to accept a humanistic contingent. You get the ritual traditions of a religion, which are nice (love the minor-key melodies myself), you get a community, you get a moral framework to work with, but you don't have to willingly suspend disbelief about a convoluted mythology. All of the spirituality (ancestor connection, folk wisdom, etc.), but no celestial bearded guy to keep you from having some harmless fun and eating the occasional lobster.

#55437: Keith Douglas — 12/28  at  10:42 AM
jaimito: I've seen that attitude as well - it illustrates why logic alone is useless; one needs good premisses if one is to conclude anything useful.

Seth Gordon: Whimsically, that sounds like data compression, which of course suggests that the universe is horribly redundant if it can be described in such a small space. (I've heard the view you described and always thought it sounded like the preceding.)

As for whether the Orthodox are creationists, the only Orthodox (non-Lubavicher) individual that I've known for any great length of time was a YEC - at least until our biology class together, but she was unusually devout in other respects so that might not be representative. However, how is the remark at the usual wedding ceremony taken if not to mean that the universe is supposedly 5700 odd years old? I encountered it even at a Conservative wedding (and they aren't YECs).

#55449: — 12/28  at  11:25 AM
Dkon wrote:

What is wrong with feeling a connection to your ancestors, finding wisdom and beauty in the stories (myths, if you insist), and achieving some sort of cognitive harmony with the world? I don't see why we need to tell religious people to step aside, or feel superior to them because we are no longer in thrall of the childish superstitions. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

I think this is naive. Religions anywhere have never been
seperated from political and social control of society.
You can be sure that once a religion grows large enough
there will be no "harmony", only the faithful and
heretics.

I have no intention of living in the shadows of religions
who have grown so large as to block out the sun.

#55466: — 12/28  at  12:23 PM
Keith, "how is the remark at the usual wedding ceremony taken if not to mean that the universe is supposedly 5700 odd years old?"Once I started to understand Aramaic it became obvious to me that nothing voiced in Orthodox rituals is meant literally. For example, a "ktubah" (the ceremonial marriage contract) may say that in case of divorce the husband will pay 1,000,000 zuzim, being zuzim an ancient kind of money. It is anachronism, a folkloric artifact, no one knows how much zuzim may be worth, and no court will honour a "ktubah". The same with prayers, some words are so ancient that their meaning has been long forgotten. BTW, Jewish mysticism is the same utter nonsense as all other varieties of mysticism.

#55468: Seth Gordon — 12/28  at  12:32 PM
Whimsically, that sounds like data compression, which of course suggests that the universe is horribly redundant if it can be described in such a small space.

I've got a little list...they never will be missed...

how is the remark at the usual wedding ceremony taken if not to mean that the universe is supposedly 5700 odd years old?

A friend of mine who went to Telz (one of the big-name Orthodox yeshivot) pointed out to me that the boilerplate in the marriage contract describes the date as "in the ___ day of the month of ___, in the 576_th year since the creation of the world according to the way we count it here..."

(Even if you read Genesis to say that the world is less than 6000 years old, there are some ambiguities in the story line, so you can't say with certainty exactly how many years ago the world was created.)

jaimito: The standard ketubah value is 200 zuzim. And everyone who's sat through an entire Passover Seder has heard the song about "one little goat that my father bought for two zuzim", so you know how much a zuz is worth.

#55489: ekzept — 12/28  at  02:01 PM

Which is obviously wrong. (Those who oppose that statement have some work to do, not least to overcome the fact that the Torah (primarily) is a finite and fixed construction while most of science is unknown (and most probably an open domain, ie no known boundaries).)

well, my understanding of Torah in the broad sense of the term contradicts the idea that it is a "finite and fixed construction". indeed, it is like an infinite sea, with no boundaries.

the sense is simple, really. the Torah is the product of an Infinite Mind. that being so, it cannot mean what it literally says. moreover, it is known to be corrupted, at least by any student of Talmud. so, the text is a corrupted representation of a revelation.

nevertheless, elucidating the meaning of Torah is the paragon of Jewish joy, indeed, that is what many Jews envision as the reward of eternal life for those who believe in eternal life. (yeah, yeah, i know Moses ben Maimon says we all are supposed to believe that, etc, but we don't.) elucidation is not arbitrary: there are hermeneutical rules. the best elucidations have many cross-references to Torah and Talmud, and an appreciation for opinions given before.

in the Reform tradition, the elucidations are more egalitarian. they're supposed to be so, in Orthodoxy, but tend not to be, since some individuals are respected as "knowing more" than others. IMO, that's great for a strictly intellectual tradition, but doesn't do much for the average Jew who then is beholden to these "experts", particularly when the "experts" don't have a consensus.

in Reform, too, in some cases, evidence illuminating Torah is admitted from archaeology, including the proposition that Torah is not divinely revealed, only written and commented upon as if it were. there is still value, IMO, in study even given that.

to me, there's nothing at all mystical about Torah being like an infinite sea. so is Shakespeare.

#55519: Mike the Mad Biologist — 12/28  at  05:38 PM
PZ,

the conflict between biblical literalism and science was dealt with centuries ago by Maimonides. The Lubavitch aren't 'Orthodox', they're a cult (they believed Rabbi Schneerson was the Messiah...)

Trackback: musings for a holiday season Tracked on: a wolf angel is not a good angel (72.18.130.5) at 2005 12 28 18:11:48
PZ Myers posted about religious people who are not anti-evolution — Orthodox Jews. Now, this is true: generally, a Jew who has been well-educated in religion does not believe that the Torah is *literally* true — nor do you actually need to...