JayMatt, I am not saying that the RBSH doesn’t control the world, chas vshalom. I am saying that according to Joseph, there was a major neis in the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, that a nuclear power was defeated by a band of horseback riders. Do we find this anywhere in the mekoros? Do we find anywhere that the yidden had the most powerful weapons and technology, but since their aveiros were so bad, that all the technology suddenly became disabled. I.e., their planes stopped functioning, their tanks wouldn’t start, the production line for new vehicles became stalled, the high-powered long-distance lasers that would have stopped the enemy all disappeared. The remote early warning systems that controlled the mines all became disabled and the enemy infiltrated. Why isn’t there a single medrash that tells us that Hashem’s wrath was so great that even though we were dealing with a primitive army against a superpower, the primitive army miracously overcame the high-tech army because of the aveiros of the yidden? Please understand, bderech hateva could horseback riders overthrow the entire USA? Where do we find that a miracle of such magnitude occurred by the churban?
As you brought up about Chanukah we were victorious against a majority. But wait isn’t that a rayah for me? Don’t we say giborim byad chalashim? That the strong were delivered into the hands of the weak? But I thought we were the nuclear superpower, and they were the weak primitive horsemen. Of course we won, because we were the far stronger force. So what is the miracle there? Incidentally, Berel Wein describes how the Chanukah battle was fought with elephants, and I do not think he mentioned tanks.
In addition, let’s leave the churban and look at other things. Chazal tell us about lamps in many places, but they are all oil lamps, not light bulbs which have different halachos (i.e., you can read on Shabbos with them). The first mention in the shailos and tshuvos of the new lighting technology was in the 1900’s, not in the mishna and gemara.
The gemara tells us about bathrooms. They were simple outhouses with no water or sewers, etc. They used stones instead of tissue paper. The gemara tells us that going to the bathroom was such a difficult process, (required a long walk to the nearest location, and so on) that Rava always avoided it when he was giving shiur, and because he held it in, he severely damaged his body.
Jay and Joseph, I understand my points about the ancient wars are silly. What I am trying to point out is that it is all an anachronism. This technology wasn’t around then. We find no remnants in archeology of electronic systems, yet we do find arrowheads. You are asking me to believe in something which goes so totally beyond the pale of rationality. As I said earlier, science is a team effort with each expert only mstering a small slice of his enormous field. And there are numerous fields. It is when we put the collective efforts together that we achieve the modern technological innovations of today. Simply put, if Chazal were experts in all areas of science, they would have no brain cells left to be experts in learning. It is simply not humanly possible. No scientist is an expert in all areas of science, not even in a single area.
Again, if you believe that the gedolim have scientific expertise via ruach hakodesh, would you be willing to identify one such godol today willing to take and ace university level exams in all subjects without studying the textbooks?
Ames, I agree with you that technology is not the ikar, and would not have stopped the RBSH from destroying the Beis Hamikdash for our aveiros. As I posted earlier, the ikar is menschlachkeit. That is our whole purpose in learning and doing mitzvos, not to become scientists. I don’t know where Reb Avigdor Miller got his sources, but I don’t know if I would trust him on scientific matters, either. (I am not a proponent of Global Warming).
As far as a tzaddik saying something and making it true, miracles are always possible in any set of circumstances. But most of the time we don’t see things that go against the laws of nature. What we should keep in mind is that nature itself is the biggest miracle of all. The laws of science are miraculous in that they work so well and are understandable by our brains which the RBSH gave us in his infinite chesed. It is a chesed that we can see the experiments, that we can move our hands to do the experiments. That we can talk to another scientist (koach of speech) by vibrating the air from our mouths by moving our throats and tongue. That he can sense the vibrations in the air and get an interpretable message out of them (hearing and understanding). That he can add to it, and develop a device using the raw materials that Hashem provided. (Imagine if metal did not exist, and the periodic table was half empty.) These are all the biggest miracles of all. Yet we must realize that these all exist to do chesed.