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Avram in MD,
Do you realize what youbdid with the eclipse thing? You bent over backwards and resorted to a hypothesis based on the supernatural to try and reconcile science with religion. That seems to be a recurring theme in these threads.
For real,
Which statement needs evidence? As far as krias yam suf goes I assumed OP believes that it did happen, so did not feel a need to bring proof. If others don’t believe in it perhaps there is a more appropriate thread for discussing such matters.
Anonymous1000,
Being that everything appears to operate according to the laws of nature, and you can accurately predict what will happen based on this, you need to bring evidence that there aren’t laws of nature and everything is in fact just the whims of an intelligent creator who just likes to always act the same way.
If you could bring ANY evidence for Krias Yam Suf that would be great.
Anonymous1000,
If I told you that the reason apples fall is because there are little invisible elves who live under apple trees that pull the apples down, but that really apples float, the burden of proof would be on me. It is the same exact thing.
Einstein was not an atheist. He was a pantheist.
i dont really understand why open kfira is being allowed in the form of academic discussion. didnt someone named farber just get smashed for expressing the same? denying any one letter in the torah makes one a kofer. you can have whatever opinions you want, but why this site should be a theater for the absurd is beyond me. and honestly, if you really have questions, and you genuinely want to know the answers to your questions, not just use them a a right to openly defy the dvar Hashem, get in touch with one of the many people who deal with such sfeikos and ask them everything thats ever troubled you.
lakewood001
It s actually a pretty foolish statement to say “everything” seems to work according to the Laws of Nature.
Personallly I was hospitalized according to the “law of Naute” I should never have recovered.
Thank G-d, I did recover. one of the irreligous DR’s (a top one in his field BTW) answer was “well medicine does not explain everything, there are some things we just don’t understand.)
Another reletive of mine was involved in a difficult case that wound up being a disagreement between two doctors, again one of the irreligous Dr’s told him ” what you think this is science? It’s medicine he thinks what he thinks, I think what I think.
And when both of them had basically given up the family in question went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky who gave a brocha and there was then a complete recovery to the doctors astonishment.
lakewood,
I wrote my post for the OP to read. I think he already believes his statement and also in krias yam suf. I was not trying to prove either point. All I was doing was saying how I also came to his same conclusion and think it fits into the Torah well. If you want proofs for the Torah perhaps you can start another thread on the topic. Also OP explained his reasoning but maybe I can write in more detail why I think it too.
Toi, your point is wel taken.
Beningnuman, great posts, thanks.
Lakewood001.
There is an essentiall difference between a religoun claiming that there were isolated instances of Miracles occuring in front of thousands of people (something btw, that the Torah would not dispute as being possible)to what the Torah descrobes.
The Jewish religoun is predicated on the notion thatg the seminal events that brought the Jewish people in to being which are,
1) Yetzias Mitzrayim.
2) Mamad Har Sinai.
3) Kevishas Eretz Yisroel.
All took place to the Jewish Nation as a whole. Each and every other religoun asks that for the most part one individual 9at a most a small group of individuals) are to be believed in order to accept that religoun.
The Jewish religoun makes no such demand.
In order fort the other religouns to be false one person(or small group of people) would have to be a charismatic lier.
For the Torah to be false Chas v’sholom, It would have taken an entire Nation to have collective amnesia over what had happened to them and then accept upon themselvesan entire new history.
And this firm belief also would have reqired them convincing themselves that their fathers had told them this each year Pesach time, they had always been putting on Tefililin each day that told them this and they had always been placing mezuzahs on the door that said the same thing.
lakewood and maybe for real,
Here is my point:
Premise: I observe something and it happens every time without fail. This same test (e.g. dropping an apple) works for any one who tries it.
conclusion: It must be that gravity is causing this to happen.
However this is a fallacy. To break the connection between the premise and conclusion all one has to do is prove that the premise does not necessitate the conclusion. In which case the burden of proof is placed back on the one who presented the argument.
Now it could be that there is some other factor causing the apple to fall that is always there when gravity is there. Now you may say I have to prove that. But really all I had to do was show that your premise does not necessitate the conclusion and the burden of proof is back on you.
It happens to be that there is evidence of Hashem and the Torah but again I will not get into that in this thread.
Anonymous1000,
That was a pretty large leap in logic. Assuming you can adequately cause doubt as to why an apple falls, why then would there be a burden of proof to prove that it is not supernatural? The logical conclusion if you were to provide doubt to that premise, would be to further test the hypothesix, or a new one. Why would you insert supernatural to fill the void?
For-real.
Actually stating a recovery is miraculas” is acknowledging the ones that do not end “well”.
A miracle means acknowledging that according to the “rules of nature” things should have not ended well. For this to be the case the majority of cases must not end well.
In my case in particular something had occured which is deemed “non-recoverabe” from in fact it is taught in medical school to be a “point of no-rturn” regarding certain things (I don’t want to get to specific).
Yet, I did recover, and recovered fully B”H.
An expert who had been called in to my case used the words “humbling” and stated things like that “happen occasionally”.
They are not supposed to, they do not know why, but they do.
In other words,
They know that the Laws of Nature dictate that a=b, yet they also know that sometimes anomaly’s happen that fly in the face of the Laws of Nature.
They can’t explain them, they acknowledge they don’t make sense but also acknowledge they’re occurence.
I call it a Miracle.
They call it unexplainible.
The burden is not to disprove supernatural. All I meant to do was point out that just because every time you do “a” b happens that doesn’t mean a causes b to happen. Now if you have no positive reason to believe there is some other cause you will likely stick with a causes b. but I’m just noting that if somehow you were to find out that really there is some other cause that isn’t a contradiction to your observations. Now you are right you still need proof beyond a reasonable doubt that there is some other cause. I say it’s Hashem and I know I have not provided proof for G-d’s existence but thats not my point here.
Beniguman,
Again your whole premise (that whenever someone says or writes that God is speaking through them there is a 50/50 chance that he is) is false. The chances of God (even assuming he exists) actually dictating anything to any particular person are extremely small.
When someone says God dictated something to them they are saying that something that has very little chance of occurring has in fact happened to them. That is why when someone on a street corner tells us that he has had a conversation with God we write him off as insane by default.
If you want us to believe that a book was dictated by God and is not just another construct of humans (like the Koran or Book of Mormon or any of the other multitude of religious writings that claim to be dictated by angels or gods) you need to bring evidence that that particular book is different. An example would be something written in it that could not have possibly have been known by humans at that time (like the speed of light for example) would be evidence that human beings didn’t write it. The prophecies you keep mentioning are vague enough that there are endless discussions in the Gemara simply trying to figure out how, when and what those prophecies are even reffering to. The fact that people believed something was divine for many years doesn’t increase the chances that it is either. It a totally irrelevant point.
Ben Levi,
I’m a bit uncomfortable arguing the point with you as you were ill and recovered. I don’t want to come across as callous (I’m not). But, again, my point is this. Since most people in your situation would not have pulled through, yet you did, why is there this necessity to attach a “miracle” to your recovery? There are many cases of anomalies, many of which end up being explained. The rest, with research, likely will be. Science makes breakthroughs all the time and explains things that were not previously explainable. What happens when a researcher is able to explain what occurred in your situation? The approach to an unexplained phenomenon is to study it and learn the reason for it, not to insert supernatural to fill the void.
I am not stating that there is a need to insert the supernatural.
I am simply stating the reality.
A miracle by definition requires a break from the Law of Nature.
you are right there times something happens and we sim ply do not know why.
There are other times though when the Laws of Nature dictate that a certain thing wil take place
.
When it does not it’s an anomaly.
In my personal case the Medical Community were in their words “pessimistic” about any chance of full recovery.
Gedolei Yisroel, who were asked, stated confidently that the Dr’s were wrong and I would recover.
When the Gedolim were correct and the Dr’s wrong and an ir-religous DR. had a moment of truth and acknowledged that in this case the “Rabbis were right”.
This even though the Rabbis were in a different country.
And no only that one Godal was able to state with certainty that the DR’s wpuld be unable to pin down the exact casue of what happened.
And lo and behold, they could’nt.
Now could they find out what happened that will allow them
to come up with some cure for people who were in my situation?
I sure hope so.
But the facts remain that in my case there was nothing they did that caused the results that happened. And they acknowledge that there is no medical explanation for what occured.
In fact medically it’s taught that what happened is virtually impossible.
So again I don;t have the need to “insert” the supernatural. B”h it inserted itself.
Benignuman-
Can you please clarify: Patterns are unlikely to exist without laws of nature. We experience patterns, thus it’s likely there are laws of nature.
Having read a lot about the science debate on Orthodox Jewish sites, I have found a piece which truly astounds me:
“Let the lips that speak falsely be muted, those who speak of the hidden matters of the Righteous One, with arrogance and disrespect” (Psalms 31:19). This refers to those who speak about the matters that G-d hid from His creations; they are showing contempt for G-d’s honor. Anyone who gets himself honor through the embarrassment of his friend has no share in the World to Come, all the more so one who gets himself honor through disregarding G-d’s honor. That is why the next verse in Psalms speaks of the World to Come: “How great is Your goodness that You have hidden away for those who fear You” – and not for those who show contempt for Your fear. (Bereishis Rabbah 1:5)
Thus, even though scientists indeed discover many hidden things, they bring great evil.
That reminds me of the Tree of Knowledge. And of Aher? who found out the great mysteries through the Torah and became a heretic.
The gentile world has legends of Faust who agreed to suffer eternally in exchange for knowledge.
so where are we holding now for those who just joined the newest “i dont belive” thread? summery anyone?
But the reality is, that there is no gravity, there is no nature. There is just Hashem. Every time that apple falls it is because Hashem made it happen. And that why once in a while gravity doesn’t work and you have crias yam suf. Because Hashem is the one doing it. Now Hashem keeps things going in a natural way so we could be tested in either believing in nature or Him.
My Rebbi once told me that there is a difference beteen Hashgacha Pratis and Klallis – Hashgacha Pratis is where HKB”H arranges every detail Personally – however, there is something called Hashgacha Klallis, a.k.a Nature, where HKB”H placed a koach in the briah to continue in a natural form.
“Belief” in science is not the correct term we should be discussing. Scientific facts simply are. Disbelieve scientific facts? You might as well believe that pigs are kosher.
Charliehall,
I don’t think that anyone is disputing the need to believe in “Scientific facts” they are as you said, simple facts.
The question is about Theories which may be promoted as “facts” yet aren’t.
Saying scientific “age counting” is fact based is simply ignorant, as one poster noted, there are different methods all of which give different results so it’s hard to take it as fact based.
The question remains why believe in Science.
To the poster who said that the laws of nature exist so as to test us, that’s just silly. HKBH set up natural laws so that we could function normally. It would be a strange and impossible existence if I didn’t know every night when I went to sleep how to walk the next morning because gravity might function differently. Or if I would even need sleep to continue to exist at all. Or if I’d be uncomfortably cold in 30 degree weather. Or if weather would even exist.
You just can’t function as a physical being without laws of nature. Also, that aside, many Mitzvos would be impossible without our consistent natural existence.
Oh, and Ben Levi, please stop posting this nonsense that just because something is a Theory means it hasn’t been promoted to a fact or a Law yet. That’s just not true. The Wikipedia definition of a scientific theory is (important parts bolded):
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.[1][2] Scientists create scientific theories from hypotheses that have been corroborated through the scientific method, then gather evidence to test their accuracy. As with all forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive and explanatory force.[3][4]
The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain, which is measured by its ability to make falsifiable predictions with respect to those phenomena. Theories are improved as more evidence is gathered, so that accuracy in prediction improves over time. Scientists use theories as a foundation to gain further scientific knowledge, as well as to accomplish goals such as inventing technology or curing disease.
Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge.[3] This is significantly different from the word “theory” in common usage, which implies that something is unsubstantiated or speculative.[5]“
Charliehall,
I don’t think that anyone is disputing the need to believe in “Scientific facts” they are as you said, simple facts.
The question is about Theories which may be promoted as “facts” yet aren’t.
Saying scientific “age counting” is fact based is simply ignorant, as one poster noted, there are different methods all of which give different results so it’s hard to take it as fact based.
The question remains why believe in Science.
Sam2,
Which part of what I said is inaccurate?
Seems to me what you quoted from Wikipedia is exactly what I said.
And the “theory” of Evolution (the form we are discussing) is the perfect example.
The Theory of Evolution, if true, would explain many things.
There is no denying that.
And yes it was formed to explain several questions, and yes the things it comes to explain are facts.
There are numerous skeletal structures that are eerily similarly.
However there is no proof to Evolution at all, while there are numerous very specific questions such as why after over 100 years of searching for a fossil record there remains none.
And yes the questions it comes to answer do not exist if one believes God created the World.
So as there is no direct proof towards Evolution it remains a “theory”.
Ben Levi: This is where you are wrong and misinforming people. Even if absolute proof was found, the Theory of Evolution would remain just that. Theories don’t get upgraded to Laws. That’s not how they work.
Besides, the Theory of Evolution is a misnomer based on archaic usage. It is just a general overarching concept that everyone (even Frum Jews) acknowledge exists. There are Pratim within the current working models of the theory that we don’t agree to (common descent, punctuated equilibrium, etc.). But everyone agrees to natural selection and basic genetics.
Ben Levi,
Contrary to what you say there is a very clear fossil record that supports common descent and that is just one of the proofs to it. Even proponents of “Intelligent Design” (like Michael Behe author of Darwin’s Black Box for example) do not dispute that there is overwhelming evidence that all species alive today share a common ancestor and have descended from earlier species. Intelligent design posits that there are certain aspects of certain living beings that are “irreducibly complex” and therefore would have needed an intelligent designer to get involved with those certain aspects.
To claim there is no evidence to evolution is laughable at best.
You are also wrong when it comes to dating methods. The various methods used to date things do match up when used. Double blind testing with different methods is fairly common.
Do you believe the world is 6000 years old?
Sam2
Evolution is no misnomer there are types of evolution we agree with since they are proven facts that are actually demonstrable in lab settings. That is what is under discussion.
And I did not mean to say there is no “absolute proof” I meant to say there is no direct proof.
And guess what there is none.
Ravfranklin
I am curious if you have ever read through the literature of evolutionists.
If you would have (or perhaps you did but failed to understand it) you w3ould have seen the obvious.
Yes there are individual fossils of species that do not exist at this time,
However there is no fossil record at all.
Those are the facts, plain and simple.
As for Intelligent Design.
I do not believe in Intelligent design ch”v.
What I do believe in firmly is Maseh Bereishsis.
The world was created by One G-d.
Furthermore I firmly believe that what separates man from animal is out “neshomah” (or one of them) not our bodies which themselves are quite similar.
An yes I am aware that from Darwin on Galapagos Island till today, evolutionists are quite concerned with the biological similarities between the various species that exist.
To the point that billions have been spent researching these similarities and books after books written documenting them.
All I can say is that if you would have asked any Talmid Chochom with a thorough knowledge of the basic Seder Habriah they would have told you that probably the case, that how god created them.
Even though I hate mathematics, and hated it all my life, I got a PhD in it. Now I can not get a job because any boss will see that I am not interested in the subject.
Thank G-d I had an experience which will help me not make an idol out of science.
Ben Levi,
You are wrong about the fossil record. There is no argument that the fossil record clearly supports common descent. There is some arguments as to what mechanism for that descent is supported by the fossil record but that’s it.
What do you mean when you say “there is no fossil record?”
As an aside your assertion that any talmid chachom would have probably predicted what is found in the fossil record is untrue as well. Many rishonim and achronim believed that no species ever go extinct, see the chinuch mitzvah 545 for an example.
peppersalt
I am unaware of the Chinuch you refer to. I am aware of Derech Hashem where the Ramchal indicates quite clearly that if any given species will never go extinct as long as there is a purpose for it in the world.
The way I always understood it was that the Ramchal is basically stating that if a particular species purpose would no longer exist it would then cease to exist.
As for “Fossil Record”
I mean a clear discovery of linked species in successive strata that would show that evolution took place.
that is the only way to “prove” evolution.
The lack of such evidence is not just a “lack of proof, it is also quite troubling.
If the evolution of species took please according to the Evolutionary Theory then some archeological evidence of successive animals (or humans) should have been found somewhere amongst the various strata.
Why is it that after well over 100 years of worldwide searching the fossil record of a single species still has not been found?
Ben Levi,
Plenty of “successive” groups of fossils have been found. I am not sure what you are talking about.
Look up the chinuch. He learns from a Pasuk that no species will ever go extinct.
peppersalt,
First off regarding the Chinuch, I didn’t say you’re wrong, all I said was I did not know it. The Ramchal in Derech Hashem indicates that is not the case, I learnt Derech Hashem, I did not learn Chinuch.
Regarding fossils.
Let me explain really clearly.
Lets take the example of Horses.
Let’s say for arguments sake that evolutionists posit that Horses had ten stages of development until they evolved to the form of Horses we have now.
A fossil record would be if the dug in one area and found a chain of ten types of Horses one after the other the “oldest” fossil being at the lowest strata the next species being at the above strata and so on.
That has never been found and the inability to find it at all is quite troubling a fact that BTW is admitted to by many honest committed evolutionists. If Evolution took place and this process was gone through by all the different species we have then somewhere there should be a record there isn’t.
What there is plenty of scattered fossils all over the world and conjecture about how one type came from another.
But thats it.
Again if you want to debate the stuff you should first read the literature on it.
The lack of a fossil record is pretty much acknowledged across the board.
Ben Levi,
Again, contrary to what you say there are plenty of fossils found in successive order in the different strata exactly as evolution predicts. No one disputes this.
By “evolution” in my above comment I mean “common descent” not any particular theory as to how that descent came about.
All the fossil record shows, is what we think are fossilized
bones embedded in the rock.
That is where the science ends.
The claim and belief that one fossil above the other is evidence that
one had to have evolved from the other is not scientific proof.
It is mere speculation.
There is no actual proof whatsoever, that any species has ever evolved
into a new species that is genetically incompatable from the one it evolved from.
And where are those transitional species?
WIY
You mean in the fossil record? There are plenty of fossils showing the progression through th ages in the different strata. You can do a simple google search or take a trip to a Natrual History Museum to see them.
WIY- Everything is transitional. A child does not have the exact DNA sequence of its parents. Each individual has many different polymorphisms that over many generations contribute to change in traits.
peppersalt
As I stated earlier.
Yes there are fossil’s on an individual
basis.
And yes evolution does posit one came from another.
(no they don’t “predict” you can’t predict what you have).
However facts are there is no fossil record, the transitional species don’t exist.
Them’s the facts.
Again lets provide some real quotes.
Sir Francis Hoyle ( I’ve quoted him before and he is certainly no believer in Maseh Bereshis to put it mildly)states “it is not hard to find writings in which the myth is stated that the Darwinian theory of evolution is well proven by the fossil record. But one finds the higher the technical quality of the writings the weaker are the claims that are made (page 184 in Evolution from Space.
Why the weak claims?
Lets quote from the Obvious Proof,
“there should be fossils corresponding to each rung in evolutions ladder. Concerning any species alive today, it should be possible to find fossil records not only of distant ancestors but also of the many transitional forms in between.
When Darwin was alive he admitted that the fossil record did not
yet provide evidence that evolution had actually taken place etc…
Darwin was confident, however that if paleontologists would dig in the right places the missing links would turn up.
however after a century of digging scientists have not uncovered the fossils to support Darwin’s claim.
To quote from Is Evolution Proved?
“statistically the absence of any traces of transitional forms proves there never were any”. (page 61)
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