sbm@purdue.UUCP (Steven B. Munson) (01/14/86)
I replied to this article in net.religion.christian yesterday, and it
just occurred to me that my reply would probably be just as interesting to
the readers of net.religion.jewish, so I thought I would post it here, too.
I don't know; maybe the same people read both newsgroups....
Paul Ziemba was putting forth an argument that the existence of God
could not be proven to be either true or false. This idea may seem obvious,
but I have found more reason to believe it than just faith.
In article <3609@pur-ee.UUCP>, dsm@pur-ee.UUCP (Paul Ziemba @ Purdue=) writes:
> ... we need to know what the world is like
> _with_ this hypothetical deity present, and what the world
> is like _without_ this god, in order to make a determination.
> Under the scientific method, I think this is called 'using
> a control'.
That is what is needed for a scientific experiment, i.e., not just an
experiment, but a control, but it is clear that we cannot control the
presence of God. Does this mean that there is no scientific way to prove
God's existence? How about if we try to prove that the Bible was written
under divine inspiration? In this case, we do have a control group--
billions of people that have written things without divine inspiration.
What I am trying to get at is that the Bible writers wrote things that
weren't even known outside of Israel for thousands of years. Most people
know that the Bible contains prophecy, but it also contains little
scientific surprises, like the one at Leviticus 11:6: "Also the hare,
because it is a chewer of the cud ...." It sounds simple, but for centuries
critics said that this was proof that the Bible was not inspired, because
rabbits had not been observed chewing cud. However, the Englishman William
Cowper observed rabbits chewing cud in the 18th century, and the unusual
way in which it is done was described in a zoological journal in 1940.
Surprising? Not if you consider science to be the knowledge of man and the
Bible the knowledge of God. It makes sense that science lags behind the
Bible by a few thousand years.
One example never convinced anyone, so let's look at a few more. At a
time when it was believed that the earth was supported by something like a
strong giant, it was written (around 1473 BCE) at Job 26:7, "He is
stretching out the north over the empty place, hanging the earth upon
nothing." I couldn't have explained better to simple people that the earth
is held in its place in space by the invisible force of gravity. Also, at
a time when the earth was thought to be flat, Isaiah 40:22 said, "There is
One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which
are as grasshoppers." The Hebrew word "chugh", translated "circle" here,
can also mean "sphere", so, for instance, the Douay version says "the globe
of the earth." Yet, this was written around 732 BCE, and the idea of a
spherical earth was not widely accepted until the Renaissance. Many
scientists have scoffed at the idea that the heavens and the earth were
created "in the beginning," saying that the universe has been in existence
forever, but the more they study, the more they realize that the universe
had a beginning at a definite moment in time (the "big bang" theory).
Astronomers have had an interesting reaction to these recent discoveries;
here is what one astronomer, Robert Jastrow, has said:
"Astronomers are curiously upset. Their reactions provide an
interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind--
supposedly a very objective mind--when evidence uncovered by
science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in
our profession. It turns out that the scientist behaves the way
the rest of us do when our beliefs are in conflict with the
evidence. We become irritated, we pretend the conflict does not
exist, or we paper it over with meaningless phrases."
Is belief in the Bible simply a matter of faith, or the result of an
honest look at the evidence? The Bible was also way ahead of its time in
medical advice. The Law given to Israel before they entered the promised
land contained numerous rules about health, including quarantining people
who had leprosy. One rule was that anyone that touched a dead person had
to wash himself and his clothes and remain unclean for seven days; there
was a lot of incentive for the Israelites not even to go into a tent that
contained a corpse. This may sound obvious, but as recently as the last
century medical personnel would go directly from handling the dead in the
dissecting room to conducting examinations in the maternity ward without
even washing their hands, thus transfering infection from the dead and
causing the death of many others.
I have barely scratched the surface of examples of things written in
the Bible that our "control group", the other nations that did not have
God's inspiration, did not know, but I don't want to make this article too
long. Israel did not discover these things just a few years or even a few
generations before the other nations did, but thousands of years ahead of
them. Is belief in the Bible a matter of faith? I didn't want to believe
the Bible when I started studying it, but I was curious, and now I have
found strong evidence supporting it. Why doesn't everyone believe the
Bible? My experience is that the ones that don't believe it have not
studied it enough to see whether it is true or not. If you skeptics out
there are not yet convinced (I'm sure you're not), I would be glad to post
more evidence.
> I do not believe that God is 'running' this world; ...
> ... I think that we
> humans _are responsible_ for how we turn out and what
> happens to us.
Good for you. Too many people today blame God for all the misery on
earth ("God took him;" "God must have wanted him to die"). People were
made as agents of choice, and the wars and unhappiness we see today are
results of their choice to be independent of God. Adam and Eve were given
a whole garden paradise with one tree in the middle of it that they were not
allowed to eat from. Their choice was simple: follow the rules or die.
They were not forced to eat the forbidden fruit and they did not make a
mistake. They knew they were breaking the rules, but they decided that God
was holding back something good from them, and they wanted it. The mess
the world is in today is the result of their desire to make up their own
rules; this is what God was holding back, but, based on the choice of the
first humans, it was necessary to show what happens when God's rules are
not followed.
> Summary: I have not proved anything, except perhaps
> that the answer to this question of God is un-provable...
I don't know what it would take to "prove" the existence of God to
some people. Sometimes I look at what I am saying and think, "What a
religious fanatic I sound like!" The evidence, though, is very strong, and
I don't think it is as much a matter of faith as many would have it seem.
Think about what you have read so far; I have many more fascinating
examples of the Bible's believability that I would be happy to post if
anyone wants to hear them.
Steve Munson
sbm@Purdue.EDU
sbm@Purdue.CSNET