[GCFL-discuss] Happy Holidays

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

Hi Quama,

I too have found the silence a little dull, but I was sort of waiting for
someone else to find a good subject. I have been having an email
discussion with an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi who works at the same business
as the young man who plays the keyboard at a church I visit more often
than not, and I find his insights quite useful. Maybe others would like
to read or comment on them:::::::


The problem has been a trendency toward a sort of militant secularism a
la 
19th century French radicalism (the sort of attitude that has them 
entangled now in the "battle of the hijab", which is not going to do them

any good in terms of assimilating their increasingly radicalised Muslim 
population), almost as though the principle was "freedom from religion"
as 
opposed to "freedom of religion".

A mature, reasonable view of the polity, in my humble opinion, should 
recognise the following facts:

1) The United States is a culturally Christian country (that's why, for 
example, 25 December tends to be regarded as a national hopliday, and
also 
why efforts to remove creches from courthouse steps, etc., are idiotic 
wastes of resources). So long as the American spirit of fair play permits

religious minorities (such as myself) to practice my religion unhindered,

we religious minoritieds have to accep as reasonable that we have the 
burden of explaining to our children why we don't bring fir trees into
our 
houses at this time of year,, etc.
The growing, vibrant Orthodox Jewish community in the US is perfect proof

that this is possible.

2) It therefore stand to reason that the public square, far from from
being 
forcibly kept free of religious ideas (because militantly secular Leftist

elitists are uncomfortable with them); rather, it should be a
"marketplace 
of ideas", one in which free exchange and respectful discussion can take 
place (such as, I think, we are having). This requires, however, mature 
people who are secure in their beliiefs and have reasonably 
well-thought-out positions to carry on rational discussions; the sort of 
near-paranoid inferiority complex which seems to drive many orhodox
Muslims 
to a prickly insistence that nothing of their system be remotely 
questioned, on the one hand, or the similarly defensive mechanism often 
evident from fear-ridden evangelical converts, on the other (as well as
the 
hysterically militant secularists referenced above), sometimes make this 
difficult. Refreshingly, you don't seem to have this problem.

Anyhow:

The reason that there is no inherent conflict between science and
religion 
is that they proceed from dimetrically opposite viewpoints.

Science is by nature an a posteriori study. Any scientist must begin with

the observed phenomena around him, try to extrapolate backwards from
those 
observations to determine a plausible chain of causality and then (for 
true, hard science) devise experiments whose results can be predicted on 
the basis of his hypothesis. Then, the results dictate whether the 
hypothesis is corroborated, or must be scrapped or modified, and
re-tested.

This, of coursem is an ideal; scientists, being, human, are subjective 
beings who become emotionally involved in their work qirh soimetimnes 
startling and unscientific results. The great philosopher of science,
Karl 
Poper, demonstrated in 1934 that only those theories may deemed truly 
"scientific" which can be proven wrong; it is never possible to "prove" 
them right, only to corroborate them (for it is always possible that
there 
exists a case which has not been considered that will, in fact, prove it 
wrong).

Religion proceeds from a a priori basis. In that case of the Torah, we
have 
what purports to be a "user's manual" for the universe written  by the 
Design Engineer. What we need is the ability to understand it, and the 
willingness to confront the actual, observed phenomena (as opposed to the

conjecture around the observations) and try to understand them in the
light 
of what that manual tells us.

For the Jewish tradition, this means including, incidentally, the Oral 
Torah of the Talmud, etc., in the discussion. Many of the apprent 
contradictions dissolve away when the Biblical is reads with the Talmudic

understanbding of it in mind (in my humble opinion).

Nonetheless, the fact remains: Science, properly conducted is a
posteriori 
and always provisional (since at any time a theory can be overturned). 
Religion (for me, Torah) is a priori, and once one has the emuna (which 
I'll provisionally translate "faith", but that is an entirely different 
discussion for another time) that the manual is what it purports to be, 
there can be no provisionality about it. The only thing "provisional" is 
our understanding, which can change and deepen, of how the observed 
phenomena proceed from the processes laid out in the manual.


::::: I thought this was enlightening commentary. I won't try to overlay
my own opinions, which come pretty close but are not identical. Maybe
someone else will be stimulated to comment.

Siarlys