devarim

(I will read it, too. I've had some similar thoughts swirling in my head lately.)

Science and logic are no excuse. But I'll be watching to see where you're going with this...

aaron - care to elaborate?

Not really... But just as there can be no incontrovertible evidence of Hashem's existence, there can be no incontrovertible evidence of his non-existence either. Otherwise there could be no free will. So science and logic don't get to rule one way or the other.

I haven't read it in almost ten years but Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen's "Permission to Believe" is topical. At every step of the way he admits that someone who has made up her mind not to believe will find some kind of counter-argument which satisfies her need to escape from Hashem. Nevertheless his arguments are well reasoned and provide food for thought for those of us who might choose to see Hashem's hand in our own lives.

I've also not seen science or logic to contradict belief in God. (ok, so I'm married to Aaron, and we have a similar view on life...)

Anyway, in my experience, science and logic either leave things open or back up the Torah and G-d's existance... for example, some scientists somewhere (don't remember the study, but pretty sure I saw it in US News) determined that at least the majority of humanity started in one specific valley, and then migrated from there, and their languages grew out of one base language, changing within each sub-group/family that settled in a different spot. The valley? Somewhere in Persia. The language was an ancestor of Aramaic. Sound familiar? To me, that basically backs up the story of the Tower of Bavel.

They've also traced all humanity to one or two common ancestors... Adam and Chava.

Studies on the power of prayer (Also from US News) have shown that people who are prayed for (even without their knowledge) respond better to medical treatment and get better faster.

And that's not counting all the medical miracles, people given no chance by the doctors who recover completely, stumping all the medical professionals.

Have you read the Small Miracles series? The editors (frum women, although it's not specifically a Jewish series at all) posit that there's no such thing as a coincidence, and that all such are guided from above... then they retell story after story after story about seeming little coincidences... it's stories like these, along with things I've experienced myself (Musing aloud one Shabbos afternoon pre-children when we still lived in Boston about how I hadn't heard my husband lein in far too long. As soon as Shabbos ended, the phone rang, inviting him to Worcester the following week to guest lein. And that's just one example... this happens to me all the time!)

Anyway, that's just a few thoughts thrown out. I won't say they definitively prove that God wants you to be an Orthodox Jew and cover your hair full time and wear long skirts... I can't prove that at all. I'm willing to believe in a God who judges you according to your personal belief system... there is no afterlife for non-believers, say, and tzadikim find it just as promised in the Gemora, Christians get their version... I don't have a problem with that. But I can't not believe in God, or believe in a world run completely according to chance. Logic dictates otherwise.

Yes, I read it. :-)

Anyway, my belief is that reason is the only way by which we gain knowledge -- "faith" is simply belief based on emotions, in the absence of and sometimes even against demonstrable facts, and thus cannot be relied on.

The "there is no incontrovertible evidence against god" argument doesn't hold water with me. Proving a negative is by nature not possible; an active imagination can come up with any number of "explanations" for phenomena. But the burden of proof is on the one who wants to prove the positive, not the negative. In the absence of evidence for a god, I don't believe in one. The minute I am shown conclusive proof otherwise, I'll be happy to change my mind.

Well, that's what "faith" is, but that's not what "emunah" is (the Hebrew word that is usually translated as faith)... the problem in trying to translate from one language to another.

Stella, what would you consider "conclusive proof?" Because you can always claim that whatever is offered wasn't conclusive enough. I don't expect to hear a heavenly voice proclaim to you that there is in fact a God.. but would even that prove it to you, or would you assume it was faked?

For me, it's obvious that the world has a creator, and I see His hand everywhere. For you, the same scenarios don't offer proof of anything. So what are you looking for?

I'm with Stella, except that I think the evidence is in favor of God's existence. But that's really what it comes down to; one looks at the evidence and sees which explanation is the most plausible one. Sure, absolute proof is impossible, just as it's impossible to absolutely prove that Finland exists. (To me, anyway. I've never been there.) But, in this case, supposing it does exist is much more plausible than supposing that there's a massive conspiracy of the world's cartographers and reporters to fool the public. On the other hand, good luck in convincing me in the existance of Loompaland... The same thing goes for God; unless you have enough evidence to make His existance the best analysis, there's no reason to believe in Him at all. (Again, I think the weight of the evidence is in His favor, but that's for individuals to decide for themselves.)

Shmuel,

I find your opening line "I'm with Stella" kind of amusing, since you seem to almost completely disagree with her.

I, too, find G-d's existence to be the best explanation for the way the world appears to me. But my preconceived notions, stemming from my upbringing etc, predispose me to that interpretation of the evidence. Other people's interpretations of the evidence are similarly colored by what they each want to believe for whatever reason. Hashem has chosen to give us free will, which means that logic alone will never be enough to convince someone who finds the notion of an involved Creator to be inconvenient.

I agree - I've never seen any contradiction between science and religion.
and my husband has been known to argue that you can't have any objective code of ethics without religion. but I'll leave it up to him to argue that with you.

aaron - the difference between believing in Finland and believing in God is that the evidence offered in favor of Finland is direct - people have said/written that they have seen it themselves, and the fact that there are so many such witnesses is what makes it so plausible. In the case of God, few claim to have physically witnessed God - it's more a case of an explanation that seems to fit the available facts - but isn't this more a matter of opinion than evidence?

cyberdov -- I completely agree. I'm not sure why you have singled me out, as I am the one who has been saying all along that logic will not win this argument. All the logical arguments in this discussion begin from a position of faith, whether that is faith in a Creator or faith in the lack thereof, and then try describe some available evidence (or lack thereof) which is consistent with that position.

Most of the posters here (not just you) seem to have missed my point... is it more clear now?

On the other hand, on the subject of direct vs indirect evidence, Sefer HaKuzari points out that Judaism is the only religion which says that G-d spoke directly to about two million people, not just one isolated prophet.