Why do Jews Accept Judaism?

[Zygote]

In the "Why do Jews Reject Jesus -Part 2" thread, many skeptical minds, who accepted BossJJ's assertion that Christianity didn't make a whole heap a sense, still hounded him as to why Judaism is really any different. Some notables: xninja, Cyrus, DS, and even the great Mason Malmuth appear to feel that their skeptical questions have yet to be logically addressed. I think this new thread is important to debating this topic and I hope we can reach some unifiable conlcusion.

Before I start, I'd like to point out that I do not believe in Judaism. I'm not going to be mentioning my reasons for disbelief in this post because i want to attempt to present the Jewish side for the moment.

So, why do Jews believe they have logically accepted Judaism?

*The following is a compilation of pieces from articles and seminars given or written by Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmith and Rabbi Moshe Zeldman. The last piece is by from an article by Rabbi Shraga Simmons.


THE BELIEVABILITY GAME

Gauge the level of credibility of the following scenarios.
Some claims are inherently unverifiable. For example, would you believe me if I told you the following:

Scenario #1:

"Last week after dinner, I went for a walk through the forest near my house. Suddenly everything was awash in a tremendous light and God appeared to me, designating me as His prophet. He told me to announce this revelation to you at this time."

Believable?

In theory this could have happened. It doesn't seem likely, but you don't know I'm lying. Would you choose to believe me?

Without any substantiating evidence, why choose to believe me? A foolish move, indeed.

Scenario #2:

Would you believe me if I told you the following:

"Last night while I was eating dinner with my family, the room started to suddenly shake and God's booming voice was heard by all of us. He designated me as His prophet and commanded me to announce this revelation."

Believable?

This could have happened too. If I were to bring in my family to confirm the story it would be more believable than the first story. You certainly don't know if I'm lying.

Would you believe me? Would you fork over $10,000 dollars if I told you God commanded you to do so?

No way. There is still not enough evidence to trust my claim -- because it is very possible that my family is lying.

Scenario #3:

There is another type of claim that you can know is false. For example, would you believe me if I told you this:

"Do you remember what happened 10 minutes ago just as you began reading this article? Remember how the room started shaking, then the ceiling opened up to the skies, and you and I together heard God's booming voice come down and say 'Thou shalt hearken to the voice of Nechemia Coopersmith for he is my prophet!' And then the room went back to normal and you continued reading. You remember that, don't you?"

Is this believable?

This kind of claim is completely different. The two previous scenarios at least had the possibility of being true. You chose not to accept them because they were unverifiable. However this third scenario is impossible to believe. I'm claiming something happened to you that you know did not happen. Since you didn't experience it, you know I'm lying. I cannot convince you of something that you yourself know didn't happen.

This first type of claim -- that something happened to someone else -- is unverifiable, because you do not know for certain that the claim is a lie. Therefore it is possible for a person to decide to accept the claim as true if he really wanted to and take that leap of faith.

However, the other type of claim -- that something happened to you -- you know if it is inherently false. People do not accept patently false assertions, especially those that carry significant consequences."



SINAI: AN IMPOSSIBLE HOAX

So far we have seen two types of claims -- one is unverifiable and the other is inherently false.

Could the revelation at Sinai have been a brilliant hoax, duping millions of people into believing that God spoke to them?

Let's imagine the scene. Moses comes down the mountain and claims, "We all today heard God speak, all of you heard the God's voice from the fire..."

Assuming Moses is making it up, how would the people respond to his story?

"Moses! What are you talking about?! Boy, you sure had us going there for awhile. We may have even believed you if you came down and claimed that God appeared to you personally. But now you blew it! Now we know you're lying because you're claiming an event happened to us that we know didn't happen! We did not hear God speak to us from any fire!"

If the revelation at Sinai did not occur, then Moses is claiming an event everyone immediately knows is an outright lie, since they know that they never heard God speak. It is preposterous to think Moses can get away with a claim that everyone knows is lie.

REVELATION CLAIMED LATER IN HISTORY

Perhaps a hoax such as this could have been attempted at a later period in history. Perhaps the claim of national revelation did not originate at Sinai, but began, for example, 1,000 years after the event was said to have occurred. Perhaps the leader Ezra, for example, appears on the scene, introducing a book purported to be written by God and given to a people who stood at Sinai a long time ago.

Could someone get away with this kind of hoax? For example, would you believe the following:

"I want to let you in on a very little-known, but true fact. In 1794 over 200 years ago, from May until August, the entire continent of North America mysteriously sank under the sea. For those four months, the whole continent was submerged and somehow all animal, plant and human life managed to adapt to these bizarre conditions. Then, on August 31, the entire continent suddenly floated up to the surface and life resumed to normal."

Is there a possibility that I'm telling the truth? Do you know for a fact that it is a lie? After all, it happened so long ago, how do you know it didn't happen? Maybe you learned about in school and just forgot about it.

You know North America did not sink hundreds of years ago for one simple reason: If it did, you would have heard about it. An event so unique and amazing, witnessed by multitudes of people would have been known, discussed, and passed down, becoming a part of history. The fact that no one has heard of it up until now means you know the story is not true, making it impossible to accept.

An event of great significance with a large number of eyewitnesses cannot be perpetuated as a hoax. If it did not happen, everyone would realize it is false since no one ever heard about it before. Thus, if such an event was indeed accepted as part of history, the only way to understand its acceptance is that the event actually happened.

INTRODUCED LATER?

Let's assume for the moment that the revelation at Mount Sinai is really a hoax; God did not write the Torah. How did the revelation at Sinai become accepted for thousands of years as part of our nation's history?

Imagine someone trying to pull off such a hoax. An Ezra figure shows up one day holding a scroll.

"Hey Ezra - what are you holding there?"
"This is the Torah."
"The Torah? What's that?"
"It's an amazing book filled with laws, history and stories. Here, take a look at it."
Very nice, Ezra. Where did you get this?"
"Open up the book and see what it says. This book was given thousands of years ago to your ancestors. Three million of them stood at Mount Sinai and heard God speak! God appeared to everyone, giving His law and instruction."

How would you respond to such a claim?

The people give Ezra a quizzical look and say,

"Wait a second, Ezra. Something is a little fishy here. Why haven't we ever heard of this before? You're describing one of the most momentous events that could ever happen, claiming that it happened to our ancestors - and we never heard about it?"

"Sure. It was along time ago. Of course you never heard about it."

"C'mon Ezra! It's impossible that our grandparents or great-grandparents would not have passed down the most significant event in our nation's history to some of the people! How could it be that no one has heard about this up until now?! You're claiming all my ancestors, the entire nation, 3 million people heard God speak and received a set of instructions called the Torah, and none of us have heard about it?! You must be lying."

If one cannot pull off a hoax with regard to a continent sinking, so too one cannot pull off a hoax to convince an entire people that their ancestors experienced the most unique event in all of human history.

Everyone would know it's a lie.

For thousands of years, Sinai was accepted as central to Jewish history. How else can this be explained?

Given that people will not fall for a hoax they know is a lie, how could national revelation have been not only accepted -- but faithfully followed with great sacrifice by the vast majority of Jews?

The only way a people would accept such a claim is if it really happened. If Sinai did not happen, everyone would know it's a lie and it would never have been accepted. The only way one can ever claim a nation experienced revelation and have it accepted is if it is true.

SINAI: THE ONLY CLAIM OF NATIONAL REVELATION

Throughout history, tens of thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that God spoke to him or her. All religions that base themselves on some type of revelation share essentially the same beginning: a holy person goes into solitude, comes back to his people, and announces that he has experienced a personal revelation where God appointed him to be His prophet.

Would you believe someone who claims to have received a personal communication from God appointing him or her as God's new prophet?

Maybe He did. Then again, maybe He didn't. One can never know. The claim is inherently unverifiable.

Personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion since one can never know if it is indeed true. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show -- assuming they are genuine -- is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy.

Maimonides writes:

Israel did not believe in Moses, our teacher, on account of the miracles he performed. For when one's faith is based on miracles, doubt remains in the mind that these miracles may have been done through the occult and witchcraft...

What then were the grounds of believing him? The revelation on Sinai which we saw with our own eyes, and heard with our own ears, not having to depend on the testimony of others... (Mishna Torah - Foundations of Torah 8:1)

A BOLD PREDICTION

There are 15,000 known religions in all of recorded history. Given this inherent weakness, why do all of them base their claim on personal revelation? If someone wanted their religion to be accepted, why wouldn't they present the strongest, most believable claim possible -- i.e. national revelation! It's far more credible. No one has to take a leap of faith and blindly trust just one person's word. It is qualitatively better to claim that God came to everyone, telling the entire group that so-and-so is His prophet.

Why would God establish His entire relationship with a nation through one man, without any possibility of verification, and still expect this nation to obediently follow an entire system of instructions, based only on blind faith?

Yet, Judaism is the only religion in the annals of history that makes the best of all claims -- that everyone heard God speak. No other religion claims the experience of national revelation. Why?

Furthermore, the author of the Torah predicts that there will never be another claim of national revelation throughout history!

'You might inquire about times long past, from the day that God created man on earth, and from one end of heaven to the other: Has there ever been anything like this great thing or has anything like it been heard? Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fires as you have heard and survived?' (Deut. 4:32-33)

Let's consider the option that God did not write the Torah, and its author successfully convinced a group of people to accept a false claim of national revelation. In this book, the author writes a prediction that over the course of history no one will ever make a similar claim. That means if such a claim is ever made at some future time, the prediction will end up being false and his religion is finished.

How could the author include in the book he is passing off as a hoax the prediction that no other person will ever attempt to perpetuate the same hoax when he just made that exact claim? If he could do it, he can be certain that others will too, especially since it is the best possible claim to make. If you are making up a religion, you do not write something you know you cannot predict and whose outcome you would think is guaranteed to be exactly the opposite.

However, aside from the Jewish claim of Mount Sinai, it is a fact that no other nation has ever claimed such a similar national revelation.

Let's summarize two primary questions:

1. Out of 15,000 known religions in recorded history, why is Judaism the only one that claims national revelation, the best of all claims? Why do all other religions base themselves on the inherently weak assertion of personal revelation?

2. If Judaism's claim is indeed an example of a successful hoax that falsely asserts national revelation, the author just got away with passing off the best possible claim, and others will certainly follow suit. Why then would he predict that no one else will ever make a similar claim, a prediction he knows he cannot foresee, and whose outcome is likely to be the exact opposite?

There is one simple answer to both questions. A national revelation -- as opposed to personal revelation -- is the one lie you cannot get away with. It is one event you cannot fabricate. The only way to make this claim is if it actually happened.

If the claim is true, the people will believe it because they are agreeing to something they already know. Either they personally witnessed it, or their ancestors collectively passed down the account as part of their nation's accepted history.

If the claim is false, it's like trying to convince you that God spoke to you or your parents and somehow you never heard of it. No one would ever accept such a claim.

Therefore no other religion has ever made the best of all claims, because it is the one claim that can only be made if it is true. One cannot pass national revelation off as a hoax.

When inventing a religion, the originator must resort to personal revelation, despite its inherent weakness, since it is a claim that is unverifiable. The originator can hope to find adherents willing to take a leap of faith and accept his or her religion. After all, no one can ever know it is a lie. [Of course, no one can know if it's true either.] This simply cannot work with national revelation since it's the one claim that everyone will know is a lie.

Only Judaism can claim national revelation since the Jewish people is the only nation in the history of mankind who ever experienced it.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the other major religions of the world both accept the Jewish revelation at Sinai, including the Five Books of Moses in their Bible, and hold the Sinai revelation as a key component of their religion.

When starting their own religions, why did they build upon the Jewish claim? Why didn't they just deny the revelation ever happened?

The answer is that they knew that if national revelation can never be fabricated; so too, its validity can therefore never be denied.

Now it is understandable how the Author of the Torah can confidently predict that there will never be another claim of national revelation in history.

Because only God knew it would happen only once, as it did -- at Sinai over 3,000 years ago.


JEWISH BELIEF IS BASED SOLELY ON NATIONAL REVELATION

Throughout history, thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that he or she is God's true prophet. But personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion because one can never know if it is indeed true. Since others did not hear God speak to this person, they have to take his word for it. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show -- assuming they are genuine -- is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy.

Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

Of the thousands of religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation -- i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell everyone, not just one person.

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):

The Jews did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the miracles he performed. Whenever anyone's belief is based on seeing miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophecy.

What then was the basis of [Jewish] belief? The Revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not dependent on the testimony of others... as it says, "Face to face, God spoke with you..." The Torah also states: "God did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us -- who are all here alive today." (Deut. 5:3)

Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

[PairTheBoard]

This scenario is much more believable to me. However it happenned the Semitic Tribes came together and agreed to unite under one god. The god of their mythical common ancestor Abraham. No tribal god would come before this god of unity. Similiar to the adoption of one Flag by the 13 colonies, no state flag to ever be flown above it.

Now this unification of the Desert Tribes was an amazing thing. Emersed in religion an oral tradition developed to explain how it happened. "How did we come to be one Nation having one god, Father?". "We believe god spoke to us and commanded us to have no other gods before him and not to worship idols", the Father or the Priest, or the village leader or whoever explains. The oral tradition develops further over generations of telling until it is finally written down hundreds of years and many generations later.

This to me is much more believable than the idea that Magic Happenned.

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

btw, Just as in my arguments as Advocate for Christianity in which I demagicize the Christian dogmas, I don't see any reason why such a modern view of Judaism need in any way nullify the Religion.

PairTheBoard

[slickpoppa]

I can post more later, but for now I will quote an earlier post I made about why I dont find judaism more believable than any other religion:


BossJJ has done a great job of describing some of the problems with Chirstianity, but the evidence that he has offered in support of Judaism is extremely weak. His main talking point seems to be that god revealed himself to a nation of several million people. If we could talk to those millions of people who supposedly witnessed god, then that would indeed be compelling. But the only actual evidence that those millions of Jews witnessed god is the account of one book. We do not have any separate accounts that confirm the claims of the Torah. In the end, all we have is a book claiming that several millions people witnessed something, which is much different than actually having the accounts of several million people. So in the end, the "evidence" for Judaism is as scant as the evidence for Christianity. Instead of having to believe the claims of one man (Jesus) we have to believe the claims of one book which could have been written by one person.

One of the links that BossJJ posted argued this:


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How can you explain a group of people who claim to be descendants of millions of people experiencing the splitting of the sea, the manna and the Revelation at Sinai? How did the first generation start believing it? A charismatic leader? A slowly evolving story? Mass hypnosis?


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How does any false religious belief begin? How were Jesus disciples motivated to spread his message at the risk of death? People are easily deluded, and this seemed to be especially true hundreds and thousands of years ago. I have no reason for believing that the accounts of Jewish miracles were not just made up. Conveniently, none of the great miracles that occurred in the Hebrew Testament have been repeated in the recent past. Furthermore, the Hebrew Testament describes many events that are just completely ridiculous. What is the Jewish position on the creation story, is that supposed to be read literally? What about the accounts of people like Methusela who supposedly lived until they were 700? And what about Noah's ark? And if those stories are just allegorical, then how do we know that the same is not true about the revelation at Sinai? If god intended the Torah to be the perfect expression of his will, then why are there so many stories in it that are completely disproven by modern science?

And as BossJJ himself said:


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If you believe in God, it’s logical to believe that He would communicate with mankind to let us know what He wants, and that He wouldn’t keep changing His mind.


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I agree, and that is one of the main reasons that I don't believe in god because he has done such a shitty job of communicating with mankind. If god thought it was so important for us to follow his laws, then why wouldn't he repeat some of those miracles from the Torah every now and again to make it easier for people like me to believe?

As I see it, Judaism is the same as every other religion. It is based on great miracles that conveniently only happened several thousand years ago and are described by an uncorroborated book.

[David Sklansky]

If during this speech, God told everybody he will never talk to anyone again, will never answer prayers, and will never interfere with anyone or anything until (maybe) after death, the argument would make more sense. But he supposedly said and implied otherwise
In fact it did make sense until about a hundred years ago before we did statistical studies regarding metaphysical claims and understood how physics pretty much proves that everything that happens is not interefered with by non natural forces.

By the way wasn't the sun supposed to have "stopped" for a while (I assume that really means that the earth was supposed to have stopped revolving). EVERYBODY should have seen that. But since we don't hear about that from the history of men from all parts of the globe that makes it pretty clear it didn't happen. Yet the bible, I think said it did. How do you religious guys explain that?

[txag007]

"By the way wasn't the sun supposed to have "stopped" for a while (I assume that really means that the earth was supposed to have stopped revolving). EVERYBODY should have seen that. But since we don't hear about that from the history of men from all parts of the globe that makes it pretty clear it didn't happen. Yet the bible, I think said it did. How do you religious guys explain that?"

The account of the sun standing still can be found in the Book of Joshua. The following are references I have gathered to historical records which I am presenting here as simply something to think about:

In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky came out with his controversial book, Worlds in Collision, based on the premise that the account of the long day in Joshua is accurate, accounting for many other unsolved scientific mysteries. In support of his premise, he also refers to the ancient traditions of a long day.

In the Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan--the history of the empire of Culhuacan and Mexico, written in Nahua-Indian in the sixteenth century--it is related that during a cosmic catastrophe that occurred in the remote past, the night did not end for a long time.

Sahagun, the Spanish savant who came to America a generation after Columbus and gathered the traditions of the Aborigines, wrote that at the time of one cosmic catastrophe the sun rose only a little way over the horizon and remained there without moving; the moon also stood still.

In a footnote, Velikovsky states that the Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan, were also known as the Codex Chimalpopca, and that these manuscripts contained a series of annals of very ancient date, many of them going back to more than a thousand years before the Christian era.

Velikovsky's theory was that at some time in the middle of the second millennium B.C., either the earth was interrupted in its regular rotation by a comet, or the terrestrial axis was tilted in the presence of a strong magnetic field, so that for several hours the sun appeared to lose its diurnal movement.

In addition records of the Chinese during the reign of Emperor Yao, who lived at the same time as Joshua, report 'a long day.' Chinese history speaks of Yao, their king, declaring that in his reign the sun stood so long above the horizon that it was feared the world would have been set on fire; and fixes the reign of Yao at a given date, which corresponds with the age of Joshua the son of Nun.

The Latin poet Ovid, in his fanciful narrative of Phaeton's chariot, tells us that a day was once lost, and that the Earth was in great danger from the intense heat of an unusual sun. He mention Phaeton--who was a Canaanitish prince-- and that the fable originated with the Phoenicians, the same people whom Joshua fought.

Heroditus, a Greek historian, wrote that an account of 'a long day' appears in records of Egyptian priests.

Additionally, the historical lore of the Aztecs, Peruvians, and Babylonians speak of a "day of twice natural length."

There are many stories similar to this, to be found among other nations of antiquity. We have, as an example, that which is related of Bacchus in the Orphic hymns, wherein it says that this god-man arrested the course of the sun and the moon. An Indian legend relates that the sun stood still to hear the pious ejaculations of Arjouan after the death of Crishna. A holy Buddhist by the name of Matanga prevented the sun, at his command, from rising, and bisected the moon.

[slickpoppa]

So are the accounts of the long day in Mexico and China supposed to corroborate the Joshua story? They can't all have happened at the same time because it must have been night at least one of those places.

[txag007]

I thought of that myself, and I don't know. I posted this to show that there are in fact historical references to the sun standing still outside of the Bible. Some references to Mexican accounts speak of a long night. Others speak of a long day. It would be interesting to dig a little deeper and see what the actual documents say.

[Brainwalter]

[ QUOTE ]
So are the accounts of the long day in Mexico and China supposed to corroborate the Joshua story? They can't all have happened at the same time because it must have been night at least one of those places.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
In the Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan--the history of the empire of Culhuacan and Mexico, written in Nahua-Indian in the sixteenth century--it is related that during a cosmic catastrophe that occurred in the remote past, the night did not end for a long time.

Sahagun, the Spanish savant who came to America a generation after Columbus and gathered the traditions of the Aborigines, wrote that at the time of one cosmic catastrophe the sun rose only a little way over the horizon and remained there without moving; the moon also stood still.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[George Rice]

[ QUOTE ]
Velikovsky's theory was that at some time in the middle of the second millennium B.C., either the earth was interrupted in its regular rotation by a comet, or the terrestrial axis was tilted in the presence of a strong magnetic field, so that for several hours the sun appeared to lose its diurnal movement.

[/ QUOTE ]

A scientific explanation for this is laughable. Either of those events would have caused the Atlantic Ocean to wipe out most of coastal Europe and the Mediterranean Sea would have wiped out most of the coastal parts of the Middle East and THAT would have been noted by Joshua.

Believe the biblical story if you must. But I don't believe a scientific explanation can exist that doesn't wipe out much of humanity and knock everyone else off their feet (not to mention crumbling buildings, mountains, etc.).

It should be noted that the Earth is spinning at over 1,000 miles per hour at the equator

And this is not meant as a criticism of you for citing this, but of Velikovsky and anyone who might believe his theory.