No, studying science will not turn you into an atheist

Image suggested by Zemata and used due to lack of a better idea of what picture to use for this post via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  11 Siwan 5770 (Parashath BeHa‘alothekha).

Today’s holidays:  Monday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Victory over the U.S. Day (Can.) (Church of the Subgenius), Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (Christianity), Feast of Hermes (Thelema).

Worthy causes of the day:  “ColorOfChange.org:  Tell Fox: "Fire John Stossel"”, “Blackwater is just the tip of the iceberg”, “Stop the Comcast-NBC Merger | Free Press”, “Stop The Drill | Oceana North America”, “American Insurance Companies: Stop Canceling Women's Policies - Take Action Today @ The Breast Cancer Site”, “Save Gulf Sea Turtles - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, “action.firedoglake.com | Sign the petition to President Obama: End plans for offshore drilling”, “Take Action: TrueMajority.org:  NO BAILOUT FOR BP”, and “MoveOn.org Political Action: No Bailouts for Big Oil”.

Topic 1:  Today’s anti-Semitism update:  “"Jew Producer" Silenced: Comedy Central Update”.  “No Nukes?” is a cogent argument why Israel should not give up its nuclear weapons.

On the theme of religious intolerance one may also add “Muhammad cartoonist in hiding after arson attack”, “Endless violence against Christian women of Kandhamal”, “Vietnam police charge six villagers over Catholic funeral”, “Beijing warns US over Falun Gong”, “Protestant clergyman arrested in Guangzhou”, “UZBEKISTAN: Large raid and almost immediate trial starts against registered church”, and “Lao Christians Expelled from Village Suffer Critical Illnesses”.  Yes, it is an ugly, intolerant world out there where some people think they can suppress other people’s beliefs out of existence, as if the existence of only one set of beliefs made them true.

Topic 2:  “From Point of Inquiry: Does Studying Science Cause Atheism, or Vice-Versa?”.  The results of someone actually studying the question, rather than just pulling an answer out of thin air, violate common expectations:  people’s basic religious beliefs, whether accepting a religion or atheism, are normally not affected by science education.  Keep in mind that science is only well-suited for dealing with what can be observed.  As such, making good scientific arguments about lies beyond our universe (such as gods) is fraught with serious problems.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor (courtesy of Jason):  Sh'koyach - The New Age Jewish Comic Strip!  And no, this is not a LOLcat image, for a change.  It is a comic strip about a shrimp who moves in with an Orthodox Jew in order to avoid being eaten.

Peace.

Aaron

Judgement without respect for facts and overpriced education

Greetings.

Jewish date:  16 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Wayyera’).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell Obama: No pesticide lobbyist nominees” and “Demand the Public Option! - The Petition Site”.

Topic 1:  Chapter 13 of The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman.  A lot of the “good” characters have formed a war council and are sharing information.  Lord Asriel’s extensive preparations for his war against the Authority (God) are related.  There is also complaining by the witches about the horrible things done by the Church/Magisterium in the name of the Authority, followed by an amazing inference:  that the Authority is Himself a horrible being.  This is not justified.  It is true that in real life that the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches have done some truly horrible things, such as the Spanish Inquisition.  However, it would be unjustified to assume that everything the Churches have done is actually justified by Christianity.  For Christians, the model for behavior is Jesus of Nazareth as depicted in the Gospels.  For all Jesus’s bluster about how everyone who did not follow him were going to pay for it, Jesus was not an advocate of violence or cruelty.  He advocated extreme pacifism, this whole business of turning the other cheek, and he lived it.  He could have easily escaped being crucified, but instead he practically walked into the Romans’ hands and let them torture and kill him.  Pinning the sins of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches on Jesus would make no sense whatsoever.  Likewise, pinning the sins of the Magisterium on the Authority, without even bothering to ask what the Authority’s moral views are, is illogical and unjustified.

Topic 2:  “Terror Arrests and the 'Misunderstood' Religion”.  This article complains about efforts to whitewash Islam and dissociate it from everything and anything bad, such as terrorism.  The mistake is akin to that in the previous topic:  just as it makes no sense to judge God based on crimes he never espoused, it makes no sense to judge Muslims by a version of Islam that does not exist.  The difference between the two is that it is atheists who are trying to create the illusion of Divine criminality where it does not exist, while it is Muslims trying to create the illusion of a version of Islam which does not exist.

Topic 3:  “Government Funding is the only Future for Jewish Day Schools”.  On a different note from the previous two topics:  Rav Boteach notes the economically perilous state of Jewish education in the USA today.  It is so expensive that even Rav Boteach, a public figure with many bestselling books and a TV show, someone who presumably is raking in money, is barely paying for it for his children.  If he finds it hard, how much more so the less financially gifted!  Even if one does not accept his argument that the government should pay for the secular part of education at private schools, he notes that (at least in New Jersey, where he lives) educating students in public schools costs more than in private school.  As such, giving parents the option to send their children to a private school could save the state money.

Peace.

Aaron