The God of Independent Minds

[rug]

Is religion the enemy of reason? A look at the questioning, disobedient heroes of the Old Testament

August 24, 2012, 8:58 p.m. ET
By YORAM HAZONY
Dr. Hazony is the author of "The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture," which has just been published by Cambridge University Press.



Musee des Beaux-Arts/Clermont-Ferrand, France/Roger-Viollet, Paris/Bridgeman Art Library
Independent thinker: 'Jacob Wrestling with the Angel,' 1865.


Today's debates over the place of religion in modern life often showcase the claim that belief in God stifles reason and science. As Richard Dawkins writes in his best-seller "The God Delusion," religious belief "discourages questioning by its very nature." In "The End of Faith," his own New Atheist manifesto, Sam Harris writes that religion represents "a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible."

The argument that religion suppresses rational inquiry is often based on the idea that "reason" and "revelation" are opposites. On this view, shared by atheist crusaders and some believers as well, the whole point of the Bible is to provide divine knowledge for guiding our lives, so we don't need questioning and independence of mind.

This dichotomy between reason and revelation has a great deal of history behind it, but I have never accepted it. In fact, as an Orthodox Jew, I often find the whole discussion quite frustrating. I will let Christians speak for their own sacred texts, but in the Hebrew Bible (or "Old Testament&quot and the classical rabbinical sources that are the basis for my religion, one of the abiding themes is precisely the ever-urgent need for human beings, if they are to find what is true and just, to maintain their capacity for independent thought and action.

Almost every major hero and heroine of the Hebrew Bible is depicted as independent-minded, disobedient, even contentious. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph's brothers, Moses and Aaron, Gideon and Samuel, prophets such as Elijah and Elisha, and exilic biblical figures such as Daniel, Mordechai and Esther—all are portrayed as confronting authority and breaking the laws and commands of kings. And for this they are praised.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444270404577607242416148280.html

[dimbear]

1. To see an excellent example that religion is in fact the enemy of reason, look instead to the

Ultraorthodox Jews.

[rug]

2. I know that is snark but you raise an interesting point.

Hasidim and other ultra fundamentalist groups certainly do not establish, per se, that religion is the enemy of reason.

They, in my view, are examples of rigid literalism prevailing over reason. You see the same phenomenon in areas other than religion. I give you 2/3 of the Supreme Court as evidence. In the area of Judaism, I give you Steven Wise and Reform Judaism as evidence of the unreasonableness of your proposition.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Reason can be applied to religion, but religion is unreasonable if applied.

[dimbear]

15. I see your point. Judaism becomes more reasonable the more it is diluted.

It's like warfarin, sufficiently diluted it can be beneficial. I believe that could be generalized to most religions.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Abraham?

I'm no biblical scholar but this "independent thinker" was going to murder his son because the Easter Bunny or a talking dog or a loquacious flaming bush or some other lunatic hallucination commanded him to do so. The rebellious one only stopped when commanded to do so by a frost giant, or some other imaginary being.

[rug]

5. I was waiting for someone to bring up the OT patriarchs as archetypes of genocide and misogyny.

It was inevitable. I am disappointed the hoary old Easter bunny was brought up as well. I'm going to have to start wearing a dust mask.

In any event, this article is a refreshing change of pace as it examines the OT as archetypes of human nature grappling with divine nature. Much more intellectually engaging than playing badminton with stereotypes.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Dude, your posted article cited Abraham.

Abraham was grappling with his son so as to keep him in place while he slit his throat. The bible is filled with deity directed horror, as befitting a bronze age text, and it is only the post enlightenment revisionists, desperate to make sense of yet another cruel tribal god in a world where those myths are dead, that find something else amid the blood and gore.

[rug]

7. Among other things.

Do you think all there is to it is a lesson about obeying God, even to to the extent of murdering your children?

[mr blur]

12. The OP brought up Abraham, rug. Get a new whine, your current ones are getting really old.

[rug]

16. No shit, mr blur. But it didn't bring up the Easter bunny.

I don't see any whining here at all, just the usual one post complaint from you containing, and followed by, nothing.

[E_Pluribus_Unitarian]

8. Some find religion more useful for its questions...its riddles.

If we can agree that it was all put together by fallible humans with their own vested interests, maybe their (more or less honest) attempts to make meaning of it all should be nothing more than a challenge for us to do the same. For example, in Amos 3...the question "Can two walk together except they be agreed?"...can that have any value today? The fundamentalist (of every stripe) would say no. As a religious liberal, my answer, at least at the moment, is a qualified Yes...two can indeed walk together if what they've agreed upon is to walk together. Otherwise, maybe not so much. To me such riddles encourage our reason rather than suppressing it. Deciding to walk together, and knowing what kinds of things (unyielding dogma, for example) to set aside, is just as applicable to a marriage, a workplace, a liberal religious community, a free society or a planet, seems to me. The key, to me, is to not look to scriptures for answers, but to spur my own critical thinking.

[rug]

9. Yes. And we need every scrap of reason to riddle it out.

[freshwest]

11. Jacob's name was turned to Israel after he spent a night wrestling with God. No giving up there.

No for blind obedience or any reason to leave off questioning everything in life. To stop learning is intellectually lazy and be brain dead. It's no good to hide from changes caused by discovering new things, that's what a great deal of life is about.

[mr blur]

13. You could always try common sense, though I suppose it sits badly with Faith.

[rug]

17. So does premasticated talking points.

[cbayer]

10. You can challenge god, but you better have a pretty good argument before doing so.

This rings true and is consistent with the way I was raised and what I was taught as a child.

[onager]

14. A theme thoroughly explored in...

Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht (2004)

The whole first part of Hecht's book deals with doubters in the Hebrew Bible and the synthesis of Jewish and Greek philosophy in the ancient world.

Since Abraham popped up, I thought I'd throw in Hecht's account of the Jewish martyr Chana. According to the story, her 7 sons were ordered to bow down to pagan idols.

Each son refused until only the youngest - 2 years old - was left alive. As he was led away to be killed, Chana shouted:

"Go to Abraham and tell him he bound one son to the altar. I bound seven, and mine were for real!"

http://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Doubters-Innovation-Jefferson-Dickinson/dp/0060097957

[rug]

18. That story is related in 2 Maccabees 7.

There are some differences. These are the words she spoke to her last son:

27 She leaned over close to him and, in derision of the cruel tyrant, said in their native language: “Son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age.

28 I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things. In the same way humankind came into existence.

29 Do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with your brothers.”

The final cruelty followed.