I read an article by a professor who wanted to show that science and religion are similar. I think that the support he offers for his view is simplistic and, worse, it is wrong. The professor’s view The professor argued that both science and religion have the same outlook and are therefore alike. Both, [...]
Religion in the Military By Israel Drazin One of the concerns of the founders of our country, and probably one of the most important, was the protection of personal liberties, and of these, the right to practice one’s religion as one sees fit was one of their greatest [...]
By Israel Drazin Merriam Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion, states “religion” derives from Middle English, religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, and Latin religio: supernatural constraint, sanction; or the Latin religare, to bind, restrain, tie back, secure. The same root yields the word “ligament.” The first known use is as late as the 13th century.[1] This concept of [...]
In his 2013 book The Essence of Religions, Christophor Coppes tells why he is convinced that people are able glimpse heaven in near-death experiences (NDEs) and that they are true events even though people report them differently. He feels that most religions have inklings of NDE truths, but the religious teachings are overloaded with [...]
By Israel Drazin Science has proven beyond doubt that when people think they are having a religious, spiritual, or mystic encounter, or a feeling of sensing God, they are really not doing so, they only think they are. Ralph D. Mecklenburger, in his 2012 book, Our Religious Brains, describes the scientific findings of how the [...]
By Israel Drazin A very knowledgeable reader of my writings wrote to me asking two questions. The first was: do I think religious people should study philosophy or science? The question was prompted by my use of the word philosophy frequently. I understand that the great Greek and Jewish philosophers Aristotle [...]
The Lonely Man of Faith By Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Maggid Books and OU Press, 2012, 79 pages Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993) was a highly respected rabbi and teacher and the mentor of over 2,000 rabbis. He had a PhD from the University of Berlin, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the philosopher [...]
By Israel Drazin I think that the greatest difficulty that people have in understanding rabbinic literature is that it is hard for them to see what prompted the rabbi to say what he said. I’ll focus on one point. Very soon after the Five Books of Moses was canonized, probably during the time [...]
By Israel Drazin Why do people feel that they should listen to their clergy? There is nothing in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, or Koran that says that its adherents must obey rabbis, priests, and imams. In fact, Judaism didn’t have rabbis until around the year 70 of the Common Era, after the second [...]
By Israel Drazin There is no religion today where its adherents do exactly what is in their Bible. Let's look at Judaism as an example. Ask many Orthodox and Conservative Jews about the origin of the oral law and they will tell you that God revealed both the written and oral Torah to the [...]
By Israel Drazin The humorist Ambrose Bierce wrote in his The Devil’s Dictionary that faith is: “Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” Unlike most people, I agree with Bierce. I am convinced that religion should be based on reason, not faith. People should [...]
By Israel Drazin I dislike and reject the notion of “faith,” which is the acceptance that an idea is true even though the idea is clearly shown to be false by science, the use of our five senses, or reasoning. I accept as true only facts that are rational. I am not an atheist [...]
Maimonides the Rationalist By Herbert A. Davidson The Littman Library, 2011, 318 pages Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) criticized most people in his monumental Guide of the Perplexed 3:51 when he wrote that “He who thinks about God and talks about him at length without scientific knowledge…does not truly talk about God and think about [...]
The Mysterious Stranger By Mark Twain Mark Twain (1835-1910) uses this novel to mock the conventional ideas about God: that God is a loving ever-present entity who wants to help people and reward people who do what he wants done and punishes people who disobey him. He sets his parable in Austria hinting that Austria [...]
