“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind”

Albert Einstein

The great Jewish physicist Niels Bohr, began his lectures by telling his students, “Consider everything I say as a question, not a statement.”   Scientific skepticism accounts for its great success, and blind acceptance of myth, causes religion to be “mythguided”, “mythinformed” “mythled” and “mythogynistic.”

Most religions discourage questions about God and demand blind faith, i.e. belief in the absence of evidence, which is notoriously prone to error.  This is like a politician saying “Trust me” and should be rejected by any thinking person.  

Most religious authorities fear questions as witches fear the rising of the sun, because their concept of God does not hold up to rational inquiry, and they seek brainwashing and indoctrination, not truth. They respond to those who challenge dogma with evasion, anger, and even murder.   Many people erroneously believe that all religions are the same, which is as false as equating all governments from fascism to democracy, and reflects lazy thinking, prejudice and ignorance. 

The Judaism of Tomorrow, Today

We welcome one and all to participate and view our Shabbat Celebration services and share the happiness and excitement of this beautiful weekly holiday! 

To see Cosmic Judaism in action and for more info about this innovative new approach to Judaism, see ldorvador.org or join us in person at 7:00 at The Carlisle, 450 East Ocean Ave. Lantana, Fl. 33462.

Each Tuesday at 7:00 PM on Zoom, our Rabbi Barry Silver offers his insights (frequently with other clergy as guests) into the Torah Parsha for the upcoming Shabbat and events of our time.

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Orthodox Jews praise Abraham for his faith when he obeyed voices in his head that instructed him to slay his first-born son as a sacrifice to God. The Torah records no objection by Abraham to this moral outrage.  Fortunately for Isaac and unfortunately for an innocent animal, at the last second, God instructed Abraham to replace his son on the altar with a ram caught in the thickets to satisfy God’s blood lust. 

Albert Einstein called blind faith the enemy of the truth. Rational Jews worry when conservatives among us still believe we should emulate such faith. The “faithful” obeyed voices in their head to kill thousands of Americans on September 11 and our spiritual heirs, i.e. Christians and Muslims have spread untold carnage throughout history, citing the faith of Abraham as their inspiration. Jews should favor mindfulness over mindlessness and should denounce religious charlatans who prey upon, rather than for their flock. 

Modern (inspiRational) Jews join the light of reason with the light to the nations, symbolized by two candles on Shabbat and reject man-made shackles of the mind.  For rational Jews, Abraham showed his Jewish character when he challenged God’s plan to to wipe out the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and asked “Will the God of justice not act justly” and negotiated with God to try to save non-Jews.  Transcending his obsequious behavior with Isaac,  

On February 12, 1809, two great luminaries in the annals of history were born.  While Lincoln was called “The Great Emancipator”, for liberating a people from bondage in America, this accolade could also describe Charles Darwin, who liberated our species from enslavement to religious indoctrination, and freed all those who care to open their eyes to see the true origins of all life on earth, and the heroic struggle of our species to adapt and survive over vast eons of time.  

Darwin challenges the childish conceit of our species that humans were created in the image of God, and all other living things were created solely to serve our needs.   Such religious solipsism debauches science, corrupts the minds of our youth, panders to our ego, plagues humanity with divisive divisions over ancient literature, and renders us a danger to ourselves and our planet.  

While Lincoln’s main objective was to preserve the unity of our nation, with the abolition of slavery for one group of people, arising almost as an afterthought to the Civil War, Darwin set out from the beginning to liberate humanity from self-imposed shackles of the mind, which shielded us from the truth.

The great physicist Niels Bohr, used to start his lectures by telling his students, “Consider everything I say as a question, not a statement.”   Scientific skepticism accounts for its great success as a truth finder, and the blind acceptance of myth, causes fundamentalist religion to be “mythguided”, “mythinformed” “mythled” and often “mythogynistic” towards women.

Most religions discourage questions about God and demand faith, i.e. belief in the absence of evidence, which is notoriously prone to error.  This is like a politician saying “Trust me” and should be rejected by any thinking person.  

Most religious authorities fear questions as witches fear the rising of the sun, because their concept of God does not hold up to rational inquiry, and they seek brainwashing and indoctrination, not truth. They respond to those who challenge dogma with evasion, anger, and even murder.   Many people erroneously believe that all religions are the same, which is as false as equating all governments from fascism to democracy, and reflects lazy thinking, prejudice, or lack of knowledge. 

Beginning with Abraham, Jews have always asked questions, and modern Jews even question the Biblical account of Abraham, but for the sake of argument, let’s take the story of his life at face value.  

Rabbi Barry Silver

For many people, God is not a belief, but a crutch to cling to when they feel helpless and afraid, desperately trying to believe a concept they know deep inside to be false. When finding it hard to cope, they turn to the security blanket of youth, and the world of “let’s pretend”, seeking to convince themselves that the tooth fairy, Santa, or a loving God will protect them, yet sensing that these notions were concocted by adults to comfort them and avoid awkward conversations about the realities of life, much like telling kids that babies are delivered by a stork to avoid discussing human sexuality.

Many Jews, who profess loyalty to such a nebulous God, which upon closer examination resembles wishful thinking and political correctness more than belief, find this concept insufficiently compelling to bring them to the synagogue except on special occasions in order to show loyalty to their group or their parents.

A so-called spiritual view claims that since we can’t fully explain the miraculous nature and mysteries of the universe, they must be the result of divine intervention. While I too look at the universe with awe and ponder the miracles that take place every day, I choose not to refer to my wonder as God. The mysteries of the universe will eventually be explained by science, and there is no need to attribute what is inexplicable today to a deity, as ancient people did when they knew nothing of germs, so they blamed their maladies on God.