NoahideSevencommandments.com

Rabbi Dr Zvi Aviner

 

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IDOLATRY-15/

 Worshipping Science and Wisdom

 

 

 

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We’ve seen how the creation of Adam was intertwined

with the introduction of IDOLATRY into the world.

 

When G-d, ELHM, consulted in plural, saying “Let Us,”

He gave Adam precious gifts,

Yet He also opened the door for IDOLATORS to think

that there are more than One and Only CREATOR

 

With whom did ELHM consult?

We’ve said: with whoever is mentioned in the miraculous Chapter One.

He consulted them one by one, and each “Councilor” contributed

a layer in Adam’s body and soul.

 

Like a CEO of a company, building a humanoid robot,

ELHM first established the goal of Adam’s life,

the direction of Adam’s history,

moving from our Sixth Day to the Seventh.

 

To establish that goal, ELHM consulted the Merciful Attribute, YHVH,

who rules over the Eternal Sabbath, saying to Herr:

Let Us Make Adam in Our Form and Our Image.

 

That consultation was a tremendous gift to Adam

enriching his life with holiness and joy

Yet it came with a price: with the option of IDOLATRY,

for by speaking in plural, ELHM opened up the door

for idolaters to think that YHVH and ELHM are two different gods

 

Adam would have to be given a Torah

that guides him how not to fall a prey to such IDOLATRY,

how to unite YHVH and ELHM in his mind and life

 

ELHM then turned to build Adam’s body.

For that, He turned to the Six Days,

Saying to each Day “Let Us Make Adam…”

And He used each Day to build a layer in Adam’s body

 

The evidence of those series of consultations

Is seen in the way the human embryo develops in the uterus,

Passing through the stages of the Evolution,

as described in Genesis Chapter One

 

Those consultations were major gifts to Adam,

making Adam an integral part of Nature

capable of identifying with all its creatures,

so that Adam could rule over Nature

as a legitimate King Who Consults his subjects

who comprehend their wishes and needs.

 

As precious gifts as they were, yet by speaking in plural

ELHM opened the door for idolaters to think

That creatures in Nature are Partners of G-d,

even replacing G-d altogether

 

We also saw how Moses words predicts

the course of IDOLATRY in history,

how human civilizations evolved

as if programmed by Genesis Chapter One.

 

Man would always hear, we’ve said, G-d Calling him

“Adam, where are you? Come to me!”

Causing him to look for the CREATOR

Inside Nature.

 

Thus, Adam looks, in History, for G-d

in the Sixth Day, the Fifth, Fourth, Third, and Second.

He is temporarily tempted to worship items of those Days,

But as he gets wiser, he keeps looking deeper and deeper.

 

How amazing it is, that al those predictions

of the course of IDOLATRY in history

have   been fulfilled in full,

in the order that Moses has predicted

in the miraculous Chapter One of Genesis

 

Our generation faces items of the First Day,

the primordial elements of the Universe

looking for our CREATOR in the BEGINNING

 

So, with who else did ELHM consult after the Six Days?

 

 

 

1. He Consulted the Wisdom in the Beginning

 

 

  

After consulting with the Six Days to provide for Adam’s body,

ELHM wished to make Adam wise –Homo Sapience.

 

For that, ELHM turned to the very Beginning, where it says

At the Beginning, ELHM created the Heavens and the Earth.”

In Hebrew, the word Beginning – BeReishit – can be read as:

“At the Head of the Events, ELHM created…”

 

The first verse can be read as:

“With His Head (or the Wisdom in His Head)

 ELHM created the Heavens and the Earth”

 

In other words:

ELHM used Wisdom and Science to create the Heaven and the Earth”

To make another layer in Adam, to make him smart,

ELHM turned to his own –

“Wisdom and Science by Which He Created the World” (Nachmanides)

saying: “Let Us Make Adam in Our Form and Our Image”

 

He consulted the “Wisdom and Science in His Head”

and planted it in Adam’s head.

 

This consultation gave Adam a tremendous gift,

making him a Homo sapience

making his mind capable to uncover

all the mysteries of the Universe,

 

And use that Wisdom and Science

to create technology that improves our lives

 

Yet, as important as this consultation is,

It has also opened the door for IDOLATORS

to adore Science so much, that in their minds

they would replace G-d by Science

 

So, we, in our generation, still hear G-d calling us

Adam, where are you? Come to me!

And like our predecessors, we too

Look for Him in the deepest level of CREATION

In the very Wisdom and Science by which

The Universe was created

 

Amazingly, Moses predicts here

that the moment Mankind discovers Science,

Mankind would be tempted to worship it,

instead of G-d.

 

This prediction is especially amazing,

since no one in Moses’ time saw any

Wisdom and Science behind Nature

nor did they know what the Scientific Method is.

 

 

 

2. Ancient myths

 

 

 

The Egyptians in Moses time,

told mythical stories about CREATION,

full of bloody rivalry between the gods,

full of ugly sexual perversions.

 

So did the Babylonians and the Greeks.  

No one in Moses’ time knew what Science is,

and no one saw it behind Nature.

 

The Egyptians knew “empirical science,”

Like which herb can cure this or that malady.

But they combined their knowledge with witchcraft,

Believing that their medications

chase away bad spirits and demons

 

 

 

3. Modern Scientific Method

 

 

 

The Scientific Method that we know today,

Came to the world at the 18th century,

by the great philosopher of Science, Emanuel Kant

Let’s talk a bit about his teaching

 

Before Kant,

people saw G-d in every event in nature.

When an apple falls from a tree on your head, it is G-d who is doing it.

When a leaf moves by the wind, it is G-d who is doing it,

When a plague hits the city, it is G-d’s hands who is doing it

Thus G-d was perceived as an intermediator between us and Nature  

 

This is what people said for thousands of years,

even today, especially in Islam.

 

Kant changed all that,

by eliminating G-d from our observation of Nature

 

Kant set up the Rule of Pure Reason,

that, in fact, has introduced a new religion,

The Religion of Pure Reason

 

 

In his proclamation, Kant calls  

every man/woman to have the courage

to follow only his/hers Pure Reason,

and reject any dogma or theory that

is imposed on him by authorities, priests or kings.

 

By this rule, without being aware,             

Kant actually fulfilled the prediction made by Moses

that when humanity discovers Science, real Science,

It would be intertwined with rejecting G-d.

 

Kant went on to set up his second rule,

The rule of the Pure Reason Critique.

 

This important rule says that when we explain Nature

We should consider valid only theories

that can be validated by our senses

or can be measured by our instruments

or can be tested by experiments in the lab

or can be expressed by mathematical equations

or can produce new real product such as technology

 

All other theories, as charming and appealing as they might be,

should be discarded and move away to the

supernatural, transcendent realm

that can never be validated

 

Thus, when an apple falls from a tree on your head,

do not consider the “G-d Hypothesis” as a factor,

since G-d can’t be sensed, measured or described

by a mathematical formula.

 

Instead, when dealing with the falling apple,

consider only factors that can be sensed or measured.

such as gravity F, the apple’s mass M, its acceleration g,

then arrive at Newtons’ Formula: F=Mxg square.

 

And here is the difference:

Newton’s formula describes not only the falling apple,

but the attraction of the moon by Earth

and the Earth by the Sun.

 

Any valid new Scientific theory should not consider

The God Hypothesis as a factor

 

Similarly, when we face the Ebola plague,

we should divert our energy to finding the real causes

that can be sensed, seen, measured and tested

rather than seeking supernatural causes

 

So, while in the past G-d was seen as

an intermediator between us and Nature,

by Kant, we should remove G-d from our considerations

and replace Him by our Pure Reasoning, by Science.

 

Again, by this rule, Kant fulfilled, unknowingly,

Moses’ prediction and warning, that

Science would challenge our believe in G-d.

 

Before Kant we had: Man, G-d, Nature

After Kant, we have: Man, Science and Nature.

 

But, as Moses predicted,

Kant removed G-d also from our morality.

 

Each and every individual, Kant said,

is free to follow his own Pure Reasoning,

deciding for himself what to accept or reject

a moral behavior on himself.

 

This, however, should be done only

on condition that he would wish

the entire society, to adapt that behavior

and make his moral behavior a law for everyone.

 

Hence, Man does not need G-d anymore to set up our morality

For we should propose and follow our own Pure Reasoning

that knows well what is good for us.

 

Needless to say, we, today, recognize how naïve Kant was

by assuming that Man’s Pure Reason can be relied upon.

 

For instance:

When the mass murderer Eichman, the architect of Auschwitz

and the holocaust, was brought on trial before Jerusalem Court,

he defended himself by arguing that his Nazi behavior

was in line Kant, obeying the law of society

 

 

4. How marvelous is our mind!

 

 

Kant was deeply fascinated by the way our brain works,

And how it fits the reality of Nature.

 

He was amazed how well our brain

can come up with theories that fits Nature so well;

theories so precise, that they can be expressed by

mathematical formulae and equations.

 

He was impressed so much,

that he proposed that our brain actually “dictates” Nature.

 

Our brain works, he said, as if it has inherent ‘boxes’ of thinking

planted in us “a-priority”, before we have any real experience,

as if our brain is “programed” to think in a certain way

that matches Nature perfectly.

 

But unknowingly to him, Kant only discovered what Moses had said

that to make Adam, ELHM consulted His Wisdom and Science

by which He had created the world, and made Adam’s mind accordingly.

 

No wonder that Man’s mind can come up with theories

That match perfectly well what we see in Nature.

 

 

Thus, we see that Moses’ prediction has materialized,

And that the arrival of Science was accompanied with

A threat to our Faith in G-d and in the Bible

 

 

 

5. Attacking the Bible in the name of Science

 

 

 

But Kant’s revolution has prompted farther attacks on the Bi

, from all branches of Science: from

 

History,

Archeology,

Geology

Biology

Astronomy and Cosmology.

 

 

Thus,

The historians and archeologists have argued

That there is no evidence for the revelation on Sinai,

That the Torah was written by different authors in different times

That the Exodus did not happen the way it is described in the Bible,

That Joshua never existed and David never existed

 

But today, a miracle happened

And Science itself has shown the validity of the Bible

and the fallacy of the claims made against the Bible

In the name of Science.

 

For instance,

The computer code has shown clearly

that the Five Books of Moses were written by one author.

And that the Exodus did take place the way the Bible describes it

That Joshua and David did exist

 

Other scholars have attacked the Bible

In the name of Geology and Earth History

 

Well, we have already seen how

the History channel’s report on the History of Earth,

does match the Story of Genesis in Chapter One

 

In fact, the more we discover by Science about the history of Earth,

the more we appreciate how miraculous  Genesis Chapter One is

 

Another challenge made in the name of Science

Came from biology and the story of the Evolution

 

According to Darwin, life on Earth advanced

by random genetic mutations and natural selection

rather than by G-d’s Commands.

 

But today we realize how false that claim is.

It would take 10 with 84 zeros number of years, to advance

the animal’s species by random mutations and natural selection

more than the life time of the Universe!

 

Moreover,

Darwinism can’t explain the sudden explosion of species

That took place in the ocean in the Cambrian Period

That fits Moses’ Fifth Day.  It can’t be explained

By random mutations and natural selection.

 

Moreover,

Darwinism can’t explain the origin of the DNA

And the information embedded in it

That appeared complete and ready

Even in the most primordial cell.

The chance that such information shows up at random

Is extremely small.

 

 

Other scholars have attacked the Bible

From Astronomy and Cosmology

 

Steven Hawkins, for instance, has repeatedly claimed

That we can understand the Cosmos without

the “G-d Hypothesis.”

 

However,

Recent review of all the findings about the Cosmos

Has shown that the chance that the Universe is built

In such a way to allow Life develop on Earth, is extremely small.

 

These considerations have led many scientists to call for

Re-inserting the “G-d Hypothesis” into our consideration of Nature

At least as an “Intelligent Designer.”

 

 

But the strongest threat to the belief in G-d, came

from the success of Science to produce technology

and medications.

 

 

We are aware how Science has improved and prolonged

our lives. Instead of turning to the supernatural, we turn

to doctors, to medications and surgery.  In the eyes of many,

this trend has made G-d obsolete.

 

 How then would Noahides relate to Science and its success?

One way: Think of Noah’s Ark.

 

 

6. Noah’s Ark as a Scientific symbol

 

 

 

You see, G-d could have saved Noah and his animals by

Forming a bubble around him or by any other miracle.

 

Instead,

G-d ordered Noah to build a scientifically sound floating device,

an Ark whose dimensions assure that it would never capsize.

 

When loaded, the Ark’s center of gravity was below the waters’ surface,

so that it wobbled, yet but stayed upright.

Its pyramidal shape and the slanting walls assured

that the water of the rain would wash off to the sea.

The Ark did not have a   front or a back,

since it was not supposed to go anywhere,

just stay afloat.

 

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By this, G-d sent us a message, that we too

Should use Science to protect us from

Nature and its calamities.

 

We should think of the Ark as an interface between

Noah and Nature, while inside the Ark

YHVH prevailed.

There, inside the Ark, Noah and his family and the animals

were protected by YHVH,

who “closed the Ark’s door” for him,

stopping the water from coming in,

providing warmth and peace to everyone inside.

 

Inside the Ark, under YHVH,

the wolf did not prey on the lamb,

a child could play safely on the snake’s pit

and all the futuristic visions of Israel’s prophets

have been fulfilled.

 

Noah’s Ark therefore presents Science

as the interface between us and Nature.

But G-d is our shelter, in our personal life and homes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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