The Holocaust Collides with God

The following is a recording of an event that took place to me last Friday night:

I sit in the synagogue, my prayer book before me. It is open, but I do not read from it. Instead, I am reading a book by Viktor Frankl titled: Man's Search for Meaning. It begins with him describing his experience as a prisoner in the concentration camps. It is raw. His goal is not to sadden the heart -- it is to psychoanalyze the mental state of the prisoner -- yet my heart is weeping.

Along with the sadness, I feel rage. When confronted with the Holocaust I am usually left in rage. So incomprehensible is it's horror that I become enveloped in a childish anger which stems, I believe, from a sense of helplessness.

As I read the heart wrenching words, behind me I hear the congregation has begun singing the "kabalat shabbat," the prayer welcoming in the Sabbath eve.

"Come! -- Let us sing to God, let us call out to the Rock of our salvation." 

The room is full of song.

I read how Viktor had to endure tortures beyond my wildest imaginations, and wave after wave of praise for the great Almighty God, wash over me.

"Sing to God a new song, sing to God -- everyone of earth. Sing to God bless his name, announce his salvation daily." 

I feel as though I want to scream. "Salvation?" What of the children he let be gassed; what of the men and women who starved? Why didn't he save them?

"...righteousness and justice are his throne's foundation."

When babies are murdered can he who let it happen, can he who could have prevented it, be called just?

The songs wash over me, filled with devotion and love. The men sing with full hearts. They pour out their undying love for God. And I sit enraged.

I do not see why anyone would want to praise a being who although able to save lives, allows them to suffer and die? I do not believe in God, but even if I did, why is he deserving of my love? If he truly exists, and is the master of all things, surely I must fear him, perhaps obey him, but praise him?!

Ah yes, what of the goodness he supposedly bestows upon me? Perhaps for that I should praise him? Well, consider a doctor who saved my life, but who lets the man in the hospital bed beside me die in agony, even though he could have prevented it. Should I praise such a doctor?

Perhaps I do not understand his plan? Perhaps there is a great master plot of which I am ignorant? Perhaps. So over the murdered babies I should rejoice? Over death of the innocent I should be filled with glad song? If God is good, and his actions are all ultimately good, then why be sad over a Holocaust? It is all for a master plan of goodness.

Perhaps, he is punishing us. Perhaps the children were murdered because their parents didn't follow in-step with the will of God? I know you don't think that any just God would be guilty of such haphazard punishment, at least I hope you don't.

This post was written as a record of the emotional feelings that sprang to my mind as these two worlds -- the darkness of the Holocaust and the praising of God -- collided. I know that any religious person, who has ever considered the question of evil and God, has his own answers for the challenges mentioned above. I do not mean to come off as arrogant or as claiming that religious people are not sensitive to the horrors of the Holocaust or of any other human calamity. I know many of the faithful struggle in the face of evil, and that they have felt deep anger at God for his seeming complacency.

No, these are not new questions. They are not some great inpenetrable logic that erases the probability of God.  Alas, they are but outpourings of a sensitive agnostic heart. Please read them, not as an offense to belief, but as a challenge. These are not the words of a hater of religion, but of a hater of suffering.

It is these questions and others written in this blog that distance me from the God that is worshiped today.

I will leave off with the question of God and evil, with the powerful challenge of the Greek philosopher Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I Do Not Believe, I Hope

While walking alone last Friday night I thought deeply about a world with no God. I thought about the rational way to live in a world void of a god. Would there ever be cause worth dying for? Is there really a reason to try and make the world a better place? And probably most awakening question: In a world where death is the inevitable end, is there any reason to fall in love? Indeed one could extrapolate that: Is there any reason to continue to live?

As I walked alone, I contemplated the utter loneliness of a godless world. The dark street enveloped my mind. It became apparent to me why man would believe blindly in God, and has for many centuries. To face this world as what it is, a material and rather brief existence, is to become aware that the calling of your conscience is a product of chemicals reacting in your brain, and not whispers from a world beyond. It is to grasp that the grave for which we are all bound is approaching rapidly and is truly the end. There is no god looking down and guiding the world to some sublime paradise. There will be no resurrection of passed loved ones, no destroying of the evil, and, worst of all, no purpose for anything that ever was or ever will be.

Thankfully, science has yet to prove unequivocally that God doesn't actually exist, and for the sake of mankind, I hope never will.

I do not believe in God. That is to say, I do not know without doubt that above us is a supernatural Being who is attentive to the world and cares about it's continual existence.

However, in order to continue to strive towards greatness, to have a rationale for my moral actions, I feel the need to hope there is a God. To hope that there is a purpose to my existence, a reason for me to continue to be. Otherwise, I see no reason to love, to laugh, to battle evil, to sacrifice... to be. That hope is what makes all of life meaningful.

 I don't know how long this hope will last. It is hard for me to make an argument for God. All his actions seem non-sensible. Why create a world, then wait billions of years to connect to man, hide yourself from them, and let evil destroy your world? Is it all to test the devotion of the lucky ones born to families of believers? How are we to know which god you are? Are you the popular one of the last few centuries, or perhaps a forgotten god(s)?

The more I learn about evolution (which is very little at this point) the less God is needed to explain the mysteries of the world.

Yet, I hope.

All that being said, I see no reason to believe or trust any of the religions that claim to know God's will. There is no reason, and it is in fact ludicrous, to accept that one preacher knows the will of God more than the next! Why should I live by a set of statues whose divine origin cannot be proved? Religions have always capitalized on man's need for there to be something more than this world and have created elaborate structures to nurture that need. Perhaps a lot of people need that?  Perhaps, to keep that "God hope" alive one needs a structure that claims to be divine? Perhaps, even I will need one eventually?

So to sum up, no, I do not believe that God exists, I hope God exists.

Is God or Isn't He?

Do I believe in God?

I challenge myself with this question everyday. I waver from agnostic yet inclined to believe, to agnostic inclined to be skeptical. I know what I want. I want there to be a God. I want him to some how make sense of this chaotic world I was born into. I want that his real plan is universal equality and brotherhood.

My fantasy now is that there is a God, and that he is attentive to the world, yet all the religions are wrong and in no way his actual design for creation. Of course, there is no reason why this should be true, which is precisely the reason I wrote "fantasy" as opposed to belief.

What if there is no god?

If that doesn't send chills down your spine, I would say that you either believe absolutely (and therefore the question is meaningless) or do not understand the importance of a god being.

Why is God so important? For without God, this world with it's horrors, with it's unbridled evil is all there is. Yes, there are beautiful things in this world even without the existence of a god but do they really outweigh the darkness? The possibility that one only has this brief lifetime whose end is cold dirt and decomposing flesh. What a horrifying thought! Without a god, everything we do or achieve, everything we build or perfect, regardless how lofty, is utterly meaningless. Indeed one must regard the words of Ecclesiastes: "Futility of futilities -- says Ecclesiastes -- futility of futilities. All is futile!" (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Some may rightfully disagree with me. Some thinkers find a certain irony or comfort in the knowledge that this is it, and there is no beyond. This way of thinking confounds me greatly.

Someone may read this and assume that I then say that God must exist. That is not what I mean to say in the slightest. What I mean is that God is certainly the ultimate comfort. A warm blanket to wrap yourself in when confronted by tragedy or humbled by the strength of nature. Is it really a wonder why man would have felt the need to create him?

Yet I cannot proclaim, and may never be able to, that God absolutely does not exist or even that I am almost certain that he does not.

Is it simply a childhood indoctrination or perhaps a connection to the wondrous and mystical? I do not know. Ah, how frequent is that statement these days: "I do not know."

So do I believe in God? No. Do I accept him as a possibility? Yes. Do I live my life as if he is or isn't? Depends on the day. What a strange place to be. Unlike the believer or the atheist, I do not have some "philosophy of life" that I can say I live my life by. I am a small ship being tossed about in the mass ocean of doubt.

I therefore must leave off echoing the words of the great Greek philosopher Socrates who admitted: "The only thing that I know, is that I do not know anything.

Dear God - A Letter from Your Son

Dear God,

Where are you that I might find you?

I believed in you. Then I searched for you and found nothing? I saw pain. I saw love. I saw darkness. I saw light. I saw misery. I saw comfort. Are you all of these or none of these? Are you... at all?

Preachers say they know you. They claim to know your will. They say we must follow them and they will lead us to you. But there are so many preachers and they all have different claims; who then am I to follow in order to find you?

Psalmists say they have seen you. That they have experienced your glory. Their eyes fell upon a sunset and their lips declared your name. But I am not psalmist. I only see a setting sun. How then am I to see you?

Prophets say they have heard you. That you communicate your will to them. But I am not a prophet why do you not want to talk to me?

Scientists say you are non-existent. They say you are just part of the human imagination. They say the world proves it.

Why have you left me?

They say you're my father. That you love and care for me, but then why have you turned your back on me?

They say you're my king. That you are the ruler of all, but how am I to serve that which I don't know exists?

That is the truth; I do not know that you exist. I want you to exist. Most of my life has been engulfed in that hope. Yet now, I see no reason to believe in you. They say you authored a book, that its contents are eternal, that its ways are pleasant, but why then is my moral conscience repelled by it?

Do you know that most people have stopped caring whether or not you exist, they just care if they feel good or not? You are their escape from reality or worse, the sword in their hands. You have been used to start wars, to burn cities, to sacrifice life.

Do you simply not care? Why do you let your name be defiled and used to motivate evil?

They tell me I'm supposed to praise you daily, yet you let darkness roam free when you have the power to stop it, what is praiseworthy about that?

Some say that this is all part of some master plan and that evil is really good. Why should I accept that? Babies at the mercy of monsters is good? How foolish!

God, you are comfort; but is that all you really are? A light at the end of a black tunnel? A friend to hide behind when fear strikes?

Am I a heretic because I use the intellect you gave me? Why would you give me a mind powerful enough to destroy you?

I will serve you, if I know you.

I will love you, if I know you.

If not, if this is the lot of the man who searches for you, then God, I guess I'll go on from here without you. My heart stings as I write this. I loved you so much. I served you. I spread what I thought was your truth and you left me in the desert without water, you turned your back.

Are you mad at me?

Am I now your enemy?

Are you happy with me?

Is this the Divine plan?

Best wishes,

Your (un)faithful son

When Belief Isn't Humble

I feel as though I have been punched in the stomach. I just skimmed through a book written by a leading Jewish rabbi about belief in God. As I read the words I began to feel sicker by the page. He espoused a great hate for the evolutionists saying that they are irrational and foolish because they claim the universe was an accident and the author claims that if only they weren't so foolish they would see the clear truth that God exists.

The book basically focuses on different scientific phenomena, explaining their complex nature and repeatedly exclaiming: "Is it reasonable in the slightest to claim this is an accident! If only the blind academics would open their eyes, but they choose to keep them sealed."(This is not a direct quote). The author cites different evolutionists and mocks their words.

The saddest part for me was that he cited many evolutionists, including Darwin himself, saying that when he comes before the complexities in nature it is truly staggering to believe it was all an accident. Which the author than uses to call them foolish for still believing. What I understood from this, was that they saw the difficulties in their theories while he saw his opinion as rock solid! This, to me, declares the powerful words of Bertrand Russel: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubt."

When I read or hear stuff like this book, I feel ill. Why cast stones, when you yourself do not have sufficient proof (if any) for your belief? What scares me is had I read this book a few years ago I would have accepted it as evidence of my faith. I even saw one of my writings from years ago and while describing why I believe I said: We allow our minds to be sucked away by the "logic" of atheists.

Was I really so arrogant and foolish? I was. Tragic.

I am angry now. However, I in no way am saying that this is the only claim, nor the general ideas of the prominent Jewish rabbis and teachers. Judaism has brilliant thinkers who have written far better books, and are open and accepting of science and atheists.

If one believes he may not be told not to. but he must be humble and realize he does so not out of proof and logic but out of an inner calling. In addition, he must certainly never chastise a non believer.

Estranged from Myself

I feel estranged from my own body.

I watch my body go through the actions I have become so accustomed to doing but my heart is not there. My arm is strapped with tefillin, my head wrapped in a tallit, my lips move, forming the words but my mind stares at me, confused. My mind races with the doubts that fill me so. I have become almost separated from my religious experience. Going through the motions like a machine.

I still challenge and question. I find that many people do not bother themselves with questions of faith. Maybe at one point they did, and maybe they heard an answer of sorts, and then they climbed into their belief curled up and were content happily ever after. Is that my destiny? To be so unextraordinary? To live without passion in my belief? To follow the steps as I have been taught without presence of soul? Have I sealed my own fate?

Or should I leave it all? Should I cast my belief aside until I have reason to believe it is actually true?

But, what of my future children? Should I rob them of a life with meaning? Should I raise them in a world without objective truth?

I know that, like many of the people in my shoes, if I were to leave my faith, I would be remembered as someone who gave up the truth for a life of temptation. Such is the way of some religious thinkers. They believe it is okay to ask questions so long as you are willing to accept their answers. If not, you are a fraud. Tragic really.

Well, they should know: I have an incredible life. I have a wonderfully close knit religious family, I am respected in my community, I am knowledgeable in the vast library of Jewish thought, and up until recently, I saw it as my duty to battle philosophically for God.

And then I asked questions and more questions and found that many of the religious thinkers I have spoken to have admitted that Judaism is not objective truth.

Objective truth as I understand it is a truth that can be proven objectively. Such as 2+2=4. No one can reasonably argue with such a claim, (except philosophers who have an annoying tendency to be skeptical of any conclusion) it is not based on a person's orientation but because two items put together with another two items is four items!

The more I realize that the reason I sit here with a kippah on my head and not a cross around my neck is simply that I was born to my parents, is the more I realize I have no objective belief at all.

How long shall I live a double life?

How long does God intend to let us wallow in our misery?

Agnostic Confession

"I am an intellectual agnostic."

Yesterday I said it out loud for the first time and have henceforth been feeling the repercussions of such a statement. I don't even know if it's true. I don't know if that means I don't believe anymore. I know what I meant was that I cannot intellectually prove or validate what my heart believes; that is, that the Jewish God exists in all His glory. Can the two thoughts truly rest in the same body? Can one doubt absolutely his own heart's convictions?

I just don't know if I have another choice. I know that in my heart I feel God's presence, at least I have on many occasion. I know that I still confide in Him and ask for assistance. And yet, the more I read, the more I contemplate, The more I know, I have absolutely no rationale for my faith. Any attempt is, at its essence, just a cheap rationalization to make believe my faith is based on logic.

Isn't agnosticism the most intellectually honest response? After all, both the theist and the atheist make conclusions based on incomplete data. Indeed the atheist, based on his doubts and scientific discoveries, concludes that the existence of a deity is a absolute impossibility. Is not such a statement in it's own right a leap of faith? The theist is no better. He, after feeling God speak to him or hearing a convincing argument for God, concludes that there must be a creator of this universe.

Only the agnostic has the humility to admit that we indeed do not know how this world came to be. He is bold enough to live in the excruciatingly uncomfortable reality of uncertainty. Some people, those who don't understand the ultimate importance of the question as to whether God exists or not, will be able to live without much consequence. They will avoid philosophical inquiries and merely shrug away their doubts. They will, necessarily, commit many instances of hypocrisy, all the while remaining clueless. They will die blissfully. I dare say, this describes most of society (even many of those who claim to be religious.)

But there remain some who have heard the question; who have searched relentlessly only to run into the dead end of doubt. Their lot is one of isolation and suffering. They are compelled to constantly search for the elusive truth. Their minds grapple with these questions endlessly and are jealous of the naive who are stubborn in their convictions. Instead of gaining respect for his brutal honesty, he is scorned by the "herd" for being intellectually lazy or spiritually shallow.

Is this my lot now? Indeed what is the point of my intellect if my inevitable end is one of torment? I must ask: Why hath Thou created me with a challenged soul if it will only cause me to stray from Thee?

And so, on and on, my intellect will battle my heart.

The Journey Begins

Once again my mind is a swirl of chaos. Questions and answers flash before my eyes. I have made it my philosophical duty to solve the real questions that confront every human at some point in their lives. Questions on the existence of God, or the validity of religion, and our perception of truth and reality.

Up until recently I have been content in my knowledge of God's existence, with the knowledge that Judaism was a true religion and that I understand the will of the Creator of the universe. 

However, about a year ago a friend began to challenge my faith and I discovered my vast ignorance in the topics I thought I knew so well. It led me on a journey that has taken me no where, but has put a terrifying question mark on everything I held dear. I do not intend to back away from the challenges and doubts I now face, but to solve them one way or another. 

The first question I faced was about my understanding of truth. If we are born into a world, I reasoned, that was influencing our thoughts from little after we are ejected into it, then what claim have we to know that what we believe to be true isn't in fact just a product of our environment? Since the communist, the Jihadist, the capitalist, and the Buddhist, all claim to be holding onto the truth, could I really claim that being born an Orthodox Jew didn't affect the way I saw the world and truth? Could anyone be bold enough to make such a claim? Therefore, because we can't trust our thoughts to be of our own design (and not influenced by the society around us), we have no more claim to the truth than anyone. The word truth, besides being an illusive unattainable ideal, all but disappears. 

These thoughts troubled me and caused me to inquire among other believers. The general answer I got from people who understand the question was that it is the feeling, the inner voice of the soul, that validates what their rabbi's told them. It is not the cold facts that the man of faith is concerned with; but the divine feeling that connects them to the beyond. That certain "knowledge" which, they claim, transcends reason and logic. 

Others still, proposed that in fact the feelings that haunt them are not to be trusted and it is only the proofs of God's existence that concern them. To them, the God debate does not exist. In fact, they declare, he who sees not His works in this world is a fool. That "God" is the most logical answer to the mystery's of the universe. 

After much contemplating and studying, I am fairly certain that the road to God is paved with wonder. Wonder, a most perplexing human condition, is a the function of man to see a phenomenon and instead of turning away bored or seeking to explain it, man simply stares innocently in awe of it's power or beauty. This seems to be the way man must seek God. Through honest almost child-like wonder he must gaze at the world and in face of the puzzles presented simply "know" that Someone or Something had to have created it. 

This is of course still riddled with difficulties and religion has not yet been validated or proven but at the very least I know which goggles I must peer through if I hope to see what the man of faith sees.  

This blog will serve as a medium for me to present my thoughts, doubts, fears, questions and constant chaos which fills my mind most of every day.