[Avodah] use of reason: science v. talmud: duplicitous?

[harveybenton at yahoo.com]

A. The chabad.org 
posting on Religion v. Science has implications that I believe are
incorrect.  If, what the article is
saying is true, namely that rational thinking, the scientific method
(induction, deduction, extrapolation, interpolation, etc) are suspect; then I
believe we would need to ask about the same uses of logic and reason in
Talmudic/Rabbinical Literature. Does not Talmud Bavli/Yerushalmi and all the
post-Talmudic Halachists not use use logic, inferences, kal v’chomer’s, etc??
Weren’t there myriads of Halachos that were “re-deduced” after Moshe’s death?  

B. The following statement is made in the article (fourth
paragraph):"From these two definitions we see that science formulates and
deals with theories and hypotheses while Torah deals with absolute
truths." HB:  No “proofs” for the
validity of the Torah exist today other than those that employ logic and
reason; to the contrary, to my knowledge, 
there exists no historical (written/archaeological, etc,) proof of any
of the events described in the Torah; including the Creation, the 10 plagues,
decimation and exodus from Egypt, Israelite sojourns in the Desert, Plastered
Stones set up by Moshe & Yehoshua, Noah’s Ark/Evidence of  the Flood 5,000 years ago, etc.   

C. The only proofs currently proffered, are one’s that
involve logic and reason [a. most number of alleged witnesses to Sinai (no dvd
or video of event notwithstanding), complexity of universe is beyond that of
chance (again, no extant dvd of creation), direct transmission of mesorah from
one generation to the next (possibly true if the original witnesses were alive
to confirm the original events -- but they are not, etc.] 

D. If logic and reason are suspect as is inferred (correctly
or not on my part) from the article…. Is this use of reason/logic
(Talmud/Halacha) and condemnation of it at the same time (science) duplicitous
on the part of the authors?? 

Sincerely,  

HB
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