[Avodah] Religion and Falsifiability

[Micha Berger]

RDE recently mentioned to me in private email that someone once gave
him the following challenge:
What information would you need to be presented to take off your kipah?

A more frum rephrasing might be: What evidence do you think would be
impossible solely because of your religious beliefs?

I found it an intriguing question. Are we irrationally, stubbornly,
religious, or is there actually something that could falsify your
religious stance?

To answer the challenger's question:
When we get these Torah vs archeology discussions, I consistently
liken it to contradictions between General Relativity and Quantum
Mechanics. They are the two most successfully tested theories in
science -- in their own domains. A GPS's chips work because of
semiconductor physics which we found because of QM -- they are QM
effects. And yet we use them to compute satellite location, including
correcting for relativistic effects! Because each works well in their
respective core domains, we can shelve questions about their
peripheral areas of overlap for later. It's no more an act of faith
than designing or using a GPS device. Religion isn't about history;
it's about values and structure, and only tangentially makes
historical claims.

(Similarly, astronomy and archeology stretch the limits of scientific
method, as their experiments are not controlled -- you can only look
at the examples the universe gives you. Unlike setting up a physics,
chemistry or biology experiment. Archeology is even further, as a
whole class of its experiments are not repeatable. But this point is
less worth arguing.)

However, this does mean that in religion's core domain, I do believe
that certain things could not possibly ever be found. For example:

Ani maamin beemunah sheleimah: We will never find evidence of
redeeming features of Amaleiqi culture. I would say that if it would
happen, I don't think I could remain an Orthodox Jew, if it were not
that it can't happen.

Also, it depends where one places the line between tweaking my current
beliefs and finding new ones. For example:

Ani maamin beemunha sheleimah: We will never find a bayis 1 era copy
of the book of P (a reference to document hypothesis). It is possible
to embrace DH with minimal damage to the rest of yahadus -- although I
don't think of the result as Orthodox Judaism. But the problem could
never arise for me to worry about it disproving that critical piece of
my emunah.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv