[Avodah] Religion and Falsifiability

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger publicized the question:
> What information would you need to be presented to take
> off your kipah? ... What evidence do you think would be
> impossible solely because of your religious beliefs? ...
> Are we irrationally, stubbornly, religious, or is there
> actually something that could falsify your religious
> stance?

My short answer is that I agree with just about all that R' Micha wrote on this topic. Torah and science/archaeology are about entirely different things, and so a contradiction is not possible. If there *appears* to be a contradiction, then I've either misunderstood one, or misunderstood the other, or - most lkely - misunderstood both.

But this leaves the door open to contradictions within Torah. Those are the ones that scare me. Most can be explained away in some manner or other, but some are more difficult. I will not give any examples here, for fear of giving anyone any reasons to question.

When I began learning, I was blessed with teachers who were able to answer many of my questions. Some questions were harder, but I worked on them for a long time and usually came up with answers that satisfied me. Each time that I found an answer to a seemingly unanswerable problem, my emunah got strengthened.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that if *these* impossibly difficult questions have answers, then it must be that ALL impossibly difficult questions have answers.

And so it has remained ever since. Some of those questions still remain, and occasionally I find a new one. But to answer the OP, not only can I *not* imagine any evidence which would falsify my beliefs, but I have defined my belief system to include a proviso which would possul any such evidence which might somehow arise.

A certain Rebbe (I forgot who) was asked how his emunah could be so strong. The man asked him, "Don't you ever have any questions?"

The rebbe answered, "Of course I have questions! Everyone has questions! But I never ask them. I'm afraid that if I ask the questions, they'll invite me Upstairs to tell me the answers. I'm not in such a rush. Someday they'll tell me the answers. I can wait, thank you."

Akiva Miller