[Avodah] Question about the Six Constant Mitzvos

[Ira Tick]

R Wolpoe wrote:

I don't believe that these people really do not accept God.  I have listened
> to well-known Atheist Ron Kuby wax positively mystical and rhpasodic in
> describing Yankee Stadium and its history and tradition.
>
> My karate instructor Chaim Sober claimed HIS teacher denied the denial of
> God. to paraphrase "not deny God but ANGRY at God"  So Atheists are Angry at
> God is HIS way of phrasing it.
>
> IMHO most contemporary Atheists don't really deny God. They deny religion,
> any religion and any religiously based dcefinition of God.  But deep down,
> I'll bet that 99% of them are more akin to the 18th Century Deists than they
> are really positive atheists.
>
>
> Anyone who listens to thei "consience" is in asense listening to God
>
> Yet still there whispers the small voice within, Heard through Gain's
>> silence, and o'er Glory's din; Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
>> Man's conscience is the oracle of God.
>> Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)<http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/Lord-Byron-%28George-Gordon-Noel-Byron%29/1/index.html>
>> Source: *The Island (canto I, st. 6)*
>
>
> http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Conscience/index.html
>
>
> Of course Atheists might DENY that their consience is from God, but some
> people are in Denial of their obesity, aclohlism, gambling problems etc.  So
> I would venture to say that anyone  who does the "right thing" becuase they
> have an active consience are realyl Listening to the  voice of God within in
> even if their conscience is unconsious of the connexion.
>
> Only a psychopath could deny God and REALLY mean it.
>
>
> That said, I don't deny that denying God is undeniably heresy!  I jsut deny
> that the deniars are denying God so much as that the yare in denial of their
> "goodness" of their "Godness"
>
>
> In New Age Terms, those Atheists who are moral/ethical and listening to
> thier inner voice are in touch with thier HIGHER SELF.  This is AIUI a
> manifestation of HKBH within us, perhaps part of our soul structure, akin to
> he Super-Ego or simply the yetzer tov but it is more than JUST a yetzer tov
> it is something spiritual rather than merely an advisor..
>
>
> --
> Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
> RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
> see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
>

I'm sorry to say that I disagree.  The Big Three:  Richard Dawkins (author
of "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The God Delusion"), Christopher Hitchens
(author or "God is not Great"), and Sam Harris (author of "The End of
Faith") most certainly do not believe in God.  They are even angered by the
suggestion of G-d, not only because they have a negative view of organized
reliigion, but because they are frustrated by what they perceive as
superstition controlling world affairs and governing the way people treat
each other.  As secular humanists, they believe powerfully in the emotional
reality of empathy and compassion, but they ascribe the physical causality
of those realities to biological sources of matter-energy, chemistry,
genetics, and natural selection.  They do not deny their own conscience, but
rather they deny that the human need for morality, meaning, and
transcendance are anything more than evolutionary leftovers.  Freud believed
that love was a manisfestation of the sex drive, but he didn't deny its
power in the mind of man.

Perhaps at certain moments the order of the cosmos, the wonder and diversity
of life, the beauty of a sunset or the depth of a tragedy will spur feelings
of transcendance in the hearts of these men, but they will easily dismiss
any theological claims of those feelings as psychological or neurological
phenomenon with little perceptive power.  Frankly, in my own relationship
with and search for G-d, I have repeatedly shifted my position on the
perceptive accuracy of such feelings, so that I no longer accept or deny
them at face value.  On the extreme of belief in total metaphysical
parallels for all our emotional constructs, one must inevitably betray some
of those constructs to fit everything together rationally.  On the other
extreme of purely emotional, subjective view of religion, one must of course
betray some of the perceptive feel of those emotional associations.  All of
this is true with or without belief in G-d, because G-d can be defined in so
many ways as to fit either view or any view in between, even if G-d is as
real as you or me.  Certainly for these men, without more empirical evidence
of G-d, they will choose to deny any perceptive accuracy of these feelings,
from the claim that G-d exists down to any definition of G-d based on
emotional experiences.
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