[Avodah] belief

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 08, 2025 at 05:55:22AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> If I understand correctly, R'EW in the Kovetz Maamarim makes the watchmaker
> argument to prove God's existence. He then goes on to say that this is so
> obvious that anybody who denies it is doing so because of his wish to
> willfully throw off the yoke of Heaven. How does this square with your
> experience?

My own belief is that
    The mind is a powerful instrument
    for justifying conclusions
    the heart already reached.

I think REW's dictum is true of many people who don't realize it about
themselves.

But with a caveat: I don't believe REW meant that there was a human
being capable of changing his life simply because the argument happens
to be true. There is a true argument for G-d, but it simply doesn't
matter because everything rests in one's ability to see the proof. Not
in the proof existing.

Whether one finds a question an interesting problem for later or an
"upshlug" depends on whether the belief system is satisfying your Search
For Meaning (intentional Victor Frankl reference) or not.

If Shemiras Shabbos works for you, then you are inclined to accept the
givens and the arguments built upon them that explain why that would be.
Or if you repeatedly see in Torah learning all the elegance mathemeticians
see in a good math proof.

Not the aesthetic judgment, the step before the aesthetic judgment. That
something that is only partially describably that would cause
mathemiticians to see beauty in a proof. Not an appeal to the beauty,
but to that which triggers that judgment.

The problem is, I would take that idea of Negi'os and unconscious biases
so far, I would say the same about accepting the Watchmaker or any other
argument as well.

IOW, an argument that works for the one who goes OTD should work for the
BT or geir as well.

People simply aren't all that rational. The more an idea requires
changing a lifestyle or something else we are emotionally invested in,
leass proofs sway until we give them permission to sway.

And thefore your closing question about "my experience" is moot. I
am arguing that for mussary and psychological reasons, we aren't aware
of how we are really experiencing such things. We make these decisions
before our conscience is engaged.

But in general, I find this is true. Few is any BTs I've met, or OTD
people I met (or raised) hit a problem that they couldn't resolve and
that was the entire cause for their changing belief systems. Ideology
with no lifestyle issues involved.


As this point I would post links to relevent posts on my blog, but
ein ladavar sof -- I touched related topics literally dozens of times.



On Sun, Jan 12, 2025 at 08:47:19PM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> My experience is that there are two sorts of "proofs". For lack of a better
> term, let's call them "objective" and "subjective" proofs. (If more formal
> descriptors exist among those of you who have studied these things, please
> share.)

> Mathematics is a good example of objective proof. I have two apples, and
> then I take another apple, and now I have three apples. I have objectively
> proven that two plus one equals three. It is inescapable, as far as I can
> tell. This is what people usually mean when they use the word "proof".

Or, Kuzari sec 1, who uses the Mesorah to make a Reliabilist argument
for the truth of Torah
vs
The Moreh sec. 2, which starts with axioms and builds a Euclidian proof
from them of a Creator.

While I don't think a Reliabilist argument can be made nowadays from
what's left of the Mesorah. But for the broader issue that RAM is
raising, I am on Rihal's side.

I have often quoted the following two paragraphs from the Kuzari:
   1:13 The Chaver: What you are describing is religion based on
   speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many
   doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you'll find that they do not
   agree on one course or action or one principle, since some doctrines
   can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory,
   and still much less capable of being proved.

(Also par 63 is on my favorite quote list, but that's the core of his
Reliabilism argument.)

Partly for the reason I gave above -- we are really blind to the question
of the quality of a philosophical proof.

Partly because I feel that Rihal makes a strong argument from the Aseres
haDiberos that HQBH expected as much:

   1:25. The Chaver: ... In the same strain Moshe spoke to Par'oh,
   when he told him: 'Elokei haIvrim shelachani eileikhem' i.e. Elokei
   ABraham, Yitzchaq and Yaaqov. ... In the same way when Hashem opened
   His speech to the assembled people of Israel: 'Anokhi Hahsem Elokekha
   asher hotzeisikha meiEretz Miztrayim,' He did not say: 'Ani Borei
   haOlam uManhigchem'..."

We believe because of our experiences. That's what shapes those preconscious
decisions. Not because of abstract if more objective concepts. And even He
expects as much.

And mostly because since the debate over Kalam / Scholasticism that Rihal
and the Rambam examplify, we had Kant, Freud, and many other philosophers
who doubt that there are objectively solid proofs for these areas of
philosophy and psychologists who douvt our ability to be as objective
as we think we're being.

R Avram Elya Kaplan in the title essay of BeIqvos haYir'ah highlights
something we say every day in the preamble before As Yazhir. "Vayar
Yisrael es ha-'Yad haGedolah'... Vayir'u ha'am es H', vayaaminu BaH'
uvMoshe avdo." Rei'iyah, Yir'ah and Emunah, in that order -- experience,
motional reaction and only then reason.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 I always give much away,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   and so gather happiness instead of pleasure.
Author: Widen Your Tent              -  Rachel Levin Varnhagen
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF