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<DIV>In a message dated 11/14/2007 8:23:49 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
eliturkel@gmail.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>On the
best seller list<BR><BR> <BR>God Is Not Great: How Religion
Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens<BR>The God Delusion by Richard
Dawkins<BR>God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Sh... by Victor J.
Stenger<BR><BR>These people are wrong but not stupid<BR><BR>I doubt if many
people have become baale teshuva (or geirim) based on<BR>an intellectual
"proof" of any kind about G-d or Judaism. My personal observations are<BR>that
many factors are more important than a preponderance of evidence.<BR><BR>--
<BR>Eli Turkel</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>>>>>><BR>Yes, my experience confirms your personal
observations. Most often, people do not become convinced that there is a
God -- or that there is no God -- because of intellectual arguments. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Even the high IQ writers named above did not become atheists for
intellectual reasons, and their books are rife with emotional arguments.
Most people become convinced of whatever they believe -- be it religion or
no-religion -- because of a long list of factors, experiential, emotional,
historical, intellectual and social. Most often they apply intellectual
reasoning ex post facto to validate or rationalize whatever they have already
come to believe or not-believe for emotional reasons.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What I will say is that the Question of God is and will always be of
critical importance and interest to intellectuals. Hitchens,
Dawkins, Stenger et al don't waste their time and brainpower trying to disprove
the existence of leprechauns or of aliens from another galaxy who kidnap people
and experiment on them in their spaceships.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Interestingly, it has recently come to light that Hitchens is a halachic
Jew -- one of those many "social Marranoes" who still live among us -- like
Madeline Albright and Virginia Senator George Allen. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============</B></FONT></DIV></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See what's new at <A title="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" href="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" target="_blank">AOL.com</A> and <A title="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" href="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" target="_blank">Make AOL Your Homepage</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>