Aren't Skeptics Guilty of Special Pleading?

I promised this post to Mr. Stein (who goes by Jewish Phulosopher) a while ago, but I've been rather busy. I apologize for the delay.

I want to point out that those who are interested in these types of blogs should applaud Mr. Stein. That's right, applaud. Why? He provides the blogosphere with insight to counter what he believes to be a true threat. It is important to have people who are willing to stand up to skeptics, try to argue against their positions, and make them back up their claims. Though many people take issue with his tactics, which I must myself admit seem to be a bit extreme, I only wish that there would be more people in the Orthodox Jewish community who attempt to respond to skeptics with as much passion as he has.

Mr. Stein recently commented on my blog that I am claiming that "you need not a accept a religion as true until it is proven beyond doubt. Can anything be proven beyond doubt?"

Let me try to explain what, I believe, Mr. Stein is trying to say here. Suppose you open up a veyr old history book, and start reading in it. You see some random fact about a major event that took place. You then read some other books which also referred to this event. Mr. Stein says, you would probably accept this fact. So why not in the case of the Torah? In fact, there is an even stronger case here, because of the Kuzari Principle. Is it because you do not believe in anything physical? But how can one prove that there is nothing physical, if it is not visible to the senses? And if there is evidence that it does exist, from historical sources, then one should believe in it! Thus, I believe Mr. Stein is saying that the skeptic is guilty of special pleading.

This is a very strong claim. If Mr. Stein is right, then all skeptics are denying statements that any reasonable, neutral observer would accept as fact. Thus, Mr. Stein claims, skeptics must be delusional. Since, he feels, the strongest desire which Judaism does not allow is the sexual urge, he places the blame on that.

Mr. Stein, however, is ignoring some very important caveats that require extra evidence in this situation. The issue is the level of evidence required for miracles. Since the classic work on this subject is David Hume's On Miracles, I will draw from there in formulating the skeptic's response to Mr. Stein.

The first thing Hume points out is that miracles are very unusual experiences. Thus, we must take into mind that there occurence is very rare. Hume then asks, which will occur more frequently: that a story of a miracle is made up, or the miracle actually occurred? The reasonable person will believe in that which statistically occurs more often, until further evidence sways the statistical likelihood.

Hume then goes into the evidence which is available for the existence of miracles. The most common evidence is, of course, human testimony. But, Hume points out, testimony is often contradicted by circumstantial evidence, other testimony, or the unreliable character of the witnesses, to name a few. Thus, with enough evidence to the contrary, such as that miracles rarely happen, if ever, should at least put their testimony in doubt.

Hume noticed the counterargument that Mr. Stein put forth, which I paraphrased: that the skeptic does not believe in anything not physical, despite no evidence to establish such a claim. He compares this to the Indian prince who had never seen ice, that when he was told that water becomes hard when it is cold (i.e. becomes ice), was absolutely certain that the person telling him was trying to pull his leg. Therefore, Hume proceeds to analyze the reliability of the evidence available for miracles.

Hume first points out that

The passion of surprize and wonder, arising from miracles, being an
agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events,
from which it is derived. And this goes so far, that even those who cannot enjoy
this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events, of which
they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by
rebound, and place a pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others.

Thus the stories of miracles are likely to spread without thoroughly being checked for validity. Hume also offers other possible reasons to spread such stories: one may be deluded into thinking that such a thing was actually a miracle, someone may wish to spread his/her religion, or he may wish to deceive the general populace. I'm sure everyone can agree that there are many false claims of miracles. Even the Vatican is very cautious against declaring every claim of a miracle as such, and many false miracles have been exposed over the years. But the rest of purported miracles may simply be reports of charlatans who were not caught. Why, then do people believe it? Due to ignorance (which was more rampant than many people realize possible before literacy became common), or eloquence.

Hume also points out that many things in the ancient past, such as wars, disease, hunger, or storms were believed to be due to supernatural causes. Now, we know this not to be the case, as we can explain and predict these things perfectly well from natural causes. However, the belief in a supernatural realm has persisted nonetheless, which may further enhance the belief in miracles.

This is important. To the ancient past, supernatural intervention was thought part of everyday life, and was needed to explain things. Thus it may have solely been established as such, and over time, the beliefs developed so that divine beings were involved personally in people's lives. If the original basis for such a belief is faulty, then shouldn't all subsequent beliefs based on this, such as miracles, be held suspect?

Hume pushes on, noting how it is strange that there seem to be so much fewer miracles in the present time, when we have made so many advances in science and mathematics, than when people were ignorant and apt to believe in bizarre superstitions, such as Paganism.

Additionally, each religion claims miracles which establish its religion as true, while the other as false. Does this not diminish the certainty that their miracles actually occurred? After all, each makes equally strong claims that negate the claims of the others.

I'm sure that Mr. Stein would point out that here the case is different because of the Kuzari Principle. I would also like to point out that all religions go through processes in which beliefs become built on preexisting beliefs, which is readily seen in the written records of the Catholic Church. So too, the story of mass revelation at Sinai could just be such a process, in which the story got built up, as I have suggested in a previous post. In fact, the case would be even stronger, as records were not kept to same level that they were in the Catholic Church to document such a process, which the Catholics could have ostensibly used to notice that they were gradually creating a story which was not what the original Christians probably believed. In fact, we have virtually no archaeological written records on any topic from the Bayit Rishon period. We only have a few records that were inscribed in stone as monuments; while we have Christian records that were copied throuhgout the Middle Ages to the present. Thus the objection that there should be written records is not a good one.

Thus, the skeptic can well claim that there is not much more evidence in favor of Judaism than in favor of any other religion, which is not very good.

Bereishit 1 and the Creation of the Universe

Up to now, my posts have been mostly against an Orthodox position. In this post, I will, at least mildly, support one.

I'm sure most readers are aware of the apparent contradiction between Bereishit 1 and the scientifically established date of the Universe. The Torah says the world was created in six days; science, over billions of years.

There are several ways in which Orthodox Jews have attempted to tackle this very strong challenge. I will start with that of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who stated that the world, indeed, was created in six days, but was made to look a lot older in order to test us.

This response has come under a lot of fire. Rabbi Slifkin, I believe, responded by saying that one could just as well say that the Torah was given to test us to see how foolishly we would act in believing something against all empirical evidence. After all, God established both the Universe and the Torah, which seem to contradict each other; how do we know which one is right?

Bertrand Russell's Omphalos Hypothesis is another way of responding. He suggests that it is also possible to say that the Universe was created 5 minutes ago. You may respond, "but I remember events that happened more than 5 minutes ago!" This, however, is not a valid reason to reject the hypothesis, as everything was created 5 minutes ago as if it had existed for much longer. By performing a reductio ad absurdum, Russell shows that both hypotheses are absurd, and one should just follow the empirical evidence.

The second approach is to say that "days" in Bereishit 1 are not really days. After all, how could they if there was no sun until the fourth day?

This approach overlooks an important, but not well known fact of ancient cosmology: many people did not think that the Sun caused the light of day, but rather coincided with the light of day. After all, on a cloudy day, it is still light, but there is no Sun! And at dawn and dusk, it is also light, but there is no Sun! Let us examine Bereishit 1, and see how this fits in:
1:5 God calls the light, day, and the dark, night. No mention of the sun here; it just seems that light=day and dark=night.
1:14 God creates the heavenly beings to separate between day and night. It does not say that they are the essence of day and night.
1:15 The heavenly beings are to shine on the Earth - the Moon at night, the Sun during the day. This is more evident during the next Passuk:
1:16 The Sun reigns over the day, and the Moon reigns over the night. Nothing about their appearance that causes it to be day or night; after all, the Moon can appear during the day, but that does not make it both day and night!

I admit that the evidence is certainly not conclusive in favor of the hypothesis offered here, and I don't remember the source where I saw this, so don't trust me on it. Please try to look up the source if you are interested.

There are other problems, though, with the "days are not days" approach. The order of creation seems to be completely off. Trees and other plants form before the Sun does. What is their source of light? Is it the original light of day? Then we have the problem that I raised earlier about what defined the day in ancient times. Also, there is no water above the sky (you may be inclined to say that this is a mischaracterization of Day 2, but we see from the story of Noach and Iyov 38 that it almost definitely means a body of water above the sky). The order of the creation of the animals is questionable, but not conclusive either way.

The final approach that I will bring up is that of Cassuto and others, that the Torah is not trying to actually describe creation in Bereishit 1, but rather trying to play off of the existing mythologies of the ancient world for its own theological purposes. Bereishit 1, indeed, bears somewhat of a resemblance to the Enuma Elish, which describe the theogony/cosmogony of the ancient Mesopotamians. The Torah could be, for instance, trying to reverse the theology of the ancient Pagans, by stating that it was not the cosmos which created the gods, but rather God who created the cosmos.

This last approach is, I believe, tenable, and therefore is the one I would support if holding an Orthodox Jewish opinion.

The Kuzari Principle

Probably the most famous argument used to "prove" Judaism is the Kuzari Principle. I will briefly summarize it:

1) Any event that would be very difficult to establish as fact without its actual occurrence is, in most likelihood, true.
2) The giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai is such an event, as there were several million people present.
3) Therefore, the Torah is given by God, as witnessed by these millions of people.
4) Therefore, Judaism is true.

I won't get involved here in how we would know that the Torah Sheb'al Peh is true, because that is a separate issue. I will confine myself to the argument above.

The issue is with Premise (2). How do we know that there were several million people there? From the Torah itself. Isn't this circular reasoning?

Those who support the argument respond as follows: if someone tried to introduce the Torah at a later point, everyone would know it was false. They would all say, "why have I never heard of such a momentous event before from my parents? They would have told me of such a fantastic story if it had really occurred. Therefore, you are a charlatan."

The problem with this is that it (a) assumes that traditions maintain the same form when repeated from generation to generation, (b) that anyone introducing the Torah would be starting a new religion from scratch, and (c) that the average person was well-versed in the specifics of the religion, not just some rituals.

In reality, it is quite clear that traditions do change from generation to generation. This can even be tracked through literature of various movements, such as the early Church or Kabbalah. So, the assumption that traditions are transmitted untouched is fallacious.

I will attempt to construct a possible pathway for the tradition coming down as is, without any revelation actually occurring:
Generation 1: Flees from Egypt. Forms a legal code in the desert. Sees God's involvement in both, just like Sennacherib sees his god Ashur's hand in his military victories. Also could see law as divinely inspired the same way Jews nowadays consider their Rabbis to be divinely inspired, or Catholics see the Pope as divinely inspired.
Generation 2: "God took as out of Egypt, and gave us the law, through Moses." This is not such a big leap from the previous generation.
Generation 3: "God took us out mightily from Egypt, and gave us the law through revelation through Moses."
Generation 4: "God smote the Egyptians as he took us out, and revealed himself at Sinai to the whole people as he gave the law to Moses.

Look how quickly the tradition can plausibly change. Does anyone note the similarities between this and the process of changing the story in George Orwell's Animal Farm, which is based on the historical Soviet Revolution? (Note: this is not to say that it actually happened this way, just that it is possible. It also may have taken more time than this for these opinions to have developed.)

There may also have been other factors involved. For example, the story could have been poetically embellished, and then at some later point, it was taken to be a true story.

The Torah could also have been forced upon the Jews by the point of the sword by a zealously religious king, who was listening to the opinions of the priests. This can possibly be seen in the time of Chizkiyahu, but even more so in the time of Yoshiahu.

Or it could be a combination of all of these, and possibly other ideas I haven't thought of, all of which have historical precedent.

People also sometimes try to claim that this argument for Judaism is special, not because it proves that Judaism is right, but because Judaism is unique in claiming the existence of such a widespread miracle. This is not true, as I can give many examples of historical claims that happened to wide numbers of people, were accepted by wide numbers of people as true, yet I'm sure the average reader will allow to be false:
1) Epic of Gilgamesh - Utnapishtim is saved by one of the gods after the rest of the gods decide to destroy the world. The entirety of mankind witnessed this, no? If you wish to say that the flood is true, but it was distorted by the pagans, then why not say that the Exodus is true, but distorted by the Jews, who added miracles to a natural story? Is it merely because it would be difficult to get the stories to coincide with so many people? But why not just ask Utnapishtim/Noach, who was still alive for hundreds of years thereafter, to tell his version fo the story?
2) The Aeneid - the gods reveal themselves at several points to all of the Trojans, who are the ancestors of the Romans.
3) Maccabees 3 - Angels reveal themselves to the entire Jewish community of Alexandria and save them. This story was accepted as historical by many Jewish and Christian groups, yet it is not by Orthodox Jews.
4) The Splitting of the Moon - a miracle witnessed by many Muslims which confirmed the truth of the prophecy of Muhammad. If one wishes to attempt to falsify this by saying that others in locations far away from Arabia did not see this, but rather saw the moon remain whole, this does not solve the problem. Both led to entire people believing in a miracle that confirms the proof of their religion, yet it is possible that neither is true.
5) The Miracle of the Sun - a miracle that occurred in Portugal for tens of thousands of Catholics. See Wikipedia.
6) The Soviet Revolution - after the Revolution, the Soviets completely rewrote their history to grant themselves a greater role in overthrowing the Tsar. They succeeded despite the involvement of millions of the populace in the process who should have known that their claims were not true.

I'm sure I'm missing some other examples.

There is also the issue that many of the numbers in Tanach are likely inflated, but I won't get into that right now.

In any case, I don't think the Kuzari Principle should be granted any value, for the reasons listed above.

The Existence of God IV: Pascal's Wager

Any discussion of the existence of God would be deficient without mentioning Pascal's Wager. After all, isn't the expected value from religion infinitely higher than without religion?

I'm not sure if the argument works so well, though. Consider the following: I tell you that I have experienced a revelation from sea people, who say that they will do you incredible good if you act a certain way, but they will do you incredible harm if you act a different way. In my story, I just so happen to craft the manner in which the sea people will execute their will as to make it nonfalsifiable (as the idea of Olam Haba is). Would any of you believe me? No, you say, you have written a post on Pascal's Wager, so your story clearly relates to your position on this principle. So I slightly change the situation. A random person in the street tells you this. He appears to be completely sane, and completely serious. He reacts in a very disappointed manner if you doubt him. Would you still believe him?

It seems to me that most people would not. They would at least need some stronger evidence to establish the truth of what he said. After all, he may very well be delusional, may have misinterpreted a situation, or seen something that can be explained through alternative phenomena. So, we would ignore his story because it is very unlikely.

Now, one could respond that one could equally apply this to bizarre scientific phenomena. After all, it would run contrary to all experience, and can cause great good or harm. A prime example of this is nuclear power. No one had any conception of the power contained in atomic nuclei before the 20th Century. Or, more recently, one could apply this to subatomic particles. This ignores, though, the falsifiability criteria. One would be more likely to credit a scientific statement, as one believes that since the scientist has no reason to lie, and his method for deducing his statements on natural phenomena are repeatable, so one could catch him if he did lie, it is exceedingly likely that the scientist is telling the truth.

Two sources I would like to mention at this point - Noam Chomsky's quote on science vs. postmodernism, and David Hume's On Miracles.

I now go further. It is important to note that all religions could make this claim. Thus, Pascal's Wager equally leads to Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Classical Paganism, etc. The only way out of this is to use empirical evidence to weigh one over the other- which, as we have said before, negates the whole value of Pascal's Wager! Pascal's Wager depends on being true without any evidence to support religion, yet one must recourse to evidence to establish which religion is correct.

Also, Pascal's Wager treats God's judgment as if it were some sort of blind event. Pascal's Wager might work for, say, the approach of a tornado; but for judgment? There is a universal principle in justice called the burden of proof. Since God wants us to do something, and on the basis of our consequent actions we will be brought to justice, is not the burden of proof on him to establish that we must do these actions? After all, as the Talmud says, Hamotzi mechaveiro alav hara'aiah.

Considering all this, I would think that at best, Pascal's Wager can work as a tiebreaker, where there is already enough evidence to make the case plausible, but not 100% certain. It does not work independently of any other basis for religion.