Science vs Torah. And the winner is....

↑ Ribbie Danzinger ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 5:24 pm

Quote:

I dont have to justify the "scienteists" findings. they say that the dodos are extinct, but the torah says they arent. therefore, they arent. just bcuz they cant find them doesnt mean that theyre not out there. the same goes for the passenger pigeon, mammoth and all the other animals that u mentioned.

Just a piece of rational thinking: It is the scientists who claim that the dodo existed and it is they who claim that it became extinct. If I want to believe that the scientists are wrong and the Torah is right about nothing ever going extinct it doesn't mean that I have to believe in dodos and mammoths because nowhere in the Torah does it say that they ever existed... or maybe I missed an important source here?

↑ Sue DaNym ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 5:27 pm

Ribbie Danzinger wrote:

Quote:

im not certain I understand your question... are you asking if you have to believe they exist because they arent mentioned in the torah? I dont think that really makes a diff. after all, there are lots of things that arent mentioned in the torah that exist.

↑ Ribbie Danzinger ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 5:30 pm

Sue, what I am saying is that the only proof that dodos ever existed is from scientific conjecture. The scientist say that they existed and they also say that now they no longer exist. If you don't believe in what the scientists say in the first place, you have no need to find proof that dodos never became extinct. Just don't believe they ever existed at all.

↑ Sue DaNym ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 5:33 pm

Ribbie Danzinger wrote:

Sue, what I am saying is that the only proof that dodos ever existed is from scientific conjecture.

thats not true! they existed only a few hundred years ago!

Quote:

The scientist say that they existed and they also say that now they no longer exist. If you don't believe in what the scientists say in the first place, you have no need to find proof that dodos never became extinct. Just don't believe they ever existed at all.

there are historical accounts of the dodos existence. but there are no historical accounts of the "last dodo" disappearing. I blieve the dodo simply bcuz some "scientist" says its so, they were spotted by dutch (or portugese --see abv) sailors.

↑ amother ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 5:52 pm

Quote:

there are lots of things that arent mentioned in the torah that exist.

Aahhhh, Sue, I knew that if you continued long enough, you'd have enough rope to hang yourself, and now you've done it. Wink

Hashem looked into the Torah and created the world. The Torah predated the existence of the universe, and everything in creation is in the Torah. We just have to know where and how to find it.
Therefore, your argument is totally wrong, and by extension, your entire thesis is wrong.
Interesting, too, that you believe the words of some Portugese or Dutch sailors (you don't even know), but believe that a huge organisation like NASA is fabricating a well publicised and documented mission, simply to mess with our brains.
Sue, go learn something. Right now you make less sense than my 3-year old.

↑ Ribbie Danzinger ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 6:14 pm

Quote:

Ribbie, Dodos became extinct in recent history. (17th c.)
Scientist weren't the only ones talking about them.
There are skeletons of both dodos and wooly mammouths.

O.k. I will admit it - I'm an ignoramus Confused

Anyway, back to the subject of Torah and science:

My own opinion is that the Torah is Hashem's revelation to us on earth, while science is man's attempt to climb from the earth to discover Hashem. At the moment, these two perspectives have not yet met and there is still a huge gap between the two, obviously because the human mind is finite while Hashem's wisdom is infinite.

True, many scientists try to use science to prove that Hashem does not exist, ch"v, but in actual fact, the higher scientists climb, the more they begin to realize that the world exists by virtue of a Superpower.

I don't think that everything that scientists have to say that seems to refute the Torah should be taken as incorrect. On the contrary, Hashem gave man of His own wisdom in order that mankind try to fathom the wonders His creation in order to come closer to Him. Contemplating the wonders of creation is one of the ways to reach love of Hashem. We can use the study of science to help us develop that love. The Torah has so many facets to it that it can incorporate the findings of science (which are proven empirically) without difficulty. In general, our own knowledge of Torah is too limited to enable us to do this correctly, but for those gedolim who have a knowledge of the inner secrets of the Torah, this is no problem (see for example the article I posted at: http://imamother.com/forum/vie.....07895). By developing a way of studying the Torah together with science, the true understanding of each of them will be enhanced.

↑ Sue DaNym ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 7:16 pm

amother wrote:

Quote:

there are lots of things that arent mentioned in the torah that exist.

Aahhhh, Sue, I knew that if you continued long enough, you'd have enough rope to hang yourself, and now you've done it. Wink

huh? did I miss something? I never said that everything that exists has to be explicitly stated in the torah. obviously I dont believe that because here I am typing on a computer that isnt explicitly mentioned.

Quote:

Interesting, too, that you believe the words of some Portugese or Dutch sailors (you don't even know), but believe that a huge organisation like NASA is fabricating a well publicised and documented mission, simply to mess with our brains.

the diff is that the sailors had no reason to deceive us. nasa does -- and its not just to "mes with our brains." they do it for one of two reasons (or maybe even both) 1 - bcuz the yetzer hara/satan is trying to fool us and 2 - bcuz they get a lot of funding. if they were found out to be frauds, the whole operation would be shut down. so they have a reason to continue lying. the sailors, however, had no reason to lie about dodos.

Quote:

Sue, go learn something. Right now you make less sense than my 3-year old.

hey, ive been respectful of everyone in this thread. there is no reason to insult me.

↑ Motek ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 9:48 pm

TammyTammy wrote:

Saying that Rashi was fallible is not "besmirching" him... it's admitting that he was human. Heck, Moshe Rabbeinu himself made mistakes, so why couldn't Rashi? So, no, I wasn't insulting Rashi... just pointing out that it's possible for him to be wrong... just like every other human being in history.

In the world of Torah scholars for the past many centuries, Rashi has been studied with the assumption that every word of it is true. And yes, they were well aware that the Rishonim disagreed with one another and nevertheless, every word of a Rishon is considered holy.

and I don't see what the axis has to do with how one views the earth and what is on top

Sue DaNym wrote:

if the torah tells me that people never walked on the moon, then thats good enough for me.

As a Lubavitcher it's quite odd that you say that when the Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke about the astronauts landing on the moon and the many lessons one can learn in one's avodas Hashem from many aspects of this event.

Sue DaNym wrote:

I dont have to justify the "scienteists" findings. they say that the dodos are extinct, but the torah says they arent.

where does the Torah say that? still waiting for sources that I can look up

↑ amother ↓

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 10:02 pm

Quote:

I never said that everything that exists has to be explicitly stated in the torah. obviously I dont believe that because here I am typing on a computer that isnt explicitly mentioned.

Sue, you're not listening. Hafoch Ba, VeHafoch Ba. D'Kula Ba. Turn it, and turn it over again, for ALL THINGS ARE IN IT.
Everything is in the Torah. Everything. You just have to know how to look.
If you don't know or don't believe that about the Torah, then nothing you say about the Torah and how it is to be understood, makes any sense.

Quote:

Since a fundamental part of our Emunah bases itself on the fact that the biblical Nissim and Niflaos were typically done in front of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of people, it's interesting that a handful of sailors is good enough for you. And of the thousands of people who worked at NASA at the time, or in the ensuing almost 40 years, not one of them has ever had a change of heart, and decided to tell "the truth" that the moon landing was fake? BTW, there were many frum astronauts at NASA at the time, and since, and you don't believe any of them had your level of Emunah?

↑ Tehilla

Wed, Sep 05 2007, 11:39 pm

Quote:

We look at dinosaurs as apikorsos, because of the millions of years things

by the way, since Hashem created everything. and Hashem was, is, and will be...you know what I mean, then Hashem also made time. true? so Hashem could surely DATE things (read carbon dating) so say any date He wanted.

I think that thought is from Rabbi Ginsburgh. but for the record, if it wasn't --it definitely wasn't mine either.

↑ BeershevaBubby ↓

Thu, Sep 06 2007, 2:41 am

Motek wrote:

When there are 2,3, 4, 10 different opinions on what a passage means, never mind their scientific theories, how can they all be true?

I'm not saying their words are any less holy for there being differences of interpretation or understanding, I'm just saying they ALL can't be correct.

No one here is saying that Rashi or Rambam or Ramban weren't holy men. What we're saying is that given the limited scientific knowledge of their times, their conclusions were incorrect.

↑ catonmylap ↓

Thu, Sep 06 2007, 2:57 am

I think there are basically 2 points of contention here:

What is the Torah?

Some of things mentioned aren't in the Torah. Rashi is a commentator, not the Torah itself etc, and you will find conflicts in what they say because they were humans.

How things are understood/literal vs non-literal interpretations.

So much of the time, the problem is because someone is understanding something literally that is not meant to literal. E"Y can be higher than everywhere else if you aren't looking at it as physically higher. Shomayim is for Hashem because it's not literally talking about the sky on this earth...etc. Our whole Halacha system is based on not taking things literally, and eye for an eye, having hot food on shabbos etc.

Coming up with elaborate conspiracy theories so you can believe something meant to be non-literal is true is a very strange way to think.

When the Torah says that in the time of mosiach, eagles will fly us back to E"Y, do you think it is talking about eagles literally or airplanes (or something similar)?

↑ Ribbie Danzinger

Thu, Sep 06 2007, 10:54 am

My own opinion is that the Torah is Hashem's revelation to us on earth, while science is man's attempt to climb from the earth to discover Hashem. At the moment, these two perspectives have not yet met and there is still a huge gap between the two, obviously because the human mind is finite while Hashem's wisdom is infinite.

True, many scientists try to use science to prove that Hashem does not exist, ch"v, but in actual fact, the higher scientists climb, the more they begin to realize that the world exists by virtue of a Superpower.

Posting this again, because I think people may have missed it at the end of the last page.

Quote:

I don't think that everything that scientists have to say that seems to refute the Torah should be taken as incorrect. On the contrary, Hashem gave man of His own wisdom in order that mankind try to fathom the wonders His creation in order to come closer to Him. Contemplating the wonders of creation is one of the ways to reach love of Hashem. We can use the study of science to help us develop that love. The Torah has so many facets to it that it can incorporate the findings of science (which are proven empirically) without difficulty. In general, our own knowledge of Torah is too limited to enable us to do this correctly, but for those gedolim who have a knowledge of the inner secrets of the Torah, this is no problem (see for example the article I posted at: http://Imamother.com/forum/vie.....07895). By developing a way of studying the Torah together with science, the true understanding of each of them will be enhanced.