Print
It Doesn't Take an Einstein
by Michael Weiss
Reposted from:
http://www.slate.com/id/2193557/pagenum/all/#page_start
The problem with using scientists' words to support religious beliefs.
Science traffics in the great unknowns, admitting that it has far more to learn than it has to teach. That hasn't stopped some from attempting to enlist it in the defense of religion. The pope puts out an encyclical trying to split the difference between evolution and the Book of Genesis. Intelligent design makes a mockery of both the method of induction and metaphysics. And scientists who use deistic language to describe the infinite mysteries of the cosmos are made out to be water-carriers for ancient dogmas -- perhaps none more so than Albert Einstein. He's been a genius well worth stealing. The nimbus -- domed father of relativity was, throughout most of the 20th century, held up as the most impressive example of a rationalist who left the door open a crack for the divine presence.
Yet a recently unearthed letter should cool any further desire to conscript him as a believer. In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein wrote a letter to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind that was sold at auction for $404,000. It's easy to see why Richard Dawkins was a losing high-level bidder for this extraordinary document:
When the letter was made public, many of the faithful reacted with casuistry or anger. Dan Porter, a Christian blogger, dismissed it and quoted Einstein's more religion-friendly gobbets, which Porter suggests should be added to man's corpus of "substantive thinking." Einstein was "no more an authority on religion than Pope Benedict XVI is on quantum physics," added Catholic writer Elizabeth Scalia, who then felt obliged to compare the nonquantum physicist's worldview to a tautological parable about monotheism favored by one Joseph Ratzinger.
The temptation to lure Einstein posthumously into the theistic fold is understandable, if only due to his charm and humanity. He was that rare species of genius who didn't espouse sinister or crackpot theories or go mad, as did logician Kurt Gödel, walking partner at the Institute of Advanced Studies and a likeminded proponent of a prioricity. Avuncular, playful, cuddly … Einstein could be all things to all people, though he never wanted to be. He was a socialist who enjoyed bourgeois creature comforts, a wit who courted celebrity but preferred his hermitage and frequently lost his way home, an internationalist who became an early and fervent Zionist, a pacifist who urged the invention of the atom bomb and then regretted doing so. Still, on matters of ideology, war, and peace, he could express himself plainly.
Einstein underwent a brief elective immersion in Judaism as a boy, but his parents were secular; his father thought the Abrahamic rituals "ancient superstitions." Einstein later told New York Rabbi Herbert Goldstein that he believed in "Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men." (In the 17th century, philosopher Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated from Judaism on suspicion of atheism—allegations that Rebecca Goldstein argues in Betraying Spinoza were, in fact, correct.) When a rumor was circulated in 1945 that a Jesuit priest had converted him, Einstein thundered back: "I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist."
But from the viewpoint of a layman, Einstein frequently denied being an atheist, though he seemed more at odds with the "militant" style of godlessness than with its core substance. It's impossible to imagine him volunteering even to moderate a Hitchens-Dawkins-Dennett colloquium on secularism. He wrote to a Navy ensign, "I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."
In his best-selling biography Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson writes, "[W]e should do him the honor of taking him at his word when he insists, repeatedly, that these oft-used phrases were not merely a semantic way of disguising that he was actually an atheist." It's a generous assessment, but one that encompasses the physicist's more milquetoast pronouncements on the matter and conveniently ignores what Isaacson elsewhere concedes was Einstein's maddening tendency to be purposefully gnomic or oblique. Another biographer, Ronald W. Clark, observed that when Einstein talked about religion, "he tended to adopt the belief of Alice's Red Queen that 'words mean what you want them to mean.' " (Clark quotes the line incorrectly and attributes it to the wrong character; the line "When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean. ..." is uttered by Humpty Dumpty.*) That comes closer to the mark and is best evidenced in the famous quotation, "I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos." Only a literal mind would see here a prime mover at a celestial craps table.
Einstein is not the only cosmic dragoman whose figurative comments about the great "out yonder" have been taken at face value. In the last paragraph of A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking uses the phrase "knowing the mind of God" as a metonym for the Theory of Everything, which Christian physicist Karl Giberson interprets as either a cheeky way of marketing a science book or a sign of Hawking's "theological naivete."
Elsewhere, sincere celebrations of faith by scientists have led to troubling category problems. Stephen Jay Gould came up with the term "nonoverlapping magisteria" to compartmentalize science as the exclusive domain of facts and religion as the exclusive domain of values. Except that values must be rooted in facts if they are not to be simply invented willy-nilly by religion. And, as an analytic philosopher of my acquaintance points out, if Gould's rule rang true, then it would entail that, as a scientist, he had no authority to advance that value-laden dichotomy in the first place.
More recently, geneticist Francis Collins, a former atheist, claimed that he came to Christ after hiking one day and spotting a waterfall frozen in three streams. Even if you accept that a triune phenomenon in nature is proof of the holy trinity, it surely isn't the kind of interpretive leap Collins' colleagues at the Human Genome Project would make in the lab. Nor does competence in biology necessarily translate into competence in metaphysics (just as Ben Stein's talents as a game-show host have not translated well into documentary filmmaking).
Most believers have long given up trying to legitimize the supernatural in microscopes or cyclotrons. That scientists like Einstein resorted to a numinous vocabulary is not the "gotcha" some wishful thinkers would like it to be. Faith has had impressive minds on its side in the past, but it will have to work without the assumption that the greatest of the 20th century was one of them.
Correction, June 18, 2008: This piece contains a quotation from Einstein biographer Ronald W. Clark that attributes lines from Through the Looking Glass to the Red Queen instead of Humpty Dumpty. Clark also misquoted the line. The incorrect quotation remains in the piece, but a parenthetical explains Clark's errors. (Return to the sentence.)
http://www.slate.com/id/2193557/pagenum/all/#page_start
The problem with using scientists' words to support religious beliefs.
Science traffics in the great unknowns, admitting that it has far more to learn than it has to teach. That hasn't stopped some from attempting to enlist it in the defense of religion. The pope puts out an encyclical trying to split the difference between evolution and the Book of Genesis. Intelligent design makes a mockery of both the method of induction and metaphysics. And scientists who use deistic language to describe the infinite mysteries of the cosmos are made out to be water-carriers for ancient dogmas -- perhaps none more so than Albert Einstein. He's been a genius well worth stealing. The nimbus -- domed father of relativity was, throughout most of the 20th century, held up as the most impressive example of a rationalist who left the door open a crack for the divine presence.
Yet a recently unearthed letter should cool any further desire to conscript him as a believer. In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein wrote a letter to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind that was sold at auction for $404,000. It's easy to see why Richard Dawkins was a losing high-level bidder for this extraordinary document:
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilized interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.
When the letter was made public, many of the faithful reacted with casuistry or anger. Dan Porter, a Christian blogger, dismissed it and quoted Einstein's more religion-friendly gobbets, which Porter suggests should be added to man's corpus of "substantive thinking." Einstein was "no more an authority on religion than Pope Benedict XVI is on quantum physics," added Catholic writer Elizabeth Scalia, who then felt obliged to compare the nonquantum physicist's worldview to a tautological parable about monotheism favored by one Joseph Ratzinger.
The temptation to lure Einstein posthumously into the theistic fold is understandable, if only due to his charm and humanity. He was that rare species of genius who didn't espouse sinister or crackpot theories or go mad, as did logician Kurt Gödel, walking partner at the Institute of Advanced Studies and a likeminded proponent of a prioricity. Avuncular, playful, cuddly … Einstein could be all things to all people, though he never wanted to be. He was a socialist who enjoyed bourgeois creature comforts, a wit who courted celebrity but preferred his hermitage and frequently lost his way home, an internationalist who became an early and fervent Zionist, a pacifist who urged the invention of the atom bomb and then regretted doing so. Still, on matters of ideology, war, and peace, he could express himself plainly.
Einstein underwent a brief elective immersion in Judaism as a boy, but his parents were secular; his father thought the Abrahamic rituals "ancient superstitions." Einstein later told New York Rabbi Herbert Goldstein that he believed in "Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men." (In the 17th century, philosopher Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated from Judaism on suspicion of atheism—allegations that Rebecca Goldstein argues in Betraying Spinoza were, in fact, correct.) When a rumor was circulated in 1945 that a Jesuit priest had converted him, Einstein thundered back: "I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist."
But from the viewpoint of a layman, Einstein frequently denied being an atheist, though he seemed more at odds with the "militant" style of godlessness than with its core substance. It's impossible to imagine him volunteering even to moderate a Hitchens-Dawkins-Dennett colloquium on secularism. He wrote to a Navy ensign, "I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."
In his best-selling biography Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson writes, "[W]e should do him the honor of taking him at his word when he insists, repeatedly, that these oft-used phrases were not merely a semantic way of disguising that he was actually an atheist." It's a generous assessment, but one that encompasses the physicist's more milquetoast pronouncements on the matter and conveniently ignores what Isaacson elsewhere concedes was Einstein's maddening tendency to be purposefully gnomic or oblique. Another biographer, Ronald W. Clark, observed that when Einstein talked about religion, "he tended to adopt the belief of Alice's Red Queen that 'words mean what you want them to mean.' " (Clark quotes the line incorrectly and attributes it to the wrong character; the line "When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean. ..." is uttered by Humpty Dumpty.*) That comes closer to the mark and is best evidenced in the famous quotation, "I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos." Only a literal mind would see here a prime mover at a celestial craps table.
Einstein is not the only cosmic dragoman whose figurative comments about the great "out yonder" have been taken at face value. In the last paragraph of A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking uses the phrase "knowing the mind of God" as a metonym for the Theory of Everything, which Christian physicist Karl Giberson interprets as either a cheeky way of marketing a science book or a sign of Hawking's "theological naivete."
Elsewhere, sincere celebrations of faith by scientists have led to troubling category problems. Stephen Jay Gould came up with the term "nonoverlapping magisteria" to compartmentalize science as the exclusive domain of facts and religion as the exclusive domain of values. Except that values must be rooted in facts if they are not to be simply invented willy-nilly by religion. And, as an analytic philosopher of my acquaintance points out, if Gould's rule rang true, then it would entail that, as a scientist, he had no authority to advance that value-laden dichotomy in the first place.
More recently, geneticist Francis Collins, a former atheist, claimed that he came to Christ after hiking one day and spotting a waterfall frozen in three streams. Even if you accept that a triune phenomenon in nature is proof of the holy trinity, it surely isn't the kind of interpretive leap Collins' colleagues at the Human Genome Project would make in the lab. Nor does competence in biology necessarily translate into competence in metaphysics (just as Ben Stein's talents as a game-show host have not translated well into documentary filmmaking).
Most believers have long given up trying to legitimize the supernatural in microscopes or cyclotrons. That scientists like Einstein resorted to a numinous vocabulary is not the "gotcha" some wishful thinkers would like it to be. Faith has had impressive minds on its side in the past, but it will have to work without the assumption that the greatest of the 20th century was one of them.
Correction, June 18, 2008: This piece contains a quotation from Einstein biographer Ronald W. Clark that attributes lines from Through the Looking Glass to the Red Queen instead of Humpty Dumpty. Clark also misquoted the line. The incorrect quotation remains in the piece, but a parenthetical explains Clark's errors. (Return to the sentence.)
Add to del.icio.us
Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2008 | PermalinkComments 1 - 50 of 96 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #196093 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on June 19, 2008 at 9:35 am
A video of selected quotations from the Portable atheist.Youtube - Einstein on God
"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognise, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."
- Albert Einstein, according to the testimony of Prince Hubertus of Lowenstein; as quoted by Ronald W. Clark. Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 425.
Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad
3. Comment #196101 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 9:50 am
I'm a Jewish Agnostic and no that is not an oxymoron to me. Like Einstein I consider myelf a part of the Jewish People while I don't believe in "God". However, Judaism has brought a lot to the world. The idea of seeking knowlege and learning for the sake of learning has long been a Jewish tradition that started long before even the Greeks. Maimonidis, one of the greatest Jewish philosiphers of all time, goes as far as to say that the religion is based on learning and that when you learn you aer worshipping god(I can't give you the exact quote because I don't have the book with me right now). The Talmud is a great example of the desire to learn and understand for the sake of learning and understanding. It is no more than a battle of witts between the best Jewish minds of the time. They often reached no conclusion and the debate was merely for the sake of the debate. And their arguments were later commented on and discussed and written down as a commentary by the great minds of that time. And it is all continuing to be debated to this day.So while I agree that we are not "chosen" because there was no one to choose us, I am proud of my ancestors and I do think that they contributed a lot to our evolution into the thinking humans we are today.
Other Comments by TeraBrat
4. Comment #196108 by ridelo on June 19, 2008 at 9:59 am
Sometimes I long for immortality. Then Einstein could clarify his stance to the contemporary morons.Other Comments by ridelo
5. Comment #196111 by severalspeciesof on June 19, 2008 at 10:02 am
From the Einstein letter:...they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power.
Great observation.
It reminds me of R. Waters in 'Amused to Death': "...give any one species too much rope, and they'll fuck it up"
Other Comments by severalspeciesof
6. Comment #196114 by Count von Count on June 19, 2008 at 10:11 am
I thought everyone knew that the chosen one was actually a computer programmer named Thomas A. Anderson.
It's impossible to imagine him volunteering even to moderate a Hitchens-Dawkins-Dennett colloquium on secularism.
And yet, he seems to be doing just that, posthumously.
Other Comments by Count von Count
7. Comment #196120 by Border Collie on June 19, 2008 at 10:21 am
I met Stephen J. Gould one time about twenty years ago. I'm speculating and probably projecting here, but he seemed to be an utterly worn out guy. Maybe he was ill also. I don't know. I do know that the fundies had been beating him to a pulp forever and that they continued such until he died. Even though he was an extremely courageous person in the face of all the abuse he took from the wingnuts, I think I can understand maybe why he wanted to make a statement about separating religion and science. The pressure from the religious goons here in the US is enormous, continuous and venomous.Other Comments by Border Collie
8. Comment #196129 by Sciros on June 19, 2008 at 10:33 am
Jews can be regarded as an ethnic group, so in that sense it is just as possible to be Jewish and not practicing Judaism as it is to be Arab and not practicing Islam. This distinction has been around for a long time now, prior to the turn of the 20th century for sure. Other Comments by Sciros
9. Comment #196143 by hexhunter on June 19, 2008 at 10:55 am
Indeed, Sciros is correct, though I prefer to distinguish the "Jewish Race" as Hebraic(sp?), just another race, along with us White, Black, Asian, Arab and Oriental people... Not that there are any clear lines when it comes to Race, and good thing too...
- Deus X Machina
Other Comments by hexhunter
10. Comment #196152 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 11:14 am
I prefer the term Jewish People or People of Israel. Because it was as Jews and Israeli's that we were and are persecuted ad I want to keep my identity as a Jew as a tribute to my ancestors that kept our race alive.It was never an issue for me until I moved back to the US. I grew up in Israel from the age of eight, and never concerned myself with the question of whether or not I was Jewish after I dropped the religion in my twenties. When I moved back here a few years ago I suddenly found myself facing the question of what it meant to me and to my great surprise I found out that it meant a lot.
Other Comments by TeraBrat
11. Comment #196175 by notsobad on June 19, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Einstein is not the greatest mind of the 20th century. Nobody is.He would probably frown on such a piss contest too.
Other Comments by notsobad
12. Comment #196193 by Teratornis on June 19, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Aside from the interesting vocabulary refresher (which would have been easier with links on all the obscure jargon terms), the article contained this one insight that was actually new to me:
And, as an analytic philosopher of my acquaintance points out, if Gould's rule rang true, then it would entail that, as a scientist, he had no authority to advance that value-laden dichotomy in the first place.
I wonder if Gould realized that before he died?
Other Comments by Teratornis
13. Comment #196195 by Haymoon on June 19, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Being Irish I think I understand TeraBrat's pride in being Jewish - both our peoples have had a disproportionate influence on world affairs.As for the Jewish people being "protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power" is it not said that "God" made the Irish fond of drink in case they took over the world!!
Other Comments by Haymoon
14. Comment #196200 by Teratornis on June 19, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Comment #196120 by Border Collie:
I met Stephen J. Gould one time about twenty years ago. I'm speculating and probably projecting here, but he seemed to be an utterly worn out guy. Maybe he was ill also. I don't know. I do know that the fundies had been beating him to a pulp forever and that they continued such until he died.
It's hard to feel sorry for Gould after what he did (or did not adequately oppose when others did what they did) to E.O. Wilson.
Even though he was an extremely courageous person in the face of all the abuse he took from the wingnuts, I think I can understand maybe why he wanted to make a statement about separating religion and science. The pressure from the religious goons here in the US is enormous, continuous and venomous.
That's true, but I think Gould may have handicapped himself by rejecting evolutionary psychology.
Because Gould was a Marxist, he was ideologically opposed to the selective aspects of Darwinism. His career was more or less one long argument against competition and natural selection and the notion that some members of a species can be more "fit" than others. Thus as a left-wing anti-Darwinist he may have been psychologically unequipped for a Darwinistic competition against the right-wing anti-Darwinists.
I think Darwinists (i.e., those who regard selection as playing a greater role in shaping descent than Gould wanted to) have an advantage when trying to make sense of anti-Darwinists, which the various wings of anti-Darwinists do not have when trying to make sense of each other.
Gould's NOMA idea seems to me like a laughably doomed attempt to tell religious people what sorts of things they should not care about. It completely ignores the emotional psychology of religious people, and their fervent desire to extend religious control to everything they can.
That is, Gould expected religious people to behave anti-Darwinistically, to unilaterally give up an advantage, in exchange for nothing.
Had Gould embraced the sociobiologists' ideas about reciprocal altruism, he might have offered some kind of a deal to religion, rather than asking it to make an enormous unilateral concession.
In any case, to the extent that creationists suspect that science threatens religion, they are correct as far as the historical evidence indicates. In the short run it is possible for religious people to accept increasingly more science, watering down their religious literalism as necessary, but in the long run that amounts to religion running on fumes. The world is more scientific and less religious than it was 500 years ago, especially in learned circles, and this appears to be the inescapable long-term trend, although progress is not monotonic.
Other Comments by Teratornis
15. Comment #196201 by esuther on June 19, 2008 at 12:59 pm
(It is) as Jews and Israeli's that we were and are persecuted
Ah, so all those Palestinian boys who throw rocks at your tanks to keep you from bulldozing their houses are persecuting you. Interesting perspective. Care to compare Israeli/Palestinian deaths and expulsions since the founding of Israel?
Other Comments by esuther
16. Comment #196208 by Sciros on June 19, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Why try to derail the thread into an Israeli/Arab conflict debate?
Anyway, Prof. Dawkins does Einstein some justice in the opening chapters of TGD regarding 'religious convictions' that some try to attribute to him. So this article is a bit... redundant in that sense, although I know little about Gould so it was interesting to see him brought into the discussion.
Other Comments by Sciros
17. Comment #196210 by mordacious1 on June 19, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Ah, where's Fanusi when you don't need him?Other Comments by mordacious1
18. Comment #196211 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 1:12 pm
esuther,
Remember this photo (at top of the page):
http://www.intifada.com/childhood.html
The young boy throwing rocks at the tank was shot by an Israeli sniper. I heard rumors the sniper got a medal, but this might just be Arab propaganda which is never in short supply.
It is getting difficult to reconcile Jewish claims to victimhood with an increasing military might, which surpasses its remaining enemies.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
19. Comment #196212 by esuther on June 19, 2008 at 1:12 pm
It is good to know the letter exists and can be quoted if necessary. But we all know that the believers will simply find THEIR Einstein quotes and the debate will go on. It's a variation on the ad hominem argument anyhow, isn't it?Einstein's belief in god, even if it were traditional, would not be evidence for the existence of god.
Other Comments by esuther
20. Comment #196213 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Sciros,
Why? Because TeraBat is trying to sell some racial nonsense, and I can't stand that bull shit. Besides I don't really care about making these threads train wrecks.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
21. Comment #196216 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Ah, so all those Palestinian boys who throw rocks at your tanks to keep you from bulldozing their houses are persecuting you. Interesting perspective. Care to compare Israeli/Palestinian deaths and expulsions since the founding of Israel?
I knew someone would try and say something. We bulldoze houses of bombers to prevent bombings. What is worse bulldozing a house a setting off a bomb in a crowded place killing and wounding dozens of innocent civilians?
Are you aware that during the early 1990's when Rabin and Arafat were having their biggest progress towards peace and founding Palestinian autonamy in the West Bank and Gaza strip the suicide bombings started? Are you aware that they got progressively worse as the concessions on Israels part got bigger?
Are you aware that when Israel went into Jenin in 2002 the arabs claimed massacre. The terrorists booby trapped homes making it impossible to walk into them without killing everyone in the house. The terrorists hid behind women and children they held hostage to stop the Israelis from killing them (do you think that killing a terrorist is a crime?). They later on staged mock funerals and invited the press to watch them walk their dead through the streets. Unfortunately for them a journalist in a helicopter caught them dropping one of those "dead" and the "dead man" got up and climbed back into the stretcher.
Learn the issues and the history before you comment on what a sensationalizing reporter tells you.
Other Comments by TeraBrat
22. Comment #196219 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 1:22 pm
One more thing. The UN investigated the claims of massacre and decreed that they were a lie. There was no massacre in Jenin.Other Comments by TeraBrat
23. Comment #196221 by Sciros on June 19, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Calling Jews a 'race' is inaccurate, but beyond that I'm not sure what is worth arguing here. If TeraBrat is proud of her heritage why attack that unless you think the heritage is one of shame? In any case it's rather poor form. Other Comments by Sciros
24. Comment #196224 by Dinah on June 19, 2008 at 1:28 pm
It seems certain that Einstein was an atheist, but for some reason he didn't want to be labelled as such. He wouldn't have bought the T-shirt.Other Comments by Dinah
25. Comment #196225 by advocatus_diaboli on June 19, 2008 at 1:28 pm
We bulldoze houses of bombers to prevent bombings.
Are the bombers plotting to bomb their own houses? Unless that answer is "yes and only their house they'll be Allah damned if some infidel is going to live right next door to their house" Then that is perhaps the worst justification for government sponsored acts of terror I have ever seen.
What is worse bulldozing a house a setting off a bomb in a crowded place killing and wounding dozens of innocent civilians?
How crowded do you expect their house to be?
Are you aware that during the early 1990's when Rabin and Arafat were having their biggest progress towards peace and founding Palestinian autonamy in the West Bank and Gaza strip the suicide bombings started? Are you aware that they got progressively worse as the concessions on Israels part got bigger?
*cough cough*kingdavidhotel*cough cough*
I'm sorry, irony tickles my throat.
Are you aware that when Israel went into Jenin in 2002 the arabs claimed massacre. The terrorists booby trapped homes making it impossible to walk into them without killing everyone in the house. The terrorists hid behind women and children they held hostage to stop the Israelis from killing them (do you think that killing a terrorist is a crime?). They later on staged mock funerals and invited the press to watch them walk their dead through the streets. Unfortunately for them a journalist in a helicopter caught them dropping one of those "dead" and the "dead man" got up and climbed back into the stretcher.
Yeah it was make-believe just like the Sabra and Shatila massacre....wait a minute...
Other Comments by advocatus_diaboli
26. Comment #196226 by esuther on June 19, 2008 at 1:32 pm
TeraBratI see you have all your Palestinian Terrorist myths ready for posting. I'm sure you can call up a whole lot of them.
Here is a good history of the whole catastrophe. I'm assuming you won't want to look at it since it makes Israel look pretty bad, but maybe someone else on the thread might want to glance at it and get a more detailed picture of the "persecution" of the Israelis.
And it doesn't have to 'derail' the thread.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/ref-nakba.html
Other Comments by esuther
27. Comment #196233 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm
TeraBat,
A couple of points.
1) The IDF bulldozed a house on top of a handicapped boy.
2) I have posted numerous videos of the IDF and border guards firing on innocent people, including peace activists and journalists. They even shot a nobel peace prize winner from Ireland.
3) You are right, the Palestinian resistance organizations have mingled with the innocent to a point where it is impossible to fight them, while the IDF has worn uniforms and stood IN FRONT of their civilians. A noteworthy difference, and a credit to Israel.
4) I heard about the fake funerals. The guy fell off the stretcher and got back on. Quite impressive. But if you will remember an explosion in Gaza last week... it was blamed on an Israeli air strike and Hamaas launched rocket attacks in response. And only later was it learned that it was actually a Hamas bomb factory that exploded and not and IAF strike. Propaganda is an art form in the Arab world.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
28. Comment #196234 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I can't get into that site at work I'll look at it when I get home. I'm sure it's got as much truth to it as the massacre in Jenin.I live in Israel for 30 years. I was there in the 1990's and 2002. Were you there?
Those are not myths those are facts.
How crowded do you expect their house to be?The people are given plenty of time to move themselves and their posessions out of the house. n the event that they do not leave they are removed. No one has been killed in any of these events.
Are the bombers plotting to bomb their own houses? Unless that answer is "yes and only their house they'll be Allah damned if some infidel is going to live right next door to their house" Then that is perhaps the worst justification for government sponsored acts of terror I have ever seen.
The fact is that when we didn't bulldoze the bomvbings continued to get worse. As soon as we started bulldozing again they slowed down significantly. Call it what you want but it was effective and saved lives.
*cough cough*kingdavidhotel*cough cough*
I'm sorry, irony tickles my throat.
I was there. I witnessed it. Are you calling me a liar?
Yeah it was make-believe just like the Sabra and Shatila massacre....wait a minute...
Are you calling the UN liars?
Sabra and Shatila was a massacre. Israel did not participate in that massacre. Ariel Sharon tipped of the Lebanese Christians about the terrorist camp locations and they commited the massacre. Technically Israel was behind it, but, if the hatred between the Lebanese Muslims and Lebanese Christians was not there the massacre would not have happened.
I realize you are going to say it's a myth. I know what happened. Ariel Sharon was impeached from his position as Defense Minister because of that and was not allowed to serve as Defense Minister since (ironically he turned out to be a great Prime Minister many years later). But, not a single Israeli actually killed a single person in either of those camps. I'm not condoning what Sharon did or the massacres. Massacres are always wrong. Shall we discuss the massacres of the Jews by the Arabs in the 1920's?
Other Comments by TeraBrat
29. Comment #196235 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 1:42 pm
TeraBat,
One more thing. The UN investigated the claims of massacre and decreed that they were a lie. There was no massacre in Jenin.
Woh woh woh... Is this the same UN Israel calls anti-semitic and anti-Israel. Funny how it turns up as a source here, no?
Other Comments by al-rawandi
30. Comment #196239 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 1:45 pm
advocatus,
He is right. The funerals were staged, and the "body" fell and got up.
Also Rabin was not responsible for the King David Hotel, Menachim Begin was. But to that point, Begin was also prime minister, and even worse, so was Yitzhak Shamir (Stern Gang, an awful terrorist group).
Other Comments by al-rawandi
31. Comment #196241 by WilliamP on June 19, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Why would Christians be so interested in having Einstein on their side? He was ethnically Jewish, and Judaism would have been his presumed religion. Appealing to Einstein's authority to justify belief in god is faulty reasoning, of course, even if he did believe in god. It gets much worse when Christians try to argue that he did believe in god, but they know better than he did that Jesus was god's son.Other Comments by WilliamP
32. Comment #196243 by advocatus_diaboli on June 19, 2008 at 1:51 pm
He is right. The funerals were staged, and the "body" fell and got up.
I wasn't meaning to imply that it was not staged, merely offering the perspective that one staged massacre does not equate to no massacre. Some seem to be working under the deep delusion that Israel is anything other than a nation founded on terrorism by terrorists that uses said terrorism to keep itself in power.
Also Rabin was not responsible for the King David Hotel, Menachim Begin was. But to that point, Begin was also prime minister, and even worse, so was Yitzhak Shamir (Stern Gang, an awful terrorist group).
Agreed. Which brings me back to the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Without that nice little chunk of attrocity under his belt it is questionable whether Sharon would have ever become prime minister himself. It makes me glad to see I am not the only person concerned that Israel keeps getting monsters in high office.
Other Comments by advocatus_diaboli
33. Comment #196244 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 1:55 pm
advocatus,
The issue about Sharon (which differentiates him from Shamir, and Begin) is that he was found 'responsible' for the massacres by an Israeli court. It wasn't some Shaykh in Gaza saying this, it was the Israeli High Court. So he cannot claim innocence.
However he didn't actually perpetrate the massacre, he was found responsible for not forseeing the actions of the Phalangee militia under his control... and it is likely he purposefully let them massacre the Palestinians in those camps.
Even worse and less noted, is that Sharon led the force that perpetrated the massacre at Qibya in 1956. This raid was in response to a series of terrorists attacks carried out by Arab fedayeen (specifically one on a bus killing 12 civilians). They detonated explosives with people in their homes, and if they tried to run out before the explosives went off, they were shot. This to me is far more damning, as he personally led the operation.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
34. Comment #196247 by advocatus_diaboli on June 19, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Even worse and less noted, is that Sharon led the force that perpetrated the massacre at Qibya in 1956. This raid was in response to a series of terrorists attacks carried out by Arab fedayeen (specifically one on a bus killing 12 civilians). They detonated explosives with people in their homes, and if they tried to run out before the explosives went off, they were shot. This to me is far more damning, as he personally led the operation.
Very good point.
Other Comments by advocatus_diaboli
35. Comment #196250 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Even worse and less noted, is that Sharon ledthe force that perpetrated the massacre at Qibya in 1956. This raid was in response to a series of terrorists attacks carried out by Arab fedayeen (specifically one on a bus killing 12 civilians). They detonated explosives with people in their homes, and if they tried to run out before the explosives went off, they were shot. This to me is far more damning, as he personally led the operation.
I can't comment on that as I wasn't in the country at the time and have no information.
Sharon became Prime Minister inspite of Sabra and Shatila. It happened because people were fed up with all the bombings and were hoping he would be a deterant and he was.
What happened during the British Mandate was a totally different story. There were rogue terrorist groups but they acted indepentanly of the Yishuv and the Palmach. Most of the Yishuv was against it. On the other hand the Arabs organized several massacres that the British turned a blind eye to. And they would attack the ultra orthodox who had no weapons and no training and no way to protect themselves. They never dared attack one of the kibbutzim who could have fought back.
As for the UN declaring that there was no massacre in Jenin, you can laugh, but it's true. And the fact that they hate us so much makes their decision all that more conclusive.
BTW I'm a woman.
Other Comments by TeraBrat
36. Comment #196252 by alovrin on June 19, 2008 at 2:15 pm
"I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."
Thats it!
Close the site..
I'm off to find a therapist, oh the pain ...the pain
Other Comments by alovrin
37. Comment #196253 by mordacious1 on June 19, 2008 at 2:16 pm
William PWhy are you posting about Einstein when this thread is obviously about...Oh, it is about Einstein.
So my question is: Was Einstein in any of those tanks bulldozing buildings? Just kidding, hey Fanusi where are you?
Other Comments by mordacious1
38. Comment #196254 by advocatus_diaboli on June 19, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Sharon became Prime Minister inspite of Sabra and Shatila. It happened because people were fed up with all the bombings and were hoping he would be a deterant and he was.
Which is precisely why I have always supported Richard Ramirez for President. After all, don't the ends justify the means?
Here in the States one of the first great Americans(and in an ironic twist also one of the last) has a statement attributed to him: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." I think it is a quote everyone should consider. Where in that spectrum do you believe your justification of a monster falls?
There were rogue terrorist groups but they acted indepentanly of the Yishuv and the Palmach.
Rogue terrorist groups? How coincidental that so many of those disagreeable rogues wound up in office.
Other Comments by advocatus_diaboli
39. Comment #196255 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 2:20 pm
TeraBat,
First of all you are a massive hypocrite citing the UN. The UN has passed over 70 resolutions condemning Israel, Israeli politicians regularly call it "useless", "Anti-Israel", and "Anti-Semitic". Now to defend Israel, you cite the UN. Do you see the problem here?
I am going to ignore the fact that you think murdering civilians is a deterrent to violence, because you seem like a pretty bright person and you know better.
What happened during the British Mandate was a totally different story. There were rogue terrorist groups but they acted indepentanly of the Yishuv and the Palmach. Most of the Yishuv was against it
Woh woh woh, not so fast sparky. The Deir Yassin massacre, where the Stern Gang, along with others massacred hundreds, gutting pregnant women with swords, and then throwing corpses into the well... First things first, multiple testimonies say that the "Old Man" (Ben Gurion) gave tacit approval to the operation. And the Stern Gang was led by Yitzhak Shamir. It was responsible for violence against the British, the Arabs, and against Jews it deemed collaborators. And even if the Yishuv didn't approve (which it did, based on Ben Gurion's subtle head nods to talks of violence) of the acts, the Israeli people were at least indifferent when the man came to be prime minister. And this of course, based on the 1948 "Prevention of Terror Ordinance" he could have been removed from office as Azmi Bishara was under the same law only recently.
And you need to read Benny Morris and get a clue about what the Yishuv was up to. Don't play the "disorganized" card. The Haganah did some nasty stuff, with the knowledge and approval of the Yishuv. Also, I think you would be shocked at the behavior of Begin and Shamir, as they groups often murdered other Jews.
Now, I am the first to point out that the Arabs were awful, and in fact worse, but I think the Israeli claim of "Purity of Arms" was the biggest farce ever, and every shred of historical data suggests I am correct in this belief.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
40. Comment #196257 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 2:26 pm
TeraBat,
As for the UN declaring that there was no massacre in Jenin, you can laugh, but it's true. And the fact that they hate us so much makes their decision all that more conclusive.
Israeli politicians call the UN reports against it "lies" but when it supports an Israeli claim it is truth. This is irrational and stupid, and you are above this.
BTW I'm a woman.
Yeah so? You still served in the IDF, that was a brave thing to do. That is one thing I think the ISraelis got right, they include all citizens in responsibility for defense of their homeland.
BTW, I am excited to one day visit Israel. It is a testament to how to make a country work, and quickly. Did you know that in 1950, there were only 800,000 Jews in Israel? They lived on the brink of destruction and held their own, alone against the world. That is worthy of respect, even if they did some nasty shit along the way.
If I have to choose between Zionism and Islamism, I choose Zionism, because I disdain it far less.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
41. Comment #196262 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 2:34 pm
am going to ignore the fact that you think murdering civilians is a deterrent to violence, because you seem like a pretty bright person and you know better.I am not defending murdering civilians. That's what terrorists do. The houses are evacuated before they are buldozed. I saw your comment about the disabled boy and I agree that that was tragic and most probably a mistake if it did happen.
Woh woh woh, not so fast sparky. The Deir Yassin massacre, where the Stern Gang, along with others massacred hundreds, gutting pregnant women with swords, and then throwing corpses into the well...Are yousure that it was Israelis who commited that massacre? I've never heard of it.
The Stern Gang and other terrorist groups were outlawed by the Yishuv. I admit that those terrorsit groups did some pretty horrible things but they were never condoned by the Yishuv or the Hagana.
The Arabs weren't worse they were MUCH worse. None of the wars that have occured there would have happened if they weren't so obsessed with "pushing the infidils into the sea". The west bank, gaza strip and golan heights would still belong to Jordan, Egypt and Syria. If they had sat quietly and allowed Israel to exist peacfully then none of this would have happened.
Other Comments by TeraBrat
42. Comment #196263 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 2:44 pm
TeraBat,
Deir Yassin:
Elements of the Stern Gang entered this village and massacred about 250 people. I will spare the bloody particulars about dismboweled women (which I have read in detail).
Elements of the Haganah participated in the operation as well. Approval was given by Ben Gurion, one of his aides said "When the Old Man wanted something done, he didn't have to say it, he gave us a look". This was referring to doing something that was illegal or immoral.
Deir Yassin was witnessed by a number of people, including a French Red Cross worker who gave detailed testimony of what he saw in the aftermath. It is also fair to say that the massacre was actually stopped by Jewish villagers from the neighboring village who had lived next to these Arabs for many years, peacefully.
You do know that in the 1950's the Shin Bet was used to do a number of shady operations. For instance they were used to effectively close down Uri Avneri's dissident paper in the 1950's while promoting a the publication of the party paper (Ben Gurion's party of course). Isser Harel himself ordered a number of actions against "collaborators" and the like, to be carried out by the security services... after the creation of the state.
None of the wars that have occured there would have happened if they weren't so obsessed with "pushing the infidils into the sea"
This is strongly disputed. In 1956 there were several opinions on how to deal with Egypt. Moshe Dayan, as chief of the general staff suggested an attack in October (which is the plan that was carried out). While Moshe Sharret believed that the whole thing was a whole lot of bull shit designed to show foreign powers that Israel was strong and an ally worthy of weapons shipments. Sharret lost this debate, but he was not alone in believing that the 1956 war was an excuse for a joint operation with the English and French. And it is pretty clear that Israeli Intelligence (the nascent Mossad, formerly the Mossad le-Aliyya Bet) passed "exaggerated" information to draw the British and French into the operation.
And don't get me started on 1967.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
43. Comment #196270 by al-rawandi on June 19, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Tera Bat, Advocatus, etc...
I have to go. More tomorrow.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
44. Comment #196301 by robotaholic on June 19, 2008 at 3:57 pm
WilliamP - that is exactly what I think. Other Comments by robotaholic
45. Comment #196335 by Vinelectric on June 19, 2008 at 4:55 pm
TeraBratHere's the link to the Jenin report. Read to see how the event was reported, not as an entirely independent UN undertaking!
http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/
The UN fact finding team was disbanded due to unyielding lack of cooperation with the government of Israel. If the military conduct of the IDF is always so exemplary, why is Israel so keen to be obstructive to independent investigation?
Interestingly 52 deaths were confirmed by the IDF yet the report mentions 497 in total between 1st March and 7th May. World media seemed to only notice the "52" figure and started to parrot "not a massacre" between themselves.
And finally, on "I've been there and I know what happened". If you have access to Arabic media (especially Al Jazeera) you may want to listen to the bitter testimony of the now elderly Palestinians who were uprooted during the 20s through to the 50s for the sake of your immediate ancestors.
Other Comments by Vinelectric
46. Comment #196336 by mmurray on June 19, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I met Stephen J. Gould one time about twenty years ago. I'm speculating and probably projecting here, but he seemed to be an utterly worn out guy. Maybe he was ill also. I don't know.
He had a pretty nasty form of cancer in 1982 (which according to wikipedia) required a couple of years treatment.
Michael
Other Comments by mmurray
47. Comment #196339 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 5:42 pm
And finally, on "I've been there and I know what happened". If you have access to Arabic media (especially Al Jazeera) you may want to listen to the bitter testimony of the now elderly Palestinians who were uprooted during the 20s through to the 50s for the sake of your immediate ancestors.
Now I know that that's lies because the British were in power until 1948 and they never uprooted a single arab.
I didn't say I've been there I said I lived there for 30 years. Unless you lived there for 30 years and saw with your own eyes what goes on there how can you judge? I suggest you read The Jerusalem Post instead of Al Jazeera. Go read "breaking the silence" it's here on this website and then we'll see what you think of Al Jazeera. That's your source for the truth. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I read the report.
56. Fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the hospital in Jenin by the end of May 2002. IDF also place the death toll at approximately 52. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of the evidence that has emerged.
There doesnt seem to be any controversy over the 52.
As for Israel standing in the way of theinvestigation that's nonsense too. Israel wanted certain assurences, based on the bias of the UN against Israel that was perfectly understandable.
(f) Israel's Ministerial Committee on National Security (the Security Cabinet) met early on 30 April, after which it issued the following statement: "Israel has raised essential issues before the United Nations for a fair examination. As long as these terms have not been met, it will not be possible for the clarification process to begin." In the absence of a formal indication of the terms on which the Government of Israel would cooperate with the fact-finding team, this statement was reviewed against the backdrop of various public statements by, and telephone conversations that I held with, senior Israeli officials. I was drawn reluctantly to the conclusion that, while continuing to express its concerns to the United Nations mainly in the form of procedural issues, Israel had developed concerns about Security Council resolution 1405 (2002) that were fundamental in nature..
And this part has been totally ignored.
18. From the beginning of March until 7 May, Israel endured approximately 16 bombings, the large majority of which were suicide attacks. More than 100 persons were killed and scores more wounded. Throughout this period, the Government of Israel, and the international community, reiterated previous calls on the Palestinian Authority to take steps to stop terrorist attacks and to arrest the perpetrators of such attacks.
Had the attacks stopped there would have been no infiltration of Jenin.
I admit that there were several soldiers who operated out of orders and did commit atrocities. Those soldiers were put on trial and sent to jail.
Other Comments by TeraBrat
48. Comment #196347 by Styrer- on June 19, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Comment #196193 by Teratornis on June 19, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Aside from the interesting vocabulary refresher (which would have been easier with links on all the obscure jargon terms), the article contained this one insight that was actually new to me:
And, as an analytic philosopher of my acquaintance points out, if Gould's rule rang true, then it would entail that, as a scientist, he had no authority to advance that value-laden dichotomy in the first place.
I wonder if Gould realized that before he died?
Your comment implies that you endorse this 'new insight'.
Why?
I find it rhetorical, and without substance. I disagree with Gould's proposition, but this criticism of it is specious and hence vacuous.
Best,
Styrer
Other Comments by Styrer-
49. Comment #196348 by Al420 on June 19, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Only a theologian would have the audacity to call Stephen Hawking naive. Other Comments by Al420
50. Comment #196378 by TeraBrat on June 19, 2008 at 8:26 pm
al-rawandiHere's a link about what happened at Deir Yassin
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac17.htm
I'm going to quote you
Propaganda is an art form in the Arab world
What you described sounded like BS to me because none of those rogue units or the Hagana,Yishuv, and Palmach used swords or bayonets. The whole thing about women and children being gutted is Arab propaganda. The attack on Deir Yassin was part of the War of Independance, Israel did not start that war. Deir Yassin was a strategic point to capture.
Some atrocities did happen Qibya. Not quite a massacre.
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_249.shtml
Other Comments by TeraBrat
This article is reposted from a website that accepts comments.
Why not share your comment on the article there as well? CLICK HERE
Over 1.5 million copies sold
Books by Richard Dawkins
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
by Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker
by Richard Dawkins
The Ancestor's Tale
by Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the Rainbow
by Richard Dawkins
1. Comment #196071 by mordacious1 on June 19, 2008 at 9:13 am
"Otherwise I can't see anything 'chosen' about them".Fiddler on the Roof line (paraphrased): "God, I know we're the chosen people, but could you choose somebody else for a change".
Other Comments by mordacious1