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7.11.2006

EMUNAH & BITACHON-----proofs


The ability to prove G-d's existence does not negate Bechirah. People have a skillful ability to fool themselves into thinking what they want to. How often do you see people doing wrong and rationalizing it away?

The choice of believing in G-d is choosing to be honest and objective rather than seeing what you want to see.

"Bribery blinds the eyes of the wise" the Torah says, and a vested interest would disqualify a potential juror since it may cloud his judgment such that he will not see the proof. The choice of belief is not to allow your eyes to be blinded by the "bribery" of freedom from religious restrictions, and not to allow your personal desires to prevent you from seeing the proof.

There have therefore been big scientists who, when confronted with the proofs to G-d's existence, responded by saying that they cannot accept the proofs because if they do, they will have to believe in G-d!

The prohibition against not believing is "lo sasuru acharei levavchem" - Thou shalt not follow thy heart. Rav Elchonon Wasserman TL explains that we see from here it is the heart that does not believe, because the intellect, if it is working properly, cannot escape the conclusion that G-d exists. The non-believer follows his heart - what he WANTS to believe - rather that objective truth.

Chazal say clearly that the existence of G-d can be proven.

The "min" (non-believer) came to Rabi Aviva and asked him how he knows G-d made the world.

"Who made your shirt?", R Akiva replied.

"The tailor", said the "min".
"How do you know?" asked R. Akiva.

"How else could a shirt have been woven, spun, and cut perfectly into a shirt?" said the "min".

"So, too", said R. Akiva, the complex nature of the world, the plan and purpose in nature, clearly shows that it has a Creator.

Here's another, from Gemora Chulin 59a-60b:

"The Torah states, 'The camel is not kosher, even though IT chews its cud.' G-d said this, knowing that only the camel chews its cud but is still unkosher (has no split hooves). Therefore, the Torah specified it.

"Was Moshe an expert on animals? This refutes those who say the Torah was not given by G-d."

So far, thousands of years later, the camel is still the only animal in the world that chews its cud but is has no split hooves.

There is more. Check this out:

The Gemora in Rosh Hashanah 25a says that Raban Gamliel had it on the authority handed down generation to generation, that the new moon appears not less than every 29 1/2 days, 2/3 of an hour, and 73 parts (in Halachah the hour is divided into 1,080 parts) of an hour.

In other words, the time between two conjunctions of the moon and the sun (according to their mean motion) is 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 parts of the 13th hours. In other words, 29.53059 days. This is the length of the lunar month.

This tradition, thousands of years old, obviously did not have the benefit of science to provide such an exact figure. Yet after years of research based on calculations using satellites, hairline telescopes, laser beams and super computers, scientists at NASA have determined that the length of the "synodic month", i.e. the time between one new moon and the next is 29.530588 days!

There is tons of stuff like this. The Torah had access to information that nobody in the world could have had at the time. How?

I could go on forever, with example after example.

The question here is, to say that the existence of G-d cannot be proven, never mind that that is clearly declaring against chazal who say it can, but you will have to answer all the proofs to G-d.

So far, nobody has come close to doing that. I wish you luck
.

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