HASHEM------seeing hashem in nature

Meahachuz Posted - 12 June 2002 14:55

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Recently I've been having trouble seeing Hashem in natural things (besides miracles).

Lets say for example a tree...its suppose to grow!! Where is Hashem in that picture? I'm really scaring myself since I'm pretty frum and I completely believe in Hashem. Its so hard to live like this!

Thanks

MODERATOR Posted - 12 June 2002 15:12

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A tree takes soil, sunlight, and water, combines them all and produces an apple, made out of those ingredients.

How does it know how to do this? Not a single scientist in the world can do it. Give him dirt, water and sunlight and ask him to make an apple. Wont happen.

So how does the tree know how to do it? Who "programmed" the tree with this wisdom?

Every leaf on a tree has one shiny side and one dull side. the shiny side "catches" the sunlight and uses it for the tree's purpose. The dull side does not have sun-catching apparatus.

In every tree in the world, every leaf grows with the shiny side up, cuz that’s where the sun is.

How did the tree "know" that the sun is up? And that it should put the sun-catching apparatus on the top of the leaf? And never on the bottom?

I could go on literally forever. Every single cell in a tree - and every thing else in the world - contains so much wisdom and shows awareness of everything else in the world. Who "programmed" these mega-computers?

That’s Hashem. There is no other alternative.

Meahachuz Posted - 13 June 2002 14:27

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I don’t know whets wrong w/ me but I'm still iffy on that...
The leaves sense the sunlight so they are attracted to it and therefore the shiny side grows upwards...now what?

MODERATOR Posted - 13 June 2002 14:32

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Even a plant growing totally in the dark will have the shiny side up. But that’s not the point. The point is, how does the leaf "sense" that the sun is "up"? And that it needs the sun? And that its response, in order to survive, is to put the shiny stuff in a position to catch the sun? Maybe it needs shade not sun? Maybe it should "sense" the shade and reverse its leaves?

Obviously, the tree has been "programmed" to "know" all this stuff. Question: Who taught the tree all this knowledge?

Lets make it multiple choice. this is either (1) accident, or (2) intelligence. There is no third alternative.

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.