Delusion, Schmelusion

Shavua tov.

I was disappointed to find, after reading (or trying to read) The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, that someone had already written The Dawkins Delusion. Disappointed, of course, because I wanted to be the one to come up with it! The God Delusion is, from the start, so full of anti-religious vitriol that it is hard to read - and, I understand, it doesn't get any better along the way. I bought a copy but am thinking of giving it away to the small library we have at work - but I'm in two minds about this, considering that anyone who can sit through the vitriol might think, after reading it, that the religious, of which I count more than just myself in our workplace, are a bunch of dangerous zealots. However, as you will have seen if you watched the videos I posted last time, the Chief Rabbi, in his program on the conflict (or as he sees it, lack of conflict) between science and religion, managed to get Dawkins to admit both that science is open to abuse and misuse, and also that not everyone who is religious misuses his or her religion for violent ends. The problem, of course, is that the only time most non-religious people ever hear about religion (beyond the occasional funeral, wedding, bar mitzvah or christening, or their equivalents in other religions) is when some religious nutcase bombs a mosque or a synagogue, or blows him- or herself up, or shoots someone. That is of course deplorable, and one doesn't often hear of atheists or the non-religious blowing religious people up, but of course not only do heinous crimes exist which have nothing to do with religion or the religious, but also, millions of people go to synagogues, churches, mosques, gurdwaras and the like not to plan or encourage violence but to worship the Divine, under various names and guises and whether one or many. Although traditionally, Judaism emphasized rationality, learning and study at the expense of emotionalism and mysticism in religion - in contrast to Christianity, where for example the ceremonies referred to as "sacraments" in the Catholic Church are still referred to as "mysteries" by the Eastern Orthodox - when faced with the rise of Reform Judaism and, later, Modern Orthodoxy, the Mitnagdim or opponents (of mysticism), those Jews which lived in more or less closed Jewish communities called shtetls, later made their peace with the mystical strain of "ultra-Orthodox" Judaism known as Hasidism and the two groups are now collectively known as Haredi, or the pious ones. I see science and religion, scientists and the religious, as two ends of the same continuum, not two opposite extremes of which it could be said that "never the twain shall meet". I myself was raised in a rationalist, non-religious household and came to religion in general, and Judaism in particular, relatively late in life, in my late twenties. Given that background, it is perhaps not surprising that the religion that caught my attention was Judaism, with its rationalism and academic rigour, and yet I would be the first to admit not only that some (unfortunately not all) of my Jewish religious experiences have been deeply mystical or spiritual, but also that I find myself drawn, more and more, to studying the spiritual side of the religion from a non-Orthodox background. I hope you will enjoy accompanying me as I take my first steps.

Shalom, salaam, peace out.