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What I Have Learned From An Unrepentant Theist and Intellectual Pugilist ...
And you'd think Mankind would have understood by now.
Ironically, despite the "chutzpah" of its intellectual efforts to unseat the Creator (as if that were somehow possible) the proponents of militant intellectual atheism invariably become their own worst enemy, fighting vaingloriously against G-d the Creator, upon Whom our world and its daily renewal depend.
Despite their admission they haven't the foggiest notion as to how the most rudimentary of life forms, the self-replicating bacterium, emerged from the primordial ether, the baffled giants of militant intellectual atheism, carry on with their unholy work.
Hint: The cell's existence is the proof of its Creator.
The problem's not one of intelligence or the lack thereof. Certainly one cannot convincingly argue that the body of folks I'll dub "G-d's Deniers" are either unintelligent or just plain stupid. It simply is not true. We must seek another explanation for them.
"An Illustrative Story Adapted From An Old Joke"
So there was once a certain "rabbi" (well, that's the word his diploma used to describe him) characterized by many as simply too damn arrogant, a criticism to which he was impervious due, no doubt, in large measure to the post he held as "Rosh Yeshiva" of "Bais Apikorsis" (House of Apostasy), a powerful position indeed.
As the Days of Awe drew near, the "Rosh Yeshiva" decided he would not be in synagogue doing what he should be doing (whatever that happened to be) but instead chose on the first day of Rosh Ha Shana to park his car way off in the corner (lest he be spotted) of the parking lot adjacent to the Four Leaf Clover Golf Club and Grill.
Well, to make a long story short, he proceeded to play a round of eighteen holes and-as "mazaldik", lucky, as anyone could possibly be on the first day of Rosh Ha Shanah-shot eighteen holes in one.
Not since "Yam Suf", the splitting of the Reed Sea, had there been such a miracle. Looking down from the heavenly heights, the head of the "Srafim Kodesh", the Holy Beings, asked G-d who, as it happened, was taking particular delight in watching this peculiar golf outing.
"Are you not going to punish him?" they inquired of G-d. "I already have." The "srafim" appeared nonplussed. G-d, looking at them with a mischievous smile, asked: "Who's going to believe him?"
"The Author, Rabbi Moshe Averick"
"G-d always has something up his sleeve," commented Rabbi Moshe Averick, author of "Nonsense of A High Order", who spoke last Tuesday night to an audience of some sixty listeners eager to learn more about what he refers to as "The Confused and Illusory World of The Atheist" which, as it happens, is the subtitle of his book.
An orthodox rabbi by training and an intellectual pugilist by avocation, it soon became very apparent that Rabbi Averick is as much a crusader for intellectual honesty as he is a believer in the ethical monotheism of Avraham Avinu, Abraham Our Father.
To drive home his point, Rabbi Averick quotes his opponents (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchems, Jerry Coyne, to name but a few) and their oft-stated admission that they will seek out a "scientific explanation" for the origins of life "ex nihlo" as if science itself were not the handmaiden of the Creator.
"My strength comes from The Lord," Rabbi remarked to me in an earlier interview, "because I don't engage in the folly of contesting the incontestable. I begin with that which I cannot see"-words of an unrepentant, unapologetic theist.
It is precisely his belief in and adherence to Abrahamic monotheism that distinguishes Rabbi Averick from his opponents who if they spent as much time doing good deeds for people in need as they spend trying to rebuild the Tower of Babel, might find that humility has much more to offer than arrogance as the psalmist explains: "Reshish chochma yiras HaShem", the beginning of wisdom is the fear of G-d.
While true Man occupies the pinnacle seat of creation, he mustn't forget he was chosen to do so, and his occupancy of that exalted place is at the pleasure of G-d. As clever as Man believes himself to be, were G-d to release His unbridled anger, He'd swat Man like a fly.
So He sends an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, topped off by a few aftershocks and the best folks can say is "Wow! Don't mess with 'Mother Nature", seldom realizing such "natural disasters" cannot be unrelated to The Master of The Universe.
"A Wise Man Begins at The Beginning"
"I'm presuming a belief in the existence of G-d, irrespective of the views you may hold and wish to emphasize a critical distinction between the issues of the "Origins of Life" and "Darwinian Evolution". They are often confused, one for the other," Rabbi Averick explained in a professorial tone.
"As a matter of fact," he continued, Darwinian evolution is irrelevant to my talk which focuses rather on the Origins of Life. The difference is this: Darwinian evolution, as I understand it, presupposes the existence of life as a given and then moves forward in time without ever addressing how that first life form came to be."
"Let me state this unequivocally: I am not an opponent of science in any sense whatsoever. What I do oppose is the corruption of the pursuit of truth."
You're wondering how the pursuit of truth becomes corrupted?
"By an unwillingness to go where the evidence takes you, especially when it's at the cost of your pre-existent theories."
I scanned the listeners whose attentiveness appeared as focused as the speaker.
"The Illusory and Confused World of The Atheist"
It is a human foible that we've all experienced: the need to justify ourselves at the expense of our commitment to the pursuit of the truth.
"Many are very eminent in their respective fields, especially one such as Dr. Jerry Coyne, a distinguished professor of biology at The University of Chicago.
He and other so-called "origin of life scientists" don't want to believe in G-d. Intellectual integrity, not the "sanctity" of one's personal agenda, must be the guiding force in the excavation of the TRUTH.
As a matter of fact, Jewish tradition places an enormous value on "Emet"-Truth, as reflected in the expression: "Baruch Dayan Ha Emet", Blessed is The True Judge, uttered by observant Jews upon hearing very bad news.
While typing furiously, I more than occasionally looked up to check the state of audience consciousness. Not one pair of weary eyelids could I spot. "Wouldst there were as much good teaching and enthusiasm for learning in American classrooms across the nation," I reflected.
"The Advocacy of Intelligent Design"
"Investigators should embrace the truth. Take my suit for example,"Rabbi Averick continued, "the very fact that it exists in the material world presupposes a tailor and/or a clothes designer. Consider "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, well, there you have it. You see? Does it not presuppose the poet on the simple basis of common sense and basic logic. So it is with our world."
Sounding very much like an attorney summarizing his case before the jury, Rabbi Averick continued: "Does our world not presuppose a Designer who built the machinery, as it were, and set all the heavenly constellations in motion? Does not the very existence of a self-replicating bacterium constitute the prima facie evidence of its Creator's existence?"
Though G-d is incorporeal, His creation is not-beginning with the most rudimentary of all creatures which "G-d in His wisdom placed upon this earth"-borrowing Orson Welles's line from his narration of the original "War of The Worlds".
Think about "Sefer Tehilim", The Book of Psalms, which has cushioned the human experience over the centuries; this book of praises so full of Man's adulation for his Maker to Whom he is clearly subordinate and above Whom there is none other.
The beauty of its language, the unique capacity The Psalms have to comfort the afflicted, stems from one irrefutable principle: that though Man may stand atop the mountain, it was not he whose strength thrust it upward from below the crust of the earth.
May we marvel at the achievement of the mountain climber and celebrate life, with the words of the psalmist: "How abundant are Your works, HASHEM, with wisdom You made them all, the earth is full of Your possessions".
I wish to thank Rabbi Moshe Averick for this, the second of two opportunities to learn with and write about him. I am certain that he has done me more good than I him.
I ask of my readers to do a big kindness for themselves. Purchase "Nonsense of A High Order, The Confused and Illusory World of The Atheist" by Rabbi Moshe Averick, available in Kindle and on sale at www.RabbiMaverick.com and www.Amazon.com.
