Monday, March 7, 2005

Weird-Wacky Theory

Apart from Nes-Nisayon, Myth-Moshol and Emunah-Peshutah, you also find various weird and wacky theories or answers as to the conflict of Science and Torah. They are not worth a full blog each, so here is a compendium.

Science is physical truth, Torah is spiritual (or moral) truth
Personally, I think this is baloney. Breishis either happened like it says or it didn't. If it didn't, then just admit its a myth-moshol and stop trying to be so clever.

Torah is truth, Science is Poetry
The geniuses at Yated came up with this one. Amazing. Amazingly dumb that is. An instant classic.

We are not worthy
We don't know everything about science. We also have only the barest understanding of Torah and Chazal. So don't ask any questions. Basically emunah peshutah with a bit of mussar thrown in for good measure.

There is no conflict but I can't explain why
Torah and science both come from G-d. So there can be no conflict ! Sorry, end of discussion. Basically emunah peshutah with a bit of a pro science attitude thrown in for good measure.

Science & Medrash Geek Theory
Lots of afficianados here. From Gerald Schroder to R Dovid Brown. Its the magical mystery tour of arcane science, arcane midrashim and bad logic. With some clever physics, or possibly some bogus physics (who can tell), and with some clever midrashim, or possibly some bogus midrashim (who can tell), every word in Breishis fits perfectly with science. Parshas Breishis that is. The Science geeks get off the ride at that point. But there's no stopping the medrash geeks. They're going all the way.