"Belief in G-d should make us feel safe. But that’s not why we believe. We believe in G-d because it makes sense. If there is a world, there must be a creator. Our brilliantly designed universe has G-d’s signature written all over it.
“Even the authenticity of the Torah is logical. The Torah claims that three million people experienced the miracles and revelation at Mt. Sinai. Who would construe such a risky lie? For a people that constitutes less than one percent of mankind, our Torah should be an obscure account. But quite the contrary—our Torah is the world’s best-selling and most widely distributed book. We believe in G-d’s Torah because it’s true. If it also happens to make us feel safe—that’s a bonus!”
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if you use the "best-selling book" argument, you should remember the Christians that add it to their holy book, and the Muslims which see it as god's word. than the claim about "less than one percent of mankind" go in flames.
We believe in G-d because it makes sense. If there is a world, there must be a creator.
Dumbo is an elephant.
Therefor, Dumbo is pink.
Makes sense? I'll leave you to think about it.
Believing in G-D makes as much sense as believing in -ll-h, or Th-r.
Scientists now say there might be several worlds. That must mean that there are several creators, using your -hm- "logic". The Universe is just "good enough", not brilliant.
People construe lies about numbers of people all the time, silly. The anti-democratic group Pegida* says each time that there will be thousands at their demonstrations and parades. On one in Sweden, there were about 15, a couple of others have been cancelled due to lack of interest. It's much, much less risky construing lies about figures in the distant past, which no-one can check.
Your Torah, rewritten many times, is part of the Bible, which is one of the most widely distributed books, silly.
And of course anyone who doesn't accept Jesus as personal lord and savior is destined for Hell, because that's what it says in the bible, and the bible is true because God wrote it.
Oh, that's not the point you were making, was it?
back when the torah was written, nobody had the logistics needed to gather up three million people all in one place and keep them fed and watered. "manna from heaven" my left buttcheek, jehovah would have had to conjure up porta-potties from hell or his israelites would've died from dysentery.
I'm pretty sure your Torah is only popular because of some "New"er fanfiction that was written about it about two millennia ago. That being said, since the only evidence for three million people witnessing miracles at Mount Sinai is the Torah itself, that should cast doubt on its claims.
Three million people? Whatever route you want to claim Hebrews used when the left Egypt, somebody would have discovered some signs of their travel, a waste pit or something, by now.
Um, the Oral Torah, which you as a Chabadnik are supposed to believe is part of the Torah as much as the Written Torah, doesn't sell very well. Firstly, there's so much of it, but mostly very few people who don't know Judaism well can even understand it.
"The Torah claims that three million people experienced the miracles and revelation at Mt. Sinai. Sure the Bible and Koran probably say the same sort of thing, but no one would ever lie about or embellish such an event in the Torah specifically, never! It has to be true because it falls in line with the outcome I want! And our Torah is the world's best-selling and most widely distributed book - no, don't ask for proof , just take my word for it. And obviously everyone who's ever read it has to believe every word of it, no one could ever be reading it just because they're curious about another religion or something, so there!"
"Brilliantly designed universe"? It's really not. It's plenty impressive sure, but there are some glaring problems that don't gel with the idea of an omnipotent creator.
Mind you, maybe God was just on a budget:
image
"The Torah claims that three million people experienced the miracles and revelation at Mt. Sinai. Who would construe such a risky lie?"
I don't know, someone wanting to over-exaggerate the importance and significance of Jewish culture at the time. It is incredibly likely that Herodotus grossly inflated the number of Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian wars, so it's not unknown for historical documents to be unreliable, and bear in mind that Herodotus is a more reliable source than the Torah.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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