יום שישי, אוגוסט 11, 2006

The difference between truth and belief (in English)

Actually, it is not that hard to reconcile Religion (especially Judaism) and science. We just have to learn how to differentiate between truth and belief. For example, we could easily prove that there is DNA and this DNA carries the genetic code and functions as the blueprint of the body. This is science; it could be proven by repeatable experiments and observations. And most importantly for our discussion, there is nothing in the Jewish religion that would directly disagree with that fact of science. This qualifies as the truth.
On the other hand, none of us have been around in the time of creation. We do not have any documented direct observation about that event (the story of Genesis was committed to written form, even according to Judaism, many thousand years after the creation). The religion believe that the world was created by Go-d, in seven days, some fifty seven hundred odd years ago, while the scientists BELIEVE that the world was created in a cosmic event, named the big boom, some gazillion years ago.
Both belief systems have proofs from within their own systems, both are convinced that they are the only truth and both fail to convince anybody who is not a believer.
Let's get clear here; anything that could be observed and proved TODAY or based on credible witnesses or documents (that need always to be cross examined) is as close to the truth as possible and usually do not have any problems with both religion and science. Anything that is based on inter-system (from within that belief system) speculations about what could have, should have or might have happened in the past is a BELIEF and thus a religion, not science.
Evolution, like intelligence design, like Kabala, are all beautiful poetry, still they are not, as far as we could say, the universal accepted truth, they are all sorts of beliefs.