Monday, December 5, 2011

Weird Religions -- and Weird Assumptions

I appreciate Rabbi Boteach's treatment of the irrationality of core beliefs which defines human attachments to the metaphysical.

I do not share his materialistic optimism that "It is what a person does, rather than what he believes, that counts."

King Solomon commented on the power of one's core beliefs in defining a man:

"For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he." 9Proverbs 23:7)

What a man believes will influence his judgment and affect his actions.

The weeping prophet Jeremiah was even more caustic:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

"I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." (Jeremiah 17: 9 - 10)

Most human beings, no matter what their professed beliefs, do not measure up to any respectable moral standard. Only the man who acknowledges his need for the Lord deserves any prominence in public life.

Of course, this is not to suggest that the President of the United States has the right to be Chief proselytizer of the American People. Religious liberty is a must in a free society, but voters should be free to evaluate the worth and doctrinal consistency of a man's religious talk along with its accord with a man's daily walk.

If we strive to be true to the tenets of the Torah, then we cannot dismiss the yetser hara that plagues mankind, which only the Lord has the power to divert and renew into holiness.

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