Monotheism is the Height of Human Evolution -

The evolutionary argument is that development occurs from a simple state to a more complex state. Not only that, but the inherent implication in the evolutionary argument is that when and if a species survives, its survival is due to its development of one or another beneficial characteristic. The point of this post is not to talk about whether evolution occurred or not, although the scientific record matches quite well with the Torah's, but rather to show how the peak of evolution is exemplified with monotheism.

A quick summary: G-d creates existence, the universe, Earth, life on Earth, and then Man. With Man He creates the ability to perceive Him. After Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, they no longer understand things to be "true" or "false" but rather "right" and "wrong," -- value judgments, and subjectivity becomes the prime directive of humanity's paradigm. This leads to humanity's creation and invention of all types of ideologies, which first manifested themselves as variant forms of polytheism, i.e., subjective forms of the Man-G-d relationship. Hundreds of years passed after the abatement of the flood before Abraham was successfully able to "re-piece" G-d's Existence together for the world. Abraham's true understanding of G-d, which culminated in a revelation, ended an era of unchallenged polytheism; it marked the end of a repeating cyclical process and the beginning of a generally ascending cycle. Therefore, once Man was really Man, which the Torah defines as a being with a soul (us), he ceased to go through physical evolutions and began to go through mental, intellectual, moral, and spiritual evolutions. Monotheism was the evolutionary peak of mental, intellectual, moral, and spiritual evolution - there was none higher and all were lower. As is, the "class GPA" of the world would rise due to this merited revelation; it would bring up the consciousness of the rest humanity.

Post-monotheism; Atheism

Can we not say that atheism is the logical conclusion of monotheism? If the process of one replacing many was a revelation of truth, can we not say that the process of none replacing one is a further development of truth? No, we cannot. The reason being is that atheism does not afford humanity something more than monotheism. Monotheism rejected the polytheisms of the day in favor of a theistic understanding that a unified reality, with the One G-d, was the only true one; this was synonymous with absolute morality. The polytheists also had somewhat developed systems of values, ethics, and morals, but they waiver in relation to their instable and changing gods. G-d is Stable and the system of values, ethics, and morality instructed by Him is unchanging. Atheism's system of values, ethics, and morals is non-existent, as is their god. The subjective idea of atheism is a world void of implicit and inherent truths and morals; rather, in that world, one must extract truth and morality from the surrounding culture, a compass incapable of such a task. Culture has no interest in truth, and therefore cannot define falsehood, and so convenience and inconvenience replace these items respectively. It is not a violation of any inherent truth of human value to murder people, rather it should not be done because it is invconvenient to live in a society where people are free to end the lives of others. A society so morally irresolute must resort to replacing "falsehood" with the word "incovenient." There are several people in society who are prepared to tolerate the inconvenience of killing people if that's all it really is. As society becomes more silent, the murderers (rapists, cheaters, corrupters, etc...) become more emboldened. As the void becomes larger, the behaviors that potentially fill it become more variant. What we see is, through atheism, a return to a polytheistic-like world. The only difference is that the murderers murder to please themselves, not the gods.

There is an even more striking similarity; in an atheistic world, the obsession with the gods is still current- it seems that the void of morality, ethics, and values has not filled the void of the human need for the spiritual, and so many, if not all, types of spirituality are in demand. For example: wicca, the simplistic and superficial revival of ancient polytheistic religions, mystical trinkets such as tarot cards, shopping aisle astrology, and pseudo-psychological dream books, and of course new age spirituality.

The difference however is that the polytheists actually believed in these things and to a degree developed and organized them; today's "pop polytheism" is entirely external and superficial, not able to touch on the core of the way polytheists actually viewed the world 3,000 years ago and more. As a result, godless ideologies, religions actually, have developed, many of them humanitarian and social in essence. Valiant and noble causes, such as saving the environment, eradicating war, toppling injustice, and bringing and end to sexual oppression, start where religion ends. The people involved in these activities are fully engaged and embracing of the ideology of whatever group they have joined to the point where it ignites the spirituality within them and they become full of motivation and elation; the result is a strange and diluted form of worship. The imprint of religion is apparent even in these in that a few people, usually leaders, are seen as patriarchs or matriarchs of the movement and the rest of the people are disciples. The cause becomes universal in scope and the person is ready to dedicate the whole of his being to it. The cause or the objective goal of grandeur itself becomes the god, the object of devotion. However, no such god really exists, no command other than some loosely-composed internal drive to make something in the world better or perhaps to leave behind a vestige of immorality, completely fueled by self-initiation, and devotion fails as quickly as the whim flails.

But atheism facilitates the emergence of real evil. At any moment that the void is so large that anything can fit inside, with so many unchallenged acts of immorality, that any given act of "super destruction" can occur, and the previously immoral relativists, now suddenly awake to the possibility that evil exists, challenge it. However, one cannot develop an internal and composite perspective on morality overnight, and those who challenge it too are the products of years, if not decades or generations, of loosened moral fiber. Therefore, their judgment has become skewed by years of exposure to the irresoluteness of their culture and they, like most people, even those opposite to them, have lost the right to be the champions or torch-bearers of any ethical or moral mantle. Further, why should any maniac heed the moral urgings of the populace when they previously consumed immorality like voracious wolves? Will they now be hypocritical? If they believe in nothing, then they have not the right, but the ability, to say nothing. In the end, only the monotheists have room to speak and only they have the power to resist anything, for it was they who warned against evil when the stakes were still low. It is better to listen to the war drums before they become soaked in blood.

Philosophy of Atheism -

As a disclaimer, different people call themselves atheists for a variety of reasons. However, I am only focusing on one; the philosophical factor.

One can ask, "How can there be a philosophical factor to a paradigm that states overarching randomness of the universe?" There is indeed a very philosophical way to understand life and existence through the lens that everything, including human life, occurred through randomness; the main premise here is freedom to choose, but the real core of the premise is the freedom to choose anything. Atheism is a kind of liberation theology, from theism. If theism can be shown to establish fixed and absolute morals, then atheism is liberation from the establishment of fixed and absolute morals.

But there is an underlying logic to atheism, one which I reject, but yet which I feel at least holds some sort of intellectual spark. To understand it we can first divert our attention to monotheism, i.e., not one of the few forms of religion in which one god was selected out of a pantheon, but the true form of monotheism, where only one Divinity was understood as existing. When that form of monotheism (Judaism) came about, the polytheists likely considered it to be a radical, strange, and extreme form of belief, for what kind of strange Deity, Whom resides over everything, possibly exist? Most people probably considered it borderline lunacy and/or heresy; each nation and peoples were committed to their national gods, yet monotheism claimed that those gods in fact did not exist and that only "their G-d" existed, and that He was the G-d of all the nations - sounds a bit chutzpadik (audacious) if you are a polytheist, don't you think? Very loosely speaking, we can try to understand monotheism, in the eyes of polytheists, to be atheism, for it declares that those gods do not exist. In light of that it can be said to be similar to contemporary atheism, which declares that G-d does not exist, and many "theists" are bothered by that declaration, sometimes acting on an urge to label atheists lunatics and heretics.

I once heard an atheist say, "I just believe in one less god than you." This succintly sums up the way most atheists view atheism; just like monotheists rejected the gods and believed in One, atheists reject the One and believe in none - to them it is the same thing. In other words, a mere reduction of gods until arriving at zero accurately explains to an atheist the formation of polytheism to monotheism to atheism. Yet the pioneering spirit of monotheism, to atheists, is alive in atheism, for just like the monotheist was fighting against the illusions of polytheistic society, the atheist sees himself as fighting against the illusions of monotheistic society, which are primarily that G-d exists. They do not see atheism as a sin, not just because there is no Higher Authority on morality, but because they see themselves doing humanity a favor by fighting against the belief in a Divine Creator. To them, immorality, and even evil, is hinged upon belief in a Divine Creator.

I can understand the frustrating concerns of an atheist, in the case that I am speaking about the type who is concerned about humanity and truth (many so-called atheists are simply people lack the veracity to follow through on such inquisitive sojourns). The reason I think there is a parallel is because a similar tendency exists in Judaism itself. One can view monotheism as a type of machine designed with a built-in self-moderating mechanism; when the dial approaches one or another extreme, an alert is signaled and the components of the machine begin taking action returning the machine to a state of moderation. When monotheism is working properly, people can see this normalization process occurring. The type of atheists I mentioned, likely not home-grown on monotheism, are reacting in a very similar manner as is monotheism to the issues plaguing society; their desire is to calibrate society. Further, the parallel is even stronger when we consider that atheists link the issues of the day as being inherent to theism similarly to the way monotheists linked the issues of the day with polytheism. If theism can be rejected, the issues of the world will disappear with it - this is what atheists hold to be true.

The only problem with atheism, in light of this desire to do to tikkun (repair), is that they have an incomplete circuit. The purpose for the machine exists but there is no certified blueprint, and since this ingredient is missing, the moving parts of the machine do not know their role and cannot orchestrate themselves properly in order for the machine to actually do its job. They have preserved the purpose and goal of humanity, a (living) vestige of monotheism, but have rejected the blueprint and the responsibility that each piece has. The result is that each piece performs an individual task. The machine becomes nothing more than a clutter of sputtering pieces strewn about on a table, hopping and clanking and making noise, colliding with each other and completing nothing. The desire of this "type" of atheism might be to locate and achieve peace, harmony, and order - a noble goal - but all it ends up doing is creating war, strife, and chaos. The most ominous realization about this attempted machine is that its parts do not work in the way they were designed to work; they have grown and learned, and in doing so created new informational pathways, tweaking and changing the original blueprint. They continue to grow and deviate from their blueprint.

The Atheist in Me -

Many years ago, before I was even aware that there was such thing as a commandment-oriented way for Jews to live, my spiritual and emotional life were going through a violent turmoil. It was during this phase of my life in which I dabbled in several different philosophies of how one should live - only two made my list of actual potentials; Christianity and atheism. When I now realize just how different Christianity and atheism are, I basically can't understand how I considered either this one or that one - how could I have been satisfied with two different paradigms so different from each other? It would have made more sense if I had found favor in either one system or another which bore similarities discernible to the eye, but what discernible similarities could those two have had for me to actually group them together? Never in my spiritual path did I even consider Islam, Buddhism, or a similar path; Christianity and atheism spoke the most loudly and most clearly to me.

There was a certain philosophical acuteness that I found in both of them, and I will attempt to briefly summarize just what was the nature of that acuteness was.

The Christian Period

The first thing I must mention about my, what was a relatively short-lived but nagging, interest in Christianity stemmed from a deep lack of knowledge of Judaism. It was clear to me most of my life that I was a spiritual person, i.e., a person interested in "the other side," and on top of this I really enjoyed intellectual stimulation. Judaism didn't offer me any spiritual or intellectual stimulation; by that point in time in my life I was almost totally alienated from it and from other Jews. To me, Judaism was either something to ignore, or if I had to, which with to disagree. Suffice it to say that I knew nothing more about Christianity than I did about Judaism; my spark of interest in Christianity did not stem from a knowledge about Judaism that I felt somehow completed it, but rather from it being able to fill the void of my Judaism. Christianity was the best candidate for that at that point in my life for one basic reason: the way it was presented to me. I was eighteen years old at that point in my life and I was taking a general education class at the community college which I attended; the class was "Old Testament" and a pastor taught it. I was fascinated by the topic - I knew it then and I know it now - it was a fascination with my Jewishness, which my parents had helped maintain alive in me (and my sister) by keeping whatever traditions alive they could. Not to mention, the frequent trips to Israel to visit our family also worked in keeping us connected. I understand now that, judging by my glancing over at Christianity, visits to Israel could only go so far in keeping me close to Judaism; that I was far from it is the proof in the pudding.

I would have hour-long talks with the pastor/teacher after class, who of course, taught the class from a Christian perspective, i.e., that everything led up to Jesus, and would steer our personal talks in a way that would get me to budge towards Christianity. I responded with rebuttals to everything, buy my disgraceful knowledge about Judaism, even the basics, allowed him to back me into intellectual corners and dilemma's to which I had no answer. After a semester I was secretly pondering if perhaps Jesus was really the Messiah. It filled me with a great fear, not the fear of going to Hell, which I didn't understand, but the fear that I and my entire people, my family, and the State I so loved were wrong all along. I remember imagining my family in Israel and their response to the news of my choice, and that I would feel obligated not to tell them about Judaism (I was very idealistic), but about Christianity. The obligation and the knowledge that I would be an outcast filled me with fear, but the fear invoked excitement and pushed me onwards. After a short while my musings about Christianity died, not because I was able to prove them wrong, but because my fear had so shaken and overwhelmed me (again, I was emotionally distraught at this point in my life) that it is almost as if I shut down in order not to let in what I was not able to ward off. The only thing that I considered to be positive about Christianity was that it would make me different, i.e., from my family, but that in and of itself says nothing about Christianity itself. Obviously, it was not enough of a driving factor to make me interested, and besides, I was years away from being able to genuinely understand spirituality, theology, and religion. Thank G-d I "short-circuited" and never went down the paths of Christianity.

The Atheistic Period

Since Christianity couldn't be right, because I wouldn't allow it to be, and because I knew next to nothing about Judaism except for things I read here and there, atheism was an alluring and brilliant concept. Perhaps I would somehow try to suffuse my intellectual curiosity and lust for spirituality with atheism. Indeed, the notion that you know a massive secret, that G-d doesn't exist, makes you a philosophical war-lord and hero, that your view trumps the view of everybody and simultaneously slaughters them and lays them to waste. This aspect of atheism was especially alluring to me. Not only that, I had seen myself, in some strange way, being a representative of G-d, believing in Him and having a strong belief in ethics and morality; atheism was adept at supplanting my urge of helping bring a new knowledge to the world, that there was no G-d. I saw the Jews as people who carried the world into the future and into peace by producing intellectual and philosophical genius; I saw atheism as the most powerful and magnificent philosophy. Not only that, the grand irony of it all would be that, the people to whom G-d revealed Himself first, which I interpreted as being simply an awe-inspiring philosophy, now realized the error of this way and once again took it upon themselves to take humanity to the next level, which was that there was no G-d. The allure of it was "very Jewish," I was motivated in this direction for a reason closely related to my identification as a Jew, and it was even stronger and more solid than my short interest in Christianity, although most likely it helped compound my fear. I actually remember thinking that I rather believe in no G-d than in Jesus; I said to myself, "If G-d is actually going to allow Christianity to be true, if G-d actually made Jesus His son, this goes against everything I feel deep down in the deepest form of myself to be right, and I rather reject G-d than accept this model." So I rejected G-d because Christianity, being G-dless to me, might as well have been atheism.

The death of my grandmother on my mom's side, whom I loved dearly and to which I responded with shouting, punching, and, for the first and last time in my life, literally cursing G-d's Name (and punching my dad), made atheism a high priority for me. Then a few days later the news of one of my best friends to whom I looked up (a girl on whom I also had a crush) being killed in a car accident when I was in Israel compounded it. I hated G-d and was totally closed to Him and to even thinking about Him; I spent the next year or two in a spiritual gaze with no relationship with myself or with G-d. However, deep down inside the deepest part of me knew that I believed in G-d, which makes sense considering that I said that I hated Him, for how can you hate Someone that does not exist? As time went on and my bitter anger and resentment towards G-d did not decrease but simply reached disgraceful peaks of neutrality, I was able to relatively easy enough contend with myself and others that G-d simply did not exist. "Hell" would be a good word to describe that period of time in my life, and there is no G-d in Sheol.

The Jewish Period

It took years for the thick barrier that I erected to begin cracking to the point where water could again flow through. It all culminated when I was twenty one years old and went on a Birthright trip to Israel. My anger and bitterness were, for the few years before this, slowly being replaced with joy, inspiration, and a rediscovered, if not dramatically altered, understanding of G-d. Not only that; I also knew by that point, now for actual theological and philosophical reasons, that Christianity was false, although I still reserved much anger for it. I had begun to understand the urgings of Islam and realized that it too was false, while the Eastern religions never spoke loudly to me anyway. On my trip to Israel that year, equipped with an existent faith in G-d and His existence, He allowed an interesting experience at the Kotel, the Western Wall. I had come to realize that a vow I made when I was in my senior year of high school, that I would not become religious until I felt G-d because so many people called themselves religious but were jerks, was answered with an overpowering spiritual experience. Upon returning to Tucson it took me about five months to digest this experience and to let it seep into my conscious, but when it did, I realized that the only proper course of action for me was to become an observant Jew, i.e., Orthodox, i.e., living in accordance with the commandments of the Torah.

From the time before I approached atheism, I understand in retrospect that certain things I was doing, certain minor "obsessions" I had, which annoyed my family, were in fact "primordial" attempts to embrace my (and our) religion. I was makpid (stringent) with my family on Chanukah to turn off all the lights in the house (although I now know that this is not allowed) and to open the presents in a ritual manner, and showed an external desire to light candles on Shabbat, say Kiddush, and eat the meal together. On Passover I insisted stubbornly that we say the entire Passover Hagadah, which annoyed my family, and even though I too gained little spiritual benefit from it and even resented it a little, wanting to get to the meal already, I felt that it was the right thing to do to read the whole thing. On Yom Kippur, in which my family stayed in our house and fasted, we would try to sleep all day, and I believed that through the relative discomfort we had, that we were achieving the goal of Passover; this is only partially true. We would attend an Orthodox synagogue twice a year, Chabad of Young Israel in Tucson, Rabbi Yosi Shemtov, and although I didn't know how to pray, I felt happy enough holding a siddur (prayer book) in my had, flipping its thin pages, and being surrounded by the service. Rabbi Shemtov also taught me my Bar-Mitzvah portion, of which the reading was held there, with all of my Gentile friends, and some Jews. I was trying to find a way to let something inside of me find external expression, and it just so turned out that that thing was Orthodox Judaism, although I didn't feel like I could accurately call myself an Orthodox Jew until years into observance.

Modern Times

Five years after coming back from Israel on Birthright, I am learning in a yeshiva in Jerusalem, my sister is Orthodox and married to one of my good friends, my newly-wed cousin is married and in living in New York with her husband, my other cousin (her brother) believes in G-d whereas before he was an atheist, and our Tucson family in general has accepted our observance and embraced it in their own ways. My aunt and uncle kashered their house and my dad davins Shacharit (prays morning services) with Orthodox friends and eats lunch with them on Shabbat, which I also did with him when I was in Tucson. Thank G-d, He has surely granted our family with blessing and brings us nearer to our tradition of truth.

I now understand both the appeal of Christianity and of atheism, and having learned about Islam and Eastern religions, I have somewhat of an understanding what makes a Jew go in either of those directions.