Anon asked Staff ago My friends are in the process of returning to religion. I have tried to talk sense into them and have shown them examples from your pamphlets, but they had an excuse for almost everything. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I might have approached the whole thing incorrectly. Could you tell me how I am supposed to approach them and any other suggestions you have about how to open their eyes and lead them to clear and logical thought. (In the meanwhile, what they could not find excuses for they have said is unimportant, that they are only beginning to learn and will ask a rabbi about.)
jsadmin Staff answered 20 years ago
Hello.
The process of returning to religion is an emotional, irrational process. The outlook of the world of faith is a spiritual one which can live alongside contradictions, vagueness, and ambiguity. The philosopher Benedict Spinoza said, “Man, by his nature, defends by pure reason alone what he understands through pure reason, while what he understands through the activities of the soul he defends through them.” Our suggestion to you is not to waste your intellectual prowess on people who have decided to turn reason into the handmaiden of their faith, but to concentrate on those people who use reason to guide their path. Daat Emet acts within the community of those who think, to show them trends in education (of the religious) which contradict the values of the enlightened world, hoping they will join our struggle to separate state and religion and to establish a progressive and enlightened civil society.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet