Rabbi Marc Rubenstein is another clueless imbecile

Rabbi Marc Rubenstein from Temple Isaiah in Orange County put out crap. He is now open for a good reaming. It is obvious that the religious world is becoming more insecure these days, as the internet with all the resources available, and most importantly, the resilience of the internet secular community when it comes to online debate between theist and non theist, believers are rightfully beginning to question their own beliefs, and most likely the religious clergy are being inundated with tough questions by many, not just a few. Brushing away things today, won't work on many, like the old days.

Here is a recent message he wrote on his Temple's web site accompanied with my comments:

THE RABBI’S VIEWS - The Daily Pilot, In Theory,
June 2, 2007 - The question put to religious leaders: Why the uptick in atheism?

Several books about atheism are topping the best-seller lists. Some observers think it's because of a growing resentment about the widening influence of religion in society. What's your take on this rising interest in atheism?

"People who are atheists suffer from a lack of intelligence. Religionists believe that a Creation demands a Creator. My temple office is in the Back Bay. If any person would find a $1,000 watch there, it would dictate that there was a designer and a craftsman who could make such a watch. Common reason illustrates that someone had to leave the watch there. So it is the case with the universe.
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Lack of intelligence? 65% of Americans who dropped out of high school believe the earth less than 10,000 years old and that evolution is hooey, compared to 25% of Americans who attended post secondary school. Scientists are stupid? As we know many scientists are atheist or agnostic.
Creation demanding a creator? Who created God? If you can accept that the God needs no creator, it isn't a great leap to accept the universe doesn't need one either.
A watch isn't a living being, and yes it had to be designed. But the things that make up the watch do not need a designer in their rawest of forms. And nobody says that a watch evolved from a one celled animal, or that it had a common ancestor.
Common reason requires evidence or analyzing lack of evidence. There is no evidence that God exists or created the universe.


Religion solves the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? The obvious answer is the chicken, because God created all its creatures. Many people mistakenly abandon religion because the world is billions of years old. You don't have to accept the entire Bible to believe in God.

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True, you don't have to accept the entire bible or any part of the bible to believe in God. You don't have to have read any part of the bible to believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus either. The fact is that there is no evidence that God exists, none whatsoever.
Religion does not solve the question of who came first. It offers a theory (without any proof) of who came first, unlike abiogenesis which offers scientific theory of who came first.

Those people who don't believe in God have little meaning in life. Without a God, there is no morality or sense of social justice.
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Bullshit. Atheists make their own meaning just as theists do. What is the meaning of life if God does exist? Does my dogs life not have meaning, how about a fruit fly? Maybe so, or maybe not. Meaning is subjective. As far as morality and social justice goes, atheists are under-represented in jails. We evolved a sense of morality and social laws and justice represent our innate morality more or less, though some social laws are cultural and not universal.

What basis for these two principles would you follow? A sense of religion anchors you and gives you meaning. When something goes wrong with your life, you have something to fall back on.
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OK, now at least you admitting that religion is a crutch. You sound like a Fundy Christian offering up belief in God to give us a better life, just as they say belief in Jesus offers up eternal heaven.
Admitting religion is a drug to help you deal with problems life has to offer, does not make religion or drug addiction right, nor does it prove God.

If one accepts that there is a God, then there are only two dilemmas in life: the problem of evil and pain. These are tough questions to answer. However, without a God or sense of religion, tougher questions arise — like a purpose in life. To the atheist, life is simply an accident without any purpose. If there is no God, then one must answer all the other questions that life poses." RABBI MARC RUBENSTEIN
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I don't accept God, and I am faced with "evil" and pain too.
Again, purpose in life is in the eye of the beholder. I still haven't heard a reasonable answer to how God gives life purpose. How does God give a fruit flies life purpose, or a cicada who lives in the ground for 17 years, and last only 2 weeks above ground just to shed and mate, if it is lucky enough to do so. Of course, lucky is also in the eye of the beholder.
So let me get this straight, you need to believe in God so that you don't have to deal with reality and answer tough questions.........that science, incidentally, has mostly answered and in time will answer.


Marc Rubenstein's argument is just Pascal's Wager, which works better on stupid people, not intelligent atheists.