Chaim, thank you for answering my question and I did not expect you to agree with me. However, I think you misunderstood my point or perhaps I did not state it well. You correctly drew comparisons of how I (or anyone) should approach questions of faith to other aspects of life. Oddly that is very much what brought me to my point of view.
I found myself at one point accepting certain things simply because some Rabbi said it and when I thought about it I realized I would not apply that logic to other aspects of life. When my father suffered a severe stroke and his Doctor told us that there was no hope for a substantial recovery while we saw signs that he was not as bad as the Doctor said we did not accept this advice. And this Doctor was a world renowned neurologist who treated Mayor Koch when he had his stroke. I called around and found a Doctor who worked with him on the west coast who said he was very quick to write off patients, sometimes wrongly.
So my point is that I don't naturally distrust Doctors, Rabbis, mechanics (and I have had some interesting encounters with them) plumbers, etc. when they tell me something that does not make sense I don't accept it. When a plumber once told me that I should pay him $60 per hour to sit and wait outside my building until the City turned off water to the area for reasons that made absolutely no sense I said no.
When a Rabbi tells me the earth is only a few thousand years old despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary I don't agree. I trust in G-d but not in men. If the Torah is correct in its desciption of creation then the Rabbis are likely wrong in interpreting it. Perhaps the six days of creation refer to six geological eras (an idea suggested by a high school science teacher). I find it much more believable that the Rabbis misinterpreted the Torah than the overwhelming scientific evidence is just wrong.
Topic: Ask JTF is ready, baruch Hashem (06/21) (Read 925 times)