Is Atheism the Future of Humanity? Not So Fast...

Christopher Hitchens said something that really got me thinking. He said, it's very simple. The future of humanity is atheism. And he says, I I'll prove it to you. I'm paraphrasing. He says, man used to believe in many gods. Then he came to believe in one god. Right? So, first most primitive cultures were polytheistic and then monotheism came along. And ultimately, they'll just narrow it down one more god and humanity will be atheistic. And I love the simplicity of that argument. I I have a special affinity for any argument will take a complex idea and and recognize some consistent underlying pattern. And so the argument or the formulation of the argument was very compelling to me. I I I enjoyed it. Now, obviously, I didn't agree with the conclusion, but I was forced to figure out why I'm why I would reject the conclusion. You follow what I'm saying? So I thought about it and I realized while his argument was very elegant, he omitted and I don't think it was malicious or willful on his part. He omitted he omitted a very important part of the formulation which causes the entire trajectory to be off and then the conclusion is off. It's not accurate to say that man used to believe in many gods. Period. Full stop. That's not a complete sentence. It's more accurate to say man looked at a world full of many things, many forces of nature, the the sun, the rain, whatever it is. [snorts] And as I'm sure Hitchens and other atheists would agree with me, all of the mythologies that primitive people came up with were to explain these very diff various different phenomena. And therefore, they came up with for each phenomenon of nature, they came up with another god. So if if there's a if there's the sun then there's the god of the sun. If there's the rain, there's the god of the rain. So on and so forth. So it's not accurate to say man used to believe in many gods. You have to say the whole statement. Man used to believe in many different things that were ruled by many different gods. Each thing had its god. So far so good. Then what happened when monotheism became popular is that man came to believe that all these many different things were ruled by one god. So it's not a different god for the sun than there is for the rain. It's one god who manages the sun and the rain. Follow me. Next, what happened and interestingly this has occurred in the secular world maybe even more than it has occurred or become popular in the religious world. Man came to realize that there are not many things. The world is not a world of many things. You ever heard of the unified field theory or the unifying theory of everything? It's what Einstein was looking for. it wasn't enough to him that matter and energy are one ultimately he wanted to come up with the one equation that would just account for everything. So instead of saying that you know they basically got it down to four forces that you have uh what was it the gravity electromagnetism the weak nuclear force the strong nuclear force they got it down to four they want to get it down to one so the trend the trajectory is further simplicity further oneness so man came to believe that there's a world that's not full of many things but it's a world of one thing and if you introduce the religious element ruled by one God but that's not the ultimate destiny of the evolution of human belief. The ultimate form of belief is to further simplify that ultimately humanity will believe in one thing in one thing. Not one God who rules over many things. Not even one God who rules over a world which is really one thing. But belief in one thing that reality is oneness. So there's not creator creation, spiritual, physical, infinite, finite. Those dichotoies don't exist. There's oneness. And specifically, where do you see oneness? Not in a monolith. That's not oneness. Oneness is the paradox of diversity where you see multiplicity. And yet underlying all of the seemingly complicated diversity is really one essence. It's like you take a cell from your brain or a cell from your toenail. It's the same genetic code. It's the same DNA. There's a DNA of reality of the universe and it's the absolute existence. And that's what we refer to and we're meant to think of when as Jews we say the Lord is one. Not one God, monotheism, but one total oneness. So tell me this. Where in all of the worlds, plural worlds, there are spiritual planes and then there's the physical plane. Where are in all of the worlds? Where can this oneness finally be revealed? Not in the spiritual plains. Because in the spiritual plains there's only the spiritual. The paradox is that the ultimate manifestation of godliness of the oneness will be in the physical world in time space where finitude will not be a contradiction with infinity. Infinity which can only exist within the infinite is not infinite. [laughter] It's half of infinity which isn't infinite at all. True infinity exists within the finite. So that's why your soul which is a spiritual entity came down to this limited physical container called the body to do physical actions called mitzvah which introduce divine will God's will into the physical world which ultimately cultivates in a process of refinement where the physical universe becomes more refined more transparent to the creator than any of the spiritual plains. In other words, you will see godliness more in the physical world than on any level of heaven. Now, I know that's very deep stuff, but ultimately, let me go back to where I started from. If I meet a Jew today, I'm not going to talk matzabal soup. I'm not going to talk about culturalism and nationalism and all the other things that used to work on the baby boomers. Today, if I have an opportunity to speak to a Jew, you know what I'm going to you know what I'm going to talk about? If I have five seconds, I'm gonna offer you a mitzvah. I'm gonna offer you a mitzvah because the mitzvah is the ultimate purpose of it all. The physical action. If you give me more than 5 seconds, I'll start to tell you a condensed version of what I just spent an hour telling you. You want to hear the 10-second version or it will outrage you because you'll be like, "You could have done that in 10 seconds." The 10-cond version would be, you are a Jew. You were a Jew before the physical world was created. You came to this physical world to bring the infinite into the finite by doing one of these 613 physical actions. And then I would offer them a mitzvah, a practical act that can be done with your physical body in time space at this place at this time. And the culminating effect of all of that is like what my friend said is radical that this physical world becomes the ultimate in all of creation. And like our prophets told us thousands of years ago that when Messiah comes, they say a very interesting thing. All flesh will see that the mouth of the Lord has spoken. What does it mean the mouth of the Lord has spoken? Basically, it's the cabalistic concept that God speaks reality into being. that the physical universe is not as tangible, not as solid as you take it for granted as being. It's really all in flux. It's divine speech. It's Hashem's own self-expression which he is renewing at every single moment. But what does it mean that all flesh will see this? All flesh will see. Know what it'll mean? [snorts] When the physical world becomes so refined, it will no longer require a religious education to understand the potency of the mitzvah. Torah law will be as evident as natural law. By natural law, you know what I mean? I mean like if you step off a cliff, you you you'll fall whether you believe in gravity or not. Okay? You touch a hot flame, it'll burn you. Whether you believe it will or not, unfortunately, today we can violate God's law and we will not necessarily see any cause and effect, which is all part of free choice. And [snorts] that's really sort of dysfunctional that we live in a world where a great deal of reality is concealed from us. But that's what we're working on refining. So when the world is fully refined, what will happen is God's will, meaning the mitzvah, the commandments which he has given us will be as evident. The flesh will see it. It'll be empirically evident that this is God's world, that God and his world are of one essence. that the soul and the body coexist. All of the the discord will will be will be harmonized and the underlying oneness of it all will just become it won't it won't be a philosophical abstraction any longer. It'll be empirically evident. You won't have to explain it conceptually. We will see it with our own fleshly eyes. And that's why you know what I said earlier about Hitchens formulation about the evolution of belief [snorts] you know I think it's a very important thing to realize that the trend of of science is to look for greater oneness deeper and deeper oneness and that I believe with full confidence that if human beings continue to look at this world thoroughly to look at this world, they will find oneness. So we don't have to be afraid that oh no, the scientists will eventually discover something that will finally deliver the death blow to primitive belief and then religion will be dead. No, go ahead, keep exploring because if they keep on looking, they'll eventually find oneness and then it'll be empirically evident what we've been saying for millennia. Okay. So, bottom line, oneness, infinite, finite, spiritual, material. Do a mitzvah. Do a godly act contained in a physical time and place. Refine the world and bring about the state where every single human being, whether they're Jewish or not Jewish, will live in a world where oneness is evident and revealed. And this will bring prosperity and healing and and and goodwill and peace to every single human being in the world. Okay? But it's through your mitzvah.