THE INCOHERENCE OF JEWISH BELIEF: TRUSTING "GOD"

I have noticed that there is a stark disconnect between the building blocks of Jewish theology and the final product of frum belief. Even assuming arguendo that our religion's origin story was entirely true, it still makes no sense to be frum. To explain:

Imagine you attend the most mind-blowing Discovery/Aish seminar in history. Using the most mathy math and sciencey science, the lecturers destroy evolution, multiverse narrishkeit, and every other vile piece of shtus uttered by Dawkins and his ilk. By the end of it, you are fully convinced that theism and the claims of Yiddishkeit are true beyond a doubt. Still, it would make absolutely no sense to be frum. Post the super-charged Discovery/Aish seminar, all you will be forced to believe is the truth of the following propositions:

1 - The universe was had a first cause

2 - The first cause had intelligence

3 - Life could not have begun by itself

4 - An entity with superhuman-capabilities appeared to a man in the desert and told him to free his nation from Egypt

5 - This entity is seemingly capable of performing remarkable manipulations of nature. It devastated Egypt and, (through the mouth of his messenger,) told the proto-Jewish people to follow his messenger into the desert

6 - This entity gave the Jewish people an incredible, mind-blowing experience while standing around a mountain. Like, a crazy experience that no one had ever felt before. Lights, shofers, thunder, psychedelic visible sounds, it was insane and utterly foreign to human experience until that time.

7 - The entity identified himself as:

1. The eternal

2. All-powerful

3. Creator of the universe

4. And the source of all existence

5. Who is perfectly good

6. And the foundation of all morality

8 - He then gave the Jewish people a book full of rules and said that their purpose of existence was to follow the directions in the book. He also encoded all sorts of codes in the book, showing how epicly smart he was.

The Problem:

Let's say all the above propositions were caught on camera. We saw the frogs jumping into the ovens and the Nile turning to blood. I still do not see how it follows that a rational person should practice Yiddishkeit.

Here are a few issues:

1 - Why should we take this entity at his word? Why do we have to assume that an entity that made a lot of epic pyrotechnics is the source of ALL existence? What proof do we have for that? Perhaps he is just playing on his older brother's saved game. How do we know that since he can turn rivers into blood that he started all of space/time?

2 - Why should we assume that this entity is absolutely good? Heck, why should anyone believe that he is not evil? There were a million ways for an omnipotent creator to get the jews out of Egypt that does not involve ****killing firstborn babies ****?! (I will not even mention the Chazal that God wiped out 4/5ths of the Jewish people before he took them out).

3 - Why should we take this entity at its word regarding the existence of an afterlife where we will receive reward and punishment for listening to whatever he tells us? How do we know he did not make up these other realities to keep us in line? What do we know about this entity's motivations to start blindly accepting his word?

4 - Why should we believe him when he says that he is omnipotent or all-knowing? Maybe he is mighty, but also very stupid. Maybe he has to take naps every few minutes and gets easily distracted by spiders? What independent reason do we have for believing the story that he told us about his "never-changing, immutable, unitary, and all-encompassing existence? Is that really the most cogent and intellectually rigorous conclusion that we should be drawing from the available data? What checks and balances have we run to verify this information.

5 - How do we know that this entity has our best interests in mind? Because he said so? Do we have any reason to assume God is not a Joker personality? Maybe we are like that poor character in Sim City who you send into the pool and then sell the pool ladder. Maybe we are in a messed up co-dependent relationship, and this entity is using us as a rebound relationship after a messy divorce with his previous "chosen people." How would we know? Are we just going on faith because he is a sweet talker?

6 - How do we know that this entity is still involved and invested in the original story. Maybe he abandoned the Jewish people. Sure, like a young hothead, he might have written us beautiful poetic love poems about his eternal and undying feelings, but so what?! It is circular and hopelessly naive to trust someone simply because they said to trust them. Even if you think this entity is a real stand-up guy who would never betray us like that, still, what do we really know about what is going on in his life? It has been thousands of years with zero communication. Nada. Zilch. I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, honey, but maybe he ain't coming. Even assuming he is good for his word, for all we know, he might have died in a freak god accident and gone to god heaven. Or maybe the Daleks attacked and took control of the timeline and trapped him in the Tardis. What do we actually know?

7 - Even if we could somehow verify that the entity that gave us the book is the same entity that created this universe, why does it make sense to surrender moral responsibility to this entity just because he wrote the program that powers our universe? If I make a conscious AI or a simulation, does that mean that I get to dictate what is moral and what isn't? How do we know that our moral sentiments are not superior to the entity that created the universe? Maybe we outgrew him.

This entity is essentially saying:

"Hey, you there, yeah, you, go kill that witch-heretic-shabbos violator. While you are at it, get a knife and chop off a bit of your baby's penis. Also, let your wife and children get their brains bashed in rather than bow down to two oddly shaped pieces of wood nailed together. Yeah, you gotta do that for me. Why, you ask. Because I said so. In my special system (which is far beyond your puny comprehension) this all makes tons of sense. I know you might have qualms killing that witch-heretic-shabbos violator, but disregard those feelings. Everything I say is DEFINITIONALLY right or wrong. Trust me on this one. I made this program, so I get to decide what is moral and immoral. You are all part of me, and I am One and perfectly indivisible, yadda, yadda, yadda, I am sure you won't understand. Anyway, listen to everything I tell you to do or there will be dire consequences. Like, do not mess with me. I can be loco. Do you want to eat your kids? Ok, so listen to legit everything I say."

A Rational Approach

A thinking person walking out of the mindblowing Discovery/Aish seminar should look at the available data and conclude the following:

There clearly exists some form of extra-terrestrial life with more extraordinary powers than the current technological limits of the human race. This alien tells us to do all sorts of stuff, but without verification, we know nothing about it, certainly nothing about its intentions. Sure, from a hostage standpoint, it might seem wise to listen to what it tells us to do. However, looking at the actual data, the alien's effect on this world seems completely arbitrary. In fact, there appears to be an inverse correlation between obeying its commands and being a happy and content nation.

Additionally, taking the claims of this alien at face value and assuming it created the universe we occupy, the rational conclusion is that this alien is pure evil. The designer of this program was sadistic enough to force sentient creatures to eat each other for sustenance. Like, really, there was no other way to figure this out?! The very fact that this alien is claiming credit for all the horrors of earthy existence should be enough for us to conclude that we possess a far more sophisticated moral compass than it.

For a rational person, a giant alarm bell should be the fact that this alien keeps insisting that everyone should trust him and that his knowledge is vastly superior to ours and unfathomable by our tiny brains.

The real conclusion is that, even if you assume all the facts of Judaism at face value, anyone with moral courage should stand up to this "God" and fight it with all their might. We are hostages caught in a hunger-games-themed nightmare ruled by a sadistic alien overlord. All the actual real tangible, verifiable evidence points to the fact that the further away you associate from this monster, the better your life and wellbeing will be. It is moral insanity to pick up a knife and mutilate your own son because some nutcase with the ability to hurt you claims that he is in charge and, in his supposed "infinite wisdom," thinks you should mutilate a newborn child.

Anyway, I would be thrilled if anyone can point me towards a traditional source that deals with any of these questions without resorting to blind faith.