By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
(This is a rejected response to two letters to the editor in the Philippine Daily Inquirer
bashing belief in God.)
eeing an opening in the news of the recent death of atheist scientist Stephen Hawking, two letter writers have sang paeans to unbelief on this space. Robert Hyndman (“Science, progress and atheism,” 3/19/2018) got so carried away he credited the advances in science that has benefited mankind to “97 percent of scientists around the world who doubt the existence of God, any god.” He gave no source. But based on the Wikipedia article “Category: Lists of Nobel laureates by religion” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: Lists_of_Nobel_laureates_by_religion), among scientists who won Nobel Prize, those who believe in God outnumber the nonbelievers 148 to 92.
Having pointed that out, let me now proceed proving the Nobel Prize and the Forbes Magazine validate the Bible. As of 2017, including the 120 Jewish scientists who believe in God, 81 more Jews were honored by the world’s most prestigious award-giving organization (including Albert Einstein who is a non-believer). This is foreseen in the Bible. First, the incalculable benefits bestowed by the Jewish Nobel laureates to humankind is referred to in Genesis 22:8: “And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed–all because you have obeyed me.”
Second, the fact that 201 Jewish Nobel laureates consist a breathtaking 22.5 percent of the 892 individual recipients of Nobel Prize specially so that the Jews make up less than 0.2 percent of the world’s population was foretold in Deuteronomy 28: 13: “The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.”
Of course, when you are “the head, not the tail,” you are intellectually superior. Studies have shown that among ethnic groups, Ashkenazi Jews who consist an estimated 75 percent of Jewry have the highest average IQ in the world. In their study “Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence,” Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, Henry Harpending of the Department of Anthropology University of Utah (http://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/papers/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf) concluded that Jews have an average IQ of 112-115. The second ranked Hongkong Chinese have 107.
Naturally, part of “always being at the top, never at the bottom,” is to be richer than others. The Internet has a lot of materials on this subject among which are the following: “10 Jews in Forbes top 50 billionaires” https://www.timesofisrael.com/10-jews-in-forbes-top-50-billionaires/; and “At least 139 of the Forbes 400 are Jewish” (https://www.jta.org/2009/10/05/fundermentalist/at-least-139-of-the-forbes-400-are-jewish). The first article is about the 2015 worldwide Forbes list while the second is about the magazines 400 richest Americans list for 2009.
The Jews are also formidable in war. Since 1948 when the nation of Israel has been established, they have gone to war with the Arabs several times and have so far not tasted defeat. Most notable of these armed confrontations was the Six-Day War in 1966 when the Israel Army badly routed the joint forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan and the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when it defeated the armies of Egypt and Syria which had combat support from Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, Cuba, Morocco and Tunisia. For those who may be puzzled by how come tiny Israel have so far dominated the Arabs in their armed conflict might find Leviticus 26:8 interesting. It says: “Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.”
As for the seeming contradiction between the claim that the Jews are God’s chosen people on one hand and being scattered all over the world to remain stateless for more than a millennium and being distinguished as the most hated and persecuted race in history, that too is covered by the Deuteronomy 28. While the chapter assures the Jews blessing for obedience to God’s commands, it also warns of severe punishment in case of disobedience. From verse 15 to the end of the chapter, the writer pictured spot on the horrors the Jews went through for more than a millennium culminating with the Holocaust in World War II.
The Bible also predicted the re-establishment of the Jews as a state: “And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:12); and “And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.” (Amos 9: 14, 15.) The latter reference accurately foretold not only the restoration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 but how the Jews transformed the barren land into an agricultural miracle in just two generations.
It would be interesting to hear Hyndman, Juergen Schoefer ( “No ordinary scientist,” 3/20/2018) and others convinced Hawking was right when he said there is no God explain away how an ancient writing is deadly accurate in its predictions of the sharply contrasting experiences of the Jewish people including their startling dominance of the Nobel Prize (22.5 percent of all awards given to individuals) and the Forbes Richest list (10 of the world’s top 50 billionaires). A good place for them to start is how come the race of whom it is written “God will set you high above all nations of the earth” (Deuteronomy 28: 43) comfortably leads all ethnic groups in average IQ.
If they cannot disprove that the Old Testament foreknew what would befall the Jewish nation, that’s tantamount to acceptance of the other contents of the Bible all of which would not have been to the liking of the atheist Hawking. **
