Reply To: Rav Nachman Of Breslov – The Heavy Weight Of Apikursos

WellInformedYid, the question is not if belief is less stressful than non-belief. The question is if non-belief is less stressful than doubt, and if belief relieves more stress vis-a-vis doubt than does non-belief. On a more parochial level, the article you cite has philosophical value if one buys into the “Pascal’s Wager” justification for belief (that the potential payoff of theism, both corporeally and possibly non-corporeally, vastly outweighs both the corporeal inconvenience of leading a theistic life as well as the potential incorporeal punishment for not doing so, thus necessitating transactional theism). That notion was not seriously pursued in Jewish thought and in fact seems to be rejected in the Talmud. Consider “All tihiyeh k’avadim hameshamshim et harav k’dei l’kebel pras. . .”