“I am going to talk to you today about God.”

In many of his sermons, Rabbi Olan talked about atheism and belief in God. In this sermon, delivered on February 11, 1968, he placed belief in God dead center.

Science is often seen as contradicting faith. But for Rabbi Olan, “The most convincing evidence for the reality of God comes today not from theologians or philosophers. It is the scientist who has uncovered a universe in which God is as real as any scientific truth.”

And without God, Rabbi Olan argued, humanity would have no significance. “If man is of no greater or lesser worth than anything else, then what difference does it really make whether we kill five thousand chickens or five thousand children.”

*Written by Joshua F. Hirsch*