Comments on: I am a Jewish Atheist

By: Zvi

Zvi — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:06:33 +0000

same here, grew up orthodox, since married a non-jewish girl. love the culture when it’s good, cant believe the supernatural.

By: Tero

Tero — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:56:19 +0000

Beautifully said!

By: Benson

Benson — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:59:14 +0000

I am with you, except that I don’t see a need for religious texts at all. But I’m on board with the “be a good person”, the lack of belief in a bearded dude, and the reasons for doing good in the world.

By: Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:00:00 +0000

I’m at the same intersect as you – bought up in an orthodox community but since married a non-Jew and gone astray.

The difficulty I have is that much of the identity (outside of the religious one) I gained was through zionism. I grew up hearing the stories (we all did) about draining swamps by day and dancing horas by night. I’ve spent plenty of time in Israel, speak the lingo and have most of my relatives there – the tragedy is that the swamps have been drained, no-one dances horas and Israel is just like a mini US – consumer driven and lacking in ideology.

What then for those of us who are areligious Jews? Where does our identity come from? The Shoah maybe? The cultural things? Who knows….

Anyway – keen to create another intersection at Webstock – how about a Jew/Athiest/Twitter user one?

(oh and ditto what Sue said – Google Lloyd Geering for an interesting take)

By: Yoz

Yoz — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:59:17 +0000

Someone close to me is a regular synagogue-goer. He and his wife are tightly-knit with the local Orthodox community, and they hold a kiddush at their house every Shabbat lunchtime. He’s a cohen, and has been known to get into a serious broygas with the rabbi over whether to duchan on Shabbat Chol HaMoed. He’s also the head of the Physics Department at a major London university, and has been agnostic for most of his life.

Religious culture is about more than appreciating lockshen soup or Isaac Bashevis Singer. It’s about community and tradition, and maintaining their virtues in an inclusive, rather than exclusive, way. If you throw this out when you stop believing in a god, you lose a huge amount of good stuff.

You don’t have to keep all of it; every religion has aspects that we may now find abhorrent or alienating. Loudly ditching those aspects for yourself increases the value of what remains, for everyone. It’s more about believing in yourself than believing in god, but also respecting the value in what’s come before.

Douglas Adams, one of the world’s most famous and most outspoken atheists, used to invite his friends around for carol-singing every Christmastime. If he could do it, why can’t we?

By: Zinzy

Zinzy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:27:33 +0000

I’m telling you Derek, this was the best thing I could’ve read all day.
I’m getting so sick of religious people sometimes screaming their beliefs and insulting the morals and standards of others (i.e. homosexuality is a sin and should be destructed as much as the rain forest should be saved – which effects me personally). I think it is wonderful to read that you, too, believe in a presence, which does not necessarily mean that you strictly believe in what you’ve been taught. I wasn’t raised with the Jewish religion, but regardless of what religion you grew up with, it’s nice to see that people are standing up saying: “No, I don’t believe that. This is what I believe.”

Yes we can.

By: Carrie

Carrie — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:39:41 +0000

Three cheers for Jewish Atheists! I am one too. Or more specifically: culturally Jewish, spiritually Atheist.

By: Seth Rubenstein

Seth Rubenstein — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:16:34 +0000

Ditto. Couldn’t have said it better.

By: JC

JC — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:57:32 +0000

If i had a more positive experience in my 30 years with members of the jewish community i was brought up in, then i may share your position. But, the cultural association is one i am apt to equally reject as the religious faith.

For those Jews i know with varying levels of faith (often very little), i have become disappointed that the values perpetuated along with the lovely traditions can include: bigotry, social (group)isolation, greed, and a sense of entitlement or elitism.

In addition to this i know many jews who can debate their positions on the support of israel quite well (although i often personally believe their support goes way over the line of reasonable and fair to all humans). On the other hand, there is another group of uneducated, indoctrinated blind supporters of the state, that year after year donate money and time to support the state or an organization they know little about.

So i think I’m trying to say. I’m just plain atheist.

By: Joshua Allen

Joshua Allen — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:06:11 +0000

Haha, reminds me of the old joke about “There is no God and Mordechai Kaplan is his prophet”.

However, I think the idea of Jewish Atheist is rather different from Atheistic Judaism. Also, there really isn’t anything terribly innovative about this position. It isn’t and will never be mainstream Judaism, but it has been and always will be a fringe. It has typically been fashionable in Jewish diaspora outside of Israel.

As long ago as 500BC we have records of Maccabean kings speaking out against emmanationist sects, munging Judaism with emmanationist philosophy is practically synonymous with Philo of Alexandria, and there is some record of the Rabbis speaking out against a similar philosophy in the Jewish community after the bar koba rebellion. Shaye D. Cohen’s book covers the history of the various trains of thought fairly well.