News:

Welcome to our site!

Main Menu

Atheist Jew

Started by SGOS, January 15, 2018, 11:41:16 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

SGOS

It's a term I've heard on a number of occasions, but never by a person I would consider an authority.  I assume it's a former Jew turned atheist, but that's only my struggling attempt to make sense of what seems like a potential oxymoron.  It works if Jew is defined as a nationality, but I think that it's meant to mean something more.  What got me wondering about the special designation is that I have never heard someone say, "He's an atheist American," because the two descriptors are so unrelated that there is no reason to put the two together.  And you would never hear someone say, "He's an atheist Christian because the descriptors would be mutually exclusive.  But atheist Jew sounds like a term that is necessary to describe something extraordinary, but how or why?  Why not just say he is an atheist?

SGOS

I guess I could have looked it up first... duh!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism
QuoteJewish atheism refers to the atheism of people who are ethnically and (at least to some extent) culturally Jewish. Because Jewish identity encompasses ethnic as well as religious components, the term "Jewish atheism" does not inherently entail a contradiction.

For such Jews traditional practice and symbolism can still retain powerful meaning. They may continue to engage in Jewish rituals such as the lighting of Shabbat candles and find meaning in many aspects of Jewish culture and religion. For example, to an atheist Jew, the Menorah might represent the power of the Jewish ...

Baruch

The majority of Jews today, are secular.  That may or may not equate to atheist.  Depends on what Jew, secular and atheist mean.  Well, we all know how multivalent secular and atheist are.  Let me give you some recent history.

In the past of course, the majority of Jews were religious.  Jewish people lived in segregated ethnic patriarchal enclaves in the Muslim or Christian states.  Like Gypsies, only not moving around much, and more sophisticated, and Biblical instead of pagan.  When Jewish people were in migratory conditions, it might be hard to tell them apart, in pre-modern society.  Both Jews and Gypsies were "other".  Gypsies are mis-named ... being not from "Egypt" as Jews are from (by Biblical legend), but from India.  But they got to Europe thru Egypt, over the Indian ocean apparently.  Even in Medieval times of course, there were several major kinds of Jewish people, and not all of the same congregation ... per colloquial language used.  Jewish-Arabic, Jewish-Spanish, Jewish-Germanic etc.  Though most educated Jewish men also studied Hebrew and Aramaic.  There were many Jews still living in these traditional conditions in E Europe, as recently as 1939.  From about 1750 many Jews in W Europe, had left the ghetto and entered Gentile society.  They were called the Haskalim.  by 1900 this modernism had reached E Europe.  A 100 years earlier, A Portuguese-Dutch-Sephardic Jew, Baruch Spinoza, was one of the inventors of modernity.  Around 1750 in E Europe, there was the latest "back to basics" movement of the modern Hasidim.  Orthodox Jews or Mitnagdim were opposed to both movements.  By the late 19th century, due to European anti-semitism, and a revival of Zionism, many Jews emigrated to Palestine.  Most of these weren't religious, they were secular.  Late 19th century E European secular Jews were Bund aka secular and socialist.  Many of these who didn't go to Palestine, came to the US, before 1920.  This fueled a socialist movement in the US lasting until the 1970s.  The 1960s were a drastic time of change in the US ... as were the 1970s in Israel.

So here we are today. The majority of Jews in the US, in Israel and elsewhere are secular.  How goes synagogue attendance?  50% in Britain, 73% in Israel and 87% in the US are secular.  How many of these practice ethnic customs?  How many don't practice ethnic customs?  Among those who do attend synagogue, how many do so regularly, vs only on High Holy Days?  Among those who do not attend synagogue, how many of those are anti-religious vs simply irreligious?

In my case I am a theist, but I don't practice any ethnic customs, I do attend synagogue, and do so regularly.  My ethnicity is Gentile.  I have mixed genetics, but then most Jews do, if you examine their gene pool.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

#3
Quote from: SGOS on January 15, 2018, 12:14:15 PM
I guess I could have looked it up first... duh!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism

All true.  But Baruch Spinoza was the most famous modern atheist Jew, and one of the inventors of modernity and atheism.  This was particularly influential thu Leibniz, and the German university system of the 1700s to 1800s.  From that point forward ... Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche took hold.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

#4
Quote from: SGOS on January 15, 2018, 11:41:16 AM
It's a term I've heard on a number of occasions, but never by a person I would consider an authority.  I assume it's a former Jew turned atheist, but that's only my struggling attempt to make sense of what seems like a potential oxymoron.  It works if Jew is defined as a nationality, but I think that it's meant to mean something more.  What got me wondering about the special designation is that I have never heard someone say, "He's an atheist American," because the two descriptors are so unrelated that there is no reason to put the two together.  And you would never hear someone say, "He's an atheist Christian because the descriptors would be mutually exclusive.  But atheist Jew sounds like a term that is necessary to describe something extraordinary, but how or why?  Why not just say he is an atheist?

Why not just say he is an atheist?  Only if there is no ethnicity involved, but to be a Jew, is to be ethnic.  Americans have no ethnicity or religion.  Our civic religion binds us, in our relative multiculturalism.  They are not Biblical in origin, but mostly European and post Columbus.

As far as nationality goes, I don't believe that most Jews in Israel today, are even Jewish.  Muslims are correct about this, though of the wrong reasons.  Few Jews are of Kazar (Turkish) ancestry, just as the majority of Muslims aren't Arabs, though they all like to claim they are, because of greater prestige.

So yes, some Jews today, are formerly religious.  Though many were raised that way starting around 1750.  Most Jews are as Gentile as any other secular person in the West.  Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are mostly genetically Gentile too.

See "The Vanishing American Jew" by Alan Dershowitz.  That documents what happened in the US over the last 50 years.  Mr Dershowitz is a formerly orthodox Jew.  But some go the other way, back to orthodoxy.  They are "baal teshuvim".
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

#5
General religious POV in GB ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giv_XmOTr0w

So 3.6% are problematic, because they are both strongly theistic, and strongly puritanical ...

Or course if they are either Muslim or Hindu ... they are "other", are more scary than the more traditional kind like Guy Fawkes.

Of course events like the English Civil War, was an example of religious fundamentalism ... aka extreme right-wing politics in the guise of religion.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: SGOS on January 15, 2018, 11:41:16 AM
And you would never hear someone say, "He's an atheist Christian because the descriptors would be mutually exclusive.

Well, there's Christian Atheism, and also Atheists For Jesus. But I admit, it seems rather oxymoronic.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Draconic Aiur

So a atheist jew is a jew that thinks they are better than all of us.

Unbeliever

No, they know they are...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

omokuroi

Quote from: Unbeliever on January 16, 2018, 02:41:06 PM
Atheists For Jesus
Why would you support a man who feels so entitled he curses fig trees just for not being ripe when he wishes? Sort of a jerk, isn't he?

Unbeliever

Yeah, I thought he was a jerk for that, even when I was a Christian!
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Draconic Aiur on January 16, 2018, 03:18:04 PM
So a atheist jew is a jew that thinks they are better than all of us.

Not funny.  Tribal Jews of course think they are better than all Gentiles.  That is part of all tribalism, including nationalism and speciesism.  A theist Jew knows better than that, if they are actually religious, not just ethnic and virtue signaling.  Atheist Jews have no restraint on their chutzpah.  Just ask Karl Marx.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on January 16, 2018, 03:28:25 PM
Yeah, I thought he was a jerk for that, even when I was a Christian!

Its symbolic, but a cruel joke anyway.  It presages the destruction of the Jewish people.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Gilgamesh

Quote from: Draconic Aiur on January 16, 2018, 03:18:04 PM
So a atheist jew is a jew that thinks they are better than all of us.

The atheistic ashkenazi jews sure do.


Baruch

#14
Quote from: Gilgamesh on January 16, 2018, 08:11:37 PM
The atheistic ashkenazi jews sure do.

Sephardic or Mizrahi?

The prejudice is that Gentiles are inferior, mentally ... because Gentile persecution raised the average IQ for Jewish people, not that we wanted to be smarter.  The cost of 5000 years of oppression and murder, are too high.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.