I have this love and hate relationship with Atheists, it just so happens to be that Atheists are almost always interesting and smart people, but sometimes their militant views can get on my nerve, probably the same way religious fanatics get on their nerves. So I’m sitting at this meal on the first night of Rosh Hashanah and none other than a vocal Atheist is at the meal, surrounded by a bunch of Baalei Teshuva trying to convince him to check out Akiva Tatz. I kept my mouth shut for most of the meal.
I guess Atheism is kind of like abortion, both sides make perfect sense to me and so I when confronted with an Atheist or Abortion debate I usually keep my mouth shut. No, I can’t prove to you my reasoning for my belief in God or Judaism, and no I don’t think it makes much sense, but it works for me and I’d appreciate it if you don’t try to do kiruv towards me. On the other hand, one of the reasons that Atheists are usually bent on doing kiruv towards religious folks and general believers is because religious folks usually can’t deal with Atheists. They just don’t get how someone could not believe and so they feel the need to push their beliefs in an effort to convince the Atheist that they’re wrong.
It can be quite painful to watch the two sides debating something that you can totally relate to, yet don’t want to involve yourself with for precisely that reason. It’s kind of like the gay thing, straight folks think that gay folks are trying to “shove it in their faces” when in reality we straight folks have shoved our straightness in their faces forever, with our billboards, nuclear families, and storybooks depicting loving straight couples. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if we want those darned Atheists to leave us alone, we have to leave them alone. I’m pretty sure that in other communities (besides for Orthodox Judaism) many folks of varying backgrounds and religious beliefs can be friends without getting all up in each others grills all the time.
Don’t worry, no one was converted to Atheism or frumkeit on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, but I’m pretty sure that the Atheist could have the upper hand if he got a hold of a wavering BT who was into science and logic. I’m also sure that eventually this formerly frum Atheist may be won over by the warmth of a lively friendly shabbos table, because how the hell else are you going to meet anybody outside of work or school around here. I’m basically wondering when the openly Atheist BT will come into existence.
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In truth the only point of being a BT is the “warmth” of the judging frum community and the social connections. If you want logic and truth go with atheism or pantheism.
It would be better to have no religious affiliation.
Well said well said, here, here! In my experience, I find atheists and bts devoid of and searching for the same thing. A sense of community, a sense of belonging. Another commonality I find is G D has nothing to do with it.
Ah very astute
That false equivalence lets you feel superior to both, but it’s still false.
There’s at least half a dozen kinds of atheists according to Silver and Coleman’s research. So right off the bat saying “I find atheists” is a bit of an oversimplification.
1) Intellectual atheist/agnostic
2) Activist
3) Seeker-agnostic
4) Anti-theist
5) Non-theist
6) Ritual atheist
Not believing in gods (Jehovah is just one of the many gods they don’t believe in) doesn’t mean the person is looking for a community or to belong to something like a religious organization. While some get involved in humanist or freethinking groups most don’t and don’t care to. It would be like joining a club for people who aren’t Giants fans and dressing up in every color combination except gray and blue.
With BTs you are somewhat firmer ground. Love bombing and other standard cult techniques are part of kiruv, designed to give the chump a huge dose of oxytocin and dopamine. Even then, plenty of people increase their level of observance out of genuine religious feeling, not out of a burning desire to belong.
Satire (n) using wit humor or irony to expose folly…. on that note… there are no atheists or bts in fox holes…..
Also, I never heard of a guy who found out he has cancer and he said “Oh well! I guess I’m not part of ‘survival of the fittest’ . I’ll just suffer and disappear. By by world! I’m just a fly anyway.
well, the genes for passively accepting the fact that nature is culling you aren’t particularly conducive to survival. I imagine natural selection got rid of them a while ago
When are you going to report on this?? http://www.jerusalemkoshernews.com/2013/09/avoiding-insect-infestation-in-sukka-scach/
One day, I’d like to respond somewhat like I responded to a rabbi who, after one visiting rabbi gave a whole class on gilgulim, started pooh-poohing the whole idea of gilgulim & reincarnation. I told him, “You know why you don’t believe in gilgulim? Because in a previous life, you refused to believe in gilgulim!”
Maybe something along the lines of “You were an atheist in a previous life, and G-d mercifully gave you one more chance to have faith in Him!” I’d never say it because of the “mind game” aspect, but boy am I tempted!
(I have a weird sense of humor in general, & love those lines where you’re not sure exactly what the guy meant: After blowing shofar, “Wow! You really blew it!” Coming back from a wedding, “The wedding went without a hitch!” So, you see how I’d like to confuse the atheist…)
I guess it’s win-win for me. If I’m right, I zapped an Enemy of G-d! If he’s right, there’s no god to zap me for persecuting him! Hmmmm…
In reality, I use the “I have no imagination” tack. Atheists tell me my problem is I’m too unsophisticated, aren’t imaginative enough to contemplate a godless world, so how can they argue with my “I have no imagination” non-apology?
It goes along the lines of “I’m sorry, I just have no imagination! Personally, if I see one brick perfectly placed on two bricks, I naturally assume someone put it there. So when I see 3.2 billion base pairs coded on one infinitesimally small DNA strand, it’s hard for me to imagine there wasn’t some Planner!”
Or “I’m sorry, I just have no imagination! Personally, if I see that many of my prayers seem to be responded to in an uncanny, often immediate, sometimes almost miraculous way, it’s hard for me not to picture that there’s some Being involved!”
Overall, I need to agree with many of the posters: I’ve checked every foxhole in my neighborhood, & did not find a single atheist in any of them!
Love it S.S.! My dog Is a gilgul for sure! May as well come clean. … my oldest graduated yeshiva in June went to beis medrish in Yerushalayim with 5 classmates and they are all strugling to find G D. Ffb’s looking for G D, ironic no? I tried to explain to him the last place you are going to find G D is in a beis medrish. If you really want to find G D, you must look where you least expect him to be! Spoken like a true atheist or an apecorsis. I’m never sure of
the difference.
All atheists are apikorsim, not all apikorsim are atheists.
Nonsense.
Because?
An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of God, and someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of God is an apikores. But someone who denies, for instance, that the Torah was given to Moshe is also an apikores, even if he believes in God, which would make him a theist or deist.
Still mumbo jumbo to me.
Claudia, a couple of things
first of all, congratulations on the most creative spelling of ???????? in English that I have ever seen.
Second, it depends which Bet Midrash- try one of the yeshivot that are willing to confront spiritual issues sincerely rather than encouraging a “non-questioning” attitude and telling you to keep your nose in the same Tosafot for 10 hours a day three days straight. I find that the modern Israeli yeshivot, like the hesder places, are far more satisfying in that sense.
Sorry, the question marks up there are supposed to be Epikurus in Hebrew. Heshy, how can you possibly call yourself “frum satire” and not have a server that can handle Hebrew writing?
I was on a trip to En Gedi once, and I ran into a yeshiva guy from a very frum yeshiva. Somehow, we wound up discussing Rabbi Slifkin, and when the conversation got around to the possibility that the Rishonim might occasionally make mistakes, I got a reply along the lines of “Truth, is, I try not to think about that kind of thing too much, because it’s bad for my Emunah”.
I decided not to try to destroy the poor kid’s Emunah any further, but this is a classic case of the sort of yeshiva where you probably won’t find God.
http://militaryatheists.org/atheists-in-foxholes/
While I, like Einstein feel Spinozism and like-minded theorists are as close as we are going to get right now to a religious belief system that makes sense, the draw back is there is no community or commanded/forced via fear/guilt mongering, to bring together people. Shabbat table is warm and inviting most of the time; however the question is, is it worth the restrictions if you believe in your heart and in your mind that theism is false?
Why haven’t deists, Spinozists, and those with similar ideas created communities to bond with each other? Do they not have the human need for community, do they find that community somewhere else that I am not aware of, or do they have a hole in their lives? Why don’t they have “bonding meals” to pick up the social benefits without any theology? If you want to try a “bonding meal” can I come? I promise I won’t mention you-know-who . . .
Me too I wanna bond! I think it’s the nihilists who who avoid bonding. ..
I think because created rituals and rules of an organized religion would destroy the purity of Spinozism or Panthiesm. It would turn it into just another mindless drone factory or probably even a cult like Massoric Rabbinical Judaism.
“An Atheist and a Baal Teshuva walk into a bar…”
They both say “Ouch!”. The BT uses it as a prop for Hashgacha Pratit and keeps on saying there’s no such thing as coincidence.
ROTFF
“Don’t worry, no one was converted to Atheism or frumkeit on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, but I’m pretty sure that the Atheist could have the upper hand if he got a hold of a wavering BT who was into science and logic. I’m also sure that eventually this formerly frum Atheist may be won over by the warmth of a lively friendly shabbos table, because how the hell else are you going to meet anybody outside of work or school around here. I’m basically wondering when the openly Atheist BT will come into existence.”
This paragraph really speaks to me. I feel like I’m a closest Agnostic BT and it is a very lonely place to be. I feel serious conflict over my new found religious observance and Scientific fact. It’s a constant struggle and I lose sleep over it a lot. Part of me feels internally OTD, but the idea of not being frum is also really sad to me. It’s a strange and very lonely spot to be, in that it’s totally unacceptable to talk about and would be really bad for Shidduchim.
The largest growing religious group in America are people who were raised religious and now consider themselves spiritual.
Agreed. Its spiritual evolution.
I think of G D and religion the same way I do Elvis. I love Elvis. It’s his fan clubs that freak me out!
I’m sure the formerly frum atheist whom Heshy met will realize that he’s hardly the only guy in shul who does not actually believe in a man with a long flowing beard sitting upon the clouds and placing chips on the scales of justice every time we do a mitzvah or aveirah. It’s that most of the people in shul pretend they do and he does not.
For me its a question of morality. Athiests have trouble reconciling free will with determinism. Without free will there can be no morality. Social Darwinism is a recipe for racism and shameless exploitation of the weak.
Plenty of Athiests are decent people. The recent for this is that they have absorbed ambiant Christian values from their environment with out realizing it. They may mock the Virgin birth and turning wine into water, but most Athiests that I know still make an attempt at “love thy neighbour as thyself”.
The Athiests that I know are nearly all advocates of “the golden rule”. Is this “golden rule” encoded somewhere in our genes? Absolutely not! Humans are capeable of truly horrendous evil. It is culture, education and religion that civilizes us and permits us to live together in communities.
I’ve noticed that those who don’t believe in God also don’t believe in Evil. They seem to be a little naive about human nature and genuinely surprised that there is stil crime and war and injustice in the world.
Or if they do believe in Evil, they believe that all Evil is commited by religious folk. Crusades, Spanish inquisition, etc…. Athiests are perfectly rational and logical. They never get angry or succumb to other base human emotions. Just don’t mention the tragedy and human suffering of Socialism, it might ruin their arguments.