Atheism, observance and orthodoxy

All,

David here,

This is something written elsewhere, but as it is on my heart, I thought I'd reproduce it here, for my own readership to ponder. The context is about how atheist  Jews in the orthodox community continue to observe Judaism, for community and family reasons, but no longer believe in God (albeit the atheism isn't public).

 This was my response:

I don't feel I fit into the categories mentioned, but I would say I'm a Jew first and foremost, of the Sephardic tradition, who believes in God and specifically the God of the Tanakh. I do have theological issues with taking all of the bible literally, such as a talking donkey, a talking serpent, a flying and talking scroll,  a six day creation et al. I  have had personal issues from the past where I have often questioned the almighty and been somewhat estranged from him, but I do see this questioning as part of the Jewish tradition. 

 I've come to appreciate that one can never fully understand God,  I believe a rabbi one said "if I knew him, I would be him"(Judah ha Levi) and as it is written:

"As you do not know the path of the wind, or how life enters the body being formed in the mother's womb, so you cannot understand the works of God, the maker of all things"(Ecclesiastes).

I also understand atheists who are observant for cultural or family reasons. That's a distinctive feature of Judaism, a nation and a community, fused into a religion which permeates every aspect of oneself and life. We are more than a group of religious believers, but a global family. And to me family and community are key aspects of Judaism. We don't turn our back on  family and therefore we shouldn't turn our backs or force them out, that those who struggle with God, with beliefs, but who wish to still be in the tent. I think one of the US presidents, Lyndon Johnson made a quip about tents and people shouting out, rather than into the tent.

A concluding thought to ponder. Does God prefer the most pious person, who observes the rituals and believes with dogmatic precision, but acts in a shameful fashion or the one who just tries with all of their heart?

Discuss.

Has Dawkins gone over to the religious ?

The 6 Principles of Atheism

Below are what I call the '6 statements and Mantras of atheism', which are 9 times out of 10 banded around by atheists online and offline : 

1. Religion is homophobic, sexist and racist 
2. You pick and choose what you want from your religion
3. The religious are always seeking "special treatment" in respect of their faith;The religious should just go away into a locked room
4. Religion is unscientific and not appropriate for the modern day world 
5. The Bible is an evil book about god- endorsed genocide and has nothing to offer the world
6. Kosher slaughter is barbaric and male circumcision is child abuse

Is it just me or can one see the irony here, that atheists have a creed or statement of belief themselves, even as they bash other religions ?  I do, of course, have my own replies about these statements, but I'd be intrigued to see what the readers think of these.

Feel free to discuss the 'holy six', whether you agree or not  and to add to the list ,in the comments section.

A note on Kosher slaughter

One of the challenges that the Orthodox community faces is the current campaign against Jewish ritual slaughter which, along with male circumcision, is one of the targets of the so-called enlightened liberal brigade, especially bodies such as the national secular society. Indeed a couple of weeks ago one of Britain's leading vets also got into the act as well, thus forcing David Cameron to publicly confirm that he would not be seeking to legislation to ban Kosher slaughter in the UK (to the Israeli Knesset).

What absolutely and utterly gets on my wick, is that we have a bunch of people (the National Secular Society)  who go around and say religion shouldn't interfere with society or politics, and yet here we have a group that wishes to poke its nose into a religious practise and belief. Secondly, it seems to me that  when discussing ritual slaughter, people portray our religion as being anti-animal welfare, which is the biggest load of cock ever .The  is a Jewish concept of 'Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim', that is regarding cruelty to animals which is prohibited under Jewish law, this says a great deal about looking after animals, as various Biblical quotes indicate. I'd say that this is one thing opponents of Kosher slaughter in the the National Secular Society and other lobby groups, don't quite grasp, that Judaism has always taken animal welfare seriously, long, long before the west started to legislated against animal cruelty (Jews are even forbidden to hunt for sport), so I spot the rich irony here of animal rights activists jumping up and down about the 'barbarity' of Kosher slaughter. 

In terms of why we do not 'stun' animals, the most straightforward & blunt approach is to say that for us these methods of slaughter were divinely given teachings to us, from G-d via Moses, to follow for all time and as understood and explained in our Oral Torah and the vast bulk of Jewish legal opinion throughout the centuries. But OK if you are not Jewish then this argument means nothing, but there is also a secular argument to put forward a well, which I will now discuss.

In respect of stunning, the difficulty for us here is that we cannot eat an animal that has been injured before slaughter and stunning is seen as injuring an animal. In respect of stunning itself, I’d say that there is no guarantee that the animal is being rendered insensible to pain, the animal could in fact be only part paralysed, so all you are seeing is the animal being unable to express its pain .Furthermore sometimes stunning fails and means the animal has to be re-stunned which doubtless increases the animal’s suffering and this in what will be an extremely stressing ‘mechanical’ environment for the animal; whereas in Jewish Kosher slaughter, this is less mechanical as it is done by hand, by a trained professional called a shochet (who has to follow various rules of the method of slaughter). Shechita avoids these problems, as there are no mechanical or electrical appliances that can go wrong. The Schechita produces an effective and irreversible stun as well as being humane and efficient slaughter method.

Of course, I suspect most of this will fall of deaf ears.Most of the time, people don't bother with facts, but leap on the anti-religious bandwagon, which is a pity, given that the claim to authority by secularists is one of rationality, fact checking and erudite logic...

Clowns who are utterly terrifying : left/liberal steamroller

OK, perhaps I might be guilty of a few little strawmen here, but what do I mean by 'left/liberal ideological steamroller'? When I write about this I mean the types who frequent 'Comment is  Free' on the Guardian, but could also mean liberal democrats, labour politicians and the general world view of the modern elite (Tory party included), often fulled by a militant atheism which automatically sees all religion as 'bad', even as they advocate some atrocious things themselves. At least that's how it is here in Britain. Now we could dismiss  these people as poltroonish clowns, but their policies are equally frightening; besides which the lunatics have taken over the philosophical & governmental  asylum and if religious people 'pick and choose', then we've learned it from this first, as they are the world's worst, at least when it comes to trying to practically work through who might be called a 'liberal' outlook. 

I'll give a few examples of conversions I've had with such people: 

1. As a liberal I believe in freedom of religion... 

-Kosher slaughter is a barbaric treatment of animals and should be banned 

-Male circumcision is child mutilation and should be banned

-Religions shouldn't be involved in politics, keep it at home , but it's OK to be an atheist and put forward a political view on that basis 

-Religions that opposed gay adoption are homophobic and should loose charitable status

- The Church of England needs to 'get with the programme'  re women Bishops despite deciding to vote against it themselves. 

2.  Capital Punishment is state sanctioned murder and therefore wrong...

-Abortion is a  right  of women in any circumstances

-Assisted suicide is right, as people have the right to do what they want with their life 

- Suicide is a right  and if people want to take their life, it is up to them

-I support  euthanasia and living wills 

3.  conservatives are all  far right swivel eyed  and or Nazi type loons...

-Conservatives just don't think rationally about anything 

-Israel is an apartheid state and needs to be boycotted/shouldn't exist 

-Non of the policies of the above were ever considered or implemented by far right states, as I'm rational and the Nazis never argued they did what they did because of rationality.

- Conservatives are homophobic, racist and sexist, it doesn't matter if they introduced same sex marriage, that the fist Jewish , that the first female Prime Ministers were from the conservative fold.

I could go on, but I'd be here all day... isn't the self satisfaction and self- contradictions utter terrifying ?