I am a believing person but not particularly religious,
(spiritual but not religious).
I know some Jewish people who are observant but, when you ask them, do not actually believe in God. They are atheists or agnostics.
I wonder how common a pattern this is.
It makes little or no sense to me.
It might be related to medieval European history when Jews were pretty much blackballed from the rest of the society, which caused a special feeling of solidarity among them. thus, they often do not see themselves simply as a religion, but rather as a culture on their own. Maybe this is why many Jews keep their rituals even if they are not very religious.
Well, I’m intellectually an agnostic/soft atheist, but consider myself culturally Christian. Why? I don’t know – largely because of happy childhood memories of Christianity. We didn’t belong to a church until I was in my 'teens, but we were raised on bible stories and the golden rule and all that good stuff. Christmas and Easter were happy times in my family and the spritual componant of the holidays was never ignored, either. I still have an emotional reaction to much of Christian mythology. Furthermore, unlike many atheists I never developed a hatred for religion because my folks never tried to cram it down my throat. When I lost my faith, my mom and dad didn’t freak out, and they never tried to force me into going back to church. They respected me enough (even at 15) to let me own my own spirituality (or lack of it). Now, I’m married to a Lutheran and we coexist fine – he wanted to raise our kids Lutheran, and that’s fine with me. I raised them the same way I was raised (with Christmas and Easter and bible stories and the golden rule). Our kids are 13 and 14 now and are both in confirmation classes. I’m not a member of the church and don’t take communion, but I do go to church with them sometimes – in the same spirit that I used to go with my family when I was a kid – the family spirit.
I suspect it may be fairly common but folks like Jess who are honest about it are probably the exception. There are probably a large number of “churchy” people who are just going through the motions for various reasons but have no faith or firm theistic beliefs.
I’m agnostic going on atheist, but whenever I enter a small, well-kept church in the early fall or late spring with tender light coming in through the stained glass windows I have a sense of wonder and spirituality that is amazing. When I go down on my knees to pray there, I actually pray.
When I am in such a church, I am the closest I can come to being a believer, as long as I do not think.
I’m not sure what you mean by “observant” in terms of Jews, but as an Orthodox Jew, I can’t see the point of being an atheistic Orthodox Jew. After all, why refrain from eating non-kosher food is there is no God? Why refrain from wearing wool-linen mixtures? Why go through all the trouble of cleaning the house for Passover?
Lastly, of course, it is an article of Faith among Orthodox Jews that there is a God. If you don’t believe in the existence of God, I would venture to say that you aren’t an Orthodox Jew anymore.
Zev Steinhardt
I once met someone who kept kosher even though she didn’t beleive in God. This still makes no sense to me. Refraining from theft and murder, is a good idea regardless of your religous beliefs (To avoid nitpick-Kali’s followers, the Thugs killed and stole as a sacred act. But, I think ya see my point here.). Either norals or fear of punishment prevent hordes of looting, pillaging, raping atheists from rampaging through the streets.
I can understand maintaining a cultural Jewish identity. Rejecting the religion you're parents raised you in is no reason to reject the food they raised you on. The food and culture of our childhood home is comforting to most people.
It's the people who don't believe in God but follow religous law that confuse me. If not for my Judaism, I'd go crazy on double-bacon-cheese-burgers. Or I could finally try eel sushi. One of my high school VP's was an atheist but kept kosher. She did give the `cultural history' explanation. I can see that as reason to listen to Jewish music, eat Jewish food (gefilte fish etc) but not as a reason to shun pork.Zev, I really (italicize) do have Jewish friends and acquaintances who are professors who are very observant (Kosher house, shul more than once a week, observe the sabbath, do not drive, get rid of chomatz prior to passover, dovin in Hebrew for Sabbath and holidays, and all of the rest, and, I swear, do not believe in God.
Excuse me. I am a non observant Jew, who believes in God as a loving transcendent Being Who wants us to be better people and make the world a better place and also to love him.
But I think that the various observances are not the best way of serving him or showing love. In fact, I consider them mostly a waste of time, except for the fact that people do them for the right reason, loving God and obeying what they think he wants.
Isn’t this a strange situation?! They practice and do not believe. I believe and do not practice.
I think the latter is logical and rational. You can logically believe in a God and say “I’m not so sure he commanded this that and the other thing.” I’m not sure about the former, however. If your friends do not believe that there is a God who commanded these things, then why do them? For what purpose?
Zev Steinhardt
Zev,
Throughout history, many Jews have not believed in an afterlife, or at least a Heaven. IIRC, this was a major split between the Pharisees and the Saducees around the time of Jesus.
Why do all the Jewish rituals if there’s no Heaven? Just because it makes God happy? I’ll admit, I think it’s pretty silly too. But if people can do the rituals without believing that they’ll get any sort of reward for it, is that any more ridiculous than doing all the rituals without believing in God at all?
(Okay, I guess it is a bit sillier. I mean, if there’s no God, then the rituals are just a bunch of rules that men made up millennia ago, not divine revelations. But one could theoretically respect the power of a man like Moses to create rules which united a community and still be practiced generations later.)
My college boyfriend was like this–kept Jewish holidays, etc. without believing in God–and I could never figure it out. He has become even more observant in the past few years, and now keeps kosher. His wife converted to Judaism before they got married. (I think, however, that they keep only the rules they like, buffet-style.)
He claimed that although he didn’t believe in God, he respected his ancestors and wanted to keep their traditions. So he participated in worship of a being he didn’t actually think was there. Personally, I think his ancestors are probably spinning in their graves over this reasoning, but it’s not really my business any more.
I think that this type of behavior probably does exist in some of our fellow church-goers of all faiths, but I have to say that I think it’s not a great idea, esp. if you have children. I think it sets a rotten example of hypocrisy–your kids will always know if you think it’s all a sham, and it will infect their thinking. (Note that I’m not speaking of Jess’ type of behavior, which strikes me as perfectly straightforward, but people who fully participate in worship and pretend to believe, but who don’t and make no effort to do so.) —I hope that was coherent.
I don’t believe in God, in the Old Testament view of him. Until very recently, I kept Passover, did not eat meat with milk, did not eat shellfish or pork and even avoided catfish, fasted on Yom Kippur, and so forth.
Starting graduate school, having some poor experiences with some very fundamentalist frum people, and some other things basically forced me to reconcile my legacy Jewish traditions with my current world view. I basically decided to toss out the stuff which I feel was unnecessary for my happiness and I found that the Jewish traditions, for me, were non-fulfilling.
I believe I kept most of these until that point because it was something that I could use to identify my heritage and was part of my family – we still meet every Friday night and say the Kiddush.
zev and berdollos are exactly right. Many people out there keep many of the traditions of Judaism because they see it as a way to identify themselves as Jewish. They erect a mental wall between their worldview and their religious beliefs. I know lots. It takes a lot of effort and inner examination to realize that practicing Jewish customs has nothing to do with family and cultural traditions – it has to do with fulfilling God’ covenant. If you don’t accept God in the Old Testament view, then there is really no purpose to the whole tradition thing.
As a newly (last six months or so) observant Jew, it has been an interesting experience for me to take on the commandments and traditions - both of which have the same weight within Orthodox Judaism - while coming to some sort of understanding of Who or What God is. As I’ve come to understand it, Judaism puts greater emphasis on action than on faith, which means that even if there is no afterlife, there is still a concept of creating a paradise/heaven on earth by following the commandments.
This is best exemplified by the Sabbath - I don’t know if any of the other observant Jews on the board went through a period of time (for me 90% of my life so far) where they didn’t keep Shabbat, but I can guarantee to anyone, that properly observed, life can be completely transformed by Shabbat. I’m not interested in making anyone else take on any of the commandments, I’m just pointing out something I’ve noticed and which other people in my position have noticed.
As for kosher food, again as someone who’s experienced not keeping and now keeping kosher, I can say I don’t feel like I’m missing much. Always having to be aware of what you are eating is a way to learn self awareness. Even if you know food is kosher, saying the correct blessing means you can’t just plough in and eat whatever’s in front of you, you have to know exactly what it is. I’ve found this a great example of how life can be slowed down and appreciated a bit, rather than just blindly rushed through.
To get to the thread topic, having a little bit of faith/belief in God is probably enough to be fully involved in a Jewish life, if that’s the way you want to go, and there’s also a Jewish idea that actions change attitudes, so that if you have no interest in religion, but you keep kosher, etc, your attitudes will change. Lots of people on this board will consider this a bad thing, but I don’t think of it in that way.
HenrySpencer
**
Why is that so silly? I do things to keep my parents happy even though I get no “reward” for it.
In any event, I would like to make my position clear on the matter. While I think it is illogical and irrational, I still would not stop any Jew from performing the mitzvos, even if he doesn’t believe in God. Better that he perform them than not perform them.
Zev Steinhardt