Hamster is the gentile atheist of the couple and is proud that his (I assume … King) ethnic Jewish cooking rocks. What’s not to get?
If it’s a good rule, does it matter if it comes from God or not?
Passover is a nice meal combined with a good story. Isn’t that enough reason to observe it?
Do you need to believe in Santa Claus to put up a Christmas tree?
I like to represent.
Give me Judaism over ‘proper atheism’ any day.
Ask the guy who’s mom named him Judaism.
There is no universal opinion about God in Judaism and if you took an up and down vote amongst 13 million, they majority would side with us.
But this is a wonderful and pluralistic way of life we belong to, so the minority opinion does not automatically invalidate the rest.
Am I the only one who thinks that bits like this show why trying to debate the issue with people who don’t understand the basics is a bit like spitting into the wind?
And yet we keep talking…
No, if you follow things back to how this started, that isn’t the point of the thread. The point is that if you are discussing Judaism it is important to understand the Jewish world view and that the Jewish approach to religion is radically different from the gentile’s.
Belief is a non issue. It isn’t the point, and looking at Judaism through the lense of a Christian style “faith above everything” philosophy will give you the wrong impression.
This has been a really educational thread (at least for this lurker), but I have one quick question regarding belief in other gods (the atheism angle has been proven rather thoroughly, I think).
I’m trying to phrase this non-stupidly, but I freely admit that my background is largely the 4 pages of this thread. In other words, apologies in advance for any offense or mistaken impressions.
Christians believe in a single God, as do Muslims, so they’re out of the tribe because they believe in another tribe’s dude. No kow-towing to another tribe’s magic-sky-chief allowed. I got that part. Makes total sense.
Shinto/Buddhist are usually in because those are more philosophy and don’t include specific deities which require allegiance. That makes sense also.
What about people who are animists or totemists? Animists are basically the “everything (including inanimate/unliving objects) has a spirit or is a portion of the universal spirit” version, where totemists are more the “everything has a spirit/is part of a spirit and this one kind (tree, bear, sloth) is my particular kinfolk” version.
Where would something like that fall? With the slow growing of Pagan-style belief systems, does something like that even ever come up?
Thanks, and for what it’s worth I think that certain people could have been a bit more civil with you.
I’m sure the totomists could jive well with Judaism. I mean, we have a custom where we cover the challah (bread) and the (for children) reasoning is ‘so the bread doesn’t feel bad it is the last one to get a blessing’.
Absolutely nothing is ignored. 
Ok, so if I understand you correctly you are saying there is no consensus view about whether Judaism commands its adherents to believe in G-d.
Right?
This is where this thread began. With a claim that it is easy to be an atheist within a Jewish context, and a claim by someone who is not Jewish that such is not true.
No, not with someone’s passion to be acknowledged as an atheist. And in short brocks was very wrong and IvoryTowerDenizen very right.
As to Lasciel’s question … I’m with CitizenPained and would guess that so long as those spirits are not worshipped or imbued with powers reminiscent of gods that the concept of non-human creatures having souls would be kosher, so to speak. Although I am not sure that anyone takes the bread bit, or for that matter “the Sabbath Bride” (the Sabbath being a bride) as literal, like animists do regarding the spirit of trees, etc.
brazil84, really? You really don’t feel the answer has been given by now? Really what is your point by now? What is it that you want to understand that has not been already explained ad nauseum?
My understanding of animism and totemism would jibe with the other folks’ as well. Jewish tradition, after all, is full of myths about dibuks and golems and such, and kaballah is fairly heady mystic stuff, so I don’t see that belief in other hippy-dippy type things would necessarily be a bar to membership in the religious community. Odd looks, perhaps, but not expulsion.
Paganism, depending on what you mean, probably would be. At the point where you start worshiping another pantheon of Gods or claiming that the moon has divine powers, or what have you, you’ve most likely left the fold. Then again, as paganism is fairly new, idiosyncratic and malleable, I’d hestitate to offer any blanket statement about what paganism ‘is’ let alone how all Jews would react to it.
Thanks very much to all three of you - that’s very interesting to learn.
(back to lurking!)
I’m not sure what you mean by this question, but there have been a lot of unclear statements in this thread. And there have been posts which implied that there is a consensus view.
For one thing, I’m not entirely sure what Citizenpained meant with the statement that “there is no universal opinion about God” – does it mean opinion about whether belief is commanded? Or opinion about existence itself? Probably my interpretation is correct, but how hard would it be to just say “Yes, you understand me correctly.”
No prob. It’s good when the Dope can be about fighting ignorance, not dealing with The Fighting Ignorants.
Come on DS, do you have to ask?
The next round will, most likely, be asking for an “authority” to back up any answer that’s given. Then we rinse and repeat.
The answers have been given and given and given. At some point those of us who having trying to explain the place of God belief within the range of modern Jewish thinking have to just give it up. We apparently cannot say it in a way that you can or will comprehend it. End.
Right.
There’s an essay on Jewish pagan (or something similar - Wiccan maybe?) practice in the 2001 Jewish feminist anthology Yentl’s Revenge, but I haven’t read it since it came out so I can’t remember it very well. /unhelpful