Perhaps.
Assuming this is true, so what? You seem to be responding to a point that I did not make. That’s not productive.
See posts #270 and 271.
Fine, then the folks who inhabit Kiryas Joel clearly qualify as being among the more conservative elements.
Of course, even if we are dealing with the Orthodox (and quite possibly even the ultra-Orthodox) the same dynamic remains true and there is no requirement for belief. As brazil has been corrected, perhaps literally 100 times by now, even when something is advocated or very strongly encouraged within a sect of Judaism, there are very few things that are actually required, and to my knowledge only one category of belief that contains a requirement.
And even then, it’s a negative requirement in that category of belief, which is that you have no other religion. There is no positive requirement that you have faith in God. I’m aware of no Orthodox congregation which will expel members who lose their faith and/or don’t have faith (and brazil, predictably, both can not and will not provide any citations to back up such an event ever occurring).
And even then, assuming that an Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox congregation claimed you weren’t a religious Jew, despite your level of observance, because you didn’t have faith in God… then you could still just join virtually every single Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist congregation on the planet.
And even then, it’s perfectly possible to be a practicing, religious Jew without being affiliated with any congregations.
So the answer to the OP is and always has been that of course there’s nothing “deceptive” about saying you’re an atheist Jew. It’s perfectly possible to be an atheist and a religious Jew, and the only possible way to even begin to argue that all the Jews who’ve posted in this thread, and all the cites provided in this thread, are wrong, is with goalpost-shifting and errors as the OP did, or this bizarre and tiresome non-debate and anti-discussion that brazil has offered up. One thinks that if brazil had a way to support his beliefs or prove his point, that he’d have done it some time before he’d posted 4 dozen times (or is it 5?). Instead all we get are imagined contradictions and this endless needling. I realize I’m bumping the thread to no good purpose, but the sheer absurdity of those arguing in the teeth of the facts is noteworthy. I’m still curious as to what on Earth they are even attempting to accomplish. It’s like yelling at the rain to stop falling.
What’s the end game?
I note that this argument is purely semantic.
You (Finnagain) are apparently defining “required” as stuff you have to do if you don’t want to be expelled from Judaism.
I have defined the word “required” differently for purposes of this discussion.
Hasid commentators have called non-believers ‘ignorant’.
You can’t require someone to believe anything. You can require them to do something. This isn’t a religion that requires you to believe in magic.
I can’t imagine how someone would even go about attempting to compel belief. Maybe A Clockwork Orange style sermons?
And still (of course) absolutely no cites about how belief is required even in Orthodox Judaism. Even in ultra-Orthodox Judaism. One is almost (almost!) tempted to think that they haven’t been posted after so many posts and so many days… because they don’t actually exist. But I note that brazil is also trying to redefine “required” as he attempted to redefine “consensus”. Presumably “contradiction” has also been Humpty Dumptied.
What actions if any are required by Judaism?
I’ve used the same definition throughout. The trouble with your definition is that according to you Judaism requires essentially nothing. Which may be technically true, but it’s not true to the spirit of the exchange which sparked this thread.
You yourself said that “Judaism is not a religion that’s about belief, it’s a religion about actions” But if what is under discussion is what is “required” according to your definition, then your statement is meaningless.
Let me ask you the same question: What if any actions (or inactions) are “required” by Judaism?