Judaism rewards and punishments

In My Humble Opinion
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Disagreements about things happen all the time. The issue becomes one of offense. How far will the religious person go to insist that the other person’s personal beliefs and life existence is false?

Again, I resort to analogy. What if I were trans and your religious person continued to call me by my deadname because their religion says to do so? Do they somehow get to make the claim that I should not take offense because it’s their religion and that overrides my life?

If you find that distasteful, let’s stick to religious views of other religious views. The LDS has been found baptizing holocaust victims. Many Jews found this offensive. Why to you should they? It’s just an LDS belief that hurts them in no way.

I would normally assume that if I told a Jew that from my perspective I found it offensive to be considered a member of a religion I am not, they would honor my belief and refrain from doing so. I am telling you this.

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Excellent examples.

As it turns out, I do have a trans friend. Our paths haven’t crossed since transitioning (about 10 years ago) but I often imagine how things would go if/when we ever meet. And I hope very much that it would be peaceful and respectful in both directions.

I am also aware of the LDS baptisms. I have to admit that I am offended by it, but I also realize that there’s no actual harm being done. Yes, there is a cognitive dissonance there, but that’s my problem and it does bother me, and it shouldn’t bother anyone else.

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Nm. Thought I talking to someone else.

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As this thread illustrates Judaism often has a divergence of opinions. It’s built in from the basis of Talmud: arguing over interpretations.

To many of the religion though the interpretation is the same: you can reject the faith, state that you renounce membership in the family, reject any group identification, and other Jews will still consider you a “member of the tribe”. If the one rejecting showed up they could be counted as part of a minyan, so on.

And the meaningful impact of these people believing that upon a person who rejects membership in that group is zero. They are not seeking them out to call them names or to cause or threaten them harm or force responsibility upon them. Some of the more traditionally observant may hold them in severe contempt as apostates, but tough shit.

Your are free to reject their beliefs. And the meaningful impact of that is also zero.

Now IF they actively tried to impose their beliefs on others, in either direction, that action would be wrong. But that is about an action not a belief.

Back to death maybe?

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Again, I resort to analogy. What if I were trans and your religious person continued to call me by my deadname because their religion says to do so? Do they somehow get to make the claim that I should not take offense because it’s their religion and that overrides my life?

If you find that distasteful, let’s stick to religious views of other religious views. The LDS has been found baptizing holocaust victims. Many Jews found this offensive. Why to you should they? It’s just an LDS belief that hurts them in no way.

I would normally assume that if I told a Jew that from my perspective I found it offensive to be considered a member of a religion I am not, they would honor my belief and refrain from doing so. I am telling you this.

Of course religious people “get” to claim that trans identities are invalid. They even “get to claim” that nobody should be offended by that belief. But they don’t have the right to expect anyone to take that claim seriously.

See, people get to believe different stuff, and people also get to have opinions about other people’s beliefs. You only get to decide what is and isn’t “acceptable” to YOU.

I agree, the LDS practice is, from my point of view, silly, but it doesn’t harm anyone and anyone getting more than mildly irritated about it is overreacting IMO.

That last paragraph is not quite grammatical. I certainly agree that it would be rude for someone to persist in telling you you’re a Jew after being told to knock it off. But if you’re saying you would find it offensive that they continue to hold that belief privately…if you feel the only valid way for someone to “honor your belief” is by changing their own beliefs to match yours…that’s entirely your problem.

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Yes, that is exactly the issue. Is a given religious belief actually inciting people to violate the rights of others? It’s not an abstract philosophical question, it’s a factual question. In this case, the answer seems pretty clearly to be “no”.

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We seem to be in hot-button area, so for the sake of clarity, I suggest that we use more words than might be necessary otherwise. So, it seems to me that:

Believing a given religious belief does not actually incite people to violate the rights of others.
But how one expresses a given religious belief might indeed actually incite people to violate the rights of others.

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Moderating:

This is pretty close to a personal attack.

Several other posts, on both sides of this discussion, have gotten very heated. I’d like to ask everyone to take a deep breath, assume that other posters are describing the perspectives of religious dogma, and not judging each other.

I’d like to note that it’s possible both for religion X to consider a person to be apostate, and for that person to not give a shit, and live his life as a member of religion Y. (Unless that person lives under a theocracy that executes apostates, which has been unfortunately common throughout history.)

Let’s please return to the broader topic of the Jewish views of rewards and punishments for actions that are good or bad according to Judaism.

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First, thanks for all of the replies!!

The context of my opening this thread was Keeve saying, when reinventing Pascal’s Wager, he decided to become more observant, which was weird to me considering my understanding of Jewish afterlife.

When I said, “can’t escape”, I meant in the context of a Jewish canon and a Jewish afterlife (if any). That is, in universe, assuming Jews were right about God, once you’re in, you have those responsibilities. If He was a vengeful God that punished Jews who weren’t observant, you cannot escape that fate if you convert or your mother’s Jewish, for example.

Yes, this is my understanding. What has always baffled me about Judaism is the number of things you have to do in order be considered to be doing what is right. Biblically, at least, there aren’t 10 Commandments, there are hundreds, many which seem really arbitrary to someone outside. I know that different groups keep some more than others, of course.

Right. And, if the Jewish God is the right one, that person would be really screwing up by not following the law.

(I read tons of books where there are many Gods, with different themes such as you’re judged by the God you believe in or the God whose in charge of your species or whatever, so I’m taking that approach)

I really appreciate everyone, or nearly so, just answering from the perspective of Jewish law and custom, rather than just saying “well, none of it is true so who cares.” This thread hasn’t clarified too much for me, since there really seems to be as many opinions as there are Jews, but I have found it interesting anyway.

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Not observant or traditional myself but as another contributor pointed out earlier, that’s why converts are respected so much: being a righteous Gentile demands compliance with only the Noachide Laws (yes for a space in “the world to come”) but Jews, including ones by choice (and for believers becoming an apostate is not an out) have all 613 mitzvot to aim for. For the Pascal Wager types a bad bet to take on! And exactly right, for Pascal wager type within the belief system there is no out. Convert out loses the bet if the god you believe in and the rules you believe in are true. And that’s what you believe of course.

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So there was an apostate (or sometimes a gentile) who was having a laugh by going around to the great rabbis of the time and saying, “if you can teach me the whole of the Torah while I stand on one foot, I’ll repent/convert immediately and become your student.”

He’d make his offer to each rabbi, and each rabbi would yell at him for being an asshole and chase him off. Eventually he worked his way to Hillel.

The smug jerk makes his offer, and Hillel says, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to others. The rest is commentary. Now go study.”

Two thousand years ago, the apostate/gentile was making the same point you are: that the law is unbelievably and unrealistically complex. Hillel made the point that Judaism sees the law as a means to an end. You don’t worship the law. You understand that it’s a framework for right action.

He also made a solid sandwich.

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I mean, sort of, but there were a ton of death and other harsh penalties for breaking the rules. Idolatry, blasphemy, violating the Sabbath, and performing magic wouldn’t really be hateful to myself, but would require the death penalty.

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I do understand what you’re saying, and that’s why it is so important to take Hillel’s ENTIRE response seriously.

Many people feel that it is enough to be a “good person”, but I see two problems with that attitude. First is that different people will have different views on what a “good person” is like, and so it is helpful to have a single standard for everyone to follow. (Yes, it is problematic that we don’t agree on what that standard expects of us, but that will happen in ANY system of government.)

But way beyond that, even when people agree about being a good person, there can be many points that people don’t know, and they’ll become aware of them only when the Creator informs them. I can certainly understand why “idolatry, blasphemy, violating the Sabbath, and performing magic” don’t seem to hurt other people in any way, and that is why Hillel’s closing words are so important: "The rest is commentary. Now go study.”

Just to give one example, which I’m sure will offend some people, but I don’t meant it as an attack, only as an example of some of Judaism’s beliefs as I understand them: Certain sexual acts between consenting adults. These are often seen as victimless and therefore acceptable, but perhaps they affect society negatively, and perhaps there are subtle negative effects even to the individuals. Or maybe not. So “go study” and maybe it will make more sense.

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I would say that those societies that ban these acts have been shown to be way worse than those that accept them. That said, I’m really hoping this thread doesn’t turn into commentary on LGBTQ folks. Thanks.

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Me too!

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To take a famous example, let us look at Spinoza. When he was excommunicated, the writ includes a long list of elaborate curses, including the wrath of God and for a messy death and so forth, but, notably, there seems to be no mention of an afterlife of torment:

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So, there is a way out!

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I don’t know, that doesn’t exactly sound like getting out to me . . .

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Agreed that there’s no explicit mention of an afterlife of torment, but to those familiar with the references, there’s a great deal of implicit mention.

Edited to add: Ninjaed!

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Maybe I’m misunderstanding you - but I wouldn’t say that Brendan’s ethnicity was Catholic, I’d say he was Irish. Which wouldn’t change if he went to services at Beth Shalom or at the United Presbyterian church.